55 Your Q & A with Marc Lesser Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence Coach

Welcome to RxChill Pill, the podcast that strengthens your resilient mind every time you listen to the extraordinary stories, expert tips, and meditations to elicit your relaxation response, the antidote to your stress response. I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD. I'm a physician and mom specializing in mind-body and lifestyle medicine. Find out more about me, my personalized online courses on procrastination and mindset coaching for kids teens, and adults at mindbodyspace.com. So now for one of my favorite parts, taking questions from listeners. I have Mark Lesser here with me today to answer questions. He's the author of Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader: Lessons from Google and a Zen Monastery Kitchen. If you haven't already listened, you can listen to Mark and I's full conversation on episode number 54. This one's from Dr. Nancy Gade. She's a primary care physician and she has a meditation practice, but she finds it hard to have a regular practice like a lot of us. So her question for you is, do you have any tips on how to develop a regular practice?

And I know in your book you talked about just, you know, making it like brushing your teeth. There's no decision to be made. You brush your teeth, you brush your teeth. Are there any recommendations that you make to your students? Or—

Yeah, yeah. Uh, sit with others. Don't—

when—

if, if possible. And I'm now sitting with an online group every morning.

Great.

What time is that? I want to put a link to it. Is that for anyone, or—

Yeah, for anyone. San Francisco Zen Center.

Fantastic.

It's, uh, 5:50 AM, but this is, this is California time. So there's two, uh, two 30-minute periods, one starting at 5:50 and the second one starts at 6:30, and there's usually, you know, 100 people sitting together.

Great. That's fantastic. Okay. So sit with others. That really helps, whether even if it's virtual.

Yeah. I do a Wednesday night sitting group, virtual now. Okay. 7 PM California time.

Awesome.

Now there's people coming on and sitting with me from Chile and New Zealand and the East Coast and Yeah, it's beautiful, beautiful thing. I think two things that I often recommend. One is if possible, and now it's very possible because of Zoom, to sit with others and do a retreat, do a, you know, ideally a 5-day or 7-day or 10-day, do something, a longer sitting will, I think, is a great way to experience meditation that you don't get from just from doing shorter, shorter periods.

The next question is from Marisol Thurman, LMSW, clinical social worker.

In your work with senior executives, have you found any differences in genders in the way that they accept or reject these kind of mindfulness teachings?

You know, not, not really. I mean, I could, you know, I think, I suppose in some way women probably tend to be more open to— I think men, again, this is kind of an overgeneralization, but often these generalizations have some truth to it, that, that men tend to want to have a harder time, maybe. But not, not so much. I think it's— I think these things are, are, uh, difficult for everyone. And yet, but as soon as you feel the benefits of these practices, they become a lot easier.

Have you dealt with people who are unwilling to take this practice seriously, and how do you convince them? And I know a lot of people answer, don't convince anyone.

Yeah, I would definitely not try and convince anyone. And I find it one of the most important things in the work that I do in the corporate world is people need to choose to be there. Occasionally, occasionally there'll be people who are coerced to being there because of their— and that's— and I don't usually try and convince them, but I always I remember doing a workshop with a group of doctors once in which there were many skeptical people in the beginning, but who— it was— that was— it's actually very satisfying when someone goes in with skepticism but willingness to try it and then comes out the other side saying, this was— this was my— I'm no longer skeptical.

I'm—

this was really important. I can see why this is important and I want to do this work.

And the last question is, how do you tell young people, like college kids and teenagers— this is such an unprecedented time for them— what is your go-to meditation or connection to mindfulness that you can, if you had to choose one thing, to tell them to do?

Oh, read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, or read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Maslow, Abraham Maslow's Toward a Psychology of Being, still, still good. But I think also, um, you know, try on having— find a group of people that you can sit with and people who you resonate with, and try and actually experience meditation practice.

But just in panic mode, connect to your breath? Would that be it?

In panic mode, yes. See what, um, see if it's possible to be curious about your panic.

Awesome. If you have any questions for my guests or myself, or suggestions for future guests and topics, Email me at podcast@mindbodyspace.com. Subject line: Listener question.

Thank you again.

This is Dr. Juna Bobby MD wishing you and your loved ones wellness.