Interview with Gael Belden

In this interview with Gael Belden, meditation and compassion teacher, she talks about her work with the UCLA mindfulness research center, FBI agents and first responders. She was trained by Thich Nhat Hanh in his monastery for many years along with many other teachers. Her approach toward nature is interesting as is her meditation practice. I hope you enjoy the interview. 
The interview was conducted by Dr. Elisabeth Paige and the music was composed and recorded by Natalie Hagwood on cello and Casey Lipska on string bass.

You can find information about Dr. Elisabeth Paige at www.mindfulhappykids.com.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:24

Okay, well, welcome, Gail Walden. Thank you, Liz. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thank you so much for agreeing to do this. We really appreciate it. And I look forward to talking with you. Thank you, me too. Can you take a couple of minutes introducing yourself?

SPEAKER_00 0:42

I will do that. Let's see. I think I'm gonna start with uh well, I'm my name is Gail Belden, and I am um I work with uh uh mindful awareness research center at UCLA, and I am a compassion and mindfulness educator, and I I mentor and advise teachers, I mean students in the um mindful facilitation program, and then I'm the director of the intensive practice program. And I do things outside of UCLA, and this last year I flew to uh Indiana and worked with FBI and SWAT around the areas of grief and multiple trauma injuries that had built up and self-compassion. And I look forward to working to doing more of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Can you talk a little bit about what that what that entails?

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Well, it was pretty interesting because it what it entails is to do a lot of listening. And this is a a demographic that has not been asked, how are you? What's hard. And they're they're chosen, FBI especially, highly educated and and SWAT, they're chosen for a certain kind of stoicism and an ability, a resiliency, and an ability to handle multiple stressors, because they work with the the hard areas of terrorism, child trafficking, and so on. And so when you don't have a system, say in the Bureau of the FBI, of um that's per pervade, maybe some of the bureaus do, but generally um speaking, there's not a lot of um well-being, um, wellness kinds of programs. And so they just keep working and keep working and keep working. So a lot of the trauma and the sorrows and the griefs build up. And you know, as we all know, when we don't have outlets or don't have skill sets to deal with big stressors in life, I mean we're all in them right now, right? With pandemics and political stuff and environmental changes and fires in California. And if we if we don't know if things are happening too quickly and we don't have enough um interventions that we can use to work with our content, our own content, then we can get detached, we can have trauma responses, we can, you know, have anger, we can, you know, it's it's so so working with the population was listening a lot. What do you need? Not jumping in with things that um might not be relevant to them. Like I was very careful not to use a lot of languaging that might be a turn off, like you know, too much, too much hard stuff, but real, you know, on the ground practices that are practical that they could use on the spot, and and to even have them listen, it was to create a safe space. So what's so safety was key.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Can you give me an example of a practice you would use with them?

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Um this is a practice I used and it it was a leap and it worked, and because we're in uncharted territory here, right? So um, because they haven't had this and we haven't done this with them. And so I put them in um small groups and dyads, two people, and then I had them ask questions, but not um like a repeating question. And so they didn't have to have an answer, they didn't have to try to fix anything. And the question, which I started out um describing this, like nobody asks what's been hard, the question was what's hard? And and then the the person would say something, and this was uncomfortable, right? Because whoever they don't that's vulnerable producing. Like, how do you ask, like, how do you answer what's hard when you've not been asked that? And and and then how do you how does someone tell you when you're and then you just say thank you and ask it again because it's a repeating question, it's just what's hard, and then someone answers, and then you they you say thank you, and then you ask it again. Uh, what came out of that was the asker said, but I never ask, I never get information about what's hard with my family, my children, colleagues without fixing it. And my family is always saying, I don't want to be fixed, I want you to listen, but I don't know how to just listen. So it was, I wasn't sure how that uh practice would go. And it went well, and then we taught them self-compassion practices that they could do on the spot. A lot of just recognizing, stopping and recognizing I'm feeling this right now, what do I need? Because even if other people weren't asking them what they need, they could ask themselves, start understanding and learning about what they needed.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Have you worked with other groups?

SPEAKER_00 6:44

I I did a um, let's see. I'm working with I'm working starting to work with surgeons right now. So a lot of first responders, is that's where the need is a lot. Um, I mean, with children, obviously too, but I'm not working with children right now, and teachers need it. But first for all the first responders, and that would be teachers too. Um, or maybe all of us. We're all kind of first responding to this thing we've never, this life we've never had before. But medical um surgeons, I'm I'm learning the curricula with um University San Francisco Medical Center. Uh they have a wonderful program there called Um It's a Resiliency Training, and it's just for surgeons. So uh let's see what else. I did a grief, six-week grief class for anybody because of grief piling up so much. And um I think that's all because of you know, with COVID, it's we're finding our way in terms of what populations need what.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

So, how has COVID affected your work?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Well, um at the beginning I lost half my income with UCLA because I was the main teacher, online teacher for several classes. And then once um COVID hit, a lot of the teachers for the classes that I taught that taught in person needed to go virtual. So then the um the classes were distributed, and I just kind of bowed out because I felt I'd been doing this for about seven years, and all these in-person teachers needed the income. But I think we all had to make quick adjustments and um and and deal with income drops.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Your work, you were doing a lot of in I mean online stuff before COVID anyway. My work with UCLA?

SPEAKER_00 8:57

I mean, you know.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Yeah, you're used to your work with UCLA.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Yeah, we have I think more people in the intensive practice program. So that's really blossomed because when everything went virtual, it was there was an adjustment at first because you know, in it was hard for people to just be virtual all day, especially parents with kids and um and it's it's screens can be difficult, you know, they can be really tiring, um, over visually stimulating and for our bodies. And so there was, you know, it was hard at first, and then I think people, it was people thought, oh, I have an opportunity to do things that I'd never be able to do because I can't fly to LA. I'm talking specifically about the programs at UCLA. Then so then people from all over the world could could join in. So it became more egalitarian in terms of diversity, economic diversity, and just diversity in general. So the intensive practice program went from 20 every year for like maybe six, seven years, to 70. Wow. And so we had we had to make radical changes really quickly to facilitate that many people and not have them get lost, you know, be able to have a have them to have a personal experience so they weren't just dealing with talking heads, or they just were feeling like they were isolated in their rooms. But now I think people are burned out from virtual and really want to get back to in-person. So we'll see how that that goes. You know, there's just gonna be a lot of changes. We're getting used to thinking on our feet, I think, a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Are you starting to do more in-person stuff?

SPEAKER_00 10:51

I've not, uh, except for working with FBI, and I'll I'm I'm gonna do that again in June. I haven't. All the retreats I've done and the classes that I've given, or the the retreats I've taken, maybe I've taken one or two, have been virtual. And I'm I'm my daughter lives in Costa Rica, and we're trying to see if we could maybe do some kind of a retreat where we could offer it really inexpensively at a time where airfare is inexpensive and Costa Rica's really safe. The country really clamped down on COVID quickly. Um, maybe we'll do that. And a cut and my um colleague and assistant, Sherry Watson, um, and I were thinking maybe we would do a weekend retreat in person in nature. So I think we're starting to think that way. And boy, you don't know if you should, because maybe another wave will hit, right? But tentatively you start putting a foot out.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

I can understand that.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

I think we need to have new things in our eyes, you know, new things in our bodies. Yeah, it helps, it helps us um envision maybe, you know, what's possible. Are you living alone now? I am. I am living in a small place in an organic orchard, and an organic tangerine orchard, and I'll I can put this up right here, and you can see some of the leaves out there. And it's harvest time here, so all the pickers are here, and the packers, and it's it's actually my um partner's orchard, and I I live with him part-time, and then this is my space where I can work and write things. So it's uh it's it's nice, yeah. There's bears and coyotes, and the bears come up here and they eat the avocados and um California black. I, you know, I'm not gonna argue with them. They're they're pretty, they're pretty, they're pretty chill bears, and they're everything's wary of people except the coyotes. They're pretty cavalier.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Can you talk about your relationship with nature?

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Yeah, yeah. Um that's a beautiful question. I think it's my main relationship. It's it's my heartbreak now with climate change and biosphere degradation. So it's my heartbreak and it's my joy, and it's probably foundational home. Um I was raised in a little place in Mission Beach in San Diego, and uh right next to the seawall, and we had a little porch, and my first words were you know, pretty looking at the ocean, and we moved to the San Diego Mountains, and so I've I've been in, I've I've grown up in natural settings and wildness, not just you know, nature, but in wild places where I had to carry a snake bike kit, or where you know you had to be careful of um undertoes in the you know wild Pacific Ocean at times. And then I went on to work with wild animals and exotic animals in conservation, and so I did wolf education talks uh in the elementary schools and the libraries, and I worked with elephants and lions, and um and that was my joy. On my refrigerator, I have a little picture of a lion still I worked with uh years ago, named Chad. So primary relationships have been with nature and animals.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Does it fit into your meditation practice?

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yes, thank you. That's a wonderful question. Yeah, and I'm gonna think about that because I'm wondering how that does. I think I'm just so aware that we're made from elements, all the earth elements, right? So when I'm sitting with myself, then I'm sitting with water, I'm sitting with earth, you know, bone and rock, you know, blood and water and and lymph and heat, fire, volcanoes. And so I just am aware of that there's no, you know, we're everything's connected. So I maybe maybe there's no way we're not sitting with the elements, right? Yeah. Because it's us.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

I did a retreat where one of the things she did was had you think about the elements in and how you related to them in a whole long meditation, and it was really it was very interesting. It was very, I had just planted some daffodils, so I was able to really relate to the part about the earth because I had dug the hole in order to plant the daffodils, so but it was very interesting. It was very I I found it much more interesting than I would have I would have thought I would, because I don't the only real part of nature that I enjoy right now is I have a garden outside with rat-free plants because the rats come. And we live three blocks from the park now. We live right near um McKinley Park. So all the ducks and the gosslings and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Beautiful. And are your daffodils blooming now, Liz? They are very early. Is this early, right? Very early, December. Wow. Yeah, I think we had some narcissists at our garden over at the other house, like in December. And I was thinking, what's what is this? And so I think the bulbs are coming up. Maybe the earth is warm warmer down, or I'm not sure. But it's they're so beautiful just to see these flowers.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

It's crazy though.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

I was just like, Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

It's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

When did you first start meditating? Well, let's see, I was a good Presbyterian girl, so I think I prayed when I was young and sang in the choir, and kind of always had this sense of you know, the mystery. And so maybe a small, there was just galaxies and beauty, and uh, you know, it's and I also grew up under the threat of the nuclear war. So there was also hiding under desks and people buying bomb shelters, and so death was close. You know, I think it's I wonder if it's always close in certain ways for every generation, but it was close for us, you know, we had air raid drills. Um so I would I think I was interested in that intersection between, you know, the this boggling idea of death and birth. And so I kind of had that. And then and I was also big into fairy tales and myths. Um, I would go on to get a graduate degree in mythology, and that that was kind of my study. But I think my first foray was Yogananda, um, autobiography of a yogi, probably when I was in my teens. And then somewhere in my 20s, I read Gary Snyder's Earth Household, and he won Pulitzer Prize for the inner the writing, the intersection between Zinn Buddhism and wildness. So Zin Buddhism to him was being present, and then wildness. So that was made for me. I was just gonna think that. I was like, yeah, that sounds perfect for you. That was perfect. That was a door-in, but I there were no groups. Gary was in um Nevada City and teaching, I think at that time at University of Redlands, maybe or something. Um, and he had a of what was a sangha, and this sangha was called Ring of Bones Zendo. And I thought, oh, if I could just go to that group, but I didn't and I couldn't, and but I get their newsletter and I would just devour it and think, and then I would I started kind of meditating during that time, so that was a long, long, long, long time ago. And then one time I was at a um the Tasahara monastery 40 years ago in Carmel Valley, California, and in on their kind of their bookshelf was a little book by somebody named Tik Not Han. And he had this order called the Order of Inner Being, and I researched that. That was before computers, right? So how did I research it? I can't remember how we researched things, but we did. And I found that he was going to be opening this place in California. It wasn't just in Vietnam or Plum Village in France where he was exiled because he is an exiled monk. And so I started being part of a TikNothan sangha that I found in Santa Barbara, and I studied with the Dharma teachers. Dharma means um just teaching, and it can be, you know, anything that's true, like a teaching. And I studied with uh the teachers, and then Tichnac Han lay ordained me probably almost 25 years ago, at UCSD, University of San Diego, San Diego, University of California, San Diego. Meanwhile, they were building a monastery in the quonset huts of an old munition munitions army place um in Escondido, California. So eventually that became uh Deer Park Monastery. And I spent many years there with TikNah Han.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

So you studied with TikNahan for 25 years. For those of you who are listening, That is incredible. That is absolutely incredible. I love TikMah.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Anyway. I'm very no, I'm very lucky, and thank you for interjecting that, Liz. Thank you. He was a bridge between the US and Vietnam during the Vietnam War. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King. He he he he he made he made the basic tenets of Buddhism, and this as a monastic was pretty amazing. He made these basic tenets accessible to every religion or atheist or agnostic. He collapsed kind of all the barriers and just said it's about loving-kindness to self, compassion for others, inclusivity of experience, and becoming more aware so we don't miss our lives. So he was the first one to do retreats for secular people, cops, teachers, LGBTQ, um, families. You families could never go to monasteries, right? With monastics, because they were kids, they were loud. And the the monastics would uh the monks would just play with the kids so the parents could meditate. It was pretty progressive. Oh, that's cool. Not what you would think of when you think of a monastery. It's not, it was wild. The monks playing kickball with the kids there.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

Very interesting. Very interesting. So what led you from there to UCS UCLA?

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Well, I taught and practiced in that lineage this, and it's Zin Buddhism. And and then I I also practiced with with other teachers, not just him. And my background being in myth, I was so interested in the then the great myth makers, Robert Bly and uh Marion Woodman and Jung and the depth psychologists. So when I taught in a Buddhist capacity, I always brought in other teachings because I wanted to be like Tai. That's what we call Tigna Han. It's the Vietnamese word for teacher. I wanted to be like him, inclusive. I didn't want people turned off or turned away because they had other beliefs. So I used myth and poetry and singing and Joanna Macy's work, the work that reconnects. And then I I thought, who is working, who's a female? Because I worked a lot with male teachers, who's a woman who is working in secular education? I don't distinguish between secular and my past too much. I think they all kind of come from the same place, and that has a lot to do with love. But but there, but secular has its non-religious connotation, and I wanted to have someone that that taught mindfulness, and but that was a woman. And so then I found Diana Winston, and it just happened that she was developing a program with Sue Smalley at UCLA. Sue's a ner was a neuroscientist, a geneticist working with ADHD, and they created a program called the Mindful Awareness Research Center, and I reached out to her and said, I want to be a part of this, but I had to apply like everybody else, and I did not get in. There were probably only 30 applicants at that time. That was in 2010 when I applied, and I didn't get in, and then someone dropped out. So I got in and we were this little group of like 18. And now we have 53, I think, about every year in the program. Is this the team program? Yes, it's the facilitator program. And so who comes and to learn are therapists, um, first responders, police officers, firemen, firewomen, um, a lot of um medical and educators, a lot of teachers, and also people that just want to, they don't know what they want to do, or they don't, they're not in a work particularly that that has mindfulness is applicable to. But they go through the program and then they find out what where they want to share it.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

And what does the program entail?

SPEAKER_00 27:12

It's a 10-month training, and it is rigorous. There are there's a curricula, a lot of papers. I think you have a couple papers every couple weeks. Um, you have a lot of support, a lot of resources. We meet four times a year now on Zoom, not in person. We used to meet in person at UCLA. And there are these four practicums that last about four days each, and they're intensives, and we bring teachers from all over neuroscientists, and they're it's very diverse. So diversity is key. So we have all kinds of voices and looks and cultures and races and um orientations and and neurodivergent, and so we have teachers representing that, and we bring in the those kinds of participants, and then we the and then there's a program, and there's steps, stepping stones. And so there's readings, there's practices, there's pod groups every month, they work with mentors every month, study groups, and then they and then graduate, and then go out and and have the UCL UCLA stamp that they're a UCLA trained mindfulness facilitator.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Interesting. Like when we were on campus, there was it was much more like competitive, and a lot of people were already, you know, um, I think you were teaching too, also, Liz, and you had peditation, you had all kinds of things going on, but it was a lot more competitive, and now with it being virtual, you know, we could we can handle more, right? So more students can come because we don't have to figure out rooms and you know, such like that. So I encourage people to look into it. I would love that.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Yeah, it's very interesting. Um did you have meditation and all this in your background with your family, or is this when you got older?

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Well, I think the way my parents were church going with being Presbyterians and that being prayer, being we always had prayers at meals, and my my father was an usher, and again we were in the choir, and I think they had such a philosophical kind of feeling about it. Um and you know, they were activists. So my dad, both of my dad won awards for his work with diverse populations um and operating engineers, and my mom was a school teacher and brought in. She just did so much for uh um POC kids, wouldn't have been called at that time, but BIPOC kid, not yeah, BIPOC kit children who were being marginalized. So my parents we always kind of had that and did that. And so spirituality was something that was wide, and it was what you brought into the world and what you practiced, it was how you how we treated each other. Very much golden rule. And so I think that probably was foundational. So, what kind of meditation do you do now?

SPEAKER_01 30:54

What does your practice look like?

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Um, it it varies, and I I try to do a recollection of death meditation um because I I think it's important from right now to bring death close. And um not even just right now, it it I think it's an important um practice. And I use a guided practice guided meditation by Analayo, which is A-N-A-L-A-Y-O, and it's recollection of death. You can Google it, and it um takes you through all the just disintegration of the body. Um and I do a lot of just quiet sitting, some um some guided practices. I'm I there's this embarrassment of riches out there right now, teachers offering teachers offering so much. There's so much on YouTube, so much on Insight Timer. I mean, just um I think I am working more with wide open awareness. So open awareness. So if my if my thoughts are really busy and I'm really hooked by emotional content or thoughts or hard things, my body doesn't feel feel good and I'm ruminating, then I do more focused awareness. So then I I will find an object of awareness, like my breath, my feet on the floor. I just work to concentration, bringing attention to one point, shepherding attention back when I leave. And then so working with concentration if I'm flying all over the place, and then if I'm not, if I'm pretty not so gripped, then I do wide open awareness. So it's just sitting, kind of resting in awareness and then noticing everything, having stillness and this quality of awareness that is kind of holds all the other things. Do you ever do at-home retreats? I have. I've done three this year, and and you know, there's one I I really got a lot from, and and I I get, you know, there's so many cues to get our attention, right? In our usual life. There's the refrigerator, there's the stack of bills, there's the dog, there's, you know, there's the there's so many cues, and then we're there, you know, it's stimulus and response, right? So I think home retreats are hard, and other and I've and I've done them and I've I've gotten something from them. And I've I've put on maybe three or four day-long retreats through UCLA, mostly nature, and then the ones that had to do with grief that were connected to the grief. What would a nature retreat look like? On for virtual, you mean? Yeah. Or just um I just brought everything outside, and then pretty much and encouraged people to bring their technology outside. And then we so we did sitting outside, and so a lot of listening, again, the four element meditation, connecting our bodies with the elements, um, walking meditations wonderful outside, movement. Um, and then you know, just like get to know your world. Like as you're walking around, is there something or some little being that you want to connect with? And and stop and notice, you know, maybe tell that plant, remind it of its beauty, you know, you know, sit by it and say how beautiful you are. And and and I'm gonna sit here, and this is a grief part. I'm gonna sit here and and I hope it's okay, and I'm gonna ask you if maybe if it's okay. And I just want to unburden my heart. So maybe you sit next to that daffodil. You really get to know that daffodil. What's that daffodil like? Very different energy than uh like a sagebrush, right? Very sagebrush, very different from that tangerine tree, different smells, textures, shapes. What is that beingness like? What is that energy like? And and so I'm gonna maybe unburden my heart in nature and let let be held by the earth, and then maybe I'm gonna ask, you tell me what you need to that that that other growing thing. So we start making a relationship with that spider, that spider web, that bug, you know, so we don't go so fast. So uh that's how you can do a retreat outside, and a lot of silence, a lot of just beingness, not so much doing.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Interesting. So have you gone to in-person retreats? Lots of them, yes. And how are they different from at-home retreats?

SPEAKER_00 36:43

Everything's taken care of. You don't have to think about food, you don't have to think about cooking, you don't have to think about going to the store. Usually you leave your electronics, you know, you're not connecting. So, I mean, some retreats don't mind that, but you try not to be on your phone or um and you and and some retreats say, you know, they really discourage reading. So they really just want you to be to meet ourselves. And so I think that's what I miss. And I miss be having the people next to me on the cushions, or you know, there everybody, there's something about when we all come together, and you know, it's in real time.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

It's like that.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

Oh, yeah. Your song is like that. Is that what you were saying?

SPEAKER_01 37:37

Yeah, so when we go to a song, it's like that.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Yes, the other people in the room, it's just adds to it, don't you think? Yes, yeah. So, yeah, the other people, and also that everything's handled, you know. It's just you get to just you get to just meet our meet oneself, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

All right, we're gonna finish up with compassion. Okay. Can you talk a little bit about um your compassion teaching? You talked a little bit about it with the FBI. How does like compassion relate to meditation?

SPEAKER_00 38:18

These are such great questions, Liz. I mean, they're just wonderful questions. Um, I hope that every anybody listening can you know bring all this beautiful inquiry into their own lives as well, in terms of who am I and and how did I get here from there? And you know, what are my contemplative practices and and why why do they matter? And um, you know, we live in a culture, and maybe we're not the only culture that does. Well, I know we're not in the US, but we we very much make a project of ourselves here, and that can be kind of a wonderful thing because we kind of get ourselves going, and athletes, you know, are you do that, and and achievers, and you know, we're trying to get that that project done and that trying to secure that job, and um all that is part of our humanity. We're we're we we are um we can be you know striving and desire and and wanting this or that can be really, really what motivates and creates passion and success, right? And strategies. And that is like the kind of the one of the main parts of of ourselves in this culture that is reinforced. So we often end up feeling really bad about ourselves because we're not meeting some rubric or standard, some typical kind of way of demarking success, right? Either through how our bodies look, our economic, our um, you know, whether we're neurotypical, whether we're, you know, privileged or not, or I mean, there's just so many parts where we create so much judgment of ourselves and others, and and so a big lack of of self-compassion. And um, you know, self-kindness is a little bit different than compassion. Kindness is more it, they're both actions, and self-kindness is kind of an action of good wishes for ourselves, and self-compassion is passion with it's more um how we show up for our own suffering or stress, and and so how do we how do we show up for for our own suffering and for that of others and for the earth when there's so much? Well, then compassion becomes bigger, then compassion asks us when we need to close the door and we've had enough, when we need to not give more, and so then that becomes even more compassion towards ourselves. So we just keep widening it. Doesn't mean you know bleeding out all of our resources, it means how do we show up for for the suffering of the world in a way that's sustainable and the suffering in ourselves then you know becomes kind of everything. You know, if we you know, if we can't sit with it, if we can't be with this um in a way that's you know kind and tending to, then we go watch TV or go buy people magazine or go lay on the beach and not, you know, we just keep finding what do I need, sweetheart. And so a self-compassion practice is knowing, like stopping. So we're stopping and checking in. Uh I'm ah, stress is here, or um fatigue is here, or that argument is here, or shame is here. Shame's a big one, right? And then we could even say, ouch, this hurts. What's here hurts, ouch. And then it can be this kind of self-soothing gesture: hand in our heart, hand on our belly, arms crossed, uh holding ourselves, hands on our cheek. And maybe we can say, you know, hard hardship and hard things is a common human experience. I'm not alone. This is happening to people all over the world, to greater and lesser degrees. I'm not alone. I'm linked up to everything that is dying or has a diagnosis or has an economic fallout. And so I'm not alone. And then what do I need? We can ask ourselves, what do I need? And it's really a what do you need, sweetheart? Or or or senior or friend? What do you need? What do I need? The question is so beautiful, right? We don't ask ourselves that, and then we can then maybe something will come. I need a good long nap. I need COVID to go away. I need my children to not be on Zoom, I need them to go back to school and not be in masks. You know, we just get to say it to ourselves because we don't create the space often. And this is all compassion. How do I how do I hold what's in my heart? And if again, if that means not not even processing it, but going and laying down and crying for a long time and not not uh not going through any psychological process, but just checking out, then that's then you're we're aware of that too. Then that's the most compassionate thing. So, what do I need for my own search suffering? And then if I'm resilient enough and I'm filled up enough, how can I be in the world and help?

SPEAKER_01 44:41

Interesting, very interesting. Sounds good. All right, so Gail, this was wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

Oh, Liz, it was so you just asked the best questions. I'm just like so happy and inspired by your questions. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Great, thank you. Is there a way for people to reach you if you want to be reached?

SPEAKER_00 45:05

Yes, um, you can reach me at my, let's say, I my let's just do email right now because we're building my website. So it's Gala Bell. So it's G A E L A. Gala Bell, B E L L at Gmail.com. That's the best way.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

Okay. And I think that's it.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Thank you so very much. And thank you, all listeners. Thank you.