Sebene Selassie - Belonging in an age of disconnect

Sebene Selassie Interview Transcript

By Nick see

March 11, 2021

Music by Tim Moor from
https://pixabay.com/pt/music/
https://pixabay.com/music/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=2766
-----

Nick

Sebene Selassie what an absolute privilege and an honour it is to finally meet you. 

Sebene

Thank you, Nick. It's nice to be here. 

Nick

And what a story? Wow. I'd like to salute your honesty and, I guess, ability and willingness to show up for us. Cause I'm struck by that quote. I think it was Marianne Williamson said about ‘when we let our own light shine, we give other people permission to do the same’.

I felt a definite sense of inspiration from listening to your story. No, it's very, very significant with the book. If someone's not heard of You Belong, what would be the take home message that you would hope people might latch onto? 

Sebene

Yeah. The subtitle is a call for connection and that's really the primary message of the book that even if.

Most of us, if not all of us at some point have feelings of not belonging and by not belonging, I'm not talking about just not fitting in, but really a lack of connection to ourselves, to others, and really to the fundamental sense of connection that we all have with everything, with nature, with all of reality.

You know, the message really is, is that we do belong. And there are ways to come back to that, understanding that truth. 

Nick

Thank you. Well, that leads perfectly into the next question, which is how do we show up for ourselves during this really distracted, fragmented time in history and as an extension, how do we hold space for others?

How can we I've often said that, as we get through this period of time, I think it's going to be through community. And through showing up for each other. I'll let you answer the question without rabbiting on too much. 

Sebene

Yeah. It's, it's such a good question. Cause it really is, gets to the heart of the matter that, you know, we've, we, we do need to come together to get out of the many crises, which we have.

I mean, this pandemic being hopefully a temporary one, but something deeper in terms of the polarization climate crises, the economic and social crises we have. And you know, my training is as a meditation teacher and my orientation is that we really have to start with ourselves because the crises or the disconnection that we feel with others and our capacity to not show up, or let's say our incapacity to show up, really stems from that sense of disconnection, you know, the anxiety, the fears, the overwhelm that we feel within ourselves that make us less capable, less available for being there for each other and community.

So the work really starts from within, you know, and that, that change that we're seeking that transformation that we're seeking outwardly has to start with an inner transformation. So that process of really It's not that we're going to solve all our problems or, you know, become perfect before we can be there for others, but that we're doing that internal work so that you know, I use this bell hooks quote in the, in the book that if we're F’ed up and lead the revolution, we're going to have enough F’ed up revolution and, you know, you can use any other word for revolution for F’ed up and we lead the community, we're going to have an F’ed up community, or if we are an F’ed up and we lead the family. We're going to have an F’ed up family. So yeah, it's really an inside job. 

Nick

That's very profound. I found About 20 years ago, just over 20 years ago.

And I moved out to Australia, I discovered I had a relative in Los Angeles who is now a Lama, Lama Christopher Coriat and I had a chat with him. He talked about the antioxidant power, not his words, mine, of loving kindness, and how that is a potent antidote for things like burnout. Could you talk a little bit to that?

Sebene

Yes, definitely. You know, I think that it's, it's really cure and the lack of it, is the cause. So loving kindness, you know, this real deep capacity for care that we cultivate within and. Just like mindfulness. We all have these capacities. We have the capacity to really show up and be there in our lives.

And we have the capacity for deep care, but it has to be nurtured and cultivated and it has to start with ourselves because can't care for others. If we don't care for ourselves, you know, a lot of times when we're, we're caring for others, And neglecting ourselves. We're actually coming from a place of pity or overidentification or some kind of savior complex, or, you know, these unsustainable forms of outer care.

So again, you know, we starts from within that, that inner work, that inner care is actually what really sustains and nourishes that, that outer care. 

Nick

I've heard you talk about meditation, being a practice for when the shit hits the fan. How, if you're in a, I guess it's starting small, but what if you're in a space where you're in a lot of pain, there could be some self-loathing you're looking at the world and thinking, you know, what gives, where does a person like that?

Or where do people like that start? 

Sebene

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it it's, it's huge because we use words like meditation or practice, and we could be describing so many things because there, there are a lot of ways to practice and a lot of ways to do work on ourselves and different things will appeal to and resonate for different people.

But when I speak about meditation and kind of the practice that I'm really encouraging folks to, to cultivate is something that a lot of people have heard of, which is mindfulness. And what I really appreciate about this capacity and also the cultivation of this, this in meditation is. Not just a meditation is like a calming technique or a stilling technique, though.

It can definitely include that. And that's helpful, but really mindfulness is this capacity to begin to understand ourselves in a way that helps us uproot. What's not helpful and start to cultivate the qualities or skills that are more helpful. So when you're, you know, sort of describing. Someone new who's overwhelmed by what's going on for themselves.

Mindfulness practice is a practice that we make formal time. We carve out formal space to really get familiar with our own bodies and our own reactivity. Our tendencies within the body are habitual ways of holding the body like what our stress responses are. What are You know trauma or triggers are.

And we also get to know our emotions because meditate for any length of time and you'll start to notice different emotions arise, and we get to know our minds. So it's, it's really this holistic practice that starts to help us. Understand what's here. And then, you know, in this aspiration for more wisdom, for more compassion, more care or kindness in our life, or to be more effective, to be better parents or better colleagues, we can start to see what's, what's holding us back.

Most of us are just yanked around by our habits and the ways we've learned how to do things from our. Families from our cultures, from our communities. And the ways that we really have bitched related to doing things because of our anxieties or fears. So meditation in this way, a mindfulness practice helps us to really understand what our patterns are and, and then make the necessary steps to, to cultivate, you know, what we really would rather, they be.

Nick

Thank you. Thank you. I read or actually listened that you said something like discomfort is the greatest opportunity for remembering, and I know personally I'm guilty of it. And I know many of us with, you know, whether it's social media or food or substances, or just being busy, firstly, paying as a teacher, how does that all fit together and handle?

We expand our capacity to learn from it. 

Sebene

Yeah. You know, just taking something that's so ubiquitous, like social media right now. Most of us know we, we want to feel good. And we have these temporary fixes for feeling good, like Netflix binges, or, you know, our favorite foods, but, and then there's nothing wrong with that.

But we also know when those things don't make us feel good anymore when we've overdone it, or, you know, just had one too many cookies or whatever it might be. And so the pain or the discomfort, or, you know, the upset with ourselves that we feel is, is not a mistake. It's not something gone wrong.

It's actually a flag for us, or an indication that there is room there for shifting how we show up so that we know, you know, maybe I don't need to stay up really late. Watching the next automatic play of an episode, because actually when I do that, I'm much more groggy the next morning. And I'm not really available for the team meeting or.

For my kids getting ready for online school or whatever it may be. And so we really start to pay attention to when we quote unquote, feel bad and, and use that as an opportunity to be mindful and investigate and, and start to make positive changes, you know, rather than approaching it from some sort of like shame spiral.

Or beating ourselves up or kind of bettering ourselves for these so-called transgressions or mistakes that pain or that discomfort, we feel actually becomes an opportunity to make change. 

Nick

Thank you. One thing with doing support work initially aged care, and now mental health, I found. When I first started working, I was so anxious having come out of chronic pain, many years of chronic pain that I didn't know if I could get to the induction session.

However, I went on to win a scholarship. And one thing I said was that I get more from this and it sounds like I'm being trite or I'm saying what I should say, but I really get more from this work then, then I give a no, like I show up and I try and give as much as I can. Can you talk about the I guess the healing capacity.

Of being wisely, selfish to use a Dalai Lama expression. So I guess, being of service to others and how that provides serendipity.

Sebene

Yeah. You know, it's, it's interesting. Cause I I come from a a youth services, social services background as well. And there, there is, there's so much possibility for learning about ourselves for opening the heart for receiving as, as well as giving and learning about that dynamic process. And I think there is the all too common tendency among people who are caregivers and work in real acts of service.

And it doesn't have to be just employment, you know, but really do that as their vocation or, or a big part of their lives. There's I find that there's a lot of opportunity for giving that back to ourselves that I know for me, I'll speak for myself. There was a lot of identification with that kind of giving quality and a real sense of burnout that came from that because the focus was on the outward giving.

Rather than on the reciprocal process of receiving. And that doesn't mean that I had to receive from the people I gave to, but I had to really learn how to receive. And that showed up for me. We spoke a little bit naked before we were recording about my cancer, which I had been diagnosed three times with breast cancer, including stage four.

Metastatic cancer. And I really believe that some of what I needed to learn or really explore in that experience was learning how to receive, because even in that experience I had the tendency to want to take care. I take care of other people's feelings, you know make sure that my, my mom or my parents, you know, weren't overcome with fear overwhelm around my diagnosis or, you know, making sure that my friends were really informed about what I was doing.

And there was a real surrendering to actually allowing others to care for me. And I had to learn it the really hard way. And I talk about this in the book of, you know, just being kind of flat out in capable of physically taking care of myself and having to have my friends take care of my basic those physical needs.

And you know, I don't recommend that way of learning how to care for oneself, but I would, I would really encourage those who, even if we get a lot out of our work as caregivers to really Take a look at our, our capacity to receive in that process. 

Nick

Thank you. I've heard you talk a little bit about how, when you were going through the multiple instances with cancer, you lent very heavily into meditation.

You know, the, as the stress built, you lent into that. Could you talk about that aspect of navigating that. 

Sebene

Yeah. Yeah. I was really lucky, even though I was young, I was 34. The first time I was diagnosed with stage three cancer. I, I already had a practice. So I'd already been practicing for about 10 years probably, but it was kind of an off and on practitioner.

So. No, I had done retreats and had studied with some teachers, but really kind of turned to it in times of need, like after a breakup or, you know, if I was going through a stressful time and there's nothing like cancer to deepen your practice. So it really committed to consistency to depth. So practicing regularly, practicing deeply working with teachers, doing retreats on a regular basis.

And that kind of dedication to my practice really allowed me to see more so to, you know, see and understand more about what I was talking about earlier. You know, just the patterns of my mind, the the. Tendencies of my emotions. The places in my body physically, where I held things and meditation is, is not the only capacity of his building and not the only technique I used also psychotherapy and acupuncture and body work.

And. No all sorts of other modalities as well. But in combination with this mindfulness, that again is, you know, this holistic understanding of ourselves really, I think powerfully helped my, my process of working through something like cancer and you know, also other crises in my life. 

Nick

Thank you talk a little bit about Charlotte Joko.

Beck's quote joy is happiness. Minus our opinion of it. Can you speak a little bit about that and how, especially with social media, that we seem to have a constant level of comparison, you know, that life is much better than mine and that we have this constantly fueled state of having an opinion or. 

Sebene

Yeah.

Yeah. She said joy is whatever whatever's happening without minus our opinion of the joy is whatever's happening minus our opinion of it. And she makes a distinction there between joy and happiness. And she says that happiness has an opposite unhappiness. So it is, you know, a bit of semantics there.

Because when she's talking about joy, she's not talking about being up or down or liking or disliking she's really talking about. And I think she's using joy as kind of a synonym for freedom here or a synonym for not being in contention with life. So joy might have gradations. It might not be like this outsize, Sonny exuberant joy.

It might be a quiet joy of just Accepting things for how they are. And, and so for me, she's speaking to this fundamental really outcome of, of our practice and a deepening of our understanding that when we are not in contention with reality, So someone might be having a graded vacation on social media, or we might be having a hard time because our body's in pain or because you know, someone we love is in pain and it's not that we have to like that.

I mean, it's not that we have to be happy or unhappy about it. We, we could be either or, but we don't have to kind of push it away. We don't have to grasp it. The things that we desperately want in our lives, and we don't have to push away the things that we don't want. We actually meet the moment for what it is.

And we have an appropriate response from there, which might be, you know, changing the channel or closing our app. We don't want to look at this thing anymore or helping that person in need or soothing ourselves in the ways that we need to be. But it's, it's a really moment to moment experience.

And I think that's what she's describing when she's describing that kind of joy. 

Nick

Thank you. Thinking about joy often, my daughter will want to show me that she's learnt a new dance and her ability as a 10 year old, to be able to express herself, just blows my mind. I don't, I don't remember being that free to move.

I probably identify more with Mr. Banes dancing, but something that you said about growing comfort in being in our body and being embodied and getting out of the head. Why is that so important? And I guess, how have we got to this state where most of the activity occurs up here above the shoulders? 

Sebene

Yeah.

You know I think we did a disservice to ourselves in some ways by calling it mindfulness, because makes us think that it's really an intellectual process by putting the word mind in it. It's actually a translation of a poly word, poly B the language that the Buddha's teachings were written down in it's related to Sanskrit Pali and that we're to Sati S a T I.

And Sati mindfulness is a good translation in some senses, but in other senses, it doesn't really describe this kind of holistic awareness that we're building. And there's actually a huge emphasis in the classical teachings on the body, on cultivating and awareness of the body, because really everything happens here.

You know, we re conceive so much of our experience in our mind, but we actually. Received that experiences through our senses. And so it's really important to be able to kind of bridge that gap. That's been created by our very head centered cognitive rational culture to kind of re inhabit our bodies.

And, you know, you asked kind of why did that happen? There are many, many reasons, and I don't think we're going to get into kind of the history of. Western philosophy and science and thinking to understand that, but it definitely is a symptom of maternity that we have become pretty disembodied. And it is nice to see the younger generation, especially, you know, kind of permeating in dominant culture.

Is there, there are a lot of cultures that are, that have not become as disembodied. I don't know if you travel through the global South or if you're kind of connected to some immigrant cultures, if you're in Europe or Australia or North America, there is more of a connection to dance in the body through sort of these traditional cultures, but kind of the dominant culture, popular culture.

That's pervaded the world. Yes. We're focused on. The mind on schooling and learning through language and math and science and kind of rational thinking. And we have to kind of relearn the body. And for me, dance became a focus. And I write about this in the book because I realized how uncomfortable I had been growing up in my own body.

And how ridiculous that is when you think about it, like how absurd to think that. The place that we've inhabited our entire lives. We feel shame or shyness or discomfort in inhabiting that even before that, we feel embarrassed to move our bodies like our own. We feel embarrassed to move our bodies in front of other people.

Yeah. When you say it out loud, it just sounds ridiculous. But so many people and many adults, you know, our age and, and, and still some young people have that. And it's very, very sad to see kids who don't have that fear start to develop it and start to develop that kind of self-consciousness and, you know, inhibition and it starts getting kind of locked into the body.

And then, yeah. You start shutting down really a part of our own joy. Yeah. 

Nick

I I'm thinking in fact kids can be hyper critical of each other and not necessarily out of a desire to be nasty. They just, I dunno, it seemed like a good idea. So they say it I love talking about. Mindfulness being less about the mind and the whole body.

I love what Tara Brock says about it being present heart that the symbol means present hearts. And I took that as a mini framing for work, just to suspend what I was thinking about and trench up in a hot, full way. Thank you. I've heard you say in an interview. You were talking about the pain you experienced during cancer and how it started become a predictive response, you would feel some pain and you would assume that that would continue and it would be without break.

However when you deepened your practice, you discovered you could find spaces between the pain could give you talk about this. And also I think if there's a link to how many of us are experiencing pain, And when we do feel pain, obviously there's an instinctual response to a assume it's going to be ongoing and be to kind of self-medicate with whatever drug and better comes of choices.

Yeah. 

Sebene

Yeah. And, you know, I could talk about physical pain and just to name that this is true for social pain as well, because actually our brains process them in the same way. So physical pain and social pain are processed in the same part of the brain. So, you know, our our perception of them are really similar and.

So predicated on what's happened in the past. You know, we build kind of our perceptual reality based on what we've seen before. So, you know, if I had never seen, I have a mic in front of me, if I've never seen a mic before, you know, but then I learned what it is every time I see something shaped like this, I'm going to assume it's a mic.

And I don't have to kind of go through the relearning process to figure it out. Like our brain kind of builds up that, that knowing something and that's useful for a lot of things, but it's not very useful in kind of a moment to moment sensory experience of a sensation or emotions, or, you know, other people's emotions or speech or.

Relation with us. And so, you know, again, whether it's physical plane or social pain, like our interactions with others, we really want to develop through this capacity of mindfulness, of embodied awareness of what's happening, the capacity to sense what's happening moment to moment. Instead of, you know, I see Nick and the last time Nick and I met, you know, we had a little bit of a.

Misunderstanding. And now I'm going to interpret every different look of his some kind of critique of me. Rather than meeting you fresh and deciding, you know, Nick has bad days too, and I'm gonna see what today brings rather than the assumption of, you know, what my experience has been in the past. And that's what I experienced with physical pain that I went through some periods of really, really painful surgeries or treatments or Can I have emergency con conditions that emerged in my body and no even lying in the hospital or at home experiencing this pain, the kind of predictably assume, Oh, there's that sensation in my belly.

I know what that's going to lead to. And so start to kind of almost anticipate and tense and create. More tension and pain and not really have a moment to moment kind of intimate experience of what was happening. And when I could slow down. Actually connect to this embodied awareness, feel the sensation in my belly.

I could see that, Oh yeah, it's this jobbing strong pain, but now it's actually dissipated. When I breathe really deeply, actually it creates some space there and now my foot's going numb. I actually don't even really feel this pain in my belly right now. So what rather than having kind of this fixated fear, tense, attention to things there internally our own physical or emotional experience or externally what's going on with someone, we kind of create more spaciousness, create kind of more awareness, bring some relaxation and ease to what's happening, and that can often change everything for us.

Nick

That's profound on so many levels. I think one of the biggest shifts for me was when I had a really difficult experience with the pain clinic at a local hospital and was spoken down to, and not listened to, and felt, felt bullied throughout the situation. So coming out of that, I thought I've got two options.

One is I can choose to fight back and I could, and I could have, you know, just due to complaints or I can do whatever I can to move through. And Marshall, the resources I have, and one of those things was trying to bring space to pain and and see that there was, there was space either side of it. It wasn't just a continuous thing that I had to medicate.

Yeah. Thank you. 

Sebene

And how, how was that for you? Like, was it an easy process or did it take a long time or. 

Nick

No, not at all. Sorry, miss Peter. I'm not going crazy. Well, more than usual. Not easy. And I remember reading a book by video Malheur Birch that she does a mindfulness based stress reduction, but for pain.

Sebene

Oh, right. She's based in England. Right. And in the UK. 

Nick

Yeah. And she talked about breathing space into the pain, wherever you're feeling it. And I thought. What a crock, you know, what are you talking about? But then I suspended the judgment and I got on with it and, and it did work profoundly to the point where I was homeschooling my middle son and my daughter was around.

I'd just lie down on the couch and they'd come and ask me for something. I'm like, I'm meditating. So I didn't get 10 good consistent minutes, but I still did it and still felt the benefits. So as messy as it becomes. 

Sebene

Yeah. And you know, to not sort of make people think this is like a magic bullet or, you know, as you describe, it's like bit by bit, but it is helpful.

And to just acknowledge how challenging chronic pain is. You know, and again, whether it's physical pain or emotional pain, when, when it's chronic and persistent, really to cultivate that sense of patience and kindness to oneself and to really do whatever it is, as you said to Marshall, that support for ourselves, you know, to enlist people, to help us to really be clear about creating the boundaries of space and time to.

To do that. And it's really important. 

Nick

I saw Krishna DAS when he came up to the sunshine coast, gosh, many years ago. And he said, what a holiday it would be if we could not give ourselves such a hard time and on the surface, it sounds. Yeah, that's, that's a nice idea. But everything we do is predicated with this inner critic.

And I guess that's one of the most significant things that I've got from meditation is the ability to see that that is just a thought, and I don't have to relate to that. They can exist, but it's not who I am. Hmm. 

Sebene

Yeah. So important. And so, yeah, it sounds trite or you know, kind of like a, just a, a platitude, but it's so, so crucial.

Nick

The phrase, Ubuntu. And am I pronouncing that right open to, yeah. I am because you are. Can you talk about that and how we, I guess, embody that more like we can see globally that things need to change. There needs to be a greater respect and greater voice for. Different sections of the community. How do we individually kind of move incrementally more towards that?

Sebene

Yeah. You know, just to say it's, it's not I'm not like an expert on this. It's a, it's a South African bond to word that is often described as describing the sentiment I am because you are. And really pointing to this ancient wisdom that you find in this ancient South African concept, but really in all ancient wisdom traditions that everything is interconnected, that there's actually no separation to speak of on a fundamental level.

And we know this now, scientifically as well, so. Whereas early Western science kind of saw everything in Newtonian terms as separate entities interacting with each other. We now know that that's only one level of reality and there's actually a deeper sense that not only did we all originate from the same.

Basically point of nothingness, but we also are still all interconnected that underneath the perceived separation. There's actually this fundamental, energetic difference and know contemporary physics and different philosophies are, are proving that over and over again in different ways. And what to me that really is pointing to is this fundamental paradox of our existence.

And I talk about it in the book with this two sentences, you know, we are not separate, and we are not the same and kind of grappling reckoning. Living that paradox really is to me, the answer to this question of belonging, because belonging really, as I said in the beginning is not just, is not only this idea of fitting in or connecting to people on a social level, but it's also this deeper understanding that nothing is separate.

And so these crises that we experience. Both on the energetic level of like the climate, but also on the interpersonal level of, you know, our families up all the way to our global challenges. Those are all kind of there to be solved. And solutioned by grappling with this paradox because we have to really.

First of all understand and believe, and then be willing to work with the fact that we are not separate and we are not the same. Two means that we can't just sort of bypass two. Okay. We're not separate, you know, we're all one. It should all be good because we're also not the same. We've had different histories, we'd have different realities.

There are injustices there inequalities. So there's a lot to grapple with, but in the midst of grappling with all of that relative history and relative reality, we don't want to forget that we're not separate. We don't want to go into kind of divisiveness or separation or isolation. You know, we definitely don't want to keep on being at war with each other.

So we wanna, you know, be able to celebrate the differences and resolve the conflicts that have come through time. But we, we don't want to do that at the expense of the fact that we are, we are because we are, you know, I am because you are. 

Nick

Hmm. So how do you with everything, I guess that has gone on last year and it's going on now?

How do you remain hopeful? Do you have practice or practices to cultivate hopelessness? 

Sebene

You know, for me, I I think I'm generally helpful. Because I really see things as getting better. We are according to historians and the time of least conflict, even though it seems like we're in a time of great conflict, it's, it's actually, because we just know so much more, there's so much more data and information.

So we know about every single thing happening in every part of the world at any moment. And. We get so much news and really news should be called bad news because we, if that's what it reports primarily, it's not that it reports like every celebration and every, you know happy moment and all the, the achievements, it mostly reports like what's gone wrong.

So. Just to also understand that our perspective is skewed. And so I really like to take in good news and I'm careful about what I take in. I'm careful about how much news I take in, you know, I know what's, I keep myself informed. I know what's going on, but I do not obsessive Lilly and take in the bad news.

And for me, another thing that's been really important, especially lately as I'm I'm 50 this year or last year. And As I'm moving into eldership and I've really been enjoying can't remember who called it this, but this idea of reverse mentorship of really learning from young people. So not just as my students, although I have younger students, but really as friends, you know, and, and peers to a certain extent although they might.

It's been incredible. You know, I learned so much from this young generation of activists, from leaders, from teachers and they're, they're incredible. No, they're even some of the young people who are leading the social movements and in the States, including black lives matter, you know, the Parkland high school students who Rose up against gun violence after the shooting at their high school a few years ago, all these these kids are just so inspiring.

So that, that really keeps me helpful too.

Nick

Thank you. That's. I remember when I saw Krishna DAS, people were talking about Vagaro or the teacher, and I'm like, how do you, I haven't got one of those. How do you find one of those? And a girl who I became friends with said your kids pay attention to your kids. They'll they'll show you where you're stuck.

You know, and your friends and I love what I think it was around us. That if you think you're spiritually enlightened, go spend a week with your family. 

Sebene

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, really, I I've been recently reaching out to young people, you know, and I'm talking to people who are like 20 years younger than me and fostering relationships with them, you know, starting conversations, having calls, taking a walk, like really humbling myself.

To be able to listen and learn from them 

Nick

that I think there's a lot of potency in that. And especially given how disconnected in a sense we've become that's that has a lot of hope because there is that the less we do it, the less than we feel like doing it. So to just begin small and start doing that is Yeah, very mutually beneficial.

Your practice about granting yourself. Could you talk a little bit about this and if we have time, how would you feel about leading a very short grounding practice? 

Sebene

Is that okay? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. You know, this is the key it's really the beginning for me of everything is Going back to what we were speaking of before bridging that.

Split that Cartesian dualism that has been absorbed by all of us as moderns and as moderns and saying kind of everyone who uses computers and technology, it doesn't matter what part of the globe you're in. If you're, if you're listening to this. And if you're understanding everything we're saying, then you're a modern, because you're relating to this reality in a particular way, you know, where we've, we've moved away from that relationship to nature and to our bodies that was more instinctual and more embodied.

And so learning how to come back into our bodies is so key. And learning to not just think about our experience and analyze and pontificate and rationalize all the time and justify, but really start to feel and sense our experience. And that really starts in the body. And so when I teach meditation and when I talk about mindfulness and really talking about this embodied awareness, okay.

So for most of us, it starts with just really starting to learn how to feel, you know, learn how to feel our feet on the ground, learn how to feel our S our butt in the seat. And so that when we are in a moment of. Trigger or upset or crisis. We can actually come back to the body. Most of us go straight into our emotions.

So we feel a lot maybe in our chest or in our throats. Or we go mostly into our heads. We start strategizing and thinking and our minds start kind of going rapidly. So that ability to come back into the body, to ground, into our experience. We really have to learn how to do that and practice it so that when we need it, we can go there because our minds will often take this into the past or into the future.

But our bodies are always in the present moment. And so if we can stay in the present moment, we can actually know what's happening right here. Instead of seeing Nick from last week from our argument and kind of projecting onto this moment, something that happened in the past or fearing that Nick is going to do something.

That is similar to, you know, what our last boss did to us or how we've often experienced people like him in relationship to us. And, you know, so we stopped kind of patterning everything around us based on our habits and our tendencies, and start to actually meet each moment in our bodies in the present and can respond from there.

Nick

Thank you. Yeah. That's I'm going through the process. Now, if I'm starting a new role in a week and having been in community services, it can often be quite a chaotic space and there's, you know, degrees of organization and, and heartfulness in the people who, who lead them. It's it, it really is a practice to remain present and give.

The new employer, a chance without predicting, well, hang on. These sort of similar circumstances happened before and that's how it played out. So therefore I should be careful. Hm. 

Sebene

Yeah. And you know, being in the body really helps us to not go into that activation. Of assuming, expecting certain things and then often going into a response, really a reaction based on that rather, and for me, it, it really involves a slowing down and pausing and giving some space like we did with the pain to just kind of breathe so that we don't have to kind of rush into it.

So a lot of times, you know, And it's not that you always have to be slow, but most of us need the slowness to, to be able to create that spaciousness. A lot of times when we first started this, we really slow down. We really don't say as much, or we don't say it so quickly. So, you know, people might think we're a little weird.

Because we'll pause much more and we'll kind of take a breath before we respond or we'll, you know, create some space. And most people don't like that in our culture. You know, they want everything fast, fast, fast, and they want a response and, you know, things aren't moving at a certain pace, then it's wrong.

And we might need to kind of go against the grain a little bit in order to cultivate this. 

Nick

Hm, you mentioned reactive. And I know that in the book you talk about the, the link between reactive and creative. 

Sebene

Yeah. It was journaling. And I realized that they're the same word, but the C just moves to the front and creative.

So I was considering what the sea was and I said, you know, maybe it's consciousness, maybe it's compassion. You know, it could be Care, but I decided it's curiosity because it really is that pause and that spaciousness is one of being curious about what's happening. So rather than jumping to our habitual thought or tendency or assumption or reaction, we actually create a pause and we kind of ask, huh, what's going on here?

Now, what's this sensation, what's this emotion. And so there's this real quality of curiosity that has to be cultivated so that we can have that creative response to things. 

Nick

Hmm. Thank you. And so for someone who is interested in you belong in the book from, from your website, I know I've got it on audible, which I'm thoroughly enjoying What would be the best way to interactable sustain that you publish blog posts for fairly regularly?

Yeah. 

Sebene

If you go to my website at dot com there, you can sign up for my newsletter. I send it every full moon and new moon. And it's it's really just filled with musings and usually a a longer post and then links to things that I'm thinking about or watching, or reading or listening to. So I try and make it interesting for folks.

And from there, you can find, you know, my social media and all the other stuff. 

Nick

Thank you. And I have I've, I've enjoyed Taking time out from Netflix and consuming something that actually provides nutrition on a, on a Monday. Yeah. I saw that you talked a lot about well, not a lot, a little bit about Battlestar Galactica and how you've been 

Sebene

here.

Oh yeah. I did miss my second diagnosis in some ways. My first diagnosis was very shocking cause 34, but my second diagnosis was very crushing because I never thought I would get cancer twice. Let alone a third time. But I then maybe I was more used to it. So I was so crushed and I think my husband and I were just in such shock and disbelief and it really helped us to have kind of this fantasy world to escape into.

And it, you know, it's such a great series. So we binge watched like the whole thing while I was, you know, being dykey, going through the diagnosis and treatment plan and part of the treatment. Yeah.

Nick

It's so well-written, it really is and engaging. And I know that you've mentioned that you liked Monty Python as well. Do you have a favorite sketch? I was watching. I should let you answer. I was watching the, the world's funniest joke and I thought you could probably say of the last couple of years. Yeah.

The world's funniest joke with what's going on. Yeah, right. 

Sebene

Yeah. I've seen it in years. But I was really into it in high school and, you know, that's part of my feeling of not belonging being the, the African immigrant girl into mommy Python. I think that, that was like the only one. Yeah. I really loved all of it.

And I but I think I particularly loved life of Brian. 

Nick

It's yeah, it's funny. I went to a Catholic boarding school and obviously they weren't very keen on it, but we were mocking. Then whenever, if you try and limit someone's access to something, it becomes more desirable. And gosh, I had a point it's gone now.

Huh? Can't remember what that was. So, how do you feel about leading a short granting practice? Would 

Sebene

that be okay, so just a few minutes and yeah, you don't have to do anything special for your sitting. Just make sure that you're comfortable. You might want to roll your shoulders up and back just to relax your back of your body and rest the front of the body.

If you are sitting in a chair, just make sure your feet are flat on the floor. If they're not crossed, that would be good. And just rest your hands in your lap or on your knees and thighs.

And this is a grounding practice. So we're going to start with whatever is in contact with the floor or ground. Whatever's underneath you. So it might be feeling your feet on the floor. So that really means noticing the contact, noticing the pressure. If you're not touching the floor, feeling your body in contact with whatever is underneath you.

Just take a moment to notice if you're. Thinking about sensation or if you're actually feeling sensation,

if you're having any trouble connecting to sensation, see if you can notice your left big toe without moving into this, notice your left. Big toe now, your right big toe.

So in that same way, just noticing the contact with whatever's underneath you, just feeling what's there feeling the sense of pressure, any other sensations?

The grounding, the stay starting with the lower half of the body so that we can really feel that sense of being here in the body

beginning to notice the belly around the belly to release. Soften,

perhaps noticing the sensation of the breath in the belly.

If you'd like, you could place your hand on the ballet just to notice that movement.

Noticing how simple it is to bring awareness to sensation.

This doesn't mean that thoughts stop. And if the mind is thinking that's not a problem or mistake, that's what the mind does.

But anytime we notice the mind lost in story or commentary can just rest the awareness back on touch on the ground, on the belly and sensation.

and just remembering that any time when the mind gets caught, yanked or triggered. And there's a strong emotion. You can come back to the sense of groundedness, just feeling the feet, feeling your seat, feeling the ballet.

Nick

Thank you. That was beautiful. 

Sebene

I hope that people find it helpful. And you know, there's so many meditations online and I have many as well, and just hoping that people can, if they're new to this can find a way to cultivate. And there are many, many different styles and ways to meditate. So you can find things that work for you.

Nick

Thank you. And I know at the back of the book, you've got a practice section, so there's some journaling prompts and some meditation guides. 

Sebene

Yeah. 

Nick

And just in closing you journal, do you journal often? 

Sebene

I do. I don't do it necessarily every day, every day, but I have, I was looking through some old journals and like surrounded by journalism at the moment because I have like a whole shelf full of them over the years.

So yes, I find it's a great practice. 

Nick

Yeah, again, less thinking more doing for me. Nice. thank you so much. I I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am for your time. And is there anything I haven't asked that I should ask? 

Sebene

I don't think so. Nick it's really been great. I've really enjoyed this conversation.

Thank you, 

Nick

me too. Thank you. I'm so grateful. Thanks Evan. I 

Sebene

thank you.

Nick

Okay. That's the recording done?