Cultivating Mindfulness in Daily Life

In this episode we dive deep into the practice of mindfulness and discover how it can bring about a profound shift in our perception, awareness, and overall well-being. Our expert guest Josh Dippold share practical tips and techniques to help you cultivate mindfulness amidst the hustle and bustle of your daily life.

From mindfulness exercise to incorporating mindfulness into everyday activities, this episode provides actionable steps to enhance your presence, reduce stress, and foster greater clarity and focus. 

We explore how mindfulness can improve relationships, boost creativity, and promote a deeper sense of fulfillment.

Whether you're a beginner on the mindfulness journey or already well-versed in the practice, this episode offers valuable insights and inspiration for practicing mindfulness.


Our guest - Josh Dipold is a meditation practitioner and mindfulness guru. His primary qualification comes from an open standing invitation of feedback and questions of all sorts for accountability and quality without gaining an allowance to do this to others or asking anyone to do likewise. Since 2012 he continues to sit a daily formal practice; pursue self-study; and regularly attends retreats and trainings while currently facilitating meditations Mindfulness of breathing, Qigong breathing exercises, and Heart practices like the 4 Brahma Divine abodes of loving-kindness; compassion; vicarious/sympathetic joy; and equanimity.

 You can learn more about Josh at:

integratingpresence.com

innerskilled.com

instagram.com/integratingpresence

twitter.com/jjdippold

youtube.com/@integratingpresence

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My passion is helping organizations create a culture of wellness, and I do this by setting up health programs that prioritize the most important asset they've got – their employees. Cheers to a healthier and happier journey ahead!

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Transcript

 Welcome to the nine to five wellness podcast,  a show about corporate wellness solutions with innovators and forward thinking leaders who are at the forefront of the workplace wellness movement. I'm your host Aesha Tahir. 

 Hello, and welcome to this episode of nine to five wellness show.  Today, we are going to dive into cultivating mindfulness in daily life. And the reason I want to talk about this topic is because lately I've been feeling like my brain is  going in  10, 000 different directions. And that's what I've heard from my clients too.

I keep on hearing again and again, that they're trying to work on a project. And then all of a sudden this phone call comes or they're just mentally distracted, so that project  goes on the side and they start doing something else. And then,   by the time they come back to the project, it's like already like two, three hours have passed.

 They're working way late into the night that disrupts their sleep.  , I met our guest today,  on a podcast app, and he agreed to To come and talk to us about mindfulness. So today we are joined by Josh Dupold. He is a meditation practitioner and mindfulness enthusiast.

His primary qualification comes from an open standing invitation of feedback and questions of all sorts for accountability. and quality without gaining an allowance to do this to others or asking anyone to do likewise. So since 2012, he has been sitting in a daily formal practice, pursuing self study, and regularly attending retreats and trainings, while he's also currently facilitating meditations, like mindfulness of breathing, Qigong breathing exercises.

And heart practices which abode,  loving kindness, compassion sympathetic joy, and equanimity. And we can all use all of these practices in our lives. So welcome, Josh. I'm so glad you're here. 

Hey, Aisha. Nice to talk to you again.  

Thanks for coming on the show.

I am  excited about this episode because, you know, I,  I feel like I'm going in.  So many different directions, and I'm having a hard time being present  in the moment.  For our listeners and my clients,  they feel the same way like I do,  let's start from the basics.

What is mindfulness?  

Yes, even before we get there, I just want to say, for me, I experienced that. I've experienced that a lot in my life, and It's okay. You know, because this is this is there's nothing wrong with you. I wouldn't say this is a common experience that happens. And there's just all kinds of different strategies to deal with this and address this.

But yeah, let's start from the beginning for sort of for mindfulness, which, by the way, expert. Well, that's very generous. I I,  I guess if we're doing any kind of physical therapy, comparisons, maybe, but yeah, I wouldn't consider myself an expert. But anyway, let's just jump into the actual thing of mindfulness.

And I come from kind of a Buddhist backgrounds where I've studied this from. It starts from the Pali word sati, but there's many definitions of mindfulness. So I like to just use whichever one's most applicable. And skillful whatever context we need. So, from the, the one I like to use the most is just knowing what's happening in the moment, as it's happening, without any kind of judgmentalism or stories maybe around it, just kind of a bare awareness and observing and knowing moment by moment as it happens, okay?

Another definition is remembering. Just remembering. There's a classic old zin saying the most important thing is to remember the most important thing.  So just remembering Yes, and another one is this ability to place our mind or awareness or attention on one thing or just an object and allow it to linger there. 

Just allow the mind to go over and linger on the meditation object or whatever we're being mindful of. So it's this, this ability of the mind. There's a few other definitions of it, but I think that's, that'll get us going here. Okay.  

 So what I'm hearing is like really focusing on one thing, right?

Bringing the focus in on one object, or it could be a thought, right? It could be a thought it, and.  But removing judgment from it,  which I believe is the hardest part because Yeah, it's it. What do you think? 

It's tough because we need judgment in our lives, right? We will I like to use discernment instead of judgment.

We need this ability to distinguish what's helpful and what's not you know, what's skillful and what's not. But by judgmentalism, I mean Oh, this thing is, you know, this, this, this kind of like, Oh, I'm better than this, or this is better than me. This conceit  in the mind that says I'm not good enough, or I'm better than that.

You know, that's good enough. There's other kinds of conceit. But as far as mindfulness goes, I mean, I can caught,  talk about it in the context of  kind of more Buddhist meditation, but it has applicability for the everyday life. Now the, there are different practices, the more concentration practice or Samatha practice.

It's it is that one object training the mind to not wander off and keep coming back to the same object, like the breath over and over again, or the body. And that is very good for calming the mind, concentrating the mind, gathering and collecting the mind this type of thing. Now, when we talk about mindfulness as the four, it's usually taught as the four foundations of mindfulness.

It really simply, it's the body. Feeling, feeling tone, whether something's pleasant or unpleasant or neither of those. And then let's just say the mind and then mind objects. It's there's more technical terms and you can say phenomena, what the mind is aware of. And the fourth one's a little more complex but we can talk about it in, in cases like that, starting with the body, how we feel the pleasantness of it, and then kind of mind and mind activity.

Yeah. 

That explains a lot. As a yoga practitioner, I, you know, with my clients, I do practice body scans and then bringing your attention to your thoughts. So the first two pillars that you're talking about. I'm, I'm well aware of them and I practice them and most of my clients do too.

 I want to shift our focus to people who are busy corporate professionals. Who might not have the time to practice formal mindfulness or go to a Qigong class or a yoga class and, , set aside that time to be mindful and,  bring themselves back to this present moment.

And how can.  They practice,  mindfulness and then how does it help them? Like, why, why should they consider it?  

Very good. I'm putting my salesperson hat here. So I, and just a disclaimer and background. I haven't been in the corporate world for  probably since It's, you know, 2009, something like this.

So I left that. I've been pursuing this. So I'm a little bit outdated here. I will, in retrospect, everything's 2020. It would have really helped me. But then again, I don't know for 100 percent certain because I didn't get to apply it back then.  So let's just say, so I'm working on a little bit of theoretical thing, but it's just like anything else in life, right?

We have to, why do we find it important to begin with? Why should we even bother with anything? So it takes a little bit of I guess an inward look and an examination of why is this important or why could it be important? And I think it starts there. And then what is, what are my intent, intent for, for doing this?

And I'll just share from my experience. To me, it's a basic kind of human ability to be mindful. However, it does help with training to be mindful. So basically there's this list on the four foundations of mindfulness called the awakening factors. So in, but mindfulness is the balancing factor to these factors that are more tranquil.

tranquilizing and the ones that are more energetic. So basically what mindfulness does is it builds our kind of awareness muscle, our discernment muscle. So anytime we need to make choices in life,  the more awareness and discernment we have, the better.  The more kind of space we have, and I'm talking kind of more of a metaphorical space that happens that opens up when we practice this, the kind of more time we have to respond to life instead of react to life, instead of reacting based on habit patterns.

The, the easier it becomes to, I guess, take in more information or I would say the right information too, without as much overwhelm. It allows us to see things in our life that we didn't see before. Some things that we weren't aware of before, and then we can use,  to inform our choices in life.

We could, maybe something will come to light about our behavior or someone else's behavior or some choices we didn't know we had. And so this can inform our life too. When we get stressed, you know, a lot of times. we don't even realize how many subtle layers there are that can be mitigated if we were more mindful of them before they escalate into, let's say, an issue or something where more of an intervention, I don't know if that's the right word or not, needs to be done.

So the more we can see and know into things that are worthwhile seeing and knowing, the kind of the more options and choices we have.  Yes. And so these are just some of the ones in basic life, you know, and it said you can really never have enough mindfulness because it's kind of like a governing factor and a prerequisite for anything in meditation practice.

And it's just so much more helpful in life for just about anything we do or don't do even.  

What I'm hearing is that with the awareness will come clarity. Not only on your actions and thoughts, but maybe of people who around you or or the work you're doing, right? Whatever that it tends to be.

And of course, we don't work alone. We always work in groups or with others. So  that alone can be You So valuable to the busy professionals, because  I think more than half of the time you're trying to just clarify, the communication,   you are actually getting clarity without that.

Literal communication by being aware of it. And then maybe you, you need to. Send an email out to your boss to understand it better, right? Because now you have the awareness of what you need to get that project done.  And that's going to increase the productivity because what's happening with a lot of my corporate clients is that since,  since they are losing awareness because of the chaotic.

Work, a schedule that we all have, like, it's not just them, it's most of the people,  it's leading to lower productivity and so mindfulness can help with that. Now,  if we don't have dedicated hour, or maybe even 30 minutes to spend  for being mindful.  What are your suggestions? Like one of the suggestions I give to my clients is to notice the transitions during the day, I always suggest like book ending, it is a good way to do it.

The other thing is  if you're going for a lunch break, set aside three, three to five minutes  to be mindful, like just focus on your breathing. But what do you think? 

Sure. This is, this is great. I want to dovetail back what you just said and add just a few things.

When we're talking about interacting with folks to as my site says down below presence, you know, that's one of the biggest gifts we can give ourselves and anyone else's, our attention and our being present. And paying attention to someone and giving someone our undivided attention when it's called for.

Right? And advertisers spend so much money trying to capture this. It's very, very valuable. Probably the one of the more valuable things we have in our economy and our, the, the, the time we find ourselves living in is our attention. And when we can really be there, especially for ourselves too, you know it is kind of a great gift and people value it very highly. 

Now, what the other thing in the, I talked to a guy too, that his job is to go in to people in corporate situations. And if there's kind of, I don't know he, he's like a consultant and he'll, he'll, if, if someone maybe not, might not find a good fit, Or what they're, they're lacking in the corporate world workplace.

And then, then, then his job is to go in there and see what, what's, what's going on. And this brings awareness to, you know maybe why, why are we doing the work we're doing, you know? What am I not prioritizing? You know, it just, it can shed more light on how you want to pursue your work life and career and where you're, where you're at and how things are going to.

So I think it, it all helps in. In all of that, now, as far as practicing in everyday life, yes, the transitions, this is great. I think, though, the, the absolute more helpful thing I find among teachers and things is, is establishing a habit. What I tell people is, you know, you could not brush your teeth for a day, but you wouldn't really want to, right?

So, it, it really doesn't have to be much. I talk about this three breath highway that I borrowed from another teacher. Just being  present for three full breaths, that counts, you know, even just a moment of intention. I want to just be mindful for just this moment. You can set an alarm on your phone. You know,  So, look through your day and sit down and examine your day.

When do you have a few seconds or a few moments that you can practice? And just get into a habit of doing this after you find out why it's important. And kind of making a commitment just like anything else. It doesn't have to be long. But once it gets habitual, Then it's you don't think twice you or me or anyone doesn't really think twice about brushing their teeth It's just a habit and they do it.

It's it's self care They they can see the benefits of it and give it some time, you know, give it At least a month if not three months of maybe, you know One to ten minutes a day if that's all you can can spare and yeah, that's good enough even just a  A moment where we can be mindful. Now, the transition thing is great too.

I like to going through doors. So every time we go through a door, we can set the intention. I'm going to be mindful or notice if I'm mindful or not going through the door. So grab the handle and kind of notice going from one room to another and see what happens. See what happens to my perception, my mind, my body, how I see things, how I was before I got into the room, how I was in afterwards.

In the room eating, we all eat every day. It's one of the most challenging but rewarding things of mindfulness or drinking. So a classic thing is to use. Of course, not everybody drinks like this, and it kind of looks a little silly, but sometimes you can just use this to say, Oh, now I'm drinking, you know, and be there completely.

completely for just a few moments. We all have breath, right? Our breath is, unless we're dead, you know, it's constantly going on. So no matter what time during the day, if you remember to pay attention to the sensations going in on the in breath, sensations going out on the out breath, of wherever you notice it around the nostrils, the That's the mouth, the throat, the belly, the chest, even just, you know, that's always there.

So we can, whenever we remember, we can do that. And it's relaxing it's it's neutralizing too. There's not a huge emotional charge, positive or negative around the breath. So it kind of brings us back into balance. Driving. I mean, we talk about road rage and things. What about if you just waited a couple extra seconds and let someone else in as a, an act of goodwill and generosity, kind of notice my, my feelings and behavior of what happens when, you know, and then in a hurry.

There's a difference between going fast and being in a hurry. We can go fast without being in a hurry when we need to be.  So  there's so many things to, you know walking, feeling your feet on the ground, just feeling sensations in, in, when you're walking, being mindful of our sneaking.  Everything almost can be an opportunity for mindfulness, but look at the things in your life where you're really strong at mindfulness and maybe where you need some weaknesses strengthening and yeah, notice where you're mindful and maybe where you lack mindfulness and then reinforce the stronger points and then work on strengthening the, the, the things where we need strengthening too. 

Mindfulness is accessible to us all the time. And I like to practice it when I'm washing dishes because that's not one of my favorite things to do. And I've been working on it, like, okay, how can I change the mindset on this activity so that,  I start enjoying it. And I started using that as a mindfulness moment.

 The flow of the water,  the soap on the dishes and the way it cleans the dishes,  the whole process. It's very, , since I started doing it a year ago, I've noticed how I'm  mindful of the whole process and it calms me down. It's like a calming activity for me now. Very repetitive, you know, and repetitive activities have more tendency to bring mindfulness to you, your life.

So,  but, but there, that's the thing, like, just like you gave so many examples, like , driving on the road or just walking through a door.  Any activity can be a mindfulness activity. 

It very well can be, and this is a training of the heart and mind, right? We have built up patterns and habits our entire lives, so to change some of these, it takes work and skill and being kind to ourselves in the process.

Not beating ourselves up for not being mindful, and it's okay not to be mindful all the time, too. It's a training that takes time, just as we go to the gym or do a yoga practice, qigong practice. It's a training, and it takes time. Yeah. And don't think that it's not going to make a difference either, because just as a water buckets bill can be filled up drop by drop, you know, that's every little thing can add up over time.

It does add up over time, whether it be skillful or not. So. 

 Just a little by little, right? It adds up. It's the compound effect.  If we just started focusing on the long game then we wouldn't mind doing it for just a minute a day because you're getting better by a minute a day. I love James Clear's book.

Atomic habits in that regard, because he talks about that, like just having the small habits, no matter how small it is. It could be a minute or two minutes of mindfulness or going to the gym or taking a walk outside. It, it adds up. You might not feel like that in that moment but if you look at it, At the end of the year,  how many minutes you have practiced that  it adds up.

I'm glad you brought that up 

and think how many times we've taken habits built up habits to our live and how long do they say it takes to make a really new habit, like three weeks a lot of times. So there's a lot of habitual habit, pattern energy going into how we have been. And so it's just, it's just going to take a time and patience to, to train the otherwise.

And we can be kind to ourselves in the process. And, and it's okay if we're not kind either. We can, we can be okay that we can't be compassionate with ourselves sometimes too.  

I think that's the beauty of mindfulness. And that's what I love about mindfulness is that you do start being more kind and compassionate towards yourself first, and then towards other people around you because once you love yourself.

you can love others. It's automatic process that happens.  So Josh, I think we can take a couple of minutes here to practice mindfulness, and I would love for you to guide us through a brief meditation. 

Sure. I would love to do that. And speaking of kindness, I mean, the bar is not that high.

It's even the absence of ill will, you know, not wanting to think bad thoughts or ill minded thoughts towards ourselves or others, as long as that's absent, that's is loving kindness, you know, and sometimes that's the practice too. That's a whole nother formal practices. Let's just do a basic mindfulness practice.

So just notice that you have a body.  So we have this amazing body that just knows how to do all kinds of things. Chew its food, you know, move around. We don't have to think about it or take college courses or training. The body just knows how to do so many amazing things. Keep us alive and breathe. So come into that now.

Notice you have one and notice where you're sitting, standing, or if you're even lying down. See if you can feel the areas of the body, the contact with wherever you're sitting.  And if you, if it's comfortable, you can close your eyes. If not, just kind of relax the gaze and look down like at a 45 degree angle, a few feet in front of you  and start going through the body.

Just immediately notice if there's anything that's sticking out like a pain, or maybe there's even a pleasant part in the body.  And yeah. So if. If there is some very pleasant areas in the body, I invite you to just keep lingering there and noticing them and notice this is a skillful state, don't have to do anything whatsoever to have this happen, not harming anyone or ourselves with this.

But if your attention is drawn to a more painful part of the body or unpleasant part of the body, just notice it  And if the attention there is helpful, allow it to linger there and give it kind of  the much overdue attention that it needs.  But if it's, if it is can see where it's going to be continually unpleasant, then allow your mind to go find a pleasant part in the body or even a a part that, It doesn't have any kind of charge one way or the other and invite that other area of your body that's not so pleasant to become involved with the pleasant part and, and invite the pleasant part to get in touch with the unpleasant part  and just feel this, feel this and notice this in the body wherever it's at. 

And then you might know that, notice that you're breathing. 

So this body, again, knows how to breathe itself.  Notice you have an in breath and an out breath.  So see where it is to  locate the breath in the body.  Be it the stomach, the abdomen area, the chest as it rises and falls, stomach as it rises and falls. 

Maybe it's through the nasal passages of the front of the nose. 

Cool air coming in, warmer air going out.  You just notice how this  breath nourishes and energizes on the in breath.  Kind of relaxes and lets go of all that's no longer needed on the out breath. 

And just use the natural breath. 

A lot of times there's a tendency to control the breath, and that's another practice, but  notice if there's a tendency to control the breath, try placing the awareness in the body where  you can still notice the breath, but where it's not really possible to control it. Maybe along the back side of the body.

Part of the ribcage in between the ribs, maybe in the throat, parts of the chest. 

Just be present for what's occurring there. 

And if any other phenomena arises, you can just acknowledge it and return to the breathing  And before we come to a close here, I invite you to notice the entire body  from head to toe as much as you can as you're breathing. 

Okay,  and when you're ready, if you haven't opened your eyes already, you can open your eyes, bring yourself back  to the space you're in.  Yes, okay, and notice this state really briefly, and notice that it can be brought forward, what's helpful to it into our, our daily lives too.  

Thank you, Josh. So relaxing.

I feel so much better. Thank you so much for guiding us through this.  So for our listeners and viewers, where can they find you? If they want to reach you? 

Sure. Everything about my work, you can, and you can get it integrating presence. com and I'm starting up inner skilled. com. Within a few months, that's the plan to get things going there.

So you can check me out there to  placeholder page now, but my work since like 2020 is on integrating presence. com and you can find out all about it there.  

I'll include all the information in the show notes.  Please check out Josh's podcast integrating presence wherever you listen to the podcast because I've been listening and there's wealth of information about mindfulness and meditation and everything connected with it on that show.

So please listen in and Josh, thank you so much. Anything, any parting thoughts? 

Yeah, well, you can also find me on InsightTimer, insighttimer. com slash integrating presence or this meditation app. I'm a teacher on there. Teacher status. No, I just wish you all the best in your, in your mindfulness practice and how it relates to productivity and work life and  regular life as well.

May you all excel in optimal, ideal. Mindfulness and may it carry you far and be for your long term welfare and happiness and that of others, especially in the long term.  

Thank you. Thank you for this beautiful closing and thanks for,  coming on the show and sharing all the golden nuggets of mindfulness and your wisdom and the guided meditation.

That was just 

beautiful. Just beautiful. It's a pleasure and an honor and thank you so much for your work with the body and postures. I learned so much talking to you. So it was a real honor and enjoy doing this too. 

Thank you. 

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