The Standing Meditation with Nate Rifkin

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Get to the bottom of what's truly healthy in this crazy complex world. So you can take back what is rightfully yours. Welcome to the health sovereign podcast. This is your host, Logan, Christopher

Logan (00:19):
Joining me today is Nate Rifkin. Nate used to be suicidal and drink alcohol every morning to get through the day he dropped out of college, went, broke bankrupt, and even worked on the street corner, waving around a sign to afford rent and food, but he's managed to turn his life around and find love. And now has an incredible life. A certain kind of meditation was a driving force behind his transformation, and he's just published a book on it, which is already a number one new release on Amazon, that meditation and his story is what we're talking about today. Welcome Nate to the health sovereign podcast.

Nate (00:54):
Well, thank you, sir. Thank you. I'm really honored to be here.

Logan (00:57):
Yeah, we met years ago then kind of reconnected pretty recently. He sent me a copy of your book, the standing meditation, which I found a very enjoyable, quite quite the story you have in there. We'll talk about that. And as the title talks about, it's really built around this idea of that standing meditation, the immortal post, which we'll also be talking a lot about and something that I've been practicing regularly since then. So thanks for that as well.

Nate (01:29):
Oh, I, my pleasure I'm honored. I hope you've been enjoying it.

Logan (01:32):
Yes, very much so. So I think we'll start with that. What is the immortal post and how did you find out about it?

Nate (01:45):
Sure. Yeah. That's, that's a great question. So I mean, as, as you saw in the book, I mean the, the super short version is I used to be a kind of, I had to kind of a messed up life. You could say, I, right. So let's just, let's just throw it out there, you know? So I mean, I just didn't have very good parents. So I grew up as a kind of an outsider teenager, and I figured, you know, when I grew up even more things would get better, but they didn't. So I dove into self-help. And the super short version of that is I, I actually felt worse. My life got worse. And I really tried, I really, really tried doing the positive thinking and doing the goal setting and the affirmations and there's realization, every everything you could probably throw at with the exception of tossing in the kitchen sink, I did it and I wasn't getting anywhere.

Nate (02:42):
And I started to actually really feel upset that nothing was working. So on top of, you know, getting my hopes up I was now feeling kind of like betrayed and almost paranoid and just really, it just really that even though I was trying to put in the effort, I wasn't getting results. So I started to really get jaded. That's what I mean by paranoid has jaded about all kinds of self-help stuff. And really just started not believing in myself. Fortunately I had one mentor at the time that I was actually learning a lot of marketing from because I've always been interested in B running my own business or growing some kind of a venture that way. And I was like 24 years old, 25 years old, something like that. And he was super into this spiritual tradition called Daoism. The way I like to say it is that, or a way like to explain it is if you've seen star Wars and you saw Yoda, you kind of have a good grasp of Taoism.

Nate (03:54):
Yeah. I mean, really like every, like whoever wrote the script,

Nate (03:58):
I'd be, I guess it's towards, it looks like he probably had helped. I mean, whoever wrote that script and put Yoda in there was super into Dallas and the idea that you're like this gotta out in the woods, just kind of meditating and staying humble that

Nate (04:11):
That, that was, that's sort of the,

Nate (04:14):
This sort of the big picture level of the spiritual tradition, but the cool part about it is this mentor. He was learning a lot about it and he learned that there are actual, like tangible down to earth practices you can do when you're following the spiritual tradition. And everyone knows about meditation. Most people in the West learn about how you, you sit down and you just kind of observe your thoughts. I mean, that's, and you let them go. And that's basically mindfulness. Well, I, I mean, I dabbled in, excuse me, I dabbled in that and mostly it just kind of frustrated me even more. It just kind of left me feeling kind of restless. I mean, it's great. If it's all about a, Hey, if it works for you, you know, double down on it, that's awesome. But for me, I don't know, it wasn't working out.

Nate (05:02):
So he taught this meditation is actually done standing on your feet and any, and you talked about it, like, look, this is sort of the, the foundational pillar of a lot of this esoteric kind of Dallas martial arts practices and people who would do this, you know, over in China and they live these long healthy lives and they'd, they'd had tremendous amount of energies flowing through their bodies. So, I mean, my ego just lit up on that. I'm like, Oh, this is so cool. Maybe this will work. And it actually did. And when I started practicing it, I wasn't like trying to necessarily like, be a happier, more engaging person, but other people started to remark them, designate your something's different about you. So that's when I knew I'm like, wait, there's something to this. And I was feeling more energized, feeling better about myself.

Nate (06:00):
And I realized, you know, what, nothing else in my life has really worked, but this has worked. So I'm going to dive as deep into it as I can. So that's sorry if that was like the crazy long answer. But, but yeah, so, and that's, that's kind of the best way I can sum it up in and, and for the last many. And I, I think we met before I started learning it, but we reconnected years later after I'd taken a deep dive and actually found like some teachers, teachers who actually went to China and learned a lot of this stuff and I've been practicing it and diving deep ever since. Right.

Logan (06:37):
Very cool. Yeah. I think that speaks to a bunch of different things. I'm kind of curious because yeah, throughout your book, you really knock hard on these like affirmations, visualization and whatnot. But I'm curious as to your opinion, is it, you don't believe those things work or that they didn't work for you because of some underlying reasons?

Nate (07:00):
You know, I, I, I think it was more that they didn't work for me and it was also the way I was learning them and the way I went about them, because honestly, like if you test something, everyone is so different. So if you test something out and it gets you results, then that's fantastic. I think every it's sort of like, what is the best tool for the job? So and I've, and I've done a lot of like research and the actual science behind a lot of these things, because there, there are a lot of self helps techniques out there. That's some scientists actually said, you know what, let's actually put on a real study here, let's have a, let's have a placebo controlled study and let's find out so visualization, I think, well not, I think it's like from what I've read in the scientific research is amazing for AF athletics.

Nate (07:49):
It is absolutely an amazing performance enhancer because it, your brain is just wired into your central nervous system and visualization will just cause tremendous changes with what your body's capable of, where I start, where I like to rail against it is when it's extrapolated out to, well, we can use it to enhance strength. We can use it to enhance stamina. We can use it to enhance agility. So let's imagine money flowing through you and stuff like that. Or, you know, let's teach it, let's teach this really expensive course and tell people that if they, if they picture living in their dream home and then go into credit card debt, you know you know, pretending to have this lifestyle, eventually you will have it. And if you don't, it's your fault and you need to pay me, or that's the kind of stuff that I'd like to rail against.

Logan (08:46):
Right? Yeah. So it really depends on the target. And I'd say in addition to the athletics, which obviously I've focused on a lot there I have seen some research around being able to manipulate things within your physiology such as white blood cell count different people using it around cancer and that sort of thing. So that, yeah, that's, I think that's good. Cause we, we use these kind of nebulous words like visualization one, that's not even a good word because it shouldn't just be a visual thing, but then yeah. What is your target with it? Is it like improving your performance or your blood markers in some way versus increasing your bank account? And I'm sure once again, it happened, it works for some people in doing that. So what is, what is the difference between people in working with these different things,

Nate (09:32):
Right. Yeah. And, and how, like you just said, even like calling it just visualization, because what happens if you're not, what happens if your visual isn't sense, isn't really the primary sense that actually initiates a change within you. We were like, like, we were just discussing like 30 seconds before we started recording. Some people might be more audio. Some people might be more tactile, so yeah, totally. Is that, that's kind of why I also said it, it matters who's teaching it cause there's some people out there who wouldn't get the nuances that, that, that you definitely, you know, described it.

Logan (10:14):
Yeah. Yeah. I feel very few people go deep into how to actually work with visualization. A lot of the fun things you can do with that, but let's get back to the meditation. One of the things that stood out in your book, because this has been a subject on my mind I'll just read some quotes here. I tried to change my thoughts and habits while ignoring the energy controlling both. It was like trying to correct a laptop's low battery signal by rearranging the icons on the screen. And then also for many people focusing on the physical and mental won't help them change nearly as much as also working directly with energy. One, I thought that analogy of the rearranging desktop icons was really appropriate to this. And this speaks to a kind of how I've talked about healing is looking at these different perspectives. You have the physical, you have the energetic, the mental, the emotional, the spiritual kind of different levels. And sometimes problems exist more on some of those areas or levels than on other ones. So what you're describing here, you're trying to change basically your thoughts or your actions, but it wasn't until you began doing the standing meditation that rewired your energy, that things really began to shift. Is that right? And can you speak more to that?

Nate (11:35):
Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's perfect. Yeah. I can definitely speak more to that because it kind of relates to what we were just talking about. Everyone's different. So part of this journey that you go on is about finding the, kind of the combination that works for you, that initiates change you want. So I see our thoughts and our, our, our mental capacity and our physical capacity, and also working with this subtle energy there. I see them all as interrelated, each one affects the other. So when I talk about the energetics this is where I'm talking about what the Taoists would refer to as cheap. And there's some other spiritual traditions that have different words for it. And there's, there's even some of Western science and starting to look into this, like there's a lot of studies on acupuncture that are trying to investigate like, well, if it works, let's see what actually makes it work and it might have to do with the, the PI's electricity that is running through channels in your body, specifically your fascia and that.

Nate (12:45):
Yeah. And that I mean, a lot of, as certain point just goes over my head. But it it's, it's, it's fascinating because again, I have to do, I have to go here like Yoda at arrested stars and talked about how there's an organizing force behind the universe. And they called it the force. Well, guess what she might have to do with embryological development. And she might be the organizational force. This is how some scientists are putting at the organizational energy behind the growth and development of your body. So it's just fascinates me. So in the West, we, most people just don't know about this. And it's, and yet it's such a profound part of our existence, a driving force behind our existence. So I, I, I, I try to come up with different metaphors to try and get this across. One, one other one I use is like, it's kinda like trying to organize a nutritional program and, and eating lots of carbohydrates and fats, but neglecting protein simply because you just don't know protein exists.

Nate (13:53):
That sort of looking back how I think I faltered as my journey as I was trying to use thoughts and actions, but as neglecting the energy. And for me, that was the missing piece for, for someone else there actually. And I think there are a lot of people in the spiritual community like this, they're trying to work with their energy, but they're ignoring their body and, and, and they could be running into the, actually the same problems that I was because they require something different. So I, I that's, that's why I was really passionate about writing this book is because I think there are a lot of other people out there like me who just don't realize that they're neglecting a crucial piece of the puzzle that could actually make all this other self-help stuff actually work.

Logan (14:42):
Yeah. Even before I kind of started to thinking in this frame framework, I was really kind of interested in these different things. So it going for that multi perspective view, and it's just so important for healing, because like you're saying, you know, you're, you're not going to be healthy if you don't eat any protein at all. So if you're just neglecting one of these areas completely you might be able to survive for some time doing that, but yeah, you're not gonna certainly won't be optimal or ideal in doing so.

Nate (15:15):
Yeah. I'm a simple guy. I just, I want everything working on my side, you know,

Logan (15:20):
Unfortunately it's not so simple to always do that. Right.

Nate (15:24):
The

Logan (15:28):
You have to do more than just one thing in order to do a bunch of things. So talking about this and energy, right. I guess a big question that comes up for me and maybe you covered it in there. So people have, whether they've experienced it or at least seen it, but seeing people doing Tai Chi or Chi gong, a different kind of slow movements where you're meant to move this energy around, how are those different or can be contrasted to a standing meditation?

Nate (15:59):
Oh, that's a great question. Because you know, Tai-Chi, and she'd gone through all of these forms and practices come from Dallas. And so it's all, it's all the same really cool family. The difference I would say is that with the S with the standing meditation, it, for me, what I really appreciate about it is it's stripped away a lot of the difficulty involved in Tai Chi because you have to, you have to learn, I'm learning Tai-Chi right now. And it's a, it's very complex. It's very subtle. And you have to learn this form. Whereas with the S with a simple standing meditation, you're removing the challenge of moving in a correct way. So it allows you to focus more on feeling the energy, because there are fewer distractions and the, and there are fewer things that require your attention similar with chigong now what's, but what's also interesting about Tai Chi Qigong and the standing of meditation.

Nate (17:02):
Is that the way in which you stand? Like for instance, it's not just as, as you saw from the book, it's not just a simple standing up, you know, you have your feet facing forward a little bit wider than your shoulders, and you tuck your hips down, almost like you're sitting on a very, very high bar stool and your knees unlock slightly, and then you tuck your chin. So this lengthens, your spine, these subtle adjustments to your stance are actually the foundation of most cheek gong and Tai Chi. So what, so it's, when you're doing a simple standing meditation like this, you're actually doing what advanced Tai Chi practitioners and she gong do. They're just adding in more layers of movement to it. But the foundation is this way of standing that connects you to the earth, energy and the energy above you. So that kind of almost cleans out your system and, and, and kind of charges you like a battery.

Logan (18:10):
Yeah. Great, great. Yeah, I think that's helpful for people to know. And one of the things I also thought was useful in there, and it is matching to my experience with it that you found the, the standing meditation it's like easier to clear your mind to meditate, quote, unquote then a sitting meditation. Can you explain why that is?

Nate (18:35):
Yeah, it's, it's really cool. It's kind of like I described earlier when I was, I felt so frustrated with a sitting mindfulness practice. It's wonderful, but it's also really, really hard. And it's really, really hard to actually get, right. The whole idea behind these practices is to blank out your mind and not think and it's, it has tremendous benefits, but it's also not only is it challenging to do it's really easy to fall into the trap of almost doing it. And there's a lot of people out there who are like, Oh, I've meditated for 20 years. It's like, no, dude, you've daydream for 20 years.

Nate (19:19):
That's why you're so angry with it, Sarah. So, but the great thing about the standing meditation is there are these subtle things you have to do in order to stand correctly. Like I said, tucking your chin and also tucking your hips and unlocking your knees so that your spine lengthens and relaxes. And because there are these subtle little how do I put the subtle little steps to go through when you get into the standing meditation and to loop back to, to make sure you're doing it right, you're throwing your mind a bone to chew on. You're giving it a task and you're giving it a task that actually helps you drop into a Meadows, meditative state and, and physically relaxed your body more. So it's, it turns into this virtual cycle where the more you relax, the better your form, the better your form, the quieter, your mind, and the quieter, your mind, the more you relaxed.

Nate (20:19):
So instead of turning into this frustrated, like bunched up balls, like I'm trying to clear my thoughts and I've wasted 10 minutes. You're actually able to S it's like slipping onto a highway. You're actually able to slip into the cycle where if your mind is racing, all you have to do is like, okay, I'm going to return to checking to make sure my shoulders are relaxed. Okay. Let's, let's see if I can breathe a little deeper and keep my shoulders relaxed and down even more. And then all of a sudden you feel better. And when you feel better, it is a heck of a lot easier to let your thoughts quiet down. So it said virtuals, virtual virtuous cycle.

Logan (21:00):
Yeah. One thing I've noticed for whatever reason, my body tends to carry more stress intention up in the neck, the shoulders for PZ its muscles. And these can, I noticed that seems to be unwinding in practicing this, that it will actually not quite feel sore, but it will get more stiff throughout the meditation because I'm, I'm noticing it more, I guess, would be the way to turn it. So this is bringing more awareness and attention to that area where undoubtedly, I need more attention and awareness.

Nate (21:36):
You would be no, I mean, that is just I relate to that 100% and it's true. And you know, I'm glad that you brought that up because in any kind of metal meditation or, or energetic practice, when that feeling of like, Oh my neck, I can actually feel even more stiffness in my neck. A lot of people are not going to see it like you did. They're actually going to get frustrated and they're actually going to blame themselves for like, Oh no. It's like, no, no, no. That's, that's great. If you feel that tension bubbling up, your awareness is increasing. It's okay. It's all good. It's just, like you said, this is an invitation to actually relax it away. It's it's I like to think of these practices or any kind of meditative practices is sort of like running the self-cleaning setting on the oven.

Nate (22:27):
It's not always going to be a fun process, but you're going to be better off if, if it's part of your life and your, your, yeah. Your neck and traps. I mean, we work on our, on our computers and we're not small people they're not really built for us, so yeah, it's just gonna be a disaster when we use it. But these kinds of practices will eventually unwind that as, and it's really surprising how far it'll go like years ago. I thought, wow, my shoulders and neck are really loose. But it, it keeps ongoing. It's, it's remarkable how optimized our body can become if we keep chipping away at that.

Logan (23:08):
And that brings up one of the things you said in there. Again, I liked how you put it, but alignment, you, you talk about like using a mirror or some other methods of feedback because what feels right within our body often isn't right. It's just whatever, then that's why it feels right. So you can't necessarily just go based off of feeling, have to kind of check it with the other senses.

Nate (23:34):
Yeah. I mean, it's kinda, it's kinda like in life having a comfort zone and thinking, well, if it's comfortable, it, this must be optimal, but that's, that's how we self-sabotage ourselves because we convinced ourselves that our comfort zones is what's actually best. And we never actually see outside of them doing this meditation actually kind of clued me into so white people and why I was so stuck in life it's because when we really start to grow, that's usually when our mind starts telling us, Oh, no, this is, this is bad. This is wrong. It's like, right. We're when we're on the cusp of a breakthrough. That's that's oftentimes when the voice in our heads saying, Oh, no, this isn't actually right for us. It that's when it gets the most seductive. So yeah, it's, it's the same with this the standing meditation, what is actual true alignment is not going to feel proper, at least not at first, but eventually as you relax into it, you you'll reach that new level.

Nate (24:43):
And it's like, Oh, wow. I didn't know what I was missing. And it, and I I'm sure you've found this to be true when you're showing someone how to swing a kettlebell for the first time or something like that. It's whatever they think feels right is, is going to be goofy and whatever feels goofy to them is actually correct. I mean, that's, that's what I went through and I started swinging them. I've been getting into them lately and it's you really have to take it on faith from someone who has been there and done that until you actually, your body acclimates to the, to the new experience. And then you truly know for yourself, Oh, okay. Actually, this, this is actually what's best.

Logan (25:26):
Yeah. And that speaks back to the, the feedback is, I mean, that's all based on our neurology and the feedback mechanisms inside. But as I was saying before with the, the standing meditation, bringing new awareness into it is kind of the first step of allowing that to change up a bit as you move through. So another concept that I think is useful as we're talking about alignment here is that it's largely about the, the flow of energy or cheek in the body that working on something like this, and of course, other practices as well, allow that energy to flow better. So can you talk about this concept and why it's so important and why many people may be missing out on it?

Nate (26:16):
Yeah. Yeah. I like that you use the word allow because the thing about this kind of subtle energy is that it is all about allowing the flow to increase rather than trying to force it. Forcing is counterproductive. The way I like to describe it is when you engage in staying standing meditation practice it's like turning on it's like turning the faucet of the sink. The water's there, the water is ready to flow through the nozzle. It just requires an opening. So that's why in any practice like Xi gong or a tide, or actually even as a simple Sinek meditation, the emphasis is always on physical relaxation because any physical tension in your muscles is going to shut down that flow of energy. Now this, but this is where it can get a little complicated because if we're going to move, we're going to engage our muscles. So the key is to do so with as much relaxation as possible while you're still moving in an optimal way. And that's why Tai Chi looks like this kind of graceful flowing form is they want to complete the movements while

Speaker 5 (27:40):
Using the minimal

Nate (27:41):
Of muscular tension and eliminate unnecessary muscular tension. It's also why they have such peaceful expressions. So when, when this is done, then the energy can move more freely. And when the energy moves more freely, it can start scrubbing away and pushing away and cleaning up like emotional stagnation because the whole, I, the whole idea behind this, for me, that that really helped me out so much was that I had the old, emotional gung from an unhappy childhood teenage years, early twenties residing in my body. It is a real thing where if, if you have buried emotional gunk, that you have not helped processed in a healthy way, it is stuck in you somewhere. It is stuck in your organs. It is stuck in your tissues. It's stuck in your spine. It's stuck in your connective tissue. It's why, it's why someone who went through a lot of terrible, frightening experiences when they're younger, will walk through their life with their shoulders a little bit pulled in, in a defensive posture.

Nate (28:53):
It's, it's been programmed right in there. So when you start to relax and open up and the energy starts flowing, it starts to chip away and wash away and clear away that old emotional gunk. And that's, that's why when you do meditation, sometimes you'll have old feelings pop up, you'll have old memories pop up. You're wondering what the heck is going on here. That is sort of the bubbling up process that when you relax and the energy starts working, that's the processes initiating it's like that self-cleaning oven is heated up, and this is the stuff is being melted away and cleared away. And the answer is to really just keep going and, and relax even more into it and lean, lean into it in a kind of, and spiritual sense because you're going to be able to come out the other side of more relaxed person and a more functional person where your old, emotional patterns aren't going to trip you up.

Nate (29:52):
They're, they're not going to keep you locked in your comfort zone anymore. So it'll loop. So to loop back around to the question you asked, the, the key is to allow with, with your level of relaxation and to do so in a way where you're your quiet mind and your alignment and your continual monitoring of your physical tension is all working together to, to allow the energy to flow. Because it's tough when I started, I mean, like, I couldn't feel nothing. You could just blast me over the head with an energetic sledgehammer and I couldn't force myself to be more sensitive. I had to go through this process and it took a long time where I actually had to feel more and more, or I had to open myself up to feeling more and more fortunately I was just, just by going through this process, you're doing good work on yourself, and it's going to be very worthwhile, even if it requires patients to feel the results

Logan (30:59):
[Inaudible] and going deeper with alignment in your book, you mentioned, and these, I just haven't done a lot of these. And a part of me has always thought like, Oh, I should do more chiropractic or more massage. And then for whatever reason, I don't do it a lot, but these manipulations can help with that alignment. Can you speak to that and how they've supported you on this journey as well?

Nate (31:26):
Yeah. it's, it's funny because when I was working as when did I start, it was when I was unloading trucks for a living. And I think I was making about $10 and 50 cents an hour, and it is backbreaking work. And I'd actually been doing the standing meditation for awhile and emotionally. I had completely transformed as a much happier, more well adjusted, friendly person. And I just kept on getting this weird intuition because when I do, when I started doing the staying in meditation, I would like feel these gentle pops in my spine, almost like you're getting a chiropractic adjustment. Or if, if you kind of just get up and stretch a bit and stretch to the side, you know, everyone's kind of had that experience where you get a little crack in one of your between your spinal disc.

Nate (32:21):
It feels nice. I started getting those little cracks and they slowly over time, over weeks and months, the cracks started going up. My spine is it's like, let's say in October it would be around my pelvic area. Well, come January, it would be halfway up my back. I'm like, well, this is so cool. And I had the sorta voice pop in my head and it said, you know, by the time these cracks reached the top of your spine, like your occiput area, your life is going to go through a really positive financial transformation. I was like, well, I hope so.

Speaker 6 (33:01):
That's really cool. I like, I don't know.

Nate (33:06):
So I kept practicing. And then around the time when I was unloading trucks and I was miserable, it was awful. I decided I'm going to do something that seems kind of crazy to me. On my days off, I'm going to go get a massage and I'm going to go see a chiropractor. So I Googled like, and I've found the cheapest. I mean, it was still there. Great. But the cheapest massage I could find, and the cheapest, like here, walk in, drop off the table and I'll crack your neck chiropractor. I could find that's all I could afford. And I'm like, Hey, it either works or doesn't, let's find out. And all I can tell you is those cracks eventually did reach the top of my spine and my stance got even better. And I was able to meditate even deeper. And within a couple of months I actually was introduced from someone I know to a company that I was actually really excited to work for.

Nate (34:08):
And I moved across the country and I started a whole new career. Now I tell you that story. I'm not saying this goes back to sort of my cautions about like people teaching visualization. I'm not saying it's like, here's the key, everyone go, go get that chiropractic adjustment. You're going to win the lottery. But there seem to be a very, very profound, interesting relationship between my spine aligning and my body relaxing and my life unfolding in a way that I was all ready working toward on a very practical level. So looping back to are you talking about with alignment? It, I discovered something very funny, a lot in a lot of when the, a lot of people think of meditation, they think, Oh, okay, I'm going to do this practice. And it's gonna, you know, spill over to the rest of my life and improve my life, which is great and totally true.

Nate (35:07):
I started thinking in kind of a counterintuitive way where I started thinking, what kinds of practices can I do that will support my meditation. And specifically like you, like, you brought up the alignment of my body and my meditation. So ever since then I've always explored various methods that would actually increase my alignment and relaxation even more for the purpose of improving my standing meditation now, not, I mean, to be candid, I'm a little obsessed with this thing. I really love it. I really love Taoism. And that's why I do this, but I've really found that if the key to making meditation work is relaxation and alignment, I'm going to find out how to enhance my relaxation and alignment, using ways other than meditation to support those efforts. I mean, it's kind of like, if you want to be a champion weightlifter, it's not just weightlifting, you want to improve, you're also going to want to optimize your sleep.

Nate (36:08):
You're also going to optimize your nutrition. Right. So I found massage was okay for like my wife massage actually really, really helps her relax for me. It's, it's, it's not really that great. Chiropractic adjustments have been really good working through negative emotions honestly, and learning to better process, negative emotions is actually been profound for my physical relaxation. And actually recently kettlebell swings have been very profound. Because if you think about it, when you, when you swing a kettlebell in order to complete the movement, you, your body automatically has to relax your hip flexors and various muscle groups. It's, it's essentially the opposite of how our bodies sort of get maladapted by sitting all day. Yeah. Cause when we swing a kettlebell, we're actually flexing really, really hard in the, in the diametrically opposed movement, which is great because I mean, even, even if someone doesn't give a crap about a standing meditation, if they sit all day, a kettlebell swing can be fantastic because it's gonna, it's gonna trigger your body to relax the muscles that become chronically tense via sitting well.

Nate (37:34):
And those are the same muscles, interestingly enough, that you want to relax in order to make a standing meditation work so that you could lengthen your spine and connect to the earth more, it's all interrelated. So that's, that's my mindset when it comes to the sort of thing is that I want, I want to use ancillary practices that will rid myself of chronic tension because honestly, like if you get rid of your chronic tension and you're able to get a good night's sleep, man, life is, and you get a good cup of coffee, man. Life is clear.

Logan (38:12):
Yeah, no, I really like that question. What kind of practices can support my meditation? And that's what led me that kind of question, not with meditation specifically, but I want to be a strong man, what can I do? Cause I'm not naturally gifted at this. And that's what led me into all these different fields, herbalism NLP, that everything was always coming back to that one thing. But yeah, I feel that's really interesting. I forget who I was listening to, but someone was talking about chiropractic at really at its heart was just about freeing up the body, manipulating it so that it is free to be able to communicate, move energy, do what it needs to do in the best way. So that, that makes a lot of sense that, well, that's something I should go try. I should do my own little experiment like that track for a while and see if I make more money.

Nate (39:03):
Aye. Aye, aye, aye.

Nate (39:08):
You need to come back for more advanced coaching. Did they get it? Yeah,

Nate (39:12):
I almost didn't include that the book, but it's what happened. And I think for me

Nate (39:18):
That

Logan (39:19):
What you said in there, it speaks to that, that intuitive voice that for whatever reason was saying, like and you know, meditation is one of the tools to becoming more intuitive. You get this, the, the being becoming more sensitive and then listening to that still voice. So yeah, the voice was telling you that it was the case for you, which of course does not mean it's going to be the case for anyone else, but

Nate (39:48):
In my book.

Nate (39:48):
So describe how it's like, it's kind of like chaos theory. It's like when a butterfly flaps its wings it contributes to a hurricane getting created on the other side of the planet. So perhaps my adjusting my spine, like that was the butterfly that helped create the hurricane of a new, better prosperous future. But the thing about chaos theory is we'll never know what happens the second time, the butterfly flaps its wings. So everyone's different and no matter what I can say for certain that when you get the energy flowing better and when you're able to harness your energy better and clean out your emotional gunk with meditation, profound, good things will happen in your life. I it's, but it's still chaos. So I can't slap a guarantee on the box and say in six weeks, this will happen. But I can say good stuff will happen. And I, and that, that was enough for me to change my life.

Logan (40:54):
Right. I mean, at the very least you'll feel better about what happens when you clear away the emotional trauma and the tension that just rides along in your body and all that stuff. I mean, part of your story in there, we haven't talked about this, but you mentioned working to unload the trucks, but you were assigned spinner for a couple of years, like street corner holding one of those signs. You were one of those guys that

Nate (41:20):
Was, I was that guy,

Logan (41:23):
But it was part of your like spiritual journey, like being okay with that, you know, a lot of other stuff happened that kind of stripped away and your ability to kind of make that because

Nate (41:34):
Become its own sort of meditation.

Nate (41:36):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, cause I really,

Nate (41:39):
I really messed up my life before I got into Dallas. And so, I mean that, that train had already derailed so much that it took a lot to get things back on track. So I mean, I, I went bankrupt in like I think it was, I think I officially filed or got discharged in 2012 or maybe it's yeah, I think it was 2012. And I, I was the guy who had dropped out of college. I had almost no job experience and it was the, the 2008 financial meltdown was still pretty recent history. So I'm like thinking to myself, Oh crap, man. I mean, I had a business with two partners just dissolve and I,

Nate (42:22):
I was like, what am I going to do to, I need to get a job, but I don't have a resume.

Nate (42:27):
I got like, no qualifications. I mean, part of that was my limited beliefs. I really think I, I could have actually gotten a really cool job in business or marketing or something like that. But I think I had to go on this journey first. So I mean, I found a job like you could [inaudible] the scripture was perfect. It was just like, Hey, you can listen to audio books all day. It's full time. It starts at 10 bucks an hour and you'll get raises. And it's a fast growing company. I'm just like, what, what is really as like look kind of scam is what is going on. But I got the job. Yeah. I guess I did a really great interview. Yeah.

Nate (43:11):
And it's great if I could stand outside

Nate (43:13):
And the re it really, it was legit. It was a job where they gave you a costume and you stood on the sign and it was like, the store had like 10 locations in the downtown or not downtown Denver, but in the Denver area I worked 40 hours a week and it was beautiful. I was the happiest I'd ever been the, the money from the job. I just moved into the cheapest place I could find. And I made more money than I spent and I ha and I was able to listen to audio. I listened to the Steve jobs biography. I listened to the George Washington biography. It was great. And I could stand out there and my world had shrunk to just that street corner. So talk about being alone with your thoughts. Sometimes I would just turn off my headphones and I just listen.

Nate (44:02):
And I just had my, once it's like a staying meditation practice. I had my one few things I had to focus on and that's it. And I got to put my life back together again and learn to, I had one supervisor, you know, in the store that whatever store is working on that any given day. And I had to learn to take orders, scrub toilets, wash the windows and be darn good at it. And it was actually a tremendous amount pride it's like in Dallas. And they talk about you chop wood and you carry water. And after light, you chop wood and carry water. And most people are like, what I thought enlightenment. I could like just levitate and sit on the cushion all day. And the people would worship me. It's like, look, the idea is you have these tasks that you have to do every day beforehand.

Nate (44:51):
And if you get enlightened, you're still going to return to those tasks. It's not that you escape this life it's that you change and you change how you relate to this life. And once I was able to do that, then if I wanted to, and I did, I did want to, I could actually go about transforming my life and it would actually work this time. So all that self-help stuff that had failed for me. I could actually return to it as a different person and this time it, it actually worked. I, I really could think differently and have a better work ethic, worth it. Yeah. Work, work ethic. And, and as, and as a result, I really could work hard and bring about you know, different results. So it's like we talked about at the beginning where we said, you know, there's the physical, there's the mental and the energetic.

Nate (45:52):
So once, once I was able to harness the energetic and really use that job almost as a practice ground to integrate into my life, someone might look at me, be like, Oh, that's terrible. He's just some guy in the street corner waving a sign. Or you might be down on yourself because like, Oh, got this dead end, go nowhere job. Or just, you know, my life is pretty lousy. I'm surround with bad people, but wherever you're at now, that is your training ground, where you can learn to go back to the basics and really just take, take charge of how you've run energy through your body. And from there, once you master that on the inside then you can chop wood carry water in a whole different way. And as a result, change your circumstances.

Logan (46:40):
Yeah. In many ways, like it was an initiation you had to go through. Yeah. You had to have an old burned down, you know, bankruptcy being humbled to the point of that, where you could earn really then a rebuilding process. It all, that'd be stripped away. The old you to give birth to the new you in essence. Right. And it was probably a slower journey than you liked. And no one likes the, the dips when they go through them. But in the end, looking back, you know, it was a journey and it was what needed to happen to get to where you are today, right?

Nate (47:15):
Yeah, absolutely. I needed that because not only did I start out like, like a pretty sad, like angry person, I was also an arrogant person. So I, I needed to kind of get healthy, smack upside the head so I can get them.

Logan (47:32):
That's all years of sound spinning.

Nate (47:37):
You know, it's like my teachers say today, it's, it's, they're, they're pretty harsh, but they, but they say the spirit realm doesn't care about your body. Wait, what, but the, but it's not, it's not in a bad way. Or it's like, Ugh, watch out. You're going to bad. Things will happen to you. It's not like that. What they mean is the spirit realm cares about your spiritual development. That's what they care about. Now, if that means you're going to have to go through some trials in life, then you'll have to go through those trials. But if you can go through the journey and learn from it and allow yourself to be molded by it, well, then all of a sudden your journey will be enhanced as you enhance your health or as you enhance your career. So sorry, I'm, I'm just very into the more spiritual stuff here, but it's it's you reminded me of that. So it's, it's, it's just the idea that it may seem bad at first, but if, if you can dig and not only find the lesson, but allow that lesson to mold you like burning away, you know, draws from gold, then all of a sudden the harshness of your lesson is no longer going to be required and then you'll be able to work your way out of it.

Logan (49:06):
Yeah. And one of the things you talk about in your book, you have a chapter on antifragility, which is a concept that I think is hugely important. I mean, it applies to health, it plays, the wellbeing applies to so much. Can you talk about, well, let's switch or come back to standing meditation, but how does standing meditation teaching more? Anti-Fragile

Nate (49:33):
Sure, sure. Let's see. I th I think it was two or three years ago. No, it was probably three years ago. At this point, I read the book antifragile by Nassim to lead an amazing book. I mean, it is a, it is a strange book. I it's, it's an unusual book but it's, it's an insane concept because we, we have the word fragile, you know, basically means something that's easily broken. But there's, there really, wasn't a word in the English language that meant the opposite of that. Now someone might say, well, the opposite is like strong. It's like robust. Well, it's like, well, robust is more like resists breaking, but that's not a true opposite. The true opposite is something that's going to easily shatter is something that gets stronger from forces that make something shatter like volatility. So this, this concept is kind of so unknown in, in our culture, probably most cultures that we didn't even have a word for it until to lead wrote the book antifragile that's, that's my understanding.

Nate (50:43):
I'm pretty sure that word did not exist before he came up with it. So in nature, in a, in a healthy natural environment, living things are anti-fragile within certain parameters. And I mean, look, I'm sure, you know, all you read probably read about this more than me, where like scientists had taken dishes of single cell organisms. You could probably look this up online, somewhere, the exact study and applied arsenic to them poison and they'll die. Well, they'll take a dish of the same organisms and they'll apply a very, very, very small amount of arsenic to them. And instead of dying, or instead of staying the same, the organisms will actually thrive because they put up natural defenses that caused them to become more healthy, thriving living things. So anti-fragility is the basis for all exercise. You're put, you're putting your body through a stressor.

Nate (51:51):
I mean, exercise is supposed to be a shocking event to your body. Whether it's to your fast Twitch muscle fibers, or whether it's to your cardiovascular system, you put it through a stressor that makes your body go, Oh, I need to adapt to this. And it comes back stronger and you become healthier as a result. So what's interesting about this is I applied the concept of anti-fragility to what makes the standing meditation such a great practice because when you're in the standing meditation, it's, it's a very interesting thing. Someone can actually try to push you from the side, like they can push on your shoulder. And if you have your hips tucked properly and your chin tucked properly so that your spine lengthens and you're relaxed, and your knees are slightly unlocked and your feet are facing forward. And they're, they're, they're wider than the kind of frame of your shoulders.

Nate (52:52):
If someone pushes you from the side, you can actually become, you will not get pushed over. You will actually become more stable and more rooted into the earth because the force that person is using gets directed into the earth. And I thought, this is such a cool metaphor for how someone can thrive in life, because we have a choice on how we can react to life circumstances. And when we get hit with a challenge we can fold, which is the approach. We can, we can have a stiff upper lip and get really angry and resentful and be like, no, never again. I'm never going to let this happen to be again, that's the, that's the robust approach. I think a great example of this is in relationships. You know, we can have a bad partner in a relationship in a dating relationship. And as a result, we can walk away feeling very wounded and very hurt and keep these wounds festering within us.

Nate (53:54):
That's the fragile approach. Or we could say, Oh, all, all men are pigs. You know, all, you know, all women just treat me like crap. That's sort of like taking out the strong, like stiff, like robust approach. It's like, Oh, I'll never, I'm never going to be hurt like this again, neither of them are healthy, but in our culture, we might think, you know, one of the other has some healthy aspects to it. And if we want to be alone for the rest of her life, there's even some functional aspects to it, but the anti-fragile approaches to take it to take that challenging situation. And after that relationship is over and be like, all right, how can I use this as a way to actually make myself healthier and stronger? What can I learn from this? What did this identify in me that requires change?

Nate (54:47):
Like how did I get triggered? What patterns keep coming up, because the more we can identify this stuff the easier it is to overcome it. And now we're bouncing back from the bad relationship stronger. And that's, what's going to enable us to be the kind of person that can actually get a great relationship. And I know this from experience because I had to do a lot of work on myself before I met my wife because, and I actually wrote this in our vows. I was becoming the kind of person that she would choose to have. So, and it's, it's, it's applies to relationships and your health and your career and your spiritual walk, the anti-fragile approach is to choose to come back better and stronger and more developed from whatever comes your way. You don't let it defeat you and you don't simply withstand it. You take the third option, actually grow from it.

Logan (55:51):
Yeah. I really liked that, that connected things for me, I was actually recently writing about like mental toughness and antifragility, and especially around emotions cause mental toughness, what it really is. It's more so emotional toughness and there's a time and place for it. But the idea that oppression or repression would be that, that robust response. I like how those were linked, which I didn't see before. That's that's really good. Yeah. Anti-fragility is such a huge concept. So hopefully more people can practice it now that we have lexicon for. So, yeah, absolutely. Well, mate, we're coming up on the end of our time here. This has been great or ranging conversation. I hope people have enjoyed it. Where can people go to follow more of your work, pick up your book, whatever you want to point people to.

Nate (56:40):
I appreciate that. If, if someone goes to the standing meditation.com that will forward right to my book's Amazon page and he could find it on Amazon just by searching there. And I also write articles on Nate rifkin.com. So I really appreciate that. And I just really want to say thank you and quickly tell you something funny here over, I mean, at this point it must be over 10 years ago, I listened to you interview someone named Dr. Chris holder. And that name kind of stuck with me ever since I really enjoyed the interview you did. And years later I ran into him and we became friends. And he sends his love by the way. And he actually, not only as a teacher of mine and a friend of mine, he was the officiant at me and my wife's wedding. So I want to mention that cause it's so cool. And because I just, yeah, I just hope that I can make a difference nearly as profound to your listeners as, as he did to me when you interviewed him. So it's a really cool circle to get looped back to. So I'm really, I'm really grateful to be part of, part of that circle. I'm grateful that you had me on your show.

Logan (57:56):
That's great. Yeah. You mentioned several different people in your book and I know a good amount of them. It's so cool. Yeah. All right. It's been a pleasure. Thanks so much for coming on. And anyone listening, you can find show notes, links for everything over at health, sovereign.com. Hope you've enjoyed this and we'll be back again another time. Thank you. Thank you.