Smells Like Humans
Top 5% global podcast! Smells Like Humans is a seasonal podcast dedicated to bringing a humorous perspective to quirky and curious aspects of human behavior. Each show, the SLH crew will focus on a different topic, and share personal stories and observations in a way that sounds like you’re hanging out with your funny friends. The stories and commentary are presented with humor and warmth, since let’s face it: we all smell like humans. (Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com)
Smells Like Humans
NOTICE YOUR MONKEYS! ON BECOMING MORE MINDFUL IN EVERYDAY LIFE
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Special guest and mindfulness practitioner Caitlin joins Ross to discuss the practice and benefits of becoming more mindful in everyday life. Tangents include: Rowdy Mermaid; Boxed Monkeys; Madonna accents; Baby Toes Johnson; Fish and Chips; Chaucer; garage meditation; Ashiatsu; Little Blue Man; Cracked eggs; and Mess Halls.
Notes:
- Peace in Schools: A non-profit organization that primarily teaches mindfulness to teens in schools. https://www.peaceinschools.org/
- Madonna accent:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUvlsN9G-jM
- Please consider supporting BIPOC practitioners & teachers of mindfulness:
- Tejal Yoga: Great online classes taught by BIPOC practitioners, including asana (pose) focused classes, guided meditations, and discussions around yoga and social justice.
- Thich Nhat Hanh: Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk whose writings and teachings are wonderfully accessible, even if you're brand-new to mindfulness. https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/
Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com
Oh wow!
SPEAKER_02They came to see us.
SPEAKER_03Wait, is that a good thing or is that a bad thing?
SPEAKER_02They brought their child, which is fine.
SPEAKER_03That was the creepiest possible way you could have said they brought their child.
SPEAKER_01They brought their child in.
SPEAKER_03That seems like a pretty normal thing to do.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do. Very human things that grab our attention and cause us to wonder, what and why? I'm Rock, your host, and today's guest is a passionate, bright, impressively talented human, actor, director, all the things. Caitlin. Hello, Caitlin.
SPEAKER_03Hello, hello, Rock.
SPEAKER_01It's great to have you.
SPEAKER_03Oh, it's really nice to be here. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01And welcome to everyone who's joining us. Thanks for being part of our little community. And please help us stay commercial free if you can by supporting us on Patreon if you're able to. If you're not, you're still welcome. Hang out. We love having you. So today, I want to focus on how, for some humans, the current moment is filled with stress and anxiety. In a nutshell, it's hard to focus. It's hard to have clarity of vision. It's hard to get things done. It's hard to experience peace. It's hard to find joy. I know that's true for me. And uh over the last year or so, we feel like a lot of us feel like we've been taking on so much emotional weight. So, what I want to talk about today is what we can do or some of the things we can do about that, that's actually within our grasp or within our ability. And uh, I want to let everyone know, Caitlin, that I have just opened a can of Rowdy Mermaid. And I'm sure you know what that is.
SPEAKER_03I have not a clue what that is.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm surprised because Rowdy Mermaid is definitely a Portland style beverage. It is kombucha, but I like the Rowdy Mermaid brand because it's got enough other stuff going on that I don't notice the kombucha. In fact, I didn't know it was kombucha. I didn't know what it was. Oh. I just like the title, Rowdy Mermaid. By the way, they are giving exactly zero dollars for this plug. But I I highly recommend it.
SPEAKER_03But they'll call you, they'll call you now. Now, now they want you to do all of their I can't wait for the phone call. What's the thing on social media this day? The influencer, you're gonna become a rowdy mermaid influencer.
SPEAKER_01Oh, there's a few things right now that would bring me intense joy, but getting a call and seeing on my caller ID it says rowdy mermaid is calling, that would be it. I don't even care what they're saying, they might be just telling me to you know cease and desist. So, Caitlin, I have known you for several years now, believe it or not. I I think we're friends at this point.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, we are definitely friends.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I I just I mean, that's how I was thinking about it, but I just didn't want to overstep. And uh one thing I've noticed uh about you, one of many things is that you uh have always talked about something that uh have a practice that has been called mindfulness by some and probably other things by other people. So just to kind of set the stage, I'm wondering if you can give us sort of a working understanding of what, at least your understanding of what mindfulness is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. So from my experience, which I'll just name right at the top, that my experience of this practice is through my white body and western lens.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03This is a practice that has its roots in uh Asian spiritual practices.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so from my experience, mindfulness is awareness with compassion.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Awareness with compassion. So awareness, I what am I being aware of when I have awareness?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um, yeah. So you're being aware of the present moment and whatever is inhabiting that moment. So it could be sensations or feelings, it could be thoughts. It's just how you're experiencing the present moment.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so just being tuned into what's going on, whether what I'm feeling, uh sensations that I'm experiencing, uh tension in my body, all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01Anxiety, anger, yeah, all of that counts. Okay.
SPEAKER_03So all of it is welcome.
SPEAKER_01So process being aware of that, and then where does the compassion come in?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So the compassion comes in with as you are aware of your thoughts, your feelings, things that arise. We often, because of um societal conditioning or other experiences we've had or trauma, we we can sometimes have a um controlling relationship to our thoughts or feelings or things that we're experiencing in the present moment. Um, often that that control happens without our awareness. So you have a thought and you go, I shouldn't be having that thought, and you try to shut it down, or I shouldn't be feeling this way. And so the compassion comes in as when that thought arises, instead of trying to trap that thought or feeling or make it go away in some capacity, you allow space for it to be there without any attachment or judgment.
SPEAKER_01I want you to imagine a monkey. It could be a rhesus monkey, could be a stump tailed macaque.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's specific.
SPEAKER_01Imagine a monkey in a box on a hot train. That's my brain. And then you let the monkey out of the box. I I feel like that's my mindfulness. But it turns out it wasn't just one monkey in a box, it was three monkeys, and there's also a badger. So it's really difficult for me to it just feels like that all the time, and with uh, you know, stresses and anxieties and so forth, it just it's hard to imagine making sense of all that and having compassion for it. I'm wondering if that was something that you've always you've grown up with it, it was something that was practiced in your family, or uh how did you get to where you are with this?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um, my uh my experience with mindfulness is um sourced from my dad who um started meditating and has been practicing Okinawan karate um for many, many, many years. And so when I was a kid, uh in uh at a certain point, it wasn't it wasn't always through my childhood, but there was this point at which dad would disappear in the morning and go meditate in the garage. And I was not supposed to bug dad in the garage while he was meditating.
SPEAKER_01For a lot of for a lot of families, dad wasn't meditating when he said he was going.
SPEAKER_03Yes, I I believe that that's true. I can confirm for a fact because I've definitely accidentally walked in on him meditating many times.
SPEAKER_01Okay, just for but everyone else out there, uh keep an eye on dad when he goes into the garage to say he's meditating.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, keep your eyes open. That's that is important for sure.
SPEAKER_01Be aware. Okay, so but your dad, no, he was do actually meditating and he's actually meditating.
SPEAKER_03So that was so that was something that we talked about occasionally.
SPEAKER_01Um by the way, by the way, when you bust in it busted in on him while he was meditating, did he go, I told you to leave me alone? Because that would be really funny.
SPEAKER_03No, he wouldn't react at all.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03It was like, like I knew he could hear the door open, right? But he would just, you know, just wait, and then I would close the door and feel bad and awkward and slink away. Yeah. So I didn't actually uh start picking up meditation or become really curious about mindfulness until college. Um and my uh it kind of happened because I hit uh I hit a I hit a bottom. I don't know if it would be rock bottom, but it was I I uh my first couple of months of college was um for me, I'd lived in the same place my whole life. And so moving to college was really challenging. Um, and I kind of went into college. I know there's a lot of a lot of kids go into college thinking like, ah, let's go, we're gonna party, gonna really explore that freedom, gonna make friends and socialize. And I went into college thinking, I can't wait to work really, really hard. Wow. And I'm gonna get, I'm gonna do so well, and I can't wait to be challenged and pushed and watch me, watch me fly.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03So, so I did, uh, but the consequence of that was that I set myself an extremely rigorous um schedule. I was waking up at 6 a.m. and running three miles and going to class and going to bed at 10 o'clock. And uh about two months in, I had no friends. Um, I felt really lonely. Right. Uh my boyfriend, who's now my husband, uh, was going to a separate school. So I really um I really started to sink into some anxiety and some depression during that period.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03Um, and I wasn't really sure. I was so inside my head because I didn't have anybody to sort of share it with that I just like I didn't know what to do with my uh wild uh brain, my wild thoughts, my big emotions. Um I was just having I was having a really, really hard time.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03And so it was in that period that I was reaching out to my parents, right, and sort of saying, like, I'm having a hard time and was actually thinking about changing schools. And uh my dad started sending me um some uh some of the guided meditations and teachings of someone called Geshe Michael Roach. Okay, um, who founded the Asian Classics Institute. And so I started listening to that. And these are these are Buddhist um teachings specifically. So I started um learning about Buddhism and I started practicing mindfulness on my own, and I also started staying up a little later, um, finding that compassion, right? Of like easing up a little bit, uh uh noticing thought patterns. Like one thing I noticed was the longer I avoided things like having lunch with people, like sitting down at a table in the cafeteria or whatever that was called, the mess hall or whatever. Uh the mess hall. It's not a mess hall.
SPEAKER_01You were in the military. You weren't in college, that's why you were depressed. Were you wearing a helmet? Did you have one of those big helmets that didn't fit you? Because that was irritating.
SPEAKER_03God, no, no. I just can't think of whatever, you know, the the where you go to eat. Cafeteria. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I don't know what you guys called it. We called it a cafeteria.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. The commons. It was, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01The common.
SPEAKER_03So anyway, I like I would have this experience of like going in and realizing that I didn't have anyone to sit with at lunch. Right. And the longer I didn't, the harder it was to convince my brain to like step over that fear and just sit down with someone. And so one day I did. And very, very slowly I started using what I was learning about building my compassion muscle for myself to help myself overcome those fears.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So then you so how did this um so I understand how it helped you start easing into this college life, but then you didn't just stop there with it.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_01You started thinking about how what other applications.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. It it very quickly became a really integral part of who I was. And um, I was going to school for drama. Um I did a I did an honors in acting and I did an honors in directing. And uh it very quickly I started finding dot connections between mindfulness practice and theater and acting practice.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03There's lots of there's lots of crossover and there's lots of benefits because for actors, one of your one of the primary skills you're learning in a classroom is where to put your focus. Right. Right. So I'm I'm focusing on my scene partner or I'm focusing on my internal life or my imagination.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_03And focus is a huge part of mindfulness. And um so one of the like first connections I made was oh, if I practice mindfulness, my focus gets better. Like I can actually concentrate for longer periods of time, and I can have more control over where my thoughts are directed when I'm on stage as an actor.
SPEAKER_01Did you feel it helped you be more present in your acting moments?
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, hugely, right? Hugely.
SPEAKER_01That's a thing for an actor being present is a fundamental um stepping stone to having a good good scene, a good performance. And when you are fully present and the uh your scene partner is not, you know it immediately.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Also, I think when you're not fully present and you're in your head, you're just essentially regurgitating your lines. The audience, if you're a good actor, the audience might not be able to articulate what it is that's happening and what what it is that's affecting their performance. They might not even know it's the fact that you're not present, but something is qualitatively different and it's not a good difference.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I mean, I would say that even if you haven't been on stage, you've experienced, you've probably experienced what it's like to have a conversation with someone that's not present.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03Right. That's that's they're clearly somewhere else.
SPEAKER_01And you're like, Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I was doing an example. It's like they're so interested in saying the next thing, they start interrupting you like that.
SPEAKER_03Yep. It's like, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So another thing that happened to me, so a time when I wasn't present was like right now.
SPEAKER_03Um, so yeah, I actually I have a good story about that, if you want, Ross.
SPEAKER_01I want good stories so bad. We all do. There are people right now cleaning out their attic, and they're like, please tell me a story.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god. They're like, please stop instructing me on what mindfulness is and please stop. Nonsense.
SPEAKER_01No, they're interested, but they want the juice. Let's give them some juice.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So this is not my story, but it's one of my favorite stories from uh my godfather, who is a playwright and was also an actor. Um, he was working on a show one time, he was performing and working on a scene with another actor who was um training very deeply in Alexander technique. And Alexander technique, for anyone that that um is unfamiliar, is is an acting technique that is also designed to help actors connect with their bodies and be more present in the moment.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03Like in a very simplified nutshell.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_03But one of the tenets of Alexander technique is to think about posture and alignment.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_03Just one, just like one tiny factor. But this actor had kind of taken that one tiny tenet of it and made it sort of the core of how they were understanding Alexander Technique. And so my godfather would describe working on this scene with this person who was like giving their lines, but were also clearly trying to like align their head over their shoulders and their shoulders over their hips and their hips over their ankles. So it was this very odd experience of like we're saying words back and forth, but you're like moving your head slightly back and like shifting your feet. I'm I'm trying to describe this like sort of very strange physical positioning that's happening while he's doing this scene.
SPEAKER_01So there he's this other actor is focused on is it a him?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_01So he's focused on doing the Alexander technique and he's not present in the scene.
SPEAKER_03Exactly, right? And so my my godfather one day got so fed up with it that he put an egg in his pocket. And in the middle of the scene, when this actor started adjusting his neck again and realigning his spine, he literally just smashed his head over with the egg to try to bring him back to something that was actively happening in the present moment.
SPEAKER_01Wow. That is that is a risky move.
SPEAKER_03It is a risky move.
SPEAKER_01You got to make sure you collected your check before you start doing stuff like that.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01The director must have if it was it in rehearsals, or was it actually uh the show was up and running?
SPEAKER_03No, my memory is that this was in rehearsals.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Well, let me tell you one. This is uh that's a good one. That's a good one. This one does not involve an egg, it involves me not being present. It's a perfect example of not being present, which applies to any aspect of life, even just having a conversation in a coffee shop.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I've worked really hard uh on this aspect of mindfulness and this application, and I've made a little progress. But back at this is years ago, I was doing a show, and in the show I had a scene partner who was a woman, and we were having an argument, and it was a pretty extensive scene. It went on for there was like a seven to ten minute argument, which is a lot of time. There's a lot of lines there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And we had we had done that, we'd been doing the show, we had done many performances. I'd stayed up late the night before, maybe partied a little too much. So when I was doing the matinee, it was like a Saturday matinee or something, I was just kind of cruising. I wasn't really there. I was in my head. The lines were all coming out when they were supposed to come out. I the blocking, my movement was all what it was supposed to be. I wasn't there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I was not there at all.
SPEAKER_03I've just so you know, I've I've done those performances too. So I feel that.
SPEAKER_01Well, a lot of actors I think can relate to it at some level. But in the middle of this argument, so it's this complex argument, and in the middle of it, my scene partner goes up, which means she's forgotten her lines. Which normally is not a big problem if you're present because you know where you're going and you know where you know where you are, and you so you know where you're going, and you can fumble your way through it.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_01But since I wasn't present when she didn't like I suddenly became very aware, it was her egg cracking moment.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01She didn't literally crack an egg, she just stopped talking. And then I had I didn't know where I was. It was like suddenly being plunged into a dark room and being told to find a small window to get out. And it's like, uh, really, I had no idea because I hadn't been present. And so what we looked at each other for a hot second, and she looked at me like, I'm never gonna remember my line, so you have to save this. So you gave me that kind of look, and then she turned around, walked all the way downstage, right, as far Away from me as she could go, crossed her arms and turned her back.
SPEAKER_04Ah.
SPEAKER_01And so now I'm by myself on essentially on stage. Um, the only thing that was missing from this moment is me looking at the audience like, uh, but it yeah. So then I don't know where I am. So I start ad-libbing.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01That was not good. That was not good. That went on for a while until I couldn't actually think of anything. I couldn't think of anything except the end of the scene. So I just went there. And then we moved on, and the rest of the play went fine. And frankly, you know, the good news is most people thought I'm the one who didn't remember my lines. Wasn't her. They didn't blame her. They said people that knew me who were at the show were like, oh man, you really went up there. And I was like, Yeah, I guess.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But it really was, but it ultimately was my problem because I wasn't present. And flat fast forward years and years have gone by and work on this topic and this idea. And I realized I wasn't present in a lot of my experience.
SPEAKER_03Hmm. What did that, what did that, when you say you weren't present in a lot of your experience, like, do you have a sense of what it felt like or didn't feel like in your body to not be present for things you were experiencing?
SPEAKER_01Yes. So it was very much I have lots. We still going back to the monkeys in the box. So I've lot all these ideas racing around in my head, and I'm just trying to get them out.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So when a person starts talking, I'm already someplace else because they've said a word or they've started talking about an idea, and my mind runs there and then wants to talk about it. Um the other thing I noticed is that I couldn't see them. So if I would be sitting at a coffee shop again, having a conversation with somebody, I did not see them. That's how much in my head I was. I mean, I saw them, sort of, but not really. And one of the things I started doing to I did a lot of different things uh over the years. But one thing I started doing, uh two, the one thing was I would say really look into their eyes when they're talking and try to imagine that you're going in there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So then that takes me out of my head because I'm really watching them. I'm really listening, I'm tuned into them, is basically what I'm saying. And the other thing, so that's one little thing, and then the other thing was another acting exercise where you imagine you can see the words coming out at someone's mouth, and they're coming out printed. So you watch them, you imagine them coming out printed, and then as they're coming out, you're saying them too. So be able to do, and I've done that exercise. I don't know if you've ever done that one, but to be able to do that, you have to be so tuned into the other person and what they're saying.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But even if you're not doing that exercise, but you're really trying to listen to somebody, if you imagine you're seeing the words come out of their mouth, right? You forget about what you're thinking about.
SPEAKER_03That sounds really similar to reflective listening.
SPEAKER_01So reflective listening being when you hear somebody say something and then you reflect it back, paraphrase, or reflect the emotion back, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01To be able to do reflective listening, you have to be listening in the first place. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, and I remember, so I I did this mindfulness training a couple of years ago um here in Portland and uh with Peace and Schools shout out. Um oh sorry, they're not sponsoring the podcast yet. I shouldn't have shout out.
SPEAKER_01Maybe they will now, along with Rowdy Mermaid. Let's just line up all the potential. I think it's okay to pretend you have sponsors.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right. There you go. What's wrong with that?
SPEAKER_01Can you get in trouble pretending to have a sponsor? I don't know. Let's find out.
SPEAKER_03I don't well, I mean, we we'll find out now. Uh yeah, so I I did a anyway, they're great. And I I did a really, really lovely training with them. And one of the things that we spent uh several hours practicing was reflective listening.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03And we would get with a partner and they would share something based on a prompt. And then we would um we were asked actually not only to repeat back what we were hearing, um, but we were also asked to pay attention to and try to not engage with normal societal cues that you give to show someone that you are listening. So head nodding, smiling, uh, any sort of vocal response to demonstrate, like, oh yeah, mm-hmm, uh-huh. Like I hear, I hear that. And the the purpose behind that was to notice the places where we are conditioned to people please, essentially. And instead of just trying to make the other person like you, when you when you remove that, it creates this space that is terrifying, quite frankly, because you're at least for me, I was so accustomed to like, I really want this person to know that I am listening with my whole body. I want you to know that I'm here for you. And when you remove that, you have to lean in to the trust that we are listening to each other, uh, without any of the normal sort of social cues that that comes along with that. But anyway, that's a long way of saying that that exercise was really powerful for me. And initially doing that in my own life felt so awkward and weird. And I really struggled with it. Like I really wanted to like practice it and I would try, but then it would be like, is it weird that I'm just like parroting back what you just said? But over time, what I've found is the more that I've done it, it's actually like I've actually had a ton of conversations now where I say, What I hear you saying is this. And then the person is like, Oh, I'm so glad you said that. Cause actually that's not what I mean. And actually, like hearing you repeat back your understanding of what I said, now I get the opportunity to like clarify my thoughts.
SPEAKER_01So obviously, benefits to you have been you've been able to deal with some inner conflict and anxieties, and you've been able to apply it to acting. Uh and um are there any other like are just day-to-day benefits, like if someone's listening to this going, yeah, but I just ride the subway and it's stressful because people are like breathing on me, you know, or um, I I, you know, I have to I have six kids and they're all insane, and I trying not to choke them. So can it help just an everyday peanut butter sandwich kind of way?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, maybe I can bust a myth in the process of this answer, which is uh something I see a lot of and which I would guess many of your listeners are familiar with is this idea that um mindfulness and calm are very deeply interlinked um in the way that mindfulness is pitched in Western culture. So this idea that either that I have to be calm to practice mindfulness, or if I practice mindfulness, I will get calm, right? Or I will I will be calm if I am practicing mindfulness.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03And that makes me want like I just want to sort of dip back to the original definition that I shared, which is that mindfulness is awareness, uh, not calmness, right? So that means that in practicing mindfulness, you may not be calm, you may actually be filled with rage, but you can be filled with rage and be mindful that you are filled with rage and be aware and hold compassion for yourself as you're like, here I am filled with rage, and I'm allowed to feel this feeling and be inside of it, and I can watch it instead of getting attached to it and then watch it eventually pass as it as it always does.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03Um yeah, but like every, yeah, everyday mindfulness, it's so we have so many opportunities to disconnect in our world. Uh, it's at our fingertips, our phones and our computers, and there are so many different ways that we cannot engage with what's happening around us. And that example you gave of like being on the bus uh uh and feeling uncomfortable around a bunch of people or just in your commute to work, it's like this in-between space. It's like, why would I want to be present for this? Like, this is not like joyful or lovely. So why would I want to be present in this moment? So, what I was thinking about is I like to describe mindfulness as like going to the gym or the sense, or this sense of like it is a muscle that you can build and get better at. And it doesn't require one of one of the other myths of mindfulness is that it requires like great lengths of time and stillness and quiet, right? So, this idea of like, I'm gonna meditate for 45 minutes on this cushion.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna go in the garage and tell everyone I'm meditating and not drink vodka. I'm not drinking vodka. Don't come in here though.
SPEAKER_03And there are benefits to not drinking vodka or benefits to sitting and meditating for 45 minutes. For sure, they're incredible benefits. But you there are also benefits to standing on that bus and just noticing the temperature of the handhold that you're holding on to, and noticing that you're holding a little bit of tension in your left shoulder and allowing your belly to expand with breath and noticing the feel of your belly against your clothing.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and what is the benefit of that, of noticing that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the benefit of that is that uh when you the more you do, the more you um practice noticing those things and coming back to the present moment, you are literally creating a neural pathway in your brain so that that the next time you actually want to be present, you can dip into that a little bit faster.
SPEAKER_01Is it fair to say that also noticing discomfort or noticing your anxiety or whatever it is, temperature or whatever it is, has an effect on how you experience that feeling?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So as an example.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, share your example, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so as an example, um, I get ashiyatsu massage, which is a person standing on you on your back. So they're standing on you and you're getting a massage, but it's not a massage in a traditional sense where you're just kind of relaxed and dreamy in some dreamy state. They are putting tons of pressure on you and you experience pain. Initially, when I started doing this kind of work or having this kind of body work done, it was very painful. And I sort of instinctively would resist the pressure and the pain. And I would complain to the practitioner, the therapist, I would, you know, be giving out numbers of how much pain it is all the way up to 10. Like, that's a nine.
SPEAKER_03And and all of you were you shouting out numbers as they were on you?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Because I wanted to let them know that it was getting too much. It was too much pain. Like this is getting really serious.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I started instead, and this part of this was due to my experience in yoga as well. But um, I started instead to stop resisting the feeling and just start noticing it. Like this is extremely intense right now. This is an intense feeling in that muscle right now. And immediately it started being less. First of all, I stopped resisting, I stopped tensing. And the pain would be less noticeable, it'd be less severe, and it would wouldn't la, even if it was there, it wouldn't last very long. And then from that, I started in instead of just noticing it, then I started imagining it in a I started having sort of a visual or like a almost like a guided imagery experience where I would I think about the pain as being a life form. It looks like a little blue man.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I imagine, so this is all this happening, like right now, like the practitioners like putting all their weight like on my hamstring, and it's extremely intense.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_01But what I'm thinking of is I'm sitting at a picnic table with my little blue man, and the blue man is the is the pain, is the feeling, and I'm having a conversation, which is something goes something like this. This is all happening in real time in my head. It's like, it's okay. I understand this is how you are. It's you're still welcome here. We can have this conversation, and the pain starts to go away. And then just to take it up a notch, in my little visual imagery, I take the little blue man in my arms and cradle him. And the pain goes away. And so I started doing this on my own as a just an experiment. And it's the more I did it, the less um the less uh reactive I was. And the therapist started going, Are you are you feeling this? Because I used to be so reactive and just complaining and how it hurts to to now I don't say anything. I just and and she goes, I'm putting on quite a bit of pressure. And it's like, yeah, I know I can feel the pressure. Like you don't not notice it, yeah, but it's but it's now such a less intense experience in a negative way. It's much more uh it's it's much less of something I'm fighting, and it's much more something that I'm accepting. And by noticing and accepting it, it reduces the unpleasantness.
SPEAKER_03I love that analogy because I was gonna ask um can you remember how long? Like, can you can you speak to the timeline of this process of of the beginning of like discovering this little blue man or this this technique for um sitting with the discomfort instead of trying to push it away, um, versus now where it feels like something you can tap into?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so it's it was it's a confluence of things happening over time, but I think it it started with um, I never wanted to do yoga because of some of the things that you were saying before about the myth of mindfulness that it has you have to be a certain person and you have to have a certain amount of, you know, you have to be one of these people that can sit cross-legged in Tibet on a mountaintop and have no hair. And so I was always thought, this isn't for me. Plus, the way I'm set up is to be kind of high energy and intense, and you know, as I said, monkey in a box. So, and badgers. So it was like, this is not for me, I can't do it, it's not my thing. And I just never did it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And anytime anyone tried to get me to do yoga, it was like, uh, I don't like this, I don't want to do it. Anyway, I was having uh uh various uh muscle problems, and so I was advised that I should start doing some kind of yoga just to help um deal with some of the pain I was having. And so that's where it's first started, because I I was being I was told that I needed to do this, is when I first started paying more attention to those kinds of feelings. Because initially in yoga, I was complaining too. I'd be like, this is really hard and I can't do it, and all this stuff. It was amazing how much energy I would put into resisting whatever it was I was experiencing.
SPEAKER_03Yes, isn't it? We put so much energy into resisting discomfort.
SPEAKER_01So I did yoga probably for a good solid year before I started experimenting with letting go of some of that resistance. Like, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna take out some of the try here. I'm gonna take out some of the reacting. And it it was amazing how fast. Just as an example, like you'd be doing a normal, some kind of normal move, a normal stretch or whatever. And then I would take out the part where I'm like holding myself a certain way, like to prevent something, I don't know what. And then I would sink down like three or four inches into this stretch or something, and it'd be like, wow, I couldn't, I didn't even think I could do that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because I was holding myself, preventing myself from having discomfort. And so by the the act of preventing myself from having discomfort was uncomfortable and stressful. So then I started um at the same time I was doing the sashiyatsu practice because I began to deal with um ongoing back pain and things. And um so it was kind of happening simultaneously, and then I also was doing uh, you know, other other things with theater and other things where you know mindfulness is an important part of the practice. And I just started blending it all together. I did some movement work um with Ruth Sapora and um, you know, focused on, you know, getting out of your head and really noticing what's going on in your body and and using body movement as the as the language and not worry about words or what's in your head. And so all of that kind of coalesced um to where I am now. So it's probably we're talking um about at least two to three years of kind of getting there, but but I was taking steps along the way, and now that I'm there, my experience in those arenas in yoga or in you know ashiatsu are totally different. But it also has had a lot of other effects in my life. Um but it didn't happen right away because for me, I'm I was I'm always been so used to fighting everything, fighting the feelings, fighting the emotions. Um that's kind of how I was raised to kind of like suck it up and move on, and not like don't notice things.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So it's it's been a it's been a journey. The thing that I want to say about all that though, even though it took me some time, it didn't have to. It was just that was the I was kind of stumbling my way through it. But it's not like I'm still me.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01It's I don't consider it very high order stuff. Like I think anybody can do it. I can do it.
SPEAKER_03You sharing that is lovely because this is the this is for me where the analogy of the gym comes in. And the the analogy of the gym and going to the gym and building muscle over time is something that more people have experienced than building a um building a mental muscle. Right. We don't really talk about we don't really talk about building mental or emotional muscles or skill sets as commonly as we talk about building physical capacity.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03So that's why I use that. Because it's very common to hear people say things like what you said. This isn't for me. Um, I I'm not built for that.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_03Uh I'm not good at being still. Right. I'm not, my mind is not clear. Like there is there's somehow there is an expectation with mindfulness that you're already um that you that you need to already be in a certain state of being to practice it, um, when in fact it's the opposite, right? That that mindfulness is inhabiting you exactly where you are in this moment. And you will notice, you will notice over time that the more you tap in and you intentionally bring your focus back to the present moment, you will notice over time that your ability to do that and the discomfort you experience in coming back to the present moment is less.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. As soon as you say, hey, I notice that there's anxiety there in my stomach or wherever you have it, chest, neck, wherever it is, tension. I notice some tension. As soon as you say those words, I notice that, I find that it reduces the the negative aspect of that feeling.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01As soon as I say it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Peace and schools used to have this, I mean, this equation that they would use to describe that exact sensation, which was something like pain plus resistance equals suffering.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That is the more that was me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the more, the more we say I shouldn't, it's that should, right? This, and what is that should? That should is societal conditioning, it's expectations, it's um, it's all these boxes that we try to put around our monkeys to say, hey, monkeys, you need to be staying inside this box. That creates more suffering for the monkeys.
SPEAKER_01I'm so glad that you came to the because I I was feeling kind of like alone with my monkey analogy, and you bringing it back has validated it.
SPEAKER_03Oh, you are not alone with the monkeys, my friend.
SPEAKER_01For me, the the really fun experience was learning that I don't have to become a different kind of personality. I'm still me.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I still have all my stuff, good and bad. But this mindfulness practice, however you do it, whenever you do it, um, is easy.
SPEAKER_03My brain, as soon as you said it's easy, sort of did the the the flare of like, oh, it hasn't been easy. It's very hard to show up. Um so I'll just I'll just offer if anyone else was like, it doesn't feel easy to me, you are not alone. Uh uh, I think, I think what I hear you saying, Ross, is not necessarily that um that engaging with mindfulness is easy. But what I what I hear you saying is that um the practice itself is not some complex um unachievable thing that you need to sit on a mountaintop for years and years and years to understand.
SPEAKER_01Right. You know, the word I should have used is accessible.
SPEAKER_03I was gonna say accessible. Yes.
SPEAKER_01It's accessible. And yeah, because as I say, even in my own little story, it took you know a couple years for me to start having my con my picnic table conversations with my blue man.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01Trademark.
SPEAKER_03I love it.
SPEAKER_01You're going to you're going overseas. You're going to London, right?
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah. My family and I, my family consists of myself and my husband and our cat. We are all uh uh assisting in what we've been calling our cat's territorial expansion. I am going to London to graduate school at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama to get my MFA in actor training and coaching.
SPEAKER_01By the way, if you come back with a fake Madonna English accent, I'm gonna call you out. Just telling you now so there's no hard feelings later.
SPEAKER_03Oh no, I you better. I I expect you to.
SPEAKER_01I I okay. So I um once was married, end of story. No, I once was married to a woman, and I wanted to give her a very special birthday present. She had always talked about wanting to go to England that she'd never been. So save my money, and I arranged a trip to take her there. And I thought it would be extra fun to try to make a puzzle out of it for her to guess. Like, what is I didn't just tell her, oh, I'm taking you to England for your birthday because you've always wanted to go, and isn't that swell? I wanted to make it even more fun by making a little game of announcing this to her.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So what I did is I looked, I looked me up some Chaucer, and I used the language from Chaucer to create little clues.
SPEAKER_03Was she an English major?
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_03Was she into uh classical Western literature?
SPEAKER_01No. Ah so the what I would do is I I didn't learn calligraphy, but I bought some really cool artistic looking uh letter stationary type stuff. Stuff that I would never personally choose. And I wrote in something close to calligraphy, but it's not really calligraphy, but totally different. Because I when I write, not only do I my mind is like a monkey in a box, but I also write like a monkey would write. So very scribbly. Um I should say an untrained monkey because I'm sure there are some monkeys that can write very well. So I don't mean to offend the monkeys, uh, over-offend them and probably already offended them. I don't want to re-offend. Anyway, the story. So I create these clues and I mail them at three, four, five, six-day intervals. I'll mail a clue to her. If she solved all the clues, basically the answer would be you're going to England for your birthday.
SPEAKER_03This is wonderfully elaborate.
SPEAKER_01It's very elaborate. But here's what happened. So she's getting these things and she's very excited. She can't figure out any of the clues. That's part one. Like they were too complicated. Maybe for the reasons you mentioned. But the worst part was she starts assuming. So we were friends with this other couple, uh-huh, and I think she kind of liked the man half of the couple, kind of, you know, not in a like having an affair kind of way, but uh, she kind of know. She just paid a lot of attention to him. So she starts thinking, I think Eric is sending me these.
SPEAKER_02Oh boy.
SPEAKER_01And I'm like trying not to, I'm trying to like do my mindfulness, which didn't exist then. So I was just like, I don't like where this is going. And she kind of I remember at one point she kind of looks at me and says, Did you are you are you sending this? Are you sending these things to me? But not really believing it, you know, but just figuring she has got to cover the bases, you know, of the basic investigation.
SPEAKER_03Were you not putting a return address on these?
SPEAKER_01No, no, no, of course not. Oh boy, they would just be postmarked, you know, different places. So, so yeah, they were not signed or anything, they were just like these random clues. So that was I thought that was part of the fun and romance of this whole thing. I was making it as fun and as what I thought was romantic. But so when anybody ever asked me, did you do something? My answer is always, does this sound like something I would do? And most people, for whatever reason, give up when you say stuff like that. So if you ever think I did something and you want to know the truth, don't stop if I say, Does that sound like something I would do? Because you, I'm telling you now that that, but I said that to her, and she's like, No, it doesn't.
SPEAKER_04I said, Well, there you go.
SPEAKER_01So she continued to think.
SPEAKER_04Oh, Ross.
SPEAKER_01And so finally, because she wasn't getting any of the clues, and then she was getting all excited about getting these letters from another guy. I had to intervene and say, I'm this is your I'm taking you to England. And I gotta tell you, I think it was a little anticlimatic for her to know that. Oh, you were well, I don't why what's I didn't understand these clues, and why were you oh okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I can't imagine why. So yeah, yeah. And did you? Did you go to England?
SPEAKER_01We we went there, we had a good time. One time we were well, I mean, mostly, but we we had a good time, but we we're uh went to a fish and trip chips place.
SPEAKER_04Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01Oh, by the way, we're gonna do, I'm gonna follow up with you at some point, and we're gonna do a podcast with you in London. So two things. We want to check your accent, but also I want to check and see how your fish and chips experience is going.
SPEAKER_03Alrighty.
SPEAKER_01Because uh over here in America, we don't really often get good fish and chips, but over there you can find them. It's quite different experience. They're very good. But um, but we were having a fish and chips experience there, and it was uh they, you know, it was a pretty crowded place, and so they brought an English couple over to sit with us. Very nice couple, chatted us up, they were from the area where we were, and were very interested in us and uh very solicitous. And they actually, near the end of the meal, I say, Would you come to our house? We'd love to have you for dinner.
SPEAKER_02Oh.
SPEAKER_01Come with pleasure. And uh, we didn't have time. We were on our way uh that day to Scotland.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01And so they recommended a restaurant for us to try in Scotland, which we did, which was fabulous. It was what it was completely out of the way, and you wouldn't have known it was there, so it was beautiful. So we have this great experience. So I write them, I we had gotten their address because they had said, Hey, if you can stop by, here's where we live. So I ended up writing them a note saying it was really great meeting you. Uh, you know, thank you for your recommendation. It was beautiful. If you ever come to America, you should come see us.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
unknownAnd they did.
SPEAKER_03Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_02They came to see us.
SPEAKER_03Wait, is that a good thing or is that a bad thing?
SPEAKER_02They brought their child, which is fine.
SPEAKER_03That was the creepiest possible way you could have said they brought their child. They brought their child, and it seems like a pretty normal thing to do.
SPEAKER_01They brought their teenage daughter and they stayed for two weeks.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that is a that is a long time.
SPEAKER_02Thank you.
SPEAKER_03Did you wait a second? Did you agree to this plan?
SPEAKER_01We didn't know how long they were gonna stay. We thought they might be there a night or two, but how did you not how was Ross?
SPEAKER_03How in the midst of that planning, did you not ask, how long will you be staying with us?
SPEAKER_02Well, I just assumed that they wouldn't just move in, but they did.
SPEAKER_03Oh boy.
SPEAKER_01They were always around. And the first couple days, when I thought it was going to be a couple days, you know, I was driving them all around and showing them whatever and taking to have giving them experiences and cooking them dinner and taking them out, and then it's like three, four days, and you're like, uh, I hate these people. No. They were they were they were nice, but yeah, they stayed a really long time. But it's so the lesson here is to not necessarily write thank you notes.
SPEAKER_04Is that the lesson? Is it?
SPEAKER_03I think thank you notes are beautiful.
SPEAKER_01Okay, the lesson is don't take your wife to England. That's your lesson. No, that's not that's wrong, too. The lesson is don't go eating fish and chips. There's gotta be a lesson.
SPEAKER_03We're veering off. The lesson is name your healthy boundaries and communicate like an adult about what you need.
SPEAKER_01Right. Right. Communicate like an adult. Maybe I should see that would have been a good time for me to be having a conversation with my little blue man.
SPEAKER_03Hmm, there you go. He would have been like, yo, like when when are these folks gonna leave? Have you talked to them?
SPEAKER_01I could have been feeding, I could have been feeding the little blue man fish and chips.
SPEAKER_03There it is. There it is. You found it.
SPEAKER_01You are one of these amazing people that I have met. You are in the top 1% of amazing people that I have met in my lifetime. And uh every time I'm in your presence, I learn something new.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_01Yes, you're just one of those, you're just one of those people. And uh, I'm glad that you're going on and getting this graduate degree. Um I hope it will open doors for you to do more of the magic that you do.
SPEAKER_03Thank you. That means a lot.
SPEAKER_01So thanks very much for being here, Caitlin. We all wish you well on your journey. And uh, how are you taking your cat over there? Don't they have rules about cats?
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah. No, it's a whole thing. It's been quite complicated, but she has wormed and clawed her way into our hearts, and we we cannot leave her behind. So we are making it work.
SPEAKER_01You're not smuggling the cat in. You're not doing a Johnny Depp thing. Didn't he smuggle a cat or something? Oh my god. He got in trouble for some animal crime. I don't know what it was. Some country got mad at him.
SPEAKER_03No, she will be on the plane with us.
SPEAKER_01And the cat's name is Baby Toes Johnson.
SPEAKER_03The cat's name is Bean, aka Baby Toes Johnson.
SPEAKER_01Right. And let let Bean know that if she comes back with some Madonna fake accent, I'm gonna call her out.
SPEAKER_03I I I hope you will. She will stare you down.
SPEAKER_01She can dress like Madonna, but just don't talk like Madonna.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01And thank all of you for joining us for this episode. It's great to have you. Please follow the show on Instagram and Twitter.
SPEAKER_03It's okay.
SPEAKER_01And reviews like on Apple Podcasts can really help us a lot. We're trying to grow the show from a tiny show to a big tiny show. You can keep us commercial free, which I I don't know about you today, but I don't like commercials. Yes, it's away.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_01So if you're if you can support us and keep us commercial free, fantastic. If not, as I said, you're always welcome here, no worries. And we hope you will tune in to another episode because whether you are a monkey in a box on a hot train or just someone who allegedly meditates in the garage, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans. Goodbye, everybody!