How To Handle Toxic Thoughts | Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren

25:00And so we can have like a multiple hindrance attack and use all of them to try and manage and control our situation. So, yeah, we could have what Jeff was describing, sort of like, I love you. I hate you. I love you. I hate you. Or we could be thinking that we're being sneaky, like I love you. So you'll go away. You know, I'll be with this back pain so it'll stop. And so it's about understanding our own system and seeing what kind of tension or reactivity is there and softening that. So it's not about managing it or controlling it or bringing any more tightness to it, but really softening and seeing how much we can let things be and really allow.

25:43And so slowing down helps a lot. You know, this idea of like, oh, something's up. I'm not with it. Let's go back to the breath. Let's go back to home base. If there's any sort of reactivity quickness happening, if I can just slow things down and be, as Jeff was saying earlier, get a little closer to what's happening, become even a little more intimate with it. You know, if it's not excruciatingly painful physically or emotionally, can I just be with this? Can I be with it a little longer? Can I allow this? So bringing that kindness. I sometimes use two phrases, what's happening right now and can I allow this?

26:21what's happening right now. Oh, okay. There's fear. Can I, can I allow it? Can I have a little bit more space? So that ease as Martin Luther King jr. Said peace is not the destination. Peace is the way. So bringing that peacefulness, that allowing attitude to exactly what we're looking at is, is the practice. I was, I don't know if I said this when I said it to you, Jeff, that many, many years ago, I noticed that creative and reactive are the same word. The C just moves. And I was like, oh, what's the C? And there's so many C words, you know, connection, calm, consciousness, clarity, compassion.

27:01We're kind of employing all of those, courage. But I never noticed until the ride up here that the R moves. You know, I hadn't thought of it that way. And the R, it's not like reactivity at the front. It's really relaxed, you know, and receptive. So that's really the move we're making. Instead of this reactive, like, let me fix it, let me do something. It's this relaxing, sitting back and allowing what's happening, and then making the choice to bring our attention back to home base or stay with whatever is difficult from that place that's less speedy and sort of amped up with vigilance.

27:43Sebene Selassie:Just to say embedded in your question is a lot of mindfulness that you're even aware that you may be threading aversion into your alleged mindfulness. That is a lot of interest, the opposite of delusion. So I think you deserve more credit than you might be giving yourself. We have somebody over here. Yeah. Gillian. Hi. I guess I would just like you to comment on what I'm going to share that I was very curious about. I was sharing with Jeff at the break that this morning I had a lot of, and yesterday, a lot of the message of I'm not good enough and tears and a lot of crap. And then this afternoon, I had a, what, somebody talked about labeling and I had a beautiful meditation.

28:32Sebene Selassie:I didn't have any of that. In fact, I had memories of two beloved people, one in 1995 and 2015, both died in my arms. I had no pain. I had no tears. And I wasn't avoiding it either. I was with it. And so what I'm curious about is the juxtaposition between this morning and this afternoon. One of my people outside wondered if it was because we had meditated a long time this morning. But like, how can I conjure that up? Because I would rather have this afternoon.

29:20Sebene Selassie:the first of the first hindrance is craving right so the fucked up thing about meditation is you it's like a video game where you can't move forward if you want to move forward so you have to be in this open receptive mode yeah and so yeah you can be in um bliss and then you could be as my friend Sam says, on the top of Mount Shame within an afternoon. And I think the only sane way to view it is they're all just passing mind states. You know, it's meteorology. It's not something you want to strive for or cling to. I mean, I sometimes say to myself on meditation retreats, if I'm suffering, there's something I'm not mindful of.

30:04Sebene Selassie:And if you can be mindful of even the shitty morning sit and all the stories, there's actually not much pain in it. I don't know, where did I go wrong in that? No, no, it's awesome. I was just thinking that, you know, progress in meditation is, it's very mysterious. It's kind of nonlinear. It's like two steps forward, one step back, three steps to the side, and then this weird detour over here. And then suddenly, you know, it's like watching the Northern Lights, you know, the way they move. But having said that, there is a tendency over time for more healing. And I feel like you're touching on that experience as something that is a core, very important part of why we practice.

30:48And there's different words for it. And sometimes in the contemporary, they talk about purification. It always sounds kind of creepy and religious to me. It involves like chains or something. But it's real. And it has to do with the equanimity. the the my teacher used to talk about having a complete experience if you can have a complete experience with something so an experience of some of deep sadness an experience of your breath but you're fully you're you're present you're you're settled you're concentrated you're clear and you're fully aquanless with it then it's like there's it's like the neurons fire but they don't wire like there's no build-up there's in fact the opposite like not only do you not create a new reactivity around it you start to like metabolize old patterns and there's a sense of things clearing out and and all of a sudden there's this real sense of kind of peace or sacredness or this big open intimate space of that allows us to be with more and more and that is the direction that practice takes us that's very real so that's a very and it's just that you can't it can't be bottled on and, you know, chugged on command.

31:56You don't get a choice in when it's going to, when those experiences are happening or when, but practice makes you, it's like the old adage, like awakening is always an accident and meditation makes you accident prone, you know, the more you are, the more you practice, the more those things are part, I mean, I have those experiences quite often. And can I just say, again, it's our relationship to what's happening. So the emotions can be arising. The grief, grief is not bad. Grief is a sign that we've loved, you know? Yeah, definitely. And so you can go to Awake or Siddhiva or in Hamarek, we call it Luxo, and have these amazing experiences of deep, deep sadness and then deep joy because everybody's telling jokes about the dead person, you know?

32:42And it's amazing to have that kind of like extremes and not even an afternoon in the space of 10 minutes. And it's the breadth of human experience and all of it is human. But our relationship to it is we can make it problematic. And the hindrances, I love what you said, Dan, like if you're suffering, then you're not mindful because the hindrances are our unconscious reactivity to our life. But it's not that, So craving is basically like a reactive grabbing at. It's not like we don't choose in our life. We choose things. We choose them consciously and creatively without reactivity. Aversion is an unconscious, like turning away from something.

33:27But we can turn away from things in our lives, like consciously and creatively. So all of the hindrances have their intelligence to them. Doubt has skepticism. You know, we can be discerning without just like dismissing everything that we don't understand or don't like. And restlessness, you know, we can be excited about things, but not in a way that is not conscious and just agitated all the time. And, you know, we can get rest, but we don't need to numb out because we don't want to pay attention. There's something that we don't want to see. So there's sort of a conscious way we can relate to our life.

34:07And then there's an unconscious reactive way that we just sort of have habituated.

34:13Sebene Selassie:I can't remember if I told this story last time, but apropos of the Gillian's enjoyment of pleasant sit in the afternoon that I was on a retreat with just a couple of friends a couple of years ago, maybe four years ago. Me and two friends. And we had a teacher with us. It was during the pandemic. So the retreat centers weren't open. And one of my friends is a very experienced meditator. and he's this tall German guy with a booming Darth Vader kind of voice. And the other is a little bit newer to meditation. And we had a teacher with us and at some point we were all talking about our practice and the newer meditator, Josh, was rhapsodizing about how this incredible sit in the morning and the German guy out of nowhere just didn't even lift his head.

34:58Sebene Selassie:It just said, you will never experience that again.

35:08But you might.

35:09Sebene Selassie:It's a verbal version of slamming somebody with a stick. We have a question online. Let's go there. Hey. Hi, guys. I'm Ben. Hey, Ben. I'm from New York City. I really appreciate the time this weekend. And especially this container has felt very potent. And I appreciate the invitation to welcome such gripping and sneaky and elusive objects of meditation like emotions and thoughts. I think for a long time I would use meditation as a way to bypass, as has been said quite a bit, I would bypass negative feelings. And I wanted to ask you guys about thoughts because emotions feel far more accessible, right?

35:51you can welcome irritability, the energetic wash of irritability. And you can neutralize it. It can turn to pleasure. When you stop labeling it as negative, the resistance, when that subsides, you can dive into an ocean of a different color of experience, which I find very hopeful, I guess. But with thoughts, the mechanics don't make sense to me because I oftentimes get lost in them. I I don't know how to explore a thought without the whale swallowing me. I don't know how to explore a thought without just another thought. And then you're in that fun house. And I was just curious how I can certainly bypass my thoughts with the practice, but I was curious how you use it to actually explore them.

36:45We were talking about this, Jeff and I. And, you know, I, as I mentioned before, I find it hard to work with thoughts in a way exactly as you described, Ben, and that was really eloquent the way you laid that out. And so I often just kind of label them and drop them if it's possible, if they're not pernicious kind of returning things, but then they're usually attached to an emotion or something that's bubbling up. And so I just ask, you know, is this useful? Like I'm here again. and and it is sometimes it's just the seesaw in in the most gentle way I can without like rejecting them you know just kind of drop the thought and I don't know how else to say it except the classical teachings use the language of is this wholesome or unwholesome you're basically just categorizing your thoughts over and over again that language doesn't really work for me wholesome and unwholesome.

37:39It feels antiquated and sort of religiously judgmental, but useful and not useful is helpful for me. And that categorization, I'm not a big noter, labeler, but with thoughts that just keep coming, that seems like the best way besides just watching them pass. If the same thought is coming up, then I'm like, this is not useful. Let me change the channel. Let me go to my breath. How to do that without the reactivity we were just describing is just this subtle practice of knowing your own system. But I'd love to hear what Jeff and Jan have to say. I mean, I love all of that. And I mean, I find it just, it's very hard working with thoughts and it's easier when you're more settled.

38:26Your things are just a little more still, more settled, then you're more likely to see it. But for me, what's made the difference is my My teacher Shinzen has a way to work with thoughts where see in, feel in, hear in. It's very specific and very targeted. And you literally start by, and often I teach this, start by closing your eyes and visualizing a teddy bear. Where do you see? You can try this all right now. Let's close our eyes for a moment and visualize a teddy bear. Where do you, quote, see the teddy bear? Is there a teddy bear more on the right side of your visual space, more on the left, the center?

39:00is there is it very clear or is it super washed out is it more the idea of a teddy bear is it not even spatial is it that you're you know so that's like you can begin to kind of get clear about image space like how images appear to you which is one form of thinking and then so there's a practice around getting clearer with that and then the next thing is the same with inner talk you say to yourself in your head you say teddy bear you can try it right now you can this sounds ridiculous as you close your eyes, you say, don't just say it, yell teddy bear inside your own head. There, wherever you heard teddy bear is at least one place.

39:36Try it again, where you hear a thought. And so often in that exact space, there is talking. Talking you don't even realize is there until you tune into the frequency. It's not just there, other places too. But you can actually, and then feel is just sort of like a body, emotional body sensation. And so those three are constantly pinging off each other. They're in relationship, going around and around. And they're responding. They're reactive. They're responding to sounds and things happening in the world. So you can close your eyes and you could track image, talk, feel, and just track that. You can develop.

40:07I've developed so much clarity around my thinking process through that. So that's a specific way in. It's not a traditional kind of, it's a more good example of a more contemporary technique from a really ingenious Buddhist teacher. And so that would be another suggestion. And if you like working with thoughts, yeah. Thank you. And Dan, you said something earlier about how to...

40:27Sebene Selassie:Yeah, there's a trio of things that came to mind from Joseph. I'll continue to steal from him. One is just, as I said earlier, just this move of just investigating what is a thought. You had the thought, you're now awake. And so you have this decision, which of course is a little bit thought based. So it's a, it's sticky, but to look for that, that last thought and there's nothing to find. And that it's again, another case of in the not finding is the finding. Two other little Joseph isms that are helpful for me, at least, and you should just play with it and see what works for you is one is especially with repetitive intrusive thoughts, dead end.

41:07Sebene Selassie:And it doesn't, you really want to make sure it's not coming from a hostile place, but just like it's a, It's a version of, is this useful? Dead end. And then another is up and out. Up and out. You know, just I don't need to get entangled with this. It's up and out. So yeah, our job is to make a menu for you and then you can pick what you want to order. Oh, that's very helpful. Thank you. Thank you very much.

41:35Sebene Selassie:Coming up, Seb and Jeff talk about how to be with your thoughts as opposed to bypassing them. We talk about some of my favorite Joseph-isms, expressions I got from Joseph Goldstein. We introduce a new teacher into the mix, a guy who's super, super interesting, Aaron Schultz. And we talk about dancing as a practice, and we drill down into why dancing is so uncomfortable for me.

42:12and durability starting at$29.98 per gallon. Enjoy everyday protection against scuffs and wear with a smooth, washable finish. We're made of colors. And with Valspar Ultra, you can reflect that pride of culture you have inside on every wall of your home. Available at Lowe's. Shipping, billing, admin, payroll, marketing. You're managing all the things. So why waste time sending important documents the old-fashioned way? Mail and ship when you want, how you want, with Stamps.com. Print postage on demand 24-7 and schedule pickups from your office or home. Save up to 90 % with automated rate shopping.

42:48That's why over 1 million small businesses trust Stamps.com. Go to Stamps.com and use code PODCAST to try Stamps.com risk-free for 60 days. So we should shift gears now. Because we have a special guest we're going to introduce. Yes, we want to bring up Erin Schultz. Hey Erin, welcome. Hey buddy. This is for you. Good to see you. So I don't know how many of you saw that Aaron got added to this party. He's a longtime friend of mine. I've known him for about 12, 12 years. 12, 13 years. Yeah. And a deep Dharma practitioner. That's how I met him. When I met him, he was doing deep jhana studies, concentration practice.

43:35He's been a devoted student of devotional practices. He's a devotee of Quan Yin, the bodhisattva of compassion, has done multiple pilgrimages to Taiwan, China, Nepal, India. So just a really, really deep practitioner. but in his day life, in his day job, he is one of the most popular and active DJs in Brooklyn and also the co-owner of two record labels, legendary record labels, Bastard Jazz and Wonder Wheel, and plays a really incredible eclectic variety of music, funk, jazz, acid, jazz, house, soul, R &B, world music. He's the producer of one of my favorite bands, I'll Saw Her and the Nubatones, which he took me to go see live.

44:30And yeah, we're just really, really honored and delighted to have him here. Thank you for being here. Yeah, thank you. He's also, for this party and the last party, lent us some of his music. So the music that you hear in between sessions is all from Aaron's two record labels. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here with you, Seb and Dan and Jeff. Yeah, thank you. It's a real pleasure. And as a DJ for over 25 years? Yeah, maybe more. Wow. DJing around the world. Every time I ask Aaron, you know, hey, how's it going? Oh, I'm in Japan. I'm in Ibiza. He's DJed in some amazing places and you've witnessed a lot of people dancing or not dancing.

45:18So we wanted to bring him up for this conversation around, you know, what does it mean to dance as a practice and dance as part of life and why so many of us are uncomfortable with it, why it brings up a lot of the hindrances, you know, aversion, doubt, immediate sloth and torpor or restless homelessness, like to get out of here and get away. Totally. Yeah. Well, you know, I'll start just by saying this was a conversation you and I had said recently that was just kind of like when when we talked about this, I was like, whoa, all of our ancestors, no matter who we are, where we come from, I'm somehow half Saudi and half Polish, which I don't know, like, I might be the only one.

46:04But both sides of my background use dance. Everybody in this room, your ancestors used dance to connect to freedom. And not even that long ago, like in the 50s, everybody danced. Yeah. You know, it's pretty recent that people have become so uncomfortable with dance. Have you noticed that, you guys? Well, I noticed that people were uncomfortable with dance. Yeah. I mean, I know, I think it's, I always, this is one of the things we want to kind of get at. Like, I find it to be such a fertile ground for tracking and noticing self-consciousness, you know, about feeling safe in groups and the norms that we put on ourselves.

46:43And because I, I was like that, you know, when I first started going out to dance parties and things, I was very self-conscious, you know, and I would just, you know, I'd prefer to kind of more be in the background and see what was going on. And if I had to put my finger on what it was, I guess I just felt like I would be judged or like I wasn't good at it. And I was going to be, because I wasn't good at it, I was going to be judged. And it was also in a self-conscious space. It wasn't like a space of like, it was all young people. It was a particular, there was a kind of energy of like, you know, being cool or something like that.

47:15And those were the things I was carrying with me. And I didn't have an experience growing up of being with family dancing and having some tradition that made it okay, you know? So I don't know. I'm just curious for other people too. Like, why is it that, you know, eventually I got over it because I just started spending more and more time there and I would do my, and eventually now I really love dancing, but I mean, what about you? What's your experience? I'm self-conscious. Yeah. And so you want to drill into that a little bit? Great. Like maybe, like maybe,

47:44Sebene Selassie:ask me to stand up and just give us a dance performance. Yeah, slow dance. We'll be very, very quiet. We'll just be like. Every time I dance around my son, he's like, Daddy, stop. You're embarrassing. Which, I get it. Yeah, I, I, it's a lifelong thing. Like I, I, I envy people who have that. can unlock and dance. I think it's awesome. What are you self-conscious about? I think exactly what you said. People are going to judge me. I'm judging myself. I'm doing it bad, doing it wrong. Exactly that. I think everyone has the capacity to dance, but it's really interesting with you, Dan, because you're a drummer.

48:22I know. And you have an excellent sense of rhythm and you're a good dancer. I've seen you dance. So it's not coming from like, you know, I'm not, I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to find the beat, which can be a challenge, right? So it's something else that's happening for you.

48:47Is it you're afraid to unleash your raw masculinity on the world? Is it too powerful? Right.

48:54Sebene Selassie:So masculine, I can't even take a pill. That's virility. you know maybe there's stuff around really getting the role the mask of anchorman in my molecules in some way that's 30 years of doing that um eyes on you kind of yeah i think there's probably some of that but i but i've played drums and i mean and around people and been totally comfortable i feel a mastery of that like not that i'm that good but like i i've been doing it since I was 10. And so I, I really do feel like I know what I'm doing. Um, dancing. I don't do that often. Aaron, what have you noticed? Like also culturally, cause you, you DJ in so many different cultures and spaces and probably not Saudi Arabia.

49:40Sebene Selassie:No, no. Although the Saudi Arabia thing is happening, but I'm not participating in it. Um, you know, one of the things that I was just going to point out is, um, you know, so many of us have such inhibitions to dance. Like we're We're so self-conscious. We think the whole room is watching us. But we can actually pay attention when we're on the dance floor. And we can use our practice to really be in that moment. And what are we paying attention to when we're on the dance floor? Are we looking at everybody else and being like, they're a bad dancer? No, we're thinking that everybody else is looking at us.

50:12You know, so if we can kind of, you know, my Dharma teacher, Guo Gu, he says this all the time. He says, your brain has never stepped one millimeter outside of your skull. So it's a great reminder that all of these inhibitions, all of these, all the self-consciousness that's going on, we're on the dance floor. That's just coming up because of causes and conditions inside our own minds. This is our minds that are creating this. This isn't how reality actually is. Totally. So we can notice that. Yeah. I do the daily trip on calm and one of my favorite ones is this one, slow dance. And I got this idea from years of doing parties, like we'd merge meditation and dance parties.

50:51and what was happening very naturally is people were coming in, like myself, who were feeling very self-conscious around dance. And slow dance is an invitation basically to try to notice your own self-consciousness and actually dance with it. And so I want to kind of unpack what I meant by that because it's something I think we might try to play around with tonight for those who are interested in exploring. When I say notice your self-consciousness, you can kind of do this right now. You can imagine, if you like, if you like, you can close your eyes for this for a second. And you can imagine that everyone is looking at you.

51:26So imagine, or not ever, maybe that's a little overwhelming. Just imagine like someone nearby is kind of looking at you. And what do you notice about your experience when that happens? Imagine somebody is looking at you or you're imagining yourself in a, in a, giving a public talk suddenly and everyone's looking at you. For me, there's a sudden sense of more fullness in my face. I feel my face more. I feel more sensation in my face, like flush, I often have a visual of myself if I think I'm being looked at I'm actually looking at myself imagining what I think they're seeing you know I have sensation in my body maybe a feeling of a little bit of excitability or nervousness in my chest maybe so I can let that go for a second I don't want to make people uncomfortable but when I so when I say dance with your own self-consciousness, what I mean is you can become aware of where in your experience you're experiencing self-consciousness.

52:22Where is it feeling around the face? Is it here? And you can actually begin to kind of like play with that because that's the locus of what's self-conscious. You can decide to kind of move around it and kind of play with it or notice it. Or that's what I mean by kind of dance with it. And because what we're doing in meditation practice is we're continually backing out of whatever tunnel or thing that we've collapsed into in order to find a bit more space so there's a practice around moving with or dancing with the actual feeling of self-consciousness itself that is worth exploring do you see what i mean is that you're able to connect to any of that like absolutely um and there are other ways to make it okay like so there's that way another way is just like you just go up there and act like an idiot and you do it so fearlessly.

53:11And so that, that everyone else around you is suddenly feels like it's, they give, they have permission to do that themselves. So what's the name for that? It's like the Jeff Warren method. Basically you create the bar so low that absolutely everyone is able to limbo and just step right over it.

53:26Sebene Selassie:That's a service. Yeah, it really is. Yeah, absolutely. It's a public service. It does something. It's like, there's something about that is in this teaching here about there's something about that, that makes it okay. You You know, coming up, Seb, Jeff, Aaron and I talk about the role of right effort in meditation. How hard should you try in meditation? We talk about the suffering that comes with expectations, neurodivergence, a helpful piece of feedback that we got from the audience for future meditation parties and how to work with shame and the difference between shame and wise remorse.

54:05Sebene Selassie:Hey, I've got the campaign brief ready, built from last quarter's data and the competitive landscape. Approved. Oh, agents, where would we be without you? Somewhere with a lot more tabs open. Create your first Monday agent in minutes at monday.com.

54:24what as a dj what have you noticed like helps that self-consciousness or um um i mean i'm sure you've substances yeah okay besides you right away All I had to say was, um.

54:49But from your end, like, what are you doing exactly to... Well, you know, I'm not a big talker when I DJ. It's not something I normally do. But I think kind of just getting people into a groove, like, you know, it helps when the lights are low. It helps when there's a smoke machine. You know, it helps when, like, people, you know, have this kind of cloud around them that they think that nobody else is watching. And I think just getting into a groove with the music and, you know, people kind of dropping their inhibitions, you know. And then for me, dance is freedom. It's an expression of freedom, right?

55:22And just to connect it to the Dharma, in the lineage I practice in, we believe that. What lineage is that? I practice in Chan. Chan, oh cool. Yeah, which is the Chinese precursor to Zen. Oh, interesting. In the lineage I practice in, we believe that everybody is inherently free. There's nothing out there to get. You're already enlightened, you know. And we meditate to uncover that. We meditate to get in touch with that. And for me, dance is an expression of that freedom that we all have inside of us. Dance is an expression of that Buddha nature. That freedom, that freeness. I totally agree. And I've been thinking a lot about connecting dance and dharma.

55:57So, yeah, that really kind of does it for me.

56:02Sebene Selassie:It's totally fascinating to hear you talk about that connection. And I'm thinking a little bit about my wife. She had gone through a tough period in her life and was just starting to like, she was leaving her job as a doctor and had gone through some tough family stuff and was just trying to get into some version of self-care. I don't love that term. And I dragged her one day to SoulCycle, which is, you know, like you can say what you want about SoulCycle, but what they do really well is turn the lights down. and she was in the back I remember I was in the second row and she was like I'm going in the back row nobody can see me and she had a big experience and started doing it every day sometimes twice a day you know until she blew out her knees you know but that being in a dark space where you can't be judged but you also have the freedom to move your body and to cry and with music you've done it with you yeah and so there's a lot here yeah I mean we've all heard the old adage dance like no one's watching right But do we actually embody that when we're dancing?

57:04Do we actually kind of have that top of mind? That's so important. And there's a movement out in the world right now called ecstatic dance. And it's just, and you'll know this. Yeah. And it's just that. It's about being in a comfortable space and really dropping your inhibitions and allowing that freedom to flow through your movements. Totally. And that's a way to work with practice too. It's like that's kind of the externalized, expressive, cathartic side. Like the internal equivalent of welcoming your emotions and having equanimity and letting it pass is expressing your emotions, you know, not acting them out on someone, but just letting it out, like screaming for glee.

57:42That's the kind of release that you get. But, you know, I mean, just also to say we're talking about dancing, but we're also not talking about dancing. We're talking about our sense of limitations, the sense, the ideas of what we think we can do and what we can't do and what it really, what the fruit of this practice really is, which is more freedom. It is more liberation, more sense of possibility and being able to move in more areas of our life and more kinds of contexts and more kinds of situations. So, I mean, I think that's the real story of what we're talking about here. And so I feel like dance is just one example or one place.

58:13Coming to pushing yourself to come to a meditation retreat is pushing your limits, you know. Pushing yourself to be in a conversation in a pod of three when that's not necessarily your jam is like, you know, it's about exploring what it might be like to be in this new place. and feel the edges of where that contraction is. And can I dance with that? And to also acknowledge that it's not for everyone, just like we also haven't touched in the power of music and sound, which doesn't play a lot into this form of meditation, but is happening a lot out in the world, a bigger understanding of the power of sound, sound healing, sound meditations.

58:53And there's more and more research, a lot of scientific research on the healing power, the vibratory power of sound. I mean, one of my favorite meditation practices is contemplation of sound. And this is where you sit and you just listen without naming things. And that's entirely possible to do with music too, to not conceptualize what this music actually is. Just be with what's happening, just to listen, not name it. Don't put a concept on it. It's music. It's the universal connector. Yeah. Yeah. Are there any questions or comments? Anyone scared off? Got somebody in the back here.

59:34Sebene Selassie:What's your name? Hey there, I'm Caitlin. Hey, Caitlin. I'm curious about right effort. It's a big one. It's been my question for each meditation, actually, because I've found myself super disappointed in how I'm feeling in these meditations. I feel like I'm just starting to feel the positive impact of three years of practice and I just found forms of practice that are way more wiggly and adaptive to how fucking ADHD I am. And I now am like finding like I put down these practices where I have to be more still. Yeah. And I came back and they're not where I put them. Yeah. I'm like sitting in this space like, oh, no, I'm too feral now.

1:00:18And I hear like friends of mine who are way further along in their practices, They're like teachers and awesome. And they're kind of in like the branches of their trees, like doing all these weirder wiggly ways. And I'm feeling really good out there, but I kind of feel like I don't have the trunk. And I can't tell if it's the voice of like, you have to be less to be enough. That's been so much part of my like ADHD experience that I can't really tell which voice I'm supposed to listen to when it comes to right effort. This is also in the military. So like all the fucking effort is the right effort.

1:00:58Right. And so like that experience of like, when do you know when you're coming up to your edge and you're being intellectually honest with yourself about here's where I can like pull back and preserve or like here's my invitation to learn more. Because I feel like at my vibration, there's probably so much more growth and learning in the stillness than there is in being the feral bitch I am. But there's like the actual learning of like the medicine and adapting. Anyway, so it's the same question. And then the same thing now with dancing is like, how do you learn when you're being self-protective well, where you're kind of like copping out a little bit?

1:01:44Yeah, it's like right effort and judgment of self, I guess, kind of like in one.

1:01:49Sebene Selassie:Well, I'm going to defer a little bit to Jeff as our resident expert in ADHD. But the one thing I just hear right off the top, and I'm not in your head, so I'm just guessing, and I'm projecting, honestly. The one thing I hear is potentially the suffering that can come from expectations, which are the worst thing you can bring to the meditation party. And it's not your fault. We all do it. It's very natural. But if you're expecting a certain flavor of sit or some sort of performance on the cushion, it's just fucked from the jump, right? Because you're wanting to control reality instead of being settled back and receiving whatever's happening.

1:02:32Sebene Selassie:So the measure of a quality sit is not the experience. It's are you awake for whatever the experience is? So if you can just reframe it and believe me, I mean, I've not even I haven't been meditating that long. maybe 15 years, but 15 years in, I'm still messing this up all the time. I need to be reminded over and over again. So I think I'm hearing that in what you're saying. So I want to maybe offer you that reminder if it's useful. Yeah, that's useful. Yeah, I was actually, I think that's a really great point. And I think I can build on that a tiny bit just because of the ADHD, because I have ADHD and the trunk of practice is not sitting in stillness.

1:03:10The trunk is whether you're being present. It's the accepting that this is what's happening, bringing, renunciating the thought and coming back to this chosen thing to be with. And in life, there's always gonna be something that's gonna overwhelm your capacity to stay still. You know, there's gonna be physical pain, discomfort. In the case of ADHD, just this incredible buoyancy and amount of energy coming through. And so there's a place to sit in that and accept that that's happening. And then there's a place to decide, okay, that's enough, now I need to move. So often for ADHD folks, I suggest more of a movement practice anyway.

1:03:47You know, I do more, I spend more time doing a movement practice than I do doing practice in stillness, whether it's yoga, swimming, whether it's Qigong, whether it's, you know, I love, and it's like the principles move at the speed of awareness, like tracking. And I'm being present with what's happening in my body and I need to move and I like to move or I'm dancing. And I think that's perfectly fine because the skills, we're not building up a capacity to sit in stillness. We're building a capacity to be present with what's here. So you got to work with how you're wired. So I say go hang out in the edges of the trees there, you know, and make some monkey sounds because that sounds pretty fun to me.

1:04:24Yeah.

1:04:25Sebene Selassie:Yeah. I saw a hand go up. What's your name? Maren. Hey, Maren. Hi. It's great to be here. Thanks for coming. Two things. Just building on the person who was speaking before, I was, when we were outside, I was saying this is the first time. I've been meditating for, I could tell you, like January 2nd, 2023. Like I remember the day I started with your app. But I have never meditated sitting down. I lie down. I walk. I do the dishes. I'm very ADHD, so I really love Jeff. But I've never, you know, meditated just sitting down. And I was really nervous about that coming here. I do still have to stand up.

1:05:07It helps me. I feel like it helps me stay with it. But what I was really wanting to talk about is dance and a totally different, I have a totally different take on how people can be comfortable dancing and why people oftentimes don't feel comfortable. And I think it's the pressure of exactly what you guys are talking about. Like you are expressing yourself. It's freedom. It's like these are very lofty ideas. But I think when we talk about all of our ancestors danced, and I'm just making this up now, but like they weren't doing free expression. I think they were learning the steps and the moves of their tradition.

1:05:47So it was really about like collective movement. Right. And so you're not out there on your own going like, oh, I got to come up with something original. You know, like I really got to express my own uniqueness, you know. So I think for next time, maybe what you could do is hire someone who gets up there and says, we're going to do put on Beyonce and we're going to do like a line dance. We're all going to learn it or like square dancing. I'm doing that. Right. Brilliant. Yeah. So anyway, that's my idea. All right. That's brilliant. That's such a good point.

1:06:26Yeah. Thank you. And we actually said exactly that, you know, that people learn their folk dances. People are welcome to do a conga line tonight.

1:06:35Sebene Selassie:Like, you are more than welcome to get a conga line going. Can you play the Macarena? I don't have it, unfortunately, Dan.

1:06:45Sebene Selassie:We have somebody online now. Hello. Hey, this is Melissa. Hey, Melissa. So I wanted to, this is something, Dan, you referenced, and Jeff, you referenced earlier. I also have, um, I have three boys and the eldest who's 16 is neurodivergent. Uh, so you'll only think better than two boys is three boys. And what you, Jeff specifically hit on something and you went past it, which is shame. And so, you know, you were talking about, you know, you're dealing with the kids and you sort of feel something and you're sort of okay. And then, you know, you react essentially. Right. And then obviously it eventually dies down.

1:07:34And to me, the shame is excruciating. And it's like, listen, these kids, they're like onto the next thing. You know, none of them are like, oh my God, mom is horrible. She hates us. She's a whatever. Right. They're on to the next thing. And I am in the shame. Right. And, and you know, it's coming and you see it and it leaves scar tissue for me. And, you know, my, again, he's my eldest. Who's neurodivergent is 16, almost 17, like I've been at this for a long time and man, I know lots of hacks and lots of tricks and this is what has brought me here. But man, that shame is real and I don't know how to deal with it.

1:08:25Yeah. My trauma therapist says if there's shame, there's trauma that the worst things I feel there's to harm myself or to harm somebody else, you know, are the most shameful things I feel. the most violent impulses you know bring up the most shame so like that's specifically what we work with in our trauma sessions and in the moment i what i do is self-compassion and i so i don't because i had the same tendency like i do something and or i just act like an idiot and i'm just so there it comes you know and i just do now i catch it earlier and earlier it's like okay buddy i try I treat myself exactly how I treat my boys.

1:09:06You know, I see that little guy in there who's just trying to do the best he can and had a lot of hardship when he was younger. And it's like, you know, I do that again and again and again. And the more I've done it, the faster that response happens. And I do that with this sort of trying to understand the origins of the shame through the trauma work. And I don't know a better answer than that. That's where I'm at. But I'd be curious what other people say or what you would say, but I feel you. Yeah, it's really helpful. Thank you.

1:09:35Sebene Selassie:I think it's useful sometimes to think about, I mean, I definitely ladled lots of shame into my own neural pathways over the years. And I think it's maybe useful sometimes, or at least for me to think about the difference between shame slash guilt and what the Buddhists call wise remorse. So shame or guilt is kind of making it about yourself. And again, I'd say that with no judgment because I do it. I've done plenty of that and I'm sure will continue. But wise remorse is like, all right, looking at what maybe you did wrong and trying to make amends for it, trying to learn from it. But the shame is a kind of psychic constipation that just like nothing can happen.

1:10:22Sebene Selassie:and, you know, playing with that, seeing if you can move from one state to the other. That's been, and I think self-compassion is a great way to do that because self-compassion isn't like babying yourself and pretending you didn't make a mistake. It's recognizing you made a mistake, but you're not holistically horrible for having made that mistake. Yeah, they say like remorse is I did something terrible and shame is I am terrible. Exactly, yeah. Shame is useless. Right, right. Right. Thank you so much. Shame is not true. There's never a time. There's never a case ever in which you are bad. You're not allowed to be who you are like that.

1:11:01You don't you don't you don't deserve to exist. Shame has nothing useful in it. I'm sorry. It's like it's toxic. Like it's not like guilt where I did something wrong and OK, I can make amends. I know that shame is I am someone wrong fundamentally just by existing. You know, so it's a great signal to work with because it's very persistent and it can be healed. Yeah. Yeah. And the other piece of it, this is all really helpful, is modeling that self-compassion for my boys. Yes. Huge. I mean, literally, my son just walked through. He's like, you're doing a meditation retreat? What are you talking about for six hours?

1:11:41And I was like, trust me, it is to your benefit that I'm doing this for six hours.

1:11:52Sebene Selassie:Thank you all. Yeah, great question. That was awesome. Thank you.

1:12:00Sebene Selassie:Thanks again to Jeff and Seb and also Aaron. Awesome time with those guys. Don't forget, we've got another meditation party coming up at the end of October. So you can come and have that experience for yourself. You can sign up at eomega.org or there's a link in the show notes if you want to click it and join us. I'd love to see you there. Also, don't forget, speaking of community and the power of the HOV lane for meditation practice, starting on September 2nd, I will be doing or we will be doing live guided meditations on video at four o 'clock Eastern every Tuesday afternoon indefinitely. indefinitely.

1:12:36Sebene Selassie:On September 2nd, in the kickoff of our now weekly sessions, I'll be with Vinny Ferraro, who's an amazing meditation teacher and will be our teacher of the month for September, meaning he will be crafting guided meditations that go along with all of our Monday Wednesday episodes. All of this only available to paying subscribers at danharris.com. Great way to support me, great way to support our team, great way to support meditation teachers who we like to pay generously. So we'd appreciate your support. And if you can't afford it, just send us a note. We'll give it to you for free. Finally, I just want to thank everybody who worked so hard on this show.

1:13:10Sebene Selassie:Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.

1:13:31Thank you.