Showing Up To Life

Well, it’s been all week since I’ve recorded an episode, and wow, have I missed you!

I’m back today inspired by a short video I made for Tik Tok this morning about why - and how - to meditate in order to build the vital life skills meditation will develop.

In the episode today, I talk about three such vital skills:

The ability to focus our attention…

The ability to know when our attention has wandered…

The ability to be more aware of our surroundings and internal state.

With these three abilities, we can live a more grounded and connected life. This comes not only from the direct skills but also from the natural kindness and compassion that will arise from the integration meditation will promote.

It all starts with attention training. And one of the best methods to train attention is to do a little self-guided meditation every day.

Check out today’s episode to learn more:

If you’d like to check out one of my Wednesday evening meditations, click here:

https://www.meetup.com/learning-to-surf-talks-on-buddhism-meditation-mindfulness/

You can also find me on Instagram and TikTok

And if you’d like to experience 1:1 coaching, you can claim your free sample session here:

https://calendly.com/artburns/45-min-coaching-session

If you’d like to support my work, please consider becoming a patron:

https://www.patreon.com/artburns

Sorry for the poor audio in the first ¾ of today’s episode. We are experiencing technical difficulties.

Today I talk about our inner dialogue and how big a role it plays in every one of our experiences.

And then I talk about how it’s the awareness of the dialogue - as opposed to changing it - that is the important skill.

I hope you enjoy it!

If you’d like to check out one of my Wednesday evening meditations, click here:

https://www.meetup.com/learning-to-surf-talks-on-buddhism-meditation-mindfulness/

And if you’d like to experience 1:1 coaching, you can claim your free sample session here:

https://calendly.com/artburns/45-min-coaching-session

If you’d like to support my work, please consider becoming a patron:

https://www.patreon.com/artburns

Welcome back to the two-segment format! Not sure if it’s here to stay, but it’s here today, so let’s enjoy it!

In the first segment, I tell a bit of a personal story about my own journey that ended up in the practices of mindfulness, compassion, self-compassion, and lovingkindness.

I share this story specifically to illustrate how wrong I was about one of the most important aspects of this work: that it’s never about eliminating things like stress, anger, and reactivity; it’s about changing our relationship to these aspects of ourselves so we can act in our own best interest in the face of them.

In the second segment, I share a few thoughts on one of the most powerful tools for showing up: Forgiveness.

Specifically, I discuss how forgiveness is not the weakness most take it to be.

Forgiveness is more like a bullet-proof vest.

Check out today’s episode to learn more:

If you’d like to check out one of my Wednesday evening meditations, click here:

https://www.meetup.com/learning-to-surf-talks-on-buddhism-meditation-mindfulness/

And if you’d like to experience 1:1 coaching, you can claim your free sample session here:

https://calendly.com/artburns/45-min-coaching-session

If you’d like to support my work, please consider becoming a patron:

https://www.patreon.com/artburns

Often when we start a new process - mindfulness, dieting, working out, kindness, etc - we come to the idea that because we’re starting this thing now, we haven’t done anything before.

For instance, we get the weird sense that when I start eating this new way, I’m starting a diet. But the truth is that I’ve had a diet all along. It was just an unhealthy diet.

But when I look at it as not something new, but instead something changed, it opens me to see the momentum I’ve built against what I’m working on, and in this realization, I find the self-compassion that could be the single most determining factor in the success of this endeavor.

OK, that was a loaded sentence! Good thing I cover it all in today’s video:

I hope you enjoyed today’s episode! As always, I want you to know about the resources I’ve made available for you:

If you’d like to check out one of my Wednesday evening meditations, click here:

https://www.meetup.com/learning-to-surf-talks-on-buddhism-meditation-mindfulness/

And if you’d like to experience 1:1 coaching, you can claim your free sample session here:

https://calendly.com/artburns/45-min-coaching-session

If you’d like to support my work, please consider becoming a patron:

https://www.patreon.com/artburns

Most sociologists, anthropologists, and neuroscientists will shy away from the term Human Nature because it discounts the impact our personal experience has on our behavior.

While humans have shown clearly the capacity for acts of great violence, we see equal examples of acts of great altruism.

In today’s episode, I explore this issue and tie it into how we can practice kindness, forgiveness, and compassion.

I hope you enjoy it!

If you’d like to check out one of my Wednesday evening meditations, click here:

https://www.meetup.com/learning-to-surf-talks-on-buddhism-meditation-mindfulness/

And if you’d like to experience 1:1 coaching, you can claim your free sample session here:

https://calendly.com/artburns/45-min-coaching-session

If you’d like to support my work, please consider becoming a patron:

https://www.patreon.com/artburns

Before we go any further, please remember that I am not a licensed therapist and am not giving mental health advice in this or any of the episodes of the Showing up to Life Podcast and YouTube Channel.

Gosh, that is an uptight sentence! Sorry you had to read that!

But the sentence feels necessary and appropriate, as today’s episode is all about mental health as seen through the lens of Mindfulness, Compassion, and Self Compassion.

I hope this episode brings an understanding and a point of view that will help you navigate your own health conditions. (Please know that everyone has mental health and whatever that condition is for you, there is no shame.)

If you feel like you could benefit further from the work I talk about here; if you feel like some 1:1 support would help, please click this link and book your free coaching session with me:

https://calendly.com/artburns/45-min-coaching-session

And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out via email: [email protected]. (It sometimes takes a while, but I answer all emails! Please practice patience and forgiveness with me!)

While my hand is still a bit sore, I’m going to make this description brief!

Essentially, today I discuss how aversion leads to the present moment experience of tension and suffering whether it’s raining or not!

https://youtu.be/qTHdbQR8Su4

If you’d like to check out one of my Wednesday evening meditations, click here:

https://www.meetup.com/learning-to-surf-talks-on-buddhism-meditation-mindfulness/

And if you’d like to experience 1:1 coaching, you can claim your free sample session here:

https://calendly.com/artburns/45-min-coaching-session

If you listen to me for even a few minutes, you’re likely to hear me use the word Skillfulness.

The practices that I talk about here are all about developing the skill of living well.

As Sharon Salzberg has said: “We don’t meditate to get better at meditation. We meditate to get better at life.”

When we live without skill, we naturally engage in judging.

When we encounter another person, this judging shows up as jealousy, resentment, and downward social comparison.

In today’s episode, I talk about what Buddhism calls The Four Heavenly Abodes (AKA Boundless States of Consciousness):

Love, Compassion, Equanimity, and Sympathetic Joy.

I cover the first two at the surface level and go deep on Equanimity and Sympathetic Joy.

I hope you enjoy the episode!

If you have any questions on any of this, please feel free to comment on the video or send me an email at [email protected].

Or you can also meet with me live and in person. It’s a free meeting with absolutely no strings attached! To claim your free coaching session, please click here:

https://calendly.com/artburns/45-min-coaching-session

So often you’ll hear me talk about aversion and clinging, two negative mental states from which only negative emotions will arise.

We tend to talk about aversion and clinging because we can readily see these mental states when we experience them.

But there is a third negative mental state that completes what the Buddhist tradition refers to as the three poisons.

And this first poison is the negative mental state that gives way to aversion and clinging.

I’m talking about the mental state of Delusion.

Simply, this concept of delusion is simply the act of seeing things inaccurately, which I explain in today’s episode is a habit we cultivate through years of unwitting practice.

One of the most common ways delusion shows up in our lives is in the expectations we carry into most of our experiences.

That’s what today’s episode is all about. And I hope you enjoy it!

If you have any questions on any of this, please feel free to comment on the video or send me an email at [email protected].

Or you can also meet with me live and in person. It’s a free meeting with absolutely no strings attached! To claim your free coaching session, please click here:

https://calendly.com/artburns/45-min-coaching-session

In today’s episode, I talk about suffering.

I use the example of Animal Agriculture (AKA Factory Farming) as a starting point, but apply the same logic and concepts to all of the mass suffering we see on a daily basis.

Of course, this includes the suffering of everyone, everywhere.

This feels counterintuitive. How can noticing more suffering lead to less dysregulation??

Well, it’s all about context. And it’s all about seeing the systems of suffering, too.

I hope you enjoy the episode:

If you have any questions on any of this, please feel free to comment on the video or send me an email at [email protected].

Or you can also meet with me live and in person. It’s a free meeting with absolutely no strings attached! To claim your free coaching session, please click here:

https://calendly.com/artburns/45-min-coaching-session