Landscapes For Learning

5 min. Today's word is:  Kindness Learning Practice features a 3-minute conversation about a single word.  Unrehearsed, without forethought of the word to be discussed, we practice the art of Learning Conversation.   If you want to practice with us by supplying a word and joining us:   contact us through our websites. Landscapes for Learning YogaHEALS

25 min.   Maureen and Pierre both had a bad night and are cranky.  Well actually sad.  It involves dogs.  Both need a little stress relief. Segue to Andrew Huberman’s podcast on meditation. What forms of meditation are there? Are they different? What parts of the brain do they effect? How do they work? Can they help me?  Check out the link to Huberman and listen to a discussion on meditation. Pierre references his meditation mentor:  Xerxes Whitney - Learning Conversation's first interviewee.  See links below. Demystifying meditation. Check it out as Maureen and Pierre share their experiences and try to create access into this not so easy subject.  Andrew Huberman:  How Meditation Words - Science-Based Effective Meditations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTBSGgbIvsY Xerxes Whitney:  TedX - Going To The Edge by Going Within  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm84qElMGOg Xerxes Whitney:  Learning Conversation Interview https://landscapesforlearning.libsyn.com/learning-from-xerxes-whitney    

11 min.  Small practices lead to BIG things! Maureen and Pierre start off with new words - preppy slang, millennial slang -  samezies, prezzies, rezzies.  Have you heard the word:  adorkable?  Yup:  adorable and dorky.  It's from the millennial generation.  What generation are you from?  Pierre and Maureen break it down and reveal. Conversation wanders into Chinese cup gardens, meditation practices, chakra levels, mini-practices, gifts from friends.   Worth noting:  practical entrees into deep practices.  Can 5 minutes make a difference?  Do you need to do yoga for 90 minutes, 1 hour?  How about 3 minutes?  Meditation, do you need to do it for 20 minutes, 10 minutes?  How about 30 seconds?   Do you have a daily spiritual practice?  How are you intentionally growing your empathy awareness, your kindness skills, your love muscle?  Oh, wait! SNAP!  That didn't come out right!  Well folks, that is why we are learning conversation - small L, small c.  ;-) 

5 min.  Maureen and Pierre practice conversation discussing the word:   black.    Learning Practice features a 3-minute conversation about a single word.  Unrehearsed, without forethought of the word to be discussed, we practice the art of Learning Conversation.   If you want to practice with us by supplying a word and joining us:   contact us through our websites. Landscapes for Learning YogaHEALS

5 min.   Maureen and Pierre discuss the nuanced word:  jaded. Learning Practice features a 3-minute conversation about a single word.  Unrehearsed, without forethought of the word to be discussed, we practice the art of Learning Conversation.   If you want to practice with us by supplying a word and joining us:   contact us through our websites. Landscapes for Learning YogaHEALS  

12 min.  Maureen and Pierre talk about talking.  Reflecting on prior podcasts, we’re learning conversation (small "L" small "C"). Inevitably we judge ourselves.  The ummms, the likes, the spacer words and sounds.  We’re working on that!  HA!  Learning Conversation. Another part of Maureen and Pierre’s reflection centers on the unique nature of conversation, its meandering, its casualness, its contemporaneous, serendipitous connections between people.  A beautiful art form, meant to be practiced. Maureen and Pierre also talk about how these pods (podcasts) are creating access to a growing library of thought and resources  in the marketplace of mind / body / spirit health.   And, lastly our 3-minute Learning Practice drills highlight how a single word can be interpreted in multiple ways  - a metaphor for how difficult understanding whole conversations filled with many words can be!   Enjoy this review of Learning Conversation.  

5 min.     Maureen chooses the word "listen."  Listen.  How do we train our mind / body to pause in a physiological state of self-regulation opening ourselves to listen to another human being, genuinely taking in and considering what a person says?  Join us in listening.  Listen to a Learning Practice on the word "listen." Learning Practice features a 3-minute conversation about a single word.  Unrehearsed, without forethought of the word to be discussed, we practice the art of Learning Conversation.   If you want to practice with us by supplying a word and joining us:   contact us through our websites. Landscapes for Learning YogaHEALS    

25 min.  Pierre and Maureen reflect on Thanksgiving and gratitude,  how it changes a person's brain and perspective allowing life to be savored. Maureen comments on the positive feelings created when a person experiences gratitude from someone else for their actions.  This according to Andrew Huberman.   Pierre comments on his weekly gratitude practice led by Xerxes Whitney, during Tuesday evening during guided meditation sessions.   This Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to reflect on gratefulness.  Whether times are difficult or terrific, remember we are here now.  We are able to experience life.  An ability to experience the present moment can be the root of gratefulness when we strip away wants, desires.   We get to be here, now, with ALL the catastrophe of life-- the good and bad, the competing narratives, the questions about what it all means. SAVOR Life!  You get to be here now! Enjoy our unique national holiday of Thanksgiving.    Show links:  Xerxes Whitney, TedX Talk - Going to the Edge by Going With

14 min.   Maureen reflects on Kathy Kain's book Nurturing Resilience.  Kathy Kain is a resource in learning about trauma and social interactions, which Maureen sees as important for helping clinicians, but not just clinicians - teachers, social workers, parents, people.   Understanding patterns of behavior rooted in trauma is enlightening.  Why can this person or that person not see their 'self-interest' and act upon it?  Why is this or that person 'reactive,' or to use another word 'triggered.' Understanding the why, where and how of embedded social interactions helps us with compassion. There is a spectrum of stress in our lives.  Not all of it is negative.  The more we know about it, the better able we are to respond to it in ourselves and relate to it others. Check out Mo solo.  :-)  

5 min.  Let's talk about death, orgasms, and comedy, shall we? Maureen and Pierre discuss the word:  Altruism.  Learning Practice features a 3-minute conversation about a single word.  Unrehearsed, without forethought of the word to be discussed, we practice the art of Learning Conversation.   If you want to practice with us by supplying a word and joining us:   contact us through our websites. Landscapes for Learning YogaHEALS

5 min.  Let's talk about death, orgasms, and comedy, shall we? Maureen and Pierre discuss the word:  Be & Bee.  (No, not the cordial / liquor!) Learning Practice features a 3-minute conversation about a single word.  Unrehearsed, without forethought of the word to be discussed, we practice the art of Learning Conversation.   If you want to practice with us by supplying a word and joining us:   contact us through our websites. Landscapes for Learning YogaHEALS

40 min.   Fasten your seat belts, Maureen and Pierre discuss food.  What is love of food?  How does food become a connection between two people, within a family, and more broadly create social fabric outside the home?  How is culture manifested through food - shout out to Claude Levi-Strauss, the French anthropologist. What are people’s relationships with food? Pierre’s Italian / French family elevated the dinner experience to ritual.  The Italian side of his family "Tucci" is, to put it mildly, food obsessed.  Perhaps you’ve seen Pierre’s cousin on CNN and in the movies?   Maureen relates Rajashree Choudhry’s take on food as a centering piece of Indian culture.  There are spiritual and sacred practices associated with food preparation and eating. Pierre brings in Claude Levi-Strauss’ book The Raw and the Cooked, and Maureen and Pierre dive into the historical traditions around food watered down with modern approaches -fast food, snacking, eating on the go.  All diminish ritual, diminish connection between pe

30 min.  Maureen and Pierre discuss forgiveness.   Forgiveness begins with Shakespeare.  Well, that is overstated.  This podcast on forgiveness begins with Shakespeare.  Not Portia’s speech from the Taming of the Shrew, where she says:  “the quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven.” The podcast starts with Pierre randomly finding a book on Henry V on a picnic table a few days ago and writing about that in his weekly newspaper column. So that is the Shakespeare connection.   On the topic of forgiveness, Maureen wants to discuss something Pierre said.  Pierre said:  if you believe that forgiveness is a virtue, perhaps you’ve overlooked the fact that you first judged? Maureen and Pierre go on to discuss meanings of the word “forgiveness.”    How do we live without judgement? What does it mean to judge? Are there different levels of judgement?  How does discernment fit in?  Where does forgiveness fit in?     Join this discussion on forgiveness.     Oh yeah, Portia’s speech g

12 min.   Maureen and Pierre bring forward Alan Watts as a classical mind body resource.  An icon of the 1960's, Alan Watts was an Episcopalian priest who is known for bringing Buddhism to the west.   The double entendre of the interview is:  Being in the Way.  So often we spend our time trying to be somebody - the athlete, the business success, the well-liked person.  Sometimes we forget to spend time being ourselves, or even finding out who we are.   Join us for a brief conversation considering Being in the Way, a conversation between Ram Dass and Alan Watts.  

17 mins. Learning about simple and personal applied strategies for grounded living after having spent decades looking for answers in the self-help aisles of bookstores.   The quickest way to meditate is by focusing on one of the five senses.  By focusing on the sense of touch, we elevate the body's signals of feelings over the mind's processing, and we ground to the present moment.  When we are in the present moment, worries of the future mist over, regrets and burdens of the past fade.  We can be grateful for the here and now.  The Landscape for Learning is in you - Workout Within with Maureen!  :-)  Maureen and Pierre are talking about resources and explore the premise of this podcast, which is illuminating resources to help others. Very quickly, they discover the word "irony."  Self-help is within, and they dive into the irony of self-help advice, books, resources.  Is that the right path to go down?  Pierre relates his hack: get out of your head and into your ass.  Tim Ferris’ advice per Maureen is:  get

6 min.  Maureen and Pierre unpack the word "unfairness" in this 3 minute drill that spills over at the end.  Snap:  Pierre gives the word and Maureen spins the table.  Wait. What?  You can do that?   So, Pierre gives the word and starts in talking.  Interesting conversation about "learning conversation" and how we understand words differently.  Both Maureen and Pierre view hypocrisy as a higher form of 'bad behavior' - but each comes at it a little differently.  Interesting spill over conversation in Learning Practice.  

35 min. Sadhguru baffles Joe Rogan (and the rest of us) with the REAL definition of soil, yoga, and the limits of our intellect to know who we are. Yoga is everything.  What? Yoga is everything? Explain. Both Maureen and Pierre comment on Joe Rogan's curiosity and difficulty in wrapping his (Joe's) mind around Sadhguru's explanations on life.  Although promoting healthy soil for the earth as a life mission, Sadhguru schools Joe on yoga. Maureen and Pierre dive into the deeper elements of yoga - a way of being not an exercise class.  

10 min. Pierre and Maureen take on a BIG subject in 5 minutes.  Well, no, actually 10 minutes. Check it out. Pierre relates the best explanation he's ever heard of why good triumphs over evil.  Maureen and Pierre rid on good and evil in Learning Conversation - volleying concepts and thoughts back and forth is a way of learning and exploring.  In this episode:  Chögyam Trungpa Rimpoche, Pema Chodron, Bikram Choudary.   The concept of Basic Goodness comes from Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chogyam Trungpa "If we are willing to take an unbiased look, we will find that, in spite of all of our problems and confusion, all our emotional and psychological ups and downs, there is something basically good about our existence as human beings. Unless we can find that ground of goodness in our lives, we cannot hope to improve the lives of others." (p.29-30) Shambhala: "In Tibet, as well as many other Asian countries, there are stories about a legendary kingdom that was a source of learning and culture for p

11 min.  Maureen and Pierre riff on play.  Yeah, that thing we did as kids.  Now we're reading about it as 'exercises' for healing stress.  Maureen and Pierre reflect on their own lives where sports played a big role in counter-balancing the stresses of growing up - fairly normal stuff.  Fast forward to therapeutic modalities and play, bodily movement, repetitive and intentional activities are recommended to relieve conditions of stress.   Exploring the somatic component of stress in a short podcast, recounting personal experience and Aha moments of seeing the natural healing that takes place when we listen to our bodies.   Also a brief discussion of how life has changed from our grandparents era where work was physical, to our parents era of professionals and cerebral work, to our current era of electronic connectivity which has us sitting on our a#$es all day.   Check it out.  It's brief.  It's personal.  It's to the point.  

11 min.  Maureen and Pierre discuss Peter Levine's Healing Trauma resource for understanding trauma as somatic experience. A resource not only for the traumatized, but for all of us who may learn to spot symptoms of trauma in others and be more compassionate.  Maureen is actually reading this book and recording her voice so patients without resources will have access to Peter's wisdom.  Dr. Levine is a pioneer in the field of trauma studies, recognizing that trauma comes in many forms and lodges in the body.  The mind reacts to the body's incorporation of the unresolved event.   Check out this brief podcast, where Maureen and Pierre explore resources - resource resources - in the field of somatic pathways to health.