Ep. 81 We Are Complete, Just Not Finished: Embracing Both the Sacred and the Profane with Liza Kindred of EFF This! Meditation
Happy #SeekTheJoy Tuesday!
On the podcast this week is Liza Kindred, the founder of EFF This! Meditation, author of the brand new EFF THIS! book; creator of Mindful Technology, licensed minister, level two reiki practitioner, and a terrible but passionate surfer.
Liza is driven to try and make the world a better place, and as a meditation teacher and sought-after global keynote speaker, Liza has taught and spoken on five continents, from huge events like SxSW and Web Summit to intimate gatherings on living room floors. Her clients include companies like Vogue Magazine, Microsoft, Hearst, and FedEx. She has appeared in The New York Times, Wired Magazine, Well+Good, The Telegraph, and Entrepreneur Magazine.
After twenty years spent working with top brands in fashion and technology, Liza became increasingly bothered by how wildly divergent our values are from how we actually live our day-to-day lives. In response, she created a set of principles for building and using #mindfultech, and began Mindful Technology.
In 2017, after over a decade of practicing meditation and studying Buddhism, Liza became certified to teach mindfulness meditation and began the popular EFF This! Meditation, which has grown to include a large online community and a new book!
In this week’s new episode, we chat about Liza's meditation practice and Buddhism studies, the inspiration behind EFF This! Meditation, and the video of the Dalai Lama that changed everything. What it means to embrace true wellness, how we can see ourselves as whole and worthy already, and what it means to remember that you are complete, just not finished. We talk about finding sacredness in every aspect of our lives, spirituality as whatever we make it, the myth of meditation, and Liza’s top tips to begin a meditation practice. Plus, Liza shares with us the inspiration behind her new book (that started as a spreadsheet!), why it's a privilege to show up as who we are, setting boundaries in our digital spaces, how Liza stays energized and engaged, and SO much more!
I loved connecting with Liza and I’m so glad that we had this conversation! I can’t wait to hear what you think! Make sure to join the conversation on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter!
“We do our best to create a community that is really amplifying the voices, as much as we can, of people who are typically not listened to as much as they should be and try to create as safe a space as we’re able to. It has been a real joy and pleasure to watch people open up about their own real experiences.”
Liza has been a student of Buddhism and practicing meditation for over a decade. You’ll hear Liza share about it in this week’s episode, ss a result of her studies and journey she launched EFF This! Meditation - the spiritual community that embraces both the sacred and the profane. (THEY SWEAR A LOT - and I’m here for it!) They’re here to support humans who are on a spiritual path, but reject the whitewashed, overly precious, everything-is-bliss, prepackaged version of spirituality that is taking over what is actually a very diverse, gritty, and real experience.
With a deep respect for the foundational teachings of Buddhism, Liza and EFF This! focus is on the dharma (the teachings) and not the teachers. She views it as spirituality in practice - because we still have jobs and families. Other than the fact that they swear a lot, the biggest difference in attitude that you will notice is that EFF This! wholly rejects the idea that we are broken and in need of fixing. I really enjoyed learning more about what all of this means - and Liza’s perspective is not only refreshing, but much needed. As Liza shares, while the wellness industrial complex loves to sell the idea that we should improve, be better, hustle harder, work on ourselves, etc. EFF This! and the community she’s built is here to show you the real, anti-capitalistic truth: that there is nothing wrong with you. You are complete, just not finished. You are whole and already worthy, just as you are right now.
I LOVE what they believe (and couldn’t not include it here!):
Thoughts are not truths
Everything about us is valid.
We do no harm (but take no shit.)
We are complete, just not finished.
The answers are inside of each of us.
Direct experience is the only confirmation. 👈🏽
Present moment awareness is a superpower.
There is nothing to be fixed. We are not broken.
We are worthy of love, exactly as we are right now.
We strive to raise the energy when we walk into a room.
Death comes without warning. We know our death is certain.
The most important thing, at any time, is to be gentle with ourselves.
Skimming the surface leads to spiritual bypassing; we choose to dig deep.
We respect the traditions and work diligently to avoid spiritual materialism.
We’re always meditating on something. We have a choice about what that is.
We are doing the best we can with our available resources. Doing our best is enough.
Modern guru culture is dangerous and ego-driven. We are responsible for our own journey.
Meditation is a physical, felt experience; emotions are energy and our visceral awareness contains the path to deep wisdom.
Meditation, as Liza teaches it, is a shamatha (mindfulness-awareness) practice rooted in radical compassion for self. Although they’re secular and not at all religious, EFF This! Meditation is rooted in 2500 years of Tibetan Buddhist teachings. Everyone–highly religious or not all all–is welcome here - and I love this.
Their specific focus is on meditation as a physical, felt experience. Many mindfulness practices begin and end in the head–observing how the mind works, opening our eyes and ears, focusing on the way our breath feels on our nose or lips. EFF This! expands this awareness to include the whole body–which also includes our energetic field and the way that our emotions are manifesting in our body. While our thoughts don’t always tell us the truth, our bodies always do.
“My decade of studying Buddhism, combined with my own personal experience, has really led me to believe in my heart of hearts that we cannot hate ourselves or change ourselves into someone we love. We can only accept ourselves for who we are, right now today. If we learn the skill of loving ourselves the way that we are, then that’s a skill that we can take from the present moment into the future.”
Liza has spent a lifetime learning how to care for her body, mind and soul, and it’s her goal to share the time-tested tools she’s used to help you grow your own health and happiness, starting today. As Liza shares in this week’s new episode, if the world is making you feel a bit nutty, know this: you’re not broken, and you don’t need to be fixed. There are things you can do to help yourself feel better.
Liza’s new book Eff This! is a hands-on manual for living in a stressful world can be integrated into your daily life and features easy, quick – and often free – things we can do to alleviate our own stress. Inside this book are 108 tips, tricks, and ideas: practical, actionable, and often zero-cost ways to feel more grounded, less stressed, and maybe even a tiny bit more at peace with yourself.
Half of the exercises can be done in five minutes or less. Learn to celebrate the small victories in life with a “to done” list. Release yourself from phone addiction with a digital detox plan. Get your body out of stress mode by practicing diaphragmatic breathing. Be transported, and open your heart with a pick-me-up playlist. These are just a few of the simple, practical strategies that will help you find your center.
“EFF This! Meditation is really about allowing room for all the different parts of spirituality to exist in one place. Where we’re bringing together all the parts of who we are – swearing like a sailor, putting your hands in the air, getting annoyed and taking it out on others – all of this is part of the amazing experience of life.”
Liza believes that we are complete, just not finished; all the wisdom we need is inside of us; direct experience is the only confirmation; and the most important thing, at any time, is to be gentle with ourselves.
I learned so much from Liza and our conversation, and I’m so grateful for everything that she shared. Liza shares incredible tips and words of wisdom, and I found myself nodding my head and saying YES! more times than I can count. From sharing about the impact of accepting and loving ourselves as we are, how to make meditation more accessible, and taking the sacred and the profane and meeting it with joy and love - I know without a doubt that there will be so many incredible moments that will resonate and stay with you, too.
This week’s new episode is truly epic (if I do say so myself!) It’s multi-layered, we go deep but also keep things lighthearted, and honestly from the moment we got on the phone I knew this was going to be such a fun conversation. I can’t wait to hear what you think about this one!
To learn more about Liza and EFF This! Meditation, visit her on her website www.lizakindred.com and www.effthismeditation.com and on Instagram @effthismeditation @liza_k and Twitter @lizak and you can find her new book Eff This! Meditation: 108 Tips, Tricks, and Ideas for When You’re Feeling Stressed Out, Anxious or Overwhelmed on Amazon here
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