Cultivating Connection: The Mindful Approach to Better Relationships (Episode #17)

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Something about you that I can't help but smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh. Something surround.

Welcome to the Human intimacy podcast. I'm Dr. Kevin Skinner. Today I have a special guest, my friend and colleague, Dallin Brun. Let me just tell you a little bit about him. He is a graduate of the UMass Medical center for Mindfulness. Now what's really interesting about his experience is he was part of the first class with literally being taught by John Kabat Zinn, one of the mindfulness experts of all mindfulness experts. Thanks, Dallin, for joining us today. Anything that you would like to start us off with today?

Oh, thanks, Dr. Skinner. I found this road, I think, the way most of your listeners and most of the world finds it. You know, it was in a therapeutic context. It was a group therapy at BYU where I was attending. It was for stress reduction, it was for anxiety. I never heard of it, I had never tried it. And pretty quickly I recognized its value in my life and also how quickly it became helpful to the symptoms that brought me to the group. And, and it was just so fascinating. Like, you know, I had a major and I was going in that direction. But this was so interesting and pivotal to have that education and the amount of life quality boost from it. It just completely shifted me in this direction and that's why I sort of shifted my major, even though that wasn't on offer at BYU, but it was at UMass. And that's. Well, that's why I ended up going.

There, you know, and I want to just talk a little bit about this because, you know, we talk about mindfulness and everyone says, you know, it's kind of a, I don't know, a buzzword or a catch. Word. Yeah. You need to do some mindfulness. But I want to talk today about the science behind it. I want to talk about the benefits. Interesting story about Dallin. Dallin isn't just a person who went and did the training. Since that time, what year was that you graduated from UMass?

Oh, that was 2016.

So. So eight years ago, he. He graduates. But over the last eight years, he's been to over 17 mindfulness retreats where you sit for what, a week to two weeks? And you don't have any digital resources. You don't have anything. You are just simply with yourself in a mindfulness way. You start before the sun gets up, where you start meditating and everything. If I understand right, you're eating with your fingers, you're mindfully walking, you're not having conversations with people. Am I understanding this right, Dallin?

Everything maybe minus the fingers. They do use utensils at most places, but you're right, You. Most of the scheduling is quite rigorous, and most of these retreats are based off ancient spiritual traditions like, like Zen or yogic traditions in India. And yeah, you wake up early and dedicate most of the waking hours to meditation, whether it's in stillness or some gentle movement like walking or mo or stretching. But, yeah, you. You cannonball the week. And it is pretty intense. And I just. Little asterisks. It's not, it's not recommended to dive in to that initially. You. You do want some background training, and that's exactly what I'm here for. But, yeah, once it starts blossoming, then those retreats are just perfect.

Yeah, so let's talk about this, because I want to talk about. How do I start? Because I, I can't imagine. I'm probably just overwhelmed, everybody saying I can't do a week. And that would drive me absolutely crazy to be with my own thoughts for a week. So let's define mindfulness, what, what it actually is. And then let's talk about how I could get started or how we could get started today, our listening audience. And let's talk about the benefits from a research perspective. So kind of an outline of today. Let's start off with what is mindfulness?

Yeah, I mean, the title of your site and your course, this word, intimacy and its, its vitality to our wellness though, it. It suggests that the way that we relate and the way we connect to our lives, to ourselves, to this world is really the key ingredient. And in that spirit, mindfulness has been a tool to. To help people create those vital connections to relevant domains and find that little intimacy dial, that dial of compassion and wisdom and kindness and just brighten it, enlighten it. That would be kind of a broad overview definition of like, why someone would adopt mindfulness. But the how is. Let's just. Why don't we do a little one together as a, as a pencil sharpener? Does that sound great?

I'd love it. Right? I can always, I can always practice myself because I find that when I'm slowing down, when I'm more attuned to my thoughts, when I'm more attuned to my own self, my body, physical sensations, I. I feel that kind of mindfulness actually helps me just being aware of. Oh, wow, that's interesting feeling. That's an interesting thought. So, yeah, anything that I can do to learn, I'd be grateful.

Awesome. Well, this is a go to mindfulness exercise. It's the breath. But I just want to say before we start, it's not, it's not about breath control or breath optimization. It just so happens that our breath is tied to a calming feature in our autonomic nervous system. So it's a, it is a good dance partner, but that's what it is. We're. We're going to just. We're giving ourselves a gentle, naturally relaxing dance partner to feel that connection and see what it feels like to maybe just slightly increase our intimacy, our compassion, our understanding with something as inert and natural as breathing. And another first instruction is this isn't about control. A lot of people get into like a control mode. So let's just relax. Control. Your body knows how to breathe. It's really good at it. Most of our breaths are involuntary. It's got it. So no need to get in there with a toolkit. So with those brief instructions, just notice this body, his breathing, and gently allow you to show up. And one way we, a word that we, we like to use is your attention, your awareness. Allow your awareness to begin to be curious to this body that is breathing, whether you're sitting or laying down or walking. Now, if you're starting, it can be helpful to close the eyes, but it's not required. And if it feels nice for you, I like to invite just a gradual deepening and maybe slowing it down slightly. And let's become curious about this process and the sensations involved. So rather than visualize or analyze, let your attention notice the sensations that are present where the breath is entering the body. So at the nostrils or the lips and mouth. If you're either breathing through your nose, nose or mouth. And now gently Let your curiosity follow the breath from the entrance, through this anatomical plumbing of your throat and down into your chest, Letting your attention allow the sensations. Be your dance partner. The gentle inhalation and expansion and exhalation. And now that you're familiar with your partner, this rise in this fall, whether it's in the chest or the belly, Now that we're in touch with these sensations, We'll gently concern ourselves with the quality of the relationship. And again, we've relaxed control. So see if there's any remnants. Relax, a doing mode, even a goal. And this word intimacy, I like to tune into that with metaphors. It's almost like a mother gently holding her child, just rocking them to sleep. This would be Thich Nhat Hanh. He's a famous Buddhist Vietnamese mindfulness teacher. And this was his favorite metaphor for mindfulness. A mother holding a child. What does that feel like? To warm yourself in that direction, let the quality of your attention. Be like a mother rocking the sensations of breathing as a child, gently. We're not checking out, we're checking in with human intimacy here. Kindness, if available. Doctor Kabat Zinn, he likes the word non judgment, non judgmental because it's maybe more accessible. So relaxing judgment around the way that your body is breathing. Just let it breathe, allow it to breathe. Sort of unconditional acceptance. And maybe the last thing I'll note is that it's very common for your mind to pop in and comment or take you on a little walk. We're expecting that that's totally normal. We're not wrestling that. It's natural for the body and the mind to comment. It's discursive. And so if you notice that, again, relaxing a fight and shuttling your attention back to this mother cradling her child, just you and the breath. Nothing to fix, nothing to change. Just being in this little dance. And allow yourself a couple more of these. And as it feels nice, gradually opening the eyes if they're closed. Yeah, this would be a good, good little mindfulness exercise for folks.

Yeah, absolutely. Boy, I tell you, that just relaxes my body. That's fantastic. So I want to ask you a question related to that. So as you go through that, as you're instructing, do you feel your body relaxing as well?

Oh, I teach. I teach from the body. We all. And I'm sure you're fully aware of this, but not all clients, but they're so wise. And it's. It wasn't apparent to me when I started mindfulness that I ought to form a relationship to this autonomic nervous system. But it's every step of the way in any domain of therapy. The relevance of the feedback here is just so, so high. And so, yeah, I'm, I'm totally there. And it's from there I think that I can, I can better guide clients in that direction.

Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense to me because as you again, when you've had as much experience as you have had, you understand the kind of, the purpose and the meaning of it. Far too often we get into a such a structured world of am I doing it right? You know, did I, did I say it? Am I breathing right? And really, I love that part of it is, it's non judgmental. We're, you know, you're just attuning to this body of yours. And when you're working with addiction, when you're working with trauma, when you're working with people living in chaos, mental health, anxiety, depression, you really begin to see quickly how out of tune we are with our bodies. And, and that's one of the powerful things about mindfulness is you can get attuned to your body. You don't have to, but you can and most likely will.

Yeah. And this body, it, it's like really sensitive to your safety and it can tell you quite accurately and honestly, hey buddy, we're unsafe. I mean, and the flip side is true too, like our connection with others, our love, our sense of joy, it's also here. So there's lots of good reasons, like scientific reason to invite clients and, and to be honest, if they are numb from the neck down, it is not abnormal. This is like part of a coping mechanism, especially for children. If they can't cope with scary feelings or traumas, their way of dealing with that might be to back away from it. So it's not abnormal if a client has difficulty feeling into the body or, or even the mind, it's okay, we'll get there, there's no rush. And it's, it's very doable, you know.

And I really important what you just said there because I can't tell you how many times I've had clients get into a situation where they're actually stressed because they are afraid that they can't get to that place. And actually sometimes for them, when it is quiet in their mind, they feel more anxious. So there is a certain percentage of people who are like, I can't go there because it's, it's, it's, it's too quiet for me.

Yeah, yeah, it is. So important in any of this process to just like baby steps, take it slow. There's something counterintuitive about mindfulness you'll hear in the teachings. You can't do this wrong. You can't fail at this. And that is because we're, we're dealing with something unconditional, like the, the relationality is unconditional. We're not setting up a bunch of, like, you know, strategies for you. It is about being. And if right where you, if where you're at right now is a numbness of the body, is a racing mind, that's perfect. That's right where you're at. And you can't fail at that.

You know, and going from that, the science behind it is fascinating to me. Right. So, yeah, you start looking at some of these early researchers and you're like, holy cow. I mean, we're now looking at mindfulness as a way to help deal with anxiety, to deal with depression, to deal with addictive behaviors. And, and, and as you said, it's, it's a tool, it's a resource. It isn't a formula.

Yeah, yeah. Richard Davison, he was one of the first neuroscientists to like, invite Tibetan llamas over to the Mayo Clinic and hook them up. Yeah. So. So it's very ancient and at this point, very well grounded in empirical science.

Which, again, I'm a person who says, look, if it is scientifically validated, we should probably take serious consideration into it as a resource, as therapist. Now, something I want to let our listeners know. For years, Dallin has been doing our mindfulness groups here at our office. So when we do intensives, Dallin is, has been a part with this. I don't know how many years you've been with us, Dallin. Eight. Eight years.

It's, it's been almost nine.

Almost nine years. So for nine years, when we do intensives, Dallin is a part of that because we firmly believe in this process of learning how to go through this process of learning about our own self slowing down, because during an intensive, it's intense. And so we invite mindfulness expert, yoga experts to join us and help our clients as we go through something really difficult. Come back to a place now, let's just be with yourself.

I like to like the overarching framing of this process is not unfamiliar. It's the, the, the, the context I like to introduce is friendship and what it's like. We, we all kind of have had those experiences. We can draw from where there's that initial stage of like being introduced to a new potential friend and then just, you know, you'll scare them away if you like, are too harsh or.

It'S.

Like a fight or flight kind of posture that you bring to it. No, we're going to be gentle, we're going to be friendly. Trust will build, intimacy will build. And we just trust that friendly process. And over time, wow, the, the new friends, that, that word is usually familiar to us in the context of other humans. But when you learn that this body is something that you can become not only connected to, but friendly with, compassionate with, and then, I mean, this is the deep end of the pool. But there are the hard things to make friends with. Your trauma, your addiction, your betrayal. But you know, that is the direction we're heading. We want to reconnect with those in a friendly way. I mean, that doesn't necessarily mean now that we're going to become a doormat and they can walk all over us. Things come online like understanding your trauma better by increasing the intimacy, understanding where boundaries, where forgiveness, where letting go, where holding firm. We can't know that if our default is ignorance.

You know, and if I add to that, I have found that when individuals learn this skill, mindfulness and, and understanding themselves, they actually have more dignity, more self respect because they understand themselves well enough that when they're feeling stressed, they're like, oh, this, this, this doesn't feel right. This, there's something off in this interaction here and, and they're aware of it to the point it's like I see what's happening now. Rather than being sucked into conflict or into something, even in an addiction, I, I don't have to give into this powerful pool. I, I, I actually have a choice here. And I can be aware of what's actually happening to myself and these feelings and these thoughts. And with that awareness and intentionality, I can say, wow, I, I have choice because I've slowed it down enough to recognize I have choice in those really, maybe those difficult moments in the past where your, your hormones or your body would take over and you're, and you're angry and you're upset or you're craving. Wow, this is fascinating what's happening to me. I can see my craving. I can see this experience, this anxious feeling coming at me. Well, this is normally when I would relapse or this is normally when I would get angry with, wow, that's interesting as an observer.

Yeah, yeah. The science likes to call that the difference between reactivity and responsiveness. I mean, when I share this framing as friendship. And I'm saying, yeah, we're going to make friends with your anxiety, make friends with your addiction. That, that sounds a bit scary, but look at the consequences of not doing that. If you just resort to default, a sort of like survivalistic fight or flight, you, it, it just will, the program will be reactive.

Every.

You will be a ping pong ball. Just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And that is how most addicts feel. They feel imprisoned to the behavior pattern. And to break those reactive patterns, we must, we must turn toward it. You know, we'll start with the breath, baby steps. But eventually we turn toward the scary thing. Friendly, openly. We, we understand. And as you said, the science shows over time. What that affords now is a responsiveness. There's a little choice window that becomes available.

Yeah. And one of my favorite stories actually came now, you mentioned his name, Richard Davidson. And when I was reading his book initially, apparently he went over to Tibet and, and was talking with the Dalai Lama and he was like, hey, can I, can I interview them? And they brought their, you know, machine so they could, you know, get to, you know, they're hiking and bringing these machines to these monks. And all of the monks turned them down, said, I don't feel worthy. I don't think I'm good enough at this. And, and I don't think I, you know, you don't want to interview me. And so they came back to the Dalai Lama and said, I, we tried and we wanted to see Dalai Lama said, you probably need to find a monk in the United States who's a little bit more westernized. And so they did. And that first experience, they, you know, hooked him up and they were doing a loving kindness meditation. He'd done tens of thousands of hours of mindful meditation. And they hooked up his, you know, the brain and watching the neural pathways as he's, as he's doing this mindfulness, loving kindness exercise. And they saw regions of the brain light up in ways that they had never, ever seen as he's doing this loving kindness. So if we want to put it in context, mindfulness is a muscle building exercise that helps the prefrontal cortex. Now, I apologize for getting a little bit scientific here to our listeners, but when you activate the prefrontal cortex, it helps regulate emotions, it helps regulate impulses. There's so much power to it, and yet it's a tool. It's not, it's not right. We're not asking you to do something super hard. In fact, it's good for all of us.

Yeah. Yeah, the, the neuroscience lingo. I think it's worth a discussion because if you just again, result to default neurologically, there's something called the default mode network. It's just like a little, A little program that goes online and it's just like background survival. And it is. Its job is to find threats and react to them. If we don't become aware and bring awareness to our thoughts, to our life, then that will just run. That program runs. But what the science shows, especially with mindfulness training, is that's not the only program that the mind can operate on. When you like, mindfulness itself has a neurological expression, what lights up and it is very different than your default mode network. It sort of again, allows a relaxation of that reactivity, but, but you're still quite aware and functional. And in going back to this quality of intimacy, there's, There's a bit of a. The default mode network is a bit of a. An aggressor. It. It's linked with anxiety and depression, whereas the mindfulness mode of the brain is a qualitative default is compassion, friendliness, openness.

And I, what I love about what you just said there is our default mode is fight or flight. I mean, just from an autonomic perspective, we are trained to look and say, where's the tiger? Right? Where, where's. Where is the problem here? And, and really with mindfulness, you. You're not turning it off, you're just actually looking and seeing. Man, that is a beautiful tree. Did you see that tree out there, by the way? And, and, and look at the mountain or look at these flowers and wow, that's an interesting sensation in my arm. And, and all of a sudden you're. You're observing things in ways that you may have missed for years and years and years because we're so accustomed to protecting and being in fight mode or flea mode that we don't pause and we really don't take the opportunity to be with ourselves in a mindful way in an. In our environment where we miss out the flowers and the beauty around us and the body sensations that are just. They're not no longer is at a threat when we're mindful, it's like, oh, that is so fascinating.

Yeah. Have you heard of Mahajitset Mahal?

The.

The scientist around flow around flow?

Yeah.

Yeah. So like, like mind. The mindful mode over time is just like a, an inherent flow state where you're still responding to the world, but it doesn't feel like this clunky billiard ball. It feels like a Flow, it's very natural. And you do pause and you consider. And the richness that's available in that kind of flow through life is very rewarding.

You know what I want to add to this because this is a podcast on human intimacy. I believe that when we are mindful, intimacy becomes more of a possibility and probability in our lives because we, as you mentioned the word compassion, because you, you begin to have self compassion. And there's so much research on mindfulness helps us with self compassion, which allows us to have compassion for other people. And even so, if we really want to be better in our relationships, this concept of practicing mindfulness will help you be better and more intimate in your relationships. Because if you can be intimate with yourself, that friend that you were talking about earlier, allowing yourself to look into yourself, self intimacy, if we could say it that way, then the natural transition Krista Neff talks about in her work on self compassion is when you have self compassion, you can have compassion for others. And it's really in that flow or that way, the way it works. So it's beautiful when you put mindfulness and intimacy together.

Oh yeah. And they're natural. You, you really couldn't move in this direction and not have that be a natural result. It is, it's straightforward. I'm like the, the instructions like with the breath. Let's go to this new dance partner. Maybe, maybe you've never like put attention there, but let's see what it feels like to be open, curious, non relaxed judgment. That's a straightforward formula for compassion, for intimacy. And like you said, while that relationship singularly with the breath may be in enhancing your compassion. Oh my gosh. It's also just your capacity to be compassionate is growing as well. And, and, and so, yeah, it does have this all, all sort of encompassing effect. And let's remember, Dr. Skinner, the principles of mindfulness were extracted in the modern world from the ancient spiritual traditions, both in the west and the East. And they weren't preserving them for stress reduction. This was for spirituality. This was your, your link with the cosmos. And so, yes, very, very deeply ingrained with this approach.

Absolutely. Now, a couple things. I just want to go over one more part here before we end the day down. And when you do a mindfulness meditation, let's say it's a loving kindness meditation, you often will say things like may I feel peace, may I feel love. Right. And, and then we, we talk about that as a mindful meditation. Would you mind going through just one sequence of those? Because I'd love our Listeners to actually hear this mindfulness meditation, a loving kindness meditation. Because I think if you can hear this, I just invite you to listen to what this means. Imagine yourself doing this with self and then for somebody who maybe right now is your enemy, somebody that you're struggling with. Right. So let's just start off with self and then let's just think about somebody who maybe we've had a little bit of challenge with and listen to the words and what it means.

All right? Yes. In the. In a loving kindness exercise. And again, you're welcome to close your eyes if that feels helpful. It's nice to start with someone that love comes naturally for you. So this can be your children, your significant other, it can be a past relative, it can be an animal, it can be a hobby or a collection. So let's imagine them maybe with us in a room and let's just send some well wishes in their direction. May these loved ones be healthy. May these loved ones be safe. May these loved ones feel peace. And may these loved ones know that I love them. Okay. And just like a personal trainer at the gym, I'll just gently increase the resistance. Let's try something like a nature scene or a random stranger that's. That's non threatening. So with this sort of neutral scene or person, let's try the same well wishes. May. May this person be safe. May this person or scene have health. May this person or the scene have peace. And may this person or the scene know that I love them. Or may they have love. Okay, let's try ourselves. And if there's resistance, we'll be curious about that. So you can't fail. Just note, may I be healthy, may I be safe. May I find peace. May I be loved. And we'll try the invitation of Dr. Skinner and just crank up the intensity to 10 here. And it's. If it feels unsafe, just let my words fade to the background or go to the breath. But let's try something hard. Maybe it's an addiction or a. A betrayal. Maybe it's a person or a set of people. Maybe it's a macro event that you're worried about an earthquake, a war, something like that. Let them be visualized. Maybe let them be felt. And let's try these well wishes. May this difficult person or situation, May it be safe. May this difficult person or situation have health. May this difficult person or situation find peace. May this difficult person or situation be loved. Nice breath in. Letting the eyes open. If they're closed.

Those are so, so good. It's a Great experience. And just imagine just doing that over and over.

Oh, it's very effective. And if there was any resistance with yourself or others, or even if you tried this and it was just like going through the motions, there wasn't connection. Trust me, everyone, I've been there and I know what that feels like. And we're just invited to lean in, like at the first day at the gym. It's not going to go. Ideally, we're, we're going to, like, find these new muscles and it, it's a process and we'll respect it. But, yes, very powerful.

Absolutely. All right, we've had a couple of very great mindful exercises. We've talked about what mindfulness is. We've talked about strategies that you can personally use to practice. Now, Dallin, any final thoughts for our listeners today?

Oh, man. Yeah, let's just. Everybody, I know we're here for difficult reasons. I commend your bravery and courage moving toward these with loving mindfulness. It may feel scary, it may be one of the hardest things you've ever done, but you will grow in ways that will not only help the things that brought you here, but will have broad, reaching effects. And, you know, if I'm a good case study, and there's certainly plenty others to draw from, happiness has come back online and, and peace. And I just feel more alive and more connected to the world. So glad you're here.

Oh, thank you so much for your time today, Dallin. And I genuinely, you know, I think it's one of those things in life that we can just rush through life and really not find that happiness that you just described. There's so much anxiety and so much stress and so much relationship challenges and, and, and a simple tool. And I say simple because what we've been through today, if you really think about it, how difficult would it be to practice that breathing? How difficult would it be to just do that loving kindness meditation? And what you begin to realize is we're so misattuned to the world and to this life. And these are just simple things to say. Let's just tune back in. Let's just turn the knob a little bit and see how it feels. Let's turn a little bit more. Oh, how's that feeling? And what you begin to realize is we can be so much more attuned, which is so much more joyful, because that's, that's really what this is about. It's, it's finding joy in this journey. And I think far too often we're living in a world where we're so used to the chaos that it's time for us to slow down and really learn some very valuable skills. So, Dallin, thank you so much for your time today. Any final thoughts?

No, I just really want to express gratitude, Dr. Skinner, for being here and this path and. Let's do this together, everyone.

That's awesome. Thank you so much, Dallin. I genuinely appreciate it. To our listeners, let me just say a couple things. Dallin is working to create a course for us on the Human Intimacy website, and he has some phenomenal content that will help you just really practice and enhance this. I have found in my life that the more I practice things like this, the more joy that comes into my life. And one of the things that I also know is that as you do that we can have better relationships and we can turn our. This strength of ours into being better parents, better in our. All of our relationships. So, again, thank you very much, Dallas, for your time. May each of you practice this mindfulness and find joy in your journey.

Laugh. When you laugh, something surround you it's like you're shining. You're a siren.