LET GO OF CHASING SUCCESS: Life Lessons From a Doctor - Postcard #3

In this heartfelt episode, Adam and Stephan connect over their evolving lives, sharing personal breakthroughs and profound realizations. Adam dives deep into his recent experiences with meditation, achieving a moment of clarity and love that reshapes his perspective on self-worth and validation. Through a touching story involving visions of great spiritual teachers, Adam learns the importance of loving others and himself without the need for titles or positions. Join them in this reflective conversation about meditation, inner peace, and the journey towards self-acceptance.

00:00 Welcome Back!
00:53 Adam's Turn to Share
01:21 A Meditation Experience
06:07 The Power of Meditation
08:19 Discussing the Enneagram
11:41 The Importance of Mental Hygiene
19:27 Final Thoughts and Takeaways

Transcript

Adam: 0:05

We're back.

Stephan: 0:06

Oh, you're gonna go first. Okay, we're back. Uh, how's it going, Adam?

Adam: 0:11

Hey, it's going well. It is going well, Stephen. It's good to have these postcards every now and I like this. It, uh, it's more frequent and it gives me a chance to connect with you more often. Oh

Stephan: 0:33

uh, let us know down in the comments or wherever you're listening to this and, um, like, and subscribe if you can, it really helps us out. Um, Today, as always, we're going to touch base with what's going on in our lives together. What's present for us. Last time, I know I shared about a kind of a breakthrough that I had with our relationship. And, yeah, so this time, this time I think it's only fair if Adam shares his deepest, darkest fears and terrors. Adam, it's, you're up, my friend.

Adam: 1:07

my gosh. Well, um, I'm probably gonna disappoint you, but I do have something.

Stephan: 1:14

and by the way, everyone, if you're drinking whiskey tonight,

Adam: 1:18

Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Um, well, the thought occurred to me to share something, um, that, um, you know, I experienced last night. I've been getting into the habit of meditating every night before bed. And I, you know, I go in and out of that habit. And I, I'd like to say that I, um, I'm really regular with it, but at least for the past couple of weeks, it has been regular. And my wife helps immensely. She has, uh, a very dedicated practice. She does some spiritual reading before bed every single night. And I take the time that she's doing that to, to meditate myself recently. And yesterday night I had such a great realization. Well, let me give some background to, to where I was. My Upbringing and my personality is such that I, I feel like I'm an, uh, an achiever. I have goals and visions for myself. Um, for example, for the longest time, it really mattered to me to, to be able to say that I was a director of sorts, an ICU director, a neuro ICU director, and having finished fellowship. I went into a job and eventually got that position. And I know it's silly to say, you know, that you're striving for a position, but I was very much wrapped up in that. And I do realize that a portion of my personality likes that, you know, to, to, to strive towards having a position. Um, and recently. At least in the last two, three years, completely changed my, um, career such that there's no real leadership position. Um, I'm experimenting with a different way of, of living life. And I noticed that there's this feeling of. Like I want some sort of validation. I want some title to tell me that I'm worthy, that I'm, that I'm a worthwhile human being that I've contributed to the world. And you know, it's, I'd like to say that I'm in a place where that doesn't matter anymore, but I do feel like having someone tell me, Hey, here's the title that you're, you are an amazing human being that really matters a lot to me.

Stephan: 3:49

Yeah. Okay.

Adam: 3:57

within feeling this sort of low level anxiety, this, this feeling of like, I just don't feel very well. Worthy today, you know, it was just a feeling of like, I just, I'm not living up to my potential. It was a feeling. Uh, and I closed my eyes. I meditated and I went deep within and I quieted my mind. I have a whole process, but mostly I just focus on my breath. I quiet my mind and I go and I'd be still and I, and thoughts and images arise. And in this case, I had an image of, um, of Jesus coming to me. Uh, he's, he's someone that I respect. He is a symbol in my mind that represents that, that peace and mastery. Uh, and he just came right up to me and gave me a really big hug. He just held me in his arms. Um, I had Buddha pop up as well and came on in and hugged me as well too. And then I had a couple of other masters pop up and I just felt within a few moments, um, that I was in the middle of a huge group hug, a bunch of masters all around me, a bunch of teachers from all sorts of traditions. I just felt like I was hugged and surrounded by all these great beings. And I, I heard, and it's almost like a sort of an intuition, but I heard this message come to me saying, you only have one job, love everyone around you the way we love you. And it was this. I almost felt like crying for a moment, but it was this moment of feeling so loved and so cared for by these, these great beings. And, you know, you could say this was my imagination, but on some level, I felt like I was being loved by the universe, love by source. And I felt like I was being held in that love and that my job was to love the people in my life, the way I was being loved in that moment. And all of a sudden, all the sense of unworthiness, all the sense of I'm not living up to my potential at all fell away. And I like it, it got clear, it got clear. Okay. My job is to love the people around me in a way that. Helps them feel worthy as a human being. And the key was they didn't need a title. They didn't need a position. I didn't need a title or a position to be loved. And, uh, then I, I told myself, man, I got to do this more often. Uh, the, the power of. Of meditating. Now, not every day, it doesn't happen all the time that I have this like profound experience, but I realized like fundamentally the lesson was, I, I have to stop and be still enough to feel the love that's already there. That was the key for me.

Stephan: 6:58

Hmm.

Adam: 6:58

was the key.

Stephan: 6:59

beautiful.

Adam: 7:00

Yeah. Okay.

Stephan: 7:01

Wow. That's super powerful. It's so interesting, Adam, because, you know, I've known you for a long time now, and I've never known you as a person. one iota, like when you, you are extremely loving person and I know you as someone who's extremely loving, um, like, I've never known you to care one iota if someone else has a title, you know, like your love for other people in your life and other people just in your job and everywhere, like you are, you, to me, you should come across so present and, and loving that it's interesting that you have that relationship to yourself because I've I mean, you and I have talked about it over the years, like I, I know that about you, you know, we've talked about your, you know, your desire to achieve and stuff like that, but I've never known you to ever care if someone else has a title that, that they've never, you know, whether they're worthy or not of your love. That's never come across to me. So it's really interesting

Adam: 8:03

That is interesting.

Stephan: 8:05

with yourself. Um, is that true though? Or have you secretly been harboring grudges against me for not having a title?

Adam: 8:10

Uh, only against you,

Stephan: 8:12

anything.

Adam: 8:13

only against you. Uh, actually it's, it's funny. There's a, um, I forget what it's called. I did this once. It's called the Enneagram. I think there's like nine.

Stephan: 8:22

man. Well, we should do an episode on the

Adam: 8:24

Uh, I guess. Yeah, maybe we should. That was great. There's a shout out to Michael in Tucson. He's a, um, A nurse that I worked with at, uh, at St. Joseph's in Tucson. And he sort of really introduced me to this, this idea of Enneagram. I remember taking a quiz and I was, I, I'm going to butcher this now. I think I was number three, which is the achiever. I don't remember the number, but I remember I was the achiever.

Stephan: 8:50

out. I'm going to find out right

Adam: 8:51

Yeah. Look, look into it. Uh, but the idea was like my sense of self worth.

Stephan: 8:56

a great memory.

Adam: 8:57

Okay, cool. Memory's still intact. Yeah. It was like, um, my sense of self worth came from achieving something which, you know, I feel like we all have all these parts in us known, not you. Yeah. Anyway, that was it. I just thought it was interesting. It very much resonated with how I've been living my life. And it's something I have to watch for. Cause it can turn dark. I have to remember.

Stephan: 9:23

that, though?

Adam: 9:24

Well, the dark side is like, you're constantly chasing. Yeah. You know, it's, it's the rat race. You're chasing more valuables, more status, more,

Stephan: 9:33

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam: 9:37

you know, if you're completely blind to it, you will chase till you die, because once you have the title, it's not good enough because you're comparing yourself to someone who has a higher title or, or higher position of power, it's endless.

Stephan: 9:52

With type seven, by the way, all the type sevens out there, the enthusiasts.

Adam: 9:56

What's the enthusiast.

Stephan: 9:57

uh, they, I mean, the way I would describe it. So, so I'll first look at a little bit of, uh, like, you know, there's lots of systems of understanding your personality. There's so many. The Enneagram is the first time that I read something, I was like, Oh my god, that's me. Like, that is me. That is the light side and the dark side. The light and the shadow. So the, the enthusiast is, You have the abil You love, you just love life. You love Every experience about life. Like you have the ability to just go fully into anything and completely become immersed by it and, and just, like, uh, you know, eating a nice steak or something like this. Oh, you can

Adam: 10:40

Yeah.

Stephan: 10:55

unfocused, and just like, fizzle out. And, and that's, I mean, that's exactly what happens to me. Like that's, that's a hundred percent me. But I also have the ability, like when I'm really in my, I don't know, I don't call it power, but you know, when I'm

Adam: 11:11

Yeah.

Stephan: 11:13

I like just life as a symphony for me. Like everything about life is a symphony for me. Um, anyway, so I love the, we should definitely do. I didn't know you had done the Enneagram. We should definitely do an

Adam: 11:24

Yeah, okay. I got a, I got a

Stephan: 11:26

really good

Adam: 11:27

freshen up on that.

Stephan: 11:28

Yeah, yeah, it's all good. We'll, we'll, we'll go over it. But, um, yeah, that's interesting, man. Yeah. So back to the, like, meditating thing, you

Adam: 11:38

Oh yeah. The point I was going to make, I forgot. Well, the, the point was that, um, you know, psychological hygiene or spiritual hygiene, I'm like whatever term you want to use. Um, we brush our teeth presumably every day, you know, we brush our teeth, Morning and evening. We take a shower regularly. Like we change your clothes. Like there are things that we do to stay healthy and clean, physically speaking. And then I realized like there, there really isn't a, like a, a hygiene for the mind, um, it already isn't talked about. It's not part of our. Cultural, um, understanding, you know, different people, different societies have that, you know, like I, I know praying five times a day in the Islamic tradition, um, you know, meditating or like Zazen, you know, you sit every day. So I think there are different, uh, traditions that have that, but I think there's a way to sort of divorce this from religion and just. Sit down once a day for a few minutes. Quiet your mind and see what are the emotions that are arising and why. Like get to the core of where that's coming from and ultimately go back to the reminder, um, that you're, you're loved. You're cared for. There's nothing but peace. Um, that the, the, um, Challenges that you face are projections of, of inner guilt and fear. I think there's a way to do this regularly where people, um, don't let deep fears and resentments fester for so long, but we're constantly cleansing ourselves in the way that we brush our teeth regularly.

Stephan: 13:26

Yeah, absolutely. I've gone through, you know, definitely periods of my life when I've had a super regular meditation practice, but don't right now. And it's always funny because I know, like, It's like a, it's like a little voice that calls to me because I know what happens. Like when I have a, when I have a regular meditation practice, just there's this foundational level of peace, or I don't know if the word's peace or not, but I just, it starts to like my, the background depth of my awareness just becomes deeper and deeper and deeper. Even when I do it five minutes a day. It's just like something about that time for me to just close my eyes and just for me. I watch my breath. I love like shamatha meditation. Sometimes I do visualizations, but I mean, the foundation of my meditation practice has always been shamatha. Um, just watching the breath, which I know we've, we've talked about here, but it's just like

Adam: 14:26

Is that what shamatha means?

Stephan: 14:29

I don't know what the word means. I know what, what you do when you do shamatha meditation. I don't know, like, I don't know

Adam: 14:35

Watching your breath?

Stephan: 14:36

the word.

Adam: 14:37

I don't know either.

Stephan: 14:38

what you're asking about?

Adam: 14:39

No, no, I was just curious, like, for those who haven't heard that word, like, what do you do?

Stephan: 14:43

sometimes.

Adam: 14:44

Oh my gosh,

Stephan: 14:45

you're

Adam: 14:45

shamatha, let's find out.

Stephan: 14:47

you're, you're, as you breathe through your nose, you close your eyes, different traditions have you close or keep your eyes halfway open, but close your eyes and then you pay attention to the out breath and in breath leaving, passing through the tips of your nostrils, kind of like the little hairs there, whatever, just feeling just the hint of the breath in and out. And you just, like, very gently, you don't, like, hold on to your attention, like, force your attention there, but you just try to notice it. And when you get distracted, you come back to the breath. Um, um, that's what I've done since I started meditating

Adam: 15:22

Well, it looks

Stephan: 15:23

how

Adam: 15:23

in Sanskrit, it, it looks like it means, um,

Stephan: 15:27

go to the etymology.

Adam: 15:28

you asked about it. Um, okay. It means peaceful, abiding, tranquility, and peace. I mean, I guess you focus on your breath to, to get in that state.

Stephan: 15:40

Well, that's certainly what I end up feeling. But anyway, the point is that I, yeah, I think it's something that I know is really important and something that I don't do all the time. And, uh, yeah, I think it's a I think it's a I definitely feel I feel guilty about that. If you can't tell, I didn't this is supposed to be a you're being vulnerable. Now, here I am admitting that I'm a bad meditator.

Adam: 16:04

It goes both ways.

Stephan: 16:05

You flip this around on me.

Adam: 16:08

Well, I, it's funny. We should talk about this. Like, well, cause I feel the same way too. Like there's the tiniest bit of, of like resistance. Like I'm, I'm too tired. I don't want to do this.

Stephan: 16:17

here's what it is for me. Here's what it is for me. Um, there's a I think is Ajahn Chah. He was a Thai meditator, like a Thai master or the Thai forest

Adam: 16:25

Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence.

Stephan: 16:50

heard stories of these masters. And they meditated 10, hours a day or something like that. And so he said, well, I want to see if that's true. And so he just said, I'm just going to meditate all day and see if that's true. that's how he became a man, like a master, his path. And so there's, for me, there's always like, and I, I'm very inspired by the masters and the masters to a T. seem to be quite disciplined when it comes to their spiritual practice.

Adam: 17:21

Silence. Silence.

Stephan: 17:41

you know? Could I be somewhere different? Could I be more enlightened? Could I be, uh, some sort of higher state of consciousness that I aspire to? you know, I don't know how many times we've talked about that, that whole trap,

Adam: 17:55

Yeah, yeah,

Stephan: 17:56

there!

Adam: 17:58

yeah, exactly. Well, I, if, if there's anyone listening that feels the same kind of guilt Steven feels like you can just drop that and, and not worry about it. I mean, or, or hold onto it and keep it and see how, how it feels just to, just to hold onto the guilt.

Stephan: 18:14

Ever.

Adam: 18:16

or you can repress. Yeah, exactly.

Stephan: 18:17

you? What do you have guilt? What's your is your guilt something related in the same way? Or because you I mean, you just said that you kind of still you also experienced some sort of guilt around

Adam: 18:27

totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I feel it. Um, well, mostly it's just'cause I, for whatever reason, I just, it's, it's resistance, it's psychological resistance. Like, I'm too tired, it's usually I'm too tired. Um, but like in the morning I just wanna get up and go and start the day. So I found like. If I'm going to do it, yeah, exactly. Um, the night, nighttime is good because my mind is naturally winding down. But if I don't do it early enough, I get so tired that I just want to crash. And so I skipped the meditation, but then the guilt, the guilt is like FOMO almost because I feel like if I. There's a potential lesson like I experienced yesterday. Like what a beautiful lesson I learned. I'd miss out on that if I didn't do it.

Stephan: 19:15

you how pretty you were tonight to

Adam: 19:18

He did pretty. You're so pretty. Yeah, that's exactly what he says. Well, it's possible. It's possible. I think if there's. Um, a takeaway in, in today's postcard for me, it's that just taking a short moment, taking a short moment, a little bit every day, just 30 seconds, less even to pause, to be still,

Stephan: 19:44

I'm

Adam: 19:44

to go within

Stephan: 19:45

with more than 30 seconds, but okay,

Adam: 19:47

one minute, one minute, two minutes. I think, look, keeping the bar really, really low. Um, And then going within because our attention is always so outward focus going within and just to become aware of like the whole inner world that's present right under the surface that we we don't often observe or pay attention to that's it's right there and if there's something that's come to the surface, whether it's, you know, regret, resentment, anger, pain, sorrow, anxiety, like, yeah. Allow that to come up and then allow it to dissolve. It just in the space of your awareness for me, that's, that's hygiene.

Stephan: 20:25

That's great hygiene. Thank you.

Adam: 20:29

You're welcome. You're welcome, sir.

Stephan: 20:30

That one wasn't a joke.

Adam: 20:31

Oh, okay. I, I can't tell with you sometimes.

Stephan: 20:34

Good. I don't want you to. Um,

Adam: 20:37

Awesome.

Stephan: 20:38

No. Great little postcard, my friend. Thanks for sharing. That was really beautiful.

Adam: 20:43

you're welcome.

Stephan: 20:45

I hope you get visited by more great beings.

Adam: 20:48

You as well, sir. Don't forget. Take care.

Stephan: 20:52

Take care.