Jay Shetty on Self-Love, Stillness, and Growth

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1:12When you are pioneering anything or introducing new ideas to the culture, you get criticized. You do? Yeah. Did you hear about that? I didn't find the one. I found someone I respected and we made it the one. In a sort of longing kind of view of love, people understand each other as if by magic. Nothing in itself is addictive on the one hand. And on the other hand, everything could be addictive if there's an emptiness in that person that needs to be filled. I now know that nobody changes until they change their energy. And when you change your energy, you change your life. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. This is the Goop Podcast.

1:50bringing together thought leaders, culture changers, creatives, founders and CEOs, scientists, doctors, healers and seekers. Here to start conversations, because simply asking questions and listening has the power to change the way we see the world. Here we go. This week we're sharing a gem from the Goop Podcast archives.

2:17Today I'm sharing one new conversation from our In Goop Health Wellness Summit. It's with Jay Shetty, the New York Times bestselling author of Think Like a Monk, who joined me on stage at the end of the night. Jay is also a beloved coach and a former monk, and he has beautiful stories about his time living in an ashram. While many people can talk eloquently and abstractly about finding purpose, Jay's rare gift is that he's able to inspire and teach us through practical insights. Jay believes that the most significant relationship you can have is with yourself and that knowing ourselves intimately gives us more grace to engage with others and the world around us.

2:55In this conversation, we talked about redirection, finding stillness and discomfort, using meditation as a self-litmus test, and the value of gratitude when shared with someone else. Let's get to my conversation with Jay Shetty.

3:12I'm so happy to see you. So nice to see you. Thank you for having me. I didn't know if you were going to make it after all those Dwali parties that I tell you. It has been a really crazy week, but in a good way. And I'm just really grateful to be here with all of you. Thank you so much for having me. This is beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you. So I would love it if you could just give everybody a little bit of your amazing story and how you came through being a monk and into being this amazing life coach and motivator and all of the amazing things that you are. So I was born and raised in London and I grew up in a family where I had three options to be a doctor, a lawyer or a failure.

3:58And I chose the third option. And so to my parents' surprise, when I was 18 years old, I told them that when I graduated from school that I would go off to become a monk. And they didn't believe me. They were just like, yeah, sure, it's a phase. And so when I was 18 years old, I was invited to an event at my university. And it was somewhat similar to this in the sense that the event was around introducing people at university to thinkers, thought leaders. I know you've had an incredible lineup of guests. this evening. And I went along because my friends promised me that we would go to a bar afterwards.

4:37I didn't want to go to this event. And I said, as long as we go to a bar afterwards, I'll come and hear this monk or whatever you want me to hear. So I went along to this event and this monk was speaking and I went there expecting nothing. But I walked away feeling like I'd completely found a new path in life because the monk was speaking about selflessness and service and using our time to have an impact in the world. So when I graduated, I traded my suits for robes. I lived on the floor. All my possessions fit inside a gym locker. We meditated for four to eight hours a day. And I lived that life for three years.

5:15And then at the end of it, there were two things. And the fast version is my teachers said to me that they felt that it was time for me to go on and share what I'd learned. It was one of those, it's not you, it's me conversations. I basically got kicked out of being a monk. So my parents were like, you failed at this too? And when I came back, which was now eight years ago, I really, really saw a world in which everything I'd learned, I felt had so much of a space in these busy, hectic, chaotic lives. And I had no idea how I was going to try and share what I'd learned, but I started and took a few steps.

5:55And then, you know, here we are today where I've been really fortunate and feel really grateful that I've been able to work with so many incredible people. I've been able to connect with so many beautiful humans. I've been able to connect with so many of you that I bumped into today as well. And I think that it all started because I met someone who changed the trajectory of my life. And had I not met him, then I wouldn't be here today. But that's a pretty extreme outcome, right? A lot of us have read a book or heard a talk and felt inspired or felt a calling to change our lives or to think about things in a different way.

6:34But to go and renounce life as you knew it for three years is a pretty bold move. And I wanted to ask you, what was the process like of letting go of the material world, if you will? And was that traumatic at all? Was there grief in it? How did you get used to the life as a monk having been just a normal London student? I think there were a few things. The first thing was when I met him and now when I reflect on it, I realized that at the time when I was 18 years old, I'd met a lot of people who were rich. I'd met people that had been famous. I'd met people who were successful. I'd met people who were strong and powerful and beautiful.

7:20But I don't think I'd met anyone who was truly happy. and he was happy. He still is happy. He's still a monk today. And he was happy, and I thought, I want to understand that. And it was almost a moment of, I want that. So my 22-year-old self, when I went off to become a monk, I had this boundless enthusiasm to say, I want to live this process exactly how they live it. I don't want to take any shortcuts. I don't want to let my mind keep me in my comfort zone. I have to go all out. And so I feel like it was almost a boundary or a commitment that I made that no matter how I feel, I'm going to live it exactly how they do.

8:04Because maybe if I don't do it how they are, then I won't reap the benefits. And so I think actually it was easier at the time. Now, if you ask me to do it, I'd be like, no, I'm fine. I really like my bed and I like sleeping for eight hours a night. But at the time I had this enthusiasm, which was, I just want to see if it works. And I think that's why mini experiments are so important in our lives. You don't have to do it for three years, but the mini experiment of, let me for a week, follow it exactly like this person saying. Let me for a weekend do exactly what I'm hearing or reading in this book or from this speaker.

8:44Let me for this day just live that way and see what happens. And so actually removing myself from the material world when I became a monk was easier because for the four years in between, I'd been doing these mini experiments. So the first time I went to the ashram and they told me that I couldn't listen to 50 Cent, like that moment was hard because I was like, what, I don't get to listen to music? And then they told me that I wouldn't get to watch television. So the first time I went, that was hard. But what I realized was the sacrifice was just not comparable to the payoff. And I think that's what it comes down to.

9:25You have the choice to do all these things whenever you want, anytime. So to close off for a day, a weekend, a week, it's worth the test. It's worth the experiment.

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10:44That's so interesting. So what do you think it is about not having free will in whatever these circumstances are that has power in it? Well, I think, Gwyneth, I think we've come to a place where we feel that freedom and the freedom of unlimited choice is power. And we've all realized, and the science and the studies all show this, that the more choice we have, the worse mistakes we make. And we make poorer decisions based on this complete limitless choice. And I found that actually when you stripped away some of that choice, your ability to make decisions grew. Because now I wasn't experiencing what we all know now to be called decision fatigue.

11:30I wasn't wasting my time making decisions that were irrelevant to my personal fulfillment and satisfaction. So now when you're not having to think about certain choices in your day, you're freed up to make choices in a healthier way. And so I found that actually making certain parts of our life systematic, routine, habitual, communal as well, allowed for space for creativity, spontaneity, and true expression. Whereas I think a lot of us feel like, no, no, if I just can choose everything that I do every day, that will give rise to spontaneity, but it does the opposite. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally.

12:10It sounds like it adds like these are the layers of responsibility that we heap on ourselves, which is like choices that we make actually keep us sort of enslaved to the responsibility. Yes, exactly. So when you were there, did you were you able to really connect with happiness? And did you bring it home? I think when I was there, I was able to really learn how to find stillness in discomfort. And I think that was the biggest thing that I gained from that. So I'll tell you a story of an experience that I would never wish on anyone and do not recommend. But we did a 72-hour train journey from North India to South India.

13:0272 hours. It has random stops, but you don't actually physically get off for longer than 15 minutes at a stop. So there's no pause. So 72 hours. And as a monk, you travel in like coach, but coach in India is not coach in the United States. So coach is like you're literally surrounded by people who haven't paid for a ticket. Like it's just infiltrated with people. And you're just surrounded by all these villages and people that you haven't even met. and they don't have a ticket, and you don't even know where they're going. And I decided that I wouldn't eat for three days, because on the first day, I saw the state of the toilet and the restroom on the train, and so I decided I would do a voluntary fast.

13:48And, you know, to all my teachers, I seemed really detached at this point. They were just like, wow, and I was like, yeah, I'm so detached and renounced now from food. And really, I was just like, no, I do not want to go in there. So this is a very uncomfortable scenario. As a Londoner, I'm used to taking the underground and used to driving around in my car and I'm used to clean bathrooms and all the rest of it. So this is an uncomfortable situation. And it was really interesting because I remember saying to my teacher who we were traveling with that I would meditate in the stops. I said to him, it's too chaotic on the train.

14:26I said, it's too difficult to focus on the train. When we stop, I'll get off, I'll meditate for 20 minutes, I'll come back on, and I'll do that every stop. And he looked me in the eyes and he said, do you think life is going to be chaotic like the train or still like the stop? And I was like, is this a trick question? I don't know. He said, life is going to be chaotic like the train. And so if you don't learn how to meditate on the train, meditating on the stop is not going to help you. And I think that in a nutshell is how I feel I experienced joy, happiness. The happiness wasn't in an experience of feeling happy in the way we think about it.

15:15It was in the joy of knowing I could navigate any situation. It wasn't that you felt happy because you did something right. It's because you never felt like you didn't know what to do to navigate pain. And so that's where the definition of knowing how to navigate challenges became more joyful than the idea that I could avoid challenges. And I think that desire of, you know, where we are today, where we call them unwanted emotions, the challenge is everything we don't want is unavoidable. So if I say I never want to feel pain again, or I never want to feel stress again, that's not true for anyone, including the monks, including me, including any of us.

15:59And so actually knowing that I am going to feel all of these things, but I know what to do with them, that is a position of strength and joy and happiness. And what do you do with... Laugh is actually truly one of them. The mind is compared to a monkey in the Vedas. And it's been popularized today in psychology as well as the monkey mind. But monks refer to the mind like a monkey. And if you've ever seen a monkey, they are hilarious. So in India, we would see monkeys all the time. And they would trade their banana for a credit card. Like they would literally swap. And then they would swap it right back.

16:36And you'd see monkeys like chase anything that looked like food in your bag. And they'd rip it and steal it like they're the best thieves. And monkeys are these hilarious characters. And the reason why the mind is compared to a monkey is because sometimes we need to laugh at the things our mind comes up with. Now, what we choose to do currently is we choose to criticize ourselves or we choose to judge ourselves. When our mind does something that we don't like, we think, this literally happened to me the other day. I was in Dallas at my first keynote back since the pandemic. And I went in to get a tea at a coffee shop and get some coffee for some of my team members.

17:15And I was waiting there and I went to the front and the barista was serving us. And she made a mistake in how much change she gave me. And I didn't notice actually. I was like, oh, thank you so much. And I was about to walk out. And literally, as I was just about to turn, she said, I'm the worst. She just stopped and said, and I said, are you okay? And she said, oh, I just gave you the wrong change. I'm the worst. I'm so sorry. And I was like, and I literally looked at her and I said, I said, you're not the worst. You're a human. You made a mistake. It's okay. It's fine. You're wonderful. Thank you for noticing.

17:47And then she gave me the right change and I left. And I was just thinking, wow, like she saw the monkey mind make a mistake and she judged herself. She criticized herself. And so the first thing we have to do is honestly switch critiquing for laughing. Laugh when the monkey mind makes this mistake. When your mind tells you something that genuinely is not true, allow yourself to laugh. Allow yourself to see it with a bit of humor. And when you start to see that, you start to notice that when you don't take the mind so seriously, it doesn't have that much of a serious effect on you. Moving on from that, sometimes our emotions are a bit more deeper and it's hard to laugh at them.

18:24They're more painful than that. And I find that again, in that scenario, our desire is to push them under the carpet, it, lock them in a door, force them away. And actually in those moments, understanding that, accepting that emotion and recognizing that, knowing that it's going to be there, it's almost like the weather. If I always say, I don't want it to rain, I never want it to rain. And then it rains. Now I'm scared, I'm unprepared and I'm stressed. Whereas if I accept that it's going to rain, I get time to go and pack my umbrella and my raincoat. And so I think it's about developing the umbrella and the raincoat.

19:03And for our emotions, the umbrella is community. And the raincoat is our tools and our habits and our practices of reflection that help us break them down. How do we go about cultivating that inner life, that space, so that we can separate ourselves from these emotions that blow through us and seem like they take us over? I genuinely believe that we all have to have a foundation of our daily routine that gives us the feelings we want. So the challenge is that we're surrounded by a day where we don't get the feeling we want. And that's what we consider to be a bad day. I didn't get what I wanted, therefore today's a bad day.

19:49And actually in that moment, instead of wanting a good day, if we start by creating a foundational set of habits and activities that can set us up for that day, the healthier we are. So I'll give an example. You know, 80 % of us studies show wake up to our phones first thing in the morning. So we see our phones before we see our partners and our kids, and we see our phones lasting at night after we see our partners and our kids. And so our phone gets more FaceTime than the people we love. And when I think about that, I think to myself, when you wake up to the phone in the morning, you wake up to notifications, negativity, news, and noise.

20:28And these four things make you feel like you're starting your day at the bottom of a ladder, and now you're spending the day catching up to yourself. Whereas if your day started with four key habits of thankfulness, inspiration, meditational mindfulness, and exercise, you're now starting your day at a plus four. And now even if the rest of the day is challenging, you still end up at a plus two or a plus one. And so I like to set myself up by saying, what are the habits that I can practice today that are going to make me feel like my day is going in the right direction? And they are truly simple.

21:03Thankfulness takes 30 seconds. Here's the best way to practice it. I don't recommend a gratitude journal. I don't recommend writing it down. I recommend expressing it, making it specific, and personalizing it. Send a text, send a voice note, send an email, send a message to someone that you're grateful to for the next seven days. Send them a message and make it really specific. Don't just say, thank you, GP, for this wonderful event. Not good enough. Say thank you for the amazing decor. Thank you for the incredible experience. Thank you for what this felt like, looked like, what it smelled like.

21:35Share the depth of how that experience was for you. If you do that, gratitude actually has the ability to boost your immune system. It has the ability to shift your perspective and boost your mood. But if you do it in a way of, I'm grateful for the air, I'm grateful for my kids, I'm grateful for my job, that doesn't have that impact and effect. Because it stays with you. Because it stays within you. And gratitude is meant to be shared. It's a gift that you get to give someone else. Inspiration is a big one for me. It's at one point in my life, I remember listening to, apart from the monks, but listening to Steve Jobs' Stanford commencement speech every day for nine months in a row.

22:17And not only did I know the words off my heart, it really changed my heart by listening to that speech every day. The words in it are so profound and so powerful that you start to rewire the neurons in your mind. Like it's genuinely changing the makeup of your mind. I recently sat down with Matthew McConaughey on my podcast, and I said to him that I listened to his Oscars acceptance speech every day. It's a five-minute speech. It will only take five minutes. I said I listened to it every day for 30 days in a row, and that rewires how your mind works. Now, you don't have to listen to the people I'm recommending, but whoever it is that you're drawn to in your life, I promise you, if you listen to the same thing every single day because you like it that much, it will start to rewire how you think.

23:04It's as simple as that. And then meditation and exercise, of course, which I can go into. But those four habits for me are like my staple, my main course. And everything else is sides and dessert. All right. All right. All right. How do you meditate? Do you still meditate for 45 minutes in the morning and the night? Two hours now. It's been two hours for 16 years. Two hours? I thought it was 45 minutes. It's been two hours for 16 years, Sire.

23:40So I find meditation elusive. And I do it every morning. And I do TM. And like this morning, I had the worst meditation. and I was like counting. I wanted to open my eyes and check the timer. And some mornings I go really deep and it's like the most beautiful experience. So why does that happen? And what can I do to, I don't know, it sounds stupid, like improve the quality of my meditation? But I don't know if you guys ever, if you meditate and you have those days where, I mean, And my meditation teacher said to me, even in a shallow dive, you get wet, so still do it. But I was just wondering, do you have these euphoric, deep meditations every day for two hours?

24:38I love that. How many people in the room meditate regularly? How many people don't meditate? And how many people don't put up their hands, no matter what I say? A lot. Thank you for being honest. I appreciate the honesty. so yeah so I started my two hour meditation practice when I was 18 years old 34 today so it's been 16 years that I've been meditating for two hours a day and that form has taken many different formats so it could be two hours in the morning straight it could be an hour in an hour it could be four blocks of half an hour each depending on what day it is especially now with my busy schedule it it changes all the time and how did you land on two hours just I landed on two hours because as a monk in my tradition, that amount of time was allotted to anyone who wanted to be a teacher.

25:24So for the integrity of my teaching and my practice and the coaching work I do, that's a basic commitment I've made to my teachers as how much I need to do. And so it's purely based on my relationship with my meditation teacher who has trusted me with the ability to teach meditation. And so it's like this big responsibility that I have to keep up with, but it's beautiful. It's really fulfilling. And so like you, I have meditations where I feel like I need to check my phone. Still? Still. To this day? Till this day. Till this day. And so what have you... Till this day. And so the beauty again, so I have had euphoric, deep, immersive experiences through meditation that have proved to me that meditation works.