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Welcome back folks to another episode of Dear Headspace.
I'm Robin and in about one minute I'm going to be joined by Headspace teacher extraordinaire Sam, and we are going to answer questions about being a new mom with new anxieties, strategies for dealing with harsh or abrasive people, and we also have an important question about what to do when you feel like you want to hide from all the pain in the world.
Have you ever wished you had a wise meditation teacher on speed dial?
Someone you can call after a long day.
Someone you could lean on for their advice.
Someone to listen and help you to see things differently.
Welcome to Dear Headspace, a podcast where I sit with a meditation teacher and we answer your questions.
Hi, Sam.
Hi, Robin.
Guess what?
This is our 50th episode of Dear Headspace.
Oh, my gosh.
I can't believe that.
We need like air horns, like confetti, some kind of a banner.
Why don't we have banners?
I know.
We do.
We do.
I would have prepared ahead of time if I knew.
I'm all about the celebrations.
I mean, as the producer of the show, that's probably my fault, but at 100, we're getting banners.
Yes.
Yeah.
Oh, for sure.
Yeah.
No, but it's so great that we've been able to do this.
And it's my favorite part of my week.
I know.
It doesn't even feel like work.
It's truly a privilege to do this, right?
To be able to answer questions and to take in what people are giving.
And I feel like with that, we should just get to our very first question.
It is from a new mom who is struggling a bit because, oof, let me tell you something.
I relate to this question.
I'm just going to go ahead and play it.
Here we go.
Okay.
Okay.
Hello Headspace, this is Odulena.
My question is the following.
So I'm a new mom.
It's been now almost nine months.
And what I noticed is that I used to consider myself a brave person before.
I used to be feeling that nothing can happen to me.
And even if it does, it doesn't matter.
But now, since I'm a mom, I've become so blocked by anxious thoughts and by fears about me, about my baby, about what others will think, whether I'm a good mom or not.
And I end up doing much less than I was doing before.
Or end up doing something, but just living through it thousands of times and going into so much spirals of worries before I actually do it.
So here's a greeting from my little one.
I wanted to ask you is there anything I can do with meditation to help me become brave again and not overthink stuff?
Thank you so much.
Oh, what a wonderful question.
And if it didn't encapsulate the entire thing right there with the baby crying in the background, I don't know what did right.
Yeah.
I'm curious Robin, for you like what was your.
Do you relate to any of that when you were a new parent?
Like every single word, you know.
I first want to just say you are brave and you are.
This is a very big thing that you're doing.
And I think my first thought was about this.
New baby arrives and the love that you feel like, at least for me, was like nothing I had experienced before.
And suddenly I just, there's this whole world that might hurt my baby.
And I became like this person of just like worry, especially when they're very tiny, because it's just, you can't talk to them.
And I mean I still to this day.
There was a very long period of time where I had these nightmares where my son was falling out windows and I mean I feel like I'm probably not going to help with the answer to this question.
I'm just going to be able to say I really relate to you because I don't know how you can be charged with caring for someone and helping them develop in this world and not be in love them that much and not be absolutely panicked or worried.
I agree with everything you said.
You know that it's first just normalizing it and that you're remembering that you're not alone.
There's nothing wrong with these.
And life felt a lot more, you know, more carefree and... Footloose and fancy free.
Exactly, exactly.
And you know, there's a new child and that child is 100, dependent upon you for their every need, right.
And so the vigilance that arises.
I think of it as very adaptable in a lot of ways, even though it's unpleasant.
That part of our brain sometimes is trying to just.
It can go into overdrive, but the intentions are good, right.
It's trying to promote survival and promote the survival of our children.
And so I think, just understanding that this big shift that she's experiencing is part of the process of becoming a parent.
And yeah, and just using bringing in a lot of compassion and also reminding yourself that the feelings there because you care, because you love your child.
So it's part and parcel of caring and loving and protecting.
There's a fierceness that comes with protecting children, and it's all there to ensure their survival.
So after just hearing that, I think that can be very calming.
It can help reduce some of the resistance that you might feel to the vigilance and the anxiety and the rumination that you're feeling.
So Yeah, as far as practice like in managing those difficult emotions, being able to identify when it's happening and call it out, that activates our prefrontal cortex, which then helps create a communication stream between our amygdala and our prefrontal.
So the amygdala is the fear center of the brain.
It turns on when we're scared, we sense a threat.
And if we're feeling hypervigilant or we're experiencing these states that we're not used to before becoming a parent, then it activates the amygdala because it's like something's wrong.
I'm not usually like this.
I have to fix this, right?
But that helps the communication between that executive functioning, that part of us that can self-soothe and the fear center.
So it reduces...
The intensity of the emotion.
Because you're not in those moments.
You're not like, like you're partially home and then partially someplace else entirely.
That is just fear based because it's just, it's all unknown and new and there's, there are big problems and big fears.
So it's like naming it.
That sounds like a really great idea.
To just be able to be like Hey Robin, Hey Sam, everything's okay.
Everything's okay.
Right.
So when I think about the amygdala and what's happening in our brain when we perceive a threat, there's this instinct often to avoid the threat, to avoid the thing that is scaring us, even if the threat is imagined and not real.
So when we acknowledge the fear and we call it out and then we do some kind of self-soothing like body awareness or offering some compassion to ourselves, we're activating the prefrontal cortex.
We're kind of overriding the amygdala and letting the amygdala know that.
I know you perceive a threat, but actually we're safe.
And that allows you to take a step in the direction of bravery, right?
Allows you to, for me, it's like get on the plane.
You know, I wanna go to, I wanna explore the world and not avoid air travel forever.
So the way that we emotionally regulate and in the moment and all of that is happening within seconds that we're doing this allows us to take the action which is the brave action, and then feel the actual sense of courage arise after the action has taken place, if that makes sense.
And then that builds our muscle.
It's like we remind ourselves, hey, I did that when I was scared.
I did that when I was scared.
And it worked out.
It worked out.
It worked out.
It didn't work out that time, but I still feel good about trying.
And that creates a legacy.
It creates a pattern that you can fall back on that will give you courage to continue.
It's actually really important to take time after you've done something courageous and say to yourself I did that.
Hey, I did that good job.
You know, give yourself a little like moment of, of applause and gratitude.
And, um, because that will encourage you to do it again.
Yeah.
That's really great.
Yeah.
I heard one pediatrician say I don't know it was somewhere, I was watching a video or something.
But he said, you know, when you hear your child cry, instead of interpreting it as I'm doing something wrong or something's wrong, think of it as the child's just telling you try something else.
Try something else.
I love that because it takes the, I think, crying maybe you can speak more to this, but like crying can be such a trigger for, oh my God, I'm not doing it right.
Something's wrong there or catastrophizing.
Like they have a stomach infection.
But you're right though.
They're like I can't tell you how many times we had this whole like shushing method and you were like swinging back and forth.
It was like all kinds of motion.
It was like, and you just keep doing that shushing, whether it's working or not.
You just try something new, try something new.
It's so hard.
It is so hard.
It is one of the hardest and no one talks about how difficult it is.
I mean, they kind of do, but everything's in like a joke.
And I just think like, for women many times.
And this is one of the reasons why I loved this question is that we're there's this societal pressure that you have to be like.
I am in love with my baby and I have never been happier.
I did the thing I was meant to do.
And the reality is, is you can be in love with your baby and did the thing you meant to do and still be like, I really need you to stop crying like right now.
I'm so tired.
Exactly.
You know it's like both those things can be true, and giving space for that and talking about it so that the mothers behind you know you're going to, you're going to, even even if you love it.
It's the greatest thing you ever did.
You're going to have days like this.
Yeah.
So I was thinking about all the ways Delaina is probably being brave every single second of the day.
Yes.
And she's probably missing it because, you know, we have a certain idea of what bravery is or what it means.
But bravery is an action, you know, showing up.
We often think we have to wait to feel courageous or brave, to do something scary or that you know presents a threat to us in some way.
But you just waking up and showing up for your child is brave and bringing a child into the world is brave.
And yes, very brave.
And I always say, I always talk about honoring your efforts, but honor your bravery.
You know, at the end of the day, go, well, how was I brave today?
How did I show up courageously?
Even taking care of your emotions is brave, and being vulnerable, sharing this question with us, is brave.
So we kind of yeah, it's very easy to miss all these moments and actions that we're taking that indeed, are very courageous and brave.
Absolutely.
Thank you again, Dolena, for your question.
And you're doing great.
You're doing great.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's go on to question number two from Sofia.
Hi, I'm Sofia from Italy.
Do you have any advice on feeling like the world is too much right now and all you want to do is just escape reality, distance yourself from everything and never have to deal with all the pain and hardship of life as it is right now?
So that question was a little bit hard to understand.
There's a little bit of a warble on our recording end.
So sorry about that, Sophia.
But essentially what she's asking is you know, when life in the world as it is as hard as it is right now, what do you do?
When you just want to escape and you just want to, you know you want to shut down.
Yeah, I think there's this general sense of dread and a sense of fear, really fear about the future of the world and just feeling kind of powerless over the way things are turning out and then the way things are.
So what first comes to mind for me is you know, I'd be curious, I'd ask Sophia, you know, what are you watching?
Like, like, is she a news junkie?
Yes, because that makes such a huge difference.
You know, the media, especially as we're becoming more mindful, as we're, you know, meditating.
We're sensitizing ourselves, we're resensitizing ourselves.
And that's a good thing, but it's also a hard thing.
You know it can be hard to live in a world where suddenly you're feeling the emotions or you're empathizing with people you've never met.
You know, you hear a news story about a group of people dying and suddenly you're like, oh my gosh, that's someone's mother, that's someone's child.
And you feel it more intensely.
That's a consequence of becoming more mindful and more sensitive.
So I'm curious.
Yeah, I would just ask Sophia, you know what kind of sources not sources but how much news are you taking in?
And is it compulsive or are you choosing?
Are you kind of discerning which sources are like work for you?
Like, for example, reading? news versus listening to it.
Like when I turn on NPR, I used to listen to NPR all the time in my twenties.
I was just, I wanted all the information.
I was very like hungry and greedy for information.
Well, and that's what you're told.
Like as an adult, that's what you do.
You go out and now you're a responsible person and I will turn on the news.
I will now be informed because I did that in my twenties too.
I was, you know, it was like NPR in the shower in the morning.
Yes.
Yeah.
You feel like a responsible adult, you know?
And I actually was more.
I was way more informed than I am now, because now I turn it on for maybe a couple minutes.
And then the moment I feel that you know I'm outside of my zone of tolerance, of regulation, then I turn it off and I turn on jazz or classical, like whatever, if I don't have my phone, you know, if I don't have podcasts ready to go.
That's a really good point to be listening to yourself for that moment of when it's too much.
Exactly.
So start to notice how you're gripping the phone, how you're the thoughts.
You just notice some thoughts that come up right.
And when it puts us into that space, often we don't want to be there.
It's not healthy for us, right?
So there's a balance between staying informed and taking care of yourself emotionally, so that you don't fall into this pit of despair.
Because once you're in that despair, it can be a lot harder to remind yourself of all the things that are beautiful about the world and access hope and access happiness.
Oh, it's like a filter over everything.
Like you're suddenly have a pair of glasses on where everything says doom.
Exactly.
So I've, for example, I'll choose, I'm very intentional about what I watch.
And then I like to talk about what warms my heart about the show.
So for example, I'll watch Call the Midwife.
It's about midwives in London, in this poor area of What I love about it is the camaraderie, right?
So I'm watching these women work together, taking care of each other, supporting each other, showing up for other women and families, and I soak it in as I'm watching it.
I'm like, this is part of the human spirit.
This camaraderie, this desire to cooperate is much stronger than our instinct to fight, right?
We get a lot more benefit from that.
So you savor, not only avoiding sources that are taking you down that spiral of despair, but also when you're choosing wholesome content to really savor it and even talk about it with other people.
Or inspirational content.
And I also wonder, oh, you go ahead.
Oh no, I was just thinking about this article.
I read too about seven types of rest by this woman named Dr Sandra Dalton Smith.
And she describes these different types of rest that we need, like physical mental emotional, social.
And then one of them is spiritual, spiritual rest.
And she describes it as we know.
We need spiritual rest when we're feeling hopeless, when we feel like we've been disconnected from nature for a while, or beauty, or art or things that give us a sense of awe and connection to the world.
And I find just reading about those different types of rest helps me to identify which kind I need and then to take action that's specific to that.
Yeah, because it does like that does take a toll.
Like you start to feel depleted.
I was thinking of another way to maybe Sophia.
I know that if I start to think globally like all of, politicians are evil and and humanity is the worst part of things.
Like if left to their own desires, people are going to make the wrong choice.
Like when I start feeling like that, I start to feel hopeless.
Like I can't impact any change.
But I think sometimes, if I can look for ways that I can contribute, like volunteering, what other ways can you put back that are helping the global?
You know we, so to speak.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
I, I remember you reminded me of a really dark period in my life when I was, again, in my 20s.
I had no idea what I was going to do for a living or what school if I wanted to go to more school.
And I just said, Okay, I'm going to volunteer until I figure it out.
So Yeah, I found this website where you can volunteer day by day on different projects.
And it was immediate.
The feeling of feeling like humanity is restored was immediate.
As soon as I showed up, I would read books to kids.
One time I cleared brush to reduce the fire risk.
You just you show up and you give and you meet other people who are kind and interested in helping.
And then suddenly you're like, oh, the world is a great place.
Yeah.
Wow.
We're good.
Yeah, we're good.
There are people out there that are good because it's like the catastrophizing for me.
Like, you know, my wife is a very big catastrophizer.
And sometimes I'll be like, I find myself being mad and I'm not mad.
Like, I don't necessarily think things she's saying are wrong.
It's just that I'm like, I just don't want to stay in that space.
I totally relate.
My husband's the same way.
His mind goes to pessimism first.
And sometimes I'm pleading with him.
I'm going, you have to believe in the good in people.
You have to.
Because I believe that if we lose our capacity to imagine a world that we actually want to live in, if we lose that creative capacity and we're not exercising it, I think that can lock us into some really pessimistic places within ourselves.
Sophia, this is a big question, and we're so honored that you asked us.
And I don't know.
Reach out to us and let us know how the hope is going, because we would love to hear the good and the wonderful of it all for you.
Absolutely.
And I feel like I say this all the time, but I mean it and I don't say it enough at the same time which is Take time, take moments to honor your efforts and all the ways that you're looking for the good.
You know, at the end of the day, I often write down the delights.
So that might be a practice that you'd like to do as well.
Just making a note of the little delights of the day and that'll help you to look for them the next day.
And I do want to say before we kind of wrap up this question If anyone who's listening is struggling with a mental health condition, please go ahead and talk with a licensed provider.
You can also find support resources on Headspace mental health resource pages and you will find it in our show notes as well.
And just lastly, if you or anyone you know is having thoughts of suicide or self-harm, please call or text 988, the Suicide Crisis Lifeline, or call 911, or you can even go to the nearest emergency room.
So we just want to make sure everyone has those resources as well.
Okay, we will be right back.
All right, here is our next question from Stephanie.
Dear Headspace, my name is Stephanie May and I'm from San Angelo, Texas.
My questions today are how do you mindfully deal with someone who is harsh, abrasive and demeaning towards you and who you are as a person?
Also, how do you mindfully deal with someone that shares their extreme ideas and beliefs with you in a harsh and abrasive way and you're diametrically opposed to their ideas and beliefs?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thank you for listening.
Well, thank you, Stephanie, for this question.
I mean, this is really like two questions in one.
So I think we should start with just the general.
Maybe then we could take it to the more specific.
Because the beginning she's just really talking about.
There's harsh and abrasive people who are sometimes mean to you.
And what do you do with that?
The presumption for me in this question is you cannot just extricate them from your lives.
For some reason, either you work with the person or their family or a best friend's partner.
So that this is a person that's in your life.
That's the assumption I'm making.
So I have to be honest about how I feel about this, which is like I'm very interested and hopeful about people's ability to change their minds and transform.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Like I think people get into silos, especially politically.
Right.
And they just they're in this kind of echo chamber and they hear what they want to hear and they get the news.
That's preaching to the choir.
So I feel like it's so important for us.
It's such important work to actually be with people who have very different views than we do, to actually spend time with them.
They don't have to be your best friend.
With boundaries.
Yes, with boundaries, but to create spaces.
And I've been a part of a couple in New York when I was in grad school there.
I was part of this group called Socratic Conversations.
And there were people, just anybody, it was open to everybody.
And there would be a topic that was of universal significance, like what is love?
Yeah, yeah.
That's the most general one.
But it's, you know, they're different topics.
And we would just respectfully listen to each other and let people share.
Respectful is a key word, right?
If someone was being disrespectful or there were certain boundaries and certain rules and agreements that allowed the conversation to happen.
I'm a big proponent of getting people with very different ideas together to actually listen to each other and experience what it's like to witness someone with very different views from your own.
But do you think, Sam, you can already tell where I might be going with this.
Do you think you might be in the minority on that front?
Because I tend to think that most people I think what you're saying is absolutely true of what we should do, but I think many people do not.
Well, I think it's this and that.
So of course we wanna be, and I think it's great to be around people who share your values and share your opinions, and you can savor that.
I think that's why people who are religious go to church.
It's like we're gathering to share in the excitement and the joy of this belief that we all share.
And it strengthens your resolve sometimes.
Or it makes you feel like home.
I'm thinking of like 90s, when people weren't out and like gay bars were like that, because it was like you were like oh, you're like me.
You know finding people that are like you.
Yes, exactly.
So I think, when I'm talking about being around people who don't agree with you, it's also really beautiful and beneficial to be around people that you feel at home with and feel safe with.
I also think, if we go into a little further into what Stephanie's saying, the people are being harsh and abrasive to her.
And so I mean I think we touched on it a little bit, but I do think it starts with boundaries, because you have to address that behavior.
I couldn't agree more.
And what comes to mind is nonviolent communication, where there's a formula for having difficult conversations.
And I've used it, you know, many, many times different renditions of it.
But the basic core of it is to state the thing that's causing you distress or difficult emotion.
Like when you say this and trying to be as direct and not infuse it with any judgment, when you're mentioning what it is.
So when you say X, Y and Z in this way, I feel, and then you state the feeling like I feel, um and not.
It's interesting because I think we've talked about this before.
There are emotions that are kind of like pseudo emotions, but that are actually accusations.
So when you say I feel attacked, you're accusing them of attacking you.
That's not versus the feeling, which is yeah, which is the feeling that you actually have when someone attacks you, which is angry or upset, or belittled, or all the belittled might be in the attack category.
Yeah, it's an accusation.
Yeah.
So it's subtle.
I mean, they get very nitpicky in this formula.
But, you know, even if you mess up, don't worry about getting it perfect.
But just saying the emotion that comes up for you, I feel angry or I feel a fierce fierceness.
I use that word a lot because I really like it and relate to it.
I feel a fierce defensiveness.
Come up in me when you do this, because what I'm needing is and that's the third part is you state what you need.
Right.
So that moves you forward.
Yeah.
So I need respect.
I need cooperation.
I need to be seen and understood, whatever it is.
And there's a whole list of needs on the NVC website so you can get familiar with them.
And then you make a request.
Like.
Would you be willing to, in our next conversation, speak to me after your emotions have settled a bit.
Because maybe this person's coming at the conversation, they're having difficult emotions themselves.
So that can be really helpful.
Also, you can help the other person to identify their feelings and needs.
So, instead of again engaging with the content of what they're saying, you can pause and go.
It seems like you're feeling angry, right?
Just calling out and say, am I right?
Is that accurate?
Yes, Sam, I am.
And maybe you need some, maybe you need like some space right now or some.
Do you want to pick this up tomorrow?
Yeah, right, right, right.
And that's very generous.
And sometimes when we're being attacked, our instinct is not to be generous with the other person.
It's not to be, it's to defend, right?
It's to defend ourselves.
And so you might not feel like you can do that or want to do that.
But calling out, if you can calling out, the emotion and trying to at least name it, can be really helpful in reducing the charge in the conversation.
Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, I was thinking also about this thing I've heard, which I'm sure you've heard, but it's helpful in cultivating compassion for people is, if you think it's hard to be with this person for a couple moments in a day or this part of the day, think about how hard it might be for them to be in their own skin.
24 seven.
Like they may be going through something so hard and they're just trying, they're white knuckling it, trying to get through the day and And you're getting that through the email.
You're getting that tone because they're struggling and there's a lot going on.
So just remembering, I guess, that there are these invisible battles that everyone is fighting.
And I think that can really.
It's gone a long way in opening my heart, especially when people cut me off on the road.
I am learning about you, Sam, that the car is a big trigger for you.
I am learning this.
It is.
It is.
I don't want to drive anymore.
I just want to bike everywhere.
But I live in L.A., so.
That's not feasible.
I feel like compassion and boundaries together are a lovely combination.
And, you know, and speaking up for yourself.
It's like then you've cleaned up your side of the road.
You had compassion for the person on the other side.
And hopefully it makes those interactions a little easier.
Yes.
Well, thank you for your question, Stephanie.
And really, and good luck out there.
I hope that you're able to find the sweet space with these people.
Yeah.
Well Sam, I mean that was more questions, more thoughtful answers and some fantastic wisdom from you, as always.
Oh, and you too, Robin.
This is these were wonderful questions.
They really were.
Yeah.
I just loved the theme of hope.
That was like sprinkled through like, even though sometimes we were talking about being hopeless.
But the idea that we're looking for hope and we're flipping that just really resonated with me.
Yeah.
So, as I'm thinking about this, this theme of hope and reconnecting with hope and some of the things we talked about what comes to mind is our loving kindness content in the app.
You know, we can we guide you in developing it.
And you, like I was saying before, you can progress from starting with yourself, starting with someone you find easy to love and working your way up to more difficult people in your life.
Oh, I love that.
I'm going to check it out.
I did start it, but I started with a really hard person.
I think I jumped in too deep.
So I'm going to dial it back, give myself some loving kindness.
But before we take off here Sam, I want to give just a big thank you to Delaina, Sophia and Stephanie for sending us such thoughtful, thoughtful questions.
And listen.
If you are at home and you're listening to this podcast and you've got some issues that you'd love some advice on, just send us your question.
There's a link in the show notes, which is sayhi.chat.com.
You're going to go to the website, record your question.
I promise it is very easy.
And hey, if we use it in the show, we are going to give you three months of Headspace for free.
That's awesome.
So now it's time for one of my favorite parts of this podcast, where we've built in this time for you to sit with what you just heard and experienced all these stories, all of these, this conversation.
And it's really just this time to help you transition from listening to the rest of your day and as peaceful and easeful a way as possible.
So, as you listen to the sounds of a flowing creek, just feel free to let your mind wander and do whatever it wants to do.
Until next time, stay happy, stay healthy, and please be kind to each other.
Dear Headspace is a Headspace Studios original podcast.
It's produced by Robin Hopkins, Ash Jones, and Scott Sorenson.
It's executive produced by Morgan Selzer, Sarah Cohn, Barron Farmer, and Danny Karisamy.
Our production coordinator is Taylor Jennings-Brown.
It's hosted and produced by Robin Hopkins, Keisunga Giscombe, Dora Kamau, Samantha Snowden, Eve-Louise Prieto and Rosie Acosta.
Post-production is by Dan Kroll.
Music is by Scott Sorensen and Chris Mergia.
And a special thanks to Colleen Lutz.
