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Hey everybody, Robin here, and guess what?
I am so excited because today, on Dear Headspace, we will be answering your questions about the difference between self-care and selfishness, how to manage health conditions mindfully and dealing with negative thoughts.
I gotta tell you, as an often negative thinker, I can't wait for that one.
So let's get right to it.
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, everyone.
I am excited to be sitting here with you for another episode of Dear Headspace.
I'm Robin Hopkins.
And today I am here with the other R, Rosie.
Yay.
Thank you so much for having me again.
This is so much fun.
I'm looking forward to this conversation.
Well, I feel like we need to just like fall right into this episode.
I am going to take us right to our questions.
Our first question today is from Ahmed.
Here we go.
Dear Headspace, my name is Amit.
I'm from Australia.
My question today is, in this journey of discovering yourself, discovering self-love, self-compassion and all the self-words, how do we know when we are looking after yourself and when we are actually being selfish?
Where is that line and how do we know?
And can we ever know?
Or is it just all blurry?
Thank you.
This brings up a lot of things like boundaries and and what's a boundary, and what's you know like what's selfish.
I think that's a really fantastic question.
Yeah, it's.
I mean truly.
I personally think there's a there's a world of difference between being involved with self-care and being selfish.
Right.
I think with self-care, we're tending to our needs.
We're ensuring that we're emotionally and mentally and physically balanced.
It's the airplane rule, right?
When the oxygen mask comes down, you have to help yourself before helping others.
Because if you're not at your best, you can't give your best to those around you.
I come from this place where Culturally in Hispanic culture, self-care is a luxury.
Yeah.
I'm not saying like a blanket statement that you know everybody thinks this, but generally most people see.
Things like meditation as a luxury, going to take a yoga class as a luxury, because there are a lot of and not just Hispanic people lots of people who are working to make a living and to support their families.
And yeah, I've had this struggle with.
You know people, even in my family, where I'm a meditation teacher.
Some people have health issues.
Yeah. meditation might help you.
A yoga class might help you.
But there's this resistance that exists with their own maybe limiting beliefs.
I'm speaking to my family specifically.
Or they're not wanting to experience the guilt that they may have by focusing on themselves, right?
So like selfishness, Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't see how self-care practices is me taking care of myself.
Me doing a mindfulness practice is going to negatively affect the people in my life.
Right?
Right.
I'm with you a hundred percent.
I do have to say a little bit of a devil's advocate.
I was journaling the other day and my son has this new thing.
He's obsessed with that.
He's learning these tricks with this little trainer thing.
And he really wanted to, he's been saying to me, I'm so glad we're going to learn these together.
And he wanted to.
He wanted to show me one and he had been trying to show me at the night before I was cooking.
He had been trying to show it to me later.
I was finishing up a work thing and then I was journaling.
And, in fairness, I was journaling in the living room, which I try not to do because it's like like, if they see you, you're available to them.
So your son essentially interrupting your journaling time.
Is that upsetting to you?
Like yes and no.
I know better than to do it in the living room.
I don't like to do it in my bedroom because I work out of my bedroom.
I sleep in my bedroom.
So I like to go someplace else in the house.
So it didn't really upset me because I recognized why it was happening.
Right.
And you could also state that you're in the middle of doing something.
Oh, I mean, that's what happens a hundred times.
And I know that, which is why, like I, should have made a different choice, because And I do think, underneath it there might be a little bit of me trying to have it all.
I want to stay there and nag them and make sure they get all their stuff done and be present.
And I don't want to get up just a little bit earlier.
Yeah.
But at the same time, it's like you there is no such thing as balance.
You know, when people say a work life balance, it's not existent.
Let's let's state that, first of all.
Yeah.
No, it's journal or help them in the morning.
Yeah.
Things can't happen.
Not well.
They can't.
Well, they can and they can't.
Like you get to decide what it's your life, Robin, right?
You get to decide.
You know that for yourself, you enjoy the journaling process uninterrupted.
You know that, right?
Yes.
So you have this now practice that, you know, feeds you it makes you feel connected.
It makes you feel good.
You have these thoughts, you're a creative person.
This is part of your, your passion and that feeds you.
That is a self-care practice for you.
For sure.
A hundred percent.
Right.
It fills your cup.
And so you have this short time that your kids are going to be this age, right?
Exactly.
And so you're trying to fill your cup while simultaneously also filling your cup.
You want to be able to, like you said, nag them and be able to, like you know, be mom and tell them and watch them.
And that's okay.
And I don't think that you trying to find that flow is a bad thing.
I don't know that it's, this is a good or bad.
I don't mean.
I think we're just essentially having a conversation about you perhaps feel and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I'm listening to you say there's almost a sense of guilt of you doing that, unless you wake up early, so you're not missing anything.
So if you do that while they're in the middle of them going to school and you're journaling, you're missing out on something else, right?
So you feel okay, what I need to do is wake up extra early so that I don't miss anything and I'm able to do all of the things.
And that's okay too.
You know, that is totally you've.
You've seen the dynamic and you've figured out a solution to the issue.
Yes, you're absolutely right.
If you wake up a little earlier, you can do all of the things, problem solved, the end.
But I think that it's really important for you to, when that doesn't happen And you want to get your journaling time and to not feel bad about the fact that you're doing it while simultaneously interacting with them.
Right, right, right.
So if we're taking this example out to Ahmed, it's because what you just did with me was really brilliant.
You were like, well, OK, well, what are the barriers?
What are your feelings about it?
Like, is someone saying to you I'm at that you aren't present because you are always off journaling or meditating or at some retreat or you're spending.
Or do you have a partner who is saying you're spending all your money on silent retreats and we should be saving for a vacation, but you know, like what's the thing that's coming up for you?
Like what Rosie did with me.
And then is there a solution where you can find some balance?
I think it can be helpful to If you know again, because we don't know the circumstances for that, but it can be helpful to communicate why it's important to you and what it does for you in your life, so that maybe people will provide you more space.
Agreed.
Because it also is who is the feedback coming from?
Is it coming from you just like your personal guilt?
Is it coming from someone else?
You know, because you may have people in your life that aren't supportive of growth.
You know, it's like I always think of sometimes if you have a friend that you always got ice cream with and you lose weight.
They're not always thrilled that you're losing weight because that is like a like.
There's like a look at themselves that they maybe aren't ready to look at.
And it's not that there's anything wrong with any particular weight.
I'm just saying if you using it as an example for going, you know, making some type of a change and.
So where's the feedback coming from?
Is it internal or is it somebody else?
Because I think that's important to consider as well.
Just a fantastic, fantastic question, Amet, and we're so glad that you've shared it with us.
And woo!
And now we're going to move on to our next question.
This is an oddly placed woo.
Our next question is coming from Jane.
Hello, my name is Jane and I live in the UK.
My question for you is this i've been using meditation for a couple of years now.
How do i use meditation for health anxiety?
I recently had a diagnosis of celiac disease and i was wondering how can i use meditation to help me monitor my condition?
Okay, thank you very much.
Oh, I love Jane's just little.
You know that very well.
Could have been a sad feeling question.
And she was just like, thank you.
You know, like that's what a lovely energy to be coming with a very hard question.
Jane, I relate to you so much.
Fellow celiac here.
Hello.
Welcome to the club.
I am sorry that you got this diagnosis, but there definitely is so many ways to manage all kinds of chronic illnesses and issues with meditation.
Obviously, it's not a magic pill.
It's not something that's going to cure you.
But I think that, when it comes to meditation, we can use it as an empowering tool for our experience, right?
So the experience of our symptoms, how we can manage that can really improve our life.
It can really improve how we navigate the ups and downs of whatever it is that you're going through.
So meditation really allows us to tap into that inner resource, our coping mechanism healing resilience, all of the things that we can utilize as a way to move about this.
So I love mindfulness. as a way to reduce stress.
So, you know, I think there is a big difference between stress management and stress reduction.
Oh, do tell, do tell.
Yeah.
So stress management is just how do I manage the fact that I'm stressed out?
I'm moving it from one.
Imagine it.
It's like a cup of hot tea.
Stress management, you're managing that hot tea cup from one end of the room to the other.
And you're moving it from that room to the bathroom, to the kitchen, to the office, to your car.
And you're just like managing it wherever you go.
Transporting the hot tea everywhere.
And stress reduction.
Is you holding this cup of hot tea and sitting with it and holding it And doing a practice to understand all of the cycles that you're going through?
It's, I guess, the general philosophy is you don't have to like it.
You just have to do it.
Right.
So me holding this hot cup of tea.
I don't have to like it.
I just have to do it because by me holding this cup of hot tea, what happens?
What happens to the hot tea after some time?
It cools down.
It cools down.
And we get accustomed to it.
In the beginning, all we're doing is focusing on the hot heat on our hands. ow, this hurts.
It's really hot.
Ow, ow, ow.
I want to put it down.
Sure.
You don't want to drop it all over your lap, but you're just holding it.
After a while, the sensation begins to shift.
Like you know, we have this idea that going into something that feels like it's going to hurt scares us right.
It scares us away.
I don't want to focus.
Oh, I'm in pain.
I have back pain.
And sometimes I wake up and it's really painful, like really, really painful.
And I would do this practice where I would lay down and put my attention on that pain.
And I would do.
You know the, the typical type of practices that you do.
You know you start with mindful awareness, you do a body scan and you begin to cultivate acceptance.
Those are the three basic ways of doing this.
So I would sit there, I would feel into it.
And the thing that I noticed and this is general for most people that do this type of practice is you start to see or feel or sense that the pain begin to move around.
It's like it goes from ow this hurt to now oh, my right leg, or oh, now it's going up to my shoulder.
It's interesting how just having this curiosity of the state that you're in, of the pain that you're in, can really allow us to cultivate a different attitude towards it, right.
So one of the mottos or one of the intentions they tell you to set before doing any any of these types of practices is to practice skeptical curiosity.
Right.
So, and that's, yeah, I knew you would like that.
I'm like, you know, I was like, Ooh, yeah.
Skeptical curiosity, because we have to be skeptical.
I'm, I'm a realist, right?
You know where I come from, you know how I grew up like.
I am not a.
If you tell me something's going to fix something, I'm going to completely be skeptical.
I don't believe you.
If somebody tells me they have the answers, I already don't believe them.
You know, I have this natural skepticism, which is really good.
I think I love people that are skeptical because it you know, like attracts like.
But what I do find is that in that skeptical curiosity there's this embracing of the not knowing that happens right.
Where, no matter what a person thinks is wrong with them, what they believe is right or wrong with each person, there's this nonjudgmental awareness that begins to happen.
And there's a lot of healing in that, right?
When we're talking about stress management versus stress reduction.
I mean, that, that really is, is the key.
Yeah.
You have celiac.
So how do you manage this in a mindful way so that it's not causing anxiety for you?
And I think that the biggest help for me was to always prepare in advance.
Anytime I was going somewhere, I was doing something, I would sort of pre-plan my experience, because for me the food issue was was a big issue.
So I had to just be very mindful about what I was doing throughout the day and making sure that I was getting enough physical activity, that I was getting enough sleep.
And I think those were the and, along with doing a meditation practice, you know, doing a mindfulness practice, being able to be practice presence, noticing your breath, doing body scan meditation, and you can use the technique from an MBSR program that systematically takes you focusing your attention to different parts of the body.
Cultivating acceptance is another really great way.
It doesn't mean that you're being passive about where you are in your health journey.
It's really about allowing yourself to respond to your state with more wisdom and less reactivity, and to just know that this is a diagnosis and you can manage it.
You can navigate this without having the anxiety.
Well, Jean, this was just a wonderful question.
And we send you, you know, like vibes as you, because it is like, like you said, that the celiac is a journey and we, you know, as you, figure out what works for you, what doesn't work for you.
But it sounds like the MBSR would be a really wonderful place to start.
Okay.
So let's go to our last question from Shravani.
Dear Headspace, my name is Shravani and I am from Hyderabad, India.
My question is related to different schools of thought when it comes to mindfulness and In headspace generally.
We are suggested not to judge the thoughts, but let them come and go, irrespective of whether the thoughts are positive or negative, both during meditation and outside as well.
But there are other schools of thought where it is recommended to notice the occurrence of negative thoughts and change it into positive ones, without completing them.
For example, when I am about to think, I can't do it.
I don't complete this sentence and rather think I can do it.
I end up getting conflicted with these different types of teachings.
Especially now that I have been meditating for a few years, I wanted to explore more schools of thought and meditation practices.
What is your opinion and suggestions on how I should go about it?
Thank you and have a great day.
Well, now that is a fantastic question.
I mean, this is going to be in your wheelhouse, Rosie, and I'm going to be listening.
Shravani, you kind of answered your own question within that question, which I think is absolutely lovely.
And look just to give you a quick answer.
I will elaborate, but just the quick answer is yes, there are many schools of thought and You should absolutely explore different meditations, different ideologies that might resonate with you.
And I think that you should do them all.
To me, it's like, do what works for you.
So if I was going to list off the different schools of thought that I know, cognitive behavioral therapy is one.
I talked about stoicism. positive psychology, there's mindfulness, self-compassion.
Those are all different schools of thought, I would say.
They're different ways of practicing turning the negative thought patterns around or sitting with them.
It's like with mindfulness we're taught to acknowledge the thoughts and But you don't engage with them.
You you see them and you stay in the present moment and you don't get caught up in them.
You just let them flow.
You know, Andy talks about this all the time, too.
It's like you just don't get caught up with it.
You let it flow.
You you watch it passing by like like cars on a highway.
Right. for cognitive behavioral therapy.
And I'm not a psychologist.
I hope that we all know this.
I'm sure everyone knows this, but neither am I. Okay.
But I've been studying this for more than 20 years and I've been practicing and teaching for a long time.
And I'm very well aware that there are so many tools out there for us to pull from with self-compassion, which is been the last seven years, has been my favorite way of eradicating negative thoughts befriending yourself, treating yourself with kindness, recognizing the negative thoughts and knowing that it's part of our human experience, and just treating yourself like you would, a dear friend.
That was one of the hardest things I experienced, have had to do, one of the hardest practices I've ever had to encounter myself.
So it's been the practice that I've been doing, but I like to do hard things.
I'm part of that like, oh, this is difficult for me.
I should stay here for a little bit.
Mindfulness is now a little easier for me.
I'm like, oh yeah, I'm just going to stay here and watch this.
Oh yeah, that sucks.
Yeah, that hurts.
Oh, that's painful.
Oh man, yeah, I'm really disappointed.
Oh yeah, look, there it is.
There's that feeling.
With self-compassion.
I actually have this internal dialogue where I recognize my disappointment and I say hey Rosie, I don't call myself Rosie.
It's more like, hey, you.
I see that you're really upset and I'm sorry that you feel that way.
I could see that this meant a lot to you and the fact that this didn't happen is really upsetting.
But you didn't do anything wrong and and I love you and you're going to be okay.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
It's like think about how you would talk to one of your children.
You know, like you, we don't have that internal dialogue, especially with negative thought patterns.
We go straight to like, Oh, hi, I messed this up.
I shouldn't have done this.
Yeah.
I, I must not be good.
I suck.
I'm a writer.
Yeah.
I shouldn't be doing this.
Why am I doing, who do I think I am?
We go into that place and more often than not, that's going to cause a huge rift in your harmony.
Yeah.
And, you know, for me, this is one that I stick to quite often in the last couple of years.
So you know there are many different schools but Shravani, I would suggest for you choose what works best.
And it's okay to switch it up.
You can decide to do positive psychology.
When negative thoughts come up, you balance them out by focusing on your strengths and gratitude and what you're positive about, what you're excited about.
Or you can decide, oh, one day I'm going to do mindfulness.
One day I'm going to do this.
It's like at this point we are so overwhelmed by the negative imprint that is instilled in most of us that we just need to do and find what works.
Yeah.
It's so, it's so interesting what you're saying.
And it reminded me of like, like studying an acting method.
Like you might have trained like under Stanislavski, you know, or, or sense memory.
And just because you studied that one style doesn't mean you can't pull from other styles.
And then ultimately you take what works for yourself and then you make it your own.
And it becomes then it becomes almost your style.
It sounds like what you're saying for Traveny is explore, you know, take what, take this style, take that style, take what works for you in any given moment.
And you know what's working for you today for say, pain management like may not be working tomorrow for a mean boss.
You know whatever.
Yeah, it's so true.
And I look at this the same way that I look at when people ask me what type of meditation they should do.
And I always say the one that you'll do.
Yeah, so many poignant and just important ideas in those answers and those questions, Rosie.
I mean, these are big life questions, when you're talking about selfishness and negative thoughts and handling health issues.
It's just big questions.
It's a lot.
It's a lot.
The human condition, the human experience, it's a lot.
And that's why we're here.
We're here to support each other.
We're here for each other.
That's why this community is here.
And I just, I love it.
Absolutely.
And that's what's so amazing.
I love when we talk about the community that is being created here.
And it's like so every time when I get to this part where I'm like you know, if you've got a question, I'm thinking about the community that's out there and like that, we're connected to.
And we want your questions.
You know, we want you to respond. to trust us with them and send them into us.
And all you have to do to do that it's actually we've made it really simple is go to sayhichat slash Dear Headspace.
And I couldn't remember that, so I wouldn't ask you to remember that.
It is in the show notes.
And if we use your question in a future show, you're going to get three months of Headspace for free.
And I think that's a pretty wonderful thing.
Yeah, that's right.
And I think it's completely wonderful.
And I'm, again, so grateful to be here and to be a part of it.
And one more thing.
As you know, each week we like to leave you with an opportunity to pause and reflect on what you just heard here.
And it's a time to transition from this moment to the next in your day.
So, as you listen to some recorded sounds of the ocean on a pier, let your mind do whatever it wants to do.
Until next time.
Stay happy.
Stay healthy.
And be kind to each other.
Samantha Snowden, Eve Lewis 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.
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