Towards Mastering Holiday Celebrations | Mindful Q&A #4

In this fourth installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion, we planed to, and did look quite a bit at "...Christmas, family, tense conversations, New Year, alcohol, partying - and how they relate to meditation and ethics."

Amongst other topics we also look at right (or wise, skillful or whole) effort, whole speech, whole livelihood and some who are calling off altogether the holidays around the end and beginning times of year.

Transcript

You're listening to another meditation Q&A with Wendy Nash and Josh DuPold.

Today I have again,

Once again,

The lovely Wendy Nash of kindlycutthecrap.

Com.

Wendy,

How's it going?

Good,

Good.

Calling from Queensland,

From Gubbi Gubbi country.

And I think we were going to talk about Christmas and all sorts of like,

Scary things about navigating complicated stuff.

And I thought it was very interesting.

So Gubbi Gubbi,

This is the sort of nation that I'm calling from.

And the reason it's actually duplicated,

So the country,

The nation next door is Waka Waka.

So it's no accident that it's repeated,

Because it actually means no in the original language.

So it's no,

No,

As in,

No,

You may not cross this boundary unless you have,

I have welcomed you to my country.

So it's a bit like,

You know,

You knock on the door of someone's office,

And then you go,

Can I come in or you knock on the front door,

You don't just barge your way in.

And I thought,

Christmas is kind of one of those times where people think you could just barge your way in.

And alcohol,

Of course,

Fuels that whole thing.

So I thought it was an interesting way of thinking about it this morning,

Just before coming on air.

Well,

Right on.

And yes,

And of course,

It's wild to see that it is,

You know,

Summertime there.

And we've got this,

People are freaking out here,

Because I think there's gonna,

It's gonna be super,

Super cold.

They even deployed the National Guard or something I heard in Missouri here,

Like 30 below Fahrenheit,

They're calling for whatever.

But the one thing that I like to point out is that I kind of make point,

Poke fun at it because it's just like,

Fear,

Fear,

Fear,

Fear,

Fear of the natural environment,

You know,

Really amped up.

Now,

I'm not saying,

You know,

Don't be prepared,

Don't take precautions,

Of course,

Right.

But just notice,

Know that the fear can be just as debilitating as weather and the psychological part of it.

Also,

I think I've mentioned this in the past.

This is the map,

Oh,

It's really big here,

Kind of a map of,

Oh,

And there's so much reflection,

So it's hard to see.

But what it is,

It's a,

It's the United States.

And it shows where all the peoples,

The native peoples used to live before they were put on,

You know,

Off their regular land.

And I met the artist of this and it's an amazing piece and it shows famous native people on there too.

So I'm really happy to have that.

But okay,

So what I did is I put in the chat in Insight Timer live,

And Tea Lady Nat's here by the way.

Hey,

Hey,

Tea Lady Nat.

I've got- Hey,

Tea Lady Nat,

Nice to see you again.

You'll be pleased to know that I have my cup of tea.

We both do.

And of course,

I might be talking about that when we get into the alcohol section.

So I put in here,

We plan to look at Christmas,

Family,

Tense conversations,

New Year's,

Alcohol,

Partying and how they relate to meditation and ethics.

So yes,

Wendy set it up a little bit and that's what we had written for today.

So where do we want to start with that,

Wendy?

You know,

So,

Gosh,

Where to start?

So just first of a heads up,

I've had a bit of an issue with my internet.

So if I go invisible,

Like my,

If I start going still,

Then I do apologize in advance.

I'll turn off my video at that point.

Just I've just been having a lot of dropouts lately.

So well,

I was really struck by the pyramid of,

I think it's an Abhidharma.

So you've got the lower level,

Which is ethics or virtue,

Comprising wise whole speech.

I really like the term whole speech.

So you've got right speech or,

But that right,

It suggests that there is a wrong.

And I think there are some other translations where I've heard whole speech.

And I like that because it's not only about what are we saying,

But how are we hearing?

It's really the whole concept of communicating and conversation.

So I thought that was a really the ethical foundation of how do we connect with other people in our words and right.

And so one one is whole speech,

One is whole actions,

Which I think is really about behavior,

Like what are we doing?

And then the other one is whole livelihood,

Which is basically how we spending our days,

You know,

What are we doing with our time?

Yeah,

How wise are we or how prudent and thoughtful are we in those three?

So I thought that was a really good foundation to think,

Well,

If you do those with kindness and care and prudence,

Restraint and warmth,

Then really the next foundation of mind,

Which is you would know this effort,

Sort of whole effort,

Which is about,

You know,

Just bum on cushion doing it regularly.

And you know,

That's a huge part of it.

Yeah,

I love these in the whole I actually haven't heard that before.

I like using wise and skillful with these two,

Like a wise livelihood,

You know,

Wise action,

Skillful action,

Things like this.

But the effort is really important too.

And I just want to touch on that right away,

Because this is how I remember this is we kind of we can let go of unwholesome states or whole states,

Right?

We can then prevent them from arising again.

We can conjure up or cultivate,

Create new,

Whole,

You know,

Skillful,

Wise actions,

And then we can maintain those as well.

So it's like a four pronged effort.

And yes,

This can be used on and off the cushion as well.

You know,

I think.

.

.

Sure.

You go.

No,

Well,

I think that's enough for now.

We can address that.

Yeah,

The action.

I think my favorite thing,

And I think we touched on it last time after we ended the call last time.

Yeah.

So it was this thing about meditation hall,

You know,

Somebody had at their front door before they walked out the door,

Meditation hall.

And I think that's really a useful way to think about interactions,

Family interactions.

Like if you want to find out how enlightened you are,

Go home to your family of origin and you'll find out,

Yep,

You're just as crap as you always were,

Which I.

.

.

The other thing I thought was really interesting about that was it shows you the nature of context.

You know,

We talk about interdependence and context,

And how is the self not solid and fixed in.

.

.

So here,

We're,

You know,

Having a lovely time,

We're polite,

We're thoughtful,

We're kind,

We're generous spirited.

That's the sort of state of how we come together,

Because we're both Dharma practitioners,

We both have been doing it a while,

We've thought about it,

Go straight back to family,

And we're suddenly five years old.

And all that stuff just comes back.

And it's like,

Yeah,

You're not actually fixed and solid.

Because here you are in this grown up body.

But your reactions are just like,

Straight back there as if somehow all these decades have never happened.

And so that really clarifies how we are not solid or fixed or stable at all,

How it's so dynamic.

Anyway,

You were gonna say.

.

.

Yes.

And at the same time,

It seems at least in my experience,

I can catch it a lot quicker,

Right?

It still happens,

But I see it a lot sooner.

There's sometimes too,

When there's a little bit more gaps where,

Oh,

Well,

I don't have to say this right now.

I don't have to be on autopilot,

Right?

I can hold my tongue a little more,

Right?

And so a lot of times it doesn't make it easier.

It still feels painful because I want to say something.

But a lot of times,

If I can catch that,

It does help a little bit.

But no,

You're right.

It's still there,

Right?

It is still there.

And so this brings me to the point of,

Well,

I wanna jump into examples too of things we can use here,

Right?

What has happened and how we've reacted and maybe how we've responded and how maybe we've wanted to do better,

Or maybe we've actually done something decent where it's helped us and other people.

So I think I'll just throw it back to Wendy there.

And this is so much to say,

But yeah,

That's enough for now for me.

So just a couple of things.

One is I haven't got my.

.

.

Because of my internet's so low,

I haven't got any of the chat functions open,

So on any of the channels.

So just,

Josh,

You'll have to keep an eye out for that.

Sure,

I'll check the timer anyway.

And I'd love to hear people's questions.

So if you have a question,

Really,

This is a great opportunity to talk about it.

So yeah.

It's called meditation Q&A,

By the way.

So yes,

Always questions,

Whenever.

Yep.

Yep.

And I don't think we have answers,

But we might have responses.

I don't think any of us have got an answer.

I've got the answer to everything.

I promise you,

I will cure all your ills,

If only it were true.

So I think what I learnt is that when it comes to conversations,

Like I used to,

As you say,

I was just blown out.

And I realise now that most issues in conversations happen with the first word of a question.

Like it was that narrow.

I got that narrow down.

So for instance,

If you've got a.

.

.

So you're sitting at the table,

You've got your uncle Dave,

We'll call him.

I just made that person up,

But apparently Josh has got a real one.

We haven't got the real name here,

But he's got somebody quite opinionated.

Then coming forth about unpleasant,

Really,

Really opposing political ideas.

And so when I moved from Sydney up to here earlier on this year,

Our van broke down.

Halfway along,

We'd had our hire van,

The axle broke,

And so we were grounded in this town for three or four days.

And it was the week of the federal election.

So I just sort of asked in the beginning,

Who do you think will win?

Because the polling's really bad.

And I started this really interesting way of asking questions.

So there's a lot of contention at the moment with Trump and all the insurrection and all that sort of stuff.

And if you sit on the other side of the fence from that,

And you're going,

Well,

He's crazy,

Then it's about going towards that gingerly.

But equally,

I had conversations recently with somebody who was like,

The government's really wrong.

Biden's terrible.

And you could equally have a Democrat voter be equally,

Biden's really got the answer and Obama or whoever it is,

You know,

You know,

If it were Bernie Sanders or,

You know,

You can really,

It doesn't really matter who it is.

So what I learned was some really interesting techniques in this process.

The first one is get yourself out of the way.

So just become super curious about the other person.

So don't,

Don't,

This isn't a statement about you.

This is about becoming super curious about them.

And I guess I,

I,

You know,

I trained as a psychotherapist,

I don't work as a psychotherapist,

I do work as a coach.

I'm used to doing this.

And it does take practice.

But don't get caught is,

Is what I would say.

And there's,

There's a couple of things that you could do.

And I found this really helpful,

Basic,

Basic technique.

So this is super basic technique.

You've got your Uncle Dave at the table,

And he says,

And I don't know which side of the fence political fence you sit on,

But I'm going to make it up.

Donald Trump,

He,

You know,

The election was stolen from him.

So I just,

That's the kind of standard line I hear.

And so instead of rebutting with your opinion of what has happened,

Because then all you're going to do is spiral down into a vortex of horrible Christmas dinner.

It's just not worth it.

And you can't avoid it because you're sitting next to him,

Actually.

So you can't avoid it.

So the question is,

Ah,

So tell me more,

Tell me more about,

About,

About your,

Your ideas about this.

Tell me more about the,

About how that was stolen.

And that just starts to fill out the space a little bit.

And you can get a little bit more nuanced about the perspective.

And then from there,

The next question,

It's really,

Really good.

And it's super good to to hone the craft of listening.

And that is to really pay attention to what does the person care about?

They might say,

Oh,

It was,

I don't know,

The election was,

You know,

Because the election was rigged,

And it wasn't right,

And all this sort of stuff.

And it's really going,

Right,

So integrity is really important.

I hear you care a lot about integrity and the correct procedure takes place,

And that things are done in an ethical manner.

Now,

I personally,

I'm,

I'm sort of a progressive left kind of person.

And I just go,

Well,

You know,

This,

To me,

It seems like Fox News is making it up and Trump is making it up.

And that's what I think.

And we'll find out at some stage.

But that's,

That's my understanding.

So I'm just coming clean and upfront.

That's me.

I'm not saying anything about Josh.

So Josh,

I don't know where you sit on the political spectrum.

Well,

It was,

Well,

Short answer,

Politics is an emotional con game.

So none of the above,

Usually.

But no,

This is,

If I can respond to this,

It's really good advice and techniques,

Wendy.

I will say that some people,

When they get alcohol,

It doesn't really matter so much how,

As long as we don't screw up totally,

They're just going to go on with what they want anyway,

Right?

So there's this classic saying that you don't talk politics and religion and polite company,

Right?

But of course it always comes up.

And this,

This technique of getting ourselves out of the way,

I think not only when it can be charged in general,

But this can actually be something very beneficial because if I want to connect with anyone,

What does everybody love to do?

They love to talk about what they're interested in,

Especially a lot of people like what they do.

So I can connect really easily and fairly deeply with someone that if,

As long as they're not completely belligerent,

It's by just paying attention,

Being interested,

Genuinely,

Genuinely interested in what they're doing.

And people would be surprised,

Even if we think we're not interested in something,

A lot of people have a really depth of about the things they're interested in,

Right?

Now when it comes to politics,

It's a little bit different because may I venture to say that people are usually parroting opinions given to them,

Right?

There's not a lot of original thought in politics.

We've seen kind of the same tactics over and over,

But it's good because it's a good test to do this,

Right?

And I love this thing about,

You know,

What do they actually care about here?

And that brings out the best in people,

Right?

If you,

Instead of them just saying,

You know,

Repeating an opinion or whatever,

Or being really emotionally involved in something,

We can really tune in and listen,

Like Wendy said,

And bring forth the goodness that is there,

You know,

That they might not even recognize in themselves.

So it is a beautiful thing.

Yeah.

So let's keep this in mind.

And then what I wanted to mention here is this,

We know that kind of people in our family are gatherings we're going to have,

Right?

There seems to be ideas people have,

Let's just say about me,

Right?

There's these projections that are there.

Oh,

Josh,

He's like this.

He's this kind of guy.

He always does this,

Right?

And this is how I know him.

And this is,

You know,

What I expect from him.

And so this really got to me way more when I didn't have a meditation practice.

When I started meditating,

I could actually see,

Yes,

That's a lot.

There's a lot of truth in that,

In the way that the other person comes around,

Right?

And so,

But because I know this thing,

I don't get upset about it as much anymore,

Usually,

Right?

I can just know this is kind of lingering in the background,

But at the same time,

Know that it's impossible for things to stay the same all the time,

Right?

Because there are things that have changed,

You know,

Certain events in my life has changed,

Certain events in their lives have changed.

You know,

They look visibly different than they did 20 years ago.

I look visibly different.

So that's helpful to run the background,

Even if it's in repeat,

And then I can be more patient.

But this new technique I've heard about,

And maybe I'm going to try this out when someone comes at me with this,

And just kind of is looking for,

To trigger me to prove their idea about me and how I am.

Like maybe Josh is a A-hole or,

You know,

Okay,

So I'm going to do everything I can to prove that.

And then when it comes down to the table,

I can just say,

Instead of me fighting it,

I can say,

Okay,

Yes,

I'm an A-hole.

You're right.

So instead of me arguing or trying to prove otherwise,

There's no more fuel left if I just jump in there and say,

Yeah,

I agree with you.

You're totally right.

And,

You know,

Yeah.

So I'm interested to try that one out.

Yeah.

So when I was doing my psychotherapy training,

The psychotherapist teacher,

She said,

You know,

A client says,

You know,

Oh,

You're so aggressive or self-righteous or whatever it is,

Opinionated.

And you can say,

Yeah,

Yeah.

And her thing was,

Well,

There's something inside of you that is clearly giving that impression.

Like,

There is something inside of you that is being met,

That is being seen.

It might only be 3%,

But still,

There's 3% there.

So to kind of just,

Yeah,

Just be really clear,

Yeah,

I can be an A-hole.

Yeah,

For sure.

There are times in my life where,

Wow,

I've just gone,

Ah,

That wasn't one of my best moves actually.

Yeah,

I regret that stuff.

What about you?

When are times for you?

What have you,

Tell me about some times you regret?

Yeah,

You know,

I wonder what that would be like.

Yeah,

That's,

Yeah.

So I'm looking forward to trying that.

Yes.

Okay.

So now we've kind of covered like right,

Well,

Right speech,

Right action.

Now we can touch on right livelihood,

I feel.

But the right speech,

Or I'm sorry,

Whole speech,

This is the term Wendy uses,

And I love that because now I have to be mindfully conscious,

You know,

Instead of just defaulting back into the groove of the same old translation of this,

Right?

So this whole speech,

One thing I wanted to point out though too,

That there's some people who actually kind of need to speak up,

Right?

Like me,

I'm probably a little bit more outspoken,

So I need to kind of dial it back.

More restraint can help me.

Some people are kind of really shelled up,

Right?

They would love to say something,

You know,

But they fear all kinds of things.

Maybe,

You know,

Of not being accepted,

Of,

You know,

Being out of place,

All these different types of things.

So I would definitely,

You know,

Kind of look at our personality styles of do I need to speak up more often,

Speak truth more often,

Or do I need to dial it back and be more,

You know,

Of course,

We speak truth or we be honest.

We speak kindly.

We speak at the right time,

Right?

It's got to be the right time to say something.

Also ideally,

It creates concord instead of division.

It brings people together instead of divides them,

Right?

And I might be missing one,

But yeah,

Those are kind of the ideal guidelines for speech,

I would say.

Honest.

Did you say honest?

Well,

Yeah,

Truth speaking truthfully.

That's the most important to me as well.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I think it is.

Some people feel extremely self-conscious about my previous partner.

He was very.

.

.

One time we were walking along and I suddenly,

It was like I had entered his way of seeing the world.

And all of a sudden,

I felt completely all eyes were on me.

It was a very interesting experience.

So we weren't in a conversation or anything.

We're just walking along in the street.

And I thought,

Ah,

This is his,

This is what it's like for him.

Oh my goodness,

This must be so intimidating and so intense.

And it would be so hard to feel that you had the space,

That you felt safe to come forward because it was just so intensely watched.

It was awful.

I just felt,

Wow,

You know,

He's a very,

Very shy man and he still is shy.

But yeah,

I think that if you are sitting next to someone who is timid and self-conscious in the way they speech,

Then be as somebody who tends to speak a lot,

Become really curious about them,

You know,

You know,

What's,

You know,

What's been happening lately and,

And just again,

Really focus on what do they care about and,

And open out that conversation that way.

And questions not to ask are ones that start with do or is,

Or would you say?

So they're ones to not ask or why.

So skip those ones.

But instead to ask with ones with where,

How,

What.

And it's,

It's hard because we get caught in habits of questions,

But it's that first word which counts.

That's so amazing.

We talked about that on previous shows too.

Yeah.

The what is really good.

The,

The,

The where,

And you said how as well.

Yeah.

So how,

Can I ask how you discovered this with your past partner?

Yeah,

So sometimes I get that thing where I,

I think,

I think the more I meditate,

The clearer I am.

And that includes not being in my world,

But being more,

I don't know,

Psychically connected to another person.

And I don't mean psychic as in,

I'm,

You know,

Woo woo,

But psychic as in,

Just somehow I don't exist.

I see the other world,

The other person within their own world.

I just find that sometimes more and more.

It is,

And it's,

It's wild how much information is being conveyed non-verbally through micro expressions on the face,

Through body language,

Through extended silences,

You know,

Gestures,

And just kind of feelings,

Right?

Feeling someone.

We noticed that sometimes they can,

Well,

Words are usually involved,

But if there's a really intense emotion,

They can linger on and on,

Even after words are not spoken or even beforehand.

So yeah,

I definitely know what you mean with that as far as some respects.

One other thing I've noticed maybe about folks that are a little bit shy and self-conscious is knowing,

Especially if they're introverted,

Knowing if I'm starting to drain them of energy,

Right?

Some,

They,

They,

They usually recharge in silence in being alone.

So it's knowing kind of when to pull back and not overdo it with folks that are more introverted as well.

Yeah.

Speaking with a soft voice.

So if you're sitting next to someone who's very shy,

Drop the pitch,

Speak more slowly,

More measured,

Space out the words.

So it's just very technical.

Drop the pitch.

So no,

No,

No.

And just keep it much more economical,

I would say.

And more thoughtful.

So don't rush to speak.

Keep it,

Keep the questions,

Sort of ponder the questions as you go.

And that creates space for the other person to feel like they're actually got space.

You go,

Josh.

That's beautiful.

I was just going to flip the coin now and say,

I think you've mentioned too,

Like you were in a family where you had to kind of,

Was this you?

You had to kind of like put,

Put yourself forth and I have to put myself forth and kind of not necessarily dominate,

But jump in there if I really want to say something,

You know,

To get a word in edgewise sometimes.

So now this is another,

This is the kind of the opposite dynamic,

Right?

Where I might be jockeying a little bit too much for position to say certain things.

And so that's a whole nother dynamic,

Right?

Yeah.

And is it worth it?

Right.

Is the conversation worth it?

Sometimes you jump out of that and like,

Oh my gosh,

What's the point of expending all this energy to do that?

It's just,

It's exhausting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know,

And often what I'll do is I'll go and sit somewhere where I'm kind of on my own and sometimes somebody will come and join and sit next to me.

Not always.

I have been told off in my family for sitting on my own and not being part of the party.

I had actually somebody,

I invited somebody who didn't have family in Australia and I asked if he wanted to come along to my family Christmas.

This is 20 years ago.

And then afterwards he said,

Don't ever ask anybody to come to your family Christmas.

They are horrible people.

I was like,

Oh,

Okay.

All right.

That's how you really feel.

Yeah.

So,

Yeah,

Exactly.

He was very vocal.

He was very vocal kind of person,

But it was interesting to kind of think,

Oh,

Okay.

All right.

It's not just me.

Has the hour has already gone by?

This is amazing.

I just looked up and it's like we just started.

I guess we ought to start wrapping up then.

Huh?

I guess let's,

Huh?

Oh,

I'm sorry.

We started at 7 30.

Okay,

Great.

Good.

This is the time that I feel great to be embarrassed about losing.

I'm good.

Thank you.

Okay.

So now what about drinking?

Okay.

So a lot of the strategies we have,

Right,

They work very well.

But then when alcohol is involved,

People,

I mean,

It goes without saying a lot of times people don't act like they usually act.

Right.

And it's kind of like this thing.

Well,

They've been drinking,

So they kind of get away with a lot of things.

Right.

Or maybe they shouldn't.

But I mean,

Like,

How do you just deal with people that drink?

So I haven't drank since 2013.

I might've mentioned this before.

It's not really that interesting.

When I started meditating,

It just,

I'll spare you the background,

But it just turned into one drink and I was hung over for like two days.

It was ridiculous.

So I was like,

What is the point?

So I just stopped,

You know?

Now I will say early on I was invited to some,

Some like cocktail parties,

Holiday cocktail parties,

And it was a little awkward when not having much time under my belt.

And I was called out saying,

Well,

Why don't you have a drink in your hand?

Right.

You know?

And then I've also been told before,

And this was early on too,

What are you trying to make me look bad?

Why aren't you drinking?

But for now I know that my friends and family,

They know who I am,

So they can't get away with saying like,

It doesn't phase me.

If any way I were to say that,

No big deal.

But I will say early on it will,

It could help to have like a mocktail or cranberry juice or something until you kind of get used to not drinking.

If you don't drink,

I'm not saying there's necessarily anything wrong in and of itself of having adult beverages.

You know,

I'm not,

Because it's going to happen anyway.

People are going to be around.

But,

So that's just kind of the ground level for this.

I want to get Wendy's take on this.

So I found that there are non-alcoholic wines,

So de-alcoholized wines.

So you could take that to a party or a thing if you don't want to drink.

That's if you don't want to drink.

So I don't have any qualms about people drinking.

I drank for a good wee while after starting meditation and sometimes I still drink.

So the other day,

And it's really important to do that sometimes.

So the other day I was at a friend's place and I knew that her mother-in-law had just died,

Like the night before.

It was a gathering.

And so I just got some champagne and a glass and I just said,

You know,

Like I'm not an alcoholic,

So for me to have a tiny bit of alcohol isn't a problem.

And I just said,

You know,

To your mother-in-law,

You know,

To the father,

The son was there and the husband.

And so I said,

Oh,

You know,

To your mother.

And it was really a sweet,

Sweet,

I bet I bumped into him the other day and he was so touched by that gesture.

So not always bad to drink alcohol,

Not all context by any stretch.

So if you,

People do get itchy and scratchy about,

Because it triggers their sense of shame that they are drinking and that's what gets the narkiness happening.

So yeah,

What I often do is I say,

And you can't do this on Christmas Day,

But you can,

Depending on if you're staying overnight at your family or whatever,

But you might say if you go to church on Boxing Day,

I don't know what people do on Boxing Day,

But you can say,

Oh,

Look,

I've start my meditation retreat tomorrow and I've got to leave early in the morning.

So that's one thing to do.

Often I will say,

If it's a Saturday night or a Friday night,

I say,

I've got some really,

I've got to do all my tax or I've got some paperwork I really need to attend to in the morning and I really need to think,

You know,

Or some strategic business planning or something.

I'll just come up with something that gives it kind of permission,

You know,

Whatever.

And sometimes what I'll often do now is I'll just go,

I love the first sip.

Can I have a sip of your glass of wine?

I love the first sip.

I'm not actually interested in the rest of it,

But the first sip,

Can I have a glass of your wine?

I would love that.

I just,

I really like it.

So that helps it to de-stigmatize the alcohol consumption.

So I like that.

And if you have a glass,

Like in my family,

They're all,

They're very weird.

The fact that I don't drink,

Because they all,

My family members drink heavily.

Australians drink a lot.

We are very big wine drinkers and our red wines are usually 14% alcohol and the white wines are 13%.

Like they're really,

Really heavy drinking.

So you can always cut them.

So you know,

Half sparkling,

Half wine,

We can do that with red as much as white.

But what I think is,

Is good to do is if you have,

If you have a glass of wine,

One glass or two glasses,

Simply notice how long it takes until you feel like how many days it takes before you stop being,

Oh,

Woe is me,

My life is terrible.

I'm a failure or that grisly gray feeling that just simply,

You know,

This is meditation.

Simply observe,

Notice.

What are you going to say,

Josh?

You mean after you've drank,

Drank that because it's been so,

So long since I have,

But if I remember back,

You mean so like how many glasses does it take to trigger that type of response?

Is that,

That's what you're saying?

Notice that the amount?

Yeah.

So not only that,

But you might have one glass of wine and say,

Okay,

Well that's my bit.

And you know,

You kind of drink lots of water next to it or whatever.

And then,

And then the next day,

Boxing day,

The 27th,

28th,

It takes about four days for that alcohol to get out of your system.

Four days.

Amazing.

I was so shocked.

That really surprised me.

And as it happens,

Do you know the conversation,

This is a website,

Which is academics writing late late articles for the lay population,

But in their area of expertise.

And as it happens,

It,

There was one today and it was drinking alcohol this Christmas and new year,

These medicines really don't mix.

So depression medication,

Anxiety medication.

There are a few ones,

Pain medication,

Some of the pain medications.

Also heart medications,

Schizophrenia medications,

Sleep medications.

And yet,

So there were specific craft beers.

I thought this is very interesting.

Some medications shouldn't have with the most sort of craft beer or home brew ones.

So it was just a very interesting thing that is another one of the excuses you could say if you didn't want to drink was to say,

I'm on some antidepressants.

Well,

Wendy,

I'm going to have to stop you right here.

And I love the kind of strategies,

But for me,

I can't sit here and tell people to make stuff up right now.

You can be,

You can,

You can push it really far.

I mean,

I'm saying you can push it really far.

Like if Wendy says you want to do a strategic planning the next day,

I mean,

That's totally legitimate.

As long as you sit down and do that,

At least for a few moments,

Right,

You're not being dishonest about it.

And yes,

So I would just,

There's also grapefruit juice.

I think there's some medications you're not supposed to drink grapefruit juice,

Which was,

I was like,

Wow,

What's in grapefruit juice.

But this is the four days really struck me because back when I was working for a company,

It was a company culture to just go out and drink all the time.

And I would wake up and I would be like not hungover.

So that can be really dangerous after drinking all night,

Right?

Get up,

No big deal.

Like it didn't seem like it took that long because I would just,

You know,

Maybe drink not too long thereafter.

But then when I finally started waking up a little bit and realizing,

You know,

And meditating,

It did seem like it took at least two days to get it out of the system.

Just one,

It's pretty wild.

Now I guess what I'm talking about here is behavior from folks,

Right?

It's great that some folks can drink one or two glasses of wine,

You know,

A craft beer and then that's,

You know,

That's it.

That's all they kind of need.

And they can be social,

But then you have the folks who they don't even really get started until the third or the fourth one,

Right?

And actually some folks can become quite jolly and outgoing and pleasant,

You know,

And really lively and fun to be around.

But that can be more of a rarity.

You know,

There's some people when they drink a lot,

They like,

It's guys,

Right?

They like to fight.

Some people like kind of argue or make jokes about people and not necessarily,

You know,

And it's sometimes it's in good fun and it's okay.

But then we get some people that are belligerent,

Right?

So I'm talking about mainly the challenging problem cases as well.

So I love Wendy's advice for actually being practical with those people who are responsible drinking,

Right?

It's a lot of good advice to take in and how to deal with things when,

You know,

You want to kind of stay more on the balance when everybody else around is maybe pushing it a little bit further.

So these are great tips and advice.

Now what happens when we get into folks that are,

Let's say,

Drawing attention to themselves through maybe a little bit of excessive amount of alcohol?

So just one thing I want to go back is like,

Oh yeah,

I suppose it is kind of deceptive speech.

So before I was talking about deceptive speech,

I'm like,

You could say you were on,

You know,

Antidepressants or something like that.

It's gray area.

It's okay.

Or you can say,

You know,

I've tried them before and it's probably not a good idea.

Or maybe,

You know,

Maybe someone has tried them in the past or maybe you're thinking about going on them and you don't want to just screw things up.

So there's a lot of things you can say that are more accurate instead of just a boldface.

I'm not saying it's a boldface.

What I often say now is I just find I become a really horrible person the next day and my life is too short to be horrible to people.

So that's what I usually say.

And a lot of people really respect that honesty.

They're like,

Wow,

That's refreshing to hear.

You know,

I'm glad you really put it out there like that.

You know,

I mean,

They might not say that,

But yeah,

I'd be,

I'm kind of surprised at how people connect with just kind of really straightforward honesty sometimes,

You know,

Because it's such a rarity.

It takes,

It takes people off guard a little bit,

But in a good way.

Yeah.

I mean,

There are family families where it is complicated to be honest and straightforward.

Like you have to,

You know,

Lying is one of those funny things,

You know,

It's you don't want to lie.

No one wants to lie.

And what is a lie and what's deception and what's a mission and all the rest.

It's a grey area,

But I think at its core,

The speech must be kind.

So if,

If what you say is going to trigger a bad reaction in someone,

Then,

Then caging your reply around that is perhaps prudent.

And if later they say,

But you lied,

You can go,

Well,

Actually,

I just thought your reaction was,

I wasn't sure your reaction.

So you can be honest later like that.

I don't.

Let me,

Let me just respond really quickly.

What I've,

A lot of times just being courageous enough to sometimes say,

I don't know,

Or I don't really know how to respond to that right now.

Maybe I can get back to you,

This kind of thing,

Or,

You know,

I really want to say something here,

But I don't really know how to say it in the best way.

So maybe,

You know,

Maybe I better not answer this right now.

Just kind of being straightforward,

Honest about not really knowing how to say things or whatever,

You know,

That's,

That's one technique I guess as well.

And also this pushes us to,

To become creative in ways of our honesty,

Because a lot of times it does take a lot of energy and effort to come up with something that's a little more honest.

So a lot of times it is easier just to,

Just to say a little white lie.

And no,

I do agree with Wendy because what kind of harm are you creating?

You know,

It's really difficult for me to know if I tell a little white lie,

If that's actually going to be better in the longterm,

You know,

Because I don't know a lot of times.

So maybe sometimes it will be,

And sometimes I do get in a lot of trouble and cause harm from being honest in the wrong way.

So yeah,

It's a very good consideration to look into this deeply.

It's part of our practice too,

Especially to ourselves.

Honesty lies to ourselves is another huge area.

But anyway,

So please continue with the problem drinking thing.

I think we were on.

You know,

If you've got a problem drinking,

I mean,

The five precepts,

I was just sort of thinking about that.

You know,

We're talking about ethics and meditation.

And if you've,

If you're,

If you've problem drinking,

Well,

Basically,

Who do you want to be in 10 years time?

What are the impacts of,

Of drinking without care?

So in this conversation so far,

We've been talking about how to drink with care,

How to speak with care.

If you've got drinking problems,

Well,

Kind of look in the mirror,

I think.

And it is difficult.

So one of the things I wanted to talk about in this,

That what alcohol does is it makes a person more self-centred,

And I guess more self-preserving.

So lying about to yourself and others about your drinking is part of the side effect of alcohol.

So I think that's really interesting that alcohol and increases your narcissism.

I think I think that's a bit I know somebody who did her PhD 20 years ago on this 30 years ago.

Yeah,

And that's really struck me because when I think about people who are like,

So we we just bought this house.

And the guy who had the house before was a carpenter.

And he did his own works in the house.

And he did so many bad,

Crappy jobs.

And he did this really cute little children's cubby house,

A Wendy house,

I would call it.

And it looked great for the photos for the sale of the house.

But at the back,

There were whole sections that weren't painted.

There was no ridge cap on the top.

So all the water would come in,

Which meant that if a child was using it,

They would get wet if it suddenly rained and it often does up here.

And it was also very elevated off the ground.

So the ladder that he had created was an adult ladder.

And so there were all these kind of and it turned out all the stuff that he had done,

He'd done in the past year,

Pretty much all of it for the sale of the house to increase the value of the house.

And it was,

He's done all sorts of crazy stuff.

Like he built a concrete slab downstairs,

And then it pulls because it's not done well.

And so he just drilled some holes,

So it just goes straight into the dirt,

Which means that you create problems with the foundations.

Now he was a very heavy drinker.

And I think he probably neglected his wife and children's needs for that.

And I and he's like,

You know,

I was a good guy,

You know,

He's a good bloke,

You'd say in Australia,

He's a good bloke,

You know,

I have a couple of beers with him.

That's where he did his office.

He had like this really nice bar in the patio downstairs.

And yeah,

I've looked at you know,

Have bonfire and all this sort of stuff.

He's a good bloke.

And he,

Like I can tell you,

He was cheating and lying in terms of the house and the presentation in order to maximize the return on the sale price.

And I thought,

I wonder what he's like with his wife and kids.

So if you have an alcohol,

If you're using alcohol,

To an uncomfortable level,

Ask if what harm is going on to the people around you?

Because money,

If you're married,

The money that you are spending on alcohol,

You could spend that on doing something lovely for your partner,

Your kids,

You know,

That's not unharmful spending money.

So when I when I when I gave up drinking 20,

Almost 20 years ago,

I sort of went,

Oh,

I wonder if I'm an alcoholic.

And then I heard these like justifications come through my mind.

I was like,

Ah,

That's a whole series of justifications.

Either I am or I'm not.

But I'll just stop drinking now and see what happens.

It was really interesting.

And I was,

It was just and then I never really drank after that.

Because I was like,

Yeah.

You mean to the point of intoxication,

Right?

Yeah,

Yeah.

Look,

I think I think it's really hard to drink alcohol and not have some level of intoxication.

Sure it is.

And that's why even kombucha,

You know,

I drink it a few times a year because I'm so resensitized.

I will get a little buzz from it,

Even though you can sell that without having to show a card because it's such trace amounts of alcohol.

But because I've become resensitized,

I will kind of feel it.

Yeah.

So this is a really important point in,

You know,

The five precepts or whatever.

It's to refrain from intoxicants.

It's not necessarily that they're bad in and of themselves.

It's that the other precepts are more likely to be broken when one is intoxicated or takes intoxicating substances to the point of intoxication.

And so,

Yeah,

This is a thing because I know in my own experience,

If I remember back,

Well,

The addiction thing is interesting because while it can also be amount,

It can also be frequency,

Right?

If I'm doing like one or two beers every day,

You know,

For months and years and years,

And then I can't just refrain from like one or two days from having that one or two beers.

Well then that can be considered kind of an addiction as well.

It doesn't necessarily have to be like a large amounts,

You know,

That can be another thing.

If you have to binge drink,

It could possibly be an issue then too.

But what I noticed about myself too,

Yes,

I felt more egotistical.

Like my ego really boosted.

I was like,

They call it liquid courage,

Right?

I felt more full of myself,

You know,

More,

Say,

Or more easy in my skin,

I guess.

And inhibitions were just kind of thrown out the window,

Right?

I was taking more chances and they become more effortless than they normally would,

Right?

And then the kind of regretted things later,

Or maybe not as much because I was drunk.

And then I,

You know,

And then I would just drink more if it was too painful.

So a lot of times is it also being,

Comes from a place of pain.

Like I'm in pain and I don't want to feel that pain.

So I'm just going to drink more until I don't feel pain.

It's going to numb out.

And for me,

I could actually feel my body more when I drank.

Like I had more body awareness temporarily,

You know,

And let more off.

So yeah,

Those are just some of the dynamics that come into play.

In ethics,

Didn't really seem that important.

It was more about,

Okay,

Well I would get mine,

Right?

You know,

This kind of,

Oh,

I deserve this.

It doesn't really matter if I screw up a little bit.

Everybody does that.

These,

These kinds of justifications,

Like our behavior is,

You know,

We justify things that we normally wouldn't if we have this kind of more firm foundation in ethics.

And not to be a prude either,

Because these ethics are actually there for our longterm wellbeing and happiness.

I am so much better off and such more pleasant to be around and just experience more happiness day to day just from those five precepts.

But I couldn't see them at the time,

Right?

It just looked like too kind of prude thing,

You know,

Why bother that?

You know,

When I turn about Straight Edge,

This movement Straight Edge,

When I was young,

I was like,

That's not a thing.

Nobody can do that.

Well,

I didn't know about all the culture around it,

But I just,

The no drinking or drugs,

That's not possible.

Hardly anybody can do that.

No way.

You know,

That's the mindset I was in,

That that was so impossible that that can't even be done.

And of course I was really young and naive,

Right?

And wanted to justify my own.

Yeah.

So it is really an interesting situation with intoxicants.

Hey,

I haven't seen any chat.

Have we got anything on the chat?

No.

No,

Unless we have something in Twitter or YouTube.

But the last comment was from T Lady Nat.

We've got 32 meditators here,

It says.

So thank you for joining.

And I haven't,

I don't have YouTube dialed up.

And it looks like there's 21 people listening on wisdom app.

And we've got what,

About seven minutes or so left.

Yeah.

I will just say too,

Though,

That I have the luxury of not doing a lot around the holidays,

Right?

So my mom and other folks,

They do a lot of the kind of cooking and preparation.

So that's where it's a different dynamic too,

Because I don't have to do all that.

So they're an extra level of stress.

And I will say that I do excuse myself from time to time to meditate or at least take brief moments of silences too.

And it was really interesting during Thanksgiving where my sacred space where I meditate in the room there,

The new family dog had just crapped all over it,

Right?

I mean,

Literally,

It's not that big a deal,

But for me that doesn't have a pet and this is my sacred space,

Right?

I sit right there,

My meditation practice,

One of the most important things.

Dog doesn't care,

It's all over it.

So it's really interesting to see how the mind reacts to that too.

So what were some other things that I talked about?

So one was alcohol.

We've done that.

We've done speech.

What are some other things that we were going to talk about?

We did,

Well,

We did write effort,

Right?

In livelihood.

So livelihood,

It's really interesting to find out what people do in their life,

Right?

Like what they do for a living.

And some of the obvious things are maybe you don't want to be,

If you're really into spirituality,

Maybe you don't want to sell drugs for a living.

Say there might be a little bit more risk there,

Or you might not want to kill,

Slaughter animals this life.

So those are the classic things that are given.

But yeah,

Livelihood is,

It's really important.

Looking back at some of the things I did for a living years ago and how they were conducive or not conducive to our long-term happiness and well-being and that of others.

Yes.

Effort too.

Yeah,

And it's really hard.

It's really hard.

So say,

I had a colleague and he went to work for a huge petroleum company.

And the benefits he had were I get free this,

Free that,

Free this,

Free that,

Free this,

Free that.

And it just boosted him.

He had a young family.

You go,

Right.

So this is not so more nuanced than that.

Or you could say big tobacco,

Or you work for one of the fast food companies in their marketing department,

Or you work for one of those cereal companies that make very sweet,

Sugary cereals and trying to push- Doughnuts or casinos,

Yes.

It's complicated.

You know,

When we live in a materialistic world,

I'm reading a really fantastic book at the moment by Johan Hari.

Do you know this one,

Stolen Focus?

It's fantastic.

And it just talks about how tech companies are stealing our focus at a collective level.

Yes.

And they admit this too,

Right?

Yes,

They admit this.

And it's the economy of attention.

Like they pay big money to get our eyeballs and our attention.

Oh,

Yeah.

Right.

So if you work for one of those big companies,

It's a high status company,

I'm going to say Google or Facebook,

One of those,

Looks amazing on your CV.

You know,

You're like,

Wow,

I'm a brilliant coder.

I'm on $100 gazillion million a year.

And I work for one of those big companies.

And my job is to make people's lives awful.

And it's got a status thing,

Like it's really interesting to kind of go,

Okay,

So right livelihood.

Okay,

So it's big tech.

It's no different to big oil.

No different to big pharma.

Sometimes it's worse.

No different to big food.

Or less wholesome.

Yeah,

Totally.

And,

You know,

I wanted to kind of say this at the beginning.

And these are really good points about right livelihood,

Right?

Like,

How much of this is for the benefit of my long term happiness and that of others,

Right?

Like,

What kind of harm is being done here?

What are my alternatives?

Can I just leave this,

Right?

So these are all good questions.

But I want to throw this in here because I talked to some friends before the show about this.

What if the whole thing,

We just called off the holidays,

Right?

Which I have a couple of friends,

A couple,

And kids,

They've done this.

They've pretty much made it clear to their friends and family that we don't want to celebrate this traditional holiday here.

We're going to do something different,

Right?

And it's not because we don't like it or I don't want to speak for them.

But for the most part,

It's been fairly supportive.

And I'm not recommending this for everybody.

But I wonder about if there are alternatives to this whole thing and how to go about them.

But I don't think we're going to have too much time to go into that.

So Wendy,

Would you want to wrap up with the right livelihood?

Do you want to address this topic?

And then what else would you like to say as we wrap this up?

So I do want to actually,

This is a contemporary issue in Australia.

So it's summertime for us.

So we have our summer holidays with Christmas and New Year right up to the end of January,

Where we have Australia Day.

That's our kind of Australia Day is that the 26th of January.

So that's kind of our summer holidays.

That's you have it in July,

We have it this time of the year.

And because of the bushfires and the weather,

Actually,

They're starting to say we need to not have our main holidays for the year at Christmas time,

Which is what everybody has done for the last 230 years,

We need to move it to March.

So as a nation,

We need to move all our summer holidays to another time because everybody goes to these camping places and holiday destinations in the summer holidays.

But it causes complete,

You know,

Terrible situation with the weather because we,

You know,

As you know,

A couple of years ago,

We had terrible fires,

You know.

So it was just an interesting thing to think,

You know,

Changing it.

Actually,

Who knows in Australia,

We might be doing that as a country.

How are people taking it?

Usually are they open and receptive to it?

Are people like,

No,

That'll never happen?

I don't want that to happen.

It's a slow conversation,

But I thought it was an interesting one.

The fires a couple of years ago were traumatic.

You know,

Huge,

Huge.

I mean,

Somebody said,

Are they bigger than the Californian fires?

It's like Australia is the size of the whole of the mainland USA and the whole country of Australia was on fire.

It's like,

Is it bigger than California?

Yeah,

I think so.

People forget how big Australia is.

Yes.

It's a huge,

Huge,

Huge country.

So but let's wrap it up there.

Sure,

We'll do that.

And we'll just have to wait to announce the next one.

We won't do that here because I've got some big life changes coming up,

Which will be announced as they,

You know,

I guess on the next one or whenever if you don't know already.

So all right,

Wendy,

Well,

Thanks for joining.

And yeah,

Looking forward to the next one.

And may you all learn the things you need to learn and master the things you need to master around the holidays if you're doing the holidays this year.

So and also,

You know,

If you make a bloody mess of things and it's all a complete disaster.

Well,

Welcome to the human race.

It's just like,

You know,

That's what it is.

It's practice because you fuck up all the time and you've just got to keep practicing to try and get it right.

So give yourself some slack is what I'm saying.

Absolutely.

It makes it that.

Yep.

Whether you have one minute of meditation practice or,

You know,

50 years,

Anything is still possible.

Good,

Bad,

Otherwise,

Or whatever.

Yep.

All right.

See you all later.

Thank you for joining.

Thanks,

Josh.

Thanks for joining us.