Unedited Show Transcripts – December 2020 – Sensation and all the feels – Eowyn Levene
Unknown Speaker
sensation. It’s a noun. A physical feeling or perception was assaulting from something that happens to or come into contact with a body, a burning sensation in the middle of the chest. Welcome to this week’s episode of brownie journey where we’re going to talk about sensation. I’m excited to have my guests, Ellen Levine here to discuss the word sensation. Hi, we’ve discussed vibration before. So I’m super excited, because when you first suggested by Eric sensation, I was like, Oh, we’ve talked about vibration. But when I read what you mentioned, and your thoughts of it, it’s kind of like, yeah, I want to talk about that. So let me introduce you. I’m super excited to hear a win.
Unknown Speaker
So he wins and money coach for creatives, she was a massage therapist, still his longtime massage therapist, but what I think is so cool is being a creative myself. And having been an aesthetician, there is a lot of mindset around money and that we struggle. So I think that you being a mindset, money coach for creatives is so needed, like, I need to hook you up with every one of my clients from cmd. Because there is that, that blockage. So I love that you want to talk about sensation. Because you said to me, it’s the immense power and impact that comes from learning to feel your feelings and knowing you can cope with any and all feelings. And I think that’s so right. Because as a creative, you think, Oh, I’m creative. I can’t benefit from this. I can’t profit from this. And that’s so wrong. So tell us more. Why did you pick the word, sensation? Let’s get started. Actually, let’s start with tell us a little bit more about you who is a win.
Unknown Speaker
All right, I named my business palm tree money as a reference to the inherent abundance in nature. And also, though, a reference to my personal life. So my first love despite these mentions of money, and massage, and being a money coach is working with nature and growing food and regenerative farming. That’s kind of the heart of who I am. And the deep level of interest that threads throughout my life. And my life has gone a variety of different ways. But that’s still kind of my guiding light in terms of what I dream of long term in life. And in terms of what I’m really up to, yes, I have been a massage therapist in private practice in New York City in Manhattan for eight plus years now. And I have been doing my pandemic pivot. So March 2020, everything shut down here in the city, including my office, and I had a lot of time on my hands. And I finally explored what was a long time wish to develop a new business that I would grow alongside my massage practice. And so I have been doing that. And I have started working with a bunch of wonderful creatives and different fields. And I use that word loosely, all human beings are creative. But yeah, so some other people in the wellness profession, I just signer and a musician, so a variety of creative people. And my goal is to help them get out of debt, build more savings, create financial stability for themselves, so that they’re not distracted, honestly, by the chaos and the hustle around money and financial management, which can be a real factor as you recognize. Well, and it’s especially a real factor
Unknown Speaker
in 2020. Yeah, as we’re all like you said, you’re in New York, it was completely shut down. And I remember when we talked to the first time, I didn’t remember where you said, and you were kind of in the northern part of the US. And I’ve got a lot of clients in New York and watching what they’ve gone through and every experience they’ve had have shut down. It’s really intense. So money is a huge thing. I want to step back for a second there. Yeah, you talked about that you named your company in poetry because you have such a love of me and sustainability and things like that. And how do you do that New York?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, how do you do that in New York, I have a 12 foot by 10 foot garden box in a community plots, which is a few blocks for me. And so that’s my current literal outlet. But it’s more it’s partly about how I consume my food and where I choose to purchase food and where I spend the money that I have available to support causes that I believe in. So it’s sort of there as a background, but it’s also I feel like, if you’re an ambitious person, which I definitely consider myself to be you need, you need. It’s not even that you need it. But those of us who are ambitious, we tend to have a larger vision that’s pulling us forward. And that can change over time. Of course. But the vision that’s been present for me since it was 2009 has been some version of taking a piece of land in need of love transforming it into a place that’s good for humans to live in and is productive, and is a marriage of human needs and supporting the natural cycles on the land. Yeah, me too. So that’s just there in the background. And I have no idea how it’ll take shape. But it definitely is a presence in my life. Mm.
Unknown Speaker
Well, and that’s something we all have to listen to you and I have this feeling that we’re going to go so off track from sensation, just from all the notes, I’ve already written of what you’ve said that I want to revisit. And I’d love that you’re gardening in New York, like I want to bet property for that, because I’m in little suburbia, highpoint, North Carolina. And my garden is so big for just my little neighborhood that and my husband has a huge woodshop outside. And we always say whoever buys this house, when we move is going to have to love gardening because of the plot. And his husband or their husband is gonna want to do word shopping. So nice. But it’s really neat that you can do that in New York. So tell me kind of when you grow like I’m fascinated by that, like, how do you make that work?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it’s a very new york experience in that you sign up for a lottery and there’s a bunch of people there and you have to get lucky. So I sat there during the lottery, and I got lucky I was picked number 51 and 53 plots. So yeah, it’s a community garden is just a bunch of boxes and those who are interested can go and do whatever they want with it and I selected so I, I have a lot of experience growing food. I’m trained in organic farming and gardening and could definitely have gone that route. But I decided I wanted to have fresh flowers for the house. So I grew a combination of dahlias and seniors. I grew some giant amaranth and then a bunch of herbs as well. bazel to make pesto that was my one food ish item. And then margarine, which is so fun. And I grew borage, which doesn’t make a great cut flower, but it’s amazing for the bees, you know, there nectaries refill every two hours. That’s why insects love borage so much. Now, I
Unknown Speaker
did not know that
Unknown Speaker
I let me write that one
Unknown Speaker
down. But they’re very busy plants in addition to being delicious and beautiful. That’s,
Unknown Speaker
I love that you’re sharing that because I’m a huge gardener and process of food. And I have a girlfriend who’s my spirit sister, and she’s a huge flower person. So this year is funny enough. She started gardening vegetables and I started gardening flowers. And like the two neighbors where I live both on both sides of us use fertilizer chemical like they have their yards treated every month. And I when I first moved in 10 years ago, I had amazing amounts of bees and butterflies and I slowly watched it diminish
Unknown Speaker
and where I live. I mean, there’s like a street behind us. And then there’s a huge horse farm. So I’m not, you know, in the middle of city, but I’m in you know, there’s houses and stuff. So I’ve definitely watched that. And this year, I did a bee and butterfly flower pack and intertwine it with all of my vegetables. And it was the best garden I’ve had in years. And like I harvested all the seeds out of the flowers. I can’t wait to plant them. So I love that you’re doing flowers too, because not just do we need to grow organic fruit and vegetables. But we have to grow the flowers, especially in a city like that. Where you really need to give the bees and the butterflies something.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah,
Unknown Speaker
it’s incredible the hum around that garden all throughout the summer.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
That’s amazing. So my last question about that, because I still find it so fascinating. Yeah. Because, you know, I grew up on like three and a half acres of land. So you know, we have the garden and everything. So do you get to keep the plot next year? Or do you go back in the lottery again?
Unknown Speaker
No, I get it for two years. But we don’t have access from the end of November to the beginning of April. So there’s a limit to sort of how much I can do in the spring. But yeah, yeah, I get it for two years, which feels very luxurious.
Unknown Speaker
Yes. And can you reapply in a lottery or are you like out once you’re out and then you can
Unknown Speaker
reapply the the lottery system, it skews towards those who live closest. And so it’s actually in a state park, which means anyone in New York state can apply for this community garden. And there are some old ladies that come up from Staten Island, which takes probably a couple hours for them to get there. Maybe more. But there are folks there who’ve had plots year after year after year. Yeah. Wow. That’s super cool.
Unknown Speaker
Well, I will ask that you send us a picture or two and
Unknown Speaker
we will send you flower pictures. Okay. I would love to be able to put that on the show notes. to kind of share
Unknown Speaker
because to me, like I said, That’s fascinating because it’s such a different, it’s a different environment. It’s a different experience. And we’re so close yet so far away that it’s like, wow, that I’ve never really thought about how that works.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
Okay, so I still have a couple more things down. So let’s revisit.
Unknown Speaker
Um, okay, so
Unknown Speaker
one of the things that you said, and this really struck a chord for me, because I’ve been working a lot on it is creative, that everybody’s creative. And I love that. Because my professional training and I’ve talked about the saber neighbors, if my listeners are gonna be like, yeah, yeah, we get it, your planner
Unknown Speaker
will tell me, right.
Unknown Speaker
So I’m a graphic designer, I am in a creative agency, the podcast started as a way for me to learn how to do podcasting for clients. I love with it. Now, podcasting is just what I do, because it’s what I want to do for fun.
Unknown Speaker
Mm hmm.
Unknown Speaker
But one of the things I struggle with is being creative, even as a creative. I mean, as a graphic designer, as a creative agency. Yeah, because there’s Pinterest. There’s Etsy, you know, there’s all these other things that we look at. And we’re like, oh, I’m not that creative. Like I’m drawing a stick figure, you know, so it’s fun to talk about how, and one of the things, you know, kind of dabble with is we’re going to talk about Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, in our bonus episode, and that’s a whole book about being creative and giving yourself the permission. Yeah, be creative.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. Agreed. Yeah, I think creativity. I mean, one of the things I love about Big Magic, which we’ll talk more about, of course, but she understands it to be her core connection to the divine. And I think you can, you can talk about that in different ways. So it’s not necessary to believe in the Great God in the sky on high in order to feel that creativity is somehow about tapping into the transcendent and tapping in to the best of us and tapping into imagination and big ideas and things that excite us. And I think that those aspects of being a human being play and no matter what you do, you could be the most boring list of number crunchers. Or, I don’t know, I mean, I worked as a bookkeeper for years on the side, which is partly the experience that I pull from when I teach people how to work on their money stuff. But you can be in the most boring work, but you know, in the context of your relationships, including your relationship to yourself, or just cooking meals, or, yeah, gardening, there are so many areas in life as a human being regardless of what you do for your job or your work that involve creativity.
Unknown Speaker
the way that pleasure I eat really great sensation gives us energy if necessary, nurturing and healing. I love that because that’s so second chakra. Creativity, it’s your state girl, because that’s where everything’s created. And it’s in that sense of being creative creation. You know, we don’t have to limit ourselves to looking at all these great things on Pinterest, or all these things on Etsy, we can just allow ourselves to flow and feel that what makes you happy, like sewing makes me happy. It looks like crap. But it makes me happy. So I’ve got a whole bunch of yoga bags that I made that are you know, so it’s feeling that pleasure and allowing it to flow creatively for you, whatever that looks like. Yeah, I
Unknown Speaker
think creativity is about curiosity and imagination and playfulness and exploration. It’s not about pleasing aesthetics. Um, you know, there can be a conflation between the aesthetic experience and creativity and they really, they have nothing to do with each other. Especially since you know, someone’s the aesthetics that please, someone will offend someone else, you know, it’s very subjective.
Unknown Speaker
It’s artwork, you know, it’s Picasso versus modern art, or who likes what and it’s feeling that what brings you that pleasurable sensation. And how do you feel that you know where do you feel that sensation?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. I think you have to, you know, if you’re going to if you’re going to invite Creative state for yourself, there has to be some openness, and there has to be some energy available to tap into. And there, there has to be an openness and openness that whatever it is that you’re about to make, is something worth making. And so the reason that I brought pleasure up just to begin with, is in the context of my work doing massage therapy
Unknown Speaker
And interestingly enough, clients often have this real experience of just feeling a lot more happy and positive at the end. And I do think it’s more than just the relaxation. I think there’s this sort of synthesis that happens, this kind of magic that happens. And yeah, so there’s sort of positive, more positive and uplifted feeling. And also for a lot of people creativity comes through as well, they get new ideas when they’re on the table, and find solutions to problems during the massage, even if they’re not consciously trying to work on them.
Unknown Speaker
When I think part of that, because like, my great ideas come in the shower, because it’s the only place that the dogs are begging me for food, my son’s been asking me
Unknown Speaker
something my husband’s not talking to me. So part of that I think on the massage table is that we allow ourselves to quiet down. I’m a huge meditator, I love meditation and yoga. But so often people don’t take the time for that, or they look at yoga as exercise instead of kind of a spiritual practice, which is just how I view it. It’s totally, you know, whatever, for whoever. But I definitely can see that that happens, that you get your great ideas, and you become creative, because you’re allowing that sensation and that quiet calm. Mm hm.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. I think also, another gift of just acknowledging sensation is, so let’s imagine meditation. For a lot of people. Within meditation, if they’re new to it, they start to hear the kind of Monkey mine and the soundtrack and the inner mean, girl, I listened to a podcast, which I really love, and she calls it her in a mean girl, but just these voices in our head, you know, these tracks that our brain runs on, and we can become more conscious of those in a way that we’ve been actively trying to avoid. And so there can be a lot of feeling that comes up as well. And I think one of the reasons I was so interested in the word sensation is because both in terms of the work I do for myself, so they can show up in my business and do what I want to do with this new business I’m going but also in the work that I do with clients. Getting good with just sitting with your emotions, I think that’s where that superpower really comes in is learning to sit with your emotions and learning to understand that emotions as opposed to something to especially negative emotions. They’re not, they’re an invitation to experience like all emotion, they’re not an invitation to get rid of a negative experience, because ultimately fear and anxiety and nervousness and loneliness and all these things that we may call negative. Ultimately, they are just sensations in the body. And it’s possible to sort of de polarize the experience of those negative emotions by learning to just sit with them and notice them as sensation. And I think that’s a core teaching that happens within within a lot of medications, medication, meditation instruction. And actually, I think one of the books when you asked what books I might be interested in chatting about one of them was radical acceptance by Tara Brock. And one of her core teachings is just that learning learning to associate sensation with emotion and acknowledge emotion as simply that.
Unknown Speaker
I love that you brought up radical acceptance because I started reading it. I’m listening to the audiobook of it since you suggested it, but I haven’t gotten through it far enough to have the conversation. So it’s like, oh, let’s talk about Big Magic. That’s
Unknown Speaker
sure no, yes. Oh, I was I was just gonna say if you’ve not encountered her work before, she’s she’s a pretty special teacher. And she has a good sense of humor as well, which I always appreciate.
Unknown Speaker
Well, I’ve been working through hers and jack kornfield mindfulness, it’s a seven week course or you can stretch it into 13 weeks and I’ve kind of been doing this 13 weeks because I really, really want To connect with it, and I came to the course, as a huge jack fan, I’m such a jack fan. So being introduced to her and then having you mentioned that book, I’m like, Oh,
Unknown Speaker
I think I’m gonna check that
Unknown Speaker
out. And I’m the kind of person who when I listen to an audible, I will listen to it a little bit at night as I’m falling asleep. Or if I wake up, and I can’t fall asleep for a couple of hours. But then inevitably, I get two or three chapters in, and I’ve made so many notes in the clips of audible that I’m like, okay, I just have to buy the book and re, like, start in front and right read it, so I can write all through it. So, but it’s, I totally love her. And we’ll have to have you back on sometime. Once I finish radical just didn’t talk about that. It’s like, an extra bonus bonus episode.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, her podcast is amazing as well. It literally saved my life at one point.
Unknown Speaker
she does weekly talks at the insight. I think it’s called the insight meditation community in Bethesda, Maryland. And these get those get recorded. And those are the podcast episodes. Okay.
Unknown Speaker
Like I said, I’ve just gotten to know her through taking the jack kornfield program. And it’s been really neat. Yeah. So I’m gonna take it back a second, so that our listeners are all able to kind of like jump around with us, because we’re all over the place. I love that you talked about sitting with your emotions. Because I know, when I first started hearing that, and when people first started telling me, you know, mission play lasts a certain amount of time, if you don’t hold on to them. And I’m like, but no, I want to hold on to them, like some of them feel so good that you want to hold on to them. And some of them you’re like, they feel so bad that you hold on to them. You don’t mean to but you definitely do. And to take it back to some more chakra work. You know,
Unknown Speaker
when you’re talking about the sacral chakra, that is a water element. So it’s about all about fluidity. And looking at your emotions is almost like they’re the logs in the dam, that can block up your energy flow. But that takes some real practice and some real learning to not be attached to your emotions. Because I know I’ve heard that so many times over and over again. But it’s it’s just hard to accept that that.
Unknown Speaker
also part of stepping out of the victim mentality into kind of a balanced inflow mentality, because then you don’t attach to this victim. And I mean, there’s like real victim situations, but I’m talking about just the way she looked at me funny, she didn’t like my dress, you know, like the ones in a work environment or somewhere you really hold on to where you’ve been triggered. And that that’s, you know, an interesting practice of learning to let go of your emotions.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. And I, for me, at least, it’s not about an attempt to never feel negative emotion again,
Unknown Speaker
think life is a real mixed bag, there’s a lot of beauty and wonderful experience available to us. But very mindful of toxic positivity, and not wanting to just gloss over the fact that there are genuine victims, and there are difficulties and there’s a lot of suffering in the world. And I think it’s appropriate to feel sorrow and anger and anxiety and, and, and hurt in certain circumstances. So for me, it’s not even about coming to a belief that emotion is transient. And you know, therefore, you’re not going to experience as much negative emotion I think it’s about I think it’s about inviting your conscious brain into the experience and your higher consciousness into the experience. So you know, it’s like our lower brain or lizard brain, it’s like constantly grasping after pleasure and pushing away pain, or negative sensation. And it’s sort of about decoupling that sort of instinctive relationship to emotions and inviting more consciousness and more awareness into the experience of emotions. So that when appropriate, you can choose to create new emotions for yourself, right. So if, you know maybe, if a lot of fear and resistance is getting in the way of some new work that you’re doing, or a new project you want to get into or changes that you want to make. So this is where it’s really relevant to the work I do with people around money. You know, if someone wants to change how they do things with money, a ton of resistance and fear and anxiety and boredom, like all of these things come up. And so where I think, again, the sensation comes in. And continuing with the thread about emotion is just that. If you can learn to notice the emotion you can remember to just feel it and experience it. And then you also want to identify what is the thought that’s causing this emotion. So, all of our emotions are caused by a thought whether conscious or unconscious in our minds. And so if you want to change how you do things, you want to change how you’re thinking about things, which will allow you to feel differently. And if you feel differently about things, you will behave differently and you will take different actions or you will refrain from certain actions that can often be the case that’s needed do. Yeah, so I feel like this question of emotion and what is emotion? And how do we relate to it? And how do we experience it? And how conscious is that experience is pivotal, because I think it’s all on a more sort of instinctive like lizard brain level, we don’t, we don’t invite that moment of freedom, which actually terror Brock calls the sacred pause. And, you know, this moment of experiencing emotion and taking, taking a beat before you respond or do anything as a result of it. And, yeah, I think these are really just core invitations to continue developing as a human being. And it’s a real skill. So learn to just sit with your emotion, feel it and decide if it’s the right thing to keep it or not.
Unknown Speaker
When I believe that we have to have those negative emotions, to appreciate the good emotion sometimes to you know, we have to have the rainy day to appreciate the sunny day, and try to tell myself that when I’m in the middle of the rainy day, like, Thank you rainy day, yeah, you for the fact that I am as grumpy as all get out and taking it out on everybody. Yeah. Because tomorrow, I’m going to be so appreciative of everybody, because they put up with my grumpy self, you know, so there’s that, we have to honor the the light in the dark. Like, that’s the whole spiritual thing of if you can’t run from the dark, the dark is what makes it light. And so it’s honoring this to you. And you know, one of the things you said was resistance and resistance, so often, I believe leads us because it’s the times that I don’t want to go into meditation, or I don’t want to go to somewhere. But you know, and there’s definitely that sense of feeling. Is it a warning or feeling? Is it just resistance because I have to move through that. And one of the things and Big Magic and I was trying to remember the exact quote when you were talking is she writes on our she’s like writing a letter or she’s talking to you fear, oh, yeah. And said Is it fear encouraged, what’s the other emotion,
Unknown Speaker
she’s in love, in love. And she says, she writes, she writes a letter to herself from love.
Unknown Speaker
And, and she says, you know, fear, you can ride with us, but you’re no longer driving, you’re in the backseat. And so by honoring that, she actually says, you know, you don’t have to banish fear. Sometimes fear is really helpful. Like, you know, one of the things might early meditation, I’m trying to think of her last name, but her name is Sarah, and she was in the Asheville area. And she said that, you know, we so often try to banish fear or banish discomfort, but in fact, to look at it as something beneficial. And when we can think fear. And I just use fear, because so many of us can relate to that word right now. But to think fear for benefiting us at the moment, that it no longer benefits us and ask that it be transmitted to someone who it would benefit, like the kid running across the street, about to run into front of a car, and say, she taught us this really neat meditation, that you basically squat so that your core, your root chakra is closest to the ground and you see a cord going from your crown to your root and into the earth. And you watch all the fear, kind of go down that cord into Mother Earth, and you take Mother Earth and know that she will offer it to somebody who will be of benefit to you. And I always thought that was so beautiful. Whenever I feel that everyone because there’s definitely times that overwhelm has helped me that fear has helped me that there’s other feelings about me, but then thanking them and asking them to just somebody who will benefit them
Unknown Speaker
now. Yeah. Well, I also think that, you know, having those really strong negative emotions and difficult experiences, that’s what allows us to have compassion and empathy. You know, I think we have had to feel that pain in order to really, truly be compassionate. And I think, I mean, one of my experiences of going through pain and loss was just noticing an increased ability to just sit with and understand other people’s pain.
Unknown Speaker
I’d love that you said negative emotions teach us compassion, because that’s something I’ve really been working on lately. Like, I thought I had compassion. And I realized, through trying to connect to my compassion,
Unknown Speaker
that there’s such a deeper level of compassion
Unknown Speaker
that you can feel for people. And you know, the example I use is just, I’m going through everything with 2020. And everybody had kind of that need to contract when we first went into stay at home. And we had a gentleman who came through our neighborhood, he had an old beat up, like Toyota, like it was an old beat up Toyota, the trunk was popped open, and he had a push mower in the back. And he was literally going from door to door asking people if he can mow the yard. And, you know, my husband’s first response was No, it’s okay. We’ve got a teenage son who does it. And he came back in the house, and I looked at my husband and like, we’re contracting, like, we need to expand how humbling of that man to put his lawn mower in the back of his car, and go to neighborhoods and asked to move their yards to try to feed a family, you know, and so having that compassion, and he’s the motor yard for six months now, because and so compassion is not just like feeling sorry for somebody, but it’s expanding, it’s opening your heart. How can you help others around you and feeling that expansion? You know, and it’s super cute, because now the man has a truck, and his wife does it with them. So you know, he, he’s really providing for his family that way. And so I feel, and it’s not a sense of like, Oh, I did it to help somebody. But I wanted to contribute to the everybody in the universe contracting, and they wanted to expand to help that to counter that contraction. Yeah, that was happening. And to see that he’s still doing it. And he’s doing well, you know, you’re like, the universe heard me like the universe is expanding, instead of contracting with everybody else. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, as I really like that as a point of emphasis, just the experience of contraction or expansion within us. I think that also manifests as sensation. Like, I think there are people who teach making decisions that way, where you will ask yourself, and you kind of lay out one option versus the other, and you see how your body feels. And when your body feels expansive and a little bit more open, and it can be very subtle. It’s and it’s sort of like getting a guess from your body.
Unknown Speaker
Yes, absolutely. And that’s one of the things I think that so often we’re either too busy, and we don’t listen to the sensations in our body. Yeah. Or we don’t know how to Yeah, and that’s one of the things I did an episode a while back called soul. And it was with Angela, Denise, who’s a good friend of mine. And she actually did a little exercise about how to actually listen to yourself, but it’s so easy to start to listen to that sensation happening in your body, so that we can also then learn with an emotion, is it a warning? Is it just something that is resistance? So it’s kind of learning to listen to your body? because your body is the best barometer out there? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker
yeah, for sure. And it’s not only learning to listen, it’s also, the first step is to just become more aware of your body and become more grounded in your body, which I’m sure you know a lot about as a yoga practitioner. But it’s possible to be very disconnected from the sensation in our body and the experiences of our body. And so learning to just do a simple body scan or check in with areas of your body. Notice when there is tension, you know, when it’s subtle, as opposed to when it’s really awful. And then it’s just kind of whacking you over the head and you can’t ignore it anymore. But, you know, noticing those subtle changes and fluctuations in the body requires a lot of presence within your body specifically.
Unknown Speaker
So when you notice that you’re disconnected and you want to connect back to listening to your sensations, what do you do? Like how do you read what’s your stance, your exercise,
Unknown Speaker
so there’s a few different things but much of it comes down to connecting with the breath initially, that the breath is the gateway. I do a few things one I do. Usually it’s either a 10 or 20 minute version of a yoga nidra meditation. Okay. And so the beginning of that, it’s a guided meditation. And the beginning of that is you know, a few breaths and then a guided body scan and then some moments of quiet so that’s one way and just getting still in quiet. So I I bring that up as another one. I’m physically doing something similar, I’m sort of lying prone lying on my back. But in some cases, I just need quiet to just breathe. And it’s just essentially a lying meditation. But I find that if I’m in a seated posture, it’s almost like our brains come to expect certain experiences when we’re in certain postures. And I find that lying on my back just invites a bit of ease and reconnection with the breath in a way that sitting doesn’t. For me, personally, I think we all have different relationships or different positions, depending on what position we’re in when we work, or we sleep or what we’re up to most of the day. So sometimes I just like quietly, sometimes they do a yoga nidra meditation, I also walk and run. Mm hmm. And I find that that connection to the breathing again, just that movement of just, you know, getting your heart up and deepening your breath. And that really brings a lot of awareness back to me. But sometimes I also just, it’s just about remembering to tell myself, you know, and sometimes I’ll be at the computer, and I’ll realize that my tongue is pushed against the back of my top teeth, and breathing kind of shallowly, and my shoulders are up by my ears. I’ll just have that moment of awareness. And then it’ll just be about a hairy, check into the breath and sort of readjust, get up, shake things out, come back again. Yeah, so I think it’s, it’s a practice, honestly. But those are some of the more formal ways that I do it, where I just make myself go lay down, or I do yoga, nidra, or I go for a walk or a run. I love doing yoga, I’m super out of out of practice, including that regularly in my life. But I’ve gone through periods of doing that. And then there’s also just sitting meditation. But for me, that’s not always an embodiment. Practice. Okay, yeah, for I experienced that as a slightly different practice.
Unknown Speaker
I think meditation and yoga, yeah, can be so different for everybody. Because when I started yoga, it was just something my girlfriend and I did. When our kids were at school, and you know, we’ve met there had coffee. So it was more of a social thing. And then I really got into the connection, the spirituality of it. Because for me Previous to that meditation was my spiritual practice. And now that I’m using meditation and yoga together, one deepens the other depending on which one at first, but there, it’s definitely different to everybody of what they experienced. And some people I know will hear the word meditation and like cringe, because it seems so overwhelming. And I actually next week, I’m recording a meditation episode, the guy who does five minute meditations for kids. And, you know, meditation doesn’t have to be overwhelming to somebody who’s never done it before. You know, I was talking to a girlfriend recently. And she asked me how I could how I do it. And it was like, do you sit and pray? And she’s like, Yeah, all the time. I’m like, okay, that’s meditation. Yeah, like, that’s meditation to you. So it doesn’t have to be this deep, 45 minute, go into your zone kind of thing. It can be a three minute, put your hand on your heart, your hands on your solar plexus, and feel your breath, move in and out of your body so that you can act back to your body. That’s meditation to you, it’s whatever,
Unknown Speaker
whatever feels good for you. Yeah, meditation comes up a lot, since I see people who are trying to relax. And I have no formal training. But I’ve done a lot myself personally. And I definitely have some basic instruction that I share with clients. And the most common thing that I find is people assume meditation means the absence of thought. And they know that they can’t go more than 10 seconds without thinking, therefore, they could never be a successful quote unquote, meditator. And, I mean, it’s a whole nother conversation to talk about this pressure to be successful at whatever we do. But it’s pretty profound to just tell them no, it’s not about the absence of thought you can choose whatever focal point you want. And it’s simply about observing yourself observing your thoughts, like on its most foundational level, there’s so many different ways of doing it, of course. And they’re always so relieved and surprised and refreshing, like, oh, okay, well, I guess I’ll try it again. Right. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
When some people will say, you know, oh, I just see black or All I think about is my to do list. And one of the things that really helped me when I learned to meditate 20 years ago, is they taught us just to hold a camera, a candle, excuse me, and kind of be in a, you know, not bright room, but kind of dimly lit room and just focus on the candle because if your monkey mind keeps taking over, it’s because you need something to focus on. That just going blank into you watching the candle, the flicker of it, the different height in it, the flame, the movement, the air current. There’s so many to it, that will quiet your mind. But it allows you something to focus on at the same time. And I thought that was really neat. And I’ve used that for some time when I was trying to really quiet my mind. Because it did help me step out of that credit brain that was going on. I think that’s a neat way to try it too.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
Well, I love that
Unknown Speaker
we’ve got to talk about all these different, like, yeah, as every episode, we start with one intention, and it goes where it wants to it’s Yeah, a long and winding road. So it’s been so much fun talking to you. And thank you for talking about sensation. I know that you are doing you’re working with creatives. And do you just limit it to creatives? Like, who are your clients that you’re out there working with, because I want to make sure that everybody listening knows how to find you and those that they can help that they can connect with
Unknown Speaker
you. Yeah, my focus is on self employed creative specifically. And I have a three month program that I take people through that specifically about building financial systems and habits and vision for yourself, if that’s your reality, that variable income, and likely the just avoidance of really getting down to the nitty gritty of your numbers in the past. So we walked through that together. And that’s the main work that I’ve been doing with folks. I also have an online community where people can come and hang out and set goals and their challenges and articles. And I teach and I show up for bi weekly as a bi weekly, whatever the word is, when you show up twice a week, we do money co working sessions where people can just show up on zoom together and just crunch the numbers, check bank balances, update their expenses, plan their money for the next couple of weeks, whatever it is they need to do, but to just do that together and have an appointment to show up to you to get that work done.
Unknown Speaker
Whether you do that one of the groups I’m a part of does a co working. And so it’s an hour on Tuesdays at four o’clock, and you’re quiet, you’re not working together. But it’s it’s an appointment on your calendar. And you do show up and you do do that. So I’ve never heard anybody doing that financially. But that’s a great way to do that.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And people can ask questions if they want to. But mostly, it’s just sitting there. Yeah, getting stuff done.
Unknown Speaker
And you have a podcast?
Unknown Speaker
Yes. Cool. creatives do money.
Unknown Speaker
I love that. And we’ll put the link of all this in the show notes for granting journey. podcast.com. So anybody who’s trying to find you, It’s just been a real pleasure to chat with you. And I appreciate the opportunity.
Unknown Speaker
thank you so much for being here. It was fun to talk about sensation, emotions, and all the stuff that goes in between, I know that our listeners will really enjoy listening and definitely find a way to connect with you that we’ll have available in the show notes. And then we’re gonna have our bonus episode where we talk about Big Magic. So if you’re an Elizabeth Gilbert fan, if you’re a creative fan, or if you’re just anybody who feels the need to express your own creativity, you’ll definitely want to listen to it and it will be released the week after this one. So thanks again, everyone. It’s great to have you.
Unknown Speaker 54:50
Thank you.