Men's Inability to Sit With Discomfort Is Destroying More Than You Know with Silent Retreat Facilitator Hamid Ebadi | EP 25

What would you actually have to face if you couldn't reach for your phone for the next eight days?

Every time something gets uncomfortable, a tense moment with your wife, an emotion you don't want to feel, or just the weight of your own thoughts you grab your phone. You turn on the TV. You find a distraction. You've built an entire life around avoiding the hard stuff, and it's making you weaker by the day.

Alessandro brings on Hamid Ebadi, a counselor and silent retreat facilitator who strips away the noise and asks one simple question: what happens when you can't run? Hamid doesn't hand you answers wrapped in a bow. 

Chapters:
02:18 – Silent retreats in a noisy, hyperconnected world
06:05 – Redefining religion as reconnection to reality
09:19 – Rivers, oceans, and the flavor of truth
11:31 – Why he refuses to give you answers
13:26 – When getting more confused is progress
19:03 – Socrates, not-knowing, and real wisdom
21:18 – For the man who “doesn’t want to think this hard”
25:21 – What actually happens during a silent retreat

Hamid shows you how to ask yourself the right questions. From poetry to philosophy to the raw experience of spending eight days in silence, you'll discover why your comfort zones have actually made you deeply uncomfortable. 

If you fill every quiet moment with noise, if you fix problems instead of sitting with them, or if you think meditation is "too soft" you need to hear this. 

You'll learn the difference between knowledge and wisdom, why the journey never ends, and how expanding your capacity to sit with hard things might be the most powerful move you make.

By the end, you'll see why discomfort isn't your enemy and why the journey home starts with staying exactly where you are.

Listen and learn why sitting still might be the bravest thing you do this year.

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Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy. Always seek qualified guidance for your personal situation.

Views shared by Alessandro Frosali and his guests reflect their lived experiences and opinions. Every listener’s journey is unique, and no therapeutic relationship is created.

Chapters

• 2:18 Silent retreats in a noisy, hyperconnected world
• 6:05 Redefining religion as reconnection to reality
• 10:20 Rivers, oceans, and the flavor of truth
• 12:32 Why he refuses to give you answers
• 14:27 When getting more confused is progress
• 20:04 Socrates, not-knowing, and real wisdom
• 22:19 For the man who “doesn’t want to think this hard”
• 26:22 What actually happens during a silent retreat

Transcript

[00:00:00] Alessandro Frosali: If you are like most men, you'll hate to admit this. Your comfort zone is making you weak. You reach for your phone when things get hard. You scroll when emotions come up, and that avoidance is killing your ability to handle what life at your marriage throws at you. Today I sit down with Hamid Ibai, a facilitator of silent meditation retreats.

[00:00:20] Alessandro Frosali: He spent years guiding people through the kind of stillness most of us are terrified of. You'll learn why sitting with discomfort without distraction is one [00:00:30] of the most powerful things you can do and stay until the end to find out why people want to leave at the start of his retreats, but always end up.

[00:00:38] Alessandro Frosali: Being grateful that they stayed. You'll walk away knowing the difference between avoiding your life as a husband and actually living it. Let's go.

[00:00:46] Alessandro Frosali: And welcome to the podcast, Hamid. How are you today?

[00:00:49] Hamid Ebadi: Um, well, thank you. Thank you for inviting me, Alessandro.

[00:00:52] Alessandro Frosali: Not a problem at all. I'd love to get started with essentially your background. You have such a interesting [00:01:00] intersection and I'd love for you to describe what you do in your own words. 

[00:01:04] Hamid Ebadi: what I do professionally is that I'm a counselor. So that's the field I've studied and, that's my occupation, which keeps me busy, most of the days. And then, I also, offer silent, meditation retreats. Um, I invite people to come and sit with me, and, most of the people who come are beginners, to that.

[00:01:29] Hamid Ebadi: So they haven't [00:01:30] done silent retreats before. Um, so it's a discovery for, I would say most people, some people have done them before, but for most it's a, it's an initiation. It's something they haven't tried before. And, because there are no distractions, you can't go on your phone, you don't get messages.

[00:01:48] Hamid Ebadi: You're a bit, uh, yeah. Left, with the space that's a bit unknown to you, which is the space of what is. What is this? That I don't know yet. It is [00:02:00] there and is the backdrop of everything, but all the things that I know that keep me busy, that keep me occupied and engaged, um, prevents me from tapping into, but it's not like a silent retreat, uhcreates that.

[00:02:15] Hamid Ebadi: It's not created. It's always there. It's just that it's not at hand because what's. At hand is our busyness, our distractions, our activities. So it's just like, yeah, [00:02:30] dwelling in and with, with withdrawing from too much engagement from the outside and through the silence and the stillness. And then the other thing is that I do for my own, uh, self-expression, which is writing poetry, which, I've been doing for a few decades now, and it has not yet been published, but. Yeah, maybe one day it'll,

[00:02:53] Alessandro Frosali: It. Beautiful. I'd love to, I'd love to dig into the silent retreats and why do you [00:03:00] think today silent retreats are important? 

[00:03:05] Hamid Ebadi: well, I think silent retreats have always been important and, um, uh, if you look back at, uh, all the, spiritual traditions, in the west or in the east. Um, all of them I would say, have, uh, a strong component of contemplative practices where, uh, the practitioners, uh, would, uh, [00:03:30] spend, an important amount of time in seclusion, in solitude, and in silence, uh, to feel closer to, well in some traditions, God, in some traditions, to their, In the Buddhist tradition, it is what you call, uh, their Buddha nature, their own nature of awakening. Um, so contemplative,periods of practice that take the forms of retreat as we know them more today, uh, have been present, for centuries. now you [00:04:00] may ask why is that more relevant today? It's not something that our day and age has come across and invented.

[00:04:06] Hamid Ebadi: Uh, this has got a long history, but I think yes, it becomes more relevant, in our day and age because I don't think due to technological development and uh, the ways, uh, technology has become, such a dominant part of everyone's life. Um, the ability to, draw within, and [00:04:30] to. Tune into, um, something more quintessential about ourselves, feels at the same time, more vital and important and at the same time more difficult to attain because.

[00:04:43] Hamid Ebadi: Of the level of interaction, distraction, that we have, with the exterior, um, through messaging, um, social media interactions, being online. so we are constantly solicitated from the outside and [00:05:00] that I think makes the appeal to go within, uh, more significant and important than ever.

[00:05:08] Hamid Ebadi: Yeah. 

[00:05:08] Alessandro Frosali: I love that. So really, would you sum up that the, um, silent retreat essentially is a tool for us to go within. 

[00:05:19] Hamid Ebadi: Well it's interesting you use the word tool, because that, in a way, I would say it is a tool and then it's, uh, much more than a [00:05:30] tool. Uh, because if you have a tool, it's about. Applying it in some way to do something with that tool. But, here you are just actually moving towards something that's unknown.

[00:05:43] Hamid Ebadi: so, uh, I don't know what the unknown would be a tool for, uh, it's, um, it's a more, I would say a way of self-discovery, uh, and discovering through, Oneself, one's relationship with the world, one's relationship with [00:06:00] others, and, uh, feeling it from a different place. so when we use the word tools and I think in, uh, self-development, personal development, and in so many areas, the word tools, and having a toolbox and being able to use the right tools, is pertinent and meaningful.

[00:06:18] Hamid Ebadi: Here, I think we are speaking about something that has a depth. That just it being something that we can use as a tool does not necessarily render justice to what this thing [00:06:30] is about.

[00:06:30] Alessandro Frosali: Yeah, I think that's beautiful. I think that's beautiful. I mean, there is an, there is an unknown to it.

[00:06:36] Hamid Ebadi: Right.

[00:06:37] Alessandro Frosali: There is a, a sort of mystical to it. Is it, is it formed, I mean, you spoke about Buddhism, but are we, are we formed solely in Buddhism or is there any other, um, dogma, religion or anything like that that you practice through it?

[00:06:48] Alessandro Frosali: Like how does, how does religion inform what you do?

[00:06:52] Hamid Ebadi: Well, it depends on, uh, your understanding and definition, of what religion is. If about, if you're talking [00:07:00] about religion, we, we are thinking in terms of, uh, institutionalized religion.of whatever sort that may be. I would not think, that that is about it. But religion, um, strict sso, is, well, comes from a Latin, word, which is,the verb ary in Latin means, to tie something to something else or to connect something to something else.

[00:07:26] Hamid Ebadi: So religion in the sense of connecting us to something [00:07:30] that we are never really completely disconnected with, which is life or the nature of reality, is a religious act. so religion in that sense, finding our place and our belonging to something much faster than us, to which we belong as well, I would say would be one way of looking.

[00:07:50] Hamid Ebadi: at religion, which I would find more resonant. So here you have no dogmas, you have no belief systems as such, and it's not about adhering to a set of [00:08:00] articles of faith, but it's about tapping into that nature of reality, that holds everything. and of which we are also a part, but in what we are going through, and maybe there is an element of modern crisis that.

[00:08:16] Hamid Ebadi: I don't know, to when we can, you know, take that back to, there is a sense of, urgency to finding that connection because the loss of that connection is the loss [00:08:30] of soul and the loss of heart. and with that comes alienation, and sense of disconnect, from self and others, or ways of connecting with self and others.

[00:08:42] Hamid Ebadi: That are not wholesome, that are not conducive to wellbeing, and they're not consi, they're not conducive to establishing sustainable, meaningful,relationships with others. so, so I would say yes in that sense. That would be one way of looking at it. 

[00:08:57] Alessandro Frosali: I've had to like come to terms with this [00:09:00] myself in terms of religion and understanding. Um, and I love your, your ability to connect religion to essentially being life, you know, this flow of life. And there's a, I, I'd love to hear your take on a metaphor that. I dunno whether it came to me. I dunno whether I read it, but I, I've been using it for quite a long time in that there is some universal truth underlying everything.

[00:09:24] Alessandro Frosali: And I believe that that's kind of akin to hot water, like boiling water. And whenever somebody pulls [00:09:30] that truth in, it is akin to them being a teabag. And they're, um, you know, creating some kind of flavor of hot water. And when they share it. That, that flavor is mixed with the culture of their time, the where they are and who they're speaking to and the life experiences they've had.

[00:09:47] Alessandro Frosali: And so we do get throughout all the traditionalized religions that we have, you know, there is hot water, there is truth through it, but it is flavored by the, the, the culture [00:10:00] of the time. Would you say that, how would you, I, I would just love to hear your take on, on that metaphor, which has always been in my head. 

[00:10:06] Hamid Ebadi: I think one, uh, metaphor to speak about metaphor, you talked about the hot water and the teabag, is that there is, uh, this ocean that could be, uh.symbolize the nature of reality, the nature of ultimate truth, or whatever you want to call it, the absolute. Uh, and, and there are thousands of little, uh, streams or [00:10:30] rivers or watercourse, uh, that have, uh, different sources.

[00:10:34] Hamid Ebadi: it comes, some of them come from mountain peace. Uh, some they have different journeys through plateaus and, uh, valleys and, but inevitably they all somehow. End up in that ocean, in that vastness. Um, and they kind of dissolve in that greater truth. Um, so, um, yeah, so although the sources or the journeys [00:11:00] may differ, in the end, uh, we all end up in that ocean, uh, somehow.

[00:11:05] Hamid Ebadi: so that's how I see it. And then the, I also like another metaphor again, uh, the metaphor of water. is that, um, well you all know that, uh, the sea, has a flavor, is sa as salty. So even if no matter how many, uh, watercourses that, come from the mountains, let's say, um, they are, uh, water that's, [00:11:30] uh, not salty, but they're tasteless.

[00:11:34] Hamid Ebadi: After some time after a kilometer or two of the strongest river that flows into the ocean, it'll impregnate the taste of that ocean. So that's another way of looking at it, that whatever we come with it finally, finally dis souls into that greater body of reality of which we are actually not separated.

[00:11:58] Hamid Ebadi: But the [00:12:00] delusion that we have, is that we think. We are somehow separated from that ocean, and we need to find our way into that ocean. But our way to the ocean has always been traced for us. It's just that we have lost sight of it and a sense of it. 

[00:12:18] Alessandro Frosali: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. And so would you say that all your work guides people to remember that? Would you say. 

[00:12:30] [00:13:00] 

[00:13:19] Hamid Ebadi: I would say that a big part of, my work is to, be a facilitator for people to ask themselves questions. I am not the one who brings any answers to [00:13:30] them. I find that actually quite tedious. And today, it's enough to be someone who has some knowledge of something. And then if you find a platform and you think you can bring answers to other people, because people are so much in need.

[00:13:43] Hamid Ebadi: Of some profound answers, they will look to you and they may find that very relevant. and that establish a relationship that may be of interest. And I'm not discounting it, but it's not one that interests me. What I'm interested in this is sparing [00:14:00] a person to ask questions themselves and then find their journey through those questions and see where it takes them, and that is one of the things that I find very interesting.

[00:14:10] Hamid Ebadi: Is that people who come and spend time in these retreats with me and with others, they often, come with the statement at the end of saying that this experience is actually in some way has confused me more than when I came here in the beginning, which I find paradoxical. That actually very interesting because [00:14:30] confusion in the sense of, I thought I knew what my life was about and now.

[00:14:36] Hamid Ebadi: It's not so clear. Maybe that is the first step into a deeper kind of inquiry, because that deeper inquiry cannot begin until the desire in you or the impulse in you to question your beliefs, your understanding, what you are holding onto your opinions. And to realize maybe it's not about [00:15:00] that. Maybe I need to reevaluate all the things I'm holding onto in terms of value, systems, beliefs, and ideas.

[00:15:07] Hamid Ebadi: And that's opening the gate to what we started the conversation with to the unknown. So I'm just like a facilitator of that asking, helping people to ask themselves questions. But sometimes they come to me and say, what's the answer to this question? In all honesty, I'll tell them, I don't know. it's not my role to answer your questions.

[00:15:27] Hamid Ebadi: But I'm happy to facilitate you to ask [00:15:30] questions. 

[00:15:30] Alessandro Frosali: That's beautiful. So when people ask questions. Do you think that that's the only way to really find and cure within you to ask your own questions? I know you said, you said along the lines of other people can tell you what to do, and you said it's tedious for you, but it can work. But in your experience, do you think that asking themselves a question that's the, that's the actual, maybe the, the truest way to get to something that's within yourself? 

[00:15:57] Hamid Ebadi: Well, you see, that's also another that opens [00:16:00] another, an entirely different conversation, and that is that some people, again, I'm not challenging, uh, the significance or the importance or the value of that. Uh, they put themselves in positions of being teachers or guides. Uh, I don't see myself as a guide.

[00:16:16] Hamid Ebadi: I don't see myself as a teacher. That's why I used, um, in a very conscious way, the term facilitator. I facilitate a space, or spaces for others, but the teacher basically, is [00:16:30] someone who guides people. And the idea is that I will be, presenting myself to a relationship with someone who has knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and as a result of.

[00:16:40] Hamid Ebadi: Um, my time spent with them,I will find something that they are pointing out to as some form of realizations, some form of wisdom that they have acquired and they can share it with me. Uh. I'm not, as I said, questioning that, but that for me is not what interests me, for [00:17:00] quite a few reasons. And one of them is that my own process of con questioning has not ceased.

[00:17:06] Hamid Ebadi: I still question much about my own life and my own understanding, and I don't really understand. Or know, how could that be otherwise? Because if we look at the dimension of what, for lack of a better word or other word, we could call the absolute, the absolute nature of what is, then we are just [00:17:30] like a speck of dust in the infinity of space.

[00:17:34] Hamid Ebadi: So how could that spec of dust. Have any sort of pretension of understanding the depth of something that is far beyond one could, one, possibly imagine in terms of scope of depth and breadth and width and dimensions. so we are just like a tiny grain of sand, uh, the bottom of the ocean. and I think part of the spiritual [00:18:00] journey is always coming back to that sense of.

[00:18:04] Hamid Ebadi: Finding our place in that, that drop of water that is related to the ocean, but that drop of water dies outside of the ocean. But sometimes, and that's our ego mind can get so inflated with its own understanding. Oh, its sense of what it knows, in which case that drop of water. [00:18:30] May think that itself is the ocean.

[00:18:33] Hamid Ebadi: So that's the relationship that I would establish between, humility and, um, the constant necessity of knowing. And that in zen is something very important and significant, which is in zen is what is called the beginner's mind. so no matter how much you know, no matter how much you've learned, no matter how many years you have practiced.

[00:18:56] Hamid Ebadi: You're always a beginner. You're always taking [00:19:00] a first step. Now, that may sound counterintuitive, uh, when it comes to us thinking, well, I've done a lot of journeying, so now I have a lot of experience. But what that actually means, um, the engagement with the path as a beginner is that. 

[00:19:18] Hamid Ebadi: You realize that no matter what you have accomplished or you realized you're still facing something which is infinite, which is something that's [00:19:30] absolutely, beyond human consciousness and human understanding. So in that sense, you're always taking a first step. You're always exposing ourselves to something that's, that's.

[00:19:45] Hamid Ebadi: Immense. So it's that stepping into the immensity, that I would say is about being always a beginner and having a sense of humility and modesty rather than thinking, I already know this [00:20:00] and that, and so much. 'cause at the end of the day, we don't know what we know. And if you go back to Greek, philosophy, that is.

[00:20:09] Hamid Ebadi: The definition of wisdom by someone like Socrates,there was these oracles and the Oracle, one of the oracles in Athens in Greece pointed out, to Socrates being the wisest man in the city. And so everyone thought that this, he is the wisest man.

[00:20:23] Hamid Ebadi: And Socrates took that and presented it in the following and says, the only difference between me [00:20:30] is that, Others think that they know. Whilst I know that I do not know. So I think there's a parallel between what Socrates was saying about his so-called wisdom is that he doesn't know with what I just shared with you a moment ago.

[00:20:43] Alessandro Frosali: It's beautiful. I mean, it's actually the theme of this whole podcast. For me, it's an underwritten theme. The main, um, I have a tattooed on my arm. I don't know, since we've said his Socrates there and I've got, um, graffiti on him is Shut the fuck up and listen. So it's, [00:21:00] it's, and that's what the whole podcast's name is for me.

[00:21:03] Alessandro Frosali: It's, it's really about me asking questions, And I, I do think there's beauty to that. I, there's so many threads we could jump on. Like I was about to ask you that if there was a grain of sand in the bottom of the ocean or a grain of water in the bottom of the ocean, and that's what we are and what is the, what is the purpose of us actually then asking questions, why not just be that?

[00:21:26] Alessandro Frosali: Drop of order. If we are this form, then why not be it in all of [00:21:30] our glory, if you know what I mean? Why ask, why? Even try and ask about the whole, if we are in this form. And I think that's, that's one thread I could go on. Does, does that feel alive for you?

[00:21:39] Hamid Ebadi: Yes. Uh, that's a very interesting, uh, uh, way of looking at it. But then, like in a tradition such as Buddhism, you would say that what prevents us from, Realizing what you just mentioned, the oneness or our deeper connection with everything is the place that the ego mind or a separate sense of selves due to [00:22:00] ignorance occupies within us.

[00:22:02] Hamid Ebadi: so our involvement with our own self-centeredness and ego centricity, which in Buddhism is called ignorance. Prevents us from realizing that yes, we are sitting at the bottom of this ocean and there's nothing to realize. and, it's already all there, but we do not know it. So the questioning, the journeying, the practices are, they are about actualizing that truth that we have lost sense of.

[00:22:29] Hamid Ebadi: [00:22:30] so, so in that sense, I, I, I would see that kind of a relationship between something that. We do not necessarily through our realization change the nature of it, but what we dispel is our ignorance, which is, I am here and that thing is over there. that thing is not over there. I am not here because there's no, based on that bigger picture, there is no here and there.

[00:22:54] Hamid Ebadi: They're just relative points that in the absolute dimension of things have no bearing.

[00:22:59] Alessandro Frosali: Is this the kind of [00:23:00] thing within a silent retreat? Um, so I might have like a man listening from, let's say he's from Texas and he's listening right now, and he is just going like, I, I, I don't know about these silent retreats because I don't really want to think this hard. Um, what would you say to that man?

[00:23:15] Alessandro Frosali: Is this what a silent retreat is about? Does it get this philosophical. 

[00:23:18] Hamid Ebadi: I don't know. I wouldn't, I wouldn't, uh, have anything to add to that person's, uh, comment. Uh, it's a valid comment. I, I would say, I would say that, um, You know, it's like, I don't [00:23:30] know, a process of, uh, self-inquiry. Um, some people start a process of self-inquiry, but they want to come to something very tangible, very quickly, and then they're very practical minded and they want to apply that immediately to their lives.

[00:23:46] Hamid Ebadi: And see the benefit of it, that's perfectly fine. Uh, and there are some people who are questioners, who are dreamers, who are jo, who are travelers, who are people who like endless journeys. Uh, and, they don't [00:24:00] necessarily even know what's the purpose, uh, of the journey. But they just like journeying.

[00:24:05] Hamid Ebadi: They just like discovering. Uh, and that of that, on that score, I would then, uh. call to our conversation, a haiku by, uh, one of the greatest, uh, poets, uh, of, um, Japan. Um, his name is Basho. He is the master, indisputed master of, uh, the form of poetry. That's 17 syllables, that's called haiku. And, so the haikus are [00:24:30] extremely succinct.

[00:24:31] Hamid Ebadi: They encapsulate truths, um, that would probably require a book to write, you know, and you just, you have just 17 syllables and you try to say it. So he was someone who was a lot on the road in those days. you know, uh,the old days in Japan 300 years ago, was very, very difficult, you know, to travel most of the time on foot to go from one place to another.

[00:24:54] Hamid Ebadi: And he traveled a lot. One of his haikus is about traveling and the [00:25:00] purpose of traveling, because for us journeying and the spiritual journey is like, okay, I'm starting a point A, and at the end of the day, I wanna get to point B. And point B looks like that, or as my idea of point B or the goal would B.

[00:25:14] Hamid Ebadi: And he says, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home. Every day is a journey and the journey itself is home. So I think that's a beautiful way of framing that. so it's not like, where is the journey [00:25:30] taking me? I have an idea of where I would want the journey to take me. He says it's more about the appreciation of being on the journey rather than being concerned, where is this taking me to?

[00:25:44] Hamid Ebadi: so that's how I would answer that question or,

[00:25:47] Alessandro Frosali: I mean, it's a beautiful, I love that. I'm going to write that down. Might even write that down on my skin one day. Who knows? Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.

[00:25:56] Hamid Ebadi: 

[00:25:56] Alessandro Frosali: can somebody not be on the journey by living, or [00:26:00] do they essentially, are they on the journey just by being here?

[00:26:06] Hamid Ebadi: Yes.

[00:26:07] Hamid Ebadi: we're all on a journey, whether we know it or not, or how we tap into it. I think, uh, being born is a journey and dying is a journey, and what's in between is a journey. It's our life journey and whether we think of what we think of it, if we conceptualize it, if we, think about it, if we reflect on it, we are nonetheless on that [00:26:30] path.

[00:26:30] Hamid Ebadi: yes, that's for sure.

[00:26:31] Alessandro Frosali: I think there's, that's probably where ego comes in and, um, when somebody can tell you whether you're on a journey or not, whether you're letting go of your journey or, you know, anything like that. I think that's the real distinction here is that everyone's on a journey. Even the people who are perceived as not on a journey, that is their journey.

[00:26:47] Alessandro Frosali: It's just by living. what does a retreat look like for somebody who actually has never. Even knowing what a silent retreat is, like how long is it like on the real [00:27:00] practical sense, if you don't mind sharing. 

[00:27:01] Hamid Ebadi: Sure. Thank you for bringing me back to practical things. 

[00:27:06] Alessandro Frosali: It's all part of

[00:27:06] Alessandro Frosali: the journey. 

[00:27:07] Hamid Ebadi: uh, well, we have shorter versions and longer versions. The shorter ones are,four days, and the longer ones there are eight days, so it's double the amount. Um, and it involves a lot of sitting, involves also, in yoga. Practice. it involves taking walks in the nature and it involves also in the evenings.

[00:27:28] Hamid Ebadi: Um, I give a talk, [00:27:30] um, to give, people who are sitting there some kind of a context, um, as to what this is about by asking questions more than answering anything, but just opening space, and go tapping into some of the teachings that I have been studying for.sometime now. so I would say at the practical level,what happens is that people are invited to sit with what may at times feel physically and [00:28:00] emotionally uncomfortable, because you don't have the possibility of, um, distracting yourself.

[00:28:07] Hamid Ebadi: and in our everyday lives, if. we go through a, difficult thought, a difficult emotion, a difficult sensation. we always have the ability to reach out to something that will ease our way out of that, the discomfort of that moment. now that is the [00:28:30] paradox. I would say that's one of the paradoxes that one can encounter and appreciate in a silent retreat is that what we call our comfort zones have ended up making us feel extremely uncomfortable.

[00:28:45] Hamid Ebadi: Uncomfortable in the sense that we have very low thresholds of tolerance. For what life sometimes throws at us, which is something that's unknown, something that's a situation for which [00:29:00] immediately we do not have an answer. Uh, so instead of sometimes sitting with things, um, and late letting that settle in us, we resort to action, uh, or sometimes to removing ourselves from what's uncomfortable.

[00:29:18] Hamid Ebadi: So I would say maybe you have had. A lot of repressed, unexpressed feelings and emotions that have kind of, been there, but [00:29:30] you haven't really tapped into them. As you do not engage with others, as you do not use language to. Uh, bring up, something, express something that maybe feels difficult just to get it out, and as you are sitting still and not seeding to the temptation to remove yourself from a physical, physically difficult moment, then.

[00:29:58] Hamid Ebadi: What you end up doing is to [00:30:00] sit with what is emotionally and physically uncomfortable and noticing that there is this urge in you to come out of that. But as there's a group that's very supportive and everyone you realize they're probably going through the same kind of experience as you. There's this bigger container that supports that discomfort, and that is one of the things I find very interesting is that throughout that period of practice.

[00:30:26] Hamid Ebadi: If you go, if you were to go with your microphone and we'd ask, [00:30:30] what is this moment to you for you, I think most people will honestly tell you, this is not fun. I'm not enjoying this. This is not where I want to be. I even wonder, what the hell am I doing here? So that's what comes up. But at the end when this is over and people have a sharing, you know, closing circle, and they express what they feel.

[00:30:54] Hamid Ebadi: The vast majority of times people express a deep appreciation for [00:31:00] having been given the opportunity of sitting with what is emotionally challenging and difficult. That has a lot of value because that gives us a sense that I have it in me to be this container. For things that I usually think I do not have the ability to contain and then I distract myself not to feel them.

[00:31:24] Hamid Ebadi: But that is kind of expands our inner container for [00:31:30] being with our emotions and feelings. I think that has a lot of

[00:31:34] Hamid Ebadi: value. dunno if that directly answers your

[00:31:35] Hamid Ebadi: question 

[00:31:36] Alessandro Frosali: it doesn't already, you know, you have a wonderful way of taking the practical into the non-practical, but that's, I think it's, it's, it, it does answer the question. 'cause it is quite practical and it's, it's something of, I think if I am to, you know, summarize here, I think it's, it's for the people who feel a call to sit with discomfort because they've, they, they, they find themselves avoiding [00:32:00] discomfort. They

[00:32:01] Hamid Ebadi: Exactly. 

[00:32:02] Alessandro Frosali: themselves avoiding discomfort. I remember there was a moment I was doing a yoga retreat in, um, in Sri Lanka in March, and there was a moment I was sitting and whenever I sit upright to meditate, like there's a certain point where my lower back starts to hurt. 

[00:32:16] Hamid Ebadi: Mm-hmm. 

[00:32:16] Alessandro Frosali: And a voice sort of popped into my head and I, I started saying like, I could see everyone else sitting properly, but I can't.

[00:32:22] Alessandro Frosali: I need to go to the back of the wall. I need to sit against the wall. I need to sit against the wall. This is not easy for me. This is not easy for me. Like, this is, like, it's easier for them, [00:32:30] it's easy for them. 

[00:32:31] Hamid Ebadi: Mm-hmm 

[00:32:32] Alessandro Frosali: like, and all of these things started popping in my head. And then I, and then I, I, I slowed down and, and calmed my breath, and all of a sudden this voice came in that was just like whoever said that this was supposed to be easy.

[00:32:44] Alessandro Frosali: And the moment I heard that, I went, oh, I'm actually struggling here. Not with, I'm not struggling with back pain. 

[00:32:51] Hamid Ebadi: Mm-hmm. 

[00:32:52] Alessandro Frosali: I'm struggling with discomfort.

[00:32:54] Hamid Ebadi: Mm-hmm. Right.

[00:32:56] Alessandro Frosali: And, and that allowed, like, I think that was like [00:33:00] one pathway for me to start realizing, oh, I need to train my discomfort because I'm quite used to, whenever I don't have.

[00:33:06] Alessandro Frosali: An out in that way. You know, I find one, I find one, and I, I think that's, that sounds beautiful. For the silent retreat to be that. Would you say that's who should come to you to do a silent retreat? As somebody who feels the call, would you have anything else to add to that? 

[00:33:21] Hamid Ebadi: yes. I think the notion of calling, is an important one.I think we all, feel that calling in a different way. [00:33:30] Um, but the calling is always about, um, a homecoming. so, um, it's about coming back home, coming back to ourselves. So that's actually the paradox of this journey, which now another poet, this time the English poet, um, ts Elliot, sums up by saying maybe we've come to the end of our time, and that would be a good place to, to bring this up.

[00:33:55] Hamid Ebadi: He says that,at the end of all your searching, um, [00:34:00] I'm not exactly sure if I'm paraphrasing them, quoting him, but. The gist of it is that at the end of all our searching, we will come back to the place where we started from and we will discover that place as if it were for the first time. I think that's just a beautiful way of, um, putting that side by side with the poem.

[00:34:21] Hamid Ebadi: I read, uh, I mentioned about how, uh, every day is a journey and the journey is home. Elliot. Renders it in this [00:34:30] way, um, that in the, at the end we come back to where we started. So the journey does not take you to a place that's fundamentally different from where you are. You're not gonna become someone who's fundamentally different from who you really are, but it allows you to have a fresh, renewed sense of rediscovering that.

[00:34:54] Hamid Ebadi: Um, that which you have always been. So that's, I think, is very [00:35:00] important. And in that sense, it's a homecoming. It's coming back to

[00:35:03] Hamid Ebadi: yourself. 

[00:35:04] Alessandro Frosali: For coming on today.

[00:35:06] Hamid Ebadi: My pleasure, Alessandro. 

[00:35:09] Alessandro Frosali: That's the episode. That's all I got for you today. I just want you to remember you're not alone in this. Make sure you subscribe to stay connected, of course, and comment your win. You know? 'cause every time a man sees other men winning, they don't feel alone anymore, and I love that tools are in the show notes, starting with the better husband in two minute emails.

[00:35:26] Alessandro Frosali: Let's build this together. I'll see you next week.