ReThinking Mental Wellbeing

Why Self-Kindness Comes First And Changes Everything

• Andre Jackson

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Kindness isn’t the same as being nice, and that difference can change your life. We dive into why self-kindness is the foundation of mental health, how to set boundaries without guilt, and what happens when we stop performing and start living from the inside out. Along the way, we reflect on stress, the consumer holiday spiral, and the quiet joy that returns when we trade shiny distractions for meaning.

We also unpack a compassionate take on responsibility and healing. You’re not at fault for what hurt you, but you are powerful in how you respond now. Instead of numbing pain, we talk about how to feel safely, heal steadily, and use the timeless “Who am I?” inquiry to meet your true nature. Meditation gets a much-needed deconstruction too: no lotus required, no perfection demanded. It’s a simple daily return to breath, presence, and the kindness that already lives in you.

Teachers, gurus, and ego get an honest review—why the best mentors say “I don’t know,” and why congruence matters more than charisma. We share practical self-care that fills your cup, so your generosity isn’t resentful but real. And we hold up kintsugi as a healing image: the vessel repaired with gold is stronger for its cracks, just as your wholeness deepens when you honour and mend what broke.

Join us to rethink mental wellbeing with tools you can use today: micro-meditations, compassionate boundaries, and practices that align action with values. If this conversation resonates, follow the show, share it with someone who needs a gentler path, and leave a review to help others find us.

SPEAKER_01:

Hello and welcome to another episode of Rethinking Mental Wellbeing. This is our community podcast where we can talk about everything related to depression and anxiety. So my name is Andre, and I want to thank you for being with me over the next half an hour as we share this space of lived experience where we can talk about how to live the best version of our authentic life. So, you know, if you're ready, then I'm ready. Welcome to the podcast. I'm I'm on this interesting buzz at the moment where I'm I'm the the universe, my psyche, my authentic self, whatever you want to call it, is really focused at the moment on uh kindness. Ah, how cool, yeah. And I don't know, it seems to be I'm watching a lot of YouTube videos on kindness, and you know, it gets really emotional, like I'm really tearing up behind the compassion behind it and the reactions that I'm seeing. And I'm like, oh, this is interesting. I wonder, I wonder what's going on. I wonder what's happening in me that's making me gravitate towards that and react like that. That'll be a cool conversation to have, I think.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, well, we could talk about it if you like, because it's all essentially tantric, you know. One thing that Tantra would say is that the heart chakra is being activated. So that's the that's the place of compassion and connection. And I think one of the things, Andre, though, that we tend to forget is that the most important person that we need to be kind to is ourselves.

SPEAKER_04:

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

When we start to do that, we naturally it fills out to other people, you know, it naturally we can give our best to the world. Because right now we're we're struggling, you know, there's so much struggling going on. See it all the time in my practice, you know, and the people that I I work with. One of the people that I um work with in the USA, he's an amazing person, and he's going through his own inner transformation, and then he, you know, messages and says, Look, sorry, can't um can't make it today because I've been the recipient of road rage, and then shows me a picture of a black eye that he's got. I I see it on the roads, I see it in people's faces in the shopping malls and things up. There's not a lot of joy going on. There's there's a lot of stress going on, there's a lot of rushing going on, there's a lot of overstretchedness going on, but I don't see a lot of joy at the moment.

SPEAKER_01:

No, no. What do you reckon about the idea of of um the the whole traditional idea of Christmas? You know, the the being with family, being around the table with the turkey and the and the roast and the meaning and the connection and all that really good stuff. Do you think that's kind of moving in a different direction now?

SPEAKER_02:

I think it's been hijacked by consumerism.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, I agreed.

SPEAKER_02:

I really think it's been hijacked by consumerism. I also think because we're moving in an increasingly secular way that uh we're losing the the message, which you know. I have you read the Gospel of Thomas. Have you like looked at the more mystical Christian texts?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I've heard of that, but no, I haven't haven't looked into that.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, so that basically talks about the uh evolution of consciousness, you know, how we evolve as a being into consciousness, how Christ was Christ is the consciousness, Jesus was the man. So Christ consciousness enlightened consciousness, you know. I think that is the message of Christmas, but we're we miss it now. We're too busy at IKEA or at um you know the warehouse or Briscoe's trying to fighting to find a park or uh uh Woolworths being called a motherfucker because you're not getting out of your parking spot fast enough. But I but I don't think culturally that that is a that is just our culture because also when I was living in India, you'd see a lot of people doing the doing the rituals, but not with the understanding of what it might mean. So, you know, coming to work with no shoes, walking barefoot because you're honoring the goddess, the Navaratri, but then screaming at your co-worker. And I remember that that happened, and I was the supervisor, and that and I looked at them both and I said, Look, you can wear no shoes to honor the goddess all you want, but if you can't see the goddess in each other, what's the point?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, nicely said, Yeah, and uh then they were then they were nice to each other for a little while, and anyway, anyway, but yeah, that.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I like that, yeah. That's actually that, yeah, yeah. You see each other's consciousness, I guess. Rather than rushing around trying to buy the next new shiny thing. Okay, here's a question for you, mate. Yeah, what's the difference between kindness and niceness?

SPEAKER_02:

Niceness and kindness. Niceness is presenting yourself as something or someone or some being that other people are gonna find agreeable, acceptable, amenable. Niceness can be artificial. Um, being kind is different because being kind there's a compassion, there's a shared sense of what's going on. It's like, for example, that the beginning of this, when we're trying to sign into the this Adobe podcast, we did that with kindness to each other, like, oh, this is what's happening, this is what's going on. You know, there was a whole flow, we were in it together. It wasn't like kind of present or perform, it was actually just being authentically kind in the moment. That would be my answer around that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So kindness from what you're saying, kindness has oh sorry, niceness has uh a either a hidden agenda or an autarian motive behind it.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, I love that, yeah. And maybe even like a um a cultural overlay.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Nice in one culture is not necessarily nice than another. There's a certain performative nature to niceness. Right. Whereas kindness is kindness is the um unmotivated goodness of the heart.

SPEAKER_01:

So I'm being nice to you because if I do this, then I'm gonna get something back that I'm sick of it.

SPEAKER_02:

Ah, yeah, yeah. Very transactional, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Probably head act. Yeah, whereas kindness is much more like, well, kindness in a way is about seeing the other person as well. Being the other person, but most of all, as I said before, it's about being kind to yourself first, because we're taught to be nice to everybody, you know. Normally, oh, don't forget your manners and be nice and do this and do that, and you know, uh, from a cultural point of view, we are taught that, but we're not taught to like ourselves, yeah, yeah. It's quite the opposite. It's like if you meet someone, it's almost like take care of their needs first rather than looking at yourself and being kind to yourself first, and that's kind of seen as selfish if we do that. But I would actually say it's the opposite. If we take care of our own needs first with kindness, taking care of ourselves, I'm not talking about selfishness, I'm talking about taking care of ourselves first, whether that be having enough time for ourselves, meditating, walking in nature, eating nourishing food, exercising, meditating, yeah, um, reading some beautiful uplifting spiritual material, whatever it is. We take the time to do that, then we've got a full cup. Then then we go to someone else, and someone else is like, Oh, I need this, or can you do this? or 'cause life, you know, it's not like we're an island, people are going to come and do that. Like, okay, we need that, I need this, I need that, dude. And then because we've got a full cup, we we approach it from that place. Oh, okay, sure. Let's and that kindness naturally flows out. But if we're overstretched, overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, whatever it is, then we don't have the capacity to even meet that person.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, give out of the excess of what you've given yourself first.

SPEAKER_02:

That's it. Yeah. Because you're going into the wellspring inside yourself all the time of that of that kindness, of that peace, of that compassion. I get asked all the time what meditation is, right? Because people say, okay, meditation is very mystical ground. You must have gone to the Himalayas, you're we are so mystical, so otherworldly, and all I basically just say, no, it's not otherworldly at all. It's right where you are, and it's your true nature, and and our true nature is is peaceful and it's kind and it's compassionate, and it's it knows how to listen, and it knows how to see others, and it extends just as much love to you as it does to everybody else. And it's learning how to connect into that. That to me is is true authenticity.

SPEAKER_01:

And again, just thinking out loud, you know, how we wear personas and masks and and um these these things that overlay our authenticity, and we're used to doing that, right? For a lot of people, they mistake kindness with niceness and politeness, thinking that's the same thing, right? Um Yeah, yeah, and you mentioned politeness before, and and I um you know, I think politeness has a has a space, but if it's wrapped in kindness, if it's artificial, if it's there to emphasize the persona or emphasize the mask, then it's obviously not complementing the authentic version of us.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, agreed. Yeah, if we're just moving into that performative space with it, and so I yeah, and I think that we are encouraged to enter into that performative space, and and um I remember a while ago someone said to me, and they misunderstood where I was coming from, there was someone who had said something and then someone else got triggered, but instead of going to that person directly, they told them to F off on Facebook in a public forum. Then then the other person got involved and said it wasn't their fault they were triggered, and this and that. And I think you're using kindness, you're weaponizing kindness to shut down dialogue. And I said, There's just there's such a thing as common decency. You can disagree with anybody if you like. That's not a problem. Everybody has a different way of seeing things, yeah. So we're all gonna disagree, but can we do that with a modicum of kindness to one another rather than swearing and then not taking responsibility for your own reactive behavior and swearing at someone publicly in a public forum? Why did you need to do that? Couldn't you just have said, Hey, I disagree with you, and these are the reasons why. Why did you have to go into that sort of aggression?

SPEAKER_01:

Which demonstrated what was going on inside that person, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Because as you know, and yeah, totally, Andre. Yeah, everything we say, everything we do demonstrates what's going on in us.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure, yeah, absolutely agree. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Except for me, Andre, no, except for me, because I'm so I'm so perfect, wonderful.

SPEAKER_00:

That's why I love talking to you, mate. You're you're like the the personer of perfection.

SPEAKER_03:

It's uh oh yes. So everybody else is responsible for their stuff, but I don't have to worry about any of mine.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think you hit on something before, which was interesting, is that we are brought up with this idea of selfishness, the word and the concept of selfishness, selfishness being something that is not uh is not favorable in society. And I think again, this is just my view, but I think people get confused between selfishness and narcissistic tendencies. And I think again, my definition of selfishness is putting yourself first before other people.

SPEAKER_02:

That's I would agree with that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so that's that's the way it should be. But what narcissistic people is uh interpretation of that is putting yourself first despite other people, yeah, yeah. That that for me becomes the the unhealthy version. So I think selfishness means that we have to be first so we can then give our best to other people. That's that's a better way.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I love that. What I might tend to do for myself because I still find there's that cultural overlay of uncomfortability around the term selfishness that I find just pops up. You know, if someone just says don't be selfish or whatever, there's a certain uh that kind of happens in the side because of that term. So I tend to use much more like the words of self-care or uh self-responsibility. Uh, I remember once I was walking on the beach, I'd gone for uh seven weeks in the bush. I'd gone bush, it was fantastic. I'd just finished my master's degree, I was stressed to the max, I needed some time out. Went to a little hut in um the Royal National Park in Australia on a beach called Burning Palms, surrounded by bush, it was amazing. And I had very little. I only had like a little hut with no electricity and no running water, and I had the some mantra and meditation, that was why I'd gone there to go deep in those practices. Yeah, uh, I remember walking along the beach one day with my buckets from the stream, walking along. And the first thing I thought was, oh wow, I am absolutely happy in this moment. There is nothing that I need, I am happy right right in this moment. And then the second thought that came was, oh goodness me, I'm I'm a hundred percent responsible for everything that goes on in my life. It's that's my responsibility. And so, and I can't put it on anybody else. And the reason I say that is if I approach life from that place, so how am I reacting? How or am I reacting or am I responding? Am I coming from kindness or am I being a bit of an idiot at this moment, not seeing other person's perspective? Am I just all about me or am I about the situation? It helps to notice others, that's for sure. And at the same time, I need to notice myself, how I am conducting myself.

SPEAKER_01:

It's one of the horrible things about being an adult is that um we we as an adult are responsible for our path and and and and everything. You know, we're not responsible for what happened to us as children or when we were younger, but we are responsible for now and how we deal with that, right? That has become a very hard truth for a lot of people to hear. Um yeah, I had all of this stuff happen to me. I've been through trauma, I've been through abuse, I've been through all kinds of stuff. And so because of that, I'm I'm I'm broken and I've got some issues, but why am I the one that has to do all the work to try and repair myself? Which is a really valid question. It's not my fault that I'm broken, so I didn't have to do all the work. And I think I think it's one of these things where we one of the questions I think we all have, every human being has, is the who am I question. Yeah, who am I authentically? Who am I outside of the personas and the masks that we wear, right? And I think trauma, horrible as it is, gives us a gateway to have to answer that question authentically, who am I? Because if we don't, we're just gonna be a mess, right? And so I'm kind of thankful that I have depression, anxiety, and PTSD, because that forces me to have to know who I am. Without it, I'm just I'm just broken all the way through life. Um, so that's my my gratitude around my own mental well-being. Yeah, thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_02:

It's very powerful that you are authentically owning that.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And uh, you know that what you said, you know, who am I? That's written in the Indian scriptures. In fact, that's in a lot of the scriptures. Who am I? Why am I here? What am I doing? What's the purpose of this? What's the meaning of life? But one of the core questions, and and a very celebrated Indian saint, Ramana Mahashi, who is an incredible uh man, his ashram is still in um Aurunachala in India. Uh uh the sacred mountain there. And uh that was one of the questions that he would give people word with. Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? And you just constantly say it to yourself. I'm paraphrasing what he said, but basically he was saying this question doesn't have an answer necessarily, right? Just ask the question, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Just ask the question.

SPEAKER_02:

Because I think, Andre, we spend a lot of our time running from that. You know, we're we try and create who we are so that other people might like us or we we get ahead or all of that sort of stuff, rather than just stopping and asking that question, who am I? Which then necessarily opens up a whole different spiritual viewpoint of yeah, well, well, what is all of this really? And who am I, and what does it all mean?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and we become so fixated on you know the masks and the personas that we wear because it involves other people. There was something I said to a group of people the other day, um, and it was I'll guarantee you that almost a hundred, if not a hundred percent, of your stresses comes from your view of other people, or it involves other people at some point, whether it's your interpretation of other people, whether you think other people are responsible for your happiness, whether it's other people, the past or the future. And and and everyone nodded, like, yeah, yeah, actually it is. Involves other people and my statement for that was the problem with that is that we s we focus way too much on other people, way too much on external um circumstances and environment that we forget how to live from the inside out rather than living from the uh outside in, trying to get that source of happiness or peace or stillness from our outside sources, which is what consumerism essentially is, right? If you buy this, uh you buy this car, you're gonna be happy. You know, if you buy this uh lettuce potato peeler, you're gonna be happy, right? So it's yeah, you know, hedonic happiness, as they call it. So I think I think going back to your statement of the who am I, that has to start inwardly, right? And that's really uncomfortable for a lot of people to have to dive into the place that they've been avoiding for most of their life.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, I so hear that. I loved what you said before about you know we we go through traumas and we go through we when in a way we wear our battle scars, we go through life, and nobody gets out of it without some sort of trauma, whatever that might be, you know. But coming back to responsibility, it's like I am responsible for my healing. I'm responsible for moving forward those things. I can't change how those things happened in the past, but I can certainly uh choose how I deal with these things. Am I gonna start to look at them with love and compassion for myself and move on? Or am I gonna keep stuck, or am I maybe gonna use substances to try and mask what's going on? What am I gonna do and how am I going to approach that?

SPEAKER_01:

Right, absolutely key. And I man, I echo what you're saying. I love what you've what you're saying. Essentially, we we spend our life either um minimizing or nethetizing or or distracting ourselves from the pain we don't want to feel. So we're running from this from this uh pain point, or many pain points, you know, as opposed to uh, you know, and we're saying to ourselves, I just need to run away from this and not feel the feelings. And so we spend our life not feeling the feelings that will bring up those emotional pain points. But ironically, we need to feel those emotions in order to heal from those pain points. We need to we need to be able to sit with those emotions however fucking uncomfortable they are, in a place that is conducive of healing. To go, I am no longer going to be defined by my wound, I'm gonna be defined by what I do with that and the healing that needs to take place.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, there's that saying, right? Love is not what you say, love is what you do.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And that doesn't just apply to other people, that applies to us. How am I conducting myself? You know, if I have uh that substance, whatever it is, then how am I how am I going to be the next few days, you know, the next week? How's that gonna affect my mental health? How's that gonna affect the people around me? How is that going to, but instead you could say, okay, if I meditate, what's going to be the difference? How is this going to affect me? How is that going to affect everybody else? How's that going to, you know, so having an intelligent way to start to navigate our trauma, having an intelligent way to, with kindness, authentic kindness, move through whatever it is we need to move through.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. And and again, this is this is a complete 360, right? Back to the whole kindness conversation, right? Because kindness doesn't look nice sometimes. Sometimes particularly, particularly to other people, right? Kindness is you going, I can't do that thing you want me to do because I want to put myself and I need to put myself first because I don't have enough energy, emotional energy, right? And that's that's kindness. But to the other people, uh to the other person, that'll come across as oh, you're not very nice. Someone said that to me a while ago. You're not a very nice person. I'm like, oh thank God, thank you. I don't want to be I don't want to be nice because I wasn't doing stuff for this person. You know, so their interpretation of of nice and kind was to it was interchangeable, which is their first mistake. But they thought if I want something, I'm gonna ask someone and they should be able to do it for me. That's that's not kind, it's been nice. So wow, but yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, my first response is oh, thank thank you. I I don't want to be nice, I want to be kind and and I'm being kind. And so, you know, I didn't get into a full-on conversation to defend an ego that was wounded because there was no ego on it. I'm just I'm comfortable with my truth and I don't have to uh convince you that my way of thinking is right.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, one thing that I would possibly say in that situation, or I do sometimes, if someone comes with their their viewpoint, whatever it might be, and shares it. Um as I'd just say, you know, if someone came to me and said, Oh, you you're not nice, or whatever, I'd say, Oh, thank you for sharing your perspective.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that came up in conversation in the support group the other day, and we were talking about different beliefs and different perspectives and different ways of looking at life. And I said to everybody in the in the group that everyone here sees me in a slightly different way. You don't see me the same as each other because of your experiences, because of your interpretation of your experiences, because your genetic design, because of your ancestral lineage is all making me look look slightly different to each of you. Um, and that goes with beliefs too. I've got beliefs, I'm not telling you to believe in mine at all. And because I believe something different to you, it doesn't mean that you're wrong. And and you know, that there's a there's a huge amount of freedom with that, and a lot of them walked away from that going, oh my god, that's so cool! I'm allowed to have my own beliefs and be comfortable with it, and I expect people to disagree with it because you know there's 8.4, 9.4 something billion people in the world. There's gonna be that many different versions of beliefs and opinions.

SPEAKER_02:

But only mine is right. Oh goodness, that's that's where all the problems start, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

We were talking, I was running a group a few months ago, and I was talking about um spirituality, and always make it clear that this is my interpretation. So I'm not saying you need to believe it, but this is this is my personal belief. Um, and I said I think we all have a spiritual nature to us, and and and we need to find our way that honors that in the shape um that is um going to be helpful for us in our own authentic version. And then someone um someone said from the audience, no, I don't believe you. And I'm like, uh first thing I said was, Thank God, that's fantastic. I'd hate the idea if you um if if you were like, Oh, I hear what Andre's saying, I don't believe it, but I know I feel like I've got to now. Don't if you don't believe it, then don't just continue on your way. You know, take the bits that are useful that people are saying that I'm saying and disregard everything else. And don't don't think that because I'm saying it and I'm up here speaking means that I'm right. I'm right for me. You need to be right for you.

SPEAKER_02:

I think in my own life, um it has been so valuable living in different cultures, you know, living here, living in Australia, living in America, living in India, and seeing how despite the cultural overlay, there's only one thing that we all really want, and that's to be happy.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And we all search for that happiness in different ways, and uh, you know, living in wildly different cultures, you know, as I went from America to India, so quintessentially Western to quintessentially eastern. You know, it's very interesting to see how the mind and the uh the culture was completely different. But one thing that I I know is that we're back to kindness again, you know. If you extend kindness, it touches the heart. It doesn't matter what culture you are in, you don't even have to speak the same language, people light up. I was speaking with someone the other day about namasti, you know, how everybody started namaste, everyone namasti. It's become a like catchword, yeah. Namaste, and it it's beautiful. And I said to the person I was speaking to, uh, Nama, namaste, I I pay homage to you. So namaste, I am recognizing you, I am paying homage to you. What what what about you am I paying homage to? The fact that you are divine, that you have divinity inside you. Namaste, and uh when I recognize that, I recognize it in myself too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I some I yeah, and I love that you've clarified that because I heard something very similar years ago, and I forget who it was, might have been ticked at heart, or someone that mentioned Namaste, and his interpretation was exactly what you've said. Um, the words he used were my soul bows to your soul, my spirit bows to your spirit. And I'm like, Oh, beautiful, eh?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, beautiful that is.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Now, when we talk about the soul, it all gets a bit fraught because people, in a way, you know, when people come to learn meditation from me, one of the first things they say, Oh my god, you know, I'm a bit scared. Are you a guru? Are you this? Are you that? And I say, Well, first of all, that guru word is a lovely word, and it has beautiful cultural thousands of years um overlay on it, and it also has a huge tradition. Uh, it also has been greatly misused, and there's been a lot of problems, as you know, with different people setting themselves up in that word and then abusing that. So I I say the word teacher or mentor is much, much more palatable for me because you're not putting all those overlays on some on someone, you're also not projecting your stuff onto someone else rather than owning it. Yeah, oh, I'm going to put it on the perfect guru. Andre, one of the best things I learned when I was in India is a guru is above all a human being. An authentic human being, yes. You know, they're really working on themselves, no doubt. But they're not some stainless mystical fairy wafting around with absolutely no humanity at all. Oh no. I think that's that's a construct that has been presented to us as a convenient way to control.

SPEAKER_01:

Was it you that was talking to me a while ago? Or I heard this a while ago, someone, and I don't know who it was, but some famous person, some person that he may have been even the president or something, but he was very high stature. He had a person going around and whispering in his ear all the time, you're only human. You are a human being.

SPEAKER_02:

I think you and I have spoken about that, yeah. Because I have seen people who are put in a position of teaching power, whatever that might be, and they forget that the only reason that they're there is to serve others and to help others and to you know to go, hey, hold on a minute. See that truth that you're looking for outside, look for it inside yourself, it's in you. There it is. There it is. It's always been there. You just have to recognize it. You see it. Can you see it now? Can you see it now? That to me is a mask of a uh mask of uh authority when someone turns around and they go, Just look to me. I've got all the answers. Don't look inside yourself, I know it all. That's when the problems start.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think that lines up, and I might have said this to you before on a previous podcast, and I forget again who says it. It's not mine, it's someone else I heard it. Um, and the there's a quote that goes, uh, follow those who seek the truth, but be wary of those who say they found it. Yeah, yeah. Um, again, for the listeners who are listening, look it up. It's a I don't know who said it, but it's it's really relevant to what you just said.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Well, I would say in all the true spiritual traditions, the the mystical traditions, not the ones that are out there to control, not the ones that are like the rule book, but the mystical traditions all say one thing, really. They say the truth is inside you. Find it, uncover it. Learn how if you can't uncover it by yourself, that's fine. Read some holy scriptures, see if you can do it that way. If not, you may want to find a teacher who can sort of point you in the direction you need to go. But make no mistake, you and that teacher are equal. There's no need to sort of try and put them on a pedestal. There's no need to do that. That's kind of like a human tendency, I guess.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you're right. We do, we tend to elevate people uh in a into a higher status than than they need to be. That even sometimes they want to be, you know. Um, but for a lot of people who don't know themselves, they will rely on that. I need you to see me as a higher person because then it makes me feel significant and valued, which is obviously the wrong way around.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. But that's very egoic, right? Yeah, it's very egoic, yeah. To to be in that sort of space of wanting to be the higher one, wanting the recognition, wanting I was speaking to someone who's an amazing um teacher the other day, and they're stepping into teaching meditation, and it's naturally happening for them. And they said, uh, I don't know if I want it. I don't know if I want it, it's gonna be hard. And I said, That's why you'll be a good teacher. The ones who are always trying to trying to push themselves to the front and look impressive and want that they're all about themselves, but a good teacher is actually about the people that they are that they're working with because they're also learning at the same time, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, always be the student, eh?

SPEAKER_02:

In fact, I was around an amazing uh meditation teacher once. Someone came up and they asked a very complicated question, and then the teacher said, I don't know, I don't know. And the person looked stopped, like, oh my gosh, didn't you know everything? You you are the guru. And then the the teacher turned around and said, Well, you know, if you ever stop learning, you might as well be dead. Yeah, I'm always learning, always growing. There's never a time when we don't learn or grow unless we shut ourselves down from that. But the exact phrase that they used was, you know, if you ever stop learning, you might as well be dead.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh and again, there's an another quote ahead. I don't know what this is attributed to, but you know, as soon as you think you know everything, you know nothing.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, yes, I know that one.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So deeply and without reserve. I know it all, but it's such a hard thing to bear.

SPEAKER_02:

You know what I think straight away when I hear that sort of thing? Beginner. If you've got someone who's like they're starting the path of meditation, or you know, they're they're they're saying things like, and I know this, and I know that, and I know, and I'm thinking, okay, you you've started along the path. Next time I meet you, maybe a while down the track, you'll be saying things like, I don't know anything. I have no idea what's going on. And they're like, ah, there, there's a breakthrough.

SPEAKER_01:

There's so much freedom with that. There's there's no there's no need to perform, there's no need to have to try and be something as you look through the eyes of your audience on what they will hopefully see. You know, that's such hard work to do that. I I remember um I remember learning public speaking, and and I went to um I went to an organization to learn how to do it. And yeah, they taught you some good, some good ideas and some good structures and stuff like that. And I've got some useful tips out of it, but it felt very it felt like more work and it felt very, very artificial. So yeah, I abandoned that stuff, and and now whenever I do public speaking, I am authentically making mistakes. And I I embrace those. And I say to people, look, with the presentation that you see in front of you, you will see spelling mistakes and grammar errors because I'm dyslexic. So I'm not gonna I'm not going to embrace something that I'm not. If you want a perfect presentation, then you know, by all means please go somewhere else to get that perfect presentation. But if you want something that has useful information with the mistakes behind it, then use me. And it's the same when I'm speaking, you know, multiple times I'm in, I'm doing I'm I've got this idea in my head and I'm speaking it out, and then suddenly the third will just disappear. And I'm like, I have no idea what I was saying. And I and I laugh, and then everyone laughs, and it's like this very authentic thing, and it it makes facilitating way easier and way less stressful.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, because you're being real, you're just being you, you're you know, but it's like, hey, you're here, I'm here, let's have a conversation. Oh God, I mucked that up. Oh well, okay, what about this, that? You know, there's a certain discovery and there's a certain authenticity in just being you and just being real. A while ago, this lady said to me in in a I was teaching a meditation um course, a day retreat. And these are lovely because you can step out, it's like put your phone away and just just be in and just be with yourself. Just be in nature and be with yourself. I love them. Anyway, she said to me at one point, I see what you're doing. He said, You're de you're deconstructing meditation. I thought to myself, what a fantastic comment. And then later on she got back to me, she messaged me and she said, I hope I didn't offend you by saying that. And I messaged back and I said, That was one of the biggest compliments I've received as a meditation teacher. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

Because there's all this like stuff around meditation and cultural overlay and misunderstandings, and oh, the mind must be completely thought-free for one hour, and if it's not, you're a failure, and you've got to sit in full lotus, and you've got to go to India, and you've got to go to Nepal, and you've got to do this, and you've got to do that. And it's not a problem with any of it. But the main thing to remember is meditation is who you are, right where you are. Yeah. And it doesn't belong to any tradition because it's it is us, and then the traditions take it and they try and make sense of it through their cultural viewpoint, which is beautiful. But the essential experiences, and this brings it back to what we were saying before, it's you, it's me, it's our true nature, it's that place we come to when we ask the question over and over again who am I? Why?

SPEAKER_01:

And it becomes you may you may relate to this as well. I don't know, but I find that when I'm when I'm doing my normal stuff, workshops, whatever it may be, as soon as I start getting overly stressed. I mean, stress is normal and stress is useful, right? But when I get over stressed and over anxious about something, first thing I want to know is what am I what am I doing wrong? What am I what what has shifted in my belief? What has shifted in my understanding of why what I'm doing? Something's shifted. What is that? It's the uh and it's a and it's a a belief that I have too is don't look at what someone says, watch what they do.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And sometimes, sometimes too, do look at what they say and then watch to see if their actions match up.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

If they match up, you know, then okay, right, they're walking, their talk.

SPEAKER_01:

Now we've got some harmony between authenticity and action.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's totally because it's very easy to say pretty things, isn't it? Like we could sit here all day and say pretty things, but when the rubber hits the road, you know, are we going to be able to put these these wonderful things that we're talking about? Are we going to be able to put them into practice?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I often um I often say to people, um, don't you know, I can sit here and I can tell you how much of a kind person I am. I can tell you all the work I've done in mental well-being circles, but all that means if you're convinced by that is that I'm I'm a great storyteller. I'm not gonna tell you that, but I want you to see it. Go back to my Facebook. My Facebook's very open and it's and it's all there for years and years and years. You can see the the the sameness between what I put down and then what I what I do, is what you're saying and doing matching.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Because then you're walking your talk, right? Yeah. Otherwise, it's just empty words. Yeah, and talk and make it sound also very pretty, but unless you're actually doing it, I'll give you an example. When I was in the ashram, there was a particular person who decided that it was their mission to make my life um uncomfortable and to call into question what I was doing. Um, I knew what I was doing. I had three roles, I was very busy and I was giving myself to them as much as possible. And at the same time, I was also passionately doing my spiritual practice. I was not there to muck around. Right. I was every day I was meditating, every day I was working with the natural breath mantra, every day I was being present in situations, and when I wasn't, I would do a course correct, you know, because we're always learning, we're always growing. Yeah. This particular person went to someone and said, He's very good with words, and that's all they said. But what they were trying to do was just say he's good at saying things, but not necessarily following through. Right, right. And so what I did was I examined that within myself and asked, is that the case? And I thought, well, there's always room for improvement. I understand that. But I also know in my heart that I'm giving my best to a very difficult situation right now. I am working hard. There is no doubt in my mind about that. I think that comes back to what we're talking about before about being kind to ourselves, having the ability to look inside and go, okay, am I doing well? Do I need to course correct? What's going on here? Am I are my intentions good? Am I being a good person? Am I following through all those things, Andre? You know, there's a certain kindness in being authentic with oneself.

SPEAKER_01:

And you know what? This whole, I don't like the word self-improvement, so let's use self-awareness. Yeah. I think the whole self-awareness thing is um is is relatively simple. It's not easy, but it's simple. And and I think we overcomplicate things so much with it, right?

SPEAKER_02:

I love that. Yeah. Sometimes people say to me, you know, when I'm working, teaching meditation, and the true teachings are often incredibly simple. Very simple, Andre. They're not hard. But we have to we have to put in the them into practice. We have to work with them, we have to engage with them. That's what sadhana means, right? Sardhana is a way to realization. It's like the means, if you like, it's the pathway you tread in order to become more and more aware of who am I. But you have to put the work in. But it's quite simple. But it seems a lot of people want um complicated stuff. Oh, okay, grant, you tell me I have to go to the top of the Himalayas, save this mantra standing on my head 550,000 times, and then I'll look at them and say, Well, you could do that if you wanted, but if you don't have time, you've got other things to do, you could just maybe just turn your awareness to your breath right now. Oh, but that's all too easy. That seems so simple, that seems so easy. Well, that's because it is. The question how often have you been aware of your breath today? And then the answer I get is maybe not at all. I thought, okay, so there's the work. There's the work. It's simple, it's easy, but you've got to recognize it. You've got to start working with it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. And I I think we have this weird concept too. Uh maybe this is a I know, I've I've heard this throughout society, um, and particularly Western society. The longer we've had an issue with something, the longer we've hidden something, the longer we've had to deal with whatever trauma, the longer we have been emotionally or mentally injured, we feel that it has to equal the same length of time to heal. Like, for instance, uh, people have said to me, I've had I've been trying to deal with my depression or or anxiety or PDSD for 30 years. And they think that somehow it equates to years and years of years of finding yourself because they've had it for so long. And well, this is a weird, weird uh mismatch between the longer you've held something, the longer it takes to heal, which isn't necessarily the case. It's it's a simple process of basic reappraisal and recalibration, I guess, back to your authentic self. It takes time, it takes effort, but nowhere near as much time as what people think.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I would actually say, well, it is it is the path less traveled, you know, like M Scott, the road less traveled, right? A fantastic book for someone if they're looking to really start to understand who they are, who am I, you know, if they're wanting to look at those sort of deeper questions, that's a great book, good place to start. Yeah. Um, but often what happens is people spend their whole time running away from who they are and and trying to trying to numb themselves down with distractions and and but he over there said that, and that's really and that's triggered me and did it rather than doing the work on themselves and looking inside themselves. So often I will say to people if they're if they're on the healing journey, which in a in a very real way we all are, especially in this society, which is completely dismissive of our needs, our spiritual needs at the moment. It seems that way to me anyway. Uh a lot of the time I'll just say to people, okay, well, if you're feeling like you're moving through trauma and it's difficult, or you know, you've got difficult stuff to work with, like yourself more. Yeah, help yourself more, extend yourself some more compassion, understand that you are doing the best you can, and go through it and ask yourself maybe the question, how do I approach this with the most love for myself? Yeah, so how how am I gonna do it? Is what I'm doing right now, is that working for me? Is that is that kind to myself? Right back to where we started. Is that kind to myself? If not, if not, what could I do differently?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. I uh yeah, and I hear you. One of the greatest lines in in any movie, one of them, is with good Will Hunting. The uh the line the Will S uh when when um Robin Williams uh speaks to him and just says it's not your fault over and over and over. And boy, you do I mean that that's one of the greatest acting scenes in in modern movie times. I think it's just beautifully done. And you can see with um he moves from it's not your fault when oh what's the actor's name? Is it uh Matt Damon? Matt Damon, yeah, thank you. When Matt Damon uh goes, yeah, okay, yeah, I know. And then he keeps repeating it, and you can see his he's starting to bring out his authentic wounds, he's starting to bring that out, and and then eventually he you know cries and just releases it out, and that that suddenly Robin Williams is speaking to his inner child, which is comforting, so comforting for his inner child to hear that it's not his fault. And I think we we could all do with a dose of that. I know when I when I watched that, I balled my eyes out for for hours just because my authentic inner child was resonating with that. And I think it's such a beautiful place to be sometimes.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, I think all the time if we can get there, we can get that place of um innocence of vulnerability, because vulnerability is the superpower, right? Yeah, you get to that place and live from that place in that way, we're living much more authentically than if we're trying to brutally. But there's a certain brittleness to being to trying to be perfect. When one is authentic, as you were saying before, you know, you're at a you're present presenting, you're saying, Oh, there might be spelling or grammar mistakes, and I'm dyslexic, but that that's how it is. But if you want some useful information, be here. You know, there's there's a there's so much strength in being authentic in that way.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And just going, hey, you're here, I'm here. Oh, we're it we're it is together.

SPEAKER_01:

What's that Japanese art form? You've you've I know the one you talked about. Yeah. The art form where they break a vase or a vase is broken, and then they repair it with flecks of gold and and make a real art form out of it, is celebrating um the broken part of us, and when we repair them, we make them into uh a more expensive item of a vase or whatever it is. So broken vases, uh their their cracks aren't hidden to try and make it perfect like it was before. They celebrate their um imperfections by highlighting the cracks with um from the repair that they've done.

SPEAKER_02:

What I would say is with that is it's like one, it's acknowledging the flaw.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Two, it's it's going, okay, but we can fix this. And three, it's like, and and when I fix it, it it's part of me, and there's a beauty to it because that flaw is actually part of me, and the beauty is that I've worked on it in order to fix it.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Grant, you're awesome. I love speaking with you. You're you're you're very enlightening and have taken away a lot of truths from what you've said, and I'm going to be again examining and incorporating um in my world and in my life. So thank you, brother.

SPEAKER_02:

And I really admire the work you do supporting people with their mental health. It's so needed. You know, it's so needed nowadays. You know, we we we need to take care of each other, you know, we have to be kind to each other. But this is a really intense time in human history, what's going on now with the advent of AI, all the all, you know, everything. Just turn on the news and look at it, you know. So the work that you're doing, the mahi you're doing to help others to take care of themselves so that they can also take care of others with love and kindness. That's a wonderful thing, brother. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you. Thank you for what you do. I mean, you you go around teaching meditation. I mean, how cool is that? That's incredible. Um, thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's quite unconventional, brother. People look at me, they say, What do you do? I said, I'm a meditation teacher.

SPEAKER_01:

They go, Really? Do you ever get a oh that's nice? What do you do for your pay job? Do you ever get that?

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly, yeah, exactly. But then I also get questions, usually people like, oh, how do you do it then? And what what would I need to do? And what are the benefits? And so that's really cool, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

That's cool. Inquisitive curiosity, yeah. Um, well, namaste, brother.

unknown:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

Namaste for you, brother, as well. That's been a fantastic conversation as always.

SPEAKER_01:

So that's all I've got for this episode. Thank you for joining me today. And I hope that you've got something useful from this discussion. And if you have any questions you would like us to discuss on future episodes, then please email me at rethinking mental wellbeing at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. So until then, go well, go in peace, have a great week, and we'll see you next time.