Heavily Meditated

in Midlife

Davidji  0:00  

establish yourself in the present moment. We all must be activists in some way, whatever that looks like to you. The answer isn't sitting in a cave you know and meditating for the rest of your life. You need to get still allow clarity to unfold and then take your step lean into the direction of your dreams.

Sarah Milken  0:24  

Hey, peeps, welcome to the flexible neurotic podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Sarah Milken. Yeah, you heard that right. I'm a real PhD doctor. Long, long ago, like last fucking year. I was sitting in the midlife funk wondering, was this it for me? That day, I realized I needed to get off my ass and start my midlife remix. I dusted off my PhD wipe the menopause, sweat off my forehead, grabbed my golden shovel and started digging deep to all my midlife pitches. It's not just luck, coffee and hormones that get you through your midlife remix. It's action steps. Let's do this. Hi, good peeps. This is the next episode of The flexible neurotic Podcast. I'm Dr. Sarah Milken V flexible, neurotic. Today I have a very cool guest. He's the meditation guys stress management expert, corporate meditation breathing expert and the author of three books or is it four? Is it three? Okay. He wrote sacred powers, a gold medal winning book and Amazon number one best seller also destress defying the real world guide to personal empowerment, lasting fulfillment and peace of mind and secrets of meditation, A Practical Guide to inner peace and personal transformation. Another Nautilus Book Award. Over 1400 recorded meditations on every app, YouTube, you name it, and over 10 million streams. This man's voice is coming into our ears. He calls himself the meditation geek. He has the most incredible voice ever. It's soothing and energizing all at the same time. He had a life defining moment that changed the trajectory of his life. Soon after that life defining moment he met and deeply connected with Deepak Chopra at a meditation retreat connected with him, and later became the CEO of the Chopra center until he flew the nest to do this on his own. You can't miss him white hair and beard with birds always chirping in the background. And known for his famous phrase, I'm heavily meditated with over 10,000 hours of meditation. And he has one name, David G. It's all together. Hi, David G.

Davidji  2:44  

You're so funny. Thank you. What a beautiful intro. I love that.

Sarah Milken  2:49  

Oh my gosh, I just started all in there.

Davidji  2:51  

Right? I'm sorry that I'm inside here. Right now. We have like FOMO for like, maybe we should reschedule. I could sit out so Oh,

Sarah Milken  2:58  

no, no, no, it's probably better not having the birds chirping because then you can actually hear the words and not focus on the birds. So we're good. I'm so happy to have you here. And I think we're just gonna jump right in. So one of the main messages of this podcast for midlife women is to help people figure out how to self recreate in the second half of life. And I know you're the meditation guy, I know that meditation was not part of your first career path. And I know for 20 years, you had a very different life. So I would love for you to tell us about career path number one.

Davidji  3:35  

Well, my earliest earliest career path was I was the director of public information for the Skin Cancer Foundation. That was my original path. But, you know, left that world got involved in the world of finance, bond trading, mergers and acquisitions. And, you know, a bunch of stuff like that. And I had really started meditating. I really learned about meditating, practicing it. When I was in college, it was an experimental Asian Studies course. And there were 12 of us, we sat in a circle. And our Zen master stood in the corner, we were instructed to raise our hands when we had a thought pop into our head. And in his hands, he carried an 18 inch bamboo stick known as a K Saku so when we raised our hands, he would come over and flag us on the back. So it only lasted in that school of meditation a couple of weeks found myself, you know, not you know, when when you're lying to your zen master, like no, no, I'm not having thoughts. It's time to move on. So I dabbled in a whole bunch of different types of meditations on and off sometimes for weeks, and sometimes for years, got into mantras and Tantra, and Vipassana and mindfulness and chocolate tasting meditation. So

Sarah Milken  4:46  

I've done that one, actually.

Davidji  4:49  

And there were times where, you know, for years I would be like so deep into my practice, but at a certain point I traded in my early morning meditation routine for Early morning train ride to the World Trade Center in New York, downtown. And I traded in my evening meditation for a glass of scotch. And like that my practice was gone. I was deep into the corporate thing. But as I got more deeply and deeply involved in that, I also realized that I had less and less balance in my life. And I was working in a pretty harsh industry in a harsh environment, we could say, and so I was, you know, quite aligned with that I was pretty harsh. as well. I was born in Queens. So we were born with like, sharp elbows. Ouch. And so in the wake of 911, I'm walking past a row of cardboard boxes that people are living in, in southern Manhattan. So as I walk past this particular box, this guy grabs my pant leg and pulls me into him. And he says, what's going to be on your tombstone? It's a fairly reflective moment. I call these Black Butterfly moments. And in that moment, everything stopped, the sound of traffic stopped. There were no people, there was no nothing. It was just him and me, had these deep blue Crystaline eyes, I was gazing into them. We were like, locked in this thing. It seemed like hours, probably a couple of minutes. And I reached from for some money in my pocket, because I assume that's what he was looking for. And he pinned my hand to my pocket, you know, with this handy. He stopped me from doing that. And he said, No, no, no, no. What's going to be on your tombstone? Not about the money. The answers are in the stars. And like it was it was too intense. I don't know. You know, it's just God talking to me, or just some guy in a cardboard box. You know, talking to me. Anyway, when we broke our gaze. My knees were weak, I was sobbing, tears were streaming down my face. I was hyperventilating, I could barely even, you know, walk, I walked about 20 feet and sat down on the, on the stairs of an apartment building down the block. And it was probably one of the most pivotal, defining moments that I had ever gone through, certainly. And so came home that night and share this little tale with my wife. And she was like, Yeah, you need to quit your job.

Sarah Milken  7:19  

It's just that quick.

Davidji  7:20  

She said, there's this guy, Deepak Chopra. You know, he's doing like this retreat in Oxford, England, you should like go check that out. And I'm fairly obedient. So I was like, okay, quit my job, hit it off. You know, it's the land of Harry Potter and went to this thing. They were supposed to be 1000s of people at this event, there were 50 of us because it was in the, you know, right after 911. Nobody was flying.

Sarah Milken  7:42  

Except for you. Because you're the face? Well, yeah,

Davidji  7:45  

I was, you know, I was on a mission. You know, my heart had been hurting so much. And I was so empty, empty from, from the work that I was doing that was totally not fulfilling. And I was just phoning it in, you know, empty from, you know, the loss and the intensity, the grief of 911.

Sarah Milken  8:03  

How did you also just change jobs, and you're actually working in the World Trade Center. And at your new job, he watched the one of the towers burned down?

Davidji  8:14  

Yeah, about six months before this before our boss was, this is about, you know, April of that year, my partner and I, we were lured by a horrible person, well, I shouldn't say horrible person, but a person with horrible behaviors at the time. And he like, lured us away. And he was like, Oh, if you guys shut down your job and work for me, we were mergers and acquisitions, guys, and he was buying a lot of companies. So he would rather have in house rather than pay for it every time he was doing a deal. So we were like, Yeah, okay, fine, we'll do it. You know. And so we did that. And, you know, so like, the person who I probably admired least in my life, and have disdain for, he's actually the person who like, sort of kind of saved my life, you know, luring me out of the towers, we were up on about 20 blocks further north, you know, on that day, and we were both we were co CEOs of this company. And so yeah, it was very, very intense in that moment, standing on the roof of this building on 27th Street, you know, looking looking down a tower to, we had worked on the 82nd floor of tower to and like, just suddenly watch it collapse. And there were people I was standing with, whose spouses were in that line. And it was just one of those moments where, you know, I think that's what trauma is. It doesn't have to be that kind of trauma. But trauma is when your entire worldview gets turned on its head in that moment, like nothing makes sense and it's inexplicable, and it's not understandable and it's not what you ever planned or predicted. But it is that's the way the world is. So it was sort of like something like broke inside my head and something broke inside my heart. Nobody on the 82nd floor of tower to survive. To that, so, you know, I was like on a journey to find meaning to, you know, so they have this guy in my head, you know, what's going to be on your tombstone? Like, what does my life is gonna be about? You know, because right up until that point, it was pretty much about nothing.

Sarah Milken  10:14  

Yeah, it was like, why wasn't I in that tower?

Davidji  10:17  

What's right, you know, our right survivor's remorse, you know, and some guilt also, like, well, what am I doing with that? Am I like, now that I here I am alive here, you know, am I? How am I helping others? How am I healing others? How am I serving others? What am I contributing to the world? You know, all those types of questions. And I was, you know, I was very, very empty, there was like blackness in my heart. But at this meditation retreat, we were meditating for like seven hours a day. And after, like the third day of meditating, it was like my heart that had been like this, this white linen cloth that had been immersed in, in black India ink, suddenly, like, amazingly, it was like, being draped through this Russian stream and being cleansed and lightened. Every single day. It was just so intense, that at the end of seven days, I did you know, hang out with Deepak, and I had never heard of Deepak Chopra before. That's for a week. And you know, my next step was to head off to India, obviously, the next step in search of the guru. I mean,

Sarah Milken  11:21  

everyone just goes to India right after 911. The wife, I'm sure it was like, Wait, what's happening here? Right? She

Davidji  11:27  

was like, Wait, I thought you're going away for a week to learn deeper answers out there. I need to find the answers. So I went to the US Embassy in London, got my passport and got a visa and six month visa and hit it off to India, and I hung out there for six months.

Sarah Milken  11:44  

Pretty cool wife, I don't think I would say yes to that.

Davidji  11:47  

And she's still my wife. Wow. That's the That's the amazing part. You know,

Sarah Milken  11:51  

cheers to that. Wow, that's, that's impressive. She,

Davidji  11:56  

she was like, you know, listen, you're broken, and I can't fix you. So maybe you can suddenly fund you know, went off on this like, Eat Pray Love, journey without the eating in the love. A lot of prayer. In that, in that moment, a lot of silence, right. So I went up to the Himalayas to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He was not there that day. You know, I bathed in the Ganges that practice yoga every day lit incense, you know, went to the temples and prayed and meditated every day and you know, did all like the appropriate things, searching for the guru. And then I was laying in this hammock in a cashew forest in Kerala with all these birds chirping around these parrots chirping and I was reading the Bhagavad Gita. You know, this written around 300 BCE.

Sarah Milken  12:46  

Tell everyone what that is. Because you've referenced that a lot.

Davidji  12:48  

Yeah, the Bhagavad Gita is sort of like the original Conversations with God. You know, like Neale Donald Walsch wrote the book more, you know, in our modern times, conversations with God. And of course, this has been all these books, you know, and, and so if you're very, very religious, you get it. And if you're not very religious, or if you're an atheist, or an agnostic, you know, this is really just conversations with your highest power or conversations with your highest self. And so you know, the Bhagavad Gita is this ancient tale where the greatest warrior of all times Arjuna is on the battlefield, facing 20,000 troops staring at him, and he's got 20,000 behind him. And he's torn. He's at a crossroads in life. Is this resonating with anybody? You know, he's at a crossroads in life. He's at the fork in the road. He doesn't know which way to turn. He doesn't want a warrior, and he's the greatest warrior. And so there's a there's a conflict here. And like, Why doesn't he want a warrior, because as he looks across the battlefield at the people he's going to warrior against, it's one of these Hatfields versus McCoys kind of thing. And so he sees his teachers, he sees his classmates, he sees his relatives he sees people he grew up with, because he was the supposedly the heir to his to the throne. His father was the king. He was the rightful heir, but his father got remarried. After his, his mother died, his father got remarried. And the new wife said, Hey, honey, I know Arjuna is the rightful heir. But I've got four sons. And so really, my son should be and he was like, Yes, dear, you know, happy wife happy life kind of mindset. Meanwhile, those boys were hard, they were horrible. They were not moral. They were just, you know, horrible in every way. And so here he is, it's the fight for who you know, for good or evil, you know, or morality over a morality. And so he's, he's sobbing. He's sitting, you know, on the floor, you know, in this giant battlefield in Kurukshetra, in Northwest India, and suddenly, this dude comes riding up on a chariot. He's like, Hey, what's going on? And Arjuna says, oh, what's going on? I'm the greatest worry of all time, and I don't want to worry He fills the middle of the details. And the guy in the chariot says, that's a tough one I feel for you. How about this. I'm the greatest charioteer of all time, I'll either hang out with you and I'll be your charioteer for this battle. Or I'll go over to the other side. I've got 5000 troops here. If you choose me, the troops go 5000 of them go over to the other side. If you choose the troops, then I'll go up to the other side. And Arjuna says, I don't need more troops. I need clarity. I need a deeper understanding of this moment. I need to understand life. I need to understand purpose. I need to understand why we're

Sarah Milken  15:33  

midlife crisis. It's the midlife

Davidji  15:37  

midlife crisis. It's like the ultimate of midlife crisis, the crossroads of every single aspect of his existence. And the charioteer says, Okay, so what's it gonna be? And Arjuna says, All right, I don't need more troops, I'll choose you. And so the charioteer says, Dude, brilliant, good call, because I'm God. I'll send the troops over to the other side. And you and me, we'll have a deep conversation now. And we'll answer all your questions about life and purpose and meaning and depth. And why are we here? And what are we supposed to do and duty and like, all this stuff? And so the Bhagavad Gita written around 300 BCE, 2300 years ago, is this really deep, deep dive 18 chapters into devotional love and into action, you know, and into, you know, should we, you know, sit in a cave and meditate the

Sarah Milken  16:28  

Cliff Notes version of it. David J.

Davidji  16:31  

There are tons of little clips.

Sarah Milken  16:32  

Like, is there an interpretive version?

Davidji  16:35  

Is this like an interpretive dance version?

Sarah Milken  16:37  

Yeah. Is it your course? Is it your certification? Yes,

Davidji  16:40  

of course. Yes, go deep into that. Because the answers to every single question rests inside, we just have to be willing to connect to the stillness and the silence that rests within, to connect to those. And that's what was happening to me. While I was on my India journey, suddenly, you know, it hit me. There's this great line chapter two, verse 47, which says, we have total control over our own actions and no control over the fruit of those actions. And yet we spend so much of our life in the fruit not in the actions. And then the next line, chapter two, verse 48, begins with yoga star, Kuru. Kermani, yoga stock, ru Kermani. And this is when Arjuna the greatest warrior is talking to God and he goes, How am I supposed to live my life? How am I supposed to walk through the world? God, and God replies yoga stalker, Guru Karmani, establish yourself in the present moment, and then perform action. And I was sitting in a lane in a hammock, I read that I was like, yes, yes, that's the answer to everything, get still, and then be brilliant. And so the Bhagavad Gita teaches us do not get attached to inaction. We all must be activists in some way, whatever that looks like to you. The answer isn't sitting in a cave, you know, and meditating for the rest of your life, you need to get still allow clarity to unfold and then take your step lean into the direction of your dreams. And so this is like the blow a message, as far as I'm concerned. And it was in that moment that I realized, Oh, I've been searching for the guru for six months here, the crew rests inside the guru rests inside. And so I raced back to to New York, you know, so excited race back there. And well, racing back is like, you know, Race to the bus stop 40 hours for a bus then two days to get to my flight, we had to wait for a flight for and then 25 hours. So like four

Sarah Milken  18:40  

days away, and that was like pre pandemic to

Davidji  18:43  

my is distinctly broken, know that fire is broken. So don't even book a trip without knowing in your heart, flying is broken. And this whole thing may not happen

Sarah Milken  18:54  

the way I envision it. And all of your luggage might get lost,

Davidji  18:57  

your luggage might get lost, you will be delayed your connections, will you miss your connections? Leave when

Sarah Milken  19:04  

you need to establish yourself in the present moment, right? Then perform action. So that became your tombstone line, didn't it?

Davidji 19:12  

Absolutely. That's it. That's sort of like the answer to everything. And it's funny because, you know, I've been flying a lot over the last year. And I have just recently in the last month I walked one person, you know, off the ledge, they were going to attack the person at the gate, who was you know, the person making the announcements was nothing to do with anything but our flight just the messenger. Yes, yes. Just killing the messenger. And so I was like, This person was like, you know, if she doesn't stop talking, I'm gonna get up there and get violent and I'm like, no, no, no. Let's take a long, slow deep breath. Let's you know, so that was one thing that happened like, last month.

Sarah Milken  19:51  

Can you live in my house? I have two teenagers. Let's take a long slow deep breath or like shut the fuck up. I told my daughter, she's like, I don't think I did well on my quiz and I'm like, take a deep breath. She's like, are you doing woowoo? Meditation stuff on me?

Davidji  20:09  

Yes, yes. I'd love that. Yeah. Well, here's the reality. Nobody breathed this enough. Nobody, nobody hold

Sarah Milken  20:16  

my breath like literally half the day. Yeah,

Davidji  20:18  

you wouldn't, you wouldn't un another 7 billion. Everyone's holding their breath. And I think that's really the thing. We're not even aware of it. You know, suddenly, we're holding our breath while we scroll. We're holding our breath while we read. We're holding our breath while we watch Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. You know, and I don't know if you're watching that. But you know, season. season's over now we're coming into the reunion four weeks of the reunion episodes.

Sarah Milken  20:44  

Give you anxiety. I can't watch those shows because they give me secondhand anxiety.

Davidji  20:49  

Yeah, well, I like observing secondhand anxiety, because I know that I have my own stuff going on.

Sarah Milken  20:56  

Like maybe I have my own stuff. I'm like, I can't take on other people's shit. Do

Davidji  21:00  

I watch that stuff? And it just, you know, makes me feel so much better about my life?

Sarah Milken  21:08  

I love it. I love it. No. Can you explain the part where it says can you like, can you remain unmoving until the right action presents itself? Like, is that meditation?

Davidji  21:19  

Oh, by the way, I just want to say I am team Garcelle.

Sarah Milken  21:22  

Okay. Thank God, you clarify that.

Davidji  21:26  

Yeah. In case anybody was wondering. Not necessarily the most popular team, but I'm on that team. I'm sorry. What was your question? No,

Sarah Milken  21:34  

I was just saying is meditation one this line? Can you remain unmoving until the right action presents itself to

Davidji  21:41  

actually allow to quote, if we go back 1000s of years the quote begins with do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles? And the water is clear? And I'll show you something? I don't know if Suzy aleph. I know you interviewed Susie. Yeah. We have these things here. Oh, I

Sarah Milken  22:01  

love that. It's a mason jar with glitter, liquid and glitter.

Davidji  22:05  

Right now, and this is how this is do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear. And so we have to wait to allow the crystallization. It's yoga stock guru Karmani. It has to hashtag still Brill or chilling grill. So the second half of that quote, do you have the patience to wait until your mind settles in the waters clear? The next line is can you remain on moving to the right action arises by itself? And most people think oh, you mean just like be a be a slug? And lay on the couch? Like no, no, no, no, no. Can you get clear on what you want to do? And how you're going to do it? Can you prepare yourself for the moment when it arrives? Because it's going to arrive? And then can you gracefully, grace and ease? Step into it?

Sarah Milken  22:56  

I think what's interesting about from what I read about you, and the way you describe meditation is most of us think that meditation is sort of just sitting in a cloud and resting and meditating. And you're saying yes, that's part of it. But it's also to get still so that you can hear your inner whispers for what your action steps are going to be. So it's sort of a mix of clarity, quiet and action. It's not just the cloud,

Davidji  23:24  

I think Meditation really is a way to increase or cultivate our performance, at life at life. So it doesn't even matter what it is, you want to be a better friend. You know, they're, you know, getting steal, we'll help you do that. Why? Because you'll be a better listener, perhaps, maybe you'll be a little more patient, maybe you won't talk over the, you know, the other person, maybe your emotional intelligence will elevate as you suddenly look at their body language or where their nonverbal communication. So that's one area want to be a better decision maker will then get still, instead of being knee jerk. Because so many times you're making decisions out of fear or desperation. And suddenly we're like, you know, I mean, probably, if we would look at like, our top 10 worst decisions, they were probably, I don't know, eight or nine out of 10 were out of fear or desperation, or they were out of knee jerk, or they were out of like, I don't want to feel this way anymore. So I'll do this. And so suddenly, we start to realize that if we can just like slow ourselves down, our relationships will thrive. If we do nothing else, just slow down, our relationships will thrive. Our decisions will be a little more thoughtful, a little more mindful, instead of thoughtless or mindless, they'll be a little less knee jerk and perhaps they'll be more purposeful. A lot of times we don't we don't do boundaries. We're really great. You know, we say we want to be liked. So we say Yes, way, way, way too often. And even if we say no, then we lie in bed that night and go I feel so guilty for saying no when I call them first thing in the morning and say yes. And so we suddenly start to realize that if we can deescalate ourselves, you know, I do a lot of work with with cops, San Francisco PD and other police departments around the country, Louisville PD ecpd, NYPD, you know, suddenly realize, you know, and I teach, essentially de escalation, the escalation through this process of just taking a step back of just taking a breath of just allowing a flicker of a moment to unfold. So you can make a more conscious choice instead of some conditioned response. And so suddenly, we realize probably every single aspect of our life, if we could just take a breath, we probably would have a better response, you know, so, like, right now, we're in the middle of an interview, and then suddenly, you get that little flashing thing on your screen, your internet connection is unstable, you know, you could have gone like, Oh, my God, we're right in the middle, is disconnected, you know, you could have like, freaked out whatever, or brought drama to it. And, you know, you probably just took a breath. And then we were back, you know, so, so much of our life, whether it's socially or politics wise, or racially, or financially, you know, we certainly look at all these moving parts in our lives. They all if we just breathed a little bit more, if we just took a breath, if we just dedicated some time to getting still. So perhaps things could slow down a little

Sarah Milken  26:27  

bit. But if you look at the actual mechanics of how that works, and how to implement it in your life, so it sounds like there's two parts, there's the everyday practice of it. So you calm yourself down, generally speaking, so you're not trigger happy to send that nasty text right away. And then there's also I guess, what you call like that 16 Second breathing reset, we're in the moment, you're like, Sarah, shut the fuck up, don't respond. So it's sort of to me, it seems like there's two things

Davidji  26:57  

exactly, there's two parallel lanes, and we can choose one or the other. And I suggest we choose both. Really, my book de stress defying is all about that. It's how to build a whole distress defying practice on a daily basis, which includes expressing your needs, and making requests so that other people can help you meet your needs. It includes leveling up our emotional intelligence, which can be learned IQ cannot be, you know, advanced, but EQ can actually be, it's by learning the power of presence. And so it's like really taking some some basic steps on a daily basis. And the other is, in those moments, stress hacks, where suddenly someone pokes you and you take it personally, and you're about to scorch the village, you're about to, you're about to say that thing that you that you will both regret and can really negative negatively impact the situation. But instead, you reel yourself back. So yes, there's there's two totally parallel tracks. And I would recommend, certainly cultivate a whole long list of stress hacks, little tools, so you can put them in your pocket. But I would also really strongly suggest cultivate a meditation practice. And I know that some people are rolling their eyes.

Sarah Milken  28:13  

Hi, now, why don't people do it? Why can't we do it? David G. What is the deal? We know what's good for us. I even remember talking to Suzy about is it. There's a researcher at Harvard named Susan Lazar who did this study and they compare brain scans after 23 minutes of meditation for eight weeks, and it fully changed people's brains. But why can't we still why can we still not do it?

Davidji  28:38  

That's the 2012 landmark study. Dr. Sarah Lazar, she's like a rock star within the world of studies. Here's the catch, unless you're enrolled in the study, even people see it's so funny that you say that 23 minutes. Yes, the original study was 30 minutes. Study was 30 minutes, and everyone was supposed to do it for 30 minutes. And then when they got all the data back, they were like, actually, a bunch of people shorten their meditation notes. Right, exactly. So even in the middle of the study, people like no one's really gonna know. And but they did they all reported exactly how I was gonna No, no, Marius. Yeah, so funny. So why don't we do it because we have been trained. No matter where we were born. We were trained that sitting and doing nothing isn't really the path to success. And if you're sitting and doing nothing, you're a slouch. If you're sitting and doing nothing, you're a loser. And so we see people, right, we can even be like walking down the street. We don't see someone asleep on a park bench and go oh, look at that sweet person napping. You know, we look at that person going like, Oh my God. And so what we start to realize is that societally we have actually been conditioned that sitting and doing nothing is not the path to anything successful. And here we have these devices now attached to our hands. You know, and it's like, Oh, I've have a minute and a half, I could just close my eyes and sit and watch my breath, which would actually help me for everything else throughout the course of the day. But I think I'll scroll on my, my gram and see if I got an extra, like, on my post, or did anyone text me? Or, you know, I mean, we have been, we've been dumbed down.

Sarah Milken  30:21  

It's like, it's like a dopamine machine.

Davidji  30:23  

Yeah, absolutely. So the only way that we could truly cultivate a meditation practice is if we could ritualize it. Yeah. Because we have a host. That you do, and I do, and everyone listening here, there's a whole long list, it's about 20, morning, ablution rituals that we do, usually in the exact same order every single day. In fact, when they get out of order, it's sort of like flow throws us, you know, out of whack. But we wake up, we pee, we make coffee, we get dressed, or we groom ourselves, and we shower, or we poop, or we, you know, get other people in our house fed or clothe or whatever, we walk our dogs, we feed our dogs, we want you know, feed our cats, there's like a whole thing. And we do them in the exact same order pretty much every day, we probably been doing them for 20 years. And if you think about that, you don't know what time you brush your teeth. Maybe it's around a certain time. But you don't brush your teeth, you don't go Oh 615 gotta brush my teeth, you do it after you do one thing. And before you do another thing, and you have this flow of rituals, if you can take a meditation practice and push it to the very front of that morning, ritual train, then everything you touch throughout the rest of the day has a little bit of stillness and silence. And this is not a woowoo thing. And it's not scientific, though. But I've been meditating for a while. And the world comes at me in slower motion. And that is a superpower. That's not exclusive to me. I would invite everybody listening, you want to show up and meditate every single day, the world will come at you slower, and you will be less overwhelmed. You will be less caught off guard. You know you we know those moments where you suddenly say the perfect thing at the perfect time. And it's like it lands you like nailing

Sarah Milken  32:18  

Oh, it's like synchronicity.

Davidji  32:20  

It's perfect in every single way. Well, if you meditate consistently, that becomes your way of life.

Sarah Milken  32:25  

What is the least amount of meditation minutes? David? Gee,

Davidji  32:30  

good question. Oh,

Sarah Milken  32:31  

get you all flustered up about that. It's such a New

Davidji  32:35  

York la question, what is the best I can do to get out? Totally, you know, and I would say, What's the most that you could do to totally transform your life and move it to another level? Most of the studies have at least 20 minutes,

Sarah Milken  32:50  

is it 20 consecutive minutes or

Davidji  32:53  

20 consecutive minutes. But here's what I would suggest. First of all, I'm telling people to meditate twice a day, one to start their day to set the trajectory, set your course no differently than typing an address into a GPS. And the second meditation of the day, somewhere between noon and six somewhere before dinner. Why? Because let's say you wake up at six o'clock or seven o'clock, and you're just absorbing energy, you're taking stuff personally, you're saying things you wish you could take back, you're doing things you wish you could undo. You're getting all riled up on social media and on stuff that you're reading. There's like a whole bunch of energy that we're absorbing over the course of the day. We don't have a release mechanism. Even if you see a therapist once a week, okay, we're talking about once a week, but we don't have a release mechanism. So what do you do with all that stuff you've ingested, typically you bring it into dinner, it becomes the dinner conversation, you wouldn't believe what happened to me, this guy cut me off. And then that other person did that thing. And you wouldn't believe what happened here. And my ex is doing this, and my kids are doing that. And my boss is doing this when my friend is doing that. Or my sister's doing that. And suddenly, it's like,

Sarah Milken  34:03  

that's your dinner. And then I ate two doughnuts. Yeah, right.

Davidji  34:09  

And you bring that into dinner, you bring that into post dinner, you bring that into your bed, you bring that into your bedtime into your sleep time into your dream time. And then you wake up the next morning with all of that stuff being concretized inside of you. And you've been only doing that and I'm not saying you we've all been doing that for I don't know 1020 30 years. But imagine if you had chest for five minutes a let go practice so everyone hears Oh, it doesn't

Sarah Milken  34:37  

have to be 23 Exactly, exactly.

Davidji  34:41  

Here's what we know works. And I'll suggest this to everyone here. Do this thing for five minutes. Come on. You have five minutes every but

Sarah Milken  34:49  

we all have five minutes. I mean, I've lost my teeth twice today. That's insane. Nobody does that. Waterpik i know but i like there's i My dad's a dentist. I like the action of is a thing to note, too. He likes the Waterpik, too, but I like the actual like flossing. And now that I've made it such a habit. I've done it for 20 years but asked me to meditate. I'm like, it's so

Davidji  35:13  

hard. Listen, it's beautiful, lazy people like me, we gravitated to. But But I think you know, too, we should definitely floss, we should floss as many times as we eat. And if you don't want to floss, you should want to pick as many times as

Sarah Milken  35:28  

you so what should we be doing?

Davidji  35:30  

Alright, here's what we have to do. Here's my recommendation for everyone. All right, because everyone's rolling their eyes going, you don't get it. I am so busy. I don't have time for anything. So here's the thing. We all have five minutes. Everybody here has five minutes. If Oprah has 20 minutes twice a day. If Richard Branson has 20 minutes twice, we can go on and on with a list of like rockstars who meditate you know, TM has, you know who meditate every single day. But Ariana Grande has, has time to meditate, like we probably do, too. So take five minutes, somewhere between 12 and six before dinnertime and just sit for five minutes. And as you breathe, close your eyes just get comfortable. And as you breathe in, silently, repeat, let. And as you breathe out silently repeat, go. That's it. It's the let go five minute meditation. I guarantee if you everybody here, if you just do it for two days, when you come into your second dinner. Remember you have to do before dinner. When you come into your second dinner. Suddenly, the nature of your entire dinner time will change. Everything in your life will change. Don't give it up after two days, then do it every single day. I'd say do that for six months. You can lock that in. It's about consistency, not duration. And then maybe you want to add a minute a month. That's it to your practice over time. Once it's locked down. You know, we're such high achievers. We're like, Whoa, I can't do it for 23 minutes. I'm not even going to do it. How about this bite size accessible? Five Minute Meditation. So let go.

Sarah Milken  37:06  

Now this is a very specific question. And I can't get the answer. Yeah, in through the nose out through the mouth doesn't matter if it goes in the mouth out the nose in the out the what is it? All right. Well,

Davidji  37:19  

there's a great book by James nester. Yes, it's called breathe. And so he says, and everything I've read says we never breathe in through our mouths. Our mouths are designed to kiss, to eat, to drink to speak, and to you know, do whatever, right. They're not designed to ingest air because we don't have filters. We have filters through our entire nasal, you know cavity, as well as in our sinuses. And so suddenly, there's this opportunity for and if your mouth breather, stop breathing through your nose. That'll change.

Sarah Milken  37:54  

I haven't taped my mouth yet. I have to be honest.

Davidji  37:57  

Right? Well, you know, they say you use the little blue painters tape just a little little piece

Sarah Milken  38:01  

my husband would actually like it if I take my mouth if you feel like giving him a gift that's fine before I go to bed so sexy with all the other midlife things machiners

Davidji  38:18  

got your year thing on Yeah. And your blue painters tape on your list. Oh, sexy. So in through the nose always no matter what, under any circumstance. Even you know, I work a lot with a lot of, you know, high performance athletes. A lot of people would think, Oh, they're out of breath, they've just ran the 15th mile, it's still in through the nose. It's got to be in through the nose, out through the mouth. If we exhale through the mouth, it can release some heat. And if we exhale through the mouth, that's how we sigh. So I say whatever floats your boat when it comes to the exhale, whatever, do whatever feels good. I'm usually in and out through the nose. But every once in a while I'm like, Ah, that feels good. No,

Sarah Milken  39:05  

it does feel good.

Davidji  39:07  

This manner, you know who you are. So we know that just the exhale through the mouth, can help you align the appropriate hormones and chemicals. Because every time we get poked every time one of our needs is not met throughout the course of the day, whether that's a need of a physiological or biological need, you know, I have to pee and it's gonna be 15 minutes until I can get to a bathroom. Whether it's a safety and security need, like parking over there, but someone's going to like steal my radio and in my car or do whatever, where I saw some broken glass on the street, whether it's a love and belongingness need, we're not getting the attention, the affection, the appreciation, or the acknowledgement, the acceptance. Maybe it's an esteem thing. We're not getting the credit. We're not getting the props. People aren't you know, calling us out and saying hey, great job, or we're not really feeling fulfilled any of those needs over the course of the day is not being met, and hormones and chemicals that prepare you and wind you up to either fight or run away. That's what surging through you. So you want to you know, you want to amp up your sex hormones, you want to amp up your growth hormones. You want to amp up your immune system, how do we do that? Just sit and watch your breath, just sit and meditate. Because when we're not doing that, our growth hormones are suppressed. Our sex hormones are suppressed, our immune system is suppressed. Our blood is getting plump and sticky. It's just not good for us. You know? And so we are responding. We turn on the TV, and suddenly it's like, it's my politics. That thing happens.

Sarah Milken  40:44  

Oh, I'm a cortisol machine.

Davidji  40:46  

Yeah, well, you know, but you are the flexible one.

Sarah Milken  40:52  

I mean, my kids won't be better off than I am. You know, it's ancestral. Yeah, my mom is more of a nervous person than I even AM. So it's like, I think the generation maybe it's getting better. Who knows

Davidji  41:04  

your grandkids who get to be so chill. Oh, so shall

Sarah Milken  41:07  

they will have found their sweet spots. David J.

Davidji  41:12  

Right. So let me teach everyone this one technique right now I started teaching this to Marines. In Camp Pendleton, right up the road, like 15 minutes from me, I got tricked into going into Camp Pendleton, if you can believe that, you know, a friend of mine was like, Hey, you should come into this meeting. They're going to be talking about you know, some great meditation and they get there. And it's like, 15 Marines sitting there, these buff guys with their arms crossed. And you're

Sarah Milken  41:35  

like, I forgot to do my push ups today.

Davidji  41:39  

Do my push ups this decade. And so I was like, Oh, my God, what do I have to teach these guys, but they were all had done too many tours of duty, you know, overseas, and they were all experiencing some level of PTSD. And so I never called it meditation, I call the tactical breathing. But I was able to work with these guys. And it was this technique. So I said, Think about something and we can all if everyone here can play along, think about something that's bothering you were disturbing you that happened over the past couple of days, don't go too deep. This is not therapy, which is something that you know, really just you know, you got perturbed about someone said they were going to do something they didn't, something was supposed to unfold a certain way, it didn't happen that way. Get clear on that. And now close your eyes and through your nose, take a long, slow, deep breath in and watch that breath. And when it gets to your belly, hold it there, keep holding it, keep watching it, keep witnessing it, keep observing it. And now release that breath and watch it as it moves up your chest, through your throat out through your nose or mouth, keep exhaling, keep watching, keep witnessing the breath. And then watch it as it dissipates into the ether breathe normally, open your eyes. And that was about 16 seconds. And in those 16 seconds, if you were playing along. And Sarah, you were playing along, I know everyone else, if you were playing along in those 16 seconds, you were not thinking about that thing I just asked you to think about. And I didn't tell you to stop thinking about it, I just said close your eyes and watch your breath. So three things we learned from that number one that was 16 seconds. So number one, we learned we can direct our attention anywhere we want. So even when it's an unpleasant thing, we can absolutely redirect our attention to something that's more nourishing, or we're helping us add value to our lives. Number two, what we just did is called a pattern interrupt. If we could introduce more breaks in the action, more pattern interrupts into our daily flow, we could take breaths throughout the course of the day, we could stop that relentless flow of energy that seems nonstop. And the third thing, that's a secret of meditation, simply putting our attention on our breath is an object of our attention. And when we meditate, we just need an object of our attention. It could be a sunset, there could be clouds, it could be you know, watching, you know, something that makes you smile, watching your kids play, it could be just sitting at the ocean and just watching the waves, it could be sitting on some mountaintop or some field and just looking out into into the greenery, object of attention. You can also be watching our breath. It can also be a mantra, something that we silently repeat, like let go. And as long as you have that whenever you drift away to thinking about should I get three avocados or to my God? What are the ingredients for that smoothie? What kind of protein powder should I get? Is a Garden of Life? Is that vegan? Is that organic? You know, these are the things that are going on inside of us as long as we have an object of attention. Instead of saying I can't believe she said that to me. Those all those thoughts are fine during meditation. We want to be able to ever so gently drift back to the object of attention.

Sarah Milken  44:52  

So with the object of attention, let's say it's watching your kids play if you have young kids, or your eyes close are you just watching them play like, what's the literal interpretation of that?

Davidji  45:05  

Well, of course, if you're somewhat neurotic, or you have, you know, high level of fear, then you're going to be watching your kids play, and you're going to be fearing that one of them's going to fall or the other one's going to hurt the other one or, you know, one of those kinds of things. So that would not be the tool for you.

Sarah Milken  45:20  

Right? No, but I'm saying do you actually close your eyes and just think of one of those moments?

Davidji  45:26  

Well, again, I don't like to use the word concentrate, focus, or think when we meditate? Because we have 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts. That's like a thought every 1.2 seconds. They are pouring in. There's enough of them coming in. We're not trying to stop them. We can't stop them. All right, but this is not daydreaming. So there's a real difference what we're

Sarah Milken  45:47  

trying to get out somebody sends you a nasty text. Yeah. So

Davidji  45:52  

yeah, someone sends me a nasty text. And I can either say, oh my god, I'm gonna define my life by the nastiness of this text. And I'm gonna let this person ruin my life. And that's why I watch Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, because there's such snarkiness and such meanness that goes on. Those are the mean girls there. And I support them. And I root for them to to heal. I'm rooting for Lisa Rinna to heal. I'm rooting you know, for, for Sutton to heal. I'm rooting for Diana to heal, you know, I want to read to get past her PTSD from her from her burglary and hurt

Sarah Milken  46:24  

you. Maybe they should bring you on the show.

Davidji  46:26  

That's okay. That's fine. Just paying attention and rooting for them from you know, I don't know that I could actually help anyone there. Okay, they all attended, like some Gong bath or sound healing. Yeah, they all went to like, a sound healing thing together. And you know, like one of them got up and said, I don't feel any different right now. You know, they're like, so they're like, so unwilling to surrender. So I would suggest to all the people, you know, who you you're really helping transform the world, everybody here, you know, who follows you. And as part of your community, you know, you got to cut ourselves some slack. Right, the only way that we could do that is if we slow things down. The only way that we could sort of like, look in the mirror and say, you beautiful, I'd love you and you're doing a great job. The only way you could do that is if you slow things down a little bit. If you suddenly just keep piling on. This is what our brain is constantly doing it. It's trying to protect us. So it's always looking for all the things that are getting screwed up. And all the threats out there. We have an opportunity, we should surround ourselves with people who support us and endorse us, doesn't mean we can't hang out with people who differ with us. We want to learn from people who are not us. But if they're not rooting for your success, leave them leave, even if you are related to them, leave them as my number one recommendation. So there are certain things you get a nasty text from someone, the answer isn't like, Oh, I'm gonna go and meditate. This goes back to your question before, if you had a daily practice, that nasty text wouldn't push your button much. So we can like leap into it in the moment and go from hyperventilating to slower, calmer breathing, and then slow down a little bit. If we also have this proactive behavior. It's just like brushing your teeth. If you brush your teeth the night before you go to the dentist, guess what, you're not going to have the results that you thought you were going to have. If you brush your teeth every single day, you just glide into that dentist, and the dentist goes Damn, what are you doing? You look, your teeth look great. So we can either proactively do stuff that matters to us. So all I'm saying is, for my morning ritual, I developed a technique called meditation. And everyone could do it. You don't even have to leave your bed. And it works really great if you use an alarm in the morning. So as soon as your alarm rings, tap it, if you have an iPhone, it's not 10 minutes, that space, it's nine minutes, nine minutes and three seconds. I don't know why Apple did that. Okay, you have a non Apple it is 10 minutes. So just tap, tap your snooze, slide your tissue up to the headboard. Keep your eyes closed, you're not gonna wake anyone up. I know your dogs are be positioning themselves, but they're not getting up, just slide up there. And then maybe for 10 minutes, just make a gratitude list where maybe for 10 minutes, just watch your breath. I mean, there's so many techniques and I've recorded literally over so many of them. They're so good. So if you can just tap that and then when it's done when your meditation timer goes off at the nine minute and three second before you've even left the bed. You've got almost 10 minutes

Sarah Milken  49:42  

but you've already peed Haven't you isn't it right? Oh,

Davidji  49:44  

God if you're not if you're a meditator you're not even getting out of the best

Sarah Milken  49:48  

Oh, okay, cuz I thought you have that routine. It's rise P meditate. Woman army bottom P It's unless you've already paid it for that 4am like me, then you're already clear.

Davidji  49:59  

Oh, RPM is my technique. Absolutely. That's how I wake up. I pee. I used to rise and meditate and then realize I'm sitting in meditation going, I have to pee. So instead, now I rise, I pee, I meditate. And that is like a power. It's a power move. It's like a superpower. Because, and people like now you don't understand I need coffee. You don't need to caffeine before you connect to stillness and sounds, you actually want to meditate while you still have a little sleep in your eyes. Before you've started act. A lot of people say yoga first or run first or workout first. No, no, no, no, just glide from sleep into this really, really gentle aspect of your day. And that way, everything you touch, you're doing a little with a little more awareness, everything your touch, cortisol levels have shifted. Adrenaline, glucagon, they've all shifted inside of you, melatonin, all the nourishing things come into you. And so it's almost like extending your sleep time. And a lot of people say, but I tried that, but I keep falling asleep. It's okay. When I go back to all those studies that Dr. Sarah Lazar has said, we know how long they meditated. But no one's saying, wait a second, were you thinking about how many lines to put in that margarita mix? Were you thinking about that your sister is toxic? Were you thinking about you have to return that thing before the before they don't let you return it anymore. Like, suddenly we start to realize it doesn't matter what happens. So if you fall asleep, if you have thoughts, if you experience flickers of stillness, it doesn't matter. We're cultivating this longer term thing inside of us. So that's like, you know, you brush your teeth, you're like, oh, you know, I don't know, is that six minutes or four minutes? Like, who cares? Right? Did the thing and you do it every day? And if you're consistent with it, you're gonna get those results.

Sarah Milken  51:55  

Okay, I've another like, very specific question. Is there research that shows whether there's a difference between a guided meditation where somebody's talking in your ear versus like a transcendental, where I'm assuming I think you're like, sort of repeating the same phrase over and over again? Because for me, listen to you talk about my path to clarity. It's a lot easier than me listening to nothing.

Davidji  52:21  

Yes, yes. Listen, I'm a fan of the concept of guided meditations. Every meditation is really guided. Either we're self guiding, or we're allowing someone to guide us the advantage to having someone else guide you. You can fully let go, you can fully surrender. If even when I'm guiding myself, I'm like, Okay, first, we'll ask What am I grateful for? Then we'll ask Who am I grateful for? Then I'll ask what does my heart really longed for? Then I'll ask, you know, how can I help you and serve other people? Now it's time for me to invite an intention into my awareness. But imagine if that whole thing could be guided for you, and you don't have to, you know, guide yourself. So I think that we have, there's something about fully surrendering and letting someone guide you on this meditation, it's

Sarah Milken  53:12  

not less of a meditation, if you're not sitting in the black hole, trying to construct something in your head, oh,

Davidji  53:18  

I just think they're different styles, no differently than watching your breath is different than repeating a mantra, like let go, or I am. You know, or, you know, there's a great Hebrew mantra, gum zap, your ofour. That means this too shall pass first created by King Salman. So if you're going through, you know, a tough time, you could just repeat Gonza vor. Or this too shall pass. You know, 70 years ago, Dr. Herbert Benson said, you want to create mantras, you're really into Jesus, then how about you know, your mantra is Jesus is my Lord and Savior, you really into Mary L. Mary, full of grace, you're really into some type of you know, Shalom could be your mantra, you we get to pick it, we get to pick the thing that resonates with us no differently than if we want to surrender and have someone guide us, then we can fully be transported to that place of stillness and silence.

Sarah Milken  54:13  

I think the reason I have that question is because I know you talked a lot about intuition and how we have to, you know, have the courage to take one step out and leave one path for another. And we're and I think a lot of your advice is sort of listening to your own intuition. But my thing is, like, am I going to hear my thoughts if I'm hearing your voice? I mean, that's how literal I'm being with this.

Davidji  54:38  

Yeah. Well, perhaps, like, first of all, nothing wrong with hearing your thoughts. Right. That's number one thing.

Sarah Milken  54:45  

No, but am I going to hear them? Am I going to hear my intuitive whispers if somebody's talking in my ear, does that change? Well,

Davidji  54:53  

well, my meditations are specifically designed to bring you to a place where you You can then have some silence all of my meditations have some say, I do

Sarah Milken  55:04  

like that it stops in the middle, right? And you're watching the timer for us, right? You

Davidji  55:10  

really just have to show if you just show up, and then be guided. And then you know, it's like, Okay, let's go to a place and invite a deep intention into our lives. And then we'll stay in that space for a few minutes without me talking, or without anything happening, where you get to sort of reflect and ask yourself, you know, self introspection is one of the most important and deepest things that we can do to level up our lives. And so I think, if we could have a practice that has included gratitude, and UC Berkeley has massive studies on the scientific benefits to the brain and your life, from having a daily gratitude practice. If we can have some gratitude practices, we can ask ourselves some sacred questions, if we can sit, plant some seeds, so that our life unfolds in a certain way. So we can manifest things, if we can have that time for deeper self reflection, and then go into stillness and silence where the answers come to us. You know, that's what I realized when I was laying in that, that hammock in that cashew forest in Kerala, you will suddenly like, oh, the answers to everything rests inside, we just have to be able to quiet the fluctuations of our mind chest a little bit, so that we could hear the answers of God of our hearts, we could hear the whispers that are inside of us. Because otherwise, there's just way too much noise on planet earth, no matter where you live, no matter what's going on.

Sarah Milken  56:36  

I also think for a lot of us is speaking on behalf of midlife women, we have so much on our minds, we're like psychologically, you know, there's hormone changes, body changes, all these things, you have a wife, you know, and there's so many things going on, that sometimes we're like, I get all these messages from women are like, I don't even know what I want to do. It's not like, Oh, I've had this dream of opening a bakery. They're like, I can't even hear I don't even know what I want to do. My kids are leaving for college. And I don't even know where to start or how to think of it. So what do you say to those women,

Davidji  57:10  

I say these are very, very normal questions. And the beauty of being a woman. And the curse of being a woman is that you are much more highly sensitive to the psychological, the physiological, and the emotional shifts that you have, as you move through various stages in various cycles of your life with your pre Peri post menopausal, whatever that even looks like, women are so much more sensitive, and they're feeling the shifts inside of us. And so you add to that empty nest syndrome add to the you know, challenges in relationships, whether that's, you know, divorce, or separation or,

Sarah Milken  57:50  

or even sex drive, or,

Davidji  57:54  

you know, pick the list of all the things that are changing in inside of us. And so, meditation is like, scientifically, clinically proven to help you with those things. I mean, how about if you're getting hot flashes or night sweats? Did you know that meditation, actually, and I have proof because I wear this aura ring, and I have the app, and it shows what happens, my skin temperature rises when I meditate, which means I perspire just a little bit more, which means I cool off my core temperature, which means my body temperature actually goes down. So rather than having to lean into the frozen food section in the supermarket, we're having you know, rather than trying to deal with that, a daily practice consistent practice of meditation can actually help you lower your core body temperature, so you will have fewer hot flashes. You know, because I have a friend of mine. She's going through this right now. It's not just that she's really feeling so hot and uncomfortable. She also wants to take out a machete and lop off the person.

Sarah Milken  58:57  

Well, that's sort of like my son just calling and I'm like, wait a second, why is it phone ringing? But I have my husband and my kids on that phone system where it cuts through silence, in case there's an emergency and he's calling me asking me some stupid thing. And I'm like, for your interrupting.

Davidji  59:18  

Exactly, yeah, exactly. So meditation can help you just take things a little bit more easily. Here's two ways you could show up for your son with the next time you see do your second meditation of the day, which is the let go. And so when you see him, you can say Honey, we're not going to be together forever. Let me give you a hug right now. Even if it makes you feel so uncomfortable and creeps you out. Let me just hug you and hug you cuz I love you. You know, or you could be oh my god. Are you a freaking idiot? You know, I'm doing this podcast you know, I'm doing this thing he's leaving

Sarah Milken  59:56  

in September for college. I'm giving him a hug. I don't care what that kid does.

Davidji  1:00:04  

up that moment, I

Sarah Milken  1:00:05  

know, believe me. I know the baseball pants on the kitchen counter post baseball practice. I'm like, there are so many places in the house for those baseball pants.

Davidji  1:00:16  

And I would call that evidence of presence because gardening in six months, he's not going to be

Sarah Milken  1:00:22  

Oh, I know. That's why I let it all slide. Yeah, I have to

Davidji  1:00:25  

well, meditation. And meditation helps us with that. Yeah, it helps us put our attention on the things that are really priorities, as opposed to the stuff that's like, minor irritations and there's going to be a time when the people who really irritate you are no longer around you. And so you can either choose to like, while they're around, you get really irritated, and then miss them for the rest of your life. You know, or just say, you know, what, it used to bother me that you put your pants on the kitchen counter, not that I'm looking for that in the future, right, I see your pants on the kitchen counter again, I'll know that you're in the house. And

Sarah Milken  1:01:03  

I know, I know. It's too much.

Davidji  1:01:06  

What number podcast is this?

Sarah Milken  1:01:08  

I mean, I don't know, because I stopped numbering them.

Davidji  1:01:10  

So you know, I mean, imagine there was a day where you were at 00. And there's probably a whole bunch of things that prevented you from even doing Oh, I'm not going to look good. I don't have glam squad. I don't have a great background. My camera sucks. Who am I going to even invite on? What if they say no

Sarah Milken  1:01:27  

one's gonna listen,

Davidji  1:01:29  

right? It's gonna be there. There's no no one cares. But guess what, you know, the people who who you are attracting are people at a certain stage of their life, who want more of life. That's it. If you're not attracting people who don't want more of life, can you hear you're attracting people who are like, You know what, I think I'm ready to take it to the next level here.

Sarah Milken  1:01:52  

And I want more to and that's why I created this podcast. I'm like, Hey, everyone, I want more from my life. Yes, I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I'm all those things. But I need something that's just my own. And that's just for me, and come along on this ride with me, because I'm going to interview all these experts. And we're going to ask questions, and we're going to get to the sweet spot with David G.

Davidji  1:02:12  

Absolutely. And don't get defensive people, the sweet spot is wherever you are. But I coined this this sweet spot. When I was at the Chopra center a bunch of years ago, I was walking with Oprah, she's at the time, she was really, you know, friendly with Deepak. And so I was walking with her, you know, from one building, I was escorting her from one building to another building. And I suddenly had this, you know, suddenly there was disgusted. And we were like, you know, we're like, you know, a mile from the, from the ocean. So suddenly, I said, Oprah, I now you're in the sweet spot. I said, Take a long, slow, deep breath of that ocean air. It's just a mile away. It's coming right in here. And you feel that warmth on our back. Which is yeah, I said, that's that's warm air coming in from the desert, we are right between the ocean and the desert right here. And I got down on my knees. And I patted the earth, you know, the concrete floor. And I said, right here, this is the sweet spot of the universe. And she said, David Gee, I am the sweet spot of the universe.

Sarah Milken  1:03:19  

So good. So what's the difference between the sweet spot and the gap?

Davidji  1:03:24  

Well, I always refer to the sweet spot. That's where we are. It's wherever you are, you're halfway between, you know, two nourishing forces, the gap is that place of stillness and silence that could last for a millisecond, or perhaps longer, we don't even know it's a place beyond space and time. It's just when we align ourselves during our practice with just a little bit of stillness. I love that. You know, sort of like when you go into bed, we've all had that feeling. You're just about to like, drop off, you're not really asleep yet, and you're not really awake. I call it consciousness surfing. We're sort of like in that place where like, Oh, my God, this feels so good right here. But the more we have that conversation, suddenly we're like, we're awake and back out of it. Or we suddenly go, and we're now cold, and we wake up six hours later. So, but there's that moment, we're just like, sort of like floating in that in neither world. And that's the gap. When we meditate. Those moments, they flicker into us. You know, we're sort of like, glimpsing some aspect of stillness and silence. And it's, I believe it's beyond space and time. So it doesn't matter. It's a high achiever meditation, people go like, well, I need to be in stillness in silence for at least 20 minutes. It's like, it doesn't matter if you were there for a millisecond touching a place of infinity for a millisecond lasts forever. Don't worry about how long you got to do that. So you could have thoughts about avocados and limes and arguments and your stomach's gurgling and your car alarms are going off and your dog is barking and thinking about all that we're going to do for dinner and like all the other stuff within there's going to be a moment in Your practice, we're like, There is none of that, even if it's just like that long. And that's the beauty of meditation, we can actually access the space between because that's who we are truly, we are the space between space between our thoughts space between our breaths, space between our heartbeats. That's who we are. So imagine when we connect to that, it's just like pure beauty.

Sarah Milken  1:05:24  

Okay, and then you can teach my kids this too. I'm sure they'll just I feel like the tea. I feel like teenagers for some reason, there's so much like resistance to it,

Davidji  1:05:33  

because you know, they have to find someone cool. Who's doing it. So if they watched Katy Perry, or if they watched Ariana Grande D, you know, or if they watched even people who are really cool doing it, then it'd be like, Oh, they're doing when they see people, you know, parents doing it or friends.

Sarah Milken  1:05:50  

Oh, that's like the midlife moms. Right? Yeah. Yeah, I

Davidji  1:05:55  

think my mother does. for that. Oh, my gosh,

Sarah Milken  1:05:59  

okay, wait, David G. Tell everyone where they can find you.

Davidji  1:06:03  

You can visit me at David g.com da vi d. J i.com. You can follow me on Instagram at David G meditation. I do have a tick tock account, although I'm not that active. And that's David G. Tick tock on Facebook. I'm in the gap. I do want to say something else. Also, you don't have to hang out with me. My meditations are on Apple Music, Spotify, title prime, unplug the unplugged meditation app, the Insight Timer app, so much of what I offer is free. So you know, no barrier to entry. Whatever it is, you can check it out. You can dabble with that. You know, I think what we were talking about is really the demographic used to be all these like super spiritual people.

Sarah Milken  1:06:49  

This is for people who are taking your certification. Yeah, it's

Davidji  1:06:52  

so interesting before it was like very, very serious. You know, I'm on a path to, to merge with the universe. And you know, I need to, you know, do that and, and now it's really just people who want to take their practice to the next level. It's just so fascinating. It's like, you know what, I'm never going to teach. I'm never even going to reveal to anyone that I'm a certified meditation teacher. But I want to really get the real real info.

Sarah Milken  1:07:20  

But I might drop a few lines about it in the carpool line.

Davidji  1:07:23  

Yeah, absolutely. I might meditate before I pick up my kids, so I don't yell at them as they get into the car. But instead I go, Oh, my God, look at you guys.

Sarah Milken  1:07:34  

And you may not ask them how their day was because they don't want you to ask that. Right, exactly. So awkward. Hey,

Davidji  1:07:42  

let me tell you how my day was.

Sarah Milken  1:07:44  

Yeah, let me sit here and text while you drive. I'm like, Oh, that's fun. I'm glad I arranged my whole fucking day to pick you up. Anyway. Anyway, I want everyone to think about what shit they can start doing today. One small step. I want to thank David G for sharing why meditation is important how we can do it more easily show up for ourselves, raise the vibration and become heavily meditated. Thank you, David G.

Davidji  1:08:12  

Thank you Dr. Sarah Milken is what an honor to hang out with you and to chat with you. The time just flew

Sarah Milken  1:08:19  

in. I know I love it. Thank you so so much. Hey, peeps, it's me again. I listen to this episode with David G. So I could summarize the golden nuggets for you to have actionable items to start using today. I know that when I listen to a long episode, I'm like, oh my god, I love that. But that I can't even fucking remember the specifics. This is why I come back and do a golden nugget summary. In this episode, we discuss how daily meditation can benefit us in midlife, golden nugget, number one, be still and look within. in midlife. There are a lot of questions that we're trying to answer. What's my next step? What's the second half of my life gonna look like? What am I passionate about? How do I strengthen my relationships? What's going to make me happy? What's gonna give me meeting? What's going to make me feel relevant? David G teaches us that we can find the answers to these questions within ourselves. He suggests that in order to look within we have to connect to the stillness and silence of the moment. David G calls this establishing yourself in the present moment, and says that this is the first step before you perform your action. David G lives by the phrase establish yourself in the present moment, he jokes that it will be written on his tombstone. He also explains that most of the time we look outward for the solutions to our problems. And yes, sometimes reaching out to others like friends and family, a life coach or Guru can be helpful, but we also have to put in the effort to within ourselves. We can Learn from their guidance, but we can't rely solely on others to solve our inner struggles. One of the many things David G learn from a six month visit to India is that the quote guru rests inside and quote, meaning that the answers lie within and in order to have what we want, we have to take action. David G states, the answer isn't sitting in a cave and meditating for the rest of your life. You need to get still allow clarity to unfold and then take your step, lean into the direction of your dreams. So even though he is saying we have to be still and connect within ourselves, it's not just about sitting quietly waiting for something to happen. It's about finding and connecting to yourself by practicing meditation. There can be so much chaos in midlife that we can be swept away and not focus on ourselves and our midlife self reinvention journeys. And sometimes that chaos can affect our decision making. David G explains that if we take time to slow ourselves down, then we can be more mindful of the actions we take those steps, doing them with purpose. Midlife is all about what we truly want. After all, in order to make sure we are doing just that we have to be still ask ourselves the hard questions and take the action steps to make those a reality. Golden Nugget number two, the key to successful meditation is ritualization. David G says that if we want to truly cultivate a meditation practice, then we have to ritualize it. He explains it is easier than we think, reminding us that we already have other daily ritual. So why can't we add meditation to the list, it doesn't have to be long or five hours. He gives the morning routine as an example. Each morning we wake up, use the bathroom, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush our teeth, etc. This might not be the exact steps you take in the morning ritual or you might have more or less or whatever, but the idea is the same. We perform the same exact morning rituals pretty much every day. Now just imagine if we added meditation. If you constantly keep up with meditating each day, then it will become second nature and go along with the flow of your morning ritual. David G suggests making meditation your first item on the list to give yourself a good start to your day affecting the rest of the events that follow in your day. He explains that meditating each morning will help us get into the state of stillness we referenced earlier, we can take things slower and be less overwhelmed when hit with the midlife chaos. Golden Nugget number three meditation meals. Once you've added meditation to your morning ritual each day, David G suggests we meditate for a second time preferably before dinner, he explains that there's a bunch of energy that we are absorbing through the course of the day, sometimes negative, chaotic, whatever, and we don't have a release mechanism. And then we take that energy to the dinner table and it becomes part of our meal. And it usually follows us into bed and we're waking up the next morning with this negative energy. David G says an easy way of doing this is by making your meditation bite size accessible, meaning to do it for maybe five minutes. Think of it as your appetizer before dinner that you can go into dinner with a reset or clean palate and fully focus on enjoying your meal and the company around you. And maybe for me not yelling at my teenagers about the 17 texts. They didn't respond to all the dishes that they left on the kitchen counter. Then afterwards, you can go to bed with a clean slate for the next day. Golden Nugget number four, meditation and menopause. A lot of us midlife women have so much on our minds with all the different types of changes we're going through hormones, physical appearance, relationships, and so much more. And David G explains how meditation can help us make the process of these changes a bit easier. He points out that midlife women are more sensitive to psychological, physiological and the emotional shifts that are happening. Some midlife women might be experiencing things like empty nest syndrome, which is coming up for me and the next couple years a divorce and the everyday Peri menopausal and menopausal symptoms all at the same time. It's a lot. And with all of that comes mental aspects that we just can't push to the side we have to carve time to focus on these mid life situations. And David G explains that a great way to do this is through meditation. Like I say all the time on this podcast, we have to put our mental health first. Practicing meditation and connecting with ourselves can help us take one thing at a time and go through our daily tasks more smoothly. If we are in a good headspace, then how do we expect the other things in our life to run smoothly? A burnout city. David G also goes into detail on how meditation can help with hot flashes and night sweats. Due to our core temperature decreasing. You guys know all about my underboob sweats and throwing the covers off the bed at night. He says meditation can help with our immune system is sexy and growth hormones to when we take that break to breathe to be still and calm, our blood becomes less plump and sticky. I don't know about you peeps, but with all the changes I'm going through. I think I'm gonna have to start me some daily midlife meditation, you know, I get on the hamster wheel and then I fall off but I'm getting back on I'm gonna do it. The gold is dripping off these nuggets, rabbit use it, there are three things you can do first, subscribe to the podcast. If you're listening to a one off and I don't get credit for having to subscriber second share with some midlife fishes who might like Midlake shit. And third, write an apple review. writing reviews is so fucking annoying. It's an extra step. But guess what? Your 15 seconds really helps my podcast route. You think your little review doesn't matter? But it does. Like if you went to a concert or a play. And if you said oh, I'm not going to clap because everyone else was clapping. But if everyone did that, then there will be no clapping. So write the review. You all matter DM me, you know I always respond. It's only me and my Instagram. And of course follow my instagram at the flexible neurotic da love you talk soon!