Unconditional Healing with Jeff Rubin

This episode is a deep dive into one woman’s reinvention of herself along the Unconditional Healing path.  Nikol Rogers was an aspiring actor/dancer from a very young age and hit success in New York City right out of the gate.  But along the way, in the span of only one year, her entire world fell completely apart - her marriage, her career, and even her sense of who she was.  

I met Niki at a Healing Circle at this lowest point in her life, and we both share a laugh as she almost left that first meeting before it began - save for the intuition and healing energy of a little Pomeranian.  Niki realized at that very first meeting that opening up to her pain and loss was actually her strength, and the first step toward discovering the hidden jewel of unconditional health and presence....that suffering and heartache are part and parcel of the human condition and all attempts to deny or repress our feelings are futile and self-sabotaging. 

At about the same time in her life, Nikol had discovered a Zen Buddhist community that welcomed her with open arms and provided teachings and a meditation practice for connecting with her broken heart.  She eloquently describes how learning to ask for help played a key role in discovering the truth of interdependence.  That all of us are dependent on others and they on us, and that seeking help is a sign of wisdom and our shared humanity.

Please join us in this wonderful story of Niki’s discovery of inherent confidence and fearlessness, and her journey toward overcoming limiting beliefs and eventually helping others do the same through her very successful ZenRed Empowerment Coaching Practice. 

This episode is a talk entitled “What a Pandemic Can Teach Us”, which I gave to a virtual Healing Circle in March 2020 (at the very onset of the pandemic).  Unfortunately, it is still quite relevant and timely as the virus rages and worsens globally in December 2020.  While being frightening and horrific, a pandemic also provides an opportunity to take a look at ourselves, how we live, and what we’re avoiding or ignoring in our lives.

On the societal level, the virus, being wild, untamed, and unrelenting, is acting as a messenger from the natural world, alerting us to our foibles of attempting to domesticate and dominate that world. These messages grow ever more strident each year.

 On the personal level, I discuss:

 ·      How intense adversity brings a focus and urgency to the forefront

·      The truth of interdependence

·      What a pandemic can instruct us about the workings of karma

·      How to work with and manage intense or difficult emotions

 To that last point, toward the end of the episode, I describe a four-step practice that can help to manage emotions that threaten to overwhelm us. It is called the 4 S’s practice, which can be done in a few minutes.   Since parts of this practice involve arm and hand gestures, I have made a video of the practice that you can view on my Unconditionalhealing.org site.  You will see a link for the 4 S’s practice at the top of every page. 

This episode is my first time hosting a guest on this podcast. It’s my intention to engage with people who have undergone hardship and adversity in their life, and used it to discover a renewed sense of purpose and intention dedicated to inspiring and helping others.  The first guest that came to mind was my good friend and colleague, Mr. Dan Cayer, who was a participant at my initial Unconditional Healing retreat 14 years ago.

 As a young man in his 20’s, Dan sustained a crippling ailment that destroyed his ability to use his hands and arms for everyday tasks.  At his lowest point, Dan was unable to turn the pages of a book, or drink a glass of water without assistance.  

His story is one of perseverance and strength, of using hardship and pain to reboot his life in a completely new direction.  Dan has used his own experience of healing in both mind and body to help others who are struggling to heal in their own life.  He is now an accomplished writer, (although still unable to type), speaker, meditation instructor and has become certified as an Alexander Technique instructor, a novel method for working with pain and discomfort in the body.

In our conversation we discuss: 

·      The spiritual aspects of facing loss and adversity

·      Working with fear and uncertainty in an unconditional way

·      The myth of perpetual happiness

·      The need for forthright communication in relationships, especially when stereotypical gender roles are reversed 

·      The wisdom of relaxation and acceptance when things don’t go as planned.

And more………

As human beings, our mindset of ”maximize pleasure and avoid pain” is deeply ingrained into our psyche and consistently reinforced by our culture.  But this attitude, mainly based on fear, limits our experience of life as we try to deny, avoid, and even ignore those parts of ourselves that are hurting or wounded. 

In this episode,  I differentiate pain from suffering, since they are often used interchangeably, and discuss the futility of pursuing a life of permanent happiness and fulfillment.  

 Topics include:

·      A new broader definition of pain that includes everyday experience

·      What the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism can teach us

·      Two formulas that suggest how to be with pain while reducing our suffering

·      A three-step approach for “taking on pain as path” whenever it arises

Meditation practice is a core principle and activity of the Unconditional Healing path and lifestyle.  While the reasons that we meditate are varied and personal, there is one important reason for practicing meditation with which many are not familiar. We’ll explore that reason in this episode, which I think you’ll find very interesting. 

 I gave this talk to the virtual Healing Circle in June of 2020.  Some of the topics covered include:

 ·      Meditation as the antidote to the habitual conditioning that keeps us “asleep”

·      The artificial separation of “me” from my own experience

·      The real origin of happiness

·      Working with thoughts skillfully, neither leading nor following

·      Befriending ourselves, just as we might do with others

We live in uber-stressful times where emotional distress is an almost everyday occurrence. We very much need simple practical ways to work with our emotions, and in this talk I gave at a virtual Healing Circle in August of 2020, that’s exactly what I tried to provide. The topics I covered include: 

·      Using embodiment meditation as an antidote to “living in our head”

·      Tuning into the emotions directly as a “felt sense”

·      Emotions as vehicles for transcending logic and “figuring things out”

·      “Feeling what we feel” without judgment or analysis

·      Relaxation not grasping, observation not thinking

·      Journaling and walking as “meditation in everyday life” practices

Building a Resilient Mindset

Confronting adversity with resiliency and a positive attitude is the topic for this episode.  This was a talk I gave to the virtual Healing Circle in June of 2020.  The topics that I covered included:

·      How “framing our experience” is critical to resiliency

·      The real meaning of “positive thinking”

·      Overcoming isolation and stigma

·      Using a checklist and scheduler to stay focused and in the NOW

·      The power of self-reflection

We have been led to believe by our culture that "good health" is equivalent to the absence of disease or any difficulties in our life.  And yet that very conditional definition is exactly the cause of so much needless suffering, since achieving it is impossible and goes completely against the way things really are. It's very limited and completely ignores mental, emotional, and spiritual health as part of the equation. 

We'll explore the principles of unconditional health and the notion that struggling to obtain health as if it was something to be acquired outside of ourselves is the wrong end of the stick. I’ll recommend six ways we can connect to genuine health in our everyday life. 

Episode 1 is an introduction to Unconditional Healing, an expansive model of health that includes mental, emotional, and spiritual health, as well as our physical situation. We'll discuss what it is, how it came to be, what to expect on future podcasts, and where you can learn more.  Jeff will trace his own healing journey and how he came to develop the Unconditional Healing program and teachings altogether.