S05E177 - Reset Challenge Health and Resilience: Mindfulness REDUX with Rafi Silver
Discover the keys to a balanced life as David Syvertsen @davesy85 and mindfulness coach Rafi Silver uncover strategies for achieving sustainable health in this episode of the Herd Fit Podcast. We kick things off with the gym's Reset Challenge, a motivating initiative that encourages long-term lifestyle changes over fleeting resolutions.
Rafi, a familiar voice on our show, shares his journey of balancing nutrition for his acting career while staying committed to his fitness goals. Together, we shed light on maintaining a healthy lifestyle through the lens of personal goals and professional demands.
Mindfulness takes center stage as we explore its transformative power in fitness and daily life. Dave recounts his personal path of embracing mindfulness, emphasizing how it reshaped his approach to stress and enriched his overall well-being. Rafi's coaching illuminated the importance of focusing on the process rather than just the outcomes, highlighting how mindfulness fosters curiosity and diminishes self-judgment. We share stories of how being present has improved not only athletic performance but also personal growth and fulfillment.
The episode concludes with insights into the profound impact of mindfulness on life’s challenges, particularly as athletes navigate the aging process. We discuss how mental training can shift focus from physical metrics to a more holistic approach to well-being. By integrating compassion and loving-kindness practices, listeners learn how mindfulness can enhance self-awareness and promote resilience. Tune in to discover how these practices can help manage stress, anxiety, and transitions, leading to a more rewarding and balanced life.
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S05E177 - Reset Challenge Health and Resilience: Mindfulness REDUX with Rafi Silver
TRANSCRIPT
David SyvertsenHost
00:05
Hey everybody, welcome to the Herd Fit Podcast with Dr Sam Rhee and myself, Coach David Syvertson. This podcast is aimed at helping anyone and everyone looking to enhance their healthy lifestyle through fitness, nutrition and, most importantly, mindset. All right, welcome back to the Herd Fit Podcast. I am Coach David Syvertson. I am not here with my co-host Dr to the Herfit Podcast. I am Coach David Sartzen. I am not here with my co-host Dr and Coach Ann Marie. I just coached his classes Thursday morning 5, 6, 7, while he's getting tan and jacked. But I do have a very special guest to my left. This is a repeat guest. The WOD Whisperer is what I call. This man to my left, rafi Silver. Rafi, what's up? My man what's up? Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah, it's great to have you back.
00:49
We are going to kind of really focus on something in regard to Reset that Rafi does specialize in. We kind of talked to each other last year. We implemented it in some ways, but we start our Reset Challenge, which is essentially a health and wellness challenge for our gym, to start off the new year. It's actually it's crazy to me that it's the seventh year that we've done the reset challenge here at Bison. Just goes by so fast and the premise of it is, you know, we try to stay away from like clicky, you know type things where a lot of people, you know, start off New Year's resolutions and diet plans and all that. Not that I'm against it at all, but we know that most of these New Year's resolutions still make it two weeks and what we try to do with Reset, in terms of implementing it into our lifestyles, is to make it as simple as possible. So we have five to six we'll talk about that in a sec health, nutrition, workout regimens that we kind of want everyone to focus on every day, but nothing that's out of reach and something that you could actually sustain for the rest of the year. We have people to bring up reset in the summer, in the fall, in the winter. So that's kind of like the point of it.
01:58
Rafi, before we get into why you're here and what you're going to contribute to this conversation in regard to reset, I want to because I know you're going to be asking me a lot of questions about mindfulness We'll dive into that in a sec but I want to talk to you about some of the approaches from you know, a member here across at Bison what reset can do for someone like you, just a normal person that's already healthy, ready, fit, but you do have a few things to clean up and one of the basic premises that we have the number one any health and wellness program should start off with is the nutrition factor. And here at Bison we don't tell you to what. What to do with your nutrition. Some people do macros, some people do paleo. I know someone that's doing the carnivore diet, starting today. To you, when you say, rafi, you need to clean up or reset your, your nutrition plan, what does what do you view?
Rafi SilverGuest
02:48
that. As For me personally, I I do a macros diet, um, and I love, I look forward to reset every year because of that. Um, you know you come off the holidays, you've been not mindfully eating in a certain way and you just get the opportunity to just focus in start the year off. I know you do reset almost in, you know, in approaching the open, but for me it's just like starting the year off fresh and holding myself accountable in the group, and it's I do this with my wife. She's not even a member here, but we do it every year. Nice that's awesome.
David SyvertsenHost
03:26
I've always been curious You're you're a personal approach to nutrition because you're you're an actor and you have different demands for what you need to look like and you're a very aesthetic based and you know, don't want to, don't want to go off the deep end here, but you, you are a very aesthetically in shape. You look very good, uh, with just the and I know a lot of that has to come from your nutrition and how you work out, but it's also a big part of your workout. Goals here have to center around what you look like because of the work that you do with, with with roles that you're trying to pursue. Um, do you switch up your personal nutrition when it comes to, yeah, I need to lean out for this role or I need to get a little bigger for that role?
Rafi SilverGuest
04:07
Yeah, I mean I haven't. I haven't had a particular role where I've moved to lose weight or gain weight. It's a particular, just aesthetic choice of how I like to look or a camera Got it Okay and so I've kind of found the sweet spot in my macros where I can lose weight or gain weight but at a very slow rate Got it. So working out at Bison or working out in CrossFit, in general it's kind of complicated because as the weights get heavier you need more mass to move it and that's typically where I struggle is as the weights get up.
04:44
I don't eat enough to gain more weight to do that because at a quick rate aesthetically it doesn't look as good. You need to put on a little bit more fat. You need to gain more actual mass and then lean out. If you're a bodybuilder, if you're trying to get on stage or something like that. So I typically follow like a bodybuilder's diet in a lean way for me just to look good on camera. So I know like I'm at a sweet spot throughout the year where it's like two weeks If I will need to lose weight, I know how to quickly lean out.
David SyvertsenHost
05:20
Yeah, that's such an interesting approach. I remember Sam asked me on this podcast one time. It's like would you add two inches to your waist and 5% body fat if you could add 30 pounds to your snatch? And before he finished the sentence I was like, yeah, 100%. Because the goal is not always like, hey, what do you look like?
05:36
I think everyone does care to a point, but it just goes to show that if you are trying to get stronger, it's very hard to do that if you're leaning out at the same time. Don't want to spend too much time talking about all the other components to it, but basically you get a point every day for following some sort of nutrition plan. Another point is what I have right in front of me is water intake. You either can do a volume of water which is over 50% of your weight in ounces or you can say, this year's new just drink water. We're not going to tell you how much you have to, but you can't drink anything else other than water in a day. You get a point for that Working out. It could be at the gym, it could be at home, it could be a long walk. Just intentional exercise gets you. Another point Sleep. We're huge on sleep. We say seven hours plus in a 24 hour period. And then, lastly, no alcohol. So if you did all of those in one day, you get a point and hey, just like life. Sometimes you go five for five, you get all those done. Some days you get two for five. But we always tell people if you're putting up a bunch of threes and fours meaning three out of five or four out of those five, every single day, you are going to be a very healthy version of yourself.
06:48
And this is where Rafi kind of introduced a new idea to me around this time last year that we are all about physical, mental and emotional health. But the things that I just talked about were very much about the physical element. We're talking about what we look like, we're talking about what we feel like, we're talking about moving weight, we're talking about working out, we're talking about sleep. We really do believe that this is all-encompassing, and last year we offered the members to choose mindfulness practice as part of your daily regimen for your well-being, or you could do a burpee slash trick pull-up. So every day you either did mindfulness training or burpee slash trick pull-ups, and Rafi and I were kind of laughing that the amount of people that chose to do more burpees and more pull-ups rather than be present with their thoughts and we'll talk about what mindfulness is it was amazing.
07:45
So this year we actually said you know what we're going to take out the extra working out, because in most cases, people don't need to work out more, especially the crowd that we have here. They don't need to do more. They always feel like they do and they always think that's the solution, but it's usually the other way around. You probably saw some of us should be working out less. So we actually said said mindfulness is going to be an optional sixth point. But if you want to get that sixth point, this is how you're going to do it. It's not extra burpees on extra pull-ups. Rafi, you're going to get this question a lot and this is how we're going to start it off. And then I'm you know we'll tell the, the crowd, how we're going to go about talking about this. But what is?
Rafi SilverGuest
08:24
mindfulness. Like I said last year on the podcast, mindfulness is about awareness. It's learning to bring your attention to the present moment without judgment or bias. It's really all it is. It has the woo-woo surrounding it. It's a very key word these days. I'm mindful about this. I'm mindful about that Mindfulness practice, which I brought to Reset last year, is just that bringing your attention. It's a practice about bringing your attention to the present moment.
08:57
I just want to say quickly about the burpees thing, the burpees and the pull-ups. It was fun for me coming in at 5 am and seeing a group of people doing burpees Absolutely, and they were. Whether they chose to do burpees and the pull-ups, it was fun for me coming in at 5 am and seeing a group of people doing burpees Absolutely, and whether they chose to do burpees or mindfulness, it really didn't matter to me. But in a way, giving them the option was a backdoor version of mindfulness. Going to the definition of mindfulness, they made a conscious choice to either do burpees or pull-ups or pay attention. They paid attention in that moment. What is it that I want to do? And whether they knew they were practicing mindfulness. They actually were, which brings me to the point of the definition of it. It's about knowing what you're doing, what's happening in the moment. Awareness, that's all it is.
David SyvertsenHost
09:48
I'm very intrigued by mindfulness and you know this by now. I was intrigued last year. You kind of got my attention through a few different conversations. We've met a lot over the past year and this all kind of started stirring in my head before we even talked to each other about this.
10:03
I've always been into the mind game and I've always felt like I've thought about things different. I'm not better or worse. I've always felt that about myself, that I view things very different than other people that I speak with and talk with and interact with, and you can call it overthinking, overanalyzing. You can call it overthinking, overanalyzing, too self-critical or never content, whatever you want to. But that's always where my mind would go to Like am I doing this right? Am I thinking about things correctly? Am I too aware, Am I hyper aware, of my thoughts? Am I not being in the moment enough? And I think it was well-timed that you brought this to my attention last year that this is a huge part of our health and I and I do know that I've been up and down, just like anything else in health, in pursuit of health right that I felt my best last year physically, mentally, emotionally, everything when I was actively doing my mindfulness practice and there was to me someone that had never actually devoted X time to being mindful, right Like I was doing the 10 minutes per day listening to all your recordings. There was something that was happening to me and it wasn't this fake, you know. You know also being a Buddha sitting there with like music and candles and putting my hands up in the air. It was in the middle of my workouts, driving to the gym, normally stressful situations that used to really stress me out, that were no longer stressful because I was thinking about my own thoughts from a very different perspective, and just being aware that was the number one word that kept coming back to my head last year. Was it created so much awareness in me, Minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, week to week, and it did. It built up a lot of positive momentum for me.
11:53
So the way we're really going to go about this, guys, is things that I've been reading and, ironically, with the conversation I had with Rafi a couple days ago about what we're going to talk about, it's going to be less about you need to do X, Y, Z, One, two, three, this amount. It's not going to be like your CrossFit one. We don't want people to approach Monofilm and say, all right, I got to go to work, I got to take care of my kids. They're going to tell me how long my workout is, how many sets, how much weight I'm doing. No, we're not going to tell you. We're going to kind of talk about what my experience is with you. You're going to be asking me questions and hopefully that you guys are listening. They kind of want to open this door to making yourself more mindful. Hopefully you can learn from some of the things that I kind of I don't want to say went through, but kind of experienced while working with Rafi over that period.
Rafi SilverGuest
12:42
Yeah. So a little bit about this is that, unlike working out in the gym or eating nutrition, it's difficult to measure mindfulness Like. You can meet with me for an hour. You could meet with me for three weeks, four weeks. You have to experience this for yourself and then eventually you learn. It's not about me or any of your teachers, it's your own mind. And the minute you're able to actually notice that, I like to say when it leaks out into your life and you have this aha moment. It's not usually during your practice of mindfulness. It usually happens outside, in the regular world, when all of a sudden you're paying attention, you're like, oh my God, I caught my thoughts there. When was your first moment of that? When it leaked out into your life, if you remember?
David SyvertsenHost
13:35
I actually do remember, and I could probably tell you what the workout is too. I just don't want to get it wrong, but it was during a workout, you know. So part of what I don't want to call it an issue, but part of one thing I realized after working with you, is that I'm so. I talk about process over results and I do believe in it, but when I'm in the middle of the gym and I'm pursuing the score, it's only about the results. So what place will I come in? You know, at that point we're preparing for the open quarterfinals semifinals. Right, that was the goal. Last, that was the semifinals, semifinals.
14:07
I'm on a Wednesday night with six people from the gym who don't give anything about my goals the quarterfinals, semifinals that we're just working out that I am so obsessed with getting a certain score in a workout. So that can tell me. It can kind of let me know hey, dave, you're on track, or hey, dave, you're not on track. You need to work harder, you need to change this, you need to change that, and I've been programming my way to work out like that for a long time. As I've always been goal-centered, I've always wanted to hit this climax, this thing that has been out of my reach, right and in. In some ways I feel like that did help fuel me get to other certain points, but it was. It was always always result based.
14:41
I remember in a workout because I had to do some mindfulness training before every workout, you go sit in the corner, sit in a box. I did shut my eyes. I'm literally in the back corner, zone eight, and I didn't look at the clock once during the entire workout. I did know what I wanted to get on the workout score-wise. But I'm usually like am I on pace? Am I behind pace? Am I on pace, am I behind on pace?
15:02
And that moment was all right Because of my mindfulness practice. It was no longer hey, am I on pace? I didn't even look at the clock once. It was just do my set, do my work, focus on this set. When I feel ready to go, I'm going to start again. When I don't feel ready to go, I'm not going to start again. Very simple stuff and because of that, the end of the workout. I finished the workout. I look at the clock and it was a minute and a half faster than I thought it was. It was a 10-minute time-ish domain and it was in the high eights, so I was so much faster than I thought I would be, even though, because I was so dialed into just being in that moment and being mindful of that when usually you know, we saw the ugly side of it during the Open, I fell off pace in a workout and it just, like it, made it worse. And because I was only pursuing the result, I was not pursuing the process, in that moment.
Rafi SilverGuest
15:53
Yeah, so in in regards to that, results are the by-product of the process, right? Right, that's what you're saying Process oriented. The results are going to happen. Yeah, whether you like them or not, as much preparation as you can do will lead to a result, and that's based on who you are, how much you train, and even how much you train is limited by who you are, right. So if you're only paying attention to the results, then you're going to be unsatisfied, even if you get a minute ahead of your time.
16:27
Well now, what Could I have done better? That thought is always running through your mind. Yeah, so you have to shift your mind to being more curious-based. I wonder if this thing is going to work out. One of the beautiful things about what you just said is that it happened for you. But then, all of a sudden, you're like OK, I'm not going to look at the clock every single time. Right, I'm going to repeat that because you are so focused on the results. Again, right, because you like the result. Yeah, absolutely, that came. So it's retraining that idea. That is mindfulness. But mindfulness is the awareness that that's what's happening for you. Right, that's where?
David SyvertsenHost
17:05
the training comes in. So that's where I remember asking you questions last year and I still sometimes feel myself asking this, and I relate a lot of this mindfulness practice to my faith. There's always questions, there's always doubt Is this right? Am I doing this right? Am I thinking about this right? Was I taught right? Was I taught incorrectly? I remember asking you it's like you know, is there a wrong way to do mindfulness practice? Am I not advanced enough? Because I think a lot of times people get I would relate this to CrossFit that it takes a long time to get to a really high level of sport, especially in competing, like you think. You work hard for two, three years. You're not even close to being close yet and that's a long time. It's a lot of work, but is that is? Is the mindfulness practice? Is there a wrong way to go about it? Is it okay to question myself or is that? Again, that's part of what it is.
Rafi SilverGuest
17:57
Questioning yourself as human. Yeah, that's exactly what we all do and the judgment on the way that we're doing something the minute we're aware of it. You're doing the mindfulness practice correctly, right, it's about awareness. Again, I'm going to keep saying that word Because constantly in this society and just as human beings, we're constantly measuring ourselves against ourselves. Am I doing it right? Okay, I'm doing it right. Again, result oriented.
18:35
So the hard thing about mindfulness and meditation in general and this path is the path is the purpose, right, that's what I like to say. The path is the purpose, the pursuit of it is the goal Right, and I know that's backwards thinking. The result, again, is the byproduct of the path, right, and so you're just on the path, which you're already on right now. Yeah, you and I are both doing it right now. We're thinking it's a matter of whether we're sleepwalking through life or not, walking through life or not. And by noticing our minds, and then we can recognize expanded outward being like, oh my god, if I'm feeling nervous, or if I'm feeling doubt, or if I'm feeling joy, other people must be feeling that way as well, which then opens up the awareness out, which makes it less about me. And then, all of a sudden, you feel more sense of purpose, you feel more sense of ease and everything becomes a little bit more Zen, which is the by-product of the awareness Yep.
David SyvertsenHost
19:34
And that that would. That took me a long time. That one, because what you just said right there, it helps me right now If I'm ever questioning myself, or it right, being on a path is what we're doing. Right, it helps me right now if I'm ever questioning myself, or it right, being on a path is what we're doing right. Dan Cota just got back from Legends. Like him, being there and being mindful while he's out there, that is what he's. That is the goal. Right, that is what you're trying to do. It's not hey, qualify for the last day. It's not coming last place. You're not going to become a CrossFit Games champion, a Legends champion, your own champion here at the gym, by just doing mindful practice. Right, like you have to kind of stay away from hey, that's why I'm doing mindfulness. That's one thing I started to learn was like, hey, yeah, I'm going to do mindfulness practice to see if it helps me Be a better athlete. Goal yeah, result oriented, right, rather than I don't want to just kind of limp my way through life.
Rafi SilverGuest
20:28
I think a very simple way of looking at it is Dan Cote actually asked me one time. He said what's the difference between goals and expectations? And I was saying goals should not have an end, expectations do, and so they sometimes mask each other as the same thing. You're like okay, my goal is to make semifinals. No, that's your expectation. Right, your goal should be be as strong as I possibly can be. Right, there's no end to that, it's infinite. So if your goal has an infinite quality to it, you know what to do today, you know how to pursue that An expectation is there's a finale to it, right?
21:13
I use the quote. I've used it with you, I use it with Dan, I use it with my students all the time. Life is like jumping out of a plane. The difference, the bad news is there's no parachute. The good news is there's no ground. The good news is there's no ground. And the reason why I use that quote is because you can put your point of view into either one of those. No parachute represents death, it represents a finale. No ground means well, I must be flying. The body is still doing the same thing. It's left the plane and it's either falling or it's floating. It's a matter of point of view, and so you can break that down from goals, expectations, goals, no parachute. No goals, no ground.
David SyvertsenHost
22:15
Expectations, no parachute.
22:16
I love that no goals, no ground expectations, no parachute portion, and really being grateful for everything that you have and all the people here in the gym, even the ones that you don't even know but they're here working out with you, and what that does to add to the environment, when you really did say like you need to focus on gratitude within this portion of your mindfulness training.
22:41
What it does, what it did to me, it was amazing to me how de-stressed it would make me, and I did in some ways. I remember telling you I kind of felt selfish for doing it that I'm the one that gets de-stressed because I'm being grateful. But really what it opened my eyes to is that, if I'm thinking about how many things I can and should be grateful for, including someone being in the gym with me at 715 class, that we're not competing with each other, we're not on the same level, we're not even doing the same movements, but I'm literally out loud saying thank you for being here, All right, and then that's not even including the business owner side of it. It's just me being an athlete in class. That opened another door. Why is being grateful a really important component to mindfulness training?
Rafi SilverGuest
23:25
well, I think you just said it there. I mean, if that person wasn't there at 7 15, then there's no reflection. You don't, you don't get to work out with somebody if there are no crossfit games with other people competing, but then you're not competing for anything. Yep, you need others, we need others and, yes, we have a community. That's that's. The whole point of everything. Is that everybody around, like somebody made this, somebody built this.
23:52
We wouldn't be able to do a podcast if there weren't other people or other beings working on these things that we take it, take grant, uh, for granted. Every single moment of every day and the minute you start to become grateful, or actually just become aware of gratitude, or the things that have allowed you to exist on this earth, or people that have raised you, or things that have helped you, just like the car, the car manufacturer, the keys that open your door, everything was made, everything was created. It opens up the perspective into awe and it takes it outside of you, which ultimately goes back to results. Right Results are the thing that's causing the pain, it's causing the depression, and so when you, when you leave the results, it just opens up curiosity and then you can remember oh right, this is really just for fun. All of this is the're here, knowing why you're here every moment of every day, and you don't need to know your quote, unquote, why. Because if you start to intellectualize it you'll recognize it's probably result oriented, right. But if you can create your why around some sort of infinite quality, like, okay, I really just want to be as strong as I can, right, but why? It's for the benefit of my children, so I can be strong enough to help a bystander who falls on the ground, you don't need to be thinking about that all the time. But it is for the benefit of and it's not you, you are included, but you are part of this society.
25:43
And if you immediately say it's for the benefit of others, even just as a test, you'll recognize that it makes you so much more easeful and just like it gives you a sense of purpose, even when you go lift weight or throw that snatch over your head. And so before every workout I just remind myself you'll probably see me just sitting there Like it looks like I'm praying, but really I'm just reminding myself before I go do this really difficult thing that I'm doing this right now I'm about to go do this for the benefit of others, and I know that might not be logical right now, but I remind myself. That's why I'm doing it and that gives me strength in that moment, because I say, okay, great, well, I can take the embarrassment of, and the humility is part of the journey. Remember, the path is the purpose, so everything that happens is part of it. Right, the results are the by-product of that path. Yep.
David SyvertsenHost
26:43
Yeah, that makes, that makes, and I think that's where this should not feel overwhelming, to be honest with you, and I think some people avoid this kind of stuff because, whether it's a stigma of mindful meditation or they think it's just too hard, they don't have the time for it. That's one thing I know for a fact. People will say they will not do this because of a time factor. I'm one of those guys too. Yeah.
Rafi SilverGuest
27:05
So speak to that when you so. We've been working on this for over a year, and I will about a year now. Yep, you probably, I would assume, because I even haven't. You haven't practiced mindfulness every single day, absolutely not, so what has brought you back to it? What were the challenges that you faced when you were not sitting on the cushion or being mindful or you didn't have enough time, which we talked about before certain workouts? You're like I just didn't have enough time. We're talking to me here, talking to me there. What were, what were some of the things you noticed?
David SyvertsenHost
27:39
So I'm a very logistic thinker, so everything I do come like from how long it takes me to get to the gym. Is it eight minutes or nine minutes? Is my warm up three and a half minutes or is it four and a half minutes? Everything, to me, to a fault, is measured by that. 10 minutes a day of mindfulness training, right, I, because I could do seven instead of 10, wouldn't do it. I, because of my warmup. People had needed me at the gym before the workout Instead of me getting three minutes in the corner. It was only going to be one, so I didn't do it. And I'm going to circle this back to when my knees don't feel good, right Still, every now and then have them flare up.
28:25
Every time they flare up, it is always a result that I kind of shorted warmups, shorted my PT exercises, shorted my accessory stuff that helps keep my hips strong and all the little muscles that you don't train here, that you kind of have to do on your own. I always come up with a reason. Well, you know what. I can't do the four sets. I could do one or two, but I'm not going to do any of these. I can't do the four sets and I ignore it, and I ignore it, and I ignore it and I ignore it.
28:48
Two, three months later, knees start swelling up because I did a squat jump workout.
28:52
But man, I'm so unlucky I've been dealt such a bad deck of cards. Woe is me when it really circles back to all those little inches that I did not take when they're available, just because it did not add up to an entire foot. It was my own shortcoming of basically not taking what was given to me, which in this case, is time, and I've noticed that if I go off the kind of the deep end mentally where I'm just getting a little too stressed out or I'm overthinking things, doubting myself, doubting others, it is a result of me not practicing my mindful training, because I'm not. I feel like it's like I'm using less of my brain power that is fully capable of there. That's kind of where a negative result and I know it's not that, that's not. We're not only being result oriented with the mindful training, but I know that when I'm not locked in with my own thoughts, awareness, gratitude, empathy for others, because I just ignored it for X time, everything around me gets worse.
Rafi SilverGuest
29:51
Yeah, I think the way of looking at this is less like. If I right, okay, the recommended dose to begin is 10 minutes. Right, I'm telling you 10 minutes. I'm telling you 12 minutes, I've pushed you to 20. I think a way of reframing this is that it's just like keeping the car warm. That's all it is. We continue to come to the gym. So if we step off for three months and we come in and do leg day, you know what it feels like. You're like, oh crap, I'm sore.
30:22
It's the exact same thing with the mindfulness practice. Is that doing a meditation practice or gratitude practice every day just allows? You're standing there on stage and you're a rock star and there's a huge crowd looking at you and the roadie comes in and hands you your guitar that you did not tune and you strum it and you can hear it's out of tune. It's not going to take you 30 minutes 10 minutes to retune it in front of a crowd, because you've been practicing. You've been tuning every single day, so it just takes you a quick little moment, boom, you're ready to go. It's the same thing. So a practice is literally what you're doing. It's just like doing reps every single day.
31:20
If you keep doing the practice, if you make it a priority, if you keep doing the practice, if you make it a priority, then the car is already ready to drive and so it's reframing. It's like, oh right, I'm doing this so I could use it later in life. So this leaks out into my life because that's where the real benefit comes from. It's not actually sitting there on the cushion being mindful. So if you're only being mindful for 30 seconds because you're aware okay, I'm being aware, intentionally aware in this moment to pay attention to what's going on in my thoughts, noticing it without any judgment or bias you've become mindful. The more reps you put put into that, the easier it is. It will start to leak out into your workouts, into your family life, into anything, because we're not sleepwalking through life anymore. Right, quick question for you, like other than at bison, how have you noticed it leak out into your life?
David SyvertsenHost
32:21
yeah, I mean I was actually just going to bring that up because I want to get away from just workouts, because reset to me is so much more than you getting in better shape at the gym. I do hope it works out, but there's more to it than that and in conversations with friends in CrossFit and out of CrossFit they have said like you sound different when you talk, not physically, like the voice does not change I don't have like that beautiful Rafi voice when I talk but the but what they just said like you're saying that you're going about things differently. It's not necessarily nicer or deeper thoughts, but it's more like you just sound different, like you sound almost like honestly more like educated, like the brain is working more You're not going through the motions, a little bit more present with your wife and your son and coworkers, employees that work here. There's a little bit more to me. I felt like you're better at listening when you go through this and when you become a better listener.
Rafi SilverGuest
33:20
Your relationships always improve, unpack that a little bit more, because those are the results again. Yeah, how did that happen? Like, how did you notice that that was happening? Yes, external feedback is really good. Right, we get external feedback. Your wife's telling you you're nicer, you're like great, this must be working. But when did you notice like, oh, I'm in the middle, I'm about to blow off the handle here?
David SyvertsenHost
33:45
Honestly, it happens a lot when I'm driving. You know, like I feel like driving is a big thinking phase for a lot of people, where they're going, what they just went through, what's on their mind. You know, for parents and business owners, sometimes it's the only time you don't have something chirping in your ear and I remember, just like driving whether it be driving home, driving to the gym early, early in the morning, late at night that's when I started to realize, like I am I'm no longer turning into that, like I don't want to call a monster because I never got, I don't want to call it that extreme, but that's when I was able to come and be a little bit more aware of my thoughts is when I'm driving and kind of anticipating what's coming up or reflecting on what just happened. And it was. It was less anger, it was less anger, it was less frustration, it was more just is what it is that happened. And on to the next.
Rafi SilverGuest
34:28
So I like the reason why we started bringing in the gratitude practice, the compassion practice, the love and kindness practice is because I really do like to look at it in two ways. Mindfulness is a foundational practice because it brings in the awareness, but it can lead to not like it happens all the time, but it can lead into an overthinking spiral, because the minute you start to recognize awareness, you start to see that your mind is actually thinking all the time and you start to pay attention to your thoughts. It could bring up panic. That's all you're noticing is a panic, panic, anxiety, anxiety. Wow, I'm anxious all the time. Yeah, oh, my god, I have a lot of doubt, I have a lot of self-hate or I have a lot of confidence. You notice all these things. Well then, what? Now? What? Okay, there's a purification practice. Now, what is loving, kindness, compassion, these infinite qualities? That's what that's part of the practice that you bring in.
35:33
You have to build the foundation of mindfulness first, so then you can start to actually hold yourself accountable to what is really going on in your mind and really going on in the world, and then you can start to purify. You can start to say you know what I'm noticing I'm about to that guy just cut me off in traffic. I'm noticing, I'm pissed off, I'm noticing what I want to do. Mindfulness is not going to make you not want to drive your car right into that human. You notice, oh, it's human to feel anger.
36:08
Okay, well, that person might. Maybe they're late in loving kindness, right. Maybe maybe they they're unaware, maybe they don't practice mindfulness and they're not aware of what they just did, how it affected me. And that's what we're doing constantly. That's why I keep bringing it back for the benefit of others, because you can't expect other people in this world to do that. But how do you expect other people to do that? By you doing it yourself, you be the example. So they cut you off in traffic. You feel anger, and then you, you can be like well, lots of people feel anger. This is a real thing. This is a real full feeling I'm feeling right now and I could just be a little bit kinder to myself, because other people feel this too, maybe larger than me, and then I could just like let it, let it go to the next moment right and like, in a moment like that, get it cut off or any other level of quote disrespect, even though in most cases it's not that, it, it you, you just let it be like.
David SyvertsenHost
37:15
That's where I feel like I'd let things go right. I think one of the most angry I got last year was um, during the quarterfinal workout where the camera turned off, right. Yes, and I think that's like probably one or two times in 11 years where I kind of like lost my temper in front of people at the gym. I always tried to not do that like threw a box somewhere, broke our white board which is still broken screamed, kind of made an ass out of myself and just kind of walked up and down greenwood ave yelling um when someone asked, and then someone wants to know where the bagel store was, but that you know those are.
37:48
I laugh about it now, but I was very frustrated back then and if I, in my opinion, that was a moment where I could not just be like hey, it is what it is. You know, it's OK to be upset and angry. I never felt guilty about being angry. I did feel guilty about showing anger in front of people at the gym, but I. It's. That's when I feel like you really know, when you're locked in is something bad happens to you and you do not turn into. The person that has is filled with the anxiety and filled with the panic and and.
Rafi SilverGuest
38:20
But I remember that moment because I was there yeah and I remember that moment where that all happened. Trust me, I have freak outs too. It's no, this isn't going to stop you from doing that, because you really cared about that workout, yeah, and you. It was not an easy one, and you almost got halfway through and then I was right, yeah you were there, lots of people were looking at you.
38:43
It mattered to you a lot, so that that that expression of frustration was totally quote unquote justified in your own experience. When we went outside and started having a conversation, the awareness about it was still there. So this isn't going to make you a quote better person. It's going to make you more aware. I did that. I broke that thing. That's not who I want to be right now. Right, and I remember the only thing we were talking about was not do I need to do this workout again? Was what's the next choice? How do I want to be now?
39:22
Right now that I'm aware and I've calmed the system down, I said it's more important how you walk in the gym now than what you just did, because we all have moments of humility, we all know what we need to do, and we said it's not that I have to do it again, I get to do it again.
39:40
And you went and you did it again and you made the next round. That result is a byproduct of that moment of you having the humility, having the awareness that you just did that, not letting it go Because, trust me, I know you were still angry and probably still feel it now, absolutely, but you know how to move forward skillfully. I always say that mindfulness is about having the stimulus, which happens all the time in life. We have a stimulus and we have a response. Mindfulness, and this practice that I hope to teach, gives you a moment of space between stimulus and response. That's what it does. It gives you just a little moment to give yourself a chance. Sometimes you don't have that chance right In the moment, sometimes you don't, but the next moment you do, the next moment you do and the next moment you do.
David SyvertsenHost
40:36
I generally do feel like my response to that whole situation would have been different if I had not been working with you prior to and had not been more present with my thoughts. And you know, after the system calmed down like there, because there was, there was a right and wrong way, I don't know. Do you try it that way, Right Wrong In terms of response?
Rafi SilverGuest
40:55
I do From my right and wrong. I like to use the word skillful, okay, because it's like skilled is something that you can do. You can make the choice. Am I bringing people together or pushing them apart? Right, right, and that's more skillful, right, I say. Is that again, I'm using this all the time? Is it for the benefit of others? Right, you had your little freak out and then in that moment, you can say well, the next thing I do is this for the benefit of others. You're somebody that people look up to in this gym. You own the gym. You're an athlete in this gym that a lot of people look up to.
41:30
The way you handle that can teach a guy like Alex. Okay, you can care so much, and then you could have something that you weren't in control of. Which is life? Happen? How do you handle it? What's the next moment? That moment of resilience pushes the boundaries. This is what I talked to, dan, a lot about Keep competing, because the more and more you compete, the more the boundaries get pushed.
41:59
It's just like you talked about driving. Driving is an incredibly dangerous thing, but because we do it all the time, we're not aware of how dangerous it is. If we were aware of how dangerous it is, we'd be freaking out on the wheel all the time, but we do it all the time, so our boundaries have been pushed. It's the same thing in competition. It's the same thing in life. Keep putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. More and more your boundaries will get pushed, because our demons are not there when we're comfortable. They're only there at our goalposts. And the goalposts will keep moving if we're pursuing it with curiosity and joy and whatever. You keep showing up these infinite qualities, you keep forward. There's no peak right, you just keep pushing right yeah, I mean that that's one thing.
David SyvertsenHost
42:51
I think we have an aging group of athletes here at bison and I I would say that at some point every single day I'm here that gets brought up. It don't feel good. This feels tight. I used to be able to do this and this is where I think the mindfulness training could help those people the most is that they stop thinking so much about what their weights and scores are, what they used to be able to do. To wrap this up, I want you to kind of for the people that are doing this and can take this on and really going to try to give this a good effort. I want to explain to them and really teach them what this can do for them long-term, not just in these next seven weeks of reset, but if they start to try to train their mind to be more skillful with how they respond to adversity, but also all the good times too.
43:36
This is not just how do I deal with stress. I think that's another misnomer of what this like. How do I be happier when I'm not happy? There are right and wrong things to do with your mind. When it comes not happy, that there are right and wrong things to do with your mind when it comes to you know, celebration, why? Or what can this do for someone that does feel like they're on the back nine of their lives physically in terms of performance, but just kind of reshape, move the goalposts, as you said, so that they could still stay in the game? Because, in my opinion, you can never stop training your mind. There are going to be some things inevitably we cannot do with our bodies at some point. Biology will win that battle at some point, but we should always be training the mind. Does it make sense to start telling people that are on that spectrum, on that side of things, that hey, let's get away from training our bodies so much and put the training time and thought and energy into our minds?
Rafi SilverGuest
44:32
I think it's yes, and I think the training of the mind that I'm presenting here is it's just an opportunity to not sleepwalk through life. Right, that's all it is. So if your choice is to continue to come in here and pursue goals, that's okay. Yeah, you're just aware of it. As opposed to, all of a sudden, you recognize the stress or the anxiety or the depression or the joy after the fact. You don't even know how you got there. It becomes a random result, almost like you're throwing a dart, blindfolded. Well, why? Something led to A, to B, to C, to D.
45:20
There is a process to that, and if you're more aware of that, well then you can have more and more and more of that and more ease. So it's irrelevant how old you are, whether you are Brock's age or my kid's age or at the end of your life, as long as you're breathing and you're using your mind and it's present on earth. You have the opportunity to pay attention to that, and if you're paying attention to that, then you're not losing the information that's coming out. Because if you're not paying attention to what's out in front of you, then all you're doing is living inside your own narrative, your own story, and that becomes your reality, right? They always say, like, what you think becomes your reality. And it's true, because if we're thinking all the time about what does this say about me, or what are other people thinking about me, or what is the result of what I'm doing, okay, come to mindfulness because you want to be less stress, you will get that. But that's not what. That's not the reason why you get it. You get it because it's a by-product of the fact that you're paying attention. You're like, oh wow, I'm not stressed about that anymore. Oh wow, I'm not stressed in general anymore, right? So, yeah, I mean, you came to me with an expert with a goal. Dan came to me with a goal. You came to me with an exit with a goal.
46:45
Dan came to me with a goal. I even came in as a goal. I was like I said on the last podcast I went in to work on my grief, right? But then, all of a sudden, it wasn't just my grief that I had more compassion for. It was my life with my kids, my life with my wife, my life here at Bison and my life as a professional life here at bison and my life as a professional. It all started becoming so much easier because it's all part of the same life that I'm living, because I was more aware of oh okay, well, that's what's happening. That's my condition. I'm conditioned. My habitual condition is to get really pissed off when someone does that to me. Right, and I could just less dissolve that a little bit. And it resets the goals, right. It starts to lower the expectation and reset the goals.
David SyvertsenHost
47:36
Yeah, that's something I think a lot of us could benefit from Borderline I would even say all of us and you know how practical is this for you. I can't buy anyone saying that they don't have the time for it. To me, it comes down to do you have the desire for it, and that's what we talked about last week when we started talking about reset and how to implement mindfulness. Is it required, is it not? And you have to really want to pursue that.
Rafi SilverGuest
48:05
Yes, we don't want the mirror put in front of our face, right, we really don't. But I think this community does in a certain way, because we wouldn't be coming in to do CrossFit every single day if we didn't like the hurt, if we didn't want the mirror like struggle. We just did Macho man and I told you I was like that is a perfect example of mindfulness, because it literally puts your humility in front of your face. How hard do you want to go? Because every round you're telling yourself maybe I can take the next round off or maybe I could push forward, and you're constantly hitting goals or results. All those expectations are hitting you in the face every single day. That is the same thing with the mindfulness practice. It's just resetting it and saying, all right, well, you know what If I treat this like a wad every single day, which is the same thing that coming here to Bison does?
David SyvertsenHost
49:07
Well, I wonder what will happen, right? Yeah, that's a good way to wrap it up, rafi. Thanks so much, my man, for coming on. Repeat guest. Really appreciate the time, the thoughts and I do want to challenge anyone. We do know it's optional for the reset point, but For now, yes, yeah, for now, put thought into how much this could help you day to day with everything that you're going through. It's not just we talked a lot about performance, but even some of the health struggles that you have. Go with mindful training. That I'm very confident it's going to help kind of complete you in some ways, because I do think this is something a lot of us do not pay attention to, but it has more impact than anything you're ever going to actually physically do in the gym.
Rafi SilverGuest
49:59
And I guarantee every single person who signs up for Reset can click the mindfulness check every single day. Just by paying attention to the other ones that you're doing or not doing, the minute you recognize I'm not drinking my water because of this and I feel this kind of shame because I didn't click check. You just did your mindfulness practice. You're aware of the thing. Well, guess what you get?
David SyvertsenHost
50:25
another point, yeah, it's point number six. All right, thank you guys. We will see you next week. Thank you everybody for taking the time out of your day to listen to the Herd Fit Podcast. Be on the lookout for next week's episode.
