Achieving Focus With Meditation

This podcast we discuss the importance of meditating as a practice to help athletes achieve better focus and overall performance.

Transcript

Music Welcome back to the MindBody Podcast.

My name is Andrea Oh and I have the pleasure of spending my morning break with two amazing women,

Chris Eyring and Colleen Hathaway,

Where we get to sit down,

Get nerdy,

And uncover the mystery of the mind-body connection as it relates to fitness and exercise,

Sports performance,

Rehabilitation,

And pretty well everything in between.

So how is everybody doing this morning?

Good.

Great,

It's a nice morning and I know we're sort of transitioning into fall.

I can kind of see it in the trees.

So,

Hi!

Green is my favorite color and it's making me sad that it's going away.

Yeah,

It's all different shades of green.

It's actually kind of cool.

Our window in Wisconsin overlooks like a bluff of trees.

So you can sort of see the hue just slightly changing.

Well,

I have to admit,

I lived in Chicago this past year.

I just moved back to Canada recently and the fall is gorgeous there.

And you're just kind of kitty-corner there too.

So the colors and the arches of the trees over the streets and the reds and the yellows and the greens and the browns and the almost purpley reds that come out is awesome.

Yeah,

It is.

It is really beautiful.

It's a really beautiful time of year here.

But you know what that also means.

The flip side is coming though.

I know.

I mean,

I think we're almost equally Canadian on the line here because I know what the winters are like for you guys too.

You guys get some awfully cold snaps.

Impending doom.

Yes.

Soak it all in while you can.

But this is where imagery comes in handy from our last discussion,

Right?

Right.

Imagine the beach.

I'm feeling the sun on my face.

Well,

And also too,

I see all the kids marching down the road off to school.

The poor little things.

Yeah,

It is.

And I teach at the university so it's also school time for me and I know that feeling of going back to school.

Stressful.

Did you guys get a chance to have any summer holidays at all?

Any kind of break from the everyday?

Definitely.

Yes,

Absolutely.

Summer is the best time to have a break and slow down.

And then this happens.

Now we're just going to real life.

It's like a shift thing.

Honestly,

The last couple of days,

It was tough getting out of bed and I usually,

I know that it's that time of year that's coming because I do not want to get out from under my covers.

Yes.

I do not.

Her body starts to change too,

I think.

It just knows.

It's that instinct.

But I also find that I need to go to yoga more.

Right.

I'm a hot yoga girl too so I like the heat and that kind of makes me feel like I get a break from the winter.

But it's just that time of year that hits like a light switch.

It does and I'm a fan of going to hot yoga too.

So it's kind of like the place you can sweat.

Get all the sweat out,

Get all the stress out.

It comes out of your pores which is great.

Well,

So today I was wanting to kind of recap some of the things that we've gone over.

We've already been together on this podcast for several sessions and you guys have walked us and myself and the listeners through almost like the pyramid of sorts of how you build mindfulness,

Confidence and how you use those tools to help improve performance as an athlete or just in everyday life.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I think it's like trying to take a kind of a nebulous topic,

Something that's kind of heady and then trying to make it concrete and practical and how do you practice those things.

So we started off with the foundations being those things that are grounding us and are tangible and really being aware and mindful of the situation that we're in.

Whether it's a positive situation or where we're in the yellow and the warning signs are up or if we're in trouble when we're in the red being that kind of like that first step.

Exactly,

You got it.

Mm-hmm.

It's sort of that first step is awareness,

Just sort of tuning in and being aware and then knowing how to begin to ground your body.

Because you can't do anything unless you even know that there's a problem or that everything's okay either or,

Right?

That's exactly right.

Exactly.

It can't change what you're not aware of.

But it's funny how many of us go through our lives being so unaware and ignorant to what's going on.

Right and then like the first phase of that awareness is someone saying,

Well I don't think I can be aware.

I think that's too hard to be aware because it's really difficult to listen to my mind chatter.

I'm just not an awareness kind of person and that's a great place to be actually because then you're beginning the steps of being aware that you're thinking too much.

How often do you come across that with your clients and with people that come to see you?

Every single time.

I'm gonna include myself in that since I teach it and I'm aware of it.

I'm much much more aware of myself.

But a lot,

You know,

All of us as being human we analyze a lot and we're very self-critical.

And the greatest thing about mindfulness is it's everyday thing.

You don't ever perfect it.

How many thoughts do they say that we have in a day?

Like 85,

80,

000 thoughts a day.

Yeah,

I mean nobody knows for sure but the numbers are staggering and majority of those thoughts are negative.

Well at least 50%.

So I mean this comes from the what the National Science Foundation put out a report about that we have about 12 to 50 thousand thoughts per day.

I've seen as high as 80 thoughts per day but what I've seen is about half of those are about are negative.

About you know like guilt,

Planning ahead,

Worrying,

Obsessing about mistakes,

Etc.

Like dwelling too much on the past or the future.

So the idea then is to take hold of that and to first make an awareness of it because most of us aren't aware that we're thinking those negative thoughts.

So the first step is just noticing that and that's where you begin your mental training kit is right there with the thoughts and the awareness.

Well I'm glad you guys brought that up because then everyone that's listening is sitting there going,

Oh crap,

Am I the only one that doesn't want to be aware or I'm not comfortable with that idea?

So I'm glad that you brought that up because I'm the same way.

There's certain things like taxes.

I just want to so not even think about that or even deal with that or if you have that negative thought you almost want to ignore it.

Right.

It's the easy way out.

It's the easy way out.

Yeah it is.

Because it just adds to more stress and I was even thinking as well too for you Colleen.

I'm sure that because of the work that you do you help people uncover an area where they need awareness but may not realize that that's the first step because you feel it in their bodies.

That yes that's the tightness and what's happening in their fascia or their muscles or their joints where you're like whoa something's going on here.

Is there something you're not dealing with right now or that you've been thinking about or that you're holding in because your body is telling you that?

Right and doing work as a chiropractor and putting my hands on people it's helpful when you touch someone to help them be aware of it and makes it more acute and something that they can't ignore and it doesn't always the answer isn't always what they want to hear either.

Right.

So it's a gentle very gentle topic that we have to go over but you know every single experience that's ever happened to you is in your body and that's just it's just slowly gets uncovered and putting hands on is helpful.

So I'm a big advocate of body care any kind of body care especially as an athlete or a performer just to help your body work through and assimilate all that goes on in your days.

But then again that's just that whole awareness of so a mental awareness a physical awareness that's that whole kind of foundational piece and then the next one we moved on to once that awareness is there was that self-talk and just being aware of what you're thinking.

Yes.

Yeah and you know we have these thoughts and it ironically we answer ourselves in our head and we have dialogues in our head and we create stories in our head but you know listening to how we talk to ourselves I just was talking to an athlete yesterday about you know how do you motivate yourself and a lot of it's like through not being enough I gotta do more I gotta do this better person doesn't like me you know we just talked about more instructional dialogue self-talk versus just critical dialogue and then making someone aware that they're thinking that because a lot of us aren't aware that we're talking we're motivating negatively I mean it's okay to motivate negatively but what if you also incorporate a positive motivation how would that look and feel it's almost just like I remember again dr.

Hog that had talked about that we don't we may may not realize what that voice is because it's like white noise in the background but it's there we just don't consciously I think that's what we do it it happens so constantly that it is a little bit like white noise it's background material and so we start naming it so we until we start realizing wow I didn't realize I was dialoguing with myself or talking to myself like that for so long and and we know even from you know as my work as a psychologist working with people's anxiety and depression who are you know not at not athletes but that research really shows you know cognitively we get very negative with ourselves and I know people performance anxiety as athletes and that same truism holds for them is sort of like what's that anxiety about normally it's about like pressure putting pressure dialogue in your head and then the perception is oh my god I got to perform and then from a physical standpoint when you're doing that kind of talk you create tension in your body and then when tension happens you create you know decrease in performance because your body is lacking efficiency so it's this slippery slope so you know getting a hold of the mind game can exponentially benefit you as an athlete and as a person living in life because these things you can take to your life as well not just in your sport and that's what we both love about it it's applicable to life well and it's like and like you said it's a slippery slope but it's also that snowball effect is massive yes once you go athlete has had like a bad day and you're thinking negatively and then you start to get a headache or your shoulders hurting your back hurts and it's like you carry that tension in your body yeah so I'm thinking like a golfer or someone like that you know you begin to grip your club harder think that's how it comes out that's how our mind and body are connected yeah well it's just allowing that fluidity to happen I guess you know that smoothness again that tight the tightening is what makes things all choppy and not smooth and almost robotic of sorts but so then that thinking now I'm gonna ask a really tough question is so this negative critical thought and I know that researchers can only gather so much information for something that's hard to quantify and hard to like put a number or a black and white statistic to but what are your thoughts about upbringing and child rearing and how that affects negative talk or the amount of negative talk again I'm an auntie many times over so I think about and I you know you observe parenting and you see you know parents who are very supportive of the children will their children be better at having good foundational positive talk or again I'm just I'm just asking just ask you know I know there's really controversy about that dr.

Face nighter I saw a YouTube video on her regarding Robin Williams about you know him committing suicide and she talked a lot about feeling like you're not enough and then it begins with your parents or your parents dialogue or some adult in your life having an influence on you where you feel like you have to please them and you can't talking about that being related to some of some of our emotions which in turn is probably related to some of our thoughts so I think a coach or a parent has a big influence on the dialogue they use and I think we pick that up as athletes and children and kids or whatever that you know we see adults and we hear what they say to us and those are our earliest influences I do believe that that dialogue has a big impact on us because it made me think as I was dealing with some younger athletes this week or this past week I really have to watch what I say because it could come across even though I have the best of intentions it could come across in a negative way because of someone else's experiences or because their understanding of what those words mean from someone else yes I have a negative connotation and I didn't know right right you don't know what they bring to the court right you don't know what I call it like luggage or baggage or you know we don't know what they're hauling in and how your word might trigger something that you know makes them think of something negative in their past you don't know yeah but that's what keeps it challenging for me but it makes me even more now I have a different awareness and mindfulness now as a coach an athlete then I just mice the scope of what I need to focus on is different but I like the challenge of it at this point I love the concept of language even I you know I did some training in hypnosis so one of the things takeaway I took from that is how we phrase things in the language we use is so important for opening up a person or shutting down a person you know think about possibilities you know the language you use is so important in terms of how to what it evokes in people the emotions that it books and well and I was even dealing with one of the I was watching and I seem to be observing so much more now which is awesome but I was doing a camp and I was observing another coach just on the sideline just you know you want to learn you want to learn from others and I noticed that more negative words so almost like the glass is half empty conversation was happening more than the glasses have full conversation so their coaching style was more identifying errors versus recognizing good performance yeah and I could even see from that person's group to another coaches group just the difference in energy that happened once that was going on this is huge Andrea you've hit a huge point really huge poet about energy energy and motion mmm actually looks like that sounds like positive psychology which is really a growing feeling it's looking at how do we help people build on their strengths versus looking at weaknesses and one of the things of positive psychology really talks about is how do we assist people to be you know feel good be resilient cope better and and that's what you're talking about our language and social support is huge for that well that's why I was sitting there thinking you know with the whole self-talk do we replicate what we hear from others when we talk to ourselves so that if that coach is being negative and talking about errors and mistakes then does that become the white noise that plays and repeats in the background for these kids that hear this yes and that's where these kids can be trained about mindfulness which is awareness if they can then be aware that the coach is doing negative talk then they have to be aware of what their talk is because normally it doesn't happen with awareness normally you just do what the coach says and you know and you don't think about it and then before you know it you're negative self-talking and negative motivating yourself to perform when if you understood the concept that if you apply positive psychology as a coach but then also as a player you're gonna get yourself more lined up with where you want to be because I have to admit yeah as an athlete I would more often it just thinking back now my brain still works and I think I can remember some of these things I would hear coaches voices in my head versus my own voice like literally the the sound of their voice versus my own voice talking to me I still hear my coaches oh yeah I still I 20 years later right I can smell you know the gym I can see his face yes everything yeah but again I mean I I didn't have the luxury of being of having a sports psychologist until later on in my career but I now becoming more aware of these things going yeah aha moments I'm having them they're popping all over the place yeah and that's really awesome as a coach to have that awareness to mostly you nail it on the head to step back and observe because that's the biggest thing you can do as a player as well as a performer an athlete is observe what's going on take that moment observe it and then choose how you want to be that's the best part about all this training is you get to choose and you can direct your thoughts however you like and it takes practice and it takes perseverance and it takes non-judgment of yourself and it's really a fun adventure once you get involved in it but getting to that point getting to the point where you build that foundation which I'm sure takes the longest time of all of all the different steps in the pyramid I'm assuming that it takes the longest time to get there because they're either you get it or you don't well and you know some days you're you're more aware of it and then some days you sink back in to you know old habits you forget you're lost in your own head or you're lost at what the coach said you get we all have that we've all had days where we get lost and until someone we talk to someone or we we sort of like wake up and say wait a minute I'm like I'm tired of this I got to change my focus and and you know so I think you're right I think that the foundation is is really really important and that you know that's awareness and we have to build that but then once you have that then you can start to effectively set goals and different types of goals that we talked about the last time where it's not just a result goal or before a goal but it could be you know action goals or tasks or steps or like a process how yeah going through the process or the steps towards it so you have those short-term type of things or an aspect of a skill that you focus on not necessarily the overall skill itself kind of thing exactly which which I again it was oh I didn't realize I did that right I didn't I would have been so frustrated like I would have felt all that negative talk would have been incessant because nothing would have gone right or I wouldn't been able to have any sense of control of anything right if I didn't break it down or I didn't at least give myself the leeway to just get this one little part good and that's right coaches words are so important so we shape behavior in kids very early on by like helping them focus on what we want them to do and I think that you want to coaches more a negative tone they often point out what's wrong what I don't want you to do but we at some point it's really helpful to have the flip side and to me that's awareness is like okay now what do you want from me and can I can the coach articulate that or can I get that and put that in my head what's wanted what's wanted how do I do that how I do that versus what you don't want right well the hard part is is the whole communication piece number one is coaches have a certain communication style a lot of times it is they're dictating expectation but the athlete I know well as an athlete I just shut up you don't say anything because if you say something you may get in trouble then you're reprimanded then you lose your respect of your teammates then you think that you're gonna get cut so you just shut up but having athletes communicate what they're thinking how they're feeling how they need what they need from the coach to help them is so key but I think it's not enforced at all at least in the younger ages I don't see it and I find myself questioning myself as a coach a lot being wow what was it like to be 15 not you know boyfriend just broke up with you you have a pimple a zit on the top of your head your parents are watching you got your period for the first time you have to perform this weekend you have cramp like yep but but yet you are at a high level this is one game that you get in the entire season suck it up shut up get it done but you're not thinking about the realities of what could be detracting from their performance and how that also affects their teammates and I think you know I think we're really resilient people and I think somehow when you get into the moment you love your game that without knowing it you probably are you know in the zone or being mindful versus thinking so remember that when we're performing at a high level we're pretty good at blocking some stuff out and just being in the moment I think when we're really struggling is when we start to analyze well what could I do different or how can practice be different how can I enhance my mind because I don't get those moments all the time or I get them just sometime how do I get more often so I do think high-level athletes have a even edge and an edge and they kind of can get there and block some of that out and so it's like coping mechanism yeah it's like teaching them that that's what they're doing you know that they have this instinct you know instinctual aspect in them to block things out and to be in the moment so it's like helping them build that that's to me is positive psychology building their strength by making them more aware of this is what you're doing so how do you apply that more often and actually maybe triggering that like I remember someone had mentioned this to me a county member who but it was when you talked about when you lose when you lose it a little bit when you you can have you know that you can have focus but then some days it's really really hard that it's almost like you wake up in the morning and it's pitch blackout and you you're running your hands along the wall trying to find the light switch and you don't know where it is like you're just trying to run your hands trying to find it but you know what's there and you just have to find that moment where you you feel the switch and you flip it yeah I think that's what this is a little bit about is like making us understand a little bit how the mind works what's the zone like what's flow like how do we get there more consciously versus just hope we get there and that's really ultimately what we're talking about is because you know research on a I think Cal State or UCLA somewhere is like really looking at how stressed like the 17 18 19 year old population is extremely nowadays my goodness I would not want to be there them at this point really well yeah and so I think we're gonna come to a point we're gonna really start teaching these tools more and more is you know coping mechanisms both for sport but in general life stress right and one of the best coping mechanisms is awareness right but one of the things that when you talk about stress I'll immediately think of meditation like I think of my yoga practice I think of my breathing I think of just slowing everything down and literally blacking everything out like you said it's almost like taking it to the extreme when you say that when as an athlete you cope and you kind of block out the things that are unnecessary in the moment right I find meditation is where I create my cocoon like fully and completely it's my most selfish time of the day and it's just me rejuvenating me is how I feel about meditation but I mean you're the next what would you call or what would you consider meditation and how it's utilized in in sport well I think we're separating two terms here mindfulness sometimes get can gets confused that that is meditation okay really two separate things and meditation is a way I think to self-wake calm but also to build mindfulness it's because when you do meditation you you'll you know quickly see how many thoughts you have roaming through your mind and so there's a lot of different types of meditation but the idea really is to make friends with your mind I like that make friends with your mind because some days I want to kick my brains in the face like I well again I mean let's reiterate that meditation and mindfulness they're separate but they don't mean don't have any thoughts because if you sit down and try to meditate and I'm going to block out all my thoughts you know darn well the thoughts are going to come fly into your head so the idea is we got to reset the compass here the idea is to sit down for a little while in your cocoon and take a moment to realize that you're having thoughts and then to not put judgment on the thoughts one of my teachers taught me to to look at the thoughts as like clouds they're they're coming and they're floating by and they're there and if you just make a mental note I'm having a lot of thoughts right now and that's okay I'm just going to let them float by it's almost like you're watching them move and you're not engaging in them and you're not letting them take you on that ride which is a interesting thing because you'll have a thought pop up in meditation and all the sudden you've gone down the wormhole of that thought and you've already had a whole movie inside of your head before you even know that you're thinking right and so that that too is practice that's awareness and that is a form of mindfulness is just awareness of your thoughts but then also being able to hone into them as well too because I as you talked about the clouds and I start thinking about okay lying down in the grass looking up into the sky and the wind is blowing and you see the clouds go by and then you sit there going I think that looks like a rabbit right rabbit oh I went hunting with my dad yeah yeah and then the stream of the stream of thoughts I kind of go with it but then I mean you're really saying thoughts are like breathing and your blood flowing it's they it's just happening so don't fight it because I keep on thinking I mean these are again words that I hear in my coach's voice don't think just do don't think I just do just don't right right where that's not necessarily the communication we should be using it's you know think or or even just thoughts will happen but manage your thoughts or like I'm trying to think of the right words to say to help someone understand that those are okay but how to harness them the right way right when you're when you're first beginning out some of the best steps to do is to simply name like count your breath and more than likely like you know I'm pretty I'm breathing in I'm breathing out and within two breaths you're gonna have a thought and that's the process and it's not a failure it's just an awareness and then you say oh I just had a thought and then you come back and you count I'm breathing in and breathing out I wish I didn't have done that at practice oh I'm having another thought again and you just continually do that you set a timer you do it for a short period of time say five minutes to start and you do it and you there is no failure or success you just simply sit and watch your mind work because when you're doing it in your quiet time then you can get stronger to bring it into your practice time right and yeah like you said brushing teeth is another great way that's a form of meditation but it's a form of awareness you know you're becoming aware of what your action is and a lot of times coaches say don't think just do a better way to say it would be do this particular action right now rather than saying don't think do it you need a particular thing to focus on just like when you're sitting in meditation you're focusing on counting your breath if a coach could direct a player to what they want them to do that would be mindful maybe quicker for your brain I think Jim Lair said it really good he's got a great quote that we have in our chapter here in the book when we achieve the right focus we are properly mindful of what we're doing awareness and action merge and I think that's really what we're looking at doing yeah it's like that's why a lot of meditations actually give you a focus it depends on the type of meditation you do but some have you do a mantra which is the repetition of a you know a word or a Sanskrit saying some have you count your breath like what clean was just saying it's giving you a focus to go back to when you're when you're um you know going through a lot of clouds it's like okay where do I put my mind this is where I'm gonna put my mind and even runners or other athletes do that naturally think if I know some people I've talked to that they'll say when they're doing a marathon they'll end up like counting or saying a word over and over and over and over the whole idea is is limit around decreasing the amount of mind chatter by giving yourself a more focused I would I would absolutely when I during my marathons it would be I would count out my inhales and my exhales to balance them out yeah yeah that's a meditation or even just I but then it also had that positive self-talk too or just like when negative thoughts start to come in every time I would take a step I would squash the negative thought like yeah myself like squishing it into the ground time I took a step right I start counting my breathing three inhales out you know three inhales and then two exhales or four inhales and three exhales like I would just but my brain just felt like it was exhausted by the end of it but you were giving yourself a focus though and that's what got you through it and you naturally did that you didn't need a name for it you just did it and that's a powerful thing you just did my squashing exercise yeah that's a great mental tool yeah I think meditation helps helps us practice that one centered focus which sometimes we have in sports and I think the other thing meditation does is it just gives you a moment to to slow down and like just check in and I think that's what's so important with all these studies showing how much stress were under you know mental health issues increasing we really need somehow to just check in and slow down now I'm gonna bring to the table I guess some preconceived notions of what meditation is I think of what I mean I was like number one I was not into yoga I thought yoga was for wimps and people who couldn't go to the gym and all this back in the day now I've obviously matured a little bit since then but people think meditation they think ohm they think Sanskrit they think sitting in lotus position at a yoga studio but what or that you have to do it for long periods of time and you have to dedicate time out of your day which even makes it feel even more stressful to write what what is meditation as a as I guess a structure that you would say this is what meditation is and how you can make it as shorter as long as you need or the different variations or alternatives or options within meditation that you could you could explain a little bit for me meditation is like taking your computer and restarting it that's a that's how I see meditation whether it's I don't give myself a framework I don't have to do meditation for 60 minutes a day I see meditation if it's 30 seconds or a minute in my day then that's my time and if it's a 10 minute thing then that's what I do but I see meditation as a foundation to reset my body and my mind and to align them together just for a few minutes I start off easy just a couple minutes a day and then if I have more time in my day and it feels right then I'll add in more time but I'm careful about being judgmental about how much time I put on meditation and I'm different I have a practice of doing it every single morning and it's it's just built into my day it's the very first thing I do I always do 10 to 15 minutes and I don't know I to me it makes such a difference I usually feel like my day starts out really different when I when I do that versus those days I miss it and I can really tell on the days I miss it it's like if you don't brush your teeth in the morning and you go to the coffee shop they know you can't lie to yourself but you know there's also some great fantastic research coming out about we used to think that once you had you know your trail set in your brain like your pathways were set for life you know that meditations really allowing people to help reset some things in your brain and you think better some studies are really showing that your executive functioning improves which is like a reason in planning you know planning your day things like that actually is improved with with a meditation practice but you know let's be realistic here if I think back to being 16 17 18 19 20 that whole age group if someone told me to meditate without any direction I wouldn't do it I would do exactly what you'd say I you know that's stupid that's a waste of my time I should be out practicing my sport right however if I had a coach or a teacher or you know a professor at a university that introduced me to meditation I would probably try it yeah so I mean I think there's some we have to understand that some of this requires some maturity to actually understand why it's important to sit down but if you have some coaching behind it as a younger athlete or some direction or leadership I think it can be taught as a lifelong skill but I wouldn't personally do it on my own I was 19 I would need some direction yeah I'd much rather be hanging out with my friends or you know I've got home yes I think if you do it as a team you know think then you're with your friends your friends are doing it then you can all feel acceptable yeah I want to be outside the norm or the rebel or the weird one like you want to be accepted and that's one of those big things about human nature is we want to be accepted by others right we want respect of our peers absolutely but I did want to bring this up though is again another preconceived notion is you need to be in a totally quiet place no noise no lights what is the environment that is kind of ideal for meditation or is that different for everyone it's different for everyone I mean I consider my running and swimming meditation I feel like I could totally get into a zone when I'm swimming laps so I consider that a meditation because I direct where my where my mind goes during that and I have a full focus that I give myself but so I'm in a pool I mean other people feel like you have to be in a quiet room but I think you can be in a gym a pool a track you know quietly in your bedroom you know wherever I personally think it takes both I think you need a little bit of silent time somewhere in your world where you're unplugged your phones put away your electronics are off just for a little while it doesn't have to be seated but I just think a little bit of quiet and Chris brought up the point that that happens when she's in a pool but I do think really delineating I need some quiet time and then you need you can create meditation through movement too you know when you're out and about you can meditate through the noise no there is no perfect place for meditation but just being aware of it yeah and that just kind of makes me think again of what kind of skill do do I have that helps me to quiet the noise and I guess that's also that those mine those mindful skills of if you're really good at or if you've had a lot of practice in zoning things out and getting in the zone and getting and hitting flow theory and all that other stuff you could do it anywhere right right if you if you have that skill but otherwise you probably have to start off where you're in a place where you don't have to worry about your phone going off or that because that's a thought that goes in your mind as you're lying there on the ground going oh crap is is my son gonna call because he needs a ride right is someone gonna open the door on me when I'm in here or is the phone gonna ring or is my am I gonna get gonna get text or an email is gonna go off on my computer or I have a deadline and I totally forgot those are probably the worst distractions are the things that you know could happen because our lives are so fast nowadays right so when you're starting off as a meditator you have to start somewhere and you have to set the framework for yourself to learn it and then as you progress as a meditator and as a awareness performer an athlete then you can apply it you know to life but I do I agree with you I think you have to have some sort of boundaries in the beginning yeah I think shutting your phone off you know those are really good parameters again I'm thinking like I'm sure like every yoga class I had we end our yoga class with a short meditation I'm sure you do too I'm just thinking every team could do that once or twice a week you know end with a body scan check in with yourself and let's focus on your breathing for a few minutes you know what you're starting to teach it you know at this point I have our girls do skipping so we actually do skipping training at the very end yeah and the rhythm of the rope I find is very calming yeah it's like chanting it is and you know I may actually try that with the girls and have them kind of ease down really listen to the sound of the rope and give that something to focus on yes and even have them close their eyes because then that helps on their balance and so on and so forth but kind of give them something without them realizing it that helps them to find a rhythm a balance a harmony where even if their whistles going off in the gym they're focusing on that and then and then kind of seeing what I can do from there yeah and then as soon as they stop jumping you know an idea would be to have them close their eyes all of them so they're all doing it together and breathe no tune into their breathing you know and slowing down their breath because they're gonna be at an elevated rate at that yeah close your eyes and slow down their breath like practice doing that practice doing management of your breath technically you're teaching mindfulness there you're just not giving it a name and that's important and that's the stuff that it's exercise and I'm doing my job what you're giving them a cool moment they're gonna feel that like oh I love that minute when we slow down we just check in right yeah we have another good quote from Tidna Han he's a famous Buddhist monk who teaches my mindfulness and the quote is the breath is the intersection of the body and the mind so when you do breath work you are actually helping your body and your mind line up and work together so that I mean what you just said there Andrea is an awesome way to conclude a class you know you could even add positive mantras somewhere down the road too you know you guys are strong you're you're getting stronger you're able to jump rope really well you know what I mean you can add in the positive things without just having them hear it helps their body and their mind line up and then conclude with breathing well and it also they do skipping at home once a week as well too so that it's kind of translated into their home life and hopefully these are skills or routines that we can get them into that translate away from the gym as well too that they may not realize be helping them in other ways yeah they'll subconsciously even do it at home okay I'm done skipping I guess slow my breathing down that's how we do in practice meanwhile I'll tell their parents I'll be like if your kids are being a pain in the ass tell me to go skip just tell them to get yeah you'll thank me for it later actually that has been proven to help when you need to get clear in your mind if you do something like a skip that helps increase your testosterone levels which gets your mind clear it's absolutely true I'm brilliant and I guess you are well we're just gonna end on a positive nervous well it's already that time you guys I can't again I love the time that we have together I learned so much you guys get my brain it's almost like I was skipping before we started because my brain is already like so focused and ready to go but I wanted to thank you for your time today we got I'm I'm kind of sad that we we only have a couple more sessions just to go through this section of mindfulness awareness psychology in the pyramid but I look forward to the next time we get to sit and chat and have our coffee and kind of go over connection and recovery yeah that's a great topic yeah mindfulness and recovery is really fun well you guys enjoy the rest of your week Chris have fun going back to school oh I will I will and enjoy your gorgeous fall I'm I know it's sad that the summer is going away but it's it's a beautiful transition at least to where you're at yeah into the winter time awesome thanks Andrea appreciate it have a great week okay you say bye bye now It means everything You miss a beat,

You lose a rhythm And nothing falls into place No!

Only missed by a fraction Set the level of your pace Oh!

The more things you get,

The more you want Just pay in one or the other Workin' so hard to make it easy Oh!

Got the gun Come on!

Turn this thing around Right now!

Hey!

It's your tomorrow Right now!

Come on!

It's everything Right now!

Catch that fancy moment Do it right here and now It means everything Still like me Right now What are you waiting for?

Oh!

Yeah!

Right now!

Hey!

It's your tomorrow Right now!

Come on!

It's everything Right now!

Catch that fancy moment Do it right here and now Oh!

Right now!

What's happening?

Right here and now Right now!

Right now!

Oh!

Yeah!

What are you waiting for?

Turn this thing around Turn this thing around

Reviews

Very informative and insightful. I'm going to try using this in my match today.

It took a little while to get going but....
I really enjoyed this podcast....a lot of useful information of simply becoming aware of my own thoughts.
'Meditation...make friends with your mind.'
Thank you very much ❤️🙏🏻🌏🌿