69: How do Respect & Mindfulness go together with Holly Duckworth? Mike Domitrz asks from both...

Welcome to the Mutually Amazing Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Domitrz, with the Center for Respect. The episode you're about to listen to was recorded when this show used to be called the Respect Podcast. So, you might hear that mentioned during this episode. Well, let's get to the show. This week's guest is Holly Duckworth, CAE, CMP, LSP, and New York Times contributor, Host of the Everyday Mindfulness Show. That's a podcast for you podcast listeners and trailblazing keynote speaker and stress reduction coach. She works with stressed out people to find work-life integration. Thank you so much, Holly, for joining us.

Hi, Mike. It's good to be on the show.

It's great to have you on the show. So you have the Everyday Mindfulness Show. Some of my listeners are aware, I used to host that a while back. Now you run it. How's that going for you?

You know, it's, it's a learning process. It definitely is. We're over about 115 shows or so now. So, Just keeping the conversation going.

And you're all about mindfulness. So how does respect, how is it critical to mindfulness?

Oh, mindfulness is one of those weird words that we don't have one agreed-upon definition. And I think, you know, the more I was breaking down respect this morning in preparation for the show, I think there's probably some commonality with that, that there's not one agreed-upon definition of respect. But I think the intersection of these 2 concepts is the idea of awareness.

And so, can you dive deeper there? What do you mean the intersection? For some people, they might— first of all, let's start with what do you define as respect?

Well, you know, it's fascinating because I would have said to you respect is honoring somebody else, being aware of their presence. And yet, it was fun to work this morning with the word because it really says, you know, it's a feeling, it's a quality of achievement, admiration. And I don't know if I would have gotten there. I mean, there's a certain amount of work you have to do to To be respected. And I think in a world today, people should just be respected. So, I kind of thinking about that idea of is respect deserved or earned? And I think respect is, is kind of that state of awareness of being aware of other people's feelings and honoring them. You don't have to agree, but being aware and honoring the humanness in all of us.

Yes, we're, we're a huge believer in it's deserved. Otherwise, you're always trying— it's a power game. Otherwise, if I have to earn it, then somebody has power over whether I get respect it or not, versus we just treat everyone with respect, which is a very different awareness and mindfulness approach. So, how do you define mindfulness for listeners who have not gotten into mindfulness before? How do you define it?

Mindfulness, the practice of being present in the moment with non-judgment.

All right. So, there you go. So, if you have non-judgment, it's easier to give people respect because you're not looking down at them based on judgment. You're treating them as an equal, correct?

Yeah, it's that place of connection.

And where do you think people struggle at in trying to be mindful? Why is it such a struggle?

Because we live in a world that's 24/7, bigger, better, faster, more. It's all about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. I think people struggle with mindfulness because they're, they're so overprogrammed to be on to the next thing. And I think just even that moment To breathe, pause, and center can bring us to a place of remembering ourselves, respecting ourselves, and bring respect to the human family as we move about our workday and our personal life.

What are steps people can take to recognize, first of all, when they're not being mindful?

I think you can recognize when you're not being mindful in that state of hurriedness. Oh, I lost my keys. Oh, I forgot this. Oh, I'm not connecting to someone. I think you can recognize mindfulness if you find yourself in a state of panic, stress, or overwhelm, not enough hours in the day.

And then what are the steps people should take in those moments to try to create some mindfulness?

You know, I think it's Thich Nhat Hanh that has the quote, or maybe it's even Deepak Chopra, where if you don't have time to meditate 5 minutes a day, then you need to do an hour. It's taking mindful pauses within the framework of your day. So I teach applied mindfulness for leadership. So I say, find a moment to stop and breathe in your car, even if that's at a stop sign. Pause, be fully present at the stop sign, bring in the red, you know, red power of the stop sign. Or if you're between business meetings, or, you know, today you're recording a lot of podcasts, go take a second, wash your hands, feel the stress and the overwhelm, but literally see yourself washing it down the drain. Those are great. Those are a couple of unique techniques that don't require you to sit on a yoga mat or even do a long meditation, but just get yourself back linked into the moment.

Is it possible some people can't recognize what the stressor is?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, we live in a world that's told us to go faster and almost to the point of being numb, have that glass of wine or watch that movie or do that action that keeps you in that place of stress, overwhelm, and anxiety. So yeah, we're not conditioned as a— people to slow down and respect each other, be aware of one another, and be fully present with one another.

So how do you, how do you help that person even recognize what the stressor is? You know, you're saying wash that away. How do they recognize even what that is?

In my keynotes, I think oftentimes it's just literally having them put their feet on the ground, put their pen down or their iPad down or their, you know, their device down and breathe back into their To their body. We've got to get reconnected to ourselves. And it's almost that hard stop. Wait a minute, what am I doing here?

So they're breathing, they're trying to quiet the brain, but they're hearing a lot of noise in there, right? Things are saying, no, I need to do this, I need to do that. What do they do in those moments?

I like to say you give the monkey a cookie and set it on the shelf. So for some people, they can literally do that. They just, you know, stop, breathe, center. For others, they have to write all that stuff down. Thank all that stuff, the monkey mind, the overwhelm mind for showing up. Put it aside and just 2 minutes, 2 minutes, 2 minutes, 2 minutes to breathe. Some people, they have to write it down and capture it. Others, they can just let it go. But those are 2 different practices that invite people to say, wait a minute, this is not sustainable. And we know that this busy, hurried life isn't sustainable because we've got more people committing suicide, more people having divorces, heart attacks, health challenges. As a result of not slowing down to take care of themselves and be fully present, respecting themselves and the other person.

And so let's dive into this a little bit more on that end. Why do you think people fail to respect the need for just quiet and being able to just think or have no thoughts? That's where I think people get confused. Like, why do I need to have no thoughts?

It's that race consciousness, that society thing. We, from the minute we're born, told we need More doing, more achieving, more attainable. So we reward, and in your word, respect people who get all the accolades, who have the busy calendar. So we're actually a culture of architects of busyness versus architects of quiet. So as small communities first, larger communities, we need to build a state of—

Quiet.

gratitude and appreciation for and reward and recognize people for taking those small moments rather than punish them for taking their vacation or taking their time off. We do live in a society that often does not reward and actually punishes people for doing calm, peaceful, centering things that make them more productive, more focused, and better able to perform in the world.

So if somebody's saying, yeah, but where I work doesn't value that, so how can I just do that at work? How do I communicate that with Management or leadership, or how do I even help my spouse realize this is valuable if I say I need this quiet time? How do we help others realize the importance of it?

Baby steps. I think it's, you know, it's kind of different at home and at work while they're the same principles. I think it works. Sometimes we have to stop asking permission and almost ask forgiveness to try these things within the framework of your day. The writing the little gratitude list or, you know, Doing the 5-minute mindful walk, taking your lunch break, and then, you know, continue to perform at the same levels. We have to demonstrate that in the workplace, that this letting go of the stress actually makes me a better writer or a better producer, better able to connect to my customers. You know, and at home, I think it's a, it's a little bit safer place to have a candid, respectful conversation. I'm feeling X. I'd like to replace the feeling of X with the feeling of Y. How can we work together as an individual, a couple, or a family to create more moments of calm versus more moments of chaos. So while I certainly specialize in doing those conversations in the workplace, it sometimes is— you're going to have to do it for a while and try it and see the results. I like to say that mindfulness is a practice. It's not perfect, and it's no different than brushing your teeth. You know, we do it every single day for a few minutes, and certainly we receive the health benefits of that. That same thing is true for mindfulness.

And so, if someone is being disrespected, let's say, in the home or in the workplace, how, with a more mindful approach, what do you teach them to do in those moments? You know, what do you do if someone's disrespecting you with a mindfulness approach, right? Because a mindfulness approach isn't just going to snap in theory, it's going to be thoughtful in its response. So, how does somebody do that?

First, you've got to be in the moment. And a great activity for this sometimes is stepping away from the heat of the moment Doing a journaling activity. What am I feeling right now? What would I like to be feeling right now? And, you know, I do this at work. I do it at home. I'll write what I call an angel letter, and I will write out, this is what I want to have happen. And you'd be surprised when you get really calm, really centered, and really clear about what you're feeling, release it, and what you want to create instead. And then go approach that person from this new kind of place of clarity. You know what, Jim? I recognize that we had a Heated conversation. As a result of that conversation, I walked away feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, anger. You know, I know that we're on the same team here because we're on the same company working for the same particular project. How can we unify together to create positive, easeful, you know, outcomes for this project and really create a dialogue? Well, I've been thinking, I've been feeling, I think Action A, action B, action C could work. But that pause moment to get clear in yourself and be respecting of yourself brings more respect to the coworker in this case. Could certainly be your partner at home.

So, if the person's like, wait a second, I don't even understand why you were upset. Because people can do that, right? You can say to someone, you know, I responded, I got upset, I got angry. It's like, well, yeah, what did I do to make you angry? You know, they take it very personal. So, while you're being mindful, they can still take it personal. So, what do you do in that moment?

You know, this is that gift of listening that we don't do as a society. Help me understand, just like you do here on the show. Help me understand. Let's go a little deeper. Like, and, but be respectful enough to give somebody that space of time and honor their boundaries, that what you're feeling is valid. I think so often in our society, we, Disrespect or, you know, disvalue somebody's feelings. Well, you shouldn't feel that way. You can't feel that way. Well, no, actually, I am entitled to my feelings just as the other person is. But coming at it from that place of a listening heart, which is slightly different than a listening ear. I think often, oh yeah, I hear you, I hear you, I hear you. But am I really truly listening? And when we can get to that place, we can bring more mindfulness and respect.

So why do you think respect is deteriorating for a lot of components of our society? It feels like there's not respect there. It feels like we have to work to get it there. Why do you think that's occurring?

I think it goes all the way back to the dissolving of the family, dissolving of the community, dissolving of that human skill of taking care of Of one another. You know, clearly the world is whipping us up in fear right now from, you know, DACA to drugs to presidential issues to global warming to war, that, that, that fear that we're constantly in the soup of is making disrespect okay. It's making it normal to just— Bulldoze over the other person. And I think if we could go back to slowing down, to being respectful of families, even in the new dynamic of families, you know, we don't have that, you know, 2.3 children and a white picket fence family anymore. We can't go back and get that, but we can honor and respect how the family's evolved, respect our schools and our teachers and kind of how we're growing. That's why I think mindfulness is such a huge and growing trend in every level of the education system right now. That I think respect is deteriorating because that, that idea of a family and human connection is deteriorating because of technology. We don't have to connect anymore. We don't have to go to the grocery store. We don't have to be, be together. And so the less we are together, the more it's just easy to be disrespectful of one another.

And so with that, and how easy it is to do that, what do you think is going to be needed to create that movement, that shift in society?

You know, it's shows like this, it's conversations like this, where we get the opportunity to respect one another. And I think, you know, part of what your work, especially in keynotes, is, is also teaching people to agree to disagree, agree to honor the humanness. You know, in one of my programs, I know we just have everybody breathe together and go back to that core center of what do we have in common? versus what do we not have in common? So, I mean, I think a real pause to say, are we liking the direction we're going as a human family or do we not? And for good or for bad or for interesting, clearly every 4 years, at least in the borders of America, we get the opportunity to be a witness to this conversation as a collective. And I'm excited to see where our conversations as a human family go. Are we going to continue to divide or are we going to continue to unite in a respectful way, even though we may not agree with everything that our neighbor says, our government says, our schools say, but that there's this greater cause for human good that we can create together.

I love that. And in your work, have you experienced times where disrespect was blatant? You had mentioned to me once that as, as a woman author, you had different experiences. So how did that show up for you on that journey?

Well, I mean, I think it's sad that we still have these divides, whether it's woman or man or purple people or orange people, or I believe this or I love this person or that person. And I think for me, it shows up just being the mindfulness expert in my face a lot as the opportunity to ask the question, what's going on here? I'm excited and also concerned. All of the corporations now are doing all this diversity and inclusion training and bias training and all these things. And while there's a great message of trying to teach people these skills of respect, part of it is living these skills of respect. So, you know, as a woman author, I had to overcome that challenge and, you know, continue to do so each day. And it's, you know, we have to celebrate, you know, more women now are getting stage time. They're, you know, writing award-winning books and be willing to be that that trailblazer to say, this is not working, and how can we create ways to make it work?

So, what are ways that you felt there was not respect as an author who is a woman, that it wasn't there? Because you said, as a woman author, you know, I did have to be mindful of what was taking place in that moment. And some people might not recognize it, might be like, well, what do you mean? How would it be different for a woman author? So, could you explain some examples so people might realize ways that they may do something similar, even if they're not doing it to an author, they could be doing it to somebody else?

Well, I mean, there's obviously the pay disparity that often shows up, access to resources, editors, technology, distribution channels. And these things are softening a bit. I mean, I wrote my first book in 2014. So, you know, things are changing. But I think if we're looking for places that we may be disrespectful, it's Listening to your gut. You know, did I say or do something to somebody that has a different outward appearance than my own? And, you know, I joke about this in my program. You know, while mindfulness is the practice of being present in the moment without judgment, human beings are wired for judgment. So, you know, I get up there and I say something like, now I know I walked out here and some of you are saying, God, I really love her shoes, and some are going, God, I really hate her shoes. That I think we can increase our level of respect when we notice what we're noticing and honor that we, we might accidentally fall into that place of judgment or disrespect and make it right over and over and over again as a practice, you know, and forgive yourself and have compassion for those moments where you may judge and be disrespectful, but come at it again and try again and again and again.

You really work on trying to provide people resources To explore mindfulness, to explore being respectful, what are ways you do that? What are some of your favorite resources? And what are ways you help connect people to resources of leading and living a mindful, a mindfulness life?

Well, I like to, first of all, sort of take away some of the woo-woo and the, you know, I'm afraid of mindfulness is spirituality or religion. So that's usually my first barrier is, you know, mindfulness is a non-secular, non-religious type of thing. And, you know, some of my favorite resources for that can just be found within yourself and inviting people to breathe and, oh, and in some cases, take things that they may have thought were religious and bring them into a secular environment. My singing bowl is kind of becoming this famous thing because it often will trigger people. Oh my God, she's going to do this religious chant. And I don't. I mean, I just, I ring the bowl and I talk about the scientific energy changes. Some of my favorite resources for mindfulness in business are the book Search Inside Yourself, which is by Chade-Meng Tang, the CEO of— the chief jolly good fellow at Google. I love some of the books by the people at Aetna and some of those research. The Center for Mindfulness Studies is another great one. Then, of course, my podcast. After we made the transition on the podcast, I wrote a book called Everyday Mindfulness: From Chaos to Calm in a Crazy World. It's a daily reader that invites people to setting a daily intention and then working to live that intention. If we can set our energy every day to be more respectful, more kind, more joy-filled, we can invite more kindness and joy and intentionality into our world. So that's, that's a couple of the resources that I love.

And so how can people find your show?

You know, hollyduckworth.com is a great way. And then of course, The Everyday Mindfulness Show Um, just that, everydaymindfulnessshow.com.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Holly, for joining us.

You're welcome. Thank you, Mike. Keep doing what you're doing.

Absolutely. And once again, everybody, that's— you can find hollyduckworth.com. Super easy, just like it sounds. We'll have all of this in the show notes. And for our listeners, you know what's coming up next. That is question of the week. And this week's question is, hey Mike, what is an exercise you've done that really helped you understand you and your mission on this planet? And for me, that is an easy answer because it was such a powerful exercise. It's actually a book that takes you through the exercise. It's called Your Unique Ability, Unique Ability. And what it really helps you understand is what, since you've been a child, since you've been born, has shown to be your innate talent and skill that you continually can hone and work on to give back to this world that creates a natural high in your life and serves others. And it will be there all of your life when you do the digging. And it's a cool thing. The book is Unique Ability. It'll take you on this journey that is so powerful. I'll tell you mine. Yours will be different because everybody's is different because it's your unique ability, not mine. And mine is mine, not yours. Mine is to create aha moments that uncover discoveries. To create aha moments and uncover discoveries. And I love doing that as a child. When I would perform, I loved seeing the audience have the aha, the light bulb go off. And as an adult, I love whether I'm on stage or I'm being interviewed on TV, I love when I see the light bulbs go off and people going, whoa, I never thought of that before. And it's not anything to do with what I said that gets the high off that. It's watching that experience for the audience. for that person, seeing that aha moment that creates a discovery for them. I love it. If I'm with my family traveling, I love it when I've planned something, I get to see them have the aha moment of, wow, this experience we're having. It just puts me on another high. And so, it applies to my work, my personal. I hope you'll check it out. It's such a powerful concept. Unique Ability is the book. We'd love to hear your questions, your thoughts, and your ideas. And the best place to leave those with us is on our Facebook page. At facebook.com/MutuallyAmazingPodcast. Of course, you can always contact us on our website at mutuallyamazingpodcast.com. Remember to subscribe to this show so you automatically get it every week. And if you could take one moment to leave a review, that really helps other people find the show, which we are greatly appreciative of. So thank you so much for joining us. May you make today and every day a life full of mutual mutually amazing relationships.