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Let's be surreal. when you say yes to other people or to others, make sure that you aren't letting yourself down.
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.
Well, hello, everyone.
Here we are with yet another episode of Dear Headspace, a podcast where I sit down with a Headspace meditation teacher and we answer your questions.
I'm Robin Hopkins and today I am here with my pal, Eve.
Hi, Eve. Hi Robin. It's so nice to be back and hello, everyone.
It is always so lovely to see your face.
Our audience doesn't know that we do a little meditation before we record. And I'm always like, as soon as I hear your voice, I'm like, my shoulders come down a little bit.
So it's lovely to be here with you today.
Oh good. It feels like a long time ago that we did the last episode, but also not a long time ago.
I know it is weird like that, right?
Yeah, but it's so nice on this rainy, cold day in LA and I'm pretty sure it's cold and rainy in New York as well.
I mean just kind of always it's winter.
I mean and that's it's funny because I was going to ask you like how are you feeling today like are you motivated?
Not motivated? Because I was like well one we've got some questions about that today I mean so I'm curious like where you're at.
I think to feel motivated a lot of things around you in your life need to feel stable and secure and there's a few things in my life that don't feel like that right now.
So one thing that I really reflected on over the break was you know how can I take some of the learnings from last year both personally, professionally and use them in a positive way for this year and rather than trying to list out a whole host of resolutions and things that I want to change and do and stop or start instead I decided I was just going to have one intention for this year.
I would love that. I decided that my intention for this year was to nourish my mental and physical self.
That's nice yeah and I'm with you like I you know I feel like I'm in this place of just like I have an image of those old cars that you cranked like cranking and cranking and trying to get back up to speed but it's it's not going as smoothly as it normally does.
Yeah you can plan you can have all these goals and things and that's great I really encourage that but I think if I was to take one thing away from last year it was that things just don't necessarily always go according to plan so I really want to take that going into this year and say like I might have some plans and that's great but just try and be a little bit more flexible with change which isn't always easy.
Yeah well I think it's time for us to get to what is my favorite part of the episode which is the listener questions today we have some spectacular questions we're gonna be talking about how to say no without guilt how to find motivation to do things for yourself and what to do when you really want to get other folks into mindfulness I mean these are great questions.
So I think like, no more chatting, let's just dive right in.
Here is our first question from Martin.
Hello, this is Martin from Slovakia.
I've been practicing mindfulness for more than two years.
And today I have a question of how to be more confident to say no to others.
I mean, for example, when somebody is asking me out, but I already have plans, or if somebody is asking me to you know spend time with them or invest time in them but I already have another plans for myself I feel always guilty to say no so I rather say yes and then I feel you know uncomfortable that I'm not finishing my plans so my question would be how to be more confident to say no without any regrets, without any bad feelings, and not to be selfish, of course.
Thanks a lot and have a nice day.
Oh, he was so sweet.
Thank you for your question, Martin.
That's a wonderful question.
It is. And I can really resonate with so much of what you said.
But first of all, that's amazing that you've been practicing meditation mindfulness for a couple of years.
I think that's wonderful.
My off the bat, my first thought is that little word no can carry so much baggage.
We can create so many scenarios in the mind about what will happen if we say no to the point where it adds significant stress into our lives.
I've been there. I have 100 percent been there.
And you know, saying no is not bad.
No, no. And I was just envisioning Martin, like Martin who says yes when he doesn't wanna say yes, like how do you show up?
He's probably just distracted or thinking about the other thing that he's supposed to be doing or maybe not actually wanting to be there.
So it's like, you're not doing anyone any favors.
No, definitely not.
And if you think about the concern that we might have around saying no, So, often it comes from a place of wanting to avoid conflict.
You know, we might be worried if we say no, that there'll be some repercussions to that.
But also on the flip side, often we don't want to say no to someone because we don't want to let them down or disappoint them.
And so that's also a, you know, that's quite a nice positive quality.
It comes from a good place.
But unfortunately, if we consistently say yes to things that we can't actually or don't have the capacity to take on, can leave you run down, burnt out, resentful.
And like you said, Robin, if you agree to do something and you're completely distracted and you wish you weren't doing the thing that you're doing, it's not serving anyone, let alone you or that all the other personal people yeah there's an amazing quote and I might get it a little bit wrong by Paulo Coelho the author lyricist and it goes something like when you say yes to other people all to others make sure that you aren't saying no or you're letting yourself down yes yes that's it's funny because I was thinking like, I wonder what he wants.
Like, what does Martin want to do?
And does he ever ask himself, well what would I like to do?
Because it's like why are you putting everyone else's needs in front of your own?
Exactly and I think that the question here is, or rather the the point here is like assess how it's going to make you feel if you say yes to something that you really can't ideally say yes to.
Or the other way around is assess how it's going to make you feel if you say no. So you know and let's be honest, sometimes we do have to change our plans.
And we're going to be asked to do things probably more in a in a working environment where we don't necessarily want to do them.
Or in our personal lives of course.
You know we get us do things by our partners you know family and things like that we have to do things that we maybe don't want to do but we do them because we love the people around us.
And so I think it's thinking about those trade -offs you know we can't do everything we just can't wish we could.
And saying yes when you don't have capacity as I said can leave you feeling burnt out and run down and and that is only going to add to the stress of how many things that you're taking on.
Yeah and if you're worried about letting someone down you know have a conversation with them and just say look I really would love to do this but I actually have plans right now and so can we find another time?
Yeah communication is so important.
Yeah you know as we've been chatting about this in the back of my mind I'm thinking about you know how is it that you want to be spending your time, Martin.
Really, really think about that.
It's so funny, I was just gonna say I think that's the most important thing you said, is for Martin to check in with himself, and to be like, well if I wasn't gonna hurt anyone's feelings, what would I want to do right now.
Yeah, exactly. Martin, you mentioned about not feeling selfish, it's not selfish to do things for yourself, it's not selfish to take care of yourself, and it's not selfish saying no. And if you're worried about, you know, how you might say no to someone, start with something really small, you know, just experiment, just saying no to really little things.
And safe people. And saying no to safe people, yeah.
Yes, exactly. Because it does take a feel uncomfortable as much as when you say yes to something, you feel uncomfortable.
It can feel the same uncomfortableness when you say no to something, but from my experience, that doesn't last as long.
I just think that's fantastic advice, and I almost want to sneakily invite Martin to something to see if he says no to me.
That's what I'd like to do.
Martin are you busy this weekend?
Like, Shonda Rhimes had the year of yes, Martin needs to have the year of no." exactly, like there's real power in both you know I think there'll be folks out there who are really really desperate to try and say yes to more things because they may have been holding themselves back and on the flip side we have Martin's situation where he feels he says yes to too many things and so I think really that comes down to how do you want to be spending your time, how does it make you feel, and and really maybe even just write down some values around that you want to hold yourself accountable to, like for example,
I'm only going to say yes to two social things a week or whatever it is.
Yeah. Some boundaries?
Some boundaries. Amazing.
Excellent advice, Eve, as always.
All right, let's get to our next caller.
Hi. My name is Luke.
I'm from Oklahoma City.
I'm a student, I've been using Headspace for a couple of years now.
And, you know, I've seen how much it's improved my life inside of school, and outside of it.
And I was wondering, you know, how do I get the people around me, the young people, the students around me, you know, excited about my institution.
I'm about to graduate my undergrad, and I'm going to go into grad school, and I want other people around me, especially young people who I feel like, you know, are facing the information overload, climate doom, on top of studying.
You know how do I get them excited about mindfulness?
Because I know it's more than just telling him to download Headspace and start meditating.
Luke that is such an excellent question.
Can you come and work for us Luke?
Right. In the marketing department perhaps perchance.
Thank you for being such an an amazing champion and so, so glad that it's had such a positive impact on you.
You know, what's so interesting is this one really resonated with me because, you know, over the years, I, you know, I've been very honest about the kind of childhood that I come from that's not necessarily amazing.
And over the years I've done all these self -help courses and when I first started taking them, I was very much like I needed everyone around me to take them because I wanted to fix them.
And it wasn't until I stopped doing that and I just started taking the information and living into my life that people were like, what are you doing that's different?
And then they started doing things.
So it's like when I heard Luke's question, I just had an inner chuckle about when you want something for someone else so much, and I think it comes from such a wonderful place.
Oh, it really does.
And Luke, this question comes up a lot actually.
And in many ways it's the million dollar question.
How do we encourage others to take care of their minds, their mental health, to meditate?
And you'd think it's a really simple question to answer because why would someone not want to do something that's good for them, right?
What, just why would they not?
But it's actually quite tricky and Luke, you called it out.
People need this, especially young folks right now.
You know, the world is a tricky place and there is a lot of uncertainty.
And a lot of pressure on young people right now.
A huge amount of pressure.
And you know, the proverb or the saying, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
And I think that is just so true when it comes to something like encouraging people to try meditation and mindfulness.
Generally speaking, people don't like being told what to do, especially when it's something that's good for you.
Mindfulness meditation, as you know, Luke, is a very experiential practice in that you really do have to do it to experience the benefits.
But every single person's experience will be different.
So, what you experience, what I experience, what a friend experiences, you know, that's going to be different.
So, I think when it comes to sharing with others, I really encourage that, and I think that's actually a really good place to start.
And you may already be doing this.
Start sharing with your close friends, family, you know, folks that you feel comfortable sharing with in your college about how it's helped you.
And share details, if you can.
I think that really helps folks to see that they're not alone because they may connect with and resonate with some of the things that you're talking about.
But it also shows that it's okay to talk about our struggles and give some examples of where it's really, really helped you.
And you may also find that folks start commenting, oh yeah I've noticed that when you when you do this you know you're a lot more patient but I think just remember that you know your experience is going to be different to others and if someone's really not interested or bit distracted you know just back off a little bit and it's not personal if they're not interested like don't take it personally it's you have no idea where someone is or what they're up to but you know what they want to do they have to want to do They have to be in that place in their life.
And look, I'll be the first one to say that meditation and mindfulness, as much as I think it's something everyone should do, it's not gonna be for everyone, and that is totally fine and there will be other tools and services and ways in which folks can support themselves.
Personally, the reason I'm such an advocate for it is because I genuinely feel it's kinda saved my life in so many ways and so I'm deeply passionate about it and we know now from many many years of research that there is so much efficacy around these practices, but again you're not going to sell it to everyone and so you know encourage people to ask you questions yeah and you know as you're a student, Luke, seem like a really engaged motivated person you know see if there are any existing meditation groups or mindfulness classes that you could maybe take part in or volunteer at because that's
actually also a really great way to meet other people who are passionate about this and you know if there isn't that's also fine.
Maybe you could suggest that with you know start with a few friends and see if they'd be interested in in starting a little group.
I was of it sometimes like, healthy eating or going to the gym, these are all things that are wonderful for you when you're doing them, they're great, but not everyone can or is up to it at that moment for whatever particular reason is going on for them.
And I think it's important to make space for that too, for other people's paths.
Like they might get it 20 years later because they saw you now.
Like you might be putting something in the back of someone's head, that they'll come back to, and they'll never even know why they did.
But you can't force someone to eat healthy.
You can't force someone to go to the gym or to get therapy.
Everyone has to do everything in their own time.
You just don't want to be that person who's, cause you could turn someone off to something that might actually be a really wonderful thing for them.
Oh yeah, definitely.
And look, everyone's readiness to make change will be different.
And like you said in my example here, I really resisted meditation to start with.
I was like, no, no, no, not for me.
But I was so anxious and so stressed.
I could not see the wood from the trees.
And it took, unfortunately, for things to get even worse before I realized, oh, okay.
Yeah, I'm ready. That's wonderful.
And just to bring it back to Luke, just what an amazing place to be in your life.
That you're young, that you've found this thing that works for you, embrace that, be the change.
I think this is really great news for you, Luke, and I love Eve's advice about, you know, go start a group on campus if it doesn't already exist. I love all of this for you.
Can you believe 2025 is already trekking along?
Let's check in. How are you doing with your resolutions?
mind is simple. Focus on my well -being.
And I know my well -being starts with great sleep.
If I could do one thing to improve my sleep and overall health, it's taking the number one mineral for that, magnesium.
Specifically, magnesium breakthrough by bi -optimizers.
This supplement contains seven forms of magnesium, each supporting over 600 biochemical reactions problems in your body.
It's a powerhouse, improving sleep, brain function, metabolism, stress management, and so much more.
Honestly, I can't even fully describe how much it helps me.
Let's face it. Even if your goals for this year aren't health related, how can you achieve any goal without quality sleep and stress support?
Magnesium breakthrough gives you the vitality you need to conquer your dreams. Do yourself a favor and make this a part of routine this year.
Go to buyoptimizers .com forward slash headspace and use code headspace to get 10 off of any order.
And if you subscribe you'll unlock incredible discounts free gifts and so much more.
Again that's buyoptimizers .com forward slash headspace.
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All right and now it is time for our last question from Maria.
Here we go. Dear Headspace, my name is Maria and I'm from Honduras.
I've been struggling to find motivation for doing good things for myself such as finding a hobby, reading a book, or exercising.
I can be self critical at times and set high expectations for myself.
But when it comes to practice, it's hard to find the energy and motivation to stay engaged and getting things done.
It's been almost 3 years of instability and a lot of important changes in my life.
Including getting a new job abroad and moving to two different countries.
Part of me feels like I'm trapped on sorting out logistics all the time.
And I don't have room for anything else in my life.
Do you have any advice on how meditation can help me to find motivation and stay engaged?
I mean, Eve, what were we just talking about at the top of the show?
About like just having to like crank the car to get ourselves moving.
This is just like we're not alone.
There's a lot of people where motivation is a tough situation.
Yeah, definitely. And Maria, thank you so much for your question.
And I firstly, just want to say, congratulations on taking a new job and moving to two countries.
I think my first point here is cut yourself some slack.
like really try and cut yourself some slack and maybe actually, I don't necessarily want to encourage you writing more lists, but this could be a nice list. Just write down all the things you've achieved over the last three years and I think you'll be really surprised and just sit with that.
You know I also think just like one step at a time, you know it's like this is a big thing to acclimate and get comfortable just maybe there's just one thing that's the first step like I'd like to join this club or I would like to have a couple people to go out to lunch with and then you know work on that you know it's just one thing at a time I think when you do something big and new it can feel very overwhelming.
Yes and Maria you specifically asked how can meditation and mindfulness help you to feel more motivated?
And so just to build on your point, Robyn, start small.
And that applies both with your practice but also with what you're committing to do whether it's exercise or reading or time with friends and you know one thing at a time one foot in front of the other, and if you think about the real essence of mindfulness it's this non -judgmental present moment awareness where we are bringing our full kind accepting attention into what it is that we're doing and when we start trying to multitask which of course we're all actually going to do in our lives.
It brings loads of distraction in.
And you might be doing one thing, but thinking about this other thing that you have to do, and that just creates tension.
And what I'm not saying is that we have to be focused 100 % of the time because that's also not possible.
But just start small.
What is one thing that you can do this week?
You know, an Evie, can you speak a little bit about like in one of the earlier episodes, Kasanga talked about like a time to meditate, you have to put your feet on the floor when you get into bed at night and you have to do it in the morning because you you are right Maria was saying, like she was struggling with consistency and and how to really like get a consistent practice going for meditation so what are your thoughts on what Maria could do for that?
Yeah, I loved that episode and what Kei Songe said around, you know, the moment you wake up and you put your feet on the floor just use that as a moment of practice.
When we talk about starting or maintaining a practice, it can naturally feel a little bit daunting because a first thought might be, well, how am I supposed to fit it in to everything else I'm doing?
Or I can't do it every single day.
That's daunting too for me.
Yeah. I'm my worst enemy here.
I also put a lot of pressure on myself.
And I'll give some examples of what helped me when I was starting out with my practice.
First things first is start small, maybe just two times a week.
And for me, I like to meditate in the morning.
I'm more of a morning person than a nighttime person.
Everyone's different.
But I've built it into my routine.
So I wake up, I make a tea, I do my meditation and then I take my dog out.
Now, of course, that's the ideal morning routine.
It's not always going to work like that.
But it's sandwiched in between two things that I always do.
I always have to get up and I always make a tea and I always have to take my dog out.
And so it's sandwiched in between some things that I already do.
And so I'm less likely not to do it, because I've built that habit and that routine in.
That's such a great tip.
Something that I also have started doing over the last few years, particularly as we've been, well, less so now, but more in the pandemic when we were working intensely at home, was I would actually block off time in my calendar and I put it in as if it's a meeting.
And so that might be for you, 10 minutes during your lunch, or similarly if night time feels better, create a wind -down routine, maybe just 10 minutes that feels really good for you, you could do a wind -down exercise, maybe put on some soothing music, we've got some great options in the Headspace app.
And maybe just carve out 10 minutes to read.
Yeah, but what you don't want to do, I know we're not supposed to be in don'ts, but don't beat yourself up.
Yes. Please, please be kind to yourself.
Because you I think are highly underestimating, of course, I don't know your exact situation, Maria, but you've taken on a new job, you've moved to two different countries, that takes time.
Yeah, that's wonderful advice.
And Maria, we are with you.
We are standing with you.
Everything's going to be wonderful.
Just take some time.
I'm always just amazed with how thoughtful and deep the questions are that we're receiving.
It is just—it's so amazing.
And there was just so much talk today about beginners in the practice and just, what would you recommend to you for folks who are in that space and trying to build a practice?
I referenced the Basics course.
I really cannot encourage that enough because it will walk you through, step by step, just getting comfortable sitting with the mind, with the body.
And if you don't feel like starting a course, there's lots of other things we can try.
We have some really, really great mini meditations which are just three minutes long.
So we have breathing exercises, we have a little focus exercise, we have a little body scan exercise, and you can extend the time with all of those things.
But if you're really starting from scratch, I would start small.
Similarly, a nice way to get started with head spaces, is actually with some of our sleep content.
If you're struggling with maybe how you might make time to practice meditation, maybe just take 10 minutes before bed rather than maybe looking at social media or emails or text messages and do one of our wind down exercises.
Yeah. It's a really great way to for you to get a feel for Headspace but also to help you relax and unwind.
Amazing well thank you Martin, Luke and Maria for sharing your questions with us and if you are out there and you're listening and you have a question and you would like one of the meditation teachers to answer it just go over to SayHi .Chat slash Dearheadspace and all you have to do is follow the prompts to record your question.
It's so simple. Yes and you could also leave us some mindful moments or thoughts from your day.
That's right, and if we use your question or we share your mindful moment in the show you are going to get three months of headspace for you or as we said to Luke, you can share it with a loved one.
And so before we go, just want to say thank you again for the questions and the thoughtfulness.
But we want to offer a little bit of a transition from this moment to the next, talking about doing one thing at a time before you head into the rest of your day.
We've just built in a little bit of time so that you can take some time reflect on what you've just heard. This is the moment to let your mind do whatever it wants to do and today we're leaving you with the soothing sounds of the ocean at dusk.
So till next time, stay happy, stay healthy, and most importantly be kind to yourself and each other.
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 Cohen, Baron Farmar, and Danny Chrissomme.
It's hosted and produced by Robin Hopkins, Kaysanga Giscombbe, Dora Kamau, Samantha Snowdon, and Yves -Louis Prieto.
Sound recording and post production is by Dan Kroll.
Music is by Scott Sorenson and Chris Murguia, and a very special thanks to Colleen Mutz.
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