Mindfulness, How To Do It

Christine heard a parable a few weeks ago and immediately texted Sam about it, so this episode opens with the story of the Mexican fisherman. An American investment banker meets a fisherman who works just a little while each day, then sleeps late, plays with his kids, takes siestas with his wife, and sips wine with his friends in the evening. The banker lays out a fifteen to twenty year plan for him: bigger boats, a cannery, a move to New York, an IPO. And after all that? Then you could retire to a small coastal village where you'd sleep late, fish a little, and sip wine with your friends. The fisherman is already living the life the whole plan is supposed to earn.

Last episode was about why living in the here and now matters. This one is about how. Sam and Christine get into being versus doing, and Christine shares her own version of the fisherman's choice: staying at the family restaurant through college and into motherhood while regulars kept asking when she was going to get a real job. It paid real money, it gave her time with her baby, and her sister's friend once said she always looked so happy. Maybe she had it figured out a long time ago.

Then the practical part. Christine shares the trick that's helped her daughter with anxious thoughts: name the voice in your head, so you can tell Bertha to take a hike. You are not your thoughts. You're the observer of them, and not all of them deserve your attention. Sam adds Gabby Bernstein's two words for the moment a spiral starts, choose again, and Christine brings a phrase she just heard that stopped them both: shopping for pain. You can visit those thoughts, but you can't live there.

In this episode:

• The parable of the Mexican fisherman and the Harvard MBA

• Being versus doing, and why you can live the life you want right now

• Christine's years at the family restaurant and the "real job" question

• Naming the anxious voice in your head so you can tell it to take a hike

• Choose again, and how to stop shopping for pain

Quotes from this episode:

"A life well lived is always complete. Whether that's twenty years old or eighty years old, that life was complete if you're living in the moment. Because the moment is the life." - Samantha Bauer

"Be careful which wolf you feed. The wolf of fear or the wolf of happiness and positivity. Whichever one you feed is the one that's gonna grow." - Christine Goforth

"Just be aware of your thoughts and realize that your thoughts are not you. They're manufactured thoughts in your brain that do create your reality. So you can create a different reality just by shifting your mindset." - Samantha Bauer

"When I find myself shopping for pain, that's when I know I need to come back to myself, because there is nothing wrong in this moment. Why am I going out and looking for it?" - Christine Goforth

Listen and subscribe:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sisters-in-law-of-attraction/id1848757802

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4OngsZM3ofSq3xTUgpChfc

All platforms: https://linktr.ee/sistersinlawpod

Episode page: https://sistersinlawofattraction.com/episodes/episode-35-mindfulness-how-to-do-it.html

Sisters In Law of Attraction is hosted by Samantha Bauer and Christine Goforth.