78: Could You Go 5 Days Without Talking? Learning Mindfulness with Joree Rose

Mindfulness is the key to everything!

Today on The Bold Life Podcast, Joree Rose is going to explain why that’s true. Joree is a marriage and family therapist who’s here to teach mindfulness strategies and practices.

In addition to working with adults and couples in her therapy practice, Joree is also the host of her podcast “Journey Forward with Joree Rose”, author of her recent book “A Year of Gratitude”, and she leads mindfulness retreats for women around the world.

Want to learn how to intentionally create a life of meaning and joy? Joree is here to explain how!

I’ll be happy when…

“I feel like I always knew I wanted to be a therapist” Joree says. She had the desire to cultivate a career that she loved, but also wanted the space to eventually become a mom.

But half way through her internship Joree realized she was pretty miserable. Controlled by fear and anxiety, she struggled to make decisions on her own and put herself first.

Joree decided that she had no business being someone else’s therapist when she hadn’t worked through her own sh*t yet. She felt a little like an imposter.

What she found was that she had been living on a trajectory of what always came next. She would tell herself “when I ____ then I’ll be happy”.

But every time she would check off another box, it didn’t bring the happiness she thought it would. She realized she had no idea who she was outside of her marriage and being a mom.

Joree went into a tizzy realizing that she had lost a sense of individuality. Her 1/3 life crisis ensued, but it brought about some good things.

She started therapy herself and this inspired her to re-engage in her pursuit to becoming a therapist.

Joree explains how she surrendered to the signs of the universe. “Point me in the right direction” she asked.

A series of serendipitous events led her to taking a 6-week intro to mindfulness course

Looking back at that course, Joree says she doesn’t know what she learned, but she learned that she needed to learn more. She also recognized that she had been doing everything she could to keep herself busy with kids, career, and always looking to the next step so that she didn’t have time to pause and realize that she wasn’t actually happy.

Five Days of No Talking

As Joree threw herself into mindfulness and knew she was on the right track.

In the following years she got certified to teach mindfulness to kids, she worked as a school counsellor for four years, she went on retreats and had transformative experiences.

Mindfulness became her full-time passion.

One of these retreats included a five day silent Buddhist meditation she meditated for 16 hours a day.

No reading
No writing
No eye contact
No talking

Joree gained a set of tools that changed her life. Her mission now is to help others learn how to

Get out of your head
Move away from expectations
Leave the “should’s” behind
Stop the negative stories you tell yourself
Tune into your mind and body
Find your true essence

The Trap Of Waiting For Something To Make You Happy – “I’ll Feel Happy When…”

When you’re always waiting on the blank to get filled, you’re actually digging yourself into a bad mental habit of never feeling comfortable or confident where you are.

The big shift for Joree was

Being able to see that her thoughts were not the truth – Learning not to believe everything she thought.
Shifting her mindset – Rather than thinking “the future is scary” (because it’s unknown), Joree gained the confidence to able to venture outside of her comfort zone.
Pivoting her fear of the future that was rooted in the unknown, she instead started to wonder what possibilities lied in the unknown.

As Joree learned, it’s not your fault you’re stuck, but it’s your responsibility to get yourself unstuck.

Mindfulness and Meditation – Same or Different?

Meditation is a formal practice. It’s something you actually do says Joree. Some common misconceptions and expectations in meditation include, “when I meditate I will…

Feel calm
Have a clear mind
Feel peaceful”

When this doesn’t happen, you feel like you failed. You think “I’m not good at this”, and you probably won’t try again.

Joree suggests reframing the way you think about meditation to be slowing down and creating space to allow whatever is arising to exist without judging. It’s more of an observation, Joree says. And there are two types.

The first is open awareness. You notice that sound, or thought, or feeling. You notice it and don’t do anything about it.

The second is focused attention. An object of attention that you bring your attention back to. This is usually coming back to your breath, but this can also be towards a mantra, something you look at, or something you touch.

Mindfulness is a taking that foundation of open awareness and focused attention and taking it “off the cushion” and into your daily life.

Mindfulness is living with greater awareness, attention, and intention.

Increasing awareness to what’s happening internally (thoughts and feelings) and externally (what’s going on in the world around you).
Paying attention to your habits, patterns, reactions, or mindsets that respond to those internal and external experiences.
To be more intentional with your responses to what goes around you.

The key? Be present.

When you get stuck in your own habits and patterns and reactions, often what keeps you stuck is your inner judgement. Your inner critic quickly says “Oh there you go again. Why did you say that? Why did you do that?”.

If you practice compassion rather than judgment, you increase your mindfulness and can look at how you’re reacting by simply observing it and letting it be.

While you’re living in the present moment, you’re responding rather than reacting.

“What if’s” Versus “What is”

The “what ifs” is one of the biggest demons, Joree says. It can get you so stuck. Joree suggests replacing the thought of “what if” with “what is”.

“What is” is what’s happening right now. At the root of a mindfulness practice is acceptance. By not accepting what goes on around you, you’re making your reaction to it bigger. You don’t have to like it to accept it.

Joree also explains the benefits of getting curious of what is the underlying message that your inner critic is giving you and see if you can find a good intention from your inner critic (maybe it’s just that their delivery is horrible!).

For example, you’re trying a new diet. Buuuut there’s a plate of cookies in front of you, and you caved, and you ate one. Your inner critic will tell you “you can’t stick to a diet, you’re willpower sucks, and you suck”. Could there be an underlying good intention here? Maybe your inner critic just wants to see you reach your goals and prove to yourself that you can do it.

It’s a matter of reframing your mindset. But you can’t reframe without awareness and compassion.

Where To Start

Start with mindfulness to give yourself to space.

And it doesn’t have to be long!

Joree started in her car. When she would drive somewhere she would drive with the radio off, notice the colours of cars, and be forgiving of traffic.

When you’re in line at the grocery store, instead of scrolling through your phone and burying yourself in impatience, notice your feet on the ground, the sounds going on around you, and taking some mindful breaths.

Wanna learn more?

You can find more info about Joree (and snag some tools and freebies!) on her website, www.joreerose.com, or on social media @joreerose.

You can also tune in to Joree’s podcast, “Journey Forward with Joree Rose”.

Bonus! Joree offers an online 8-week course called “The Journey Forward Method” where she teaches practical applications of mindfulness tools to get unstuck in their lives. All the details are on her website!

Show Highlights

[02:30] How she decided to become a marriage and family therapist.

[07:11] Deciding to quit moving forward with her clinical hours to have children.

[14:00] Getting out of expectations and “shoulds” and tuning into your true essence.

[20:24] How Joree defines mindfulness and the practice of mindfulness.

[30:04] Conquering the “what if” demons - what to do to avoid this mindset so you can flourish.

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