Get in the Gap (re-release)

Fierce Encouragement podcast explores the revolutionary concept of "getting in the gap" – finding that space between external stimulus and our internal response where true transformation happens.

• Meditation practice helps recognize the gap between stimulus and response
• Creating awareness of this gap develops mental strength and flexibility
• Even one minute per day of mindful awareness can create significant change
• We are not our thinking mind – we are the awareness that notices thoughts
• Discomfort during meditation is a sign that we're creating valuable space
• This practice represents an "inner revolution" that transforms our lives
• Consistency matters more than duration when building meditation habits
• Scientific research confirms meditation's benefits for focus and mental health

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Fierce Encouragement
• 0:56 Understanding "Getting in the Gap"
• 3:38 Finding Space Between Stimulus and Response
• 5:35 Practicing Mindfulness with Fierce Encouragement
• 9:53 Building Mental Strength and Flexibility
• 14:55 The Inner Revolution and Next Steps
• 21:20 Closing and Masterclass Invitation

Transcript

Mark: 0:04

Hey there, thanks for joining us on this podcast called Fierce Encouragement. Quickly, this podcast is about creating that inner dialogue of encouraging ourselves, creating that inner determination of supporting and kind of being our best friend in our life's journey. As a coach and consultant for people on a personal level, I find that this is one of the biggest impactful tools that people can have and the things that I help people with is creating that mindset, that narrative inside that really fiercely encourages what they're working on, how they can show up in the relationships better and, ultimately, how they can be their own best advocate in all their projects in life. So, yeah, thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast called Fierce Encouragement. And today I wanted to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart, that kind of falls in to the void of everything that I do, but it's called getting in the gap. And what do I mean by that? Well, it's near and dear to me because about 12 years ago I was lucky enough just a little bit before that, but I was lucky enough to kind of see this internal need to start meditating or to start to sit and be quiet and observe myself.

Mark: 1:30

I grew up in not in a super religious household, but we did go to church, we did pray but we did have the Bible around and we obviously heard a lot of scripture and Bible verses. But the idea of prayer, kind of reaching out with an intention or asking for something from the Creator, from God, was always something I grew up with. So I kind of guess I had that prayer background. But as I grew older, moved away from the church and from kind of organized religion, really got into studying and philosophy and reading and going through my personal journey as a learner, going to university and kind of expanding my own consciousness as I got older into my 30s, having a family, having life happening and kind of feeling the dullness or being kind of restricted, I guess internally feeling down about life, kind of having that constant question is this all there is? And obviously numbing out, avoiding some conflicts, getting anxious and nervous about work and money and kind of having that mindset around life as damn, this is super difficult and not being able to show up in those moments. That was a big default mode of existing for me for many years. But in my early to mid-30s I did start meditating, dabbling in different types of meditation like Zen meditation, koans were one thing that I used mantra meditation, just repeating a phrase.

Mark: 3:09

But the idea and I guess you know to zoom to here or to what I've been working on the last few years with my clients and learning from my coaching program Optimize now it's called Heroic with Brian Johnson but a big tool that we use all the time and I use in all my sessions with most of my clients, if they're open to it is taking a pause and getting into the gap, as we'll call it. Now, what does that mean? Getting into the gap? Well, after and it took me a long time, but it's something I want to share with people After you meditate for quite a while, and it doesn't even have to be quite a while. That can be varying on your own abilities, but getting in the gap means recognizing the space between thoughts and then our actions, or even to kind of go further in front of that, there's something before thoughts, right, there's a feeling, there's a sensation, there's a beingness there, and so we kind of have this emotional reaction and then that can manifest into thoughts and obviously spiral around and create more emotions. But the idea of gap is to see that there's a space between the stimulus that happens from outside of us more often than not and then how we think about it and interpret it and emotionalize it. That's probably not a word, but we emotionalize it and start to create this narrative around it. So it's like, oh, I'm always defeated like this, I never get the good job, I never find the right partner, and our mind starts to create those patterns.

Mark: 5:06

And I guess the reason I wanted to talk about getting in the gap is because we see it in all of the great spiritual traditions you know, meditation from the East in so many levels, on so many different styles of meditation, is that it is noticing that gap between stimulus and response, or from that external event and then our narrative about it, and then obviously kind of going off on tangents, if you will, and kind of going into the activity of the mind. But getting in the gap for me as a coach, just means recognizing that there's a space between that stimulus and our response in our. So getting in the gap in the mind is so important. So that's what the gap is and I guess I wanted to bring that up because it is a tool that I share with all my clients. If we can start to recognize that we can develop more mental strength and mental flexibility. So I think it's important to note I spent a decade working on this.

Mark: 6:10

Some days, some years, some weeks, I was better at noticing that gap between the event and my thinking and kind of cultivating that space so I could respond more intelligently. But this is a really hard thing to practice and I think and I just wanted to bring that up when we hear about this, like oh yeah, that's a great idea and there's a gap between that, but that's a great idea to watch how my thinking blooms, if you will. I spent many years struggling to notice that gap and then created even more negative internal dialogue about my inability to notice that gap. So I was kind of creating more trouble for myself in rumination and being negative and thinking poorly about my ability to not see that gap, about my ability to not see that gap. One thing that I've taken for many years is to see that thought. In many years of practice is to see that thought itself as just another cognitive thing that's happening. So it's almost to come behind or become before all the thinking and just notice the space and practice in that space and not be so hard on ourselves, so not knowing where you're at in your own meditative contemplation practice.

Mark: 7:38

But when you sit and when you cultivate that time, remember to really be gentle in that arena. That time remember to really be gentle in that arena. It's not about adding more things to our to-do list while we're sitting and meditating and relaxing and contemplating. It's quite the opposite. It is hard work to get in that gap and we need to be patient and calm and fiercely encourage ourselves in those moments too, because what we're really doing here is cultivating that awareness. We're cultivating our own innate awareness and being mindful of how our body might feel, being mindful of how the environment might be triggering us or maybe pulling us down, and be aware of our inner reactions and aware of our kind of our emotions and that whole thinking apparatus, and understanding that we do have a choice between stimulus and response. We do have a choice in how we show up and in that small gap sometimes it's small, sometimes it's bigger as we practice, but in in that small gap we can start to change our lives. These tiny little moments where we decide to act differently, show up differently or just be neutral and not respond and listen better, those moments are the ones that really shift and change our lives. That's the reason why we want to bring mindfulness and awareness and use that as a tool and literally as a training mechanism. When we lose it, when we get angry or we get depressed and down, it is a great time to train. Let's bring awareness to that. Let's bring mindfulness to our anger, to our sadness. Let's bring mindfulness to that dullness that we might be sensing and that is a really important thing to cultivate as we go down this path.

Mark: 9:34

I think we talked a little bit of how to practice, but thinking out loud about your own small, short mindfulness practice and again, five minutes a day has been shown by cognitive scientists to really have an impact on our own health, on our own mental ability to kind of show up in those micro moments. So that's how we practice. When you notice you're off or you're having a bad day, just see if you can get 1% better. Today, that is literally spending like eight minutes, nine minutes out of your waking hours, 1% of trying to see where you might be losing it, trying to see where you might be letting go too much, instead of bringing awareness and mindfulness to it. So take those minute or two minute sessions and and just practice seeing where your mind is going.

Mark: 10:26

Practice coming back to yourself, into this moment of awareness. Practice seeing if you're thinking about the future and planning or if you're ruminating and remembering the past. Practice. It is a practice and we always continually start over, even people who have been meditating for decades. We start over in the next moment and we bring more awareness into the next moment, not all at once, but in small little doses. Bit by bit, we get better. So there's so many mental and spiritual benefits that come from this and if you're not playing on the spiritual realm, that's fine. Cognitively, we can see how our focus and how studies have shown how our focus, our ability to be present and aware, no matter what's going on, if it's a tough event or a difficult conversation, or even in those moments of joy and happiness by using a focused mindfulness and coming back to being aware, we literally get closer and more in touch with what our internal world or mindscape is wanting.

Mark: 11:36

So it isn't about always just covering it up with more makeup, right? Sometimes we need to rinse away the makeup and the obscurations and the emotions that kind of come after our thinking. We need to get in that gap between stimulus and then our mental response and see that space there, almost have this naked awareness there. What's happening before the dialogue? What if we drop the narrative and the storyline in our heads and just feel the energy or the emotive quality that's coming from there and can we like make space for ourselves there, to be gentle with ourselves, there to be gentle with ourselves instead of like putting somebody else's tools all over us or some other method. Right, we don't need more methods and honestly, if I, if I said this once, I've said it a thousand times in my sessions with people and my learnings and learning from my teachers we don't need more methods and learnings and more online seminars. We need to practice this and we need that fierce encouragement to understand and to see that that resistance where we want to sit, that's a sign that we can create just a little more space there, that we can sit for just a minute longer, that we can slowly surely use this tiny action, this tiny habit, to create big, big results in our mental and spiritual landscape. So keep that in mind. That's what we're really aiming for to create that awareness and mindfulness, but also to evolve mentally. We can have like a healing and refreshing mental attitude after we come out of these sessions as well. After we start to cultivate those consistently and in small, tiny doses, we have more mental pliability or flexibility as we learn to show up for ourselves better.

Mark: 13:42

Again, it's not always going to be easy. It's not about putting more tools on top of you. It's not about stacking up a to-do list or making a new planner. It's quite the opposite. It's about sitting quietly by yourself. It's about putting all the devices down. It is about creating that space and, paradoxically enough, when we don't't do things, when we minimize and observe our brain and our mental movements, if you will, and try to cultivate that gap between stimulus and response or stimulus and mental activity, when we, when we pause there and get better at that, we do gain more mental flexibility. We do create more mental strength.

Mark: 14:37

As humans wandering the earth, we've seen our physical world and how we can kind of take on tasks and challenges and how that changes our life right. Whether it's through university and learning and school, or in athletics and, you know, lifting weights, getting stronger, getting faster, or even just in relationships like showing up and supporting people and listening and practicing presence, all those activities can really shift our lives I'd like to remind you of here, and obviously remind myself and my clients, is that when we sit and pause and get into that gap, we create flexibility and strength Full stop. So, yeah, see if you can find those moments, learn how to practice in those moments in small ways. And one other thing I wanted to bring up is it's why I share this as a tool up front with my clients and with myself when I started over a decade ago. This practice is really accessible to you if you're a beginner.

Mark: 15:46

It isn't about going from zero minutes of meditation or contemplation to 30 minutes in a week. No, it's about being simple and grounded and practical and realistic about what we can do and at the same time, it's about fiercely encouraging the consistency on that. So I've had a client two clients the past month that I've started on one minute of meditation daily. Can you take that on? If you haven't practiced before, can you just sit mindfully and watch your breath for one minute and just come back again and again, because the mind will be discursive, it'll jump around.

Mark: 16:27

But in that discomfort, in but, in that discomfort, in that difficulty, in that inner messy prickly feeling, if we stay and we just observe and we get in notice what's happening quick, on a quick scale, from that stimulus to the response. Our mind can move. You know light speed, move, you know light speed and it seems like there's no room in there. And I just want to say that's good. When you feel like there's no room in there and that your mind or your mindscape is just a crowded room and that you can't fit in any mindfulness or awareness, actually, when you notice that you are inviting mindfulness and awareness and in that moment when that dialogue kicks in and says that you can't and you never will be able to, that's the thought after it. So kind of go back a little bit, be gentle with yourself and just be soft and presentful and notice how the thoughts arise and how they pass. But look for that gap, that space between the event of our sensory information and then our thinking on it and our rumination on it or our planning. That is where the power is and honestly, as I kind of finish up here, this is where the inner revolution happens, and I'm all about revolution socially, you know, having people live with rights and the things that we've been imbibed with, as you know, human beings. I think it's also important to realize that this is the inner revolution here.

Mark: 18:12

When we take the time to practice for a few minutes a day, this can literally shift that battle or that playing field in our mind. We literally start, bit by bit and brick by brick, to build up that foundation, to find that, to tap into that inner strength, the things that you really want to the things that you have, a drive and a purpose towards the relationships, the love that you want to share, the connections that you want to have, these are so and yet we don't take the time to kind of cultivate this inter-revolutionary mindset of awareness and mindfulness and gentle presence. We don't take the time to cultivate the skill, the mental acuity that it takes to pause, to see where our thinking takes over and to understand that we aren't our thoughts. You know, the base of all this practice of getting in the gap, of noticing that space is to simply start to understand that we are not our thinking mind. We've touched on this in other episodes and I guess I've been talking about it for years and in my own life when I understood that that I'm not the content of my thoughts but more the content of my character and the virtues and the way I bring my actions into the world. So then it becomes less about what I need to remove and more about just removing the obscurations that are taking me away from who I feel like I am. It gets more effortless, in a way, to show up when we decide to just relax and be who we are and live virtuously, use those skills that are natural to us, to share them with the world, and that's all to say. This is your journey, this is your practice, this is your practice, make it your own, create your own inner revolution by being consistent with a meditation of getting in the gap of sitting and pausing for just a few minutes a day, if nothing else, to see the content of your mind. It's a really powerful, deeply impactful exercise that modern science and all the ancient wisdom that I've ingested from Tibetan Buddhism and different teachers over the years. It's universal and it doesn't need to be an hour long, literally a minute or two a day, starting there. It's accessible to beginners and this is also really accessible to feeling the tide start to turn internally. We can start to create that own inner revolution and start to show up for ourselves in the way we want to be. I really appreciate your time listening to my podcast.

Mark: 21:38

This is Fierce Encouragement. My name is Mark Walker. I help people with their mindset, with regards to their career and their relationships, but, most importantly, with that inner conversation with themselves. Sometimes that's the hardest one to win, but I do help people in a one-on-one sessions with that. If you'd like a courtesy session or discovery session, please reach out to me. You can find me at markwalkercoachcom Again, that's M-A-R-K-W-A-L-K-E-R coachcom and you can definitely sign up for a session on there. Join my email list.

Mark: 22:22

Continue to check in with me here at Fierce Encouragement and at this time, if you go to my website, I am offering a free a Mindset Masterclass for 2024, where we'll be going through some of these tools in deeper ways. But you're welcome to join me and others there. That'll be this Friday on December 22nd at 11 am Central Time. I will be having people come in, ask me questions after I share some tools, some journaling practices and kind of get some help setting up your purpose and your aims and your targets, especially with regards to that mental toughness and flexibility that we were discussing more inner mental strength. Reach out to me at markwalkercoachcom and join my Warrior Mindset for 2024 Masterclass. I'd love to see you there, but I appreciate you taking the time to listen. Let me know how this lands with you. I'd love to hear from you on my website. Otherwise, have a great day and thank you for listening to my podcast called Fierce Encouragement. Take care.