In this inviting episode, our host Jill welcomes Dr Alice Rizzi, a mindful meditation and mindfulness coach. Alice explains the difference between day-to-day mindfulness and mindfulness meditation and how they complement each other. She provides tips for incorporating mindfulness into daily life, including mindfulness exercises.
Learn more about Dr Alice Rizzi and her Together Mindful school
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Transcript
Transcript
Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast.
Today we are talking with Alice.
Rizzi, and Alice.
Is a mindful meditation.
mindfulness coach, OK, she wants to inspire people to learn more about mindfulness and to think deeper about their goals and values and the impact they want.
Yeah, mindfulness coach, yeah.
To leave on the world.
So tell us your.
Story Alice, I'm so happy to have you.
Here with us, I should tell.
You that right off.
Ohh it's wonderful.
I'll be here. Thank you.
And I'm really excited to hear how you got into all this.
You're also a psychologist.
I am, yeah.
And that's pretty interesting.
And in conjunction with what it is that you're doing on the coaching front.
So tell us all this stuff.
So technically, I was a psychologist first.
I got my license, my psychology license in 2018.
I worked for a couple of other people and then in the beginning of the pandemic, basically I started.
My own private practice.
And why cuz why not?
And so while.
I was waiting for clients to show up.
Right?
Like, here's my sign.
I'm seeing clients now.
You have to wait for people to find you.
I started taking a bunch of different courses.
On business and marketing and SEO and branding and.
All the things.
And I started seeing.
Like course after course after course.
And I'm like, well.
Looks kind of easy.
It looks kind of fun like all these people are teaching things.
I could probably do that.
And so I started taking courses on.
Taking courses and that's a really deep rabbit.
Hole if anybody has ever been on it.
And the courses on.
Courses started asking these questions like what's a.
Topic that you're.
Really passionate about that.
You really enjoy telling peopl
Well, that you can talk about for hours and for me it was such like a no brainer.
It was mindfulness, mindfulness, meditation and values based living because I actually did my doctoral dissertation on mindfulness.
This and so I spent already five years in grad school talking about writing, researching, teaching all things mindfulness.
And I'm still not tired of it.
So clearly this is something that I'm really passionate about and so kind of the idea got sparked.
I can do courses on mindfulness.
I can coach people on mindfulness.
I can have educational resources on how to meditate, how mindfulness is different from meditation, and how to live a values based life.
What that even means?
And so that's been going on for about two years now.
And so I still have my psychology private practice and I have my mindfulness coaching.
Business and that's where we are.
That's a wonderful journey to get you to this point.
Tell us a little bit about what you think the difference is between or how mindfulness and meditation kind of.
Like, go together, don't go together.
Yeah, for sure.
So in general, with mindfulness I.
Often split it up into like two different.
Things not so much concepts, but there's day-to-day mindfulness.
And that's like being mindful.
In your everyday activities, right?
So you can listen to somebody mindfully.
You can do the dishes mindfully.
You can fold the laundry mindfully.
So that's day to.
Day mindfulness. It's just.
Being aware in the moment and present and.
Grounded and I have a couple of other factors that go into it I can.
Touch on in a second.
But that's every day.
Mindfulness and versus mindfulness meditation is time that you set aside, specifically on a regular basis to meditate, to be mindful.
So, for example, every day for 5 minutes I will sit down on the couch.
I will put my headphones in and I will meditate for 5 minutes and that will be my mindfulness meditation.
So that's kind of like how I see the difference, like anybody can be mindful in the moment, you can choose to bring like your awareness and presence to any moment, but not everybody needs to or wants to have a meditation practice.
Does that make sense?
Totally. You. You.
Were reminding me when you talked about doing laundry mindfully.
Marie Kondo and I think that's kind of yes.
Ohh yeah, the joy.
The joy being present with the item that you're folding giving thanks for it.
If you're going to let.
It go for.
The place that it held in your life.
And being mindful of, like the stuff around us and you know, like you can look at any object.
Here's a pen, the pen.
Somebody put this together, it might have been manufactured in a factory, that there are people and stories that went along with this pen. It's just a pen. It represents people's lives and.
And the time that they've taken to create it.
You know there.
Was somebody that designed it, somebody that markets it, somebody that you know sells it?
In the grocery store.
It's just.
Like everything has.
A touch point and a connection.
Nothing exists in a vacuum.
Yes, a journey to get where it's at.
And I actually like, I love doing a mindfulness.
Of an object.
That is one of the exercises that.
I typically do.
And I encourage people to think about, like, the journey that the object took, basically, so that you can have it in your life and exactly what you said from its manufacturing to the marketing to the selling to the delivery.
Like so many things have had to come together.
In order for you to have this object in your life and usually it helps you.
Cultivate a lot of.
Gratitude and joy for just like having this one tiny thing that we typically like even take for granted.
And you can have lots of things in your life or you can have a few.
Things that you really, really value.
Which is, you know, the whole tiny living kind of exercise is an exercise in mindfulness, your space.
Of your of your possessions, cause you just can't have that many, and when you kind of get into the hoarder mentality, you're like, losing appreciation because you can't appreciate everything all at the same time.
It's really hard for us to do that, but.
I think we're.
We're kind of trained towards that.
There's, like really a strong.
Sense of attachment that people have with objects and actually one of the things that mindfulness helps us practice is healthy, non attachment or healthy detachment.
It's a little bit of like the mentality, this is a bit of an oversimplification, but it's kind of like easy come, easy go.
So like, can you let things come into your life?
Of ears and can.
You let them.
Go where the is to practice this healthy sense of detachment.
It's actually going to.
Save you a.
Lot of like heartbreak and grief later on because nothing lasts forever, right?
Yeah, that's true.
And especially with things you know.
But they.
Everything is energy and energy needs to flow.
And whenever we hang on to something really tightly, we stop that flow of energy and it dams up and it can actually cause us pain in our lives because we're just trying to hang on to all of the energy.
That is embodied in each of these things you know, lives are energy, the life.
And it prevents, like other things from coming in, it like creates this bottleneck.
And you can no longer.
You can't.
You can't experience anymore because you've decided, OK, this is.
I'm full instead.
Of letting it flow out the other.
End and letting new stuff come in and new change and new experience and new objects.
New people, even.
It's such a beautiful.
Pattern herb arrangement of how life is supposed to go.
And I again like it's one of the reasons that I love mindfulness, because it really helps us be present in this moment right here, right now with whatever the environment.
I'm in whatever objects I have around me with myself, right, like with thoughts, feelings, sensations and my experiencing.
And I think a lot of like the.
Unhealthy attachment comes from the sense of anxiety.
And anxiety is really like.
Time traveling into the future, what may or.
May not happen.
What if this and what if?
That and when we're time traveling in this kind of way, we're being mindless.
We're actually not present.
We're somewhere totally else, so we're not open to receiving all that is abundant and present in our lives right now.
Yeah, it's kind.
Of like we push, we push aside the gratitude.
That we could have for the experience.
That we're having in the moment.
For something that's ethereal, that may or may not be present for us in the future, so we're kind of giving ourselves a double whammy in that we're not appreciating the now, and the future isn't promised.
Right.
It's just a potential.
And the potential is endless.
It could be.
It could be what you're what you're hoping for or what you're dreading.
It could be either.
You just have no way of knowing.
But without mindfulness.
You miss.
You missed the moment.
There's a there's a Bible.
Verse that goes don't worry about tomorrow.
Today has trouble.
Enough of its own.
That was the 1st.
Time I really became aware of the idea that.
When you when you're worrying.
You're stealing joy from today.
And I think so many people feel discontent or so stressed out.
So wound up is because they're not letting themselves actually be present in this moment.
So when people start practicing mindfulness, they start experiencing more joy, more contentment, more peace.
Because they're actually in this moment.
It's easier said than done though sometimes.
For sure.
Yes, I agree with that.
Yeah, any tips on making that happen cause I know that I know all this stuff that I don't practice it all the time.
Absolutely well, so firstly.
It's really hard.
Is it OK if I give your audience like my definition of what mindfulness is?
Absolutely, I'd love.
That so the way that I define it is.
That it's the quality.
Of being present in this moment, with awareness, acceptance, kindness, compassion, curiosity and non judge.
So that's six different factors, but they're not things that we need to consciously hold in our minds.
These are just the factors that I've sort of observed as being cultivated.
The more I see people practicing mindfulness, the more I practice mindfulness.
So in the moment, like most people think that it's just awareness like.
Oh well, I'm.
Aware of this object, therefore, I am mindful and that's not the case.
At all, because like your teenage grandson, for example, could be watching or playing video games, and he'll be so hyper aware of the video game that you can talk to him and ask him questions and walk by and.
He won't even know that.
You're there.
So that's how, in a sense, absent minded.
He is in that moment.
Even though he has awareness, he's not actually being mindful.
And I don't.
Know if you have a teenage grandson that.
Was just an example.
I have a teenage grand.
I have one image.
I have a granddaughter who's a teenager and a grandson who's at.
Major now.
All right, look.
At that.
But yeah, so awareness is.
A big part of it, but it's not all.
Of it, right?
Acceptance is allowing whatever is to just be right.
Like rather than pushing it away, or rather than pretending that it's not there, it's being aware and accepting of how things are.
And this.
Moment and I kind of think of those as like my what?
What are you doing?
I'm being aware and accepting.
How am I doing?
It is with curiosity, compassion and non judgment and kindness because that is how I like to approach this moment right here and that is how we are able to experience more.
Joy, more gratitude and more peace.
If we can have this like peaceful, non judgmental approach to it.
So as far as how do?
We do this right the way that.
I teach it using my courses is both through.
Like the day-to-day.
Mindfulness, as well as through mindfulness meditation.
And my whole thing with mindfulness and meditation is that it doesn't have to take a long time.
Like I don't think you need to sit on a mountain for two.
Hours every day.
To experience the benefits of mindfulness, I totally believe that you can fold your laundry mindfully and you will experience more joy in your day by doing that, that you can wash your dishes mindfully that you can eat your meal mindfully, that you can take a mindful walk.
And that will bring so much more joy, peace and gratitude into your life that it's worth a moment or two of putting together all of those mindfulness components.
Now, for anybody that wants to get better at that, you know we think of.
Mindfulness as being a muscle.
And that's why the more we practice it, the stronger the muscle.
Gets and so the meditative practice is kind of like strength training for that mindfulness muscle.
So if you want to be more.
Mindful in your day.
To day life, if you want to have more spontaneous moments of peace, joy and gratitude.
Then setting up a meditation practice on a daily basis will ensure that you are more mindful in your day.
To day life.
And it doesn't have to take, you know, two hours on the mountaintop.
Like you said, you can just start with three minutes, and when you're just starting out, three minutes is a long time, and it doesn't necessarily mean not thinking because the idea of trying not to think doesn't really work.
Yeah, exactly.
No, not.
And that's not mindfulness.
It's just.
That's not mindfulness.
So I know there are different styles of meditation and some of them I think do have a little bit of a focus on like clearing the mind or like emptying out your mind.
I don't practice those.
I don't know what that is.
I've never experienced it.
Not for me.
I can't do it.
If it exists, that's not for me.
Part of the reason that I love the mindfulness practice so much.
Is because there's not really like a striving of any sort.
You're not looking for any specific outcome.
You're simply allowing yourself to be with what is, so there's not doing it any wrong.
If you notice a lot of racing thoughts, then you're mindful of racing thoughts.
If you're aware that you're not really thinking about anything, maybe like one or two thoughts flow by then that's what you're mindful of right now.
There's no doing it wrong or bad or poorly.
There's just noticing anything and everything that currently is.
And that exercise in itself is not as easy.
As you might.
Think it is when you're first starting out.
I remember clearly when I was first starting out and trying to just notice, not think about the thing, but just to notice that there's a difference between the two.
And I I'll tell you, I find the non labelling practices challenging, like exactly what you just said where.
Just like I can notice the glass of water without even necessarily labeling it as a glass of water.
But personally I find that challenging because my brain loves to label something so that I can understand it better so that I can then communicate it to someone else better, especially in my psychology practice, I emphasize like language and communication.
And cognition.
So much the labeling is so automatic for me.
It is in.
Fact really hard to just notice and be with.
Something without sticking that label on it.
And with practice, that does get easier and that's how we are able to cultivate that like non judgmental, compassionate stance rather than saying, like, if I hate water, it doesn't taste good, right?
I can approach it with. I wonder what the water is going to taste like today. I wonder if my body's thirsting for this water.
What is it like when I have a craving or an urge for something sweeter than water?
Right.
Like that's that curiosity.
And in those moments, the curiosity allows your mind to actually label, but think about the thought instead of just having thoughts and then letting the thoughts take, take control of.
Where you're going like.
I hate water and then you start down that rabbit hole.
Right.
Of all the things.
Around, you know, bad water and you.
Know it can lead anywhere.
Depending on your mindset then.
And so mindfulness allows you to step into this observer role.
It's almost like stepping like a foot or two away from, like, your thinking brain, right?
That's gonna keep producing all of these messages.
Like I hate this and I don't like that.
And I.
Wish this and.
What if that?
But when you step into that observer role, you're just noticing you're noticing this mind chatter, but you're not getting so caught.
Up in it.
And it's from that place of healthy detachment that you can then start making more values based choices that aren't caught up in the judgmental, harsh, critical chatter of the everyday, but are coming.
From this observational standpoint where you are able to consider what it is that's actually important to you.
What kind of person you wanna be?
Kind of choices you wanna make.
Yeah, and it allows you have to have.
Control over your.
Thoughts, but it also helps you control your body.
We talk a.
Lot about getting out of your head and into your body and listening to what your body is saying.
And if you're mindful, if you practice mindfulness, then you then you're more able to notice when your body is trying to communicate with you.
You know something's not right or something feels weird and it goes into intuition too, because you feel intuition in your gut.
It's not a thought process.
It's a gut process.
And we have a brain in.
Our gut.
Yeah, there's different.
There's different places where different ways of.
Communicating information around our body happens and it's not always in our head and sometimes with if we can practice mindfulness.
That's a that's a head game.
For the most.
Part and it's training your brain.
To pay attention to the other signals on a conscious level, rather than just the unconscious reactionary process that a lot of us have been trained to.
To live like.
Yeah, I often, you know, tell people the distinction between reactions versus responses, right.
So I think of reactions is automatic, reflexive, mindless, whereas responses are mindful.
Intentional, often, values based.
So mindfulness helps us be less.
Reactive and more responsive so that we do feel more in control of those choices that we want to be making rather than like reacting impulsively or compulsively or overreacting.
We actually respond in a way that we want.
And you get.
More appropriate responses or.
Interactions with others and with ourselves, and it can even come down to your health, because when you're not.
Living mindfully or you're living less mindfully.
Your health is affected because you're not paying attention to the things that you're putting in.
Your mouth, which just a.
Huge portion of how we feel and our and our health in general, but.
It?
I mean when we're not being mindful, we're doing so many things mindlessly and unintentionally and without thinking.
And that's why people end.
Up in a sense, I.
Think having so many like.
Regrets and remorse and shame.
And guilt because they acted on impulse without actually being mindful and intentional about what it is that they want.
And again, it's one.
Of those skills that it's like easier said.
Than done, but the.
More you practice it, the easier it gets.
The more in control you start feeling long term.
So people can work with you.
On this.
And you have, like, a ton of things that you offer.
I was over on your website and it's.
Just pretty amazing so.
I think you give some stuff away for free and you have some different.
I do.
Self-paced courses out there and then people can work with you.
So on the mindfulness website, that's www.togethermindful.com, that is my mindfulness coaching business. I have a ton of free resources.
I have a start here module where people can just browse around different videos, different interviews that I've done learn.
Like what do I sound like?
What do I think about mine?
And then I have some free resources, including the mindful body Guide that teaches people how to be more mindful using their five senses.
And that's totally free. I have a mindfulness toolkit that teaches people how to start being mindful and practicing mindfulness meditation. And just three minutes a day. So I have a week's worth of exercises there.
Well, just about 3 minutes long because I don't think that it needs to be any longer than that, especially when you're just starting out.
And then I have.
Some of my paid courses there, including the mindful body course, the core values assess.
Element Mindful Wonderland, which is like a five day experience that I recently included so that people can feel more engaged with mindfulness day-to-day.
I basically walk them through what that actually looks like and then just recently I created 2 new things.
I have the meditation library for anybody that just wants to have a library of meditation.
Exercises anywhere from one a minute long to 10 plus minutes long so that they can practice with different lengths. I just started that that's only $9 a month.
And for anybody that wants to really go deeper 1.
On one with me.
I offer a VIP day that happens totally online in a chat group.
You get me for the entire day.
We can troubleshoot and problem solve anything you want related to mindfulness meditation and values based living, which is basically anything and everything.
That's great.
I am so glad that you have.
Provided all these resources for people, I'm.
It it's really important I think in this world where we're rushing around and we have so many pressures and so many people are living in stress and I think really stress is just the matter of people not living mindfully and letting.
Letting the situation overwhelm them to the point where they feel anxious, and then they're stealing the joy from the moment.
What's the one thing that you would really like?
To leave the audience with that, you.
Hope they take away from this conversation.
I mean in.
Regards to mindfulness that it doesn't have to be so overwhelming and such like a big thing.
And I know I even threw out like so many resources at you just now, but really just.
Start with the mindfulness.
Toolkit start with doing 3 minutes every day and just notice how are you feeling.
And without even any resources, you can start by asking yourself these three questions.
I tell my clients all the time.
What am I thinking?
How does my body feel?
What emotions are coming?
Yeah, for me, if you start every day, just asking yourself these questions, you will become more mindful.
You will be able to make more of the kind of choices that you actually want to make that are based on what's most important to you, the kind of person that you want.
To be and for me that is how I get to make the impact that I want to make.
Which is all through mindfulness.
Perfect. Perfect. Thank you.
So much for joining us today, Alice.
It's been my honor to get to chat with you about this really important topic.
Thank you so much Jill for having me.
This was a pleasure and any of your audience members can always reach out to me.
They can find me on Instagram at Doctor Alice.
I'm always happy to answer questions related to mindfulness.
And we'll put the links for all of your resources in the show notes below.