Hey, I'm really glad to be here today talking to Seth about his experiences with the Week 3 challenges. This week we focused on exploring our inner landscape and the activities associated with the module included a sitting meditation focused on the breath and body, and a written reflection which was aimed at helping us reframe a current challenge through the lens of mindfulness. Let's let Seth take it from here. Hey, how are you? Hi. Good. Thanks. Good. I'm really glad to be here with you talking about these Week 3 challenges. It's a big week. Tell me about it, what did you notice? It seems like these keep getting harder and harder. Is that what this is about? Yeah. I'm trying to make it seem real fun in the beginning and stuck at the end of this more challenging. Started off with some games and then make me think all of these hard, tough thoughts. But seriously though, this week was challenging, but it was rewarding too. Personally, I got more out of the seated meditation, than the body scan. I felt like I could do that better if that's such a thing. See, I'm making it a competition. I could do that better than the body scan, but I felt like I was getting frustrated. Like less. Like, I couldn't feel the body. Yeah. I remember that you mentioned that last week. Yeah. So it was easy for me to feel my tailbone and my feet when instructed to do so in the meditation, my mind didn't wander quite a bit about what was going on the day, but focusing on my breath help focus my shift back into the body. Then it was really difficult, I imagined my breath having a color to it. I love that. So and I'm also hearing you say that you noticed the mind drift into planning, but then came back to the breath, that's great. Yeah. I read that or try that at some other point and it worked for me. So I made my breath have a color for this one too. Yeah. Great. It sounds like it helped you focus a little bit differently. It did. Anything else from the sitting meditation? Not really. Just that it felt good just to be for a minute. It was weirdly hard but relaxing over all. Okay. Say more about being hard. Yeah. Well, it was hard to only focus on my breath. My mind wandered a lot for what felt like long periods of time. Well, from time-to-time, you did notice that you weren't still focusing on the breath. Yeah. So there you go. That's a practice. We notice a wandering mind and we come back. The more we do it, the more we notice it, and then we can start to see that we have a choice on what we focused on. So what about the reflection, how that go? Well, I had a bit of a doozy of a month recently and my go-to strategy is usually give it a small amount of time to process, and then if that's too tough, I'll use performance enhancers, typically, alcohol, whiskey, typically and stuff it down with brown. I recognize that that's not the best approach, but I'd tend to be a little happy-go-lucky, which is based on my understanding and experience that life is short. So I tend to push away hard to deal with or negative emotions and seek for the lighter, more fun ones. So the negative emotions come up that seemed to want to stick around for a little longer than you want them to. You've created some avoidance strategies for coping with them, including what you say stuffing them down with brown. Yes. Well, you're not alone. We all have ways of dealing with challenging emotions that don't really serve us in the long run. Is there a specific challenge that you want to walk us through? Yeah. So for this week, I had difficult conversation at work that I chose to reflect on. The seven attitudinal foundations? Yes. Thank you. So I had an idea that I thought would be a great solution to a problem that our organization has. It wasn't nearly as well-received as I thought or was hoping for. I'd put a lot of energy into this and to see it fall flat, it sucks. I felt dumb, ashamed, and like I wasted my time and my boss's time. So I coped the way I described earlier. While I was able to ignore those feelings I had, it was only temporary. As soon as this idea didn't go over as you'd hoped, you felt embarrassed and ashamed. Then you dealt with some of those feelings by numbing out through drinking? Yes. Again, I typically don't like to harp on the negative emotions so that's why it was easy for me to think about, what if I don't judge the situation? I know I seem to focus a lot on judgment, but I think that's a tenant or a process that I have the most trouble with. Yes. Well, you're not alone there. Judgments are a tough one for a lot of us. At first I was thinking, don't judge myself or blame myself for having these feelings, but then I thought a little further and thought I was judging the whole situation as bad. If I hadn't judged it so harshly or at all if I could get there, I know I probably won't have felt the shame and the feeling of being little or unimportant. That sinking feeling between your chest and your stomach, and I probably wouldn't have had the urge to drink then either. So lots of judgment habit loops there. What do you mean? Well, you mentioned, judging yourself for wasting your boss's time and energy and then judging yourself for feeling embarrassed and ashamed. Sounds like you also have some feelings about drinking to deal with your feelings. Yes. So I guess. Like I said, I struggle with this one. Yes. So this might sound kind of funny, but how did all that judgment make you feel? Like crap. Made me never want to put an idea on the table again. I felt weak for being embarrassed. That sounds hard. There's a lot of interesting research out there that it explores the benefits of self-compassion. There's some exciting data that seems to support the actually when we hold ourselves with kindness and compassion, when what we're feeling is hurt or shame or anger, we end up bouncing back a lot more quickly and we feel less fearful and we're more willing to keep going after the things that we want to accomplish. I know that runs counter to a lot of cultural messages about how to improve and stay motivated, but my experience that it actually holds pretty true. Yes, I can see that. One time someone said something to me the long lines of, when you make a mistakes, you should treat yourself the way would a small child. You wouldn't shame them or make them feel bad about themselves, just help them and see what went wrong and then maybe give them a hug and let them be on the way. Yes. Especially that hugging part, we all need that. Well, it sound like you have a wise friend out there anyway. I'll tell her you said so. Thank you. Yes. So you think you'd be willing to play in that more compassionate space? Maybe the next time you notice harsh judgment or self-criticism and seeing if we can bring in a more compassionate quality to balance that out a bit? Well, I can certainly try. Well, thanks, Seth, I know this module and these practices this week were tough in some ways. So I appreciate your willingness to be real and vulnerable about how they went for you. Sure. Yes. It can be really hard to turn towards the more challenging aspects of life, or habit and hard wiring, or just screaming at us to run away. But when we can find the courage to just let it all in, we give ourselves a chance for some really wise investigation. We can start to see ways of thinking or being that just don't serve our well-being. That kind of noticing is a really important first step that allows us to shift away from some of our more self-defeating tendencies. When we can strip back the layers that cover over our innate resilience, what we find is that we're capable of being with so much more than we give ourselves credit for. Yes. It's pretty hard though. Yes. It is hard. This work is not easy, and I warned you about that. But it does help reconnect us to our true nature. Fundamentally, it reminds us of our goodness. Both of those outcomes are, for me, well worth the effort. So go do next week's work and we'll see you back here for the next set of activity challenges next week. Great. Looking forward to it. All right. Thanks. Bye, bye. Bye bye.
