Hello friends! 

Winter storms have come upon us here in full force this week, and we happened to end up driving through several of them. Blech! But this morning we are cozy and warm at home, and hope you are, too. This week David shares some thoughts and personal experiences on the topic of courage and encouragement and I introduce you all to our book club, plus some other delightful nuggets we hope you will enjoy. 

Thanks so much for joining us! 

Mindy

A couple days ago I spent a few hours recording a follow-up episode for a podcast with my friend Jepson Taylor that will be released in a few weeks. The conversation returned over and over to the idea that it takes courage to live an authentic life and that there is very little we can give to others other than sincere encouragement. 

Something I love about my friend Jepson is how courageous he can be when facing huge challenges. During our chat, I pointed out how what each of us needs when facing adversity and challenges is the same kind of love and encouragement he received from his mom growing up. She modeled sincere love and showered him with encouragement. It made him one of the strongest and most capable men I know.

Sadly, that’s not what I was modeled. Growing up a child in the 80s and 90s with unskilled parents challenged with the added burden of managing mental illness, it’s little surprise that I did not have a template for positive reinforcement. Instead, they tried to scare me straight. As parents, leaders, teammates, and siblings, it is easy to fall into the familiar default behavior of trying to “scare ‘em straight,” especially if that’s how we were raised.

Five years ago, our eldest daughter worked with me on a beautiful idea for a children’s book. She was in the throes of learning high school and adolescent social dynamics after being homeschooled. I got frustrated with the progress and wrote her a terrible email outlining how “this kind of behavior turns into failure.” It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever done, and it feels doubly heartbreaking because it’s exactly what my father did to me when I was 11 years old.

I had come home with the results of a standardized state exam. He yelled at me, belittling me for only scoring in the 95th percentile for math and science. There was a 99th percentile, where all the future successful doctors, lawyers, and end engineers scored because they worked harder than me.

The result was that instead of looking at my shortcomings as an opportunity for growth, I developed a Drill Sergeant who lived rent-free in my skull. He started as a background character, but eventually, he starred in my life, running things from 16 to 42. He scared me. He terrified me. But it never gave me strength. All it did was manage to tarnish every success with a dressing down, pointing out every way my success was actually a failure and how I was a piece of shit. I could never get momentum because I was always behind. It was exhausting.

Determination can come as much from desperation as inspiration.

Courage always comes from bravery. I missed the logical phrasing and segue when I published this. Tsk. Tsk.

Bravery always requires courage.

Finding the courage to be brave in the face of those things we most fear feels daunting, even impossible. I had practiced role-playing the Drill Sargent for so long that I mistook him for me. I did not think of him as a part of me. He was me. 

But that’s not entirely true. It was something I told myself. But who was doing the telling? How old were they? And could I remember a time before leading with Drill Sargent?

My path of spirituality has had two primary moments of clarity. Discovering meditation at the age of 13 and trying magic mushrooms for the first time at the age of 42. These moments of clarity gave me courage, not because I felt I’d dominated my fears but because they showed me something strange and beautiful.

At 13, I lied to my folks and told them that we had to do a report, and I’d chosen to do mine on the USS Arizona, an aircraft carrier bombed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. I knew this would get me a ride to the library, a pocket full of nickels for copies, and a day to myself. I needed to be out of the house. My father was going through an impossible, hard year that started with a burst appendix on our trip to the Grand Canyon that turned into pneumonia and a psychotic depression.

I walked into the Glendale Public Library and stood for quite a long time near the main desk. A kind librarian approached me and asked if I was alright. I proceeded to give her the rundown of my life to that point. I didn’t cry, but I was obviously distraught. She embraced me, told me that would be a lot for anyone, let alone a 13-year-old, and then asked me a question:

Have you ever heard of meditation?

I asked if she meant like what monks do and she said: “Yeah, like what monks do.” Then she asked me to accompany her. I went home with a few big books about the USS Arizona, a stack of copied sources, and hidden at the bottom of the pile: Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and a thin little hardcover book about several styles of meditation.

Meditation was instant relief. It was a moment of solitary calm in my life when I often felt tossed at sea. That librarian demonstrated encouragement at a level that has taken me years to embrace. Her gentleness was strength. Her willingness to ask questions, be curious, and not presume an answer came from what I later learned was bravery to face life unflinching without anger. And she focused on me, not on the shitty parenting or terrible circumstances.

We can save the mushroom trip for another time. Hopefully, this story helps paint a picture of the power of encouragement to support someone to do things that will help them on their journey. That’s all any of us need.

This week, when confronted with disappointment, anger, or any challenging emotions in those you interact with, try showering them with real courage. Practice encouragement. Do it sincerely. 

And do this for yourself, too. You can strive to meet challenges with courage and sincere encouragement. 

I promise I’ll be working on it too.

– Gonzo

NEAT!

• Questlove compiled an Energizing Playlist per request from the New York Times, and it’s a lot of fun. Check it out!

• You can read his delightful liner notes here if you’re interested. Our favorite note is under his description of March Of The Swivel Heads: “Someone once said ska music sounds like the glee a child expresses when given extra chicken fingers.”

• And if you just can’t get enough and want to better know the mind and heart of Questlove, read Creative Quest, it’s an incredible dive into practices that help make us creative. The audiobook is perfection.

• Still can’t get enough?! Wow! We should hang out after you read The Creative Act: A way of being by genius record producer Rick Rubin (just listen to the audiobook, trust us) and talk about the beauty of Rick’s engineering the production of No Hard Feelings by The Avett Brothers.

• The Good Life with David “Gonzo” Gonzalez | Overcoming Fear and Hardship was the first I recorded with my lovely friend Jepson. He and I started a company together and discussed the difficulty of repairing our relationship after selling our company.

At the end of 2022 I felt a pull to offer something to the community of seekers/fellow travelers along the path of growth and healing. I wasn’t sure what this could be, but when I mentioned the desire to my lovely friend Jackie, she suggested doing a book club. The second she said this, it resonated with something core and deep within me. As a more introverted person with an insatiable curiosity, books have been my go-to resource for as long as I can remember. And my experiences in a neighborhood book club over the past 16 years have shown me that discussing the ideas in a book is a great way to find common ground and end up having surprising opportunities to share parts of our individual journeys with each other, creating an atmosphere where connection and friendship can thrive. 

So in January 2023 I created the Bodhicitta Book Club and over the course of the year facilitated three series of discussions, each split into five sessions. Bodhicitta means “Awakening Mind.” Our 2023 books were The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer, The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, and The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self Discovery by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile. (These books will likely be featured in our Books section in future newsletters.) Each time we read a section of the book and then came together to share and discuss. Spending so much time with these ideas on our minds and having the chance to share and hear others’ insights was new to all of us, and it was an incredible experience. The extended format really gave us time to incorporate the ideas into our lives and also to form closer connections with other group members. And reading a section of a book rather than an entire book over two weeks felt really manageable, even amidst the regular busyness of our lives.  

We will be starting our next series on January 23, and will meet every other Tuesday (with an exception for the first week of April). Our book is Wheels of Life: A User’s Guide to the Chakra System by Anodea Judith, PhD. 

If you are local to Utah County and would like to join in person, please do! If you’re not local but would like to participate, there is a Zoom option available. Alternatively, get the book and read along and I will share some insights and takeaways from each section in our Book Club feature in the newsletter. Next week I will cover the introduction to the chakras and the root chakra (Chapters 1 and 2). Click here to sign up.

Happy reading!

- Mindy

SOMETHING TO TRY

During a time when I was having some trouble falling asleep, I learned about the practice of doing a body scan for relaxation. The way I did it was to start at my toes and try to put my awareness to what my toes were experiencing. Could I feel the sheet touching them? Were they touching each other? Could I get a sense of where they were in space, whether they were feeling relaxed or tense? It felt like shifting my seat of awareness from its usual resting place in my head to another part of my body. I found it fascinating. Most of the time we are only aware of various parts of our bodies when they get injured or are problematic in some way. Many of us walk around like we are just a brain transported by a fleshy robot. Doing these body scans typically relaxed me so much that I would fall asleep before I made it to my hips. In addition to being a useful relaxation tool, I found that it also helped me feel more connected with my body, an idea we will explore next week in our Book Club section. If you’d like to try a guided Body Scan meditation, here’s one.

P.S. David’s favorite depiction of Body Scan is in the final episode of Midnight Gospel (also on Netflix).

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That’s all for this week! If you’re into this, share this newsletter with all your friends. Connecting with new subscribers is magical! 🧚🏻‍♀️

DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice.