"Meditation doesn't need to be boring as shit" - is the life motto of meditation teacher and author, Caitlin Cady. We've all heard of meditation, most of us have probably tried it, but a smaller amount of us regularly practice it. If you've struggled to meditate, believe it's not for you, or haven't been able to stick to it, Caitlin Cady will change your mind and practice.
Then, Sam is sharing an easy way to test your intensity throughout your workout... no, you won't need an expensive wearable.
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Kid, Everyone, Sam here, Welcome to another episode of the wood Life.
I feel like I've had the I don't know.
I shouldn't be stereo tip, but I think I've had the most early week of my life. I had Charlie's little four year old birthday party. Charlie, what would you like for your birthday Partty? I want to pink, sparkle unicorn party.
So that's what we had.
Pink balloons, pink unicorns, sparkly dresses, rainbow cake.
It was the works.
And then the very next day I surprise the girls by getting a basketball court put in at home, little basketball key.
It is Barbie pink.
It is the I'll put a picture of it up on my Instagram. It is the brightest pinkest basketball court you have ever said in your life. I've had pink, rainbow, sparkle birthday parties. I've had bright pink Barbie basketball courts. I feel like I need to, I don't know, balance it out in some way, shape or form. Speaking of balancing it out, we have a wonderful guest today who explains meditation perhaps the best I've ever heard it explained for those of us that struggle to find stillness or calmness. And then I'm going to answer the question about how we increase our exercise exertion, or better still, how we measure our own exercise exertion without fancy heart rate monitors or machinery, because I think knowing how hard you're pushing yourself and really dialing in on that is a very powerful tool when it comes to the consistency and the quality of our workouts, and we can all benefit from that. They're both coming up in the wood Life. But first of all, the wonderful Caitlin Katie. So I feel I feel even just looking across at our guests that we have this morning, I'm already more relaxed than I was.
Thirty seconds ago.
We're very lucky to have Caitlin Katie, a meditation teacher, author of and I love the name of your two books, Heavily Meditated and The Hope Dealer. We'll get into both those names a little bit later. Caitlyn, welcome to the WOODLFE and thanks so much for joining us.
Thanks for having me. Sam glad to be here.
So to our listeners, you'll hear Caitlyn's accent and you probably won't think we're finding her in Byron Bay, but that's where we're finding her, and there's this beautiful little outlook of her garden in the background, and that's what I mean about being instantly relaxed. And I just thought, let's there, let's start with your journey. How did you end up in Byron Bay and how did you You know, is that a metaphor for what you've sort of been through in your life, from going from a stressed life to now one where not only a you in a much more relaxed place, but you teach it and help others achieve the same thing.
Yeah.
Yeah, I would say that the move to Byron was not sort of an intentional move for my mental health, but it really definitely dovetailed and aligned with a shift that came for me around.
That time in my life.
So sure, I'm.
American and moved originally to New Zealand to be with my husband. We always had sort of a long term goal to live in Byron and as it turned out, that sort of came to be a lot sooner. We started a business here together, but I was also still working in basically a sales job doing medical recruitment.
Pretty fast paced tostress job from.
Everything that he Yeah, and I'm a natural competitor, so it was taking a toll on my health. And sort of the background behind that was that I had had Lyme disease, which is a bloodborne disease from a tick, and I'd had it since I was twenty one, and it had really wrecked havoc on my well being. And I'd done all the things, you know, made dietary changes and sort of a lot of lifestyle changes and you know, Chinese medicine and neutropathy and IV injections, like I did it all, and I think really I was confronted with the reality of needing to make a mental shift and it wasn't just a physical issue, and that there wasn't a separation between my body and my mental state my mind. And so with a great deal of resistance and skepticism, I set out to learn how to meditate. And as anybody who has tried that, like as a DIY project can tell you that it's not at least at that time, it wasn't that easy to figure it out, right, Like you had to kind of filter through a lot of nonsense or things that just didn't resonate. So I managed to figure it out and started meditating every day, and within a relatively short period of time I had created a really positive shift.
And what I think.
Happened is that because I was able to slow down and really be and focus on my breath and unknowingly, I was shaping the breath, which was then impacting the nervous system. And I think that that shift from being in sympathetic dominance so that you know, fight or flight that we all hear about, to being in parasympathetic dominance, which is the rest, digest, hair reproduce, which are the two sort of categories that we don't always hear about, but those I think those categories are super important for people to be aware of in terms of like what functions happen optimally.
In the parasympathetic nervous system.
And so I think that shift really allowed my body to reset and heal. And so I have been free of lime disease for over a decade.
Now, what an incredible story? Can I just ask Caitlen? How? Yeah, how long did it take?
Because I've actually, if I'm being honest, I've tried a number of times and never never cracked the nut. How long did it take for you? To feel the benefits, and how long did it take for you to, I don't know, start doing it almost autonomously rather than rather being this forced feeling.
Well, I think there's a couple of interesting sort of threads I'd love to pull, Like the first one is just to answer your question directly, how long did it take? I mean, the thing about meditation is that we have to look at it like in a broader picture, right, So you might sit down and do the practice and like not feel better at that moment, right, especially in the beginning, because it's there's a huge amount of resistance that you're going to encounter if you're someone who has been conditioned like all of us have to be producing and achieving at all times. And I think that's a really important thing for people to notice, because this is not a you problem. This is a cultural systemic problem. It's not your fault that you find it hard to sit still. And I just want to name that because I didn't realize that, and that was one of the sort of insights that I garnered through sort of working through the resistance to why it was so hard for me to get still.
So I think that's really natural.
But you know, it doesn't necessarily happen on the first day, but I think if you meditate regularly, I always say, the benefits show up if you do so, I would say if you meditated regularly for seven days and you actually sort of included time for reflection in that, and what I mean by that is maybe journaling and maybe letting people in your life know, hey, I'm going to try this, and I would love to just have you give me feedback on any shifts that you might notice, because people can be people that are close to you can be a really powerful mirror for things, subtle changes you might not see straight away.
So it could.
Be seven days, right, but then you're going to notice more and more and more shifts. It's almost like the broader and the deeper that your practice becomes, the broader and the deeper the effects on your life. So for me, I mean maybe within a couple of months, yeah, like really started to feel a shift within myself, but you know, a year for it to be like, oh, this is who I am now, And at that point the practice becomes sort of self perpetuating, Like I don't have to convince myself to meditate every day, I just do it.
It makes complete sense to me.
And yeah, I didn't want to, you know, like there's a magic number or a magic time, but I get that.
I totally get it's going to be very different for everybody.
And yeah, you hear it so much now from people that you respect. They say similar things to you. This is who I am now. I absolutely don't feel like I've got less time. I feel like I've got more time. You know, my clarity of thought, my organization, the way I prioritize that was so powerful.
What you said about what.
Happens in the parasympathetic nervous system, which what did you say?
Repair, restore, rest digest, repair, reproduced.
I mean, so important are those four things. And I know myself included. I'm not spending anywhere near enough.
Time in that state.
It's because I gauge it on productivity only. And it's a really and it's really interesting to hear that that was you and that is probably naturally who you are, because I tell myself that too.
I justify it by going, this is just who I.
Am, And it doesn't necessarily mean it's good for me.
But it's a weird. It's a weird sort.
Of that's true.
Well, yeah, okay, yeah, probably, but it's a weird justification or it's a weird thing that I tell myself, and I'm sure there's a lot of our listeners that can relate to that.
Yeah, totally.
And that's why I wanted to sort of mention that earlier when you because I think that people think it's some kind of personal failing or like or something on the other side, something that congratulate themselves on. I certainly fell into that category of like, oh, this is what makes me special. It's like I just smashed things out. I'm so efficient, I'm so productive, you know, I'm prolific. I was so identified with that thought that the idea of laying that aside was terrifying to me. So in some ways, it's like you have to have this really honest conversation with yourself about the ego.
And I don't mean that in terms of like being egotistical.
I mean like the part of the self that is identifying with you know, your personality or like who you present yourself as to the world, right, Like we have to look at that and go like at my essence at my core, like who really am I and what really matters? And is that really who I am, right like? Or is that just sort of who I'm afraid not to be because everybody's told you how great you are for being that way.
What a great question to challenge.
And so there's a couple things there, right, Like, the one thing is that most of us are who or who are overachievers. We're looking for validation from outside of us. It feels really good because you get a sort of a hit of worthiness every time that you achieve something.
Right.
The other path towards a sense of worthiness and wholeness is it feels less tangible, right, because it involves getting still and quiet and actually connecting with that part of you that is already whole, already worthy, already wise, already complete, and doesn't need the external validation.
You know. It's sort of ironic, right because, like all of.
The stuff that we're out there doing, the feeling that we're looking for is actually available to us when we allow ourselves to just be.
It's a really really powerful point.
I think about the people that I know that practice meditation or even and there's a few people I know like this. They're the most comfortable paper in their own skin that I know too. You know they're not chasing any outside validation. I couldn't care if you love them hate them, couldn't care less what you say, because they love themselves. And it's it's really interesting you say that. I absolutely say the correlation.
Well, and I think it's important because all the people who are like yeah, cool, but I don't want to go live in an astrom and like shave my head and eat doll and rice for the rest of my life, like don't worry.
Yeah, yeah, there's this stigma attached.
Yeah, because I think that you also, like when you think about those people, Sam, like, can you also say that they're living purposeful lives?
Yeah? Absolutely?
And do they have a sense of satisfaction and direction and focus? Like we lean into binaries, right, it's like I'm either fully motivated and achieving or I'm like a good for nothing. It's finding that there's this middle path where you can actually use your gifts more fully when you're doing when you're out, you know, out in the world, doing things from a police of wholeness. It's a totally different motivation than when you're chasing something outside of you.
Right, So just on that you know that we do have this stigma attached to what perhaps, yeah, meditating in that stereotypical form looks like, what forms can meditation be for people?
How do you do it personally?
And how are other ways that perhaps you've seen people do it that our listeners might not think of when they think of meditation or finding stillness.
Yeah, great question.
The first step is taking responsibility right for your steat and going like, oh, I don't actually living this way isn't serving me? Then creating a shift in the nervous system. That's actually a really great place to start, rather than going like street to the mind and trying to like just sit with your thoughts, which I think is how many people try meditation. The first time, it was how I tried it that didn't That wasn't really a great inroad for me. But what was really helpful was first creating a shift in the nervous system. And the best way to do that is the breath. So if I were someone who had a total resistance to meditation, now knowing what I know, I would say that's fine, do five or ten minutes of shaping the breath in a particular way, because that step alone is going to create a shift in your nervous system, and that's going to create an on flow effect into your mind as well.
Right, the traditional progression in the yoga tradition at least is awesome enough.
And then pronayama, which is we think of it as breathwork, but it's much more complex than that, and then meditation, and so each step is preparing for the step that follows, right, and so most of us are jumping straight into meditation, and it's like, well, we haven't actually like you know, I call it meditation foreplay.
It's like you got to like buy yourself at drink first.
Right. For like the most efficacy and the most satisfaction in a practice, it's important to have some kind of preparation and pay attention to it as a threshold or a transition point into sort.
Of where you're heading.
So I just want to preface it with, like, if you only have five or ten minutes, maybe just do something to shape the breath because that's going to have an impact that you feel in the moment, and cumulatively done over time, you can shift yourself out of sympathetic dominance into parasympathetic dominance just by doing that. And so examples of that would be ujai breathing. It's a really powerful one. It's super simple. So you're basically just creating a valve that the throat sounds like Darth Vader or the subtle sound of the ocean, depending on how you want to frame it. But that has this whole incredible biological sort of effect. And so if you did that for ten minutes, fifteen minutes, in six weeks, you could expect a shift. And that's like been clinically shown to create a shift in nervous system dominance. So I just want to name that because meditation maybe isn't the rate starting police for everyone at every moment.
Of their life.
I've never heard it explained like that before, but I love it because those baby steps to bridge that gap makes a lot of sense to me, and I think it would a lot of other people who have either thought about it and it's too big a canyon to cross, or have tried it and fallen down somewhere along the line like me. So I love that you're actually breaking it down like that. You know, it's funny. It's so often how i'd work with people with nutrition or exercise, you know, just go for a ten minute walk or just start with your breakfasts, you.
Know whatever, Start where you are exactly exactly.
I've never heard it explain from a stillness perspective, but it really does make complete sense. What was that type of breathing called again? Just just say it slowly OJA huge?
Yeah? Huge y I Okay.
It's super easy and you can kind of do it in any positions. You could do it laying down, you can do it sitting up, you can do it in the car on an airplane.
Like.
It's very simple to learn, and it's like deceptively simple, as in it can create a really powerful change in the moment but also over time. JA means victorious, okay, victorious breath victorious okay. So when we think about agency, it's offering us a pathway towards victory over our mind right or over our sort of state.
So I've heard you say, and it put a big smile on my face. Meditation doesn't have to be and I quote boring as shit?
What weighs beyond the breath step? Yes? Do you like to?
I don't know, either practice it or teach it where it isn't in people's minds boring as shit because I can tell by your personality that you do make it fun, you know, like even the terminology to use, you know, let's have some for play first.
It makes sense, and.
It makes it relatable to people. If this is not a space you've ever been in, yeah, or ever even researched, it feels completely foreign to you totally. It's really nice to make these philosophies relatable to people.
And I love how you do that.
Well, thank you, that's so kind.
Yeah.
I always say like meditation has a pr problem, right, Like on a lot of levels, people have all these like misconceptions about like what it is and like how long they need to do it and what it needs to look like. And it's not helpful because if you have all those barriers and you think it's not for you, then like it has no opportunity to be of service to you.
So, first of.
All, I think that it's a mistake to offer people one meditation technique. In my first book, Heavily Meditated, I sort of laid it out as like five different gateways, so you have the breath, sound, sensation, visualization, and mantra. That's not like a comprehensive sort of categorization of every technique known to man. But those are five really common focal points, and often they're combined. You might have two together. You might use the breath and visualization, for example. But the reason that I like to frame it that way is to say, like, here's a menu of options for you, and so try them all and see what resonates for you, like what feels most easeful. Because for some people, if I say, okay, we're going to sit down and focus on the breath, they're like that lady, that is going to spin me out, Like that's the last thing that's going to make me feel calm. Where other people don't visualize, they actually have something in their brain that doesn't allow them to visualize, and that's fine too. So it's like, if you just offer one thing, it's not going to sort of be a connection point for every single person.
So I think first have like go to the buffet, the meditation, the.
Fey and like dabble and try and taste different things, and then when you find one that you feel is easeful or bring some sense of delight, go down that path for a while. Right. So you could do the same practice, or you could explore different practices that use that technique. But what I don't love is like people having this experience of meditation that it has to be this one way and they have to do it for the specific amount of time, and it has to be done it this time of day. Like I think that's very restrictive, and it takes this aspect of flexibility, prescriptiveness, and delight out of the equation.
And I love that.
And I know I relate things back to exercise because that's my background, But people do that naturally with exercise all the time. You know, sometimes I just go to escape and go for a round. Other times the whites or the boxing. I get the frustration there because I box or I do some strength.
You know, we all do that. You know, if we train often and we train with variety, we know.
What particular exercise works for what particular mood or solution.
That we're trying to trying to find or solve.
But we could chat all day about all of the different things our body goes through when it's stressed and the different ways we can do with that. But actually love that we've spoken so specifically about the meditation, about those stepping stones, and about the different ways that people can interpret it.
What's your app called?
And if people did want to work with you online, how do they do that?
Oh?
Thank you, that's so generous.
You can find me at kaitlindkeaty dot com and at kaitlind keaty on Instagram. And the app is also called Heavily Meditated, So you can download that for iPhone or Android and you can do a free trial and give it a shut.
I love it. I love it.
Thanks for joining us and enjoy the beautiful sunshine and By and Bay really appreciate your time today.
Oh likewise, thanks Sam.
I love learning about things that aren't my sweet spot and meditation, stillness, breath work, even just slowing down in general. If I'm being really honest, I'm definitely not my sweet spot. So I love that chat with Kaitlyn. She had a couple of things that even wrote down. She said, the benefits show up if you do. And I just thought, what a mantra for life when it comes to getting into a good routine or a good habit.
The benefits show up if you do.
Love that chat. We're now going to speed things up a little bit. We're gonna explain how you increase the intensity or understand the intensity of your workouts with no expensive, fancy equipment needed. So I want to talk about how hard you're actually working when you work out. I think there's a lot of us who aren't really sure how hard we're pushing ourselves.
And a couple of examples.
Whenever I will catch up with one of my twenty eight is face to face and we'll do a workout together, I ask them this question. I say, put your hand up if you push yourself much harder just then as you do when you're in your land room by yourself, And a lot of hands go up. And the first thing is it's a good wake up call for people that I think they're pushing themselves harder than they are. But the other thing I say, and I see this in my gym, is too much talking. And that's where this little chat came from, because talking, or the inability or ability to talk while you're exercising, is a great way of us seeing where we're at. It's called a perceived exertion scale PS. So how hard am I pushing? So this is how it works. There's three categories. If you can hold a regular conversation or count so one, two, three without losing your breath, then this is low intensity exercise relative to you. As I said, so this means you're falling somewhere between three to five on the perceived exertion scale. That's category one. Category two is if you're struggling to put a full sentence together, or you're losing your breath and can't quite articulate all of your words, or you couldn't articulate numbers from one to twenty, then you're upper level. You're at moderate intensity. So we call this between levels five to seven on the perceived exertion scale. And if you can't speak at all, that shows you that you're at level eight or nine on the perceived exertion scale. So my example in the gym, these people tell themselves they're working really hard. They are literally chatting to their workout buddy the entire time, not with much difficulty, So they're not even getting above a five worst case or best case, depending on how you want to look at it. They're between a three and five for an entire forty five minute workout, barely breaking a sweat.
Coming to the gym, they probably feel better, and.
That's absolutely better that you're doing that than nothing at all, please don't misinterpret what I'm saying is that's a waste of time. It's not a waste of time, but you get out what you put in, and if you're unaware of how much you're putting in, this perceived exertion scale is a great way for you to just do a little self test next time you do a workout, to see if you can get yourself to.
That eight or nine.
Because whenever I ask someone what kind of results do you want? Do you want eight out of ten or nine out of ten results? Everyone nods their head. But part time effort gives you part time results eight out of nine effort will give you eight out of nine results. So remember some workouts are designed to be easy, but a couple of times a week, get yourself out of your comfort zone. And remember it's all relative to you. You're not comparing yourself to anyone else. This is your eight or nine out of ten, nobody else's. I feel like it's been a.
Bit of a paradox of an episode we've had, Caitlin.
I'm telling us to wind things down, and then I've decided to go the other direction with our exercise and really ramp things up.
But I think you get the gist.
There are times in life and parts of our health that we definitely need to slow down.
And then from an exercise.
Perspective specifically, it really is beneficial to wind things up and challenge yourself because if nothing changes, nothing changes, that's what we're striving for.
So that's how we've got to train.
As always, please send your questions through there's a link in the show notes. I'd love to hear from you any of your training questions like this or training considerations like this. Would love to deep dive with you, and until then, I'll see you next week.