Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Once you're in a state of stress, worry and anxiety, you attract more stress, worry and anxiety into your life and it becomes a feedback loop.
And so the challenge today becomes to stop, drop and reconnect. How can we stop in the moment? How can we drop into our hearts and drop into our breath and reconnect with this wellspring of safety that's inside of us?
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Hello, I'm Deborah Rossman and a warm welcome to our listeners.
Each month for the At Heart podcast, I have the privilege of interviewing people who are contributing to the creation of a more heart based world.
This month I'm talking to Michael Sandler.
Michael is an inspirational author, motivational speaker, speaker, transformational coach of nearly 30 years and he hosts the Inspire Nation show, which HeartMath's been featured on.
It's one of the world's most popular spiritual self help podcasts and YouTube channels and it focuses on self improvement and wellness.
Michael's written several books including Barefoot Running and the Power of the Mind.
He has a passion for holistic health practices and the importance of mindset and visualization in achieving our personal goals. Welcome Michael.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me here, Deborah.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Well, I invited Michael to talk to us about what we can do to inspire ourselves and inspire each other these days because many of us, many people are experiencing a lot of stress and anxiety, especially given all the political polarizations and economic disruptions and uncertainty about the future.
And Michael, your work has taught you a lot about the mind and body.
When stress becomes chronic and is left unchecked and people start to feel hopeless, what effects can it have on our mental and physical health?
And how do you help people turn this around?
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Well, from a mental well being point of view, you certainly have stress, worry, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, sleep disorders, every disorder under the sun because of the amount of, we're going to call it external inflammation that is being put on you at this time.
As far as what it does to our lives.
It once you start having any mental well being challenge, you tend to make poor decisions, you tend to make snappier decisions. And if we go down a woo woo rabbit hole or it is not even so woo woo these days like begets like once you're in a state of stress, worry of anxiety, you attract more stress, worry and anxiety into your life and it becomes a feedback loop.
And so the challenge today becomes I was teaching a class last night on it to stop, drop and reconnect.
How can we stop in the moment? How can we drop into our hearts and drop into our breath and reconnect with this wellspring of safety that's inside of us or this sanctuary that's inside of each one of us, then we can step forward into this world and, and step forward without being in that victimhood state that is so easy to be told right now. There's a bomb falling, heaven forbid you're a victim. There's an economy or a gasoline price bomb falling, you're a victim. We can get you by stopping and dropping and reconnecting out of that state of victimhood and into a state of greater peace and calm, if not self empowerment, no matter what's going on externally.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: You know, I love the words you said about the inner space that where you feel safe because most people look for safety outside themselves in relationships, in what's happening in society, in something in a health professional.
But the real safety is dropping in the heart, is finding that place inside. And of course, as a biohacker as you are, you're certainly familiar with heart mass research on heart rhythm, coherence and the feedback. And as people practice that, one of the things they tell us that I have been hearing more lately is it helps them feel more safe, more secure. And that's your own heart, it's your own self. But in your experience, how do you see the physical heart and the emotional heart playing an important role in helping people feel secure and reducing stress?
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Well, we can look from more of a scientific point of view, from the heart math point of view for instance, and we can say that our heart controls everything.
It's the drummer of the band. And when you get in sync with the drummer of the band, the music isn't so chaotic, it isn't so schizophrenic. It has a beat that you can relax into.
And so we need right now those anchor points, those waypoints, those things that we can hold onto and you can actually hold in in your heart. And getting greater resonance.
Now I tend to go quite woo with this stuff. Even though I've been on Team USA for triathlons, I've raced bikes in Europe and all this good stuff. I tend to go to an energetic side of things, which is to me, the heart is the doorway to the field. We can call that a field of love, we can call that an akashic field, we can call it the universe, God, source, whatever we want to label this, I joke and say the giant cheeseburger in the sky, vegan cheeseburger, call whatever you want. But when you drop into your heart, you're not just dropping into Yourself, you're dropping into a much more powerful field.
Once you're in that field, the mind which has been going crazy can finally go, I can relax.
I can take a deep breath.
Now you can do anything. Now you can reset. Now you are no longer alone. Whether that comes to healing, mental challenges, whether that comes to, oh my God, I got to figure this contract out. Oh, my God, I've got this problem with my daughter or my grandchild or my whatever.
Now you're in this space where you're not alone, you're not freaked out, and you can think more clearly. And lastly, because like attracts like.
When you're in this field of goodness, good or great things can come to you more easily or you can recognize them as such.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: You know, when you talk about this, what it prompts in me is people becoming who they really are, making the layers off me. And that's what it's all about, is unfolding and awakening to people. Talk about as your true potential, but it's who you really are.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Well, it's interesting, and it's a discussion I was having with my, my wife Jessica earlier today is these stages that people are going through of fear right now that we're all going through. We're going through fear, we're going through grief, we're going through loss. We're going through this whole cycle or arc of humanity as things are, oh my gosh, blown up or blown away. Systems are crumbling right now. So something to me can be built at a higher level as we're going through these systemic changes.
One of the things I was talking with about specifically is we go from fear, maybe we go to hope, and then we go to empowerment. And that's really what you're talking about.
Empowerment to me is we all. This is the story I put behind it, and everything is story. But the story I put behind it is that we are masters who chose to come here to chose to embody it. This time for one hell of a ride. And it ain't an easy ride. Now the world will tell you, give you collective amnesia. You're weak, you're not powerful, you're not strong. You can't make decisions. You don't have self agency, forget about who and what you've been told you are. Let me tell you what you are as we get back into our hearts.
As you say we remember. Wait a second.
I am more powerful than this. I am more capable than this. Heck, I was 10 years of age and I've had my licks and kicks this lifetime and I'M doing great. But at 10 years of age, I was riding down the road, racing down the road with the babysitter's cousin. Story for another day. She lost control of her bike, hit my bike. I went flying through the air, shattered my knee, my femur, I think broke a couple other things, tibia in there. And was told by the doctor. And I had six operations. I'd be lucky to walk by the time I'm 18. You've got arthritis, you've got this, let's show it to you on X ray, why you're never going to be able to run again and all this good stuff.
I went on to become a professional level athlete. For years. I trained at the Olympic Training center in two sports. I wrote a bestseller on running because I went and plugged in with myself and plugged in way beneath the surface where, forgive me, you can't tell me who and what I am. You can't tell me who and what I will be or how I can or cannot heal.
That's getting back into our power. That is stop, drop and reconnect what we're doing in our hearts.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: I love that, you know, that's. I like everybody listening to says pause and know you have that inside you. Whether you're stressed, afraid, anxious or excited because you think the world is going the way you want it to go, it doesn't matter. It's about who you are inside and that empowerment, taking that on, becoming your real self regardless of the externals.
And I think that's so important for people to hear. And of course they want to know, well, how can I do that? And heartmath and other systems, things you teach are all designed to help people reconnect with that in them. And I know you interview a lot of people, Michael.
Is that a common theme or is there an area of inquiry that is the most interesting to you these days in these crazy times?
[00:10:59] Speaker A: What's interesting, the common theme that I choose, which is how can I do the greatest good is right now about fear, worry and empowerment, which go hand in hand or almost in the backhand of one is the front hand of the other.
What I am most interested about is geeking out on anything and everything to do with us as energetic beings having a human existence.
To me, we are divine, immortal, energetic beingness, part of this whole field of everything squashed into a tiny little meat suit for 70, 80, 90, 100 if we're blessed 110 years. But we're in here going, help. I'm in a meat suit and What I want to know because, like, I'm a geek with cars, I'm a geek with bikes, I'm a geek with all this stuff. How do I make the system work better? How do I make it run better? And run could literally mean run, but the system running better could also mean finding greater peace, greater longevity, greater happiness, quality of living, all of these things. And so I want to geek out with everyone on how can we have a better ride during the time we're here?
And based on this milieu, this current zeitgeist or collective consciousness, how can I do it with greater peace and calm and, dare I say, grace during this time?
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, people are experiencing challenges and it's how you approach them. And I. You just talked about that story when you were 10 years old. But Howard Martin, who's also my husband, he's an avid cyclist like you, and he told me that you had said that you were hit by a car not long ago and sustain a significant head injury, a very stressful event again in your life.
How has that affected you now? How is it? How did that experience change your perceptions about yourself, others own life? How did you turn that into an empowerment experience?
[00:13:08] Speaker A: I can't believe I'm going to say this, but greatest experience in the world.
It knocked me out of my head and knocked me into my heart at a whole new level.
When you have a brain injury or whatever you want to label it, and my doc said you're not allowed to really talk about this, I'm skirting the line here because it doesn't want me to give it energy.
When you cannot think clearly, problem solve, clearly remember things clearly, you have to rely on something else.
And you have to remember that first and foremost, bring it full circle. We are energetic beings having an energetic experience.
Rely on the energy, rely on the resonance, rely on this deep well string within you, and all of a sudden things get better in ways you can't even begin to understand. I'm watching. I have a giant, beautiful school of mystics.
And seeing how many new people are coming in and how long they're wanting to stay during this time period is wondrous. Jessica goes, why is that happening?
My energy shifted. I'm holding better space.
Yes, for a while. If you told me something was like squirrel, I couldn't remember what you were telling me about, but my energy shifted. Now, since like begets like the brain is coming back online in many ways the same and many ways different and more profound key point. This is my personal belief, but I believe it very strongly if you choose, if you choose it.
Everything in your life and everything in your existence can happen for a reason.
We get to choose to look for that reason. But when we do, it is there.
And just as we are all going through this magnificent, horrific time period of great change, it can be here to serve us if we choose to see it that way. And it is that choice in me that is helping me. Sort of like we've got a rebounder in the other room for my three and a half year old daughter to bounce down and go up. We bounce down and go up even higher.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: I love your approach and attitude.
And you talked about when you didn't have that brain skills or that we all take for granted, you dropped into your heart and you were able to, to recover. And look, you've got plenty of mental capacity now. What methods, practices, what was the most helpful to you in your recovery from that?
[00:16:05] Speaker A: Letting go of resistance.
The number one thing, if you look at what's going on in the world today, all of our health challenges, conditions, everything, we're tearing ourselves apart by holding on so dearly, holding on so tightly.
And what happens by not allowing the energy to flow? We rip ourselves apart.
Okay, I'm not functioning the way I was. Not even close.
It's gonna be okay. All right. I'm not able to do X, Y or Z. You're gonna be fine now. Yes. This has a lot of self talk, this has a lot of dropping in, a lot of going into the quiet space, a lot of doing practices like heart math, meditations, anything to do with vagal nerve stimulation, anything to do with eft tapping or I teach attunements and all sorts of different meditations. Doing all of this calming goodness to get my system out of freak out.
Then also movement. To me, movement is life. Life is movement. It's why I'm swimming in these waters. You see, as soon as we're done here and the cooler the water is, the better for the brain.
But it is being as. There's an expression of mine that I've had since I've had two near death experiences. This wasn't one of them. And they're not glorified things. If you had a near death experience, it means something went really, really wrong.
But what I learned is this expression. Kind, gentle, easy, good.
Kind, gentle, easy, good. Not only may I have all of my lessons, I asked the universe in the kindest, gentlest way, but may I go through this time period in the kindest, easiest way possible, or looking at the waters Here to go fast. When you're swimming, you want to go slow, relax into the water. You become more slippery like a fish when you're healing. You don't push, you don't fight, you don't strive, but you relax into those waters. It doesn't mean that you don't do whatever you can, but you relax into those waters and it becomes so much easier to heal as well.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: I love that people going to a state of ease is so important for the realignment of the system.
Like you say, it's releasing resistance, but I know that in my practices, in a heartmath, we just talk about that breathing ease and releasing it not only feels good, it's what the body needs to heal mentally, emotionally and physically.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Amen.
You know, hold on one second here.
I have a kitty cat that I love who's over 20 years of age, and he's joining me and he's trying to shred the wood to get outside. So I'm going to put him in my lap as we continue and he's going to bring me into heart coherence.
[00:19:01] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:19:05] Speaker A: There we go.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: He's 20 years old.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: Over 20. He's our senior statesman. We rescued him or he rescued us in maui at between five and seven years of age. And that was over 15 years ago.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: My goodness.
Very often it's our pets who allow us to feel that ease and because of their unconditional love. So I think, I mean, I've often said if the world would be a horrible place if we didn't have dogs
[00:19:35] Speaker A: and cats, oh my God, you're right.
[00:19:39] Speaker B: Really would so a lot of appreciation for what they give to us.
You are known, Michael, for uplifting others like you have today. And I hope your sharings have uplifted some of our audience and for being a very positive person given what's going on in the world. How do you see humanity in our world shifting in the short term and the long term?
[00:20:05] Speaker A: I believe the best way to describe it is I believe we are not falling apart, we are falling together.
And, and there's this term, and I heard it out of Michigan, but it's also been used in many ways with ohana in Hawaii and Maui. It is neighboring.
Neighboring means to take care of your neighbor, to watch after your neighbor. So we can look at the world right now as all sorts of whatever we want to label it. And it is all of that. It's all story. So it. And, and, and I would not make light of people losing their lives, losing their jobs, losing their Everything. We'll never make light.
But what's happening is we're congealing, we're coming together, we're in coming into greater coherence as I see us as cells in this human beingness.
And you cannot convince me otherwise. Are there ways we could have done it that were kinder and gentler? I believe absolutely. Did we choose a harder path? Maybe so.
Sure looks that way.
And yet something special is happening as we're doing this. And this will air in a few weeks. There's a lot of trauma and drama going on in the Middle East. I'm convinced. At any other time period in the history of histories, this would have been an end game. This would have been your world war Blobbity, blobbity.
I don't believe that's the case. And I have watched so many countries pull back and not snap to action because they recognize we are all one, we are all interconnected, we are all family and interwoven. It is a new time period. You couldn't have talked about heart math or heart coherence 10, 20, 30 years ago, least without people going, huh?
Now you can talk about it. Yoga you couldn't have talked about a while ago. Every single movie now says, well, the universe told me all of this stuff now. So I see us all falling together at a higher level. I do believe my crystal ball, I've said is broken up till this point, ever since COVID but I think it's starting to work a little better lately. I do believe this is a challenging time period.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, people are waking up and I think all the stress and anxiety. A lot of us, when we get to that extreme, we go to the heart because there's nowhere else to go.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: Mile 20 of a marathon. You ever heard of mile 20?
[00:22:36] Speaker B: No.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: It's when everybody becomes religious. God help me.
We have hit as humanity our mile 20, where we cannot go it alone, we cannot rely on ourselves.
And we have to dig deep and reach to a resource that goes beyond our thinking mind.
Just not possible any other way.
That's where we are beautifully, horrifically, amazingly at.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: I love it. And that's how I learned to all get along with each other.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: Absolutely. And it's coming. I know it's coming.
[00:23:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
I hope other people here listening to this, feel that little spark of inspiration and hope and knowingness too. Because one of the things we've been researching is how do people and systems go from chaos to coherence?
And that's the natural order. It's an upward Spiral we have to have periods of disruption to reorganize at a higher level. And the heart is so key to that.
So I'm going to suggest we all do a heart meditation together right now.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: And can I give a quick visualization to go along with this, please? If you think of the Milky Way galaxy, this beautiful structure all around us of which we are a part, there is a center of that Milky Way galaxy of which everything spins around, everything gets in coherence. There's a time, a term in science and physics called entropy, meaning we are coming to higher states of order, higher states of structure and organization.
What if the center of the galaxy is the center of your heart?
[00:24:23] Speaker B: Beautiful.
Well, let's focus on that. Get our heart, brain, body coherent together and with the heart as the focus.
And that is the key for stress recovery, mental health and better physical health because it's all aligned.
So let's focus the attention in the area of the heart and just imagine your breath is flowing in and out of your heart or chest area. Breathe a little slower and deeper than usual, but through the area of the heart, find an easy rhythm that's comfortable.
As you're doing this, just tell yourself to breathe ease.
And as you continue this heart focused breathing, recall or activate a genuine feeling of appreciation or care or kindness.
All of these are heart qualities to help bring our heart and brain into coherence.
Activate that for someone or something in your life.
It could be your pet that helps warm your heart, which brings your heart rhythms into more inner balance and harmony and synchronizes your heart and brain.
Now let's radiate that appreciation, care, kindness or ease those heart feelings to every cell of your body.
And out into the field. As Michael said, the heart produces an electromagnetic field. You can radiate that heart energy and help it anchor those coherent heart rhythms.
Now, since we are all interconnected, I always like to include this in the heart meditations. And let's radiate our heartfelt compassionate care to all neighbors and people who are suffering from stress and anxiety, overwhelm fear.
Because the heart energy can help lift the field and make it maybe a little easier for someone.
So let's radiate that heart coherent energy in form of compassionate care.
It.
Now let's close this heart meditation by co creating together a reservoir of compassion and heart energy that each of us can tap into whenever we feel stressed or overwhelmed or need a lift in spirit or support. And reconnecting with our own deeper heart, we can really create that reservoir.
And over the next month especially tap into it.
Thank you so much for sharing that heart meditation with me and co creating that heart energetic reservoir.
Michael, is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners?
[00:30:01] Speaker A: The more you remember who you are, you are the stars, you are the galaxies, you are the universe.
The more that you remember that by coming into the stillness and by coming into the heart, the more you will not just get through this time, that's not good enough.
But the more you will shine bright, the more you will find peace and happiness and the more you will attract to you, even in the most challenging situations, pure goodness and greatness.
Because you are love.
You come from love. And you couldn't be anything other than pure love, no matter what.
That would be the most important thing. If you want something else, we're going to put a link or you can put a link down and we'll give people a five day calm and connect meditation to help you plug back into that love.
[00:31:05] Speaker B: Thank you so much.
And I also want to offer to all our listeners a free gift of the HeartMath experience.
It's an online video course available on HeartMath websites that teaches you five heart math techniques for getting back in touch with your heart, for dealing with stress, for connecting with your intuition and just getting heart brain body coherent.
And you can Download the new HeartMath app which can help you measure your heart coherence at the App Store, Google Play stores.
So there's a lot of resources available.
Please do take advantage of them.
And I want to remind you that on the third Tuesday of every month we publish a new adheart podcast episode.
So be sure to subscribe so you don't miss our next guest and topic.
Thank you so much Michael.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: Thank you so much Deborah. Lots of love, lots of love.
Thank you for listening to the Add Heart podcast. Be sure to subscribe so you can catch the latest episodes. If you're wanting even more heart inspired content, find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. Look for HeartMath and also the HeartMath Institute. Both organizations are committed to helping activate the heart of humanity.
