024 - The Act of Becoming Rather Than Achieving: Part 2
After the valuable and intimate conversation that Robert Cumming and I shared in the last episode, we realized that our walk together was not finished. Today, he’s joining me for another episode to discuss the task of loving ourselves well, the difference between positive and negative shadows, and raising children that can balance both.
One thing that really struck Rob in our last conversation was this idea that Rob is still on a journey to loving himself. After recording part 1, that sentiment stuck with him, and questions and thoughts began to circulate about this topic.
Tune in to this episode to explore what it means to prioritize rest, learn about how we are approaching balance in fatherhood, and discover how you can begin showing your whole self to the world.
In This Episode
(1:09) How Rob and Luke view their roles as fathers
(10:23) The importance of teaching children to balance selflessness and caring for themselves
(13:48) The most difficult balance that parents face
(16:01) Negative shadows vs. Positive shadows
(21:04) Why rest and rejuvenation are necessary pieces of life
(25:19) How to understand what healthy rest looks like for you
(27:31) The importance of finding inner balance
(29:58) The realization that helped Rob shift his life
(33:06) Why parenting requires us to take care of ourselves first
(39:20) Key practices to help you find balance, love, and acceptance
(47:33) How Rob shows the wholeness of who he is
Notable Quotes
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“As I started to look more introspectively and use that mirror to stop looking out there and start looking in here in all circumstances, what really became very clear was I had to prioritize my own, what I’d call, healing and wholing… is that recognition of that which I need to heal within myself, that which brings me back to wholeness within myself. Those were the introspections, reflections, practices that I needed to prioritize because it did fundamentally show up differently. And the way that it showed up – I have this conversation so often now with clients – I can’t say that somebody from the outside looking in may or may not see a very obvious difference in the way I’m relating at times. But now, to me, it’s not something I’m doing. It’s just something I am. It’s being in that more centered place.”
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“It’s that whole idea of exclusion. We exclude so many things in our lives. And I like to think of it kind of like numbing. Like when we sit too long and our leg goes numb, what happens? You have no feeling. There’s no sensation, but love is sensation. How many things in our lives have hardened or gone numb that we’re just aren’t connected with? We’re not moving with it. So when we get up and we start moving again, what happens? Things start to flow. Things start to flow, and we get more connected and we start to have feeling again… What would actually happen if we went and started to move a bit? Cause I know for me, when my leg gets numb, it’s not a comfortable feeling to try and get it moving again. It’s actually quite uncomfortable. But doing it is important to allow me to do all the things I’m capable of doing.”
Our Guest
Robert Cumming is a leadership expert and martial artist that teaches others the art of connection, compassion, and discipline. After being bullied as a child/young adult and struggling to find healthy friendships, he found solace in the sport of taekwondo. Today, he teaches kids martial arts and coaches others on leadership and empathy in every environment.
Resources & Links
On This Walk
Robert Cumming
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Luke (00:01):
Welcome to On This Walk, a show about the winding journey of life in all its realness. I'm Luke Iorio. Please join me and my brilliant heart-centered guests each week, as we look to navigate this journey more consciously and authentically. Uncovering how to tap back into that sense of connection with self, with soul and with something bigger than ourselves. Now let's go on this walk.
Hey everyone, welcome once again to On This Walk. Well, today we're dropping into what was a completely impromptu follow up to our last episode, number 23 with Robert Cumming. Robert reached out to me with some great questions, reflections, and thoughts about how do we truly learn to love ourselves? What does that journey look like? So we decided to hop on a line and record our conversation and well, that's how all of this unfolded. I'm not gonna preface much more of this, but simply invite you into our time together and our walk with learning to love ourselves. If you're new to the show, please hit that subscribe button and drop us a review after you've had the chance to listen. And now let's go on this walk once more with Robert Cumming.
Rob, I'm just gonna, actually, I'm gonna kick it over just to you and ask you to share a little bit about what, you know, what had you breach out, what was kind of in your process and in your journaling that, that surfaced and the questions that it led to.
Robert (01:21):
Yeah. Awesome. Thank you Luke. I just want, good to be back and have another conversation on On This Walk. I appreciate it. What I did after our last talk that I said to you in the email, something did, like when you asked me that question, what are you becoming, it wasn't a thought, it was just kind of like something just came up and I answered the question. I'm becoming someone who loves themself. And I, that it struck me in the moment. I remember feeling some emotions, but afterwards that, that thought stuck with me of someone becoming someone who loves themself. And I thought, hmm, what is that? Why did that come up? Because it wasn't something I was thinking about, but it just sort of, it just sort of surfaced. So as I thought about it, I was thinking, am I someone who doesn't love themselves then?
Or where am I in that process? And I thought, actually, I believe I am someone who loves themselves, but the more time I spend with myself authentically and create that space for myself to be alone, that allows me to connect more with myself. And I think it's the connecting with myself that allows me to see that there's more to love, that there's more there than that surface, that surface piece. So that's sort of what started that journaling. And I was doing journaling. I was thinking about my kids and I was thinking about this idea of love. My kids, kids are funny. Um, maybe your kids have done the same thing, but who do you like the best? Who do you love the best? Right? They, the kids kind of that whole comparison piece. And I try to really steer my kids and myself personally away from comparison because they say it's the thief of joy.
So I'm saying, I don't actually, my response to them is always, I don't love one over the other. I love you in your own special way, but I can't love you anymore and I can't love you any less. And I, I let them know because if they falter in life that they're gonna, oh, my, my dad doesn't love me, or my parents don't love me. Or if they, they have to feel, they have to strive, strive, strive to be loved, you know, I don't want them to strive for me. I want them to strive for themselves so they can develop as people and become their best versions. And remember my mother always saying to me, you'll never know how much I love you until you have your own kids. And my mother who just turned 80 this past September, she says, always goes into that. I talked to her every single day and she says, you'll never know. You do know. And it's kind of that neat thing. So my question to you was in the email was what is it for your, your experience on the love you have for your kids and the love you have for yourself or others in general, and how are they the same or how are they different?
Luke (03:49):
Hmm. It's a series of, of rich questions and I appreciate your kind of, your initial reactions and, and insights and contemplations. I do have a couple questions to come back and, and, you know, ask you a little bit about how that's evolved. I think there's a lot of ways to answer this since you reached back out to me. I think one of the things that I recognize very clearly is even beyond how much I love my kids or how I love my kids, how I love myself, is this recognition that my children are such an extraordinary mirror for me. And that the moments that we are in just deep connection, I recognize that that is allowing certain parts of me to step forward that sometimes almost feel like they're drawn out of me and connecting with them from that type of place. And that, that's not always present in, in other circumstances. And at the same time, I recognize, you know, those moments you'd mentioned your mother. So I think one of the great joys of my mother's life at this point is that she said it differently. She said, one day you're going to have a child just like you.
She did not mean that as a blessing. And it truly, it's, it's that in both of my kids, you pick up on things that get mirrored back to you that are parts of you. And I don't mean that simply as, oh, they take after me or their mother or what have you. It's just simply an experience that reflects something back to you that you now begin to recognize this trait within yourself. And or at least hopefully you recognize it in yourself and that it, it is actually not your necessarily your kid showing up that way. And so anyway, I, I share all of this because I think my journey with my children has been one of learning to love in ever deeper ways. And so I'm not talking about the fact that when we first hold our children and when they are babies right at birth, there is just this extraordinary connection that I felt that I think most parents and, and hopefully all parents feel in those early days, but it's, love is so much beyond a feeling.
It is an ongoing process. It's an ongoing state of being, existing, acting. Like, it's, it's all of this evolving with each other. And I think that's the thing that for me has been an evolving process with my children, is they grow and as they go through different phases and they have different needs and they have different struggles and they have different joys, I'm constantly evolving with them as they go through that. And our way of connecting, our way of being in that loving place changes. And so for me, it's just been this ever expanding, ever reflective, ever mirroring type of process that I've been through with them. And very much, I do believe that has supported me in my own journey in, as you described, loving myself or being in deeper connection with myself. Let me talk about this from the challenging side of, of these experiences I've had to take a look at what were the pieces within me that were struggling for control over in my environment and wanting to, you know, that it's, it's supposed to look a certain way and here's, you know, meaning whether that's what home life should look like or family life should look like, or, you know, this is how I've, I've gotta make sure that I'm helping prepare my children for what they're gonna go out and do in the world.
Right. And 98% of that was all illusion, ego control, et cetera. And I needed to come to, you know, really sit with all of where that was stemming from when my children were younger and recognize that a lot of that was because of the things I was trying to cope with in terms of all the stresses and burdens and responsibilities that I felt like I was going through at the time. And I had to sit with that process because the massive, massive, you know, benefit in teaching was that my, my children were constantly there being able to just show me, like just by showing up, I would have to look back at myself and going, is this really the way that I want to interact with my children? Is this the type of home? Is this that type of environment? Is this the type of upbringing that I wanna offer them?
Or do I really truly want to create this container for them so that they can figure it out themselves? We can put some, you know, some guideposts in here to make sure that they stay safe and everything else, but I want them to know they feel loved. I want them to know they feel accepted. I want them to know that no matter what, they can go out and they can mess up and it's okay. It's like, it's part of growing up, it's part of figuring it out. And as I say that, I mean, I can feel it actually for a moment when I say that and creating that type of container for them, I didn't give that container to myself.
I didn't give that same level of acceptance and non-judgment. I was in a comparative mode. I was in the, how am I gonna get ahead? How am I gonna do these things and I can't mess up. If I mess up, that's gonna knock me down a couple pegs. That wasn't something my parents instilled with me. It was something just through my experiences that I ultimately took on and I needed to come to, like, I needed to come face-to-face with that and really work on it. And it's, you know, my children have just been this extraordinary both mirror as well as teachers to me in all of the most beautiful ways because I've needed to expand the way I love, not the fact that I felt this love for them, but I needed to expand the way that I love to support them even more in their growth. And by doing that, it opened up all the ways that I had not really truly extended that same way of loving or way of being in love with myself.
Robert (10:20):
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's a lot. First off, that, when you said that your mother, that idea of, I hope you get a kid just like you, I wonder if that's something all mothers say to their, to their children. Maybe their, their boys who are high energy. Because I, mine was, I hope that you get 10 just like you. That was what my mother said. And my joke is, I got, I got 10 all rolled into one with my son because he's, he is the spinning image of me. And you talk about that mirroring and that, that's something I, I've been looking a lot at. And I remember actually listening to one of your podcasts and I can't recall what was said, but it had something to do with family. And I literally, I was walking with my dog and I literally stopped the recording and I just thought, I just, it hit me in such a way, I was like, wow.
And it was something that we, we know, but I didn't know it. I felt it. I was like, my kids are actually a part of me. Like they're, they're from me. Like that. For me, it was just like, wow. And I know that consciously, I recognize that, but I felt it. And I was like, this is powerful to just be walking here and thinking this. And then I got thinking deeper and, and Debbie Ford wrote a book, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, I believe. And she talks about the, the shadow self. And I'm, I know my kids, my daughter, she's such a giver and she's so loving and caring and giving, she'll give you everything. And I've always said, that was me as a kid. I want to give everybody everything. And that was part of my whole belonging, you know, please like me, I'll give you this.
Right. That's my daughter, my son is more, thinks of, of what he wants first. And, um, it comes from a, a different perspective. And we had, and I was reading, as I was reading this book, we had a conversation because I love what you said about creating that environment and those barriers where the kids, kids can have the freedom to grow. Because I recognized myself as a, as a father, I was actually taking those barriers and, and narrowing them in, this is the way you need to be. And then I actually stepped back and I said, I'm trying to shape them in a way that I think is right. That was very different for me to go, whoa, you need to step back and provide some air for them to breathe. And what we actually had a very candid conversation with my, at the time, nine year old and seven year old, about the continuum of self and other, and I mentioned, Mila, you are, you're so much about other people in giving and Collette, you're looking out for yourself initially, you know, and you're looking out for what, what taking care of your needs.
I said, both are so valid and so important. And what would it be like to start to experience some of the other side a little more? And it was really interesting to have that conversation. And I love that I was able to step back and have that conversation as opposed to say, we have to be givers. We have to take care of our people, you know, other people first. Because that's how I felt about it. But then when I was on this walk and I was having this, oh my gosh, my kids are actually a part of me. And I went shadow and I had this realization, I'm wanting to fight my son. I'm taking care of myself first because that's something I don't do, but it's a part of me and a desire. So that was like, wow, there's my shadow.
Luke (13:49):
Before we dive into a conversation on our positive and negative shadows, I just wanted to speak to this really difficult balance that we have as parents. We wanna keep our kids safe to protect them, to help them as they grow. Yet we also want them to learn to be themselves, not just someone that we've molded in our own image. And we want them to know how to take care of themselves, make their own decisions, and figure things out for themselves. And well, that means giving them enough space to fail, to crash and burn, to try things out, only to have them go wrong. This is how we all learn, let alone how kids learn and grow. It's also how they build resilience, let alone experiences and get to know themselves in the process. And when we cut off this process to make things easier, to save them, to rescue them, even when we nobly don't want them to make the same mistakes that we once did.
We need to be very aware that we may just be jumping in to make ourselves feel better, to ease our pain, to give what we maybe didn't receive, but that your kids aren't even asking for. In these instances, our parenting becomes about us, not about our kids. Now listen, this may bring up a whole lot of discomfort, but we need as parents to find a way to create that container that our children can feel safe enough in to explore, to experiment, and yes, to fail, to even fall flat on their faces because then they will learn how to get up again. This isn't just the journey of growth, this is life. So as you have them in that container, give them love, give them encouragement, give them forgiveness, give them acceptance. Give them trust and respect. Be careful not to give them your conditioning, your hurts, nor give them ways of needlessly avoiding discomfort. And with that discomfort, why don't we go ahead and step back in and join Robert and I as we talk about our shadow work.
That's brilliantly described. There are positive shadows and negative shadows. Negative shadows is when, you know, there's a trait that we usually will be, you know, in argument with conflict, with repulsed by or otherwise, because it is representing something that's not unconscious. And what we may not realize is that's because it's something that we're not honoring within ourselves. You actually described something that's been very, very similar for me at different stages in my life. Put a little differently. Individuals that had a, that were more outspoken in the way that they put themselves first. At times, would be something that would really grade on me. Like, you know, come on, you've gotta think broader now you gotta think about the whole, you gotta to think about this, you gotta think about that. Right. Well, same thing, it's because I very, very, very rarely was putting myself and, and the needs that I had in equal balance with what I was giving to others.
And so it was something that when somebody would be that outspoken, it's like, oh, well they're arrogant or they're self-centered, or whatever. It's like, well, no, they're just exhibiting a trait that frankly you're jealous of. You just don't, you know, consciously maybe recognize it. Now the positive shadow are those that are the, the traits, the qualities, the experiences that are something that you consider to be aspirational, but you make separate from yourself. So if we go really grand and, and lofty somebody like a Mandela or a Gandhi or, uh, Martin Luther King Jr. who exhibits these, you know, these extraordinary traits of inner strength and conviction and everything else. Well, when do we make them other than, other than, then it's us saying, well, yeah, of course they can have it. I can't have that. Well, that's a different form of positive shadow. So positive attribute.
But again, we're keeping it repressed because we don't believe that it exists within us. Well, our children are such beautiful mirrors for that. Right. So, you know, how often is it the very thing that you're arguing with your child over is the exact trait that you've either got or you are struggling with to, to own it yourself. And it just comes out in such, you know, obvious ways. And for us, unfortunately, most of the times it comes out in, in like that stress or conflict, or argument, or frustration, or what have you. And we've gotta be able to return to that centered place to recognize, hold it, hold it, hold it. That has nothing to do with my son or my daughter. This is all about me at the moment. Let me get clear so that I can go back to holding this space, holding this container for them. Right.
Robert (18:33):
Well, Anthony De Mello, he wrote a book. Um, love is in the title, but he actually talks. But the question is, how am I that when someone, something like that, how am I that? And that was a very powerful question. So my son, if he does something I don't like, how am I that, you know, if someone does something, you know, aside, and I'm, I'm like, wow, that's amazing. Well how am I that? Why does it always have to be one or the other? Right. How, how am I that and recognizing those things in yourself to chew on and, and to help you in your own jour journey as you move forward. I think that's, that's something we can really think about. Cause I know from my, my son, my, both my kids, I've been teaching kids for 30, 30 years and people will say he's the most patient person you ever wanna meet in your life. Like, he's so patient. And I, and I, there's a completely different experience, me teaching someone else's kid versus me engaging in my own. Like, and that's what that comes back, that they're a part of me and it's maybe that I'm being hard on myself, therefore I'm being harder on my kids. And there's that element there, right?
Luke (19:35):
In that idea of how am I that, you described it to me with your own children of helping them to be able to balance traits. So if your daughter is more giving or other, you know, focused on, on giving to others or serving or whatnot, and your son is a little bit more of, wait, hold on, let me get my needs met and then do these things. Figuring out, being able to, how do they try both different sets of traits on is a wonderful way of creating balance. And that's, you know, not surprising with your background in martial arts is that balance would be very inherent with the way that you look at things. Because it really is, it's not about being one or the other. It's not about my way or your way or the right way or the wrong way.
It's that in any given context, there's any number of things that may be appropriate. And so how is it that we can become balanced with all of these traits and then be able to switch to whatever feels most resonant, congruent in alignment for us based on the circumstances we are in. And when we do that and we move into that state of balancing and moving through, well then we can bring balance to our shadow parts. And now all of a sudden all of it's kind of coming back into the hole. All of it's coming back into the light, the consciousness of who we are and we have access to more of the fullness that we actually are. So to be able to do that consciously, as you described, described with your children is wonderful. The piece I wanted to come back to that you sort of alluded to in terms of being hard on yourself, I'm curious that, like with all the conversation we're having here about our children, going back to part of your original question is around the reflection back on us, and one of the things you described was recognizing at one point, the container was getting narrower, narrower, narrower because of the view of things that you had of maybe this is the way that it should be or molding them in a certain way.
At what point did you reflect that back on yourself to recognize not just in your relationship with your children, but how is it the way that you were narrowing your own container in the way that you were showing up with love for yourself?
Robert (21:44):
I think for me, just based on my journey, is that the expectations from the outside are what create my, my barriers, right? What would create that and how I have to be. And, and at times I've felt that they, and it's even, even sometimes now, it can almost sometimes even be a day-to-day thing as I feel those expectations are, are really narrow. So it's, you have to do this, you have to do this versus that whole, hey, I get to do that or get to do this. So it's, it's that idea of the expectations from the outside world where that allows me to, if I can step back, I say, you know, if in doubt, zoom out, then it's okay, what's important to me? What's important to me? Where do I want to go? What do I feel like doing? I'll give you an example.
If, if I, if I take a day off and I kind of just relax and rest, if I've been really busy, normally a huge amount of guilt comes up, I'm like, you're lazy, you're this, you're that. It's, you know, what would your kids think kind of idea, right? Um, you know, we watch our kids and how much television they watch because, you know, that whole idea is you're wasting that time. What could you be doing with that time? It's good for entertainment for a little bit, but don't waste that time. So we just had this huge event with our community, I spearheaded this community initiative to bring people together since COVID. So we've started off and we've had a park party, we had a chili fest, we had a movie, movie night, and we had just had this trunker treats. We had 450 people from the community come together.
It was amazing. But it was a lot of work getting, getting let up with all my other work. So yesterday I was just spent, I was spent and I just didn't do much. I went and returned some of the equipment and stuff that I needed to, but I didn't do anything. And for me, I even mentioned my wife, you know what I said, I didn't do much today. I relaxed, I rejuvenated and I was okay with it. I was okay with just doing that and spending that time just alone. Just, you know, taking my time in and regenerating, taking that rest. So that for me was a step forward because I'm like, yeah, I can actually separate that time for myself to be with myself and to just get back to, you know, where I'm going to keep going. Keep moving forward. It's a pause. It's gonna stop. Right?
Luke (23:54):
Yeah. It's interesting because it's very similar. Again, I've had those struggles with the times of slowing down. Right? Very different today than it used to be. And sort of as you describe it, I'm very curious your reaction to this, very similar to how you describe it. Very often I would give myself permission to take that rest if I felt like I had earned it in a way of like expending a lot of energy, been through a big project and was like, okay, it's, I can take off. Because look at all that, right? And now what's been different is there are days where I will wake up and my body will let me know, my energy will let me know, like, Luke, you don't have it today. Like, for whatever reason. And I'm looking around like, I haven't, I don't think I've been that busy.
Like I, you know, what, what, what did I do? Can I really just take a, take a day off or minimize what I have on my schedule? And now it's like, no, actually I wanna honor that. My body's giving me a very, very clear sign that you need to, you need to work with me today. Because we don't have the resources we normally have. And regardless of what's led to it, it's like, all right, I'm gonna find a way to honor that. I'm gonna find a way. If I can't clear my whole schedule, I'm gonna take as much time as I can to, to rest, rejuvenate, to relax. And I'm just kind of curious for you, you know, even hearing that, what that brings up in relation to like, can you give you that, give yourself that space even if you haven't worked that hard right before it, or how, you know, what, what type of edge does that present?
Robert (25:35):
Yeah, I like that question because it's, it's this idea of what society tells us. Taking time off means what society tells us we need to do to recuperate. And often it's, I'm gonna binge Netflix, I'm gonna, you know, do this or I'm gonna have a bunch of drinks. I'm just gonna, you know, chill and do that. But what does our body actually need versus what do we want? And it's, you know, am I serving or pleasing myself? Okay. And that there's that whole concept and I'm gonna please myself. I sit down with a bowl of candy and sit in front of the, the TV and watch it, right? And catch up on a new thing. And not that I don't ever do that, but how am I actually serving myself? Am I going for my walk? Am I doing my exercises, my stretches, my meditation, my cold dips?
Am I doing those things that actually, at the end of the day, I have more energy, I have more energy because I even, even if it doesn't have to, it's not like going to the gym and, and ripping off a workout where I'm exhausted and that whole mentality of it gotta kill myself in the gym to be anything. No. What are you doing to move your body? How are you sleeping? How are you eating? Those are the types of things that I'm trying to get to a point where they're, they're consistent every day. But, you know, and doing that of giving my body gain what it, it needs to serve it versus just please it. Because I know my body, this whole idea of, of feeling versus behavior, right? Am I gonna, am I going to do what I feel like doing or am I gonna do the behavior that's actually gonna gimme the feeling that I'm actually after?
That's the thing. Like yesterday I took that time off. I'm gonna admit I did watch some shows and I did eat some candy, but it wasn't a copious amount. And it was, but it was just a little bit of a pause, you know, because you can't say that you can never have that stuff in life. But again, you gotta have parameters around, this is okay. That, that's it. Good. Fantastic. Today my wife texted me, she goes, how's your day going? I said, I'm back at her. Right? And it's, it's that idea, do you get stuck or do you keep moving? Do you pause and keep moving? So that's sort of where I'm at with that.
Luke (27:31):
You're simply going to have to keep hearing me say this over and over again. It's about balance. Most of our westernized societies are all about keeping busy, keeping going and onto the next thing. But you can't perpetually go without taking time to pause, to take space to even lounge around a bit. All things require balance. And so knowing what our usual modus operandi is, being on the go or being stuck or taking too much time without any action or being rigid with our expectations, or maybe even too loose with none of our drivers in place, whatever our habit, our conditioning may be, we want to think of what would bring this further into balance. Now balance does not mean that all things have to be in equal proportion. Balance is different to each of us. Some of us need a lot of rest, others need less.
Some of us need to eat really cleanly, a really clean diet. While some of us can get away with cheating a bit more. We have to find what our patterns and rhythms are the ones that are best for each of us individually. And then we've gotta put that into the flow of life. I think I've used this analogy before that I see balance not as this scale of justice where it all equals out, but the balance is much more like a surfer, riding a wave, being able to stay centered and balanced regardless of which way the wave rolls and breaks and settles. But ultimately we need to know our unique patterns and rhythms because that'll provide us more inner stability and that's what's gonna help us stay balanced as life shifts and roles and breaks in all these different directions according to its timing, not ours. So be sure to take time and consider what is balance to you, in fact, what is inner balance and how does that support outer balance in your daily life? What do your rhythms of energy meaning when you need rest or when are you active? The high energy times, the low energy times? What do those rhythms and patterns and cycles of energy look like for you? And how can you begin to work with them instead of pushing against them or pushing through them? Take time with these questions and let yourself connect to that balance in the most loving way possible.
So I'm curious with, with this journey, you know, that, that we're talking about and this journey with love and acceptance of self and how that's reflected in our, our love and acceptance of our children. I'm curious, you've kind of alluded to some of this, but how has that relationship, that love, that connection with yourself, how has that really evolved in even just the last couple of years? You know, as you, you reflect on the way that your relationship with your children continues to grow, all the things you've learned from them, all the stuff we're talking about in terms of the, the way that you've witnessed that, in the way which you're loving them and growing with them and everything else. I'm just kind of curious how your own connection and relationship has evolved as this has gone through, as this has gone on?
Robert (30:44):
Yeah, I think the, the idea of, of me doing what I've done since COVID and getting back to me, taking care of me and really like my son, putting myself first, the me time element, which I have resisted in him, but doing that has allowed me to show up in such a way for my kids. Not just in our, in our one-to-one interaction, but just in what I do and how I show them to sort of take care of yourself in your life and do things that matter. Like the community work that I do above and beyond my work is something that I'm one very proud of because it actually feeds me something very, very different. But it also, getting my kids involved in that and seeing them helping out and enjoying it and, and seeing that also translate into their relationships, their personal relationships with the kids that they have at school.
Like those kind of like my, my daughter today, she says I'm, I'm gonna take madam this bag of chips because she's her favorite. And she one day sat at the table and she wrote out she loves to draw and she drew up this beautiful cat and it was just written a nice note to her teacher just to say thank you. Like those types of things and showing the gratitude. I like to see those things in my kids and those are things that we have in common. That for me has been, because before COVID, my kids didn't see me much. Remember I, I said my kids, you like work more than us. And now they know that I'm here, like I'm gonna greet them off the bus today and I'm gonna be here. And everything has made that, that shift towards closer connection with us as a family. And that has extended out to gate a closer connection with our community. Right? So it's that, it's that connection base, it's that, it's that love. And, and there's a book called Love 2.0. Have you ever heard of that?
Luke (32:32):
I have. Was that Sharon Salzberg?
Robert (32:34):
The name? I forget the author, but I know, remember the name of the concept. But it's, again, it's that micro moments of love that we have with other people. So stopping with the dog and having that conversation, right. But then there's that other, that relationship we have with our family then would be, that's love 1.0, the relationship we have with ourselves. Love 0.0, recognizing those little elements of love that we have in our lives in the day to day are important pieces that I wanna recognize and take advantage of. But then by doing that I want my children to see that. And then also partake in those types of relationships.
Luke (33:07):
What I heard in the beginning part of, of your answer and then where you extended it, and I wanna make sure that I'm, I'm capturing the essence as well here accurately. Is that part of what shifted, and because you had highlighted this in, in the journey that you've been on through the pandemic and everything else, was that you recognized that you had to reprioritize connection to yourself. You had to reprioritize those practices so that you could do the clearing, you could do the centering, you could drop in and make that a priority so that you could show up more fully for your children, for your family, and for all that you do, well extend it out to, to the community.
Robert (33:49):
And just to add in there, if I don't do some of those things that take care of me, I show up very different. I'm a very different person showing up than, than if I am taking care of myself.
Luke (33:59):
Absolutely. It's one of the things that, so I, if I go back to all the stuff I was sharing before, I think it's one of the other things that shifted along my journey and my, my kids are a bit older than, than yours at this point, was that as I started to look more introspectively and use that mirror to stop looking out there and start looking in here in all circumstances, what really became very clear was that I had to prioritize my own, you know, what I'd call healing and wholing, which I kind of borrowed from Bill Plotkin's work, is that recognition of that which I need to heal within myself. That which brings me back to wholeness within myself. Those were the introspections, reflections, practices that I needed to prioritize because it did fundamentally show up differently. And the way that it showed up, and I think this is, I have this conversation so often now with clients, is that I can't say that like somebody from the outside looking in may or may not see a very obvious difference in the way that I'm, I'm relating at times.
But now to me, it's not something I'm doing, it's just something I am, it's being in that more centered place. I don't have to try to be patient. It just comes from a very, very different place at this point. And that's, we shift into that deeper state of being where it doesn't take a whole lot of effort. It doesn't take a whole lot of, of extra, you know, thought and mindfulness to be a certain way with your kids because you are taking that time within to really do the work on ourselves. And to me, I think it's, you know, it's the irony right? Is that this is one of the greatest gifts that we can give our children is by doing that for ourselves because it fundamentally shifts who we are. And it sets not only an example, but it's, it changes the energy of that dynamic regardless of even if we're doing largely the same things.
It's a very important part of this process. And I share it because for myself, I've heard it for you and I've heard this, I can't tell you how constantly I hear this among clients, friends, family, both men and women, of how we want to be there so much for our kids and all our work obligations and everything else. And we don't take that time, well I can't, I don't have any energy to get up earlier in the morning. I don't have time for this, I can't squeeze it in. And then all of a sudden it's, well, have you ever tried just, tomorrow, don't get up an hour early, get up 10 minutes earlier and then 10 days from now get up 10 minutes earlier and then another 10 days from get up 10. Right. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing.
We can move this gradually. That's one example. Another is, which I've set it on here, is I dare anybody to open up your phone and look at your usage statistics, look at how you are spending time on your phone. I guarantee you, you will find an hour that you can put back to your day. And so it's, it's like these little things and even these choices talking with another individual of all, you know, their kids are involved in everything and they love that because the kids are choosing it. It's not like they're, they're forcing him to do anything. The kids love all these activities and you know, talking with him about, well when you are running around and doing this and doing that, do you need to stand like through the whole practice, through the whole class? Do you need to watch a hundred percent of everything that's going on for the entire time or maybe like twice a week out of the 74 practices and classes that you attend with your children. Could you go sit in your car for like 15 minutes and meditate or 15 minutes in journal? Because when they come off and out of class, you're gonna be in a different place and that's gonna have a difference in your relationship. Not you just standing on the sidelines thinking about all the other stuff you gotta do. So it's just like these little things that we can start to build back because we've gotta prioritize these processes. That's what, it gives different energy, it gives different quality of energy to our kids when we can do that.
Robert (38:14):
I love that. And I love that you said 15 minutes because I have a client right now and we're having this very conversation about 15 minutes, actually 14 minutes and 24 seconds, which is 1% of your day, right? Can you, can you take 1% of your day to focus on your health? Right. And if we could actually do that 1% per day consistently has the compound effect and then that brings you back, you know, it just compounds and compounds and compounds and the return is immeasurable and what you can actually get. It's providing, it's consistent. And I think that's the, that's the key for me is if there's one thing I'm really working on is this whole identity of water and flow and consistency. So to kind of like Bruce Lee would say, be like water. Right? And that's what I'm working on is that idea of what I do, have it and be consistent. Right. Because that, that's, that's gonna help you to be and get to where you want to get. Right? Because water can get anywhere. That's the idea of 1%, that's all it is. 14 minutes and 24 seconds. Who doesn't have that? Right. Who doesn't have that? And yeah, it's an amazing result.
Luke (39:20):
I want to share just a couple of thoughts off of the top of my head to support anybody that tunes into this of some practices. And I don't mean just meditation, but some questions, some things that you can focus on that help this process of clearing for yourself. Because what I'm gonna share ultimately opens more space for you to love and accept yourself, which opens up that capacity to love it more fluidly, more openly with others. Whether that be your kids, your partners, spouses, or just beyond, just being loving to other people. And so, Rob, I just ask you to, you know, same type of thing. If there's, there's some other thoughts that you wanna add or questions, reflections here that you've given out or even done yourself, I invite you to add that on too. So one is, we already brought it up is spend a little time with this idea of negative shadow and positive shadow.
What are those qualities on the positive shadow side that you would aspire to or emulate or you, you know, people that you just hold in such high regard and at times make the, kind of the essence, the beauty of who they are, a bit separate from yourself, name what some of those qualities are, point them out to yourself and then you can work on how do I recognize, how do I begin to recognize that I've got some of that or that I can bring more of that into me for me to show up. Same thing then on the negative shadow. Those things that do really truly get under your skin, that frustrate you, that aggravate you to list out what they are. But then think about the energy behind it, right? So if somebody is really outspoken about their particular needs, well behind that is that this is somebody who is declaring this is what I need.
You don't have to agree with what their needs are. Look at the energy behind it and then look at, well what about that is something that maybe you've pushed away for yourself. Look at your relationship to that underlying energy because maybe that negative shadow is actually trying to point something out to you that you need to bring back in, in a healthy way, in a balanced way that serves your life. So that playing with positive negative shadow, that's, you know, one aspect of this. The other honestly, and I love the image of that narrowing container that Rob you offered before is for individuals to look at what are the things that you're either attached to? Meaning it needs to be this way or this is the right way to do things right? Those beliefs that it's gotta be this way. Those are attachments that we have and it's also, what am I trying to control out of the sake of, I think it should be this way or I'm trying to gain more certainty or what have you.
And the reason why I'm talking about how do we love and accept ourselves And I'm not talking about things that are nice and loving and accepting right now I'm talking about the opposite. Because very often these are the things, these are the wounds that we still need to bring healing to that bring love to. Because as we begin to melt those things, our capacity to love starts to open back up again. And in beginning to look at things this way, when we look at the positive shadow, the negative shadow, when we look at our attachments, when we look at the ways that we control and then start to better understand what other people might be going through and realizing kind of the image that I am projecting onto them is about me. It's not so much about them. All of a sudden empathy can also start to grow because we can recognize what's our stuff and then instead just start to see them for who they are without all our stuff projected onto them. Again, that opens up a tremendous amount of love. And the more that we begin to dance with that, we begin to recognize and see that love and acceptance within ourselves.
Robert (43:10):
Thank you for that. And, and as you're talking about the idea of ourselves, I guess I once wanna flip it and say, look at the other person. And often we have people who, who, you know, I think for agreements, you know, oh you're stupid. And people get up so upset about what other people say. Not realizing that it's actually about them. And whatever they're saying and the idea of often we take on what we don't need to take on, we have enough to take on in our own lives, but often we take things on that we are not ours to take on. Brene Brown even talks about this idea of get closer, look closer, and the closer we get to things, the closer we get to others, we actually see things from a different perspective. Closer, more intimately. And is that more of that empathy and that understanding actually helps us to be more accepting of things.
So that's why I like that. And you were talking about the idea of love and the opposite, not the fluffy kind of a thing, elements of emotions, but then maybe more the harder, harder side. And it's that whole idea of exclusion. We exclude so many things in our lives and I like to think of it kind of like numbing. Like when we sit too long and our leg goes numb, what happens? We have no feeling, there's no sensation, but love is sensation. But how many things in our lives have hardened or gone numb that we just aren't connected with? We're not moving with it. So when we get up and we start moving again, what happens? Things start to flow right? Things start to flow and we, we, we get more connected and we start to have that feeling again. So where in our lives are, have we had or experienced this hardening of things that we haven't connected with that we haven't have it had any movement for a while?
What would happen if we actually went and started to move a bit? Because I know for me, when my leg gets numbed, it's not, it's not a comfortable feeling to try and get it moving again. It's actually quite, quite uncomfortable. So, but doing it is important to be able to do that, to allow me to do all the things I'm capable of doing. So where is it that you're, that you have that in your life right now, that hardening that you're not looking is a shadow, you don't want to, you know, take that spotlight and look at things. What would it be like to actually go there and experiencing that? What would that do for you? So that would be something that I'd offer.
Luke (45:20):
The other idea then that you just also offered to me is because I, I like the, the analogy there of from numb to movement and obviously knowing your background and exercise, I think about how is it that we exercise this love muscle that we have and sort of think about, well what does it mean to exercise love? And so there are certain qualities like listening, deep listening, being deeply present with somebody, listening for the, the sake of really truly trying to understand a little bit more of who they are and what their experience of life may have been. Being able to begin to place yourself into not just their shoes, but place yourself in their eyes, place yourself in their heart to know what do they see and what do they feel about the experiences of life that they're going through. Patience to be able to be patient, to just be able to hold the space for somebody to share or somebody to go through whatever they're going through with no need to fix them, no need to solve something for them, but to simply be there with them. And so I, I think of this to even, not just listening, but even when you express yourself, how can you express yourself not to get your point across, but to share your experience, to share how you are experiencing whatever it is that you're going through in life. So I, I just use these as quick examples to think about and for each of, you know, you, you tuning in to answer what does it look like for me to exercise love?
And you may start to come up with some of those practices that are not meditation, they're not the types of journaling and the types of things that we're talking about. Those are all, I mean the bedrock of both, you know, both of our practices. But it can also be how can I practice this literally exercise this when I'm with others, when I'm in that type of connection. And then how I can even use some of that within my conversations with myself, the way I am with myself. So anyway, that, that also just kind of came up as you were giving the, kind of the analogy that you were giving to support people. Rob, I guess let me, you know, number one, thank you for raising the, the conversation I'd asked you about, you know, who you are becoming now? And it, it emerged, you know, this is part of this conversation today. Part of, you know, is partly emerged directly from, from your answer and from that, that conversation and I'm curious about that word becoming for you because we spent a whole episode talking about that in different ways as well. And yet there's something about becoming that I want to clarify, but I'm really curious for your view on this is that for me, becoming is not necessarily about change in the way we typically think about it. Meaning from, you know, something we are to something we have not yet been, I see becoming as more of a stripping away in uncovering a revealing in emerging of what's already within us. And that it's all of the other stuff that begins to fall away so that we can step into kind of who we've always been and always been meant to show to the world. And so that becoming is, I'd also call it wholing, right? That, that sense of, of showing the wholeness of who we are and becoming more and more whole and recognition of, of the wholeness of, of, of who we are. And so I'm just kinda curious how that also sits with you, especially in the light of the conversation that we just had and what you're getting back to.
Robert (48:58):
Yeah. As, as you're speaking, what's going on in me is this, I, it almost comes back to love this idea of that numbing element. We have the full capacity to love fully life, right? We just, the sensation of life and what's their kids just experienced life, they're just open. And somewhere along the way we get these filters on, you know, we get, we get covered up, we, the layers get covered on. And then as we become, we're adults, we're sort of like at those blinders with what we, what we can see, what we can do. I agree with you, it's the layers of coming off. I think we are fully who we are, but we kind of forget is that forgetting? But now this is more the remembering. Maybe the, the becoming is more the remembering of, of who we are, truly. So I got chills as I said that that's the idea of, of I think what becoming would be for me, remembering.
Luke (49:45):
Outstanding. Rob, I wanna thank you for reaching back out. I'm very, very happy that the, you know, the, the final question of one conversation led to a whole other conversation, A whole, whole other walk.
Robert (49:57):
Absolutely. Always a pleasure. I enjoy these walks.
Luke (49:59):
Outstanding. Rob, thank you.
Robert (50:02):
Thank you.
Luke (50:04):
Thank you for joining me for this episode of On This Walk. Before signing off, please subscribe to the show and don't miss a single episode. Also, please rate and review us. This helps me greatly in getting the word out about this show. And remember, this is just the start of our conversation. To keep it going, ask questions, add your own thoughts, join the ongoing conversation by just heading over to onthiswalk.com and click on Community in the upper right hand corner. It's free to join. Until we go on this walk again, I'm Luke Iorio. Be well.