Hello friends, it's another day and that means another deer headspace.
And today I'm excited because I'm joined by Dora and headspace clinical leader Samantha.
And we have some thoughtful questions from our deer headspace community.
We've got a question about how to look inward to assess your triggers and where they come from.
We have a question about what to do when you're afraid of getting sick.
And this is exciting, it's kind of new.
One listener called in to share a mindful moment that occurred while hiking.
So we're going to be chatting all about nature and connection.
So without further ado.
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 deer headspace.
A podcast where I sit with a meditation teacher and we answer your questions.
Oh, hi you two.
Look at, we got this little like powerhouse duo sitting here, right?
And so we got a squad.
I mean a squad is squad the right word for us?
What do we think?
Yeah, I like a good squad.
It'd be weird to say gang what it is.
Yeah.
That's what I'm not gay.
So sometimes like, yeah, that's not a good squad.
That's not a good squad.
Well, I'm thrilled that you're both here because we've got some really big life questions
today.
So I'm thinking we should just jump right into our first question from Brooke who wants
to talk about how to investigate her triggers.
All right, here we go.
Hi, my name is Brooke.
I live in Valencia, in Spain.
Firstly, I just want to say I'm a huge fan of the Headspace app.
Thank you so much for all of the different resources and tools that you make available
to us.
I've actually just done the wake up routine and I just did a meditation on looking inwards
and exploring the different sources of our emotions, which I've found really helpful and a really
good reminder of the fact that we cannot control our daily experiences or the different triggers
that we have in our day to day.
But maybe we can try to work on understanding more the source of our emotions from these
triggers and our responses to them.
So I have recently been becoming more aware of the fact that I'm being triggered when
I feel that I'm being misled or lied to.
So I'm trying to look inwards and explore my response here a bit more, but I can't seem
to get past the question or assumption that I have had some kind of trauma with this
that should be significant enough for me to know exactly when it happened and explore
that experience.
I'm deeply to try to let it go and I can't seem to find it.
Do you have any tips or guidance towards how we can look inwards and what kind of questions
we can maybe be asking ourselves to understand our responses a bit better?
I'd be grateful for any guidance here, but I appreciate it's not an easy task and probably
becomes easier with practice, but thank you in advance.
Thank you for your question, Brooke.
This is a really good question and I keep thinking it's almost like a chicken or the
egg kind of question or this is like if a tree falls in the forest and nobody's there,
did it, did it make a sound?
Like do you need to understand why you're triggered?
Like I'm thinking personally, I know I get very triggered around injustice and my son
is the same way.
There need to be a trauma that caused injustice or is that just maybe part of my blueprint?
Like does it matter?
Do I still need to breathe?
I guess that's the first spot that occurs to me when I hear Brooke's question.
What do you think?
Robin, that's what I was thinking to.
The first thing that came up for me was the need to ask yourself if there was some trauma
involved and maybe why not give some self-compassion around being triggered because being triggered is
okay.
It's a natural response to being wronged or feeling like you are being wrong.
So I was wondering, where is that feeling of trauma coming from?
Yeah, or is it just that you're thinking that's the process I'm supposed to do, like figure
it out, then this and then I can start breathing or do I just need to start breathing?
What do you think, Dora?
Yeah, I think in this day and age, trauma triggers all these things are spoken about so
much without real wisdom given to people.
And so we just receive the like surface level information.
And then there is like this assumption that if I experience X, Y, and Z, not to invalidate
people's trauma, like it has to be trauma.
And I think what's important for this listener, as she kind of mentioned, was getting to
understand your response because that's what trauma is, right?
It's our response to what is happening in our body's response to what is happening.
And so there is a lot of wisdom that can be found in moving away from the intellectualizing
and the rationalization of whatever is occurring and instead connecting to the wisdom of your
body and what is going on when you experience someone that is lying to you or you're being
misled, what do you notice in your body?
I always ask, that's my go-to as I'm like closing my eyes, yeah, touching my heart, like
that's what I always go to.
What is my body's response to this?
And when did I first experience this response in my body from a, maybe it was from a
young age when I think about, you know, being lied to or misunderstood, I think about childhood.
So I think it's important just to begin to look at our response to things and begin to
ask questions from that place of when did I first experience this?
What is this familiar or reminding me of in my life?
And I also want to say being lied to and misled on just like a human level is painful.
Yeah, right.
So no one wants to experience that and I love what you said, Samantha, like the compassion
pieces really, really important.
There's nothing wrong with you.
It's just that being lied to sucks.
It hurts.
Yeah.
You know, there's like, there's a whole like you broke my trust.
You broke my, like, you know, there's like, depending on how, how far I want to dive
into the wormhole, I could take it to a like, what's wrong with humanity?
Like you could just follow that lead.
You know, that's like, that's why I always think of like the, what do I need to do to break
the cycle in this moment to come back to just like, oh, I feel that made me feel bad.
Yes.
Right.
And how do you feel like you should be responding?
Have you asked yourself, what would be an appropriate response in this moment?
Why do I feel like my response was not the right response?
Like what responses have you seen to someone being wrong that you feel like, oh, that
was too much or too far or too little?
Start exploring or asking yourself those questions because you have to define for yourself, what
type of response feels good to you?
Matches your value system, makes you feel like you've been heard, seen, and you can walk
away not holding responsibility for the other person's perspective or their willingness
to change.
Yeah.
I love that.
I think.
And this is how my own teaching style, this is why I love asking a good question because
there's so much that we can find an uncover from just sitting with ourselves and asking
the question, if I was just to sit here and give you all this advice, it kind of like
takes away from the, the process of problem solving and getting curious about your own
experience and diving deep.
There's a really beautiful poet, Roka, who talks about living the answers.
And so sometimes in life, you have to live to find the answers, right?
You couldn't read about it in a book.
You couldn't attend a seminar and try to find the answers in that way.
But sometimes we do have to experience these like visceral reactions to being misled
or misunderstood or lied to to then to start asking ourselves questions around like,
what is the appropriate response or how do I want to respond in this moment?
What is my body telling me or my mind or where am I being brought back to?
Like, I love a good question.
Yeah.
Because then there's also curiosity.
There's no, hopefully no space for judgment in that.
But we can just start to get curious around what is going on and working from there instead
of making it like a matter of fact type of thing of, I'm triggered.
And that's it.
Yeah.
Or like feeling the need to create a process.
I'm triggered.
Therefore now I need to do this and now I need to do that.
And I had like a, my shoulders went up a little bit when you were just like,
it's easy if you could just sit with it because like, I like to like, I like to make a list.
I like to get stuff done.
And it's like, you're like, no, just sit in it for a minute.
Sit in your feelings.
And like, I think you can see I wish this was video.
I can't make my shoulders go down to the idea of having to sit with it.
So I wonder, Brook, if maybe that's some of what's going on of like wanting to like fix
versus be and you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, this is another thing about the human mind is that it loves certainty.
It loves closure.
It loves clarity.
Right.
And so it's searching for those things.
And that's why we do go into hyper fixation around creating the right process and routine
or right because it's maybe it's providing a soothing in that moment because we do have
a little bit of control.
Yeah.
It's like, I've started to work on this thing and now there's a little bit of control.
And while we really have no control over a lot of things, except for our response.
And so if you are able to sit with it because some things are meant to be felt first and
understood later, there's a lot that can come up from even just noticing your shoulders
robbing as they're up here and like, okay.
And I started to let them down and noticing what happens.
What begins to open up?
Rosie calls those shoulder earrings and I love that.
And I was like the best phrase.
I'd never heard that phrase.
I was like, yeah, no, I get that.
Yeah.
Well, good luck, Brooke.
And keep us posted.
Let us know if, hey, if you have shoulder earrings and be if you're able to take them
off, we would love to hear them.
All right.
Let's go on to our next question from Anna.
Hi, Headspace team.
My name is Anna and I'm from the Philippines.
I'm currently in my late 20s and I faced the biggest challenge of my life so far last
year when my mom was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer.
As you can imagine, the hospital journey was intense and luckily now she's on the road
to recovery.
However, this has put my own health into perspective and I'm viewing myself subconsciously.
I realize as a hopeless case because I also believe for some reason that I will also get
cancer in this lifetime.
I know it's hereditary and my other family members have also had and passed from this disease,
my aunt and my grandma.
And I know this is not a healthy way to approach this at the same time even if I fear getting
it.
I also do not really want to go to a doctor for it because I'm afraid of what the truth
might be.
And I don't know how to approach this.
I know I should and even my mom has been telling me I should go to the doctor but I let fear
stop me before anything else and I know it's not good to stall.
I just want to know if you have any advice for me that can help me approach this more
healthily.
So thank you so much in advance.
Oh, thanks for your question Anna.
I'm speaking for I think everyone here when I say we're sorry for what you've been through
that's just a really difficult process, you know, to watch a loved one go through something
so serious.
So we'll just start there.
But for Dora and Samantha, it felt like there's two things in this question.
Like the first half is kind of just processing the idea that her mom was sick and that this
may be something that comes to her.
And then there's the back half of the question.
It feels like there's a lot of sheds about what she should be doing.
So I'm hoping we can kind of pick that apart a little bit.
Yeah, sorry.
I'm like, I was listening to her.
I'm like, whoo, it feels stuck.
Like can't go this way, can't go that way, right?
I think something that is interesting that I was thinking about as she was speaking is
this idea of like the power of our perception, you know, and how the way that we are perceiving
things can either liberate us or keep us stuck.
And I think about my family and how when I was younger, I used to be really athletic.
And one of my aunts was like, you know, that alcoholism and diabetes is just something
that we'll all get in our family.
So there's no point in you exercising.
Oh, okay.
And in my head, I was like, girl, what?
You're like, I'm 12.
Yeah.
But shouldn't I then be exercising, right?
And I was thinking about like power of the perception.
Some people may see it as like, you know, there's a sense of like hopelessness, but for others,
right, it's like you feel empowered to not want to then live true to that story or the
thing that has been passed down.
And I know it's difficult when you see it all around you, but I think there's something
to be said about working with and healing this perception that you have because it really
is such a powerful thing.
And it can either keep us stuck or we can be motivated and empowered to not make that
come true for ourselves.
Yeah, because it's like knowledge is power.
And you know, it's like, I do think there's like some people want to know if they have
the cancer gene and others are like, I don't want to know.
And I think it's important to know who you are.
But in that choice, I wouldn't want to make it out of fear or out of shoulds.
Yeah.
I think about like some years ago, my mother went through a cancer journey and my own
experience with all of these questions that are just out there.
And what should I do?
What could I do?
What will happen?
What won't happen?
And you're just left with a lot of emptiness.
And all of the things that are supposed to kick in, don't kick in the way that they
maybe have kicked in before.
So you might have these protective factors.
So in the past, the more I knew, the more I could protect myself.
Well in this moment, the less you know, the more you feel protected.
And so maybe like challenging some of that because in this moment for yourself, you have
the ability to protect yourself, either knowing or not knowing.
And you have a choice to choose.
And so what I want to do in this is just highlight for you your choice because it feels
like in listening to the question is like, oh, well, I don't have a choice.
I'm going to, you know, I'm going to get cancer, but I want to highlight you still have
some choices to make here.
And sometimes that can reignite your power.
That's such a great point, Samantha.
You know, we, you know, we just recently got some like family health information in our
family, you know, pertaining to like my kids.
And I had to be like, what am I doing that's fear based?
And what am I doing?
That's the right.
Like what, what can kids handle, what information can they handle?
Like how am I going to talk about it?
And my initial response was just fear based.
It was just like, oh, I should tell.
And then I was like, I should not tell.
We should, you know, so it's like, then I had to calm down and get to a place of, oh,
maybe when they're 18, this is a conversation to be had.
But like you're saying, Samantha, what so there, like I didn't have choice in the beginning
of the conversation, and then as I got to clearing way emotions and initial fears, then
I had choice.
And I could decide what was best for us in the family.
So it's, that's a really, really great note.
And there's a lot of hope that lives in choices.
Yeah.
And behavioral shifts, like I don't know that anything is predestined.
I don't know.
That could just be my personal thoughts or philosophy.
But like, what you were saying, Dora, like maybe that you're more likely to exercise or
to eat certain types of foods that are healthier or less cancer-causing type foods, it's like
you just, you have choice.
There's different things you could do.
Yeah.
I, you know, I have to talk about the practice in this.
I would think so.
In this situation.
I would think so.
I would think so.
Because.
Right.
When we meditate and we're learning to live more mindfully, it's interesting to see how,
how much stress or something like fear can really skew our perception to the point where
we feel like we don't have choice.
Right.
Or that there are no possibilities.
And there is no hope because we're so zeroed in on the fact that we're so afraid of what
is going to happen.
And so as we begin to build this mindful muscle, things start to open up and become more aware
and more empowered to realize that we do have choice.
I was reading a really great article about the power of mindfulness and how it's so
disruptive because it empowers some people to take like their life back into their hands.
You don't have to wait for somebody else to tell you to do this or to take that.
It's like you start to realize like in this moment right now, even the choice of choosing
a different thought or choosing to feel a different way or to sit with that fear is how
you can get free and to start to live more and more in alignment with the life that you
want to create for yourself.
But fear is such a limiting, a limiting experience.
And it can be really hard to even make choices from a place of like understanding when we're
living in such a place and state of fear and anxiousness and like uncertainty around
what is going to happen.
So got to get your practice on.
And that goes hand in hand with we haven't really talked about the first part, which I
could see where the first part of like Anna your feelings about watching your mom go
through something so serious and severe and scary that that could be conflated that those
two things could collapse onto each other that your fear could be mingled or co mingled
with grief or with feelings about your mom.
So it's like there's the practice I assume would be very helpful for that as well and separating
that out.
Yeah.
I mean, it helps you to understand that your fear is valid.
Whatever you're feeling in your body, it's valid.
Those thoughts that are there valid for sure.
But it doesn't define you and it doesn't have to define you.
It doesn't have to become who you are or a part of your identity.
There's so much more to us as human beings and not just the things that we are afraid
of.
But you know, the other side, the other parts of ourselves, right, this caring self that
sounds like is here as well of concern for your well-being and your mom's well-being
and your family's well-being.
And so can we focus on that aspect of things of caring for ourselves instead of being
being so defined and limited by the fear that we're experiencing?
Yeah.
And it confirms, too, your ability to sit with hard things, experience hard things, go
through hard things because you are doing it with your mother.
Yeah.
You can sit with her and support her.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think something else that's really beautiful when I used to work in the hospitals, there's
a lot of support groups there.
So if you can find a support group, you know, caregivers of people that have lived with
cancer, something that is relevant and related to whatever it is that you're experiencing,
being in community and not caring this weight just on your shoulders, but being around people
that can see you and understand you and just speak life into you in these moments when
things feel really hopeless can be really, really powerful as well.
Yeah.
And I can't imagine Anna's the only person who's gone through this and come out feeling
the same way, you know, fearful like for themselves in the future.
So to be around other people and to hear, even just to hear how other people are approaching
it might open up ideas for you.
That's wonderful.
Yeah.
Right.
Well, Anna, we are sending you love, hope and all kinds of good vibes.
So, you know, please keep us posted and we're with you.
All right, we will be right back.
Okay, folks, welcome back.
We've got not a question this time, but a mindful moment.
Take a listen.
Dear Headspace, my name is Boni and I'm from Brisbane, Australia.
I don't have a question for the team, but I have been meditating and using dear Headspace
and radio Headspace for mindful walks for a long time.
I'm a big fan, so I wanted to share a mindful moment with you all.
So I used to do a fair bit of hiking and bushwalking, but it's been a while since I've been going
regularly and not so long ago I decided I would go and a walk with my partner.
We were walking up at a quite challenging hill and we stopped to have a break.
And in that moment, it was really beautiful.
We sat down and took in the view and I noticed all these sensations.
So the feeling of the breeze in the air was playing with little leaves in the trees.
I felt it on my skin.
I felt the air in my lungs and I just felt very connected to my partner and myself and
the experience and nature and the world.
And I thought it was a beautiful thing.
So I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone involved with dear Headspace and shout
out to Robin who's amazing.
I love you all and big thanks.
Thank you so much.
Bye.
Oh, that was so lovely.
Thank you, Bonnie.
I love that our community is like this is so tight that she thought of us in this beautiful
moment in her life.
Like that brought me such joy to hear.
And it just I was like, first of all, I was like, we got to put this in the show.
But then I was like, it made me think about like, where do you find that mindful moments
pop up for you most in your life?
Dora, go.
I'm like right now.
It's just a mindful moment right now.
And the next moment, this is a mindful moment for sure.
But I would say especially when it comes to nature, I love Pacific Spirit Park in Vancouver,
Canada.
And it's filled with beautiful, big, like ancestral feeling trees.
And you just feel what I feel so supported and held by being in that forest.
And you can walk around for hours and just get lost and still feel so safe and just like
carried.
It's a very mystical and magical place for me and probably like one of my favorite places
on the earth.
So yeah, I would say that is a place where I feel the most connected outside of this moment
right now.
What do you think what do you think it is about nature that makes us feel so connected?
Because that's like, like if I'm walking in the forest or I mean as close as I can get
to the forest in Brooklyn, but like in Prospect Park or you know, it's like when I get
into the trees, there's something about like I'll just I'll see the trees or like it
makes me stop and want to like walk and spin or just take it in and I just wonder is it
is it that it's so larger than us?
Like, like why do you guys think that is?
Yeah, I think that component of all like wow, right?
You just like everything just looks so beautiful and magnificent and there's also the sense
of like forgetting about ourselves, right?
I feel very insignificant when I'm in nature.
I'm like, my problem's just like don't even matter anymore.
And that's the power of all, right?
And wonder and it's really hard to judge nature.
I think like that tree should be a bit bigger.
I wish that lead was a bit more orange.
Like there's no space for that, right?
Like we can just give our judgment of brain arrest and like I mean it's true.
There's a lot of peace.
The immersive aspect of it, the five senses are fully engaged.
But you can also, I say this for people that live in the city, you can also experience
that on your commute as well.
Doesn't have to be tied to nature again, your perception of it.
If you're constantly judging the people walking in front of you like I wish you'd walk faster.
Yeah.
And you're forgetting that there's like all these other things that are happening.
It's hard to think that you can feel the same way that you would in Times Square versus
a beautiful forest in Vancouver, Canada.
Yeah.
Well Samantha, what's your place where you're most often to just be like, oh I'm an awe?
I'm going to go with like what I have most access to is my hammock in my backyard.
I have a hammock back there underneath my patio that I put when we bought this house
two years ago.
And it is the best place in the world.
It is like I sit out there, I can twirl, I can smell the honey suckles.
So like the other day I smell the honey suckle and it immediately transports me into being
a little girl and picking them off of the tree and like picking the thing out and tasting
the little honey suckle juice, whatever that's called.
Or whether I was supposed to be even more than I was.
Whatever.
Well, there was something a little awful about yesterday.
Yeah, my cousin.
Because we were all locked there.
But yeah, just being outside in that space, it feels like my little piece of outside.
That's just just mine and I get to hear the birds and talk back to them like we have
our own.
It's just cool.
It sounds corny and so it.
It sounds like I'll be over in about an hour is what it sounds like.
Yeah, come on.
I wish I had my own backyard.
You know, it's so much life out there though.
Yeah, I sometimes, I sometimes feel those moments, I'm just fresh off of vacation.
And there's like, I probably have about a million and one pictures of my two kids walking
in front of me holding hands through the ages.
And like on this trip, we had like, it was like planes, trains and automobiles.
And I, there were so many times I'd look over and they'd be like sleeping on one another,
like heads, like or like, and like where my son put his arm around my daughter.
And I was just like, oh my God.
And it's like just that, like melds your heart moment of like, you know, of seeing something
that's just genuine and pure.
And that like brought me a nice moment to be like, oh, look at this.
You have to slow down.
You have to take this in.
Like this is pretty lovely.
You know, it's just like whatever stops you.
No, it just, it made me think of.
Sometimes I'm in my room and I hear my daughters laughing and they're just giggling and they're
just making the most noise.
And I'm like, oh, look at them.
And I love it.
And then I immediately have this thought like, oh, I'm going to miss it when they're
not here.
And I was like, man, I just ruined the moment.
I just ruined the moment by going future forward.
It's just like taking that snapshot and letting it be.
Yeah.
I'm so thankful that Bonnie shared this with us just like from like a being part of this
dear headspace community.
That's just just absolutely lovely.
And her doing that is a moment in and of itself that we should be taking in.
I said should.
So I wrecked it.
But like that I'd like us to take in.
Is that just semantics?
I don't know.
But I when I heard it, I thought this would be such a nice way to wrap up the show.
Just thinking about all the ways that we are connected and that we can be present in
addition to mindfulness and meditation.
So I thank you, Bonnie, and thank you everybody for your calls today.
Yes.
Thank you.
I love that we ended with a moment of nature.
I'm a big nature girl.
You myself.
I love the earth.
I love all the different lessons that we can learn by being fully immersed in nature
and cultivating a relationship with nature.
And we did a really beautiful partnership with the National Parks Foundation.
And we have a few meditations and open eyes.
Mindfulness exercises in the app that you can check out.
I got to go to Joshua Tree.
Sam, I went to Yellowstone, Sam went to Joshua Tree.
Rosie was in Hawaii.
So make sure that you check out some of that content in the app.
Yeah.
And also, Dora, in addition to that, there's a series.
I don't actually know the name of it, but maybe one of you guys does.
But there's a series that's like a walking meditation thing in the city.
And I remember Eve did one of them.
And it was like Chicago or some other city.
And I was like, I don't need to be there to do it.
And I used that and it was so delightful.
Does anybody know the name of that?
Yeah, it's called Walking in the City in TFL.
See, so there's another suggestion, perfection.
Thank you for having my back there, Samantha.
All right.
I want to say a big thank you to Brooke and Anna and Bonnie
for sharing your questions and your experiences with us today.
And if you're out there and you're listening and you have a question
that you would like answered by our incredible headspace teachers and clinicians,
or if you have a mindful moment that you would like to share like Bonnie,
all you got to do is go to say hi dot chat, slash your headspace.
And you can record it there.
It's so easy.
And that link it's in the show notes.
And if we do end up using your question or your mindful moment under headspace,
guess what?
You are going to get three months of headspace for free.
It's a deal.
Three months free of headspace.
Come on, y'all.
I am so grateful for all the questions that we receive and just how engaged everybody is.
So thank you all so much and as always to end the conversation and hopefully integrate
some of the things that were said, we are going to leave you with the soothing sounds
of cicadas by a lake in Wyoming.
So take a deep breath, relax your shoulders, close the eyes and enjoy the sounds.
Until next time, stay happy.
Stay healthy and 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 Celser, Sarah Cohn, Baron Farmer and Danny Christamy.
Our production coordinator is Taylor Jennings Brown.
It's hosted and produced by Robin Hopkins, Kessanga Gaskoambe, Dora Kamau, Samantha
Snowden, Eve Lewis Prieto and Rosie Acosta.
Post production is by Dan Crowell, Music is by Scott Sorenson and Chris Merguilla and
the Special Thanks to Colleen Lutz.
