Mindfulness and Meditation with Chris Shrope and Elle Mok-Taylor

SPEAKERS
Elle Mok-Taylor, Chris Shrope, Jacky Homme, Doc Mok

Chris Shrope

Thank you for arriving here today. Thank you for taking the time to listen and be a part of Maximal Being and this meditation podcast. We’ll start off, if you wouldn’t mind by closing our eyes for a short practice, and get us ready for this session. So with our eyes closed, we’ll start breathing normally, our straight back, your head is being pulled up from the heavens, from your sacrum, and just start by breathing into your navel center into your belly, expanding, and then when you breathe out, bringing the stomach in slightly, pushing that air out. Breathing in through the nose. On your next in-breath, and breathe all the way into the stomach, expand, go up into the chest and the ribcage, all the way the top of your lungs, hold for a second, and then out through the nose expel out the same way down the chest and pushing out through the stomach bringing with a slight. Slightly, and do that two more times, and now it’s your next in-breath. We’ll come back to a normal breathing and a quiet mind, and before we come out of this before we open our eyes, I want you all to as you open your eyes, let your gaze and don’t do this now, but when your eyes do open, let your gaze slowly bring your eyelids up and have a wide and open expansive view of the world that you’re in. Bring no judgment. Do not fixate. Have a wide and open view of acceptance, and so when you’re ready, you may open your eyes. Thanks for all, y’all going through that with me guys. Hopefully, you were able to notice if your mind started to wonder, or if your attention got drawn one way or the other, or simply you have a clear slate, and you feel good. So, Jacky, over to you.

Jacky Homme
Thank you, Chris, and welcome Maximal Beings. This does a little different introduction, but I think on a podcast with mindfulness, why not just jump in with both feet. I am your happy layman, Jacky P with no scientific or medical background. I do know that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell and make sure that you all remember that because that’s the only thing you’ll keep if you have my type of science experience. With me is your favorite doc, Doc Mok here. And we have Chris here and also Ellie, who will help us talk a little bit about mindfulness and maybe review a little bit what we just went through. Doc Mok over to you.

Doc Mok
What’s going on Maximal Being, Doc Mok here, so excited to have these guests on. I will admit, I’ve known both of our special guests today for their entire lives. Ellie Mok-Taylor is my sister, also an exceptionally gifted therapist. And then Christopher Shrope is an amazing leader in the field of mindfulness and meditation. He certainly has gotten me to my next level in my meditation practices and Jacky P, as always, I haven’t known you your whole life but it feels like I’ve known you your whole life.

Jacky Homme
Feels like forever.

Doc Mok
Yeah, yeah, it’s just like the first time every time. So today’s discussion, you know will be a great one. I am very excited to talk to these people about it. So, I’m Doc Mok, I’m a therapeutic endoscopist, gastroenterologist, functional medicine practitioner practicing here in Cleveland, Ohio, and over to you, Ellie Mok-Taylor.

Elle Mok-Taylor
Hey, Maximal Beings this is Ellie Mok-Taylor, I’m happy to be back on the podcast today. I am a licensed clinical counselor; I practice in the state of Maryland. Currently working in Baltimore. I work with mostly families and children and adolescents in an outpatient setting. I also like to practice myself and teach mindfulness and meditation pretty much on a daily basis, and Chris, over to you.

Chris Shrope
Thanks, Ellie. Chris Shrope here, I, gosh, what great words Doc Mok, I appreciate that introduction. I just practice yoga and meditation. I’ve been doing that for two decades now and really enjoy it and have opened that doorway for a number of others as well, and my day job is I worked in enterprise software technology.

Doc Mok
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Intro
Welcome to Maximal Being! A GI doc and ICU nurse break down the science so you can exceed your gut health, nutrition, and fitness goals. So let’s smash the broscience, and optimizing your health with your hosts, Doc Mok and RN Graham.

Jacky Homme
So, I am particularly happy about this podcast because I practice mindfulness as much as possible. Obviously, there’s always room to grow, but mindfulness I think is something that’s often looked over when it comes to almost everything, mental health, being happy, pain management, I can talk for hours on just like, you know, times that I’ve used mindfulness just to kind of get through things. So, what I want to do is, we’ll start off with just the basics because I am the layman. So, I got to make sure that we’re all starting from the same page. Chris, can you know, for someone who’s never heard of mindfulness, one has never meditated, you know, break down what mindfulness means and meditation, just, you know, what it is from a high-level point of view?

Chris Shrope
Yeah, yeah, sure. And maybe the highest level is looking at the Wikipedia definition.

Jacky Homme
That works.

Chris Shrope
Gray gray. So meditation is a practice, where individuals use techniques such as mindfulness, and others, right, you can walk, can do this in a number of other activities, where you focus the mind on a particular object, thought or activity, to train, and this is the important part to train the attention and awareness to achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm, stable state, and I’ll go a little bit further by saying that there’s a, this idea of presence, what is the present moment, and a lot of people say present moment awareness. Right, and so if you break down presence, there’s a, there’s a guy who died a little while ago, his name was Doug Sibley, and he came out with this presence-based leadership group, and I really like, I’m really fond of his whole definition of presence, which is, presence is an internal state, the inclusive awareness of stillness, immediacy, and possibility, and so each three of those things can be broken out further. So, stillness is a place within that lies underneath everything. Immediacy is what’s emerging in the moment and possibilities, insight arising in the space of unknown. So being, you know, in the present moment, whereas you’re still and allowing possibilities to come with you, come to you. By being in that moment, and not being distracted by, there’s a number of different hindrances, but I think that’s a quick sum- does that make sense to you, Jacky?

Jacky Homme
Um, it does, it does, it’s in, I’m gonna repeat it back to you. So I could break it down even further. It’s really, I think, in my opinion, and tell me if I’m wrong, I think it’s just taking the moment to be still, you know, think this may be an oversimplification, right. But when they say stop and smell the roses, it’s like, stop and focus on the roses and what they smell and what the fragrance is, right. It’s not thinking about how they’re growing or where you are, you know, you’re late to work, or you got bills, you got to pay bills, but like, you know, what, I’m gonna take a moment. I’m gonna smell the roses and just having that moment, and Ellie is, well, you know, you, you are a health, mental health therapist, right? So, you know, there are practical ways, right? I’m assuming that you have, yourself maybe, experienced mindfulness. And maybe you’ve had patients who’ve taken up the practice of mindfulness. Can you maybe talk a little bit about, you know, how you incorporate in your practice?

Elle Mok-Taylor
Sure. Yeah. I think what, how Chris described it like said, is very high level working with kids and teens, I have to break it down into a much easier way of understanding it, but it all ties in together, right? It’s just this idea of being in the moment and being present, you’re not thinking about what happened in the past, you’re not thinking about what happens, what may or may not happen in the future, like you said, Jacky, what your plans are what you have to do, it’s just being in the moment right now, and it can definitely come in forms like meditation, I find a lot of people I work with, and I can say the stigma of myself when I started the practice, as well as I don’t want to sit on a pillow in a room with a gong and you know, have to cross my legs and sit in silence, like, not for me. So you can do a lot of other things. Mindful eating is a really exciting thing a lot of kids like, mindful walking, you know, literally stopping and smelling the roses, I think one of the easiest places to start, just use your five senses in the moment, you know, you smell, see, hear, touch into, maybe may or may not taste depending on what’s going on, but, you know, it’s just the idea of, even for that minute focusing on what’s happening in front of you, non judgmentally, which is also another key that Chris had mentioned before. You know, our society, I think we’re all our own worst critics. So we tend to judge everything we do. I found even in my own practice, just now at Crystals Leading I’m sitting thinking, I wonder what I look like on camera, you know, what am I gonna eat for dinner later? Do I look silly with my eyes closed, you know, all those kinds of things and just being able to say, okay, and notice that I’m thinking that and now I’m going to focus on my breathing again, just like Chris was telling me to do. So that’s kind of like the basics of how I use it. Jacky P that’s, that’s normally how I, I start

Jacky Homme
Interesting. And you brought up something that I thought was interesting, right? You and Chris did say, you know, to look at things nonjudgmentally. Chris, in your own words, like what does that mean? Right? Because I opened my eyes and you know, I have to be honest, like Ellie, like, I wonder how goofy I look with my eyes closed. The first thing I opened my eyes and first good second, I wasn’t focused on anything, but then I looked at myself and maybe this might be a little bit different because we can see ourselves, but what does that mean? Right? Open your eyes non-judgmental, is it? You know, like, how would you explain that? For a first-timer?

Chris Shrope
Yeah, yeah, I would. Okay, so for me, here, I have this, this window. You guys can’t see, but if you were with me, you’d be able to see this beautiful view of just brown glare grass and some snow is melting and a grey sky. Sometimes imagine if I’m looking at this window, and I’m not being non-judgmental, right, and I say I see a catwalk, walk into the yard, right? And the intention is to not let the mind wander to a place that’s just taking you into the future or bringing you into the past. Okay, it’s not doing anything, it’s just walking, but if I was to say, hey, is that cat gonna, you know, dig up my, you know, brown grass and start messing around with it, or you know, I because I know I, another cat did that, you know, and I’m not being present. I’m looking into the past and thinking about what could happen, and I’m not actually here, which is taking away from actual. Cat has no intention to this is walking gonna jump over the fence, but as soon as I bring in that judge, a judgmental that, that ill will, so to say mental state, you’re not actually able to be present in this reality. The only thing that matters is now. Not what happened in the past? Not what could happen in the future, because you create every moment right now. So, I would say, you know, removing past and the future, and any type of attachment to that just being in the present moment. Does that help? Jacky?

Jacky Homme
No, I think that that does help a lot. I think just the way we’re wired as humans, we’re always looking to see, you know, what, how would this end? You know, what are the right like, what’s the casualty of this action, right and just not taken in my cave? That is a cat walking on the fence. That is, it don’t know where he came from? Don’t know where he’s going. It doesn’t matter. I just need to see a cat walking fence. What I think with takes a lot of practice, right? For most first-timers.

Chris Shrope
Well, you know exactly that, Jacky, I mean, we’re conditioned, right? You think about what is the oldest portion of the brain, the amygdala, and that has been for all of human life. You know, it’s, we’ve only had the neocortex for, like, you know, the last 10% or so of human history. So, it’s really just like, another layer on top of the brain, and the default is the amygdala, and you get this thing of Amygdala hijacking, right? Where because in that, the amygdala is all survival. Right? And you, it can, you see something, right? That’s the problem with some of the census. If you hadn’t experienced something before you had, the amygdala will come in and say, hey, do I need a fight, flight? Or raise anxiety level or it’ll raise you know, level so you act or do something, but do you need to, in today’s environment, where there’s not, you know, you’re not on the on the savanna with like a spear or a bow trying to hunt, someone’s not trying to hunt you and you’re not trying to hunt someone else. Are you always in survival? No, but that’s a default mechanism of the brain, and that’s why it’s so hard and for, yeah. So that’s why I think it’s, it’s very hard to get around that, and it’s why the brain is just like the muscle, you need to train it. Right. You know, the spleen excretes everything in the body excrete something and so is the brain, it excretes thoughts, which can be useful, not useful. I saw that training how you were best with that process, I think, but

Jacky Homme
Interesting. I like that because you know, the mind is a muscle. And a lot of folks don’t think about that or don’t remember that. So, you know, you talked about that fight or flight right in the amygdala, right? And I got to hit the layman card here. And I’m like, I’m gonna tap on you, Doc Mok. Let’s get into the science and the actual changes with like, right, the meditation and the mindfulness, right. So, from what I understand, right, there it does there are changes to your brain. Is there, you can kind of expand a little bit on that Doc.

Doc Mok
Right. So, you know, Chris did an excellent job of, you know, starting off the conversation in terms of neurobiology. So the amygdala is this part of your brain, it’s your reptilian brain, it is the most basic form of human survival, right? It’s what tells you to run away from that lion, like Chris was saying, on top of that are different layers of higher functioning, you know that that is your ability to make a podcast say, or to lead a meditation, and those are things like the prefrontal cortex that does a lot of our conscious decision making, but along with that, there are millions and millions of other areas, but the hippocampus which is in charge of a lot of your memory, and the way I always remember that in medical school is a hippo never forgets, and then the temporal parts of your brain, that’s what leads compassion. They have done studies where they placed people in MRIs or these imaging centers before and after starting a regimen of meditation, and what they found is that before they did the meditation, people tended to have overactivity in their amygdalar centers. So, in that fight or flight complex, but after instituting these meditation practices, that amygdala actually shrunk in size in just a 12 week time period, and actually the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and temporal lobes, all of those areas grew. There was another study where they matched people that were in their 20s, who had not done any sort of mindfulness with people in their 40s and 50s, who did do mindfulness practices, and what they found is that before their imaging was much different, right, people that were older showed a lot of changes that would you would see with aging, but after instituting a meditation practice, these people actually were able to have brains that looked almost the same way as people that were in their 20s, which I think is remarkable in terms of the ability for our brain to change and mold, which to be honest with you is a fairly new-ish concept in medicine, which is very, very exciting. So I’m going to turn it back over to my sister, you know, a lot of these studies that we talked about, or looked at, kind of put mindfulness in opposition with Western medicine as kind of like the control group, like cognitive behavioral therapy, like you proposed, do you recommend both to people? Or do you only pull out one tool for one person and another tool for another person?

Elle Mok-Taylor
That’s a great question Doc Mok, I wish I could give you like; this works every time for everyone, all of the time. You know, I think both of them have benefits, as do even you know, any type of medication route or anything like that. They’re all proven, and there’s tons of studies for benefits, as well as risks. I think the hardest thing is that you can have a lot of benefits with meditation and mindfulness if you can. I mean, if you can do the work, right? It’s practice, it’s training. If you compare it to people who weightlift or train for a marathon, you have to commit, and you really have to say, okay, for the next X amount of weeks, I’m practicing for this many minutes or hours a day, and I think that can feel really daunting to a lot of people where they might say, well, I can just take this medicine, and it’s going to have the same effects, and it’s going to just be quicker, and while it might be quicker, the long term effects are way different, right? Like, you’re not going to grow those areas of the brain, like you’re talking about, and you won’t have that long-term coping of being able to be present and kind of regulate your body and regulate your emotions and your thoughts. So, it kind of gets tailored to the person, the place, the situation. You know, unfortunately, I tend to see kids and teenagers that have quite a lot of trauma and a lot of anxiety and depression. So certainly, you can’t just say, Alright, go, you know, meditate for five minutes a day, and all of a sudden, you won’t feel, you know, the way you’re feeling every day, but I think generally, it’s still a really great place for people to start, no matter, I guess how severe your symptoms are, or how what it is that you’re coping with, it’s just a really good practice for your overall wellness, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally. The other things are also very helpful, and they have their areas, but I wouldn’t recommend CBT for every single person in every situation, which is cognitive behavioral therapy, for those who don’t know, a very prescribed and manualized way of doing, looking at your thoughts for people who are anxious, or depressed or have trauma in their lives. Whereas mindfulness and meditation can be pretty much used for almost anything. Does that help Doc Mok?

Doc Mok
Yeah, absolutely. For Chris, you know, we’ve been talking about thus far that meditation equals mindfulness, right, that those are synonymous with each other, but they aren’t right. And in fact, out in Colorado, you practice a lot of other mindfulness practices. So, you want to just go ahead and educate everybody on other things that people can do.

Chris Shrope
Yeah, yeah, sure. Good distinction. So, you can, like take that hand, you can walk every step, being present, from lifting your heel, to placing the next one down. As Ellie alluded to earlier, you can do mindful eating practices. Which yeah, highly, highly useful. That’s actually like one of the as I remember, you know, first time doing that, as well as now that I’m eating so much slower. That’s so many textures and flavors I was missing. But I would say sitting everyone, you know, you can be mindfully sitting, you know, without meditating. I would say it’s another way. Let’s see. I feel like mindfulness can be, you can do a number of things mindfully,

Elle Mok-Taylor
Mindful brushing your teeth, mindful washing your face, mindful showering, I mean, really, it’s like anything.

Chris Shrope
Yeah. So, I don’t know, does that help cover it off? I don’t know if that’s the answer you’re looking for, though.

Doc Mok

Yeah, I think so. And nature walking is another one that comes to mind, which, you know, you definitely are like the grandmaster of outdoor activities. So, you know, I think that nature’s like a twofer. Like just the fact of being within nature. We’ve talked about on prior podcasts can reduce blood pressure, can improve stress levels, can help with sleep. But it’s also a mindfulness practice. Because you’re, you have, you’re forced to only focus upon the surroundings, the beauty of nature around you, you don’t have cars honking at you, people flicking you off, like, you know, protests next you, it’s, it, all it is, is you in nature, just walking through, so.

Elle Mok-Taylor
You know doc, go ahead.

Doc Mok
Go ahead. Go ahead, Ellie.

Elle Mok-Taylor
I was thinking Doc Mok when you said that even the idea of noticing those noises can be mindfulness too, right? Because I think about a lot of the people I work with life in the city. So getting them to put their phone away when they’re walking down the street, take your earbuds out, turn your watch off, so you don’t get notifications, and just experience the walk. Even saying I’m really annoyed right now because this person won’t walk faster. That’s mindfulness, right? Or, I’m, you know, I’m noticing this person driving is honking their horn are playing really loud music. There’s mindfulness too, but you’re not distracted by like, oh, I’ve got emails I have to read, and I’ve got that video call later today, and my mom won’t stop texting me about XYZ. You know, I think it can be so much easier than people are saying, that, or maybe people might think, which is what I think we’re all kind of saying and it’s important to remember.

Chris Shrope
Yeah. And Ellie, actually, as you mentioned that, you just brought something upon me that I want to share, which I think mindfulness very much is being able to respond, not react.

Elle Mok-Taylor
Yeah.

Chris Shrope
Right, and like, if you hear a car honking, is your reaction to freak out at this guy. Flip him off. Right? Or is that just something that’s happened because there’s a jaywalker, or whatever, I think, in many of these circumstances, for you to be mindful, is to see yourself as a player, to be able to take a third-person view of the situation and yourself within it, and understanding the situation yourself within it and then being able to respond. So just wanted to share that.

Doc Mok
Appreciate the share, you know, Jacky, as being like, probably, more than novices in the room with meditation. I know one of the biggest things for me, that was hardest to overcome, was yes, that like stigma that like everybody that meditates has to wear yoga pants and sit in a room but like, and I’m not knocking that at all. But also, that when your mind wanders during a meditation that you haven’t lost, that it’s not like you’ve lost the game if you start thinking about those work emails, and then the whole session is over. I’m not good at it anymore. I mean, did you have any of those similar pitfalls? Jacky P?

Jacky Homme
Oh, yeah, I think my life is always a million things at once. Like, I’ve always liked to pile things on and balance and juggle things and work and this and you know, and I have a son now is two. So, I always, when I first started, and you know, little backtrack about my experience of mindfulness, my father, as long as I could remember when I was young, he always used to make us meditate, and when you’re like, an eight-year-old kid, and all you want to do is go outside and you know, play and get dirty. You don’t have the time for it. Right, but as obviously, as we all do, right, we realize our parents knew way more than we gave them benefit for. I realized, like, I thought I always thought that like I can’t meditate because I cannot close my eyes. I’m thinking of a million things, and you know, one thing and I believe Ellie might have said, right, like, you can address that you’re thinking about it, but then you can put that away, and then your brain you know, you’ll learn to move on. So, when I, you know, there’s a personal thing, but for me when I first started meditating, I have sickle cell. So, I started meditating because I used that pain. So, I used to have like, you know, sit and just think and just like. It’s kind of goofy, but I feel like, imagine just like a wave, just like flushing the pain out and lasts for a minute, but like that’s what really started like, Oh, you know, like this, I don’t know, if it’s a placebo, I don’t feel like working, but it’s something to do, and I feel like it worked, and that basically started me on the whole, like paying attention to things, and when I felt I had to scratch the back of my throat, I said, you know, I’m not getting sick, I don’t get sick, right? And just kind of really, you know, thinking about like, okay, how am I in this world? And how am I connected to things? And how are they connected to me and just not really ever worrying about like, what tomorrow is right? We prepare, we pay our bills, we work on everything, but a lot of that worry and anxiety and stress comes from living in that reality. Right, Chris, that you talked about? That doesn’t exist, right? That cat is not digging up your flowers, you’re living in that world, right? Let the catwalk down the fence. Right? But it took a long time. And that’s what you know, we ought to remember that if you’re starting, you’ve never been taught of mindfulness. You can’t just jump in and meditate for an hour. And just be calm, right? Like, you know, like, you got to start somewhere. Right? So, you know, Ellie, have you, you know, with your patients, when you’ve introduced, you know, mindfulness activities in meditation, like, you know, what would you say that you told them to start? You know, like, if you tell them like to start small, like, how would that play into your practice?

Elle Mok-Taylor
That’s a great question, and I love that both you and Doc Mok kind of brought up some of the perceived failures, right, but I and that’s one of the reasons that a lot of the people I work with don’t like doing it. It gets the, it feels the, it’s this doubt, the self-critical thoughts, right, that judgment we keep talking about, as opposed to just the acceptance piece of it. And I would say that’s the number one thing, I’ll do a two-minute thing, or just the five senses, which could take 30 seconds if someone just rolls through it, and they’re like, Okay, well, I don’t feel any different. Or I thought about so many other things like I suck at this, or, you know, whatever it is, and it’s important to normalize it, you know, let’s be honest, and Chris, you can probably speak to this, cuz you’ve been doing this way longer than me, but I’ve been doing it for about a year, pretty consistently, I could do a five-minute meditation, and I still have tons of thoughts that go through my head, I think the difference is, the more you do it, the more of a master you become of being able to quiet them and refocus, and that’s one of the most important pieces because you’re trying to retrain your brain, to be able to kind of accept it and just let it go and live in whatever it is. So like Jacky, with your pain, right? Like accepting that you may be had pain in the moment, and then it also helps to kind of flush it out, because you’re not sitting like, oh, I can’t believe this pain’s here. And this is so annoying, it’s gonna mess up my whole day, and you know, all those other kinds of thoughts. So, when I work with the people I work with, we definitely start small, especially with kids, because they just, you know, don’t have long attention spans, but I would, I would also say that a lot of adults probably don’t, nowadays, either. I would say between two and five minutes is probably a good starting point, just depending on how you think you’re feeling in the moment, and in the day, if you have five minutes sounds scary, then start with two. It doesn’t even have to be that long. It can be 30 seconds of, you know, what am I looking at around me? What am I noticing, I’m thinking while I’m looking or like Chris was looking out a window, what am I thinking while I’m looking at the grass and watching the cat and being able to say, okay, that cat is walking down the street, I’m thinking it might go dig up the dirt, it is just walking though, and then you know, you can add in some breathing or something like that. There’s a lot of layers to it, you can certainly get much more in-depth, but it can be as simple as that, which I think is always important to remind people and those self-critical thoughts and judgmental thoughts are all going to come up especially at the beginning. That’s just how our minds work. So being able to say, okay, I’m noticing this and it’s okay to have it, but not getting stuck in it just kind of reminding yourself okay, my kids do like we do it with clouds. So, it’s like, okay, here’s a cloud of one thought. And then we’re gonna like jump to the next cloud, which is like, okay, now we’re focusing back on our breathing or now we’re focusing back like and clouds keep going, right? So, your thought will just keep moving out of the way and not getting stuck on the cloud, for lack of a better word. Those are the kinds of things that I tend to just start with that make it seem easy and less scary. Jacky P.

Jacky Homme
That, you know, that’s funny you said the five senses thing because my wife, she’s a preschool teacher, and I do remember that the senses and she did her master’s paper project for now. I don’t know what it’s called, on mindfulness in teaching kids, and that’s what she did, and apparently, it worked. I don’t know, I didn’t. How’s it running a school class for children? But, you know, Chris, I’m sure, you know, you run into a lot of folks who are also right, starting their mindfulness journey. Right, and you know, whether it be meditating or mindful walking, more mindful eating, right, you know, if I listened to this podcast today, right, and I was like, you know what, I want to start that what would you say is, you know, first step, like what’s like, your the smallest goal, right? Whether maybe time or, you know, how do you maybe help folks start out on their journey?

Chris Shrope
Yeah, yeah, I think you want to start the journey. What is their journey? Why are they doing this? What within their life has brought him to this moment? You know, and I think, using that, you can help tell that story that’s unique and personal, and why, you know how to progress and what’s holding them back, and because that’s all part of the story, and I would say that, you know, the mind is something that if you haven’t been paying attention to it for a long time, and you just kind of let it go on cruise control, and you’ve been fine ever since, and you’re just now paying attention to it. Yeah, it’s gonna be hard. It’s like, definitely going to be hard. I mean, are things that are worth it? Are they easy? Right, and from all this stuff that you know, Shaffer’s talking about, I mean, Doc Mok is talking about in regards to that benefits, you know, having a look, guys, what I say the average person uses the brain 10%, right, that’s on average, most people don’t meditate or mindful, right? When those statistics are being put together, right. So, there’s a whole world of possibilities and stuff, you can there’s other, you know, there’s other realities, forms of reality, you can tap in to make things happen for yourself, and I would say that as long as you are persistent in that, and I would say, you know, if you do, starting with simple breathing exercises, that can be 30 seconds. You know, the Marines use breathing exercises, totally normal to do that, to get in the zone. To stay and, you know, a peak performance area, you can use breathing exercises to be stimulated, to calm down. You can just simply feel an emotion, and then from there, identify the emotion, and understand what that emotion is trying to tell you about your current life situation. Are you frustrated? Frustration is an important emotion, it tells you that what you’re doing right now isn’t working, you need to find a solution, and so it’s like, not just, you know, I would say, two, five minutes is fine, but I would say if you have intention, do a breathing exercise with intention, understand how it makes you feel, and then use that again and again, if it works. Some things work. Some things don’t depend on your individual constitution, and there’s always going to be things it’s like if it’s a mirror, and there’s tons of clouds, there’s tons of, you know, moisture on it, you gotta wipe it off to see clearly and some people haven’t been doing that, and the moisture just keeps on coming. I mean, we get what 6 billion ads to us a day, and if you don’t, can’t figure out a way to sift through all that noise to see your reflection clearly. It’s going to be continually hard. So, I would just say it’s a practice, it’s your practice, do with intention and motivation. And it will get easier from there.

Jacky Homme
Well, that’s a great point, Chris, you know, and I think it could apply to almost a lot of things, right? If you’re trying to eat healthier, right? If you’re trying to exercise more, right, it has to be something that you want to do and want to stick to right. If you don’t do it, don’t do it consistently. You know, it may not work, it may work for a little bit, but ultimately, you know, it, it needs to be something that you want to stick to, but you know, speaking of, you know, how many ways that we can apply mindfulness, right. There are a plethora of studies out there that you know, did, did you know they had people try being mindful and to control different, you know, symptoms or illnesses. Doc, can you walk us through maybe some of the studies that we’ve done over the last few years?

Doc Mok
Sure, you know, so the most obvious application of mindfulness practices would be in Ellie’s world, which would be depression anxiety, which is affecting apparently six out of every 10 Americans right now and slowly and steadily rising. There was a very abrupt increase during the last year for obvious reasons, but apart from that, you know, the applications of meditation, mindfulness practices are numerous, you can lower your blood pressure, with just mindfulness practices, and this is likely due to that balance like Chris was talking about of your fight or flight hormones, adrenaline or adrenaline. With the more calming ones like dopamine and serotonin, you can normalize those. It prevents cardiovascular disease. You know, I’m writing an article right now, and one of the things we’re talking about is how heart disease affects men, more commonly in women, and the reason is not as simple as well, men make testosterone more so than women do. It’s our ability to cope with stress is much more poor than women. And so being able to empower yourself as a man and deal with those stressful events will help you to prevent cardiovascular disease in my world, gastroenterology, irritable bowel syndrome, which is people have a very sensitive colon, if you inflate a balloon in my colon, I may not feel it, but in their colons, they may feel it, and then these people, it does actually reduce the severity of symptoms, and then the next one, which affects a ton of young people in America is inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis. These people are young, they’re very, very sick, and we just did a podcast with Dr. Mo Naem and Dr. Susan Kais where we talked about these patients, and they have such a high disconnect between their brain and their gut that this is a way to, to unify these things, and they actually have found in randomized data that all other treatments equalize that mindfulness practices can reduce the severity of symptoms. Now, it’s not all roses, right? There are warnings. One thing and we found this one, we pulled a systematic review that was done in 2017, which is basically you take a lot of good studies, you filter down to the good ones, and then you take the data of all those good ones and put them together and look at what comes out, and in this study, they said that one mindfulness practice isn’t necessarily better than another, and they also did show that certain people with bipolar disease. So manic depression is what a lot of people call it or diseases in which they have hallucinations, would have worsening of some of those symptoms during initiation of mindfulness practice. So, I would just say, you know, for those out there of you that do have these sorts of conditions, you know, make sure that you’re working with somebody that can help you with the mindfulness and can also help you with your psychological condition. So, I hope that that answers your question. I’m going to turn it back over to Jacky P.

Jacky Homme
Wonderful, interesting. So, thank you, Doc Mok with bringing the science into this. I think it’s I think it’s important to understand that you know, these, these things are here to help right? Um, it’s, it’s, you know, mindfulness and meditation, right. I think still not as much as before but still has a connotation right of like, you know, sitting with the arms crossed and staying uhmmm and hitting gongs, right and everything and you know, and it’s not like that. It’s really just pausing and taking the time and understanding where you are and not creating realities for yourself. Right. So, you know, I definitely want to have a couple more questions. But what we’re gonna do real quick is take a quick break, and then after the break, I’ll have questions for both of you, Chris, and Ellie. We’ll be right back.

Doc Mok
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Jacky Homme
And we’re back Maximal Beings. I hope you didn’t miss us too much while you were concentrating of you know what’s around you and what you’re smelling and what you’re seeing, feeling, and tasting. We have Chris here and Ellie, right. Our guests are talking about mindfulness and meditation and just, you know, seeing how we can use our mind more than the average person right 10% I think that’s pretty low, and you know, if it is a muscle, right, we don’t skip leg day probably shouldn’t skip mind day either. So, I do have a couple questions for you both, and you may know what these questions already. So, the first question and I’ll start with you Ellie, what is your favorite exercise?

Elle Mok-Taylor
Hmm, that’s a great question Jacky P. I love a lot of exercise, which makes it so challenging. I love hiking, which I, unfortunately, have not gotten to do a whole lot of recently, although 60 degrees today so I’m hoping for that but overall, I think I’m really into strength training. So, I like lifting heavy weights and feeling strong and powerful. You know, I think being a woman too there’s a lot of stigma about lifting weights and being able to be thin and lean and you know, the cardio bunny as opposed to the strong, the strong feeling that I love so much so I think that’s part of why I really like it. That would be my favorite exercise Jacky P.

Jacky Homme
Alright, so okay, weightlifting What is your favorite weightlifting exercise? Just one if you had to do one for the rest of your life.

Elle Mok-Taylor
Wow, only one for the rest of my life. Um, wow. I think I really like leg day. So, I would say probably my favorite and least favorite leg day exercise are lunges. Lunges all day.

Jacky Homme
You know, I haven’t brought it up all this entire cast but I have to ask, especially since it’s the whole family. Do you have ridiculously large calf muscles as well?

Elle Mok-Taylor
I don’t! I didn’t get the gene. I’m so mad. You have no idea.

Jacky Homme
The second you said leg day. I was like, Oh, she’s definitely got the watermelons hanging under her kneecaps for sure. Now, it’s like it’s got to ride the family. Ah,

Elle Mok-Taylor
You want to get into the psychology of it. Maybe the reason my legs are my favorite is because I envy my dad and my brother who have killer calves.

Jacky Homme
I see. Interesting.

Doc Mok
Thanks, dad.

Jacky Homme
Okay, all right. Well, Chris, same question. You, what is your favorite exercise?

Chris Shrope
Yeah, sure. I would say anything that’s not I call exercise. So, like, hiking, I wouldn’t call exercise, I do for fun skiing. Same thing. You know, if I’m kayaking, mountain biking, even if I’m you know, road biking, you know, just having fun looking at nature being outside and enjoying it, and you know, killing calories while I’m doing it. So that’s my favorite.

Jacky Homme
Cardio, a little bit of the movement. Okay.

Chris Shrope
Yeah, yeah, I’m very kinesthetic, actually has to be more creative and put together complex problems and solve things that way as well.

Jacky Homme
I guess that that helps in your, in your software, line of work. Think of things right, just beyond the bike. Interesting. You know who’s like that as well. I hate to say it, but Dominic Toretto don’t if you’re Fast and Furious fans, but in those, when he says those 10 seconds or less, he’s free. Right and mindfulness, even in street racing. He’s being mindful. Cause he’s only thinking about the car.

Chris Shrope
Flow state. Flow state, man. That’s the thing. Meditation gets you right in flow state. Yeah.

Jacky Homme
All right. So next question. And Chris, we’re gonna start a few this time. What is the craziest diet you have been on or tried?

Chris Shrope
Yeah, yeah, sure. Actually, my, so my yoga and meditation teacher and good friend, he led me on this back in the fall and is an Ayurvedic cleanse. So it was roughly three weeks-ish and did a couple of days where we cooled down started eating basic foods and then kind of just eating khichuri which is a combination of spices and mung beans and rice, really easy for your body to break down also super good for you and then every day the craziest part about, every day, so you leaned in and then you’re eating just Khichuri for, or no eating basic just bean and rice and veggies before the Khichuri so just, bean, rice and veggies like I wasn’t even adding salt or pepper anything, probably should have been adding salt, I learned that afterwards, but um so while we’re doing this like the steamed rice and stuff we just drink ghee. So every day drink ghee and you add an extra teaspoon and like what’s happening is the ghee is going straight through like down your intestinal tract so that when you do your purge day, your colon just cleans right out and then you start eating Khichuri and then you pull it back on so it’s about three weeks and I had a pretty rough day where my you know all my levels really low because I wasn’t paying attention to my mineral levels so that’s my fault, but I that was the craziest one I’ve ever been on and it also incorporated yoga, pranayama breathing exercises and also some self-reflection as well.

Jacky Homme
Now, now I’m gonna pull the layman card, ghee, right if I could, I’m gonna try to, is that like, it’s like the butter right the clarified butter?

Chris Shrope
Yeah, yeah exactly.

Jacky Homme
I learned this from the whole. Yep, and so you had that, so basically, you’re greasing the engine up and lubricating the body for. Interesting

Chris Shrope
Well so what happens is your stomach actually naturally produces ghee, and so when you’re eating the steamed rice and veggies, yes, you’re lubing the body, but also you’re tricking the body to thinking that you’re consuming extra fats and so it actually burns. You know, burn what you have already helps, helps with that process, and lean out.

Jacky Homme
Doc Mok is that ketosis?

Doc Mok
It’s, it is very much like ketosis. I would also just say your body probably doesn’t make ghee exactly, but your body probably makes similar basic, essential fat fatty acids. Yeah.

Chris Shrope
Thanks for catching me on that.

Doc Mok
No, no, it’s all good.

Jacky Homme
Thanks Doc Mok.

Doc Mok
And an interesting thing that Chris and I talked a lot about while he was entering this, you know, kind of cleansing or detox was about the lactose composition of ghee, which we pulled a lot of articles and you know, the content of lactose is actually a lot of milk sugar is a lot lower in ghee. So, people that are lactose intolerance can better tolerate ghee as opposed to a lot of other lactose-containing foods. So just a side note.

Jacky Homme
All right, that’s a good side note. Okay, Ellie. What’s your craziest diet?

Elle Mok-Taylor
I will preface this by saying I do not recommend anyone tries the one that I’m about to tell you about, because it is not useful and not helpful. And I felt awful. But there was a time in my life that I got a juicer for Christmas, and I decided to try a juice cleanse. I don’t remember how long it was supposed to be, but I think I made it about 26 hours in. It was something crazy, obviously, everything was liquid. It was one of the ones that also included those Cayenne and I got my heart and my hands going, Chris is making fun of me. It was cayenne pepper drinks, where it’s like lemon and water and cayenne pepper. It was supposed to flush everything out, and then you would juice down a bunch of different vegetables that you’d have throughout the day. Remember, one was like, only celery and spinach and it tastes awful. I still can’t eat celery, because that’s all I think about. It was supposed to have a lot of detoxing effects and help you lose weight. And maybe it would have helped if I could stick to it, but I didn’t think it was worth the way it was feeling and I don’t understand why. It was the thing. Maybe Doc Mok could shed some more light on it, but I did try it for those 26 hours and it was miserable.

Jacky Homme
Doc, how many, how wrong is this diet?

Elle Mok-Taylor
Right? Right, it was on Pinterest. So, it was totally legitimate.

Jacky Homme
Oh lord.

Doc Mok
Yeah, I, I don’t know.

Elle Mok-Taylor
Where to start, right.

Doc Mok
Yeah, we didn’t talk about that one.

Elle Mok-Taylor
Yeah, that’s pretty bad.

Jacky Homme
That’s, that sounds just not fun. Yeah, you know, and we said about all the time, right? Like, a diet is like, whether a diet is successful, right? If you go back to your old habits, what was the point? Right? So, I mean, yeah, I actually do remember hearing about the whole Cayenne in syrup. Yeah, honey or something that sounds yeah. No,

Elle Mok-Taylor
I would say not only was it, I went back to my old habits, but I did, like worse because then I was like, well I want a cheeseburger now. Because I couldn’t even, I wasn’t supposed to eat solid food. So definitely did not recommend if you ever come across that.

Jacky Homme
Yeah

Doc Mok
I definitely think on The Office, Kelly did something like that. You only drink like Cayenne pepper, maple syrup for a week, or something? And then she passed out?

Jacky Homme
Yeah, so it was a good lesson there. Okay. All right. Question number three, and we’ll go back to you, Chris. What is your favorite health book? And why?

Chris Shrope

Yeah, that’s actually, I know, it’s hard to actually choose but one of the, it’s really simple. It’s easy. It’s easy read. It’s called the 3-Day Effect by Florence Williams. And it’s and what it really helped me come back to is the importance of having these moments of awe in your life, that then pay back dividends in terms of your ability to be happy, and engaging and living a fulfilling life, and if you go back to you know what we were talking about mindfulness, I just try and be mindful now more about how I can create more awe type of moments in my life. And that’s, you know, being a part of nature and seeing beautiful things, and because awe is a beautiful thing, and it helps train. It helps create these memories that can last us and pay back dividends for a lifetime. So simple book, easy, but helps reinforce something I think is very important.

Jacky Homme
Wonderful. And can you repeat that I was trying to write it down. But then I was listening to you as well as the name of the book.

Chris Shrope
The 3-Day Effect.

Jacky Homme
3-Day Effect. Okay.

Chris Shrope
Yeah, it’s by Florence Williams, I think it is, and she had a number of different cohorts, and they brought them out into nature and studied there, measured their levels, and are able to show drops and a number of different things all the way down to cholesterol.

Jacky Homme
Oh, wow. Interesting. I think that was a study, I got a study on that. About cholesterol, yup, and Ellie, what about yourself?

Elle Mok-Taylor

So the book that came to my mind, you know, I’m going to plug mental health a little bit, which connects to mindfulness and meditation, for sure, but I always recommend to anyone, but especially my teenagers. It’s called the Happiness Project it’s by Gretchen Rubin, she did kind of a yearlong study, if you want to call it that she’s not a scientist in any way, shape, or form, where she just tried to do things that cultivated happiness, mindful walking to work every day, and cleaning out her closet to kind of declutter and smiling at people when she walks by, and she kind of just talks about the shift in her mind and how she, you know, our whole society and culture just kind of hits the ground running, and we’re always thinking about the next thing like we’ve been talking about today and taking the time to say, am I really happy in what I’m doing? How can I cultivate happiness on a day-to-day basis, as opposed to looking forward to like, Oh, I can do X, Y, Z at this point that will bring me happiness. It’s like, no, you can do it, day to day, hour to hour, and things like that. So, love that book. It’s also kind of humorous and goofy and silly too. So, it’s not like a sorry, Doc Mok. It’s not like a boring medical snooze book. I found it engaging and I, I often fall asleep when I read, so it kept me awake.

Doc Mok
You know, it’s interesting you mentioned the concept of happiness today in the room while I was doing procedures. My team and I were talking about, I guess somebody had had terrible service at a restaurant, and they’re like, I’m never gonna forget about how terrible this server is, and I mean, I can remember having bad service at restaurants before but the server I remember the most his name was Randy, and it was in Pittsburgh. I went there on a guide trip, and this guy starts off by, I’m Randy, I’m in the business of dealing out smiles and the guy was just so upbeat, and I will never forget him for the rest of my life, and I think that you know, one of the mindfulness practices that we touched on a little bit is just your ability to shed that light and share that light with other people when you’re just saying thank you, just showing gratitude. You know? Really does add a lot to that person’s day, and it also adds a lot to your day. Just by saying that, try it. Trust me, it’s not corny, saying gratitude, it really does help, and the last point, I just wanted to bring up, I think, you know, we’ve talked a lot about how to start mindfulness, but it’s a continuous practice, and you can do it. At any point during your day, I do it all the time, if I’m in a stressful situation in the middle of a procedure, right, somebody is bleeding to death, you take a deep breath, and then you focus in and you’re right there in that moment, and you deliver better outcomes for that patient. So, it’s not just something where you have to sit in a room, you can do it at any point in time, to you Jacky P.

Jacky Homme
I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a stressful situation where there’s someone bleeding to death in front of me, and it’s my job to stop it, but if there’s any better commercial for, you should try mindfulness for your job is that last 45 seconds. So, I mean, I agree completely and fully, I think, mindfulness and you know, just being aware of what you’re thinking and how you’re thinking, right, but if you really listen to those thoughts that come up, and pay attention, you can really see where your mindset is about just your general being your life. So, even if you know, if you can’t sit and you can’t, you know, take a minute, just pay attention to what you’re thinking, right? Like if you’re dealing with a client, or if you’re at, you know, at the store, and someone is saying something, and you have a reaction, right, which we’re all naturally reaction, like, think about that reaction, how did you react right, and just be more aware, stop and smell the roses. If you’re street racing, you know, take in the street race, right? Those 10 seconds or less, you’re free. Don’t worry about your crew or the grocery store you’re running. Right? So, you know, Doc Mok. I mean, like I said, I’ve, thankfully I’ve never had to stop someone from bleeding to death, but I mean, mindfulness can definitely, in my opinion, right, in my humble Jacky P opinion can be a game-changer and, you know, before we close out, Chris or Ellie, any closing thoughts? Any, you know, tips or anything for the folks that are listening in?

Chris Shrope
Yeah, tons, tons to that we weren’t able to get all the stuff. I got so many notes here. Yeah, I mean, I would just say, you know, it is a struggle, you know, being happy is one thing, but even just being mindful, and, you know, the Shaolin Temple has said, there’s five hindrances, self-desire, ill will, dullness, heaviness with a life, restfulness and skeptical doubt, that will be a hindrances for us on our journey, and as long as we can identify those, and be able to, you know, be aware of them, accept those, and hopefully build beyond that, that’s something we all want to want to do because ultimately, it’s going to help us with our happiness, I would say that I could, if you guys need to, I’m here for you, and I’d be more than happy to chat more about it, but I’d say if you can focus on your set point in life, and what makes you happy, and what makes you the who you are, trying to live that as much as possible, and don’t bring in this cloud that of conditioning that life brings on upon us as soon as we go to go to kindergarten till today, so.

Elle Mok-Taylor
Yeah, I think another thing too, that I was just, I’ve been thinking a lot about is making yourself a priority, and whatever way it looks like, you know, certainly, mindfulness and meditation is really important, and I would hope, after listening to this that everybody is saying, I want to go try it, but like Doc Mok said, it does take time, but it is also really important to take that time for yourself. You can’t be there for your husband, your wife, your friends, your children, your coworkers, your clients. If you don’t take that time for yourself, it can be simple. It can be a few minutes every morning on your drive into work and your shower, you know before you go to bed at night and make yourself a priority because you’re worth it. And you deserve to be able to feel the effects of it in the long term. The long-term effects and how great it can be.

Doc Mok
That’s really well said, Yeah, I and for any of you that are interested in a guided meditation with the assistance of Chris Shrope, DM me on social media or shoot me an email at [email protected]. I’m gonna send it over to Jacky P to take us out.

Jacky Homme
Well, thanks, Doc Mok. Chris, Ellie, due to the heavy nepotism in this podcast I’m sure we will be seeing you again because I definitely would love to dive deeper into a second level and have maybe a part two of this, but I do thank you all for being here. Those who are listening, thank you for listening and also try to take a moment you know, take 30 seconds a minute, just open up those senses and just see what you receive, and as always, I’m Jacky P, your layman, here with Doc Mok, GI Superman, and we’ve been speaking with Chris and Ellie, and thanks for listening folks. We’ll see you next time.

Doc Mok
What’s going on Maximal Beings, Doc Mok here. If you haven’t done so already, leave us a comment and hit the subscribe button. Let your friends and family know, that way we can get the word out and continue to bash the broscience.