[00:01] Katie: Welcome to The Focus B Show, where Katie Stoddart, high performance coach, interviews experts around the world in performance and mindfulness. Now here's your host. Katie.
[00:32] Katie: Welcome to the Focus B show. Today I'm here with Monica Varella that I actually met in Barcelona a few years ago. And Monica is an expert corporate trainer in neuro, mentoring, mindfulness and emotional education, all fascinating topics. So let's see how much we can cover today. Thank you for being with me today, Monica.
[00:54] Monika: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here with you.
[00:56] Katie: Thank you. The first thing I want to begin with is something that I think there's a lot of confusion about is what's the difference between mindfulness and meditation?
[01:07] Monika: Okay, that's a very good question, and I would say that mindfulness is the practice. Well, sorry, I got mindfulness. It's what happens when you meditate, not only when you meditate, but it's this awareness that arises when we're paying attention to the present moment. Okay? So you don't have to meditate to experience mindfulness, and meditation would be the practice when you sit down and you want to be present, and you focus either on your body, on a mantra, on your breathing, or maybe even in an image. So you can practice mindfulness when you're walking, when you're doing the dishes, when you're doing any activity. Okay, so it's just this awareness that arises. But meditation would be one of the formal practices of mindfulness. For example, there are people who may want to be mindful or practice mindfulness, but they don't necessarily want to meditate. And it's also possible you can pay attention to your thoughts without meditating. You can walk and feel your body without meditating. So they're not really interchangeable, but they do confuse. I even got confused right now when I was starting to answer the question.
[02:34] Katie: I love this. And I generally think of meditation as a sort of superpower for mindfulness. So I agree with you. I think mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment. And like you said, it can be washing the dishes or drinking a cup of tea or a conversation, I feel, is often very mindful. But meditation, I feel, helps you to be more mindful.
[02:55] Monika: Exactly, yes. Meditation helps you. Yeah. When we train people in mindfulness, we always train them in the formal aspect, which would be to meditate, to do yoga, which is to pay attention to your body, or not necessarily yoga, but do something that brings awareness to your body and to pay attention to your breathing. And then all the non formal practices, which are these that we just said washing the dishes, brushing your teeth. If you're right handed, you can maybe even experience brushing your teeth with your left hand to bring this awareness into your body without necessarily meditation. And when we train people in mindfulness, we do my computer is moving. Sorry. Yes, we use both the formal practices and the non formal informal practices.
[03:42] Katie: Yes. I can see how both of these are related together. It's such a really fascinating topic. What got you interested in mindfulness and meditation to begin with?
[03:54] Monika: Well, that's a long story, but the.
[03:59] Katie: Short version yeah, I'll give you the short version.
[04:01] Monika: The short version was, ever since I was 16, I was really interested in religions and I practiced different religious paths. We could say I didn't really take it seriously. It was more like an extreme curiosity back then. And when I was 20, I had difficulties in university and my mother told me, why don't you take a mindfulness course? Well, actually, no. She told me, why don't you take a sen course? A sen meditation course. And that's how I started. Like the moment I started practicing sen, I started meditating on a daily basis, going to retreats whenever I could, and I fell in love with the practice. So fast forward ten or twelve years. I started giving guided relaxations and meditations in a hospital as a volunteer. And this was all through sen meditation. Okay, so not really mindfulness. And then four years ago, I decided to study mindfulness so that I could train people in mindfulness, because it is a lot more broader than sen, because sen is more of a spiritual path, whereas mindfulness, you can practice it and not consider yourself spiritual, even though for me, it goes together with spirituality. Some people use mindfulness only to be better at their jobs, to be better performers, to be better speakers, and it's respectable as well. But for me, it was from the spiritual side, and then I wanted to help people in a more formal area.
[05:34] Katie: Nice. I can see the different aspects of mindfulness that you're talking about from the spiritual way of looking at it. And also you touched on something that I'm interested also in discussing, which is how mindfulness can affect our performance, either work or as a speaker. So tell us a bit more about that.
[05:53] Monika: As a personal example, when I was studying in university, I was taking five courses, I remember. And then the moment I started organizing my thoughts, meditating in the mornings, and being really more aware of what I wanted, I was able to take ten courses and pass all of them with a really good grade. So I personally experienced how mindfulness can really help you at work. It makes you pay attention more to detail, so then you make less mistakes. You feel like you have more time because you're living in the moment. You don't waste time, you know what you want, so it makes you more objective, focus, I would say. So you are going to perform better. I also think you're going to be in a better mood. It's going to make you smile more, feel more gratitude, and that's going to give you this positive energy that makes it contagious and people want to be with you. So I think it's always going to help you, whether it's at work or in your personal life. But I've experienced it in my own life and that's why I wanted to share that story of university because I remember I was really tired at the end of the semester. But yeah, it wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't been meditating on a daily basis to finish that year, which was very like I don't want to get into it, but it was very important for me to take ten courses. Ten classes in one semester.
[07:20] Katie: Incredible. So it's definitely a performance booster. Yes, do a lot more. I'm interested in something you just said right now, which is the relationship between mindfulness and time. And this notion I once heard if you feel you don't have enough time, then meditate twice the amount. So if you meditate half an hour, meditate an hour and you'll have more time. So tell us a bit more how you feel mindfulness impacts our relationship with time.
[07:49] Monika: That's a good question. How it impacts our relationship with time. I think it makes you more aware of the time and by becoming more aware of how much time you have and you're fully embodied in every second, every minute, so you can make the most of those seconds and minutes. There is no sense like time disappears in a way it's hard to explain and to put it in words, but because time disappears because it's kind of like you become time and you take advantage of every second if you know what you want to do, it's also important to know what you want to do in every single moment. So I would say the time disappears and you take advantage of it more. Time is also difficult to define. Like a minute can last very long for one person and very short, and it can be very short for another person. It all depends on your circumstances. But if you're very mindful and if you're very mindful, I'm sure that you will be there for that whole minute. I don't know if I'm answering your question right there.
[09:00] Katie: Yes, I love this. I love this. When you say time disappears, do you feel that then being mindful is the same as being in flow? Because this is one of the characteristics when you're in flow is your sort of notion of time disappears because you're fully engulfed in what you're doing.
[09:18] Monika: I could say in certain moments being mindful could be to be in flow. However, there are also other moments perhaps. I mean, with flow you need this sense of difficulty, right? And sometimes there are moments where you can just be mindful, but not necessarily in flow, I think because for me, flow has to also give you this bit of hyperactivity that being mindful can give you, but not always, but for sure they are related. Like if you're in flow, you're definitely being mindful, but not the other way around.
[09:49] Katie: I would say this correlation between if you're in flow, you're being mindful, but if you're being mindful, you're not necessarily in flow.
[09:58] Monika: Yeah. However, there's maybe times yeah, I don't know, maybe some people who are in flow, like a football player, to them, they would be like, I don't even know where I was because they were so mindful that who knows where they were. And whereas when we're actually being mindful, you're there, right. You're paying attention and you're concentrated, but for sure they're related. They are. Which is there. Yeah.
[10:22] Katie: This is absolutely fascinating because being in flow is also directly tied to peak performance and I'm always really interested in this sort of combination or coordination between peak performance and mindfulness. So I sort of see it as mindfulness can lead to flow, which then leads to peak performance and how they all tie together. But I also feel like you said that sometimes they're separate so you can be fully mindful but not actually be in a state of peak performance.
[10:53] Monika: If you're washing dishes, for example yeah. Going for a walk, maybe you can be going for the walk and in flow, but not necessarily. Not always. I'd say when we're talking about flow and peak performance, the way you just related it, of course, yeah. Other people are probably flowing and walking and it's also a sort of flow.
[11:15] Katie: Let's touch a bit more on the sort of practical side because some people might be listening to us and thinking, well, this all sounds fantastic, I want more to be more mindful, I want to be more in flow. What do you recommend to people that are sort of maybe starting off that aren't really familiar with mindfulness and don't really know how to be more mindful throughout the day?
[11:35] Monika: I would start by just setting a timer for 1 minute and stopping whatever it is that you're doing and starting with feeling your feet. Keep it simple, 1 minute a day. This is for someone who's never heard of mindfulness and has no idea. Okay, but just stop and if you have a minute, feel your feet. This is a simple way and in this minute maybe you're going to feel that it's like a really long minute because you've never done this, you've never stopped. And with time you could make it two minutes, three minutes, and maybe instead of just feeling your feet, you can start feeling your body, paying attention to every single part of the body for five minutes and then ten minutes. If this is very easy, I would suggest stopping and just feeling your breath. Okay? So in mindfulness, we always work with our body or with our breathing, and you pay close attention to your inhalation and close attention to your exhalations, like following your mind and your breath at the same time. And this is for someone, again, who's never done anything. I strongly suggest though, if you're interested in mindfulness, to find a group and people that you can practice with together. Because when you practice mindfulness together and well, here I'm saying mindfulness, but I'm meaning meditation. Actually, when you start a formal meditation practice with people, the group really helps you because it's still kind of no one has taught us how to meditate. We live in a world that is hyper connected. We're always doing things. And when we begin to practice mindfulness and meditation, what we start to do is to do less things, fewer things at the same time. So we're training our mind to stop. And when we're with a group, like I was saying here, I got us here, it really helps us to develop this concentration needed.
[13:39] Katie: Nice. So to summarize a few things that you said is first for people who have no experience at all, just spend a minute a day focusing on the feet and then with time start focusing on other parts of the body and then the breath. And then if they want to improve their mindfulness, they can join meditation group practices because that's very encouraging and supportive. I also loved what you said about we're in a world that's always doing and I'm very interested in the sort of relationship between doing and being. So can you tell us a bit more how mindfulness can help us be more and not do more?
[14:20] Monika: How mindfulness can help us be more and not do more or be more present?
[14:27] Katie: Let's put this way, compared to just doing stuff.
[14:30] Monika: Yeah. The reality is that we're always doing things. From the moment we wake up, we're checking our phone, we're going to the shower, when we're showering, we're thinking about the things that we have to do even though we haven't started doing them. And there is very little time for just being. And by being, I mean, but just being yourself and experiencing the moment without thinking about the things that we have to do. So when we train in mindfulness, what we do is we stop and we have that space to just be. And by being first you need to stop. Okay? You need to be by paying attention to your breathing, see what is there. And sometimes we might not even like what is there because there's a lot of negative thoughts going on in our bodies, in our minds. And we think that this is what we are and we do things so that we can't be these negative thoughts. But the beauty of mindfulness and meditation is that you're not really those thoughts, but first you need to be them, which means you're not really being them. Okay? But you need to listen to them to shut down the noise so that you can listen to these thoughts and they can be negative thoughts. Or maybe just extra information, like information about things you've seen on Facebook, on Instagram, on LinkedIn, or like gossip that you heard. There's all this noise in our mind and with mindfulness we get to be. So that means that we get to listen to the noise, shut it well, just listen to it, then maybe categorize it and then shut it down. And with time, and sometimes it can take up to years, there's more space of silence at the beginning. There will be no silence if there's silence. I mean, amazing, okay, but with time you can just feel the silence, be the silence and realize that you're not those thoughts, you're not the things you do. But this comes from experience as well. It's an experience.
[16:34] Katie: I think it takes time before we're able to fully detach ourselves from the thoughts and see them from an external perspective and accept that we're not our thoughts. I think all of these things probably take time, but just having that awareness and just pausing from time to time to look what's going on inside is always a fascinating exercise.
[16:56] Monika: Yeah, for sure. And when you were talking about flowing, I think that when we're in a state of flow, we're in a state of being. And that's because you're there in the moment doing like it's a bit difficult and you're just doing what you know you have to do. And that's being too, when you're in flow.
[17:19] Katie: Absolutely. I think flow definitely helps us to be more present and enjoy life more also.
[17:25] Monika: For sure.
[17:26] Katie: That's another topic that you mentioned earlier on about how being mindful can improve our mood. I definitely feel that meditation and mindfulness makes us happier. Can you tell a few words about this?
[17:39] Monika: It makes us happier because when you stop listening to all the negative things that are in your mind or paying attention to everything that's outside and you start being more connected to yourself, there's a sense of love, I would say, of compassion, of gratitude that grows inside you. And this comes when we give space to these emotions, to these feelings, and then we become happier. You can't expect to be happy though, through the mindfulness practice. Okay. It can't be a goal or something that you think you're going to achieve, but just thinking about it makes me smile now because it comes naturally to you. And that's because you create more space for gratitude, for happiness, for compassion, thanks to the practice.
[18:30] Katie: Yes, definitely. I also feel that the meditation and mindfulness as a side impact or result makes you feel happier.
[18:39] Monika: And what also happens is the happiness comes from inside, just from being. Because maybe you woke up in the morning or maybe something small, you see a feather or a leaf, like outside in a tree and this is where you feel happiness. It stops being like something external. A lot of people think they're going to be happy when they get a promotion, or if they buy this dress, or if they have this meal. And these are only external things that we think are making us happy. But with mindfulness and meditation, you realize that you don't need those things. Sorry. Happiness is inside us, and we can share it with everyone. And it's beautiful. It's a beautiful journey.
[19:24] Katie: Yes. There's a lot in today's society about being happy because we finally get something or obtain something, whether it's obtain material possession or something intellectually, like a degree or knowledge or a status and feeling that actually we can just find that happiness inside in spite of external circumstances. It's both liberating and really empowering, I find.
[19:51] Monika: It is, yes.
[19:53] Katie: It's a lovely feeling. Are there any specific books that you've read that have really sort of impact your way of being and living?
[20:01] Monika: Yeah, I knew you were going to ask me this, and I was thinking, okay, what book? And I just need to look here on the screen because I always forget the name of the book. I'm sorry. Well, the one book that I like to recommend to everyone is called Everyday Sen. It's not directly about I mean, they don't talk about mindfulness, they talk about send meditation, but it's about how to practice the send mind, which is accepting everything, being in the moment. And it's called Everyday Sen by Jokobek She's, a Zen Buddhist teacher from San Francisco, I think. And I would recommend it, and it has short chapters with a lot of advice about your daily life. And yeah, that's the book I would recommend the most. And then there was sorry, I was looking at my screen right now. One Moment, a book by John Cabotsin. Okay. John Kabatzin. Sorry. He was the creator of the Mindfulness I'm thinking in Spanish now, so MBSR. Sorry. The mindfulness. Best stress reduction training. Okay. And I would recommend all of his books. And wherever you go, there you are. And it talks about how mindfulness is about waking up to every single moment. And I would really recommend that book. And The Four Agreements was also a book that I read back in the day that I liked a lot. And I think anyone who's interested in mindfulness meditation with these three books, they will really motivate you to start a practice. And if you Google Elisha Goldstein, I don't know if you pronounce his name Goldstein or Goldstein. I think in the States it's Goldstein. He has beautiful books as well and a lot of YouTube videos about Mindfulness that I would also recommend.
[22:04] Katie: Nice. That's a lot of different recommendations. I read The Four Agreements, and the one that I think of regularly is don't take things personally. I think every several times a week that comes back in my mind. I'm like, it's not personal, it's not about you.
[22:20] Monika: Yes. And with mindfulness meditation, you learn to detach from your thoughts, so you detach from taking things personally as well. And this has helped me a lot. Like, yes, even if someone says something that I consider is rude, I now know, okay, they're just being rude, or I think they're being rude, maybe to someone else, they're not being rude. So it helps me to not take things personally. And I've also noticed that I changed the way I speak right now. I said, okay, if this person is rude, maybe before I would say, oh, this person was so rude to me. Now, actually, I usually say, oh, this person had this behavior that I consider rude. I'm not sure if it was rude. Well, that's one way of how I don't take things so personally. And I always have my ups and downs. Of course, we all do. But it's important to detach ourselves.
[23:13] Katie: I love this interpretation way of looking at things. Like, maybe I saw this behavior as rude. It doesn't mean the person was necessarily rude. That's so important.
[23:23] Monika: Yeah, maybe that's the way they are. And with mindfulness, we learn to accept people more the way they are. It's about accepting everything and accepting everything, but also not. That doesn't mean, like, to stop doing or to stop. It doesn't mean like, let's just be lazy and not do anything about the situations, the things that we don't like. You accept them and then you have a new attitude towards your goals. This just to relate it to your.
[23:56] Katie: Work, to the doing part. We still have doing part, but we can also be more in peace and be more present. We haven't spoken about peace, but obviously it goes together with the happiness and the acceptance and the non judging. I mean, it's a lot of different topics. We've touched on a lot of different things. Monica, I've really enjoyed our conversation. Before we go, where can people find you?
[24:17] Monika: Well, thank you for asking. My website? Is my name WW, Monicavarella.com or on LinkedIn? I'm a lot more active on LinkedIn. I need to work on my website a bit more. But if you type in my name, Monica with a K Varela, you can connect with me and I'll be happy to connect with you. Thank you.
[24:38] Katie: Wonderful. I'll put your contact details in the notes of the show. Thank you so much for this conversation. It was so insightful in so many ways, and I've learned loads, so I'm happy and I hope that you listeners have also picked up a lot on what Monica has told us today. Thank you for being here today. Thank you.
[24:57] Monika: Thank you. Bye. Have a great day, guys. Bye.
[25:04] Katie: Thank you for listening to the Focus B show. We would love to hear your feedback. Let us know in a review how this episode inspired you. Keep buzzing.