Relational Harmony: Smiles, Love, and Overcoming Limiting Beliefs with Zach Beach

Interview Episode with Zach Beach

[: 00:00:00

Zach: You bring up a very common concern or complaint, you might say, with people kind of embarking on this path is they're like, Ah! I would love to sit down for 20, 30 minutes meditate. But then this happens, then the kids come in or my husband knocks on the door. And then, and my peaceful reverie is just completely ruined. And it's like, guess what? Your husband knocking on the door. That's part of your practice. When the kids come in, that's part of your practice. Everything that we encounter in life is here for our awakening deeper in to love. So, you know. Alan Watts says like, if you can't meditate in a boiler room, you can't meditate or Ajahn Chah, the Buddhist monk says, if you can't practice in the city, you can't practice in the forest.

ractice when you're healthy. [: 00:01:00

Laurin: Hello friends, and welcome back to Curiously Wise Practical Spirituality in Action. I'm Laurin Wittig, your host. And as always, I have a fabulous guest here who I'm really excited to talk to today. And his name is Zach Beach. So let me just tell you just a little bit about Zach, and then we'll dive into the conversation.

Zach Beach is an international yoga teacher, best selling author, poet, love coach. Founder of the heart center love school and host of the learn to love podcast committed to building a world based on unconditional love and connection. Zach regularly leads retreats, workshops, and transformational trainings on opening the heart and discovering our loving nature.

Zach, welcome to Curiously Wise.

Zach: Thank you so much, Laura. I'm happy to be here.

but also just I tend to just [: 00:02:00

Sorry, not website podcast. So far. Welcome welcome. Welcome. So. Let's just start with a really simple question. Really simple question. What is love? How do you, how do you discern it? Define it. Talk about it. Something simple. Right?

rld from different layers or [: 00:03:00

So you might even think of them as planes of awareness. So like when you look at a tree, do you see a species? Do you see emptiness and form? Do you see a manifestation of the tree spirit? Like these are all different darshans or perspectives that we can take. So I love to multifaceted, multidimensional, different perspectives we can take.

Usually a great way to just begin the conversation is with the definition of love that comes from Buddhist psychology because it's very simple and straightforward, which is to say that love is a genuine concern for another person's well being. So very simple, right? So not the great ineffable. Let's just get down right to business and just define love as care for somebody.

t does allow us to give love [: 00:04:00

But think about what it might look like to cultivate a love for all sentient beings everywhere. Well

rgive. Which can be a tricky [: 00:05:00

Did you love them? That's sort of been where my is when you're working with people. How do you help them? I know it's probably a long journey for all of us. But how do you help them into that space of I don't like you or I don't what you do. I don't agree with you. I still love you.

Zach: that's an excellent question. And it's an excellent inquiry. And a text that comes to mind is just the Dhammapada, the way that you were describing like the certain thoughts that we have. So like verse number three from the Dhammapada, which is just a series of Buddhist slogans goes right into it.

It goes, He abused [: 00:06:00

Laurin: Mm

Zach: and it's easy to get caught up into the actions that people do that do cause us pain. And not to ignore that but we can just recognize that these are thoughts that arise and come from the mind.

And as the Dhammapada would also say, hatred does not cease through hatred, only through love alone will the world be healed.

Laurin: Love that. Mm

Zach: back to this idea of certain levels of awareness. Channels of awareness or layers of consciousness to think about what it might mean to change the channel when we sort of perceive and be with other human beings, because we're often in what I call channel one awareness, which is often the level of the mind and the level of the mind is very discriminative.

on, ugly person, person that [: 00:07:00

So I often go back to this quote that. Intimacy is intimacy. It's seeing deeper into somebody.

Laurin: I love

Zach: Beyond surface level appearances. So even in Restorative Justice, we say, like, there are no bad people, but there are bad actions. Like, it's okay to, say, label an action that somebody did as one that caused a lot of suffering, either for them, or for you, or for others.

But there's no bad people. And we recognize there's no bad people when we're able to see deeper into somebody, when we're able to see with the heart and see at the heart level. And what you discover when you go deeper into somebody is that we're all trying our best that hurt people, hurt people, people who cause suffering or suffering themselves.

nown as our common humanity, [: 00:08:00

And when you go deeper into the, into somebody, that's where that natural compassion arises. You realize this person is, you know, fearful and scared and insecure, just like you can be at times. So it's that shared understanding. That's one thing I found about compassion that it does arise from commonness, from common humanity, from our recognition that we're all in this together.

While a lot of. Hatred and ill will comes from separation and which we would say is also delusion or illusion. So those are the three poisons, right? Greed, hatred, and delusion.

Laurin: Mm-Hmm.

interact that with the more [: 00:09:00

Laurin: Yeah. Delusion. I like that. Okay. I'm, I'm always taking notes 'cause I'm always learning . So greet is one that I, I know I have, I have pulled out of the chaos that we live in these days. I always lived in chaos if we're in a human form, but it just seems more, I don't know, difficult these days. But greed is the one that I have focused on because that's where I see sort of the root of so much of what we have going on today.

ld use to I just had to keep [: 00:10:00

They, You know, they, they ran into my car on purpose, whatever it is, our ego wants to hold on to that

Zach: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Laurin: getting to that perspective. Now I do a lot of, of shaman work, so I, I like animal metaphors. But I talk about the taking the hawk's eye view or even the Eagle's eye view, which is an even further away and looking down and seeing things from, from that more objective perspective.

Yeah. Higher order perspective. And and that's what I had. I I've trained myself when I get into that ego state to go, okay, hold on, wait a minute. I'm What's really going on here. Let me pull back from it. And I've done it enough that I can do it pretty quickly and easily and go. Okay. Yeah. They had a bad day.

an just love on them and and [: 00:11:00

Zach: Yeah.

Laurin: so,

Zach: That's great. You've probably heard of the medicine wheel and there's always different directions depending on which culture it comes from. So I have spent a lot of time in Peru. So one of the directions of the medicine wheel absolutely is the Eagle. And it is a lovely metaphor, a lovely way of describing of what it does mean to shift our perspective, right?

We can be the hummingbird that finds sweetness and all the little cracks and crevices in the world. And we can also be the Eagle that sees this one planet. one race, one humanity all in this together, trying our best.

Laurin: And it's, I love the dichotomy of those birds that you just did because the hummingbirds right here with us, always looking for the sweetness of life

Zach: Oh

ective. So do you have other [: 00:12:00

What is it? I, I got a quote from, from some of the stuff that I got from you. How do we see the world through the eyes of love? I just, I like that, that frame.

Zach: Yeah,

Laurin: So how, how can you help us do that?

Zach: I do love this idea that we all have certain lenses that we see the world through and we can see the world through the eyes of love. Common metaphor that we often use in spiritual teachings is this basic idea that like, You're walking in the woods, and you come across a dog, and you start walking towards it, and it starts barking and snarling at you, and you're like, okay, this is a really mean, scary dog, I should probably avoid it.

alk around, your perspective [: 00:13:00

And then within you, A natural desire to help arises, right? So this is a person, this is a, I can see the metaphors going. This is a dog who's needs help, who is suffering and needs my heart to help, to reach out to them. So you can see how it might shift that perspective when your partner is yelling at you.

Laurin: Oh, yes.

ight? That needs tending to. [: 00:14:00

So I often think of our meditation practice as tending the garden of the mind. Intentionally planting the seeds that you wish to grow and taking out the weeds that are getting in the way that we don't want the weeds of, you know, greed and hatred and ill will and delusion to be like vines that can be like vine.

Sometimes, you know, they strangle our love ends up dying. So we tend the garden of the mind. We notice the weeds and we don't throw them away. We compost

Laurin: Yes. Mm-Hmm.

he other parts of ourselves, [: 00:15:00

We have to encompass all aspects of our being, warts and all. So we're not here to perfect ourselves. A jack o lantern will would say, we're here to perfect our love, and that includes embracing all of our imperfections, all of our neuroses,

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I hadn't had, I read some of Jack Kornfield years ago, but I didn't remember that. But yeah, planting the seeds of love and choosing, there's a lot of choice that goes on. I find in this process, like when I was doing Ho'oponopono, I was choosing to change my state. From anger, defensiveness, anxiety, overwhelm, those were all going on simultaneously to, okay, she can't change.

that. And it was a practice [: 00:16:00

Zach: Mm-Hmm.

Laurin: It's not a perfect practice to, to be a loving light in the world. It's, it's called a practice for a reason, you know, and, and as with anything that's practice, you, you, it gets easier. You get better at it over time. And it gets, for me, I know that I can snap out of that ego loop that can happen. Like why, why is my husband keep interrupting me today?

You know, because we both [: 00:17:00

Zach: I see. I

Laurin: and, you know, I've learned to go, okay, wait a minute. He needs me for something he needs to bounce things off me, or he just needs to sometimes he just needs to talk through something. That's a really a mutual decision that I don't care about. So, I've learned to stop and go.

Okay. What's why does he need to talk to me right now? And and to then to go. Okay. I can do that for him. I can just stop working for a while and have this conversation and it makes him feel better. And I can get I feel better because I'm not. Why is he bothering me? Yeah.

. And it's like, guess what? [: 00:18:00

If you can't practice when you're sick, you can't practice when you're healthy. So we always have to watch out for that, if only mind, perhaps you've heard of this, the one, Oh, if only such and such were to happen, then, Oh, I could really, you know, We'll find peace and be loving. If only, you know, my partner really understood me.

If only.

Laurin: hmm. Mm hmm.

Zach: So we're watching another, you know, weed in the garden that we're watching. Okay.

arden for the first time and [: 00:19:00

No, we just got rotten food. And so the idea of, of first of all, practicing and being, being in a beginner's mind, You know, as you start some of these things, I took, okay, so that didn't work. I'm not going to get upset about it. I was trying, but this year I'm going to do better. And that's how I, that's how I have always come to meditation.

I will say I put a sign on my door now when I'm meditating. And after a lot of years, my husband is like, Oh, do not disturb. But at the same time, I've got neighbors who have their lawn machines going and I've got, you know, the, the lawn services around the house and the dog will bark downstairs.

year or [: 00:20:00

And and into the meditative state really quickly. And sometimes if there's more chaos around me, it's easier. I don't know why but it's like, if it's quiet, there could be things I could be doing, you know? But if it's, if there's just chaos, then I just go, okay, I need to, you know, recharge or reset or, you know, re reset my perspective about what's going on.

Yeah, so meditation. I know meditation is something a lot of people struggle with. I have people say, yeah, I tried it. I can't.

Zach: Yeah.

Laurin: maybe a little advice around that for us as well. ? Mm-Hmm.

with so much of what you're [: 00:21:00

It's something that we. choose to do and choose to bring into our life. We have posture. So of course, making sure the body is upright and relaxed. We have place. So making sure we're in a conducive place. It's nice to have a, a devoted place in your house or wherever you are to meditate. And then the fourth P is problems. And it's an essential part of the practice. I think people have this sort of myth or this idea or fantasy that meditation is supposed to be peace and bliss all the time, and that if you're not experiencing peace, [00:22:00] then you are a bad meditator or you can't meditate or that you aren't meditating.

Laurin: Mm hmm.

Zach: I felt like I was really in it. But the rest of the 59 minutes, I was not meditating. I was just off. It's like, that's also part of it. It's all part of it. And I do just want to go back to your gardening because I just feel very much that basically nature teaches us everything that we need to know. Such as that, like nothing is going to survive without a continuous influx of nutrients, right? Every plant needs watering and light and a fertile soil. So in the same way, if we want to grow anything in our life, we have to make sure it is nourished. We have to make sure there is an influx of nutrients.

So healthy relationships, [: 00:23:00

So it's very much the same way with the positive emotions that we want to experience more of. have to feed it. We have to nourish it. So there's the common parable of the two wolves and you have an angry wolf and a loving wolf and the one that survived. that you feed. And I have a few problems with this, but it's an appropriate one to just recognize that any, anything we want more of in our life, we have to intentionally grow.

We have to intentionally nourish. So if you want to nourish your love, you can grow that.

eah. I have been married now [: 00:24:00

Zach: for your 40 year anniversary?

Laurin: a trip to Europe, but we haven't kind of settled on, on what yet. So yeah, so it, I also turned 65 that year, like within days of each other. So so that's my birthday present. I was supposed to do something on my 60th, but that's when we went into shutdown.

So

Zach: Mm

Laurin: we saved it up. But what I have, what I have learned is that there are seasons. And some seasons are easier than other seasons.

Zach: in relationships.

Laurin: in relationships and, you know, some seasons have a lot of other things in them that can, you know, it changes the, the, the core relationship, you know, between the partners, but not necessarily in a bad way.

home with the kids. Which is [: 00:25:00

I wanted my family to be happy and healthy and the healthy part was the really hard part for us with their 2nd kid and and I, I sacrificed a career. I really loved. But I gained so much from it and the family gained so much from it. And my partner gained so much from it because it was less stressful for him that he knew I, I was there if something was needed to be done.

And so it was just, was an active service to the family, but it was also an active service to my partner because it did allow all of us to breathe a little easier.

Zach: Mm-Hmm.

ng how to be a couple again. [: 00:26:00

C. but during the pandemic, we were here 24 7 and we really did have to kind of renegotiate. How we spent our time together and apart, because we're both introverts. We like that alone time. And, and so that it's just a different season. The love is more mature. I would say it's not that, that infatuation of the beginning, but it's deeper.

And it's, Hmm. It's not something I would ever give up infatuation. I, you know, I went through infatuation a number of times before I met my husband, but But it's, it's just, it's so, such a, a part of me, this connection that we have that I wouldn't be me without it.

Zach: Mm-Hmm.

ust sort of where we are now,[: 00:27:00

Zach: Mm-Hmm.

Laurin: as we're preparing for this next stage of our life.

Zach: That's

Laurin: yeah, so love is wonderful, but it, it changes it and it, and it can ebb and flow, you know, you get tired and you get anxious and, and you try to, you know, you keep going because you know, it's important and it's worth it. So, yeah, that's my, my perspective from, from my, my marriage can't speak for anybody else.

But yeah. So,

Zach: Well, I'll just ask you a follow-up question to that. Well, I'm gonna turn the podcast interview

Laurin: Go right

Zach: Because. You recognize how everything changes. Our love changes over time. Our bodies change over

Laurin: hmm.

Zach: Our relationships change. Our kids grow up, they leave the house. Have you found there to be anything constant throughout or putting, putting it a different way?

you feel like, like the same?[: 00:28:00

Laurin: No, I don't feel like I'm as old as I am. The constant for for us. Has been laughter. We laugh every single day. And so even when things are hard and we're, you know, we're anxiety provoking and we had, we've lost all of our parents over the last 8, 10 years. Through all of those, we were able to still laugh with each other to make each other laugh.

're in good shape. So that's [: 00:29:00

Zach: Yeah. You bring up a lot of very important points about a healthy relationship. Is every relationship kind of follows a general life cycle. You start the dating stage, you move on to the honeymoon stage. And then there's what therapists call the power struggle stage. As you move idealistic love to a more realistic love.

And then you kind of journey to a level of stability and commitment. And then the final stage is just bliss. It's just being happy with each other. So laughter is such a key indicator that you have some joy in your relationship. So earlier when we were talking about different layers or levels of love, is there tends to be kind of three layers of love.

n? So what I mean by that is [: 00:30:00

If they're doing well, it turns into sympathetic joy, into joy in their joy. Barbara Frederickson, a researcher Even talks about this in her book called Love 2. 0. Basically love is positivity resonance. It's two people who want each other to be happy. And then guess what happens when one person's happy, the other person gets happy.

a wonderful indication of a [: 00:31:00

Laurin: Well, that's, that's reassuring. Cause I'm not going anywhere and I'm pretty sure he's not going anywhere without me. So all right, let's see. I just want to follow up. You just said because that that if one person is happy, it affects the other person's happiness, it raises them up. And to me. I think I speak about that energetically all the time is as what we are feeling ripples out everywhere around us.

Zach: Absolutely.

Laurin: And so not just the I'm, you know, face with, but anybody else that I might come into contact with, is why I have a game. I play in the grocery store.

Zach: Okay.

Laurin: at everybody.

Zach: Oh,

Laurin: and I always think the cashier, you know and I, I especially standing in line where you can feel people starting to grumble. I got, you know, time, time, time.

o something or I'll at least [: 00:32:00

Zach: Mm hmm.

Laurin: That's a visible, you know, effect of smiling at somebody, you've just raised them up a little bit. And there is a there is a, an actual nervous system reaction when you smile that changes things, things for me.

My grandmother used to tell me, Lawrence, you just have to smile until you feel

Zach: Mm. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, your own experience. Yeah. Yeah, you bring up a lot of very important points. Yeah, one, even researchers have found that, like, if you have somebody, like, take a, like, a question and answer and put, like, a pencil in their mouth, like, a cross, that they will, Kind of record slightly more positive responses because it just forcing the mouth to be a little bit open and a little bit upturned does sort of induce a certain, you know, the same little ideas of happiness.

And [: 00:33:00

People go out less. They socialize less. They have less friends. They have less people. Emotional confidence, you know, I, I even read that like 25 percent of, of, of people now do not have like a very close friend that they can emotionally confide in. So we're absolutely in a loneliness epidemic and it's bad for our health.

Laurin: Yes. It's very bad

at a lot. So it's absolutely [: 00:34:00

So that like, Later that they are more likely to smile the next person that they see. Oh, on a metaphor I often think about is like two violins in an empty room. And if you pluck one string or play one note on one violin, the other one will resonate. We are relational beings. We are always resonating with the people that are around us.

And I was just even thinking yesterday, I was like, have you ever been around like a really anxious person? And you're like, you can just feel their anxiety kind of like rubbing off on you. Like, I wasn't worried about this, but now I kind of am.

Laurin: Mm hmm. Yeah,

Zach: And it's true. Cause we pick up on the emotions that are around us.

rself. Is this mine? Is this [: 00:35:00

And if it's not, then you need to let it go. And literally you can just say, this is not mine, you know, and that just that acknowledging it helps to, to create space between it. And that's something that's definitely something I've learned to do. Because I, I will walk into a room with somebody, even, even somebody in my family, and they're having a bad day.

e in that situation that you [: 00:36:00

And say what's mine and what's not mine because I don't want your anxiety. I will support you through it, but I don't want it.

Zach: And what I might offer is a possible next step, which is what you think is yours is also not yours. So,

Laurin: Yeah.

Zach: the Buddha would say, nothing to cling to as I, me, or mine. We are here to let go of everything we consider to be I, me, or mine. So sometimes in meditation we say, you don't have to believe everything that you think. So whether you think that you're the best meditator in the world, or whether you think that you're the worst meditator in the world, or even, you know, the best person in the world or the worst person in the world, we don't have to necessarily entertain those thoughts. And we sometimes say that they're real, but not true, right?

ight now, those feelings of, [: 00:37:00

Laurin: Yeah, that's, that's a very good point. I run a women's circle and last night we had a gathering and we were talking about limiting beliefs and where do they come from?

Zach: Mm. Mm

Laurin: talking about.

Zach: Yes.

Laurin: why do I have that? And sometimes I've put it in place because it kept me safe when I was a kid.

re. And it is still limiting [: 00:38:00

Zach: Mm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Those limiting beliefs keep, keep us in prison.

Laurin: They do, they do. And they're, and they, sometimes they are something we put into place, but sometimes they're things that culture has put into a place or our family. It's a belief in our family. Or so we don't always know what what's been laid on us as children that we carry into our adulthood thinking it's normal, natural.

And I need that.

Zach: Absolutely. Yeah. A common story is there's the tiger that was raised in the circus and it spent most of its life in the 10 foot by 10 foot cage and just pacing back and forth. And eventually some activists got together and they bought the tiger. In a big zoo and with a big field and a big, you know, things to play with and different things like that.

oot and paste back and forth [: 00:39:00

And those limiting beliefs, however even under circumstances where they don't exist, they can still keep us small, keep us limited. Absolutely.

Laurin: Yeah, yeah. All right, is there anything we haven't talked about yet that you want to bring forth?

Would feel awesome.

Zach: What's coming up for me right now?

Laurin: experienced

The last

tening to this show and this [: 00:40:00

Would that feel good? [00:41:00] Yeah, you know, and sometimes I send those messages and I'm like, listen, just don't reply back. Like, don't even reply back. I'm sending this because I have some love I want to offer. There's no pressure or obligation to you know, to return anything. So this is and openness, when we just see our love as a genuine concern for another person's well being, is it's a love that is always offered and never imposed.

It is a love that can, can be unconditional, right? There's nothing you need to do to prove your love to me. There's nothing you, To be worthy of my love and you're perfect just the way that you are. Because if you're only loving parts of somebody, you're not loving them. Right. If you're, Oh, I love how kind you are and what a good chef you are in the kitchen, but you have this temper.

really don't like that part [: 00:42:00

So our love can be the same.

Laurin: Oh, that's beautiful. All right. I think that is a perfect sentiment to end on. I love the metaphors that you brought forth. They're just so powerful and I'm gonna borrow them.

f us and never goes away I'm [: 00:43:00

Laurin: it.

Zach: like zen haikus I always come back to because the moon is always a a representation of enlightenment and awakening. So one haiku goes, the thief left it behind. the moon at my window. So part of what I was asking earlier is like, do you find that anything never changes? Of course, the love in our hearts is always here.

Your breath is always here. And things can be taken from you, but no one can take away the love that is always shining in your heart. So another common metaphor is Which I love is, it's kind of, it's another haiku. It's like, my entire house is a burned down. Now there is nothing blocking my view of the moon.

Laurin: That's a perfect change in perspective, isn't it?

Zach: let [: 00:44:00

Laurin: I love that. I love that. Okay. Perfect. Can you tell the listeners where they can find you? Okay.

Zach: Yes. Very easy to find. My name is Zach Beach. You can go to zachbeach.com and I'm also on social media at Zach Beach love.

Laurin: All right. And we'll have, of course, all his links in the, the show notes. And I just really, really want to Thank you for being here today, Zach. This has been such a, an uplifting conversation. And I love all of the metaphors. I'm a writer too. So I'm not, I'm not a poet, but I love metaphors. They the symbology is just always appeals to me.

So [: 00:45:00

Thank you so much for joining us today on Curiously Wise, I hope this conversation has left you feeling inspired and curious about the world around and within you. After all curiosity is the key to growth and understanding. So keep asking questions and exploring new ideas. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and or leaving a review. It helps us be found by others. If you're curious to learn more about me or my healing practice, Heartlight Wellness.

Head over to my website heartlightjoy.com. Until next time I'm Laurin Wittig. Stay curious.