Is This the Fastest Way to Release Stress & Reconnect with Yourself? Inner Core | Dr. Mark Atkinson

Hey there, I'm Claudia von Boeselager, a former investment banker turned entrepreneur, longevity coach, biohacker, and mother of two. Once burnt out and overwhelmed with chronic health issues, I've transformed my life and helped thousands of people do the same. I've even reduced my biological age by 17 years. Yes, I'm 26 again. Now I'm here to share the tools, strategies, and inspiration to help you live healthier, happier, and longer. On this podcast, I interview world-leading experts in health, biohacking, mindset, and performance, and share personal stories and learnings to bring you the latest insights and tips. Think of this as your go-to space for real talk about all things health and optimizing your life. Ready to unlock your best self? Let's dive in. This is the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast.

Welcome back, Dr. Mark. I'm so delighted to have you with us again today for round 2. And in case your audience, you missed round 1, you must go back and check it out. And make sure it's around inner leadership. And I'll leave Dr. Mark to recap the 4 different pillars. For those just tuning in now for the first time, Dr. Mark, maybe you can give a short intro and also explain the fundamental 4 pillars before we dive into the inner core today.

I'd be very happy to do that. So, uh, hi everyone. So my name is Mark Atkinson. Uh, I'm a medical doctor and my expertise is mind-body medicine. So I've always been really fascinated by the relationship between mind and body and essentially how they function as one and how we can use the mind to influence the body, use the body to influence the mind, and when we learn how to work with them both skillfully, good things can happen both to our health and in our lives as well. That's the kind of medical doctor side, and then about 20 years ago, I saw the teaching because what I really found was a lot of my patients wanted to go much deeper with this. So beyond improving their health and improving the symptoms they had, they became really interested about how when you start using your mind, that you can only not just improve the quality of your life, but you can also start to grow and develop psychologically and spiritually. And so about 20 years ago, really grounded in my own experiences and my own inner work and personal challenges, emerged this body of work built around inner leadership. And that really is the kind of core defining work that I now teach and coach people on. And at its heart is about learning how to regulate your nervous system, use your mind skillfully, optimize your health. But ultimately, the ultimate goal really is to make deep contact with the dimension of our being that we could call the inner core. Or you could also call the self with a capital S, and essentially that's the part of us that is beyond all of our stories and thinking conceptual minds. So those are the four pillars.

So today we're going to dig into, because we ran out of time last time, it was a very juicy conversation. Check, go check it out if you haven't heard it yet. Today we're going to dig into the concept of the inner core. So could you share what is this inner core concept for someone maybe hearing this for the first time?

Well, the best way of understanding it is to experience it. And most people have experienced a moment in their life where the mind has been completely still, and they felt very connected to the whole. It could be to the present moment, to the whole universe, the cosmos, the person they're with. Time stands still, and you feel whole, complete, and connected. And some people experience it through using psychedelics, through tantra, through lovemaking, through fasting, through vision quests, or just the spontaneous arising of a moment in which you feel profoundly connected, alive, and whole. Now in that moment, at least as I experience and teach it, you're really in contact with what I call your inner core. And this is the dimension beyond the everyday psychological self, the kind of egoic sense of me, the one who's very much thought-filled, thinking about everything, judging everything, and often struggling to deal with life as it is. When you're in the inner core, there's just this experience of non-resistance, wholeness, and this deeper sense that life is unfolding and flowing, and it feels so much better. So part of my most enjoyable work over the last 10 years in particular is to teach people how to access this deeper dimension, both on demand, but then ultimately how to engage in the inner work so that it becomes your default identity. And typically that would be called awakening, awakening to your deeper nature. So you could also call that spiritual work as well, but I just call the work of awakening. And that's just an integral part of really unfolding our potential as human beings. So that's why it sits alongside the other pillars as well. We want to be working in all of it.

Is it possible to live from that inner core on a day-to-day basis? Like, have you achieved that?

Yes. And what's even more important and relevant is that I've guided others through the practices and the processes that have enabled them to transform their sense of identity. And that's more important, which is, is there a process, a repeatable set of principles and practices that if taken to heart and sincerely engaged with, can actually bring about this fundamental inner transformation? So I'm very blessed because the nature of my work is to be surrounded by people who are drawn to this. And if they're sincere and they're open and they're humble and they're able to dedicate the time to it, because it does require a dedicated time, then it is absolutely possible to fundamentally shift your identity essentially from thought-based and me-centered, which is kind of where we all start. And for sure, where I still go to when stress happens and challenges happen, that's absolutely a place that's normal and natural to continue to visit. But I don't get caught up in it. I didn't stay stuck there. And then at some stage, you then essentially become what I call awareness base. There's just this still, dynamic spaciousness and stillness and openness, and you become naturally life-oriented. So previously it was me-oriented, and now it's life-oriented. So you become so much more intimate and engaged with life itself as a living reality. And of course, that needs unpacking, but that's the gist of it.

Oh, yes. I want to unpack that right now because I love that. What exactly does that mean, life-oriented? What is the juicy stuff in there.

Yeah, what it feels like, and of course, so many people have written about this, taught about it. It's really experientially knowing that life, which is existence, is alive, dynamic, intelligent, and is us. It's knowing that we are living in and as like this ocean of life. We're not separate from it. We're an expression of it. And all that we see and experience is also an expression of it. But you don't know that as a concept. It's not a belief. It's a direct experiential knowing. You feel it in a sensory way within and through your body, which is why so much of this work is through the body rather than the typical transcendence route, which is to leave this visceral somatic reality to go to a transcendent place that feels spiritual and enlightened and expansive. The core of, well, at least my path, which is a path of tantra and intimacy, is to move more deeply and fully into the physically felt reality of existence through the body. So you take a deep, deep, honest interest in what is true within the body moment by moment. So that requires going in. And that's why you work on the other pillars, because to go inwards requires you to have a nervous system that is perceiving safety and has become regulated. It requires you to have a mind that knows how to relate to what's inside your experience, because that's where we store a lot of our pain and our emotions. So if you don't have those capacities and skills, if it's not set up well, and if you haven't dialed in your health, your hormones, and everything else, then this work, the deepening and awakening work, is so much more challenging. So you really need the other three pillars dialed in to do this in a more systematic way.

Yeah. You need to be in that sort of homeostasis state to be able to unpack the gold. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And it's interesting, right? So a lot of people are thinking spirituality, it's something outside of yourself and sort of far away, but I love your concept of that. It's going inside and it's, I guess, tuning into the wisdom of the body, right? And that intuition and that thinking, but where do you see that connection? Right? Because it is coming from somewhere. And as you know, we're the wave that forgets it's the ocean, right? That you were a manifestation of, of this reality. How is that connection there? How can people envisage that?

Yeah. Well, I think the way, the first thing you got to do is you have to know how to come out of the content of your mind. Right? So that's why mindfulness is so important. Which is how do you go from being the content of your mind, being and believing what you think in your stories, to being the one who's aware of and observing and noticing your story. That's the starting place. You have to kind of step back before you go in. Okay, so that's the early stage. That's why I love any mindfulness meditation practice that allows you to gather an observer perspective and to stabilize your attention is just brilliant. And that can be meditation, can be yoga, it could be any contemplative practice, it could be prayer, breathwork. So that's just awesome. If anyone's doing that, that's just awesome. But what tends to happen is, as you create a space between you and the content of your mind, then you can start to experience a sense more spaciousness, detachment, that allows you to be much more aware of what's beyond your thoughts. Now you start becoming aware of your emotions within your body, etc. But then the real key is not to keep going up and out. And that's really tempting. And anyone who's kind of been on a spiritual path kind of knows what I mean by that, which is I want up and out of here because the problem is perceived as being here right now. And I want out, right? So I'll constantly be looking elsewhere. And of course, I did that for a whole bunch of time. And to be honest with you, it was a lot of fun. But what it does, it creates problems in relationships. Because if you're kind of moving away from everyday reality, then it's much harder to engage relationships and reality and responsibilities. So we start to do what's called spiritual bypass. Whereas, turns out, the real key to this work, to an integrative approach to inner development, is to use the very real challenges of our life as the gateway into our deeper nature. And that means we have to shift from an avoidant approach to approach. We've got to start welcoming. That was one of the first practices I mentioned in our first session we had together. So that's why when you start to work with your nervous system and your mind, you're setting up a welcoming internal orientation that then sets the stage for them to be able to work skillfully with those energies and emotions inside of you, and ultimately to not just know how to release them, but to become intimate with them. And so you realize spiritual awakening is really much more about spiritual deepening and opening. And so it's much more about going within, down, as opposed to up and out. Initially, it's up and out, but then as maturity kicks in and reality kicks in and the shadow starts coming up, because the more transcendent we touch, then the commensurate depth of our shadow will then present itself to be worked through. So what happens then is a lot of people then want to escape even more. Now that's your time to then face the shadow, because the shadow is just the material and the patterns and the dynamics inside our mind that are waiting to be integrated to allow the vessel that is our body to then inhabit a deeper dimension. So you've got to always do the transcendent work with the shadow work. And you've got to know how to work with the shadow and have support team around you to help you do that. That could be where therapy is in place or working with an authentic spiritual teacher, et cetera. Because you really figure that it's my challenges are the gateway. And there's a beautiful saying by a colleague of mine, Mary O'Malley, what is in the way is the way. Always.

Yeah. It's like what you fear most is the door you need to go through because the biggest pot of gold is on the other side.

Yeah. And of course, if you don't know how to work with fear, then the door remains closed. But when you know how to turn towards it, welcome its truth and its actuality, then the door opens. The door always opens when we welcome what is.

And how is that? Like, let's talk about a concrete example. Maybe you can share one, either personal or yours. Life is full of surprises for all of us, right? And by surprises, I mean also challenges. And some things people really just fear. The amygdala kicks in. People are like, in a life or death situation, what do I do? So, as part of these teachings, Dr. Mark, like how does one face it? And, and let's assume maybe somebody who's already started on a, a path and has a maybe meditation practice, maybe they're kind of 1 to 2 years in and they have done a bunch of work just to give a bit of context. How, how does one approach these major challenges?

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Well, firstly, we got to know we always got choice as to how we respond. So the first thing is you can choose to do nothing if you want, but at least make it a conscious choice. Okay. Okay. So I think that's the starting place. But then say if we want to choose to do something, which is we want to help ourselves because we don't like experiencing this kind of fear, then the way I teach it, and there's loads of ways of doing it, what you do is you take your attention off the story and into your body, and you locate where the heaviness and tension is inside your body. That's step one. And that's a game changer because for a lot of people, they get caught up in the story. The story self-perpetuates and keeps them trapped. And what you realize is pretty quick Under every single story is an emotional charge. Now, next step, you welcome the charge. It could be, I just, I'm pleased you're here. And as I shared last time, the other thing you can do is you can smile at it. You can smile at it. You can welcome it. And what you probably notice is it softens. Next step, this is the practice of reflow that we didn't touch on last time, but it's my favorite practice to teach. Is you sense where that stuck energy in your body wants to flow to and exit out of your body. And amazingly, what you're going to find is it will start moving because all energy and the emotion is just energy wants to flow. And what will start to happen is that flow of energy will start moving up and out the mouth, the eyes, it could be the top of the head, arms, feet, and as it flows, it starts to decompress your experience. And then when it's flown out completely, look for the story. There's no more story there. AKA, when you're stuck in the story, it's feedback from your body-mind that there is a stuck underlying emotional charge there. Once the emotional charge is gone, there's no story, there's just what is, and then from what is, what if anything am I moved to do as a consequence? So rather than immediately reacting to fix a particular situation, the way I teach it, which is more congruent with the path of tantra, is attention off the story, into the body, welcome what is there, allow it to flow out fully whilst breathing deeply,, and then once it's flown out fully, you know it is because you're feeling present. You'll feel a sense of aliveness. There'll be a sense of clarity, and then you're now in touch with intuitive wisdom from here. What, if anything, at a practical level do I need to be doing? So it's very practical, and when you practice reflow, you can get to a place where it literally takes seconds to do. Now, in the early days, when I started doing this about 20 years ago, it would take at least 15, 20 minutes to release the charge about something. That's normal and natural, but with time and practice, it becomes pretty quick.

Oh, this is so amazing and such a powerful tool. And the fact that you can drop in so quickly, obviously you're very well-versed in this. And I'd love the concept practice reflow and clearing that energy and charge. Is that just a matter of breathing into it? Is it just through the acknowledgement of where the tension is?

How do you release it?

So first is you welcome it. And it's just everything likes to be welcomed. Then you'll notice there's space around it, which there always is. And then you literally silently say to it, where do you want to flow to? And without getting to your thinking, my friend, answer, it will tell you, you'll just know. And I love it when people experience that for the first time. And I teach a lot of people, you know, that this interceptive, you know, kind of introspective work is just so foreign to them, right? But I love that moment when they go, oh my gosh, it wants to go out my mouth. Allow it to happen. And then what you're learning is, wow, to welcome and to— energy flows when you allow it, right? You don't need to make it flow out. You definitely don't want to get rid of it. You just simply allow it to do what it wants to do. And you realize, boy, there's this intelligent system inside of me that I can activate through the process of welcoming and allowing. And what we're doing here is we're setting ourselves up for, and this is a whole nother conversation, what I call stage 4 mind or integral mind, which is very much rooted in this understanding that a core part of inner development is grounded in our ability to allow life and life situations to both inform us and transform us. So rather than doubling down on control around a given life situation, we firstly experientially allow ourselves to be moved by that situation experientially, to experientially encounter, feel it fully, and to allow it to change and transform us from present. And then what happens for a lot of us, if we're very fearful of our emotional world or our deeper world, we will numb out, we'll clamp down, we'll go up into the conceptual mind, and we will conceptualize our way through the issue. And that's perfect for the stage of mind before, which is about creative mind. That's where most people are at. And the sweet spot of in-leadership coaching is taking people from being conceptually orientated they kind of live in the mind, they're typically successful people, but maybe they're not connected to a deeper level of meaning and purpose and wellbeing and inner stability. They're being drawn to a deeper level, and that pathway is very much focused on using our experiences and allowing them to impact us. Because most of us are very defended around our internal world, and that's where the magic happens.

Oh, this is so amazing. Everyone in the world needs this. You should teach this at schools, by the way. And you've taught this material at Google as well, I believe, right? And with high-level executives. And so what tools or exercises tend to resonate most with these Type A, very cerebral, used to be me, high-performing individuals who really struggle to slow down and connect inward? And I speak to a lot as well, and they're like, you know, it's fine if I'm on a retreat in a different destination, but I'm on a trading floor, I'm in an office, and things are, you know, I've got 10 minutes to finish this. How does one in such a stressful situation or life situation really incorporate, embody this? Is it just through practicing in quiet times to be able to bring it into the more busier ones, or what do you recommend?

So I've taught this to a lot of people, and we rolled out these inner leadership practices to 1,000 Google sales leaders. And the context really shapes the way that I teach them. So the context was, this is how to integrate a coaching style into their management approach. Approach so that they can collaborate better with their direct reports and whether that coaching style, which is grounded in inner leadership principles, would then impact both the relationship and the outcomes in the sales. And all of it was positively impacted, which is why they rolled it out. Now, how did I talk about it? I didn't talk about it in terms of making contact with your inner core and psychospiritual development. Wasn't relevant because that wasn't the context. The context was, I'm going to teach you some simple practices that will allow you to be in charge of the way that you feel and show up. Well, suddenly everyone's interested. Okay. And then, so what I then showed is, well, it really starts with creating internal psychological safety. So Google, you know, they're renowned for psychological safety, which is that someone should be able to say what they want to say. And not have fear of reprise. So all I did was I transplanted that to their inner world. So you're going to create internal psychological safety. You're going to embody that principle within. Here's how you do it through the always welcoming practice that I taught first time around. And then the main thing that I then taught was practice 2, which is pause and shift, which is before you do anything, before you have a conversation, before you make an important decision, come out of your head into your lower belly and become centered first. So the way we do that is we soften our eyes and soften our tongue. We did that last time. That just reduces the mind chatter. We breathe down into our lower bellies. We count down from 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. So now we're in the lower belly. And now we are what's called above the line. So now we're in presence. And what everyone experiences if you do it, without overthinking it is you're much more present, engaged, open, naturally curious, collaborative, all of these kind of qualities that leaders want to develop and are essential in relationships. And then from here, you then collaborate, coach, and communicate. So that was a real game changer. And so the, another flip way of understanding that is in any given moment, we're either above or below the line. If we're below the line, I'm in my stuff, in my head, in my agenda, trying to win the moment for me to get one over you, to get my point across. It's very heady. It's very stressful. It's where most people live most of the time. The alternative is you shift above the line through the practice of centering. And from there, you naturally feel connected to the present moment, to the other person, to the team, the people in front of you.. And from here, there's much more collaboration. I'm not trying to impress you. I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm just genuine here in the spirit of collaboration in service of the best possible outcome. So that was the core of the teaching, and that's just a game changer. And then the other thing I taught, because it's entry level, is the gateway, which is just a very simple way, is like, when you're stuck in stress, and a lot of successful, busy A-type are. There's a lot of stress. They're going from one thing to another, and, and that stress drives their way of thinking. Use the gateway. What is the gateway? You turn your attention off the story into your body. You welcome what is there, and then you go through the gate. It's just a series, simple, of steps. I'll take you through it now, and if someone's listening to this, you just find an emotion you're in contact with. Say, for example, something simple like anger, and then you make contact with it. You feel where it is and you say these words, I am angry. You just acknowledge the reality in that moment. I am angry.

It's a very good— Insert emotion, whatever that emotion is.

Whatever the emotion is. I'm right. I'm scared. And the more honest you can be, the better. Now, you could be with someone or in an office and you're doing this silently. No one's knowing you're doing it. And the more you do it, the easier it gets. And then you go, say I'm working with angry, I am feeling angry. And then you notice what shifts. And then I am aware of feeling angry. Now what happens is, in that moment, our identity shifts into awareness. We've now got spaciousness around it. And then the beautiful final movement is, I'm aware of being aware. And if there's softness and relaxation, it just shifts them right into aware presence. From here, what if anything needs to happen? So we taught them that, and that was a real game changer for a lot of people. So those are the three foundational inner leadership practices. And of course, there's the other two, which are deeper and nuanced, et cetera. But that's what I've been teaching in companies for at least the last kind of 6 years, and it's been such a pleasure. And there's nothing about inner development or this and that. It's just practical tools to take charge of how you feel and show up. So we kind of keep it real, keep it relevant.

Anyone can do it. It's so simple, right? I mean, these are a few words, a few questions that you can do within seconds, but unbelievably powerful because you are shifting away from the monkey mind, from the brain, making it a story, triggering emotions, triggering reactivity. To this beautiful, calmer state where you're probably more intuitive, perceptive. I mean, so many benefits from this. I honestly feel like they need to teach this at school so that we don't even go down the path in the first place. But I guess that's hero's journey and life experience, right?

Indeed.

And before we finish up today, Mark, what else would you like to share on this concept or otherwise with my audience?

Yeah, I guess, you know, the final thing for now is whatever happens in life, just allow kindness to meet it. And the way we do that at a very practical level is just practice spending more time being centered in the area of your heart. And that just means breathing in and out the area of your heart and get practice at softening into it, sinking into it. And as you allow, then in a smile, meet the world and meet yourself from the inner smile. And if you do that consistently, it will change everything.

Such inspiring words. And this was clearly the universe telling me that I needed this conversation today. So thank you so, so much for coming back on again and expanding on this beautiful concept of inner core. Dr. Mark, if somebody wants to contact you, to reach out to you, perhaps to train with you or work together with you on this, where would you send them?

Yeah, if you go to drmarkatkinson.com, message me that way.

Beautiful. Is there any parting thoughts or message? Um, you said meet it with kindness. Is there anything else you'd like to share before we finish up today?

Life is a journey of exploration, and it's meant to be both enjoyable and challenging. So when life gets difficult and challenging, if you remember anything, it's turn in, welcome what is there, soften, allow it to flow. And the more you do that as an inner practice, the more easy it is you're going to be able to access what I call the inner core.

Gorgeous. Thank you so much, Dr. Mark, for coming back on. Thank you to your audience for tuning in. Any questions, let us know, and we love your comments and reviews. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Mike. Hi everyone, it's Claudia again. Before you take off, would you like to get a short email from me to you several times a month with top tips, insights, and strategies to help optimize your life, health, and business? This could be interesting posts or articles I've read on life and longevity optimization, cool biohacking or lifestyle products that I've discovered, and other fun things to help you be at your best. It's a very short piece of inspiration for you. So if you want to receive it, check it out by going to llinsider.com. That's llinsider.com and leave your email to get the next one.