Tune in to hear my reflections on becoming a grandma and my experience at the 40 Years of Zen program.
I have a major life update to share since I published my last episode: I am officially a grandma! Like most things in life, the timing of my grandson’s entrance into the world was unpredictable, but I’m grateful that I can stay calm under pressure and quickly adapt to challenging situations. Like I mentioned in the episode about safety, hyper-vigilance stunts resilience, and it’s times like these where you need to be able to pivot and go with the flow.
Even though I had to leave the 40 Years of Zen program early to be by my daughter’s side, I still have quite a few takeaways from my time there. I share what I can see so far about my brain mapping results, an exercise that made a big impact, and my gentle approach to the healing journey. While I was there, I was able to tap into the root of my self-protective patterns and explore moments of soulful forgiveness.
Listen in to hear more of my reflections on this next chapter of my life and my experience at the 40 Years of Zen program.
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Dana Frost 00:07
Welcome to Vitally You, a podcast created to introduce you to the tools that will be your roadmap for feeling younger while growing older. I'm your host, Dana frost, a wellness expert, life coach and energy medicine practitioner. Here's what you can expect conversations about vitality from the inside out with guest experts in the field of health, culture and spirituality, and solo episodes along the way from me where I do deep dives into the topics of aging, heart intelligence, energy, medicine, and your innate capacity to heal. If you want to feel younger, while growing older, this is the place for you.
Dana Frost 00:52
Hello, and welcome to the body liyu Podcast. I'm Dana frost, your host coming to you this week from San Francisco. This is going to be a shorter episode today. But my hope is that it speaks to a very deep place in your soul. So a few weeks ago, do you remember our conversation about being safe? Well, I forgot to tell you something. hyper vigilance, stunts resilience. And what is resilience? You might ask, let's look at the definition, the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, toughness, the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape elasticity. I like to think of resilience as the ability to pivot quickly and bounce back. Resilience is your recovery mechanism. If hyper vigilance and safety are primary concerns, or they are the rulers of decision making in your life, resilience is going to be stunted. Let me give you a little bit of context for this last week, I had the opportunity to a change of plans. Now you might remember that I was on my way to 40 years of Zen. And I shared with you that I would be talking about my experience at the 40 years of Zen. Well, last week at the end of day two when our phones are returned, so you give your phone up in the morning and you get them back. So at about 630 I think it was when our fungible returned. Our text my husband and I are texts were lit up by our daughter, our daughter lives in San Francisco, we were in Seattle at this program. Our daughter had gone into early labor with her first child, our first grandchild. And it was planned that I would be in labor and delivery as support. I will tell you, while her water had broken, so there was no turning back from the situation. My husband and I sprung into action, and I was on a flight to San Francisco within three hours. You all know adrenaline is a powerful drug and I literally could not blink an eye on that flight. I made it to the hospital where I witnessed my daughter and son in law move through the highs and lows of birthing pains and become parents. It sounds so cliche I know this is so cliche, but the female body's ability to morph itself to give birth to another human is nothing short of miraculous and my daughter was a total champ. And my son in law was two they were just amazing. But what I want to share with you, life is mostly unpredictable control is an absolute illusion. When we are protecting our safety, we are protecting a freakin illusion. So what is this week's episode about anyway? Well, this is the way I see it. If you're listening to the vital you podcast, you are my people, and you are privy to what's happening in my orbit. So that's why I'm sharing that story with you. And today is really an update and perhaps, hopefully a few learnings that I have taken from this experience. I want to share these things with you. So let's get started. Moving beyond your comfort zone prepares you for surprise moments, this whole idea of being safe. If you are self protective.
Dana Frost 04:32
You don't know how to respond when a surprise moment happens. And you don't when you're presented with something that that is not planned for the day you're triggered by it. And this is this hyper vigilance that keeps you lacking in that ability, the elasticity the resilience, the ability to bounce back the ability to respond quickly to a situation. But you can learn this you can Train this so little by little. And this is what I've been doing. If you remember I said one of my biggest regrets was when I was a senior in college and I was accepted into the Peace Corps. And I turned it down. It was my dream, to be this global citizen and I had this opportunity, I was a social work major, I turned it down, because I didn't have any role models. And I felt scared, and I didn't feel like I could, you know, it was just everything was so unknown. And so it's just one of those regrets that led me to dip my toe outside of my comfort zone, little by little. And when you do that, you grow in confidence and courage. This has been my life story growing in confidence and courage. So that when the unexpected comes before you, you accept the unexpected as normal, and you flow and bounce with it, you expect the unexpected, as normal, and you flow with it. Resilience is built one step at a time, on the edge of your comfort zone. Resilience is actually not built inside the boundaries of your comfort zone, you have to dip your toe outside of your comfort zone to grow resilience. So my original plan for today's episode was to talk about the 40 years of Zen, as I mentioned, and I have to say, I'm having this aha moment that every day is a day to practice 40 years of Zen, regardless if you're in the program are out of the program. Regardless, if you have the opportunity like we did to participate in the program, you can have your 40 years of Zen every day. I do want to be honest with you, I felt devastated to leave my five day 40 years of sanding experience, it took me almost a year to get it onto my husband's schedule. Because remember what I said, you have to put your phone away in the morning and you get it back at the very end of the day. And I'm talking like seven o'clock at the end of the day. So it's taken me almost a year to get my husband to clear his schedule for those five days. And I've been waiting over a decade to have my brain mapped. So I there was so much anticipation leading up to this experience personally for me. But I have to tell you, when those texts were coming in, at that moment of decision, my priorities were crystal clear, crystal clear, I knew exactly what I needed to do. I knew exactly what I needed to do, because I had practiced my ability to respond to unplanned circumstances over decades. Okay, so another thing you might find me all over the place in today's episode, but you can imagine I'm a new grandma. And I have all the feelings right now. So I will share that I was able, I think it was like somewhere on day two, I was able to take a peek a first look at my napped brain. And honestly, it was also a little all over the place. But that's what I expected. Because I feel like my brain is a little all over the place. I do look forward and hope to be able to go back and learn how to manage my all over the place brain, which is one of the things you get to do at the 40 years of Zen is actually learn how to work with your brain instead of working against it. But I walked away with this deep inner knowing that you're ready for it. Just the way I am is okay. Zen is about total acceptance of oneself. And this is interesting. In the 40 years of Zen, we began with forgiveness says, and I was so touched that we started with forgiveness. I will tell you, I did not expect this. This was something really unexpected. But it's not like they said this explicitly. But what I learned is that we can't optimize or let me just say before we can optimize our brains, we have to make room by letting go of the things in life that get lodged in the crevices of our systems. As you know, I've talked about issues get lodged in your tissues. Well, these patterns of belief and unforgiveness get lodged in the crevices of your brain. I've been doing forgiveness work since high school and yet, part of you would believe Oh, you've forgiven everything you've been doing work for, you know, for decades. But when I get quiet and focused, I still find scenarios in my life where forgiveness is warranted. And my only conclusion is that we're never really done with forgiveness. It's this ongoing process. And I will also share I did not breeze through those first two days even though I had four decades of experience with forgiveness. I Didn't breeze through those days. No, I was teary eyed and emotional as I went backward and paid attention to what came forth and what wanted to be seen and forgiven. Scenarios present themselves when we are ready, because our mind body system is programmed for survival. And we don't have the capacity to remember everything all at once. This is really cool. Our systems are gentle in how they approach the healing journey. They don't slam us with memories that need to be forgiven, know that your system is protective and a very loving, motherly grandmother Lee way, I want to share one, one thing that made a big impact while I was there, I decided to visit myself during several phases of childhood, in the different homes where I had lived, so there were three different childhood homes. So I visited my little girl at age three. And I think around age seven, I didn't get the exact year, or age and my teenager self. I walked up to the door of each of my childhood homes, and I opened it and she greeted me. And you might remember the episode where I shared a meditation on taking your guides into a circle or meeting up with your younger self at any given stage and asking that younger version of yourself how she needed to be seen and heard in this moment, this sacred I think I called it a sacred ceremony. Well, the process is very similar that I went through at the 40 years of Zen. So as I opened the door at each of these homes, and the younger Dana stepped forward. In each of those homes, the same emotion came forth. She expressed as I looked at her, and I held her and I felt her and I felt the feelings that she was feeling. The same emotion was expressed to me. And that was loneliness.
Dana Frost 12:00
And I will tell you, this work will stop you in your tracks. Because it needs to be seen and heard and felt and I was stopped in my tracks. And I knew that truth was speaking to me. Even though I felt loved as a child. And honestly, I always felt loved simultaneously. Often I felt lonely. Interestingly, my grandmother, my grandmother, GLaDOS, who had been my saving grace, my earth angel came forward as I started this particular forgiveness, and I asked my guides to come forward. My grandmother, Gladys was one of the guides that came forward. So she was there with me during these visitations really just as she had been when I was a child. See, when I was a child, my parents were very busy working, I think I've shared before my they bought a bar when I was like five or six. And often I did feel alone, and I would disappear into my own inner world. And I still have this pattern, this habit of going inward. So I say to you, what's your pattern, we all have a pattern from childhood. And those patterns, they actually serve us really well. So it's been an amazing pattern in your patterns. They've been your saving graces. But I have to say my pattern of going inward has been a barrier to intimacy. When things get tough, I go inside, which means it's just me in there. Just like it was just me in there when I was a child. And guess what my intimate person doesn't get to come inside. And this pattern doesn't make for successful intimacy. Have you ever heard the real definition of intimacy into me, you see, this just, it's just so raw into me, you see, most of us don't want our true insights to be seen. When I'm hurting, I don't want to share that I don't want to let somebody in. I want to just as I did, because I had this pattern from childhood, I just needed to be on my own to feel it to process it. I didn't share it with anybody. And I have to say that my husband and I both came into our marriage with similar self protecting patterns that we've been unlearning. Oh my gosh, we've been unlearning these patterns. Thankfully, we saved ourselves literally from couple destruction about five years ago. And that took a lot of forgiveness. We had to dive into forgiveness as a couple. Which brings me back to 40 years of Zen, having dominion over your cognition starts with forgiveness. I know I already said that, but let that settle into every cell in your body. having dominion over your cognition starts with forgiveness. I'm curious, do you have a forgiveness practice? I'd like to encourage Due to embrace of forgiveness practice, nothing will keep the cobwebs clear like forgiveness. Sometimes we don't want to let go, I've been there. That's often I've been there. And there's a trickery in the mind that makes you believe if you forgive, you lose. It's all about winning and losing. This is the ego. But it's not true because you win when you forgive, because you gain all that energy that takes up residence holding space for the hurtful event, you see, there's so much energy that gets absorbed and used when you're harboring unforgiveness, or you're harboring a hurt, sometimes, so sometimes we don't want to let go. Sometimes that protective part of our brain doesn't want us to remember. And I believe we need to honor this trust that when it's time to forgive what needs to bubbled to the surface will present itself. This is what happened to me in the 40 years of Zen. And the process is always gentle. If you're in a forgiveness process, and it feels like sharp pain, huh, back off, when we're in a real soul reconciliation, or real, soulful healing forgiveness moment. It's loving love, is the prevailing emotion, we might cry, like I had tears, I felt emotion. But I felt love was the bomb that covered everything. And we don't want to force memories. And we don't want to force forgiveness. That's why I said if you feel a sharp pain back off, sometimes we don't want to let go. Sometimes a protective part of our brain doesn't want us to remember we need to honor that. And sometimes the memories are layered. Let me say always the memories are layered. And this is what happened to me the 40 years of Zen because I had previously visited all of those homes, and that little girl and all those different homes that had popped up for me in different forgiveness moments. And still I found another layer. And it was this layer of loneliness. I hadn't visited that place before. And this visceral awareness of my protective mechanism where I take myself to other places when I felt lonely, that I just go and it was like, Oh my gosh, I still do that I still go and my husband noticed that I still go away, inside somewhere alone. But for whatever reason, I was ready to feel and release this awareness at this point in my life. So sometimes the memories are layered. Always the memories are layered, that having an established forgiveness. Practice creates the space for these memories to surface. The adult you says to your younger self, Hi there, I'm here. And this is what we're going to do, we're going to have a forgiveness practice. And I'm going to keep you safe. And guess what we're not going to be alone we are going to have guides who are with us. Remember, your guides can be spiritual, they can be an ancestor, I would suggest your guides or someone who has transcended like a Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa and both of those showed up at the 40 years of Zen as my guides. And I was kind of surprised. I was like, Oh, hello. But for me, Jesus is just almost always that guide. And I think that's just because I do have this relationship with Jesus. As you know, Jesus, Jesus is who I follow. So for you just be really curious about who your guides are, you may already know who they are and be ready for surprise guides. Like I mentioned, my grandma Gladys, she's not a surprise, actually, she's always up she shows up regularly. But your forgiveness practice can look something like this. Well, you need to create a sacred space where you feel safe. So number one, you have to establish safety, and you invite your guides to join you. And then you ask which younger version of yourself wants to have time with you. And you sit quietly and ask what needs to be seen and forgiven? A few options would be to start with instead Well, I would say if you're not practiced in this start with incidences that have less charge or trigger until you have experienced a few forgiveness sessions. You could do what I did visit your childhood houses. You could just ask what memory wants to come forward. Just be present with whatever comes up. Listen, see, see with all of your senses feel and sit and be present and listen. What's the story that's coming forward? What needs to be forgiven? What needs to be asked? Forgiveness, seek to understand what you've learned or gained from the situation. So there's always a takeaway. And let me share one of mine. Okay. So through the years as I've had this forgiveness, practice and release grievances I've had towards my parents. Remember, I've shared with you before, I've always, I always felt loved. I can't remember ever not feeling like I was loved and cherished. So my parents were They were wonderful people, they actually to people who are full of love. They weren't horrible, but a primary takeaway. So from this forgiveness practice from my childhood years, one of my primary takeaways, it's always this inner knowing based on my experience of how I was raised of how I wanted to be a parent, so there's no way to be a perfect parent. But being present with my child hood, Dana, gave me the takeaway that I want to be present and available to my kids, it's been this high priority from day one as a mom be present and available. And that was born out of this intense feeling of being alone or lonely during my formative years. And that's really important. This is why forgiveness is important is because we're not looking to heap judgment upon the people in our lives. We're looking to make peace with what our experiences are. So my takeaway has been I've been very guided and directed in terms of how I want to show up for my own family. Another takeaway from a forgiveness is that one time I had to offer forgiveness, well, more than one time, but let's just say I'm thinking about some incidences where I had to offer myself forgiveness. And I had this deep sense of knowing that hurt people hurt people, because they themselves are hurting. And I came to understand that, well, it's my belief, people don't want to hurt others, because they're evil. I believe something inside of them feels broken. And they are behaving from loss of love from loss of being seen from loss of being heard, not being valued. And that that really came from that was a takeaway from when I needed to forgive myself. So from the takeaway, so in this forgiveness practice, you'll have a takeaway. Be sure you see and touch base with everyone who is with you in any particular forgiveness moment. Okay, allow closure with contact, it might be a group hug a soul touch through the eyes, or through the heart energy. But please do provide closure. It's like turning the chapter of a book, there's a transition from the forgiveness, at least in the instance that you're in. Be sure you have closure. And be sure you have a lesson. Every thing that has ever happened to us is an opportunity to grow to learn to create resilience, our elasticity, our bounce back. So today, here I am in San Francisco, baby Nico James was born August 31, at 7:11am in the morning, and in the moment of recording this podcast, I'm here at my daughter and son in law's home, waiting for mom and dad to bring him home. After spending a week in the NICU, how his birth story unfolded is not lost on me. You know why? Life is rarely predictable. And time is fluid. People time is fluid do not get caught up in time being finite. And our you know, 24 hour clock and our 12 months and years and decades. Time is fluid. Life is really predictable. Time is fluid, and your loved ones. Always Trump who you are professionally, your loved ones always Trump who you are professionally. If you don't get that right. The people you love the most are going to need to have some forgiveness journeys over their relationship with you. And I know that you're imperfect so this is going to happen. I know I've put my professional self first before but remember, the guiding principle is your loved ones Trump who you are professionally, cultivate relationships so that you have people in your life for whom you must show up people with whom there is this mutual responsibility. And this doesn't have to be a traditional family, that you need to be dialed in to intimate relationships for whom you will drop everything when they need you. You know why the human needs that you Human, the human needs the human, the human needs the human. We are designed to live in community. You need people in your life who have you on quick dial. You need people in your life who when you're on focus mode on your iPhone they can get through because they are that important to you and you are that important to them. We are designed to live in community, it's only in community that you are sharpened as a human. And there's a verse in the Old Testament from Proverbs that says As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another, we become better together, I can tell you after 32 years of marriage, I am better with my husband, he is better because of me. We see when when we're in intimate community. And listen into me, you see, I'm letting him in. We're recognizing when Dana goes inward, and he needs to like coax me out. We're recognizing those patterns because we're sharpening one another. In those intimate relationships, we see those protective patterns and we patterns and we are invited to heal those patterns. We need someone to show up for us. And we need to show up for someone. When those relationships are established, trust is established. And our people run to us when we cry out for help, or we need to celebrate the birth of a child or they receive a diagnosis and they need somebody to go to the hospital
26:30
with them. I'm going to end with this.
Dana Frost 26:34
Safety is not something we curate for ourselves by creating boundaries that keep us from other humans and perpetuate illusionary mind games that needs to be repeated. Safety is not something we curate for ourselves by creating boundaries that keep us from other humans and perpetuate illusionary mind games. Most importantly, life is beautiful. Life is also humbling. Life is also delicate, and safety is something that is created inside ourselves. Safety is something that is created inside ourselves. Thank you for joining me on the Vidalia podcast. If you enjoy these conversations, please hit subscribe download. share this episode with a friend who needs this message. And don't forget to download my daily vitality guide and I hope to see you on Instagram. That is where I am most active. And please send me an email if there's anything you would like me to talk about, or anything in you that needs to be seen and heard by another human until next week. As always, I am streaming love from my heart to yours