Let's Start Here

COVID-19 and the Water We Swim In: So ... there's this illness going around called coronavirus or COVID-19. Maybe you've heard about this? Kidding. The only way you could have not heard of it is if you are a hermit living in some mountain-top cave. Even if the illness itself turns out to not be that big a deal, the overall consequences rippling across our world are going to affect all of us. Jerry and Benjamin may not be epidemiologists, but we're experts in regards to the water we swim in, and that water is extremely turbulent right now. In this episode, we offer guidance for dealing with the very challenging times we find ourselves living in.

Special thanks to Dawn S. for the inspiration.

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Cultivating a Quality of Ease Is Not Easy: We finished last week's episode by talking about an intention to explore "making it easy." Benjamin carried that intention with him onto the tennis court for a recent match. Working with that intention helped cultivate flow through much of his game, but he discovered an area--his serve--in which no amount of centering could create a quality of ease. It turns out that sometimes it's quite challenging to cultivate that quality of ease, and that challenge is what this week's episode is about.

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Seeking Guidance: It's an interesting time here at Let's Start Here. Our "Epilogue/Prologue" episode a few weeks back served as a declaration that we've found ourselves at a solid endpoint with respect to the work that's brought us to this point and are now beginning something new. What's tricky is that while we know the question, "How good are you willing to feel?" is offering us a starting place, we have no clear idea of where our explorations in answer to that question are going to take us. We are seeking guidance, and in our dialogue this week, we discovered that an interesting type of guidance was showing up in an unexpected place.

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Start Here: This episode is meant to be the jumping-off point for first-time listeners. We first describe who you are, dear listener--in short, someone seeking to live a better life--and then we briefly explain the tools we offer in our teachings and give a roadmap through the episodes so far.

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Sanity Check Interlude: A sudden epiphany had Benjamin reconceptualizing our "Start Here" episode, and then a busy weekend of instructing on the mountain meant that getting it done by deadline was going to be a stretch. "I have a suggestion," said Jerry, the night before deadline. "Don't get it done. Wait a week. Follow the principles and give yourself a break." A little further contemplation of the epiphany and the subsequent conversation with Jerry led to surprising inspiration, and this episode is the result.

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A Better Story, Part 1: Epilogue, Prologue: This episode serves as epilogue to the work we've done to this point and prologue to the work that we are now beginning. We are very proud of what we've accomplished, but we've come to understand that we're still living in the grips of our old stories, and so to bring about the next level of change, it is time to start telling--and thereby living--a better story.

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When Life Gets Dark: This episode was inspired by and is dedicated to the many people who have told us in recent months that they are struggling with fear, anxiety and depression. It's a tough time right now, and sometimes it's hard to know how to cope. In this episode, we talk about some of the tools we can use to get us through the darkness when it arises.

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Meditation: We believe that meditation is a very important practice. In this episode, we discuss the health benefits of meditation, talk about the fallacy of quieting the mind, explain how our teachings differ from those of more formal meditation schools, and in general try to demystify the practice of meditation as much as possible. We close the episode with a short meditation.

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Transition: We're in a time of transition here at Let's Start Here. In this episode, we talk about what's given rise to this transition (hint: one of our previous episodes affected us deeply), where we find ourselves at the start of this transition, and what we're witnessing right now with respect to the water we swim in.

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Exploring Seven: We first brought up RPE (which traditionally means "Rate of Perceived Exertion") all the way back in Episode 2. A quick refresher: when using RPE, you rate your subjective experience on a scale of one to ten. In weight training, we define a seven on that scale as the point at which we can no longer synchronize the breath and the motion. That's also the point at which an exercise switches from pure gains to some level of detriment. RPE is such an important tool that we spent Episodes 11 through 14 explaining how to use RPE as a means to practice mindfulness. In this episode, we share our continued explorations of how the concept of "working to a seven" can guide us throughout our lives.

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