Mindful Impact with Justin Francisco

Yummi Nguyen believes that parenting is an opportunity and a gift our children have given us to return to our "wholeness." Our children are the mirrors of our internal world, and all that is seeking to be liberated and met with Love.

How seen heard and understood did you feel from your parents. What's it mean to heal generational wounds.

Many of us have unresolved wounds we may not even be aware of. We can use parenting to observe how we are reacting…is that my stuff that I'm projecting.. Is it me..

She has an interesting rule in her home that her children don't have to listen to her and I'm not sure I fully agree with it so I dig in a little deeper with her on that to better understand :) https://themotherhoodmindset.com

Candace Good from episode 82 on 10/5/2020

https://www.howtoshrinkashrink.com

Listen to my top 3 takeaways from Mondays Episode with Nate Rifkin. www.naterifkin.com

Today I'm talking with my friend Nate Rifkin who has published a book on a little-known kind of meditation. I've been reading this book and it's blown me away. I think you're going to love what we have to share today. Nate used to be suicidal and drank alcohol every morning to get through the day. He dropped out of college, went broke, bankrupt, and even worked on the street corner waving around a sign to afford rent and food. But he's managed to turn his life around, find love, and now has an incredible life. This kind of meditation was the driving force behind his transformation. Not only that, but I've already been practicing what he teaches in his book and I've got a crazy experience of my own… something happened to me that hasn't happened in all my time meditating.

www.naterifkin.com

Episode Highlights:

• Nate Rifkin transformed his life through meditation from being suicidal and relying on alcohol every morning to his current success.
• Writing, hanging out with his wife, and practicing Daoist mysticism make Nate's heart sing and get him out of bed in the morning.
• The standing meditation comes from Daoism, the essence of which is creating harmony through balance.
• The earth and the universe contain a storehouse of energy, and if you stand a certain way, it's like turning on a faucet for that energy entering your body.
• Typical self-help and mindset work wasn't working for Nate and the more frustrated he got the worse his problems became.
• He found himself looking at people who are bad people but still successful, and it only contributed to his feelings of anger and frustration.
• Nate believed if he could visualize success, he would attract it like a magnet, not realizing that the anger he had buried deep inside of him was a much more powerful energy.
• The transformation for Nate meant that he went from someone who set goals and his happiness was dependent upon reaching those goals to someone who was able to enjoy and appreciate the day to day process of living.
• After all the self-help had failed him and he dropped out of college, he declared bankruptcy and got a job as a sign spinner on a street corner for three years.
• Think about the cost/benefit analysis of different decisions; Nate decided he was happy to be a sign spinner because he was able to listen to podcasts and audiobooks on the job and felt he was able to use that time well because of it.
• This also applies to how he spends money; he could spend $1 now, or invest it and have $1,000 later.
• When you're building a habit, it really does take a lot of work at first before your brain rewires itself.
• Building habits also requires adopting new values where you value your longterm health and growth over your short term satisfaction.
• Nate considers the standing meditation the foundational pillar of everything else he's been able to do, because it is the practice that allowed all of his other practices to work.
• The standing position is that you want to both relax, and elongate and straighten your spine, starting with your hips turned and tucked in forward as if you're sitting on a high barstool.
• The position requires that you unlock your knees, requiring you to really engage your thighs to hold yourself up.
• Stand with your arms in a position as if you're hugging a large tree.
• This position helps your mind to not wander because you're focusing on different parts of your body.
• Justin has tried the standing meditation and experienced a huge spiritual release where he started crying uncontrollably and now incorporates it every morning.
• Nate has been doing this for over 12 years and is now training to be a Daoist priest and getting his PhD in Chinese Energetic Medicine, so he now does spiritual and meditative practices for about 4 hours a day.
• When Nate started with standing meditation, he only did 60 seconds at a time and added 5 seconds a day because the daily increase was imperceptible to his body but over time it adds up.
• Nate knew he felt good when he meditated, but it was especially affirming when he would run into someone he hadn't seen in a while and they noticed that he seemed different.
• Nate has found that as he committed to spiritual practice, he would have to let go of some of his old relationships.
• If Nate could give his 18 year old self any advice, it would be to practice the Daoist mysticism and meditation instead of just reading about it.

3 Key Points:

1. Visualizing success and changing your surface-level mindset won't work unless you release underlying emotion and trauma.
2. Building habits requires a lot of work and the adoption of a new value system.
3. Incremental, imperceptible changes add up over time.

Tweetable Quotes:

• "The essence of Daoism is creating harmony through balance." –Nate Rifkin
• "A lot of what I was practicing in terms of self help was trying to affect what I was putting out on a very surface level, but I wasn't addressing the deeper psychology and the deeper imbalances inside of me." –Nate Rifkin
• "Time is a precious, precious resource. We can't really buy more of it other than buying our way out of tasks like mowing the lawn." –Nate Rifkin
• "You could read 100 books and not put any of it into practice." –Justin Francisco

Dawson Church is from Ep. 67 on June 22nd, 2020. Today he came back on with me to share some wisdom and a Tapping meditation that is super powerful.

On today's episode of Mindful Impact, Justin speaks with Lisa Winneke, host of Good News Guide. They discuss Lisa's journey of connecting with herself in order to live a more fully expressed life, from meditation to daily check-ins, to journaling, and more.

https://www.lisawinneke.com/membership

Episode Highlights:

• Lisa Winneke is the host of Good News Guide podcast and recently launched a membership program for people who are seeking change.
• What makes Lisa's heart sing at the beginning of the day is the possibility that comes with the morning.
• Lisa considers herself a connector and a communicator.
• Her intention is "How can I add value?" And how she can contribute to people throughout the day.
• Lisa's transformation has been over the course of the last 14 years, after she gave birth to premature twin boys 16 years ago and became severely depressed.
• She felt so disconnected from herself that she didn't know who she was.
• Some people can liberate themselves and express the life they want to live within a marriage, but Lisa found that although it was a good marriage, she felt she couldn't fully liberate herself.
• Lisa now stands for living a fully expressed and authentic life.
• In hindsight, Lisa understands that she was feeling nudges and impulses that she wasn't listening to.
• Lisa attended a Dr. Joe Dispenza meditation retreat, which really kicked off this phase of her journey in October 2018.
• Doing this work with Joe Dispenza is what led her to start the Good News Guide.
• Lisa does not watch the news at all, and stopped about 8 or 9 years ago.
• Now, she keeps informed through people, and trusting that if there's something worth knowing, she will find out through people she knows.
• Lisa checks in with herself and her emotional state multiple times a day, and if she finds it dipping, she reflects to identify what shifted her energy and what she can do to fix it.
• Her choice to stop watching the news inspired the Good News Guide, because the definition of news is "new and noteworthy information," and she felt she wasn't getting that.
• The guests she brings onto the Good News Guide are new to a lot of people and they share things that are not taught in schools but are valuable and noteworthy pieces of information.
• One of her highest values is transformation.
• Lisa works with several coaches for different areas of her life, and it isn't because there's anything wrong with her or that she needs all of this extra support, but because she values transformation and growth, and chooses to work with these coaches.
• She has learned to see conflict as an opportunity to connect more deeply with another person.
• Lisa has done the Reclaim Your Wardrobe workshop more than once because what you put on your body and how it makes you feel affects your communication and the way you operate from the inside out.
• For Lisa, play is very important, and incorporating play into her daily routine through music or by moving her body.
• Justin shares that he recently had an experience playing with his 6 year old daughter in the middle of a workday that he felt completely re-energized him.
• What matters most is finding what play means to you alone; it doesn't have to involve another person.
• What most of this is about is taking yourself out of your body and observing what's happening to you in different situations.
• We seem born to naturally remain in the present moment, but we lose the ability as we get older—why does that happen?
• Lisa goes into every conversation she has, knowing that there will be a beautiful exchange.
• The first thing Lisa does in the morning is meditate for between 20-45 minutes, but her practice is constantly changing.
• She used to approach her meditation practice as an activity to tick off a to-do list, but now approaches it much more intentionally, as time she has given herself to connect with her soul.
• Lisa had a friend compose frequency music to play in the background of all her podcast episodes to help listeners better absorb the conversation.
• If Lisa could go back and tell her 18 year old self anything, it would be, "You've got this."
• Lisa sets 7 alarms throughout the day to check in with herself and to reconnect and anchor back into her heart.

3 Key Points:

1. You are in control of your own environment and you are allowed to set boundaries about what you allow into your space and life.
2. This is an ongoing journey, and you are constantly changing, growing, and becoming more authentic and expressed.
3. Work on listening to the signs, signals, and nudges from that little voice inside you.

Tweetable Quotes:

• "I wanted to be a demonstration of what it means to lead from our heart." –Lisa Winneke
• "How can I refocus and put my attention and energy into something where I'm contributing, creating what I want to create? Because as we know, we're creating, consciously or unconsciously, in every single moment." –Lisa Winneke
• "We're not taught at school that we're the creator of our lives. We're not taught at school that we have choices. We're not taught at school that the most important thing is our relationship with the self. We're not taught any of that." –Lisa Winneke
• "We're here in these bodies to have an evolutionary experience of what it's like to be human." –Lisa Winneke

Resources Mentioned:

• Justin Francisco: Website, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube
• Lisa Winneke: Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube
• Built to Serve by Evan Carmichael
• Joe Dispenza

One of my first guests on the podcast back in October 2019. Suze Yalof Shwartz, owner of www.unplug.com shares her Fabulous meditation.

These top three takes are a little different. The episode with Hale was so powerful it inspired me to dedicate an entire day in my course to letting go. I share what that day is going to be...Thanks for listening.

On today's episode of Mindful Impact, Justin speaks with Hale Dwoskin, teacher of The Sedona Method, about the process of letting go of the feelings, thoughts, and beliefs that are holding you back. Listeners can learn more and sign up for a course at www.sedona.com/mindfulimpact.

Episode Highlights:

• Hale Dwoskin has shared and taught The Sedona Method for over 4 decades and is the NYTimes bestselling author of the book The Sedona Method. He was also featured in the movie The Secret.
• Hale and his wife don't have any children, but they've been together for 30 years.
• He introduced his wife to The Sedona Method when they were dating, after Hale's mentor inspired it after he nearly died from a coronary and began a process of self-inquiry.
• Hale of course still reacts to things, but they are less intense and less frequent, and he is now able to return to a resting state of happiness.
• The Sedona Method lets you let go of not just the feelings, but the thoughts and beliefs that lead to those feelings.
• We tend to identify ourselves by our thoughts and feelings, so if we identify as angry, sad, lonely, etc., then you are going to be emotionally attached to those thoughts and feelings that reinforce that identity.
• When you say "I am angry," or "I feel angry," you are equating yourself as a person with that feeling of anger, instead of seeing the anger as simply a feeling that your mind and body are experiencing.
• We typically say "I am" in connection to person, place, or thing, or thoughts and feelings, but actually it's the source of all of those things.
• Your mind tends to misdirect you by creating a problem and then working to solve it.
• Pick up an object to represent your unwanted thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and ideas about yourself. Your hand represents your gut or awareness. If you grip the object for a long time, it will begin to feel uncomfortable but also familiar. When you open you hand, you find that the object is not attached to you.
• What you're letting go of are the things that you're clinging to, and it is a choice that we often forget we have.
• Young children do this naturally—they can be incredibly upset about something and then drop it and move on like it was nothing, while the adults are still emotionally responding to it hours later.
• Children will fall down, and then look around at the adults to check if they're "supposed" to be upset.
• Children also refer to themselves in the third person early on, until they develop an identity around their bodies.
• Try an exercise where you identify something you want to change or improve on in your life, and try to just be present with that feeling, and allow it.
• You don't need to understand why you're having a thought or feeling in order to let it go.
• After you ask yourself if you can let it go, ask yourself if you would let it go. Then, ask yourself when? This is an invitation to let it go now.
• We've been brainwashed to believe that letting go is hard.
• Justin offers the example of witnessing a situation where you want to help somebody, you see somebody in trouble and you emotionally react to that. How can letting go be helpful here?
• Hale points out that we often involve ourselves in a situation where we're trying to help but we only make it worse; by letting go, you'll be able to see more clearly if you are needed and what action you should take.
• Letting go is necessary to forgiveness.
• Most of us expend most of our energy thinking about what you would change in the past, and fighting against the natural flow of your life.
• Non-duality is about discovering the interconnectedness that runs between all people, living organisms, and even inanimate objects, and realizing that there are no limits.
• Fear is releasable.
• It sounds like hypnosis to start thinking this way, but really the hypnosis we're all under is believing that we are limited and can't do something or are stuck.
• Whatever you focus on expands in your experience.
• Things like pandemic fatigue come from us living from a place of resistance instead of acceptance.
• Resistance is just a feeling that you can let go of.
• If Hale could give his 18 year old self any piece of advice, it would be to follow his heart.
• Feelings are just feelings, not facts, and they are not who you are.
• Who and what you are at your core is already whole and enough as it is.
• Everything that you want in life can be found by you, naturally, by letting go and tuning in to your wholeness.

3 Key Points:

1. Your feelings and thoughts do not define you.
2. Young children naturally understand the concept of letting go, but we lose that skill along the way as we mature.
3. Letting go is necessary to forgive, to stop resisting the flow of your life, and to discover your natural, innate wholeness.

Tweetable Quotes:

• "We think we are what we think or feel. We identify as the angry person or the sad person or the hurt person or the misunderstood person or the lonely person, or the person who's a failure [or] a success. And we never examine whether or not we're a person at all." –Hale Dwoskin
• "The mind is a wonderful tool, but it's an awful master." –Hale Dwoskin
• "Emotion and reason often run at cross purposes." –Hale Dwoskin
• "Forgiveness is natural when you let go. And trying to forgive without letting go is impossible." –Hale Dwoskin
• "When we approach any situation based on the way it was, we miss the way it is." –Hale Dwoskin

Resources Mentioned:

• Justin Francisco: Website, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube
• The Sedona Method Course: sedona.com/mindfulimpact
• The Sedona Method: YouTube, Facebook
• The Greatest Secret by Rhonda Byrne

My guest from March 30th, 2020, Michell Palladini. New meditations every Friday right here on Mindful Impact.