Episode 108--Enjoy Your Morning Coffee More Mindfully (and Other Practical Tips)

In this week’s episode, Billy and Matt talk about how mindfulness can become your secret weapon to navigate the complexities and possibilities of midlife. The guys demystify mindfulness and explore its potential to transform your life's trajectory.  

If you liked this episode, check out this episode as well:

• Episode 79--Morning Routines for a Successful 2023
• Episode 4–What Is Mindfulness? with Sarah Rudell Beach
• Episode 3–The Only Way Out Is Through: Billy Battles His Demons with Mindfulness

Check out the Done with Dieting Podcast - https://elizabethsherman.com/category/podcast/

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Transcript

Billy: Coming up on The Mindful Midlife Crisis

Matt: I feel like people think of mindfulness as not being a very sexy topic. Everyone looks at it like it's their vitamins or they're, you know, eating your vegetables. I know I should be doing this, but it's not the fun part of what life is. I think that there's an opportunity that you and I have to really kind of push to the forefront. This does not have to be a chore. It's not a chore, it's an opportunity.

Billy:  Welcome to The Mindful Midlife Crisis, a podcast for people navigating the complexities and possibilities of life's second half. I'm your host, Billy Lahr, an educator, personal trainer, meditation teacher and overthinker who talks to experts who specialize in social and emotional learning. Mindfulness, physical and emotional wellness, cultural awareness, finances, communication, relationships, dating, and parenting all in an effort to help us better reflect, learn, and grow so we can live a more purpose-filled life.

Take a deep breath, embrace the present, and journey with me through The Mindful Midlife Crisis. 

Welcome to The Mindful Midlife Crisis. I'm your host, Billy Lahr. Thank you for tuning in wherever you are. The purpose of this show is to help you navigate the complexities and possibilities of life's second half using my no-BS GPS guide to finding more purpose and passion in your life, because I'm sick and tired of people telling you to follow your passions because that is complete and utter nonsense. Purpose and passion are destinations, not starting points. So if you need some direction in getting to that place in your life, join the Mindful Midlife Community at www.mindfulmidlifecrisis.com and get my free six-step roadmap to living your life with more purpose and passion. I also share how practicing intentional and mindful living over the last 10 years has helped me navigate the trials, tribulations and successes of my own midlife crisis. Being more intentional and mindful has helped me process my ruminating thoughts, anxiety and stress in a much healthier way, by reducing my emotional reactivity and impulsive behavior, which, in turn, has helped me improve my relationships and communication with others, as well as be more consistent, disciplined, patient and productive in meeting my goals. And listen, if you've been a fan of this podcast for a while, you probably have thought to yourself I don't know, dude, you sound pretty high, and strong to be a mindfulness coach, which is valid. That's true. I am not your average mindfulness coach sipping green tea and meditating on top of a mountain. I'm high anxiety, I'm high intensity and I'm high energy. But I practice mindfulness so that I can be at this level of obnoxious because if I didn't, I would be an out-of-control asshole. But these are the same skills, strategies and resources I use in my personal life, based on years of research and experimentation, so I can enjoy a happier and healthier life. And, trust me, there are still days when I'm a hot mess, but my hope is that by sharing my experiences, as well as the experiences of my guests, you'll see that you are not alone in your experience. So if you're looking for a way to better navigate whatever you got going on these days, visit www.mindfulmidlifecrisis.com. Join our Mindful Midlife community and let me be your GPS to finding more purpose and passion in life. And now it's time for my favorite part of the show, because once again I'm joined by my good friend, the always entertaining the one, the only, Matt Hazard. Matt, what have you got for us today?

Matt:  I'm gonna watch you shine, gonna watch you grow, gonna paint a sign so you'll always know, as long as one and one is two, ooh, there could never be a father who loved his daughter more than I love you.

Billy:  Oh, that was beautiful. I don't know if I know that song. What song is that?

Matt:  That’s a song called Father Daughter by Paul Simon. I sing it to my daughter every night.

Billy:  Oh, that's beautiful. I love it. I know you're a big Paul Simon guy. I know you love you some Paul Simon.

Matt:  I do indeed. Yes, yeah, simon and Garfunkel, big instrumental part of my childhood and a lot of the music that I listen to, and especially Paul Simon Graceland, one of my very favorite records of all time.

Billy:  Excellent, very nice, very nice. Well, thank you for serenading and thank you for introducing me to that song right there. You sound amazing where you are. I'm going to sound a bit echoey where I am because, as I told people a couple weeks ago, I teased that I'm gonna be somewhere new in the world and I'm currently in Mexico City. First time I've ever been here, second time being in Mexico. It's not my favorite city so far. Everybody raves about Mexico City. People love Mexico City. I'm just not having that same experience. I just got here a couple days ago and it's all right. It's all right, but I don't know that I'm going to stay as long as I originally thought. I think that's important to recognize, like, hey, if you're not fully invested in something, stick around for a little while, see if it improves and then get out of there.

Matt:  So, Billy, let me ask you, Mexico City is virtually that's like a pit stop on every single one of my favorite food travel shows. Anthony Bourdain went there, Phil Rosenthal went there. Is the food incredible?

Billy:  Yes, the food is good. I'm not as in tune to food as you are. You are a fantastic cook. You really appreciate the finer flavors of food. I did have a torta chilaquillé yesterday, and it was the size of your body, not my body your body, because you are taller than I am. This sandwich was massive, but it was very tasty. I threw a little sauce on it. I've tried to avoid eating tacos, because that's something that I can just get on my own when I'm walking around. Luckily, I'm staying with a friend, and so we walked around and checked out a couple of different places. I had a very delicious steak the other night, so the food is good. Here's a question for you, though. I was on one of the dating apps not too long ago and there was a woman on there who she had a question, and it was you're familiar with F***, Kill, Marry, right? Yes, okay, so her F***, Kill, Marry was Italian food, Asian food, Mexican food. So which one do you F***, Kill, Marry?

Matt:  Oh God, that is staggeringly difficult. Oh, it was incredibly easy for me, was it? Oh yeah, can we trade in Mediterranean food with Italian food? Because it's kind of the same global area. Because if Asian food, if you include Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, then Asian would be number one for me, that would be the Mary yes, that's my Mary, 100%, because that gives me a really big breath of different foods to try, whereas if Italian food included Mediterranean, I'm very partial to that style of cooking in that part of the world. Those flavor combinations, yeah, and then Mexican food, boy, I mean everything is the same, but it's one really delicious thing that they've nailed it.

Billy:  That is my fuck, but to me Italian food is just sauce and noodles. I think Italian food is the most overrated food of all time. I don't know. I mean, I like me a good pasta, I like lasagna, I like pizza, but I just think that Italian food is overrated. I don't know, and people do not like that opinion.

Matt:  No, and it's because, Billy, it's because you're wrong. So, Italians, you're thinking of American Italian food. That's what you're thinking of.

Billy:  I've been to Italy.

Matt:  I've been to Italy, but when you go to Italy, you're not getting red sauce and noodles. Their flatbreads are better than American pizza. Their cured meat is the best-cured meat in the world. I dare you to find a better cured meat than Iberico ham. You can find one of the top two or three steak houses in the world in Italy. So I just think, eh, you're categorizing. You've been to Italy, but you are categorizing your opinion of Italian food based on what you've eaten in America.

Billy:  I think Our version of Italian food OK, that may be fair, but I also wasn't super blown away by a lot in Italy, except for the paninis. Now, when you say the ham is amazing over there, the cheese is what got me. The cheese stands alone, as they say in the song. Because that was amazing. The paninis that I had in Milan, chef's kiss, it was delicious.

Matt:  To answer your question, my fuck Mary kill would be Mary Asian, fuck Italian kill Mexican probably. Like that would be a really difficult decision.

Billy:  I'm going to clip that kill Mexican part too.

Matt:  How dare you? This guy's a racist.

Billy:  Well, it was great having you on the show.

Matt:  Oh, you could also say f*** Italian. We could clip that too.

Billy:  Oh, we should probably get to our topic immediately here today. So I'll tell you what. Here's what we're going to do. We are going to actually demystify this idea of mindfulness because I was actually having this conversation with the host of the Done with Dieting Podcast, Elizabeth Sherman. Go ahead and check out that podcast. She said to me in a conversation that we were having Billy, don't you feel like mindfulness and meditation have a PR problem? And honestly, yeah, I do think that, because I think there are people out there who are sick and tired of being told to be more mindful. And in fact, I think when someone who has no idea what being mindful actually means tells someone to be more mindful, it actually makes that person more vengeful towards the person and the idea of mindfulness. And I also think people find meditation to be really woo-woo or even super boring, which, if I'm being honest, it can be. Meditation can be boring, but it also can be healing and cathartic and really wonderful. So, Matt Hazard, you've been an OG Mindful Midlife Crisis listener since day one. So let me ask you this Before you had heard me talk about mindfulness nonstop on this podcast, what did you know about it?

Matt:  So the short answer is very little. I feel like I'd always associated mindfulness with meditation, like those words were basically synonymous for me. From the very first time that I heard the word mindfulness, it was associated with meditation and then immediately sounded like so you just sit there and think which is? I mean, that's kind of what's happening, but there's a direction to it, right? I think the first time that I got sort of a more in-depth picture that there was a lot more to it than that and that maybe it was more simple than I thought more simple than meditation was listening to one of the early episodes of this show with our good friend, frequent swearer, Sarah Rudelle Beach. That actually helped me out a lot in terms of getting my head around it.

Billy:  Yeah, that's episode four, if people want to go back to that. And Sarah Rudelle Beach is a mindfulness boss and she's hilarious, she's knowledgeable. I think I relate to her more as a mindfulness coach than most other people who teach mindfulness, because we both worked in education. She has a big personality, like you said, she loves to swear and she dances in Santa costumes, which I find just adorable. But she also really knows her shit when it comes to mindfulness, so much so when I sent her the questions ahead of time, she didn't answer them, she just wrote I don't need any notes because I know my shit and I thought that that was wonderful. One word that you used in explaining mindfulness there was that you have direction, and I think that's really important to understand, that it's not just thinking. You actually have direction in that thinking, in that focus, in that intention. So I just want to give everybody here a quick refresher and talk about what mindfulness is again. And this is an important place for us to start, because people too often conjure up images of having to sit cross-legged for hours while emptying your mind of all thoughts and reaching a state of enlightenment, but the reality is that mindfulness is far more accessible and practical than that. Mindfulness is about being present in the moment, paying attention to your thoughts, feelings, emotions and physical sensations, without judgment. It's not about eliminating thoughts or emotions. It's about observing them with curiosity and self-compassion. Now, I know there are skeptics out there, as well as people who probably just see mindfulness, as we said, as a bit too woo-woo, a bit of nonsense, which begs the question does mindfulness have any scientific backing? And the answer is resounding yes. There's actually all sorts of studies out there that have shown that mindfulness can reduce stress, anxiety and depression. I'm living proof of this. I can say that mindfulness not only changed my life, but it most likely saved it as well. If you want to go back and listen to episode three about how mindfulness has changed my life and it's why I'm here doing this show now, I'm not trying to plant seeds, like mindfulness isn't for you, that's cool and I'm not going to take offense to that. I'm here to water seeds. So if you're curious about it and you're listening to this episode, you're listening to this podcast I'm just trying to water the seeds so that maybe this idea of practicing and cultivating a mindfulness practice grows within you. But there's research that shows mindfulness can also improve focus, attention and overall well-being, and this has been shown time and time again in research studies. In fact, john Capitzin, who is the godfather of mindfulness based stress reduction research in the United States. He's paved the way for more research to be conducted on the benefits of mindfulness, and there's even research out there that suggests mindfulness can actually change the brain. There are neuroimaging studies that have shown how a regular mindfulness practice can increase the size of the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with decision making and emotional regulation, and it also reduces the size of the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that is responsible for our fight, fright or flight response. So, yes, there's solid science behind mindfulness. What's crazy is I was just having this conversation the other day with Karen Harmon, who is an occupational therapist who also works with teens and adults with ADHD at three pines therapy in Loveland, colorado. You can check her out, karen Harmon, on LinkedIn. She's a wonderful lady, and she said that exact same thing about the prefrontal cortex getting bigger and the amygdala getting smaller during our conversation, which is actually something that I didn't know before or maybe I learned that and I just didn't remember it, but it makes perfect sense. And she also talked about how the use of prescribed ADHD stimulant medication combined with mindfulness actually fortifies the frontal lobe, because the medication activates that area of the brain and over time, people who consistently integrate both medication and meditation experience incredible results, which is something we talked about with Brian Piat way back in episode 62, because if you listen to the earlier episodes, brian on the base and I were kind of critical of medication and then Brian came on and kind of set us straight about how medication and meditation in tandem are actually incredibly beneficial. It's also why some people suggest drinking your morning coffee and then practicing meditation, because the caffeine in your coffee provides the frontal lobe with a little extra stimulation during that intentionally focused time. Are you a coffee drinker, matt Hazard?

Matt:  How much time you got, Billy?

Billy:  Are you a connoisseur of coffee?

Matt:  Oh, Billy. It started when I was 18 with a latte from a gas station machine and it's become okay. If it is not, light, roast, single source, grind at home in my own burr grinder, pour over a coffee maker what do we even talk about? Just dump it in the sink. I will always drink at least one pot of coffee a day. Sometimes I make a second. There's also a great brand that I have that I travel with, that they do like. They're like K cups in terms of size only, but they're like these little frozen hockey pucks of coffee concentrate that make an incredible cup of coffee that our good friend Pete Burman introduced me to, actually, and so sometimes on the weekend I'll have those. 

Billy:  Wait, wait wait, what is this product? Because maybe they'll sponsor the show.

Matt:  Maybe they will. Yeah, so the product's called Comma Tier and they work with several different coffee makers and they'll just be like hey, give us your best coffee beans and we'll make a concentrate out of them and we sell them to people who have memberships. It winds up being a I don't know like two bucks a cup or a buck and a half a cup cheaper than what you would pay at Starbucks for like 10 times better coffee. So a Comma Tier, if you're out there and you hear this, we would love to have you as a sponsor. Yeah, yeah, I will work for coffee. I'll read an ad on this show for coffee just for coffee.

Billy:  Listen, that sounds great, and it's interesting that you bring up your being a coffee artist, so to speak, and the love and care you put into coffee, because actually one of the mindfulness practices that I teach people is to actually sit and enjoy your morning cup of coffee. So for those skeptical listeners out there, hopefully you're seeing now that mindfulness just isn't the woo-woo concept. It's actually rooted in neuroscience. But how do we make mindfulness a practical practice, meaning how does someone start incorporating mindfulness into their daily life without feeling overwhelmed? So that's, we're going to talk about that here, along with drinking your coffee mindfully. And that's a really small place to start. You don't need to meditate for hours or quit your job to live in a monastery in order to be more mindful. You can begin by setting aside just a few minutes each day for mindfulness practice. Now is more better, yes, but maybe you don't have that time, maybe you don't know where to start. So here are just a few things that you can do. You can find yourself a quiet space, sit comfortably and focus on your breath for just a couple of minutes and just notice. When your mind inevitably wanders, you bring it back gently to your breath. It's that simple, but what you find is that your mind, especially if you haven't taken the time to just simply sit it really does wander quite often. But that's the thing is that mindfulness is not an all or nothing practice. You can just take small, consistent steps that will lead to big changes over time. Here are a few other mindful moments that I shared in my newsletter a while back. If you are not on the newsletter list, go to www.mindfulmidlifecrisis.com. Join the newsletter. You get all sorts of little tidbits like this, but here are just a few ways that you can be more intentionally present for three to five minutes each day. So I mentioned sitting with your breath, right? See, when you transition between meetings, leave it all possible. Do not jump immediately from one meeting to the next. The one thing that I started doing is, rather than scheduling hour-long meetings, I only schedule them for 45 minutes so that I have that 15 minutes to just process, because meetings always run long. Then I at least have a five-minute buffer to where I can just simply be present. I don't get on my phone, I don't check email, I don't send that last second email. Instead, I just let my brain cool by sitting with my breath and I feel each inhale and each exhale. I'm trying not to judge my breathing, I'm just simply being with the breath. Now, for those of you who drive to work I think I've mentioned this before don't hop out of the car right away. Sit with both feet flat and rest your hands somewhere comfy in your car and take a long, slow, even inhale through the nose and then exhale at that same long, slow, even rate. You can do that right now as I'm explaining this Just taking long, slow, even inhales through the nose and then exhaling at that same long, slow, even rate. You can do that five times and that takes about a minute. If you feel yourself rushing through the breath, give yourself permission to slow down. You made it to work on time. Allow yourself to simply just be before you go inside and do. That's one thing that Sarah Rudell Beach talked about was how do we find being mode as opposed to doing mode? Here's something that I used to do. I used to mindfully wash my face. I'm bummed because Clair Sonic, they don't make these anymore. I used to love my Clair Sonic. Do you know what a Clair Sonic is? Bad hazard.

Matt:  I don't know the brand name, but I just bought my wife one of these, the device that I think you're describing. It's like a vibrating facial wash scrub brush type situation right With like silicone.

Billy:  Yes, yes, exactly. So listen, if you're a dude and you're judging me, because I want my skin to look nice, get over yourself and start taking care of yourself. It feels good, it moisturizes, it exfoliates that dead skin from there. Anyway, what I used to do is I used to just gently guide the Clair Sonic over my face and in my head I would say forehead, right, temple, right, jaw, chin, and I would do that over my whole face and it was such a nice, easy way to settle my mind first thing in the morning. Maybe you do that with a washcloth, right, and you don't need to do it over your whole body, but you can do it over your face. And here's the reason why I used to do that is when I would wake up in the morning I would already have all these thoughts of what I needed to do once I got to work. So with those thoughts racing, they just kind of snowballed. So I wanted to create an intentional pause in the morning and that just one minute with the facial brush that's what did it. But then it was also a cue for the next things I did in my morning routine. I'm a big morning routine guy. I talked about that in a previous episode. What episode was that? I don't know. I think it's in the 80s somewhere. Go look at that. I need to memorize what episodes I've done again, but I have a morning routine. I think it's actually episode 79. Whatever, Go check it out that morning routine and see what works for you. My morning routine might not work for you. I listened to Dr Andrew Huberman's morning routine and I'm like that's not realistic for me. But Andrew Huberman is also very, very smart and I am not as smart as he is most days.

Matt:  Be kind to yourself, Billy. Thank you.

Billy:  Thank you. Thank you for extending that grace to me. And then here we go. This is for you, matt Hazard. So you put in all that work to make your coffee taste delicious. So how often do you actually sit with the deliciousness of your coffee and actually appreciate the work that went into the coffee, not just the work that you put into it, but the fact that someone had to package those little cups, that someone had to grind those the ground grind, whatever you say for the beans. A lot of work had to go into that getting there. And there's then an aroma, there is a flavor, the flavor, the heat of the cup, because they're all things that you can activate in terms of your five senses. So for those of you who are coffee drinkers I don't drink coffee because I think that shit is gross. But I bet those of you out there who do enjoy coffee, like I said, maybe you haven't tasted it for a while. So slow down and enjoy the first few sips. You don't have to drink your entire cup like this. I challenge you to, but you don't have to drink your entire cup. Maybe take the first few sips like this and you just engage all five senses before you even take a sip of coffee. You smell it, you feel the warmth of it, you actually look at the color of the coffee in your cup. You see the coffee swirling around in your cup as you sip it and you get the flavor. But then also, what does that sound as you sip? Activate all of those senses and just sit with them without judgment, but activate all those senses first before sipping. So, Matt Hazard, of all those things I listed right there, which ones are you going to test out before next week's episode?

Matt:  Well, so for sure I can test out the coffee one, because so and you're quite right, like I very frequently put in all this effort to make coffee as part of my morning routine, which my morning routine involves a lot of walking, actually, because I walk my dogs first thing in the morning and then I walk my kids to school as well. So I've got a mile and a half usually of walking in before I've even really begun my day, before I've had my first sip of coffee. So it's probably a good opportunity for me to kind of sit and reset for just a few minutes and really think about that coffee. I never think about my coffee that way, outside of maybe just really savoring the taste on a weekend, you know, while I listen to music on the radio or something, and I'll sit with a cup on the weekend and kind of enjoy the smell, enjoy the taste. But I've never taken a mindful approach to it, just like, oh, this is a great cup and I'm just going to savor it. But yeah, I don't do that for work. When I'm starting my work day, I pour my coffee, run in, start logging on all my software and stuff and I don't think about it. So I can afford three to five minutes to try that.

Billy:  Yeah, and I'm looking forward to hearing how that shifts your experience with the coffee Because, like I said, you're putting all this work into it. You speak very highly of it. You are a connoisseur of coffee, so take some time to really appreciate what those flavors are.

Matt:  Well, and I think that there's a good bit of mindful like you can think all the way back to the seeds going into the ground for like, especially the kind of coffee that I like to drink, where I'm very specific about like. Okay, this roaster Sources their beans from this country, from this particular province and this, you know, whatever, and I can think about the laborers Putting those beans in the ground, watering those plants, having those seeds sprout, harvesting the beans, sourcing them and then roasting them perfectly and then like all of those things I can kind of categorize mentally and Sort of tailor a peacefulness about it, a mindfulness about it, and that's even before getting to the senses. It's just kind of I think that there's an opportunity there for me.

Billy:  Yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing how, what that's like, because you know, like we mentioned a couple weeks ago, you're not just a new co-host, but you're also my guinea pig because, yeah, you are the everyman. Right, you're more of an everyman than I am because you're married, you have kids, you working a job, your wife's working job. You're more of the everyman than I am. So if I can give you some Practical tips to be more mindful throughout the day and then you report back to it, I think that it carries more weight than people listening to me. And you're like dude, you're traveling around and you're single, you don't have kids. You know the same responsibilities right, I get it, but we can have conversations. I can have conversations with married dudes like you, with married women who have same responsibilities that you, matt hazard, have, and we can find ways to incorporate more mindful moments, more intentionality, in our day. Actually, people who joined the meditate and mingle session last night, we actually did a mindful eating exercise and it was really cool to hear what those experiences were with the food and and you know, you brought up Anthony Bourdain, you brought up Phil Rosenthal, two of my favorite shows, two of my favorite food travelers. Those are eating experiences. They are experiencing the food because food is such a significant part of One's culture and, like I said, I'm not a big foodie, so I just kind of eat what I like and sometimes I just eat what's convenient. But for those people out there who really appreciate food, or even people like me like yesterday I found myself rushing through that torta, chili Ques and I'm like wait a minute, there's a lot of flavors in this. I want to see what all the flavors are, so that I'm not just eating a sandwich, like this isn't just a sandwich, there's more to this. So I intentionally slowed down and and try to enjoy those flavors just a little bit more.

Matt:  I definitely should do that, because if there's a superpower that I have, it's eating too fast and being full, like Realizing I'm full after I've eaten a lot more than I needed to. That said, one thing I wanted to bring up about this topic, billy, is that I feel like people think of mindfulness as not being a very sexy topic. Everyone looks at it like it's their vitamins or they're, you know, eating your vegetables. I know I should be doing this, but it's not the fun part of what life is. I Think that there's an opportunity that you and I have to really kind of push to the forefront. This does not have to be a chore. It's not a chore, it's an opportunity. So I just wanted to float that as a maybe something for a future episode that we can really dig into, but I had it rolling around in my head when I was preparing for this episode today.

Billy:  Well, I like that because growing up I did not like vegetables. I don't eat enough vegetables, but I know that vegetables are good for me, but I'm finding that oh, you know what I actually really, really like asparagus. Yeah, I like zucchini. There are a lot of things that when I first saw them when I was younger, I'm like I'm sure that's good for me, but there's no way I'm gonna eat. But then I think soup is kind of like the great equalizer, because you can chop up a bunch of vegetables and throw it into a soup and Eat it that way and it's like you're kind of tricking yourself into eating those vegetables and that's actually a great way to do it. I really really like that comparison that you made to mindfulness and vegetables, because there are ways where you can incorporate mindful moments throughout your day, just like there are ways that you can incorporate vegetables into your diet. That isn't just like I'm eating broccoli on this side over here and then I have carrots over here. Like they don't have to be courses. It can be worked into whatever the recipe is. So well done with that.

Matt:  That's a great point. Like I didn't eat a single mushroom on purpose in my life until I was probably 26 or 27 years old, it is now one of my favorite foods and all it took was a deft hand by the proper person making a great dish. That a food I wanted to try because I was interested in that chef's ability to cook and I was like I was open to the opportunity and they had a skillful hand administering. So that first time really appreciating and enjoying a mushroom made me like the lesser times that a mushroom exists, that much more Like I was able to accept it easier and I think that that's the opportunity that mindfulness coaches and that us as arbiters are in people, introducing the idea of mindfulness in people's lives so we can do that positively and be that deft hand.

Billy:  I feel like I need to change from being a mindfulness coach to a mindfulness chef. So if you're looking for more ways to cook up some more mindful moments, you're welcome. Should be an email I see what you did Should be an email at billy@mindfulmidlifecrisis.com and let me know if you used any of these little strategies that we mentioned here today. If you're looking to deepen your practice, go to www.mindfulmidlifecrisis.com and join me every Monday evening at 8 PM, central time, for Meditate and Mingle, where I lead a small group through a short guided practice that focuses on fostering curiosity, openness, compassion, awareness, gratitude, acceptance and non-judgment, and then we follow that up with a discussion around how to best use that practice moving forward in life. It's not an hour of meditation where we just sit and look at the screen. We do about a 10 to 15-minute guided practice. Then we have a really thoughtful conversation about how we can apply more mindfulness and apply that practice into our own lives. If you are not sure what APM Central Time is, just do the time zone math so you don't miss out, or you can shoot me a message and request a Meditate and Mingle session in your time zone. Next week you'll actually get to hear what one of those Meditate and Mingle sessions sounds like. Finally, remember this progress is not linear. Our growth looks more like the stock market Some days were up, some days were down, and we may not reap the benefits for a while, but if we play the long game and our consistent, disciplined, patient and self-compassionate, you'll see that your investment in yourself will pay huge dividends over time. If you found value in this episode, please do me a favor and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. I would also greatly appreciate it if you would share this episode with people in your life who may also find value in it. As I mentioned at the beginning, the purpose of their show is to help you navigate the complexities and possibilities of life's second half, and I hope this free and useful information provides some insight that will guide you towards living with more purpose and passion in your life. 

So, for Matt Hazard. 

Matt:  That's me. 

Billy:  This is Billy. Thank you for listening to The Mindful Midlife Crisis. May you feel happy, healthy, and loved. 

Take care friends. 

Matt:  Bye.