Cultivating Habits

Good Habits // What We're Thinkin' About Ep.12 | Barry Ebert and special guests, Kay Johnson and Linda Rengel talk about the cultivation of good habits to support health and well-being. This year, our programming at Mile Hi Church emphasizes health and well-being.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Mile High Church podcast.

Join us and some very special guests as we dive in together,

Open our hearts and get real to discuss what we've been thinking about.

Well hi this is Barry,

It's good to be back with you and this is what we're thinking about.

Today I've got two good friends here,

Reverend Linda Rangel and Reverend Kay Johnson.

Good to see you guys.

Great to see you.

Yeah and our initiative at Mile High Church this year is about health and wellness and you two are certainly doing a lot of work in that area and so we wanted to kick off the year with a little health and wellness thing and the first thing I wanted to maybe get into is how we can establish good habits for ourselves in terms of health and wellness,

How to get them going and what are the most important ones to start.

So I'll throw it at you here Kay.

Well okay I can do a little bit of overview about habits in general because I've gotten very intrigued by a new book that's appeared in my awareness called Atomic Habits.

It's by James Clear,

I would recommend it and one of the things he talks about that is the thing that people remember so much from his work is that he says we do not rise to the level of our goals but we fall to the level of our systems or I would say we fall to the level of our practices.

So goals are great but what really matters is what is the habit that we're putting behind that desire that we have in order to really become the kind of person who actually does that and of course he tells great one great story which I'll share just briefly about the person who wants to lose weight and they want to be they want to go to the gym.

So this guy read this book and he decided he was just going to go to the gym every single day.

He'd get in his car,

He'd drive there,

He'd get out of his car,

Go inside,

He'd work out for five minutes then he got back in his car and drove home.

But he did it every day and eventually he did reach his reach his goal of weight loss and becoming stronger but it was because he started small like that and every time he went to the gym and worked even if it was just five minutes he was casting a vote for being the kind of person he wanted to be which is a person who is healthy and well and strong.

So that's that's a place to just think about that piece of it.

I like that idea in terms of beginning and starting and so in terms of wellness you deal with a lot of people with wellness you have support groups for people who are dealing with different kinds of illnesses and there's a lot of uncertainty in our culture because of the virus and stuff like that and so for people who are up against something and they're dealing with let's say the anxiety about diagnosis or anxiety about their house where do they begin?

Where do they begin?

What's a good habit to begin with to start to be a healthier person?

I think at the beginning of a new year certainly at the beginning of 2022 you know we heard about being healthier in sort of a global sense and so often that means for people diet and exercise diet and exercise we've all heard that prescription.

I think in the age we're living in you mentioned the virus but a lot of other things are going on as well the diet that we should be talking about is the emotional diet we're feeding ourselves and you spoke of habits I think if we can get into a habitual way of more feeding ourselves healthy emotions and not suppressing but letting the negative emotions flow across like a cloud we do our our body temples an incredible service that we know that in health and healing having a strong inner immune system in our circulatory system inner central nervous system is vital to all of our health so we want to be inviting in those emotions that uplift all of that and those would be pleasure joy delight awe happiness and so I know for me with an eight-year-old diagnosis of lung cancer and now trying to live in harmony daily with one little brain tumor and one little lung tumor I actively seek positive emotions and so some of those come from grandkids we have grandkids or kids and they're hilarious they're they're just hilarious so I delight in them I subscribe to joke of the day so I get that in my email and I will actively go to things like America's funniest home videos and have five minutes of laughter in our support group our next Wednesday night as luck would have it is laughter yoga so there are ways we can intentionally embrace uplifting emotions and they uplift us physically so you put yourself in a situation where you're being supported emotionally and bringing more joy into your life consciously rather than just letting the world come at you in a way so I think one thing I want to talk about is like how do you how do you protect your how do you protect your habits how do you protect your sense of direction and your sense of connection with what's important to you so I think that to your point of motivation everyone finds their own it's whatever gives your life meaning and mattering and so that's an individual question with a myriad of answers each as unique an individual as we are so it's important for each person to locate their strong reasons for living whatever that can be and Kay and I in our healing ministry find that people can name the first three pretty easily I love it when people get to four and five so people usually list family friends my furry creatures who live with me and then they get a little stuck but for you it might be gardening or music or walking so whatever it is that sparks you embrace that know that it's one of your strong reasons for living and let that undergird your habit and then yes put a boundary around your strong reasons for living especially four and five so for me if it's playing pickleball I'm gonna say my boundary is that I play pickleball on Mondays at 530 and I try to just leave that time as a sacred commitment to my own health and well-being so yeah I think establishing priorities for your health and well-being because we kind of have been living in a culture where it's about work and how much can you get done and how much how much can you produce right and so that the the concept of health and well-being is something that we're just embracing in a different way now to do it consciously and to bring our focus there and so not only protecting that time but protecting blocking out your time so that it's it's as precious as work or more precious than work and I think the thing about making time for things that bring you joy you said something about that about finding things finding things that bring you inspiration and then taking the time to slow down and absorb those things absolutely one of the things I've done for years is subscribe to the daily pearl that the that Mile High Church puts out and it's just a short quote usually and it's just you know in that moment that you're thinking about what those words mean and and and how they might affect you you're you're you're doing good things for your body and you're doing good things for your attitude moving forward in the day for sure the one of the things that a lot of people who are trying to do spiritual work or trying to to find more balance in their life is that they they think I just really I should be a meditator you know I I wish I were meditating and then they set a goal I will meditate 30 30 minutes a day for and this is pretty overwhelming so one of the things about establishing a habit of meditating and now I'm talking to somebody who maybe doesn't meditate at all or maybe somebody who meditates once in a while and that is to do a couple of things to make it easy we can establish a habit if we try to if we spend some time thinking how could I make this easy so one of the things that will make a meditating easy for easier for everybody is to download the app called insight timer insight timer now when you download that if there are thousands of meditations on there actually there are maybe a hundred offerings on there from ministers at my from Mile High Church so there are meditations that I've done there's meditations that Reverend Linda's done there's meditations in there that dr.

Barry has done so if you really want to focus on the spiritual teaching that we represent in terms of health and well-being that's a great way to start that makes it easy so you don't even you go in there you write you you pluck on discover and you write in Mile High Church and they're right in front of you or maybe you'd like to focus on mindfulness then you then you can do that so another thing to do to make it easy is to keep it small like the guy who went to the gym and only exercise for five minutes after a while after he had established his habit then he added more and more time and he worked out longer because it became part of who he was and he was he really really wanted to be healthy and strong and so he had a he had that strong reason for doing it that that Reverend Linda talked about and so but starting small allowed him to stick with it I think sticking with it is one of the things that that you know challenges us that challenges us so one of the things that we're gonna do just a little bit later is to just practice a two-minute meditation so just hang on and we're gonna do that real soon well one of the things I think that I always talk to people about in classes is about meditation is it's not difficult to meditate it's difficult to sit down to meditate and the same thing with writing you know I'm always thinking about you know I need to spend more time on my writing well it's not difficult to write once I sit down and get ready you know and so I think you have to do the things to bring yourself to that place and you have to be fierce about bringing yourself to that place if I decide that I'm gonna meditate every day then without thinking about it I have to go in and sit down and and that's the process just like the guy going to the gym I'm gonna go right I'm not gonna be able to lift a thousand pounds today but I'm gonna make it to the gym and I'm gonna begin and I think that that's a thing about once we establish a habit we feel better and we start making better choices about the other things in our life the food that we're gonna eat the people we're gonna connect with the things we're gonna watch things we're gonna listen to once we establish some good habits we will attract other good habits and good things to ourselves and I think for people who are in a time of confusion about diagnosis in a time of anxiety that can be the most difficult thing is establishing habits because we're taking in a lot of outside information that's causing us stress and anxiety and I think that's when it's important to say to take good care of myself I'm going to do this this is what I'm going to do and I'm gonna do this every day so I think that the idea that that you brought up about the motivation the motivation of relationship is a big part of this thing is what I'm getting and for the people in your groups it is it is when people can identify I want to see this little person grow up or I want to stay coupled in this relationship longer then yes I mean that provides cellular and cellular motivation and that's really the depth at which it has to begin or else habits phase habits fade and that is the fallacy of making a New Year's resolution you know it's easy to say difficult to do so just like you making yourself sit down to write you have a larger goal in mind correct mm-hmm and that would be just being part of a creative process that's my larger goal to spend as much time as possible in the creative process because it brings me joy I like it and then I you know I feel good I feel healthier about that you know and that the thing that has helped me physically too is is rather than looking at the goal of I want to lose weight or I want to get in shape I've got a fall in love with the elliptical trainer you know I've got one of those and I just love the process of going in there every morning getting on it listening to music and I'm just in love with the process now so nothing is gonna get in what in the way of that habit I'm getting towards my goals but I'm loving the process and I think that that's the thing about habits too you got to fall in love with the with the process like the guy going to the gym once he does it a few times the first time that feels really awkward and it feels new and it feels like why am I doing this and I only worked out for five minutes but if you can stay with it then you start falling in love with the process of just walking in the door to the gym mm-hmm I think that that's important and one of the reasons that falling in love with the process is so is so powerful is in terms of meditation for example is that we know that meditation and there's countless studies scientific studies that have shown that meditation is one of the most powerful things that you can do to put your body into a healing state into a place where it where it's you feel good and it is working well it's it's the one of the ways you can do to support your body whether you have an illness that you're dealing with or whether you're just feeling anxious that that it's a tremendous stress reliever as well so making it easy making it something that you love doing is is really that process is wonderful one of the one of the tricks is to first of all identify exactly what the time is going to be and from the experience that we've had working with a lot of different people it seems to work best one of two times either you get up a little bit earlier and do it first thing or you do it last thing before you go to bed that seems to be what most not everybody of course but most people find those one of those two times works well and then hat you have a special place a chair that's comfy something place where you can shut the door or and maybe you even have something beautiful to look at that says to you this what I do here in this space I do this I do this meditation well I think one of the things that I'm getting from both of you guys is it kind of pushes against our idea of multitasking right so we've become a culture of multitaskers and taking in a lot of information processing a lot of information at once and I think meditation is when we give ourselves the gift of just doing that I'm just going to relax I'm just going to breathe I'm going to count to four or whatever I'm going to do and to allow ourselves to do that and I think part of it is just convincing ourselves this is what I want to do this is important my health and my wellness is important to me and I know when you're up against a diagnosis like you guys have been it narrows your focus so you realize no this is this is important right and for a lot of us making that decision consciously I think is the part that brings us to where we have to begin to make that decision this is important for me to sit down and meditate for 15 minutes might be the most important thing I do all day mm-hmm in terms of my health and my wellness mm-hmm so that's good so should we go also just to pick up on one thread that you were talking about of what's important I'm thinking of your creative writing process and tying it to the bigger picture it sounds like you are dedicated to writing because it connects you to your creativity that comes from the creative ultimate presence so it's deeply rooted in who you are and the people K and I see succeeding on their healing journeys in a really vibrant way are the ones who connect their habits to something very deep-seated within their lives an actual heart's desire I'm not talking about fit into my skinny jeans I'm talking about something incredibly deep-seated family friends a spiritual unfolding those kinds of things seem to yield the deepest and most long-lasting healing good yeah and that's the motivation that brings you back to your habits true okay great okay so we're about to go into a meditation here for just a couple minutes so if you're driving or if you're walking just be aware of that and probably be best not to close your eyes so this is just going to be a two-minute meditation and I would invite you to join us and just assess how you're feeling before we start and see if you feel just a little bit better by the time we've finished and I'm going to actually time myself because otherwise I'm likely to run on and on so let's start first by just sitting sitting in a comfortable spot and put your feet on the floor and I love to think of that as connecting to the earth and then when you sit up kind of straight not not ramrod straight or anything but just dignified that connects us to heaven or to the universe to the cosmos and so gently close your eyes and we'll start so just bring your attention to your breath really attend to your breath as you breathe in pause for a moment and breathe out now breathe in again attentively pause a moment and breathe out and now I'd like to invite you to bring your attention to your heart space maybe you would think of it as your heart chakra and you might even want to put your hand on your heart and now imagine attend intentively breathing into your heart breathe in and consciously breathe out from the heart and do that one more time and now bring to your mind something that you just dearly love and adore now this might be a person it might be your spouse it might be a friend it might be your dog or your cat it might be an experience that you just love doing maybe walking in nature maybe skiing or place a special special place maybe it's Hawaii or being in the ocean or Venice something you really love bring that feeling into your heart and now from that place of love and appreciation we're gonna create an affirmation I am filled with love health and well-being now again I am filled with health love and well-being right now let it go open your eyes so that was two minutes ten seconds so our bodies have responded just in those little two minutes so Linda's gonna explain how that happened so what we just did physiologically speaking was we lowered cortisol and we increased dopamine relaxin serotonin oxytocin and our wonderful endorphins that's what meditation does that's why the studies tell us that doing just a few short minutes a day changes us from the inside out changes us biologically as well as mentally and emotionally so every time you meditate you are casting a vote for being the kind of person who meditates for well-being so be it all right so we're just about to wrap it up here I want to thank you guys both for being here and and if you're gonna sum up what's your most important point today Linda what do you think it is I would say that if you're thinking about diet make it a healthy emotional diet seek embrace and savor the emotions that promote your health I love it I love it okay how about you well I guess I'm gonna focus on if you really want to be a meditator start off small give yourself a little reward afterwards and what I would say is you just put a little X 5 that day on the calendar and every day a little X it feels so good I'm doing this I'm the kind of person who meditates that would be my suggestion keep at it all right well I want to thank you guys for being here today and talking about health and well-being that's our initiative this year at Mile High Church to really bring our focus to that and I think the thing that I love about it is that we deserve to be well we it's our happiness is something that we create and we create it with our habits and we live in a very busy world with a lot of information so taking the time taking the focus taking the energy to bring our attention where we want it to be is important so thank you all for helping us do that and thank you all for listening today we'll be back soon with what we're thinking about

Reviews

Nice job.