Fasting Space

If you are going through a
difficult stretch, or if you find yourself

going through a difficult stretch
in the future, come back.

Take a listen to this tiny quote
from this very tiny little book.

And find some encouragement.

The lotus flower blooms most beautifully

from the deepest and the thickest mud.

Sometimes some very profound,
deep things come.

Small little place.

So going to dive in on this thinking
today.

Here I've got a picture of a
lotus flower.

So is reading through this little quote.

Yesterday I was thinking, no, I don't know
too much about a lotus flower.

Gotta read about it.

They are present
throughout Asia and Australia

and they are revered for their beauty.

Used commonly in landscaping
and they are edible.

All parts edible.

Roots, stems, leaves, seeds.

Flowers. Delicacy.

This is a prominent symbol
in both Buddhism

and Hinduism, representing purity,

beauty and spiritual awakening.

That's the symbolism, at least
in some cultures, some parts of the world.

I say let's use it.

I love the connection
between awakening a difficult season,

struggling through,
or trying to find some optimism.

We're looking toward the light.

Say we got some feet stuck in the mud.

Just like the roots of the lotus flower.

And this is what we are going to look
to do in our life.

Digging deep into that actually nutrient
rich mud

that is going to inspire the growth
of this beautiful flower,

that's the future that we are looking
toward, even in the midst of difficulty.

The trouble is, we can't always see
it right in the moment.

Maybe that that seed is just germinating
and it's down in the mud.

It's like,
what kind of existence have I landed in?

Is the seed thinking?

Some mornings we just get up.
We can't see it.

We say we got to keep the coffee
flowing and keep moving forward.

Keep taking a step forward.

That was our session yesterday.

Just take one step.

And here we find ourselves back.

Fasting space here together.

Taking another step, one step.

Every day we have an opportunity
to take a step toward health.

I'm glad we can do it together.

Mud is something
that we don't like to walk through.

I did a lot of hiking this summer.

I'm thinking about a muddy trail
a few times.

We're hiking in the rain,
get to a muddy patch,

and it's like, oh man, a couple places.

There's so much rain.

It was like a river.

Like the trail was like a river,
a little stream.

It's like we're walking up a stream.

You almost want to start

heading off the path, so it'd be easier
almost to walk straight through the woods.

Maybe I did it a couple times.

Maybe that's where I ran into a nasty bug.

That hurt me, I don't know.

Muddy patch in the middle of it.

It feels like
I don't know if I can even go on.

Is like, what is the point of this?

What is happening?

This can cause us to really.

I know when I started looking through
this book, The Radical Acceptance,

you know, this book came to me
like a little miracle for my illness.

We can get stuck
in the mud cycles of negative thinking,

and we can take a difficult situation
and we can compound it, you know,

compounding ourselves,
like, literally pounding on ourselves.

One of the big things

I've been reflecting on from our readings
this week on acceptance

is just this simple phrase, beauty

and the pain together.

And that is something, you know,
we like to just look toward the beauty.

We like to look toward the good always.

We tend to minimize everything bad,
shove it away, bury it down.

A process bringing into our life
acceptance, recognizing

both together,
seeing that both in some way.

Do you think it is the case necessary?

This tiny phrase, this
centering phrase here suggests that it is.

If you want a beautiful flower, wouldn't
we like our health?

Wouldn't we want our life?

Wouldn't we want our emotional experience?
Wouldn't be.

It'd be great if we could describe it
as a beautiful blooming flower,

if we could feel that in our inner being,
say this beautiful flower.

It's like that represents
how I feel right now.

Flower got there, digging
deep into the deepest and thickest mud.

Can you think of times in your life
where that's been true?

Have you gone through a season
that was very difficult,

very discouraging, maybe where you thought
about giving up on something,

but you made it through
and you found something good and beautiful

on the other side.

Maybe we're back in a place like that now,

but when you're in the middle of the muddy
path, it can feel overwhelming.

It can feel like we forget that
that's the case.

Here's a little, just a tiny little
sentence to help us hang on to that.

It was like things like that, you know,
it's like an abstract thought out there.

Oh, lotus flower. Beautiful.

Love the idea.

But then it can be fleeting,
just like the flower itself.

Fleeting.

Take a little quote
like this. Memorize it.

Keep it in the top of the mind

so that when a difficult section hits

right when we are from something simple,
maybe we call a minor

minor muddy patch within our day,
like a small stress to something

very big to say, hey, here's a muddy patch
and look at this flower.

I'm going to be looking toward that.

I'm going to use the strength of this idea

to help bring me through it.

Think of the flower in detail. Roots.

Write a flower like this.

We like to look at the beautiful petals,
this almost otherworldly

center to it and say, wow, like,
this is really beautiful,

but think of all the support
that is making that happen.

All the leaves
that are bringing in the light, the stems.

They say, if this thing can grow
just actually in mud or it can grow

in a pond underwater,
can grow about a five foot stem

from the mud down on the bottom of a pool,
kind of like a lily pad to send it up.

And then when it's just in mud,
it ends up, you know, looking

more like this picture.

This sentence is showing
us, okay, it's growing out of the mud.

How is it doing?

It's sending its roots
very deep, drilling down even five feet

down to some deep place, and then roots
going in and accessing the nutrients.

This is what I was thinking
about our session

even just yesterday, about
if we can find a silver lining

in a difficult patch,
if we can find a silver lining even years

later, maybe now we look back
to difficult places in our past,

things that in the past
we say were anchors for us.

They're like weighing us down.

Like keeping our sailboat
from beautifully sailing across the ocean.

Now we're starting to pull up
those anchors a little bit,

because we can see the silver
lining in it,

and we can say, despite the terrible
thing that happened,

or despite the season of disillusionment
or whatever it was I did that

help me reach down into somewhere deeper
in the core of our being.

Have you felt in a space like that? I'm
reflecting on it now.

I've been I've experienced
a lot of anxiety over this last time,

a lot of discouraging thoughts.

When you have something like that,
doesn't it feel way in here?

Can't you almost just feel like
you can feel it physically in there?

So many times?

I think that feeling is the type of thing.

We try to medicate it
in different ways, right?

And we have different medications,
maybe real medications.

And I talked to you
a little about some thoughts about that.

But medications I'm talking about

like scrolling on the phone,
scrolling through the cupboard.

Right.

Things like this.

It's like tiny comforts, right.

Tiny distractions from this sort of thing.

Feeling in here,
the anxiety, the discouragement.

Are these the type of things, a root level
sorts of things that are keeping us

from feeling at peace,
keeping us from feeling a flow in a space?

I feel like it is.

Can the roots of this lotus flower,
can it be encouraging us?

Send some beauty like this flower,
dig deep down into that space.

Bring compassion and kindness
and comfort to it.

See that that is a very grounded place,

and then you can see

the cycle of that reaching down,

doing the work
to get into that sort of place.

And then just like the roots
receiving nourishment

back from it, there's something
we don't think of very much.

That's the that's the opposite
of burying something down

and forgetting, keeping it bottled up.

That's integration, right?

That's not forgetting incorporating.

Gaining strength from it.

I'm just thinking of like a cycle,
like composting.

Right.

Like things
that are the refuge, things that we got.

Say, this isn't what we wanted.

We wanted the banana but not the peel.

And it goes in the pile.

And it goes through this process
enriching and releasing.

And you come back a season later
and all of a sudden it's helping

the tomatoes grow. You know,

we have like a composting process,
the things that have happened to us.

We say we discard that.

We're putting that in a pile
and burying it.

But then does it
go through its own process?

Can it come back around
even years and seasons

later,
and give us nourishment in our being

in a source of strength
like the lotus flower is doing?

Sending the roots so far down?

Can that process like the symbolism
that we see in other cultures?

Right.

That I'm happy anybody coming through?

I'm no Buddhist or Hindu scholar.

Okay, I read one little internet article
that suggested

that this flower represents
awakening and renewal.

Someone come
share a deeper perspective for us.

But doesn't it feel like that?

Can't we even just see
from this simplistic understanding of it,

that digging down into the mud
and using the nutrients of this

to bring some beauty into the world?

Isn't this the cycle
that we are trying to have in our life?

Remember we said the other day
we wish life was linear.

We want a to be.

We say, I want the scale to go from here
to here, and I want like everything to go.

But isn't life more like cycles?

And aren't we trying to zoom out a bit
so we can just get

get these cycles
to be trending in the right direction

and help us to flow through these periods,
the ups and downs, the waves.

You know that our boat is sailing over
as we're navigating the ocean.

That is our life and experience,
trying to smooth them out a bit,

gaining the perspective
that helps us to see it a little.

Metacognitive.

I know what is happening here
on the space in

between the waves,
and then we can feel the crest coming.

Where are you at in a space like this
today?

Are you in a muddy patch?

Do you feel stuck in some muddy patch,

or have you recently gotten out in your

on a dry ground,
or you're hopefully in a great place?

This is where we want trying our best
and we're on the lookout.

Where's the dip?
Where is it coming? Right.

Maybe even from a place like that.

If we're in a grounded,

solid place, we say, hey,
I've navigated a bunch of muddy patches.

Lotus flowers are blooming now.

Maybe even taking some time in
that to just recognize it.

I think it's okay to do sometimes,

you know, we can be blindsided
by a difficult stretch that comes.

I was totally blindsided
by my experience here recently.

You know, I was having linear thinking.

I said,
oh my gosh, I'm stacking months together.

I'm just dialing in, feeling so strong.

And then boom. Having a mindset.

This this is reminding me of some stoic
philosophy I've read.

You know,
I feel like we did some reading of that.

We should do more.

I did maybe even just one session on this,
on this book,

The Obstacle Is the Way, Ryan Halliday
kind of a primer on stoic thinking.

And he was reminding of some great
thinking

from Marcus Aurelius and other stoic
thinkers.

He takes some time in each day.

Remember, we're a mortal being here.

Recognize it at the crest,
just to think, you know.

Don't be surprised
when we encounter difficulty in this life.

That's kind of the big idea.

I think if I had had a mindset of it,
even a few seconds of

thought in a day, don't be surprised
when some difficulty comes.

I might not have taken it so personally.

I might not have felt so discouraged.

Something I'm reflecting on.

Hey, thank you for sharing.

I'm glad you can be here.

Share a space with us.

I was so encouraged
by your thought yesterday.

Slow down and.

Try to push,
you know, push a little bit farther

or even just flow a little bit farther.

And I was not successful.

I will tell you, I didn't make it.

Maybe today.

Thick mud today.

Yeah.

It's I've got I'll just share
I got some you know.

Do you, do you experience this like
during seasons when it's like thick mud.

It's like not just one thing.

It's like multiple things are happening
at the same time for whatever reason.

And it's like, could we just walk through
one muddy patch at a time?

But somehow it's like three at once?

Yeah.

My longtime friend and neighbor.

Died last week and,
you know, just in their mid 40s and is my,

you know, my son's best friend's mom,
you know, here and.

Went to the visitation yesterday.

That was my outing.

My wife drove
so I didn't really get out for a walk, but

I walked from the car to the visitation
and I stood in a visitation line,

and that sucked
about every ounce of energy that I had.

And we head to the funeral today and.

You know, it's just it's terrible.

You know, so this is a big muddy patch
for our neighborhood, our community here.

And, you know, our family, their family.

And it would be hard
if I didn't feel badly, but.

Spent about 15 years in a muddy
patch, grateful for the lessons.

Oh my gosh.

Good can be found in the gift of each day.

Hey, that's thank you for sharing that.

That is a beautiful
and difficult perspective

and I'm glad that she can have that.

Each day. A gift.

That's the way to look at it.

That's the way to frame it,
even if we don't really feel that way.

I think in the in a day.

We can tell ourselves that it's true even
if we don't feel it because it is true.

And don't we know that it's true?

But don't doesn't it get difficult,

really, to believe it
when we're right in the middle of it?

Finding gratitude?

There's there's a way to move, to move
through it, to be on the other side

of a, of a big patch
and to look back from that.

That definitely can be a source of
of strength and encouragement.

For something that we have now.

Hey, look at this patch.

I went through this huge patch.

Look at the lessons.

Look at the strength from it.

To find gratitude, even for

that is definitely something
that we can bring into this moment,

and the difficulty
that we face in each day,

whether that is just the difficulty of,
say, I'm.

I'm going to keep the kitchen closed,
you know, there's enough of a challenge

or I'm gonna.

You know, I'm going to make it
through a friend's funeral.

You know, whatever it is.

I was talking earlier in the summer,
you know,

I've started
writing a few different talks.

One of the talks on.

Some very interesting research papers
on fasting and cancer prevention, I,

I think I think one of the struggles,
one of the reasons I've had trouble

doing it, you know, it's
just there's a lot of gray area in it.

The research isn't very good.

If you want my honest opinion.

The physiology is very fascinating.

The potential is big,
but there's I don't think there's any you

know, it's not like there's a miracle,
you know, like, oh, just do some fasting.

You're never going to get cancer.

You know, it's just it's not like that.

It's a tool. It's a tool in a process.

There's some very interesting things to
think about, but it's been part of it too.

It's been hard with my friend
going through this process and, you know,

it just hasn't felt like I haven't
really felt like talking about it.

You know,
they got this biliary cancer and.

You know, the research that I was doing,
cancer rates

and younger people in middle aged people
especially going way up.

And so I do think it's a discussion
that should be had in our society.

Here's a muddy patch.

So many people going through,
so many terrible, muddy patches of cancer

and terrible things like this,
and our society and just the stretch,

like if we zoom out a little bit bigger,
you know,

we're in a muddy patch here just in health
and, you know, metabolic health and,

and the metabolism
so tight into everything in our being a

cancer is a metabolic process
as much as diabetes is. And.

You know, I just think.

You know, my cultural critique thing
that I perspective, I try to bring

we got into this, I think on Monday
just some critique of hustle culture.

And, you know, I would say our society
not very grounded,

not not having a mindset of health, not,
you know, pursuing a lot of things.

And I certainly did this
for a large section of my life, you know,

pursuing status and money
over health and well-being. And.

A simple sentence like this, you know,
more grounding and more thoughtful

than a lot of perspective
that should get in popular culture about,

you know, something as simple
and beautiful as this simple flower,

to find a grounding in a space and try to.

Find beauty in the midst of difficulty.

You know, we are
we are in a distraction society.

We are trying to run away from difficulty.

I have on my list of books.
I haven't read it yet.

The comfort crisis,
something I want to read.

Certainly the title resonates with me
that it's actually by stopping

being afraid of things that are difficult
but healthy, fasting,

fitting into that category
just like exercise and eating healthy food

and saying no to foods
that are not good for us.

Right? These are difficult choices.

We say each of them is sitting on a line
between.

Long term health progress

and maybe things that in the short
term, might feel more comfortable.

And so we're sitting on this edge.

And this edge is mirroring
the same type of edge

that we've been sitting on this week.

Beauty and pain, struggle and progress.

So many things either actually selling
or just selling the idea.

It's like we don't need to sit in a place
like that.

We can. We're beyond that.

We have technology now
and we have science and all this is true.

And I have such a great respect
for science and medicine and.

But medicine and health
is much more than that.

We are a mind and a body
and we are a spirit somehow in there.

However, it works,
and I definitely think we have been stuck

in a cycle in medicine
of reductionism and materialism,

and that we have reduced the whole human
experience to just a collection

of inanimate molecules
that are bouncing around.

And therefore every problem can be solved

through some scientific
or analytical process.

And I certainly don't think
that that idea is serving us very well.

I think so
often moving forward from a muddy patch,

you know, to try to head in a direction,
the blooming flower,

get out of a dark and difficult space
actually

takes a mindset like this to say, hey,
I'm more than this.

There's more happening here
in this existence, in this space,

and use every Western
thought that you can find.

I'm dialing in three weeks of antibiotics
to treat this infection.

Hopefully it just knocks it out and

bless the pharmaceutical company
that made it, I say.

I wrote a note, I said.

Might the depth of our struggle.

Increase the strength
and appreciation of our recovery?

That's what I wrote next to that,
about the beauty and the pain

about finding acceptance for it.

That this is that
this is how life often is.

Isn't it the case?

But usually later, usually later,
that we find the strength for it?

I like this kind of composting analogy
that we went through.

As I was reflecting this on this,
I was thinking of a song.

I don't know if you've ever heard it
or if you would like such a crazy

band, Modest Mouse
have you ever heard him The View?

In The View,
there's one line that came to me.

He says, if life is not beautiful
without the pain, well,

I'd just rather
never even see beauty again.

Do you ever feel that way?

That just. I don't want any more.

You know,
if we're at -50 on the scale of our life.

Then zero is feeling pretty good,
you know?

And see if we just want the pain to stop.

See if I don't have to see beauty again.

It's like we'd just take neutral.

I've managed thousands of people
on antidepressants over the years,

for example.

And this is this is most people's
experience, you know, feel free

to share any experience you have called
technically affective blunting.

Right?

Chop off the lows and chop off the highs.

Just get to a neutral sort of space.

And like I said,
if you're at -50 then zero is pretty good.

And sometimes that really
is the right thing to do.

I think, you know,
but it's not necessarily the ideal state.

It's not a blooming flower, you know.

And so I think the lotus flower,
even in that space, you know,

a very deep depression, we say,
which is like a serious medical situation,

maybe an antidepressant really help
to get out of that for a season.

It's like, look at the
look at the leaves on the lotus flower.

This thing, this thing can tighten up.

It can hunker down.

It protect itself in a difficult season,
like the rain,

the storm, the cold, it can tighten up.

But then it also blooms again.

And I think that this is the thing to look
to even in a really difficult situation.

Okay, lotus flower,
it isn't just perpetual beauty, right?

It's an unfolding for a season.

It's going through a process,
growth, development.

And maybe, you know, we had that beautiful
quote the other day Wendell Berry

when going backwards makes sense.

Then you're going forwards, right.

Lotus flower can open up.

It can close back down.

It can open up again.

And so this line from Modest Mouse, right.

If life is not how do they actually
I got to look at it again.

If life is not beautiful without the pain,
maybe I just won't even see beauty.

And that'll be.

We'll just leave it be.

Maybe that is actually an okay mindset.

You know, when I was, I was lying in bed

when that song came to me last night
and I was thinking, man, that's dark.

But then I realized,

now the lotus flower does that,
and I think there's a season for that.

Like, everything doesn't have to be peak
lotus flower blooming season.

Like when I was in North Carolina hiking.

We just and we didn't plan it this way,
but we were there for

this is like rhododendron forest.

So like the whole forest
is full of rhododendrons.

And we were there for like peak

rhododendron blooming season
and we're hiking through,

you know, all the paths are lined

with rhododendron petals and it's raining

petals on us is just magical.

Okay.

As that happens,
like for 2 or 3 weeks a year.

I extra like the lyrics of this song.

Now that I think now, I'm always going
to think of a lotus flower

when I listen to this song
and I think of that, I'm going to think

even something very beautiful,
we can close it down for a little bit,

and then we can have some more optimism
from it about the future.

You know, I think we have this idea
from culture that we should be like

permanent plateau, you know, it's like,
how are you?

Good. Isn't that what you say?
Anybody ask, how are you doing? All good.

Okay, good.

You know,
you're checking out at the store.

How are you doing? Good.

You know, it's like,
have you ever done it?

Have you? A couple of times.

You know,
I've been in an especially bad mood,

and some poor kid at the checkout is like,
oh, how are you doing?

I'm just like, terrible,
you know, just terrible.

They're like, I mean, people like
and don't know how to handle that.

You know, it was not
the socially appropriate thing to say,

even if it's true.

Like, that's kind of interesting
to reflect on, right?

Not so interested in true things.

We're just interested in navigating

the social situation
without it being too awkward.

Yeah, I should have
I don't know if I, I think maybe one.

I shared some pictures
from my North Carolina.

I might have put one picture
in there of a pedal lined trail.

It's really beautiful.

There's there's one.

I didn't really get a photo of it,
but I think it must have been on.

Must have been.

Where was it? What was it?

Oh, is the giant hike.

Now I'm even forgetting what that was
called. Winter Star Mountain.

We hiked up some trail up
Winter Star Mountain.

There's all this. I don't know what it is.

Iron pyrite.

You know, fool's gold type of stuff.

Just beautiful, sparkly stuff in the sun.

And so we had one moment where it's like

the sun was coming through
the rhododendrons and hitting the trail.

And so the trail is like gold sparkly
with flower petals on it.

I'm never walked on such a thing.

It just felt I'm like, man,
this feels like.

Just magic.

Like some animated movie
where like the the king is returning in

the forest is coming alive, and it's
just like rolling out the red carpet.

I felt like this is like.
Really something.

The last thoughts on my little note here.

Wherever you're at a things, okay,

wherever you're at,
we don't need the cleanest water.

You know, if we're going through life,

if it's a difficult patch.

Look at the lotus flower.

That's where I'll just close us out.

It grows out of the mud.

It doesn't find the cleanest pool,
you know.

And so wherever we're at,
let's find strength from that.

In our day.

we set a goal. Set a tiny goal.

I set a tiny goal yesterday.

Didn't even accomplish it.

But here we have another opportunity
to move forward in health.

Let's give it our best shot.

Really nice
to share this space with you today.

I hope you have a beautiful day.

Take a step forward in health

and I will look forward
to connecting with you again tomorrow.

Be well everyone!