Mindfulness Mode

Wouldn’t you love to be able to just reset your brain? Are you like me? Are there times when there are so many thoughts swirling around your brain, and you just want them to stop? We talk about the self-bullying that a lot of us have going on in our brain and this is what it feels like so much of the time.

Are you receiving alerts that something is wrong? I’ve received alerts in the past that something is wrong and I had no idea what the alert meant.

I’ve learned that when I see an alert on my printer, it definitely means something. It’s out of paper or it’s low on ink. I know I have to deal with it, or else I’m not going to be doing much printing.

The same is true in my car. I once ignored an engine light on a car I was driving, and I ended up being stranded on a 4-lane highway, with a hot, steaming engine. That wasn’t much fun.

So I learned that when a warning light on the dash lights up, the responsible thing to do is to actually deal with the problem that the warning light is referring to.

Our emotions are like those warning lights on the car. I’ve heard people call them trouble lights, because they usually warn you of trouble brewing somewhere.

I’m sure you’ve seen them, lights that refer to overheating: Low Tire inflation, Door Ajar, Tailgate Ajar, Windshield Washer Low, Engine Coolant Level Low, Fuel Level Low.

Did you know your emotions are like those warning lights? Emotions are the human body’s way of telling you something needs attention.

With the human body, the warning lights are in the form of emotions like anger, pain, guilt, sadness, stress, frustration, and loneliness, among others.

If you experience pain, you’d better do something about it. If it’s anger, or anxiety, or loneliness, or sadness, you can take action and do something to deal with that emotion too.

None of those emotions are bad, they’re just happening to tell us that something is going on that we need to deal with. Sometimes we think certain emotions are bad or negative, but if you figure out why the emotion is happening, you’ll likely come to the conclusion that it’s not necessarily bad, or good, it just is.

I have to admit, there have been times when I just want to take a piece of black tape and stick it over the Engine Warning light on certain cars I’ve had. I just wanted to pretend that warning light wasn’t appearing, and sometimes, I’d convince myself that the light itself was malfunctioning and there really was nothing wrong with the car.

I’ve done that with my emotions sometimes. I’d get angry, and I’d want to cover it up and pretend it wasn’t there. What do we do to cover up our emotions? We get ‘Crazy Busy’, doing things that help us forget about the anger. Sometimes, we shop, or go on a trip, or use a substance. That substance might be food, marijuana, booze, cocaine, crack or other drugs. Those substances help you forget that your warning lights are on. They can help us forget, at least in the short term, but usually we end up with way bigger problems as a result of covering up the emotion in the first place.

But how do we actually deal with the emotion without pushing it away or pretending it isn’t there?

Fortunately, there are a lot of things you can do.

A lot of you would likely talk to a trusted friend. How great do you feel when you’ve had a chance to really share what’s bothering you with someone you like and trust? I think we’re supposed to lean on each other for help and to hopefully be able to be vulnerable enough to open up and vent what we’re feeling emotionally.

Some people talk to a counselor or therapist. That can certainly be helpful. Another thing that can help immensely is to write. Pour your thoughts out in the form of words, either on paper or computer screen. This is one of those activities that, for me anyway, I have to make it a habit. I have to write on a regular basis or else I drift away from it and all of a sudden realize I haven’t written anything in three or four weeks.

Another way to get to the bottom of what your emotions are telling you is to bring some nature into your life. Immerse yourself. Go for a swim in the ocean. Or drive through the mountains. Really, any way you can get into nature can help you work through your emotions and start feeling better again.

Give yourself some time and space away from your everyday life and embrace nature. Let it help you heal and renew yourself.

Meditation is another way that we've talked a lot about on the show. I've included some links to specific shows where we talk about meditation. It can make a huge difference in your life

“We can’t control what thoughts and emotions arise within us, nor can we control the universal truth that everything changes. But we can learn to step back and rest in the awareness of what’s happening. That awareness can be our refuge.” Sharon Salzberg

There’s one other way. Find what has triggered your emotional warning lights and change your thinking around that trigger. The event or incident happened and we can’t change that. What we can do is change our thoughts surrounding the event. Change how we think about what happened.

Some of those incidents were devastating or traumatic and our brains actually pushed them out of sight. We can’t even remember in our subconscious mind what happened. It’s still in there, but it’s buried. Through hypnosis, that incident can be found again, and we can attach different thoughts to what happened.

I can tell you an example. Last year, I had a client who had a huge amount of anxiety. She didn’t know why, but when I hypnotized her, she took me to a place where she was 6 years old and she and her father were alone at home and she was drawing the Union Jack for school. She was having trouble and her dad started to lose his patience because she was not drawing it right. He started yelling at her and one of the things he said was, “are you dense? It’s simple, just do it right.” 

That was the first time her dad had talked to her like that, but it wasn’t the last.

As strange as it sounds, my client was able to quickly change her thinking pattern so that every time she replayed that recording in her mind saying “are you dense”?, she replaced it with a different statement, a positive statement that empowered her, that made her feel confident and strong.

After that, she trained her mind to encourage herself, every time a doubt message would pop into her brain.

She told me later, she said, it was simple to do, but I couldn’t do it without help. I felt powerless to change that inner bully and stop it from the constant putdowns.

You can Hit Your Emotional Reset Button, and you can do that by noticing your emotions and then dealing with them. Make up your mind to do the work. Promise yourself you’ll take action. This is the weakest link. This is where more people fail than at any other step and this is true for me too. In the past, I would read the books, watch the videos, hire the coach, but sometimes just not take the required action at the right time. When is the right time? I’ll bet you know instinctively. The right time is now. Make up your mind to be assertive. Decide what you’re going to do and make it a habit. Write down your plans and by writing it down it will become more real and concrete. If you need help, ask someone who can help you that you trust. If no one pops into your mind, give it some thought.

You CAN deal with your Emotions. You CAN confront your Inner Bully. You CAN hit the emotional reset button after your emotions have served you. Whatever you decide to do, please something. Take action. If you know in your gut that I’m the one to help you, send me an email, [email protected] with “Reset Button” in the subject line. Then I’ll know you heard me on this episode. We’ll have a 30 minute Zoom chat and see if it’s a fit for you to work with me. All the very best to you, Bye now.

• Book: The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times by Pema Chodron

• 027 Nirmala: Discover Who You Are Through Mindfulness and Meditation

Gabriel Cousens is a 77-year-old world renowned holistic physician, rabbi, yogi, spiritual mystic, psychiatrist, family therapist, vital-@-any-age advocate, humanitarian and peace ambassador, who walks the planet in the state of Eternal Presence seeing the emanating light from all things, and yet living in the very real world where his good works and spiritual guidance change lives daily. He lives, as he says, in the world between Nothing (the world beyond time) and Something (the temporal world). Gabriel experiences a fully integrated life in multiple dimensions. He is happy, joyful, grateful, loving and peaceful without any exterior reason because that is the nature of the primordial consciousness. As Dr. Cousens says, “there is found the true freedom”.

• Website: www.DrCousens.com

• Swami Mukundananda (Global spiritual leader, best selling author, Vedic scholar, and authority on mind management)

• Most of us start ‘reactive' to life and to the life choices we make.

• Traditionally, from a yogic point of view, (we call it pranayama), why did they add it? They added it because pranayam, or breathing exercises, help quiet the mind.

• Book: Play of Consciousness by Swama Mukundananda

• I've never been bullied and I've never bullied anybody. Nobody would bully me, let's just put it that way. I'm not that kind of person.

• Living A Better Life with Jerzy Gregorek

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Today I’m talking about moving to a new, better place in your life. The episode is about your inner bully and how you can transition your life to be more, to accomplish more, to do everything you believe is possible. That’s why I entitled the episode, Move Into Possible. Becoming more mindful will help you when you learn what it means to deal with your Inner Bully. I remember when I started the podcast back in 2015, a lot of people would give me a blank stare when I said my podcast was going to be about Mindfulness and Bullying and how a lot of us Bully Ourselves, causing incredible hardships, pushing us into doing terrible things we’d never normally do, forcing us to listen to terrible, negative and mean stories about ourselves.

That Inner Bully is always at work. But most people didn’t realize that Mindfulness and Bullying are closely related. The themes of my shows tell a story about so many of my coaching clients that have come to me. I could tell you story after story about so many of my awesome Mindful Tribe listeners who have reached out for coaching from me. The thing is, the stories are similar in many ways.

The common denominators are anxiety, stress, frustration, money’s not flowing, relationships are breaking, businesses aren’t clicking. And I get it. I’ve been there.

I had so much anxiety when I was an adolescent, I could barely operate in the world. I was ashamed and embarrassed. I was afraid to speak, my voice was a high, squeaky, remnant of what it was supposed to be. I felt defeated and didn’t have any idea what to do about it.

My inner bully was thriving at the time. It told me, “no one wants to hear from you”. “Just keep your mouth shut, and don’t do anything to attract attention to yourself”.

Even though my inner bully was robust and healthy, there was a little voice inside me that wouldn’t give up.

That other voice inside me was the Real Me. I didn’t know it at the time, but the Real Me was like a flickering candle that wouldn’t go out. Sometimes the flicker was almost invisible, hidden behind something, or fading to almost nothing, but it was there. Real Me was my friend and I was grateful for him. After while, I started to know Real Me as Reme (or Remy). I shortened him to the first 2 letters of each word and I started to get to know Reme even better.

Reme told me there was hope. He told me to push forward and, Take Action – push ahead. Don’t give up. He was a great friend. He was on my side. Every time I thought of Reme, I knew he was Real Me, the person I was meant to be.

I learned so much from Reme that I have shared over the years with all of you who asked me for help, all my coaching clients.

Now I’ll tell you right now, I never told most of you that I had named this guy, Reme. I think my Inner Bully had convinced me that Reme was a stupid name and I needed to keep that to myself.

It was never easy deciphering which voice was which. My Inner Bully was so cunning and tricky, he would pose as Reme and I’d sometimes get tricked.

But like I said, when Reme got me to take action, everything improved and I would feel better, I would feel successful, I’d accomplish things in my life.

Then as more and more people came to me, because they knew I was a Mindfulness Life Coach, I was able to help them with their Inner Bully.

I remember one client, I’ll call her Natalie, I mean confidentiality is huge in coaching so for a long time I never talked about my coaching clients at all, then I realized I needed to ask them if I could share their stories. Natalie said yes, but she preferred I didn’t use her real name.

She came to me because of a work situation, where she was frustrated with her boss. Her boss was bullying her, she didn’t realize it was bullying at the time, but her boss was making her life miserable, and she didn’t know what to do about.

As we worked through her emotions around her work situation, it turned out that not only was her boss bullying her, Natalie was her own worst bully.

She then began to realize that this applied to every area of her life, her relationships, her family, her work, even her down time.

After 3 hypnosis sessions, Natalie seemed like a different person. And she told me, she said, “Bruce, I could never have believed that 3 hypnosis sessions would change my life in such a dramatic way”.

So I called today’s episode, Move Into Possible. So many of my clients have felt disempowered for so long, they came to a point where they didn’t think any of their goals were possible to achieve.

Glenn, a client from last year, said, “Bruce, I honestly got to the point where I didn’t believe I could earn money. I didn’t believe I was capable of earning money”.

In his case, we found out that when he was a young child, he father used to belittle him, and if he ever asked his dad for a few dollars, his dad would say, “I don’t have any money”, and he’d open his wallet and show his son that it was empty.

This began a “lack” mentality in Glenn. His Inner Bully kept reminding Glenn that money was scarce, that there would never be enough money. That money was limited.

There is a way YOU can Move Into Possible. You have to believe, and you have to take action. The other thing you have to do is something I talk about a lot. You have to understand how to “let go”.

Your way of letting go might be completely different from someone else. You can learn to let go as a result of journaling, especially after you spend quite a bit of time writing and putting to paper, all kinds of thoughts and ideas that are floating around in your brain.

That’s called, Doing The Work. For most of us, our natural tendency is to avoid the work. As soon as we feel that uncomfortable feeling coming through via our emotions, we decide to do something to cover up that painful feeling. That feeling might be fear, it might be anger, it might be pain. The feeling could be anxiety, stress, or worry.

How do we cover up those emotions? In our society, we find a bunch of ways. One is to avoid the feeling by doing some busy work. Doing something that you enjoy, but its really not going to get you anywhere. Can you think of any examples in your life?

My clients have told me lots of ways they do this. Video games, cleaning, Netflix, going to a bar, shopping, there are so many things people do to push down and suppress their emotions.

The way you Move Into Possible, is to notice those emotions as soon as they happen, and then act on them, rather than suppressing them. If you’re experiencing anxiety, you need to understand what that anxiety is about. What is the root cause? What is the underlying reason that anxiety is showing itself in your life.

Once you identify the emotion, then in order to Move Into Possible, you need to Take Action and do something that will actually move you to a better place. And I think I hear you saying, “how do I know what the better place looks like?”

The answer is that you have to know where you’re going. The majority of humans don’t have a specific idea where they’re headed in life. They don’t have concrete goals or a specific idea of exactly what they want their life to look like. This is important.

To Move Into Possible, you need to know where you’re going. Otherwise, you will flounder in life, you’ll wonder why you’re moving in circles and not necessarily getting to where you’d like to be.

Some of the people I interview have always had a clear plan as to where they want to go in life. Others were kind of floating from place to place, and finally came to the realization they needed help, they couldn’t do it on their own.

Tune into the episode on your favorite podcast app to hear more strategies and the remainder of this episode to help you become more grounded, feel good about your life, and stop feeling stuck.

• Book: The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer

• The Three Pillars of Meditation; Giovanni Dienstmann

Elizabeth Tripp is the owner and founder of Live Life By Your Design, a premium coaching practice that guides entrepreneurs, visionaries, coaches, and healers to be empowered to build lifestyles they love. She teaches her clients, using her gifts and the lessons she has learned from her own personal soul’s journey, that the secret to creating a lifestyle you love begins with loving the body you’re in. With her coaching, clients dissolve their limitations and bridge their minds and bodies to their soul’s desires. Elizabeth is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and holds a master’s degree in Nutritional Sciences. She is certified as a Usui Reiki Practitioner, Past Life Regressionist, and a Transcendental Meditation Coach. Elizabeth has served clients as a Master Coach since 2016 studying Light Body Healing and the soul journey.

• Website: www.ElizabethTripp.com

• My coach, Alex. Located in Virginia Beach.

• Emotions are a part of the human experience, but they are not who I am. They are temporary and impermanent.

• Breathing is part of my mindfulness every day. Breath is how you connect with your physical temple, your sacred temple, this body that you're riding in.

• Book: The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer

• I was bullied as a kid, I was an overweight kid and that's why I had so much interest to go into nutrition. I was a very sensitive, empathic girl growing up. I could feel everybody's feelings and I had no idea what to do with this overwhelming sense of, I know what everybody's going through. It was really wild.

• 300 Shape a Miracle Mindset With JJ Virgin

Let’s talk about forgiveness. It can be a challenge to let go of the past, but it is one of the most important things you can do for yourself and your peace of mind. Holding onto anger or resentment will only cause stress and sadness in your life. For some of us, there is anger seething just below the surface and you probably don’t realize the extent of the damage it is causing.

When you forgive someone who has hurt you, it helps to release that person from being a part of your story. Let go of what was done to you by forgiving them with compassion, understanding, and love instead. You deserve happiness too!

Letting go can be difficult but it is worth doing. A common believe is that forgiveness is for the other person, yet you will receive profound benefit and peace as a result of learning to let go of the internal stories that are holding you back. Learning to let go is a constant theme of mindfulness, and learning to let go is what forgiveness is all about.

Many of my guests have talked on the show about how life changing the teachings of Eckhart Tolle have been in their lives. He wrote The Power Of Now, and that book is by far, the most recommended book on Mindfulness Mode.

Eckhart Tolle defines forgiveness this way. He says forgiveness is not to harbor grievance or resentment or any negative feeling about a specific event or person.

He says forgiveness is only possible when you are connected with the formless in yourself.

If you are struggling with anxiety or stress, it may be because you are hanging on to something that you need to let go of. A lot of people live for years hanging on to stories and beliefs that someone wronged them. If that’s you, it’s important for you to realize that these beliefs are holding you back, they’re harming you. These stories are preventing you from living your best life. You would have way more peace and contentment if you were able to let go of the stories that say you’ve been wronged somehow.

Forgiveness is a choice and for a long time I didn’t realize that. I didn’t’ understand that, in a second, I could decide to let go of the story that I played over and over in my mind, the story that I had somehow been wronged or mistreated.

Forgiveness is not an obligation. You are usually the one to receive the greatest benefit from forgiving someone or some thing. A lot of people think that forgiving serves the person that you are forgiving. That’s usually a misconception. It can be a benefit to the other person, but the benefit is usually for you, the one doing the forgiving, the one letting go of the story.

Sometimes it’s not a person we need to forgive, but a situation or an unfolding of events.

Guilt can live on and exist for your entire life. Even if you've never told anyone about the situation or incident that caused the guilt, that negative story can live on within you. Maybe years later you will realize that you can forgive yourself. It will not be necessary to talk to the person in your story who wronged you. It is possible for you to let go of the story of guilt in an instant. You can decide to have peace and move on. 

Much of forgiveness is really forgiving yourself. That’s the most important kind of forgiveness there is. Often, buried deep down in our sub-conscious mind is a story we’re telling about ourselves, a story where we are holding ourselves responsible for some problems in our lives. Maybe we are blaming ourselves for not making enough money, not having enough friends, or not meeting up to our own standards in some way.

A lot of people never come to this place of realizing that the most important kind of forgiveness is self-forgiveness. Having an on-going mindfulness practice will take you closer and closer to self-forgiveness.

Learning to forgive can be an on-going process and it usually takes time and effort to make it happen. That’s why I talk about meditation, journaling, and walks in nature. All these activities will help you move to a place where you’ll be able to let go of some of these stories that are holding you back.

My mind has always been super active, and I didn’t know what to do with all the thoughts and messages that were constantly buzzing in my brain. One time when I was in my early twenties, I talked to a councillor and he said, you’re thinking too much. You’re overthinking things.

He asked me what I did when I would drive my car. He asked, did I listen to the radio or what? I said I usually didn’t listen to anything, I just drove in silence. He suggested I allow my brain to relax by sometimes listening to the radio, or listening to music so my brain wouldn’t be trying to solve things all the time.

I remember thinking this was a bit strange, but Eckhart Tolle teaches the same thing. He says that we are addicted to thinking, and that too much thinking causes problems for a lot of people.

To forgive, you need to first listen to your inner bully. Some call it your self-talk or your inner dialogue. Notice those stories that are on repeat in your brain. What are they about? Who are the characters? Is there pain or anger involved? Become aware of those stories, and then make a conscious decision to let them go.

If you’re like me, there are probably lots of different stories, some more prominent than others. Once you notice one story that seems to be repeating a lot, make a decision to focus just on that story and how it would feel to let it go. To release the energy that is going in to telling that story over and over again.

Write about it, dissect it, if you want to talk about it to a trusted friend, that can be therapeutic too. Then make a conscious decision to let it go, to release the energy that goes along with it.

Decide that anytime that your inner bully starts to replay that story, you’ll just smile and say, been there, done that. That’s over. I’ve let it go. I’ve released that story from my Audio Collection.

When I did that, I noticed there were other stories that very quickly moved into place. It was kind of like on Netflix, once you watch a suggested movie, there are then a whole lot of other suggested movies that move into the cue.

But that’s ok. Learning to understand our operating system is a life-long project.

The bottom line is that as you begin to understand the benefits of forgiveness, you’ll realize that those benefits include more peace in your heart and mind, less stress on your body, increased happiness, and more self-confidence. You’ll experience other benefit too, but I’m sure those will be on the list.

As always, there’s one major way of living that will improve your life, that is to live in the moment. Enjoy the moment because that’s everything. The present moment is all we really have that matters. If you can lessen the number of judgmental thoughts you have, the more contented you’ll be. You’ll find you’re happier, more relaxed, and able to celebrate life to a higher degree.

If you haven’t read The Power of Now, or any of Eckhart Tolle’s writings, you might want to check them out. You can listen to the audio book, or read it, whatever works for you, but if you’re like thousands of Mindfulness enthusiasts, you’ll get a lot out of his lessons.

Book: The Power Of Now: A Guide To Spiritual Enlightenment by Eeckhart Tolle

Book: A New Earth: Awakening To Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle

• 198 How To Find Clarity and Forgiveness With Men's Coach, Tim Matthews

Jim Harshaw Jr. is an NCAA Division I All American wrestler, former NCAA Division I head coach, internationally recognized TEDx speaker, personal performance coach, and host of the Success Through Failure podcast. He has impacted hundreds of thousands of lives across the world by helping clients and audiences increase resilience, maximize potential, and build high-performing teams. His clients include CEOs, entrepreneurs, and leaders from Fortune 500 companies as well as current and former athletes from the NFL, UFC, NCAA, and Olympics.

• Website: www.JimHarshawjr.com

• Tom Perrin  (Sports Psychologist)

(Sports Psychologist)

• I recently heard this – Losing your patience is weakness. I never really thought of this, but it really resonated.

• I have a breathing technique that I use. I learned this from Dr. Rob Gilbert of the Success Hotline. (Note: You can still call the Success Hotline at (973) 743-4690, but now, you can subscribe to this new podcast, and get his daily messages right to your device.

• Book: How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie

• I was in sixth grade and I got bullied. I was a wrestler and I didn't know my own capabilities and strengths. I had an overwhelming self-doubt and lack of confidence.

• 068 Connecting Diligence and Mindfulness with World Class Wrestler Riley Otto

Everyone experiences anxiety at one time or another and most of us would love to be able to erase it as soon as it appears. Although we don't often think of this, some anxiety is positive because it can motivate us to make necessary changes, or help us to push through our fears. Everybody knows that too much anxiety can cause health issues and irritability. In extreme circumstances, extended periods of anxiety can result in death, with heart issues or stroke being the most comment culprits.

The title of this episode, Erase Your Anxiety, suggests that you should know how to remove anxiety from your life. If you’re like me, you’ll realize that sometimes you just notice the anxiety, realize it’s there for a reason, and you show gratitude. You thank it. Without you, “Anxiety”, I wouldn’t be pushing through to this next challenge in my life.

Just because you know and understand how to erase anxiety, that doesn’t mean you’re always going to do it. You’ll just feel confident and assured, because you know that you can erase anxiety if you want to. Mindfulness can help us with anxiety in several ways.

1/ Notice & Identify

Identifying Our Issues

Identifying our own issues can be one of the hardest things to do. Usually it’s way easier to see and form opinions about what’s going on with other people, we just can’t view ourselves in the same way. Our ego is constantly trying to protect us, and sometimes even though our subconscious mind believes it is protecting us, the truth is that a lot of the time, it’s not protecting, it actually keeping us from moving forward.

Anxiety Is Widespread

Thinking back to some of my past clients, and I’ll only talk in general terms unless they have specifically given me a thumbs up to share details, when I look back, practically every one had some kinds of problems with anxiety. I remember a client who felt like everything at work was great, she was a natural at tackling projects and coordinating teams and working with her staff towards goals. Her problems came in her personal life, with her children, her ex husbands, and her current partner.

Her non-work life was a constant turmoil. Through hypnosis, we came across some events that had happened during childhood that were actually pretty traumatic, but she had tucked them away in her memory and her conscious mind had no memory of this. After some sessions about letting go, forgiveness, and delving into issues in a comfortable and meaningful way for her, she said she felt ‘lighter'. She felt like her problems with her kids were like a helium balloon. Before our sessions, she had no idea how to let go of that balloon. After the sessions, she realized she could let go with ease.

I talked to her about a month ago, and she said her relationships with her ex’s had settled down, her kids were much more content and doing online schooling from home. She said it was like a dark cloud had been lifted off her life. And she added, “it felt like that dark cloud has been following me for a decade or more”.

We experience anxiety and our brain searches for a remedy. A lot of people, think, “I just need to talk to a friend about all this”. They find their remedy socially. I think more woman than men move in this direction. After teaching in schools for more than 20 years, I’ve noticed that the women I’ve met are very quick to form social circles and they seem to socialize way more than a lot of the men. I think that’s true for me too.

There was a time when I was a kid, it was music that was my remedy. I practiced the piano every day, later, the accordion and the saxophone. I absolutely loved creating music, performing music, and entertaining people. I loved playing when people were around me, not so much when I was by myself. For me, that music turned into a career and I got a music degree, learned to play all the band instruments, and became a music teacher. Looking back, I think all that music helped lessen the anxiety that might have otherwise controlled my life. Music helped anxiety take a back seat.

A lot of people turn to a substance of some kind to deal with anxiety. That substance might be food, tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, or other drugs. Unfortunately, a lot of these substance solutions only work for a while, or there are negative aspects to them. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. 

My inner bully often reminded me that I wasn’t good enough, or wasn’t smart enough, but I kept pushing it into the back seat without even realizing it consciously. I just kept focusing on what I loved, the music, my students, the concerts, plays, and musical skits, and all the other fun things I was doing. I was also a church music director and loved doing that too.

Anyway, maybe there’s a clue for you there! Find something you love and focus on it. Make it a part of your life if you can. If it’s something that can also be your career, that can be a positive way to go about it.

Have you ever noticed that once you get really into doing something you love, you forget all your troubles? That means you’re in the flow.

If you don’t remember anything from today’s episode, I hope you remember the four steps to learning how to erase your anxiety.

Become aware of your anxiety as soon is it begins to happen. Ways to help you quickly identify your anxiety can include meditation, quiet time, spending time in nature, swimming, running, or some other physical activity. Journaling is another way that helps many people identify their emotions quickly and more effectively.

Make some conscious choices of what you can do. Maybe do Wim Hof exercises. Wim Hof has helped thousands of people with anxiety and also with depression. How about starting a new hobby or project? Maybe you should entertain the idea of changing jobs, or moving to a different home. Open up your mind and some ideas will come to you while you are doing the activities I mentioned above in in bullet point one.

Taking action is the most important of my four steps. The reason I say this is because so many people, me included at times, we read books, talk to friends, think about solutions, figure things out, and then we’re so close to success and we don’t take that step where you actually have to take action. It’s usually fear that’s holding us back. You know what they say about FEAR – Forget Everything And Run or Face Everything And Rise – those acronyms are from Zig Zigler. I strongly urge you to take my advice, Face everything and rise. You will rise up and meet your goals if you’re willing to push through and take action.

Has your action started to move you in the direction you’re looking to go? If you journal, you’ll be able to look back at your writing and see if this person you’re reading about is making sense. Are his actions working? Are you noticing that the writer, (and I mean you), is learning to identify anxiety? Are you methodically deciding what to change and then taking action? As humans, it's important to observe and re-evaluate our actions.

The first coach I ever hired was awesome. She was incredibly inspirational and she helped me deal head-on with some of the anxiety I was experiencing. She said, “Bruce, create habits that work for you. Habits that will help you feel empowered every day.” I started journaling daily, I started becoming more consistent with meditation, and I checked in with myself.

I learned to face my inner bully head-on. Now my coach didn’t call it my inner bully. She talked about my self-talk. I call it my inner bully, but it’s the same thing. She said, listen to what that voice is saying and when you need to, tell it to ‘take a hike’.

I like to imagine that I’m driving my car and my inner bully is trying to take over and I have to tell him to stay in the back seat, in no uncertain terms. Give your inner bully a name. Get to know him. Take charge and tell him or her how things are going to be from now on.

You CAN learn to erase your anxiety. Use mindfulness along with the four points I've shared today, and with those tools my dream for you is that you will reach new heights of calm, focus, and happiness. Stay in the mode!

Book: Meditation Is Not What You Think: Mindfulness and Why It Is So Important by Jon Kabat Zinn

Book: Redefining Anxiety: What It Is, What It Isn't, and How to Get Your Life Back by John Delony

• Transform Anxiety Into Prosperity With Tim Shurr

Kirsten Beske is a clinical psychotherapist and mindset coach having spent over a decade learning about human experience and fostering personal growth. She willingly shares the professional knowledge, wisdom, and skills that she has acquired throughout her career with those ready for the next level of change and transformation. However, Kirsten's personal transformation story is truly moving – from lawyer to psychotherapist, straight-identified to gay-identified, and drinking to sobriety provides lessons in inspiration, hope, and real-life resilience.

• Website: http://apropositive.com

• Pema Chodron

• The emotion of anger is the one that gets the most interesting when you can take a little bit of separation from it and can understand what's going on underneath it.

• Breathing as an anchor, I wish it wasn't as important as it is because it seems so basic. I use it all the time because it's one of those things that you can use and no one knows you're doing it.

• Book: A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield

• I always have been the fighter of bullies and when I went into law I wanted to be the protector of anyone who was being bullied. I've never felt that I've been the victim of bullying and I don't think that I've been a bully.

• 026 Sharon Roemmel: Erase Pain and Find Your True Purpose With Yoga

Compassion is the topic today. It's easy to be compassionate to those we love and who are kind and loving to us. Being compassionate to every living thing is a whole different challenge. If you can truly show compassion to everyone and everything, you will experience a life that largely includes peace and contentment.

When Aunt Vesta came to visit, one of the first things she would say is, ‘Tell me about you?’. I would ask her questions and hope that she would play the piano … she would always turn the conversation back on the person she was talking to. She had a lot to share, but she wanted to know what was happening in the lives of others.

Thich Nhat Hahn has written many poems and offered much advice on how to show compassion to others. Here’s a quote by Thich Nhat Hahn: “To love, we need to open our heart and release our preconceived notions about other people. We cannot judge by appearances or assumptions of what they might do.”

Thich Nhat Hahn's words ring true because compassion can be a difficult thing to cultivate when you have few in your life who are kind and loving. It's easy to show compassion for those we love, but it takes more effort to show compassion for everyone. Today, I’m going to talk about how Thich Nhat Hahn has shown compassion for others and how you can apply his teachings in your own life.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called him “an Apostle of peace and nonviolence” when nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Exiled from his native Vietnam for almost four decades, Thich Nhat Hanh has been a pioneer bringing Buddhism and mindfulness to the West, and establishing an engaged Buddhist community for the 21st Century.

In 1982, Thich Nhat Hahn moved to a site in the south west of France, that became known as “Plum Village.”

Under Thich Nhat Hanh’s spiritual leadership, Plum Village grew from a small rural farmstead to what is now a large and active Buddhist monastery, with over 200 resident monastics and over 10,000 visitors every year, who come from around the world to learn “the art of mindful living.”

In the last twenty years over 100,000 people have made a commitment to follow Thich Nhat Hanh’s modernized code of universal global ethics in their daily life, known as “The Five Mindfulness Trainings.”

Thich Nhat Hanh also founded the “Wake Up” website, a worldwide movement of thousands of young people training in the practices of mindful living, and through this program, thousands of teachers have been taught to teach mindfulness in schools in Europe, America, and Asia.

In 2014, just after his 88th birthday, Thich Nhat Hanh suffered a severe stroke. Four years later, in November 2018, he returned to Vietnam to live out his remaining days. Nhất Hạnh has published over 130 books, including more than 100 in English, which have sold over 5 million copies worldwide.

Thich Nhat Hanh is often referenced by guests on Mindfulness Mode and his wisdom is cherished by most of the people I know who practice mindfulness.

Nhat Hanh refers to “Deep Listening”, which is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person. It’s often called compassionate listening. You listen with only one purpose: to help him or her to empty his heart. … You just listen with compassion and help him to suffer less.

I’m going to share these words by Thich Nhat Hahn on compassion: In the eyes of Great Compassion, there is no separation between subject and object, no separate self. If a cruel and violent person disembowels you, you can smile and look at him with love. It is his upbringing, his situation, and his ignorance that cause him to act so mindlessly. Look at him—the one who is bent on your destruction and heaps injustice upon you—with the eyes of love and compassion. Let compassion pour from your eyes, and don’t let a ripple of blame or anger rise up in your heart. He commits senseless crimes against you and makes you suffer because he cannot see the way to peace, joy, or understanding.

If someday you receive news that I have died because of someone’s cruel actions, know that I died with my heart at peace. Know that in my last moments I did not succumb to anger. We must never hate another being. If you can give rise to this awareness, you will be able to smile. Remembering me, you will continue on your path. You will have a refuge that no one can take from you. No one will be able to disturb your faith, because that faith does not rely on anything in the phenomenal world. Faith and love are one and can only emerge when you penetrate deeply the empty nature of the phenomenal world, when you can see that you are in everything and everything is In you.

Long ago I read a story about a monk who felt no anger toward the cruel king who had chopped off the monk’s ear and pierced his skin with a knife. When I read that, I thought the monk must be some kind of god. That was because I did not yet know the nature of Great Compassion. The monk had no anger to hold back. All he had was a heart of love. There is nothing to prevent us from being like that monk. Love teaches that we can all live like the Buddha.

I encourage you to read some material by Thich Nhat Hahn. He believed that we are all one. Understanding that we, as living beings are all one, can help us feel and show compassion for everything and everyone.

I hope you’re experiencing feelings of peace, love, and true compassion.

There are hundreds of thousands of essential workers out there helping people struck down with COVID19. I know some of them, because of my wife, Darlene, working in the ICU, and so many of her colleagues. They’re overburdened and yet pushing through, doing whatever they can and doing it with compassion.

Here in our part of the world, COVID19 is still central in the lives of many. I believe that striving to live every day by showing compassion is one of the things we’re called to do.     

Thanks for listening, Mindful Tribe. Bye now.

Book: Path of Compassion: Stories from the Buddha's Life by Thich Nhat Hahn

Book: The Art of Mindful Living: How to Bring Love, Compassion, and Inner Peace into Your Daily Life by Thich Nhat Hahn

• 511 Pause, Breathe, And Smile To Awaken Your Mindfulness; Gary Gach (Note: Gary Gach was educated by Thich Nhat Hahn)

Vidya Ravi is a mompreneur who became a highly sought after Facebook advertising expert, making her way in the competitive marketing field by being a no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is, results driven power house. She has scaled multiple businesses to 6 and 7 figures with amazing ads strategy and customer-first marketing. With close rates of up to 80% on cold audiences and ROIs up to 42x for clients, their Facebook ads agency is one of the best in the industry. Vidya is not only passionate geeking out on all things Facebook ads and marketing, in her spare time she’s an avid reader, a die hard Harry Potter and Avengers fan, enjoys exploring new and exotic places with her husband and son, and spending time with her extended family.

• Website: www.StorybirdAds.com

• My son

• I know when I'm going to be so sad. There are times when I cry like a big release on automatic mode. That's how I express my emotions. Nobody knows why I'm crying, I don't even know why I'm crying. It's just too much stress. But after I became a vat, I handle it differently. I know why I'm crying. I know why I feel like crying. I can actually go into the depths more easily now.

• I've tried different forms of meditations. The best kind of meditation for me is to just sit in silence and let everything flow. That's the only thing that has worked for me so far.

• Book: I don't read things in a book about mindfulness.

• My son has taught us how to live. Even if I offer him the best thing in the world, he will say, that is enough for me. That's something that I first saw in him as a child.

• Modern Spirituality with Ben Decker