Ep. 49 Dorsey Standish

I am joined by Dorsey Standish. Dorsey is a mechanical engineer, neuroscientist, and wellness expert who brings evidence-based mindfulness and emotional intelligence to clients worldwide. Dorsey has led science-based wellness programs for hundreds of companies, including Staples, Toyota, and American Airlines. Dorsey holds a master’s degree in Cognitive Neuroscience from University of Texas at Dallas and a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. Dorsey’s teachings draw on her training as a teacher of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction through Brown University and deep experience on regular 7-day silent meditation retreats studying with master teachers.  She is also the  CEO of Mastermind Mediate which is a  Dallas-based mental wellness firm founded in 2016 to bring science-based brain training techniques to organizations nationwide. They are a 100% woman and LGBT owned business.

They believe that if you change your thoughts, you can change your world. They empirically supported cognitive training programs harness the power of mindfulness and emotional intelligence to transform lives and corporations. Our world needs mindfulness and mental resiliency now more than ever. In a world of uncertainty, what is certain is each moment, each breath, and the ability for each person to find their own inner peace. They believe that in today's challenging, everchanging environment, Mastermind can help people manage uncertainty, connect with their own inner strength, and ultimately thrive in their personal and professional lives.

We talk about the myths around mindfulness and simple ways that you can incorporate them into your home and work life. How to give yourself grace that a mindfulness practice can look and feel different daily and different techniques that can be used daily.  Mastermind offers both in person and virtual training sessions.

About Mastermind | Mastermind Meditate - Dallas
Mastermind | Workplace Wellness That Works (@mastermindmeditate) • Instagram photos and videos
Dorsey Standish - Mastermind Meditate - YouTube
Dorsey Standish, MS (@dorseystandish) • Instagram photos and videos

Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend | TED Talk
Matt Killingsworth: Want to be happier? Stay in the moment | TED Talk

Ashley (@filledupcup_) • Instagram photos and videos
Filled Up Cup - Unconventional Self Care for Modern Women

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the filled up cup podcast. We are a different kind of self-care resource one that has nothing to do with bubble baths and face masks and everything to do with rediscovering yourself. We bring you real reviews, honest experiences and unfiltered opinions that will make you laugh, cry, and most importantly, leave you with a filled up cup.

Ashley: 0:33

I am very excited today. I have Dorsey Standish joining me. Dorsey is the CEO of mastermind. Mastermind is a Dallas based mental wellness firm. They bring science based brain training techniques to organizations nationwide. It is a hundred percent women owned business. Thanks for joining me today.

Dorsey: 0:53

Thanks so much for having me, Ashley. I'm so happy to be here.

Ashley: 0:56

Can you explain a little bit what Mastermind does?

Dorsey: 1:00

Yeah, of course, Ashley. So I know it's kind of a mouthful, right? Science based brain training techniques, basically, mastermind was originally founded as a physical space and we've since morphed our concept due to the pandemic and other factors to be more of a virtual popup Offering company, but originally we were a physical location and we called ourselves a gym for your brain. We really believe that just as people go to a fitness gym to train their bodies, that with the importance of our brain and, affecting so much of what we do, that we should be spending time training our brains, just like we train our bodies. So we've evolved to be a mental wellness consulting firm and we bring science based mindfulness. Techniques to companies originally here in the Dallas and Texas area and during the pandemic, we had an opportunity to expand virtually and connect with companies that have a nationwide, even global footprint. So my background is, as you mentioned, is in mechanical engineering and neuroscience and in the corporate world. So I love to kind of demystify mindfulness and brain training and bring in some evidence and research into the conversation with these wellness techniques.

Ashley: 2:12

Which I think is really great because I think sometimes we sort of give the eye roll response to mindfulness or meditation, and we really think it's sort of this, you know, crunchy granola practice. It really does come down to science based technology that it really is something that is beneficial for us and is proven to be all these things that it isn't just sort of like a woo-hoo science.

Dorsey: 2:36

Yeah, I love that you brought that up because I always tell people it's usually how I start off my talks, that I was super skeptical about meditation. I always identify as kind of a type A scientist, right. Mechanical engineer. And so the idea of sitting still on purpose is. Never really appealed to me. I used to think, meditation meant I had to have my feet like pretzel style, like Lotus position. I had to have my hands a certain way. I had to be chanting. I had to have a perfectly calm mind and I'm really grateful to have learned that those are actually myths. The practice of mindfulness, as you mentioned, is a science based way of waking up to this present moment. It's a way of paying attention where we're engaged. And we're curious about our surroundings, almost like the way a child or a pet might engage with their environment. We kind of tap back into that part of ourselves that can be in direct contact with what's happening in this present moment.

Ashley: 3:31

For anybody who is wanting to get started in their practice and start incorporating it more in their daily life, what's a simple way that people can start bringing mindfulness into their homes?.

Dorsey: 3:43

I always tell people that I started with just a few minutes, a day of mindful practice, and I spent a little bit of time educating myself first with apps and books. And so even just debunking those myths a little bit, right. Realizing that meditation doesn't require me to sit a certain way or be a certain way. I don't have to be calm or be good at meditating. Right. And. The practice is not about clearing my mind. It's actually about becoming more aware of everything that's on my mind, right? We're actually getting present with thoughts and emotions and sensations. I have a lot of clients they'll tell me, after a few weeks of practice, they'll say my mind is getting busier. I always tell them, you're actually just noticing your busy mind, right? Because as human beings some research has found that our mind wanders about 50% of the time. So just think about that 50% of our day, our mind is occupied on something else than what we're actively engaged in. So it's no secret that we have monkey minds as human beings. Mindfulness is a way to train our attention, to keep coming back to this present moment and to do so. We use anchors for our attention, just like a ship might drop its anchor on stormy seas. To root itself to a certain spot, we can do the same thing to drop our awareness into the present moment. Using anchors like the breath. We're always breathing the physical body, getting in touch with like the feeling of your feet on the floor. Like we can do that right now together. That's a simple mindfulness practice or engaging with the five senses, noticing what we can see, what we can hear, what we can touch. Right? When we practice mindfulness in this way of kind of waking up to these different aspects of the present moment, taking a mindful pause might become really simple, right. I love to refer people to. Finding the anchor that feels most natural to them and then spending a few minutes with it per day. So some people might love to rest with their breath and maybe take 10 mindful breaths in the morning as they start their day. Other people may love to get in greater touch with their bodies. And so maybe it's that feeling the feet on the ground that feels good to them and doing a quick scan through their body and noticing different sensations. For other people, they may get the most out of. Engaging with their senses and spending a few minutes, just listening to their surroundings in the morning. When we start with these small mindful pause practices, the important thing to remember is that we're not gonna be perfectly focused on our anchor all the time. It's actually, when we look at people's brains who are meditating, it's the moment that they notice they've drifted and they come back. That's the magic moment. It's like, you're doing a bicep curl for the mind every time you come back. So I always tell myself, Being the recovering perfectionist, the more time my mind wanders, the more opportunities I have to come back. So I would suggest people start out by choosing one of those simple anchors into the present moment and incorporating it for, you know, Just 60 seconds a day. I think we all have the same 1,440 minutes a day. So maybe just one minute we can spend waking up and training our brain to be present and curious about what's here around us and within us.

Ashley: 6:55

I love that it's such a simple practice that it's as simple as just noticing, you know, your feet on the ground or, you know, taking those deep breaths in. And I think too many of us and I'm guilty of this as well. The very first thing that we'll do is, you know, pick up our phones or we get distracted even in our day before we're really actually starting our day. So I think it's so important for people to check in and be like, how am I doing throughout the day? And instead of kind of getting stuck on that, go, go, go. I also love with things like the anchors that you suggested is say you find that one doesn't work. It doesn't have to be a, this is the only practice that you can follow and it gives people variety to try different things.

Dorsey: 7:39

Of course Ashley and yeah, I totally relate to kind. I like to call'em the weapons of mass distraction, right? The phone, the, just the mind. And there's some research that shows that heavy smartphone use can actually give even adults the symptoms of ADD. Right. Like we can actually train ourselves for distraction, which is what a lot of us do all day, every day when we're jumping from thing to thing. So this practice of mindfulness is kind of revolutionary, cuz we're single tasking, right. We're gathering the focus and bringing it onto one thing. But I really believe that it's essential in today's world, that we cross train a little bit to maintain some of that steadiness and some of that calm that's accessible to us when we can turn inwards for, you know, feeling better rather than always. Turning outwards and looking outside of ourselves.

Ashley: 8:26

That's so important too, because when we do turn outwards and we focus on thinking that we need all these things, if those things disappear, then we're kind of hoped. Whereas at least if we can depend on ourselves and we create these own practices that, don't necessarily require apps or don't necessarily require equipment or any of these things, then it's like, we'll always have those tools within us.

Dorsey: 8:47

That's so true, Ashley, and, just to make that connection between what you just said and what I do now, I mean, that's exactly our mission at mastermind is to equip each one of our clients with an inner toolkit for mental wellness. Right? So like you said, we're kind of taught from birth to look outside of ourselves for what we need when I had my own mental health crisis, that cut me into mindfulness in the first place my doctor said, you know, take this medicine. And I said, okay, And I'm going to also research how I can train myself for stress resilience and mental health. So I started developing that inner toolkit and finding strength and resilience within myself. I wish when I had started meditating in 2015, that there had been more resources for me in the corporate world where I was. But that's what we do now at mastermind is we wanna make sure that. Any person at any company that we work with has the resources to develop their own inner toolkits, start learning about mindfulness, other mental health practices. And most importantly, as you mentioned, that ability to turn inwards and find that that natural resilience that lies in each one of us as a human being.

Ashley: 9:53

Well, and I would imagine just businesses over the last two years have experienced burnout and stress and really staff shortages. It would be a really challenging time to not only work in a corporation, but also try to manage and create a healthy space for all of your staff. What are some tips that you recommended corporations when they're trying to switch their corporate? Not environment, but I guess like their workplace vibe.

Dorsey: 10:25

Yeah, vibe culture. We have a lot of clients that come to us asking similar questions, mentioning that people are burned out or they're multitasking, you know, whatever it is. And how can we start to shift the needle towards a more present, a healthier workplace culture and. Just to back up a moment and share kind of our own story during the pandemic. I actually took over responsibility for mastermind right at the beginning of 2020. So I'm like I have this company we're gonna go out and do all these events and literally March of 2020 hits. I get call after call from clients saying, okay, we can't do this event in person. Right. So I'm actually going through my own little, like reckoning of what what's life gonna be like with this pandemic. After some soul searching and a little bit of freaking out, I realized what a great opportunity that the pandemic could be for us to go online, to reach people virtually. People had the exact same idea, you know, weeks within when the pandemic started. And we were in lockdown, I had friends and family members reaching out and saying, can you do a mindfulness session for this group? They really need it, or I really need it. You know, how can I help you stay afloat? Pretty soon we were having corporations. calling just as you mentioned and saying, wow, people are so anxious. They're so stressed. How do we support them? I look back on those early times of the pandemic and the anxiety was so acute and it was very clear. People just needed support and connection. As the pandemic stretched on and on it, just got really messy, because it was like this really taxing thing on the mind of what's safe to do. And what's not. The lines between work and home blurred as we got more and more comfortable from working from our living room in my case, right. So people started to deal, not just with that acute anxiety, but also with feelings of burnout, with really struggling with work life balance, you know, relationships at home were strained. People were missing that in person connection at work. When you look at the research, we're still kind of catching up from a scientific perspective to really understand all of the impacts of the pandemic. I honestly don't think we know yet the full impact of this time that we spent both in that initial lockdown phase and about the year and a half after that. But I will say that in speaking with clients and companies who are interested in, as you mentioned, shifting the culture, Of their business. It really starts out as cheesy as the sounds with awareness, right. Which is the ultimate part of mindfulness is, oh, this is happening. Right? And so usually when clients come to us, we can congratulate them on actually having the awareness of what's happening in their business. Because from that place of awareness and acceptance, then real shift in transformation can start to change. So we typically start by working with the company Doing kind of a state of the union assessment to understand what's wrong. Where are the deficits? Where could they use extra support? And then we support them in a number of ways. It's everything from giving specific training to the leadership and the managers. We find that oftentimes cultural norms trickle down in an organization from the top down. And so doing something as simple as giving your leadership team a mindful communication. Training right. Could shift the whole feel of the organization. If people feel more heard and supported. I think communication, especially as we do more virtual connection, that's a huge theme that we're seeing a lot with, that companies want support around. How do I communicate effectively? Mindfulness is a huge part of that. We also see the impacts of basic stress management techniques for the entire group. So teaching people a little bit about how their body. Works when they're stressed out, why they feel maybe irrational a little out of control when they're, hijacked when they're kind of on edge about something and giving them a little bit of education and then some support on, like you mentioned, just breathing a little deeply. I know nobody likes to hear it when they're stressed out of take a deep breath, but that's actually scientifically based. So having. In person or virtual sessions where it's understood, okay, this is common education and terminology that we have as a team. And now we have these simple strategies that we can use to help us manage stress or help us communicate better. So that's kind of where the initial tips and support come in is usually like what's going on in your organization? How can we work with stress and improved communication? Cause those are some of the two like low hanging fruit. That's like, okay, let's dive in and tackle that. And then from there Our really forward thinking. Clients do everything from, you know, switching people to a 10, four work week. So they have Fridays off to help give them more balance. A lot of them are working 10 hours a day. Anyways, during the week people will do things like no meetings on Wednesday afternoon or there there's all sorts of. New innovative ways that companies are finding to help promote wellness throughout an organization. So we love to kind of stay on top of that research and those trends and talk to our clients and as much as possible, yes, we provide the education and the live sessions and the on-demand resources, and we love to work closely with the HR teams and the leadership team to help make sure that some of these relatively simple strategies for workplace wellbeing are being employed and knowing that it's not an overnight shift, but that when people feel safe and trusting, and that means trusting themselves as well as trusting the environment that they're in. It really opens a lot of things up and allows people to reach their full potential.

Ashley: 16:08

I really appreciate that more businesses are considering this, because I do think that it'll take a long time before we all really realize that collective sort of trauma that the last two years were that we really all got told I'll be two weeks. And then it was two years of not knowing or we really. Felt like we were in control of our own lives and had the ability to make all these choices and control is really such a myth that I think we realized that we all kind of got put on pause and, then having to work from home. So many people either loved it or really did miss that office comradery I think the typical nine to five, Monday to Friday work life. I think a lot of people realize that they want to spend time with their families more or they want to, have their free time more. And that it doesn't just have to be, I go to work and then I come home and I'm so tired that I don't wanna do everything else. So I like that companies are actually expanding to think maybe it could be longer hours, but a shorter work week, maybe we can do less so that, they aren't hounding people say at 4 59 to try to do something as they're one foot out the door and really appreciating that their employees are actual people.

Dorsey: 17:21

Yeah. And that even as you say, like appreciating that our employees are actual people, right. That's classic, just empathy and connection. And it, again, it starts with mindful awareness, if we're not thinking about, oh, this person is a human being just like me, what are they headed off to do? Or what did they need then it's really hard for us to make those concessions and support them. In the best way possible. And you mentioned this common phenomenon of working from home, and a lot of my clients would call it living from work, right on average. During the pandemic people clocked an extra two hours per day online at work I heard from so many people how work bled into home, bled, into work, and it just became this kind of messy, stressful life. Actually at mastermind, we take all of our clients through a year long wellness journey every year with some different education that's seasonal and also builds on one another. So August our theme is people are going back to school or coming back from summer vacation. Our theme is work life balance. And how can we. Balance all these different commitments and potential stressors that we have in our lives. I know when I think back to when I was working in the corporate world as an engineer, I was like the opposite of balance. I spent almost all my time working. I would get home and I'd open up my laptop. And then I'd be thinking about, when the repairman was gonna come all day at work, I didn't have any. What I now realize is attention regulation to say, okay, this is the priority right now. as I share with clients now about work life balance, from a mindfulness perspective, we can think about it as attention regulation and saying, okay, here's the time that I have carved out for this thing. And if my mind wanders, just like as we're practicing meditation, and if our mind wanders away from the breath, we come back. If we start thinking about our child and what they're doing at school during the Workday, we might say, oh, I love my child. And then I'm gonna come back to what's right in front of me, an interesting bit of research that I quoted earlier, the study out of Harvard in 2016, that found people's minds wander about 50% of the time in that same study. They also found that when people were fully focused on what they're doing, whether that's taking out the trash or eating a delicious meal, whatever it is, they're about 10 to 20% happier. If they're present in the moment.. Not to mention more focused and effective, right? If we're present at work or if we're present at home, we're gonna show up better for those tasks. And so I love to think about work, life balance and the challenge that we all dealt with during the pandemic, and maybe are still dealing with as how can I be present where my feet are? How can I be happier and more effective? Simply by choosing to focus on what's right in front of me, whether that's work or home at the moment. It's not always that simple, but I love to have that idea in mind of training my attention muscle so that I can be fully present and engaged in what I'm doing in the moment.

Ashley: 20:18

I think we tend to wanna overcomplicate things and we have been sold sort of on the hustle culture for so long that it really is, in 10 years, are you gonna wanna remember some fantastic meal that you sat around with your family or your friends, or are you gonna wanna look back and be like, well, I did send 60 emails that day. Like it really is about what we're gonna make our core memories. I think too many of us focus on the things that we should be doing instead of focusing on being present in our bodies and really knowing that it's okay to put the phone down or it's okay to carve out that work life balance so that, you know, if you're laying bed at 10 o'clock at night, that you're not like, oh my gosh, I have all of these things to do tomorrow. And just letting yourself know that whatever you're dealing with them in the moment is really what's important.

Dorsey: 21:08

I love that you brought up the hustle culture and kind of our tendency to, I always say, you know, be a human doing rather than a human being, right. It's like, let me churn out more widgets today so that I feel productive. And let me check these boxes right. It's interesting in this kind of research for the work life balance topic we've been doing, I came across an article in nature that actually compared time diaries in the 1960s to time diaries in the past 10 years. They found that we actually work about the same amount that we did 60 years ago, men and women paid and unpaid work accounted for, and men even have a little bit more free time every day. And yet we have this culture of busyness, this kind of addiction to even being able to say, like, how are you? Oh, I'm so busy. right. Like I find that coming outta my mouth. And it's like, for some reason I feel validated. I'm like, oh, I have a lot going on. I'm important. You know, whatever that means. And this article in nature, it was so funny. They drew attention to the fact that in the 19th century, it was the opposite. And having a lot of leisure time that you were of high status. So. People would literally walk their turtles through the park in Paris. to be like, I have so much time to just walk my turtle. Was a sign of status. I think in today's world, you're so right to bring up the hustle culture and that. Kind of status symbol of being busy, which equates to, I don't know, importance or value. But I love inviting people to investigate their relationship, to doing and being busy and something that I'm. Currently four months pregnant as we're talking in.

Ashley: 22:44

Congratulations.

Dorsey: 22:45

Thank you. It's so exciting. It's a first time experience for me and my energy and, I've had to really shift from what I was doing before, to what I actually do now. And something I've been struggling with just like my clients, just like all of us is how can I find my worth and who I am versus what I do. It's such a challenge, especially with the messages that society gives us. But I do think that time with ourselves in silence and stillness, even if it's just that few minutes of mindfulness a day, we start to have that conversation and connection with ourselves and get to know and appreciate ourselves just as we are.

Ashley: 23:23

I think we need to almost not be afraid to do that. Like not be afraid of, you know, if I look inside, what am I gonna find? And also like in being somebody who is pregnant, it's like letting yourself off the hook or not feeling guilty. If you don't have as much energy and you need to have a nap, I feel like we tend to beat ourselves up so much about things that we really don't need to. That I feel that's such an important thing about mindfulness is just knowing that. If we're lucky we have another day, like we don't need to worry about, things that we can't control.

Dorsey: 23:57

Yeah, and I really, I love Ashley that you brought up one, the aspect of self-compassion and non-judgment of self, and then two acknowledging how scary it could be to sit with yourself. Right. I mean, I'm smiling cuz I remember how resistant I was as I was researching stress resilience after this mental health crisis of like, is there anything else? Why does all the literature say meditation? like, oh my gosh, I have to sit with myself and like. Listen to my crazy mind and it can be really intimidating. I was just on a meditation retreat in Colorado and the teacher actually likens our kind of unfriendly mind to like a bad neighborhood. Like you don't wanna go there alone at first and having support, whether that's a friend, do you start the meditation journey with whether that's a teacher, whether that's just an app with a friendly voice. That guides you through. I think it's so important as we're feeling uncertain about starting a journey that we reach out and we find someone again, even if it's an app that we can bring with us into what might seem initially like an unfriendly neighborhood that we're visiting as we sit with ourselves.

Ashley: 25:02

I love that as these conversations are happening more and more that people know that there's so many different resources out there for them that if they wanna get into a different practice, I think it's one of those things that sometimes we expect ourselves to be able to have all the answers and solve all of our own problems and not wanna ask for help where we really can't. If we've kind of created our own problem, it, we really. Outward help a lot of the time. So it's like finding somebody who could be a meditation coach or finding that app, or just being brave enough, I think to ask for help..

Dorsey: 25:35

Definitely. I love that. I so agree on the asking for help. I just think back to, again, that really difficult time that I went through in 2015, which ultimately led me to meditation and it honestly took me. Hitting rock bottom and having this such a crisis moment to consider meditation. I do find a lot of people, especially in my field of sharing wellness. Like a lot of us have this story of challenge that we've overcome that makes us so passionate about it, but more and more, I see meditators and. Students and enthusiasts who they don't have any like big thing they're working with in their lives. it's not a life or death matter for them to meditate. It's Hey, I wanna be 10% happier. Right? Like Dan Harris and that research study outta Harvard, or I wanna be able to, you know, my sister texted me the other day and she said, you'd be so proud of me. I woke up in the middle of the night, she's an elementary school teacher and she was stressed about school starting. And she said, you'd be so proud of me. I did a body scan and I fell back. Sleep. right. And so it's like, whether you just wanna be a little happier, you wanna be able to get to sleep better at night. I mean, I just wanna encourage people. You don't have to be having a crisis to be curious about your mind and just like you might go for a walk a few times a week to optimize your physical fitness. Think about, what a few minutes of mindfulness a day could do to optimize your mental fitness, and again, make you happier, more effective and more engaged in your daily life.

Ashley: 27:00

Which I think is such an important part too, because I think it does usually take us hitting a rock bottom Before a lot of people will actually consider, I need to make a change. I think that in our society, self care, isn't preemptive. Like we don't really think before we reach that point, what are we gonna do for ourselves? It does tend to be an afterthought. Another thing that we tend to really overlook is how serious stress can be on our physical body and how it can affect and have sort of these ripple effects to our physical health.

Dorsey: 27:32

Yeah. And gosh, I'll talk about stress in a moment, but I wanna share a little story when I was working in the corporate world. I remember they had a speaker come to us for heart health awareness month and talk to us about the dangers of stress. It was this guy who just spent an hour preaching to us about how bad stress was and all the things that were gonna happen to our bodies with no tools, no suggestions like nothing.

Ashley: 27:54

So, oh no,

Dorsey: 27:56

So, yes, I could totally sit here and scare you with, you know, research studies I think though, coming at it from a perspective of education of this is how your body works. Like we have this stress response, right. That helps us to fight or flight that evolves so that when we're challenged by something, in our environment, we have the energy to escape or fight against it. It may have served us really well when we're escaping a tiger in the jungle. Doesn't serve us so well in today's world where we're getting activated again and again, by a traffic jam on the way to work I spilled a smoothie in my car this morning, which is a whole nother story, right? But these little things during the day add up and that acute stress response to get us out of a dangerous situation can be really helpful. But what happens to so many of us is we live with so many stressors on a regular basis that we have just this chronic stress level. That's really debilitating. As you mentioned, a lot of. Physical and mental health challenges are linked to the presence of chronic stress and kind of us never resetting to baseline and calming back down, but being constantly at that level of elevated cortisol and adrenaline stress hormones in the body. In partially in that fight or flight state in the mind. Right. Which is really exhausting. It's not how our nervous systems were designed. They were designed to have that acute stressor to run back to our village and to be greeted by family and friends and have a nice meal and be safe and be rested and be okay. But that's not really how our lives work today. So it's important that we build in some recovery and reset time. One of my, my favorite books that I've read is called burnout. And it's by these twin sisters who are both PhDs and they give you seven research back strategies to cope with burnout. It's really simple things like, you know, getting some movement, like dancing it out, just like we in olden times, we would've run away from the tiger. We can dance it out or walk or run and tell ourselves we are escaping the stressor, right. That communicates to our body that we're safe. Other things like friendly social connection. Just like we would be, you know, greeted in the village by our friends after we've escaped from this tiger or deep breathing, which we've already talked about. Right. Again, Stimulates the vagus nerve in the front of the body and helps to activate that rest and digest or parasympathetic nervous system. That opposite side. So stress. Yes, it can. Have really debilitating effects on our bodies, especially over the long term. And we can educate ourselves a little bit and understand some practical science based strategies that don't take a ton of time, but that can help us to siphon off stress on a regular basis so that we feel again, like we have that inner toolkit for dealing with what comes our way, like. As John Kabat-Zinn in kind of can be considered the founder of modern mindfulness. He always says you can't stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf them. For me, mindfulness is one tool in my toolkit that helps me to surf the waves and the stresses of life.

Ashley: 30:55

I love that. It would be so beneficial to more people to realize that it can be as simple as, you know, locking yourself in a pantry and having 10 deep breaths and then being able to go outside or whatever the case may be, that it doesn't have to be as complicated as we try to make it.

Dorsey: 31:11

That's so true. Ashley, on another note of just an uncomplicated tip for dealing with stress, there's really interesting research at the university of Wisconsin that indicates that how we think about stress matters. So There's a great Ted talk by Kelly McGonigal called how to make stress, your friend and I high I'll give you the link and you can link it in the show notes. She does an amazing job of explaining it better than I'll do, but basically they did this eight year longitudinal study on folks and they tracked Every year, their level of stress, their physical challenges. Then they checked public health records to see if these individuals died. So we're basically correlating, okay. This person's stress level with whether they're dying or not. And what they found is that. Stress, not surprisingly like people with the highest level of stress had the highest risk of dying, but people who didn't think stress was bad for them who were like, oh, that's no problem that I'm stressed. It's just, part of life. People who didn't believe stress was bad for them. Didn't have. Any negative health impacts from stress. They were actually some of the healthiest in the group that was studied shocking, right? Like how crazy is it? The media tells us, oh, stress is bad. You don't know how many people I get reaching out to me saying, can you do a stress reduction workshop and I'll say, what about stress resilience? Right. Just like, let's shift it a little bit. Cause. So often we think of stress as the enemy, and we can also think about it as it's calling us forth, to grow, it's energizing our body and mind to do the work we wanna do in the world. It's important to have those tools to mitigate it and optimize our nervous system function. But how amazing is it that simply thinking about stress as something that could be even positive can help mitigate some of the health consequences of that chronic stress that I mentioned earlier

Ashley: 32:54

How fantastic. That we have the control to think that, Hey, if I am not gonna let this negatively impact me, or I'm not gonna, dwell on it, but it doesn't necessarily have to lead down some dark, scary path that it can be okay, I'm stressed. This sucks. I'm gonna deal with this for 10 minutes and then move on and switch the mindset to something else.

Dorsey: 33:15

Yeah. And I love that you mentioned those 10 minutes of like, ah, you know, like screaming. I'm like whatever, journaling, crying to a friend, venting to a partner, and then shifting what happened for me before I had a mindfulness practice is that I didn't have a very good mastery over my mind. So even if I heard on your podcast, Ashley, oh, I should just switch away and let it go and think about it as a positive thing. I couldn't, I didn't have that mastery or control over my mind to actually do that. Something that mindfulness and meditation practice has given me is this deeper relationship with myself. So that it's more like. You know, one of my favorite quotes is from Robin Sharma. He says the mind is a terrible master, but a wonderful servant, so that we don't wanna be like pulled around by our mind. My meditation teacher talks about it, like an ox with the ring through its nose, it just gets pulled. Right. Our mind can do that to us. All stressful, you know? We wanna be the master and have our mind be a servant of our highest desires and goals. And so for me, meditation and mindfulness has been a way to start to have some mastery, not perfect control over my mind by any means. But if I hear, oh, this mindset helps or I can shift my attention here again, it's not perfect, but I have more of that control and mastery over my mind so that I can put some of these ideas and practices into place that I'm excited about.

Ashley: 34:43

The idea of perfection can be really dangerous too. So I think if we start any practice in knowing, okay, I have to get to this perfect place, I have to master it. I have to do this. Instead of it being this like constant relationship where I'm open to change, I'm open to different techniques, I think would most likely serve us better than. Once I get into meditation, I'm gonna clear my mind. I'm gonna do it every day. It's gonna look this way and you know, that's that where then I think it almost becomes like this toxic need for it to be something else then for it to actually be a mindful practice.

Dorsey: 35:21

That's so true. I don't know if you've heard of the muse headbands that you can put on and it kind of measures your meditation, supposedly it no gives you feedback on your brainwaves basically tells you if you're doing a good job, quote, unquote at meditation or not. And people ask me, have you tried that. I know that for me, that would attach, like you said, some kind of desire for perfection or a drive for a certain outcome. I do that so much in my life with my business, with getting a master's degree. For me, things like mindfulness and yoga are gifts to myself where there's literally. As much as possible, no attachment to a certain outcome or being good at it. I think that's why I've stuck with these practices for so long is I truly have gone in with this curious, beginner's mind, this exploratory openness that you mentioned of, Ooh, this technique and this practice and how can I keep the joy alive in this present moment and being open to it and finding. Teachers and resources that really support that attitude. I think there's so much in our lives, in our culture, that's results driven. It's such a beautiful practice to gift yourself at least one area of your life, where as cheesy as it is, you know, the journey is the destination, or you're just kind of waking up and seeing what happens and being curious and open to what presents itself. I'm so grateful that for me, that those practices have been mindfulness and yoga. People will say, oh, you're such a good meditator, you know, things. And I'm like, Hey, I'm on the journey with you. I mean, my mind. Isn't perfectly focused in meditation. I have so much more to learn and grow and I really try to share. The techniques that people we work with at mastermind from a place of, Hey, I'm on the journey with you. I have this human mind. How can we learn more about our minds and educate ourselves using practical techniques to calm our nervous system, be more engaged, be a little more present, have more meaningful relationships, right.

Ashley: 37:18

I love that it is focusing on that connection piece instead of the competition piece where you kind of feel like the headband thing would breed that, oh, you managed to be good meditator for 15 minutes. Well, I did it for 20 and then your ego kind of takes over and then your like inner child, or that wonder of like, I just wanna play kind of gets lost in the mix.

Dorsey: 37:39

Yes, that's so true. I'm grinning. Cuz I know people will say try that. I'm like maybe I'll try someone else's but I don't think that's a good strategy. And so acknowledging like it's coming back to that theme of awareness, awareness of myself, of others and Hey, I'm this type of person. So let me make sure that I approach these practices in a way that takes that focus off the competition. Like you're mentioning and helps me get in touch with that, that playful, joyful side..

Ashley: 38:05

Now you had mentioned that you were doing some of your corporate training online. Are you back to in person or are you still doing online?.

Dorsey: 38:13

We are doing both right now. It's actually a wonderful, beautiful mix. When we first went online, I remember talking to some of my teachers and we were wondering, can we teach mindfulness on the internet? How will that come across? And we were skeptical, but we've found a lot of benefits to virtual learning. First and foremost, we can reach people anywhere, any time zone that they're in, they can be cameras off in their pajamas if they're working from home or if they're going to, you know, we have a lot of companies that have employees all over the world. So we'll put a 9:00 AM central time slot on and. People will be at various points in their day. Even some people will be on a walk I've learned or in the car, like about to walk in the front door and they'll tune into a session and they'll be able to practice with us for a few moments. We also get that diversity of. The class of hearing, from people in India or in the UK, or, different parts of the US and getting to hear their perspectives and their experiences of their culture and how mindfulness is perceived. It really does feel like a coming together. And so I found that virtual learning can be a really incredible resource, especially for companies that are bigger, that have more offices that have a kind of hybrid work environment. we did some masked events in 2021, but I'd say for most of 2022 we've been back doing in person events with some precautions in place. It's a whole nother world in person. Right. I can talk about the pros of being virtual. The pros of being in person, or I can see your facial expressions. I can hear you laugh. You can ask questions without typing in a chat box or raising your zoom hand or something like that. It's so instantaneous and natural to connect in that way. We have some clients that have started, you know, even if we started virtually with them during the pandemic, they'll fly us to different parts of the country to speak to their offices in person, cuz they really value that in person connection and especially with smaller teams or if there's some kind of event or conference going on and you wanna bring in a wellness or team building aspect. It's so powerful. I love both. Mediums. And I see myself as such a student. Like I remember I can look back to the first virtual classes I taught at the beginning of 2020. And it's so funny. My camera's all blurry. I have this weird Bluetooth headset on that's, like hanging off the side and I had such a boring background. I mean, it was just like, Hilarious. I think all the zoom settings off and it's been such a fun art form to get, to learn and grow and see what works to engage people virtually just like I've had that learning curve for a much longer time of in person, what works to engage people. So even though I'm a teacher and a facilitator, I really love to see myself as a student of life and of these practices and even of the work that I do, cuz again, it connects me back to that joy and curiosity that we spoke about.

Ashley: 41:14

Well, I love that you get to have the best of both worlds, really be able to connect with people worldwide but also still being able to get that in person connection.

Dorsey: 41:25

Yeah, it's a great mix. I'm so grateful for the growth that we've had and the new connections we've made. People will come from different countries or different parts of the country will come to Dallas that have been in our certification programs, for example. And we have in person meetups once a quarter for people to connect in person as well as monthly virtual meetup. So it's really, like you mentioned kind of marrying the best of both worlds and. What each medium has to offer.

Ashley: 41:53

You mentioned your facilitator workshop. Can you explain a little bit what that is?.

Dorsey: 41:58

Yeah. So back in, gosh, it was probably 2018. I got together with Dr. Marty Lumpkin. He's a mindfulness psychologist here in Dallas, and some people call him the godfather of mindfulness in Dallas, cuz we were so far behind the curve with respect to these contemplative practices and he's been meditating for. Over 40 years, just really incredible history and practice. I pulled him in because I wanted to offer some kind of facilitator training program and both he and I have been trained in the mindfulness based stress reduction tradition, which is founded by John Kabat-Zinn originally, you know, as part of the hospital system to bring mindfulness. Into patients with chronic illness or challenges with their health, where they needed some additional stress reduction through mindfulness and MBSR has expanded to be offered to the general public. It's a eight week course. It's really incredible tenants, but the program requires, three hour commitment once a week. And then about 45 minutes of practice a day. And their facilitator training program is similarly really intense. It takes many years, many tens of thousands of dollars to complete. And so Marty and I wanted to find something on a smaller scale that could get people started sharing this practice from a place of authenticity and some training, but really, you know, equip more people with the tools to bring this such needed practice into the world. So we came up with the idea for about a 60 hour training over about six months and bringing in my background in neuroscience, his background in psychology and really presenting mindfulness as we've talked about it today is a secular science based technique. The first part of our training program, the first three months are all about your personal practice. So many people come into teaching me included is, Hey, I need this, right? So I'm gonna train to be a teacher so that it will cuz you know what Seneca says when you teach, you learn. Right? So, so many people come in. We support them those first three months are focused on personal practice. We do a day long silent retreat. Get people really immersed in the world of mindfulness, lots of different techniques that open-mindedness, that you talked about in curiosity on the journey. And then the final three months, we transitioned into sharing some of the neuroscience sharing some of the practices we've learned with kind of what we call our mastermind formula for classes that works really well in the corporate world or in organizations with a more secular environment that. Value some science behind it. We empower facilitators to really take the quotes, the practices, the research studies that speak to them and weave them together in their own creative classes. So those last three months are all about the tenants of facilitation, how to hold space, how to conduct inquiry with your students, answer their questions. Right. And of course, six months is a really long and a really short time at the same time. It's just the beginning we have They get to do some community class hours. After the training, we have a graduate community where we do ongoing professional development every month for mindfulness teachers, and really encourage that people join that and it's become a wonderful thriving community. I think we've probably put, I wanna say almost 50 people through our certifications since we started it in 2020, we have about 25 people in our graduate membership. So we see each other on an almost monthly basis. And. Get to keep connecting and sharing inspiration and insight. You know I mentioned earlier that your mind can be like a bad neighborhood. You don't wanna go to it alone. I think so much of life can be challenging, right? Whether you're trying to teach mindfulness or. Balance your day job with your passion for mindfulness or work in life, whatever it is, or just deepening your own personal practice. And so we've found how important connection and community is, and that's really infused in our programs for individuals, whether that's the certification or the ongoing connection opportunities. Even in the corporate sector, like we've learned how to do zoom polls and chat questions and ways to make people feel connected to their colleagues. Even if they're across the world, they see a box on the zoom screen and they can imagine that they're in a physical space with that person. So to get back to our earlier conversation about the challenges that the pandemic and isolation and loneliness that so many of us have been dealing with, I see mindfulness as yes, a way to connect within and go inward and it's also a way to connect outwards more skillfully and find your people find your tribe. We're so grateful at mastermind to have a wonderful growing tribe of people, training, to be facilitators, facilitators, who are continuing to learn and grow and serve their communities. I'm so passionate about that program and then how it prepares those individuals to teach for mastermind. And then in turn, help us reach more people with these tools and practice.

Ashley: 46:51

I always love learning from people that are really passionate. So I think that that alone would really spread the message to so many people that they would feel that you are so involved, that they would then feel comfortable to get involved. So I really appreciate that you are this safe space for people to kind of jump in and admit that they don't have all the answers and be a space where they can feel comfortable to learn.

Dorsey: 47:17

Yeah. It's so funny you say that Ashley, cuz I've heard people will say to me, I don't like science or neuroscience, but you get so excited to Dorsey when you talk about it, but I'm just right there with you, right? Like I am such a nerd. my partner actually has banned me from starting any sentence to her with the words research shows. She's like, I don't wanna hear it. Don't tell me about any research. Don't gimme your science voice but so many. Students that I've connected with love how excited I get, or, you know, how excited you get. For example, when we are chatting about self care and what it really means, it's infectious when people are passionate. I think what this world needs is more of us going inwards to connect with our passions and desires and who we are, and then being able to share that with the world around us.

Ashley: 48:01

I definitely agree. I really appreciate you having this conversation with me today. If anybody is looking to work with you or they're looking for your website, can you tell me where they can find you?

Dorsey: 48:12

Yeah. So our website is mastermindmeditate.com. And we are@mastermindmeditate on Instagram and Facebook, and I'm@DorseyStandish on those same platforms. We often share some mindful brain breaks or new research study tips to support your brain health and your mindfulness practice wherever you are on your journey. We also have a free mental wellness library. We'll link it in the show notes@mastermindmeditate.com slash free library. And you can sign up to get access to about 20 different guided meditations. It's everywhere from a one minute work break up to a longer practice to help you fall asleep or relax at the end of the day. So lots of resources there and hope that those will support you and inspire you. If anything has stuck out to you today touched you. Maybe you can relate or you wanna learn more about something that I shared. Please reach out personally. I'd love to connect with you on social media and hear about your journey and how mindfulness can support you with self care and so much more.

Ashley: 49:17

That's awesome. And thank you so much.

Dorsey: 49:19

You too, Ashley. Thank you.

49:23

Thank you so much for joining us today for this episode of the filled up cup podcast, don't forget to hit subscribe and leave a review. If you like what you hear, you can also connect with us@filledupcup.com. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next episode.