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SPIRITUAL HABITS – 8 WEEK PROGRAM, STARTS OCTOBER 24TH
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TRANSCRIPT:
Arlina Allen 0:05
Well, Eric, thank you so much for joining me today.
Unknown Speaker 0:13
I am really happy to be getting to talk with you again. Yay,
Arlina Allen 0:17
I know we spoke Gosh, I probably want to it was probably like a year or two ago, when we first spoke, and I’m so excited, I get to speak to you again, because you do have a class that’s coming up that I think is going to be so helpful for a lot of people, especially in our community, the recovery community, who are really trying to redefine what their higher power means a lot of people start with like this, maybe there is a higher power, and it’s an evolution process. You know, we usually start with a little chink in the armor in the beginning. And that evolves, but it’s so nice to have a little help. So your class that’s coming up is called the spiritual habits. And you do it both in group format and one on one. Is that right? Yeah, Mm hmm. Do you want to tell me a little bit about the, the group one and how that works?
Unknown Speaker 1:10
Yeah, I mean, the program broadly, is combining two of my biggest sort of interest areas in life, which is, one is behavior, change science, how and why do people change? And then the other are these timeless spiritual principles that I feel like helped save my life in recovery. And so it was really bringing those two things together, and really saying, alright, how do we live? our beliefs more fully, in a week may have been spiritual beliefs. But how do we how do we do that? How do we integrate them more fully into life. And a big problem is just forget it. Right? Big problem is just we just don’t remember we get busy early in the morning, and we go, go, go, go, go go. And, you know, maybe if we’ve developed a morning meditation practice, which even for a lot of people is a stretch and hard to do. Even if we’ve got that, that may be the last time we think about any of these ideas until maybe we’re going to bed and maybe not even then. But some people do like a formal 10th step at the end of the night. And then you’re like, oh, gosh, I didn’t think about any of that stuff for the entire day. So so we’re trying to figure out how to read it through and then the group part of it is, you know, we meet once a week on Sundays, as a as a group and the groups are, it’s a pretty good sized group. I mean, last time, it was 100. People, I don’t know what it will be this time. But the really cool thing we do is we divide that 100 person group up into smaller groups, or five or six people. And those people meet on Wednesdays, and they talk about what the practices are for the week and how those practices are going. Anybody who has been part of you know, recovery groups will understand the power of a small group of people talking about what you’re trying to work on. And so that’s the part of the program I’m really probably most excited about is, and a lot of those small groups that start meeting in the program are still meeting together, a couple of them have been going on for like two years, they just keep meeting with each one of these little friendships, and they’ve carried on because I’ve been for so many years with this podcast, I’ve been like, how can I get the people who are listeners of this show, to know and support each other? Because I know that they could, and they would. And so I finally feel like we’re starting to kind of crack that code. And I’m really excited about it.
Arlina Allen 3:33
That’s amazing. It’s so interesting, you know, in the religious, I grew up super church. So there was the there was the service on Sundays. And then we did, I grew up like Southern Baptist. And so there was a whole lot of church Sunday in the morning, and then the evening and then on Wednesday, and it was a little thing. But the idea of the small group, you know, I was very familiar with that. And then when I got sober, you know, I would go to these big meetings and you get these big speakers that were just amazing that would rock your world. But it was so important to have like your little mini support group, right? Your writer dies, your the people that you know, five or six friends that you could call day or night, you know, no matter what, and who could call you day or night that intimate support group is so vital, I think to feeling connected.
Unknown Speaker 4:24
Absolutely. It is so important is to find those people that Yeah, we can share with and rely on and and be be more intimate with.
Arlina Allen 4:35
Yeah, get real. That’s amazing. And then you do the spiritual habits. One on One is the one on one so that as people walk through their lives and they bump up against different search situations, they can bring it to you and you can work, work it through. Like you examine the thought process and all that stuff.
Unknown Speaker 4:58
Yeah, it’s definitely I mean, by its nature, you here it’s one on one. So it’s working directly with me. Whereas, you know, in the spiritual habits group program, it’s maybe me to 100 people, and then they meet, this is me one on one with someone. And yeah, we’re still covering the same ground. But we’re really we’re, we’re moving a little bit more slowly through the material. And we’re really talking very much about integration. And, you know, what, what works with this, you know, these practices you’re trying? Is it working? Is it not working? Oh, yeah, it works really well, in this situation. But you know, I just when it comes to this, I’m stuck. You know, so we can we can process it more. I mean, the whole part of the program is to really bridge the gap between knowing and doing
Arlina Allen 5:47
your speaking my language, it’s not enough to know how, like, what it’s important to know how it’s applying the information. That’s the tricky part.
Unknown Speaker 5:55
Yeah. And, you know, I came up in a in a 12 step tradition, and there was a way to apply what you were learning there was, you could work the steps, I mean, there was something to at least do, there was some coherence to what you could do. And so much of what we learn has no scaffolding to hang it on. Right? This is true. So that’s part of what you know, we’re trying to do in the program is actually kind of slow down and say, all right, you know, there are, you know, X number of fundamental principles that show up through all spiritual traditions, all religious traditions, frankly, all most philosophical traditions. They’re there. They’re things that most everybody would go Yeah, I agree with that. That’s true. Yes. And, you know, but Okay, that’s great. How do we actually live it?
Arlina Allen 6:47
Exactly. I love that you’re combining science and spiritual principles? Are you familiar with Joe dispenza? His work at all? A little bit? Not a lot. It’s just, you know, he says something a lot about how science is explaining the mystical now, right, like, through things like quantum physics and neuroscience and things like that, we’re really getting a sense of why and how the spiritual principles work. And I really love that combination between science and spirituality. When it comes to behavior change, are you incorporating, you know, the application of things like 12 steps into the program? Or how does that work?
Unknown Speaker 7:33
Not not directly, I’m more incorporating the science of behavior change kind of what we know about how people change what we know about habit creation, what we know, you know, and when I say what we know, I mean, you know, we’ve interviewed a lot of, you know, the leading experts in the world on this, I’ve got 25 years of, you know, my own changes in recovery being a big one, but all kinds of other ones. And now I’ve got experience coaching hundreds of people from around the world. So it’s sort of distilling all that down to like, what, what do we kind of know about how people change? And let’s take that and then say, can we use Can we look through that lens and say, Alright, well, how can we then practice these principles more using that? So that’s really where the science comes together with the spirituality. It’s the science of behavior change, habit creation, trying to create what I call spiritual habits are a way of practicing our spirituality in a more habitual fashion. And by habitual I mean, consistent fashion? You know, not not, not the mindless idea of habit like you just do it without ever thinking about it. But, but more the consistent application,
Arlina Allen 8:54
consistent mindful practice. Yeah, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 8:59
Hi, one of the things in the program we talked about is developing what I call still points. And still points are just moments throughout the day that you can pause and do something. And by do something, the best way to think of it as I think of a stillpoint is like a container. If I can get these containers, sort of, you know, stitched into my day, then I can choose what I want to put in that container. Oh, I’m really focused on being present this week. That’s the principle we’re working on. I’ve got these still points. So what I’ll do it my stillpoint is all just, you know, ground myself in my senses. And, you know, look, what are five things I can see what are five things I can hear right, come back to the present, because our senses are the portal to now. And so that’s one example of something we could do in a stillpoint. But once you have these, you have a lot of, you know, almost thinking like if you’re running a race, it’s really helpful to have have water stations along the way, you know, a lot of us might start off and again, we might maybe we’ve got a morning meditation practice. And we get a lot of people don’t have that we do work on developing that in the program. But even if you do, it may be a long stretch of time to, like we said, till you reflect again, this still points are sort of like water stops along the way that allow you to refuel a little bit, one of the mantras we use in the program over and over the core ideas is that little by little a little becomes a lot. So if we take these small glimpses over and over and over and over again, because that’s what most of us get and have, if you, you know, if you’re spiritually committed, and focused, and you really want to grow in that area, you could go off and join a monastery or something, right. And that would allow you to just devote all your time to it. For most people, they’re not going to do that. So what they’ve got is a busy life. And yet, I still want to grow spiritually. So what we have in a busy life are moments and we have to start to use those moments better.
Arlina Allen 11:08
Yeah, you know, it’s interesting, as a friend who suffered a loss there, his girlfriend passed away. And he was like, I’m never gonna be happy again. Or like, I cannot be happy. At first, it seemed, I think for him, it’s felt like a betrayal to be happy, right? That it was, it was not like he wasn’t, if he was had moments of happiness, it would be a betrayal. But that’s I came back to this idea of just moments like you might be grieving, but you also might have moments, moments of joy, like maybe when you remember her and all the good things, right moments of joy when we don’t attach the next thought, which is in the future, like, which is, then I’m never gonna have that again. Right?
Unknown Speaker 12:00
Absolutely. And I mean, the spiritual principle is, is impermanence, right? Which means that things are always changing. And so even in even experience that seems like as solid and heavy as grief, and it is, there are also as you’re saying, there are moments where that’s not what’s happening. And so we can if we can learn to, you know, if we can learn to see the way that that not all moments are the same. You know, you might say I’m depressed, but are you depressed? all day, every day? Of course not. There are moments and feel better. And so yeah, I think that’s a great, great analogy.
Arlina Allen 12:40
I have this thing called a five minute journal. It says, what would make today great. Have you? Are you familiar with the Five Minute Journal? Oh, my God, it’s so good. And it’s what would make today great. And sometimes it’s recognized moments of peace. Yeah. Which is hard to do. Because I write it down in my journal. My Oh, that’s awesome. And then I set it down. I don’t think about it till it’s time to write the evening part. Like you said, That’s right. Yep. Yep. Yeah. So these, these still points? Do Are you having people set their timers on their phones, or
Unknown Speaker 13:14
we explore different methods? I mean, an idea from behavior change, is using triggers and triggers. I mean it differently than we mean, it is a
Arlina Allen 13:26
trigger to drink, or Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 13:28
Although that is that the actually that does fit within this framework. Yeah. But a trigger is basically Yes, something that reminds us to do something or causes us to do something. And so if we’re trying to do more of something positive, and the problem is forgetting, we need to remember more. So there are different types of triggers. There are time based triggers, like you said, I get to set an alarm on my phone to go off four times a day. And when it does, I’ll say a short prayer. That’s one way or the other are location based triggers. Something like every time I go in the kitchen, every time I go to the bathroom, like that’s a that’s a, it’s sort of an event slash location trigger. But there are transitions that are natural in our day, that if we can learn to use, we can use other triggers that are like, after I walk the dog, or after I make a cup of coffee, or every time I refill my water bottle or whatever it is. Right. It’s It’s It’s tying it’s it’s anchoring it to something you already do. Right?
Arlina Allen 14:36
That’s sort of like the tiny habits that BJ Fogg Yeah, habit stacking or something.
Unknown Speaker 14:43
Yeah, yeah. It is very similar to the idea of habit stacking habits, habits, habits, it’s Yeah, if you’ve got something you’re already doing, then you can you can sort of anchor another habit to it. You can say, you know, and it does, it can be anything. Like I said, if you’ve got dogs, you take your dog out x number of times. Do you do it every day? You know, ideally, at similar times, it’s an event that you could anchor something to, after the dogs out, I will x. So there’s that type of trigger. Then there is we explore random triggers, which are Yeah, using technology, like your phone, and a couple of different apps that are out there that will randomly go off. So it’s not and when they go off, it’s just a moment you again, you go, Okay, let me try and do my little practice here. Now, sometimes when a random trigger goes off, you just can’t do it. Like, if my trigger went off right now, I’d be randomly I’d be like, well, I’m gonna have to ignore it, because I’m in the middle of a podcast conversation, right? Yeah, doesn’t always work,
Arlina Allen 15:45
because that’d be rude.
Unknown Speaker 15:49
And then, would not make for a good podcast. But, but that is another way. And then the last type, and it’s a really powerful type is trigger in what we’re used to, which I would say, is an emotional based trigger. Okay. And, and a lot of us, these are negative, and they’re unconscious, I feel sad. So I eat, you know, I feel nervous. So I get on my phone, and I get on Facebook, you know, we can all talk and we can, you know, in, in active addiction, there’s lots of these, right? I mean, almost everything can be a trigger. But so, but these are the most powerful types of triggers to learn to reuse. If we can start to notice our internal state more often, then we can say, oh, when I’m tense, I will do X, you know, when I’m feeling sad, I will do why, you know, we get, we start to take those those internal triggers that are happening sort of semi consciously now. And we can be more conscious about the mistakes developing, you know, interior, you know, sort of a more consistent interior awareness, which is, you know, is a lot of work to develop. But once you have it, it’s incredibly valuable. And most people will find on their sobriety journey that or even not on any of healing journey, human journey, you start to get better at this when you’re paying attention, because you start to actually go, I feel better more of the time. So when I feel bad, it’s it can be, you know, it can be a trigger. Yeah, but not a trigger in a bad way, a trigger in a good way, like, oh, here’s what I’m feeling. Oh, okay. Now, here’s what I want to do when I feel that, when I feel that way, I’m going to take three deep breaths. And remember one thing I’m grateful for, I mean, there’s, we could do 1000 different things. But that’s an example of using sort of behavior change science, which talks about something called a habit loop. And habit loop is, you know, you get, you get a trigger of some sort of stimulus of some sort. And then there’s a response that you’re doing, because you’re seeking a certain reward. The way to rewire that is the trigger is still going to be there, you’re still going to want the same reward by and large, right? You just have to change the thing in the middle. You know, like, because if I get stressed, I’m still going to want to feel less stress that’s just natural and inborn. Now, I may become less frantic in needing to feel less stressed, right? I may be able to go like, Oh, I’m stressed. Alright, I can hang out with that. That’s a great skill. But I’m also I’m gonna naturally go well, I want to make I want to change that. So and I may change it right now and all sorts of unhelpful coping patterns. So how do we insert one? That’s, that’s better? So that’s an example of sort of using behavior change science to try and anchor some of these spiritual principles.
Arlina Allen 18:54
Yeah, that’s, I have so many questions. I think that’s so interesting, the idea of sort of noticing, because I think what most people do is they’re repetitive like, default mode network, they’re repetitive brain patterns are like, you make a mistake, and You’re such an idiot. Or you feel bad, and you go, Oh, God, I can’t believe I did that. Again. I’m so stupid. You know, that kind of thing. It’s so knee jerk and visceral. That and it happens so fast. It’s hard to notice and catch. And so I mean, I just like, I mean, just a brief little solution of three deep breaths. Remember something that you’re grateful for? Like what a simple but effective alternative response?
Unknown Speaker 19:41
Totally. Yeah. And and we want to, oftentimes, that’s what we need, right? We need like, I remember early in recovery, it was like if you want to drink call your sponsor, right. Like it was I needed that instead of like, God, I want to drink What should I do? Because what happens when we’re emotionally active baited. Yeah, is that the thinking parts of our brain just don’t work as well. So we’re like, I know, I have all kinds of I know, I should respond to this in a different better way. But for the life of me, I can’t think of how member can remember. Yeah. So we want to make it simple. You know, we want to make it simple. And, and so you
Arlina Allen 20:21
condition and condition like the, what you’re talking about the turnover moments is conditioning, which is something that’s super up for me right now, you know, I’m working with these women who have, you know, there’s like a proven EMDR, eye movement, desensitization reprocessing, those are good for situational things. But people like us who had repetitive, persistent ongoing negative conditioning, we need something just like what you’re talking about to recondition, because people think of the mind as being in the skull. But what’s true is that, I mean, that is true, but our entire, you know, there’s the spinal cord, and the spinal cord has nerves that cover every square inch of our body. And so the body’s like the unconscious mind. And so the unconscious mind is as conditioned as the conscious mind, or the subconscious mind. So it all this conditioning, that you’re kind of what how I think of it is, as you were saying, this that was coming up for me is that it’s conditioning. It’s like reconditioning, reprogramming. And these are so practical, such practical advice, when you when you mentioned, random triggers and having some apps, I was curious about the apps, but even more so you said that, that it would prompt you to do the practice. And so what are some examples of the practice? I think you mentioned prayer, do specific prayers, or what is the know, I
Unknown Speaker 21:54
guess? It depends what week we’re on in the program. Each week, in the many weeks, it’s an eight week program, although the last week is the last week is sort of a recap. So there are seven, there are seven core spiritual principles that I married with behavior change principles, the behavior change principle, sort of underlie the whole thing. And then each week, we’re working on a different spiritual principle. So you know, if we’re on the week that we’re talking about presence, then all of our still points in our notice in our reactions are going to be how do I, you know, how do I bring myself here to this moment, as clearly as I can. So I gave you one example, which is just a classic sort of ground yourself in your senses. Because part of the thing we A lot of us are like, well, I want to be present. What is that? How on earth do I even do that? But you know, like, for me for a long time, I’d be like, Alright, come to the present moment. And I would be there for a split second before I was gone again, for how long? And so so things like grounding ourselves, in our senses, were five things I can see right now causes my brain, it gives my brain just enough to do that it sticks around, but it’s still present, not thinking. But I’ve given it a little bit of a task. You know, another example would be like, look around your environment and see everything you can see that’s red. What we’ve done now is we’ve when you’re present, you’re looking, because what else is being present except being awake to your senses. That’s what it is. So so we find ways to use little things like that to keep us closer. So on another week, if what we’re looking at is learning to drop the resistance to things.
Arlina Allen 23:45
Oh, that’s a big one. Right? Drop resistance. Yeah, jus.
Unknown Speaker 23:50
Well, I mean, we spend a whole a whole module is on dropping the resistance in general. Now, of course, you always got to run that through, I think you always I always run it through the Serenity Prayer, right? Like, it’s if I can change it and it needs change, I probably that’s probably where my effort should go. But if I subtract it, change it, if I can’t change it, or I’m not going to change it. As in like, I’ve decided, I’m going to do this thing because it aligns with my values. I’ll give you an example. We go. My partner Jenny’s mom has Alzheimer’s and so for three and a half years, every month we go to Atlanta for a couple of weeks to be with her. And then we schlep back to Columbus for a couple weeks to be with my mom who’s not in great shape either every month back and forth, three and a half years, you know, it’s like a nine hour drive. And so I but I we’ve decided this is what we’re doing. it aligns with what we believe is important. it aligns with our values, we don’t see a better plan. So, but I will find myself starting to be like like say we’re going to Atlanta in three days. I’ll find myself starting Be like, I don’t want to go. Like, this is such a pain. Why do we have to, you know, like, this is, you know, my brother’s not doing this, like, I mean, all this stuff is resistance, I’m going to go, right, like I’ve already decided I’m going. So all that resistance just causes me to suffer. Yeah, and if we start looking in life, we might start to see this everywhere. Oh, it’s time to exercise in the morning. And yet I’m resisting it. I’ve got these things I need to do at work. And yet, I’m resisting them. There’s an equation that we use, that comes from a mindfulness teacher, and the equation is suffering equals pain times resistance. And so if you take, let’s just, let’s just like we’ll pretend it’s an actual equation, like mathematically, let’s just say that having to go to Atlanta, is on a pain level of three out of 10, let’s just pretend. If I resist it, at a level of like five points of resistance, I now have 15 total points of suffering. Right? If I were able to turn that resistance down, let’s just say I turned it down from a five to a three. Now I have nine points of total suffering, and I didn’t have to change the event itself at all. You can apply this, you can apply this to physical pain in the body, you’ll notice that part of physical pain is a sensation, it’s unpleasant, but then all kinds of stuff arises out of that. I shouldn’t be feeling this way. What Why me? How long? I feel like is it 50? What do I be like, it’s 70. You know, all that stuff. If we can turn that down, we turned down our suffering without ever moving the pain. Now, again, if you can fix the pain, fix it. But lots of times things in life, we either can’t change or like in the example of what I’m talking about, with the way we traveled to see our mothers, we’re not going to change because it aligns with our values. And so if we can turn down the resistance on that, we just suffer less.
Arlina Allen 27:10
Okay, that’s interesting resistance. You know, I sent I think, resistance sometimes and like, I want to track good things into my life, right, you know, attraction and manifestation all that’s what I feel is resistance is my internal judgment, either about what I think I deserve or being worthy. That’s like a, like a core belief that creates resistance. It sounds like, it sounds like that would work for this, too.
Unknown Speaker 27:40
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it resistance shows up lots of different ways. You know it. And it’s usually, you know, it’s almost always in the mind. Right, it’s almost always in the mind. And it’s almost always about something that just
Arlina Allen 27:59
is not actually happening.
Unknown Speaker 28:02
happening. Exactly. That whole story about Atlanta, right? Like, yeah, I’m not going to Atlanta for four more days.
Arlina Allen 28:09
Yeah. And yes, yeah, you could spend four days suffering
Unknown Speaker 28:13
four days being like, Why do I have to get sucks? You know what? I mean, on any level objectively, like, Yeah, kind of does in some ways. But I can minimize how much that is. And the same way we can all minimize the sort of pain we have in life. It’s not to say that pain isn’t real great, because it is, but we will almost always find that in addition to pain, we are amplifying and making things worse, by all the mental projections, fabrications, just all the spinning of the mind, which is usually I would just roughly categorize as resistance.
Arlina Allen 28:53
Yeah. And, you know, you’re familiar with that term, what we resist persists, you know. And I like the idea that you said that we’re not trying to pretend like it’s not there. Because pretending that it’s not there is resisting the feeling, right. So you acknowledge I felt like going, you know, but you acknowledge it, you feel it, you recognize it for what it is, you come back to the present moment, and, and you’ve that’s where you find peace and minimize that pain.
Unknown Speaker 29:24
Yeah. And, and what we find really, is that all these spiritual habits sort of work in tandem, they’re different facets of each other. So the answer isn’t always don’t resist anything. That’s not you know, there are times for, you know, there are there are times for allowing yourself to feel what you feel and feel it deeply. And then there are times also for saying, you know what, I’m not going to go down that path right now. Yeah, right. Like Yes, I’m not going to engage those thoughts because they’re destructive. Yeah. Alright. So this stuff is like, as a recent teacher I interviewed says it’s kind of like riding a bike, knowing what to do when is a little it’s definitely an art. But what we want to give is a is a, you know, sort of a suite of tools and, and habits that sort of can anchor people together that they can use. Yeah, but
Arlina Allen 30:23
you’re also creating those small groups, which is that you can bounce stuff off, this is why we need each other because we can’t all remember everything, right when we need to, right. And so that’s why we need each other is because when I’m crazy, you can just be like, Hey, don’t forget about this. I’m like, Oh, that’s right. Thank you so much. And then we’re like, Friends
Unknown Speaker 30:44
forever. And like we learned in 12 step programs, me reminding you of those things helps me as much as it helps you, Harper’s. Right. So so we’re in these small groups, and we’re sharing back and forth, you know, might be me this week, reminding you and next week is you reminded me but the, the it’s always a reciprocal relationship. That’s the beauty of peer support. Yeah, you know, is, is it’s, it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing, because it It works like that. And so that’s what the program does is it gives people a common language to talk in, in the same way that that’s what recovery. And, you know, in a for me, I had it, we had a common language, able to talk in a in a way. And so with the spiritual habits program, people have a common language. And so they can, you know, so these groups that are have been meeting for, you know, a long time together will just say, Well, you know, think about the middle way for that. And everybody will know, well, that’s what here’s what the middle way means. Here’s all the different, what does it middle wavy? means a void. I mean, in its essence, it means avoid avoiding the extremes, avoiding all thinking, you know, avoiding Yeah, there’s a lot of ways that we tend to end up at one extreme or the other, you know, now some things we need to be that way, like for me in recovery, like the middle way doesn’t work.
Arlina Allen 32:12
I don’t drink in moderation, no heroin and moderation, if I
Unknown Speaker 32:15
could. So,
Arlina Allen 32:19
I always tell people, if I smoke weed, I do it every day.
Unknown Speaker 32:23
It is still how I feel. And so yeah, so this isn’t everything. But an example of a simple example. But a lot of people will relate with this. Let’s say you’re trying to eat better. And you’ve got a you got a plan of what you’re allowed to eat naughty, and you go out to lunch with friends, or co workers and you eat all kinds of crap. Most people’s reaction is well, I screwed up effort. Yeah, right, right. Rest of the days off the rails, I might be off the rails entirely on the program, I might just give up right, versus a middle way approach would say, Well, I’m not gonna do it perfectly. Right. So uh, yeah, I messed up at lunch. All right, back on dinner. You know,
Arlina Allen 33:05
I just got like a sense of relief when you said that. It’s like, Oh, that’s right. I don’t have to do that perfectly. Yeah. What a sense of relief. Yeah. So
Unknown Speaker 33:12
there’s so many, I mean, in the in the program, we might go through 15 different ways of applying the middle way in different scenarios and situations in our lives, like, we might look at personality traits, you know, and say, well, they’re usually best and sort of a middle ground. Like we might say, you know, something a virtue like courage is a middle ground between being chicken and being an idiot. of anything, you act like an idiot. I mean, you just have on the other hand, you’re afraid of it and encourages it. So is a nice blend in between, you know, we talked about being assertive. assertive is sort of between passive and aggressive. It’s not aggressive, but it’s also not passive. Right. So lots of things fall into this. And then there are times where we hold the middle by holding, you know, potentially contradictory extremes also, right. You know, we hold on to ideas at the same time, that
Arlina Allen 34:13
cognitive dissonance. We’re holding two ideas at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a funny, funny world. We live in this whole recovery thing. It’s tricky. That’s why it’s so important to have people and a process. Can we go over real quick, the seven lessons, is it lessons like weekly lessons, or principles? He said,
Unknown Speaker 34:37
I refer to him as as principles, probably more than lessons. Although you could think of them that way. But sure, mutually exclusive. No, not not mutually exclusive at all. So yeah, we could walk through them real quick. The first is, intention and attention. And in this case, by intention I mean, a little bit less like intention of what I’m going to attract to me. And I mean a little bit more of it in the sense of who do I want to be?
Arlina Allen 35:11
That’s the
Unknown Speaker 35:13
what? Who’s the what what, you know, it’s, to me, it’s a way of asking about life in general, but also individual situation, what’s important about this? And how do I want to show up?
Arlina Allen 35:25
Oh, yeah, we’re trying to evolve into our future self, and to be intentional about that, like, you know, Arlina, three years from now. It’s like, what would she do? What does she think? How would she respond to the situation?
Unknown Speaker 35:38
That’s, uh, yeah, beautiful, you know, but it can be even as simple as I’m about to have dinner with my wife. What’s important about this? Oh, I want to connect with my wife. I want to be present for dinner.
Arlina Allen 35:52
I can see how you’re still moments all worked. And I can see how it all works together
Unknown Speaker 35:59
now. Yeah. And and the second part of that attention, where is my attention? So obviously, the quality of our life is directly. I mean, where we’re where our attention is, determines the quality of our life, you know, what am I
Arlina Allen 36:15
saying? Yeah, energy flows where attention goes.
Unknown Speaker 36:20
That’s exactly it. And, and not to make a word soup out of it, but is my attention in line with my intention? So let’s just go back to the, you know, I’m gonna have dinner with my wife and I decided ahead of time, I want to be present and connected. And I’m sitting there at dinner, and I realize, where’s my attention? Oh, I’m thinking about the last call I had. That didn’t go right. Well, okay. Now my attention is not where my intention wants to be. So can I bring them closer together? Closer, not perfect. No, which sounds very gentle. leads us perfectly to Principle number two, which is self compassion. Because what we don’t want to do is turn all this work into another way to feel bad about
Arlina Allen 37:10
No, right. Like my morning practice. I was like, Oh, crap, Let’s pray. Meditate, journal, do call take a picture post. Oh, my God, and then I’m like, fuck it. I can’t do it. When my day is ruined,
Unknown Speaker 37:26
exactly. middle way there’s that there’s the ruin for the middle. Class ruin is a classic example of not being in the middle way because short of like dropping your phone in the washer. Most things aren’t really ruined, you know? But that’s the kind of terminology we use, you know, I mean, fatalistic mentality. Yeah, that extreme language creates extreme feelings. Yeah, you know, so, but but staying in order here accept compassion, you know, how do we relate to ourselves with kindness regardless of how well we quote unquote, perform
Arlina Allen 38:02
relate to have you interviewed Tara Brock yet?
Unknown Speaker 38:05
We’ve had Tara Brock on and we’ve also had the woman who really pioneered self compassion research. Kristin Neff, we’ve had her on a couple times.
Arlina Allen 38:13
Oh, um, I do a morning group meditation with a bunch of gals. And we do the terror Brock reign meditation knew I did it in a group, because I will not I will do for others what I won’t do for myself. So I established a meditation group. So to force myself
Unknown Speaker 38:33
very wise, that is a wise application of behavioral principles.
Arlina Allen 38:36
Yeah. And we did a Tara Brock meditation. I love it. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 38:40
she’s, she’s an out ANDing teacher. Yeah, she is a particularly gifted, gifted teacher, for sure.
Arlina Allen 38:49
I do. Have you done the one on YouTube. That’s 11 minutes and 31 seconds, approximately.
Unknown Speaker 38:56
My partner Jenny loves Tara Brock, and done a lot of Tara Brock meditation. So I would guess you probably that at a certain point, they all start to sound the same. That’s not bad. But it’s not like meditation shouldn’t be constantly like, well, let’s drop this exciting thing in right, like, trying to settle in deep and quality. So of course, they’re very similar. I don’t mean that as a an era, of course. You know, I could probably do a tar abroad guided meditation for you right now. You know, like, tilting shoulders. But the move from ice to water, water to gas, if you’ve ever heard her do that. And one of her anyway, she’s amazing. I’m gonna look for that one. self compassion. Okay, self compassion. self compassion is a lesson I call no ordinary moments. And it’s about being present. But I call it no ordinary moments. Because, really, life is simply a series of moments. It’s all it is. And most of us are Always On our way somewhere else. It’s like, when I want to get to that moment, I want to get to that moment, I want to get to that moment, the problem is when we get to that moment, we have no capacity to inhabit it. So we’re all. So we have to, I mean, I used to do this all the time, I go on vacation, and I get to the ocean, you know, we’ve been waiting to get here for weeks. And I, there’s like, a, there’s like two minutes where it’s like, just glorious. And then my brain goes, What’s next? My brain? Usually what my brain does is it tries to, it tries to capture more of it’s like, you know, what, if we bought a place here at the ocean, OCEAN, you know, I come here more often. And then all of a sudden, I’m like, Well, how much money that would I mean, I’m glad. You know. So. So no ordinary moments is a reminder to us pay attention to the or, you know, to what we would call ordinary moments. And you know, that this is, you know, straight out of my Zen practice. I mean, Zen is fanatical about this point about, right here right now. Right now. Now, boom, over again. Again, again, now. Now Now, pay attention. And what we can learn is to pay attention when we learn to pay attention more deeply and differently. More moments of life, do we go Oh, there is more going on here than I thought. Always Yeah, we learn to see like an artist and hear like a musician. And, you know, all those things bring more of our ordinate what we would call an ordinary moment to life. So that’s that module. The module after that is called allow everything to be exactly the way it is. This is the resistance module. Okay, and again, I’m going to fit you know, I that’s what I call it, but I would say Serenity Prayer has to be applied here, right? Like, I’m not saying you never change anything in life, you know, but it’s really about looking at where are we resisting things in life? It’s not service, some type of resistance is noble, right? We see people resisting Sure, in the world against oppression. That’s not what I’m talking about. Like, I’m talking about the sort of internal resistance that we do to things in life that just Oh, man, it was any good.
Arlina Allen 42:17
Yeah. Like, it shouldn’t be like this.
Unknown Speaker 42:21
That’s the classic. It shouldn’t be this way. Yes, it is
Arlina Allen 42:26
this way. So to deny reality is insanity.
Unknown Speaker 42:30
It’s to suffer. It’s to stop or it’s to suffer. You know? And and really, yeah, what that idea of, there’s a, there’s a old psychotherapist by the name of Albert Ellis, you may or may have heard of him, and he was kind of known for his wild methods. And he had a term that I hope is not going to be too blue for this show. But he called it masturbation and must have it.
Arlina Allen 42:55
It’s blue like
Unknown Speaker 42:57
- Yeah, yeah. No, masturbation just meant this constant saying things must be this way. And if we can just relax that a little bit. Like not, of course, we have preferences. But when we go from it’s got to be this way. It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t be too hard, for I would prefer it be this way. That’s a real softening. So so that’s the resistance module. The next module is called we don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are. It’s about the fact that we are always in every moment seeing life through lenses. Through filters through our own conditioning, we can’t not. Some people might say that enlightenment, true enlightenment would be seen with no filters. I, we could debate that for 30 minutes. It’s esoteric, but by and large, we’re always seen through some lens. So can we learn to be more flexible?
Arlina Allen 43:57
flexible?
Unknown Speaker 43:58
Can we learn to try on different ones? Well, it seems to me that this is what it is. But what if I looked at it this way? Or what if I thought of it that way? Or what if I and in this in general, the the main lesson is when in doubt, zoom, which means take a bigger perspective. Like if I’m really stuck on something like ask myself, is this going to matter in five days, like take a broader time perspective? You know, there’s lots of ways of zooming our perspective out, but usually, what what’s causing us to be when we talk about making a mountain out of a molehill. The way you do that is you just get really close to a molehill right there and it’s all you see, it looks like a mouse, you stand up and you’re like, Oh, it’s just a little molehill. So that’s perspective. The next lesson we’ve already talked about, which is the middle way, okay, you know, avoiding all or nothing thinking, you know, we explore some of what I just said around like, what’s, what are we saying to ourselves, what are the what’s the language we’re using internally, because again, that extreme Language creates extreme emotions. I used to say I would catch myself saying, My back is killing me.
Arlina Allen 45:07
Hiring everyone that
Unknown Speaker 45:11
I’m about. Yeah. And then I checked in and I’m like, Well, yeah, I got a little twinge back there like, so. So extreme language, you know, not to
Arlina Allen 45:20
say that when I was at work, I’d be like my business card back. Oh, my God, I’d die.
Unknown Speaker 45:25
Exactly. Yeah. The other one I love is I can’t stand this. I’m like, well, you kind of are standing it. Right. Right, as we know. And then the last one is his generosity. It’s about how can we learn to live with a more open giving heart? You know, it doesn’t just mean giving possessions. But what are all the ways that we can give? And this is going to be people in 12 step programs are going to recognize this as as the 12 step we carry the message to is where can I be of service? How can I? So we just explored generosity through a lot of different lenses. So those are the those are the principles that underlie it. And then like, are those are each of the weak principles, and then sort of underlying all of it, we’re trying to take what we know about behavior change and saying, How can we live more of these things? But hopefully, there was enough in there that as I was just talking, that it’s helpful for people even if they don’t want to do the program, there was benefit in there. Oh, for sure. No, I mean, I want it to be a giant commercial.
Arlina Allen 46:33
Since I don’t really know. I mean, I want to take the class now. It’s a it’s a weekly with a week with the other week, is it?
Unknown Speaker 46:41
Yeah, it we, the main group meets on Sundays. Oh, that’s right. You said the weekend, noon, Eastern time. And then the small groups meet on Wednesday evening, usually at 7pm in the person’s local timezone. So I divide people by where they actually are located. So we’ve got like, you know, a European group that we grouped together, and you know, that lots of east and west coast and some people in between, we try and get people into their timezone. And some people will be like, Well, you know, what, I’m on Eastern, but put me in the western timezone group, because that works better for me. So we’ve got some flexibility with that. But it’s Sundays and Wednesdays. And
Arlina Allen 47:22
when if you don’t like your group, Does that ever happen? Or everyone says then from because they’re practicing these principles, everyone gets along.
Unknown Speaker 47:32
I haven’t had I don’t like my group. I’ve had it, we have had a couple things where like, if you put five, let’s say, we’ve got five people in a group. And let’s say three of them end up being flakes. Oh, you know,
Arlina Allen 47:48
they’re great. rehome some people sometimes,
Unknown Speaker 47:50
yeah, yes. You know, we have to rehome people, although what’s been fascinating is that some of these groups that end up being two people, like, become best friends, like it’s so there’s, there’s benefit, but now we’ve not I’ve honestly not had, like, this group doesn’t work. I don’t want to
Arlina Allen 48:06
say I mean, I say worst case scenario, see what I did there. I need your class.
Unknown Speaker 48:10
Yeah. But yeah, we’re doing a we’re doing a webinar on September 26, that I’m just saying, learn the number one daily spiritual habit to help you feel more peace in your life. And so I’ll just be doing a little teaching to give people a chance to get a sense of what I teach how I teach it, what it’s like. And, you know, so people can go to one you feed dotnet slash live, and sign up for that if they want, and you’ll get the recording if you can’t attend. And, you know, no, there’s not a high pressure set.
Arlina Allen 48:45
I get the sense. You’re not a high pressure sales guy.
Unknown Speaker 48:49
I don’t have it in me. I don’t have it. I mean, I’ve evolved to realize like, you’ve got a market like, you know, things like learn the number one daily habit like you got to give things a little zing. It’ll zest but as far as pressuring or pushing people,
Arlina Allen 49:05
I think so gross.
Unknown Speaker 49:07
could not do it.
Arlina Allen 49:08
If I wanted. No, I totally get that. And also, if people want to get to know you better. I love your podcast the when you feed. I didn’t know I don’t think I even told you. So when we when you when I got your email. I was like, Oh my god, I can’t believe he emailed me. Because just the day before, I didn’t tell you this in the email that I just the day before I was adding your podcast as a resource to I’m starting this membership site called the brain washers club. It’s sort of like ongoing. Yeah, I thought it was funny. Yeah, but I was listening your podcast as a resource. Yeah. Then I got your email the very next day. And then I was like, oh, somebody to talk to you. Can you introduce me to this lady, and then you introduce me to Judith and now we’re like best friends. She’s going to have me she’s going to be on my podcast, but she’s like a kindred spirit. She’s amazing.
Unknown Speaker 50:06
Lovely. She’s,
Arlina Allen 50:09
I told my husband I go, this is how the universe works. Right? Like you think about somebody, like don’t attach to it. You just I wasn’t it was just the weirdest thing as a focal
Unknown Speaker 50:21
diamond. Excited you were able to to to fit me in also
Arlina Allen 50:26
Oh hell yeah. Oh, I have to borrow from people that that’s my boy air. Yeah, no so good. This is so good. I’m so excited for your class. It was a really? I mean, it’s all about I’m obsessed with how do we apply? How do we apply? Information obsession? It really is. Yeah. How do we apply? It’s not enough to know. Yeah, how?
Unknown Speaker 50:54
Yeah. And I’m, I’m, I am very proud of the program. I really, I really do love it. And Steve, and I get such great feedback from people. You know, I mean, that’s, you do something you’re like, well, is it good? I don’t know if it’s good. I mean, I think it’s good. But and then you just hear people, you know, yeah. And we’ve we’ve run three cohorts of people through it at this point. So read cohorts of people saying like, yeah, this was really, you know, this was really great. So it’s just, you know, what it’s like, it just feels good to be doing something positive in the world?
Arlina Allen 51:24
Well, yeah. I mean, there’s something magical about fulfilling your purpose. You know, it’s clear that this is your purpose. And, and I think it attracts, you know, from that heart center, the right people who, you know, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, but it works the other way, too. When the teacher is ready. The student appears as well. Hmm. You? Listen, you had to do that good. Yeah. I really appreciate people who do their own work. Like I’ve interviewed people, I’m like, Oh, you haven’t done your work. You can feel the difference. So you’ve clearly done all your own work, because he can’t transmit something you don’t have.
Unknown Speaker 52:09
Yeah. And still him? Of course, of course, like worse. You know, I, I’ve been practicing in the Zen tradition for the last few years. And I’m sort of perhaps exploring a couple other routes to go. So I’m talking to different spiritual teachers, and certainly, well, probably still in the the Buddhist meditative tradition, but I’m interested a little bit more in deepening insight practices, where via concentration, we’re able to look more closely at questions of emptiness or non self or, you know, impermanence, were able to see that stuff more and more. And I, you know, I’ve had a couple of really major, sort of spiritual openings and awakenings. And and, you know, I want to, I want to follow where those pointed.
Arlina Allen 53:04
Yeah, that’s good. You know, those are kind of hard to come by once you’ve been sober and seeking for so long, because after kind of a while, you kind of touched on all the things. Right. So it’s, well, these
Unknown Speaker 53:16
are Yeah, these to me have been, like, sobriety was so much about working with my personality structure, you know, working with this, this version of Eric, that, you know, has all these conditions and all these different things. My spiritual awakenings have been more about a level behind that. Aren’t, they have nothing to do with you know, they have nothing to do with my personality structure, there aren’t issues to be on Earth, it’s, and these are really where that lesson of allow everything to be exactly the way it is kind of comes out of that because when I’ve had my most profound awakenings is when I’ve been somehow able to completely take my hands off the dials of trying to change anything about my experience. We’re always doing it very subtly, you know, it’s a constant, you know, it’s not bad. That’s just what humans do it. Yeah. But but there’s, the more I, my spirituality for me has become more and more about me less and less, actually.
Arlina Allen 54:29
Yeah. Oh my gosh, doing less. It’s so hard to not do. Totally, yeah. How it was working with this lady, and she keeps trying to tell me not to do but I’m like, how do I how do I get to we’re talking, I’m working with this lady that’s talking about doing the inner inner nurturing, you know, like go within a cycle. It was here, you know, that self sort of mothering thing. But when we get on these calls, and she’s like, take your hammer, how give me Is there a homework assignment that you can give me to this I’m always asking, okay, what do I do? How do I? How do I practice? How do I, how do I let go? Let me go is very hard.
Unknown Speaker 55:08
Letting Go is extraordinarily hard. It’s actually I think a phrase that’s a lot more useful is letting it be,
Arlina Allen 55:15
Oh, that’s good. Let it be.
Unknown Speaker 55:19
It’s gonna leave. Right? And so a lot of times, there may be something we we have the intention of letting go of, and we sort of, you know, we do the best we can to let go. And we’re like, well, it’s still here, still here. So at that moment, then it’s like, well, Alright, let it be. Here it is, you know, whether So, so? No, I, I totally understand what you’re saying. I am a Dewar by nature. I am a achievement junkie. Totally. And so for me, it’s been more and more, it’s not that I turn that part of myself off. It’s not that I have to not do it. But I have to have another way to relate to the world. It’s not only what am i accomplishing? What am I getting done? And even that accomplishing, isn’t all. I mean, that’s not a negative. I don’t I mean, I don’t say that in a way. But but it really is about, you know, is there another way to relate to the world that isn’t through that lens. And it just takes a lot of I mean, for me, it’s just taken a lot of training, a lot of conditioning, just continuing to try, you know, it’s a new way to spend some time each day where I try to not stray strain it things
Arlina Allen 56:34
struggling and striving, my favorite thing to do, apparently. I love Well, this has been so helpful. And I’m so excited for your class and to either introduce you to my listeners or reintroduce I’ll have to find out what the showing number was and put that in the show notes. I’ll put that in the show notes along with the link to the when you feed dotnet forward slash live Easy peasy to remember.
Unknown Speaker 57:03
Yes, right.
Arlina Allen 57:05
He was easy. This has been so helpful. Thank you so much. And I really look forward to speaking with you again.
Unknown Speaker 57:13
Yeah. Thanks so much for having me on. It’s always great to talk to you and it’s great to see you thriving.
Arlina Allen 57:18
Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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