Podcast appearances and mentions of yael shy

In this episode, Isabel talks about working with self-doubt in real time as she navigates big-picture planning and goal setting. Huge shoutout to Yael Shy at Mindfulness Consulting for teaching me these incredible tools. Subscribe to my newsletter: https://isabelmata.substack.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/isabelcalkinsmata Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilcalkins

Guest Episode #8 y'all!  Yael Shy is the CEO of Mindfulness Consulting, LLC, where she teaches and consults on mindfulness for universities, corporations, and private clients around the world. She is the author of the award-winning book, What Now? Meditation for Your Twenties and Beyond (Parallax, 2017), and the founder of Mindful NYU, the largest campus-based mindfulness initiative in the US. She is adjunct faculty at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, Or HaLev, as well as at New York University. She has been featured on Good Morning America, CBS, Fox 5 News, and in Time Magazine and the Harvard Business Review.Find Yael Everywhere:  Website | Instagram | FacebookOrder her award-winning book: AmazonWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@therelationalparentingpodcast/videosEmail us your parenting questions and stories!: jennie@jenniebee.co.Help us do what we do with a small monthly contribution: https://www.patreon.com/TheRelationalParentCoach/membershipJoin the WAITLIST for The Relational Parenting Village! - A New Monthly Membership Program where parents gather for community, growth, accountability and support.  PLUS ongoing monthly live events, classes and education resources to keep you motivated and growing on your parenting journey.  Let's do this!!Find me or book a free consult:Website: https://www.jenniebee.co/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therelationalparentingpodcast/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.hayes.507TikTok: @therelationalparentcoach.Sign up for the weekly newsletter here for a weekly parenting tip!Please leave us a review!  Your feedback helps others find us, and helps us grow so we can keep creating content for parents to benefit from.Creators & Guests Natalie Long - Editor Rick Hayes - Host Jennifer Hayes - Host Yael Shy - Guest Thanks to our monthly supporters Rick Hayes Happy Parenting and Good Luck Out There!

Join Joyce & Yael Shy, CEO and Founder of Mindfulness Consulting, for a casual conversation perfect for a walk. Don't miss out on this insightful conversation all about meditation, the different meditation postures, and the benefits of walking meditation. Learn how meditation can help you reframe your thoughts and ease you into a different way of experiencing your senses.About YaelYael Shy is the Founder and CEO of Mindfulness Consulting, LLC, where she supports individuals and collectives uncover their inherent worth and capacity for deep joy. She is the author of the award-winning book, What Now? Meditation for Your Twenties and Beyond (Parallax, 2017), and the founder of Mindful NYU, the largest campus-based mindfulness initiative in the country. Yael is an Adjunct Faculty Member at the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. She has been featured on Good Morning America, Fox 5 News, and CBS and in Time Magazine and the Harvard Business Review.Connect with YaelWebsite: https://www.mindfulnessconsulting.net/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yael.shy.3Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yaelshy1/Twitter: https://twitter.com/YaelShy1Flourish 12-Week Mindfulness Certification

Dr. Hala Alyan is a licensed clinical psychologist in New York City specializing in the assessment and treatment of trauma, substance abuse, anxiety, mood and relationship concerns, and cross-cultural issues. Currently, she works as a part-time psychologist at the New York University Student Health Center's Counseling and Wellness Services, where she is based within the Islamic Center. In addition, Dr. Alyan is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at New York University, and teaches graduate-level courses on cross-cultural counseling and individual counseling practices.Dr. Alyan is also the author of the novel “Salt Houses,” winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize. Her latest novel, “The Arsonists' City,” was published in March 2021 and was a finalist for the 2022 Aspen Words Literary Prize. She is also the author of four award-winning collections of poetry, most recently “The Twenty-Ninth Year.” Her work has been published by The NewYorker, The Academy of American Poets, LitHub, The New York Times Book Review and Guernica. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter, where she works as a clinical psychologist.Yael Shy is the Founder and CEO of Mindfulness Consulting, LLC, where she teaches and consults on mindfulness for universities, corporations, and private clients around the world. She is the author of the award-winning book, What Now? Meditation for Your Twenties and Beyond (Parallax, 2017), and the founder of Mindful NYU, the largest campus-based mindfulness initiative in the US. Yael is an Adjunct Faculty Member at the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University. She has been featured on Good Morning America, CBS, Fox 5 News, and in Time Magazine and the Harvard Business Review.

In this weeks episode I am joined by mindfulness & meditation expert Yael Shy, CEO of Mindfulness Consulting and Founder of Mindful NYU to talk about how she went from having three panic attacks a week and being filled with nonstop anxiety and PTSD, to living mindfully. I also share the importance of meditation and mindfulness in my life. This episode is especially important given the recent Supreme Court decision and the amount of difficult emotions we are all experiencing. Show Notes: https://www.isabelcalkins.com/podcast/episode-5-mindfulness Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/isabelcalkinsmata Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilcalkins Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/isabelcalkinsmata/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabelcalkins/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK_FT9Q7jCFBLQSplw66a4A/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/isabel-mata8/support

Difficult emotions come up for everyone, and oftentimes we find ourselves trying to avoid, hide or shut them down. Join mindfulness expert Yael Shy and Imam Khalid Latif for a conversation on how we can work with these emotions so that we can cope and thrive.

Hear about Rav Ariel's Journey to Jewish Mindfulness as Yael Shy interviews them. For more information about Rav Ariel - take our free trial www.ravariel.com

In this episode we feature Yael Shy. Hear about her journey to becoming a practitioner and teacher of Jewish mindfulness. Want to learn with Yael? Check out https://www.mindfulnessconsulting.net/ For more information about Rav Ariel or to take our free trial go to www.ravariel.com

Loneliness: Everyone feels it, nobody talks about it. Loneliness can feel overwhelming in a world of social distancing and quarantining, but loneliness can also be a gift, pointing us in the direction of what we need and long for. How do we understand loneliness and get to its roots? How can we find practices to connect to ourselves and others when we feel so cut off? The conversation between Imam Khalid and Yael will explore this topic as well as provide participants some concrete meditation practices to understand and work with loneliness in Covid times and beyond.

Early adulthood is filled with intense emotions and insecurity. What if you never fall in love? What if you can't find work you’re passionate about? You miss home. You miss close friends. You’re lost in the noise of how you think you should be living and worried about wasting what everyone says should be the best years of your life. In her book "What Now? Meditation for Your Twenties and Beyond (Parallax Press, 2017), Yael Shy shares mindfulness practices to help twentysomethings learn to identify and accept these feelings and respond—not react—to painful and powerful stimuli without pushing them away or getting lost in them. This is not about fixing oneself or being "better." Readers are encouraged to embrace themselves exactly as they are. You are already completely whole, completely loveable, completely worthy. What Now?  shares practices that help us to wake up to this fact. This uniquely tumultuous developmental period is a time when many first live away from home and engage in all kinds of experimentation—with ideas, substances, relationships, and who we think we are and want to be in the world. Yael Shy shares her own story and offers basic meditation guides to beginning a practice. She explores the Buddhist framework for what causes suffering and explores ideas about interconnection and social justice as natural outgrowths of meditation practice. Yael is the Senior Director of the NYU Global Spiritual Life Center and the NYU 'Of Many' Institute for Multifaith and Spiritual Leadership, as well as the Founder and Director of MindfulNYU, the largest campus-wide mindfulness initiative in the country. She teaches regularly at MNDFL in NYC and is a sought after speaker, teacher, and writer on meditation, higher education and mindfulness. Kristie Adloff, Psy.D., is a licensed psychologist and mindfulness teacher with an office in Brookline MA. You can visit her website at www.drkristieadloff.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Early adulthood is filled with intense emotions and insecurity. What if you never fall in love? What if you can't find work you’re passionate about? You miss home. You miss close friends. You’re lost in the noise of how you think you should be living and worried about wasting what everyone says should be the best years of your life. In her book "What Now? Meditation for Your Twenties and Beyond (Parallax Press, 2017), Yael Shy shares mindfulness practices to help twentysomethings learn to identify and accept these feelings and respond—not react—to painful and powerful stimuli without pushing them away or getting lost in them. This is not about fixing oneself or being "better." Readers are encouraged to embrace themselves exactly as they are. You are already completely whole, completely loveable, completely worthy. What Now?  shares practices that help us to wake up to this fact. This uniquely tumultuous developmental period is a time when many first live away from home and engage in all kinds of experimentation—with ideas, substances, relationships, and who we think we are and want to be in the world. Yael Shy shares her own story and offers basic meditation guides to beginning a practice. She explores the Buddhist framework for what causes suffering and explores ideas about interconnection and social justice as natural outgrowths of meditation practice. Yael is the Senior Director of the NYU Global Spiritual Life Center and the NYU 'Of Many' Institute for Multifaith and Spiritual Leadership, as well as the Founder and Director of MindfulNYU, the largest campus-wide mindfulness initiative in the country. She teaches regularly at MNDFL in NYC and is a sought after speaker, teacher, and writer on meditation, higher education and mindfulness. Kristie Adloff, Psy.D., is a licensed psychologist and mindfulness teacher with an office in Brookline MA. You can visit her website at www.drkristieadloff.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Early adulthood is filled with intense emotions and insecurity. What if you never fall in love? What if you can't find work you’re passionate about? You miss home. You miss close friends. You’re lost in the noise of how you think you should be living and worried about wasting what everyone says should be the best years of your life. In her book "What Now? Meditation for Your Twenties and Beyond (Parallax Press, 2017), Yael Shy shares mindfulness practices to help twentysomethings learn to identify and accept these feelings and respond—not react—to painful and powerful stimuli without pushing them away or getting lost in them. This is not about fixing oneself or being "better." Readers are encouraged to embrace themselves exactly as they are. You are already completely whole, completely loveable, completely worthy. What Now?  shares practices that help us to wake up to this fact. This uniquely tumultuous developmental period is a time when many first live away from home and engage in all kinds of experimentation—with ideas, substances, relationships, and who we think we are and want to be in the world. Yael Shy shares her own story and offers basic meditation guides to beginning a practice. She explores the Buddhist framework for what causes suffering and explores ideas about interconnection and social justice as natural outgrowths of meditation practice. Yael is the Senior Director of the NYU Global Spiritual Life Center and the NYU 'Of Many' Institute for Multifaith and Spiritual Leadership, as well as the Founder and Director of MindfulNYU, the largest campus-wide mindfulness initiative in the country. She teaches regularly at MNDFL in NYC and is a sought after speaker, teacher, and writer on meditation, higher education and mindfulness. Kristie Adloff, Psy.D., is a licensed psychologist and mindfulness teacher with an office in Brookline MA. You can visit her website at www.drkristieadloff.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Marcella Runell Hall serves as the Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students and Lecturer in Religion at Mount Holyoke College. Her roots at NYU began as a graduate student working with residential leadership. Marcella is the co-editor of a new book entitled UnCommon Bonds: Women Reflect on Race & Friendship with Kersha Smith; more resources can be foundL www.uncommonbondsbook.com. In the Division of Student Life, Marcella oversees Athletics, Residential Life, Health, Counseling, Religious & Spiritual Life, Community & Inclusion and Student Programs. She has co-created programs and initiatives such as the MoZone Diversity Peer Education program, Be Well Mount Holyoke, worked with her team to revamp New Student Orientation. Recently she developed and taught a first year seminar course on The Meaning of Friendship. Prior to coming to Mount Holyoke Marcella was the founding Co-director for the Of Many Institute for Multifaith Leadership at New York University with Yael Shy. She was also the recipient of the NYU 2013–2014 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award. The prestigious award recognizes faculty members who exemplify the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through their excellent teaching, leadership, social justice work, and community building. Marcella served as the program advisor/founder for the minor in multifaith and spiritual leadership. Marcella has edited three books which focus on social justice curriculum, The Hip-Hop Education Guidebook: Volume 1 (2007) with Martha Diaz,

In this episode - Author, renowned meditation teacher, and Senior Director of the NYU Global and Spiritual Life Center, Yael Shy, and I sat down to discuss:Mindfulness (what it is, and why many people practice)How mindfulness and meditation can support people as they navigate major life transitions (like going to college, starting a career, becoming a parent, etc) Why mindfulness can be considered a form of courageHow meditation can help with challenges and difficulties including strong emotions, and feelings of anxietyMore topics out of her outstanding new book: What Now? Meditation for Your Twenties and BeyondIf you enjoyed this episode you can find all episodes, show notes, and more at www.joshuasteinfeldt.com/podcastYael's background: Yael is the Senior Director of the NYU Global Spiritual Life Center and the NYU 'Of Many' Institute for Multifaith and Spiritual Leadership, as well as the Founder and Director of MindfulNYU, the largest campus-wide mindfulness initiative in the country. She teaches regularly at MNDFL in NYC and is a sought after speaker, teacher, and writer on meditation, interfaith engagement and spirituality. She is the author of the award-winning book, What Now? Meditation for Your Twenties and Beyond (Parallax, November 2017). If you are interested to learn more about Yael, please visit: https://www.yaelshy.comSupport the show (https://joshuasteinfeldt.com/donate/)

I have a wonderful guest on today and I'm very excited to share this conversation with you.  In thinking about the message of today's conversation I was reminded of a comment I recently heard Jack Kornfield make when he was interviewed by Tim Ferriss.  They were talking about Tim's recent silent meditation retreat and the benefits of them, and seeking out master teacher to help with your practice.  I'll admit, taking a few days for silent retreat, even a few weeks, months maybe, sounds pretty good to me.   But I do see my desire for that experience as an example of looking for answers or solutions that are somewhere else, outside my current state or experience in life.   But as Jack says, we have the wisdom that we are seeking within ourselves. And while I might feel like I'm missing out by not having time in life for a retreat, it's important to remember that there is a reason I can't.  He said for instance if you have kids, and they take up all of your time and energy, then your kids are your practice.  And while I really know this to be true, it was refreshing to hear him says this.  As he said you can't get a zen master who's going to be more demanding than an infant with colic or your teenager.  You've basically hired the best teacher you can to help you cultivate your practice.  And this goes a long way to saying that the life in front of us, the joy and pain of our own lives, are the best teachers.  What else is there?  And that does bring me back to my guest today, Yael Shy, who by the way is just about to bring a second "teacher" into her house.  Some of you holdovers from the Meditate This! Podcast might remember Yael was a guest on our show way back in episodes 17 and 18, when Jay and I spent a couple hours grilling her on meditation practice.  Yael the senior director of the Center for Global Spiritual Life at New York University and is the founder and director of Mindful NYU, the largest campus-wide meditation initiative in the country, which was also co-founded by my absolute best friend and legendary podcast co-cost Jason Hollander...should probably have him on the show someday.  But the idea that the circumstances and even perceived weaknesses of our own lives can be the best teachers, really jumped out at me when I read Yael's recently published first book called What Now?. She learned that many of the things that created uncertainty, insecurity or even shame in her life, turned out to be the greatest gifts, helping her find ways to make meaningful differences in the world.  And I guarantee, I just know it, that we all have these things about ourselves that make us unsure, we may even be annoyed by ourselves, and we will do anything to avoid or cover up or ignore them.  But these traits, what we might think of as character flaws, are really the keys to making us whole and guiding us to greater meaning and purpose in life.    And I also know this, that understanding doesn't come until you let go, become open, honest, and vulnerable to them.  That is exactly what you find in Yael's latest book, which is really an autobiographical teaching of meditation and mindfulness.  She is tender hearted, very honest, but also very powerful in her message.   I love the book and I love this conversation. So please welcome my guest today, Yael Shy.  Thanks for listening, PF www.DeepSitPodcast.com

This episode is presented by Chicago Sport and Social Club, reminding you that summer is just around the corner. Get into a summer volleyball league now and use code “GOALS” to get 5 percent off until March 15. We've evolved into a team that's obsessed with goals - how people think of them, how they set them and then how they ferociously pursue them. When we set out to ask people about those things, we thought we'd given our #WeGotGoals podcast guests the perfect platform to talk about their life story. What we actually found was that we'd created a master class in goal-setting with high achievers across the country and the team that produces the podcast each week learned a whole lot along the way. As we cross into our second year with the #WeGotGoals podcast, all four hosts look back on the two big questions we ask all of our guests and we threw in one extra question. And so, hosts Cindy Kuzma, Maggie Umberger, Kristen Geil and I all took a dose of our own medicine and put each other on the spot to say our big goals aloud. In this episode, you'll hear us discuss three big questions: What's a big goal that you've accomplished over the past year? What's a big goal you're striving to accomplish in the future? What's one big takeaway from any of our guests on the #WeGotGoals podcast? Which episodes did we really learn from? The episodes that really changed our views on goals span the year and come from incredible people. Kuzma recalled her interview with sports interviewer and reporter Taylor Rooks who was excited by the distance between herself and her big goals, rather than dismayed by it. "Instead of thinking, oh gosh, I have all these things I want to accomplish, I'm so far from my goals. I don't know how I'll ever get there. This is really overwhelming and disillusioning," Kuzma recalled of her interview with Rooks. "She looks at that and thinks, wow, how exciting that I get to work toward that big goal." Umberger brought up an early episode with Dawn Jackson Blatner and a quote that is often referenced at HQ. "If you're enthusiastically doing the work, the opportunities will come," She quoted."If I'm doing the best I can and if I'm doing that authentically, there's nothing more than I can do than that." Geil referenced a recent episode with Jessica Zweig who touched on the art of trusting your gut. Geil astutely took away, "I feel like with goal setting, a lot of people are so driven by achievements and watching the numbers grow and hitting certain milestones that it can be really easy to ignore your gut or your intuition along the way in favor of going after what you think you should be doing. For me, there were two major takeaways, one on the art of visualizing and dreaming big from Matt Matros - founder of Protein Bar and Founder/CEO of Limitless Coffee and Tea - and the art of dedication I learned from Jen Ator, Director of Fitness at Women's Health, who set out to accomplish something absolutely ridiculous at the IRONMAN World Championship at Kona. Of Matros' interview, I remembered: "Visualization, as we know and as science has shown us is a powerful tool to help you prepare yourself for coming up against an obstacle, a goal, a situation. Athletes use it. CEOs use it because it prepares your brain to actually encounter that thing. It prepares your brain to encounter success. It prepares your brain to encounter failure. So if you're thinking about success every single day, you're more prepared to succeed." And when it came to Ator, I marveled at the joy she experienced during something so grueling as crossing the finish line at the IRONMAN world championship. "She loved that experience, but it was also the hardest experience she'd ever been through and I think that if you talk to anyone who's accomplished anything great, that is something that they have in common."   Thank you for joining us for a year of #WeGotGoals - we can't wait to see what we'll learn from goal-getters next.   --- Transcript: JAC: Welcome to #WeGotGoals, a podcast by aSweatLife.com on which we talk to high achievers about their goals. With me, I have Kristen Geil, Cindy Kuzma, Maggie Umberger, and myself, Jeana Anderson Cohen on this very special podaversary episode. It's our first anniversary of hosting the #WeGotGoals podcast and in celebration we are going guestless, hostful. So around the table you will hear us answer the big questions that we ask our  very impressive guests, but today it's all about us. KG: Yay. CK: Love it. KG: Finally. JAC: We've been waiting for an opportunity to talk about our goals. So our first question that we want to talk about today is a big goal that you've accomplished over the past year. Kristen, would you like to start? KG: Sure, I would. So over the past year I have gone through a couple of major career transitions. For a long time now. I've been dabbling in the thought of going full time freelance writing and also getting my personal training certification so that I could start to teach group fitness classes in gyms, which I actually started doing back in like 2014--and then I just stopped going to the classes that I was taking at DePaul and decided, no, I don't think I want to do this right now. But luckily I had a nice little nudge when my full time job back in June decided that they wanted to send all of our copywriters to Hoboken. And I said, no, thank you please. So it was the perfect--Noboken, yes, it was a hard pass. But luckily that gave me the little push that I needed to actually start being more aggressive about looking for freelance clients, which included ramping up my work with aSweatLife and starting to work on the podcast. And I was also lucky enough to be a part of the sweat life group that got their personal training certification through NASM. So for about eight months I really was doing the full time freelance writing and working in the gym and it was a really exciting time in my life and I learned that I loved working for myself and making all my own decisions and you know, not really having to answer to authority that was six levels above me in the company hierarchy. So yeah, it was really exciting. Although health insurance sucks always, always. JAC: What about you, Cindy? CK: Sure. So one goal that I achieved in the past year was requalifying for the Boston Marathon, which I've done for a few years in a row now. I've been fortunate enough to accomplish that, but this year it was a little bit different. I had a little bit of a wrench thrown in my plans when I had to have emergency surgery in February. And my best opportunity to re qualify for Boston was in Boston, which was in April two months later. So I've written and talked a little bit about this before, but in the context of goals, the way that I was able to accomplish that--to go to Boston to run fast enough to, to go back there--was really something that Yael Shy talked about when when Maggie interviewed her a couple months ago was kind of holding that goal with a loose hand and recognizing that just because things might not work out exactly the way I planned, they might still work out. CK: Being OK with the fact that I wasn't going to be able to do exactly the training I thought I needed to do or wanted to do to make that race my best ever. But just approaching it day by day, doing what I could every day to speed my healing and get back to training and running. And that really just allowed me to do it. You know, like when, when I needed to rest, when my doctor said to rest, I rested. When my doctor said it was OK to run, even though I was scared to run, I ran. And just day by day, step by step, I got there. And what's great about approaching goals in that way is that you have the big target, but if, if then after you set that big target, you think about what you have to do every day to make it happen and you trust that you do that, even if you don't achieve that goal--like if I hadn't made it, I would've been disappointed, but I wouldn't have been disappointed in myself. I would've known that I had done all I could. So it was made the victory extra sweet. JAC: I love that. OK, sorry to interject there. CK: Jeana, what goal did you accomplish this past year? JAC: So I, whenever I'm asked about my goals, I struggled to think of a goal that lives outside of the walls of aSweatLife. And this year is the first time I really actually did something in, in quite a few years, in the past five years that wasn't related to aSweatLife that I was extremely proud of and that was running a marathon for charity and actually unplugging to do it. And the reason why it was so prideful and just wonderful was because I actually unplugged for a day and it took a marathon for me to unplug, which is crazy and I've been saying it ever since. But it was such a wonderful experience. I mean, I'm getting emotional just thinking about it because for the first time in maybe two, two and a half years, I spent the day just thinking about what was ahead of me, what was to my right and my left and where I was at that moment, and I'm not going to cry. You are. JAC: But the magic was in the fact that when you really stop and think about a marathon, you can be at any point in that race. You can be first or you can be last and someone is still cheering for you. And that's such a powerful metaphor for life and such a powerful metaphor ... oh my gosh! (Crying) This is like when I talk about my parents. That's such a powerful metaphor for life and such a powerful metaphor for what we're doing at aSweatLife, which is building a community that is cheering for you. Whoever you are, no matter where you are in the race, and I just spent the entire day in love with that fact and this city--it was the Chicago Marathon, by the way. And and the sounds of it, the sights of it, the friends that I got to hug along the way. I wasn't married to my time, I wasn't married to where I placed. I just wanted to finish, be happy about it and give people hugs as I did it. So that was my favorite achievement this year. KG: Maggie, how about you? MU: So this is an exercise in practicing what we preach because when I had to think about a goal that I accomplished this year, I was like, I don't, I don't know. It's not something in my blood to do. I, I do. I'm a doer. I work hard, but I really don't celebrate my own accomplishments that often. And so I salute all of our guests for getting on this podcast and doing that because it's hard. It's really hard. And if I really think about it, I would probably take a small step back from just the past actual 12 months, like from March 2017 to right now. And I look at the leap that I made from advertising to the world of aSweatLife and jumping in headfirst. I think so many people that have congratulated me on that, I have just passed it off as like, oh, it was no big deal. MU: I just did it. But it was hard and I am proud that I did it and I'm so proud that I followed my gut and that it, it was never a choice of like, should I do this or should I not do this? It was like my gut was screaming to do it and so I just made it happen no matter what. And then over the last year, getting to experience all of the things that, that we have as aSweatLife, as part of that team has been unreal. And I'm only 25. So to be able to say that I've done the things I've done in the last year, which had been so full and getting to start the ambassadorship alongside Jeana has been unreal cool. To first see 26 people over the last year, go on a journey to live their best lives and then bring on another 30 plus, so now we have more than 60 ambassadors and 10 across the country on this journey with us. It speaks volumes of what aSweatLife stands for and I'm so grateful to be in the place where I am that I said yes back in 2016 to all of these new opportunities and then just kind of jumping in headfirst saying yes, making it happen. I'm very proud of it. I'm proud of what we've accomplished and I'm, I'm proud of myself for making the leap. JAC: I'm proud of you too! MU: OK enough about me. JAC: I knew that was going to happen. I get to see Maggie every single day and she is a workhorse and she does big things. Then she always moves right along and she just did a crazy thing and then it's time to go. MU: But now we look ahead at the goals that we're setting in the future.  So Kristen, a big goal in the future, what is it for you? KG: So this is more of a a fun goal for me. I say fun now. I might say not say the same thing later, but back when I first started writing for aSweatLife, I was known as the runner person, I think. I went through a year where I did three marathons and I really poured every part of my spare time and my being and my personality into like running with friends and setting these goals and putting the work in and making a schedule and sticking to it and for various reasons I've gotten far far away from that over the past two years I guess. But this year I want to get back to running for fun. I've signed up for a half marathon in September to help motivate me a little bit, but this time I want to make it a very different experience, which is maybe not quite in line with the goal setting that we talk about here. I just want to have fun. I just want to enjoy it and not worry about time and not get competitive with myself because that's when I start to lose the joy in it. I just want to enjoy going out for the lakefront path, being out there for a couple of hours and then enjoy race day. Maybe bring my dad and my sister along, explore a new city, see a beautiful course. Just get back to the fun of it and start reclaiming that part of my personality that I've kind of let go for the past couple of years. Cindy, what about you? CK: Well, first of all, I think that's a fantastic goal and I mean, I think if we've learned nothing from from #WeGotGoals, it's that goals come in all shapes and sizes, right? And faster is just one goal when it comes to running. So that sounds awesome. One of my goals for the year ahead is to write another book. I have collaborated in the past with the fabulous Dawn Jackson Blattner, who we've had on the podcast before on her book and I'm just about to sign a contract to start a new collaboration and I can't talk too much about it yet, but you know, I'm really excited about making it happen in the next, gosh, six months or so before we turn it in. And I think the way I'm going to accomplish that is just the same way I talked about training for Boston. We've broken it down into what needs to happen month by month, week by week, day by day. CK: So while writing a whole book seems like kind of an overwhelming proposition, you just focus on what you can do that day and that week and then you hope that you end up with the, the end product that you're going to be proud of. And I trust that we will. And, uh, I know that when we get to the point where we're publishing the book and we have to launch it and market it, I'll have to rely on another piece of advice from #WeGotGoals about asking for help from friends and other people, but that's a, that'll happen in 2019. So maybe that'll be what I talk about on the podaversary round table next year. JAC: That's a very big goal, Cindy. And we cannot wait to read your work on this mysterious future book. MU: Yeah. OK, Jeana, big goal. JAC: OK. So I'm going to go back to aSweatLife because I can't be too personal, right?  So my big goal for the year ahead is growing aSweatLife--I am very growth-minded right now. When I think about the company and the way that I want it to grow, my biggest concern and my biggest focus is on growing it in a way that is consistent with our values. So making sure that everyone who comes on board is sort of enlightened in the ways of everything is better with friends and is excited about creating content that helps people live their best lives and then from there, my key challenge is empowering people to do big things that they have only dreamed of doing before and getting out of their way. That is the one thing I've worked on the most professionally over the past year and a half when I went from doing it alone to having Maggie and now to having Kristen by my side. When other people are basing their personal happiness and a lot of their time on the job that you give them. JAC: It is so important. I have learned, I do not know this implicitly, but it is so important to ensure that they are actually satisfied by the work that they're doing. So if I am the roadblock, if I am the person standing in the way of the actual job they want to be doing, then it's me. I'm the problem. So my key objective is making sure that I'm not the block, I'm not the problem and that people are empowered to do the work that they love while still growing in places, in readers, and in people we empower. CK: Hey, it's Cindy.  And we'll get back to our special podaversary round table episode in just a minute, but first a word from our sponsor this week, Chicago Sport and Social Club. With them it's more than a game, it's a social sports experience. So you're listening to us talk about our goals, but you certainly have goals of your own big or small and whatever they are, Chicago Sport and Social Club has a lot of reasons why you should play. You might love the feel of the sand between your toes. You might want to meet people or you know it's been a long winter in Chicago, as always. You just might want to move your social life outside for a season. So whatever your goals or your reasons for playing Chicago Sports and Social Club has a beach volleyball league for you. You can create a team of all women. You can grab a group of men and women or you can sign up on your own and get set up with a team as an individual. Whatever your situation, if bump set and spike are the words that punctuate your summer, it is time to register for the league built around you. To do that go to www.chicagosocial.com, and you can use code goals--that's G-O-A-L-S when you register to get five percent off from now through the 15th. Thanks to Chicago Sport and Social Club and now back to our episode. CK: Maggie, how about you? What's up next for you? I MU: I'll go back to more of a personal goal, since Jeana covered a career goal, I'll kind of bounce it back to a personal one, which I think is totally related to just how you live your life as a whole, is if you don't feel good, like how can you produce good work and I feel like I've had injuries over the past year where I'm just like, so over having the injuries and so I would, I would love to get back into a routine for myself. I feel like I have had the great privilege to experience all kinds of different workouts with aSweatLife and I love that. But I think having a couple of different injuries has made me need to go to physical therapy and that's been a smart thing for me to do. So I want to keep those things I've learned in physical therapy and implement them into my new routine and kind of carve out time for myself. MU: Not every day of the week, but you know, three to four days of the week where the workouts that I do are the best ones for my body. Because I think another thing that we see at aSweatLife is the fitness trends. We get to cover them and talk about them and they're exciting. But if you don't listen to your body then you'll end up getting injured. And so one of the biggest takeaways that I've taken from the podcast was with Shane Emmett, the CEO of Health Warrior, and he kind of takes inventory of his calendar where he blocks out all of his time and he sees where he's spending his time and if and if I've spent all of my time during the week just teaching versus taking classes or doing my own workouts, I want to take note of that and make a couple changes for the next week and so constantly improving and optimizing my schedule so that I feel the best on just a personal note than I'll be able to produce the best work possible. But I think it's that constant balance that we're all striving for of how do you fit it, fit it all in the week, everything that you want to. It's just going to be kind of a week by week reassessing, reoptimizing so that so that I do feel the most rested and best every single every single week. When I start out. KG: Maggie, you kind of touched on this just now, but over the past year we've been fortunate enough to interview dozens of goal-setters and go-getters and we've gotten to hear the tricks of the trade straight from their mouths. So one of the final things we wanted to talk about in this podaversary was our biggest takeaways from one certain episode or trends that you saw over all of the ones that we've done so far. So Cindy, you've heard every single episode several times over with your editing. What's one big takeaway that you took from any of our guests? CK: Oh my gosh. I feel like it's been kind of a master class in goal setting and I feel so fortunate to have been able to help launch this and work on this and get the chance to learn from these guests  and from you all every week. So thank you. There are actually two things that Taylor Rooks, who I interviewed not too long ago. She's a young sports anchor and journalist. Two things that she said really stuck with me in terms of kind of mindset shifts that have helped me think about my goals a little bit differently. And the first one is to remind yourself that you are where you are for a reason. That it's easy to doubt yourself. We touch so many times in so many ways on impostor syndrome. But you know, she really has this, this confidence that that's not ego. It's not off putting, but it's like the sheer, like confidence that just like inspires you and attracts you to her. And she said, one of the practical ways that she works on that is reminding herself that she wouldn't be where she was if she didn't have the skills and the talents and the ability to get there. CK: And I think we all kind of look for these data points that, that enforce to us that we are worthwhile and we actually have them. And we just need to step back and look at them and pay as much attention to those as we do to the negative voices in our heads and in the comments and wherever else we encounter them. The other thing that she said, and I am sure she wasn't the first person to say this, but she talked about being inspired by the distance between where she was and where she wanted to be. That instead of thinking, oh gosh, I have all these things I want to accomplish, I'm so far from my goals. I don't know how I'll ever get there. This is really overwhelming and disillusioning. She looks at that and thinks, wow, how exciting that I get to work toward that big goal. I'm here where I am now and I can see the path forward and I just get to do the work. And how exciting is that? So those, both of those things have been really helpful in helping me kind of refocus on the positive and view my journey as one that has already lots of things to celebrate and a lot more to look forward to. So that is something I've learned. Kristen, what have you learned? KG: I think I can take two viewpoints here. The first and the simpler one is what we heard from Jessica during the live podcast recently during SweatWorkingWeek and she talked for a couple of minutes about the importance of trusting her gut and her intuition and I think that is something that all of our goal-getters have in common but maybe didn't explicitly say. I feel like with goal setting, a lot of people are so driven by achievements and watching the numbers grow and hitting certain milestones that it can be really easy to ignore your gut or your intuition along the way in favor of going after what you think you should be doing. And I think just hearing that explicitly said from someone who is so in tune with herself, but admits to still making mistakes. You're, I mean you can misinterpret your gut intuition. KG: It was just a nice reminder to maybe look inward instead of looking for outward proof of hitting your goals or setting your goals. So that's something that I'm going to try and keep in mind more as I go through my 2018. The other, and I think it was just a recurring theme across so many of our episodes. Even the ones where we didn't talk to co-founders or partners is that everyone goes further together and you know, we heard that with several people mentioning that you have to be willing to ask for help from others, especially during the early stages of a startup or you have to have a support system who's going to understand that when you're really working towards the goal, maybe you have to be really focused on that for awhile and you can't go out for dinners spur of the moment. But at the end of the day, you know, like we say, everything is better with friends. And I think that was something that all of our goal setters, even though they've got such amazing individual achievements, they never forget the people who helped them get there. Maggie, you look like you want to say something right now. MU: Yeah. I'm just like nodding my head in agreement. And I, I really think I have to say that this statement, I think actually once a week and it's from Dawn Jackson Blatner's episode, like number three, a long time ago, when we started the podcast. When she says, if you're enthusiastically doing the work, the opportunities will come and that statement means so much to me and it, it just rings so true to me because I know I don't have all the answers and I'm, I'm one  to look outward for affirmation and to wonder if the work I'm doing is worthwhile. But really it comes down to if I'm doing the best I can and if I'm doing that authentically, there's nothing more than I can do than that. And that's what people will ultimately notice and see. And we've, we've heard a lot of other guests talk about not really being sure and jumping into a world that they weren't completely sure if they should be in or if that, that whole word should, could be like a death sentence, but they just choose something else. MU: They choose to be authentic, to go forward as best they can to enthusiastically do the work is like the biggest motivation I have on days when I'm not sure how to move forward or if I've made the right choice or you know, whatever that might be. I think it's like a little mantra for me. So I, I so appreciate her saying it for putting it into words that I can just quickly think of. Even if it's like in a workout, like if I'm here enthusiastically doing these bicep curls and then then I'm sure the muscles will come, you know. CK: Oh my gosh, I have this awesome image of Maggie enthusiastically doing bicep curls. MU: I smile when I work out. I do. So, so that, that's by far the biggest takeaway I have just because I think of it every single week. And Jeana, what about you? JAC: I personally learned something from every single episode of the #WeGotGoals podcast, but I think  two points in particular have stood out to me recently as I listen and re-listen to episodes. One of those being Matt Matros and the way that he talked about visualizing goals. Visualization, as we know and as science has shown us is a powerful tool to help you prepare yourself for coming up against an obstacle, a goal, a situation. Athletes use it. CEOs use it because it prepares your brain to actually encounter that thing. It prepares your brain to encounter success. It prepares your brain to encounter failure. So if you're thinking about success every single day, you're more prepared to succeed, which is insane, but hearing the detail at which he visualizes his day and encourages other entrepreneurs digitalized. There's inspired me to start using that exercise in my own life and it is also a case for not worrying. Worrying is wishing for a failure, but that's the last time. I'll preach that at Justin Cohen. But the other major takeaway that I had over the course of the year was the way that Jen Ator talked about her time with Ironman and the Ironman world championships at Kona because it became this, this great big thing that she--it became a journey that she went through and overcame and it became the thing that really punctuated her life. JAC: Whether it was her goals at work or whether it was her goals out on the field, she loved that experience, but it was also the hardest experience she'd ever been through and I think that if you talk to anyone who's accomplished anything great, that is something that they have in common. They loved that experience. They came out on the other side, but it was incredibly challenging and difficult, so it's just a testament to the fact that doing the work, there's just no substitute for it and the emotional and physical and professional rewards that come with doing the work will be equal to the work that you put in. And here's to another great year of the #WeGotGoals podcast. Anything you want to say before you go? CK: Thank you all for, for your amazing work. It's been awesome to see you guys on a monthly basis and to hear you in my ears every week. It's been incredible. JAC: Thanks to the listeners and thanks to the hard work of Cindy Kuzma who produces this podcast this week and every week for the past year. We'll see you on the other side. CK: This podcast was produced by me and it's another thing that's better with friends for, so please share it with yours. The best way to do that is subscribing wherever you get your podcasts and then leaving us a rating or a review while you're there. Special thanks to J. Mano for our theme music and to our guests this week, the #WeGotGoals aSweatLife team. That is Jeana Anderson Cohen, the CEO and founder; Maggie Umberger, who is the director of community and content innovation; and Kristen Geil, the editor in chief, and of course thanks to you our listeners, we wouldn't have been doing this for the past year without you and we hope you'll stick around while we keep doing it for the next year.

In an age which seems to be moving faster and faster, it has become difficult for people, especially young people, to stop and take valuable moments of reflection. Our anxieties can rack our productivity and emotional stability causing us even more trouble than we thought. Even in an time filled with such ease of access to sources of information on self-help and meditation it can be difficult to find a practice that is easy to connect with. Yael Shy offers meditation as something more than just method and philosophy in her new book What Now? Meditation For Your Twenties and Beyond (Parallax Press, 2017). Never arrogant or prideful in her practice or way, deeply humble about her experience, and filled with passion, Yael Shy has a way to help you understand more deeply the life that you are living. To my mind, Yael shows people how to take the emotions that are in them and use them as a source of inspiration and power. What Now? takes the insecurities and sufferings of day-to-day life and provides a positive and supportive viewpoint to self-analysis that I think could help anyone. Silas Day is a writer and speaker. His area of expertise includes Buddhism, deeper learning, meditation, and spiritual integration. He can be reached by email at silasday14@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In an age which seems to be moving faster and faster, it has become difficult for people, especially young people, to stop and take valuable moments of reflection. Our anxieties can rack our productivity and emotional stability causing us even more trouble than we thought. Even in an time filled with such ease of access to sources of information on self-help and meditation it can be difficult to find a practice that is easy to connect with. Yael Shy offers meditation as something more than just method and philosophy in her new book What Now? Meditation For Your Twenties and Beyond (Parallax Press, 2017). Never arrogant or prideful in her practice or way, deeply humble about her experience, and filled with passion, Yael Shy has a way to help you understand more deeply the life that you are living. To my mind, Yael shows people how to take the emotions that are in them and use them as a source of inspiration and power. What Now? takes the insecurities and sufferings of day-to-day life and provides a positive and supportive viewpoint to self-analysis that I think could help anyone. Silas Day is a writer and speaker. His area of expertise includes Buddhism, deeper learning, meditation, and spiritual integration. He can be reached by email at silasday14@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In an age which seems to be moving faster and faster, it has become difficult for people, especially young people, to stop and take valuable moments of reflection. Our anxieties can rack our productivity and emotional stability causing us even more trouble than we thought. Even in an time filled with such ease of access to sources of information on self-help and meditation it can be difficult to find a practice that is easy to connect with. Yael Shy offers meditation as something more than just method and philosophy in her new book What Now? Meditation For Your Twenties and Beyond (Parallax Press, 2017). Never arrogant or prideful in her practice or way, deeply humble about her experience, and filled with passion, Yael Shy has a way to help you understand more deeply the life that you are living. To my mind, Yael shows people how to take the emotions that are in them and use them as a source of inspiration and power. What Now? takes the insecurities and sufferings of day-to-day life and provides a positive and supportive viewpoint to self-analysis that I think could help anyone. Silas Day is a writer and speaker. His area of expertise includes Buddhism, deeper learning, meditation, and spiritual integration. He can be reached by email at silasday14@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yael Shy, the author of "What Now? Meditation for Your Twenties and Beyond," says she came to meditation from "a lot of suffering" as a student at New York University in 2001 -- the same year the World Trade Center towers fell near her New York City dorm during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Today, Shy helps college students tackle stress, anger and FOMO (fear of missing out) around academics, relationships, sex and social media in her role as the senior director of NYU Global Spiritual Life and the founder and director of MindfulNYU.

Before Yael Shy wrote What Now: Meditation For Your Twenties and Beyond, she founded MindfulNYU, the largest campus-wide mindfulness initiative in the country. It's hard to imagine a time when Shy struggled with meditation, but to hear her tell the story of accomplishing this big goal, being mindful wasn't always easy. Shy had reservations about meditation when she was first introduced to the practice in college. But a few factors during Shy's years at NYU led her to feel she was lacking the tools to cope with her stress; anxiety from 9/11, a break-up and her parents' divorce made Shy hunt for a solution. Everything changed when she decided to go on a meditation retreat. "It transformed my life," Shy explains. "It helped me see the roots of a lot of what my anxiety was built on." From that retreat, Shy grew her own practice. In 2009, she co-launched MindfulNYU as a small group that met to meditate. Every week, that group's numbers increased and today it's become something special. Mindful NYU offers classes every day of the week, offers sub-groups, retreats, workshops and yoga twice a day every day. I've never really committed to a regular meditation practice. Sure, I enjoy five minutes of meditation at the end of a yoga class, but I'm not one to throw down a meditation pillow on my own. The growth of this community at NYU makes me wonder - What don't I know about this practice that seems to be so eye-opening for everyone who makes it a habit? The biggest misconception about meditation, Yael says, is that it's about being Zen. "It can be excruciatingly difficult to be with what is, even if you don't like it," Shy said. "Even if you want to escape with all of your mind, it's a commitment to come back. Because that's where there's a chance for healing and freedom." The analogy Shy uses is one in the gym setting. In the same way the gym doesn't always feel great when you're there - we've all had those workouts that level us or make us think we're weak and over-exhausted - you know that you're ultimately getting stronger with every workout. Although meditation can be difficult when you're doing it, you're strengthening a different muscle by making the commitment to sit through the tough stuff, notice your thoughts and when your thoughts stray, set the intention to come back. Practically speaking, she also knows how hard it is to show up for meditation. A regular practice can easily be interrupted by life, but Shy offered a two tips to establish the habit for yourself. 1. Create a checklist: Because we're wired to want to see the fruits of our effort - and meditation doesn't easily lend itself to that kind of sense of accomplishment - create checklists for yourself that help you feel accomplished. That comes down to the logistics of meditation (i.e. where you sit, when you'll sit, how you build your schedule in a way that gives you time for it every day). 2. Understand why you're meditating before you start The second piece of the equation is to write down why you think it's important to meditate. Write that down on a piece of paper when you're invested in spending the time. That way, when the thought comes to mind that something else is more worth your time, you'll have your handwriting ready to help you remember why you're committing to the practice. Listen to the episode of #WeGotGoals and redefine how you see meditation for yourself. And if you like what you hear, be sure to rate it and leave a review (then hop on over to Amazon and grab a copy of Yael Shy's book). --- JAC: Welcome to #WeGotGoals, a podcast by aSweatLife.com on which we talk to high achievers about their goals. I'm Jeana Anderson Cohen; with me, I have Maggie Umberger and Kristen Geil. MU: Good morning Jeana. JAC: Good morning KG: Hi, Jeana. JAC: Hello Kristen. JAC: Maggie. You talk to Yael Shy. MU: I did. I got to speak with Yael Shy, who is the author of What Now: Meditation for your 20s and beyond. And she's also the founder of Mindful NYU, which just happens to be the largest campus wide mindfulness initiative in the country. And we got to talking about what is mindfulness and how do we define that in this day and age where it really is important, but we talked about like the should of feeling like you should meditate and what are those expectations and really what you can get out of making a commitment to do it. KG: I know I'm not alone when I say this but in theory I would love to have a meditation practice, it sounds very relaxing. But in reality I always find that I want to do something else. I want to be more active. And it just seems a little boring to be honest. And I know that’s something that Yael has dealt with when trying to bring this to campuses because sometimes it just seems like I don't want to do it task. Can you talk a little bit about how Yael views meditation and how she's sort of reconciled that to make it more accessible to everybody? MU: She came up with this really cool analogy for me to hear where you go to the gym all the time because you know you're doing something good for you but you don't always have a good time when you're at the gym. Sometimes you really hate that five minute plank that the instructor asks you to hold. And it can get really uncomfortable and really agitating and frustrating. And she equated meditation, like the actual time that you're sitting down to do it, as that potentially agitating and frustrating. But you have to have this belief and this understanding within you that you're doing something good for you that will benefit you down the line. And so that put it in perspective for me is because I think I have this really not so realistic perspective of what meditation is, that it's a Zen environment and everyone who does it is incredibly happy and just calm. But that was a cool point for us to talk and sort of jump off talking about goals with, because she did mention saying like just because you meditate doesn't mean you are Zen and calm and have no direction and goals. It's just a mindset and frame of how you approach those goals which which she then continue to talk about in the podcast. JAC: And she had one key piece of advice for people who want to start a meditation practice. Can you talk a little bit about that. MU: She gave some really sound advice about lots of steps within our interview to take to make sure that you can hold yourself accountable. But the one piece that really stuck out to me was something I've never thought to do before, which is to write down for yourself why you're doing this. So in the moments when you aren't sure that it's worth your time or that you know there's something more fun to do. You can look at that piece of paper and you can read what you wrote about what that meditation practice, and why you're setting that as a goal for yourself to stick with it. JAC: And here is Maggie with Yael. MU: Great, so Yael, thank you so much for joining me on the #WeGotGoals podcast. It is so wonderful to get to talk to you. YS: I’m so happy to be here. Thanks for having me Maggie. MU: Absolutely. So Yael,  you are about to launch a book called What Now: Meditation for your 20s and beyond. And you're also the founder and director of mindful NYU which is the largest campus wide mindfulness initiative in the country. That’s huge. I'm very interested how you came upon mindfulness and how it started at NYU which is in the middle of the biggest craziest busiest city in the world. YS: Yes, so I came to mindfulness meditation from I was actually a student at NYU many years ago and I was feeling the stress and the crazy of the city. I was in a very difficult place in my life. I was in college and it felt like the first major time in my life I was asking a lot of questions like, what is important in this life? If everybody dies then why am I alive? And it was this  really formative moment. And at the same time I was just broken up with my parents were getting a divorce. It was around September 11th and I had some you know PTSD from 9/11 that was happening like, in my neighborhood. And it was just like a very difficult time, a lot of suffering a lot of anxiety. And I just felt like I didn't have any tools to work with any of it. And so I ended up going on a meditation retreat that really transformed my life and helped me to see a lot of the roots of what my anxiety was built on. And a lot of the roots of my suffering. And it certainly didn't solve everything in one retreat but it led me down a path where meditation and mindfulness have really completely transformed my life. And so now at the Center at NYU, which we created in 2009—a student named Elizabeth and myself basically got it going as just a little sitting group that grew and grew, and now has meditation every single day of the week and it has advanced practice, it has sub groups for our LGBTQ community and our people of color community. It has retreats and workshops and yoga twice a day every day and just a lot going on. So it’s really blossomed into a really thriving place. MU: Incredible. That's amazing to have done in not a lot of time because meditation is a buzzword and I think people have certain reservations about it. And I think that it's pretty incredible that you sort of cut through that clutter and just made a statement like this is important and people are getting on board. MU: Yes well, and I kind of get it. I've had a lot of the same reservations. I did have when I first started meditating I had no connection to it at all. When I went on my first meditation retreat I had no idea what I was getting into and I thought meditation was boring and I thought yoga even was like pretty boring. It was not in my frame of reference. And over the years it's just really to me it's a buzz word for meaning, learning to open up to life to be with what is and to be with oneself and in a way that helps me to really experience life in a richer way and to have more compassion for myself and for others and that connects me to this larger vitality that is life. Whereas like the everyday can sometimes feel dry or meaningless or just disconnected. Meditation to me feels like a way to connect in. So that's really how we teach it and what it means to me. MU: And I I want to say that I get that but I am also like in that camp of I know I say I should meditate more but I don't do it. It's like I want to roll out my mat and do it and then I don't. One thing that really sticks out to me that that you say is that essentially what meditation is is being here in the present and happy or just content with what is which is really interesting in the context of this conversation around goals because it almost is counterintuitive because goals is all about not where you are but where you're going. So I'm I'm interested in your take on goals in general. 08:16 YS: Yes. It’s such a good question and such a good insight. I wouldn’t say that meditation is about being happy or even—others might say this, but I'm not sure I would say it's about being content with what is because sometimes what is, what's going on in the present moment, is extremely painful or really difficult to be with. And in meditation, like, we make the commitment and we make the effort to be there anyway to bring our attention there to breathe through it to soften with whatever is going on, and you know it could be emotional pain it could be physical pain it could just be like a really scary moment. And to really try and drop into what is happening but it might be excruciatingly difficult. And so I guess I would just kind of readjust that to just say, to be with what is even if you don't like it and if it's like I want to escape this with all of my mind and all of my being. It's a commitment to keep trying to come back because there in the present moment, being with whatever is happening, is I think our chance for healing and our chance for freedom in that in that moment. But then to go to the question of goals and kind of connect it to goals. For a lot of people I think their kind of resistance to meditation—and I have this as well—is, oh, it’s going to make me be kind of like a lump like a lazy happy with what is kind of person. And I'm never going to accomplish the things I want to accomplish. I'm never going to amount to anything if I just like sat there and breathed and was happy all the time. **And I don't mean to be flippant about it it's a real struggle of like how much do we need to push ourselves and drive ourselves forward and how much do we just need to be still and to not be doing any action and to just be rather than to do? And on the one hand I do think that it's a slightly false split because the goals that I've been able to accomplish like I would say starting the meditation center or like writing my book, I had to actually create this idea in my mind before actually doing it so I had a goal or a kind of direction I wanted to go in and I thought about it and I shaped it and I dreamed about it. And all of the stuff that one does with goals that you're excited about and at the same time I think what the meditation practice has helped me do—and I’m definitely not always successful at this but it's helped me to hold that end result with a loose hand so that if my goal was to finish this book by January, which it was originally last January, and it did not get finished by January. It's not like a tragedy of epic proportions. It’s not like frustrating and painful it might be for a minute but it's the idea is that once you set the goal, if things come in that change and the world has a role to play in sending you deviations or sending obstacles and those obstacles and deviations might be exactly what you needed to produce something even more beautiful than you had originally thought. And the only way you can know that is if you're holding your goals with kind of flexibility and looseness and remaining light on your feet. And so that's sort of how I operate in relation to goals, like it's almost like, you know you you set an intention in your mind I'm going to go to the store today and you're walking in the direction of the store and you know what you want to buy when you get to the store. And then somebody stops you on the way to the store and you can just you know be angry or try and get away from the person to get to your goal or let's say that person stopping you would tell you that there's a much better store in a different direction and that's the way you need to go. MU: That's super interesting for me to hear because I definitely resonate with that line that you walk between being too flippant about just not caring about your choices and then being ok with what happens and unfolds and just being with what unfolds. I think that is something that I learned or that I was conditioned in college to go after a big goal and to have huge aspirations and to work really hard and stay up really late. So I think that you working in the realm of a university has probably lots lots of rich territory to explore. Would you agree? YS: Yes absolutely. My students constantly are in various stages of both the excitement of that realm, and being like, you know I'm chasing my dreams or working towards my dreams and I'm exploring new territory and it's all there, that like pregnancy of possibility. And I think just like you know anyone else I think it's a time of like a lot of pressure and a lot of stress and some people don't exactly know what they want to be doing and that’s its own sort of suffering just not knowing what your should be. And or just feeling like, I have a student that's on them premed track and it is just one crushing week after another. He's struggling to make these grades better, just working so hard and still struggling so much. And so it's really both sides of the equation, it’s everything at that time when you're really in a university setting, I think, trying to really figure out who you are and what your future is going to look like. MU: Can you speak a little bit about all of the different types of students that come in that maybe have the really stressful tracks versus the less stressful tracks. Because it runs the gamut I'm sure. And how do you speak differently to people that have it in their head that they're going to go through med school and law school and it’s, the odds are against them versus those who are already open and primed for meditation. YS: Well it's interesting. I think the Buddha had a line that said meditation is sort of like playing a stringed instrument. If the strings are too tight on the instrument and you start to play it the strings are going to snap. If they're too loose and you try and play it, there's going to be no music that can come out. You know, you can't play anything. So what you want is to exactly tighten the strings to just the right level that you can play music and it's sort of the same with ourselves in our bodies. It can be true in each person just like it's true, different types of people that were sometimes going too hard and clutching too tightly to a world that we can't control and we have to learn to loosen or we're going to snap. We might have already snapped. And so it’s just this practice of like constantly practicing letting go, constantly practicing softening and easing and being kind to ourselves and relaxing. And then the other side is the other place where we've all I'm sure been to some degree or another where you're just too loose and you're not—you really need to tighten up a little bit of a discipline so that you can go to a place that you know is better for you. Like the equivalency would be to people—I’m like this constantly where a couple of weeks will go by and I'll be like I haven't been to the gym in like a month and I know I feel better after going to the gym. I know it's so good for my health. I just, am too, I've loosened up to a degree that it's not good for me and I know I can do better. And then it's time to not beat myself up about it but just tighten the strings a little, to build it into the schedule and to follow that path. So I think the teaching changes based on the person but it also is based on the moment that that person has been at that time. So you started this meditation center, you started Mindful NYU and you have now written a book. These are all really big goals would you say that these are the big goals that you would really want to say aloud that you're proud of? Is there anything maybe more personal or something different that is something that’s happened for you because of or through meditation? YS: Well to be totally honest with you these things are wonderful and I do feel like they're the fruits of the practice for sure. But I actually think maybe the biggest goal that I had that was even bigger than like a goal it was like the biggest dream of my life was to meet a partner actually and to like be with someone like a life partner. And for years—I got married very late. I met my now husband. You know not very late but a little later in life. I was 33 and I just never thought it was possible. For so many years I didn't date anyone. I was so closed and scared and carrying just so many blocks to love and to intimacy and then that I believe is like a direct correlation to meditation and to therapy that I could work with those blocks and work with all of that pain and fear around dating and all of that and then to find someone and someone I love so much that I'm currently married to and that we have one baby and another baby on the way. And so I think like that was probably, if I had to point to one piece of evidence, like if you had met me ten years ago and met me now that that would be the most major thing that has changed, that I think I've let love into my life in a bigger way. MU: That is so awesome that simply doing less can lead to so much more. YS: Yeah, well, and the process is not easy and I want to kind of like support people that like you mentioned people that they like oh I want to meditate. And I just haven’t, or I’ve tried. And it's so hard. I feel like it's just a failure because I was really in that boat and I know that it is really difficult process and takes a lot of like continually coming back and learning to really forgive yourself over and over again. But it really bears fruit at least it has for me and for a lot of the people that I know. MU: You bring up a very good point because when I think about how I say this in my head and I know a lot of people do because there is more focus around your whole health and wellness. Today the people that do say I should meditate and I want to meditate more but because I believe we are pretty goal focused people in terms of tangibility—what can we say we've done and see that we've accomplished. Mindfulness isn't something you can really see and check off the list. And so people that maybe meditating regularly is a goal or mindfulness is a goal that almost flips it on its head, like how do you accomplish that versus even how do you use that to accomplish your goals? And so in your experience what are the things that people get tripped up on or where can people practice and sort of start to feel the success? And I'm sure it's different for everybody. So that's a hard question YS:  But it's a really good question and a fair question because we're wired to want to see the fruits of our action. It makes perfect sense. And so I think that the where people get tripped up, it is different for everybody but I think it seems to fall into two main categories. One is the logistics of it, the feeling like I have no time when am I going to do this. And that is really a question of how can you build it into your schedule and into your life that will make sense and that will fit as much as you can into your day. So for instance when I had lapsed on my meditation my regular meditation for a while I said to myself, okay where can I put it, actually physically put it into my calendar as if it was a meeting so that it would pop up and I had to go, and it is isn't meeting it's like a meeting with me and the world that is my time to say hello to myself and to open up to the world. And so first I started there. Then I asked myself, what can I do to make that time the most easy. So I place my meditation cushion in exactly the place where I needed it to be every day at that morning for meditation the night before. And I would get my slippers next to the bed, so all I had to do was put my feet in there and walk over to try to make the situation as easy as possible to make this thing happen and then I had to write out and articulate for myself, why do I think this is important? So that I can hold that really close because those times when it was I was so tired or just felt like there’s a million other things I could be doing. I had to look at that and say I believe this is important because it leads to greater wellbeing and greater happiness in general. I know that is true and therefore I'm going to go do it. So I sort of had to do this a lot of this work and that's what I really recommend doing, just to logistically build it into your schedule and build a habit out of it. Then the other place where I think people including myself get tripped up or resist meditating is that it feel I want to say hard. But the reason why it feels hard is often because the voice that comes up in our minds when we're trying to pay attention to our breath or pay attention to our emotions and we, our minds wander away which they naturally do. The kind of judgmental and cruel voice that comes in can be really really harsh and can say like you're failing you're not good at this, you're not a good meditator. Fill in the blank of how your own critical voice sounds. You know you'll always fail at everything whatever it is. And that for a long time prevented me—I just couldn't handle it because I could only stay present for let's say a few seconds out of an hourlong meditation and then I just felt like such a failure afterwards. And not only do I feel like a failure, I felt like I had to sit with this voice that was like yelling at me about it and I just didn't want to do it anymore. And so from that side I think really trying to redefine meditation that it is not about clearing away your thoughts and it's not about going, you know, staying focused on your breath which is a nearly impossible task to do because we're not in charge of our minds our minds wander. And so instead of that, to really redefined meditation as it is this process of the mind wandering away and us waking up to look at the contents of our mind. Oh it's interesting. I'm thinking a lot about you know this thing I'm planning I must care a lot about that. OK that's what I'm thinking about coming back. I’m thinking about what that person said to me and I'm really hurt by it. Come back and feel the hurt. You know whatever it is that you're thinking about, these are not, your thoughts are not the enemy. It’s a matter of continually bringing your attention back now and that’s the practice. Going away and coming back going away and coming back and really strengthening that muscle of being with what is there, what’s there in the present. So those are sort of my two big tips. There's a lot more in the book to help surmount a lot of the obstacles because I'm telling you I was never like a star meditator. I've never gotten to a place where my mind is completely cleared and so I try to write the book from that place from the place like fidgety anxiety difficult stress place and still sitting through it. MU: I like hearing the exercise of it being like a muscle to exercise because I can relate to, the more pushups I do the stronger my arms get. And then I have to take the time to get through some of the the bad workouts to get to some of the more fruitful ones. YS: Exactly. And I think it's sort of we've sort of done a disservice in the public way of talking about meditation as just this like really relaxing activity. It can be relaxing but in my experience it can also be extremely agitating and just understanding that the same way the gym does not always feel good when you're doing it, sometimes meditation can really be difficult and agitating and just really believing, same thing with therapy that that going through this process will bring more healing more love more connection. MY: Yes absolutely. So one last question I guess then it's even though we talk about holding goals with a loose hand if you're looking ahead after the launch of your book or beyond that, what do you have in your mind that you'd like to go after? YS: Well my next baby is due in March. So I think from now till March I kind of have a shorter term goal of working hard to try and get the book out there and to let people know about it and to talk about it and write about it so that it can get out there and help as many people as possible and sort of has its own life and after March I think I'm setting my goals on just like keeping the kids alive just keeping myself and my husband like as sane as possible in this crazy crazy process. And beyond that, I’m not really sure. I’m kind of I'm waiting to see him opening up to what feels like the right next step the right next project to be working on. But I'm not really sure yet. So have to stay tuned for that. MU: Well we will be looking forward to hearing what you do next. And people can buy What Now: Meditation for your 20s and beyond, starting now. YS: Yeah, it’s out there, it’s on Amazon it's anywhere your books are sold. So definitely check it out. MU: Awesome thank you so much Yael for joining me and for talking about meditation in a very accessible way. It's been it's been a treat. YS: Thank you so much, thanks for having me. CK: This podcast is produced by me Cindy Kuzma and it's another thing that's better with friends. So please share it with yours. You can subscribe where ever you get your podcasts. And if you get a chance leave us a rating or a view on Apple podcast we would be so grateful. Special thanks to J. Mano for our theme music; to our guest this week, Yael Shy; and to Tech Nexus for the recording studio.

This week we explore the embodied aspect of mental illness. Resmaa Menakem discusses racial trauma and his book "My Grandmother's Hands." Andrea Petersen discusses anxiety and her book "On Edge." Yael Shy shares mindfulness tips and a guided meditation.   Open Stacks is the official podcast of the Seminary Co-operative Bookstores.

Join Kelli and guest Yael Shy as they explore the topic of meditation and how it can help us move through anxiety. Do you get distracted when you meditate? Do you have trouble "clearing your mind" during a medication exercise? Does meditation feel too woo-woo or un-relatable? If yes, you're not alone! Kelli and Yael share how they're not "natural" meditators, and yet mediation has still been incredibly valuable to them. Visit notanotheranxietyshow.com for more resources, including a free e-book when you sign up for my newsletter, courses, videos, and more!  Disclaimer: Hopefully you find the information in this podcast helpful but it is not intended to replace medical advice and should not be used as such. 

In this podcast episode, I am sharing the audio of an interview with Yael Shy. Yael offers expert guidance on beginning a meditation practice and explores how to bring that practice to relationships, social justice, and the general ups and downs of everyday life.

Key Info for this Podcast:  Join Yael and I today as we discuss: A little bit on Yael and what she does at NYU, as well as how she got started in meditation What is... The post Episode 87: Meditation for College Students, Interview with Yael Shy appeared first on College Student Success Podcast.

Yael Shy is the founder and director of Mindful NYU and the senior director at NYU Global Spiritual Life. Growing up Jewish and being a student of Buddhist and Zen practices, Yael has become a bold leader in New York City, touching the lives of students everyday from incredibly diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. Her new book is “What Now? Meditation For Your Twenties And Beyond.”

Awakening The Divine- Forgiveness- Yael Shy- 2014-12

In a gripping two-parter, Yael Shy gives both beginner and long-time meditators sound advice on what to expect from a practice—and how to be sure it's right for you. As director of NYU's Center for Spiritual Life and The Mindfulness Project at NYU, Shy has years of experience teaching meditation and creating safe spaces for those who just want to dip a toe into this spiritual ocean. Hear her own story of triumph over serious anxiety and discover what she means when she poses the notion: "So much of our life is spent fighting...life."

In a gripping two-parter, Yael Shy gives both beginner and long-time meditators sound advice on what to expect from a practice—and how to be sure it's right for you. As director of NYU's Center for Spiritual Life and The Mindfulness Project at NYU, Shy has years of experience teaching meditation and creating safe spaces for those who just want to dip a toe into this spiritual ocean. Hear her own story of triumph over serious anxiety and discover what she means when she poses the notion: "So much of our life is spent fighting...life."  

Yael Shy, Awakening Divine RAIN, Bay Area Retreat 2013-01-04