The Mind Body Project
The Mind Body Project
Sit & Talk: Meet Me Where I Am
We unpack how real growth happens when we meet people where they are, walk beside them with baby steps, and make possibility visible through example. Stories from our community show how removing barriers, reading cues, and keeping boundaries creates lasting change.
• moving from live to virtual to remove barriers
• greeting newcomers early and walking side by side
• reading words, actions and body language to find the true start
• guiding by baby steps and one percent gains
• showing what’s possible with lived examples and peers
• setting boundaries and cutting the rope when support becomes a sinker
• inviting honest conversation about what you need to be met
Welcome back to Sit and Talk. Thanks for taking a little time to join us today. If this is your first time to sit and talk, each week we join our live call as we cover a mental growth topic. We work on some mental conditioning and we share that in our live call. With those on call that may have, they also might have questions, comments, and so we just join in on that and and you get to share in on that. So let's uh get to the live call. Everybody's working, being busy. Then you get to listen while you're working. What a what what a way to uh multitask.
SPEAKER_01:And so I'm waiting on people listening.
SPEAKER_00:Waiting on people and listening. That's pretty good.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:That's uh that's talent. So the so the good thing is that the the the conversation we're gonna have is about meet me where I am. Where so I get to meet all of you exactly where you're at. So as as I was thinking about this, the since we had walk and talk, and I was thinking about the topic that we talked about, meet me where I am, and we're going over it. And then I was as I thought about it after that over the rest of yesterday and today, I was thinking about as I explained Meet Me Where I'm At. A lot of times we talk about things for ourselves, and this is kind of about ourselves, but it's also about other people. So when we when we look to serve other people, and this is one of those things that we have to kind of understand to be able to serve them better, and really it does affect us because if we don't understand some of these things, they can they can affect they can affect some ways of how we deal with people, they can affect our emotions, and they can affect affect our relationships, they can affect all these different things. So as we talk about that, can everybody still see me? Okay, okay. Um, so as we talk about that, we're gonna talk about how do we use that for other people, but also how do we use that for ourselves. So for where does it what does it mean when we say meet me where I am? If you want somebody to meet you where you are, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01:They're meeting you where you're at.
SPEAKER_00:Where you're at.
SPEAKER_01:Like you're off somewhere or they're meeting you where you're at. They're coming to you. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, they're coming to you. So Healthy Huddle. When we started Healthy Huddle a number of months ago, we were doing it live, and we would have a live meeting, and maybe one or two people would show up. A lot of times nobody would show up. So I thought, well, let me try it virtually and see what happens. And so when we did that, I think we had four or five, six people, and then it it's grown and grown. So, so when we did virtual healthy huddle, that was really the first virtual class. And I thought, well, you know, why don't we do that way in sit and talk or walk and talk? And then book club, we we started book club strong, and we had a bunch of a big number of people, and then as time went on, it dwindled down to about three or four, and so we changed the the structure of it. Now we have mindful Mondays in the evening at the same time. So where we had just had you know three or four people come to book club, I think Monday night we maybe had close to 24 or 25 on Mindful Monday. So that's it, and so that's a good example of meeting somebody where they're at, so and how that can be successful. Because for Healthy Huddle, I was saying, you come to me. You come to me, and we think of um all the obstacles. It might be time, it might be work, it might be family, it might be so many other um things in the way. Um, and then I then I might get all bent out of shape, so well, I don't know why they come. But as we change the format, and I and I thought about how I can better serve and meet you where you're at. So some of you right now are at home, you're at work, you might be in the car, um, all different places. And so we can still have a conversation, but yet I'm meeting you exactly where you're at. Um still do your things, you can still listen, you can still share what you have to share, but it's meeting you where you are. And so is what it does is sometimes it takes out those barriers of all those things that you might have to do. And so sometimes it's not because you know healthy huddle being live wasn't because it was a bad thing. It was just maybe we weren't, I wasn't meeting you where you needed me to meet you at. I there was there was too big expect too big of an expectation there. The same thing with sit and talk. We have typically 20 or more. Again, because it's a really good way that I can just meet you where you are, and so it's a good example of how that can change everything when we meet somebody where they are, and how it how it how we can serve better. And so when we talk about the three different ways to meet me where I'm at, and and that's when that that person is saying, meet me where I am. Because when we switched some of these things to virtual, still having them live, but I thought about how can I meet, if you're saying, meet me where I am, where are you? And how can I get there? Um, is kind of sometimes what we have to do. Um, thank goodness for technology, we can do that. Um so another another thing, and kind of what we do is kind of our culture at M2B is we meet you where you're at. So kind of the neatest thing happened today. We had a lady that just had signed up last week. So she had just come to classes this week. She came to her first class yesterday, she got her time mixed up, she made it for the you know, five minutes of class yesterday. I'm like two exercise. I kind of felt bad, but nothing I could do. So then she comes in today and she signed in, signed again. She wasn't not familiar with the schedule, what everything's called called. So she signed up with the energetics, and she had also signed up for the noon class. But the great thing is that when she came into the energetics class, everybody introduced themselves. They were so excited to see her, all of that. And then they left and she stayed for the next treadmill class, which was the normal one, the the one she probably should have signed up for. But then everybody that came in greeted her the same way. Hello, that my name, what's your name? So glad you're here, all of those things. So, you know, they went over to her to meet her where she was. She came in at the NJ's class, sat up there with everybody, talked, chatted, and that's kind of what we want to do is meet me where I am. So when people come in the door, a lot of times somebody will greet them right when they come in the door if they if they appear to be new and kind of sometimes a little lost. And meeting uh somebody right as they walk through the door is a big thing because if some of you think about it, your first time maybe coming or your first time going to Synergy. And when you have to walk through that door at Synergy, that's a long walk to the lab, and you have to walk through all those people, especially the first time, first part of the year when there's so many people, that can be kind of overwhelming and can almost be intimidating, and it can almost be like, I'm not gonna go there. So the neat thing is when we new people come in and we go to the door and meet them. The interesting thing is we don't say, well, we don't stand at the door with them and point, say, well, that way is the bathroom. Well, if you go down that way a little bit, there's the star chart and there's cubbies, and we don't point. How do we how do we take them from the door down towards the cubbies? We walk with them, we walk side by side. And a lot of times that's what we have to do, and we're gonna get to that, but when we meet somebody where they are, we meet them where they are, and then we walk them, walk with them side by side. It's kind of hard to do if we're in front of them and say, Come on, come on down. Even if we're standing up here by the treadmills and somebody walks to the door and you holler, come on down, that's still kind of intimidating if everybody is lined up on the sides and looking, especially if you're new. I mean, some of you, it might be intimidating if you've been coming for a long time and still kind of intimidating. And you go, I don't want everybody to look at me. I just want to keep my head down and go. But it is about that's kind of what we try to do is meet them where they're at. So, so how do we how do we do that? How do we, what's some strategies, three different ways that we can meet people where they're at? What are some things we have to understand? One is we have to understand where they are, and and think about these things too when sometimes when we're not quite agreeing with people or we're having relationship problems, things at work, different things. These are also things that people may not understand about us or see might be reasons why they're not meeting us where we're at. So the first thing is we have to understand that person is saying, I want to understand you to understand where I am. So, how do we understand where somebody's at? What are a couple ways that we can understand where they're at?
SPEAKER_01:Listen to them, listen to them, good.
SPEAKER_00:What else? Watch them, watch them. Um, those are two big ones is to listen to them and watch them. And sometimes um are those uh contradicting sometimes.
SPEAKER_01:Can be, yes.
SPEAKER_00:I want to lose weight, but I'm on my second plate at the buffet. What we say, what we do are two different things. Um so to understand where where I am, you have to be really present. Um to be present, you really have to be engaged in um what are they saying, what are they doing, how are they acting, what what's their body language? We have to pay attention to all of that. It's kind of like to understand where some of you are, if if if I'm talking about from my my point of view, I have to listen to what are some of the challenges, what are some of the the barriers? Maybe I watch, is it trouble with certain classes? Is it trouble? Is it you know you're having just difficulties with different things? Can I can I watch your body language? Can I hear you say those things? And maybe it's just overhearing a conversation, and then I get a better understanding of some of the issues that you may be having. Because if we want to begin to help someone and serve someone, we have to understand where they are. Just like for our classes, when we come, when we have dumbbells out, there might be from a 10-pound dumbbell all the way to a 60-pound dumbbell. And why is that? Because somebody might be starting at a 10-pound weight, somebody might be starting at a 50-pound weight. So we have to be able to come in and meet. So my my my responsibility is to meet each of you where you might be. So if somebody new comes in, I need to be able to meet them at their 10-pound weight. If you've been working out for a while, I need to meet you at the your 30 or 40 pound weight. So we have to be able to meet you where you are, and but that's by watching. You know, do I need more heavier weight out? As I watch people do, do we need to add weight out there? Does it look too light? Does it look too easy? So have to just watch also your actions along with you know what you're saying. And so just like you know, when we have a treadmill class, if somebody's new, they might want to walk, they might want to power walk instead of jog, they might want to power walk instead of run. So we have to find out where are they coming in at so we can meet them where they are, and then when we do that, we can build so the second thing is we guide incrementally. So we talk about baby steps. The first of the year, we we've taught, we talk, we talk about this all the time. When you make new year's resolutions, should there be a 180 or a 360-degree change? In other words, should it be a complete change, complete turnaround, or should it be a little bit at a time? Which is more successful? So the the baby steps at a time. A little bit at a time, yes. So, because how does a baby walk? So if a baby, a baby rolls on its, you know, rolls around and it can roll to move, and then it gets up on one knee and kind of wobbles or it sits, it he or she sits and wobbles, then they kind of lean over and they can crawl a little bit, and then eventually they can kind of stand up and they wobble a little bit, and then they can take a step or two and they wobble and fall down, and then eventually they can walk. All of us started out with baby steps, and so if if we can understand where somebody is, we can then watch their actions, listen to their words, and incrementally walk side by side with them. You know, you know, the interesting thing I'm gonna uh pick on Lee for a minute and the running club. So I think some groups for the running club start at like 5:30 in the morning, and they might might have different groups till like eight o'clock because they're all different. Ones might be running, one's run walking, one's walking. But Lee is kind of in charge of that group, and so she runs with the runners, she runs walks with the run walkers, she walks with the walkers. So when we do that, we walk side by side, but even though we're capable of way more, walking with a walker, even though you're way more capable of doing more, because is is what's gonna happen, and as we've seen, when you take those baby steps, that walker might then drop down to a run walker, and then they go, Oh, I can do this, and then they drop down to a runner. But if you're to tell somebody that doesn't exercise, hey, you need to come with us at 5:30 in the morning and we're gonna put in an eight-miler, they'd be like, I'm out. There's no way that's gonna happen. But they started at a as a walker, and some of those walk runners are finishing up and they go, Oh, I didn't know you did that. Oh, okay. Well, I might join you next time. And and so over time, by walking side by side and guiding incrementally, we can start to make some changes. Whereas if you're to take that light giant step, it would have never worked. Kind of like if you know you're not going to the gym at all, and all of a sudden you start going, you expect yourself to go seven days a week. How long is that gonna last? Not very long at all. Some that aren't going to the gym and they want to go five days a week, I'm like, nah, it's too many. Maybe three, maybe even two. And so we we talk about these things as you know, coming to the gym, but these things are very applicable too to our relationships. You know, maybe with our spouse, we have a lot of conflict, but maybe we're not understanding where they are. And by watching and listening and being present and without putting forward our own opinion, we can objectively find out where they are. And then saying, going, I need you to make a 180, you say, All I need is a 1% change. All I'm looking for is let's do this. It's a one, it's super easy, it's a 1% change. And then then it's another 1%, and then another 1%. And so there's gradual changes, you know. If you ever talk to anybody that had a not a great relationship, it wasn't an you know, what the interesting thing is those things didn't happen overnight, but then to get better, it didn't happen overnight. It it takes some work, it takes some little baby steps, little gradual things that we have to do. And and we have to do that walking side by side with somebody so we can, you know, guide them incrementally. And when we do that, we understand where they are, and and we want to look for this too, you know. For people, you want them to understand where you are, maybe walk with you incrementally. And then the third thing is we have to begin to show them what's possible. We do that by being an example, by sharing with someone, or by showing them. Think about the things you've been able to accomplish. Probably chances are you you witness it somewhere or saw it somewhere that that should that it was shown to you that was possible by somebody being an example, they shared it with you, they showed it to you, whether it was something in their past that wasn't good and they turned it around and go, Oh my gosh, I struggle with some of those same things. And you know, that is possible. So I guess it was last week. So on our on are treadmill workouts. So the energetics and small group treadmill workouts, they're the same. In other words, the timing's the same, the the theme is the same. Only in energetics I change it to walking, power walking, brisk walking, power trotting. So last week I think we had sprints. And there was one day where we had a lot of sprints. And so that for the energetics was power trots. And so there's about two or three last week that when we did power trots they were actually joggy. And we've been doing energetics oh for almost a a year maybe so if I had told any of them hey we're gonna we're gonna work up to joggy they would have probably said no that's not gonna happen. But the interesting thing is we we started with some over these months we started with some leash easy walks some brisk walks some purposeful walks all the things power walks and maybe a couple months ago I introduced power trots to try to push the speed a little bit push it a little bit and and without me saying anything or doing anything when I said power trot they said you know I'm capable of a little bit more so I'm gonna speed it up a little bit more which turned it into a really it was a jog. And and so that's one of those where it's incremental steps it's baby steps and then they begin to see what's possible. Oh I could go at this speed and power walk I think if I pushed it up a little bit more I could do a little bit more but if I had told them hey you're gonna jog if I would have said hey we're gonna jog these different intervals today it'd be probably would have been like no way but they began to see based on what they could do previously that those things were possible. And so it it's really first understanding where they're coming from maybe not doing a lot not a lot of regular exercise okay so we'll start out easy we'll start out slow and then we take those baby steps we start incrementally making it better and then they begin to see what's possible same for each of you as you as you come to classes. The hope is that as long as you've been coming you're doing a lot more maybe it's faster maybe it's heavier weight than you did when you first started because you began again to see what was possible what you could do but not only that is you began to maybe there's others going a little bit faster than you on the treadmill maybe there's others lifting a little bit heavier than you go I think I can do that. Let me I mean let me try that let me try a little bit more and and then you start to see um and the interesting thing is someone's an example to you and then you become an example to somebody else and maybe it's just sharing sharing some experiences as we share sometimes in walk and talk sit and talk mindful Mondays when we share those experiences again somebody else hears that and goes wow that's possible I can I can there can be a difference you know even when we talked about hormones you know Kim had mentioned about her experience with hormones and how that has changed and helped her and some of you reached out and so again it's what are we what's your actions what words are you saying what are some of your challenges and then some baby steps and then you realize somebody else oh that's possible well let me try to do that and and some of you found out that was possible because of her sharing that so it's again it's meeting you where you're at by listening instead of just how many times do you meet somebody and they just start telling you stuff you never even cared about or asked about you might say I want to lose a few pounds. Well let me tell you about this great and they go on this whole tirade about the things you should do but they never listened to your thoughts to what you're doing to any of that they just give advice and and maybe we're guilty of that sometimes so the challenge is too if if one if somebody's asking you know for help then you can meet them where they are by watching listening then you can guide them incrementally and then you begin to show them what's possible. Now the thing is again this is all assuming if they're ready to move if they're ready to move then we can you can do that. But what happens if you're trying to go somewhere and you have a heavy weight attached to you what if you're in the water and you're just floating around and you have a big old hundred pound weight attached to you what eventually happens sink. You sink and then what happens if you sink and you can't breathe you die you die exactly so if you had scissors in your hand and that big old weight was taking you down underwater would you die or would you cut the cut the rope I'd cut the rope. Cut the rope exactly be and that's what sometimes when people aren't ready to move they say they are we kind of think they are and then we start doing some things and everything's an obstacle everything's a I'm I can't do that. And we hear this and they can start to drag you down. Then you're not making workouts because you're trying to be a better friend and and then you're eating not eating as good because you're going out to eat with them to make them feel better. And so they start dragging you down. And sometimes it it we have to cut them loose just for the time being because it may be that right now's not the time but there might be a uh later time and we have to remember that that just because we cut the rope and we cut the dead weight doesn't mean that we lost them forever. It just means that right now is not the right time for them. And it may be just I mean we've had many that I saw at synergy that would come and come and come and quit come and quit come and quit and then finally they came and kept coming and it's not that I mean there's all kinds of reasons it just wasn't the right time. And then eventually there comes a time when everything clicks and it just whether it's a decision to change whether there's a need for change there's something that happened that requires that change. So we just have to remember that that we don't want to be weighed down and it takes us down. So when we meet someone we're at that we have to understand where they are we have to guide them incrementally not big giant steps and then we have to begin to show them what's possible. So the challenge is is if you're serving someone are you meeting them where then where they're at or if you're if somebody is is serving you and trying to help you are theyeting you where they're at and if not if you're not if they're not meeting you where they're at maybe you have that conversation and you start to communicate and explain what it is you need meet what where are you and help them understand. Any thoughts comments or questions and thank you to each of you for joining us tonight on Sit and Talk