Ep. 35 - Toni Bernhard

This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. Welcome to episode 35 of Synchronicity. My guest today is Tony Bernhard, and truthfully, in all sincerity, top five episode for me. Tony has an amazing message, and I'm going to get to Tony in just a little bit. That's called a teaser, right? Is that what they call it? Who's they? I don't know, but that's what I'm doing. I wanted to talk about some other stuff before I get to Tony, but I had really this episode with her. Oh boy, so good. But they first off, a couple of people did some really cool stuff, more than a couple of people, but a few people got in touch with me this week who I thought did some pretty cool things.

The first one was the book winner. I reached out to Morgan, and Morgan wrote back, "Hey, I already read this book." It was Demian by Hermann Hesse, and I was like, "I already read this book. Why don't you send it to someone else?" So I wrote back to Morgan, and I said, "Hey, Morgan, that's awesome that you did that. I'm definitely going to send it to someone else, but why don't you let me know a book you do want?" So I'm going to send them that book. So if there wasn't a reason already to join the Synchronicity community, what's that, you ask? That is a community where I send a book, at the very least, out to a person on that email list every week.

Now you can even get a book that maybe you can be like, "I already read that book, even if you didn't." And just get a book that you actually wanted. Hopefully you wouldn't do that. I think these books are good, but Morgan sounded like I already really read the book. So if you want to do that, synchpodcast.com, that's S-Y-N-C, podcast.com. Go there, put in your email, you get a little email from me, and then you're automatically entered forever. So that's pretty easy to do. And then also another person who did something really cool was Patrick. Thank you for the donations. I don't know what to say.

That's incredibly generous of you. I hope you don't mind me calling you out. I'm not saying your last name in fear that maybe you wouldn't want me to do that, but that was really cool. And also thank you to everyone else who's given donations throughout the since I've been doing this for the past couple episodes. So two, three weeks. I am taking donations now. I'm definitely taking donations now with a child. So whatever I was, I know like a few months ago, I was like, "Oh, I don't need the money. No way. No problem. Don't worry. Give it to someone else." And we're still totally doing that. I'm going to talk about that in a second, but I will also take donations.

I am not above it at all. So the next thing I want to talk about are these, what I was calling very uncleverily before these charity giveaways. That's a terrible name. The idea is, and I've centered it around now, I've spoken to a few people who have had their suggestions. I was thinking it over for the past few weeks, and I wanted to make sure that I got this the way that I thought it should be. Even if it's wrong, at least I'll say, "Oh, I had a concept behind it." Instead of giving to, the idea was we were going to give to a charity or an organization or an individual. We're going to raise money for it.

So I was going to put up a link on the site. I said, "This is what's going on." I'm going to put up a link on the site. You go there, you can give. And then once we've got it pulled together, after a certain timeframe, we're going to send it a certain direction. So we're debating a bunch of different organizations. I had some informal straw pulls. But basically, what I've decided at this point, and what we've decided collectively, but me too, is that I think it would be more powerful if this was for an individual. So this leads me to kind of the go fund me or just raising money for an individual route.

Part of the reason I'm doing that is, A, organizations and charities already have some type of typically mechanism in place that allows them to bring in revenue or income or money to help support what's going on. And, you know, you never, one of the things, and I do give to charities, and I know that the letters they send me back probably are more than the, they cost more to ship them out than I actually end up giving. And that's one of the reasons that like, when I give to charities, it's not like, I don't do it for a reason, like I believe in the thing and I'm doing it. But then when I get back like a thousand letters, I'm like, their overhead is probably where my money is going to, which is fine.

My overhead is something that needs to be paid for, totally. But if it was going to a person, I just feel like that'd be really cool. And it also puts us in the position as people who are potentially giving, you know, we can imagine what it would be like to receive that money if we needed it, or if it was important for something we were trying to do. So I think that's like a more, it's easier to crystallize what this would mean. And then like, who knows, in the future, maybe someone who's on the community, we send the money to them. Like, who knows what this could turn out to. So that's what this is going to be. And it's going to launch July, probably July 1st.

I just have to get everything set up. I think it's, I think I have the logistics worked out. And I'll share that on an upcoming episode. But yeah, those, I'm calling them the generosity experiments, right? I don't know how this is going to go. I don't know how many people are going to give. I'm going to give. I know other people will. But I don't know how this is going to go. So there's no real pressure to make this some grand big thing. But if it turns into something where we're really giving a substantial amount or something that helps someone, that would be pretty fucking cool, I think. So that is the idea. That is something that's going to happen. So stay tuned for that.

Okay. I don't got nothing else to say about me or what's going on with this show. Let's talk about Tony. So Tony is, I have been a fan from afar of Tony's for a while. She submitted a couple writings to MindPod Network. She's a great writer. Just writes exactly how she speaks, really down to earth, really practical. No real pretension about herself at all. And she writes her psychology today, has her on her own website, tonyburnheart.com. She's written books. And the books, not all of them, but the first one is called How to Be Sick. Because Tony has been dealing with chronic health issues, chronic health, basically the flu for like 15 years straight.

And at first she couldn't even leave her bed. Now she basically said she's just house. She has to stay in the house. So fuck, right? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Janet, if you're listening. Janet, my good friend Janet, Tara Brock's wonderful assistant is on the emails I send out from Synchronicity. And I use a potty mouth sometimes. So sorry, Janet. I'm going to try not to swear. You're right. There's no need for it. But what I'm saying is like, that's an incredible thing to have to deal with in your life. Like, I am just telling someone this. I'm a hypochondriac. I'm not a hypochondriac. Like, I think I'm a germaphobe. Like, oh, I don't want to get sick. I don't want to get sick.

I actually probably do things that are probably totally unsanitary and, you know, probably get most people sick. I'm clear myself. I freak out when I get sick. I totally lose it. I ask anybody who knows me. Like, if I have like my lymph node gets swollen because of like a mild cold or I'm fighting something off, I have cancer. I got a twitch in my foot once. I had MS. Like, I'm just like, and I know people have serious health issues and have known people. And I don't want to diminish, especially at all, but like, I don't know how to deal with it myself. And it's not even anything at all. I'm making it up. But Tony is dealing with something that's very difficult.

And I hope, and I hope I could bring a shred of what she's bringing to her issues and not to make it sound like she's, you know, just been good throughout this whole thing. Perfect. Like, she's had to come to these conclusions or things these wisdom nuggets through this process. But she has like, you'll hear in this episode for someone who's dealing with what she's dealing with. It's pretty remarkable how she how she is. So we talk about a lot of stuff. Obviously overcoming suffering or pain. We talk about what the conception of pain actually means or suffering. Not just physically, but mentally. There's a lot of different ways. We talk about there's the second arrow thing.

I talk about it. I bring it up because she was saying, you know, you're adding on top of the experience, which is the famous parable. It was the Buddha. I think it was. I think it was. He said, you know, let's say you get hit by an arrow, right? An arrow shoots you. There's the pain of that arrow. But if you add the suffering on top of that, like, oh lamenting all the things on top of it, that's the second arrow. That's the mental pain that comes from it. So one pain is bad enough. You don't got to add to it. Another thing that I love that we spoke about is the importance of self-compassion. But also kind of drawing a line between self-compassion and what I was calling idiot self-compassion.

And also just the tyranny of positive thinking, right? We've spoken about this a little bit before on the podcast. But like, you know, being just hunky-dory, everything's great all the time totally misses the point of what life is. Like, that's not really most people's experience in life. And if that's your experience in life, please be a guest on this podcast because I need to understand how someone could totally be like that all the time. At my experience in life is there is good and bad. There's up and down. There's dark and light. There's these opposites that interplay at various times and that there's impermanence ultimately.

So no state lasts that I've experienced in this world. But that's not to say you can't make your life pretty good and awesome. That's also possible too. So yeah, I mean, this episode, I don't want to talk too much more about it. It's amazing. Tony, you will hear. If you want to find out about Tony, go to her website, www.tonyburnheart.com. She has three books that she's written. This episode is great if you've been dealing with any type of pain or suffering, physical, mental, even if you're not because rest assured most people in their life will have to deal with some type of pain or suffering.

Haven't met someone yet who hasn't. So, you know, I think there's stuff in here. And again, like this stuff is practical and all like it's practical. It's practical. So that's really what it is. I've rambled on far too much. Rate and review, if you can, guys, on iTunes. That really, really, really, I don't know. Effit, Janet, Effit, Janet. I am not going to swear, but you don't have to do that, guys. If you don't want to, but it does help me in some way, probably just ego-based. If you want to make a donation to the podcast, that's awesome. Syncpodcast.com/donation. You'll see it if you go to the website. But without further ado, for real, here is Tony Bernhard.

Hi, Tony. Hi. Can you, I'm going to turn my video off. Okay. Okay. Nice to meet you, though. Is my video off? I think it is. Yeah. In other words, do you see me? I do not see you. Okay. That's easier for me because the eye contact is fatiguing. Yeah, sure. No problem. I actually, I was talking about this in one of my previous guests. It's not out yet, but I was saying I also have this weirdly narcissistic thing where I do, where I look at myself, like while I'm talking to other people. And it's like, I never would do that in any other scenario, but when my face is there, I'm like, oh, I got looking at myself. So I usually cover it up with something. So this was-- That is really funny. I know. I actually, I don't do very many video interviews, but I did do one for some site about a month ago.

Yeah. And I did the same thing. I kept asking at me instead of him. Right. I mean, we're not, we're not used to having that ability as people. It's a really recent thing. So like, I think it's pretty, you know, it's like when a chimpanzee can recognize itself in a mirror. It's like, it's a fascinating experience. Oh, that's what I look like. Yeah, that's pretty funny. How are you? I'm okay. I'm all right. So thank you so much, by the way, for coming on and doing this. I really appreciate it. Good. I've been thrilled. We're just going to start and I'll, you know, lead through how this works. It's just really a conversation, but I was really happy you were receptive to coming on because I know you posted a couple of things that submitted a couple of articles to MindPod Network, and they're some of my favorite articles. Oh, great.

Yeah, just really cool. And then I had the opportunity to just research you when you first did that, and then really I went a little more in depth before this conversation, and I'm totally blown away by how awesome you are and just, again, how really one of my favorite things that you do is you're, you're very relatable, and the practical approach you have to a lot of things that can get very impractical or seem impractical to a lot of people. So those two things combined made me really excited for this. So thank you again, I really, yeah. Right. Yeah, people do seem to, when they read my books, they say it's like sitting around a kitchen table drinking tea and conversation.

That's a great supplement, yeah. That turned out to be my writing style. I had no idea, but it did, and that's, yes. That's awesome. Well, it really, it does shine through. So I was wondering if we could start. Could you, if you don't mind, and I'm going to do an intro for this, so it'll be before this, and I'll give some background too, but if you, could you, do you mind giving a little background on who you are, like a brief biography and just kind of how you got to the point where you are now where you're writing these amazing books and guides with exercises to help people deal with things ranging from, you know, chronic illness and stuff.

Yeah, if you could just go through that. Sure. Tell me first about how long we're going to talk for. That helps me. It's up to you. Oh, okay. So it's, it's really in your, you're, I, they're typically about 45 minutes to an hour long conversation. That's fine. Yeah, cool. It's just good to know. What happens with me is that if I start to get tired adrenaline kicks in, and although there's payback later, it's fine because it's worth it for me to do these things. Sure. Cool. Yeah. Whatever. Okay. So, um, in 2001, my life changed dramatically. Everybody else's did, but for me, it was in May. I had been on the faculty at the law school here in, at UC Davis, and my husband and I took a trip to Paris, which was really special for us because we weren't world travelers. And I rented a studio apartment. The idea was that we would stay there for three weeks and immerse ourselves in the life of Paris rather than traveling all around.

And the second day there, I, I felt sick. And at first I thought, well, this is just jet lag. And I actually asked my husband if we could go to a movie so that I could sit and try to assess what was going on. And to make a long story short, I was sick. And it turned into a rather virulent, viral infection that kept me from leaving our apartment. And so my husband went co-out during the day, which was not, he, he is not someone who really likes going out on his own like that. But, and we said, well, okay, instead of three weeks, we'll have two and a half weeks. And then it was two and just kind of dwindled down. And I did go to a doctor in Paris who said, well, I think it's a viral infection, but I'll give you antibiotics anyway. Just to be sure.

Thankfully, I got better enough to take, take the flight home. I actually thought I was on the mend. And when we got back to Davis, at the end of June, I had a relapse. And by then I was going to doctors here. And it's from that relapse that I never recovered. The doctors think that whatever this virus was that I had has compromised my immune system in some way. And you know, to some extent, immune systems are at the limit of medical knowledge. It's not like an organ you can, you can deal with, right? Right, right. And so basically, the acute symptoms subsided like the sore throat and the cough and the fever.

But aside from that, I feel as if I have the flu and I have felt that way now for 15 years, because here we are 2016. And so if you think about when you have the flu, you can get up and do a few things for maybe an hour, and then you just have to lie down, push your body, just gives out. And so I took that, not realizing that this was chronic. The fall semester, I went on leave from the law school. And eventually, I just, I had to give up my profession. I couldn't do it. I tried. I actually tried teaching part-time in the spring, and my husband would actually leave work, drive me over to the law school, and I would stumble into a classroom and sit in a chair, and then he'd pick me up and drive me home.

And so it was traumatic because I loved my work. Our children were grown and gone, so my life was about work and some activities in the community. I was a mentor for a child who was in Child Protective Services, and we were active members of the community. And suddenly I was living in my bedroom. And there was a period of about two years where I barely could get out of bed. I'm now more, I'm more housebound than bedbound, thank goodness. Some days I don't feel thankful. But when I do think back to those early days, it's certainly better. Now I wouldn't have been able to even do this interview. And at that time I had been a practicing Buddhist for about 10 years.

And what that meant for me was that I had a daily meditation practice, actually twice a day. I was very disciplined twice a day, 50 minutes each time, and would go on at least two retreats a year, usually ten days. I practiced in the Tarabaudan tradition, but I read books in every tradition. I just couldn't get enough Zen to bed. And actually that my second book is really more of a Buddhist book, and it draws on all the traditions because I take what helps and what I think will help others from all the traditions. But when I found myself in the bedroom, I really went into a two or three years state of despair.

I don't want to overstate it because I was fortunate to have a partner who took good care of me and a roof over my head. I mean there are some people who fall into chronic illness and the financial, if they don't have good health insurance, they can lose their home and it can be truly tragic in that way. So I was fortunate in that way, but I was completely traumatized by this. Everyone expected me to get better. I expected me to get better. I would go to bed at night and order myself to wake up feeling better, but it just didn't work. And I went to dozens of doctors and they all had pretty much the same theory, which is that something had happened to my immune system and that it might be reading me as I may not even have an active, I think I probably don't have an active virus in my body, but my immune system reads me as sick.

And so it reacts the way an immune system does when you're sick, which you want it to do when you're really sick. And so I had a couple pretty dark years. I was very attached to the identity law professor. I wasn't a law professor who was I, and I slowly began to go back to my Buddhist roots, starting with some reading. I like to think of it as the Buddha was waiting in the wings. And I started to realize that the Buddha could teach me how to be sick. And I use that phrase because that turned out to be the title of my first book, because one day I pulled my laptop over and I opened a Word document and wrote how to be sick.

Teach me Buddha. And I stared at it and I thought, well, that's great, but I'm too sick to write this, that I actually started writing. And just the different ways that his philosophy was helpful to what was happening to me and how some of the practices were helpful. But it was really a manual for myself, but I shared it with a couple people I'd met online who were also chronically ill, and they said there was a book there. And so I got up the nerve to give the manuscript to Sylvia Borsten, who was one of my first Buddhist teachers, and she loved it. And that eventually we found a publisher, Wisdom, and to my great surprise, I suddenly was a published author.

And then Wisdom has since then published two more books. The second one, as I said, is more Buddhist. It's my understanding of the Buddha's path to awakening, kind of a modest undertaking, but what else should you do from the bed, right? And then the third book is a book, the first and third focus more on chronic illness and different practices, and what you can do to live a life of purpose and find some joy along the way, despite your limitations. And so I've been saying, and I've been sticking to this three books and out of there, I think, for a lifetime. And so that's my story. I mean, this is a thank you for that amazing overview, too, and I just want to say, I think it's incredible that you can maintain some level of equanimity, which seems like a lot, basically, like a lot, a lot of equanimity.

I know that's kind of maybe an oxymoron, but I practice hard. But it's working, and also just in hearing you tell the story, how many times you use concepts like gratitude and appreciation, just looking back when you are bedridden to now houseridden, still realizing that you prefer not to be houseridden, too. I think it really, though, those are really, really important concepts that the fact that we're having this conversation, and I realize that you're still in the midst of this, but that you have some level of peace. And I know you work on it continuously, but it's really awesome. This is an incredible message, and it's an incredible example of you're thriving in a lot of ways, even dealing with something that probably would consume people to their detriment in a lot of other ways, too.

So I think that I really just want to get that, because I want to talk about some specific concepts that you dealt with in your writing and stuff, but I just, you know, from the human level, I think it's incredible. So, and I'm really appreciative. And I've not been chronically ill myself. I've had illnesses that have lasted for a long, you know, like a viral thing that's lasted like a month and a half. And I know what tends to happen to me, and I'm a terribly, I'm a horrible sick person. My wife will knows this better than anyone, and I'm sure my mom and my parents, too, like I'm really, really a very bad one.

Everything I learn, everything I've ever read, all of my practices, usually out the window at the first sign of a sore throat or something. It's amazing how that can happen. Yeah, and I know you've written about that, but I just, it is such a testament that in the midst of 15 years later, you're still, you're really, you're doing something here with this. So, you know, like I said, I had what I love about your writing, too, from reading it, is that a lot of the concepts that you apply to being chronically ill or having health issues or persistent things, they're also applicable to many different forms of to use the Buddhist term suffering, like mental anguish, you know, and this is stuff that anyone can relate to.

It's not just, oh, well, I have chronic fatigue syndrome, or I have something that's persistently there, or I have cancer or some really horrible illness that is just consuming my life. This is stuff that we can use at any point in our lives for all the little things, including mental suffering. So, I wanted to start, well, I actually wanted to start with anger, but I'm going to start not with anger and start with what I think is incredibly important. And I think it's something that's so often overlooked when we're talking about compassion, and it's the importance of having self compassion and being kind with yourself and accepting of yourself.

Could you talk a little bit about that and how it's helped you along the way? Yeah, let me just first make a comment about what you said about this being applicable to this is something my husband said at one point. He said, you know, illness is a metaphor for the difficulties that everybody faces in life. And that's actually what led me to write the second and the third book was that people started to contact me about my first book. Here's a book called How to Be Sick. And they would say, I'm not sick, but I got so much out of that book that I could apply to my troubles on the job and difficulties in relationships.

So, yeah, it does. I think it is helpful to think of any difficulty you face and can work with and learn and develop some equanimity in the face of it can be applied to other areas of your life. And to just interject, not to cut you up, but it also provides an opportunity, right, and any difficulty or troubling thing or illness or just a hard situation. There's a tremendous amount of potential for opportunity there. Like, look at this. I mean, just to zoom out from it, if you hadn't had this happen to you, you probably wouldn't have helped millions, hundreds of thousands, tons of people in their lives in countless ways. So it's, you know, it's a very interesting thing.

And I have at times, I've had moments of saying, it's a good thing I got sick. I have to be honest and say that there isn't a period, every single day, I wish I weren't sick. No, no, I totally, and I do not mean to make it seem like, well, this is a blessing. You're so lucky. I have had those moments because I have people who contact me from all over the world. And say that my books have changed their lives. And sometimes I am able to say, this is good. This is good that this happened. Yeah, it's interesting that you raise self-compassion first because it's my go-to practice. When I don't know what else to do, well, I have kind of two go-to practices. The first relates to what we were talking about with difficulties arising, whether illness or not.

You know, the Buddha made a list of those difficulties in the first noble truth. He basically said, and I appreciate so much. It helped me so much that he told it like it is. He said, we're all subject to aging and illness and death and separation from those we cherish, whether it be because they moved to another part of the country, or in my case, I don't see my children very often because I can't travel and they can't get up here that often. And then another thing on his list was not getting what you want. And then one of my favorites at getting what you don't want. So one of my go-to practices is to remind myself that those are conditions of being alive. And I like being alive.

And so if I want to like being alive, I have to accept that those are part of the conditions of being alive. And so that's very helpful to me. But what I usually reach for first is self-compassion. And I think it's because a couple of things. One is that the first few years of being ill, I lacked self-compassion. As I already mentioned, I was angry at myself for not getting better. I was engaged in a lot of self-blame and judgment. What's wrong with some weakness of the will that you can't get better and some character defect. Actually, Sylvia Borstein helped me a lot with that because we would talk on the phone and she would say, "Your body is sick. Your mind isn't sick."

And that kind of helped me to see that all of this self-blame and negative judgment was a second layer of suffering. It was that layer of mental suffering that I was adding to the physical suffering. Right. The second arrow. That second arrow, yeah. And what is the doorway out of that is to treat yourself kindly and with compassion. And when people write to me, if I were to, I haven't done this, but if I were to make a list of the different things they write to me about, their inability to treat themselves with compassion is the number, definitely number one. And it happens because we've been conditioned to hold ourselves to standards that we would never hold other people to.

So true. It's true. Yeah. We're our own harshest critics. And where does that come from? Well, it depends on your life experiences. It might have come from your parents. You're just never good enough. Never good enough for other influential people in your life. It certainly comes from the culture. As far as physical illness, you watch TV and it's like, "Take this pill or buy this exercise machine or change your lifestyle. Go to this kind of yoga and you need never be sick. You need never grow old." Well, you know, that's just not the case. We're in bodies and bodies get sick and they get injured and they age.

And when, you know, people say, "Stop the aging process." Good luck. Good luck. Yeah. Right. So, but we are, you know, we are barrage. This stuff comes at us so fast and it's been coming at us since we were children. Right. That when we need our own compassion, even compassion, we may be able to generate compassion for others. But when we needed ourselves, sometimes we just can't do it because we are convinced that we're not worthy. This sense of unworthiness is just, it's sad. And it doesn't actually exist in every culture. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. As I recall the story, I think it was Sharon Salzburg who, yeah, asked him at a conference of Buddhist teachers for help in responding to her students. Self-hatred, right. Yeah. Who were full of self-hatred and he didn't understand that.

He's like, "What?" Yeah. What's that? So, you know that story. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great one. Yeah. And so it's, that's, I raise it because it means where this is nothing intrinsic in the human condition. This is learned and it's conditioning. And the wonderful thing, one of my favorite quotes from the Buddha is that he said, "The mind is flexible like the balsam tree." And so it can change. And it's so important for people to recognize that no painful mind state, whether it be anger or self-blame or whatever, that is not an intrinsic quality of who you are. That's a learned behavior and it can be unlearned.

And so with self-compassion, you may have to start with what I call, you know, baby steps. And one of the ways to break that barrier of treating yourself nicely is to, and you may have to force yourself to do this at first, is to actually speak kindly to yourself either silently or out loud. It doesn't matter. Speak kindly to yourself. And what I recommend people do is to make it very specific to the situation over which you're suffering. So instead of this, because a lot of people, well, it's kind of like mindfulness. These words have, to some extent, have lost their meaning because they're just so, oh, yeah, self-compassion, self-compassion. How do you do that?

Let's see, this is Monday. Saturday, my son and daughter-in-law and grandchild came to visit for the day. They live about an hour and a half away with his best friend, which was a treat because I haven't seen this particular person for over five years. Oh, cool. Yeah. So they came to spend the day with us. Well, I'm not, I cannot spend the day with people. I can visit for an hour, maybe push it to an hour and a half. And then I have to retire to the bedroom. And it's not that I sleep, but I just kind of lie on the bed the way you do when you have the flu. And just try to get some energy back and get that pounding aching to calm down. And then I kind of go out for another half hour and then I come back.

And I lie on the bed and I listen to, I can't hear what they're saying, but I listen to laughter. And all this wonderful stuff going on in the living room that I can't participate in. And I used to just cry and I still can cry about it, but I used to just cry and then get, and then blame myself. But now what I do is I speak to myself in words of compassion. And at first, it felt artificial, but now it feels natural. And I say something like, it's really hard to be lying on the bed and missing all that fun out in the living room. It's really, really hard. And sometimes that brings tears to my eyes. And sometimes I even take one hand and I say that kind of pet my arm, my other arm, that little physical show of caring. And it works. That's, I guess, what I would say about that practice. And I think it works because you're getting so specific about the cause of your suffering, as opposed to just lying on the bed and saying, self-compassion, self-compassion. Just speak about your suffering to yourself and how hard it is.

And so that is a life-changing practice. It sounds like it too. And I can attest that in difficult points and periods in my life, I think it was in my early 20s, maybe even a little before I was 20. And I remember just paying attention how I was speaking to myself in my own head. And I was like, and I remember just the first part like paying attention, like, whoa, like, what's that? And then I started speaking to myself more nicely. Or if I noticed I said something negative about myself, I'd be like, what was that? Like, what is that? Who's saying that? I'm not that great that you know? Oh, I know. It was really, I was fortunate. And I mean, I think there are many things that led to that for me in a lot of different ways. But I think as the foundation of mindfulness, the root is awareness.

Absolutely. It really, really is the first step to at least just noticing that these patterns or these self-talk and the chatter is going on. And then if you can actually change it, and I love what you pointed out about the Buddha saying about the tree being flexible. And so it's the mind is this is not only a conceptually brought up thing. This is backed up by neuroscience at this point. That's why the Buddhists are loving all of this neuroscientific stuff that's coming out with the, especially the neocortex, because we can retrain our neuronal pathways to do different things and for the benefit of ourselves.

It's pretty amazing. But I do remember changing that negative self chatter. And an interesting thing happened. And I wish it could say this happened for everyone in my life. My wife still gets the brunt of my temper at times. But I noticed, even if I was still getting mad or angry with other people, I was able to start paying attention to that. And then realizing like, you don't talk to yourself like that anymore. Don't talk to other people. Like, oh, that's wonderful. Yeah. So it changed the way you treated other people. Well, it almost had to. That's interesting. Yeah. It almost had to. Because like, you know, it's, I know that some people maybe can say one thing and act a completely different way. And I certainly fall into that category at times. But if it's, if it's in my face, like, it's hard for me to continue to act like that if I'm paying attention to it.

So it did change the way I act. And I don't mean to say I'm fully cooked here. And I'm going around loving peace. Everything's great all time. I probably get angry, you know, 10 times a day still. But it has marginally at least improved the way I view my other relationships. But the self-compassion thing. And just to be clear, I think when I get angry at other people, and I think this happens for a lot of people, it's more of an indictment and a reflection of how I'm feeling inside than anything that they've done. Even if they're intentionally trying to wrong me, it's still an insecurity or a fear on my part that is allowing me to react in that way. Because again, to use something you write about and think you've got this from Dilgo Kienze Rinpoche is these are clouds.

They're like clouds passing. All thoughts are clouds passing before our mind, which is the sky, the limitless sky. So to engage with them is where the trouble starts to come in. When you really start saying like, this is who I am. I was a law professor. I was doing these things. I was this and now it's gone. When you realize that, well, maybe that isn't your true essence. And what is the true essence? And relating on that level probably makes, you know, very difficult situation. It does. It makes them easier to deal with, which I think is incredibly important. It is, it seems like a mushy thing to do. Like a Stuart Smalley. I'm good enough. I'm strong enough thing to do. But it really isn't. And even like, this is maybe even too mushy for some people. But like, if you just look in the mirror, right? And just kind of lovingly look at yourself in a non-narcissistic way. You're not critiquing yourself. But if you do that for a little bit and you can work up to where you're genuinely like, wow, like I really like myself. This is awesome.

That will change your life as much as anything else. Because when you start there, it's easier to extend it to other aspects of your life I've found. So it's totally fine. Yeah. And, you know, I don't think it's mushy in the sense of where if I were to have come back on Saturday into the bedroom and said, you can do it. It's kind of, I like to refer to as the tyranny of positive thinking. Oh, totally. There's nothing wrong with some positive thinking. But it can be tyrannical. You can do it. You can get off this bed and, you know, I know after 15 years that I have these limits. Right. And I can't do it. And so my choice is to be angry about it or to be nice to myself and compassionate toward myself about those limitations.

And so that's very different from being your own cheerleader in a way that is not realistic. That's right. I mean, yeah. If I had forced myself to stay out there, I can tell you eventually my husband and my son would have said, my son would have said, Mom, you look like you're going to pass out. Don't you think you know, so it's, it's, it's realistic. And that's why I said I have these two go to practices because there's self compassion, but on the realistic side, there's that list from the first noble truth. And, you know, one of the things on that list is illness. And that's what's happened to me. And so what matters is not that it happened, but how I respond to it.

And it's my, you mentioned, you know, becoming aware, becoming aware. Well, this is what mindfulness is because I sometimes suggest that people just stop and take a couple breaths, just in couple in and out breaths, just feeling the sensation of the breath going in and out of your body to bring yourself out of your stories. That's right. And into the present moment where you can assess, well, how is my body feeling? What's going on with my mind? Oh, boy, I'm just caught up in anger. All that's doing is making causing suffering. But you have to, we just so often don't notice that that's happening. And that's where mindfulness practice comes in because the more you work on bringing yourself into the present.

And you don't have to, I don't meditate the way I used to twice a day for 50 minutes, once a day, 20, 25 minutes. So most of my practice is not in meditation. Mindfulness practice doesn't have to be in meditation. That's right. Yeah, it's just that saying stop. That's right. I'm to the present. What's going on? What's going on right now? Let me assess what's going on and what I might do to make things better. Or how I can stop making things worse. Actually, sometimes the better way to think about it. I'm just making things worse. You know, like when you notice that you're treating somebody, you're being angry at somebody and that it isn't necessary. That doesn't mean that I know you and I aren't talking about being doormats.

You're right. Right. Well, you brought something up and you know Cho Giam Trungpa's idiot compassion. I remember kind of. I read about it. Remind me. So it's essentially what you're describing in relating to others. You want to help someone. You see the suffering of the world out there and you're going to help right away. You're going to solve all of those problems. You're going to do whatever you need to do. But sometimes you're neglecting yourself. You're neglecting people closest to you. That's what a form of idiot compassion. Right. And it's not meant to say someone's an idiot for doing it. It's just unwise action. Yes. I love it. I love it.

With swear words. Yes. Exactly. And I mean, so what you're describing and what you're saying not to do and I think I'm totally with you and we're using terms like mushy but is idiot self compassion that power of positivity. It's basically saying you can do it. It's whatever you want. It's all the memes you see on social media. You know, the just do take this. Well, it's insufferable. If you really know that there's no substance behind it. And it's just kind of like a glossing over of what's going on. It's not helping. So it sounds like it's idiot self compassion. And I agree. And I think it's an interesting thing.

Yeah. You're also bringing up another really. I mean, this is a core thing in my life. There's two aspects and your two practices. I think reflect this. There's the compassionate heart based stuff that you need to bring to stuff or it's good to bring to stuff. Yeah. And then there's the wisdom awareness actually if those two things are fused together and there's harmony between those. That's when things really start to happen. That's when or not happen as it were. That's that's really I've noticed if you can maintain and hold both of those concepts and kind of approaches and perspectives. You can really get into some transformative stuff that helps with any number of things. So I think it's interesting. Those are your practices. Yeah.

Well, you've covered that. You've covered it wisdom compact. I think compassion or self compassion without wisdom. That's idiot compassion. And wisdom without compassion can be cold. Yes. Yes. And dispassionate. That's right. And depressing. You know, oh my God. So what's so life is about getting sick and old and. It sounds horrible. No one like that. I mean, how many people are turned off from Buddhism because of that belief. Yeah, they misunderstand that first noble truth. I've had one of my students at the law school came to see me one day and said he was. I mean, I never talked about Buddhism in the classroom, but somehow he knew I had this practice and he said, well, there's the first noble truth. Life sucks.

I said, no, that's not the first noble truth. That's not it. No, the first noble truth is just a listing. I mean, I keep putting it that way. It's a list of what everyone is going to encounter in life. What makes life suck is the way we react. That's right. It's a choice. Do we keep hitting our heads against the wall? And that's where the Buddhist word. Tanha comes in desire, the second noble truth. Do we keep trying to make the world be exactly how we want it to be? That's a losing battle. And that's a recipe for suffering. And so, Buddhism, to me, it's not pessimistic. It's realistic. And once you understand, okay, these are the conditions of being alive.

Then, as far as I can tell, what else do you want to do? What else makes sense to do in life but to try to alleviate suffering for other people and for yourself? That's right. And that's where practices like meta, loving-kindness or friendliness is the literal translation. Karuna, compassion, moodita, feeling joy for others. And equanimity, those four Brahma-vaharas is there to come in. Because that, to me, is what wisdom leads you to. I appreciate so much that the Buddha told it like it is. Because to me, it's only by accepting the truth of the human condition that you can then take that next step and try to make your life and everybody else's life that you can.

You can't affect everyone. I mean, the Buddha had a metaphor about a drop in the bucket. You fill the bucket, a drop at a time. And so I look around and, you know, what's going on in the world breaks my heart. There's not much, I can't really do anything about what's going on in Syria. It's something for a neighbor or a friend. I mean, that's what my books attempt to do. Do something for people who are chronically ill. And that's my drop in the bucket. And it's a critical one too. I mean, if you don't start with yourself when you then go out and try to do other things and help other people, you can run into trouble.

Because you're not operating from a space of understanding and ultimate compassion there because you don't have that with yourself. I mean, that's a recipe for burnout, confrontation. I mean, there's so many other things that can happen if you're not starting with that fundamental thing. Absolutely. The better care you take of yourself, the better care you can take of others. And that's actually something I address in the books when I talk about people who are caregivers. Such as, or as they call them in England and Canada carers. I've learned that. They have a different term. The people who, the millions of people, many doing this, especially men tend to not share with people that they're in this role where they come home from work and they're taking care of a parent or a partner or something.

So I write about, I give them advice. And one of the things I say is you've got to take care of yourself, that you can be a better caregiver if you're sure to take care of yourself. So I don't want to keep you too long at this. I think what I'd like to do if you're up for it at some later date is do another podcast because I have a lot of other things I wanted to talk about. Some of your teachers and influences, so many places where I'm really interested in hearing from you. But I leave every podcast or I ask every guest. And I know we've covered, this has been amazing by the way we've covered really awesome stuff here I think is going to be really helpful.

I ask every guest for some practical tips or a tip that have helped them in their lives. And I know we've gone over a bunch so you can recap those or you can mention a new one, whatever you think would be beneficial to someone listening as a practical tip. Yeah. Well, if I hadn't already spoken about self compassion, I would raise that. But in my understanding of being awake in this life is not a supernatural transcendent state. But a state of equanimity. And so I guess I would say something about equanimity, which is this, and it really stems from that first noble truth, because what are you going to do about life's stark realities?

Well, to the extent that you're able to accept that life is going to be a mixture of joys and sorrows, ups and downs, successes and disappointments, people coming through for you and people letting you down. The list could go on, but maybe that covers just a lot. That covers everything. The more you can accept that this is part of being alive, the more you're able to find peace and well being in your everyday life. And it doesn't mean lowering expectations. It doesn't mean saying, well, yeah, people, yeah, you know, people, there's nothing cynical about this. This is not a cynical position, but a position of your heart opening to life the way it is, and recognizing that you don't always get what you want, and that a lot of times you get what you don't want.

And being able to accept that with grace and be able to say, okay, this is how life is at the moment. Maybe you're going to say, this is one of those really hard moments, or maybe you're going to say, this is really wonderful. I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts, knowing that nothing lasts forever. And so that equanimity, which is a balanced state of mind that understands that life is this mixture of ups and downs. That is, I think I would say at the heart of my everyday practice. Not because I don't, not a day goes by that every day things happen that I like and things happen that I don't. Yeah, me too. How weird.

I mean, let's face it, it's early for me today and I've already had a couple of things. Yeah, it's later here and I've had more than a couple. So yeah, I guess. And so that's what I work on is being able to say, okay, this is one of those moments, and that's okay. Let's move on to the next moment. Yeah, that's awesome. And you have some other things that I want to get into next time if you're up for it. Thank you so much. I'm glad you did. I did too. I think this is one of my favorite I've done. So this is awesome. Thank you again, Tony. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ She's great. She also writes on psychology today. Just a lovely, lovely person. You can find her on Facebook. She does a great job there.

She's just all together, a pleasant and lovely person. If you like and have enjoyed synchronicity, rate and review on iTunes, make a donation if you're so inclined. Send me an email at Noah@syncpodcast.com. And I'll write back to you. Ask anyone. Again, I don't know how you would necessarily get in touch with the people who have reached out, but I do write back to emails. I pride myself on that. So thank you for listening and I will see you next week. The grill is shot. The chairs are held together by optimism. And what happened to the rug? Sounds like your outdoor setup is not ready for patio season.

Fix it all with Wayfair. Shop Wayfair for grills, rugs, furniture, and more. With 20 million five-star reviews, room of choice delivery, and expert setup on qualifying orders, it's never been easier to do more for less. Get 10% off your first eligible purchase. Hurry to Wayfair.com or download the app now.