Fasting Space

Welcome.

So nice to have you with me here in this session today.

Fasting space going to be do some diving

in on a meditation practice

and how it can unlock our fasting space,
especially if you're having any type of struggle.

Here's the cascade that I was seeing.

We're on a weight loss path moving toward it.

It's usually not smooth sailing.

It's not like a straight road a to be easy straight.

We wish it was.

We're doing everything we can
to make the path as straight as possible.

But we face a barrier on a weight loss path.

And I like to say a fasting space

can help to smooth that out a bit.

Many win wins where we can open up some space,

have a calm and thoughtful process, less to do.

Help us just to flow through a space without struggling.

Fasting.

The type of process that can help us diminish hunger.

This is the paradox of fasting.

Diminish the hunger over time
because the body is working on patterns.

When we set new patterns that aren't so frequently,
we're not getting hungry.

So frequently we can bring everything in its place

so fast and can help unlock weight loss.

But then fasting has barriers, doesn't it?

Many barriers to it,

from hunger and social pressure are habits, patterns, thinking.

So we need an unlock to that.

And meditation can be an unlock to that.

Because meditation is the mirror of fasting in the mind.

We have open space in the body, open space in the mind,

place to contemplate and deal with difficult emotions.

That's a meditation space.

But surprise, there can be barriers to that.

Isn't this the cycle of life? Right?

There are everything of value as a barrier or a struggle

to attain it or experience it.

So I'm going to try to give you an unlock
to a meditation space.

Today.

We're going to try to feed this cascade forward,

overcome one barrier
that helps us overcome another and another,

so that this can cascade through our life

in a virtuous cycle of positivity.

Love it.

I want to show you this quote to center our thinking.

And then I'm going to give you a really interesting,
I think, insightful

thought from this book

that we are almost done with The Mountain Is You.

It's been like a mountain climbing journey going through it.

I think we started, I think January 2nd,

we launched the New Year journey
and here we are into the summer.

We'd done a lot of other stuff to.

But I think you're going to like like that.

Check out this.

Between stimulus and response.

There is a space in
that space is our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Viktor Frankl, who I think was

psychologist, early American psychologist.

Meditation space, helping us to build some strength

in between those two things stimulus and response.

That is a tricky space, but I really agree with this.

This is the place where the power is

the power to get in between the automatic thinking

and the things that are happening,
so that we can make a different decision.

How many times have you been in a space
you have a certain intention,

but then that automatic thinking takes over and all of a sudden
we're doing something we didn't really want.

And how did it happen? And it happened so fast.

Meditation space is a powerful space
to train the body in a mental strength

that can help us take our conscious thought,

the thing we really want to see manifested in the world,

and give us the mental fortitude and the strength

to actually bring it into our life.

We did the session the other day.

Make fasting a part of you. Okay, but how do you do it? Right?

Say sounds good.

How do we have the mental strength and stamina to do it?

A train the mind and train the thinking.

Open up the space between stimulus and response
and see that there is strength there.

And like we said yesterday, I think that the human will

can get into that space.

And if there's a space for willpower, it's
the glue between these things.

Like we try to use it as little as possible,
but when we need it,

it is there for us and we can find strength in it.

And I believe that a meditation space
can be part of training and building

that, helping us really to be good with ourselves

right here in the present moment,

in here in the heart.

But it's not flashy.

It's not something you can sell on an infomercial,
and that's something you can sell at all, really.

Maybe someone can sell you a meditation
retreat, thoughtful people to come around you,

but you know you're going to do the same thing
that you can do right in your own house.

Here I put on a tiny amount of background music,
just something to like.

The mind can grab on to a little bit.

I like to say you can do a fasting with
or without some kind of music,

just like we can do a session with or without it.

I like to think sometimes of.

Music is like a liquid.

It's like sonic liquid and it can dissolve some emotions in it.

We ever had that feeling that

you got some emotion and some sort of music just helps

to bring the emotional level into a calmer space.

Start to think about that space.

You know, space just says a word. This is a big thing for this.

I call this fasting space like a space fasting space.

I think of our quote, the space between stimulus and response.

Think about that in the fasting space,
between our desire to eat something

and when we actually eat something, there is a space there, In

that space is our power to choose our response.

And in our response is our growth and our freedom.

How we grow in a practice,
a relationship with food where we're not controlled by it,

where we are in control of it,
when we're flowing through it comfortably.

Listen to how we're going to waste.

Describes a meditation process,

and this might be something different.

This isn't necessarily
I don't know if I've heard it described this way.

I'm not any expert. Okay.

No expert in meditation novice practitioner,
but I see great value in it.

I've had great value in it. Personally.

I've really, really valued this connection between

the meditation space and the mind,
the fasting space in the body.

They just they title this section
and just think about everything we've been through in the book.

And then this is the type of space
that we're starting to get to.

After all of that, we're starting to get to this type of place,
which to me is very fascinating.

Stop meditating to feel calm,

start meditating, to just feel.

Not how we normally think about it.

I say, don't we think of meditation?

I know I do, at least a lot of times is like,

aren't we looking for a space of contentment

to feel some amount of peace in our life, to find

a place where the mental chatter
and the chaotic waves of experience

are just calmed down a little bit,
where we can take a deep breath and feel calmer?

I know I do.

I do practice meditation to feel calm, to get into this space,

like the quote, to try to lengthen out
the space between stimulus and response

so that we can choose the path

that is our best representation
instead of a knee jerk reaction.

Maybe not reaching out in anger

when we might instantly be angry, but

having the space to be in control of it.

Same near with any type of difficult emotion
that we have, like an emotional relationship

that we have with food
that we're trying to improve or gain mastery over.

Stop meditating to feel calm.

Start meditation just to feel.

Now this is inverting it, which I love doing.

We did some talks back in the fall.

Financial sort of analogies

brought in the quote from Charlie Munger always invert, right?

See things from the other side.

Meditation. Not about numbing out.

Not about escaping anything that I do agree with.

I'd describe it a lot as a space to let the emotions out.

And here this is something that is really adding
to my understanding of it,

to actually have the space to feel it.

I think sometimes I've even had the thought like,
oh, meditation is a space

where we let the feelings out
so we don't have to feel them, you know?

And maybe there's a part of that
if how do you get an emotion out if there's a

something deep and difficult to distract
that is driving stress, trauma, anger, okay.

Space to let it out.

But what does that feel like practically to let it out?

Don't we have to feel it out?

To meditation? Space could be a difficult space.

And it is right.

There's a barrier.

I know barriers that I face are like feeling

anxious and jittery, like I have to do something. And.

And I think what I've started to really see is like,

oh, that's a lot of self-judgment that is coming in there.

Like, you feel driven, like I have so many things to do.

Can't just be sitting around.

And so but all kinds of judgment and all kinds of things,
a fasting, just a space to let that open up.

And when we actually don't run away from it.

See, that's the that takes courage.

Don't run away from the feeling.

Lean into
it is actually the path of feeling our way through it.

And then I know I have experienced that.

It's like you felt it.

And then as you feel through it,

that a feeling, that feeling goes.

It's like so many emotions can be like that
anger and sadness and these things.

And maybe it isn't quickly as we would want,
but hunger is certainly in

the mix of that is an emotion, right?

Hunger comes in a wave.

It's hormonally controlled, it rises, it crests

like a wave, and then it will diminish over time.

She says.

If you sit down for a ten minute session
and you try to force yourself

to be relaxed and light,

you're effectively doing the exact same type of suppression

that likely gave you the need to meditate in the first place.

Isn't that interesting?

Like we keep everything bottled up,
we we end up cramming all this stuff

down in a place
so we don't have to have it in our conscious experience.

And maybe that was right to do at the time.

We can have compassion for ourselves
or how we came to this place.

We're all just trying to get through the day,
do our best, right?

But now when we're in a space, we're saying, I have the space.

You know, here I'm taking ten minutes.

I don't have anywhere to be.

And now we can feel it.

They say instead, the point of meditation is to sit idly

as you experience all those feelings come up.

Could be the rage,
the fear, the sadness, the chatter of the mind.

And in spite of how alluring or triggering it may be,

you learn to stay still and not respond to it.

That's like a quote, right?

We're having the stimulus here in the meditation space.

The emotion has come. The anxiety is there.

The thought that I cannot stand this
and I need to be doing something else.

Just learn to stay still.

That strengthening that muscle between stimulus and response.

The stimulus is get up and go do something else.

Get back on the phone.

Get back on the social media.

Get back on anything else.

Do anything
except sitting here with myself in the present moment.

Go get something to eat.

Wouldn't it be nice?

Yes it would, yes it would.

Bet not respond.

That's meditation.

And that's meditation as a mirror for life.

That's life as a meditation about building the mental strength
between the stimulus and the response.

You learn to allow these thoughts and feelings to come up

and then pass by virtue of your not reacting to them.

And then they end this very poignantly.

This takes practice.

Oh, yes.

It most certainly does.

Has that been your experience?

Oh yes.

It takes practice for sure.

Feeling our way through life takes practice, you know.

And I've been thinking very much about this.

You know, I think a lot of times we spend so much time

trying to think our way through life,
and we can get stuck up in the mind.

This is part of the value of the meditation space.

The mental chatter like that describes everything trapped here.

And it's like when it overflows, we might trap it down here.

And meditation space,
especially about clear that out of the mind.

And as we let that clear out, maybe that's how we get down

into the stuff that we've stored down here.

But I think it's an opportunity to to really think about

the mind body connection and to realize we are mind.

We are body.

It's the same thing somehow.

We don't necessarily experience it that way. Always.

I really love this idea of just feel.

And to me part of that is from the mind.

Like telling the mind, hey, it's okay for you to take a break
here and let's actually lean into the body a bit.

Can we actually feel our way through some of our difficulty

in a better way
than just trying to reason or think our way there all the time?

That's a practice that we can build to.

We have no language to describe that.

Like going with our gut, leading with the heart that actually.

I think these are more real than we think about

with just our analogies or using them as a metaphor.

Maybe it's real, you know, maybe we really do

lead with the heart instead of the mind for a while.

Maybe a meditation space can get you into that.

Maybe going with the gut is more real than we than we think,

given, I guess that there's more tiny little neurons
in the gut than the brain.

It's fascinating to think how much actually

emotional processing and thinking happens.

I don't, I don't know.

So I thought in this session, as we're talking it out,
I thought I'd just give us

a tiny little opportunity together here in this moment.

live just to practice it a little bit together.

just to do some thinking and actually do this process
and see, be my encouragement to you.

We take a little bit of space.

What comes into it, what emotion is there

just to sit with it for a few moments?

As I was thinking through this.

You know, I've got the gentle music going.

And I was thinking, well, sometimes in a meditation space,

I try to shut all that off and sometimes I leave it on. So.

I leave it up to you.

If the meditation space feels gentle on the mind
and the spirit, and it helps to settle

a few emotional waves a bit, leave that on
and I give you a full discretion.

You hit the mute,

I want to just embrace the silence.

Wherever I am.

But give this, give this gift to yourself
for just a few moments.

Just a brief moment,

brief moment in our day where you can take a space like that,

bring it in and give some space to allow.

Whatever it is that the body wants to release,
that the mind wants to release.

Feel free to share what thoughts came into that type of space
for you.

To me, that's the type of space

that can help us flow that whole chain backwards.

The idea that we can just feel something,
there's no pressure to have to do anything else.

You don't.

If it's a barrier to say, oh, I can't calm my mind.

Hey, that's okay.

Right?

See, there's the barrier right at the start and say,
oh, I'm not any good at a meditation.

Okay.

I'm in.

Yes, maybe there can be some skill to it,
but there's no great practice other than just being

that I see emotions going to come in and it's okay to feel it,

and then that's what it is and that we can accept that.

And so I hope that that is a process
that can help that barrier to be diminished for you.

Meditation does not require some great intellectual abilities.

Probably the opposite.

It doesn't require tons of time to start.

Let me think what the reflection was yesterday.

Getting into a deep space.

What does it mean to even be a human being

that like meditation space, giving us an opportunity

to just rest in that human mind, our thought,

give us an experience that can help to power that on?

And as we think about that cascade that we're trying to build,
overcoming our barrier to a meditation space

so that we can unlock the emotional space
and the barriers in other areas of our life.

What is most important to you right now?

I flow it into the fasting space,
but maybe for you it's something else.

Honestly, you say, I've got issues with relationships

that I want to mend and solve problems.

I got things at work as, like any domain in our life,

a meditation space going to help us flow to it in the best way

that our whole being can come up
with, between body and mind and spirit to flow into it.

And all these things flow together
until you say, you know, some weight issue that I have,

or some blood sugar process, or I'm trying to be healthier

so I don't develop some process.

Sometimes we can't, you know, I like the idea.

Head right at something that's courageous, okay.

But sometimes I love that picture
I showed once of Horseshoe Bend.

Like that river, it flows all the way around the canyon
and gets back on the other side, almost to where it started

and then goes, you know, sometimes meditation

showing us the circuitous path like, hey,

we actually got to go over here and focus on this,
and that's going to be the thing

that unlocks and helps us to flow back around meditation.

Much more like that than just a simple straight shot.

But however we get there, you know, I say no rush.

The big thing that I'm trying to do on this channel
help people to see fasting

space can be approached very thoughtfully,
very calmly and gently.

I want a fasting process as part of a healthy thing,

to be the last health process that you need.

So many people chasing thousands of supplements,
so many gadgets.

The next thing, like we're always looking for the next thing.

Just tell you if you're looking for something very,
very deep and powerful

in a weight loss space,
a fasting space is as deep as you will ever find.

Does an ancient practice practiced by people from millennia

across every different cultural context
for many different reasons.

It has a superficial layer where you can

just like meditation, we're seeing a superficial layer
just feel.

Fasting space, just open up a little bit of space,
nothing else required.

Take a deep breath and then

deeper experience to go.

That fasting process can be itself

a big unlock on our weight journey,
but maybe we got to get way upstream.

And this is what I'm trying to show you.

Take the pressure off.

Go way upstream.

Maybe meditation is the place to start.

Straighten out some thinking and emotions.

Use that space to unlock barriers in our life.

The stress and difficulty that is creating the barriers.

Maybe some sort of unhealthy relationship with foods

you trying to get to the very, very root of everything

and reset the whole process.

Because what I want for people,
I never want anybody white knuckling

and stressing through a fasting space
and gritting it out and even just hating it.

So I've talked to people doing things like that.

Say, that is not the way.

That is not the way.

There is a line where we say, I'm a human being and I am strong
and I can do something difficult.

And I'm not saying that every fasting experience
has to be like floating on a cloud somewhere.

You can move through a difficulty.

Sometimes overcoming
a barrier is leaning into that human will and doing it okay.

But always the mindset in that sort of space
is one of curiosity and strength

in a voluntary choice that is made out of love and openness

and kindness toward the body, never punishing it.

We do not punish our way to health.

We nurture our health.

And just like lifting a weight, right?

You're trying to get stronger and you're you can put some
human intensity into it and that can make the body stronger.

But we're choosing to do that
just like we choose a fasting space but never forcing it.

This is a big unlock in life
to try to take everything in our life

and look at at it that way, to find that line.

Do you see that we're balancing right on a fine line.

Between our human intensity and pushing

and striving for something, and also

being relaxed and finding a flow

and not being so stuck in a process

that we're, you know, banging our head against the wall

when if we just flow a little bit to the side,
we find the seam, you know,

and move through in a more gentle way.

That is the unlock as far as I can see.

Let me know your thoughts.

Love to hear your perspectives.

I hope this this thinking is helpful in your day.

Share feedback and reflections.

Love to hear your thoughts. I hope you are doing well.

I hope you have a beautiful day
and I will look forward to being back with you again soon.