The Other Side of Fear
The most important life hack you'll need: A Holistic Guide to Get You Unstuck.
Self improvement topics covering mental health, trauma, limiting beliefs, mindset, spirituality, energy healing, mindfulness, and purpose.
The Other Side of Fear explores thought provoking stories about the types of fears that are triggered by our individual insecurities, conditioning and traumas. We examine the role of societal conventions and how they function as a strong determinant, in how we often choose to address our most personal struggles.
Our guests discuss how they navigate through various challenges, while taking ownership of their true desires. Giving you a gentle push, to live in a way that honors your authenticity. What does it mean to lean into fear? How can we recreate our stories and embrace the unknown? What does the other side of fear look like for you?
This is a reminder that, your fears are as big and as scary as you allow them to be. Your purpose is greater than the fear that hinders you.
Are you ready to unlearn and undo the old programs and reconnect with your truth?
The Other Side of Fear
What IS or ISN'T Meditation ??? | with Bob Martin
Key Takeaways:
- What you resist, persists….
- Mastery, is the state of living effortlessly, yet effectively and efficiently.
- Most of the thoughts we have are “Judging Thoughts”. We are constantly caught in the cycle of judging ourselves and others. And although we are not our thoughts, we often forget that we are the creators, and we essentially become identified with the thoughts we create. This is where we lose ourselves.
This episode explores Bob Martin's extraordinary journey from a criminal attorney- self proclaimed 'mob lawyer', to a mindfulness mentor, emphasizing the importance of reconnecting with our authentic selves. Raised by immigrant parents in the colourful yet gritty backdrop of the amusement park business, Bob's story explores the complexities of identity, societal expectations, and the challenges of recognizing one's true self. His personal encounters with bullying and imposter syndrome echo the struggle many face in navigating life’s pressures.
Bob's Website/Access to Books and Resources
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⚠ HEALTH DISCLAIMER ⚠
All health and mental health topics within the content of this body of work are for informational, discussion, reflective, and entertainment purposes only. The contents of this work are not intended to be a substitute for medical or professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
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The Other Side of Fear and its contents does not replace nor does it claim to replace the knowledge, expertise and advice of licensed healthcare professionals. Do not disregard instructions from your healthcare providers because of something you saw or heard on social media or from your favourite creators.
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Hello everybody. I hope today finds you in good spirits and, at the very least, hopeful, all right. So today we're hearing from Bob Martin, who spent 40 years as a criminal attorney, but who is currently a business law professor and certified meditation teacher and mindfulness coordinator at Elon University, and having been trained in Taoist principles by a Taoist master, bob is extremely passionate about helping others to connect to their higher potential and inner peace, and one key highlight of this conversation, I'd say, is when Bob stated that who we think we are is a result of how we were socialized, and it couldn't be more true. It really reiterates what we talk about so much on this show, that our self-concept of who we are is highly programmed, and, of course, we do rely on said programming and socialization in order to be a member of society, to partake in the beauty and mess of it all and everything in between. But at some point it is essential that we begin to recognize our true selves, our authentic selves, separate from the socialized, programmed self.
Kertia:So my question for you is who are you? Who are you behind the different versions of yourself that you role play with at home, with your parents or your family, at work with your colleagues or in any environment that requires you to perform like an actor with a script, and this also includes the things that we affiliate ourselves with, like a culture, a nationality or a belief system or just a general identity we've attached to ourselves. Because the thing is, when we're so embedded in all of that, things can get really murky when we then try to create the life that we desire, when the concept of who you are came from someone else or structures outside of yourself, because then your self-concept is based on something that is detached from you, not something that is truly you. So if you are living in a state of detachment from yourself, how do you then know if your choices are your choices, how do you know if your decisions are based on what you actually want, and how do you know if what you say you desire is truly in your best interest? And that's some food for thought.
Kertia:Okay, let's get into it. Bob, you have had a very, very fascinating journey. I don't even know where to begin.
Bob:Well, you know, to quote Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead oh, what a long, strange trip it's been.
Kertia:Yeah, yeah, because you were a criminal trial lawyer, right, and now you're into a lot of social work, a lot of giving back, a lot of mindfulness and wellness. But you didn't quite, you know, you didn't quite start that way. You know we mentioned, you spoke about your childhood experience being a child of immigrant parents who you didn't get a lot of the affection that you needed. You went through a lot bullying in school and you didn't get, I guess, the emotional, that emotional support that you needed. And I'd love for you to just get into all of that and just start from there and how all of that kind of got you to where you are today, because you've been like all over the place and like just thinking about your journey, it's it's very incredible, it's so incredible. So I'd love for you to kind of just flesh out your experience for me and like to just take it back full circle with me.
Bob:Well, yeah, sure. So, yeah, you're right, my, my folks were, uh, uh, I, I, I never know what first generation means. Uh, my folks were immigrants. My dad was Hungarian royalty and left Hungary in the early part of last century. He was born in 1898. Just to give you kind of a timeframe of my life, right, Wow, 1950.
Bob:So I'm almost three quarters of a century old and my mom was Roma, gypsy, and the Bolsheviks wiped out my dad's family and everybody wiped out my mom's. So we didn't have any ancestors really to speak of in my family, but they found the American dream through popcorn and cotton candy. So I kind of grew up in amusement parks and carnivals. That was what we did. But by the time I was 10 years old, we were selling hot dogs on the boardwalk in Queens, new York, and spending the summers in South Florida. And it was an exciting and cared for life on one regard, because, you know, the extended family of the amusement park was very supportive.
Bob:But my folks being Eastern Europeans you Europeans they were always of the mind that getting the job done is its own reward and do the job right and you don't need a pat on the back and your pat on the back should be your pride in your work, and that gave me a certain work ethic for sure. But it didn't give me a lot of emotional support. And I was a big boy In those days. We called it husky. I was a husky place you could get clothes for if you were other sized the only place you could get clothes was JCPenney's, who had a husky department. So I grew up that way and I was picked on and bullied a bit and that was painful. It certainly isn't as painful as some of the trauma of the folks that I've worked with in my life, but it was my pain. So we all look at our own pain as the special pain.
Bob:So fast forward. I would say that my folks, the fact that their families had all been wiped out, they came to the feeling that there really couldn't be a merciful God, and so the question or the conversation of religion just wasn't in my upbringing. It wasn't that they were against it in any way, they were not atheists, but they were non-theists. We just ignored it and I suppose I started getting curious about how the universe was organized, reading science fiction as a teenager, but fast forward somehow. As a teenager, but fast forward somehow. And I have to confess something I am a walking example of imposter syndrome. You know, I still can't believe that. I fooled that law school into accepting me and I tricked the Bar Association into licensing me. They only really knew what was down underneath, you know, and I suppose that's a vestige of the low self-esteem you get when you're being bullied.
Bob:You just don't think that you are deserving of things, even though life is proving to you very different. So I became a lawyer and when I got to law school something happened. It triggered my brain. Up until then I was very mediocre in my studies, but when I got to law school there was something just really exciting about it. I think it was because my dad was a very meticulous and a very righteous person who believed in being fair. He believed in being loyal, loyal and fair was a big thing with him. And when I got to law school I saw that there was fairness baked into the system and that excited me.
Bob:So I did well in law school and in my third year I interned in the district attorney's office they call it the state attorney's office of Miami-Dade County, florida in the 70s, which was the heyday of the cocaine cowboy days and I progressed through the office fairly quickly and got up to be a senior prosecutor in economic crimes and consumer frauds. So we hit the mob for a lot of money 72 million bucks and it was an exciting time. And I left shortly thereafter and went out into private practice and I got a visit from a fellow that I'll just call Johnny. He was Italian from the Italian leg of the Miami conglomerate, which included the Colombians, the Cubans, the Haitians, the Peruvians and the Italians, and he came to visit me and basically he told me that they had pretty good lawyers and I was able to beat them. So they figured I was pretty good. They wanted to start sending me clients For the next few years. I became a mob lawyer. That's kind of the story up until that point. Then there are things that happened.
Kertia:Yeah, that's really incredible.
Bob:That is truly incredible no-transcript, and in some ways it's really very common, because it's when we start to hit bottom, when life starts to get out of control, when things start to get beyond our ability to have any sense of security in who you are and where you're going, that very often people seek out something different, they want change, and so in that regard, you know my life is very common and the way that the facts of it are, that I started hanging out with my mob clients and it was the cocaine cowboy days, as we said.
Bob:There's a lot of cocaine running through Miami and a lot of other drugs, and they were going out to all of these chrome and glass discotheques of the 70s. And if anybody's ever seen Scarface, the movie with Al Pacino, or the TV show Miami Vice, that really was the vibe of Miami in those days. It really, really the facts may be weird, but it caught the vibe, they caught the vibe, and so that's what I was doing, and my personal life was beginning to unravel, and so I was seeing a therapist and one day I got to a very important crossroads and I went and I asked my therapist you know, what should I do, george? Should I continue this? Or what should I do? And to my surprise he pulled out a bunch of coins and started throwing them on the table. And I'm paying him in those days. 65 bucks an hour was a lot of money. And.
Bob:I paid him to be my therapist and all of a sudden he's throwing coins and making mathematical calculations and did some drawing and then came up with a number 32. And he opened up a book to chapter 32, and he showed me the chapter name. And the chapter name was retreat. And you know, I didn't want to hear it, I didn't believe in what he was doing, I thought it was weird and I cursed him out, stomped out of the office.
Bob:But the word kind of cemented itself into my psyche and I knew, you know, intuitively, I knew that I needed to pull back from some of my excessive behaviors. And I started doing that, went back to George and I asked him, george, what was that that you did? And he said, well, bob, that is the I Ching, or the classical book of changes. I said, well, where does that come from? And he says, well, that's a Taoist practice. And I said, what's Taoism? And that's when I found out that George was the English language editor for a 72nd generation Shaolin priest. The Shaolin priest, you know the Shaolin temple, that's Kung Fu Tai Chi, you know all of those things. And and so he introduced me to Master Hua Ching Ni, who was a 72nd generation master. Think of that.
Bob:Yeah 1400 years handing it down in the family father to son. That's amazing, just that alone. But this guy, this guy was a fellow who had gained mastery in life. I mean, they call them master knee, but it's not that he has a title, it's that he has gained mastery. And so we asked him you know what's it like to be Master, nee? And he said no rehearsing thoughts. No rehearsing thoughts. By that, you know, we understood that he never thinks about what he's going to do or what he's done or what he should say.
Bob:He just is and responds. And he always responded perfectly and appropriately and had the exact right thing to say, all without rehearsing thoughts and all without planning, and it was just like muscle memory for him. He was in the zone.
Kertia:That's phenomenal.
Bob:And then we asked him you know how do you define mastery? And he defined mastery as living effortlessly, yet effectively and efficiently. Yeah. And so, of course, the next question was always how do you get there? And he goes, ha ha, ha ha, he goes aha, grasshopper, this I will show you.
Kertia:Oh my gosh, that's hilarious.
Bob:So for eight years we studied with George as our local leader and Master Nee visiting and practiced Taoist practices and learned how to go with the flow of life, and that was transformational. And so, about the same time that I was beginning to get a handle on what Master Nee was teaching, my Johnny's son got arrested and up until then our agreement was nothing unethical, nothing illegal. It's good to have a lawyer that's respected by the courts. That's in your best interest, johnny. He goes, yeah, but now it was his son. So now there was no saying no.
Kertia:It's different.
Bob:You will do this, you will do this, and it was something that I would not do, especially after my years of learning with Master Nee. I would not, and so the best way that I found to resolve it was to move to North Carolina. Oh my God, and we decided that we would move there. I went to Johnny and I said Johnny, I'm moving to North Carolina. And he said well, Bob, sometimes a man just has to move on. Well, Bob, sometimes a man just has to move on. This way we can part friends. We shook hands and I never heard from them again. So I got to North Carolina and I moved. I moved from chrome and glass hotssy-totsy Miami to some place where, as soon as I opened my mouth, everybody said you don't sound like you come from around these parts.
Kertia:You, sure don't.
Bob:You sure don't. And I got to tell you. I brought my TV up up and it was one of those old, big, thick cathode ray TVs, you know. That had to warm up and I got it and I set it up for the very first day that I got to North Carolina and there was a little dot, you know white, and it grew and it bigger and finally the screen appeared and there was this big guy that looked like Horst Cartwright from Bonanza, with a 10-gallon white hat and a map of North and South Carolina behind him with all the Ford dealerships having stars, and he looks right at me and he goes you need to get yourself a truck and I go. Oh my God, where have I gone? Where have I?
Bob:been? Where have I gone to? Where have I?
Bob:Where am I? But I had a fresh canvas. I had a brand new slate, a new chance to redefine my life. So, with the training and the teaching of Master Nee and coming to a place where I can now define myself as I wanted to and what my heart led me to do, you know, I don't know. When you engage in practices that are designed to cultivate compassion, that are designed to open your heart, when you practice them and you actually have the physical sensation of your heart opening, the only thing that is left for you, the only thing that you want to do in life after that, is to relieve suffering. Yeah.
Bob:And when I got to North Carolina, I devoted myself to what Jesus would call the least of these and I became a public servant, went back to school, got a master's in social work, went back to school, got a master's in social work, stayed in criminal practice until 2015,. Treating my clients not only their legal issues but also their holistically looking at what their life was, making sure that when they left my representation they felt heard, they felt somebody had stood up for them and they understood why what was happening was happening to them. And that was important because even today now it's been nine years that I haven't been doing criminal law some of my clients will run into me on the street in a small town and they say you know, mr Martin, the last time that you represented me was the last time I got in trouble.
Kertia:That's beautiful.
Bob:I can give myself the pat on my back that my parents didn't.
Kertia:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. Oh my gosh. But imagine, like you know, having that low self-esteem and then imposter syndrome that comes along with it and being able to do the work that you were doing, being recognized as a huge mob lawyer. That's just wild, that is something I'm sure you wouldn't have imagined. Those moments when you were getting bullied, when you felt misunderstood or when you were feeling low, that is something that you don't even kind of think that you can do. You know when you're going through the worst of it, but that is incredible. For you to even come from that, coming out of that, to where you are right now, like following instruction of masternanny, that must have been like a huge, pivotal turn in your life. What you know, coming from your, your childhood experience, your experience as a lawyer, as a business owner, and coming back to now like what did that teach you essentially?
Bob:Well, you know. So over the years, you know I've come into contact with monastics. You know we've gone on retreats and I go into. I've come into contact with monastics, we've gone on retreats and I've come into people who, at the age of four, have dedicated themselves to monastery living and cultivating their inner world and the like. You know they're very, very well trained.
Bob:What I think is missing from them is that they don't have that experience of having lived in the real world as a normal person who's subject to all of the slings and arrows as Hamlet said, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. And so, although they are great teachers and they have great skills that they can relate to, you never feel like they really have any idea of what's going on with you. And so I think, even today, I went through bouts of addiction, and that meant that I went through times in the NA, and I never had a problem with alcohol, just opioids. But I spent a lot of time in the Narcotics Anonymous rooms, and you know the people who we call the old timers, the guys that have been in recovery for 12 and 15 years, but they still show up at the rooms.
Bob:Yeah, I mean these guys have a wisdom and a kindness and a grace about them that can only be there if they have gone through the gamut. Yeah.
Kertia:Yeah, it's a different level of compassion as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because then you can identify with the pain of the other, like you get it, you understand, it doesn't need to be said, right, right.
Bob:Because they know Exactly, yeah, so, yes, all of that has contributed. And you know, I mean growing up on not, I didn't grow up on the streets, but I grew up in the parks. You know the amusement parks, and in amusement parks, you know, we had, you know, in those days. It's not politically correct today, but this is how life was then. You know, the Poles were the folks that put up the rides and the Gypsies were the ones that were the fortune tellers and the Italians were the game guys and these guys were these guys and those guys were these guys and those guys were those guys and you had this really diverse family of folks that you know you live with. So it's not like you grew up on the street, but it's like you grew up in a multicultural, very, very real, very, very real gritty I would say gritty environment, and so I think like, and I feel like, you know, I've got some common sense, because that's what that street knowledge, you know. Yeah.
Bob:And, and that helps also.
Kertia:It definitely does.
Kertia:It's a good combination when you know cause you're mentioning the guys that are more monastic and you know not having a certain kind of experience to the work that they do.
Kertia:They do amazing work, of course, but when you can have the same or similar conversation with someone else that has that street knowledge, that has that gets it, that gets what it's like to be on the ground, it's different, it hits different, right, because now you're relating to that person, right, you can relate to their pain, you can relate to their suffering and to the things that are challenging for them. And, leading from that, you mentioned the last time that a lot of people aren't even aware that they experienced trauma or they don't recognize it. Right, and that when you were doing meditation work with them or spiritual work with them, the terms that they would use like they're stressed or they're overwhelmed or they're overthinking right, so you being able to balance that spiritual knowledge with your experience, your life experience, right, with the grit and the grime and everything in between, right, that definitely makes a huge difference. So I want you to speak to your work facilitating meditation and helping others to reconnect with themselves.
Bob:So I have this wonderful privilege, this wonderful honor of being able to actually get inside other people's heads and that sounds a little weird or scary, but I don't mean it that way and this is what I mean. So I teach meditation and I teach it. You know, of course I teach it privately, online, but I also teach it on the campus. We have a two credit meditation course that the students you know take and college students you know who are trying to achieve. You know they're pretty stressed out, they're overthinkers, they're perfectionists, they have racing thoughts and they overthink everything. Perfectionists. They have racing thoughts and they overthink everything, and they're stressed out by all their assignments and all that kind of stuff. And so every semester, 12 to 15 of them sign up to take my course and the way that the course is taught is that I have because I'm certified in the KORU course. Koru was developed at Duke University and they created this digital infrastructure. They created an app and on the app are all the guided meditations and all the resources you need. But the one thing that's different about it from any other way of teaching is that after you listen to the meditation and after you sit for 10 minutes and maybe you'll do breath awareness, maybe body scan, maybe belly breathing, maybe labeling thoughts, all these different techniques. You write a log on the app and you write how that was for you. And the next morning I get up at four o'clock in the morning and after I take my dogs and feed my dogs and have my coffee and sit for my own meditation, I turn my computer on and I get 12 to 15 logs. I get a little scope into the minds of 12 to 15 people as they write their logs and describe how their experience was, and then I get to give them feedback. And that is just such an honor, especially in the second or third week of the course, when they start to break open, when they start to get the skill of stepping out of their thoughts and stepping into the role of watching their thoughts. It takes about three weeks of kind of prying them loose from words like focus and concentration and quieting the mind, all of which have nothing to do with meditation, you know. So they finally, they finally get it.
Bob:And one of them said it was beautiful and a lot. They said yesterday. They said, oh, I've been so upset about being distracted when I'm meditating, but now that I'm labeling thoughts. When I got distracted, I just labeled it a distracting thought and I was able to go right back to my breath and that was huge. That's a huge opening. Instead of being distracted, she realized that all she had was a distracting thought, and once you can see your thinking that way, it is incredibly freeing. All of a sudden, you're not controlled by your thoughts. You move to a place where you can manage your thoughts because you realize they're just little things that you have, they're not you, and so it's just lovely. It's just lovely to be able to do that. Now, not everybody engages in the class, but you know this is. The podcast is called the Other Side of Fear, and I have a perfect example. Yeah.
Bob:There was one young lady in the class and I'm seeing the logs come in and you know we're about three weeks in. Everybody else has done about 20, 22 meditations, 10 minutes a day. She's done five. Yeah. And of course she doesn't get it because she hasn't practiced. A week goes by between practices. She hasn't practiced, you know she you know, week goes by between practices.
Bob:So I asked her to stay after class and I and here's where the life experience comes in Another teacher, another person who you know, who grew up without going through the gamut, might say you know what's wrong with you, not what's wrong with you. They say you know, the class is graded on how many you do and you've only done five and we only have two weeks left and you better get up and you better start. You know, catching up to everybody else and blah, blah, blah. Yeah.
Bob:But I was more curious about. You know, here it is, she's self-selected to take the class. I mean, it's not a required class. Yeah. So you choose yourself to take the class because she was hoping to get a benefit from the class. Yeah. And here she is not engaging.
Bob:Yeah so what's that all about? Rather than being judgmental about it, it's a curious thing. So, with a genuine and authentic curiosity, I said what's that all about? What is it that is keeping you? And man, the floodgates just opened, the tears started coming down and she says I don't feel like I deserve it. Every time I want to try to make some progress, I get in my own way. I take on, I want to do things. And it was like it wasn't just my class, it was her whole life. It was her whole life.
Bob:And so we got the opportunity to actually start to work through that, using some meditative techniques that deconstruct the power of feelings, and I was able to teach her some things, so that now it's a couple of weeks later and every morning, like clockwork, she gets up, she goes and brushes her teeth, she sits down, she does her 10 minutes and it took a couple of weeks, but she's getting it. And she says I can't believe how free I feel. And you know when we started, she goes well, I'm just so afraid. Started, she goes well, I'm just so, I'm so afraid.
Bob:And I had to say to her I'm really sorry, but there's no easy way through this. You just have to do it. It's not hard, but you just have to do it. There's no way around it. You have to. You have to just sit for 10 minutes, keep it simple, follow the instructions, trust the process and do it, because it's not hard. But she had created this boogeyman in her head. So once she was able to step back from her thoughts and realize that these are just thoughts and she is not her thoughts, it broke open a whole new way of looking at life for her, and so that's what I do.
Kertia:That is amazing and it's so beautiful how you were able to help her through that, especially you having that compassion. You know that compassion I was talking about earlier, when when you know, you know when you've been through it right, because it's so easy to go straight to judgment and like ask questions like what's wrong with this person. You know what I mean and it's beautiful when you have that experience, when you've been through something and you can identify, you can see your pain inside of another person and be able to have that compassion to approach them differently.
Kertia:right, and that's because, yeah, you, you recognize something really clearly like, okay, this is an elective course, she, she didn't have to be here, but she came here for a reason, but then she is not engaging, so there has to be something else that's going on here, right?
Kertia:And absolutely there was, and it makes such a huge difference when you can see yourself in another person, actually identify with them, because then you can see the whole being and you're not just focused on what's wrong with them, right, that perception of what's wrong with them. So that that was a really beautiful thing that you did there.
Kertia:And, just coming back to um, identifying with your thoughts, right, we mentioned that in our previous conversation, when you mentioned you know, there's a difference between identifying with the I, the I that has thoughts separate from the real soul, so I'd love for you to speak about that in some more detail as well.
Bob:Sure, sure so, you know, in our common language. Sure, sure so you know, in our common language, we all say, oh hey, you know I had a thought. So that's a recognition that the thought is not me and that I was the creator of that thought. And so what we do in life, what we tend to do without any, some people come to this naturally and and you know these there are kind and compassionate people out there that are just empathic, and I don't know if it's genetics, um, life experiences, um. So some people come to it naturally, but most of us most of us are are hung up and we have a thought, and most of it is a judgment. They're judging thoughts.
Bob:Yeah, Either judging others or judging ourselves. I like it, I don't like it, it's good, it's bad, he's good, he's bad. You know we go judging, judging, judging all the day, all day, and ourselves, especially that committee in the head. You should have done this, you could have done that, you could have done it better, you know, yeah. And so we even identify, we are our thoughts. You know, we see somebody and we have a thought that you know that dress doesn't look good on her, or you know he shouldn't wear those kinds of pants, or I don't like the fact that his pants are halfway down around his butt. And all of a sudden you have an image of who this person is and what they're like, and you know you either like them or you don't like them, and that's your truth. It is you. There's no access to it, there's no managing of it. It just came up and it becomes who you are.
Bob:And unfortunately, most of our untrained thoughts are the product of social conditioning. Yeah, and they're not helpful for the most part. So it's crazy that we start to become who we believe ourselves to be based on the thoughts that come up, which is what the world has implanted into us. And, of course, that's not going to be very workable in terms of having a happy and joyful life. And think of what the world gives you between the news and missed deadlines and TSA lines when your plane is late and traffic when you're in a rush and the lady who's got the three ring notebook with all the coupons in front of you at the shopping center. Just think this is the stuff that life gives you Of course you know it's not going to be helpful.
Bob:So when you can break free of it. And the metaphor that I like to use is that and I think that we all can agree that we have this feeling that there is a stream of consciousness that flows through us and on that stream of consciousness it seems like our thoughts are being carried on it. So the metaphor that I like to use is a river flowing by with sticks and twigs on it, and the river is the stream of consciousness and the sticks and twigs are our thoughts, and generally we are riding on the back of a twig and if the river's calm, then everything's going hunky-dory in life. But then when we get into the white water, we start getting fearful and stressed and then when we see that we're coming up to a waterfall, we get really freaked out. Right, and that's where we're at.
Bob:But in meditation, through a very simple process of simply I mean the instructions are very simple Form an intention to put your attention on something, and then your mind is going to wander, and it's okay that it wanders. It's not about maintaining focus, it's not about keeping your attention on the candle or on your breath. Your mind will wander. It's an evolutionary thing that came about when we were hunter-gatherers, because we were always scanning for danger, and so it's built into the structure of our brain that our mind will wander. But we had formed an intention to put our attention on something.
Bob:The best example I could give you is have you ever been listening to somebody who you wanted to listen to and then your mind wandered and you weren't listening to them anymore, absolutely. Then you notice you go, oh, I'm not listening. You notice at some point that you're not listening right. Then you go back to listening, but before you do, you have all these judgments about oh, how can I get them to repeat what I didn't hear without letting them know that I wasn't listening? And oh, I really messed up and there was something important that I probably should.
Bob:But we do it artificially so that we can play with it. So I say, put your attention on your breath, and then your mind wanders and then because you had said that I want to pay attention to my breath, your mind will say, oh hey, you're not paying attention to your breath, and then all the judgments will come in and everything else, and then you're supposed to bring yourself back to your breath and just begin again. And then your mind wanders off again and you notice it, and then you have all the judgments and you come back and you begin again and it wanders and you notice and you begin again. So through this repetitive process you become familiar with a bunch of stuff. One you become familiar with waking up, the sense of waking up from the fog, because when your mind wanders you kind of go into that default fog. Then you wake up from it. So you realize what it feels like to wake up. You begin to notice what it feels like to be in the fog. You begin to notice the judgments that you have, and then the instructions are also. You know, see, if you can be gentle with yourself, if you do this over and over, what happens is that you start to get bored of the judgments. They become known, they become old hat. And because they become old hat, hat and because they become old hat, they start to lose their power over you. And when you start to understand that they're losing your power over you, then you start to see that all thoughts can be seen that way. And then you start into the. You know, you go to a secondary level where you start learning how to manage your thinking. So that's kind of how it goes.
Bob:So, going back to the metaphor of the river, as you do this simple practice, what you learn to do is separate yourself into two beings Okay, I'm not saying that, not really, but you know and one of you is still on the leaf, experiencing life, but the other one has climbed up on the bank of the river and is watching it all flow by. So from the place of being on the leaf, you you feel grief and sadness and anger and all that stuff, but from sitting on the bank, you're stable and you're calm and you're okay. So you get to actually be both and as the skill progresses, you know you can kind of move intentionally between them. You start to get angry about something and then, even as you're angry, you go sit up on the thing and you're asking yourself is this a good time for me to be angry? I wonder if this is being helpful for me to be angry. I mean, when I'm talking to utilities like the telephone company or those guys, it's good to be angry. You know, a little anger at that point, you know, will get things done, um, uh and so, um, so, yeah, so that is that is.
Bob:My job is to take the beginning student and pry them away from the misconceptions of trying to quiet their mind and teach them this new skill. It's not an unusual. It's not an unusual thing. In In science they call it metacognition or thinking about your thinking, and we all do it. We just don't do it intentionally and we don't develop the skill intentionally. And it makes a huge difference to have that tool in your tool belt to use it. You know when, when it when it's helpful to use it.
Kertia:That's definitely true, and I love that analogy that you gave being the the person perched on the leaf in the river and then being the person sitting on the bank of the river observing yeah, yeah, that's.
Bob:That's a really good analogy of that yeah, and even that person that sits up on the bank is almost like you would imagine if a couple of aliens were in their flying saucer yeah watching the goings-on of earth and they would be just so curious Like I wonder why they do that and I wonder why they do that, yeah, and that person up on the bank has that kind of curiosity. And I should mention the antidote to judgment is curiosity.
Kertia:Yeah, that's so true.
Bob:If you can go from, they shouldn't be like that to. I wonder why they're like that. Yeah, that's so true. You know, if you can go from, they shouldn't be like that to. I wonder why they're like that. Yeah. You know it's a great place to move to.
Kertia:It's a huge shift in perception. Yeah, because then you perceive the person and the situation completely differently, when you can approach it with curiosity rather than judgment.
Bob:Because then the judgment is coming from all those preconditioned beliefs that you have, and imagine if you could turn that shift of perception into the self-judgment that you have.
Kertia:Exactly.
Bob:How freeing?
Kertia:Yeah, yeah, because of course, then you know, like imposter syndrome wouldn't be imposter syndrome, it would be, you would observe it from something else, from a different perception, right, Right.
Bob:Right, exactly Because, right now, my imposter syndrome. I've already created a whole persona for it and I call it the little boy. There's that little kid again, and it's not even me anymore. There are thoughts that are in my head and there are thoughts that I think, but it's not me thinking. It's that little kid.
Kertia:Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's so many ways that we can reframe the experiences that we have that can be more helpful, right and conducive to our mental health too right, because imposter syndrome can be heavy.
Kertia:It can be so heavy, so, so heavy, heavy. So when you can, like, I guess, depersonalize it a little bit and really observe it for what it is, instead of judging yourself or those feelings of not being enough or not being deserving, right or not, I don know, whatever it is that you think you're not, when you depersonalize it you can change the energetic charge of that, right. So yeah, yeah.
Bob:And it, you know. And again, what people try to do is they try to not think it. And what you resist persists. But what you can be with will let you be, and so the trick is, when those thoughts come, you allow them to come and you become curious about them, and again there's a certain boredom. Actually, there's a scientific word for it, it's called hedonic adaptation. But don't worry about that, let's just call it boredom. It's like you get used to them and then, when you're used to them, they become like old annoyances.
Bob:That you just brush off. There's something else about that. Yeah, feelings as a way of kind of organizing your mind, but labeling feelings that skill is what we call labeling feelings is really combined with body scans. We do body scans where you bring your attention to the different parts of your body and kind of reconnect with the physical sensations of your body, because many of us have disconnected from our physical sensations. So we reconnect to those physical sensations and then we also start labeling our feelings so that we can be aware of what the thoughts are that are associated with those feelings. Once we have gotten a little bit skilled around those things and it sounds like it's a lot, but I promise you, in four or five weeks you can acquire these things. It's not years, you don't have to go to a monastery. In four to five weeks you can get there.
Bob:And the best thing that I can tell you is to tell you a little story about how I really learned how body scans and labeling feelings come together. And so what happened was I was at a retreat and I'm sitting on the cushion and you know we sat for 20 minutes. We did walking meditation for 10, sat for 20, walked for 10, on and on, and I'm sitting on the cushion and all of a sudden I realized the value of meditation, how it's going to change the world and how we all have to go out there and change the world and teach everybody meditation If we have to strangle them to teach them it. We got to teach them and I couldn't sit anymore. I was so excited. I got up from my cushion and I went over to the room where all the teachers were huddled in the room. I knocked on the door and one of the teachers came and she said yes, bob, knowing that I should be sitting on the cushion. And I said I guess I got to tell you something. I'm just so excited. And she goes okay, bob.
Bob:And she stepped out and she goes what is it? And I said well, I told her and I went on and on about how excited we're going to change the world. We got to go out there and da she looked at me, she listened to me and then she said so, you're having some thoughts. And I go yes, yes, I am, I'm having thoughts. And she goes and you're having some body sensations too. Yes, yes, I have body sensations. I'm all excited. My face is flushed and I can feel it in my chest and my heart's beating, and yes, I have physical sensations. She goes. So you have thoughts and you have physical sensations. I said, yeah, I have thoughts and I have physical sensations, so she goes. Yeah, you have physical sensations and you have thoughts and I go. Yeah, Hmm.
Bob:Back on the cushion. Huh, she goes yeah, back on the cushion. So I learned that all of these emotions that are so powerful in our lives are really made up of a thought and a body sensation. Yeah. You know, because if I said to you, you know I love you, but I don't feel anything in my chest, I don't feel any body sensation, it's just an intellectual statement. Yeah. And then if I felt the body sensation but I didn't have the thought, I would swear that I had indigestion, right. Yeah, right, yeah.
Bob:So when you have an emotion, if you label it and you look at what the thoughts that you have are and then you like connect it to the body sensations, you can break it down into its component parts and it just kind of like becomes manageable. And that is one of the biggest things, that, when you talk about trauma-informed meditation, it's one of the biggest things that we focus on body scans and uh and and labeling feelings so that we can break into their component parts and then we can deal with those component parts pretty effectively.
Kertia:But when they're combined and we don't know what's going on, yeah, come lord that's truly amazing because, as you said before, a lot of us were disconnected from our bodies, right, a lot of us we have. It's challenging sometimes for a lot of us to even identify what we're feeling, right, because sometimes, especially when we have triggers and things like that frustration, anger, sadness, even sometimes loneliness.
Kertia:Some of the emotions sometimes are difficult for us to identify, much less to actually feel them in our body. Right, we just know that we don't feel good in the moment. But sometimes you know, when you ask someone how they're feeling, they can't actually always give you an identifiable like name for what they're feeling right, like name for what you're feeling right. So, um, that is really helpful, especially when you're doing trauma work, because you have to know how to first reconnect back to yourself and reconnect to those emotions so that you can work through them. So that's that is. That is a really good observation. I truly, truly enjoyed that, that explanation that you gave there. And then, leading all of this back to the work that you're doing right now, I know that you've written a book. I'd love for you to tell us what to expect from your book. I'd love to know more about what its contents are.
Bob:Okay, well, yeah, so that was. The book was actually based on my spiritual path of non-theism or no religion to. Taoism and then, when I got to North Carolina, buddhism. Then I wound up marrying a Southern Baptist Bible literalist.
Bob:She really believes the stories of the Bible are historical fact yeah the stories of the Bible are historical fact, and although she and I love each other dearly she's my second wife we love each other dearly and we both have the same sense of compassion and desire to ease suffering in the world I thought her science was a little off. You know, her science was a little off and she thought my stuff was really weird and um, and she was unhappy. She said you know, I love you so much, bob, but I really hate it that you're not going to go to heaven with me because I hadn't been saved. And I would kid her saying that I was unhappy that she wouldn't be reincarnated with me. But but I had to be careful because that would always get me a good slap.
Bob:And so what I started doing is I started taking some of the ancient manuscripts that support Taoism and I started looking in the Bible for the same stories, because I started seeing that what Lao Tzu wrote thousands of years ago, 2,500 years ago, what he wrote and what Jesus taught were virtually identical. It's just they were expressed in different terms, coming from a different place. Taoism, of course, is not deistic, it's not God-based, yeah, whereas of course Christianity is God-based, and so you have to make a certain leap in translation, but the lessons are the same. I mean when Jesus said when you take care of the least of these, you take care of me. Lao Tzu said the same thing least of these, you take care of me. Lao Tzu said the same thing when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples.
Bob:Lao Tzu did the same thing. The Dalai Lama still does the same thing. So these are universal truths that exist, and so I started taking passages from the Tao Te Ching and reimagining them as a Christian poem, and so I eventually did all 81 chapters and a publisher reached out to me and wanted to publish it, and we published it. It's great because a lot of people have left the church because of its exclusivity and because of its dogma and because of thinking like I hate it. You're not going to go to heaven because you haven't been saved.
Bob:A lot of folks can't imagine why 85% of the world is going to burn in hell, that kind of thinking. But when they left, they also left their relationship with Jesus and God and what they found in my book and I get letters from all over the country. What they found in the book is that they can reestablish that relationship with the divine without having to go back to the dogma of organized religion. Yeah.
Bob:And it's acted as a Rosetta Stone for me and my wife, and so now we are able to relate on much, much deeper and more profound levels.
Kertia:Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, the basis of all religion, or you know a lot of those esoteric spiritual teachings. They're all on their fundamental level, before anything was changed and altered and things like that. They all have that fundamental thing of love, thing of love, not fair, um, not control, but love and compassion and empathy and being in connection to yourself and being connected to everything that is. They all have those fundamental teachings, right. So, like the similarities, you can always find that when you look at the foundation of where these religions and these esoteric teachings came from. So that's really, really beautiful that you've been able to reflect that in your book. That's amazing. I love that.
Bob:It was certainly a labor of love. I'll tell you that. Four years, four years, it took four years.
Kertia:Four years.
Bob:But there's something else that I've written that I'd love to tell your audience about.
Kertia:Oh yeah.
Bob:So a lot of people ask me about meditation and a lot of people ask me about relaxation, and relaxation is not really meditation. Now, there are some meditations that are relaxing, but some meditations are real active work, like paying attention and your mind wandering and labeling thoughts and contemplating, but anyway. So I put the answers to those questions, I put them into two little e-books that are free and downloadable that answer the questions what is meditation and what is it not, how to do it and how to get started. And the other one is 25 tips and tricks from around the internet that you can learn to relax in five minutes or less. Yeah.
Bob:So those two books are available just with a click and a free download, no obligation, no cost, nothing else. But they're helpful and I'm happy to make them available.
Kertia:That's amazing. That's a great resource.
Bob:Yeah, all they need to do is go to my website, awiseandhappylifecom awiseandhappylifecom and there's little free download buttons there, and there's also a contact button. If anybody wants to send me a question by email or make a contact, I'm available.
Kertia:Perfect. Thank you so much. This conversation was amazing. I value so much. I value everything that we discussed today, and I just want to know if there are any parting words that you'd love to share with everyone today share with everyone today.
Bob:I would say there are three things. One you're not your thoughts. Just burn that into the, you know, tattoo it on your third eye. You're not your thoughts. And just if you don't get it right now, just keep it in mind and keep thinking about. You're not your thoughts. You're not your thoughts.
Bob:The other thing would be create a morning routine where you have an opportunity to set aside five or 10 or 15 minutes of just being with you. Maybe it's sitting with your coffee in the morning. If you need to get up a little bit earlier, get up a little bit earlier, because the morning is the only time that you own. Once the day starts, once you start getting dressed for work, you're done. Everybody else owns you, yeah, and so make use of that time and create a morning routine that includes some statement of intention for the day. Yeah, day by day. That's what they taught us in NA. You know, take it a day at a time.
Bob:And I, every morning, my routine is because, again, I am three quarters of a century old and there are many fewer days ahead of me than there are behind me. So my days are becoming more and more valuable, and so my commitment every day is that I'm trading a day of my life for whatever I leave in this day, excuse me. And so I had the intention to make sure that I leave something good in it, because I'm trading a day of my life for it. It's an important thing. Every day is important, yeah, so I take a few minutes, I take my dogs out, out, out the back of the house, to the little park, and I'll let them run around just as the sun is coming up, and that's my time and I think it's important. It keeps me grounded. And the other thing that I would say is get. If you don't have a pet, get a dog or get a cat, you know, get some animal that unconditionally just loves you. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Bob:You know, yeah. They bring me. No, I even said to my kids you know I'd lay down my life for you. But in terms of the emotional response, my dogs beat you out. You know hands down, I wouldn't lay my life down for my dogs, but anyway.
Kertia:Thank you so much, bob, that was beautiful.
Bob:Thank you for having me. You know, having a podcast is no easy feat and it's a lot of work.
Kertia:It is.
Bob:And you do it as an act of love, I know, to give a platform for all the wonderful people that you have on your show so that they can share their wisdom and their learning with your audience. And it's just a wonderful thing and, like I say, it's a true act of love and thank you for doing that.
Kertia:Thank you so much. Thank you, okay, amazing people. Thank you so much for sticking it out with me For another episode of the other side of fear podcast. Please continue to share this podcast, to share the show with your friends, with your family, with whoever you think might resonate. Thank you so much. Love you all.
