EFR 834: Simple Meditations to Forgive Yourself (and Others) Enhance Self-Care, and Create Radical Self-Love and with Michael Galyon

00:00 - Chase (Host) The following is an Operation Podcast production.

00:03 - Michael (Guest) Hi, I'm Michael Galean, mindfulness teacher and professional coach and author of the book Let it Settle Daily Habits to Move you from Chaos to Calm and the podcast Letting it Settle with Michael Galean. And this is Ever Forward Radio.

00:26 - Chase (Host) Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to Ever Forward Radio. I am your host, chase Tuning, certified health coach, wellness entrepreneur, army veteran, and today you might even add patient or client to the roster. Because, man, not only was this a powerful interview with Michael Galleon, but, man, we dropped in. He helped me get to a place of calm, reflection and healing in real time. That was so profound. I would really encourage you to check out the video to kind of see more. But you're going to hear really this kind of eye openingening, heart-opening string of moments in this interview as Michael helps us navigate through life's challenges and find our way home to ourself.

01:11 Michael is a professional coach and mindfulness leader, huge all over social media. His meditation practices and work in the space have been viewed by tens of millions. At this point and in this episode, he is going to help deliver a calm space you can call upon when faced with moments of unrest and overwhelm. This podcast and his new book Let it Settle Daily Habits to Move you from Chaos to Calm offers insights into your experiences and emotions that confirm you do not face life alone, and he also is going to provide us with tools and guided meditations that we can use to navigate through our experiences to a centered space from which healing is truly possible. Here we are in September, which is actually National Self-Care Awareness Month, we're going to be learning how to have and maintain self-care in times of crisis, also exploring concepts of forgiveness and why forgiving others versus forgiving ourself is sometimes more difficult to do, as well as diving into radical self-love, mindful parenting and so much more.

02:17 If you have not yet done so, following the podcast on your podcast platform of choice does huge, huge, huge things. It helps us grow, gets us even more amazing guests like Michael, it spreads the word so that I and my guests can help others live a life ever forward. And if there's ever anything you're wondering, what can I do? I love this show. I find value in one episode or all the episodes. Seriously, this is it. It's such a small thing, it takes a couple seconds, but following subscribing on your podcast platform of choice does big, big things for us over here and I appreciate you for it.

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03:40 I love them at the end of my day. It's a great little way to kind of separate the work day and get into evening chill, wind down mode. I also love taking a couple before a yoga practice. I just feel a lot more connected to my body and just cool, calm and collected overall. So if you're looking for a great new wellness gummy that can help you with your relaxation and relief practices, I cannot recommend these enough. They're a bestseller and, speaking of sale, we got a great discount for you. You can actually save 20% off of the ultimate stress reliever, the cured nutrition serenity gummies when you head to cured nutritioncom and use code ever forward at checkout. Michael, welcome to ever forward radio, thank you.

04:20 - Michael (Guest) Thank you for having me and everybody tuning in.

04:22 - Chase (Host) Welcome to national selfCare Awareness Month. I had no idea September had such a title, which is perfect for your work and what you do, and so I wanted to really just dive there. First, talking about self-care what does that term mean for most people and what do you think maybe it should mean?

04:44 - Michael (Guest) You know, I think for most people they think about self-care as bubble baths and going to get a massage, and that's all part of it. It's nice to be able to take care of yourself, but when I think about self-care, what I really think about is being able to really sit with yourself, to give yourself the opportunity to start to connect with what it is that you actually need. So tuning into what does your body need in that moment? What does, what does your spirit need in that moment? When you start to connect to your heart, what is it that is calling out for you? And when you can really start to hone in and listen to that, you can start to figure out what is it that I need. And really self-care to me is just giving yourself the gift of being able to meet your needs.

05:25 - Chase (Host) You said what does my body need, what does my soul need? What does my soul need? Two, I think, potentially very different situations. What if, maybe we're we're diving into our self-care world and like, yeah, my body is really going, yeah, I need this, I want this, but my soul is saying something different. How do we, which one do we pay attention to the most?

05:46 - Michael (Guest) I would say it's body's probably going to come first, because that's the most, especially when we're talking about stress and anxiety. We have the physical manifestation of stress and anxiety and once we can start to address that, we start to look underneath it and see what's underneath that physical manifestation. So I'd say, take care of your body first. Even if it's just small, simple movements, it's the movement of the body. The shoulders, um, dropping of the jaw, just little things can help you. Just start to meet those needs.

06:15 - Chase (Host) I feel like the body might be more obvious for more people in terms of oh, this is what self-care looks like, this is what it feels like, or this is what my body is telling me it needs and wants more of. Do you think that the soul, self-care stuff are we more able to? To lean in and think, our tendency to push away emotions?

06:36 - Michael (Guest) at such a high degree makes us kind of unable sometimes to really listen to ourselves and to find out what we need, because a lot of the times we have these emotions that are kind of stacked so we have. You know, I'm feeling really, really angry right now and so resisting that anger you're fighting against the anger and that becomes your focus in that moment is just how can I resist this? But when you can actually allow for yourself to start to feel that anger it's actually a blanket emotion, that there's something underneath it. There's probably a sadness, a loneliness, a fear, a worry Allow for your stuff to tap into these emotions. Allow for your stuff to actually process and feel the emotions. Then you can start to understand the root, what's really there.

07:35 - Chase (Host) And at the root is where you can start to find what is it that you actually need be able to listen to what our soul is telling us it needs and wants. Um is is that barrier of not yet knowing how to kind of push past a lot of those surface friction and uncomfortable feelings.

07:55 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, I'd say it's the fear of emotion the fear of emotion.

07:59 - Chase (Host) Fear of emotion. Do you think a lot of people struggle with that?

08:03 - Michael (Guest) I think so.

08:03 - Chase (Host) Yeah, struggle with like feeling emotion or recognizing emotion. Can you kind of elaborate on that?

08:09 - Michael (Guest) I think people can feel emotion, but there's such a this is either a positive or this is a negative emotion, and we label things. There's no positive or negative emotion, it's just they are, it's just a feeling, it's just what, what you're experiencing in that moment. And so when you could stop labeling things, you stop having that fear that, if you do this, something bad is going to happen. You know, there's nothing wrong with being angry, there's nothing wrong with expressing anger, but we have such a negative connotation to it that we actually fear it. And the reason that we fear it is because there's such a physical reaction, there's an impulse to action that comes from emotions. Anger just happens to have a really strong impulse to action. Where it's, anger makes us want to hit something, to yell at someone, to have a physical altercation with someone, and so we perceive that as bad. And so it's really, if we can, the trick here is to have that pause, the pause that exists between the impulse to action and your actual action, and when you can live in that pause, you start to say, okay, this is the emotion that I'm feeling.

09:18 I'm feeling really angry right now. I'm feeling the impulse to do this. Is that in my best interest. Am I going to? Is it going to create the life that I want to be living in? Is it going to create the relationships that I want to have? If not, what are other choices that I have? I know that I don't really like this. I don't want to feel this right now. So how do I just process that in a healthier way? So it's determining what your next step is there.

09:45 - Chase (Host) I don't disagree with you and I think a lot of people you can disagree.

09:54 Where I'm going is. I think a lot of people would agree that when we feel that kind of frustration and anger, those emotions tend to follow, or they're followed by. They need to be you know out. They need to be ventilated. There needs to be an action Like I feel this way and I need to be you know out, they need to be ventilated. There needs to be an action Like I feel this way and I need to kind of release it, whereas with more air quote here positive emotions, happiness, love, you know, being content there tends to not really need to be that feeling of I need to release this, would you agree? And what is so different about these types of emotions that one and I might be wrong here one requires expression and getting it out and one doesn't.

10:32 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, that's often why people choose anger or lean into anger, because there is that strong reaction when we're experiencing sadness or loneliness. There's not, there's not really that action, and so we feel like we actually have to sit with it.

10:48 And so we choose to do that because we feel like we can actually move away from thing. We have some control, we can actually move through things, and this is where the concept of impermanence really comes into play, where it's everything is going to pass, the good and the bad, and so it's that this too shall pass.

11:09 And so it's looking at, the anger that we hold onto is momentary, it will pass. The joy that we hold onto is momentary as well, and I think that's where people get sucked in, where they feel like they have to create more joy in their life. They have to create these places where they cannot not feel happiness, and that's holding on. And so, when you can live with that impermanence of knowing I'm going to enjoy every moment of this, I'm going to live this to its fullest, knowing that it's not forever, it's going to pass, it allows for you to actually start to experience the moment instead of trying to control your life.

11:48 - Chase (Host) I might challenge my own point to that. Should we be allowing happiness, these kind of again air quote more positive emotions? Should we be looking for a way for them? You know an expression, an outlet, the same way we often look to an outlet for the unpleasant emotions.

12:08 - Michael (Guest) Are we, are we playing?

12:09 - Chase (Host) favoritism here.

12:11 - Michael (Guest) Probably. I mean, I would say, allowing for yourself to experience it in whatever way you experience it. You know, there are some people who, when they experience love, it is a physical contact that they just have to express to someone else, and there's other where it's just a kind word is enough, and so people have different levels of tolerance for emotion. And so I think it's just knowing where you're at and being comfortable with that.

12:40 - Chase (Host) I like that. I like that answer To kind of bring it back to self-care. You know we hear self-care awareness month in September. A lot of your work is around self-care in times of crisis, because I think when shit hits the fan, that's typically when self-care goes out the window for most of us. Prioritization, and we'll get back to it later. But what self-care tool do you think most people abandon in time of crisis and what self-care tool do most people need to incorporate or sharpen if they already have it during a time of crisis?

13:15 - Michael (Guest) I would say just mindfulness in general is abandoned in times of crisis. Um, it's that desire to have an understanding of the outcome, or what's going to happen, or to be able to plan for what's going to happen. And so we live in the future and we live in this. Let me catastrophize and figure out everything that could go wrong so that that doesn't go wrong. Or let me look at the past and think of everything that did go wrong so that I can't replicate that. And so when we can just allow for ourselves to kind of put that away for a moment and just sit in the present moment, that's the greatest self-care that we can really give ourselves is just to be present with what is actually here, feel into the feelings that are actually there and determine from that place what's in your best interest.

14:06 - Chase (Host) That was actually my next question around catastrophizing. I think crisis kind of begets more crisis. A catastrophe turns into higher levels and more forms of catastrophe because most of us aren't, to your point, really present and sitting with that and not making matters worse. So how do we stop catastrophizing? Crisis is already hard enough. Most people can't help but blow it up even more, I think.

14:31 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, feeling into the fear and allowing for yourself to have that fear and have it be there and then allow for it to pass. I know that sounds so simple yeah, Everyone's like.

14:42 - Chase (Host) Yelling at you through the speaker right now Like yeah, that's so easier said than done.

14:47 - Michael (Guest) But it is. I mean it's, it's allowing for yourself to. You know what I'm working with clients. A lot of times we'll start to catastrophize. I call it. You know, in medicine they do a premortem where they look at everything that could potentially go wrong in a surgery so that they can know how to avoid those things. And so they look and say, okay, if we cut this right here, this could potentially happen, they could bleed here. And we do that with them and I just say let's really just play out everything that could go wrong and let's sit with that feeling of what is actually happening in that moment. And once you can start to actually feel into that fear and realize that it again is momentary, it's going to pass, these things are not permanent. They do eventually leave. It takes that fear away from the fear.

15:34 - Chase (Host) When I hear that I kind of immediately went to oh, that sounds very helpful. If I could sit in a bad moment or a catastrophe and think even more worst case scenario, I think, oh, that's, that's helpful. You know, it kind of provides next steps. But I don't know if a lot of people are like that and I don't know if everyone can kind of think of it's already pretty bad, oh if it gets even worse, if it gets even worse, if this happens, that happens, we don't really see the stepping stones to get out of it. We just, you know, kind of sit and dwell and then we never move or we never kind of allow it to pass through us, like to your point, it will, um, what, what does it take to kind of make that shift?

16:18 - Michael (Guest) so that's when I would ask the question what if it went well? So let's play that out. Let's do the opposite of this. Let's actually play out. What if it went well? So let's play that out. Let's do the opposite of this. Let's actually play out what if everything went according to plan? What if everything was better than you thought it would be? Both are make-believe, both don't exist in reality. One is going to actually bring you to your knees and put you in that state of chaos, and one is probably going to put you in a pretty good space to walk forward.

16:45 - Chase (Host) Both are make believe. Yeah, how quickly we forget that truth in a catastrophe. Yeah, we just dwell on things that aren't real, that haven't happened, might might not, but also the worst case scenario could happen. But best case scenario could also happen.

17:03 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, and our mind, our bodies don't know the difference. So when we're playing out those scenarios, your body's reacting, so an imaginary thought is creating a real emotion, which is creating a real physical reaction to that emotion, and so you're not crazy. When you're having panic attacks and you think that you're going to die, your body's actually telling you that you are going to, and so it's just allowing for yourself to stop, to start recognizing okay, this is make-believe, this is not real, and then allow for the emotions to start to settle, so that the body can start to settle.

17:36 - Chase (Host) Is there a particular tool or a word or affirmation or physical movement that you have found to be helpful to really interject in that moment for maybe someone that has not yet instilled that, that habit of you know, kind of detaching?

17:53 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, it's very simple. And again people are going to yell, but try it. It's just when you start to have those thoughts that are intrusive, literally just sitting there and saying thought, thought, thought. So when you're sitting there, just the word thought, thought, thought. So you're basically creating awareness of thought by labeling it as thought, because without that awareness and without the label, it's reality in your mind.

18:25 - Chase (Host) That like almost I'm laughing but it almost makes me angry, like how simple that is. But the second that you that you said, thought, thought, thought. I immediately just went. Oh my God, that's so incredible. Yeah, how many of us forget that what we are ruminating about are just thoughts? Yep, it's only our continuation of those thoughts and how we act on them that make them a reality. But up until that point they're just thoughts.

18:54 - Michael (Guest) And that's when we talk about meditation. It's not the absence of thought Thought is always going to be there but it's the awareness of thought and the conscious decision to redirect to a present moment, experience. So that's why we redirect to the body, that's why we do a body scan, because it can't be in the future, can't be in the past. Your body is here. It's why we redirect to the breath, because it has to be right here. Thoughts are taking you somewhere else, so just label them.

19:19 - Chase (Host) When we're talking self-care, when we're talking, you know, these habits, these tools, it can kind of sound like work to a lot of people and I think that's why some people maybe dismiss it or don't have self-care practices, because it takes work. It takes work in order to have it become a habit, to have it then become just your lifestyle and you know, kind of second nature. So how do we make self-care not feel like work?

19:45 - Michael (Guest) Daily habits are a good way of being able to put this into practice so that it feels good to do it. It feels like this is part of the routine, and I know that this routine actually leads to the feelings that I'm hoping to get, that I'm hoping to get, and so it doesn't have to be that you wake up every morning at five in the morning and you have a 17-hour morning routine, but it can just be these little things that you're putting into place which are just reminding you to one check in with yourself, to check in with your body, to check in with your mind, to check in with your emotions, and then to, in the very simplest way, just ask yourself what do I need today? And then give yourself that.

20:32 - Chase (Host) I like that because what I heard was you're kind of really advocating for self-care to be kind of just a part of who we are in a daily practice. A lot of people myself included literally up until kind of like this conversation. When I think self-care, I go, oh, I have to schedule that, I have to like later make time for it, I need to carve it out of my day. But I'm kind of hearing you say make it a part of your day.

20:58 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, it really is. It's creating the intention for your day is to serve your needs, and so it's what do I need today? And then what do I have to do in order to get that, or who do I need to bring in? You know, self-care can also be enlisting others to help.

21:15 - Chase (Host) What does that look like? How do we get others as part of our self-care, you know, in a partnership.

21:19 - Michael (Guest) In a marriage it's. There are things, especially when there's kids involved, there's things that you can't just do on your own, and so it may be I'm having a terrible day today. I know that I'm physically tired. I know that I'm, you know, emotionally just at my last wits end here. I need to ask my partner for help today. That honesty about how you're feeling and telling them this is how I'm feeling and this is what I need today can create the space where they can either choose to do it or not. But you're enlisting them and saying I'm going to do this for myself and I would love if you could help me.

22:00 - Chase (Host) I feel like sometimes I force self-care on my wife. She's terrible about drinking water. I'm like the water police all the time, just checking on her water glass, topping her off, asking her did you drink water? And I'm just kind of laughing in my head about you know. Maybe sometimes, especially in a relationship, you kind of find yourself. You know it's, it's out of love, right, you know, wanting, wanting the best for the other person, person, making sure and helping them take care of themselves, but just even little things like that yeah, does she ever ask for water?

22:32 yes, sometimes I'd say like maybe 20 of the time, yeah, 80. It's always me like checking bringing her water yeah yeah, is that what's your take on that I was?

22:43 - Michael (Guest) going to say that might be an interesting conversation to have with her, might be. This is something that's really important that I see that sometimes you forget. How would you feel about you know checking in with me, cause I want to support you in the best way that I can, but I also want to empower you to be doing that.

23:03 - Chase (Host) That also makes me think is looking out for the self-care of others. Let's say, in a relationship We'll just use my example of you know, maybe your partner is, in your opinion, not that great at staying hydrated. Sure, Is there a point to where our love and our perceived help for our partner of their self-care does that cross a line? Does that become, you know, too much? Are we forcing our will on them? Is it, you know, too oppressive and like kind of, I guess I'm trying to say, is you know, you know, not really self-care anymore? It just becomes a chore, a nag that your partner's yelling at you about.

23:42 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, I'd probably break it down into the intention behind it, like what's the intention? Why do you want her to drink water?

23:50 - Chase (Host) I'm just worried about her general hydration Also now, uh, she's pregnant and so I'm always. You know she wasn't great at drinking water before now. Certain things you know. When it comes to nutrition, hydration, you know we have to be even more mindful of for, for for our son.

24:06 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, so it's about creating a space for her where she is at optimal health as she creates life within her. Maybe it's asking her what, how she feels she's doing that, cause she probably does have things that she's doing, and so you don't want to take that away. So then you can start to support her in those things and also have that reminder.

24:30 - Chase (Host) Okay, I like that.

24:31 - Michael (Guest) Yeah.

24:33 - Chase (Host) One thing I would like to do as we kind of work through this conversation and we're we're hitting on these key topics, I would love to kind of, at the end of each one, bring it home with your specialty of of like, maybe like a little meditation, whether that's maybe actually one that you have ready, or just when you would think this topic in a meditation. What would that look like? What would that feel like? So people can kind of hear these things we're talking about, but then have something practical to apply. That's in your specialty. So if I were to ask you for a self-care meditation, what would that look like?

25:07 - Michael (Guest) for a self-care meditation. What would that look like? So in my book, let it Settle, I have meditations at the end of each section that are specifically for these things, and so I would probably say the four point. Breath meditation is a perfect way to just come back to center, to be present with the breath, which again has to be in the present moment, and it allows for you to start to slow the mind, to slow the body, to connect to the breath, and then, at the end of it, you start to ask yourself what do I need? So I can lead you through that I like that.

25:33 - Chase (Host) Could you share a little bit with us?

25:34 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, yeah, please Do you want me to guide you through it.

25:37 - Chase (Host) Please, yeah, let's do it.

25:38 - Michael (Guest) Go ahead and that feel safe and, from this space, just start to connect to what's beneath you, just allowing for yourself to kind of sink down and for a moment, just start to allow for your thoughts to be there, not needing to shut them off or telling them to go away, but just let yourself become aware of thought and then just start to notice that thought.

26:11 And when you notice a thought is entering in, with that quick label of thought, thought, thought start to redirect the attention to the breath, noticing the air coming in and out through the nostrils and so just starting to notice the temperature of the air as you breathe in, feeling the air enter in through the nose and breathe out, just feeling it exit, noting the temperature Again, playing with that redirection of thought to breath and then dropping that awareness into the chest and just playing with what it feels like to have the air expand the chest, feeling that rise of the chest with each inhale and the fall with each exhale, just feeling that rise and fall, and then start to draw that awareness into the belly, so connecting the air into the stomach and feeling that full expansion outward with each inhale and then coming back on the exhale, that expansion and release, breathing in, breathing out no-transcript the openness of space in front of you, behind you, the openness of space above you and below.

28:25 And again, with that attention fully on the breath, begin to feel into what it feels like, to allow for the body to expand into the openness of space with each inhale, letting your body take up as much space as it needs, pressing to the edges and then coming back to center, feeling that wide expansion into the openness of space and letting go almost like a wave, rushing in, feeling that expansion outward and back. And, with that attention fully on the breath, start to connect to the heart Without needing to be anywhere but right here. Start to check in, asking that simple question what do I need? What do I need? Just let that answer be there, honoring the simplicity of your needs. Hold on to that and, when it feels right and safe, go ahead and flutter your eyes open. Just take in the space, start to enter back.

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32:07 Comrade. Gradual compression socks, linked for you as always in the show notes today under episode resources. But again, that's comrade sockscom. Code chase C. One five to save 15%. Code Chase C15 to save 15%. How's that? I got to remember I got to carry on the rest of the podcast. Now, that moment where you were cuing me and the audience member, like the awareness of space yeah, immediately was like a very trippy sensation I've never had, like through a guided meditation or just kind of that experience of just like placement in space, like oh yes, I'm in a room, I'm in a chair, there are four walls, but just immediately when it went to just me as a being in this kind of actual space, it was very like infinite feeling. Yeah, it was very, very wild, and then immediately bringing it back into. I loved how he kind of went to expansion and then coming back in and then prompting that question of what do I need, was, you know, I think, just like perfect, nice, perfect, yeah, he's good, everybody is very good, incredible, thank you for that, thank you.

33:27 I like to move on to forgiveness forgiving others and forgiving ourself. Can you please explore the difference between forgiving others and forgiving oneself and maybe some strategies for practicing both forms of forgiveness?

33:41 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, I mean, I think the most important thing to remember is that forgiveness is not a requirement. No one is owed your forgiveness. But it's about looking at what you are holding on to. But it's about looking at what you are holding on to. And so when I work with clients on forgiveness and moving through this, the first thing that I have them do is to start to tell their story.

34:09 So so often when we've been wronged, when we've been hurt, when we've hurt ourselves or feeling like we've hurt others, we hold that story so close to ourselves and there's shame and there's embarrassment and there's an inability to allow for that out into the world. And so the first thing that I ask is just to share your story, and what that does is just allows for you to have the safety of trusting someone else with your story. Oftentimes, especially when we've been hurt by someone who we love, there's also a protection of them. It's I'm not. I don't want to tell the world this story, because I love this person and I don't want them to be seen differently, and so it's trusting that this is your story and you get to tell that regardless of them, regardless of how they are perceived, your telling of the story is more important and so once that story is really told, it's really looking at by holding on and having this inability to forgive in that moment.

35:20 What is it costing you? So really looking at that and just doing you know it's almost like you're doing a cost benefit analysis here. So what is the cost? And it's not just you know well I'm, you know maybe it costs me some relationships that I, you know, have a hard time trusting people. But it's also break it down and start to look at what is it. What's the monetary cost? You know I've had clients who have been like I spend $300 on alcohol a week because I'm holding onto this, really looking at how much money have we spent on therapy?

35:56 You know, and and just really looking at what is the cost here. And then, on the other side, what is the benefit? What if we were to be able to release this? What would the benefit there be? And then making that decision there's no right or wrong, but it's. Does the cost outweigh the benefit or is the benefit so great that it's worth stepping forward?

36:22 But the tricky thing is we can look at the benefits and we can see that you know, okay, this would be beneficial, but until we actually have a vision of what's beyond the situation, we can't really move forward. And so it's really working on saying, okay, what is it that I actually want in my life? What am I actually stepping into? What is worth giving up holding on to this for? Because it's painful, it's going to hurt. And when you can start to have that vision, you can start to walk forward into it. And then it's really looking at determining your worth and your value and why it is worth your stepping forward. Into that. A lot of people don't feel that they're worth letting go, that they feel like they're doomed to be in this space forever.

37:15 - Chase (Host) Why do you think that is? Is it a self-worth thing?

37:19 - Michael (Guest) It's a self-worth thing. I think people think that they have to earn their worth in the world, and so there's so much self-judgment and self-criticism that they see that vision of themselves in the future. Maybe they can imagine it, but they don't think that they're worthy of it. They don't deserve it. They don can imagine it, but they don't think that they're worthy of it.

37:40 - Chase (Host) They don't deserve it. They don't deserve it.

37:42 - Michael (Guest) That's a lot of the work that I do is just getting people to recognize that your worth, your value in this world, is not contingent on any actions or deeds. Just your mere existence on this planet makes you worthy of what it is you desire.

37:56 - Chase (Host) Do you think self-worth? Do you think our level of self-worth is made less possible when we struggle more to forgive ourself versus struggling to forgive somebody else?

38:15 - Michael (Guest) In both scenarios we're holding on to it, and so it's kind of the same. And so, until you can really have that understanding of that, if you're holding on to what has been done to you and holding that burden, you're still carrying it, you're carrying that entire weight, and if you're not forgiving yourself, you're holding onto that as well. And sometimes it's just you have to give that back and say this isn't mine to hold anymore, it's not serving me to hold this anymore. And so once you can start to have that kind of sense of self-worth, self-value, you have that vision of what's in front of you, you have the understanding of the cost and the benefits that are there, then you get to make the decision Is it worth it? Is it worth it to to forgive this person? Is it worth it to forgive myself? And then you slowly start to take the steps there.

39:17 - Chase (Host) So is it really true what they say then, that you can't fully forgive somebody else until you first forgive yourself?

39:27 - Michael (Guest) I would say yeah, yeah, I would say it's a huge component of it.

39:37 - Chase (Host) Where do you think people struggle the most when it comes to self-forgiveness? Is it this ability, this excuse me? Is it this, um, this concept of self-worth? Um, I don't think I'm worthy. Um, who would forgive me my whatever I did? However, I feel it is just so unforgivable. Is it more the perception I have with myself or the perception I think others have of me? What is, like, the biggest thing holding people back from forgiving themselves?

40:05 - Michael (Guest) It's these standards that we hold ourselves to that we would never hold anyone else to in our lives. You know there's. We actually can be very quick to forgive and very easy to be able to look at someone's situation and say, well, of course you know so, you made a mistake. But when it comes to ourselves, we just hold ourselves to these impossible standards. And I think it's because we don't. We fear that if we allow for ourselves the grace and the understanding that we're going to do it again and the understanding that we're going to do it again, and so it's almost like we're holding ourselves back because we're so afraid of who we would become if we forgave ourselves.

40:51 - Chase (Host) Can you expand on that a little bit please? I think that's something people might not be really aware of. That's a very real player in this game of self-worth and self-love and forgiveness especially.

41:02 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, so there's that fear that if I forgive myself, if I'm willing to let go of this, am I going to continue to just fall back into that old pattern of behavior? We don't tend to see our evolution as people, we don't tend to see the growth that we've had, and a lot of times we're judging our future actions by our former selves. And so it's looking at it and saying who you are right now has had a life of experience that that person didn't have. The choices that they made at that time might have best served them because they had nothing else to rely on. You have growth and skills and tools that that person didn't, and so it is learning to trust yourself. So it's giving yourself the grace that, even if it does happen, you'll be okay, and the understanding that you have the awareness to be able to make different choices.

42:16 - Chase (Host) Have you ever struggled with forgiveness and if so, was it just coming back to kind of these um practices that you have you know kind of. Oh, let me go back to you know, practice what I preach at my kind of foundations, or you know what maybe was a sticking point for you in forgiveness?

42:31 - Michael (Guest) So I had a experience with forgiveness that I didn't even know I was holding on to Um. So when I was, when I was nine years old, my mom left and so she left and, uh, had an affair and moved in with someone else and left her five children with my dad, and it was years and years and years of you know. I thought I had moved past it, like she was in my life, we had communication, and it wasn't until I started really getting into the loving kindness meditation or meta meditation, which allows for you to.

43:10 So I'll walk you through what that is but so you take a set of phrases so may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free from suffering, may you be well it can be anything but well wishes to another person, and first you direct those to yourself, then you direct them to a loved one, then you direct them to a stranger, a neutral person in your life, and then you choose someone who you've had conflict with and you say those words to them, and then you extend those words to the world around you. And so it's creating these different scenarios and recognizing that the same love and kindness that you share with the dear one who it's so easy, you should also be able to share with yourself. You should also be able to share with a stranger, and you should also be able to see with a person who you have not be able to share with yourself. You should also be able to share with a stranger, and you should also be able to see with a person who you have not been able to forgive.

44:07 And so I started doing the meditation, and I would always have this very hard time finding someone I was in conflict with, because I don't really have conflict with too many people, but I remember this moment where I, for whatever reason, felt at odds with my mom in that moment. And I did that, and it was this kind of floodgates opening of oh, I've never forgiven her, I'm holding on to that, oh, that is costing me so much in my life, that is impacting every decision that I make in my life, and so it really started this kind of like exploration of like, oh, what do I do with this?

44:48 - Chase (Host) It's a big box to open.

44:49 - Michael (Guest) It's a big box to open, especially when you weren't really okay.

44:52 - Chase (Host) I'm finally going to face this thing that I know that I need to face. But when it just kind of happens like that, it's like oh wow, what else is there?

44:58 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, and it really. What was what I love about the loving kindness meditation is that it allows for you to see the person outside of the situation.

45:10 So in many ways, the ways that I was viewing my mom was this is the person who left me, no matter how much, much like we had grown, no matter how many you know conversations or reconciliation, it was this is the person who left me, and when I was started to do the loving kindness meditation, of wishing well, these well wishes, it takes you out of that story and it starts to see them as a person who is in need of and desiring loving kindness. It creates this empathy that can exist when you're unwilling to forgive, and so it really started to to open that up for me, and it was really through that meditation that I was able to start to have that conversation with her and then be able to finally say the words I forgive you.

46:00 - Chase (Host) What did that feel like?

46:02 - Michael (Guest) It was. Let me ask you sorry.

46:03 - Chase (Host) What did it feel like first when you thought that to yourself, cause I imagine you probably had that forgiveness sensation with yourself first, and then proceeded to kind of forgive your mom with her, their present, what were?

46:15 - Michael (Guest) those moments like. So the first thing was there was such a freedom within myself because I wasn't holding onto it anymore. I mean, it literally felt like my chest opened up and I was able to just kind of like breathe. It started to change just how I trusted people in my life. It started to change like the interactions that I had with people you know, the attachment issues that I had previously had started to kind of change there the attachment issues that I had previously had started to kind of change there, so forgiving one person in your life caused this ripple effect of change with every other person in your life.

46:46 Because there was so much attached to that. There was so much attached, the patterns of behaviors that were ingrained because of that were so strong and they impacted every relationship that I had. So by changing that and shifting the just how I viewed it, everything in my life started to change.

47:03 - Chase (Host) Now, did you notice that or and or? Did all these other people in your life like wow, like something's different?

47:11 - Michael (Guest) What's going on? I think both. I think there was just kind of an openness. It was like whatever was holding to just wasn't there, that like protective armor had come off. It was just, I felt, settled.

47:28 - Chase (Host) Okay, maybe get a little bit more meta on that, because I have to imagine you've you said you weren't really in conflict with a lot of other people, and so I imagine you're in good graces and you know great relationships with you, know close ones, acquaintances, whatever and then this shifted in your life and you began to kind of look at these other relationships of varying degrees differently. Did that then cause any other aha moments or awakenings? Because you kind of like you shed a layer right. You're now a deeper, more connected person to yourself and these people.

48:01 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, it actually did. It created the space where I was realizing what I wasn't saying and those frustrations that I was having, that I was choosing to hold on to a place of ease by holding on to it myself. So if someone was upsetting me, something was bothering me, something was egregiously done to me, I wouldn't say anything. I would hold on to it because it was more important for me to have the comfort that existed without the chaos than to live in the chaos. And I think that's what I've learned most about all of this and what my book is really about is how do we exist in the chaos and be okay with it? It's going to happen.

48:52 - Chase (Host) I was going to ask for a little, you know, forgiveness meditation, but I feel like we kind of I love that practice. What was it? The meta meditation? Yeah, I would encourage everybody to kind of go back to that and check it out. But while we're on the subject of, you know, living in the chaos and what I know the core of the book is about, that sounds a pretty like a pretty wild concept and I think most people might not expect it. You know, we're talking about meditation and, you know, feeling more connected to ourself in the world. Um, that doesn't sound like I would be connected to a chaotic world or I'm living in chaos with that. What do you, what do you mean by that, and how do we actually wrap our head around that concept?

49:30 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, I mean, I think the world is going to continue to be chaotic. There is, there are going to be wars, there are going to be political disagreements, there's going to be conflict with people and while that may shift and change, in the moment we have to learn how to live amongst that and how can we find a space of calm in the chaos. You know, I live in Brooklyn, new York, and it is an insanely loud city.

50:04 - Chase (Host) It's crazy.

50:05 - Michael (Guest) And you know I'm a pretty calm guy. I think you know there's most.

50:10 - Chase (Host) Most people would say that I'm you know very calm energy, very calm energy, very calm energy, yeah.

50:16 - Michael (Guest) But it is. I live in the most chaotic place in the world and so it really is just being able to. How can I find that space of stillness that I can still find if I'm sitting on a mountaintop, that I can find while there are horns and ambulances going on all around me? And part of it is understanding that the frustration, the anger that might pop up in those moments. That's okay. I'm okay with that. I can stay calm because I'm allowing for myself to feel that anger and let it go. I'm not holding it back, I'm not holding on. When we start to create this space where we feel like we have to control everything, that's when the chaos becomes too much.

50:57 - Chase (Host) That's probably more so. What it is Chaos is this recognition that I have no control over the situation. Yeah, we feel probably more in chaos when we feel less in control of our world and circumstances, whereas if we are, you know, chilling on top of a mountaintop, you know we're, we're in control of a lot there. You know, we, we removed ourself from the situation. We removed ourself from the chaos. There's a lot of power and control there.

51:24 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, yeah.

51:26 - Chase (Host) So is it then just kind of accepting that we're always in chaos, that there is always chaos and you know we can't control that?

51:34 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, I think it's not judging chaos as good or bad. You know, we get to choose how we respond to it and choose how we judge ourselves and choose how we treat ourselves in those moments and the more that we can just be gentle with our responses to things. You know, a lot of these are just automatic responses of negativity and those just happen. The less that we judge those, the more that we can just be easy with ourselves and the more that you can find that space of calm because you're not fighting against things so much mindfulness practices and meditation.

52:22 - Chase (Host) Really I have been able to way more quickly catch myself in a moment of judgment and shift away from that and going oh, like they're probably dealing with this or just blatant egotistical judgment. You know, I, you know, we all kind of think some things and we catch ourselves and we're like what the hell was I thinking? And I have so much more quickly moved away from that. How do we get away from judgment more quickly?

52:43 - Michael (Guest) So one of the practices that I do is this daily practice of empathy, and so I think empathy is such a superpower and something that is so needed in the world right now, and the way that we look at empathy is, you know, well, I'm going to put myself in someone else's shoes, but oftentimes people are putting themselves in someone else's shoes, but oftentimes people are putting themselves in someone else's shoes and seeing the world that they're living in through their eyes, and so it's here's how I would handle that situation, which inherently has judgment in it, but it's looking at it and looking and going through almost an empathetic inquiry, questioning line of saying, okay, how did they see the world? What has created this space for them that this is how they the choices that they would make, this is the decisions that they would make? The question that I love to ask clients all the time is why does it make perfect sense? Why does it make perfect sense that this is the decision that they're making? Is it because this is how they were brought up? This is the religion that they were raised in, this is the household that they live in? Whatever it is, there's a reason, and when you can understand that there is a reason for that.

53:51 You can, one, start to remove the judgment from it and, two, you can start to begin to see what is the reasoning and is there suffering underneath that, and from there can you start to try and alleviate that suffering for them or have an understanding of that suffering. And so, when you can start to have that understanding with other people, you start to lose any sense of judgment of them, because it makes perfect sense. We can do the same thing with ourselves as well, and we can look at ourselves and say, let me really look at the decisions that I'm making here, because this seems wild for some reason that I'm, that I'm doing this, why does it make perfect sense that I'm doing this? And then you get to say, okay, well, the puzzle pieces are coming together, like I can see what's happening here and so I'm going to remove that judgment. And then I'm going to make the choice to do whatever is going to either fix that situation or just move away from it.

54:51 - Chase (Host) The concepts of conscious and unconscious bias kind of came to mind for me in this. I'm not sure exactly why. Is there like a similar aspect here when we're looking at conscious judgment and unconscious judgment? Is there judgment we can work on that's more top of mind maybe, is more like service level stuff, egotistical or kind of the more obvious things. And then there's stuff maybe that I'm not sure even why or where it came from, that drives judgment.

55:16 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, I think looking at, looking at all of those your upbringing, who you are like, who your parents were, can really create a space of okay. It would make sense that I would perhaps have a judgment towards this group of people, or towards this way of being, or towards myself, and so it's just the more that we can start to explore our background, who we are, the more that we have an understanding of how we operate and why we operate the way we do.

55:47 - Chase (Host) And have less judgment about that. Yeah, less judgment about our judgment, yeah, I think. Yeah, you also talk a lot about radical self-love, lot about radical self-love. Um, what do you think is the number one thing we need to master in order to have self-love radical?

56:05 - Michael (Guest) self-love. So, going back to meta meditation, the loving kindness meditation, there's there's always this push to say you know, if you can't love yourself, there's always this push to say you know, if you can't love yourself, you can't love anyone else. And it's this judgment on if you can't love yourself. But self love is not modeled for us, but self judgment, self shame and self hatred is. It's really hard to do that, but we do have examples of love in our life and so one of the things that I really like to look for that's loving kindness meditation can do for us is to say what is the feeling of love that comes from a loved one?

57:04 - Chase (Host) Say that again.

57:04 - Michael (Guest) What is the feeling of love that comes from a loved one, someone who we trust and you know, mine was my grandma, she was my biggest inspiration, the person who you know loved me unconditionally and everything. Inspiration, the person who you know loved me unconditionally and everything. And having that moment to just sit there and say, okay, if I know that I, that she would say this to me, if I can start to channel her voice and what she would say, and if I can start to channel what emotions come from her truly loving me. What if I replicated that for myself? What if that inner monologue that is so negative and so judgmental starts to become hers? And just challenging that again.

57:48 With awareness of thought comes choice. You have a choice to either believe that thought is true or to redirect to something more positive. And so when that negative voice comes in, it's saying you know what? I'm going to stop this for a moment. What would she say? And eventually that starts to become your voice. You're channeling that voice into yours and that's how we start to begin to have a sense of self-love is by finding it from someone else.

58:17 - Chase (Host) Yeah, I was going to ask is there a point to where we become too reliant on finding and attuning our actions and thoughts to the voice of other people that kind of extinguishes or diminishes our own inner voice? I know you said kind of got to the end there of you know, until that becomes your voice. And I think if we pull the voice from a loved one, you know, there's a, I think, like a deep resonance with that. So I don't think anyone would say that becoming your voice is a bad thing.

58:52 But, I'm just kind of thinking outside of the box, you know. Should we? Should we be doing that, you know, or should we, and how could we be focusing on really navigating to our own inner voice?

59:07 - Michael (Guest) The other voice that we have. I'll call it. I call it the gremlin voice, which is that like?

59:13 - Chase (Host) nasty little gremlin that sits up there, golem in the back corner. Yeah.

59:16 - Michael (Guest) It was inherited. You pick that up from someone else in the back corner. Yeah, it was inherited, you picked that up from someone else. Someone else or it was fear that came in, or someone else had told you that you weren't good enough, you weren't smart enough. And so we do develop these, these thought patterns and these, you know, inner monologues based on other people. And so we have the choice we can either continue to believe that and hold on to that as our true self, or we can begin to redirect it to something else and just allow for that to slowly replace that. So it's just challenging it. You know it's nothing. The gremlin voice is there to protect you in a way.

59:53 It's there to you know, keep you safe, and it's just recognizing when that's not helpful and something else is an option. You have that option to channel something else, to have that kinder, gentler voice come into play.

01:00:10 - Chase (Host) That's so true and so personal I have to share. I turned 36 two years ago and I had this realization that, um, I went through a lot of things in terms of like mental health and personal practices, but I came to this realization that I had not, until the age 36, really thought for myself. I hadn't acted, I hadn't lived, I haven't created a life for myself because that's what I wanted. And, to your point, it was this kind of realization of I finally found my voice that had been there all along. But I only found it because I navigated all of the other voices in my life loved ones, painful ones, the gremlin, all of these things and I was able to kind of go yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, and it all filtered down to what you know.

01:00:58 You could say, oh, you kind of deduced everything down to one that you like, but it just became so true that, oh, this is the voice that's been here all along. Everybody else was just kind of like stifling it. I loved how you kind of answer that question because I immediately have felt that Totally yeah, finding your own inner voice. I know what I went through to do that. How would you advise somebody to start right here, right now, to kind of filter through the gremlin voices, the grandma voices, that that love, feeling, sensation, to get closer and closer to theirs. How do they find their own voice?

01:01:40 - Michael (Guest) to get closer and closer to theirs. How do they find their own voice? So I like to take clients through an exercise of kind of personifying these voices, and so I used to be a preschool teacher, and so you know, the greatest way to you know, get rid of the monster under the bed is to make it, you know, not so scary by you know creating it to be silly. It's this, you know it's. It's not the vampire.

01:01:59 Yeah, you know it's something that isn't as scary. And so when we're working with the Gremlin voice, personifying it to a way, we're giving it human or, you know, animalistic characteristics, um, and starting to have that be something that you can actually speak to. So it's separating yourself, it's having yourself sit in the seat of the seat of the soul, as we call it, or the observer, um, and look at what Michael Singer calls in untethered soul. He calls it your inner roommate. It's just this dude who lives in there in your head and happens to say nasty things to you.

01:02:35 - Chase (Host) I like to go to the Dexter metaphor of dark passenger. Yeah, yeah, oh I like that yeah. Yeah and oh, I like that, yeah, yeah. And so what does it say about me? I know I like that. I'm going to go to a serial killer, yeah.

01:02:44 - Michael (Guest) So you've got the dark passenger, and the more you can start to talk to it, the more that you recognize. Oh, I do have a choice here. I don't have to listen to that, and maybe it doesn't have my best in mind, and then you can start to personify these other parts of you, that loving, kind, caring part of you, that protector part of you, and you get to choose which one you're going to pull from at that moment. But in doing that, you're sitting and observing all of this and so I don't. It's not so much finding your true voice, but it's just being able to observe the voices that are there and make the choice which one you want to have power that day.

01:03:27 - Chase (Host) You just boiled all that down so eloquently and I'm sure there's like a meditation for this, but I was just kind of laughing in my head because I got to that point. But it was through like a four gram psilocybin therapy journey, yeah, and it is so spot on way of talking about. It was just all these voices, all these voices. I have a choice, I have a choice. I have a choice. Which one do I want to kind of bring with me? Yeah, yeah, there's so many different ways to get to um, our truth and being connected to ourselves and, uh, our voice, like we're saying, so many different ways to get there.

01:03:57 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, it's just clearing the noise. So much noise.

01:04:02 - Chase (Host) Can you kind of walk us through what would be an example of a self-love meditation?

01:04:06 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, so one that I do is the self-guided self-love visualization, and that's doing what we were talking about, which and this is kind of the most viral video I've ever had on social media of all time I think it has like 16 million views.

01:04:24 All right, um yeah but what I have people do is and I do this in sessions a lot where I just have them kind of look around the room, start to ground themselves in the room, identify the door and then come back and start to think of somebody that you love, someone who you care about deeply, and then start to imagine them walking through that door, imagine that person sitting in front of you and, in the simplest words, starting to speak kindness to you, feeling into what that feels like, and then changing and instead of them saying you are, it's saying I, I am, and owning it for yourself. It's super powerful. I can guide you through it if you want.

01:05:06 - Chase (Host) Yeah.

01:05:07 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, please, yeah.

01:05:09 So we'll start by just kind of looking around the room, just kind of letting yourself be here, be present to the moment, and just start to recognize where the door is.

01:05:24 And then just go ahead and close down your eyes, start to connect the breath and just start to think of someone who you deeply, deeply love, someone that you care about, someone who the mere thought or mention of their name just brings a smile to your face, and just have them be there in your mind.

01:05:44 And then take your mind back to that door and just imagine them walking in through that door and as they enter in, they come over, they sit right in front of you and they reach out and they hold onto your hands and, very gently, they look into your eyes and they say you are good, there's nothing wrong with you, nothing that needs to be fixed, and you're going to be okay. And for a moment, just let yourself feel into what that feels like To receive those words, to let them land on you, and then just take your hand and place it on your own heart and, with that same feeling that was just given to you, start to speak these words I am good, there's nothing wrong with me, nothing that needs to be fixed, and I'm going to be okay and just hold on to that, knowing that that can stay with you, can come from you and can always be with you. And then, when it feels right, just flutter your eyes open, take in the space and enter back.

01:07:26 - Chase (Host) That was the most immediate, real, transformational meditation I've ever experienced. I've ever experienced, and it just a a nod to the work that is there, that we know and if we're questioning what needs to be worked on, just a simple practice like that, like the person that came to mind was, was so instantaneous, it's almost like it was coming to mind as you were speaking the words. I didn't have to think it was just this person, yeah, and like it gives me goosebumps now. Oh my God.

01:08:10 - Michael (Guest) Wow, and you can feel it. You know what it feels like, yeah, and then just just having that brief moment without thinking to turn that inward.

01:08:31 - Chase (Host) Wow, might have to kill the interview here and I'm incredible, thank you, thank you, wow, it's. It just blows my mind. I love coming back to practices like this, that service level, simple stuff. Yeah, we're not talking about deep, intensive therapy or crazy modalities or hard work, just just something as simple as as sitting down and imagining someone you want to hear say a few simple words walking through your door.

01:09:00 - Michael (Guest) Yep.

01:09:03 - Chase (Host) Like, I love it. Thank you Seriously, of course. Thank you.

01:09:07 - Michael (Guest) It can be and that's really what I'm.

01:09:11 I think that's kind of my purpose on this earth is to distill things into digestible bites that are just so easy so easy that we can do and it's so impactful. You know, it's like when I was teaching preschool. I used to, like you take these like crazy concepts that they've never experienced before and you have to figure out how to teach them, and that's kind of how I work with all of this. So how can I do it in a way that it's just going to be simple and easy and you can start to embody it?

01:09:41 - Chase (Host) I got to ask did this come from preschoolers? How did you go from teaching preschool to this work? What was that bridge?

01:09:49 - Michael (Guest) So while I was teaching preschool, I was on my own mindfulness journey because previous to that I was a musical theater performer. So I was singing and I started to have severe anxiety and I couldn't perform anymore, and so I started doing meditation as a way to cure my anxiety. I started to teach preschool because I needed a job and kids were cute and that was fun.

01:10:19 - Chase (Host) Probably not super anxiety, you know it was fun. It was like totally different and you know.

01:10:27 - Michael (Guest) And then I started to play with the concept of what if I took the mindfulness techniques that I was using and use them with three-year-olds, and it started to work. I was like, oh, this is, this is cool.

01:10:39 - Chase (Host) Like. What does mindfulness techniques look like on a three-year-old?

01:10:41 - Michael (Guest) So, you know, in the book I talk about, you know, let it settle is kind of the the phrase that I use in everything and my meditations. And it came from this very specific moment with a three-year-old named Jack who was going through the separation process and in class, being away from his parents for the first time in his life, and the moment he would recognize his mom was gone, his entire body would change, he would start to freak out. It was just sheer panic, and so over time I started working on just grounding techniques with him, and so we would do the 5-4-3-2-1 calming technique for anxiety, which is just simply looking around the room, finding five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste. And we would just walk through the room and do that together and by the time he got to taste, you would just watch his body start to settle, you would watch his mind just start to settle, tears would stop and I would just say I would just be like he's letting it all settle.

01:11:48 Everything is settling right now, and what it was? It's just the emotional release, like he's emotionally regulating, he's coming back to a regulated space. No-transcript something that I'm really good at. And two, it just works Like just bring back people back to the present moment and just making things so simple. It works.

01:12:41 - Chase (Host) It does. It does everybody. Speaking of children, mindful parenting, this is of particular interest for me because, like I shared, we're pregnant, my wife and I. We've got our first born son coming in a few months, and sorry in advance to my audience for all the new parenting content you're probably going to hear and see from me. But, um, what does mindful parenting not look like, and do you think most people in this generation grew up with or without mindful parenting? I feel like this is kind of a new concept for a lot of us.

01:13:19 - Michael (Guest) I would say that mindful, what it's not is allowing for your own emotions to be put onto your child. So when we're in a dysregulated state I actually use the metaphor a lot it's it's like we are parents who are on a playground and we're watching our children play on the playground, and, instead of allowing for them to fall and allowing for them to play, our nervous system, when it gets dysregulated, it's recognizing all of the potential threats and dangers and it's leaping to try and keep the kid from the monkey bars. And so I think that's what our nervous system is doing when we're dysregulated, and I think parents doing that is an example of them not being mindful. In that moment, they're not looking at their children and saying, okay, let me, let me actually be present to them and be present to their needs. Let me be present to the understanding that they are a unique human being. That it's not. They are an extension of you, but they are not you, and they do need to have their own experiences, and so it is letting them fall.

01:14:27 One of the things that I always say with with parents, if I'm working with them, is if your child falls, the instinct is going to be it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, you're okay. You need them to be okay. They need to figure out if they actually are okay. So it's instilling mindfulness in them to be able to say let me actually just check in with myself right now. Am I okay? And so just having those moments with your kids where you can really say like, let's check in, let's really look at what are you feeling, what are your feelings right now? It's okay to have those feelings. What's your body feeling right now? Learning how to trust your body and learning how to trust your emotions Greatest gift you can ever give a kid I have an example of this and I'm curious is this an example of mindful parenting?

01:15:17 - Chase (Host) shop my friends, karen Caleb. They have, um, a beautiful little daughter and now a newborn son, and I was visiting them a couple months ago and their daughter began to cry just for no reason, like to us, no reason. And uh, caleb, first of all he goes it's okay, you're crying. Where do you feel it? Why do you? Why are you crying? Where do you feel it? So immediately he was like validating that you crying is not a bad thing, it's okay to express yourself like that. And then he kind of was guiding her to her body. It turns out she was like my stomach and she was just hungry. And so is this mindful parenting Totally Okay.

01:15:54 - Michael (Guest) That's a great. That's a great example.

01:15:55 - Chase (Host) Interesting. Of course, caleb would be a perfect mindful parent. How do we raise mentally resilient children? Because when I think mindful parenting kind of, the next steps for me as a human, as a person, but then as a parent, is mindfulness and like resilience, mental resilience. How would you say we raise mentally resilient children?

01:16:17 - Michael (Guest) I think it's allowing for them to have those those failings, allowing a lot of. You know, I think you might've grown up at a space where you disagreed with how your parents raised you, or you didn't feel that you were cared for enough or that you were, you know, showered with love enough, or whatever, and so there's a tendency to just kind of live life for your child, and so there's a tendency to just kind of live life for your child, and so I think, allowing for them to live life to keep them safe by all means, but to have those moments and walk them through the experience that they're having, exactly what you're saying, like it's okay that you're crying, it's okay that you're angry, it's okay that you're really sad right now, where do you feel in your body is a great way to do that. And then, what do we want to do with this? So that's a great question to ask is okay, so we're, we're feeling really angry right now. We can feel that anger in our, in our chest right now. What do we want to do with that anger? So it's giving them the knowledge and the understanding that they can choose, that they can choose how they respond to things, that it can be.

01:17:26 I want to hit my brother. Okay, that's okay. That's okay to feel that.

01:17:32 - Chase (Host) All my other big brothers need to raise their hand. Yes, I'm the little brother, I'm the youngest of five. Oh, you're the youngest of five.

01:17:36 - Michael (Guest) So, oh, you're the youngest of all yes, wow, I know what it's like to get beat up, but that instinct is is a normal instinct, but it's playing with that, you know. Okay, what do we want to do with this is, if we hit our brother, what is that going to do? It's going to make him cry. It's going to make him hurt. Do we, do we want to make our brother hurt? No, so it's giving them the understanding that they're going to have intense emotions, they're going to have instincts to do things which might not be in their best interest, but they have that choice, and so it's not letting them just get consumed with the emotion. The resilience comes from feeling the emotion, understanding the impulse, making the decision that best serves them and everyone around them.

01:18:26 - Chase (Host) What about mindful reparenting of ourselves? Would you kind of take the same approach of mindful parenting of parent and child to self and inner child child to self and inner child.

01:18:45 - Michael (Guest) That gentle self-talk can be so powerful and just having that moment where, if you are really upset and you are having that intense reaction, just having that moment to say, okay, listen, right now, here's what we're going to do, we're going to, we're going to sit right here and just having that full conversation with yourself, can be really powerful.

01:19:01 - Chase (Host) And then what about going up the chain? I think a lot of people might be in the boat of. I feel like I have to parent my parent, and we're not trying to stir the boat, we're trying to work through it and make it better. How would we go about? Mindfully?

01:19:21 - Michael (Guest) parenting our parent, if that's a thing. There comes a point I think we do get in this space where who we were as children become how we are treated, and so when you go home, like for the holidays, it's often who you were when you were 10 years old is who you are in your parents' minds forever. So it's almost like you have to have that conversation of reintroducing yourself and just saying, like this is who I am. I'm not that person anymore True.

01:19:49 And that can be a really powerful thing to do with your whole family. And just you know, I'm not who I was and I'm not 10 years old. This is who I am, I would say, with parents, especially as they're aging. Not wanting to take away their autonomy, not wanting to infantilize them, but showing the care that you have for them, similar to you know the water with your wife. It's why do I have this urge to take care of you? Or why do I have this urge to reparent you in this moment? Okay, and having that conversation about what are they doing themselves, and then that can allow for you to explain why you might do that.

01:20:37 - Chase (Host) Okay, I think overall, kind of getting towards the end of our conversation here, overall, what comes to mind for me is, no matter what approach we are taking to you know, in this mindfulness, if it's forgiveness, radical self-love, parenting in a way. We're kind of having to rewire our brains. Yeah, is this kind of self mind control? Does it actually take, excuse me, the? You know, the, the neurological, the biochemical? Do we need to really be mindful of, of what it takes to rewire our brain in order to really transform our life?

01:21:13 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, I leave that conversation for people much smarter than me, but I would say that we do need to look at, I think, of our lives. As you know, a computer operating system where we just have these certain things that, because of the way that we experience life, because of the things that have happened to us, we just it's. You know, this happens and this is what happens. That the system has been created, that if this situation happens, in whatever variable, we're going to react in this way. And so mindfulness allows for us to just have an understanding of the operating system that we're working with, to just have an understanding of the operating system that we're working with. And when we have the understanding of that and we can see it without judgment, then we get to make the choice does this serve me or does this not serve me? And if it doesn't serve you, then how can we start to rewire that process? How can we start to change the operating system so that we can actually get the results that we want?

01:22:19 - Chase (Host) Is there anything currently you are working on We'll say rewiring that you would like to share?

01:22:25 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, I mean, it's still attachment issues. Is is always that like fear of abandonment, that fear of um although it has been incredibly improved, there are just those primal instincts that come in. It's that like that attachment chaos that comes and just that fear and learning to be gentle with myself when that happens and reparent myself in that moment Okay.

01:22:51 I've been doing a lot of EFT like tapping, Um, and I like that because it you know, as you're tapping and going through those points, you're saying to yourself, even though I'm incredibly anxious and having this reaction, I unconditionally love and accept myself. So it's, it's just what we're talking about. It's that, that gentleness, that parenting, that reparenting of just saying, yeah, you're having this emotion right now and even though you're having that emotion, I still love you, I still am going to be here to be with you.

01:23:27 - Chase (Host) I'll kind of piggyback on that and say thoughts that I've had in my meditation and mindfulness include this doesn't define you, like it. I don't know if I would say, like, like it's okay to have these thoughts or yeah, like, I give myself permission to like any thought I have is okay, to not stifle it, to not think it's good or bad. Just, we really have no control. I have no control over my thoughts. To some degree. Sometimes things just pop up and then it's going okay, that does not define you whether I deem it a good thought, a bad thought, a weird thought, whatever. That does not define you Whether I deem it a good thought, a bad thought, a weird thought, whatever. Um, that does not define me. I love that. I think that's where a lot of people get stuck right. Is you know our thoughts? We think then define us, yeah.

01:24:09 - Michael (Guest) Yeah, and we're not our thoughts. They're just automatic responses to different stimuli around us.

01:24:15 - Chase (Host) Yeah Well, michael, this has been very enjoyable. Enjoyable, um, such a unique conversation, to kind of go conversation interview, mindfulness, meditation, practice, a really truly immersive experience. Thank you again. This is definitely going to help me move forward in my life. But to live a life ever forward, I say, is the whole point of this show and why I bring on guests and all walks of life and areas of expertise to help my audience move forward in that area for themselves. Um, but what does that mean to you? Ever forward, how would you define those two words?

01:24:50 - Michael (Guest) You know it's what's coming up for me is. So when I was naming my business, when I started my business, I wanted to honor my grandma Cause, as I was talking about she's she's the best, and her name was Thula Omega. And so my grandfather was a Presbyterian minister who was doing a missionary and who was a missionary, and he was in Africa. And so Thula um means peace and tranquility, and Omega means until the end of time. So when I was creating my business, I wanted it to be peace and tranquility until the end of time, wow. And so I took the th from thula and the om, so om meaning uh, and put them together and created tom, which is my tom collective. It's my, my business there, but I do think peace and tranquility until the end of time would be ever forward.

01:25:43 - Chase (Host) Not a bad way to define. I always say there's never a right or wrong answer, but that's, that's perfect and ever forward actually has a lot of family meaning as well. It's. It's my late father's phrase was a saying, a mantra. He had his entire life. I heard my, my entire life, all my brother, my sister, whole family, and so I think it's so cool, especially when I hear people kind of what they do and why they do it is tied to someone else. That has deep meaning. It just it hits even closer to home Totally. Yeah Well, michael, where can my audience go to connect with you? Learn more about your work, get the book, all this stuff? Yeah Well, michael, where can my audience go to connect with?

01:26:20 - Michael (Guest) you learn more about your work, get the book, all this stuff, yeah. So website is where you can kind of find everything, so michaelgallioncom. On there you'll find links to my podcast, which is Letting it Settle, with Michael Gallion. You can find the new book, which is Let it Settle, which comes out September 24th, and you can find all of my socials as well and information on coaching there um. Instagram or Tik TOK or Facebook Michael galleon or Michael dot galleon.

01:26:47 - Chase (Host) We'll have it all in the video description box and podcast show notes. You guys can definitely check it out. It's all down below for you. Um, I thoroughly enjoyed this thoroughly enjoy this. What a great way to cap the day. Thank you so much, man. Thank you For more information on everything you just heard. Make sure to check this episode's show notes or head to everforwardradio.com