Transforming Through Meditation

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Hey, it's JJ Virgin. And welcome to the JJ Virgin Lifestyle show where I talk nutrition, exercise and mindset with some of the coolest people in the world. Plus, I give you tips that you can put into fast action and to uplevel your health so that you can go out there and live that big life you're meant to live. Now, today's show is all about something that I've been putting off, procrastinating, been scared about. But I'm making the commitment today on the show that I am going to start meditating and I have someone I have an uber girl crush on who's going to teach me and that is Emily Fletcher. So I was fortunate to meet Emily at a fest in Mykonos, Greece this past summer. It was like one of those unreal experiences. Overall, it was me and Dr. Mark Hyman and Emily Fletcher and Robbie Richmond and Dave Asprey and my fiance Tim. And wow, we just had an amazing time and went and looked at ruins and were out on a beautiful boat and we were paddle boarding and the islands and it's just unreal. And I got a chance to really get to know Emily and she is just such a something else as you will tell from this interview today. But I've also made the commitment both here, as you'll hear coming up, and also on stage at my mindshare event that I am going to start doing this. So if you see me, if you're on social, you know, hold me to it. But I'm going to share my experiences as well. So I'm super excited about this. So I am going to tell you a little bit about Emily and then bring her on. Emily Fletcher is actually a Broadway star. She had a 10 year career on Broadway and was in Chicago, the Producers and my favorite of all time, a Chorus Line. And she's going to share with you how she made this transition and how meditation really saved her career there. And she spent nine years training in India and this gal's just fascinating. Anyway, she started the first world's first online training for people wanting to learn meditation called zivamind. She's created Ziva Meditation and what she really is doing. And when I saw her, I go, oh, my gosh. You're making this, like, easy for people to get. So her whole mission is to make meditation attractive and accessible to all of us who want to uplevel our performance and their lives. She's been featured everywhere. The New York Times, she's been named Top 100 Women in Wellness to Watch, and she's regarded as one of the leading experts in meditation. And she speaks all over the place. Harvard Business School, Dave's Bulletproof Biohacking Conference. Again, a Fest Omega, and the Global alliance for Transformational Entertainment with Eckhart Tolle. So she's now taught over 3,000 people and climbing how to meditate. Me soon to be added to the list. So I am super excited to share Emily Fletcher with you today. Okay, so let's do it. Emily Fletcher, welcome to the show. I am so glad you're here with me today.

What a delight. I'm such a fan of you.

Oh, gosh, you know, you're my big girl crush. Come on. All right, so let's talk about this, because I love the way that you take on meditation, because, you know, when we think of meditation, you think of someone, like, in a robe eating, you know, sprouts and chanting, and, you know, you're like, hip, cool, and you're making this fun and approachable. So, like, how did this happen?

So, yes, I believe that we meditate to get good at life, not to get good at meditation. You know, no one cares if you're a good meditator, and yet we all want to be better at life. So for me, personally, I was on Broadway for about 10 years, and it was my lifelong dream. But when I got there, it was actually the saddest I'd ever been because I realized at a pretty young age I was more interested in the happiness of pursuit than I was the pursuit of happiness. And so about 10 years after being on Broadway, I started having pretty bad insomnia. I started going gray at 26. I started getting sick and injured. So here I am, living my dream, doing the thing I've wanted to do my whole life, and I was miserable. So, thankfully, the girl sitting next to me in the dressing room, she was a meditator, and she was nailing her job, like, just crushing it. And I was like, lad, what do you know that I don't know? She said, I meditate. And I was like, come on, because this is 10 years ago, right? There wasn't as much neuroscience then as there is now. And then finally, my performance got so bad that I said, well, I have to try something. So I went to this intro to meditation talk. I signed up for this class. First day, first class, I was meditating. And then that night, I slept through the night for the first time in 18 months. And I have every night since. And that was almost 10 years ago. And then. Yeah, it's crazy. And then everything started getting better. I stopped getting sick. I stopped getting injured. I started enjoying my job. I stopped going gray, actually. And let's see.

My weight's better. My energy is better. My hair isn't going great. I don't know. I don't want to do it. Why would you not do this? Gosh, sign me up. Wow. And I kind of just threw that out there with weight because I heard you say you're sleeping. Well, I know how big sleep is for weight loss, but can this help with weight?

Yeah. So actually, when the body is stressed, it starts producing a lot of adrenaline and cortisol, and those things are acidic in nature. And when your body gets acidic over time, it gets inflamed. And inflammation is sort of the basis of all disease according to ayurvedic medicine. But not only that, when your body is stressed, it's basically preparing for a catastrophe. It's preparing to hunker down for the winter or preparing for some sort of a predatory attack. So when your body is in survival mode, it's using so much energy to basically prepare for this imaginary tiger attack that you. You don't have all of your physical and mental capabilities for the body to run its normal functions as they're meant. So when you start meditating, the adrenaline and cortisol goes away, body starts flooding with bliss chemicals, which are actually alkaline in nature, which not only help to reverse body age, but also help to reduce inflammation. And as I'm sure you know, and I'm sure lots of your fans know, that cortisol, it can lead to belly fat, right? Like, your body starts storing up for the winter when you've got too much cortisol. And meditation is one of the most powerful ways we know to get rid of that and pretty fast, too.

Oh, that's awesome. Now, what about a. Because you talked about your success story, and of course, the thing I hear is you stop turning gray. I was like, where was this four and a half years ago when my son was in the hospital? This is what I super needed, because I have no idea what color my hair is now, but I don't think it's. I Don't think it's this kind of bronze that I want it to be. So what have you seen? Like, what are some dramatic transformations that you've seen with some of your students? Because I know you've taught a ton of people meditation.

Yeah. I think we're at, like, 3,500. And it's been the most rewarding thing I've ever done. Waking up to emails from people saying, you know, I did lose weight. I stopped drinking so much. I started writing that book. I was able to handle this intense family situation more elegantly. But I'd say one of the most beautiful things was I've had two women come to me right after being diagnosed with cancer, and they started meditating before they did their treatment. And both of them said almost the exact same thing verbatim. They said, I didn't fight my cancer. I experienced my cancer. And I thought that was such an interesting way of framing it, because when you fight something, and I know you're all about strength, and I am too, but I think that there's simultaneously has to be a bit of surrender or acceptance. And both of them now are cancer free. They look amazing. And I'm not saying that that's attributed solely to meditation. Right. Like, they were still getting treatment, but what was helping was that the meditation was allowing them to heal and recover faster from the treatments. Like, both of their doctors said that they were recovering with flying colors.

Yeah. It sounds like it made the easier. And it's like, you know, yes, we're in this, and we're, you know, I consider you to be this, like, amazingly elegant, graceful, powerful woman, but there's a difference between fight and struggle and ease. Right. And it sounds like they went into this with grace and ease, which is a very different place of, I'm gonna fight this. Right. I mean that naturally, like, all your stress hormones are up and it's not the way you'd want to be.

Yes. That's really a good way of thinking about it, because then you're in Fight or Flight, and we want to be in Stay and Play.

Yes, we do. Gosh. So what about. You know, I'm looking at meditation, and I kind of threw it out there right at the start of, like, you're not wearing robes and chanting and, you know, drinking some weird tea and having sprouts. Like, what's the big miscut conception around meditation?

Okay. So even people who have never tried meditation before, I think a lot of people think that the point of it is to clear the mind or that the point is to give the mind a command to stop thinking. And I'm on a big mission to reframe this for people, because then what happens is we sit down in a chair, we close our eyes, and we go, okay, brain, stop thinking. I sure would like a snack. Oh, wait, no, no. I'm thinking. Oh, no, no. I'm thinking about how I'm thinking. And now I feel like I'm failing. And now I quit. And that is the beginning and the end of most people's meditation career. And it makes me sad because they're potentially robbing themselves of a lifetime of bliss and fulfillment. And the only reason that that's happening is that we're judging ourselves based on misinformation. Like, again, I believe that we meditate to get good at life. And it's not about giving your mind a command to stop, because the mind thinks involuntarily, just like the heart beats involuntarily. So imagine how ridiculous it would be to sit down in a chair and be like, okay, heart stop beating, or, hey, nails stop growing. Like, we get that those are involuntary actions, and we would never judge ourselves as a failure for not being able to stop those. And yet this is what most people are doing with meditation. And so once you learn that and once you see that thoughts are okay and that you're still going to get better at life, even if you're having some thoughts while you're meditating, then the whole thing becomes so much easier and so much more enjoyable, and then you're much more willing to commit to it.

So how hard is it to learn how to do this?

So I don't think it's hard at all.

It feels daunting. Just so you know, it feels like. It's like, ooh, this feels hard, you know, because, again, I always hear, well, you have to do two hours a day for four days straight, or you have to. I'm, like, going daunting. Daunting. Like.

So, two things. One, I think it feels daunting because people think that they should already know how to do it. They think it's, like, the skill that they should magically already have. So they just sit down and try to do it. But think. Imagine if I was like, okay, JJ, we're doing a Japanese challenge, and for 20 minutes a day, I want you to speak Japanese. Now, if you don't know how to speak Japanese, that's really dumb. And it's going to feel really frustrating, and it's going to feel daunting. But if you take some Classes and start to learn, then over time it's easier. And meditation is way easier to learn than Japanese.

That's good because I lived in Japan and I'm like, well, I could say sushi.

So basically it's like any other skill. It takes a little bit of training, a little bit of practice, and then you look forward to it. But the way and that's been our mission at Ziva is to make meditation accessible and attractive so you don't have to do it for two hours a day. And we created the world's first online meditation training. It's called Ziva Mind. And that is about 20 minutes a day of video training for eight consecutive days. And by the end of that, you have a practice to take with you for life and see, that's doable.

I mean, come on. Like, I looked at that and I went, oh, okay. And I think I've even committed to you on stage. And now again, okay, because that's, that's doable. And then once you have that in you, is it, is it something that every day is 20 minutes or it could be five minutes, or do you do it throughout the day? Like, then how does it fit into your life?

So, yeah, so once you graduate from the training, you have a self sufficient practice. And I recommend that people do it for 15 minutes in the morning before breakfast or coffee, and then 15 minutes at any point in that mid afternoon, early evening. Like, you know, when you have that mid afternoon slump and you want the coffee or the chocolate or the nap. I find that if you do a 15 minute meditation right there, you're basically recharging your brain and body. You're giving your body rest that's five times deeper than sleep. And so when you come out of that meditation on the other side, you have this whole third or fourth wind so that you can go to the gym, so that you can make dinner, so that you can enjoy your time with your family instead of just being like stressed and exhausted and just sit on the couch and put on some sweatpants. So even though I know it seems daunting, especially for high achievers and people who are busy, but what starts to happen is that your brain starts functioning so much more efficiently. You start executing so much more elegantly that then you actually can't imagine not meditating.

Yeah, so that's what I was going to ask is we talked about the health benefits. I mean, you kind of get people on weight loss and, you know, your hair not turning gray. But let's talk about willpower, decision making, focus all of that stuff, what's it do for that?

Great. So our mutual friend Dave Asprey gave this brilliant talk when we met in Greece and he likened the brain. He said your brain can either be like a golden retriever puppy or it can be like a well trained service animal. And if your brain is like a golden retriever puppy, then you're, it's like, have you ever watched someone walking a puppy? It's to the left, to the right, it lays on its back, you have to drag it along the sidewalk. And it's exhausting. And if we're having to do that with our brain and our willpower, it's exhausting if every time we see a cookie, we're like, I want to eat the cookie, don't eat the cookie. I want to eat the cookie, don't eat the cookie. After a few hours of that, your willpower and your decision making even is going to be exhausted. Now when you start meditating, it's like you're training your brain to turn into this like well trained service animal to where it's helping you to get to where you want to go instead of fighting you, right? So you start to get into that stay and play mode instead of fight or flight. So your brain can actually help facilitate you achieving your goals. So willpower is, you know, it's almost like a muscle and it can fatigue over time. And so if you're in fight or flight mode, then your body is basically saying to you, eat and sleep with and fight anything you can see, right? Like, stay alive at all costs. Now when you start meditating and you move into that stay in play mode, you don't need to eat everything you can see, you don't need to fight everything, you don't need to sleep with everything because you're not so worried about survival. Does that make sense?

Totally makes sense. Yes, absolutely. And I love the puppy example. That's just a perfect one. So now I'm going to switch, I'm going to switch gears here because if anyone's not sold on doing this at this point, I don't know what else to do. And I, you know, again, I've told you, I know this is, this is why, I mean, there's a lot of reasons I was drawn to you. You're just, you've like the best energy ever, but it's like, I know this is a big missing element for me. So again, I'm committing here that I can do it. And I love, I love the fact that you've got kind of A way to ease, to ease into this and do it, do it easily. Because I know you work with people one on one and you've got workshops and they can come in and do more intense. But for a lot of us, we just need to get into it. And I think I speak for, gosh, the world would be a better place if people were getting great sleep, drinking more water, eating their veggies and meditating. I think everyone would be a lot nicer. And I did Dave's 40 years of Zen that I think you're looking at. But my big thing after I left there was like, okay, what do I need to do now? Right. And this occurs to me that this was like the perfect thing that needs to come into play. So I'm super excited about that. Let's go over to you since I've had time to hang out with you and what I would love to quiz you on, I always do a little speed round is one piece of health advice that you are religious about that it's not meditation. So taking meditation off the table. What's another thing that you're just religious about doing?

So this is the simplest, easiest and cheapest thing that's had such an incredible impact on my body and my mind. And it's simply drinking a cup of hot water when I wake up in the morning, and then before meals when possible. It's like the cheapest Ayurvedic cure, but it's very detoxifying. And the best analogy I have is that it's like, you know, when you wash your dishes and you wash them with hot water and it scrapes all the gunk off. Well, the same thing can happen with hot water and your digestion. And so if you have hot water in the morning, it wakes up your digestion. It's very detoxifying. And it's actually easier for your body to absorb the hydration. And so that has been really game changing for me. I feel like my skin is better. I feel like I actually eat more intuitively because that heat from the hot water, it brings the blood out of your brain and into your gut. So you're not thinking about your choices as much as you're intuiting your choices. So that's been such a cheap and cheerful way to improve my health.

You know, it's interesting too. When I lived in Japan, we did that. That's just something they do every morning. Every morning they gave me hot water. I was like, huh? You know, I was looking at it going, all right, well, where's the coffee in that, but there was a method to it, so. Yes, that's one I forgot about.

Off of coffee. Then it's like you still have that ritual of the hot drink and the mug, and it's still like a sacred time.

Emily, did you just say wean off coffee?

I know. Don't tell me.

Stop it. Oh, and we were getting along so well, and then you said that. My goodness.

Oh, no. We're ending our bridge.

Yeah.

I don't even know what to do anyway. Oh, gosh. Okay, so I know people will want more from you, so where do they go to dive into Ziva Mind, which. And by the way, your website, everything that you do, it's just. It's just a. It's very real and approachable, and it's just beautiful. You've done a great job. So where should people go to start this relationship with you?

Thank you so much, jj. I really appreciate it. So, yeah, so people can go to Ziva. That's Z I V, as in Victor A, which is the Sanskrit word that means bliss. So just. Zivamind.com JJ so if people are listening to this, I'd love to give them a special offer. And I'm such a big fan of you. So anyone has been working with you. I really want to inspire them to start meditating. So they'll get a special $51 off. So it's zivamind.com JJ and that'll be around, you know, hopefully forever and ever. But we also have a free online masterclass coming up, and so there will be a link that I'll give you that if people want to join through that. I'm sure you'll put that up somewhere convenient for people.

Yes. So jump in there and get that, and then we can share our success stories. And thank you again so much for joining me. I'm excited because I know I get to hang out with you again soon, so what a treat. So now, after the break, before break, I'm going to be answering a listener's question, so stay with me.

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Welcome back. Now this is the time where I answer a listener's question. And today's question is a fun one. I'm going to kind of steer it around towards kids, too, and it comes from Connie. Listen up. Hi, jj. I know drinking warm lemon water every morning is really good for us. I also like to have green tea in the morning. I'm wondering if I can kill two birds with one stone and have a big mug of green tea with half a lemon squeezed in it. Is that as good as drinking lemon water? Thank you so much. Bye. So I'll tell you, hot water and lemon is a great way to start the day. And I actually love lemon water 30 minutes before a meal because lemon juice can help your body handle sugar better. Improves something called glucose tolerance. And of course, I love green tea because green tea is very calming. It's got theanine in it, it's got amazing antioxidants in it. It's got something called egcg. And EGCG can help your body burn fat better, can help improve insulin sensitivity. So lots of great stuff going on with green tea. My kids actually were drinking iced green tea. That's one of the things we've kept around the house. Sparkling min ice cream tea and water with fresh lemons and limes in it. So you know your kids will get used to what you put in the house. And of course, you don't want to get your kids started on caffeine necessarily. And so there is, of course, decaffeinated green tea for them as well. So I think this is a great way to go. And absolutely, you can have a big mug with half lemon, half green tea in it, see how you feel throughout the day in terms of drinking it throughout the day. I love to get people drinking a good amount of green tea throughout the day. I drink anywhere from 30 to ounces to 64 ounces of green tea a day. But I switch off to decaffeinated as it gets later in the day. And if you find that you're sensitive caffeine, if you're one of the slow caffeine metabolizers, you may find that you can only do it first thing in the morning so see what's right for you. But again, this is one of those things that can be easy to keep around the house for the kids. They have decaffeinated different types of them that are really yummy, like green tea with a tropical little essence in it. So this is another way to introduce your kids to healthy stuff rather than juice. Because juice is just like in fact, juice is even worse than a soda when you look at something like apple juice because it's got more fructose. So again, exposure equals preference. And I love that you're starting the day that way. And let's start the day with our.

Kids that way too.

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Question, just go to jjvirgin.com ask and.

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