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- [00:01]
A
In today's episode of the msgym podcast, we cover the topic of mindfulness. We delve into beliefs, myths and preconceptions about this ancient practice. To help us unpack this topic, we talk with our guest, Steven Scattini, a mindfulness coach who combines Buddhist practices with modern psychology. Stephen talks about how his path through a troublesome childhood and, and leaving university led him to searching for meaning in Asia, where he became a Tibetan monk for eight years. He also talks about his return home to Canada, bewildered by the culture change, and how he began sharing his knowledge and experience with others once he found his footing. Stephen also talks about how he met his wife, Caroline, an Ms. Warrior for three decades. Our podcast explores Steven's mindfulness practices and coaching business. As a bonus, he guides us through a two minute mindfulness session. So take a breath and let's get started. Hello, MsGym family. I am so looking forward to our chat today with Steven Scattini, also known as the Inner monk. And we're going to learn more about here his experiences that led him to, to this title and to the profession and the coaching that he now does. Now, in the introduction we mentioned that Stephen traveled overseas to India. He actually studied with Tibetan monks and learned a great deal and incorporated back into his life back here in Canada. So welcome Steven, so much. I really appreciate you being here. And I think this is such a great topic about mindfulness because I think with all the chaos going around in the world and all the chaos going around in our hearts and our minds, it's important that we find something to ground ourselves and to bring us back into the things that we actually have control over and to the present moment. So, Stephen, I would love for you to share what mindfulness actually is.
- [02:16]
B
Oh, thank you, Jody. Thanks for your welcome. And it's, it's always a joy for me to talk about this, what mindfulness is. A lot of people think it's the same as meditation, and it's not often they're combined. Meditation and mindfulness are very compatible, but they're different. Generally when we sit down to meditate or we sign up for meditation courses because we want to let go of the stress, you know, deal with anxiety, feel more peaceful. So we have a goal in mind, how we want to be. Mindfulness is different. With mindfulness, you're not trying to be anything. You're not trying to achieve anything. You're just looking. It's, it's not something you have to learn. Mindfulness is built right in. But the moment you're Born when you come out of the womb, maybe even a little earlier, maybe even a lot earlier. I don't know. But at that point, I always measure that point, because you don't know anything. You don't have any. You don't even have a name. You don't have any constructive way of thinking. You don't have any tools at all. All you have is mindfulness. And it. You, you look at a newborn baby, look at those wide eyes that just groping for what's out there. They're just aware. And the only judgment they can make is, is this safe or not? Okay, is this what I need? You know, I need. I need food, I need shelter, I need security. And if you, you know, if they find something they don't like, they let you know. They scream right away. They have no problem withholding their emotions at all. That's the first thing they learn to do as they become socialized. That's what we all have to do. And so mindfulness is already there. It's already built in. We've used it a lot as a. As a child, especially at the very youngest age, that became a tool to protect ourselves and to grow and to learn. But what happens is we reach a point where we don't really want to make that effort anymore. And on top of that, we've got this great tool called learning, or to put it in neurological terms, automaticity. We learn to take shortcuts. And you ask any neurologist, the first thing I'll say about the human brain is it's lazy. We're always trying to take shortcuts. So mindfulness is a process of just falling back on that ability to watch things nakedly without judgment. And it's hard because the judgments keep intruding. But we make the effort, and we observe it as judgment. We try not to get caught up in it. So it takes practice. But once you, Once you. If you do it every day, after a while, then it becomes. Then it becomes a tool for you. But the tool is not something that's given to you or taught. I. I can't give you the tool. You already got it, and you just have to get in touch with it again.
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A
Okay, That's a lot of great information. Now, you. You mentioned about it's not necessarily the same as meditation. How would you compare how you view mindfulness now versus what you studied in Tibet as. As a practicing monk at that point?
- [05:44]
B
Well, I was a. I was a committed Buddhist monk, a believer, a part of a huge religion. A lot of people say that Buddhism isn't really a religion, it's a method. But when you go to Asia, it, you're definitely in a religious environment. There's no question about it. So there's a need to live up to the standards of those institutions. I was very aware when I became a monk that, that I, I had become an example. I saw people looking at me, especially other Tibetans who would look at me, and they looked up to me, which I found very peculiar. I, I just didn't understand why they were doing this, but for them it's natural. I realized that that's, that's built into their culture, that when you see somebody in robes, you look up to them. So I felt all this was expected of me. And then I found that I was trying to live up to what they expected. And that's when I realized that something was wrong. I was not being myself. And the whole point of being a monk is to find myself. That was why I went there in the first place. And I'm putting on this show. So that was very, that was very eye opening for me. But it was also a realization that in order to really follow the Buddha, I had to leave Buddhism.
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A
Wow.
- [07:03]
B
Go figure. That is what the Buddha taught when you get down to it. He was very skeptical of. Religions and belief systems are thickets of view. A thickets of you. A thicket is like a massive brambles and bushes all stuck together, you know, and you can't get through them. And you've got so many views and beliefs and, and things that you have to do and people you have to assuage and that you, you just get caught up in this world and all you feel is busy and overwhelmed and, and that's, that's the experience of modern life.
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A
So you felt like the practices that you had in Tibet were not necessarily realistic or helpful when you came back.
- [07:43]
B
The practices were very helpful. The, the culture was not mindfulness. When you're going back to that early moment in your life and you're trying to find that simplicity, which is you, you can't be hanging on to some sort of idea of how you are, how you should be trying to satisfy what other people expect of you. It's, it's, it's not quite honest. And for a lot of people, it's very hard to, to break through that dish. It feels very threatening to expose themselves. I teach a cancer group every week, and these people who've been diagnosed with cancer have had the shock of their lives, and they're very much in touch with the difference between who they are. At least they're trying to be in touch. The difference between who they are and who they've always tried to live up to, and they start letting go of that. I've noticed with, with ms, it's, it's sort of the same, but you don't. It doesn't start with a sudden shock quite the same way. My wife has ms, so I've had a chance to see how, how she deals with it. And it's not the first tool that necessarily comes to mind for her, but she's a life coach and anyway, you should talk to her about that.
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A
I would, I would love to have a conversation with her as well.
- [09:01]
B
Well, it'll be very worth your time, I. I promise you. Yeah, she's really good.
- [09:06]
A
On your website, you describe that you use mindfulness practices that incorporate some of the tools that you learned in Tibet, but also with modern psychology. And I'm, I'm assuming that's like you talked about how you worked with cancer patients. You also run an online meeting three times a week for people to, to walk through mindfulness practices. What would you say to people that they're unsure about mindfulness or, or they're kind of a. Skeptical about it because, because they think that it's only for people like that are highly religious or Buddhist or, or differing spiritual beliefs. What do you, what do you say to people that perhaps are atheists or have, have no room for that? Like, how do you teach people mindfulness that might have some myths or disbeliefs about what it actually is?
- [09:59]
B
The first thing is to find a teacher that you're comfortable with because, you know, comes in all different shapes and sizes. The second thing is to realize you don't have to put absolute trust in the teacher. You're just going to them for information and guidance. And the real teacher is your own practice, is your own experience. So my advice is try it. To reframe your question a little bit. A lot of people have come to me, like I've given. I used to give a lot of extended meditation courses, 10 or 12 weeks, and people would come up to me at the end and say, you know, I loved your course. And I was wondering, could you teach my husband, my wife, or my son? So they've got this person in mind who thinks, they think they could really use mindful. I can't. Nobody can. You can't tell people that they need this. Most people think they don't. They think it's a waste of time to stop. You're stopping everything in your day, stopping your plans, you're stopping your, your concerns, you're, you're not doing anything. You're just sitting there for however long it is and doing nothing at all, apparently. And people take that seriously. They, they, they take it almost personally. It's quite interesting, but it's very hard. In this culture of ours, our non stop, go get them culture, which is all about achievements and, and goals and reaching things, it's very hard to convince people to stop and look. And as I said about mindfulness, it's not about feeling good, it's about feeling everything. So sometimes you're feeling awful and that's your meditation session and it's not very satisfactory at all. But you still learned, you've opened your mind, you started to understand more about yourself. So it's a good thing, but it's good in the long run. In the short run, you're not getting that immediate fix that you get from like yogic meditation, which is, it's about controlling your breath and, and using it to calm your body and slow your heartbeat, which is great. It's fantastic. We, I do that all the time to begin the sessions. But then the meditation, the mindfulness itself, you're moving on to a different level.
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A
I could see how people would be potentially resistant to the, this idea of, you know, authenticity versus putting on a fake front for everyone, like taking the time to actually look at what's in the, the, well, as you would say, the inner monk, like look inside and deal with all of those things.
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B
It's risky.
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A
It's very risky. And it is, it doesn't feel productive whatsoever because then you have to, then you have to admit that you're not perfect and that maybe there's some issues you need to work through and stuff like that. So now do you find, you said you worked with cancer patients and you, your wife has msu and you find that people that go through these kind of, these, as you said before, these kind of shock things or, or ongoing chronic disability, do you find that people in those situations are more willing to look at mindfulness just because with chronic illness and now living with Ms. Myself, there's so many things that I'm not in control of and they can, it can get so overwhelming and I can feel totally powerless. So do you think, do you think that people that go through situations like this or life circumstances are more open to learning more about this, or do you think that the chaos of chronic illness might actually push people further away because they don't want to deal with
- [13:30]
B
things well, you know, it depends. Some people get the diagnosis and they go home and suffer and some people get the diagnosis and they go out and struggle, they fight. So it's, there's a lot of personality in there too, but definitely once you're diagnosed with a life threatening illness, you have a different relationship with reality, you know, because generally the way we go through life, the way we're encouraged to go through life is to. We go through school and we graduate and then we look forward to a rosy future. We're going to get married, we're going to have a family and everything's just going to get better and better, better and better. And this is drummed into us, you know, by advertising, by tv, by the books we read, by everything. So we have this con by Hollywood is all about this wonderful unfolding story, you know, so we've got all these reasons to be hopeful and productive and it's good for the economy. So there's lots of encouragement for that. No, but then you hit a brick wall, you hit reality and, well, it's reality and there's, that's not a bad thing. The first thing I was taught when I, when I met my Tibetan teachers was to meditate on my own death. Wow. Yeah. This wasn't personal. This is, this is the advice they give to all novices. You meditate on your own death. A lot of young monks will go into burial grounds and cemeteries and charnel grounds to look at what's happening, to see human corpses, you know, sounds really depressing, doesn't it? Sounds awful. But the thing is, when you face this stuff, then all those illusions you have about life, of course, they disappear. And the first thought is, oh, my God, what am I going to do without those illusions? But then you discover that you're actually an incredibly intelligent, highly competent human being. And you can cope with this. You can cope with this awful news and you can thrive. In some ways, yeah, you're going to lose. In some ways for sure, you're losing control, but that doesn't mean you're dead, doesn't mean you've lost all control. So you get that actually that depressing experience, that initially depressing experience leads to realistic hope. It makes your hopes real, not imaginary. We're all aging, we're all dying, some faster than others. But when you know it, when you, when, when a name has been put on it, when you've been told by, you know, a professional, then it has a much deeper impact and, and that impact, as painful and unpleasant as it is, it doesn't have to be entirely bad thing.
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A
I've talked to many people with, with varying illnesses and obviously Ms. As well, and they say that they're, they're grateful for the fact that it's helped them shed some of the, the facade of the fakeness. They, they know what's the most important in their relationships and, and things like that and, and they're grateful for that for it kind of. It's like a, a breakup with, with the fakeness and, and that they check. Do things go differently when you lead someone in meditation? For like when you mentioned, like when you're first diagnosed versus someone with progressive Ms. Or a progressive disease, something that life is like drastically altered for Ms. There's so many different levels of Ms. People can be. Have a diagnosis and not have any cognitive or physical disabilities. And then there's the, the other end where people can be fully disabled and are living in their bed and relying on a caregiver. 247 now it feels for my, for myself personally, because I'm closer to the, to the, the harder part of it. It feels like sometimes it's harder to allow yourself to do the mindfulness because there's this fear that if you travel too much inside that you'll be swallowed by reality and that you'll go into despair. Like sometimes it's easier just to deny it and to, and to push it off. And obviously that's not a healthy thing too because living outside of reality makes you powerless to do anything, to change anything. How, how would you coach someone kind of on both ends of the spectrum if they came to you and said I want to do some mindfulness sessions with you. What, how different might that look?
- [18:12]
B
First of all, it depends where they're at. Mindfulness, it becomes a useful tool when you, when a bit. When it's second nature, when you've, you do it every day and you're used to relying on it and like you go into a difficult situation with somebody and you remember to take a breath before you start talking, you know, just, just that it's somehow at the tip of your tongue. It needs to be there. So if, if you've already had this shock and you come to me, if you've just had this shock and you come to me, I'll do my best to help you. But it, the mindfulness is not really going to take RO at this point because you've got to deal with that shock, that fear. And as you know, there comes, incredible as it seems, there comes a point of acceptance once you've reached that acceptance then, then you can start looking at mindfulness as, as a possible tool. And then once you do, the way you use it is, you know it's not going to cure you. It's not going to cure your body of ms, but it is going to give you an opportunity to see how you're making it worse. In other words, the inner conversation, you know, the anxiety. Anxiety is natural. But if you're caught up in it all day long, if that's all you're worrying about, you know, you're thinking and thinking it. That is a habit. And the habit's going to get deeper unless you resist it. So mindfulness helps you identify the habit and drop it. And then it comes back, you identify it again, you drop, it comes back. It's a habit. It's not just a mental decision that you make to stop. That's not enough. You have to keep making that decision until the habit weakens, then it becomes viable. If we have time, I'd love to do a little two, three minute meditation.
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A
Sure, I would. I would definitely love that.
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B
So make yourself comfortable.
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A
Okay.
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B
Okay. Make yourselves comfortable. Take a nice breath. Bring your attention into the body. Keep your eyes closed or half closed, chin tucked in, your back straight, shoulders relaxed. And you're breathing. And you're aware of the breathing. You feel it from the inside. It's familiar, and yet it's special. You're not just breathing, you're now paying attention. And attention changes everything. Feel the breath enter through your nose or down your throat into your chest. Feel your chest expanding, contracting, moving rhythmically. Feel your whole body working to breathe. Your lungs, your ribs, your diaphragm and nostrils. Feel your breath slowing and deepening. And know that you're here and now. Not in the past, not in the future, but right here and now. And this moment is real. Everything that happens, happens now. And yet now is always moving, always changing. You feel your breath changing. You feel your mood change. And the thoughts, they're still there. They're always there, but you don't have to follow them. You let them go. And you stay with the breath. Breath coming in, breath going out. And now taking three more breaths. Open your eyes. Oh. We would normally go further with that in a longer, a longer session.
- [24:11]
A
For sure.
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B
For sure. We go into the feelings, mind, body, mind connection. It's about exploring yourself. It's not just about feeling nice. Feeling nice is a great start, obviously, because it's focusing and clarifying. But there's all sorts of nasty stuff that goes on in there that we do to ourselves, especially self talk. There's a lot of negative self talk. We are nasty with ourselves in ways that we would never be with anyone else. So that, that's a sign, you know, just like when you've got a pain in your foot, you know there's something wrong when you, when you feel that in your heart, you know there's something to look at. And when you look at it, there's often something you can do when you don't look at it. Nothing's going to change.
- [25:06]
A
Just doing that for the few minutes. It's amazing how you spend time focusing on your breath and what your body is doing. And it's true, like there are thoughts that still float, but they don't hold the weight of it. Like when you're in crisis mode or you're upset with your body for not doing something and you're starting to feel hopeless just taking a few minutes to do those breaths, whether it's just calming your mind, more oxygen in your body, it does, it makes those thoughts less potent and you feel less overwhelmed. And I think, I think that's so important.
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B
Absolutely.
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A
And I appreciate what you said as well about how even just taking a breath before you have conversations with other people because it's not just an inner thing for yourself, but it also taking that breathtaking moment to be mindful. It also would help with relationships with others as well because you're more aware of perhaps the thoughts that you're allowing and then also the words that are coming out as well.
- [26:00]
B
That's, that's not just a side effect. That is exactly what it's all about. It is all about relationships. It's all about living in this world and the world. When we say the world, everyone thinks of bricks and rocks and trees, but really the world is people. The world is our connection, our relationships with people. That's what 90 of our mental life is occupied probably 95 is occupied with. So it's very, very much. It's not just a private personal thing. No, it really does change the way you relate to people. Doesn't necessarily change them, but it changes you.
- [26:39]
A
But I think it would, it would alter your perspective of realizing that you can't change other people. Yeah, I think, I think just own mental health and boundaries and things like that too.
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B
And, and as far as anxiety is concerned, there's this idea. It seems like, you know, people say, well my, my, my boss makes me anxious or my diagnosis makes me anxious. Yeah, but no, anxious, anxiety is something we do to ourselves. Something it's A, it's a mental factor. So when we go in, we can find it, we can deal with it. It's within our control. Not total control. You can't just flip a switch. It's more complicated than that. But you do have a say and you have to cultivate that so you make it stronger by practicing it.
- [27:24]
A
Now, are there any parting words that you like say maybe there's, there's, I'm sure there's a whole scope of things that we didn't cover. Is there anything else you'd like to share either from your own experience or just your interactions with other people?
- [27:38]
B
You know, there's been a lot of noise about mindfulness in the last 20 years or so. Before that it was just an esoteric Buddhist practice. One really knew about it, except a very small number. But even now with all this talk about mindfulness and it's, it's, it's extremely common and there are hundreds of thousands of scientific papers being done and still the vast majority of people are not interested. They don't want to stop. It's, it's. So the first thing you have to accept here is that you're, you're in a minority, you're swimming against the stream. So it takes an effort and you need support. You do need to be with other people who do it. A lot of people sign up for a 10 day course or a 30 day course, meditation, they love it, they vow going to do it for the rest of their lives and they go home and they keep it up for a few weeks or months, but it peters out because you, you can't, no one can, not without support. You need to know that you're not crazy, you're not alone, that there is some purpose in what you're doing. So yeah, community is a big deal. This is not an isolated practice.
- [28:40]
A
Now you, I was reading on your website, you have done a great number of things, you've even written at least two books. You run this mindfulness session three times a week. You do coaching and your wife has her own life coaching website and work ministry related to that. So how do people learn more about you and, and more about mindfulness?
- [29:04]
B
Okay, well you can find me at my website, scatini.com I'll just spell that. S C H E T T I N I. So scatini.com is my website and you'll find me as the inner monk there tells you all about it, tells you about my three times a week course which is called Mindfulness Live. It's three half hour Sessions. So the purpose here is not to deliver a lot of information. The purpose is to provide a structure for people foundation. So three times a week it enables them to maintain a long term practice even if they're living alone or living with people who don't practice themselves. It gives them access to other people and it becomes a regular slot in their lives. And that, that's what makes it work. Mindfulness has to become a part of your rhythm, like flossing, like brushing your teeth. You know, you just do it every day because that's what you do. It's obviously the natural thing, safe, healthy thing to do. Once you've achieved that attitude towards it, then, then it takes root and it changes your life. It really does.
- [30:14]
A
That sounds amazing. And, and I love what you talk about having a community because I know that's so much of what the msgm, how it's thrived is because of the community that's there. People that are, are like minded, maybe differing, somewhat differing life situations, but you're there for a common goal. And I think that's, I think that's incredible that you have that and that people that, that are involved in that practice have that community to, to either to bounce things off of or just know that they're not alone, they're not in.
- [30:41]
B
It was a life changer for Caroline. For my wife, it was huge. She, she was one of the very, very earliest. She found it very early on. I think there were only three, three or four hundred people on the, on the Facebook page at the time. But she swears by and she tells everybody about it because yeah, it's, it's the community.
- [31:01]
A
So Stephen, thank you so much for meeting with me. I enjoyed our, our session and our, and our conversation and, and I hope that people really do plug into some of the resources that you provide and take the time for themselves just to decompress and to maybe step away from some of the stresses that they have no control over and, and work on, you know, as you would say, becoming your own inner monk and, and listening to what's actually going on inside instead of around the world. So thank you so much for meeting with me today.
- [31:34]
B
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk.
- [31:37]
A
You can learn more about our podcast guest in the show notes and as always, you can find us at themsgym.
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B
Com.