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Ep. 92 Love Lessons: The Philosophy of Heartfelt Living with Zach Beach

heartfelt living

Last episode we explored codependency. In this week’s episode, I explore a healthier version of intimacy when interviewing Zach Beach, a coach, poet, and yoga teacher who deeply explores the concept of love through various practices. 

His journey from a career in engineering to finding his purpose in love was influenced by the unconditional adoration he received from his parents, especially his mother. Zach emphasizes the importance of the body as an access point for experiencing and opening up, particularly through yoga and breathing exercises. 

We chat about the power of love in overcoming trauma, the significance of forgiveness, and how affection, devotion, and gratitude interplay in healing and cultivating a joyful life. We end the episode with practical advice on creating loving and predictable practices for personal growth and healing. Zach shares a simple breathing exercise to help you get back into your body and access your heart. 

Show Notes: Love Lessons: The Philosophy of Heartfelt Living

00:00 Introduction 

00:03 Meet Zach Beach: A Life of Loving

02:47 Exploring Loving and Life’s Purpose

04:06 The Journey from Head to Heart

04:22 Modeling Intimacy and Compassion

05:35 The Body as an Access Point to Intimacy and Devotion

05:45 Understanding Love and Trauma

19:28 The Practice of Forgiveness

27:43 The Role of Animals and Deities in Healing

31:59 Creating Meaningful Experiences

33:08 The Power of Senses

35:35 Attachment and Warmth

37:26 The Role of Intimacy and Gratitude

38:46 Healing and Trauma

43:50 Micro Practices for Love

47:51 Trauma-Informed Practices

54:12 Guided Breathing Exercise

58:43 Final Thoughts and Resources

Zach Beach Interview [00:00:00] Charna Cassell: Hi, Welcome back to Late Open Podcast. I'm Charna Cassell and today's guest is Zach Beach and he addresses love and lives love from so many different angles. He's a coach and a poet and a yoga teacher. And so he's just living and breathing love and he has courses. As well as books available to explore, and you'll find there's a certain way that he answers every question and approaches, , The way that he thinks about things is almost in a Dharma talk. [00:00:39] Charna Cassell: Like every question you get this little sweet, these analogies that make things very real and relatable, and I hope you walk away feeling really curious about how you love and, , and reflect on the value of love. So enjoy. [00:00:58] Learn how to live embodied If it's about to unwind Uncover new tools and start healing Leave trauma and tension behind Isn't it great laid open Let all your desires come true How can you live laid open Imagine yourself brand new. Imagine yourself brand new. [00:01:43] Charna Cassell: Welcome, Zach. [00:01:45] Zach Beach: Thanks so much for having me, Charna. It's nice to see you. [00:01:48] Charna Cassell: I'm glad to have you, and I, I love that you, , Seemingly walk your path so thoroughly and that you approach life with such a holistic, you know, like you're from embodiment. [00:02:01] Charna Cassell: There's intellectual and spiritual rigor and heart centered practices focused around love. [00:02:07] Zach Beach: Well, do you? No, I'm just kidding. It's all front. Oh no, it's just the power of intention as I'm sure you are exploring in your own life. We know our why and my why is always love. And it's a tree with many, many branches. [00:02:25] Zach Beach: And I've uncovered a few branches on the tree as you have in your wonderful life. And I'm sure many of your listeners inspired by your own heart and your work are also following this path of love. [00:02:39] Charna Cassell: Well, and it's, , what I find is that people often teach what they themselves need practice in and, you know, what they need to learn. [00:02:47] Charna Cassell: And so I'm curious about that in terms of when you look back and you look back into your childhood and you go, like, were there signs, were there moments in time that you can point back and go, Oh, love was my purpose. And the path that I would end up. [00:03:03] Zach Beach: It's hard to say. I do feel like in general, the first half or 18 years of my life was learning. [00:03:10] Zach Beach: And since then it's been unlearning or there's been conditioning and now there's been de conditioning. , And around all sorts of areas, like what it means in living and being in this world. So as an example, when I was growing up, I was told you have to have a job and you got to go to college. So I got a very job job [00:03:31] Zach Beach: I got an engineering degree and got a very job job, but I was like, my heart isn't in this. And I was like, there must be more to life. There must be more for me to explore. , But there were other hints, of course. Like I remember, , being told I was a writer or a good writer, but no one also told me that you can make a living doing writing or writing about the heart. [00:03:53] Zach Beach: They're like, Oh yeah, you might do some technical writing or you could be a journalist and write about politics or something, but no one told me, Oh yeah. Write poetry. That'll, that'll bring you success in life. So I do feel like my journey has been just shifting from the head to the heart. We live in a very cognitive centric world, lost in our own thought, believing everything that we think. [00:04:15] Zach Beach: And it takes time. It takes practice and takes discipline to live from this heart space. [00:04:22] Charna Cassell: What was your modeling around love and loving? [00:04:26] Zach Beach: I'm very fortunate. I don't think I could. Do this career that I'm doing if I had not received the unconditional love from both my parents Especially my mother she would give me even today as an adult She would give me the shirt off her back if she knew it would warm me So, a lot of the times, even if I was in college and my mom, like, paid for a meal, I'd be like, No, no, let me pay for it. [00:04:52] Zach Beach: She always believed in paying it forward. Mm hmm. And I've taken that. I feel like I've received a lot of love in the early years of my life. And I am paying it forward and helping others love themselves and helping others be more compassionate. [00:05:10] Charna Cassell: So you really got a physical imprint of, of knowing how to receive because a lot of people after trauma, they have to literally, like you said, like unconditioned, uh, closing and learn how to physically open. [00:05:27] Charna Cassell: And so it started with mom. Mom was, you know, a great teacher of how to do that. But then there's, then you became a Yogi. And so can you talk some about the body as a, an access point for experiencing and opening to love? [00:05:43] Zach Beach: Absolutely. Before we get into the body, let's just mention real quick that love is the deepest human need. [00:05:52] Zach Beach: We all want to be loved, , to be seen, accepted, honored, validated for exactly who we are is just a fundamental need as food and water. And especially for developing children, developing brains, is love is the framework. Love is the structure. And we often aren't even in touch with our own emotions until a loving and attuned parent can reflect it back. [00:06:19] Zach Beach: So this is why something like trauma from a caregiver Something like neglect or abuse from a caregiver is so challenging and so disorganizing to the human experience. It's really hard to reconcile at a young age that this person I am dependent on, that this person who says that they love me, is also a source of pain. [00:06:50] Zach Beach: So because love is the deepest human need, a lack of love is often the deepest human suffering. Like when we get dumped, that's a heartbreak, your heart is breaking. And at the same time, the abuse, neglect, and trauma that we might experience from primary caregivers, , it's going to take some time to heal. [00:07:10] Zach Beach: Those wounds run very deep. So absolutely. The first part is to begin to, uh, set firm boundaries. to begin to regulate ourselves and begin to take care of ourselves and often give ourselves a love that we never received or even had models for when growing up. And as I mentioned, we do live in a very cognitive centric society, , lost in our own thoughts. [00:07:36] Zach Beach: I often say that, that even the Buddha 2000 years ago diagnosed humanity with chronic NST, nonstop thinking. Um, So we're all suffering from non stop thinking, and we do need to return to the body. And there's so many amazing, incredible things to be found in this body of ours. As soon as you go down, of course, you find the heart and the source of love and compassion. [00:08:01] Zach Beach: But you also find that level of intuition and wisdom and knowing. I'm sure you talk about this all the time in your own work. You know, we have this term, I have a gut feeling about this. I'm like, yeah, that is your body sending you information. It's not, it's quite clear in language as the mind might create, but we have all sorts of somatic signals that the body sends us. [00:08:25] Zach Beach: So we gain a source of wisdom and knowledge that we weren't in touch with before we get in touch with the heart. And I often say, or often have my students inquire, do you ever say I think I'm alive or I think love? You don't. You say, I feel alive. I feel love. Even if you were to go to like Uh, another country and you were to introduce yourself and that you want to tell the person who you are. [00:08:54] Zach Beach: Are you going to say, I'm Charna and point to your head and point you to my head for those that can't see. Are you going to say, I'm Charna? No, you're going to put one hand on the heart and you're going to say, Oh, I'll say I'm Zach. You're saying your, your sense of beingness, your sense of aliveness is also to be found in your body and love is also to be found in your body. [00:09:16] Charna Cassell: When I, I was working in Nepal at an orphanage and one of the things I do with the kids and with the teachers, , was. we'd make a distinction. We would have a number that we were like, what's to check in? How, how's your state today? You know, there's your mind, your body and your emotions. So the kids would start to walk around and they'd go , hello, miss, what is your number today? [00:09:41] Charna Cassell: You know, and they would, or the timber number Catiho was what they taught me how to, how to say to them. And so it was this very sweet, , awareness that was developing these distinctions, right. That we're not all one thing. [00:09:55] Zach Beach: Yeah, and it's really important to recognize the slowing down that is required. [00:10:00] Zach Beach: The mind is very fast. If I say, think of a pink elephant, boom, pink elephant is in your head. If I say, what does it feel like in your right pinky toe? You got to be like, oh. Hold on a sec. You know, back into the [00:10:14] Zach Beach: files. Let me, let me check. Let me see. So an idea I've been exploring my own practice is how in yoga we have this concept of tapas, which means both discipline and fire. [00:10:27] Zach Beach: And it's usually a metaphor for how we're burning away impurities. It was really easy to conflate, uh, pure and impure with sexual purity and impurity, which is the Western mind, but it's nothing to do with that. And even the act of slowing down. is gonna burn away all sorts of impurities. The impurities that tell us to rush. [00:10:51] Zach Beach: The impurities that say you're not enough unless you're doing x, y, z. We always feel like if we're not running as fast as we can, we're going to be falling behind. So just sitting still and being with our breath and being in our bodies. , and with trauma, of course, you want to titrate this sort of thing. [00:11:06] Zach Beach: Just want to head right into this. But once we're at a point we're able to regulate and widen our window of tolerance or just be with our inner experience, again, it tunes us into the wisdom of the body, but it also burns away the impurities of always needing to do something, always needing to prove ourselves, always running from one thing to the next, next, but never being fully present with our experience. [00:11:34] Zach Beach: So it's important to recognize the body is on its own. pace and we have to slow down our life, slow down the mind in order to get in touch with the more subtle aspects of our experience. [00:11:49] Charna Cassell: What that reminds me of is, you know, I mean, there's different kinds of dysregulated nervous systems, right? So there's hyperarousal and hypoarousal. [00:12:00] Charna Cassell: And with hypoarousal, there often tends to be more numbness in the body. And I'm thinking about earlier when you were talking about how You had that access point like you had the imprint of knowing what love felt like and a lot of the times what happens with trauma is there can be a self protective response and numbing of the body, [00:12:22] Zach Beach: right? [00:12:22] Charna Cassell: And so, so I think about people who go, I've never been in love. It's like how if you can't feel your body, you can't feel your intuition, you can't feel your instincts or your sensations. How do you even know what love feels like or being in love feels like? And so what would you say to them? [00:12:41] Zach Beach: To someone who says they've never been in love? [00:12:44] Charna Cassell: Like someone who's never been in love. And, and, you know, as someone who knows how there are some people who feel everything, they, they can, you know, feel so much anxiety because of all the sensations and they're moving very fast and other people who may have a slower pace, they don't always go hand in hand, but then there's a numbness. [00:13:05] Charna Cassell: Right? [00:13:05] Zach Beach: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. [00:13:06] Charna Cassell: So, how does somebody know that they're in love? How does somebody know, um, what the sensations of love feel like? Or, being in love and love are two distinctly different things as well, but. [00:13:19] Zach Beach: Well, sometimes I call our intention step zero. It's what we do before all the other steps. And we've already talked about how being seen, honored, and recognized for who we are is a fundamental human need. [00:13:31] Zach Beach: So, that's the first step. And by the first step, I mean the zero step. Is to love somebody. So, if someone does say, like, Oh, you know, I've never felt love before. And, you know, You will see all sorts of other kind of, you might label them as limiting beliefs, but like, I'll never be in love. No one will ever love me. [00:13:51] Zach Beach: It's easy to just jump to the advice, jump to the problem solving, jump to, you know, if someone says you're ugly, no, you're beautiful. , but I often share the etymology of compassion and kan is with and the pati that it comes from means, uh, to suffer. So it's a suffering with. So there's always a joining, there's always an empathy, uh, required in order to really be with somebody. [00:14:20] Zach Beach: So, it's possible, you know, we could deconstruct the ideas that they, maybe they have been in love or they felt hints of it, but just be with, just be like, wow, that sucks, like, I hear you and I feel you in that, that like, you've never been in love before. And the reason that you're expressing this is because you want love and that's tough. [00:14:45] Zach Beach: Like I've never had Farguhar or like, I've never been to Afghanistan or something like that. , People don't often complain about not having a certain experience unless it's something that they deeply want. So we can also kind of activate that, that yearning and that desire and affirm that a person does. [00:15:09] Zach Beach: That they need the person deserves all the love that their heart heart can hold because that's a Uh, conclusion we often come to, like, as a growing child, if we experience abuse and neglect, an outside adult might be like, yeah, that's a terrible parent. But as a child, you can't come to that conclusion. [00:15:32] Zach Beach: You don't want to think that your parent is terrible. It's actually more comforting to a child to think that I am terrible. Mm hmm. rather than my parent is. So then we have this deeply rooted, uh, belief and we can begin to just deconstruct that as an adult by really affirming, uh, that we do deserve and are worthy of love. [00:15:56] Charna Cassell: Yeah. It's a terrifying belief to think that your parent is bad in some way because you're so dependent on them for your survival. [00:16:06] Zach Beach: Absolutely. [00:16:08] Charna Cassell: You used a phrase, which I was like, Oh, I haven't, um, heard somebody else. Um, I used to have a, a mantra, , a heart centered meditation practice and I'd breathe through the back of my heart and I'd breathe out the front of my heart. [00:16:22] Charna Cassell: And I would say when I would breathe out the front of my heart, I give all that my heart can hold. Right. So it'd be like all the support I need is here. I'd breathe and sink to my heartbeat. So I'd breathe through the back of my heart. All the support I need is here and then exhale, I give all that my heart can hold and so that was sweet to hear you,to hear you say that. [00:16:44] Zach Beach: Yeah, it's beautiful. The breath is such a powerful tool and uniting our intention with our heart, with our breath. It's another thing we find when we come into our body. We are breathing, we are alive, and we do find a sense of wholeness in that linking together. Body, breath, movement, intention. [00:17:07] Charna Cassell: Which you get to do every day as a yoga teacher and practice. Yeah, it's really, it takes the beingness, like being what you're wanting to teach to a different level when you get to embody it that way, and that's really beautiful. [00:17:26] Zach Beach: Mm hmm. [00:17:28] Charna Cassell: Yeah. [00:17:29] Zach Beach: I can't remember what book I was reading that mentioned this, but it's almost like a paradox that a great way to learn something is to teach it. [00:17:40] Zach Beach: And like in high school, some, some teachers are starting to be like, Oh, uh, if you feel like you understand this, tune to somebody next to you and explain it to them. And then it helps both of you deepen your understanding. So one thing I do really love about teaching is it does make me on top of my game. [00:17:58] Zach Beach: If I'm going to share, , any of these subjects, um, I better make sure that I know what I'm talking about. And, not only, and one of my favorite other things that happen is when a student asks a question, I try my absolute best in that moment to answer it, and then I spend the next six months ruminating on all the better answers. [00:18:20] Zach Beach: Ha Oh, that's part of it. That is part of it. Reflecting, integrating, and being open to new ways of understanding. [00:18:34] Charna Cassell: Oh yeah. I mean, there's definitely that constant flowing educational, mutual educational experience between therapist and client and anytime a client, um, refers to a book or a movie because I want to fully understand their experience, you know, I will like take that on and I curse them when it's like a show with seven seasons. [00:18:56] Charna Cassell: Yeah, that's, that's sweet. And hopefully it's not like, you know, the, the perfectionist in you goes to town, but more like you get really curious and you dive deep into the exploration of the subject. [00:19:11] Zach Beach: Absolutely. [00:19:14] Charna Cassell: So given there is inside of relationship, there's so much suffering and there's so much harm that can come, especially regarding developmental trauma as well as social trauma. [00:19:28] Charna Cassell: I'm curious about how much, , forgiveness also given that you're on a spiritual path. , and from a spiritual vantage point, it's much easier to be with forgiveness. I'm curious how much forgiveness has played a role in your work. [00:19:43] Zach Beach: Something we mentioned earlier is like how to help somebody who's struggling with love and sort of deconstructing a number of those beliefs that might be, , getting in the way. [00:19:55] Zach Beach: And we have all sorts of social and cultural beliefs around love, such as you cannot love somebody else until you love yourself. I even heard one person say, no one's going to love you if you don't love yourself. It's like, wow, that's rough. But often in relationships, we do learn what love is via somebody loving us in an unconditional way. [00:20:20] Zach Beach: That tends to be almost the go to recommendation. Like, oh, you're anxiously attached and securely attached, disorganized. Just be with somebody who's secure and they'll love you. Repair you. And for [00:20:35] Charna Cassell: people who can't see, he just made this gesture with a fist that looked like very intense repair. [00:20:43] Zach Beach: Well, it's like, yeah, in a perfect world, we would experience some perfect being to love us, which is where spirituality can come into play. [00:20:52] Zach Beach: Maybe we can find some divine being that really inspires us. But, often the path to self love. is catalyzed or initiated by somebody loving us. Um, often the path of forgiveness is initiated by somebody forgiving us, right? When you're like, Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I feel so bad. I feel guilty and judged and blamed and shamed. [00:21:17] Zach Beach: And the person's like, it's okay. We all make mistakes. You're like, what I could accept myself despite, or even with, by joining together with my imperfections and mistakes, and no matter what gets, what happens or doesn't happen or what mistakes, , I make or whatever, uh, doesn't get done by the end of the day, I still deserve love and I'm still a lovable human being. [00:21:40] Zach Beach: That can be extraordinarily healing. So forgiveness is a lovely practice because In understanding what forgiveness is, we do begin to deconstruct many ideas of what we think forgiveness is supposed to be. So a lot of people absolutely conflate forgiveness with condoning or approving, they believe it has to do with, you know, At the other party, like, I can't forgive that person after what they done. [00:22:12] Zach Beach: They did good news. Forgiveness isn't about that person. It's about you. So we've already talked about developmental trauma and there's that famous quote. Forgiveness is the release of all hope for a better past. And we can begin to forgive ourselves that we are not what happened to us. So forgiveness is really an important movement of self love. [00:22:42] Zach Beach: It is an affirmation that we deserve love and we deserve peace and we deserve, , to be honored and accepted for who we are, no matter what has happened to us. So forgiveness is absolute internal shift, an internal release that can happen. And lately, an interesting idea I've been exploring in some of my yoga classes is I'll begin with a pop quiz. [00:23:08] Zach Beach: So I'll be like, , pop quiz is light, a particle or a wave. And then people are like, ah, it's, it's both, but it's also neither. And I'm like, great. Are you a spirit or a human? Oh, a little bit of both. A little bit of neither. So lately, one of my pop quizzes has been, where is the past and the future? And then I'm like, can you show it to me? [00:23:31] Zach Beach: Can we go there? And they're like, huh, huh. And eventually someone will say something like, I guess our imagination. And it's like, that's absolutely where it is. It's in your mind, past and the future. It's all in your mind. So what do you want to do? If you want to heal your past, heal your mind in this present. [00:23:53] Zach Beach: How do you go about cultivating a happy and joyful future? Cultivate a happy and joyful present. The past is in your mind in this moment, the future is in your mind in this moment. And we can extrapolate this idea to all sorts of things. Where are your ancestors? They're inside of you. They're still there. [00:24:13] Zach Beach: And even for those of us that have needed to, , create a lot of physical distance and separation from the primary caregivers that hurt us early on, or perhaps they're not even, , on this physical plane anymore. The bad news is that they're still. inside of you. But the good news is that through healing yourself, through doing the work now, to heal your trauma, or whatever it is. [00:24:40] Zach Beach: You will be healing your ancestors so you can heal your mother and your father by healing yourself Because they are in yourself. So that's the good news. There's hope [00:24:55] Charna Cassell: truly Yeah I mean my the way that I think about forgiveness is that it's calling all of your energy back to you in the present moment Right rather than leaving it in the past with these people who are you have felt hurt by. [00:25:11] Charna Cassell: And it doesn't mean it's so quick, right? You may have to do the same forgiveness prayers many, many, many times. It's a [00:25:21] Zach Beach: practice. [00:25:22] Charna Cassell: You know, one of the things I'm trying to remember what exactly you said, but I was thinking, Oh, interesting. I actually think of it the opposite way where I think of, , trauma as a pathway to spiritual. [00:25:36] Charna Cassell: awakening and a path back to self love. [00:25:39] Zach Beach: Yes. [00:25:41] Charna Cassell: I'm trying. I agree with [00:25:42] Zach Beach: that. I mean, it can be. Yeah. [00:25:44] Charna Cassell: Yeah. Right. There's this. Sure. Sure. [00:25:46] Zach Beach: There's this line. I want to say it's Peter Levine, but it's like trauma can destroy you or heal you or you could die or you could resurrect your life. And that's really a fundamental lesson I found on the spiritual path, is that it's not about what happens to you, it's about what you do with it. [00:26:07] Charna Cassell: Well, I mean, the same thing with trauma, right? It's not necessarily the actual thing that occurred, but it's how did your nervous system, what were the resources you had to manage this particular experience? And then throughout life, the healing process is a similar thing, right? It's like, Can you creatively find those resources inside yourself or externally to help you respond and heal? [00:26:35] Zach Beach: And like, it's definitely a level of profanity to the whole practice, but also like a real down to earthness. So like sometimes when I, when I'm working with a client and like, they have some maybe self esteem things and they're very self critical and self judgmental. I can simply ask if you're. Best friend was with you right now. [00:26:58] Zach Beach: What would they tell you? And they'd be like, I think they'd tell me that it's all going to be okay. Okay. Where did that voice come from? Because your best friend isn't actually here right now. That voice came from you. It all came from you. So it's actually a really wonderful, beautiful practice to be like, imagine the most loving and beautiful, unconditional self that you can, or being that you can, what would they tell you right now? [00:27:26] Zach Beach: And they say, Anyone can answer this. Like, no, no one's like, I don't know. What would, what would Jesus say to me right now? , they can all come up with it and that taps into that. Yes. There's something inside of us that is unconditionally loving that we can tap into. [00:27:42] Charna Cassell: Yeah. I feel like, um, so I have two dogs. [00:27:46] Charna Cassell: I have one as a foster and one I've had for eight years and they're both active participants in my therapy sessions. And, you know, I, I could have someone who has suffered intensely at the hands of their parents and has lived, um, a life full of trial. And I watch them, you know, So tender and so sweet with my dogs, right? [00:28:11] Charna Cassell: Like giving and receiving tremendous amounts of love. And I just, so I just feel like dogs, animals in general can be such a great source of practicing, um, receiving and giving unconditional love. [00:28:25] Zach Beach: there's two ideas similar to that I've been exploring, because one, I just like subtle shifts of certain, you know, understandings that we take for granted. [00:28:33] Zach Beach: Like, there's this phrase, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, as if like, once you're ready, poof, like suddenly, they're not knocking on your door as your teacher. But I like, you know, once you're ready, you discover the teachers that are all around you, and that have been all around you. And, yes, our animal friends are incredible teachers. [00:28:52] Zach Beach: Flowers are incredible teachers. The fact that the sun rises every day is an incredible teacher. And I've also been kind of having the same shift of approach to like the deities that we worship. It's easy to think of them as something outside of us and to worship something outside of us. But I've been really getting into, you know, Kuan Yeh and the Bodhisattva of Compassion lately. [00:29:15] Zach Beach: And, you know, You know, the Bodhisattvas, whether, as well as Buddha and Jesus, not see that they're examples and we can aspire, uh, to cultivate the same within ourselves and to see them as part of ourselves. And then we also have this part of ourselves that is unconditionally loving. [00:29:35] Charna Cassell: Hmm. One of the practices that left a big impression on me. [00:29:40] Charna Cassell: Many years ago in a course I took was a practice in, you know, we, we worked with animals and we would work, we worked with a chosen deity and it was embodying it and moving through the space that way. And for me, not, you know, everyone has different access points or skill sets, but I, it's pretty amazing when you put your attention on it, right? [00:30:01] Charna Cassell: Like I use this even in sessions with. Clients recalling a friend who has a certain kind of strength or self respect. It's like, like, what does that feel like in your body? So, so just to put your attention on your body and to recall, it's like, what is, you know, when you, when you sit with a statue of Kuan Yin, what do you imagine that feels like? [00:30:22] Charna Cassell: What does Kuan Yin feel like in the, in the world, in the, you know, In and then have bringing that into your body and then physically embodying it and moving through space as her. , So, yeah, I, whether it's a puppy because I'm often encouraging clients to speak to themselves the way they would to their kitten or their dog. [00:30:46] Charna Cassell: But the same, you know, the same can be said with a deity. [00:30:49] Zach Beach: Absolutely. Yeah, your story reminds me of how much I love the double meaning of words and even just getting into the etymology and the true meaning behind words. Because we have this idea, or we have this, um, verbiage in our language that you have to make sense of a situation, which means to understand it. [00:31:13] Zach Beach: And we make sense of our situation by tuning into our senses. Like, it's not just a coincidence that this is the same thing. So absolutely. As you said, like, if you want to make sense of a situation or something that happened in your life, how did it feel when you were in that situation? What senses came up when you're in that situation, when you get in touch, or when you sit down in front of whatever statue you have on your altar, or many statues you have and you get in touch with your Buddha nature or Christ consciousness? [00:31:43] Zach Beach: How does that feel? How does your body respond? And that's how we make sense of our world. There's a whole discipline called narrative psychology that basically shows people that have a more coherent narrative of their life or more psychologically resilient. Well, you don't get a narrative of your life by writing it down in a piece of paper. [00:32:03] Zach Beach: You do it by making sense of it Mm [00:32:05] Charna Cassell: hmm. And you know how When you're wanting to create a certain experience in your life or feel into something, somebody might say like, put a, post a photo or an image that reminds you of that state or that felt sense. I have been actually taking people who are really in love with my dogs. [00:32:26] Charna Cassell: I've been taking photos like of them with the dogs and I send it to them. So that they have this little piece of like a touch point that they can come back to the felt experience of like the, you know, the weighted blanket of one dog or the, like the soft or the ability to surrender by one dog is always going like this. [00:32:48] Charna Cassell: And so they have that they have the visual, but then they also have the felt sense memory of that. Yeah. Yeah, we're pretty remarkable beings, um, in terms of our ability to use all these senses that, you know, they're always available to us if we turn our attention to them. Right. [00:33:07] Zach Beach: Yeah. And another thing that it might be really obvious to others, it definitely wasn't obvious to me. [00:33:13] Zach Beach: We often, um, divide up our experience between thoughts, emotions, and sensations, and obviously this division is arbitrary, but I think it's something people just It resonates with people experience. Like, yes, I have these thoughts in my head and these emotions in my body. But I like to point out one of those connects you to the world around you. [00:33:35] Zach Beach: There's one of them. That's the gateway. That's your senses. your emotions we feel internally, our thoughts are internally, but it's the senses that is our single and only gateway. Well, we can get really metaphysical, but just for now, it's our single and only gateway to the world around us. If you were, it's a silly thought experiment, but if you were, you know, raised in a, in a vat, like, you know, fed all the nutrients that you ever want, no thought would come into your mind. [00:34:06] Zach Beach: You wouldn't even have heard language to. verbalize any thought in your mind. And so it's that mutuality, uh, what in Buddhism they call that, uh, codependent origination of what you think you are and what this world is. And it meets at your senses. And if you want to feel alive, if you want to get in touch with this moment, you have to tune into this central world. [00:34:31] Charna Cassell: I have to share what I pictured when you said, you know, you imagine you were growing in a vat and I was like, Oh, this could be an interesting business venture, like sous vide people put them in a vat full of like, you know, um, what's the water guy? Did all the water experiments, the crystallized water, the [00:34:53] Zach Beach: secret life of water, the Japanese one. [00:34:55] Zach Beach: Yeah. [00:34:56] Charna Cassell: I'm just picturing people like, but a little, a little chicken, a bone broth and put some intentions of different, you are so loved Suvi them for, you know, certain period of time. And there you go. [00:35:15] Zach Beach: Um, it would be nice, like there's so many experiences we can't do for lots of reasons, you know, um, and like, we can't create like a separate earth and be like, what happens if these circumstances were to exist? Like how would the human race kind of evolve? Um, so we don't, we can't do the, the vet, the vet experiment, but we have done some experiments that even now would be kind of barbaric. [00:35:45] Zach Beach: But the lesson that we all, uh, Heard about in psychology is with the baby monkeys, and one of them was with the wire cage, and the other one was with the warm cage. And of course, all the monkey did was go to the warm cage, which was the foundation for attachment theory at the time. But, to me, there's a number of important lessons around this. [00:36:05] Zach Beach: One is that, like, we are warm blooded creatures, and that warm bloodedness is passed down. So, you know what my, uh, unconditionally loving mother is doing, uh, right now? She's volunteering at the hospital to cuddle the babies. Oh! Because modern science absolutely 100 percent agrees that we do need more than food and water. [00:36:28] Zach Beach: Uh, babies that are stroked more, cuddled more, held against a warm body more, they grow. Their brains develop stronger. [00:36:39] Charna Cassell: Yep. 100%. There's a wait list to do that here. It's like, it's like you try to get a dog if you don't have a yard and you try to get a dog out of, you know, SPCA or someplace like they won't. [00:36:54] Charna Cassell: I, I struggled to adopt a dog before I had a yard. [00:36:57] Zach Beach: Okay. [00:36:58] Charna Cassell: Similarly, here you can want to hold a baby, but there's a waiting list. [00:37:01] Zach Beach: Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. You want to clean these, you know, the hospital needs a lot of volunteers, you know. It's like, do you want to clean these bedpans or do you want to cuddle babies? [00:37:11] Zach Beach: And like, everyone wants to cuddle. Who doesn't want to cuddle babies? [00:37:14] Charna Cassell: Yeah. Yeah. Your, your mom she, she either paid her dues or she was on a list for a minute. [00:37:20] Zach Beach: But that again, love grows people, love grows brains. So that's been another pop quiz of mine lately. You know, I ask what grows plants? [00:37:33] Zach Beach: People say, Oh, light, water, nutrients. Okay. What grows humans? And people are like, what does grow humans? It doesn't rattle off the tongue as quickly as plants. And it's the love, it's the warmth, it's the acceptance, it's the attunement. And again, this doesn't just apply to young children. From birth until death, we all need love, connection, and belonging. I found the quote I was looking for. It is from Peter Levine, Making the Tiger Within. [00:38:08] Charna Cassell: Oh, yeah. [00:38:09] Zach Beach: The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the power to transform and resurrect. [00:38:17] Charna Cassell: Yeah, that was a foundational book for me. I can like, I have images. Of myself reading that book in my 20s on the bus having these like moments, you know, realizing like, Oh, I am not this anxiety. [00:38:37] Charna Cassell: This is not who I am. This was a response to trauma, right? That that book is a, it was truly a gift. do you think it's possible to access gratitude without being able to feel love? Do you think one precedes the other? [00:38:54] Zach Beach: I never asked this, been asked this question before. I don't think anything precedes anything in general. [00:39:02] Zach Beach: I think we are complex, multidimensional, beautiful beings, incredible capacities for self regulation and love. And if my, if your ankle hurts and your leg and your arm hurts, you can heal both at the same time. It's, I like, How you were mentioning earlier, you realize you are not your anxiety. And I feel like the practice of not this, what we call neti neti is really powerful. [00:39:37] Zach Beach: I'm not my thoughts. I'm not what happened to me. And so is the exact opposite practice. So this is the mantra of intimacy. This too, this belongs, this belongs where we say yes and yes and yes. to more and more things. Like, yeah, you're your emotions too, but you're also more than that. You know, you're your breath, but where did the breath came come from? [00:40:08] Zach Beach: It came from the trees and the plants. So I guess you must be the plants too. And I guess you must be the water and the cloud. that nourish those plants. You are as much 70 percent cloud as you are 70 percent water. It's just as accurate to say. So we're organic beings and these things grow together. The bigger the trunk, the bigger the branch, the bigger the leaf, the bigger the flower. [00:40:35] Zach Beach: So absolutely love I do feel like is the mantra of yes. It's saying yes to more and more when we ask somebody if they want to go out on a date and they say yes and then our heart says yes. It's just so much yes and it opens us up. And it shifts our worldview and suddenly there's we find there's so much to be grateful for in this life when we are in those, those ecstatic throes of love. [00:41:10] Zach Beach: And at the same time, absolutely, the practice of gratitude of appreciating what we do have and lamenting less on what we don't have. is a wonderful practice that will also feed our love. And this is what the studies kind of show when you look at partners in relationships that say that they are unhappy and partners in relationships that report higher levels of happiness. [00:41:39] Zach Beach: There's often very little differences in the outward expressions of their life. Like, we all have stresses around work, we all have stresses around money, whether you're making a million dollars or ten dollars a day, the stress and suffering is a part of life. But what they find with the couples reporting high levels of happiness is that they, first of all, see more things to be grateful for. [00:42:11] Zach Beach: And they savor those things more, and they internalize those things more. So, partners in successful relationships, for example, make what psychologists call permanent, stable attributions of positive partner behavior. [00:42:33] Zach Beach: I'll explain it. What it means, what it means is, when your partner does a good thing, You conclude they are a good person. It's that simple. Wow. You did this nice thing for me. You are nice. All right. Partners in bad relationship. They're a little skeptical about why you're doing, did you do something wrong? [00:42:52] Zach Beach: Are you cheating on me? Like, you just doing this to win me over eating this, to get what you want because you want to go out this weekend. So now you're being extra nice to me. So partners in a more positive relationships, they savor more, they have gratitude more and they internalize. Okay. The nice things that they do, right? [00:43:12] Zach Beach: A partner in a negative relationship becomes complacent. They're like, Oh yes, you wash the dishes, but you always watch the dishes. That's just what you do. Right. And I still, again, use my parents as an example. I was hanging out with them last week. My dad washes the dishes. My. Uh, mom said, thank you, honey, for washing the dishes. [00:43:30] Zach Beach: They get been together 40 years. It's like, it's easy to think that you don't need to express love and appreciation and gratitude to your partner, but love like everything else is a practice being grateful for your partner is a practice and expressing that appreciation for them is also a practice. [00:43:49] Charna Cassell: Yes. [00:43:50] Charna Cassell: When I've had clients that I've given that practice to, to, you know, share small things they appreciate or they're grateful for, like every night or keep a mutual journal that they write things in, , it's transformative, right? In terms of their, their mind shift. When I, when I asked that question, I was thinking about, , my work with Dr. [00:44:12] Charna Cassell: Joe Dispenza uses, , thinking of something you're grateful for to go into heartbrain coherence, right? This, this state of wellness. And he doesn't explicitly say that. I learned that from like during neurofeedback. , and that was my, my quick go to was like, think of my pup, right? Think of, like, there, there are a lot of things now, but it used to be that I would have to just like think of my neighbor's dog and that could put me into a state. [00:44:40] Charna Cassell: of gratitude. but it, it got me really curious because, you know, he also has you breathe slowly in and out through your heart before he's even talking about gratitude, but that's also an endpoint, right? So it's like chick, a little bit chicken or egg, right? [00:44:56] Charna Cassell: And it's like, oh, [00:44:57] Charna Cassell: being with your heart, being in gratitude, even feeling gratitude for something that maybe it's happened in the past. [00:45:04] Charna Cassell: It hasn't happened yet, but when you can access that. It creates a more porous, open space inside of you, where you can then, you know, express more appreciation or see the things to be appreciative of. Right. But when there's, when there's trauma and there's constriction or numbness or tension in the tissue, it is certainly harder. [00:45:31] Charna Cassell: And so it's like it has to be little micro practices to begin to open that tissue, even this is comes back to yoga, right? It's like opening the fascia doing stretches, addressing this from multiple angles. [00:45:46] Zach Beach: This is why it's so wonderful to connect with you, Charna. I feel like we've been on parallel paths for a long time. [00:45:54] Zach Beach: And we're finally converging. [00:45:57] Charna Cassell: Yeah, I can't wait for it. We're gonna, we're gonna, you know, follow this up with another conversation. [00:46:02] Zach Beach: Well, what I'm, well, this is what I'm getting at because I feel like we're doing the same thing, but like slightly different ways, slightly different verbiage. I like how you said micro practices. I tend to use the word titrate. [00:46:16] Charna Cassell: Oh yeah. Well, I see them as, see them as different things, but like, like [00:46:22] Zach Beach: basically the basic idea is that you have to do things bit by bit, you know, open a little bit and then close. [00:46:27] Zach Beach: I know of Joe Dispenza. I don't follow his work too much, but your description sounds exactly like what I've heard from Rick Hansen, who is this other kind of scientist guy, because he has this practice where you have to heal. H E A L. And the H is when, when you have a positive experience, you move on to the E, you enrich it. [00:46:52] Zach Beach: and you absorb it. And this is such a thing in modern world. You know, as soon as we experience something good, we're on to the next thing. Sometimes we don't even experience it. Like influencers will order this lavish meal, take a photo and then leave. Like, like, wow, you're not even gonna enjoy that meal. [00:47:13] Zach Beach: Let alone like when we do have a positive experience, how much time do we spend? savoring it. And that's what Rick Hansen has found is like, you only need 30 to 60 seconds to internalize the positive experiences in our life. And that's, I'm sure what we both have found in couples work is like, you need, all you need is like a 30 second hug, like before you leave for the day, or when you come back during the day, 30 to 60 seconds, those micro practices, those little deposits into your love account, like, you know, gross. [00:47:46] Zach Beach: interest. It's the best return on investment that you're going to find. [00:47:50] Charna Cassell: Yeah. It's the tricky thing there. And this is where, where trauma comes into it. And why I say micro practices is that there can be this very catastrophic thinking. Like someone can come in and have one perspective and when they're dysregulated, forget anything positive. [00:48:05] Charna Cassell: And it just goes to a very extreme place. And so [00:48:11] Charna Cassell: being able to, um, you 30 second hug is that they can't tolerate that. Right? So they can't talk. But you know what I mean? Or sitting next to, or like just someone barely pressing against them, any contact. Like there's such a range and we forget that people have different capacities, but, um, but that's totally where titration comes in. [00:48:33] Charna Cassell: It's like, let's be with this thing. Can we do it for one minute? Okay. Can we do it for another minute? Okay, like, you know, do we need to go away and, and feel something else like, look out that window, exhale, focus on the dog, don't focus on the grief, you know, yeah. So, we're talking indirectly about rewiring the brain through the body. [00:48:59] Charna Cassell: through practice and you're, you know, you have had a yoga practice for, for so long and you teach other people. And I'm curious, what is a practice that you could leave our listeners with around giving or receiving love and a lot like inviting more love in whether it's from themselves or from others [00:49:22] Zach Beach: as my mo is. I'll tangentially approach the question because first I want to talk about almost like what category of practices we are looking at or what sort of parameters make for a good practice. [00:49:36] Charna Cassell: Sure. [00:49:37] Zach Beach: Because as a very extreme example, Let's say I go off to war and I come back with PTSD. What circumstances cause that PTSD? [00:49:48] Zach Beach: And they tend to be extremely unpredictable. I don't know when the next bombing is going to come. I don't know when the next bullet is going to come. , tends to be extreme. You know, I'm just sitting playing cards with my fellow soldiers, and then suddenly the whole world disappears. So, when you hear this idea that, say, growth happens at the edge of our comfort zone, we do need to step outside of our comfort zone to an extent in order to grow. [00:50:20] Zach Beach: But we want those practices to be steady, predictable, and highly controllable. Um,, so I was even reading, like, rhythm is such a wonderful way to, uh, regulate the body. And I'm like, yeah, like, walking slowly? That's rhythm breathing in and out slowly, that's rhythm. And then I go, you go to the gym and when we say like comfort zone, you have your safe zone, your growth zone and your danger zone, right? [00:50:55] Zach Beach: For you, five pound weight is your comfort zone. It's not going to stress you to grow 50 pound weight. That's your growth zone. 500 pound weight. You're going to get injured a sudden weight. unpredictably at your body when you're not ready for it, also going to create trauma. But what are people doing at the gym? [00:51:14] Zach Beach: Repetitions, controlled, guided, repeatable, predictable repetitions. I'm going to lift this heavy thing and put it down eight times and then I will rest. And this is exactly what the, what practices we're looking for. , So this is why like with trauma informed, like if I'm doing like a trauma informed class, I'm gonna let everyone know ahead of time exactly what's gonna happen in class. [00:51:41] Zach Beach: I'm not gonna like suddenly in the middle of class be like, alright guys, let's hyperventilate in this pose. Ha ha ha ha ha. However, at the beginning of the class, not only will I offer an outline, but I will highly emphasize that outline is an invitation. So we often And begin meditations by closing our eyes. [00:52:05] Zach Beach: Okay. That can be very disorienting and scary for scary for a lot of people. So closing the eyes is always an invitation. If you want to open your eyes, you want to keep them wide open. Amazing. You are always in control of your experience. And then I say later, we're, we might practice. So I'll invite you later to practice fire breathing or Kabbalah tea, right? [00:52:29] Zach Beach: And if you don't want to, , You don't have to. If once you try it and it's not working out for you, good, , stop doing it. And even if I'm like instructing, say a trauma informed meditation, I'm like, yeah, if anything that I say is a bit too much, you can close down. Like the human mind is really great at just being like, I'm Beyonce in my head. [00:52:56] Zach Beach: Uh, , that's a wonderful way of self care and self regulation to just be like, I'm going to distract myself and turn away. So I want to emphasize that those are the higher, uh, arching kind of principles that we bring to our practice. We kind of want to know what we're doing ahead of time. We want it to be predictable. [00:53:17] Zach Beach: We want to get permission to change, to close when we get become Overwhelmed and notice the sensation of overwhelm. And it's all an invitation if I didn't already say that. So I even say like the breath is wonderful. I love the breath. Breath doesn't work for everyone. As soon as you say, listen to the breath, some people, am I breathing right? [00:53:44] Zach Beach: Am I getting air? Oh my God. Like it's not the best. Sometimes sound is a wonderful shift. Like just listen to the sounds that are around you. So how much time do we have for a practice? [00:53:59] Charna Cassell: How about five minutes? Do you have something that's like five minutes? [00:54:03] Zach Beach: Yeah, of course. That's what I'm saying. You only, yeah, you only need 30 to 60 seconds is all you need. [00:54:09] Charna Cassell: Well, exactly. So go ahead. [00:54:12] Zach Beach: I'm gonna, let's do one that kind of integrates a lot of the things we've been exploring. So it's often nice to find some contrast. So as long as somebody listening isn't driving or is in a safe space, like take your shoulders and draw them forward and take your chin and butt it out and kind of like hunch the spine. [00:54:36] Zach Beach: And again, you might close the eyes or just keep them open and check in. How does this feel in your body? What textures, qualities, emotions, words might you use to describe this position that your body is in? [00:55:02] Zach Beach: And let's try something else. Let's straighten the spine. Let's start with the shoulders up to the, at the ears, just to bring them back and just to bring them down in a relaxed way. Let's turn the palms up rather than down, and notice how that will bring a little bit more openness to the shoulders. And almost like your neck was a periscope, try to extend it, to extend the crown of the head towards the sky. [00:55:34] Zach Beach: And check in. How does this feel? We call them feelings because we feel them. So not only how does this feel, but where does it feel? What changes in your body when we put the body in this position? [00:56:13] Zach Beach: And then I'll just offer a simple breathing exercise. If breathing doesn't work for you, feel free to skip. But in just a moment, we'll inhale through the nostrils and almost like there's a straw in your lips. We will exhale through pursed lips of the mouth on a long, slow, and even exhale. At any point, feel free to breathe normally. [00:56:40] Zach Beach: At any point, feel free to shift your attention to a way that serves you in a better way. If you feel so caught, take a deep inhale through the nostrils. And then through pursed lips of the mouth, exhale it out. [00:57:03] Zach Beach: Let's try three breaths. Inhale, [00:57:08] Zach Beach: exhale, pursed lips of the mouth. [00:57:16] Zach Beach: Last one. [00:57:32] Zach Beach: And we turn to breathing normally in and out of the nostrils. And simply take a moment to honor what happened. Whether you had a good experience, or a bad experience, or a neutral experience. [00:57:49] Zach Beach: That's perfectly fine. [00:57:52] Charna Cassell: Thank you. That particular breathing practice for listeners, I've shared that before with a brain chem hookup. I think it's so useful and such an immediate, , like relative, uh, immediate shift. of state, right, for calming the body. And, um, so I love that you, that you did that. That's such a good one. Can't sleep at night. [00:58:26] Zach Beach: Um, [00:58:29] Charna Cassell: and even notice the, how the pace of my words is different after four breaths. Um, anything you'd like to share with listeners as well as how they can find you. [00:58:43] Zach Beach: My name is Zach Beach. You can find me at ZachBeach. com and ZachBeachLove on all the social medias. And you are loved. You are lovable and loving and there's nothing you need to do, change, or improve about yourself to receive all the love that your heart can hold. You are perfect just the way you are, including all of your so called imperfections. [00:59:23] Zach Beach: They are just as beautiful as the love that is always shining forth from your own heart. [00:59:31] Charna Cassell: Thank you. Appreciate you taking the time. [00:59:35] Zach Beach: Thank you, Charna. [00:59:36] Charna Cassell: Thank you for joining us. If you appreciated this episode, My online course, Pathways to Peace, Mindful Practices for Transformative and Vibrant Living is open for ongoing enrollment. This means you can sign up at any time. It's a self paced course to make it manageable with your schedule. [00:59:53] Charna Cassell: And as for the coursework, you'll receive four weeks worth of daily videos where I teach you how to understand your nervous system and its reactions. How to think more clearly and gain perspective. How to transform the ways your body communicates through physical sensations. How to identify emotions, where they come from and what they're telling you. [01:00:12] Charna Cassell: How to discover why you react in ways that produce shame and learn tools to manage these reactions. How to reduce your anxiety and destructive impulses and how to diminish self hatred when you are not your best self. You can also sign up for weekly group coaching calls where you'll have direct contact with me and I'll answer any of your questions. [01:00:32] Charna Cassell: If you wanna learn more before then and hope you do, you can go to my course page courses dot charna cael, that's C-H-A-R-N-A-C-S-S-E-L l.com for more. Information. [01:00:47] Charna Cassell: If you appreciated this episode, please like rate and review it and share it with your friends. If you'd like to stay connected, you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at laid open podcast. That's L a I D P. Okay, that's L A I D O P E N P O D C A S T, all one word. [01:01:10] Charna Cassell: As well as if you go to charnacasselle. com, you can join my newsletter where you can get information about upcoming courses I'll be offering, and I do free giveaways. Plus, you'll get discounts as well as resources that I share at passionatelife. org. You can get more information about my private practice and the kind of work that I do. [01:01:30] Charna Cassell: This has been Laid Open Podcast with your host Charna Cassell. We all have different capacities, but I believe in our capacity to grow and change together. [01:01:39] Charna Cassell: Until next time.

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