Partners, Teams, And Community | Mindful Q&A #29

In this twenty-ninth installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash, -- where we delve into meditation practice both on and off the cushion -- we focus on the relational aspects of partners, teams, and communities. Recently, it seems we’ve been somewhat overlooking the more meditative dimensions of our chosen topics. While this episode posed some challenges with how to directly integrate with formal meditation, since relationships influence every aspect of life, we'll still explored how meditation practice impacts our interactions with partners, teams, and communities—and how these, in turn, affect our practice. We examined how these dynamics can run in tandem, come into conflict, or complement, support, and enhance one another. Other topics include: eyes open and eyes closed meditation; benefits of spacial awareness and widening visual perception; how most of our experiences with teams is not usually mutually chosen and consented to organically; etc

Transcript

Hey Holders welcome this is Josh and I'm joined again with Wendy Nash.

Wendy what's going on today?

Well I'm calling from Gubbi Gubbi country in Queensland in Caboolture.

What's going on?

It's hot,

It's summer so it's the end of the year.

We just love your questions so far away we often get some good questions some really interesting ones and and how do we do that and left us like I never think of those questions so that's great.

They are.

All right so this is our I'm just going to read the intro I have written here.

This is the 29th installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash where we delve into meditation practice both on and off the cushion.

In this one we plan to focus on the relational aspects of partners,

Teams and communities.

Recently it seems we've been somewhat overlooking the more meditative dimensions of our chosen topics.

While this episode may pose unique challenges in how to directly integrate with formal meditation since relationships influence every aspect of our life though we'll still aim to attempt exploring how meditation practice impacts our interactions with partners,

Teams and communities and how these in turn affect our practice.

We'll examine how these dynamics can run in tandem come in conflict or complement support and enhance one another.

So kind of a little bit of a fancy language there but we all know that relationships are everything in our lives.

I think women in general if I can use this old outdated term are way better at relationships than men in general and value them however maybe not.

I actually have a bit of a question about that.

There's a lot of assumption that guys are that women are better at relationships than men and I'm not sure that's entirely true.

I'm not convinced.

Okay well let's jump into that.

What makes you say that?

Well it's not really about meditation but certainly during meditation a lot of the complicated relationships that I have are with women.

Yeah I didn't say they were easy,

I didn't say it was easy.

But what I'm saying is there's this idea that women are better at relationships than men.

Oh I see yeah.

And so I'm questioning whether that's actually true because I know a lot of really sensitive thoughtful guys and they're heaps better at relationships than a lot of the women I know and also better than I used to be before I took up meditation and learned how to be a nice person.

Well these are really good points Wendy.

Yeah these are stereotypes right and first off I'm trying to figure out how to go full screen with this and I can't that's why I'm a I'll tell you what I'll keep going and you try and figure out the tech there in the background how about that?

Sure.

All right so I was thinking as you were reading out about this what are we actually going to cover because it's true we don't often talk about formal meditation practice but instead what meditation practice does and it gives you but as you're now in a relationship a full-time relationship whatever that means particularly as you go back and forth because of you know your visa issues but I'm in a full-time relationship now and I wasn't always you know we've only been together for four and a half years or something and when I've I've had really solid practice and then I've met somebody and actually my relationship has my meditation has dwindled but in this relationship actually it's it has lessened but I now meditate with my partner and that makes a huge difference because we start with with the meditation then how is your sit and that helps us to talk about any issues that are arising between us and it just does it when it's really small when it's a little niggle rather than when it's a big kabang so the senses of resentment are less likely to arise so it feels cleaner so just that side of things how that's one side of formal meditation practice that I think is something to navigate when you're in a relationship not quite what you've put here on the thing but what do you think you're now in a relationship so how have you found it?

Yeah this is really there's a lot of stuff here to cover so we've got the generality I started off with and meditation and intimate relationships and there's a whole distinction of partners I usually when we think of relationships we just think of an intimate right a long maybe potentially long-term one with our beloved you know this is kind of what the word relationship has come to mean and I want to mean it also in the broader sense and especially with partners you know it could be just you know a platonic business partnership things like this but I'll come back to that since you you ask and address so yeah before I jump into the generalizations I started off with you know when it comes to my meditation practice and my beloved my partner you know my fiance you know we don't together a lot of time sometimes we will and a lot of times she'll ask how my meditation went and there's a lot of things to to share sometimes you know that that come up and just about in general how practice is and then some of her work how it relates meditationally in general and how meditation practice in the past has helped I guess open a lot of vistas and doorways to where she is now even though she doesn't have a strict kind of formal meditation practice like I do and using the kind of confines and parameters I do but when we do yeah it's it is quite a lovely thing as well I am fairly dedicated to my practice so it's a little bit unusual that there's really no compromise I mean that it's helped me so much in my life that that's it's a huge priority in my life and she supports that I'm very grateful for that and in turn it helps me be more supportive of her and us as well just in so many ways okay so back to the the generalities yeah actually I want to I want to change that and say maybe women have more challenges and at relationships while men you know they don't take it as seriously and put as much time and effort maybe that women maybe because it's not that big a deal but men tend to be more challenged I think on the on their career or because maybe they they just put more emphasis this now I'm talking older generations here I guess too now the younger generations I would agree with you Wendy that tend to be kind of more sensitive and relationally attuned than an older generation I'm thinking the boomer generation here too where the typical stereotype there is just kind of you know maybe coming out of the hippie movement and I don't know how helpful these generalizations and classifications are but but anyway you know I just hear about business and things like that so I guess it's it's not and so I think yeah maybe it's maybe these are old outdated and things like this so but what I want to emphasize here is how important relationships are to and relationships to ourselves as well but in this context we're talking about partnerships here and so I want to also talk about I know people really love this juicy thing of intimate partnerships and relationships and people really eat that up and there's a lot of room for improvement and we it's hard to find role models actually in this space so I think it is important I also think it's important to look at partnerships other ways too like you know in the work world how are our partnerships in the work world and you know how could they benefit from kind of more meditative practices as well what other kind of partnerships we have we talk about partnerships between organizations too you know or businesses we partner with if we're like entrepreneurs or solopreneurs you know sole proprietorships and we partner like I had someone from a university reach out to me from in Scotland and they found my work and they they're interested in working with me so I might be doing kind of a partnership with that and so yeah how do we how do we relate to our partners and partnerships and how should we have a doorway in here you know or like is there it's like some general advice I think or things to look out for I'm wondering yeah yeah so I actually I want to talk about today I was teaching a class and it was at university of the third age and which is it it's it's very cheap um how do I say university inexpensive yeah well it's it's a it's an organization where people like in when you're in your 50s and older you volunteer your time and you teach a course so it could be French it could be knitting it could be crochet it could be woodwork it could be bike riding it could be anything it depends on what the teacher is going to offer so I offered mindfulness but the class before me was crochet and one of the ladies I said oh I'm sorry I've got to help you you know it's time to pack up because I'm going to be teaching mindfulness and one of the ladies came up to me and she said what's mindfulness so I said well you know that when you're in a bit of a knot in your mind and you just need a little bit of a distance and you want to create space around that it just helps you to kind of calm down and she sort of was going oh no I'm very calm and then she said oh no when I do karate she said her 70s 60s 70s when I do karate I'm white as anything and so I said okay so when you're like level one level two whatever she's doing and she I said just look to the sides of the room doesn't matter what you're doing because she's going is karate anything like mindfulness and so I said well it's kind of a little bit so I said when you're when you're in the room just look to the side of the room and that'll help you calm down and so just talking about meditation formal practice so that is a practice that I do in the meditation you've mentioned this before it's great yes yeah and she just went ah and so I'm hoping she'll turn up because only one person turned up in my class so I might get two next week so I'm very optimistic I'll 100% increase what can I say but then I had just to continue that then I had um the next person who was in my class and she wanted she was getting really angry with driving and things like that so her she she wanted her husband actually had died a few years earlier and so she was trying to figure out well she's got a she's decided she wants to sell her house and move into a retirement village and she wants to be a bit calmer she's a bit a bit less anxious she's having to navigate changes in her relationships with her children um and her husband who's now died but that doesn't mean to say he's he's not a part of her life and then the community and and all these different people and how it all comes together and yeah so there's been a lot of change so when I was what I did but when we started the meditation the actual meditation part is I did that thing to kind of calm her down and to place her in the room I do these kind of ways to introduce that space and it was really useful because it helped her place her body mind in the room so we were in a relationship there's two of us in the room the whole lot of four extra chairs two of us in the room and because of this sort of placement you know sort of movement it was able to she felt really secure and it was quite noisy outside the people were chatting in the next room and you know Dave comes on hey I mean I'm going on no this is terrible but she was really able to focus actually so she she really got a huge amount from it so and and just calmed her down immensely so I think that is all formal practice and you know I'm guiding her through the meditation throughout but she said she was able to was what was the word she said in bit intrusive with the sound but then she was able to just it was able to recede actually quite quickly so in in terms of relationship looking at it from a more general perspective there she has a senior role in the in the U3A group and she could have been really irritated with the people who are in the room next door or the guy outside or whatever but instead she was able to really harness something about the mindful you know being mindful here and she just got it you know she loved it.

That's beautiful Wendy and it reminds me of what this does meditation is it changes our relationship to ourselves and our surroundings and then that really has no other choice but to not bleed over but then influence everyone we come around when we start relating to ourselves and our environment differently or in improved aspects then everyone benefits that we come in contact with and I love this practice because we're so I think conditioned habitually relate to the world through the visual senses and usually we're either conditioned or maybe I don't know if this is a natural aspect of consciousness is to focus on one object to focus on an object and a lot of times it's in the mind right and so what this does is this practice it immediately draws us out of this contracted state of visually focusing on one object like I mean just for instance I'm just kind of focusing on the screen and Wendy here and as soon as she mentioned that that's an option to widen the visual field I got drawn out of that tight constricted narrowed thing that I wasn't even really aware that I was doing right and it's kind of like disrupts the system in a way and said oh wow so much more is available immediately just by noticing we have peripheral vision and so the eye consciousness then immediately becomes apparent and oh hey wow I'm relating to the world visually that's mainly how I'm experienced in the world so much and we don't even realize that we're actually seeing we're just focused on what we're seeing not that actually seeing is happening right and so then that goes into a greater thing of space right so we notice the space usually we're focused on objects but we don't really pay attention to the space that they're in or the surrounding or we do just kind of momentarily so we can orient ourselves to another object so when we do this you know it's it's it's a really great practice especially for those who don't have immediate access to deeper levels of the body too then we can notice oh hey this is a meat suit in a in a space here and yeah I'm navigating 3d reality in this thing and I'm not really even aware of that either most of the time but this brings us into that notice of that and then and then because we we move around in this meat suit and relate with people in the real world uh in the body right and so that poses another challenge when people are doing more interactions and spending more time in front of the screen then it's a virtual world so speak it's it's in the mind and so that is a whole nother um ball ball game I guess of how we're relating to people online because it is more in the mind you know because usually it just takes fingers or voice or whatever we're doing online and it's it's mind-driven and the space uh the physical space gets neglected and the body gets neglected and so yeah so all this can help us at least become more and more aware attuned mindful of first location of where our partnerships are happening our teams our communities are they virtual are they online are they in the real world you know how much awareness do we have how much kind of do we need and I think the answer to that is there can never be enough mindfulness you know um and then how are we relating how are we seeing this how are we viewing and then you know how are we responding to what we're doing and of course where's our attention uh and how are we relating you know like are we choosing to have our attention go somewhere or someone else choosing our attention and you know how how helpful is this either way whether I have the illusion of I'm choosing where my the attention goes or someone else is kind of choosing for me and then how am I with that so these are all kind of questions to consider from time to time yeah yeah as you were saying that the couple of things came to mind do you meditate with your eyes open or closed a little bit of both um traditionally more with closed but then um open towards the end the last few minutes open and yeah I've had discussions about this too and we we have as well and uh yeah during the zen practice that I was doing you know traditionally that's done with eyes open I was still doing that with eyes closed at some point but overall more eyes open than usual and yeah of course this is helpful because we we relate to the world with our eyes open however you can go uh deeper with eyes closed sometimes so there's there's pros and cons to each approach and remind me of your take on this again Wendy.

Oh I I tried the eyes open but I've got such a crazy mind that I just it goes all over the place I just have to be eye shut but I trained my husband to um for him to have his eyes open and so I look over and I see he's got his eyes open so I was just wondering he's he's a very still gentle character so well this is this is this is interesting go ahead no so it's easier for him to to be let it's he's he just finds he gets stimulated by the world but he's able to regulate that more effectively than I am where I'm always like taking it in it's like ah squawk squawk squawk I think this is a good thing to point out because if we're kind of overwhelmed by external stimuli then closing the eyes I find is helpful however if if I'm then overwhelmed by internal stimuli meaning the mind is kind of restless and keep going on and on and bouncing from this topic to another past the future planning you know ideas cognition then I find actually opening the eyes a little bit it's like oh wait a second there's a floor right there okay floor oh that's kind of calm that's not too theoretical or in the past or in the future you know okay that's all it is that's kind of boring but it's the mind will kind of quiet down but you know other times I'm just like I just want to shut it all out for a while then my eyes are burning I've been looking at things all day it's just ah I can just release and relax into kind of a blank slate in a way you know or light arising things like this so yeah it kind of depends on the you know that what's needed I think yeah yeah the other thing I wondered about so we've talked about relating to people you know in our relationships so today when I was teaching this class and you know two people appeared one g'day Dave yeah well I'll be there in right a it's like right outside the door it's so close and then the women in the office and I was she I was trying to talk and give the talk and she was she had to really focus because it was so noisy next door so I just tell them to pipe down but and change position so I she could hear me but you know we talk about relationship but we're talking about formal practice and how we relating to what's going to not other people actually in outside the room and I she she was able to really focus and she said beforehand that she'd done quite a lot of meditation mindfulness practices and she was able to really get into the zone of it which I can never do but but she was really able to do that when we were together whereas I was like oh god I want to get up and I want to tell those guys to shut up but and the women are shut up I'll have to say something next week but see yeah it was the first day of the course but but how do we relate to other people and and I'm just kind of a bit rubbish actually at that because I'm going shush shush I'm trying to create a thing here it's it's it's a common thing so when I was doing this volunteer work like every about every week for uh six six years uh and I would go in like a workout room and when it was my time I had to go in there and start setting up but there would be still be people working out in there and they had a radio blaring so it became like this I wouldn't say war but I'll just exaggerate a little bit this radio war of you know turning it on or turning it off and so finally I I got approval to just unplug the radio and put it in another room you know I was going on uh so then it just kind of gave that I wasn't it was a con it was it was a regular thing though you know of trying to get the space and then you would just have people in the other room you could still hear it with the door closed turn the radio on and uh and still work out in there and still hear it so yeah it's a really so on one hand we have okay the whole point of having kind of a formal meditation and in a group of it is to create the best possible conditions we can in order to have some kind of reference point of okay this is more of an ideal thing we can really have the supportive conditions to do what we can to the best of our ability and on the other hand we have the real world and I was just the other it's funny you mentioned this too because I have a couple friends that I'm helping doing some renovation work on a apartment they're they're fixing up for the guy's dad and she said I was meditating the other day and their new puppy came up and started barking and she couldn't meditate and I'm just like well you know this is the whole point of meditation with we're in situations all the time in our lives where we can't control it we we we don't we can't control the outcome so how are we this is one of the more important spiritual questions how are we when things don't go our way you know and the whole point of kind of creating those environments is then to build up some strength and resilience to be able to meet challenging environments and challenging situations but it is a whole other dynamic when that's actually involved in meditation practice itself with these communal settings and community settings so yeah it's it's a constant thing so yeah test patience is really helpful and we're building the muscle and it's just I want to commend Wendy for having the kind of wherewithal and mindfulness and awareness of her own internal processes and her perceived shortcomings but I would say that's actually quite normal and natural because I went through the same thing when trying to facilitate you know meditation for years in these in these less than perfect environments you know this is not a retreat center we're going into here where everybody's on the same page and you know want to are paying money to be there and all this stuff no this is okay you get thrown a bone here I mean not you know that's maybe not the right way to put it but yeah and then what do we how do we work with what we have you know some people come into meditation and internally it's it's a huge mess you know and uh some people have quite amazing experiences right away from doing this practice and you know things come up and we have to work with whatever we're presented with you know and how are we with that what do we do and how honest and straightforward do we be I mean do we you know how much do we need to say okay you know how much do we need to say and when when when we're facilitating you know experiences and things like this so it's all good things and I think yeah if you want to comment on that and then I think maybe we'll move towards teams a little bit if you'd like yeah I don't think I have anything to add to what you've just said I think I'm happy to go on to teams it's it's it's there I'm happy to do that you go so this is the one I feel I have the least experience in when I when I think back to teams in in my life it was when I was an adolescent and playing sports and to me which I don't do any sports anymore I honestly I'm not interested at all you know St.

Louis Cardinals are in St.

Louis which is a pretty popular baseball team but I know the name and the stadium and that's about it I don't even know if I could tell you the players and so not that I'm totally against it the the big thing is sports bring people together you know they they and then they can all root for a common cause and there's a kind of unification but I always say imagine what it would be like if you had that kind of interest in unification and put into action something that actually made a huge difference in the world for the benefit of people you know other than just the mere fact of gathering and supporting you know and then this notion I think is taken into the business world of teams and competition and so the teamwork I feel is great you know it's unity cohesion and working towards a common purpose and cause but it's often framed in the sense of I have to win and compete and do better than and what that does a lot of times is give way to hostility and I'm going to do whatever I can doesn't matter what's my path to achieve a goal that's that's one way and then if I lose then I'm in pain I lie down I feel bad about things so these are kind of more than negative aspects of teams and this is not really what I want to focus on so but I don't really have any experience in the positive version other than theoretically a team is I guess a small group that works for a common purpose or goal and that there's really not much hierarchical hierarchy you know maybe there's a leader but pretty much everyone has their own skills and abilities and they're working together you know to address kind of an issue I guess I don't know some kind of common goal purpose or cause and working together in their using their specialties maybe and then also having commonalities and there's kind of a team dynamic but I don't know if I'm getting this right or not Wendy what do you how do you feel when teams and oh the other thing before I forget and when it comes to relational practice in in meditation we have talked before about meditation circling and we've talked about inside dialogue too so these are practices where they're an actual relational external practice where we bring our own personal formal sitting practice and meditation practice to the relational meditational practice and what that does is then helps evolve and change and progress and then we can take what we've learned and back to our own personal formal sitting practice yeah yeah so another one that I have recently learned is vipassana out loud oh wow tell me about that yeah if you'd like that's basically where you you basically are sitting opposite somebody like you and me like this and then I might talk about what am I I might talk about a problem I've got for instance um so I'm just gonna say for instance save my class only had one person well you know now I'm worried will they cancel the class and all this sort of stuff so this is and then you just sort of track that and you go oh it's a bit like you you're sort of noticing what's going on while you're sort of saying things and and the other person is going is saying um is it what can you feel and can you hold this that's sort of what the only the only thing the other person says and so what do you yeah what are the sensations and feelings you're having right now and then can you hold that and I found with very bland ones like when it wasn't really a big thing then it was a bit more didn't it felt rambly and whatever but it was very effective when I had something really big say I had a problem relationship in some way like somebody at the gym or somebody elsewhere then I felt ah they had a lot of energy and and it worked really effectively so I've my feeling with insight dialogue is it works really well in a curious way so it helps you open up what is underneath that you don't realize you're doing whereas I felt the person out loud was more I've got a problem and it's kind of buzzing around in my mind and so I'm I want to see if there's a way at what's going on kind of thing yeah okay so let's just see I understand this right if I'm talking about the the challenge then the other person is kind of like a support and a sounding board just act asking me back what am I feeling and can I hold this right kind of essay as as just witnessing and supporting and giving that immediate prompting of support right with those two questions yeah while the person is kind of talking through what they're going through and noticing as well right yeah and so with regards to teams so as you were speaking I think I think the U.

S.

Is very very competitive it's a much more individual it's the most individualistic individualistic country in the world I mean Australia's coming up there no two ways about it the communitarian side of Australia has sort of dropped there's no tways about that and it's much much more individualistic so what would I say I mean have you got a common goal that's I don't know that I would say that's the case you know on the externally you might go well we've got this project we need to get done yes that's what I was talking more about yeah yeah but actually there's a whole lot of different things that are going on and a whole lot of different relationship dynamics and you know you you've got these strangers that you spend those sort of eight hours a day with who you have no other reason why you would be in the same space with them other than they happen to be sitting in a chair next to you good point I guess I met more in a relation ideally it would be people that we know and that we actually choose and approve of ourselves to go into a team with not just someone we're thrown into at a workplace with yeah but how often is that the case exactly exactly that's why I don't have any experience with it you know it's not I really never experienced it yeah I mean even in you might say a family you'll you have a family and you've got what what have you got you know you're basically you have strangers to those people yes at some level you aren't strangers but actually you are strangers you you aren't in that space with other people you didn't choose those people you just happen they're a bunch of strangers that you happen to have around you you know you grew up with and I think also if you were in a religious community now you've spent a bit of time in different religious communities of late there's always lots of he said she said she said he said even in monasteries so I think that you know I don't even get on with myself half the time why would I expect anybody else to get on with me all the time like that's just ludicrous oh Wendy well not all the time yeah that's kind of extreme but yeah but yeah I think people would get it get it I get on with you just just fairly well I feel so I wouldn't be so quick to write yourself off is what I'm saying but yeah yeah like we're so but I mean I've had my plenty of workplace challenges and is and also intimate partner relationships and family and and friends and even so friendships they come together what is it a season a reason or a lifetime you know people come to you and it's interesting moving into a new community and today for instance this lady who was in my meditation class she might become somebody who becomes a friend she might not we might just know each other in the context of this environment and you know I was actually in an insight dialogue class I do it on Friday mornings my time and I had somebody in my if we break out into breakout rooms into dyads and so we're sort of working through our our so we sort of get five minutes each to talk about a particular thing and not to go into the story of it so much like he said she said she said he said but so much more well you know this is my question or I'm feeling like this and and the question about how do you deal with colleagues and how do you speak to colleagues and and actually I don't know I'm sure I've said this but the first word in a question is kind of key to what the rest of the conversation comes to so I could say you know and so this is why I remember your thing is why that's not a really usually a helpful question especially exactly yeah exactly exactly or do you think or would you say or how you know is it true or you know all that that's not really a helpful question because it's not open enough it's not curious enough so we actually talked about what do you listen to when you are having a conversation with somebody she wanted to talk about her son but also with colleagues so she has a team and she was saying well actually as I was going you know what I hear you care about is and listening to what the person cares about is sort of where the gold is that's that's what you really wanted to notice and using I guess mindfulness and meditation practice in a conversation like this to me I can't really differentiate between a formal meditation practice and off the cushion because when you're coming together and you're having that conversation so I might say for you what I hear you care about is uh how to have a show which is sticks to the topic which is meditation q a and talks about these challenges and and keeping the conversation open and curious so that's what I hear you care about does that sound on track yeah oh yeah yeah so this is I love all the levels when he uses here you know it's great it's really really good and just your pacing in the voice too yes of course that's that's spot on and um yeah it's it's attention right in formal meditation practice our attention is always somewhere whether we choose it or not so the intent the attention in this is is what are we paying attention to when someone talks you know and I like this kind of navigational um kind of our compass of okay well we're going to try to find out what's important here what's the value to the other and which I find very helpful because uh living from our core values identifying our core values and and using that as an orientation and a means of direction and satisfaction in our lives and purpose and yeah driving force so then when I recognize my own values and what's important for me well then I just kind of will be conditioned to have a tendency and interest to what the other what the other that I'm in relation are talking to interacting with what what's important for them and I think this is a great orientation and thing to pay attention to now I want to ask you though I already did this once during this show if I remember like Wendy what do you think of that and so to me that seems fairly open because I'm I'm asking you that there's really no limit here other than one's own mind which can be limiting right but then when we're talking language is at the forefront and language is uses cognition in the mind and it can be very beautiful and helpful and but it is also limiting it can point to things greater beyond itself as well but so when I say you know I guess maybe how do you feel about that would be better or but think about that so I'm just curious why is that limiting so then I said a why thing or like how is that limiting you know or tell me more about this please so I so from like just I can just feel my own so we're talking about in we're talking about meditation in meditation practice and I think meditation is about becoming aware of I'm getting really hot so I'm sorry about it's really I've got the fan on full board but it's really it's summer in Australia huh it's Queensland you know and it's like it's 80 percent humidity and 30 degrees you know so it's like completely different here yeah and my door is shut so that's why I really but as you said what do you think about that and you said very quickly I could feel myself kind of feel a bit cornered what do you think about that yeah it's kind of putting you on the spot exactly forcing you to give something whether you want to or not of course exactly exactly so and it has an intellectual response yeah yeah the other one is how do you feel about that so what I tend to do in my conversations with people when they're a bit well I at the end of the meditation uh through the in the guided one I I will ask as sort of as the wrap-up I go um what was your experience uh with this I think I think it's um I think that's what I ask that's great yeah what was this experience like for you that's what I ask what was this experience like for you and then I do the kind of wrap up okay move your fingers and toes but it just gives that person to go ah actually I really liked it it sort of is a nice closing on that so to answer you so and then at the end of the class that I held today I mean obviously it was just the two of us it was more of a conversation I said and how do you feel about today's class and she said it was really good and I mean I would and she said I found it very peaceful and I found it really so tell me how do you feel it just allows people to come forward with something that is sitting here and you know when you've had a conversation it can be a bit tense and you maybe with your partner and it's like you think you've finished the conversation you're finished and then you go and so um how do you feel about the conversation how do you feel about our chat and then they go ah look it was good but I just don't feel that you answered you were really listening to me Josh you know it just gives that opportunity like I think it was good but I think I still have this I'm not really finished with this thing but I need to think about it a bit more so that's quite a nice way to end a conversation which is a bit sticky or every day I I catch up with my friend and I'm teaching her to meditate and I do a five-minute guided meditation she's got a wild wild mind that's all she can tolerate and and I always ask as the wrap up to our conversation how do you feel about today's conversation and it just gives her an opportunity to say ah that was good or I didn't really like what you did today or whatever it is helps me get some feedback on that um I the thing about how do you feel um you have to be careful with feelings because in a workplace it's not appropriate that's why I like how uh what I hear you care about is which sounds like a statement but it's actually a question because it's asking for feedback what I hear you care about is sure is knowing what to say in a conversation or how to bring conversation or understanding or question framing into a conversation which is what I mean this is these are this is all great so yeah what we're what I'm I guess asking for is what's the best way to get feedback and I also like this other step of making it optional because if I ask someone what do you think how do you feel about how we talk well then it kind of also forces them not not forces them but you know it's like so sometimes I'd like the extra step of oh if if you're open to giving feedback I would love to hear that something like that but you're right it has to be the appropriate and at the right situation not everybody wants to give feedback too but some people want that and they're not given the opportunity right and this notion that you talk about it's really a brilliant way of what I hear you care about is to me but on the on the pros you know we've we've talked about that it's it shows you're listening it shows you care it shows you're going the extra mile to connect and really understand and try to cut through misunderstandings then it also will show in my response then when I come to you know what I've heard and then then start talking about what they've talked about then it also will give like a reciprocity of you know where I'm coming from in relation to where they're coming from and it kind of gives a consensus of you know okay I'm repeating this back to them and then they can agree or disagree or slightly tweak you know what I've said about them and so then there's kind of a consensus building we're on the same page about what we're both talking about right and we we kind of have some kind of mutual understanding of where we're both at and then we can go from there so that's that's the pros of this the cons of that approach to me it seems a little bit sometimes forced contrived overly formal but you know so there's there's times when it's I think more natural to do and more helpful when we're having kind of more formal conversations like this and more public conversations and but as far as my casual relationships I don't normally do that you know I could probably benefit a lot from doing that more actually because it also shows respect you're it's just a really show of respect of doing that it's just it takes a little bit of training for me because it does seem more contrived in force but it's just a matter of habit right I'm not in the habit of doing that when I talk but if I would do that more then would feel more natural and authentic so I think this is a great reminder for me Wendy of this this technique and method I just immediately see the benefits from it automatically yeah so yeah I mean it can be a bit contrived in the beginning and it feels a bit awkward and people don't want to do it because they kind of go oh it feels awkward and contrived but it's worth persevering through that edge because your relationships will instantly improve and the other thing is so I've I've been doing that practice to you know what I hear you care about is you know is so what I hear you care about is finding a way to have a natural conversation and to elicit feedback and I'm going to come back to feedback in a second but I point my finger come back that's authority but I want to make sure I remember that's what I that's exactly yes but because I'm training my mind all the time I'm sort of really conscious of it I'm sort of so habituated to it now at Christmas time I was talking with a relative and sometimes it can be a little bit jagged our conversations and and I just went hmm so what am I hearing let me see if I've got this so it sounds like what you're describing is this this this and this and because I was I I kind of have been training on what he cares about it sort of almost seeps into the background now and then I'm I can kind of go ah what is it I'm actually aware like what is kind of coming here and and he said that's exactly right because and so there's something about the awareness of that comes with mindfulness and comes with mindful listening that does help just the other person feel understood because that's the point of a conversation does this other person feel understood it's very yeah yeah and and I want to go on to feedback so they've done buckets and buckets and buckets and buckets of research who gives feedback good feedback how do you get good feedback all that sort of stuff and who gives good feedback and the answer is how good are you at receiving feedback and if you're good at receiving feedback you are really good at giving feedback but if you never if you don't really engage with receiving feedback like I just do all the time then then you actually are kind of bad at giving feedback oh wow that's great yeah so it's very interesting um I was speaking with a volunteer recently um he's been doing our logos and I said to him thank you so much for doing this without you doing the logos for my community group for the community group I wouldn't be able to go feel so confident about the meetings that I've got so I've got some really big meetings coming up I'm meeting the one of the senior directors in our state bus company that's tomorrow so without having good logos I can't get good business cards I can't get a good you know marketing all my marketing material it's big in marketing yeah this visual it's really important to come across as a professional organization even though it's a department of one but but and so I was able to tell him so what is really important about what you do is that it allows me to present the organization as a professional organization what you do is giving me that capacity to be able to present to people who are really senior who's very important in an organization and I can do that with confidence because of these logos and I'm not going to go into the logos all that sort of stuff what I wanted to really highlight is by telling him this is how you fit into your work fits into the larger picture of what I do and the organization therefore the organization does he was like oh that was so nice that you told me that so I think giving feedback receiving feedback it's sort of the same thing is what I want to say it's a great insight and it goes back into seeing what someone cares about and what you said it shows that you value and validate what they do you know and that's that's very important as well and what you and going back to what you said that what identifying what someone cares about then then it also cuts through a lot of things that obscure you know a lot of emotions that may get in the way or a lot of things that aren't important to the core of what's going on and then you can kind of tell also with the care you can tell the purpose of why someone's saying what they're saying too and maybe what their goals are and what they want out of it their intentions so it's great and the feedback thing it really rang true with me because yeah the the better we can receive feedback the I think the the more effective we'll be in giving it it just it just seems pretty clear and obvious so I want to just wrap up the team so it seems like this ideal notion of teams that I have it neither of us have any experience in this and I think it's kind of a rarity in the world where um we're when we meet like-minded individuals and we all want to do something that that we that we want to do to together towards a common goal other than like sports or situations we're kind of forced into and um assigned by others to to be in these kind of contrived things that someone else has kind of put us in for us and something that we don't go out of our way to mutually seek um like you know like-hearted like-minded individuals to come together on our own accord and on behalf so I think we'll have to set that aside and well yeah you got another comment and we've got like three minutes to talk about community which is the big topic right okay I'll be real quick because actually I've got a client and he started a business with in fact I've had a couple of clients they started businesses startups with a friend and both of those relationships have broken as a result of the startup yeah so and both of them are lovely people but actually their co-worker was very difficult so I know one of them is very difficult and I know from the other conversations that if they had people that who were equally able to self-inquire that would make a huge difference so that I think is a really important part so going on to community and I don't know how you deal with that one I mean I will say something about teams because actually I have a community group and so I have volunteers and they come into my life and actually they're really positive relationships I only had one interaction which was really like whoa where was that coming from and and that felt very very pediatric very very pediatric so and community is like that larger version of that so when you were saying community what were you referring to the monastery well that's the thing I don't want to specifically out anything like that but we've talked about community on so many different levels before so I don't know what else we can say about it this is basically kind of the the larger aspect of life that we're in we're in a community whether we want to be or not where we live is the community we're into just you know so the people around us in the greater act and then we then we can choose to be in other types of communities so a larger aspect and I would just say in general some people need to be in community and they have yet to have a lot of mastery around that and but then there's other people who are kind of stifled and limited in certain communities and they need to break more into partnerships and teams I think and so yeah and some people lose qualities in communities and some people gain beneficial qualities so I think it all depends on where you've at what you've done what your temperament is what your challenges are what your strengths and weaknesses are and it's a really huge complex dynamic that we can't really talk about in a couple minutes and it really needs kind of a more focus of what what we're talking about we talk about intentional communities that's a popular buzzword right now you know so yeah and communities focused around a theme you know but there's just so many different multi-dimensional relational aspects when being a community and there's so many factors to consider and melissa reid says hi by the way so hi melissa thanks oh i haven't even seen any comments by the way i i wasn't looking i just hello hello sorry about that we missed you there gosh i was on the wrong chat anyway gosh so sorry about ms reid we missed you we definitely forgot yes my bad my bad um so the other thing i will say about community in one second is that i do know about a monastic community and they read the 37 practices of bodhisattva at at the beginning of every sit they chant that every day how long does that take uh or i don't know if it's the 37 practice of bodhisattva but it's something similar and it takes a few minutes okay and what it does is it's all these reminders about how to be kind to people and how to be aware and how and they say that it can kind of get a bit fraught but they by repeating these phrases helps them train to be that way so we did the four great vows which i didn't say vow during that by the way but that's a whole other topic but yeah those are hugely profound things to start off a practice with too yeah go yeah all right so i think we're at time and i'm very sorry about ms reid that we missed that i was my bad i was clicked on the wrong one it was just a hello so we better late than never i know but but i always like to have it i always like to have it i went full screen too and i didn't see it until later and then didn't want to interrupt the flow for it until here at the end but yeah well it's been great i'm glad i just learned a lot here and i've got some things to practice with on my own and uh yeah i guess i'll see you guys uh next month right that's the plan yeah that's the plan we'll see what happens