Hi, it's Andy here and welcome to Radio Headspace and to Wednesday morning.
I don't know about you, I feel like sometimes there is an idea that if we're in any way
looking after the mind, training the mind in some way, there's an expectation maybe it's
from others, maybe we put it on ourselves that we shouldn't engage in any kind of negative
thinking, negative words and negative actions and of course, ideally it would be nice if
we were able to simply step away from those but we're all human beings and sometimes these
things happen you know.
And so someone said to me, do you ever feel like you're able to be angry or to get sad
or this kind of thing and I think there have been times where it's been a little tricky
and I remember there was a time back in the day when I think every five days in the app,
a little video would pop up and it would be me kind of having a chat with you if you
used it back then you might remember.
So it meant that when I was out and about, kind of I met lots of people who did Headspace
and who would come and say hello and that kind of thing.
And I can remember certainly in the early years of having our first born you know that time
if you've had kids that you know you're not sleeping much, you know everyone's a little
bit tired, a little bit cranky and you're just not necessarily feeling at your best and
therefore the idea, the ability to step back from thoughts becomes a bit more challenging
and I remember being, I've ever been in the supermarket one day and actually my son
was a little bit older at this time I think he was probably sort of two and a half, maybe
even three years old by that stage.
But still you know required a lot of attention.
And I remember being in the supermarket and we were walking down the aisle when he was
trying to sort of pick things off the shelf and do all these kinds of things and I was
constantly asking him not to at the same time I was sort of concentrating on the shopping.
And then he put his hand out and I didn't see he put his hand out and we carried on walking
and it turns out that he was sort of pushing these jars of honey down and one by one these
jars of honey fell off the shelf onto the floor breaking open glass and honey everywhere.
And I looked down and I had one of those moments you love have one of these moments in life
where you just want to scream and just in the moment I don't think I was going to scream
at him but I was probably going to say something very inappropriate in the supermarket and just
at that moment someone came up to me and said hey are you Andy the headspace guy and I
have one of those moments where he just dissolved everything I was so intent on following through
is what I was going to say and yet there was something about the interruption and it wasn't
about me thinking oh I shouldn't be angry in front of this person it was more the interruption
to that cycle if you like that pattern as in a feeling is so strong that you feel like you have
no choice but you have to follow through with it to that loop being interrupted somehow and of
course in that moment I kind of had to let go of that for a moment I mean I held onto my son I
didn't let go of him who was glass and hunting all over the floor but had to let go at the moment
so that I could actually speak to this person and it was interesting in having spoken to that
person and said hello and heard how they were using the app as people like to tell me when I
went back to my son as she that emotion heard gone I was still a little upset that he'd made such a
mess but at the same time there was something different in it and that for me gets right to the
heart of meditation that it's not about not experiencing those difficult and challenging emotions
it's about how we perceive them when they arise are we able to see them quick enough and how
quickly are we able to recover from them even when we do experience them even when we don't catch
them soon enough how quickly are we able to let go of them so that we can return to a place of
calm in our mind if not in our life it's something that I found really helpful over the years is to
not get too obsessed in trying to be a certain way or trying to be free of certain emotions
that's just part of being human being and human life is sometimes messy so it's embracing that
training the minders understanding the richness of the mind not just the emptiness of the mind
but the richness all the things that are part of our human life but ensuring that we have the
awareness to see them early enough and then to be able to let go of them quickly enough
thanks for listening today I look forward to seeing you back here tomorrow
