Episode 392
Overcoming Loneliness and Anger Through Mindfulness with Stephen Schettini
Are you struggling to find yourself and discover your purpose? Many men grapple with feelings of isolation, low self worth and a lack of direction. Stephen Schettini, a former Buddhist monk turned mindfulness teacher, shares his transformative journey of self discovery.
Stephen shares his remarkable story of overcoming anger, frustration and loneliness to find peace and purpose. He reveals how his eight-year experience as a Tibetan Buddhist monk provided him with valuable skills for self-understanding and self-awareness, but it wasn't until he left the monastery that he truly began to apply this knowledge. Stephen's experience shows the importance of mindfulness and meditation in understanding yourself and how a regular practice can empower men to better navigate life's obstacles.
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Discover how mindfulness and meditation can transform your daily life.
- Overcome feelings of isolation and loneliness with practical strategies and insights.
- Uncover the keys to finding purpose and enhancing self-worth in your life.
- Learn from the transition of a Buddhist monk to a mindfulness teacher.
- Master the art of building and maintaining a regular meditation practice for lasting benefits.
The key moments in this episode are:
00:11:36 - Journey to the Monastery
00:16:34 - Finding Purpose and Acceptance
00:22:48 - The Power of Meditation and Mindfulness
00:32:02 - Morning Self-Reflection
00:33:57 - The Power of Awareness
00:34:39 - Trusting the Human Brain
00:38:33 - Reactivity and Patterns
00:41:25 - Building a Regular Mindfulness Practice
Connect with Stephen Schettini
Website
https://www.instagram.com/the.innermonk/
https://www.facebook.com/stephen.schettini.3/
Connect with Mike Forrester
Podcast Website
https://LivingFearlessTodayPodcast.com
Coaching Website
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hicoachmike/
Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/@hicoachmike
https://www.facebook.com/hicoachmike
https://www.instagram.com/hicoachmike
Transcript
Well, hello, and welcome back, my friend, and this week I'm
Speaker:joined by Stephen Schettini.
Speaker:And Stephen's got just an amazing story of finding out who you are, not necessarily
Speaker:where you expect, but sometimes it's more of you go somewhere, you're expecting
Speaker:to find something out and it's in the leaving that you really find out how to
Speaker:apply that knowledge that you've learned.
Speaker:And And knowledge can be power, but knowledge is not absolute power.
Speaker:It's when we apply it that it really comes out and begins to grow.
Speaker:So Stephen's gone through, you know, some, some experiences
Speaker:of feeling isolated and alone.
Speaker:And a lot of us are going to resonate with that.
Speaker:And from that, he's also, you know, found out like, Hey, where I
Speaker:felt like I didn't have the worth.
Speaker:I actually am worthy and that transformation, that flip is what
Speaker:really empowers us to step into who we are and what our purpose is.
Speaker:And that was something that Stephen found in his journey is.
Speaker:You know, what his purpose is?
Speaker:Sometimes that comes in a way we're expecting.
Speaker:Sometimes it's absolutely an unexpected, just surprise process.
Speaker:So I'm excited for this conversation.
Speaker:Stephen, how are you doing, my friend?
Speaker:I'm great, Mike.
Speaker:Thanks so much for having me on the show.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:My pleasure.
Speaker:And I've enjoyed, you know, our conversation and email.
Speaker:And as we've been talking, there's, there's a lot that I can resonate with.
Speaker:And it shows that it's like you and I have very different experiences
Speaker:in what we've gone through.
Speaker:But what we felt, how we felt about ourselves can still be that common thread.
Speaker:And so, um, let's start off, Steven, what does life look like for you today
Speaker:on the professional side of things?
Speaker:Good.
Speaker:Pretty good.
Speaker:It's
Speaker:taken a long time, Mike.
Speaker:Mm. Um, I, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, um, but
Speaker:I did find out and I'm there now.
Speaker:I'm, I'm a teacher of mindfulness.
Speaker:Um, I, I was a Buddhist monk for eight years.
Speaker:Uh, I'm no longer that.
Speaker:I'm not, I don't need.
Speaker:The support of that sort of institution in order to function.
Speaker:So I really have found what I was looking for, uh, in, in the self reliance.
Speaker:So I teach mindfulness online.
Speaker:Uh, I do one on one coaching, personal coaching, and it's all about, you
Speaker:know, I hate to use a cliche, but it's all about finding yourself.
Speaker:Um, and it's not easy.
Speaker:But I really feel I'm not going to say I'm completely there because
Speaker:who you are is constantly changing.
Speaker:We're always working on it, but I'm, I'm certainly much more comfortable
Speaker:in my skin and I'm, I'm happy in my life in a way that I never was.
Speaker:And when people look at my life, um.
Speaker:They might think, well, it's pretty tough, you know, my wife
Speaker:has MS. Um, it's quite challenging.
Speaker:Uh, we don't go out much.
Speaker:We, we stay pretty much at home most of the time, but we have a work
Speaker:relationship and a mental intellectual, emotional relationship, which really,
Speaker:uh, underlies all my work, it's really powerful meeting my wife.
Speaker:Uh, who is a personal life coach herself, really enabled me to take all that stuff
Speaker:that I'd learned and put it to use.
Speaker:And that was the transformative moment for me.
Speaker:Um, so I've been there or I've been following that point of in
Speaker:time for the last 22 years now, 23,
Speaker:and, um, I'm very happy with where I am.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:We both know that there's lots of people that are after that, like,
Speaker:that's their, their desire, but they don't know how to get there
Speaker:or, you know, are afraid to let go.
Speaker:Of what they do know to get what they do want and man, just
Speaker:being able to be in that place.
Speaker:And it's not like you said, it's not without its challenges, but
Speaker:being comfortable in your own skin, knowing your purpose and your passion,
Speaker:being able to have somebody with you in that, dude, that's like a.
Speaker:Complete life changing, you know, position and perspective,
Speaker:uh, just the place to be in.
Speaker:So congratulations to you on that, Stephen.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Absolutely, man.
Speaker:I appreciate it.
Speaker:Um, so you've talked a little bit about the personal let's,
Speaker:let's talk a little bit more.
Speaker:Like what does life look like for you today on like the personal side of things?
Speaker:Um, well, I'm still, as I say, working on myself.
Speaker:Um, and the relationship with my wife is really, really central to that.
Speaker:It's, it used to be the reason I went into a monastery in the first place.
Speaker:And I stayed there for eight years was to find myself, but, and I, I got tools which
Speaker:helped me along the way, but only really they worked afterwards now living with.
Speaker:In this situation, in this sort of relationship, um, my
Speaker:personal life continues to unfold in ways that surprise me.
Speaker:I'm, I'm still discovering myself.
Speaker:Um, I was very, very, uh, angry when I was young and I blamed
Speaker:everybody except myself, of course.
Speaker:Well, I got around to that too, eventually.
Speaker:I was basically blaming everyone else.
Speaker:I was avoiding everyone else.
Speaker:I wanted to be alone.
Speaker:Um, it was pretty sad.
Speaker:But now I find that, uh, my attitude towards people is very different.
Speaker:I like people, I'm interested in people, I can learn and grow from talking to people.
Speaker:Um, That's a huge shift for me, for someone who was not just antisocial, but
Speaker:who actively blamed everyone else for everything that was wrong in my life.
Speaker:Um, I now embrace that.
Speaker:And I, I, I love the connection that I can make with people and I
Speaker:love what I can learn and I love to see and feel myself grow from it.
Speaker:It's really quite beautiful.
Speaker:I think of that sometimes I think, wow, you know, it's possible you did it.
Speaker:You're doing it.
Speaker:It's, you know, you really can change
Speaker:a hundred percent, a hundred percent agreement there, Stephen.
Speaker:Well, let's contrast to this.
Speaker:Take us back before you left for the monastery, right?
Speaker:You're, you're feeling like.
Speaker:Hey, I don't really know who I am.
Speaker:You're like you just talked about.
Speaker:There's a high level of distrust for people anger because it's like the world's
Speaker:out to get you what was going on and what got you to that place to where you're
Speaker:like, I'm going all the way to Tibet to find myself and and figure things out.
Speaker:What what led up to that point?
Speaker:Well, uh, if, if any of your listeners, uh, were raised in the old Catholic
Speaker:church, I'm going to say, oh, well, I was raised as a Catholic, um, at
Speaker:that time, in that place, it was, uh, most of my teachers were Irish.
Speaker:I grew up in England.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:And the attitude was very, very old fashioned, very, um, moralistic, um,
Speaker:children should be seen and not heard.
Speaker:Um, it was pretty obnoxious.
Speaker:And I was,
Speaker:I, I didn't reject all of this.
Speaker:On the contrary, I tried to be a good boy.
Speaker:I tried to follow the rules.
Speaker:I tried to fit in.
Speaker:And every time I failed, I was roundly scolded and it just
Speaker:eventually led me to the point where I realized I'm not going to fit in.
Speaker:I'm not going to make it.
Speaker:I, you know, I can't do this with people.
Speaker:I can't do this with the church.
Speaker:I can't do this with God.
Speaker:I've had it.
Speaker:Um, so it was anger, it was frustration, loneliness, um, none of
Speaker:which I was willing to admit, okay.
Speaker:My father was Italian.
Speaker:I was raised in the Catholic, this whole macho thing was,
Speaker:was the background to my life.
Speaker:He, he was in training me to be guy who never cries and, and, you
Speaker:know, just does what he has to do.
Speaker:And it's always stoic.
Speaker:And, um, so that training was, I rejected it in one sense.
Speaker:Uh, like I don't want to be like my father, but on the other side,
Speaker:on the other hand, you know, that stuff sort of seeps in and
Speaker:it gets to you subconsciously.
Speaker:And that's why we suddenly, I say something to my wife and I
Speaker:realized that was my dad talking.
Speaker:So the past was very hard at that point.
Speaker:So what happened was.
Speaker:My, my overwhelming concern when I was a kid was to get away from home.
Speaker:I wanted to leave home and I did, I went to university, uh, and in university,
Speaker:I was interested in the topics.
Speaker:I was interested in studying.
Speaker:I wasn't interested in where it was leading me.
Speaker:I would, I was doing a degree in social science.
Speaker:I would have ended up probably working for, uh, a local city
Speaker:administration or Canada or something like that, or doing some sort of
Speaker:statistical work or something.
Speaker:As, as I came close to the day of graduation, I realized my job prospects
Speaker:were, I, I rebelled, I couldn't face it.
Speaker:I just couldn't face it.
Speaker:And it was about that time that I started, well, I was reading about Buddhism and.
Speaker:Much wider than that.
Speaker:I was reading about anything I could find pretty well.
Speaker:I was looking at some sense of what am I going to do with my life?
Speaker:What's going to be meaningful?
Speaker:And I had absorbed this from Catholicism, the idea that your life has to be
Speaker:meaningful, that there must be a purpose, that you must be focused.
Speaker:So I had that, I rejected the church, left me with just a big void.
Speaker:Um, anyway, the short story is, I. Hitchhike to India, I ended up with
Speaker:the Tibetans and I was such a mess.
Speaker:I was pretty well run over by drugs.
Speaker:I was doing morphine.
Speaker:Um, I had no friends at that point because I basically turned my back on
Speaker:everyone I knew when I left England.
Speaker:It was a one way trip for me.
Speaker:In my mind, I was gone and I was never going to go back.
Speaker:That's, that's how I felt.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:and then when I met the Tibetans, um.
Speaker:They were very welcoming and they're very colorful, extremely attractive,
Speaker:you know, and of course, so completely different from everything that I knew I
Speaker:could project whatever I wanted onto them.
Speaker:And it all appeared to be that way.
Speaker:So they were all enlightened, uh, you know, living Buddhas and,
Speaker:and this is what I wanted to see.
Speaker:And that's what I saw.
Speaker:A lot of wishful thinking involved, but at the same time, um, I went into an
Speaker:intensive period of study for eight years.
Speaker:I was studying with the Galupa set of Tibetan Buddhism, which
Speaker:is, um, very studious, very, um, study oriented, a lot of debate.
Speaker:So I learned a lot of stuff.
Speaker:I acquired a lot of tools.
Speaker:But during that period, um, it was very hard for me to put it into practice.
Speaker:I was too busy learning and I was too insecure about myself.
Speaker:And I was too busy trying to be a good monk and put on the show.
Speaker:And after eight years, it came to a point where I realized that I
Speaker:can't, I can't pretend anymore.
Speaker:I'm not a Tibetan.
Speaker:Yes, I took the vow of a monk and I, I sort of, I am, but not, it's not the same.
Speaker:It's quite different.
Speaker:And, you know, I came from this other place back West.
Speaker:Um, how is it now?
Speaker:How does that look to me now?
Speaker:What can I do with that now?
Speaker:So back I came and, um, sure enough, everything had changed.
Speaker:My perception of everything had changed and I was able to open
Speaker:myself in ways that I wasn't before.
Speaker:And as soon as I start opening myself to people, then that gave me the
Speaker:opportunity to be able to Use what I'd learned because people think of buddhism
Speaker:and they think of meditation as you're sitting there doing nothing for hours
Speaker:and hours on end Uh, which you can do but the real purpose of meditation
Speaker:as we call it today mindfulness, which is really, you know Mindfulness
Speaker:comes directly from the Buddha.
Speaker:Um, what this is for is not just to feel calm and relaxed, but to
Speaker:understand yourself, to understand where you're coming from, to understand
Speaker:how you behave, why you behave that way and how you can change it.
Speaker:So getting to know yourself before, I always thought, well,
Speaker:you know, what's my story now?
Speaker:What sort, what labels can I use to describe this?
Speaker:And what profession should I, what route should I follow to discover myself?
Speaker:And what I learned with these tools, once I settled down in my own place, in my own
Speaker:skin, um, free from the, the constraints of being in a Buddhist monastery.
Speaker:I discovered that finding yourself is a matter of quiet observation, watching
Speaker:yourself when you're meditating, but also watching yourself when you're
Speaker:talking to other people, when you engage with it, when you feel angry,
Speaker:when you feel frustrated, when you feel joyful, understanding where all this
Speaker:comes from, how the mind works, how the mental patterns repeat themselves.
Speaker:What we can do about it.
Speaker:That's where I started to learn how to change the way I felt.
Speaker:How to change the way I think and change the way I experience life and
Speaker:how to take everything less personally.
Speaker:Yeah, when when we've got that angry bent and kind of that low self worth
Speaker:that you've talked about dude not taking things personally can be one of the
Speaker:hardest things because it's uh, like our perspective is just aligned and
Speaker:you're expecting it and uh, you know in What you've shared there, Stephen,
Speaker:it's like, I look back when you're in school, like, you know, the Catholic
Speaker:school, um, you're looking to be good when you go to be with the monks.
Speaker:You're looking to be a good monk.
Speaker:You already knew.
Speaker:Hey, I don't want to be like my dad, but it's, it's almost like there's
Speaker:this common thread of being accepted, being approved and validated.
Speaker:Is that true?
Speaker:Accurate.
Speaker:A lot of us, a lot of us as men, were looking for that
Speaker:because we didn't have that.
Speaker:Is that something you were looking for?
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:That's what saved me.
Speaker:Um, how so?
Speaker:Well, it was when I met the Tibetans, uh, for the first time.
Speaker:I hesitate to say, but I think it's true.
Speaker:For the first time in my life I felt that I belonged
Speaker:as a kid I was trying to belong.
Speaker:The Tibetans really made me feel at home.
Speaker:Uh, not just, it wasn't just from them.
Speaker:It was also the thinking was, was exactly what I wanted to do.
Speaker:The philosophy was exactly, I didn't agree with all the details, but that
Speaker:was the area that I wanted to be in.
Speaker:Um, had purpose for me.
Speaker:So a
Speaker:lot of us.
Speaker:We're looking and it's like, we're looking for like that outside acceptance, right?
Speaker:The key to it though, is accepting ourself.
Speaker:When did you get to that point?
Speaker:Was it when you were a monk and you were at the, you know, in and
Speaker:among the, amongst all the other.
Speaker:Monks, that one doesn't roll really well, but, or was it,
Speaker:I would, I would say it was the day before yesterday, maybe
Speaker:it's a constant, uh, constant progress is what you're saying, I'm assuming
Speaker:yourself.
Speaker:And then, then you find yourself saying, wait a minute, did I find myself?
Speaker:Is there something else to find?
Speaker:Of course the answer is always yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:When did I first feel, start to feel comfortable in my skin?
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:yeah, many years after I left the monastery.
Speaker:It was when I started teaching, I was, I was trained to be a
Speaker:teacher, um, a Buddhist teacher and I did for a few years.
Speaker:Uh, and, and I, then when I left the monastery, I, I left that whole
Speaker:lifestyle of teaching in a religious way.
Speaker:And I didn't want to go back to it.
Speaker:I started to feel comfortable in my skin when I met my wife,
Speaker:because it was at that point that, um, She helped me on what I know.
Speaker:On what I knew I was, I was, I, I, well, I was too busy withdrawing, leaving
Speaker:the past behind to, to really pay attention to what I was going to do next.
Speaker:And once I met her, I settled down with her.
Speaker:I felt comfortable with her, and I started to feel comfortable in my skin.
Speaker:We look forward and she, she encouraged me.
Speaker:So what can you do?
Speaker:And I'm like, I can teach.
Speaker:So she said, well, so teach.
Speaker:So we put an ad in the local paper, hired a room at the local
Speaker:church and 40 people showed up.
Speaker:Um, yeah, it was great.
Speaker:And I suddenly realized there's an appetite for this.
Speaker:People are interested in the beginning.
Speaker:It was mostly about Buddhism, but it's morphed over the years into
Speaker:something much more, uh, much broader.
Speaker:Much more about being a human being than being a particular type of
Speaker:believer or anything like that.
Speaker:Um, so that when I started teaching, I felt, yes, I'm back.
Speaker:This is what I want to do.
Speaker:This is my purpose.
Speaker:And it was nerve wracking and I was nervous.
Speaker:I was scared about it and everything.
Speaker:And it was a lot of work and it's very self conscious, but I was on track.
Speaker:I knew right away I was on track and I've been there ever since.
Speaker:And there's ups and downs, you know, sometimes I lose it.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:I lose my sense of confidence.
Speaker:It happens it's life, but I also know that, uh, it's temporary.
Speaker:And I think it's kind of one of those Stephen, like confidence is going to
Speaker:continue almost like a muscle that we're, you know, growing in the gym, right?
Speaker:It's not going to continue to grow under the same stressors.
Speaker:We're going to have different experiences as we change and our perspective changes.
Speaker:And so the confidence that we had.
Speaker:You know, a year ago, a month ago, um, is going to, you know, continue to
Speaker:be stretched and morph and to expand.
Speaker:And so that the, the confidence and the worth that we have in a
Speaker:year is way different than what we have right now or have had.
Speaker:How are you tapping into when.
Speaker:You know, those, those ups and downs come along in particular, the
Speaker:downs and you hit those challenges.
Speaker:How are you continuing to move forward even when the confidence isn't there?
Speaker:Well, I go back to where the confidence came from.
Speaker:Um, you know, when you start meditating, you're encouraged to close your mind
Speaker:and empty your, uh, close your eyes and empty your mind of thoughts, um,
Speaker:which, which doesn't really work.
Speaker:Um, and emptying your mind of thoughts is not really the point.
Speaker:Um, but when you close your eyes and.
Speaker:You just pay attention to what's going on right now.
Speaker:Um, that's really the starting point and that's what I call home and
Speaker:call it home base if you want, but that's the place you go back to.
Speaker:That's where you start over.
Speaker:Whatever happens, whether you get angry, you're frustrated, you've
Speaker:lost your self confidence or you're stressed by a job you have to do.
Speaker:That's where you go.
Speaker:You're stressed by an argument you have to have with somebody.
Speaker:You have to face somebody one on one.
Speaker:Just take a breath.
Speaker:And if you're a regular meditator, if you do this in a regular basis,
Speaker:you'll go back home and you'll be right there at your starting point.
Speaker:In Zen, it's referred to as beginner's mind.
Speaker:You might have heard that, uh, in the beginner's mind,
Speaker:there are many possibilities.
Speaker:And that's what we go back to.
Speaker:We go back to the origin where things begin.
Speaker:And when I'm there and I feel that familiar.
Speaker:There's a solidity to it and a sense of, I can do this.
Speaker:I've come here before and I've left here before and I've done it.
Speaker:I can do it again.
Speaker:Simple as that.
Speaker:So it's not an idea.
Speaker:It's not a belief.
Speaker:It's not a concept.
Speaker:It's an experience that I can recall and I can go back to.
Speaker:And that's what strengthens me.
Speaker:You know, ideas, ideas are easy.
Speaker:There are tons of self help books there.
Speaker:They tell you exactly what you need to know, but knowing it isn't enough.
Speaker:You've got to use it.
Speaker:So that's where the real confidence comes back and you have to know where to go.
Speaker:You have to know yourself in that way.
Speaker:It's not complicated, it's actually very simple, but we human
Speaker:beings, we don't like simple,
Speaker:simple, doesn't, uh, convey the power.
Speaker:I guess the complicated does in, in how we've been instructed or
Speaker:the expectations that we have.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:If it's simple, you know, Hey, it's, it's.
Speaker:Weak, so to speak, I think is the expectation that many people have.
Speaker:So in, in the fact that you're talking about, Hey, if you're experienced with
Speaker:meditation and, and mindfulness, you're going to be able to come to home base.
Speaker:Many of us aren't familiar with that.
Speaker:So how do you become familiar and what, what can you kind of expect as
Speaker:the benefits as you beginning, uh, in practicing mindfulness and meditation?
Speaker:Um, well, how to do it is do it.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:You simply do
Speaker:it.
Speaker:There's that simple part, Steven.
Speaker:Sometimes, well, it's easy to say all these things are easy to say some,
Speaker:you know, I tell people sometimes just sit there, shut up, see what happens.
Speaker:Two minutes when people are shot for two minutes, that's not enough.
Speaker:Aren't you supposed to sit there for hours?
Speaker:No, it's not necessary.
Speaker:If you can just sit there and see what's going on, if you can accept that, if
Speaker:you can simply be still, even if no matter what your mind is doing, because
Speaker:people always complain, I can't meditate because my mind is always distracted.
Speaker:Well, you know what?
Speaker:That's why we meditate because the mind is always distracted.
Speaker:It's not a reason not to do it, but it's hard.
Speaker:So the first thing is not to fight the distraction, to accept it.
Speaker:Oh, this is my mind.
Speaker:And that's what turns a lot of people off.
Speaker:I mean, people say bad things about it.
Speaker:Oh, it's just navel gazing.
Speaker:It's stupid, which is, you know, that's okay.
Speaker:You can say that, but when people actually do it and they reject it, it's
Speaker:because they think they cannot, that their mind is unlike everybody else's
Speaker:mind and that they are always distracted and they can't, they don't realize
Speaker:everyone's distracted all the time.
Speaker:That's, that's the way it's what it means to be human.
Speaker:You know, we're not squirrels.
Speaker:We have much more to worry about than just acorns.
Speaker:You know, we have complicated lives with thinking like crazy all the time.
Speaker:We're planning where we're trying to learn from the past.
Speaker:We're full of regrets and shame and embarrassment.
Speaker:And we're trying to be happy.
Speaker:And Oh my God, it's hard.
Speaker:It's exhausting, isn't it?
Speaker:So that's when you stop, stop and take a breath.
Speaker:Don't expect anything from it.
Speaker:Don't think you're going to be transformed into a Buddha or you're going to become,
Speaker:you know, transcendental or something.
Speaker:You're just stopping, take a break, relax, really relax.
Speaker:I'm not talking about, you know, grabbing a cup of coffee and watching TV.
Speaker:That's not relaxing.
Speaker:That's distracting yourself in another way to truly relax, to be in your skin,
Speaker:being your body, being your own feelings and in your own mind, to be at home and
Speaker:to see yourself and to become familiar with yourself and to befriend yourself.
Speaker:Instead of saying, Oh, Steven, you're such an idiot.
Speaker:Why did you do that?
Speaker:You say, Hey, man.
Speaker:Look what just happened.
Speaker:How did that work out?
Speaker:You know, why, why does that keep what's going on here?
Speaker:Let's see what we can do about it.
Speaker:Just talking to yourself like this is, it's a huge step.
Speaker:It's a step that many people never take.
Speaker:But when, once you start doing that, you're in good shape.
Speaker:Now you've got the future
Speaker:you
Speaker:talked about, like having the TV on and I think that's one way, Steven, that it's
Speaker:like we almost kind of try to disconnect from what, you know, our emotions are or
Speaker:thoughts are is like, it's like the white noise, I guess, is the best way to put it.
Speaker:It's just kind of keeping it at bay.
Speaker:If I don't pay attention.
Speaker:It doesn't exist, right?
Speaker:How I feel about myself, what's gone on in the past struggles that I'm going through.
Speaker:There's many ways to ignore it or try and medicate from it.
Speaker:You're suggesting take a couple of minutes, stop and almost become aware.
Speaker:And then is it the awareness or is it trying to find the solution or what
Speaker:really has the power in that exercise?
Speaker:The power is the stopping.
Speaker:It's the awareness.
Speaker:Um, it, it's, well, we're turning away from avoidance and denial.
Speaker:I mean, as you say, TV, um, coffee, chocolate bar, sex.
Speaker:I mean, whatever, any, any of these things are used as a way we can
Speaker:use as a way to escape from that discomfort of I'm, I don't feel good.
Speaker:I don't feel whole there's a hole in my life and I just don't know how to feel it.
Speaker:I've been looking for so long.
Speaker:I don't, I can't think about it.
Speaker:It scares me.
Speaker:It stresses me.
Speaker:So what are you doing here?
Speaker:This is, this is the basic, this is the turning point.
Speaker:This is the point of decision.
Speaker:Are you going to face that?
Speaker:Are you going to keep running?
Speaker:You keep running.
Speaker:Then that state of mind, that fear, that self deprecation, whatever it is, that is
Speaker:It's going to sink into your subconscious and it's going to operate freely without
Speaker:any checks, without any restriction.
Speaker:It'll just do its little thing and, and you're saying in the back
Speaker:of your head, Oh, I'm so stupid.
Speaker:I shouldn't have done this.
Speaker:And you don't even realize you're saying it.
Speaker:So it's about.
Speaker:The first thing is you notice the avoidance.
Speaker:Oh, I'm trying to get away from this moment by having a chocolate bar.
Speaker:So you put down the chocolate bar, not forever.
Speaker:You can have it in a minute, but wait, okay, what's going on?
Speaker:What is this craving?
Speaker:Well, I want a chocolate bar, but why?
Speaker:You're not really hungry.
Speaker:You just had breakfast.
Speaker:Yeah, but I, I. And then you start to see, well, I'm, I'm, I don't, it's discomfort.
Speaker:It's uncomfort.
Speaker:That's what I'm trying to get away from.
Speaker:I'm not trying to get something.
Speaker:I'm trying to not get something by replacing it with something else.
Speaker:That's avoidance.
Speaker:And first cousin to avoidance is denial, you know, on.
Speaker:Stephen, you look, uh, you look distracted and unhappy today.
Speaker:I'm not distracted.
Speaker:I'm fine.
Speaker:I'm perfectly all right.
Speaker:So there's this sense of self preservation.
Speaker:We call it ego, call it whatever you want.
Speaker:Um, in which we, we refuse negative stuff.
Speaker:We refuse to see ourselves.
Speaker:Um, when I was young and I was on the run, I could not see myself as lonely.
Speaker:It was the darndest thing.
Speaker:And I was tortured by loneliness, but I refused to see that.
Speaker:I'm fine, I'm good on my own, I don't need this stuff, it's denial, it's
Speaker:avoidance, and that is the principal, um, obstacle to mindfulness or to finding
Speaker:yourself or to being what you want to be or to just simply being happy.
Speaker:So, the first thing to do is not to, uh, go through any complicated plans to change
Speaker:yourself into something that you think you should be, but simply to see how you are.
Speaker:The power is in you.
Speaker:The knowledge.
Speaker:This is how I am.
Speaker:So I wake up this morning, uh, I sit down to meditate and I'm settling in.
Speaker:And then I think, so how am I doing this morning?
Speaker:Well, I'm okay.
Speaker:I'm feeling a little, you know, I'm feeling a bit grumpy.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Now just that, if you can do that each morning and take a look at
Speaker:yourself, just knowing that I'm feeling a little bit grumpy.
Speaker:Already is a useful piece of information, which could save me
Speaker:quite a bit of heartache or hassle.
Speaker:I'm going to watch out for that.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:One day it's grumpy.
Speaker:The next day it's, it's depressed.
Speaker:The next day it's full of wishful thinking.
Speaker:I'm excited.
Speaker:And I'm, you know, but whatever it is, when you know your mind
Speaker:state in a conscious way, then you have power and you, you don't.
Speaker:You don't need to resort to complicated tricks in order to save yourself or
Speaker:solve yourself the awareness itself gives you the tools gives you the information
Speaker:you need to figure it out because you have a human brain and a human brain is
Speaker:absolutely incredibly awesome i'm tempted to swear now i need that extra adjective
Speaker:it's incredible the human brain what it is capable of is is It's extraordinary
Speaker:advantage of that than anything's possible, but we have to trust it.
Speaker:What is it in like stopping Steven, that when we acknowledge it?
Speaker:Is different than the fact of, you know, like as you were going along,
Speaker:um, you know, you felt lonely, but you didn't realize you were lonely.
Speaker:What's the difference in the awareness of it that then allows our mind and our
Speaker:emotions to then change things to put us in a position to, you know, rectify
Speaker:and, and change that to where Okay.
Speaker:You know, knowing the next steps, I guess, is, is the way to, uh, to look at that.
Speaker:What, what changes it there?
Speaker:Knowing
Speaker:that I was alone, knowing that I was.
Speaker:I, I felt alone, but I couldn't admit it to myself as long as
Speaker:I couldn't admit it to myself.
Speaker:I didn't, how could I know what I had to do?
Speaker:What I had to do was find out why I was blaming everybody
Speaker:for everything all the time.
Speaker:Well, maybe it was true.
Speaker:Maybe it was their fault, but I, I mean, I should have a proper look
Speaker:and really figure it out instead of just avoiding that whole issue.
Speaker:So the difference is black and white.
Speaker:The difference is knowledge as opposed to ignorance.
Speaker:It's consciousness as opposed to unconsciousness.
Speaker:It's, it's not complicated.
Speaker:We have the ability to see what's going on.
Speaker:We have the ability to solve our own problem.
Speaker:We have the ability to transform ourselves, but it's scary.
Speaker:It's intimidating.
Speaker:Because everyone around us, our whole society, you know, not necessarily an
Speaker:individual, but everyone's telling us who we should be, how we should be.
Speaker:You turn on the TV, you don't have enough of product X. You need more.
Speaker:Then we'll be happy.
Speaker:You're not, we're getting these messages all the time.
Speaker:So it's, it's no wonder that there's an epidemic of love, self esteem.
Speaker:So you're, You're putting yourself in a position to be able to be aware of how
Speaker:you feel about yourself, life around you, what's going on, and it's that
Speaker:kind of detachment from the distractions and the medicating processes that we
Speaker:just kind of unconsciously do that.
Speaker:That's when.
Speaker:That that is really allowed.
Speaker:Is that right?
Speaker:Like, we're not just being subconsciously triggered in our day to day.
Speaker:We're now able to say, like, oh, when Steven does this, I feel this way.
Speaker:And that's because I, I feel this way about myself.
Speaker:Is that kind of an accurate, uh, assessment?
Speaker:That's pretty close.
Speaker:I'm glad you brought up the subject of triggering because there are two things.
Speaker:That we're looking for, uh, when, when we're practicing mindfulness.
Speaker:I want to remind you that mindfulness is not about sitting still.
Speaker:You mindfulness meditation is, yeah, it's a form of sitting still, but
Speaker:mindfulness itself is something you practice during the day, something
Speaker:you're doing during your ordinary activities, talking to people and so on.
Speaker:So there are two things to, to concern what's triggering you and what's
Speaker:being triggered because to say I'm being triggered, it's not enough.
Speaker:So when somebody.
Speaker:Comes to me and says, um, Steven, you know, you, you, you, I don't know.
Speaker:You're ignorant.
Speaker:You don't know anything.
Speaker:That was the message I got as a kid.
Speaker:So that's, that's definitely a trigger for me.
Speaker:Now what is being triggered is a pattern.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And we like to say I'm being triggered and it's very insightful because
Speaker:actually we identify with our patterns.
Speaker:We take it personally.
Speaker:We forget that this is just a sort of behavior that I learned.
Speaker:So when I was a kid, people called me stupid and I immediately
Speaker:exploded and I said, I'm not stupid.
Speaker:I'm intelligent.
Speaker:I'm going to beat you up.
Speaker:And I got into fights all the time.
Speaker:I was always fighting when I was a kid.
Speaker:Um, so what's going on here is simple.
Speaker:Awareness, this is how I am.
Speaker:This is my pattern and it's not who I am.
Speaker:It's, it's triggered by this particular event.
Speaker:And that's something that I learned many years ago.
Speaker:And because it's so long ago and I've been practicing it unconsciously for
Speaker:so many years that it feels like me.
Speaker:It's like who I am.
Speaker:So we talk about two types of reactivity.
Speaker:There's, uh, instinctive reaction.
Speaker:So when you touch a hot stove, you jump back and then there's learned reactions.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So when I see my uncle Jack, I become angry.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:That's an association I've made.
Speaker:Obviously it's something that I learned, which means that it can also be unlearned.
Speaker:So when we see this stuff, when we see what's triggering us and
Speaker:we see what is being triggered.
Speaker:We don't just say I'm being triggered.
Speaker:That's not enough.
Speaker:What is the pattern?
Speaker:What is the behavior that you always repeat, that always plays
Speaker:out by itself, almost effortlessly
Speaker:when you know that, then you're onto something because you'll
Speaker:see while I'm doing this.
Speaker:I'm doing it to myself,
Speaker:I'm hurting myself, I'm not hurting the other guy.
Speaker:Well, what's interesting is in that slowing down that you've talked about to
Speaker:like, bring about awareness of, you know, how we're showing up, what's going on, how
Speaker:we're feeling, it's almost like this, um,
Speaker:This pad, like a workflow, right?
Speaker:Is there.
Speaker:So if somebody says something to me, it, it hits on this belief
Speaker:that I have that I'm not, you know, really consciously aware of, or
Speaker:I'm, I'm not wanting it to be true.
Speaker:And I'm fighting against it.
Speaker:Like you talked about when we slow down, we can see those and figure
Speaker:out the path to where it really goes.
Speaker:It's, it's often not the first line of it.
Speaker:Uh, what we'll see, but it's much deeper rooted and like you've talked
Speaker:about within the awareness and, you know, looking layers, you know, deep,
Speaker:we're gonna find the root of what's going on to be able to be like, you've
Speaker:talked about Steven being comfortable in your skin, you know, not, not seeing
Speaker:yourself for who you were, but now seeing yourself for who you are, dude, that is.
Speaker:Super powerful.
Speaker:But I think the problem is most of the time we're not slowing down.
Speaker:We're just keeping that insulated bubble around us to not really see who, who
Speaker:we are and what's going on at the core.
Speaker:Well, dude, there's a lot more that we could go into Stephen here.
Speaker:Um, but I want to make sure as, as our time comes to an end, you know, I want to
Speaker:make sure how can guys connect with you?
Speaker:Outside of this podcast, because it's like, dude, being able to
Speaker:understand what's really going on, not just what we expect, but what's
Speaker:truly like at the center of that emotional storm that gets started up.
Speaker:Um, how can guys connect with you outside of the podcast, even.
Speaker:Okay, well, you can reach me on my website.
Speaker:Uh, it's, uh, I'm known as the Inner Monk.
Speaker:So you can look at theinnermonk.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:Uh, you can also Google my name, Stephen Scatini, which
Speaker:is a little harder to spell.
Speaker:Um, but what I've got here is, um, it's not just, I'm not just teaching.
Speaker:It's not just delivering information.
Speaker:This is a place where people come three times a week, Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker:Friday, 12 noon for just half an hour.
Speaker:Each time point is we do a little meditation.
Speaker:There's a discourse.
Speaker:I talk about stuff and then maybe sometimes we have
Speaker:a little chat afterwards.
Speaker:But the point is that you've got these three dates every week.
Speaker:You have the regularity.
Speaker:This is the hard part.
Speaker:People who start meditating usually love it.
Speaker:Maybe they take a course, maybe they go on retreat.
Speaker:They love it.
Speaker:And then they come home and they start doing it, and then they stop.
Speaker:It's very hard to maintain a practice by yourself.
Speaker:It's the hardest thing of all.
Speaker:Liking it is quite easy, but doing it.
Speaker:Like going to the gym, you know, if ever you built a gym in your house,
Speaker:you'll know that it's much harder to go down there than it is to go
Speaker:to the gym in town because when you walk through the doors and everyone
Speaker:else is working out, you just do it.
Speaker:Whereas when you're home alone, it's just so easy.
Speaker:Well, you know, I'm not now, maybe later, maybe tomorrow.
Speaker:I'm not in the mood.
Speaker:It's this regularity, which is.
Speaker:It's really essential to, to build a practice and that's what we do.
Speaker:So if you come to my classes, it's called mindfulness live.
Speaker:Uh, you can Google mindfulness, life.
Speaker:ca. You can Google the inner monk.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:You can Google skatini.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:You'll end up in the same place no matter what.
Speaker:So, um, If you come along, send me a message and I'll give you two weeks,
Speaker:uh, free access to the classes.
Speaker:You can join in and see how you like it, see if it works for you.
Speaker:And you can start to build a regular practice, which will take
Speaker:you a long way if you persist.
Speaker:I appreciate that.
Speaker:That's super generous.
Speaker:And yeah, oftentimes our commitment to ourself is one of
Speaker:the hardest things to really start.
Speaker:But man, the, the rewards that we get back from it, um, like you've shared
Speaker:about finding out who you are and you know, what's, what's in the past
Speaker:that's helping to direct you, um, you know, subconsciously that it's just
Speaker:kind of like, that's just who I am.
Speaker:You can totally wire that differently and become.
Speaker:The man you've wanted to be, um, an experience, a life, not that,
Speaker:uh, has been made of your past with the one that you've shot out and
Speaker:said, I want this to be my future.
Speaker:So, um, I love how the, the quietness and that intentionality, just
Speaker:being aware of what's going on.
Speaker:Steven can hold so much power.
Speaker:So I appreciate you joining.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you so much, my friend.
Speaker:It's been a real pleasure, Mike.
Speaker:Thanks for having me.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And thanks for the great work you're doing.
