Episode 317 - Dr. Janelle Hallman, "Mindfulness and the Presence of God, Part 1"

Welcome to another episode of "Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick." Today, we welcome Dr. Janelle Hallman back to the podcast. Janelle serves on the team at Restoring the Soul and is a Licensed Professional Counselor, ordained minister, professor, author, and speaker on issues such as redemption, healing, and wholeness. She has a profound expertise in trauma, sexuality, and personal transformation. In today's conversation, Dr. Hallman takes us on a journey through the power of mindfulness as a fundamental way of being, far beyond mere stress reduction. She also shares how her love for birdsong led her to embrace mindfulness and teach others to find relaxation in nature's melodies. Together with Michael, they explore the benefits of practicing the presence of God and being truly present and how these spiritual practices can rewire our brains and reduce reactivity.

So, whether you're struggling to embody the tenets of your faith in daily life or looking for a deeper connection with your inner self and the world around you, this conversation offers valuable insights and practical wisdom. Let's embark on this journey of restoring the soul with mindfulness and presence.

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Transcript

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Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the restoring the Soul podcast. I'm Michael John Cusick, and today I am talking with none other than doctor Janelle Hallman. Hi, Janelle. Hey, Michael. If you've not been listening to the restoring the Soul podcast very long, you might have missed the podcast. That's about 50 episodes or so back where Janelle and I talked about her story and her background as a professor and an academic at Denver seminary. Janelle has taught a all around the world trauma and sexuality and transformation, and she's been a colleague and a dear friend for close to 30 years. So I'm really, really thrilled to be talking with you today as a colleague here at restoring the soul. I'm so glad to be here. We are going to talk about mindfulness, and I want to start by having you define terms a little bit. Mindfulness has become popular everywhere, from pastors talk about it, at least in the more psychologically oriented churches, to boardrooms and CEO's and Ted talks, and you see it all over social media. But mindfulness is much more than just a technique that people do to lower their blood pressure or manage their stress. It's really about a way of being right. Yes. Yes, I would agree with that. So unpack what mindfulness has been for you. And I'm excited that today we're not just going to talk about a practice, but to talk about your story and to interact about our stories together and how mindfulness has impacted that, or in my case, how I'm still learning about it and how to practice it. So I'll start with just kind of a basic definition or description of mindfulness. But I think as I share my story and interaction with what I call mindfulness, that'll really become richer. The understanding of it will definitely deepen. But basically, the way that I was first exposed to it is mindfulness as a practice, as a practice of setting aside time for silence and stillness for the purpose of bringing our attention and awareness to the present moment or to the present experience that you're having right now, right here and now in the present moment. And I was also taught that there is a posture in coming to this awareness of your present moment experience. The posture is no judgment, but to come with curiosity, as if you're an explorer, really exploring what this experience is like. So no judgment. And then I was also taught that as you're coming with this awareness, which I'll unpack a little bit more in a minute, but coming with this awareness is you're actually giving the thinking mind a break to allow the mind, the thinking mind, to settle, but using the mind in terms of this awareness. So noticing a presence, seen to what the experience is in the moment. So when the thinking mind comes in, then I was instructed to notice, oh, yeah, I'm thinking, I'm thinking. And to redirect my mind into mindful awareness, which is awareness of the moment, of staying with the moment. And you and I were trained approximately the same time, going back 25, 35 years, somewhere in there at our different points in our career. And this was not talked about or really understood in clinical settings or mental health settings. It was more eastern philosophy and religious circles, but it's really been incorporated. So how did you become, personally, someone who doesn't just offer this to clients, but it's a part of your life. That really started. So you're right. This goes way back into a lot of healing circles that I was actually in for years, and back then, we called it practicing the presence of God. Practicing God's presence. But all I understood back in those years was it also included kind of this moment of stillness, moment of silence, and then acknowledging that God is present and maybe putting your hand on your heart, you know, feeling God's love and presence. And that was it. That was all I knew. And that took me about 10 seconds, and then I was like, okay, I don't know what else to do. I don't know that. So I did practice that periodically, you know, acknowledging God is present, especially when I was really struggling, but it just didn't evolve. It never blossomed into anything more. So it was about 15 years ago that I went to a workshop, and it was an experiential workshop, which meant we're not just listening to talking heads, but we're actually doing exercises and deep shares with partners, et cetera. But that was where I heard about more what we would consider the property concept of mindfulness, or basic mindfulness. And so I was led in a mindfulness practice throughout the weekend of how, you know, really they coached us on throughout our kind of silence and just bringing our awareness to our body. So that was a new piece right there is like, oh, bringing my awareness to my breath. They focused a lot on the breath, following my breath, exploring what is it like to breathe, you know, feeling my shoulders move, checking in with my belly to see if my belly moved, just noticing the air coming through your nose. Well, this was, like, totally new concept for me of this is something I can do when I'm practicing, kind of a stillness and silence. And. And it was kind of amazing. So I was kind of amazed. It's like, oh, I've never even thought of something like this, of just exploring my somatic experience in the moment. So that was just a huge thing. And then this noticing. So noticing my body, noticing my breath, but also noticing when my thinking mind would come in, because immediately I I would start narrating about my experience of, like, okay, I'm sitting here in this room with people doing this kind of strange thing. I kind of like doing it, but this narration would start, or I would start thinking about, I wonder what's going to be for lunch today? And kind of start obsessing over, oh, I'm noticing that I'm really hungry, and I wonder what lunch is. And I wonder if lunch is going to be on time or if I'm going to, you know, my mind would just start chattering. So the coach was like, now, when you notice your mind chattering or, you know, commenting about something narrating or maybe judging the moment, see if you can just take a nice, deep breath and bring your awareness. Allow your mind to settle back into noticing your breathing, staying with your body. So that was a, the beginning. And I thought, there's something here. That's all I knew. I didn't know any history of mindfulness. I didn't really know much anything, but I thought, there's something here. And so the leader of that weekend asked if we were willing to make a commitment to start practicing this every day. And so that was one of the intentions that I set when I left the weekend is I'm going to explore this mindfulness thing. So I came home and I knew you set the timer. You know, I set the timer because I didn't want to have to be looking at my phone and looking at the time. And I would go, I'd set the timer on the, on my stove so that I wouldn't be tempted to, you know, have the phone close by. And I went into my room and I sat on a pillow, and I just practiced this. And it was an amazing. I had not everybody experiences this, but I just had this overwhelming sense of well being that would kind of flood me every time I did this. And I started, really with small amounts of times, like five minutes. I started with five minutes, then I moved up eventually to ten minutes. And my goal was to try to get to 20 minutes. But I initially was just, like, there was just such a. A sense of well being that I would experience, just frankly, because I'm kind of a busy, busy person, and I really like to move a lot. My body likes to move, so just to sit still for me was a major. Was a major thing. And there was something just in that that kind of blew me away. But. But I just. So, yeah, this sense of peace, this sense of well being. And then as I learned that you can also just open your five senses. So, yes, staying with your body and your breath, but you can also notice the sounds that are present in the moment or notice the temperature on your skin, notice the sense of touch, or notice if there's any smells. And when I sort of started opening my senses to just notice and explore what's here. What's here right now in this moment, I had some profound connections with nature, the birds. I fell in love with bird song because I could hear the birds in my backyard. It was just like, I love listening to the birds. And that was something I never really had awareness of, one even being consciously aware of birdsong, but knowing that there is something very, very sweet about birdsong that touches my soul. So this sense of well being and soulfulness just started expanding. That was incredible. And I remember probably about a year into learning this and practicing it, I started leading others because I was always kind of in a leadership role, and I started leading others in this. And they also were folks who had never been introduced to anything like this. And often they commented afterwards, like, whoa, that was so nice. That was so relaxing. So that was kind of my experience a year in, and I'm just babbling. Is there anything you'd like to chime in on? Yeah, I'm struck by several things. Number one, you know, you talked about the relaxing part of it, and I hear a joyous in your voice as you're talking about the kind of reawareness of the birds around. I've had that experience. But also, in addition to relaxation, the mindful practice, and we get more into this, actually can rewire our brain and help us to become less reactive. In moments when we get activated or dysregulated, it helps us pause, to take a pause between stimulus and response, or moments where we might get triggered and then get activated. And there's just all kinds of wonderful benefits. The other thing I thought of, as you're talking back to the practicing the presence of God. I remember that we used to have a certain author who held a big conference in Chicago at Wheaton every year, and she would just teach, practice the presence of God. Practice the presence of God. And so I got that brother Lawrence book, and I like you, but I actually outlined it, and I wrote up two paragraphs, and I was like, okay, I'm going to do this. And it was miserable failure. And it was just like, keep trying, keep trying. And what I've since coined the phrase is that we can't practice the presence of God until we can practice the presence of self. Until I can actually be present in my body in that embodied way, I can't really be present to even others in a way. And that's the last part of what you said. You used the word soulful, and that it was a soulful experience. And just over and over how, as we work with clients and we teach people about what the soul is and that that includes their body. And the body is not bad, that when we begin to integrate the body into our other experience, how things just come together and how spiritually and emotionally, there's often shifts that happen that are not a result of our effort or our flexing our spiritual muscles, but things just begin to happen, which is really beautiful. Yep. Yeah, it's very amazing. So, yeah, so what you just shared, I was just going to move into that of what happened to me and just kind of continuing to do this. And I did when I was sitting, just being with the birds, so to speak, or listening to the wind, or feeling the wind, like, if I would do this outside, you know, feeling the warmth of the air, feeling the wind, just staying present, that's when I did have a sense, oh, this is practicing the presence of God. Because part of that sense was this loving presence that I was encountering by simply being present. I was present in the presence, is how I'd like to say it. Just this sense of loving presence, loving goodness, that all is well right now in this moment. You know, if I let my thinking take me into all the things that are on my to do list, or how I'm. I'm angry at my husband, or, you know, something that happened the day before, if I let my mind go there, which is just kind of into vapor because it's just thoughts, then I'm not. Then everything isn't well. And that was kind of a big wow to me as, oh, but in this moment, I'm encountering wellness, I'm encountering goodness, I'm encountering something that feels like loving kindness. So that's where I then started realizing this isn't just a mindfulness practice per se. Right? Like you said at the beginning, to relax or to whatever. This is a spiritual practice. This has something to do with my spiritual formation. And I had just. That was a very, very deep sense with me. So what I did start noticing after I had been working with this for about a year and a year and a half is one day I was just walking into my office, and I noticed, so one, something about my capacity to notice the moment had started increasing on a daily, regular, moment to moment basis. So the fact that I even noticed was like, I'm noticing, but I noticed I was moving slower, I was walking slower, and I just thought, huh. You know, I didn't analyze that. It was just kind of a huh. Because like I said, I tend to be the busy and I'm a very fast walker, you know, because I'm going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing, which I've always known. This is an edge for me. Um, but it was, I'm moving slower and possibly with a little more intention, with a little more intention, instead of being oblivious as to how I'm moving in the world, which was typically my mo. And then I noticed, I think, I don't remember if it was I lost my keys one day or if I had a flat tire. I can't tell you what the situation was, but it was a situation that would have made me frantic in the past. I would have just been very dysregulated. I knew nothing about dysregulation back at this point in time, but that's what was happening. I would have been very dysregulated. I would have been very anxious, angry, frustrated, and tight and tense, which would have made my day miserable, because that moment would have ended up defining my day. So I was in one of those kind of situations, and I noticed that I was just kind of observing the situation, that I was just going, oh, in this matter of fact way, oh, I have a flat tire. Oh. So what do I need to do, you know, to deal with this? Am I going to try to change it or I do need to call somebody and, oh, I'm going to be late for my appointment with my client, so I better call my client and just give him a heads up. But it was, I was in that experience of just kind of this calm, matter of fact, being in the midst of this situation. But I also had this witness part of going, wow, what is going on that you're actually, you know, taking this just as another moment, just as another everyday experience, because it is, it's just a normal human experience. Tires get flat, you know, and that was, that was like, whoa, what was that? You know? And I think, I mean, I think, I think that these are some of the results of building the muscle. So back to the practice of mindfulness. We're actually building muscles of noticing. We're building a muscle of noticing the present moment. We're building a muscle of staying with our body and noticing the sensations in our body. We're building the muscle of noticing our thinking. And if our thinking were to start catastrophizing that moment, if my thinking had gone that direction, perhaps I would have had the groundedness to go, oh, I'm telling myself right now that this is the worst thing in the world that could happen, that, why does this happen to me? Because I go into victim mode very easily, like I'm being punished by the universe. You know, why does this happen to me? Perhaps I would have noticed that, but my thinking didn't even go there, which was really surprising. But we're building this muscle of how to be with what is, because there is a subtle acceptance that happens when we are in a mindful state of just noticing and with no judgment. We're not trying to fix or change anything, but to just be with. And so it really is this hidden. I'm accepting my experience in this moment. It just is what it is, and I'm being with it, and I'm letting go of that energy to fix or change. I'm just being with. And so I kind of call that an unconditional, radical acceptance, which I've taught to a lot of clients. But it was like, oh, this is the method of actually building that capacity, cultivating that capacity so that it is, we've got that muscle in place. And that's why I'm so into this stuff and why I teach every client that I work with, because this is rather a simple, not too complicated thing to bring into your life on a daily practice, but also on a regular basis. It's absolutely life changing. And I still have a lot more to share about my journey because this isn't the end of it, but this is what I started noticing. That's a beautiful story. I love it. The handful of times I've experienced in my own life when I experience something that feels so different, but it's not directly because I did it. I didn't set out that day to say, I'm going to be more patient at the grocery store when there's a long line or when someone's taking too long, but something rises up and it seems foreign, but it seems me. And I love the fact that the way you talked about that, it was like, whoa, what is this? And in Galatians five, in the message, Eugene Peterson talked about the fruit of the spirit. And he said that that fruit appears in our lives the same way that fruit appears on a tree. You know, it just blooms. It just shows up. And yet there's all that goes on behind the scenes where the sun shines and it rains and where they may fertilize. And I, they have to prune the trees, and yet it just appears there. And it's interesting because the paradox is that we have something to do with it, but we don't directly bring it about. And, you know, so many people, so many people that we sit with are frustrated because their faith, their beliefs, the Christianity that they were given. You know, I'm supposed to have this abundant life, and I'm supposed to have joy and patience and kindness, and I'm, you know, losing it in traffic when people cut me off, they, they don't realize that. And let me talk personally, I have not realized that there's actually exercise or practice that I can do, as you said, to strengthen that muscle so that one day when we need that muscle, it kind of flexes itself automatically and we don't find ourselves reacting. Right. Yeah, it's kind of amazing. And then far beyond. Yeah, and far beyond that moment of that, your day didn't go down the tubes because of losing your keys. It also adds to our ability to, as you talked about, with loving kindness, our ability to be patient with others, to be kind to others, to love others, to have a perspective of other. Not as bad, but as just, just facts, just people who are people and humanity. Yeah. Well, and I would say, I think how that has happened for me, Michael is in that example that I used. I was patient with myself. There was just this patience of being with and just letting you know this unfold and making the decisions that I need to make. And I didn't beat myself up for losing my keys or having a flat tire, which is also really cool because I had been practicing, not judging whatever might come up in my experience in the moment, which was still a fair amount of thinking, or I might start. Yeah, I would ponder about a situation that would have brought a lot of judgment. I worked really hard on just releasing, just noticing. I wanted to judge. And those judging voices were probably already going, noticing the judgment and letting it pass and bringing my attention back to my breathing because I loved following my breath. Just following my breath just felt so good. Following my breath. I'm alive. This is God's breath in me. Every time I breathe in God has given me another moment of life, you know, so there was also this muscle building of. Of not judging, of letting go of the judgment, letting go of the impatience, which kind of takes me into the next thing I was going to share, because about a year and a half into this, oh, my gosh, it became so hard to sit and do a mindfulness practice, which was really a time with God for me because I would be in his presence. That was a part of my, you know, sitting down and just acknowledging God is present, and I'm going to just be. I'm going to be with what is right now. It became so hard for me to do that. I dreaded having to do it, because what started happening is, oh, my mind would not stop. My mind was just constantly thinking, constantly distracted, constantly going all over the map. And then what started happening was my body was extremely restless. It didn't want to sit still. It didn't want to be silent. And I remember talking to some people who were kind of masters in this, and they said, well, then, why don't you move? Why don't you let your body move while you do it? That didn't really even help. I was agitated, I was frustrated, I was restless. And I was just wrestling with this. And I kind of came to the conclusion that this. I can't do it. I just can't do it. And yet there was a part of me, it's like, no, I've read enough about this at this point to know that that's not true, because part of mindfulness is to stay with your experience. So what if, Janelle, you stayed with the restlessness? What if you explored restlessness to see what it's really like to be restless? What if you stayed with the anxiety? Because a lot of anxiety was surfacing whenever I would kind of still myself. What if you stay with it? What if you just explore it, see where it is in your body, follow it, you know, staying with your breath, still being extremely mindful, noticing your experience. So that was a very deep, profound learning for me because I was in the story big time for quite a few years of, I don't have time for this. It's like torment for me to sit. But the more that I stayed with my torment and the restlessness and listened to my anxiety and stayed with my anxiety, that is when some deep, deep transformation started happening in me. Because what I realized when I stayed with those emotions is what would come up is a memory, or what would come up is a current situation that I was avoiding, that I wasn't facing. And so often my mindful noticing would lead into then, a time of journaling, where I would then just start journaling about the pain of this situation or about my fear over something else or about my restlessness. What was at the core of me being a person who was always, always doing, doing, doing, doing. I was always on to the next project and not being. I didn't even know what that meant. Years ago, people would say, Janelle, you just need to be, well. What is that? Well being is what I was practicing, is to just be in and take the time to nurture myself, take the time to explore these deeper places in me. So my mindfulness practice started leading into major deep processing and learning all sorts of things about myself, including parts of myself, because I started noticing that when my mind really would get ramped up when I was practicing just being with my experience, I would go into planning. I would jump into the future and start planning something that was already on my docket, you know? But I would start planning, and that felt so good to me, to plan. There was such a little wash of, oh, I'm so happy when I can plan, because I can organize, and I get this sense of control, get this sense of control over my life, and then realizing, oh, that's what all this planning is about, is to gain control on my own terms. And is there a place of me letting go of that kind of control, letting go of the illusion of all the planning, future planning. It's just illusion. And to stay in the moment, accessing what is here right now for me in this moment. And then I also realized I had a rehearsal. I would rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Same thing. It was kind of the same thing of, if I can get this down and if I can say this perfectly to this person or whatever, then everything will be okay. And it's like, no, why don't I stay with what is not okay? Just stay with it, face it and feel it. So, that was a huge hut. It was very difficult time, but it was a huge piece of, I think, deeper, transformational work that really came about through just staying with a mindful practice.