Wellness Force Radio 067 - Vipassana Meditation: A Spartan Race For The Mind

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They're not just trackers. I'm gonna wear this and it's gonna help me do the right thing. Wellness force radio episode 76 with guest host, fitness and wellness celebrity Scott Colby as he interviews me about my 10 day Vipassana meditation experience. Honestly, in my life I've done a lot of physical things like marathons, races, lifting, you know, different kind of challenge races. But this was one of the hardest things I've ever done because it was so dependent on just the mind. Typically when we work out when we're going through kind of physical pain, you can push through it because there's a stimulus there. Well, when you sit in silence, the hardest part about it is that there's absolutely nothing to do besides face your thoughts, face your feelings, and face what's going on inside. Welcome back to another episode, my friend. I am your host and wellness coach, Josh Trent. Thank you for spending your time with me here on the podcast. This is where every week I bring you access to global experts in wellness, technology and behavior change. On this podcast, you'll learn from exceptional people who are dedicating their lives to driving real transformations in physical and emotional wellness. My intention with the show is that together we'll discover the connections between your emotions and healthy habits to live your best life and enjoy the process. For episode 76, we're talking with my good friend, fitness and wellness personality and celebrity Scott Colby. And Scott is going to interview me on my recent 10 day silent retreat meditation Vipassana Experience in 29 Palms, Joshua Tree, California. Now, today's show is for you. If A, you've never meditated in your life and you think meditating is something that you've always wanted to try, or B, you've been meditating for months or years and are looking for that next step on how to grow your practice. Then you're going to get a lot from today's episode. I'm going to go real deep into what I learned, what came up for me during the process. And I'm most excited, honestly, that I just finished. I can't believe I'm done. So, yeah, my friend, I did it. I made it through 10 days of silence, over a hundred hours of meditation. And on this episode, I'm gonna share what a Vipassana is. This logical process of mental Refinement through self observation. It's a mental spartan race for training the mind and, and this training builds those synapses in the brain that deal with delayed gratification. This piece for delayed gratification is gonna be a big focus in the conversation today and how that relates to any wellness goal, whether it's letting go of weight, getting more energy or showing up better in our relationships. I'm releasing this episode because I had literally almost a hundred people that reached out to me that wanted to hear how the experience was, if they should do it. Wondering and curiosity came up in all these text messages, social notifications and emails. So I thought, you know what, this is perfect. It's something that I'm passionate. How do we become this better version of ourselves? So much of wellness force is behavior change and wellness and technology. Well, this is one of the oldest technologies on the planet. It's over 2,500 years old and it still has the same solutions for these universal human problems that we all experience with universal truths. So in this episode we'll talk about delayed gratification, how this ability to resist temptation for immediate reward can build our brain and make us 10 times more happy. We'll talk about the four ways to alter positive wellness that'll raise our levels of well being that I learned through the Vipassana course. We'll also discuss the 10 qualities for increasing our wellness by the art of living. The Vipassana is the art of living. We'll talk about those qualities and then we'll wrap up the show by discussing Scott's project where he's partnered with Pencils for promise to give kids in Guatemala new schools, giving thousands of dollars through his Indiegogo campaign. Say it with gratitude stationary sets. I'm going to be linking that in the show notes today@wellnessforce.com grateful so I'm grateful you're here. Let's get into the conversation with Scott. Scott, thanks so much for being the interviewer. I am so stoked to be the guest man.

I can't believe I am chosen to be the guest of the Wellness Forest podcast. How am I gonna live up to your name and your reputation, Josh?

Well, people don't know this but you have been one of my mentors from afar for a long time. You know, with all your work in fitness. We'll talk at the end of the show about the ultimate gratitude summit interview that I did with you. We're also gonna talk about your gratitude on Indiegogo. Your say it with gratitud but I'm stoked to be the guest, man. So we're talking about my Vipassana experience today. Why you get to do a 10 day vipassana and how this is going to positively, and I say positively with huge big bold letters impact your life. So Scott, thanks so much, man.

Yeah, man. And the first thing I want to get out there, I was a little bit worried I wasn't going to be able to pronounce the word right. Vipassana.

I know it's kind of a funny. I think it's Sanskrit, Indian. The whole history with vipassana is this is like a 2,500plus year old practice practiced in the Buddhist tradition. It was practiced in the Tibetan tradition, also in Chinese, but it was lost to humanity for a long time. And Gautama the Buddha is actually the one 2,500 years ago that started this practice. And I had interviewed a couple guests on the show and had a friends here in San Diego that took it and had phenomenal results. Her name is Sarah. Shout out to Sarah Maxwell. She's a mindfulness meditation teacher. And so many guests, Scott, that came on the show just, I felt poked by the universe, like, do I need to explore this Vipassana thing? So over the past six months, man, I've been and like researching it and seeing like, hey, do I really want to do this thing? I had heard some really great stories. I had heard some people that had some challenges that went through it and I just felt called to it, man. I don't know if you've ever had something where you don't know why you want to do it. You just feel magnetically drawn to do.

It not to that extent of your 10 day experience, which I definitely want to get into the details of that because that's why people are listening to this episode. Everybody kept asking you like what Josh? What was it like? But what I wanted to start both really into things like meditation and gratitude and doing that on a consistent daily basis for the most part. And I know a lot of people out there are starting to do that as well. But going on a 10 day meditation experience, taking it to a whole new level. My first question was what was going on in your life to draw you to this 10 day Vipassana experience versus just kind of continuing with the daily meditation and the gratitude practice that both you and I do.

I love this question, man. I feel like we're in the coffee shop right now. So thank you for. That was a perfect question. And I'm thinking about the things that led up to the Vipassana is that I'm a curious wellness coach. I'm a curious wellness curator and content creator. This is what I do. Like, I'm really interested in how do I become this continuous greater version of myself. And I know that most of the people that are listening, that are even interested in personal development or wellness or meditation at all, kind of have that seed, that spark in the middle of their chest to constantly show up in a greater capacity. And that was me. I, earlier this year had broken up with a woman. I still deeply care and love for her. And there was a lot of questions and pain that I was exploring from that breakup. And also I had some health struggles as an entrepreneur, you know, building this wellness force, this online business, and so many other awesome projects that I have going on right now. There was a lot of stress, Scott, and I was dealing with the demands of human life, which we all deal with. And that was how do I maintain my equilibrium? My equanimity is one of the terms we'll discuss today. Amongst the storm, amongst breaking up in real life things where health issues occur, in building a business and coaching with clients and so many things, man, I felt like I was in a little rowboat. And you know that scene in Good Will Hunting where Will is in the office, the picture of the boat, he's looking at Robin Williams and he's like, yeah, you're in the boat and you're rowing, but you're kind of scared and you don't know what's going on right now. I mean, I had many moments like that in 2016. And I think the real epoch, the transition that said, okay, I'm just going to sign up for this thing is I had interviewed Karan Bajaj on the podcast and he is the author of Max's Yoga of Discontent. And in this he describes his vipassana meditation through this fictional character. And all the insights and all the things that he transcended through really what I describe as some Spartan race training for the brain. I mean, really training the brain. And I'll share in my experience about delayed gratification and how this can affect everything that we do, man, from the way that you and I are talking right now, to the way that I work with clients, to the podcast that I put out, to my physical health, to my social competence. I mean, that was the turning point. I had gone through some struggles on my own. I had experienced a lot of stress that I didn't know what was coming and we never do. And so I got to this point where I Said, okay, I'm going to do this vipassana. And it was incredible. I'm so excited to talk about it.

Yeah. And I love it because when most of us go through things like breakup or health issues or stress in our job, we just try to, I don't know, like face it head on or we don't really take a step back like you did. And like, I'm guessing you took a step back in these 10 days and you were able to really reflect and learn a lot about yourself. And I feel like if we break up with somebody or we have health issues, we just normally go on with our day to day routine. We might get back into a new relationship or we might try to, you know, change our eating habits or exercise. Exercise habits. But what you did was actually take a step back and you went within and I'm sure you learned a lot about yourself which we're going to hop into. I want to start off by asking you this question because I run unplugged adventure trips and where we do not as long as you and not as intense as what you did, I think.

Yours are more fun.

We do take away technology from the participants and so the thing is when they first get in, we take away their cell phones and they're almost like shaking like can I actually do this and live without my technology for four days? What was the first, when you first arrived there, what was the first thing you felt and saw? What was that first hour like?

Well man, the week before I was nervous, I'm not going to lie. I was like up at night and I was thinking about, I was already pre contemplating like, okay, how long am I going to last? Am I going to make it? I don't want to let my friends down. I don't let myself. Mind was already spinning like a locomotive before I got there. And then I took a deep breath when I pulled into the parking lot. It was about a two and a half hour drive from San Diego. I drove up, it was 107 degrees outside. I was just thinking, what am I doing? And I get there and I realized like, okay, this is really happening. And I started to feel a little bit of panic because for me, like you Scott, you know, we talk to a lot of people, we interact with a lot of people. Part of our gregarious nature is that we're outwardly projecting positive energy and we're communicating and connecting well for these 10 days there's some hardcore rules that you get to abide by and one of those is not speaking to any other human for 10 straight days. The second rule is you are not allowed to do any exercise, which for me, oh, I mean, that's the way that I really medicate myself. So that was a struggle. You're also not allowed to eat any meals for dinner. So you only eat two meals a day. You do these 14 hour, 19 hour fasts and that helps with the purification of the meditation. You're also not allowed to touch, communicate, hand gesture. Look, basically you are cut off all sensory communication with other people. So the only time that you're allowed to speak is one specific hour during the 10 days. And you can sign up for like a five to a 10 minute conversation with the teacher, which I definitely did. So it's all about cutting away all sensory, whether it's communication or visual. And you only get to do basically three things. You get to eat, you get to breathe, and you get to sit. And that's about it. And then when you're exhausted, you can go to sleep. So pretty hardcore rule structure. And what came up for me when I started was, am I going to be able to do this thing?

You signed up for a 5 to 10 minute conversation with one of the instructors. What was that conversation like?

Oh, man, it was, I think, day three. And part of the process was that you sit in silence and in silence with no movement, by the way. What came up for me was a lot of anger around the rules because I've always been the kind of person that questions the rules. I grew up, I was the comedian in high school. I was voted class clown. So I was always the kid on the outside of the building that was, you know, sent outside. So I always questioned things. I always wanted to kind of express myself. And here in this situation, I was not allowed to do that. And that brought up a lot of things for me. And so I would go to the teacher and ask him, why can't we work out? Can you explain to me the methodology and the exact logical reason of why we can't work out? And his answers were really simple. He said, you're here to meditate and to look within and you're here to feel whatever it is that you cannot feel when you're doing those things in life, even if they're healthy for you or not, that are covering the voice of what's really in there. And so begrudgingly I was like, okay, I get it, I get it. I'll just, I'll go back to my meditation. Thank you. And then I would come up to them in other points with philosophical Questions like the fact that they don't claim to have any denomination. You can go and do the meditation there of any faith. There's no religious connection to any of this process. And they also talk about how they don't subscribe to any particular food philosophy. However, all the meals were vegetarian, which kind of struck a chord in me. So I would go to him and say, well, why are the meals vegetarian? And don't you know about the closed organic cycle? And so just really like my logical mind wanting to have answers. One of the things that they practice is they don't harm any being. So the meals, by the way, Scott, these two meals a day, they were 100% vegetarian. And I am not a vegetarian man. So the challenge for me was eating like a breakfast of oatmeal, which I can't even tell you the last time I've eaten oatmeal for breakfast. So no eggs, no chick, and no protein sources whatsoever, except for, you know, these cakes of marinated teriyaki tofu, which I couldn't even. I couldn't do it. I stayed away from it. But that was. That was kind of the conversations I had with the teacher. But with that said, no negative light of the experience. I was extremely grateful for the food that I did receive, and I paid nothing for the course. This course is funded 100% donation.

Before we go into like your 10 days, I want to acknowledge what you did because. Because this is so uncomfortable for anybody to do this. I'm sure it's a very uncomfortable experience. You felt that uncomfort, as you were the week beforehand, whether you could actually do it. But that's a lesson learned here. We grow as people and we become better people when we do stuff that are uncomfortable, whether it's doing something you did, starting a new business.

Amen.

Which we both have done. Starting a podcast. You need to get uncomfortable in order to grow and do good things in the world. World. And just wanted to acknowledge just that component of it. And hopefully that will help other people out there that are contemplating doing things that are uncomfortable but are a little bit scared to take that step.

Thank you so much, man. I received that. Yeah. It was. Honestly, in my life, I've done a lot of physical things like marathons, races, lifting, different kind of challenge races. But this was one of the hardest things I've ever done because it was so dependent on just the mind. Typically when we work out, when we're going through kind of physical pain, you can push through it because there's a stimulus there. Well, when you sit in silence, the hardest part about it is that there's absolutely nothing to do besides face your thoughts, face your feelings, and face what's going on inside. So that was the ultimate challenge. And I was really proud of myself when I was finished. I mean, this is no joke. This is absolutely no joke. Whether you're a beginning meditator or a seasoned meditator, the space that you're in and the things that you're focused on and the things that you can't go to that are typically covering up. All these thoughts that we have, there's no way to get away from them. You're gonna face whatever is inside of you that has always been there, but you weren't aware that it was there. And it's really scary at some points, too.

Did they teach you how to meditate and how to breathe and you know what to do if certain thoughts came up in your head?

Yep. So the course started the first three days, Scott, all we did was we focused on this technique where you have this imagina triangle from the bridge of your nose to the corners of your mouth. And it was just the sensations. One of the things they go over in this course so much is sensations, sensations. So before we have any thought, before we react, before we do anything at all, there's always a sensation that exists in the body. And so we started training for these three days to just feel a sensation in this little golden triangle from the tip of the nose to the corners of the mouth. And I'm talking three days of just breathing and respiration. And all you get to do is focus on your breathing and respiration so that those first three days I'm going to be. They were the hardest I've ever experienced of anything I've ever done, because all I had was my breath. I'm sitting on this little meditation stool. My hips are hurting. I've never sat for this long in my life. I mean, I can't go an hour sitting right now. So that was the hardest part, man. And they told us in these moments, the training is for the delayed gratification muscle to be built to be able to make your brain in these synapses stronger is just to be the observer. Just notice. Just notice that your hip hurts. Notice that your mind is wandering. Notice that your back. Notice that your back feels like someone smeared Icy Hot on it and you can't move. Just notice. Just notice all of these things and train that part of your mind that observes. And that was kind of the methodology they gave us to Be the observer.

Was there any point in time where you wanted to quit or are you even allowed to quit? Pick up and lean, you're allowed to quit.

I mean, they're not gonna. They're not gonna chase after you, but they make you go through this process in the beginning where they tell you five times, are you sure you want to do this? Because a lot of people do quit. You know, a lot of people are just. They just can't handle it. The mental load is incredible. And so I told myself, you know what? I want to do this because not only does this represent what I want to be as a person, which is this constant version who's going up levels and bettering themselves, but I just want to do this because this is my mission. I mean, I want to serve a million people to better wellness. And that's my goal. So I figured, hey, if I'm going to walk and talk, they better be in alignment. And so that's kind of in the back of my mind. I'm like, this is not just about me. I'm not just doing this vipassana for me. I'm doing this so that I can share my experience with other people. So I made my experience not about me from the beginning. I think that was a big piece. People that are going into this, you know, understand that you're going to learn things about yourself, but be really clear on your purpose first and make this not about you. Make it about how you can serve more and do more for others when you get out. So that was huge for me. But I'm not going to lie. On day seven, I literally was like packing my bag. Because seven days of not working out, Scott, I felt like I was a canary in a coal mine. Just cracked out. So this one moment I thought, okay, I'm going to go outside and just sit. And I sat on this rock, rock, and I watched the sun go down. And I said, you know what? I'm gonna make it. Like, you know, all the Les Brown videos, all the motivational speeches from Tony Robbins, I just started playing those in my mind. And each hour of that seventh day. Cause day three was gnarly. Day three was heavy. Day six was intense. But day seven for me, I was like, okay, I've made it this far. I'm just going to do this day one hour at a time. And I think we've all been there, you know, whether it's a job that we might not want to be in or whether it's a physical thing, like we're in a Race, there's one more mile. I just took it one hour at a time because that was this little goal setting process. And at the end of the day, I made it. I made it all the way until the end of the day. And I went to bed and I was like, you know what? I only have two more days. I'm just gonna be here for the experience. But I almost lost my mind, man. Or maybe I did, I don't know.

With that day of seven where you thought about quitting, what can you share with our audience who are going through some tough times and just want to just give up sometimes? What do you want to tell those people?

Yes. So delayed gratification, this is the training that I think is gonna save us. Especially since technology is such a big focus in our society. And I think technology is awesome. But what technology is training us for if we're not mindful and we're not using the tech to be mindful is instant gratification. So we get to be really mindful about not only our physical training, but our mental training, man, you know, this ability to resist temptations for these immediate rewards and wait and just be patient. The art of patience, the art of living. I mean, there's so many times in our lives we all experience in relationship, in jobs, whatever we're doing where we just want what we want and we better have it right now. And we're going to be upset if we don't. Well, that just impacts the amygdala. That makes us go into cravings, that makes us go into anger and aversion. And this is the part, I mean, we have biceps, we do bicep curls, this delayed gratification piece for the mind, this creating these strong synapses that just completely support delayed gratification. That's the point. You know, I'm sitting in this moment on day seven and I'm thinking, why am I here in the first place? Like, why the hell am I even doing this? Because you get to that point, Scott, like there's many moments where you feel physically in the body sick. I mean, I felt physically sick. There was nights I couldn't sleep and I wondered, like, why am I putting myself through all this pain? And then I realized, because it's not about me, it's about getting myself stronger so I can help other people. And I think all of us can relate to that. You know, we're doing what we're doing sometimes for others and in the service of other people. It's not always fun, it's not always Sexy, but it's reconnecting to why the heck we're doing it in the first place. And so that's what this training, this vipassana training really took me back to. It's why am I doing what I'm doing? And I know that if I take a deep breath right now and if I connect with that, that's going to eat up some time and that's going to let the craving or the aversion go away. Because essentially, man, I mean, cravings last, no matter if it's a discomfort or a food craving or anger. Three to five minutes. We have three to five minutes where we feel things really intense. And then if we can just sit in the moment of discomfort instead of checking Facebook, instead of calling a friend, instead of getting something to eat, instead of doing anything to distract us and just like sit there, just really sit there. There's gifts in that moment. There is such gifts in that moment. So that's on day seven. That's kind of where I came to.

Yeah. And I love your lessons on delayed gratification. Really resonate that with the unplugged adventures that I do when we just were always connecting, we always want to know the answer right away. Hop online and find out what everybody else is doing and connect with yourself and other people and just let that stuff go and be in the moment. And also us coming from the fitness background, we've both worked with clients who, who maybe have been overweight for years. And after one week of doing your program, they're like, where are the results? I'm like, wait a minute. You've had bad lifestyle habits for years and you want quick results in just a few days. And so that message of delayed gratification really resonates with me and Josh. You've talked about some of the challenges that you've had. Vegetarian diet was the only food you were able to eat sitting still. What would you say was the biggest challenge during these 10 days and how did you overcome it?

You know, the biggest challenge for me was the schedule. And I am an entrepreneur. So even though I get a lot done, I have a little bit of flexibility in my day. So, I mean, this. This is crazy. Scott. 4am, this gong rings and it's almost like this, like, nightmare where I'm like, am I really awake right now? And then they ring the bell and you get up, you meditate from 4:30 to 6:30. You have a breakfast at 6:30. At 8 you go back to a group meditation. Then you meditate for two hours in the hall again with a blanket, because it's. Then you get lunch at 11. So the only times you eat, man, are at 6:30 in the morning and 11 and that's it. Then the rest of the day you have meditations and breaks. Meditations and breaks. So for 10 days, I went through 100 hours of meditation all between the hours of 4:30 to 9pm So 4:30 in the morning to 9pm and the structure of it, I felt a lot of resistance. And for me, it was just about learning how to feel trust. My goal in this life is to be a trusting, authentic, inspiring leader. That's something that came up for me in personal development, and it just feels right for me. I mean, trust is my number one thing. And trust is a thing for a lot of people. I mean, there's millions of people listening right now, and they're shaking their heads. Maybe not a million right now, but eventually one day, that's the goal, right? To reach a million. And they're shaking their heads. They're probably thinking, yeah, trust is a big piece. Well, we can't grow trust unless we sit in the discomfort of not having trust. So we got to sit in the discomfort of not having the trust. For me, it was, why should I trust this schedule? Well, you know what? Where else does that show up in my life? Like, where else do I not trust things? There's hundreds of thousands of people that have done this course. They're fine. Many of my friends did this course and had phenomenal results and really amazing things come up for them. And so it was the schedule, man, the schedule was so intense. But I'm so glad that I did it.

Yeah, I love that you said, sit with it. I think I talked to you when you interviewed me for your. For your show about that. I was in a men's group, and one of the things we talked about was embracing the void. We all have these void experiences, and we want to fill that void as quickly as possible because it's uncomfortable. Right. We don't know what to expect with certain void experiences in our life, but the idea is to just sit with it and embrace it and know that that's part of what life is all about and what you're going to experience from within and not always looking for something to fill that void because a lot of times that something isn't actually good for you. So really cool that you talked about sitting with your feelings and that trust. So you talked about delayed gratification being a very big lesson for you. What would you say is Another big thing that you learned about yourself as you did go within pretty deep for.

These 10 days, man. I had moments where my brain was just machine gunning memories. Think about a 10 day period and in those 10 days, if there's total silence, what might come up for you if you're listening? And I had beautiful memories from childhood. Like memories that honestly, Scott, the first time I'd ever remembered them, I mean, they came up from the depths of the ocean. Like moments with my mom when I was three, experiences that I was hurt or experiences where people had disrespected me and all these things. And memory after memory after memory after memory. I just started feeling grateful even for the bad things, like even for the things where people had hurt me. I got this really clear insight as to whether it was my mom or my dad or people in school or being bullied. It was all because they didn't get something they needed. And I had this like spotlight, this lightning bolt of compassion for each of these people that had, quote, quote done bad things to me, which I realized it's all done for me, it's all done for us in life. But that was a piece where I got to just really practice compassion, not just on a intellectual level. I think a lot of us, we read about compassion, we read about gratitude. It's one thing to read it, it's another thing to feel it and actually be it. And experientially in this course, this is really the breakthrough that I had was I already was thinking about instant gratification and what that's doing for our culture. But feeling compassion for people and feeling when I've been hurt or when I've experienced a sensation of being hurt, I get to have compassion in that moment or as close to that moment as I can, whether it's in reflection or not around seeing how those people that hurt me really just didn't get something they needed and they were hurting themselves. And that was beautiful, man. I had this warmth that I experienced the last two days where a lot of times I was crying. You know, I had many times where I was in there. I'm crying. I'm crying because I'm realizing what was my part in these interactions that I had with people in my past. I'm crying because I'm so grateful that these things happened for me and not to sit around the fire and sing Kumbaya, but this was a real visceral moment for me. Me, I didn't read it in a book, I didn't recite it from a YouTube video. I mean, I felt it in my body, and I actually was able to rise above it and be aware and just practice this awareness of, hey, things have happened for me. I understand I am where I am now as a product of all these events that are neutral. And it's my reaction, it's what I do with these things that come to me. This is what dictates the course of my life. And the more that I can focus on compassion for the people that have done things that didn't give me a good sensation, the more that I can be a good force of wellness for other people. I mean, that's the compass. And I saw it so clearly. It was almost like that scene in the Matrix where he's leaning back and there's those green gridded lines. And that was it for me. I mean, that was a moment where I just experienced real visceral, experiential gratitude and compassion. And I don't think I'll ever forget that. I mean, that's stamped in my brain forever.

So you talked about compassion. What about forgiveness to these people? These people that have hurt you in your past? Were there people that you previously weren't able to forgive that you now were able to?

Oh, man. You know, when I was a kid, my dad married a Costa Rican woman, and I had this memory come up where he came back from Costa Rica when we were kids. My parents had divorced when I was four months old, and she was, like, washing our feet. She didn't speak much English. And I was so just upset. You know, he didn't tell us he was going to get married. And then for the next 10 years, you know, as a teenager growing up, there were so many times where there was just a cultural conflict. You know, I'm half the time my mom's, half the time my dad's. And I just had so much anger and so much. Just tension and sadness around that time. Then I realized in this space of being quiet, my dad did the absolute best he could. I mean, he loved us in the best way that he possibly could have because he didn't get certain tools from his dad. And then I had compassion for this woman who came here from a different country. And who knows what it was like to have been in her body, to have been in her mind coming into America, not speaking the language, having the cultural barrier. And I realized, like, hey, I was just that kid who needed something different when he was 10 and who couldn't get it from the dad or the people that was in his life because they didn't get it from their parents and it was just this clear window, man. I'm getting kind of like chills right now just thinking about it because that was powerful for me. You know, I love my parents in the most imperfectly perfect way. They loved me. So that was what came up, man.

Oh, awesome. Once day 10 came and went, how would you say you changed as a person?

I think what I took away and the real change that I feel is to be excited, to be excited about the consistent practice of being in the moment, of really being in the moment. And I think that that was something I had always worked towards. But I feel like now I have literally grown some different muscular synapses in my brain to be able to just be in a moment, not to be perfect. And I'm sure there's going to be times where I'm going to slip up because that's the human experience, right? But just knowing that I have that power because I felt it and now that I've felt it, I know it's there. It's kind of like once you become conscious or once you see things for how they really are, life can never be the same. Imagine if you had been 100 pounds overweight in your life and you lost the weight. You know what that feels like to be healthy. So you always have this set point, this inflection point that you can go back to, to. And that's kind of what I took from Vipassana, man. I know that I always can get better and I know what it feels like to truly be in the moment without thinking about, oh, I should be in the moment, but actually just be there.

You're driving back home and you get to San Diego and you, you know, turn your computer on and you turn your cell phone on. You have all these messages and emails and there's tv, there's football season starting. All these external noises around you now. Now that you're back in the real world, how do you continue to be in the moment?

All right, so I didn't come straight back home because I kind of knew that this vipassana was going to strip the layers. And so if our emotional body is an onion, I mean, we're going all the way to the core. And Vipassana. So I kind of knew like, you know, you cut onions, you're going to cry and that's what I did. And so I got out of the course. I'm feeling super open, just very raw. All the layers of skin, the emotional skin that we have, you know, that term you know, thick skin. Well, it's okay. I mean, having thick skin is actually what creates a lot of perseverance in life. But when you're done with a Vipassana course and anyone that's interested, set two days for yourself to just be with yourself and slowly transition back into society. So I actually, on the way home, I stopped at a friend's place in Mammoth Lakes. I went on a bunch of hikes. And I'll never forget, man, this is burned in my memory because I realized, like, wow, the real world and the world in Vipassana, night and day, completely dark and light. And I'm in the grocery store and I'm buying some food and this woman behind me is like bumping her cart into mine and she's like, I can tell, I can feel her energy because I'm just so raw from this Vipassan experience. And she looks at me and she says, do you have your Vons card? And I looked right back at her and I said, we have all the time we need. She was probably like, who is this weird person? Like, but I just felt her energy. And I was walking in the parking lot and I was just like so affected by it. And I realized like, wow. Wow. Vipassana takes you so deep to the core and brings up so many amazing things and purifies and gets rid of so much crap that it's almost like I'm a completely white sheet. And being in public, you know you're gonna get dirty and you have to be okay with that. That's part of the practice. So that was my first two days, like dealing with a little bit of people in Mammoth Lakes. Then I drove back home. There was like 500 emails, bunch of people, and everybody was writing me back. Clients were writing me, people on Facebook and friends were calling me. How was your experience? How was your experience? And I thought, you know what? I want to do a podcast and I want to do it with somebody who's doing the work themselves, which is why I was so stoked to have this conversation. And so here I am, I think I'm five days out, six days out from the meditation. And I'm still feeling it just as viscerally as I felt before. And I realized that the practice continues. Man, there's no finish line for this stuff, Scott. For compassion, for gratitude. There's no finish line, dude.

Let me ask you this. What can the listeners do if they want to be more present, but they don't want to enjoy that same 10 day experience that you have with Vipassana? What can we do? Just the average listener, to be more present and living in the now and more appreciative of our life and what we're going through. What do we do?

Yes. So in the strengthening of our emotional body with this delayed gratification, you don't have to do a 10 day. I truly believe, Scott, you're gonna do it, man. You're gonna do it. At some point. Everyone who's listening gets to do this because the things that get cleaned out create space for the things that we want anyways. And so there's four ways that Gwenka, he's the practitioner, the master practitioner. He started this in 1969, and he talks about that in these evening discourses. And he says there's four things really, that you can put your intentions around and be aware of if you want to alter your wellness in a positive way. And the first thing is your food and water. Pay attention to how your food and your water make you feel. And I know you and I have heard that a lot, and people that are listening heard that a lot, but really being aware of that, it's experientially different than intellectually. You might have a food list, you might have a shopping list, but actually paying attention to how that food and water makes your body feel. So that's the number one. The number two is our environment. I thought it was so cool because this is wisdom that's like 3,000 years old. And it's the same things that you and I are dealing with today. And the second piece was environment. Who's in your environment? What's your atmosphere like? Like, who are the people in your environment? Are they supporting your wellness goals? Are they pushing you towards that positive inflection point that you want? Are they creating that space for you when you talk to them? Are they a good person to be around? The third is the present mental reaction that we have. So how are we reacting to a situation? What is our reaction point? Or are we giving ourselves that space to reflect and then respond? And then the last one is a past mental reaction. Or the analogy I could use is an old file system, right? So we have an event that comes up, we're triggered, triggered. It pulls back our observer. If we're aware and we are allowed to respond, or if we don't observe and we just allow that trigger to come up, we're going to pull that file case open and we're going to have a past mental reaction where when someone says this, I react with anger. When someone does this to Me, I react with sadness when someone does this to me. I'm going to go eat a tub of ice cream. Being aware of not just our present as number three, but number four, that past mental reaction, that's a big one. So the food and water, the environment, the present mental reaction and the past mental reaction, practicing those four things, I mean, that's a lifetime of work right there.

I love that. That's something that we can all do and start right away, right away. Really.

You can do it right now. I mean, how are we feeling right now? This is another point they talk about in the course is the sensation. We touched on it a tiny bit. But before we do anything, there's a sensation. And if you sit long enough and if you're allowing your mind to just wander and then come back, wander and then come back, eventually you're going to feel sensation in your body. You're going to feel in your solar plexus, in your stomach, in your throat, in your back. Whatever it is. That feeling, that visceral feeling there is a psychosomatic response that exists there. That's the cause of everything. I mean, we feel tension in our stomach or on our shoulders. That's why we lash out and we're angry. We feel tension in our back or we feel tension in our chest. That's why we react in a certain way to other people. So it all boils down to the sensation and being aware of the sensation on a minute to minute basis. I mean that in a sense is the entire course, man. It's being aware of the sensation and then being the observer and just responding.

Josh, man, what you've just shared with us over the last, I don't know, half hour, 35 minutes has been incredible. The experience that you went through and just being able to be willing to be open and honest about some of the struggles that you had before you went and some of the, the revelations that you had during those 10 days and the challenges and how to overcome those.

Scott, thank you so much for these intuitive questions, man. And I want to just point out this is not some kind of rah rah session where I'm thinking about how transcendent I am and how perfect I have my life now that I've gone to Vipassana. No, this was just a profound and incredible experience that I got to do because I followed that little spark, that little message inside that we all have that says do that thing that scares you. Because I got to be honest, I was definitely scared. And one of the great things that came up for me in this course was that living in the moment, having the body, having the life that we want, the relationships that we want. It's a practice. And with practice, there is a flexible framework that we all get to go by. And it's called these 10 Qualities for the art of living that Goenka states in the course.

Those 10 points. How can we maybe integrate those 10 points in the art of living into our daily lives?

So one of the things that Goinka and all the Pasana courses globally, by the way, there's over 100 centers globally and they teach hundreds of thousands of people. So this is not so some fly by night thing. There's many scientific studies that really solidify these 10 qualities. I want to list. And these are the 10 qualities for the art of living. And it's the renunciation of limiting beliefs, your awareness of morality, your earnest effort, your awareness of tolerance, your practice of tolerance, your presence in being truthful, how truthful you are in your life, your strong determination, your wisdom, how you cultivate your wisdom, your equanimity, your being in a state where you have mental calmness, composure, you know, regardless of difficult situation, your selfless love when you love and do things out of love for other people that have nothing to do with you. And then lastly, generosity and donations. So These are the 10 qualities that this center focuses on for the art of living. Because the whole point of this, the whole point, why anyone would even do meditation or go to a vipassana or do transcendental meditation, you know, there's hundreds of ways to meditate. The whole point behind it, the reason we do it, is because we want to have a better life. We want to live life well. And so practicing those 10 qualities, that's going to be how we do that. Now intellectually, we look at these qualities, we're like, oh, yeah, equanimity, wisdom, I like these things. But putting them into practice is a totally different thing. So that's what I'm committed to, you know. You know, having conversations with people that want those qualities first of all. And then doing things in my life that are emulations of those qualities and noticing as I do them that I don't have to be perfect and that, you know, I'm going to go along and do the absolute best that I can. Just being aware of the things, just being aware of these qualities for the art of living. And it's interesting because when they talk about the art of living, it's because everyone is trying to get more peace, man. We're all trying to get more peace. We're all trying to make enough money so one day we can have peace or we can have it right now. Like, we can have it right now if we're willing to do the work to attain it. And part of doing the work is letting go of all the crap, letting go of all the dirt and soot and load of emotions that are truly not serving us anymore. So I. I think it's really powerful, man.

Yeah, and you're so right. We can choose to have peace right now. And if you don't, it's the. If. If you think you can't, it's that story that you're telling yourself in your head and those limiting beliefs and you can make changes today and have more peace.

I think the take home for me, honestly, man, I talked about it was the compassion piece, but it was also understanding that we are so incredibly lucky to be alive. People talk about this all the time and they say, oh, we're so lucky to be here. We're so lucky to be here. But feeling that in my body, I mean, that brought me to tears a few times, like feeling how lucky I am to be here. We have no guarantees me, man. No guarantees. If tomorrow we get hit by a bus or when we're 70, we die or whatever it is. There's people that lose people they love all the time. And being in that space for 10 days taught me really viscerally taught me experientially, like how incredible it is to be on a spinning rock in the middle of the universe where you and I get to talk through microphones and connect and reach other people. Like, how amazing is this gift of life? And that was really powerful for me too.

And that goes back to what you said about living in the present, living in the now, appreciating every moment.

Well, hey, thanks so much for being the host. And I want to talk a little bit about what you're doing. You know, I interviewed with you on your ultimate gratitude summit, and one of the projects you have is this. Say it with gratitude, the stationary sets. And I think it's such a beautiful way to end the show because everything we talked about today was being in the present moment. And if we look deep enough and if we're still enough, all there is is love, compassion and gratitude there. Anyways, so tell us, man, like what is say it with gratitude, stationary sets? What's this all about?

Thank you, Josh. Yeah. Really appreciate you having me as a host and letting me talk a little bit about this on your Show. So thank you. So, yeah, so just like you, I was inspired on a journey that I took. So I had to get away and went to Guatemala in the summer of 2014 and the summer of 2015 to help build schools. Doing some international volunteer work with kids was something that just kind of I was called to do, much like you were. And one of the things I noticed over there was that we were working in very poor communities, but the kids and the parents and the grandparents had smiles on their faces. They just were a joy to be around. They had a very positive outlook on life. Was very grateful for those things that we take for granted, like classrooms and our families and our health. We take those for granted a lot of times where they explicitly express gratitude and thank you for those things. So when I returned back home to Denver, I became more sensitive to people that weren't grateful.

As sensitive as I was in the grocery store.

Yeah, well, maybe not happen.

Okay, okay.

One of the things, actually, probably, yes, because one of the things I noticed, I live in an apartment. I would walk past somebody in the hallway and I would look at them to see if I could make eye contact with them and then smile and then say hello. Well, a lot of them, they just look down and almost have, like, a frown on their face, not acknowledging me. Whereas in Guatemala, you pass anybody and they're going to say, buenos dias, good morning. Smile. They may even stop and talk with you. You. I'm like, hey, we're not even acknowledging people anymore. It doesn't seem like. And so what I decided to do was. So I'm really big on expressing thanks and taking it one step further. Not just kind of like emailing somebody a thank you, but to actually write out a handwritten thank you card. Because when you get a thank you card in the mail, I don't know about you, Josh, but when I do, I feel great.

It's incredible. It's like a lost art.

Yeah, we get bills and we get junk mail, but when we get that personal card addressed to us and see that somebody has taken the time to express thanks and acknowledge us, it makes us feel good. And the person that sent the card feels amazing as well. So what I'd say is, like, what could I do to develop a line of thank you cards, but actually could make a big impact and do good in the world? So I had this clever idea to get the thank you cards designed by kids in Guatemala. And since I went over to that country, I was really moved to do something more for that country. So I worked with an organization called Pencils for Promise. And they develop education, they build schools and add resources, teachers and books and things like that, that in developing countries like Guatemala. So they helped me and they worked with a classroom where the kids had already gotten their school built for them by Pencils of Promise. And the kids, they were so excited. They're like, yeah, we want to draw the art and we want to give back and show our appreciation. So they made drawings and then Pencils of Promise sent the drawings to me and I picked out a few of the drawings to put on thank you cards. So. So the drawings that you see on the thank you cards literally have been drawn by kids in Guatemala. Right now I'm right in the middle of an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to get this mission off the ground and a portion of every sale. So anybody that buys a box of four, a box of eight, I even have subscriptions where you can get three months or six months or 12 months worth of thank you car cards. A portion will go back to Pencils of Promise to help build new schools in Guatemala. So there's this cycle of good going on. Pencils of Promise build schools. The kids that got the school do the artwork. The artwork is turned into thank you cards called say it with Gratitude. Then we're donating a portion of that back to Pencils of Promise. So that's what I've got going on. It's at sayitwithgratitude.com and yeah, I appreciate, appreciate any help I can get to get this off the ground.

And it's such an amazing mission. It's inspired by you said Pencils of Promise. But these students, these are kids that are actually just putting out their love on pictures. These hand drawn pictures. How amazing would it be to get a reminder in the mail from a friend about how grateful they are to know you? I mean, I get like goosebumps just thinking about that. And I got one of your cards in the mail, Scott, and I felt that way. I get a card from a friend, friend maybe once a year. But it's such a lost art and I think it connects in a way that we never get through email or through digital connection. So definitely, definitely I am going to fund this project. The say it with Gratitude stationary sets. We'll link that in the show notes. Scott, thanks so much for being the host, man. I really enjoyed being the guest sharing about my experience with Vipassana. And let everyone know when you're going to sign up.

Oh my gosh. This was oh me. Let Everybody know when I'm signing up?

Yeah. When are you going to sign up for Vipassana?

I will check out the website as soon as we hang up.

Thanks again, man.

It was an honor to be a host of your wonderful show, Wellness Force Radio. So thank you.

Josh. Oh, yes. You've made it to the end of the episode, my friend. Remember everything we talked about today, all the links and the resources and a ton of other information. If this sparked curiosity in you, go to wellnessforce.com grateful you can download all the information. There'll be some guides there, links over there to the Vipassana center where I went. There's three different centers on the west coast. There's a hundred different centers across the globe. If anything you heard today made you feel empowered or excited or hopeful or energized about your own wellness process, share this episode with a friend. You never know when somebody gets the right message at the right time, how much impact you can have. And it just starts with that first step. Support the show by going to wellnessforce.com/review. I depend on your powerful voice to get more people inspired by this message so they can live life well for the rest of 2016. We have some phenomenal guests coming on around mindset and wellness. We're even going to sprinkle in some technology. We'll talk about some devices and people that are doing amazing things in the wellness technology sector and in the fitness technology sector and some special announcements next week. And now there's just one more, more thing for you to do and that is to be grateful. Pull from that gratitude like it's a well a thousand feet down to the center core of who you are and then go out and create an amazing day with all the tools, energy and inspiration that Scott and I talked about today. And it's my intention that every time you tune into Wellness Force Radio, you get more of that to help you on the journey. So until I see you again real soon, I'm wishing you the love and wellness.