Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
This podcast is focused on challenges that are routinely encountered by men aged 50 - 70, but
not often discussed. Although targeted to them, this is also applicable to older / younger men
who are looking for ways to age differently, as well as the women that are involved in their lives.
Stress, relationships, male friendships, diet, mindfulness, aging with vitality and dying are just
some of the many topics that are covered. A rotating series of guest speakers join the podcast
to provide insights and wisdom relating to other relevant topics such as EMF radiation,
emotional intelligence, mindfulness and hair health.
(upbeat music) - Darius. - Peter, so good to see you. - My delight. I'm so glad we finally are here producing this podcast.
How do you feel about it? - I'm excited, Peter. This is something that you and I have been speaking about for the better part of two years and to see that vision start to become reality.
It's very exciting. - It's exciting. No question about it. Maybe we should tell the audience about this. why we're here and what the name of this podcast is. You wanna do that? - I'd be delighted to. So the name we came up with is 50 to 70 meaningful conversations between men because in my experience and yours as well,
men in our age category aren't really having those meaningful conversations for a lot of different reasons. - That's true. - And somebody who's 70 has had a few more years.
years to learn a few things and had a few more bumps and bruises And maybe can share some meaningful things, and I'm not just talking about you and I but our audience as well How about from the perspective of somebody who's 50?
Someone who's 50 who's had more than a few bumps and bruises along the way I'll take any wisdom I can to minimize bumps and bruises moving forward But I think as a a 50 -year -old,
you had an interesting inflection point. You've got kids that are likely in high school or about to leave. You've got elderly parents, you have a relationship with a significant other.
You could be questioning what's going on in your life with your career. I think there's a lot of interesting dynamics that need to be covered and a lot of wisdom to be gleaned from somebody who's lived an extra two decades and been through it.
Yeah. Yeah. And that 50 period, I recollect, that midlife questioning, that conflict, that purposing is so much going on at that,
like you said, inflection point. So we'll get a chance to talk about it from a lot of different perspectives over the coming episodes. And from the perspective of somebody who's 70,
aging and vulnerability starts to really set in deep. And so I hope to share some of that perspective and maybe glean what at 50, I might have done different.
Now, I think that's really profound, Peter. And I think you said a really powerful word, vulnerability. And it's not just the physical vulnerability, it's the emotional vulnerability, it's the mental vulnerability.
That's one of those key things as a man that you're taught to beat out of your system. You don't show vulnerability. You don't show weakness because vulnerability is weakness. - Yeah, you don't show emotions.
- None. - So maybe we should tell the audience a little bit about ourselves. Darius, who are you? - Oh, who am I? My name is Darius Nagmual. I'm Canadian originally.
Been down in the States for 20 years. I have two wonderful children who are both teenage boys. and I'll get into more of my backstory and how I found you in a few minutes,
but just really delighted to be here right now. End yourself, Peter. Well, I am 70, approaching 71, and the father of four,
the grandfather of four, I'm very proud of my children. They've done well within the perspective of our culture and society. I'm extremely proud of my Marine son,
who just by the way was awarded the Bronze Star. Oh, that's fantastic. And the daughter was a nurse in ethicists. I have another one who's a leader in educational programs,
trying to keep teachers within the profession and develop more teachers in education, a much needed aspect. And I think that's one of the things that we have to keep in mind. And I think that's one of the things that we have to keep in mind. And I think that's one of the things that we have to keep in mind. And I think that's one of the things that we have to keep in mind. And I think that's one of the things
that we have to keep in mind. had my oldest son who's an occupational therapist. And so, you know, they turned out pretty good. And I must add, I also have a grandson who's a PJ,
which is a, how to bet to describe, a person who jumps out of planes who in the Air Force and rescues pilots and goes into disaster areas and performs rescues.
So I'm very proud of my children, grandchildren. So how did we come to get to this point where we're producing a podcast?
Maybe we should share with the audience exactly what happened. Yeah, it's such an interesting story. I was in my 40s and living the corporate life, you know, getting on a plane.
plane every week, flying somewhere. I was a consultant to the biopharma industry. And on the surface, I was crushing it. Very successful. I actually founded my own company that was doing well.
But inside, I was in just, I was slowly physically deteriorating. I would travel, I would come back, I would not take care of the body.
body. And ice became my constant companion. It was chronic lower back pain that was getting worse and worse. And like any "healthy male," I refused to listen to the weakness.
I refused to acknowledge that it was there. I just willed myself to keep moving forward. And the wake -up calls started coming when I was in my 40s and I ended up in the ER four times over the place of two years.
My, well, four times. A healthy man once was a severe allergic reaction, once was pleurisy, where the lung membrane starts to separate from the lungs,
and twice I had lower back pain where I showed up and rather than being straight, I was bent at a 45 degree angle to the left and I couldn't straighten out. May I ask you,
were there any signs that it gave you a... a warning that this was about to set in? - Oh, there were plenty of signs. There was the ache, there was the inability to get out of bed in the morning,
there was the physical fatigue, there was the spiritual cognitive dissonance where I knew I wasn't doing what I was meant to do. But the question is, did I pay attention to any of those signs?
- Mm, so when did you wake up? - When did I wake up? Well, my back pain got so bad. I was at a Christmas party. I was hosting a Christmas party for my company,
50 people there, and I had my assistant with bags of ice that she would bring, and I would quietly step out and I would strap bags of ice around my back, tighten it up, she would come by in 20 minutes,
she would gently take them, and thank you, Christine, for doing that and helping me. 20 minutes later, she'd bring them. another set and it was when I couldn't get out of bed in the morning that I realized there was a problem so I actually ended up calling this wonderful therapist named was John and He convinced me something that I never thought was possible He convinced me that a majority of my back pain was in my
head in your head in my head Exactly, and what was your reaction? My reaction was, "Bully, you know what? What the f does this guy think he's talking about?" But he got me,
he encouraged me to read a book, Healing Through Mindfulness, by an individual, Ron Siegel, and I read the book and I came to learn that a big chunk of it was in my head and how I was preparing for the back pain,
which may or may not come, and how I wasn't living in the moment. but either thinking about the past or worried about the future. And that led to me deciding to take a mindfulness class,
my friend. Oh, you did. I think I vaguely remember. And who was it that you took this mindfulness course from, may I ask? You can, because my first interaction with him really struck a raw nerve with me.
Oh, dude. Do you remember the first thing that you said? to me when we were going around the room? - I'm just vaguely and I did notice your reaction to it. (laughing) But I was mum and I just kind of knew to just let it sit with you a bit.
Do you wanna share with the audience? - Oh, I'd be happy to. So, and Peter's mindfulness class, we go around and we say why we're here. And so I think about what I'm going to say and I say, I'm here. to get inside my mind a little bit.
And Peter takes this pause, as you'll hear, Peter will take a pause. And it's usually before he says something really profound. And then he responds, I would encourage you to get inside your mind,
your body, as well as your emotions. And then he moved on. And we were on zoom because this was in the height of COVID. And my reaction was, who does this guy think he is?
This is not the class for me. I am not gonna be here." I actually texted my significant other saying, "I can't believe I signed up for this class. This seems like a complete crock of you know what." And then I breathed and I realized if you hit a nerve that quickly and that easily,
there's something that we need to explore. - Yeah. - So that's how I ended up. having the pleasure of getting to know you. - Well, that's wonderful. And then from there,
we did some other things as well, right? Do you wanna share that with the audience or is that for future conversations? - Oh, we've done a lot of things. And I think the beauty of what we're gonna be doing in this podcast is the conversations that you and I have been having,
we're gonna be able to share some of the insights that we've taken. I mean, some of the topics that we're gonna be talking about that we're going to cover as we move forward, male relationships and how as we get older,
men don't have relationships with other men that they can pick up the phone and call and have conversations with. We're gonna talk about diet. - And nutrition,
right? - And nutrition and supplementation and what the standard American diet is doing and things that we can do about it. We're gonna talk about mindfulness and you see farther when you stand on the shoulders of giants and that's what I get to do from a mindfulness perspective with you.
- But there's just so many topics. - But why would people want to listen to us, Darius? Why would the audience care to tune in? What's their form? What's the point of it is the way I often look at things.
What's the point of it for them? What's the point of it for them? What's the why? What's the why? Not just our good looks that they get to hear coming through the podcast and maybe see on video at some point. I think between the two of us,
we have 120 years on this planet, almost 122 by the end of this month. There's a lot of accumulated wisdom, a lot of stuff that you and I have spent hours, days, weeks,
months researching. May I interject? Please. I hope the audience remembers this. 31 .5 million moments each year of your life.
- Peter, how did you get to 31 .5 million? - Just add up the moments each day, 365 days in the year. - Each day,
24 hours, each hour, 60 minutes. - Yeah, and we don't often step back enough to kind of look at what's the impact of that. - Yeah, everyone of those moments. has an impact. - Absolutely.
- And ripples out into our present moment. And we're not conscious, we're not aware of it. - Yeah, I'm gonna tell you the biggest insight I took from your mindfulness class was when we did the pleasant moments exercise.
Do you remember that one? - Yeah, yeah, of course. - So for those who haven't been through it, every day you read that right down at the end of the day, a pleasant moment. And so I wrote my seven pleasant moments exercise.
down night, had a really good week. Then Peter asked the question, how many of those moments were you there for? And I looked down and I had been present for two out of the seven pleasant moments.
The other five I was somewhere else, physically there, but not mentally. And that's part of the challenge of our human condition, not being here,
not being present. And we'll talk about about that and we'll talk about it because it has such an impact on the joy of living our lives, the abundance we're able to experience and really how much it contributes to just the constant negative thinking about what happened in the past or what you're worried about in the future.
So much of this has mindfulness context to it. but it's not about mindfulness. It's about being awake and aware and being present.
Yeah, but there's so much more. If you think about the conversations that we've had over the last two years, we've talked about parenting. We've talked about, I don't know how to say this,
parenting your parents as they become more elderly. We have talked about grief. Yeah. We have talked about diet, nutrition,
supplementation. We've talked about exercise and how the body needs exercise and what happens when you don't exercise. We've talked about stress, the insidious nature of stress.
All these are podcast topics that we're going to get into. Speaking of stress and speaking of self -care, do you remember our conversations about self -sabotage?
-sabotaging ourselves? I do, but why don't you illuminate people on self -sabotage? I think that's a pretty powerful concept. Well, it's just the unconscious conditioning and habits that we've engaged in for moments,
remember millions of moments. 31 and a half. In order to cope with the discomfort, the pain of something something unpleasant in our lives. You know,
we throw around the term trauma a lot these days, and perhaps rightfully so. There's lots of concepts in kind of ancient literature that talk about these experiences we have in our lives that leave imprints in our psyche.
And one of the things I've learned over the years, in a lot of interactions like the ones you and I have had over these last few years, couple of years, it's through the coaching that I've done, the mindful life coaching,
the teaching of the classes from a mindfulness perspective, the MBSR, the mindfulness -based stress reduction classes, the opportunity to see the human psyche at work and how I've learned there's these imprints that we now often refer to as trauma that are left left on our minds and then we act to avoid.
We spend most of our lives pursuing ways to cope with things that are negative and we start doing it unconsciously and then we get kind of lost in that loop of negativity.
We get lost in behaviors where we're coping, trying to avoid the experience again, but we are unconscious of the feelings that promote it,
the feelings that generate the thoughts, the negative thinking, the coping, the stress. And so a lot of what, you know, we can call it mindfulness, but it's more than that.
A lot of just being aware and awake can help. help you and me be more apt to manage and regulate it better.
So I'll take that concept and I'll put it into practice. When my back was really bad, I was constantly thinking about what not to do to trigger it.
And so my range of activities got progressively progressively lower and lower and tighter and tighter until it was non -existent because I was living in my head about what might happen.
- Negatively, right? - Very much so. And then I was getting, I don't know if the right word is martyr, but I was, whoa, is me, why me, why do I have this?
- Victim. - And that's the word, thank you. you. Now, looking back now, I'll tell you that the back pain that I went through, probably one of the greatest gifts I've ever been given because it caused me to re -examine everything and to look at how I was living my life.
And I wouldn't have done it if I didn't have that experience. - Yeah, yeah, oftentimes my experience I'll share is that some of my biggest disappointments and failures have been my best moments to learn and to evolve and grow and develop and so I can see that that That happened to you.
I'm delighted for you actually so I have a cousin he's like a little brother to me and he's a he's a very powerful man and We were talking about failure when he was down visiting me.
And he's like, there's not failures. They're just opportunities for us to grow. And if we choose to make it a quote unquote failure, well, that's how we're gonna see and that's how we're gonna live it.
If we choose to take it as an opportunity to learn, to make ourselves better and to come back stronger, that's how we'll do it. - Yeah, and we'll talk about this aspect as well.
Is there science out there that talks about how much time we have left? we as human beings spend with negative thoughts and negative thinking. It's anywhere from 70 to 80 % of the time we wander off distracted by something in our mind that we view and emote and feel as negative.
And you and I have talked often about what about the other side of this? What about the side of being positive and reflecting on an opportunity?
opportunity and taking a risk and being okay, being outside of the box, correct? Absolutely. And if I think about the 70, 80 % that's negative, we have the negative.
And then we have a big chunk of time that I think is increasing where you are just numb. And what I mean by that is you've got five minutes at the bank line. What do you do?
You pick up your smartphone and you start scrolling through Instagram. or Facebook or TikTok or whatever it is versus just sitting and experiencing being in your body in the moment.
And there's so many ways to numb yourself. TV, alcohol, drugs, sex. It's all the same thing. I don't want to think. I just want to take my brain and park it to the side for a while.
So from your experience, why? Why the numbing action? Because emotions can be painful. What does it have to do with emotions? Well,
I do think the emotions are what drives the numbing. Are we avoiding them? Oh, I can speak only for myself and my emotions. There were years I absolutely avoided them.
Yeah. Yeah, and I have as well. And it's helped to develop these practices and this capacity to be more present and be more aware and more awake.
I like the term you use. You often use the term awake because it awakens you. It makes you aware of the fact that you're engaging in conduct and actions that don't serve you being here and now.
And they're just an avoidance of the emotion that you're feeling. And you're hiding from the emotion. You're not acknowledged. it You're not aware. You're not awakened to it. And so it's just this vicious loop that keeps you in a perpetual We call it a mist call it a fog.
Yeah, the dark. I don't know what we want to call it I don't know when I think the word awake There's a lot of that word is used a lot from a political perspective and I'm not talking about it from a political perspective I'm talking about it from understanding what is going on on within yourself.
Are you conscious of your emotions? And one of the things that I think I told you is sometimes when I think I'm awake, it means I'm in the middle, actually in the middle of the deepest slumber that I've ever been in.
And it's a work, I'm definitely a work in progress, constantly striving to become more aware, more awake of what's going on. Because if I play my argument all the way through,
it means even right now. now, part of me, not the majority of me, is still asleep. And right now,
this moment, being asleep, what is your perspective of where to move forward with that? How to continue to evolve?
What do you do with that awareness? That awareness. awakening, that consciousness? I think like one of the insights I've had in life is there's very rarely a silver bullet,
simple answer to anything. Life is a series of small steps taken in a consistent direction that cumulatively adds up to something great. So if we go back to your question,
it just means I keep practicing. I keep acknowledging when the tough feelings come up, anger, sadness, loneliness, grief, whatever they are,
sit with them, make peace with them, because they are going to be there. And if we just refuse to acknowledge them, at least in my experience, they're going to come out again at some point in time, either emotionally or physically.
Yeah. So, are those the themes around which to have meaningful conversations? If I think about the meaningful conversations I've had, there's one underlying theme.
That's vulnerability because you can't have a meaningful conversation with another human being unless you're being vulnerable and authentic with who you are and what it is you are going through.
So it sounds simple enough. enough. Why are we so challenged? Why are you so challenged to be vulnerable or were maybe so challenged or maybe I was and maybe still am to some extent.
- I think everybody's challenged 'cause being vulnerable is scary, right? You're actually showing the world who you are and you're showing other men that you don't have it all together.
And there's that fear of being rejected. And honestly, peer -to -peer. sometimes I've put myself out there and the person has shown me that they're not interested and I don't take that personally anymore.
I just thank them for being true to who they are. And I go to somebody else who I know when I can have that conversation will respond in turn because two vulnerable people, they always find a way to connect if they're being truly vulnerable and authentic.
Yes. Yes, true. And the person who doesn't choose to be vulnerable, what's your thoughts, your thinking, your feelings about their situation?
Again, from my personal experience, and I love your thoughts, you're lonely. Could be. Right? You're cut off, you're isolated, and you're not living your authentic life.
So we're not here to judge. judge. No. And I would hope that our audience understands that. We're here to invite exploration into areas that maybe people haven't chosen,
men haven't chosen to look at. You know, why are you challenged to be vulnerable? Where did you learn to not acknowledge that you're afraid or that you're angry?
And so our conversations hopefully will show some light on where those mindsets and those attitudes come from. - Yeah.
- And where the perceptions derive, maybe the judgments. And again, we're inviting the audience, I'm inviting the audience to just take a look, step back,
take a look, see if it applies to you and see if it makes a difference for you. - Yeah. Yeah, if I think about the This series that we're creating it has four elements and they all have to be in balance.
You have physical Emotional mental and spiritual. We will be talking about things that are highly physical exercise Now knowing you and I we're gonna talk about how to incorporate breathing and your mind into that exercise to create a different experience So good segue segue.
Why physical? Why does it matter? Why does being physical matter? Why does having a conversation, an episode, or a talk about being 50 and concerned with your physical well -being,
or 70, and your physical well -being? Why are these, at this age, topics, these topics that you mentioned, why are they important for us? Well, I read some, doing some research last week.
week, 30 million Americans have diabetes. 100 million Americans are pre -diabetic. The total cost of diabetes to the United States is in the trillions of dollars.
Think about all the suffering, physical suffering. Think about low back pain. Think about all of the autoimmune conditions that are increasing in frequency. Think about the soaring rates of obesity.
We live in our bodies. We have to take-- care of our bodies. - But what about the mindset or the attitude? Well, it's just my bad luck. I'm diabetic or I'm pre -diabetic.
You know, it's, you know, unfortunate, but that's my autoimmune condition. There's like nothing I can do about it. - Yeah, that's a,
it's an interesting mindset and one that we're gonna get into in a lot more detail. - Going back to the vector. So I interrupted you, there were three others. So we've got physical, we've got emotional,
emotional state of being, mental, what's going on inside your head, are you happy inside your head? And then what kind of ties it all together is that spiritual, that meaning,
that purpose. So we'll be talking about all sorts of different topics designed to hopefully improve vitality and to age it. differently and to age with vitality between 50 and 70 and avoid a lot of the lessons that you and I've learned.
Yeah. I want to just caution that when we talk about spiritual, it has this other aspect of energetic as well,
at least when I talk about it. And it's not necessarily philosophical or religious. I agree. It has. aspects that are more practical.
I think a lot of our conversations are about practical applications to the human condition, to living life. I wanna make sure that the audience understands that when we're talking about mindfulness,
we're not talking or yoga, we're not talking about higher consciousness and this kind of... concepts. We're talking about practical day -to -day application on how to live your life with more joy,
more abundance, with less pain, to live your life with more gratitude, you know, just things that are applicable every single day, every moment of every day.
To have the human experience and actually fully experience it. Yes. Yes. Yes. So with that, thank you. as a transition at the end of every podcast, we're going to do a call to action,
an invitation to our listeners to try something potentially, a little bit different. So it's our first podcast. What should our call to action be on this one,
Peter? - Well, we talked about this and we wanna invite the audience to have a meaningful conversation. with someone every day,
just pause and let's say ask them how are you doing and really mindfully listen as if you care how they're doing. And when they ask you the same,
don't gloss over it, talk about what's going on with you, are you having a bad day and share that with another human being. And just start. building a different way of connecting with one another and building community that isn't superficial,
that isn't just focused on distractions like I got a new car or I have a house, I have this repair to do or I'm going to see this movie,
no, how are you feeling? How are you doing? How are you physically? How are you mentally? How are you emotionally? You know, I keep repeatedly encountering that there's a lot of depressed states of mind out there since COVID and for a number of other reasons,
people are lonely. So maybe there should be, could be more conversations that are meaningful so that these states of mind, these states of emotion,
emotions, these physical states aren't so depressed. And so that's our call to action. Go out and have a meaningful conversation with someone as often as you can every day.
- I love that call to action. It's a nice setup for what our next podcast topic is gonna be. - You wanna share that? - Absolutely, it's a conversation. Our topic that's near and dear to my heart is male friends.
Why they're so important important and for those of you that have let your male relationships lapse like I would pause at most of the audience, how to get them back?
How to rekindle those sparks? That's really exciting. Yeah, I'm excited because I'm guilty of having let some of my male relationships lapse over the years and I've learned from you and I've learned from other how to do a better job now,
even at 70. - Peter, this was awesome. - I'm so glad we finally got around to doing this. You know, we talked about ending with a poem.
- Please. - Or a quote. And so we'll end this podcast with this poem. The name of the poem is Pieces This Moment Without Judgment. Do you think it's going to end?
Do you think peace requires an end to war? Or that tigers eat only vegetables? Do you think peace requires an absence from your spouse or your boss?
Or maybe an absence from yourself? Do you think peace will come? come some other time than now, some other place than here,
or in some other heart than your own. No, perhaps peace is just this moment, this moment in the heart space where everything that is is welcome.
Peace is this moment without thinking, thinking, thinking. It should be some other way. It should be only as I,
according to my plans, as I want. Well, perhaps peace is just this moment without judgment.
This moment in your heart space. where everything that is, is welcome. That's just beautiful. Peter, thank you.
Thank you. You're welcome.