How Mindfulness Changes Your Mind

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. I put out episodes four times a week to help you learn and grow and improve yourself because if you can improve yourself, you can improve your life. So if you like that, hit that subscribe button. Today, I'm gonna be talking about how mindfulness changes your life. And I'm going to give you a step-by-step process to use mindfulness, the easiest way to use mindfulness, to actually improve your mental and emotional state. And the idea of mindfulness has exploded over the past few years.

0:44And I don't think people really even know what it means. I didn't know what it means for what it meant for years. But study after study shows how beneficial mindfulness actually is in your life. But what the hell is it? And also, how do you do it? Well, if you think that mindfulness is just about feeling calm, like lighting a candle and turning on the calm meditative music and crossing your legs on a pillow and closing your eyes and floating away from our stress like a monk on a mountaintop. You're way off. That's not what mindfulness really is. The truth of it is that mindfulness has nothing to do with trying to feel peaceful and everything to do with realizing right here, right now in this moment, you are not your thoughts.

1:36You are not your stress. You are not your to-do list. You are something that is way bigger behind all of it. You are the awareness that is underneath all of it. You are the being that is living inside of your body. And it's like taking a mental step back with it. It's basically this act of at any moment in your entire day, separating yourself from all of it. And I like to see it, the way I use it, is kind of like a moving meditation that you can do all day long. And so let's unpack it. I wanna talk to you about it because this will change the way that you experience every moment of your life if you do this, especially the moments that are the most challenging or the moments that you don't like.

2:22And I'm gonna share a really simple practice that I've been using that's really changed my life in a really big way as well. Let's talk about it real quick. Mindfulness, you don't meditate to calm down. I think that's what most people think that you're supposed to do. You meditate to calm down. You don't try to fix your feelings, any of those types of things. Meditation is something that you do when you just decide, okay, I'm gonna sit down, I'm gonna turn on some music, I'm gonna meditate. Mindfulness is something that you do throughout the entire day. And like I said a minute ago, what it really is, is about taking a step back from the chaos in the outside world the world that is outside of you, the 3D world outside of you.

3:03So you can connect with the still grounded presence that's inside of you. And that's it. And if you do it and you do it often, it can really, really change the quality of your life. So you're not sitting there going, oh my God, I'm stressed out. I need to change the way that I feel. You're learning basically how to notice your thoughts and your feelings. And then you separate you from your feelings. because lots of times we identify with our feelings. I'm anxious. No, you're not anxious. That's an identity statement. You're feeling anxious. I am stressed. No, you're not. That's an identity statement as well.

3:40You're feeling stressed. You're not stressed. Those are two little things that are just very minuscule changes, but you're separating you, the being, the soul, whatever you might, the consciousness that's inside of your body from what you're thinking and what you're feeling. and you're not trying to, I don't want you to think it's like trying to escape the moment. You're not trying to escape the moment. What you're really actually doing is becoming more present to the moment. You're returning to the moment. You're becoming more present than you were by being more mindful. And being more present in this moment is where real peace actually is.

4:17Not by, you know, sitting there and pretending that everything is okay, but in realizing that you are not the storm. you're the sky that it passes through and so you might have a really crazy day but you're not the storm you don't get caught up in the storm you're the sky that the storm is just passing through it's learning basically to become the calm in the middle of the storm no matter what's happening outside of you it does not affect inside of you and when you look at neuroscience it actually shows that when you practice mindfulness it changes your brain and then mindfulness becomes easier.

4:54And there was a study that was done and it was published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience that showed that regular mindfulness practice reduces activation in the amygdala, which is the part of the brain where all of your fear comes from. It triggers your fight or flight mechanism. It reduces the activation in the amygdala and it increases the thickness and the activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is a part that's responsible for awareness, for focus, and for emotional regulation. So what does that mean? Like the translation, the more that you practice mindfulness, the more that you do what I'm about to teach you, the better your brain gets at handling chaos without spiraling into panic.

5:35And so the way that I did this, I want to bring this down to earth. I want to teach you actually what I did. I hate doing the dishes. I always have. I've always hated. And I still do, if I'm being completely honest. But a few months ago, I heard something and I was like, I'm going to try this and just see if I'm my own guinea pig. I am the BS meter to see if things work. I saw a video of a monk, like a Shaolin monk, talking about how mindfulness is nothing else other than noticing the being that is inside of you. And I was like, hmm, that kind of resonates. That's kind of cool. Noticing the being inside of me.

6:14Because when I get out of my own head and I stop being so wild and crazy and getting so wrapped up, sometimes I notice there's like an inner calmness, being, presence, consciousness. There's something that's there. There's something that's moving this meat suit of mine. And so it's basically noticing the being inside of you, moving yourself from the 3D world for just a moment and noticing the being that's living inside of you. However you want to say that. Maybe you're like, the being that's living inside of me sounds kind of like there's an alien that's inside of me. Whatever it might be. your soul, your consciousness, your presence.

6:48And so I decided to try it out. And so the next day, I was sitting there and I was doing the dishes. We were at an Airbnb and we were an Airbnb in California and I was doing the dishes because we needed bottles for the baby, but it wasn't ready yet. And I just had to do them by hand. And I was sitting there, I was like, ah, I got to do the dishes. And I was like, the first thing that popped into my head, right? I got to hand wash all these damn bottles. And I was doing them and I'm just kind of like, all right, let me get through this. Let me just finish this thing. And as I stood there, I had my hands in the sink.

7:20My mind was thinking about my to-do list and trying to hurry through this thing. I kind of like caught myself and I was like, I'm going to try that thing that that monk said to do. And so I stopped trying to push through the task of getting done. Instead, I kept doing the dishes and I turned my attention inward. And I was like, let me see if I can feel like that calm presence that lives inside of me. Call it your soul, call it your consciousness, your spirit presence, whatever it might be. It doesn't matter what you name it. What matters is that it's always there. It's always quiet. It's always watching.

7:57It's always safe. And I didn't try to make myself feel peaceful. All I did is I just noticed the deep part of me that already was, that calm presence. And when I noticed and felt like, oh my gosh, yeah, there is a calm presence inside of me. When I noticed that, it actually calmed me down. I noticed that my body went, and I naturally took a deep breath. I was like, whoa, I can feel myself actually relaxing when I notice the part of me that's already relaxed. It goes from inside to outside. Inside, I notice what's already relaxed. Outside starts to relax. So then I thought to myself, can I start to make myself more present in this moment?

8:45So I'm noticing the being inside of me, but is there also a way that I can make myself more present in the moment? And we will be right back. And now back to the show. And so I started doing this mindfulness practice that I learned years ago. And what I want you to understand is that your body is always here. Your body is always in the present moment. Your mind is almost always, I mean, your body is always in the present moment. It's not almost always. It is literally always in the present moment. It's here. Your mind is almost always somewhere else. It's in the future, worrying about things and your to-do list and all the stuff that you got to get done, or it's in the past where you think about guilt and stuff that happened in your past you wish that wouldn't happen.

9:23And so what I did was I was like, okay, I'm going to use my body to bring myself even more into the present moment. And so I started noticing and focusing on my five senses one by one. So the water was really warm. And I was like, I'm going to notice the warm water. I'm going to notice the water feels really nice on my skin. It's nice and warm. It's kind of a little bit soapy. And I was like, okay, I'm noticing touch. Okay. I'm bringing myself more to the present moment. What's another one of my senses? Sound, what I hear. Okay. I'm noticing the sound of the water, the clicking of the dishes against each other.

9:57I'm noticing the sounds that are around me in the present moment. What else can I bring in? My smell is another one of them as well. I'm going to notice it. And it was like a citrusy smell. I was like, okay, that's actually pretty nice. I don't know how I didn't notice the smell before. So I was noticing the smell of the soap. I was like, okay, sight, what can I look at? And inside of this Airbnb, there was a window that was right on the other side of where I was doing my dishes. And I was looking out there and it wasn't like an amazing view. It was just some trees that were outside and then past the trees were an interstate that we were ridiculously close to in this Airbnb.

10:34So I was watching the cars go by. And I was just watching the cars and seeing, oh my God, there's so many cars. It's a five lane highway in San Diego. And I'm just watching the cars go by where we were. Okay. So I'm noticing sight and then taste. I'm not really tasting anything because the fact that I'm not obviously drinking the soap, but I thought, you know what? I'm going to notice there's a taste in my mouth. And I was like, there is a little bit of left. It sounds gross. There's a little bit of like a coffee residue. I could kind of taste some coffee in my mouth. And so I went through all of my senses and I realized that moment standing at the sink kind of became a moving meditation.

11:09And it wasn't about escaping. It wasn't about numbing out. It was about being more here than I had been all day. And guess what? I don't tell my wife actually started to enjoy the moment of doing the dishes. And I was like, what the hell? Like I'm enjoying myself doing the dishes? This is crazy. And when you look at this, this is really the technique of it. And this is backed by science. It's a really similar technique that's used in trauma therapy. It's rooted in what's called polyvagal therapy. And so when we consciously engage our senses. We activate the ventral vagus nerve, which helps us shift out of survival and fight and flight and stress and anxiety into a regulated safe feeling state when we consciously engage our senses.

12:02And so this is one of the most effective ways to bring your nervous system back into balance as well. When you bring your awareness to the feeling of the water, to the smell of the soap, the texture of everything, the sound, the sights. You're not being just more mindful. You are definitely being more mindful, but you're also calming your physiology as well. You're becoming the calm in the middle of the storm. And so most of the time when we're sitting there and we're stressed out and we're anxious and we're mentally spiraling, it's because we've actually left this moment. We're not here. Our physical body is here.

12:36Our mind is a million steps ahead. We're gone. Our mind is in our future. It's running imaginary disaster drills, or it's stuck in the past and it's replaying old guilt and shame and regret. But your nervous system doesn't know that those aren't happening right now. And so your body reacts as if there is real danger, which turns into stress, overwhelm, anxiety. It's your body's reaction to what's going on in your mind. And when you practice mindfulness, mindfulness brings you back to what is. And what is, like in this moment, is usually way more, way more peaceful than what's going on in your mind.

13:16And now some of you might be like, but my mind is not calm. I know, that's why I'm trying to bring you back to your body and out of your mind. You have way more calm, like a real calm presence inside of you than you actually believe. And that calm presence, it's like your north star. Never leaves you. You just forget to look for it too much throughout the day. And, you know, there was a study that's a really famous study now that was published in Science in 2010 by Killingsworth and Gilbert, and researchers found that a wandering mind, just wandering, is an unhappy mind. That's a quote from the study.

13:53A wandering mind is an unhappy mind, regardless of what someone is thinking about. In fact, people reported being less happy when their minds wandered away from what they were doing in the present moment, even if they were thinking about something pleasant. And so simply being present in your reality, even if it's boring or mundane or difficult, actually creates more happiness than trying to escape it. And so the best part about this is you can practice this anywhere. You can practice all day long. You know, it's powerful to close your eyes and meditate and to breathe and to do all of that. But the real magic happens when you bring mindfulness to your everyday life, to washing the dishes, being stuck in traffic, to folding laundry or waiting in line or walking the dog or sitting in a work meeting.

14:46Especially when the boring moment is a moment where you would normally pick up your phone and you decide, I'm not gonna look at my phone. I'm gonna pay attention to the present moment. I'm gonna pay attention to the being that's inside of me. and you just take a moment, you pause, you breathe and you just notice. You ask yourself, you know, where's the awareness inside of me right now? Can I feel my feet on the floor? Can I feel my butt in the chair? Can I feel the breath going in and out of my lungs? Can I just take a few seconds to look around me and just notice stuff with my eyes? You know, can I just take one deep breath and just be for a moment?

15:28Mindfulness doesn't require you to sit and close your eyes and meditate. It just requires you to wake up to this moment right now. And that is why I like to call it meditation in action. And the thing about peace that I think is really important is you don't have to feel like you deserve peace to feel it. Like some people feel like, oh, I don't deserve peace yet. Even if your mind is a mess, even if your life feels chaotic, if shit's hitting the fan, if you just yelled at your kids, you forgot that meeting, or you spiraled about something dumb that happened in your life. That calm, anchored presence is always there.

16:02It's always there. It's just the calm in the middle of the storm waiting for you to go, huh, let me see if I can go back to that calm that's inside of me. And you're always allowed to come back to it. You don't earn mindfulness. You don't earn peace. You just remember it. it's already there. You don't need to sell all of your things, get on a plane and move to Nepal. You just need to become aware of that calm being that lives inside of you. And so let me just show you the step-by-step process that makes it really easy to do. Step one, just notice the being that's inside of you. Just take one deep breath and just ask yourself the question, what is noticing this breath?

16:41hmm that's interesting and you say to yourself well hold on what is hearing this voice inside of me and what is talking inside of me and you notice there's something inside of you right that's it not the thoughts not the mood you're just the observer behind it take a deep breath ask what is noticing this breath second thing come back to your five senses like I said as engage with as many senses you possibly can name what you can see what you can smell what you can hear, what you can touch, what you can taste. And then number three, after you do all that, try to just learn to let go. Don't try to fix your mood.

17:19Don't try to chase the calm. Just notice what's here. Peace isn't created. It's just remembered in the moment. And so what I want you to do is I want you to try this out today. Try it right now. As soon as this podcast ends, if you want to, you don't need to chase peace. You just need to notice the version of inside of you that is inside of you that already is at peace, even in the middle of all the chaos. That's really what mindfulness is all about. It's not about escaping the mess. It's about realizing you're more than that mess. You're more than your thoughts. You're more than your feelings.

17:49And trust me, once you feel it for a second and it kind of clicks, everything will feel different because you can always come back to this. Even doing the dishes won't feel the same again. But once again, don't tell my wife. So that's all I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me in at RobDialJr. And if you want to learn more about coaching with me, you can check out my course called Mindset 2.0, which is a 12-week course video series that takes you everything through deprogramming and reprogramming yourself, how to create habits, how to actually break your old habits, neurologically how to create and set up dopamine reward systems, and a whole lot more.

18:27You can just learn more about it if you go to coachwithrob.com, once again, coachwithrob.com. And with that, I'm gonna leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.