047 - How Meditation Changed My Life w/ Dali

What happens when you stop searching for more and start paying closer attention to what is already here?
 
 In this conversation, Dali shares his journey through meditation, community, grief, personal growth, and the moments that quietly reshape the way we see ourselves and the world around us. Together, we explore why stillness can be one of life’s greatest teachers, how meaningful connection can exist in unexpected places, and what it really means to cultivate a more conscious way of living.
 
 This is a conversation about slowing down, embracing the unknown, and discovering that transformation rarely arrives all at once. Instead, it unfolds through the small, consistent choices that bring us back to ourselves.

Connect with Dali on Insight Timer App

https://insig.ht/mXhwGeDnX4b

Follow Dali on Instagram  https://www.instagram.com/dali.meditation

Our First ever Life Is Sound Retreat at Broughton Sanctuary, 10th October 2026

https://www.lifeissound.com/retreats

Transcript

Welcome And A Deep Question

James 0:07

Dali, welcome to the Life Is Sound podcast. First of all, got a Life It's oundS daily wellness journal, so you can take that with you. Nice when you leave. And I also forgot to bring something, so I'm gonna send it to you in the post. So as the meditation expert, I've done my first round of meditations, and I had it on a nice little USB stick for you. So I'm gonna post that to you. So it'll be great to get your feedback on it as well. Nice one, yeah, man. That's good. I started the podcast with a question from the last guest, and I found from Jack's question to our last guest, Ursula, that actually shaped the whole conversation, which was really beautiful that it became the the through line of that episode. So this might not become the through line, and it is really in at the deep end. Oh wow, let's go. So have you ever contemplated death in your life? If so, how has contemplating death impacted your life? And if not, what feelings does death bring up for you?

Dali 1:14

Wow. In at the deep end, you said straight away.

James 1:18

In at the deep end

Dali 1:20

Um I have contemplated death um many times in my life. Probably the biggest uh event in my life so far has been losing my dad at 19 years old. Um suddenly. Uh so that was that was a difficult thing to deal with, obviously. And um you know, it is true that time's a great healer, it doesn't change anything, but the amount of reflection that's been done since then has been uh it's had this like natural evolution of as I've grown myself and looked for ways to improve my mental health or um approach my daily life, I've reflected on death differently as I've gone along. Um and as we know, it's the only certainty in life for now, until science changes that obviously. Um and I think I I listened to a meditation a number of years ago by Tiknathan, who I'm sure I'll mention again at some point in this conversation. And he was kind of alluding to reincarnation, and it gave me a lot of comfort when I thought about my dad. Um, because reincarnation is just something that

Losing A Parent And Finding Meaning

Dali 2:45

has never been something I've I've read it, read about or or considered. But I didn't want to believe that death was final. And when I listened to him talk, and he was saying like your dad is in you it made me think about where he's buried, the cemetery back home where he's buried the ground that he's in, the grass that's grown in all the years that he's been in the ground. It's like that grass is part of him. At some point that grass will be cut and it'll blow away and he's everywhere. He's in the trees, he's in the leaves. And not just the comfort that that brought, but the the reminder about spirituality in terms of like we are all one, we're all connected, we're all on this earth, we're all part of this one big thing. Um yeah, there's a there's a lot, there's a lot to unpack there, I think.

James 3:52

That's a beautiful perspective about thinking about one day the grass will be cut. I've never really heard anyone put anything like that. And I think I was saying to a friend of mine the other day, like, death is is a thing that we seem to all get really uncomfortable with. And I was talking about holding space actually, we're talking about sound baths and holding space for people, and I'm sure if you've done meditations with people, like holding space for people, and then I was thinking about the times in life I've held space for people in those final moments. I've done it twice, and it's never an easy thing at that time. But I was saying it's also one of the biggest gifts we can be given to actually help somebody transition over. None of us are taught how to do it. Where if we opened up conversations of if you ever are present for somebody's passing, here's the things that will help them make them feel a bit more comfortable because it's difficult for us, but those that's the person actually going through the experience. And I thought it's such a lack of conversation we have in communities in society about what those final moments look like when it's not sudden, when it is you are present in the room with somebody, and I think it's a conversation that we should get a bit more comfortable with because I know if I was in those moments, I'm not sure I would want everyone upset, crying. I would want people to be speaking to me and you know helping me be calm. And it's like getting on the start of a roller coaster that no one knows what's gonna happen. So I think, yeah, that question is is quite a powerful one to start the podcast with.

Dali 5:38

It's a precious time though, isn't it? Of like your last moments like that. And I I didn't get to like I say, my losing my dad was sudden, and it wasn't something that I could have with him those moments. But I have I've thought about that as well. What would I say? What would I do? And I think again, I'll probably talk about stoics quite a bit during this conversation. And there's something from stoicism where they say, like, the father who considers the death of his child during their lifetime will be able to deal with it better when it happens, and I think that that's a really interesting perspective as well. That like it's not a shock, it's not like losing my dad was a shock to me. And I've thought about how would I react differently or how would I prepare for that if I knew it was gonna happen. Um, and it's something I have thought about over the years, and it is about that precious time that you have with people, and like you

Holding Space In Final Moments

Dali 6:35

say, you don't want everyone to be around being upset. It's like I've only got a few minutes left, guys. Come on, let's uh let's have some nice time together.

James 6:43

Yeah. So I was thinking about the last time we've actually seen each other in person. We were just talking then, like it was a long time ago, I can't remember the year, but it's got to be around 2008, yeah, maybe 2009 at a push. Yeah, I think it might have been, if I remember correctly, sure you got us tickets to a take that show. Do you remember at Wembley?

Dali 7:09

Sounds about right.

James 7:10

And I remember we all came down, and don't judge, take that put on a great show at that point, and I think that's the last time I might have seen you in person. Potentially, yeah. Which the years are just flying by. So if you think about that version of you compared to you today, what sentence would you say to that version as a bit of life guidance?

Dali 7:40

Wow. That's uh yeah, that's uh that's a big question. I think I've thought about the what would you say to your younger self, which this question is, but not much younger self. Um and I think the answer has to be I probably wouldn't know that it's not worth saying anything because I wouldn't have listened. I just wouldn't have listened. I knew better than anyone, so especially a future me. Like I would yeah. Um but it would have been about trust and like just you you got to trust me. This is not what you're doing now is not working, and I'm talking about like not just not having a plan in life, but not having any real connection. Um, everything was about when do we finish work? When can we go for a beer? When can we have a good time? And you know, at the time, great, but that's not sustainable. It's not at the time I would say my mental health wasn't bad at the time. Um still thinking about my dad a lot around those times, various relationships I was in, but overall, pretty good, you know, not too many worries, decent job, enough money to go out uh a few nights a week if I wanted to. But then the morning afters and the hangovers, um and you just think it it's it's quite ironic actually, because it was realizing impermanence before I had even heard the word of like you're going through a hangover and you're thinking, It's alright, I didn't have a hangover this time yesterday, so this time tomorrow I won't have one, things will change, it'll be okay. So if I want to go out drinking tomorrow night, it'll be fine because the next day I'll feel a bit rough, but then I'll get better. And I think it would just be the advice would be just trust that there's a better way to live, um, and that slowly developed over the years. Um finding spirituality or finding the meaning of it, you know, it's one of those things that it depends on who's asking the question or what they mean by spirituality, but um definitely connection, definitely, yeah.

James 10:00

When I think about what you just said, that version of me, like 21-year-old me, if someone said, Listen, James, you're gonna end up holding soundbass, playing crystal singing balls to people, playing a heart, playing a hampan, first it would have been like, What's a hampan? But that version of me would have been like, There's no way, there's there's no way that is is the journey. And I think when you think about when you talk about the spiritual path, for me personally, it's not a choice, it was never a choice of of whether I step on that path. Circumstances in life put me in a place where to think about what is actually everything around me. Who am I? What is this thing, this avatar, this body that I'm in? When I sit at my mum's back door at the time, you know, looking at the trees blowing on an early Tuesday morning at 10 o'clock, probably smoking a spliff. Like just thinking about where I was, how lost I was, everything just breaking down in that moment to have to slowly reconstruct things and figure out the journey of self. For me, it wasn't anything I I ever stepped into, it was something that I was like thrust into, and over time I started to make sense of things. But that journey in itself has probably been able to let me help other people in their journey, whether it be a spiritual one or not. And I'll ask guess Ursula said this, see if you agree with it. She believes everyone's on a spiritual path, they just might not coin it that way. And I think whether you're creative or you're running a business or you know you're really passionate about something and all the things it takes to make these things happen, can be quite self-reflective, can be quite a spiritual process. I know everything that I do with life is sound, putting on events, watching tickets come in, refunding people, designing posters, flyers, holding the session, all the details that go into that. There's so much sitting with self I have to do in that process that it is a spiritual process. And I think

Advice To Your Younger Self

James 12:10

the modern day kind of quote unquote vision of what a spiritual person is is so misrepresented because I really love the fact that I feel I'm still showing up to certain spaces as this version of me that's in front of you, and the version that my friends know, and there's not much that's changing in that space apart from maybe how I carry my energy for the moment. So a spiritual person can be so many things, but I think we've definitely in the in the West seem to have this kind of like vision of what that should look like. When you started your spiritual journey, and this is me reflecting a bit on my own, I found it really isolating, and I felt that people around me thought I was losing the plot because I was shifting from the guy that you met at that time, being in a band, the band was doing well, to going through a life circumstance that I never thought would happen again around death that put me in a space that I just couldn't revisit those times. And at the time I probably needed my friends to be like, Look, we've got you, like you're not going anywhere. But that wasn't the story that played out. So thinking about that in hindsight, everything for me played out the way it was supposed to, but it became quite a lonely, isolated part of my life, and there's been many of those moments since that. But when you started your spiritual journey, what was that first section like for you?

Dali 13:46

That's a really good question, actually, because um I uh I'd come out of the longest relationship I'd been in, and at the time, the best relationship I'd been in. I like to think that we all, you know, learn things about ourselves and relationships and take them into the next one. Yeah. So I'd come out of the best relationship at that point. Um, and I'd met with one of my friends uh in Kent, went down to see him, and he'd said, Okay, if your relationship is truly ending, um, I'm gonna be in Thailand uh in a couple of months. Why don't you meet me in India and we'll just hang out for a couple of weeks and uh we'll chat and we'll see how it goes. And I was like, Yeah, because I'd met this guy in India, um Krusty, good friend of mine. He introduced me to meditation cliche on the beach in India. But that's the way to do it. True story. So uh we sat and we talked. I was reading a book, um Happy by Darren Brown, which mostly focuses on stoicism. And uh Krusty had come out of a retreat, 21-day silent retreat in Thailand, so he was nice and chilled, and uh we just sat and spoke for about a week, 10 days. Um and towards the end of it, last kind of three or four days, he said, Tomorrow morning I'll be on the beach meditating. I was like, nah no, it's woo-woo, it's it's not for me. Didn't really know anything about it. By the third day of him just saying, I'll be on the beach in the morning, 6.30, come and join me, I did. And I went and sat with him. I was like, oh wow, instantly, wow, this is this is awesome. Did it for two days, got back home, and when you talk about the isolating thing, this is where I think I was at the time. I'd found something that I could kind of latch on to that was working in keeping me like on an even keel. Um and I needed to do as much of it as I could. So not only was I like jumping out of bed at whatever time in the morning, six o'clock, and sitting in silence for like 40 minutes every day, um, I decided that through the stoicism that I was reading about and about choices, and we have choices about everything. There's things we can control, there's things we can't control. It started getting me onto like, what can I control after I've meditated? And I said, okay, I can control what I wear. Why do I wear certain clothes? And I I went deep. I was like, I might wear a certain t-shirt because I like the comments that people make about it when I wear it. I said, Oh, but that's the ego. I need to drop that. So I'm just gonna wear black t-shirts, and no one can really say anything about that. So I spent about three or four months just wearing black t-shirts, and nothing. It was at that level. Yeah. But yeah, my my flatmate at the time thought I was crazy and I was like, no, I need I need to do these things just to like it's like a reset. Yeah, it's going back to um being comfortable with the choices we make and not not reacting

Spirituality As Connection Not A Look

Dali 16:55

to things that you've kind of you've chosen or things that happened that you don't have control of. So I I did spend about yeah, it must have been about three or four months, just not in isolation. I was still going to work every day, still meeting up with friends, but I kind of trimmed my life right down to try and get rid of everything that I felt wasn't important, that I didn't need. Um yeah, that that's when that's when meditation really started to open up because it wasn't just sitting in silence. Um, someone introduced me to Insight Timer app, um, which then introduced all these different techniques in meditation, different guides, different teachers, some of whom I'd read about previously. So uh that helped me kind of find my way with that, and then it was that connection in the app that kind of just opened the world up. Uh, because it's all about connection.

James 17:51

And you've been you host your own meditations on that platform now.

Dali 17:55

I do, yeah. Um it's it's just a wonderful community of like like-minded people, and there is literally something for everyone. Whatever you're into in the spiritual space, you'll find it on on there. Um, there's always live mentality, like you could go on now and say three or four teachers just hosting live sessions. Um, but yeah, I've made friends on there. I uh you have regular listeners, um, and it's just that reminder of community as well. I think it um Jack, your one of your previous guests, had said, I'm probably gonna get it wrong, but he said something along the lines of loneliness comes from an absence of connection. Yeah. And that really resonated because that that's it. Like we all just need connection. Yeah, I agree. So that loneliness that you might feel at the beginning, or isolating or self-isolation that you do at the beginning um of your spiritual journey, it's like you need to reconnect. Um, because I don't think you can do it on your own.

James 18:57

I agree, and thinking thinking about that in in kind of real time as you're saying it. Part of my journey was detaching from, like you said, going out. It wasn't I wasn't getting anything from it. I spent uh probably about 2012 to maybe 2013 going out to maybe like festivals or you know, trips abroad, and I did enjoy sections of that, especially being just with your friends and creating memories. But there's such a dense kind of social element energetically that was affecting me, and I felt like as I went into my the start of my spiritual journey, I became really sensitive to energy. So just being around people that are gossiping, or you know, people drinking, doing drugs, and just the culture of what is going out, and I I find I found it quite heavy. And over the years, as that kind of like grew, I probably detached from that space even more. And then this party that sees your friends going out, you might see them share stuff online, you're like, oh, I feel like I missed that one, or you know, everyone's making memories. And I used to really question this thing about anxiety and whether I struggle to put myself in these spaces. And what I realize now I've built a community through life is sound is I don't have any problem being social when people are arriving at the events. I actually love speaking to people, but what it is is what the what the social element is around is something I'm super passionate about, and the energy is right. Yeah, so I found that like a really difficult thing where I thought it was just a me problem. But when I think you put yourself in the right environment of community, you realize ah, my energy just wasn't in the right space. And the connections I'm seeing with people when they show up, some people will show up alone and you know, speak to other people. And I had someone message me, or maybe even comment on a post, that I was talking about men showing up to Soundbass. The ratio of women's quite high, it's about 85 to 90%, all women. So when I do get men showing up, they might come alone, they might, you know, be with a friend or a small group. And this person put a comment, I think her name was Rachel, put a comment on Instagram saying she spoke with a guy at a sound bath and they actually went for a drink together after. And it was purely on a connection basis of you know, getting chatting, do you want to carry the conversation on? And then they just both went our separate ways. And I thought, these are the things that I don't see or know that happen in that space of community. And I think whether it's online or in a physical space, I personally

A Beach Meditation That Changed Everything

James 21:45

think we're gonna enter a renaissance period of community driven by AI because we're all gonna be looking at our phones and screens, and we're not gonna know what's real anymore, so we're gonna Opt for real life in-person experiences. And I think that's one thing I'm really loving about my sessions is just being around people that are there to do one thing for different reasons, but to come to a space because you know we're all about to switch off and relax. Yeah. And the conversations that I don't get to witness, the magic that's that's mixing up in that room that I'm not even a part of. I think that is something that I think we're gonna see a renaissance period as we shift through the next few years up to about 2030 because the screens we're not gonna know what's real or not. There's gonna be a a a large part of people that don't care and they're just gonna be still be there. Yeah, but I think there's gonna be people that are pushed to the online spaces and physical spaces as well. As your journey from being kind of someone getting into meditation, what what was the the space in years or just time from you going right I'm gonna start teaching this?

Dali 23:02

That's a good question. Um I I think I just want to come back to something you said as well about the the connection thing and the the the energy in the room because I was thinking about this on my way here. Um the the phone thing is interesting, like how many times do you pick your phone up, and this is like you, everyone, pick your phone up and go on to social media or or look at photos or do something that is not a connection directly with someone else. One of the things I was chatting about recently um on a live session was about that connection. Like if you're feeling lonely and you're you're you're not physically with people, you can pick your phone up. Go to your contacts as the first thing you do, and just scroll through and find someone you haven't spoken to for a long time. Just send them a message. Just send like don't expect a reply because they might be busy or they might have changed phones, whatever it is, but just send a message and you will feel some sort of connection with someone because you've had that connection in real life with them. Um, and we don't do it like I don't do it enough. Yeah, but when I remember to do it, it's really nice. Oh, think of someone, just send them a quick message, even if it's just to say I'm thinking of you, um, or ask them how they are, maybe get a conversation going. It might lead to meeting up with them. Um, but it's really important because we are losing that. We are losing that.

James 24:21

I think so. Even just touching on that quickly, me and my friend Tim, he'll call me like yesterday, he called me, he was like, Bro, you just on my mind, I just thought I'd call you. And we often do that, or I'll think of him in it, and as I'm thinking about him, he'll text me. Yeah, and I'll call him like bro, he's like, Yeah, we've got that thing going on. I think this magic that we have as humans, the the the unseen, we're detaching away from because we're not practicing it, and it is a practice. It's if that happens quite regularly and you compound it. Right, I'm thinking about Tim a lot. Like let me call him, oh yeah, bro. I'm just you know, I was going through this day, and I've maybe needed this conversation. There's an art to that, and the more you practice it, the more aware you are, and then it might start happening with another person, yeah. And then we're tapping into that, those those God-given gifts that we just overlook. So I think that's a that's a really a really powerful thing to for anyone to think about and consider in life.

Dali 25:22

What you're describing sounds like a natural algorithm. So it's like you're building up those energies and vibrations and connections with people in real life. Yeah. But now we rely on this digital thing called an algorithm. Doesn't always get it right. Yeah. But that's what keeps us hooked online. It's like imagine you could figure out the code for that in real life that just keeps you hooked to real life instead of your phone. Um, I need to learn that as well.

James 25:49

Yeah, the these are lottery wins. I always say it's like a lottery win. Where I live, I'd walk for a coffee every day and I'd see this girl. No matter what time I would leave the house, could be 8:15, maybe later I'd go at midday. Every time I left, I'd just see her on my walk. And I said to my partner, like, we saw her in the parking said, see that girl over there. No matter where I am, she's out at the same time. And she actually knew who she was. So she was like, Oh, it's this is so and so. So randomly, not seeing her for about six months. I left my house the other morning. I just thought, I'm gonna see that girl. And as I was walking up, she was there, I was like, What is what is that? It's been six months, or whatever the time space is, whatever the time has been since I spotted her last. The fact I thought and she's there, that's like me picking five numbers and then showing up the light, small.

Dali 26:46

I get it. I think uh there's there's it's like the I'm still gonna come back to your question about how long before I started teaching. Um it's like the Bader Meinhof phenomenon where you think about buying a yellow car, and you'd never considered buying a yellow car before, but then when you think about it, all of a sudden you start seeing them, and that's because they're they're in your mind, but your awareness changes. And I have this thing um at work where it's an ongoing joke with people that are like you're you're always seeing famous people, and our office is in Leicester Square, right, in London. So if you're gonna see anyone famous or a celebrity, it's gonna be around there. And the people who say to me are usually the people who don't go out for lunch, they stay at their desks for lunch. Like, I'm just going out for my lunch, but I'm also going out for my lunch and I'm not on my phone. I keep my head up and my eyes open and I'm looking around. Um, it's quite an easy, easy thing to kind of orchestrate. But my point is it's like that awareness thing and just being present in the space as well. Um, but yeah, I think I think when the energies match, I think things do happen. But um let's come back to your question.

James 27:56

Yeah, that yeah, going from from that that time of

Cutting Noise And Choosing Community

James 28:00

kind of stepping in as somebody who's learning the craft or the process to go right, I wanna I want to share this with other people.

Dali 28:08

Yeah, I think um it a very specific memory actually, because I was during COVID, I was furloughed from my job. And when uh I think I had 15 weeks off over that summer in 2020, when I came back, it was like a few days a week. And there was someone in the office was hosting weekly yoga classes for anyone that wanted to join over the Zoom, and they said to me, Oh, you you meditate, don't you? Do you want to do you want to do meditation first before the yoga class? And I was like, Yeah, I can do. And I started doing it just with the London office, and there was maybe three or four people would join, and every time I would say, I'm not a teacher, but I'm not a teacher, but all I can do is share my experiences, share the things that helped me, um, with the hope that it helps just one person and then one person more, and then one person more, but I'm not a teacher, and I just kept saying it, and um it got to the point where I think it was someone in HR had said you should open it up to the international offices. So we did, nobody signed up, and the only after a couple of weeks, the only office who showed any interest was our Shanghai office, and I was genuinely thinking I can't do meditation with the Shanghai office because I'm you know I'm not a teacher. Um they were lovely about it. There's maybe five people over there, three of them Americans, and they were just so engaging, and and when I said, I'm not a teacher, but and one of them said, Why are you not a teacher? And it was like, Oh, I I've said this a lot now, and maybe I should look into that and just learn learn the practicalities of it. So I can show people what I know, but I just felt a bit inauthentic. Um so yeah, I joined joined a course with the uh British School of Meditation, and it was probably I think let me work it out quickly, about five years after I started meditating that I then trained. Yeah. Um British School of Meditation, great setup there. Uh it's now run by three incredible women, two Catherines and a Sarah. Um, one of those Catherines, Catherine Tomlinson, was my teacher who taught me to teach. Um and it was just a really lovely time being in a space with, you know, I think there was eight of us on the course, um spending a week together in a classroom and then months of coursework as well, um covering so many topics uh that as soon as yeah, as soon as I qualified and it's externally accredited as well, um, yeah, I just I flipped my profile on Insight Timer from just user to teacher and uh yeah, went went from there.

James 31:02

What was the biggest shift you witnessed in your life from going to that to being able to then verbally express two-part question? What was the feeling when you actually were able to say that and actually hear those words with the awareness of you were really speaking that limit in belief out quite a lot? You know, I'm not a teacher, but then switching into the I'm a teacher. How did that feel when you when you stepped into that?

Dali 31:28

100% imposter syndrome for a long time, obviously. Um, I think we all feel that in a lot of ways. Um but I think it's it's still speaking without any kind of authority because I want to be respectful to the traditions um that I may borrow from, um, but only very, very lightly because I, you know, I'm not I'm not endorsed by anyone other than the British School of Meditation, which um which is teaching meditation really on a secular level. Um obviously it touches on Buddhism, but I think it's just trying to be really clear that I'm share I'm still sharing the things that have helped me. I wouldn't I wouldn't share anything if I hadn't done it myself and seen the change in me. Um so I think I've got more comfortable with it over time by by coming from that that position of like that this is what's helped me. I know I'm being authentic in in those moments, um, and that's I think that's all I can do. Um and it's difficult, you know. You you host a live session and you can't see people on the other side of the live session. Like I'm the only one on camera. There's a comments box, and people are free to say

From Practitioner To Meditation Teacher

Dali 32:50

whatever they want, and you know, I'll keep an eye on that and respond to what I can. Other people on the session will also respond, which is which is really what shows you what the community's like. It's it's amazing. Because I I don't have all the answers, and it might be something really specific somebody's asking. And it's always nice to pause and just you just know somebody's gonna have the answer for them. And like I say, I I can only talk from my experience. So if it's I'll be honest, if somebody asks something I don't know, I'll say I I can't help you with that, I'm afraid. Um but nine times out of ten, there's somebody else listening who will jump in and and give a great answer, and that just that's where the k the community side of it. Like I say, I've made friends from it, I've met up with people um for coffee. It's just yeah, it's a great place to be.

James 33:35

I think there's something in us, and I think it maybe comes back to like school days. When someone asks us a question, if you don't know the answer, you want to fill the gap with I've got to say something that sounds like I know. And it is actually the wisest thing to be able to say, Oh, I don't know. And I've had it in sound baths at the end of a session where someone will say, Oh, there's there was a guy asking about so he saw something online about pacemakers and soundbass. I said, I've read into that, and I know there is something frequency-wise that can trigger pacemakers and interfere. Specifically, I don't know what frequency that would be. I'd have to go and look at it. Happy to do that because it's that's interesting to me. And if I find anything, I'll send you the information. And I did actually go and look into it, and I then I sent the guy the information, say, Oh yeah, came across this. But I think to try and fill it with fluff, like, oh yeah, and you you just start to lose that, like you said, that that authentic self where you're just operating from a space of listen, this at this current time, I don't know. But that's actually interested me, so I'm gonna go and look at that. I think it comes from that space of school years, having your hand up or a question being thrown at you, and it's like, oh yeah, you panic and and you want to fill it. And yeah, I think that's a a real interesting thing that I've witnessed in myself as well, and really practicing that that presence of just being honest with people. I actually don't have the answer to that. And the second part to that question is how long has it been since you have transitioned into teacher?

Dali 35:08

Uh it was four years ago. So that's four years ago I started, and and even teacher, I still find a little bit it it it's it's on my CV. It is it is what it is, but in those sessions, it is more about being a guide. Because I think it's such like there might be other teachers from Insight Timer on the live session that I'm hosting. Um, and there's a there's another um teacher who was a monk for 10 years, who's a brilliant teacher on their nick. And he he will always come to me if I'm on one of his sessions, he'll go, Dali, would you like to offer an answer to this? Um, and sometimes even then, I'll have to type because I'm not on camera then. I'll type, I'm sorry, I don't know. Um, but it's in that it's just it's about that community and about someone will have the answer. And that was that was one of my big struggles because it again, it's ego. You want to have the answer, you want to show that you know things. I still love a pub quiz, I still want to know all the answers when I go to a pub quiz. But in this space, it's so important to just be honest and say, I don't know, I'm sorry. Or, you know, I'm not um that sounds like a question that a therapist should answer or a psychologist, yeah, and I'm nowhere near um one of those people. So I I'd rather just say, I'm sorry, I I can't help you, but I wish you well.

James 36:29

Yeah, I think at Soundbass I've had people say, What is it when you know I could feel like the singing balls, but my knee, I had pain in my knee prior to the session, and now there was even a a a woman, she her name's Sue, she's a photographer. She used to take pictures of Victoria Bass back in the day, like all the raves and stuff. Again, one of those moments I was talking to one of the people that worked there about the raves as we were setting up the event, and I was like, Yeah, have you seen the pictures from from the event that made the proper retro, like proper 90s rave pictures? Wow. Just talking about that like an hour and a half ago. But she said, My knee's feeling better. I could feel it like fizzing throughout the the sound bath. What is that? I was like, What I think it is, is your body knows what to do in terms of healing. So those vibrations, your body is taking that and processing it in a way to aid the natural healing process of the body. There could be something I'm missing as well. There's could be something here that I don't know. That's what I think in this space of sound, it is. But stay curious. Keep visiting that, see what that is. Whether you come to this sound bath again or go and visit ten others, it's something in that stay curious about. And I think I think it is in these spaces, things like meditation and sound baths can be a very personal journey for for people. So I think like you said, you are a guide. I feel like very much in my sessions, like I'm holding space for people and guiding people through the session. And some people don't have questions at the end, and some people are gonna feel like they've got 20 questions to ask you. But I think it's always whatever's happen happening for you today with that knee. See what happens at the next session or the fifth session. And if it benefits you, if that keeps building on that, then that's that's amazing. There's so much unseen to to the spaces of meditation, sound baths, the things that we seem to be returning to slowly over time. And it is it is growing, I think, in in popularity, these these modalities. Meditation probably being one of the the oldest returning to the modern day, I would say, is would you agree that that's like one of the first things that everyone started to become aware of, maybe yoga as well. What would you say you witness people's fears still having today towards meditation?

Dali 39:13

I think it's the unknown, and I'm guilty of this as well. That when I heard the word meditation

Imposter Syndrome And Honest Guidance

Dali 39:20

originally, I I was like, nah, that's not for me. Uh but it's because I didn't know what it was. And what I should have done was like, can you tell me more about meditation? And the what my friend did was just say, just come and try it for yourself. And that's what you know, that's one of the base level teachings of the Buddha was was don't take my word for it, try it for yourself and see. And I think that's that's really important because it comes back to the the teacher, the word teacher as well, because in a session, you're not really trying to teach one thing because everyone's got different needs, and everybody's in a different place in their lives and they've got different levels of experience. You're just trying to guide them or the whole group in one direction, but it'll like everyone joins it at different points. And the knee thing is interesting because what one of the biggest changes I had in my life that sat alongside the meditation was I was reading the book on stoicism at the same time as learning how to meditate, and I with with the stoics, it's all about um rational thinking and and looking at the things you can control and you can't control, focusing on the things you can, and and I I got to a point with with stoicism where I was like, Stoicism's a square, and Buddhism is a circle, both perfect shapes, both very useful for different things, but you can't hug a square. I was like, this it's just two, there's those like right angles in stoicism that I just I want the softness. And I was like, I saw Buddhism as like this circle, and I was like, you can hug that, there's a lot of love there, and that's why I moved over to that. But what one of the main things I was taking from Stoicism was the stories that we tell ourselves. So if it's your knee, if it's your shoulder, your back, when you're sitting in meditation, and I'm not taking anything away from anybody who has medical conditions, because again, it's like the first thing I think of if someone says, Oh my, I'm not a doctor, I can't diagnose what's going on there. But when we sit in meditation, we can direct the breath to that area. If it it's easier to imagine if it's in your shoulder or your chest, somewhere near your lungs, your upper back. If you've got a pain, is it really a pain or is it just a little bit of tightness? Can you breathe into it? Can you focus on it? Can you spend some time on it and see if it relaxes, see if it changes? Because it wasn't always painful, and there's obviously some, you know, injuries that we have that you have to go and get proper treatment for. But there's a lot of things that are like little niggles in the body that if you just spend some time breathing into them and focusing on them, they'll they'll dissipate, or the story will change about them, and that's really powerful. I've I've found that um on numerous occasions, and we're all in control of changing, changing the story, I think.

James 42:20

It's just learning that you have the power, and learning to let go, because a lot of people have the story on repeat, the story becomes comfortable, it becomes a connection tool. Oh, I can tell you this, and you might relate because you might have something wrong with your elbow, and then without us knowing, we're we're in a we're in a a complaining cycle of connection, and I think we've all been guilty of that, and I'm really aware if I may even do it today. I've had back problems for a long time, but I rarely will talk about it now, especially when it when I'm in a good space. And I realised when I switched my language, someone that I'd not seen was like, Oh, how's your back? I used to go, it's not bad. I used to think, why do I always like say it on the negative spectrum? And then I switched it to it's amazing, it's absolutely absolutely great. Trying to switch that narrative of the story to even maybe program, reprogram the subconscious of my beliefs towards that story of when I'm in suffering. How do I speak about it when I'm out of the suffering? Oh, yeah, it's it's not been bad for too long, and yeah, just hope it doesn't come back soon. Like really started to catch my language around that. Yeah, so now I just speak positivity, even if I do speak about it. I was thinking about this yesterday, that's why it's so fresh. Uh just walking with with my son again with a coffee. And I thought, my back's my back's good at the moment. And I was just like, right, leave it at that. Yeah, your back's great. So I think that's a really powerful one that these tools that That we can use meditation, soambaths, yoga, all the things that bring you back to your body, or even help you maybe sometimes leave your body and and go to that other space, which is something I want to touch on as well. Sometimes we might not fully be able to verbalize what that magic is, but if it helps, if it shifted something, that's all we need to know. Come back and try it again, see what happens the next time. I've witnessed that quite a lot with people when it comes to physical pain in soundbaths. The mental, emotional, spiritual is always is is going to be things that weave in and out of people's stories in those spaces. But when people have physical problems and they say that helped, I felt something, that really to me shows the level of these tools that we have available to just tap into. Whether you go into a session or you know tapping in online with meditation, these are really powerful things to you know to shift physical problems. When you have been holding space for people online and you say it's obviously it's hard because you can't see them, I stepped into like online soundbox. So I don't know why I thought I could do it all myself. Like my friend Maureen came and kind of like helped facilitate the chat as I was, you know, playing instruments. But it was a really strange feeling going from having people physical in front of me, being able to read energy, or I can sense people are going through this today. I'm gonna push the balls a bit more, or I'm gonna pull

Expectations And The Fear Of Unknown

James 45:40

back on the hand pan, or I can see that person really opened up when I went close to them with a wave drum. I'll give them a bit extra. I can see they're going through some stuff. When that was removed, it was such a strange thing because the camera is just on me. I can only see myself on Zoom and the laptop's like where you are. I don't have my glasses on, so I can only see a rough outline. But there is still a very true connection with people in that space of you know, say, say I had 12 people online. There is a connection there, even though everyone's separate. How have you found that when you've I would assume you've hosted you know multiple amounts of times online? For me, there's always a theme that occurs, whether it's in physical spaces or online. I always find someone might mention something and someone's operating on that similar frequency. What have you been able to witness in those spaces over time with with when you can't see people, but there is something unexplained going on in that in that space as a group?

Dali 46:44

That's yeah, that's um that has been interesting to to watch, and it's quite nice. You might sit down to guide people through the same meditation that you've done 20 times before, but all it takes is one comment from somebody to take it on a different track, and and that's the beautiful thing about it, because you don't want it to be the same every time. Obviously, there's a certain element of repetition in meditation to make it stick. The good news is there's no end goal to it, it's just a practice, and it'll be a practice for as long as you're here. Um, but what it does, I find, especially those live sessions, it reduces the vastness of the world. I think when I look and I go, there's somebody in America, there's somebody in Australia, there's someone in India, someone in South Africa, someone in Brazil, we're all whatever the time is locally to us, we're all sitting right now doing exactly the same thing. And it becomes more about that connection. So I love it when it goes off on a tangent. Um because it's just it's people connecting it around the world, and it's that's when it really feels like that community feeling because it's not just people listening to me, because there's they don't have any audio or video themselves. So it's quite nice to just see the comments ticking ticking through, and I'll read out every single comment. Um, and quite often it'll just be me reading out a conversation that two other people are having. Um but that's allowed, like everything is valid, and everything's allowed, and it just prove like each and every person might be sitting somewhere alone, but they don't have to be lonely, and I think that's a big difference of like you've got to have that connection, um, and that's what that app has done. Like it it's it's incredible for the community. Uh there's just there seems to be no ill will on it at all, and uh, and that's the kind of one comment that I hear a lot of people make that it's just such a lovely place to be, um, and it is based on those random conversations that people have on the live sessions, and the the conversations we probably just don't have in everyday life, which is great to be able to share and open up.

James 48:57

My thing at my sessions is I wish I had more time with people post-session to just speak and chop it up and go into those conversations and those questions. Pretty much as soon as I finish, I have to start packing up and get out of the venue. But yeah, it's those when you have those spaces to open up that one question or that one thought can just take you down a different path. And this is this is what we've done for the longest time as humans. I suppose we're we're sitting around thinking about things, you know, theorizing, getting philosophical, and just thinking about what something can be. It might not even be the the truth of the answer, but even exploring the question in itself and different outcomes. This is a an ancient art form we've we've always done. And I think we might have gone into a bit of a a modern day thing, maybe from the on online commenting space of aha, that's not where it is, you're wrong. We've really entered the era of ah, but that's not true. Look at this, and it stopped us being inquisitive. And I think when we can be in the space of things that are still truly unknown, even though there is teachings and understandings of stuff, there's so much unknown around these spaces that we have to stay curious, we have to stay inquisitive and keep asking the wild questions that might open up the whole group in a space and go, Well, that came from nowhere, but what a beautiful conversation that was. Because I think it is, and this goes back to the this was the theme from Jack's question to Ursula, the last guest. It was about the theme ran onto being curious and keeping curious throughout your life. And as I am in sessions with people and things are happening, and people are sharing really powerful stories with me, that keeps me curious of right, what is truly possible in this space then? What keeps you curious in meditation? Not only not only teaching, but also your own practice within yourself.

Dali 52:13

I'm curious about all kinds of meditation because there's so many. Again, there's there's something for everyone in the world of meditation, so I would I would encourage everyone to give it a go and find you'll find something that resonates. Um I'm interested in people's experiences and how because all it could be is like one little comment that changes your perspective on something. Um and it you've got to spend time with people, you've got to be open to those conversations, I think. And the live session, mine are slightly different. I understand why you would want more time with people because you're playing your music and people are lying down and not not having conversation. It's a very different setup, but I think it's all about there's a there's a fear of an unknown, and then there's having expectations. I think expectations in all these spaces should be left at the door. That's my advice. Because even if you expect if you've experienced something similar, I remember I went to a group meditation in um London prior to being a teacher, and it was one of the most beautiful days. Somebody had just gone on on Insight Timer on one of the groups and said, Anyone want to meet up? About 20 of us turned up um in Brick Lane, and it was amazing. Just a lovely, lovely space. We're all there for the same reason. And we said, Should we do it again next month? So, yeah. And it felt like everyone, myself included, turned up expecting it to be as brilliant as the first one. And it wasn't. It was still a lovely day, but it was just different. And I came away from it feeling a little bit disappointed, which on reflection I shouldn't have done because I shouldn't have walked in with an expectation of it being the same as the last. Nothing's ever gonna be the same, even if it was the same people, if it was the same time of day, the weather was the same, if we had the same conversation, it would still be different. But we can look at the fear of the unknown and actually say it's quite exciting to not know what's coming, but that's where it takes courage to just go, I'm gonna let myself go and let myself be part of this. Um, and I still have to check myself sometimes and go, just just go with it. It's cool. Like whatever happens, happens. If you don't like it, you can leave. But I think um, yeah, I think it's managing expectations is a big part of this.

James 54:44

Yeah, we tend to do that, don't we, when we have an experience of something, whether it be like go to a restaurant for the first time, go on holiday, oh we'll go back there next year. It's not gonna hit the way that first one did because everything was new, and every you know, you're meeting all those people and gathering in that space and just that time, that energy, the words, like you said, everything contributed. How you were feeling on that day. You might have just really needed that at that time, so it really landed in a certain way. The next version of you showing up, you know, maybe a month later, a month older, new experiences have happened, you're not thinking the same that day, you might feel physically different, something you've ate might have made you feel off. We never we're never gonna get those equations in in the same format. This is what I say to people about sessions as well. It's never gonna be the same session twice. One reason because I never play the same, it's all intuitive. I have a flow, like you said, repetition, I have a guide of what's roughly gonna come where, and the time is always very close and similar. I'm not showing up with the same energy every time because we're all different on different days, the intention's the same, the flow's gonna be the same, but the patterns and the shifts and the energy, the energy everyone's contributing to the room is gonna be different. So I think that's a real great insight, no pun intended. So to to any space that people are showing up is expectations. If you enjoy that first one, be open to the second one being completely different or at least a different experience, because the first one could be terrible. If you think the second one's gonna be terrible, that could be the magic one. So I think that's a really, a really great point there of yeah, being open without expectation. Even as a let's say a facilitator, I think we can do that. If you feel like a session's not gone as well as a previous one, I've had sessions where I'm like, that just didn't land. People come up to it, oh my god, that was incredible. I preferred it to this, but I'm like in my mind, I'm like, what? But I'm like, they're receiver, they're they're on the receiving end of this thing. I just felt like that didn't flow as well as I know it has done in the past, or maybe as well as I could have done. But then it lands with that person in a completely different way. So I think even from our side as well, that expectation is not holding on to that. And like you said, that imposter syndrome sometimes can can creep in. It's taken me a long time to get to a space where I'm like, oh, this is what I do now. I'm actually I'm actually doing it. It took me a long time to to really settle into that of oh, I do sound baths or oh my ham I play hampan now, but I'm not a hampan player. It's like at what point do you go, oh my hampan player? And I think it's only like over the past few months that I've gone, oh no, I'm actually a hampan player. If people see you for the first time, if you're playing a hampan, you're a hampan player to them. So I think imposter syndrome is a really interesting one. I think I don't know if it's a a creative thing or a human thing. I know if you've been on a creative path, we can often have that if we step into new spaces. But imposter syndrome, I think maybe for the first easy 10 sessions, I said this before, like my heart was just pounding when I was like on the singing bowls for the first time. I really had to like ground myself and really pull my energy back to myself and not let that ripple out to people, and then it just becomes second nature. Now I just show up, you know, I guide people at the beginning, and I'm I'm I'm on the bowls. And this is what what I wanted to ask you about for me, the bowls when I really let go into them becomes like a meditation, not only a mind meditation, but it's also like a physical kind of reminds me of like Tai Chi because I'm I'm moving and then I'm envisioning sending energy out to people. But when I really let go, my mind is completely still. I might be glancing around the space and feeling what people need. I might not even be thinking, or I might have my eyes closed, but I definitely hit a meditative experience in that moment. It's really hard to put into words what that is, but it's such a beautiful feeling, and it's when I know that the energy's really being moved in probably the best way because I'm not in my own mind, I'm just flowing. Maybe it's a flow state. I know when you're in flow state, that probably is a meditation of some sort. When I really let go on the hampan, and I mean truly let go, I'm not thinking about notes, I'm not thinking about anything, it's just a letting go. It's such a blissful state. But as soon as you go, and you'll know you'll know whenever I've meditated and go, oh, I'm doing it, I'm meditating. It's like I'm out, I'm out of it, and I'm back to the thinking mind. And I think whether it's the bowls, the hampan, or hitting a meditation in the past, what what can you teach people? Is there a teaching that can get people to that that deeper state? How do you stay in that state without going, oh, I'm in this, I'm in the thing.

Dali 1:00:08

It's you nailed it, letting go. I think it's letting go. And I I I you know I wouldn't ever be able to promise that it happens for anyone or everyone, it doesn't happen for me ever really. Uh, because if I'm guiding a a session, I'm having to focus on the comments and and like you say, probably slightly different, but there will be moments in a live session. If I'm doing like a two-hour live session, for example, where I'll have to snap myself out and go, Oh, I was I was somewhere else then, and I've told people that I'm gonna come back to them in two minutes, and it's been about six minutes. Um, but that's because I have to keep an eye on the clock as well, so it's a little bit different. But if I'm sitting in a meditation myself, it is one of the most difficult things to when you realize it's happening, that realization itself can snap you out of it. Um,

Flow States And The Art Of Letting Go

Dali 1:01:00

so you just gotta keep doing it. It's like that's what I'm saying, it's a practice, it's not there's no end goal to it. It's a uh I think it was Sharon Salzberg who who says, you know, we we don't meditate to get better at meditating, we meditate to get better at life, and that's what I always remind myself of because it's not that I'm gonna sit down and meditate and it's going to be amazing, or I'm going to get to that place where everything just quietens down, or my mind's not racing. The mind will race, it you'll have a million thoughts. That's natural. It's being okay with that, it's how you react to that. Um, and I always describe it as um if you imagine like a busy mind, all your thoughts are really like close to your head. Um, and all you're doing is pushing them away very slightly. So they're still there, but you're just giving yourself some space, that breathing space. Um, and again, it's about not having expectations of how it's gonna be. Um because you can't you can't decide, I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna get into that state where my mind just goes quiet. So it's just not gonna happen. And that's okay. Like it's absolutely fine. Like you could sit for an hour in meditation, and if you recognize just once that you've breath, uh sorry, you've you've your thoughts have taken you away from your breath, you come back to your breath, that's a successful meditation. Even if throughout the whole hour you do that once. If you don't do it, you've had the intention to sit down and meditate. That's a success. Not getting to the mat or not getting to the cushion, it's fine. You can do it later. But it's about not beating yourself up, it's about not having expectations, and it's just about doing it. And I think the more you do it, the longer you do it for, and there's no set time either. I don't want to say you have to sit for an hour. I'd love to sit for an hour every day, but life gets in the way. And I'm not going to pretend that that's that's something that I do for any period of time. I might have a week where I do an hour every morning, and then the next week it'll be down to half an hour, down to 20 minutes. Um yeah, it's not just not having those expectations, I think.

James 1:03:08

What's been the most profound shift that you've witnessed in somebody else from the meditation space? Something that they've shared with you.

Dali 1:03:21

Wow. I need a minute to think about this. There's a lot of people who will listen to my meditations and leave a review or um have a course on living with anger. Um and I think it's the shift when people have left a review of I came in feeling like this, and now I feel like this. I think that's the that's the that's where I know it's worth doing, and that's what gives me the motivation to go, right? What else can I record to put out there? Because, like I said earlier, if I can help one person, that's great, but then I need to help one more person and one more. It's not about saving the world or anything like that, it's just about sharing my experiences. Um, and there's been a few times where something's really resonated, and it's almost like I don't record things with an expectation of this is definitely going to help people, but I know it's helped me. So when it does hit with one person or land with one person, that's when I know I've done something right, and it makes me want to keep going because there's a lot of times, like you say, it might feel flat. You might do a live session, I might go into it expecting. I had a great conversation last time where loads of people are commenting everything, not a single comment, and I'm almost in the middle wanting to go, hello, hello, is there anyone still there? Because you can see the names and the faces all there, but there's no comments and go, come on, guys, chat to me. Yeah, and go, Oh, is it hang on, let me let me look at that. Is that because am I doing it for the right reasons now? Am I doing it for that connection? And I think it's all right to do it for the connection because it's a two-way thing, right? But it's just really interesting to watch those thoughts as they're happening. Um, but no, I think I I can only go by the the limiting factor of it doing these live sessions is that I can't see people and they can't talk, they can only type in. Um so yeah, it's just even even the little things I've started posting some kind of two-minute uh almost like pep talks. Yeah. Um and the the common theme there is people saying, I was feeling down, now I'm not, and that's it. I don't need to know any more details. You can share whatever you want, but you don't have to. It's just just that is uh I think we can all have an impact on each other's days um with the words we say, the language we use. Something I'm constantly learning and trying to work on myself um is the language I use and and just the tone of voice and everything, and it's it's tricky because everybody receives information differently as well. Um but I think yeah, just just seeing that one little reminder, and I heard it was again, it was on a Sharon Salzburg podcast, meta hour. It wasn't Sharon that said it was one of our guests. Um, that when we have those light bulb moments in life and we think of something, go, oh wow, or all of a sudden something makes sense. It's not because we're hearing it for the first time, it's something that we as humans just inherently knew, but we're being reminded of it. And I think 90% of this space is just having those reminders, having people who are, you know, like having a wingman or a wingwoman who will just remind you of things, like remind you of something positive about yourself, or that it's all right, thing everything changes. Things are gonna get better. Those little reminders can just switch you and and bring you out of that state. So it's nice when that happens and you see it happening.

James 1:07:17

Yeah, and it doesn't always need to be that big, profound shift. It can be those micro shifts over time that become the bigger shift. And I think when you think about the word meditation, you always kind of like envision the Zen master like 5,000 XP, like has been doing it for 120 years. And I think there's like an inferiority complex of stepping into something for the first time, thinking that we have to we have to be like that person from the from the off. And there's nothing in life that shows us that. But when it comes to meditation, we we associate it, or I know I do with with like true high wisdom. So where am I starting from? Oh, I'm not like that. Well, I'm not gonna do it then. What's the point of me doing it then? Because that's gonna take me ages to get to. But what in life arrives quickly? Everything is a practice, everything is a rhythm. The seasons of life, if you keep up the practice, is like you said, meditating for life. I think that's a big one I I really think about. The the times in life when I've tapped into different things have really served me when life has got really tricky

Men Vulnerability And Safer Spaces

James 1:08:30

because it's not going to the the devices or you know the the vices that we normally turn to when life gets tricky. I'm gonna go and meditate. I know I need this today. I'm gonna go to the float tank, I need an hour in the float tank. These these things that just enable us to switch off a little bit, detach from the mind, or even the emotions, or the thoughts that are being triggered from emotions. When you practice that regularly, it just gives you that kind of like that buffer, that safety barrier when life gets really, really tricky.

Dali 1:09:10

That's exactly it. I think yeah, that and that's that's how I first started looking at it. I remember when I shortly after I first started meditating, um I moved out of the flat that I shared with a friend, and I would lived alone, like properly lived alone for the first time in my life. And um, and that I remember walking down the street. So I I was still doing my 40 minutes in the morning, and I felt like I had this kind of defensive bubble around me. So it was like living in a bubble, but not in the way that I was in my own world or whatever. I had this kind of force field around me that was just like, nobody can mess with me, nobody can say anything that's gonna upset me. I'm really at peace now because I've given myself that space of because I've been meditating regularly, I'm watching my breathing more. Someone might say something that five years ago I would have reacted to, and now it's like I can choose the reaction, and I think my biggest lesson that I've learned is that I have a choice, I have a choice of how to react, and I just didn't know that before. I think or I was denying it, if I'm being completely honest. I didn't think I needed to make that choice of like choosing a different reaction. And when I started meditating, that gave me that time, and even if it's just three or four seconds, that can make such a big difference to how you react to a situation. And we've all heard it's like, ooh, count to ten before you do anything. It's like that's a meditation, that counting to ten. Um, look before you leap. That's a meditation. Sit on it, contemplate what you're gonna do, and then it might change what you're gonna do, it might give you a more positive response to the situation. And I think that regular practice of meditation helps you build up that, like you say, a buffer to give you the space to choose a turn a turn a snap reaction into like a thoughtful response.

James 1:11:11

Do you see a resistance in your world with men showing up for meditations? Or would you say it's kind of more open and even? I've shared with you briefly in my world at Soundbaths, definitely a high ratio of women that just say yes and commit. And even like, you know, launching my first like day retreat, all women straight away. My friend really like gave me an interesting point on it. I'd not really thought about he said, because we are we often have like conversations about men's spaces and you know, men doing work and different tools and things that we'll use in our lives and how things in pop culture are playing out, you know, toxic masculinity, which is obviously a valid thing, but then it can be pushed as this thing to start creating a true divide between us all, and I think there's a danger of that because a lot of people won't have the the awareness of how things are being weaponized to create division amongst us. So we'll talk about kind of men not showing up to certain spaces because of vulnerability, and you know, it's not easy for everyone, especially if you're going through something. I always say if you've arrived at a soundbath as a man on your own, well done. Because I know there's probably some battles you've had when A, you were looking at booking it, you've booked it, but now you've got to get there. Now I can see it when men enter the space, always go over and have a conversation, like you on your own. Yeah, I was like, You're gonna love it. Well done for being here, and I can see that guy, oh, oh, even that interaction just like settles and seeing me as the host and just speaking to them like you're one of my boys, like, well done for getting here, like you're actually gonna love this. Then the conversation afterwards, but the ratio is definitely high for women. But my friend said something that I've not really thought about before. He said, How amazing is it that women feel safe in your presence to come and book onto a retreat or a sound bath that shows that you're doing something amazing, and I never really thought of it like that because I always kind of like focus on not the lack of men, but how much men can benefit from these spaces of just coming to a sound bath, lying down, just relax. You don't need to do anything, just relax. You don't need to think about anything, some gentle breathing at the beginning. I'm gonna guide you and then we'll go into the sounds. Who doesn't like to relax? There's definitely a resistance. Is that something that kind of like translates to your world, or would you say that men are a bit better at showing up in the meditation space?

Dali 1:13:46

It's interesting because it's definitely more women. Um, there's a there's a great feature on the app where it shows you everyone in the world that's been meditating at the same time as you. So you could be sat alone at home. Um, even if you just did five minutes, it immediately when you finished, it will show you these are all the people or selection of the people who've been meditating, and it's absolutely majority women. Um but the m the men thing it is interesting because I think it is about like changing the conversation and changing um what it means to to work on yourself, really. It doesn't mean going to the gym and having big muscles, like it there's a lot more things you can do, and it's about men talking to other men and making them feel like these spaces are for them as well. Um because I know that I've I live in London, but I've wanted to come to one of your sound baths a few times and the dates just haven't lined up for me. Um but I want to bring some friends, and I want to bring some friends that I know wouldn't come on their own. Um, and I like to think that they would go and go, oh now I will go on my own because I've seen what it's like. It's that fear of the unknown thing as well. But also, like I think the conversations are changing as well with groups of lads that like a lot of the time you yeah, it all it takes is a little ripple of somebody doing something that's a bit different. It's not just we're just gonna go to the pub and have 10 pints. We're actually, and I'm not saying instead everyone goes to a sound bath because it's not gonna be that much of a shift immediately. Um, but it's about doing these things that are just like working on yourself, and like you say, you know, if it makes people feel safer, then it's a good thing. Um, but yeah, I think there's one of the things that I I want to do more myself in this space is to put myself in positions where I can have these kinds of conversations with people. Because I'm limited to that live session that I do, or maybe a few messages back and forwards with someone. Um, but it's about meeting up with with other teachers and and and other people who've come to sessions and and asking them, you know, how did you how did you come to this? Did you do it alone? But you're doing it from the safety of your home in a in an online session.

James 1:16:08

So I think uh it's an interesting question, but yeah, and seeing if there's patterns uh across the different you know practices and spaces that people are showing up to. I think when I did Manchester Cathedral, I think it was the last one or maybe the session before, there was a guy that I spoke to, he followed me on Instagram and I connected with him. I think I'm gonna ask him to come onto the podcast because he's a an MMA fighter. And he was like, that was incredible. And I thought, if somebody like you conveyed the message of these type of spaces to people that are looking at you like a true warrior and probably admire you as a you know a great fighter and someone who's mastering the craft, more men would probably would probably follow into that space and and go, Oh, that this is incredible. So I think even opening up conversations in spaces like that, that you wouldn't maybe typically find those conversations would invite a whole new demographic and open up that experience to people that just would probably just laugh it off if it if it was mentioned in everyday life. But I think it is super important, and I think we've probably witnessed each other on our journeys for a long time, and it's taken us this long to to connect like this. And I think the beauty of podcasting is long-form conversation, and I always say it's not like the only invitation because I think there's an element of you're aware that there's a light there, I'm aware there's a light there, and there's a camera there, so it is a true conversation. But I always notice like when the cameras click off, there's another version of us that like settles into a into a another level of a conversation, and it's the complexities of how we're we're built and designed as humans. There's something here that there'll be value for me and you, and a listener or a watcher. Then I'm I'm like, if only we could have another set of cameras that would as soon as we press stop, because there's another level to conversation that actually happens when when it's just me and you in a room, or just me and another person. And I think these is something I'm really thinking about. These are the conversations that we need to have because if you are hosting anything and teaching or guiding people, over time you become, let's say, a professional or an expert. If you've been doing something for four or five

Loving-Kindness And Finding Your Practice

James 1:18:40

years regularly, you now have a lot of weight in that space. And I think when when we have these conversations and look for patterns and how to help people, shift people, what's happening in in your world? Oh, well, I I noticed that in this space. How could you apply that to what you're doing? This is what is I think is needed for the people that are really holding these spaces, and like you said, really wanting to show up in the world and help people. And I really resonated what with what you said. One comment from one person, this helped shift my life. Is enough energy and fuel for you to like keep this train going and like, right, what can I do now then? And I think one thing has always stuck with me about the podcast taking a large break as I had a guy that I connected with. And I kind of gave him a bit of like one-on-one time through things he was going through in his life. But one of his first messages was this podcast has saved my life. And that hit me so much that I was like, this is just me and you in a room now. Someone might listen to this in six months or three years' time, and the stuff that we're saying just lands with them in that way. That that has always stayed at the back of my mind of right, at some point I'm gonna get back to the podcast. The sound baths are going great, I'm super busy, but there's something in these spaces that can help shift people conversation, meditation, sound baths. And I think it's not the start, because there's many people that came before you and I that were doing these things like a long time ago. But I think we're at the shifting point of people who may once thought these things were crazy and now going, oh, these things are are showing up a bit more in in modern day life. Meditation for me has always been something I I return to. But I definitely want to try new methods, and and that's something I'm really gonna keep in communication with you about and tap into. Because there's some things like say a guided meditation, some of them, it's a personal preference, maybe as a musician, will drive me nuts, and I just can't stay in that space. And then there's another one I'll be like, oh, I didn't think I'd like this, but I actually do love it. So, what what would you say is like your top type of meditation if you if you had one?

Dali 1:21:10

Wow, um that's a good it's a it's a good point you're making though, because I I will say to everyone as well um listen listen to my meditations. I've got a beginner's meditation, but if you already meditated, listen to something else. But if you don't like the sound of my voice, just turn it off. There's so many other teachers out there because you you don't want to feel uncomfortable. Things, let's be honest, things irritate us, things annoy us. Again, it's about how we react to them. But the reaction doesn't have to be, I'm just gonna sit through this and meditate because I said I would meditate. Turn it off, turn me off, like choose someone else. Um, but my favorite I keep coming back to Sharon Salzburg and loving kindness because that's the most probably in each session that I've sat down and done a loving-kindness meditation, which which is based on they're not mantras as such, but it's a repetition of well-wishes that you're sending out to the world. You start with yourself, and and that might be like the hardest thing for people to do is to start with themselves, but you then choose somebody you love, somebody who's close to you, and you send them well-wishes, and then you choose someone neutral, and then you choose somebody um that you have a difficult relationship with, and then you open it up to the world, and you just you're literally silently in your head repeating these well-wishes, and it just lifts you, and you think it's like we can go back to energies and vibrations that it might be reaching people, we don't know, but it might just be that this is just for me. I'm just sat in a room sending out well-wishes to people who don't even know that I'm doing it, but I'm gonna feel better at the end of it. But actually, when I see any of those people again, I will probably treat them a little bit differently because I've been actively sending them these well-wishes. So I think that's probably the most powerful practice that I've um experienced uh when I've done it myself. Um, but there's just there's so much, there's so much out there. Sometimes I I'll sit and like you say, I'll I'll listen to somebody and I'll say, Oh, it's not quite for me. Turn it off, try someone else. But it might be that that person they have another recording that is brilliant. Um because every moment we sit down is a brand new moment that we've never experienced before. So it's like I might listen to a a new album, um, even by my favourite band, and it just doesn't connect. And then a couple of months later I might put it on again and go, wow, this is awesome. And it might be because I've already heard it, so it sounds a bit familiar. But if I didn't like it, then it doesn't mean I'm not gonna like it this next time because I'm in a different mood. Again, weather's different, I'm feeling different. And I think that's the same with meditation. You just sit down. Sometimes, if I'm feeling like I'm aware of that, I'm aware of that potential for me to not want to listen to anyone, put a timer on, set a bell that's gonna go off every two minutes, just sit in silence. And uh, and also that's quite powerful because the probably the most common misconception about meditation is clearing your mind. And it's not about that. And I think that's is one of also the big biggest barriers uh to people getting into meditation is that well, I could never clear my mind, it's too messy, I'm not even gonna try. But that's not what it's about. It's just about that moving away of the thoughts, giving yourself some breathing space, but also being able to watch them as well and just go, I'm not the stories that I'm telling myself, I'm not the thoughts, I don't have to catastrophise everything. It these are just thoughts, they're literally just stories. So I'm just gonna sit and I'm gonna breathe, I'm gonna slow things down. And that on its own, especially when you start out, like sometimes I think, I wish I could go back to those days where I could just sit in silence and I really did just every session go, wow, that was amazing. Because it was new to me, and it's like that it's that you have to try and level up every time. It's like you don't just sitting down, having that intention, I think can be powerful as well, even after seven, eight years of doing it.

James 1:25:15

How has your other life experiences? Because I've noticed on my journey over time dots start to connect, and like, oh, I can see why I had to go through that because it's now playing out here, it's serving me quite well for where I'm at in life. How have things that you've been through in life serving you in the meditation space?

Dali 1:25:34

So I gave up drinking a few years ago, and that helped with clarity. It doesn't, it's not a a solution to mental health issues, um, but it certainly helps. And I used to be the guy, probably when around the time that you're talking about that we last saw each other, like serious FOMO, like absolutely had to be the last man standing, didn't want to miss anything on a night out. Wasn't just fear of missing out, of going out, it was the fear of that once I'm out, I don't want to miss anything. So I'm staying till the end and staying the whole night. Now I have let me work out what it is phobia. Now I have phobia, fear of being invited. Yes, I'm there with you. I'm there with you, because I just want to I just want to stay in, I just want quiet, and that is the best thing. I can't tell you how much I live my life, but yeah, so it is like just you know, cancelled plans are some of the best plans you can have now, and it's like because I just want that quiet time, yeah. So the more I meditate, the more I appreciate being alone. Like years ago, even the first retreat I went on was probably only a year after I started meditating. I went on a group retreat, again, had a great experience. I've never gone on a group retreat since, just for

FOMO To Solitude Through Meditation

Dali 1:26:50

that. I know I'm not gonna be able to recreate that. It doesn't mean I shouldn't, because I think retreats are really important and we should do them regularly. But I switched immediately to solo retreats because I was like, that that's the thing I was a little bit scared about. Can I spend six days alone in silence with no electricity in a lovely little wooden lodge? And yeah, it turns out I can. And I never thought I could do that before, but that's helped me with the whole FOMO thing of like I've got oh, there's an invite, I've got to go out, I've got to do this, I've got to and that and that level of energy has it doesn't really exist in my life anymore. And it was a fear, it was like genuinely, I know we joke about it, but a fear of missing out, and now I just want that peace of being still. I don't have to be alone. I I like one and one time, one and two time, but I really, really appreciate my own company now and just having some quiet.

James 1:27:50

How do you handle spaces that you find yourself in when life kind of requires these moments? Like yesterday, my stepdaughter was like receiving awards for football, they were like nine years old, and I have tinnitus from the band days, like really bad tinnitus. One one gig just did me dirty and just tinnitus for life. So whenever I go into social spaces that can be quite loud, it's really uncomfortable for me. I have to wear earplugs that put me quite inside myself because I miss social cues and my voice becomes louder in internally, so I don't know how loud I'm speaking or how softly I'm speaking. So everything in the social experience is heightened for me. And I remember like yesterday just thinking the DJ's got this music so loud, but the frequency of his microphone is feeding back, but I can't be in this space. I've actually I'm gonna have to leave. Luckily, my partner's super understanding of it. She was like, Is this too loud for you? And I said, It is, I'm gonna go and sit at the back of the room, and I did. And she was like, If you need to leave, that's fine. I said, I'm actually gonna have to, because I have to think about my ears. Like, I use my ears a lot like in life. So I left. But then when there's other experiences that I'm in, and it is from that fear of being invited, but you kind of have to like it's it's uh you gotta go. There's nowhere, well there's there's always some type of way out of it, but you find yourself in a space that you don't feel like you wanna be. How do you navigate that? What what are you witnessing in yourself? It's a real process for me, even today, where I would say in the time we knew each other, maybe just after that, going through a really difficult time. That I would have coined as an anxiety. All these things are happening while I'm in the experience and oh I can't be here. But now I can sit from a bit more of a seat of of observation, and if something feels uncomfortable for me, it's a bit strange because I'm in this world of like air plugs and noise and really having to navigate that. But when you find yourself in the spaces that you didn't want to be invited to, what is that like for you? What do you witness in yourself and what do you observe?

Dali 1:30:12

So this is this has been one of the bigger shifts in my life because it is it. I'm I'm not saying I don't ever want to be invited to anything. This is when this nice, it's nice so yeah, exactly. It's nice sometimes. Um but it's about that what meditation's done, it's given me the ability to kind of just watch, watch what I'm thinking about it, watch how my body is feeling about it, because the chances are I'm feeling tense. Um breathing's gonna help, just having some time to breathe and and reminding myself as well. This is another thing I uh recorded recently for a meditation. Um the idea of waiting, and it's it's connected in terms of we all think we're waiting all the time for people, we're waiting for a bus, or we're waiting for somebody to show up for a meeting, but actually, we don't have to that's just a story. We might have agreed to meet at a certain time, and we'll have expectations to meet that certain time, but anything can happen, stuff that's outside of our control. So change it from waiting to living, and I'm just living. What am I going to do with this time? This is amazing. And in those situations, if I'm somewhere where I'm uncomfortable, I don't want to be, and it doesn't happen very often. I'll do the breathing, I'll do the actually like looking at myself, what am I really thinking about this? What's the reality of the situation? Is it really that bad? And also, what else would I be doing? Because yeah, sitting at home alone, just being quiet or reading or watching something on TV or movies or whatever, that might be preferable, but we're talking about half an hour, or we're talking about an hour. Um it is just that kind of reality check of just watch the breath. Because if you as soon as you start watching the breath, your body will relax as well. So that tension of like, I don't like this space that I'm in, you lose the story of that because you're not it's like you're you're watching your body, and then your body's reacting to the thoughts, and your thoughts are based on then how your body feels, and it's just this like vicious cycle. Um, that you just need to break that. And and it's not that you have to then endure the thing, um the event that you're at or whatever, but it just means that actually no, I'm do I'm actually here, but I'm still doing my own thing because I'm I'm choosing to breathe, I'm choosing to watch my breath, and it becomes like the control thing. What am I actually in control of now? I mean I'm in control of those things, and it's like a mini meditation. It's going back to the whole thing, we meditate to get better at life. Meditation is every day, all day. So when I say we meditate for life, it could mean up until you're no longer here, but also the life that you're living every single day, like watching your footsteps, watching even the connecting with what's around you as you walk, like being mindful. And I think we haven't we haven't really used that word much at all. Mindfulness is like it is meditation, but it's also just being really aware of what is happening right now and what's happening around you, whether that's watching your thoughts or watching what's happening in the space. Um and just yeah, changing the story a little bit.

James 1:33:21

I think that's a beautiful thing about like watching my son in the world. He's just in presence mode. He's not sat there like I see him daydream every now and again. I never interrupt his daydream, I just observe it because I think what is going through your little world, like when I'm just seeing it, he's just just off. But like when I'm pushing him and he's just singing and you know, making all these noises, and I make noises back to him. I just think what a beautiful time of life. I actually don't want it to be disturbed from from where he currently is because at some point life pops that bubble, yeah, and then we go on the human experience of of what we know, you know, through the journey of older kid to teens to young adulthood to now. It feels like the wisdom lands a bit a bit later at these years. But witnessing him in true presence mode reminds me to be in it a bit more. So whenever I am with him in an evening, I always do my best, like phone away, just being with him as much as I can. Obviously, I'm there's things I might need to check, or you know, a little ping here, but I always do my best to make sure that's that's not something he is witnessing from me as well. Just see him. I I was I would say that I can't remember if I said it too recently. If you're with your child and they're they're uh looking at you on your phone or device, they haven't fully conceptualised what this thing is yet. So they're just seeing you frozen still. Maybe your f fingers are your hands are moving. But imagine looking at someone and they're not reacting to you, yeah, and they're just still. It's such a a strange experience. And that generation, maybe even a bit before, is growing up with that for the first time. Maybe newspapers and books, but I would say they wouldn't have pulled us in as much as as devices do. So I'm really aware of that, and just witnessing him and his little world of presence and how connected he is to each moment, it's such a beautiful thing to see. But I also love it when I see him drift off into a little daydream because it is like a meditation. Yeah, yeah. How many how many he's not he's not fully verbalized sentences and and thoughts. So where is he at in that space? Because like you said, the thoughts come in, and the thoughts can often be visual or you know, a thought of like a an auditory experience. If you do think in that way, not everyone does, but for me, I can often think in auditory terms, oh I need to do this because and I always think when I cap when I see him in that daydreaming state, like where are you? What are you actually thinking? Because you're not thinking in long form sentences. So it must be more visual at that age.

Dali 1:36:08

But isn't that where we're trying to get back to though? That's uh like I want to unlearn all of these things that haven't served me the last 30 years or whatever, and get back to that childlike state of just like you know, yeah, and it's it's not a naivety, it's just like it's just that that true connection of like when we didn't learn all these bad habits. Yeah. Um that's what meditation is for me a lot of the time. It's just trying to uh simplify life.

James 1:36:38

And thinking about that, like the circle of life, thinking about starting and then gaining more wisdom, it's the realization of like you said, what if we are just thinking about getting back to that simplicity? Because I had a moment yesterday, my son bought him monster trucks a while ago, but now he's like really enjoying them. And I was I was playing with them like vroom, doing all the sound effects, he's loving it. And then I think he just ran into the other room to his sister, and I'm just sat there on the carpet now with a monster truck, still doing it, going vroom, and I went, Oh wow, when was the last time I did this? Yeah, oh do you remember the version of you that like fully would sit here for hours and I I purposely carried on doing it. I was like, see how just see how you feel doing this as an adult. Because what what story would you say we would tell ourselves as an adult? Stop doing that. What are you doing? Yeah, yeah. What are you doing? You're a big grown man. If someone caught you doing that, my son left me in a moment where I was like, Oh wow. Whoa, let me just experience like six-year-old James for a minute. And I was like, Wow, it was actually like a really beautiful moment of my son teaching me to remember that version of myself because it's still there, it's part of me that loves loves playing that with him because there's still part of me that wants to play that out. So I think it is as as we figure out all these things and the depth depths of these conversations, it it is as simple as just getting back to that state of before we conceptualize anything. We're just in that state of just allowing things to be and moving on. You'll be screaming one minute, next minute he's moved on, and he's back in a state of bliss, and next minute he might be screaming again. And I think, yeah, that is is something being a new dad is is like something I'm I'm really aware of at the moment.

Dali 1:38:31

But no, that's a nice reminder, and it's funny you mentioned monster trucks. I literally last night I was uh I went on eBay and looked for a monster truck that I had as a kid because um I saw at a friend's house recently he'd bought all these old figures, and I think it was like a Thundercat's figure, and I was like, I had that one. And I he'd just bought the figure and there was something in it that was missing. And I said, No, it comes with this thing. He's pushing his back and his eyes light up and everything. So I started thinking about old toys, and one of them was this monster truck that I had that like kind of crawled over your body if you lay down and everything. And I was like, I wonder if that's on eBay. I couldn't find it, but um, yeah, that's funny you mentioned monster trucks. But I think it is that like when you think about, and you pretty much described it there, watching your son play, he hasn't got worry in the world, he hasn't got anything. So if you're there playing monster trucks, then maybe you can not, you don't have to think about your accounts or work or something admin you have to do. Like, you can just be in the moment and doing that, and it's absolutely fine. Everything that tells you it's not fine is just stories and society and everything we've learned, all those bad habits of saying you shouldn't do that. But why not? Like, you can sit down, it's like I've I understand why video games have age ratings on them because of the content a lot of the time, but also they're still just video games, and I played video games as a kid, but I'll

Mindfulness, Presence And Returning To Simplicity

Dali 1:39:50

still do it now. And I speak to some friends, go, Oh, I didn't I didn't know you did that, and I was like, Yeah, why not? It's like the game I'm playing is intended for adults, so I wouldn't advise kids playing it, but it's still the same concept of like I'm just playing some fantasy world and everything, it's because I want some escape. Um so we do all want that, I think, and it's just how we find it. And I think I would I would recommend meditation for that, but I wouldn't say that should be your only thing, because you will probably find it very difficult to just go, I'm gonna use just this to escape from everything else, because that's just not feasible, I don't think. So layer it in to other things you do, but um yeah, find find a monster truck.

James 1:40:35

Yeah, and days I used to game a lot, and I would find like I was always just so just in that just just pure bliss. Time would fly by, as you know, but just not thinking about anything, not caring about anything, just and also if you had the right game, you'd learn a lot of stuff like for life.

Dali 1:40:53

Yeah.

James 1:40:53

I remember briefly like getting spiked in Thailand, and I remember there was one game, and it was the game was uh it was called Splinter Cell. Oh yeah, it was very like about evading and being in the shadows and not being seen. And when I got spiked, I didn't know who would who had spiked me. So I just I didn't trust anyone in that moment. And there was people whether I I I think I've said this story before, but I didn't know whether people were following me or not. But I think I'd been spiked because someone was trying to rob me. Because I I'd kind of like in open conversation let people know that I went, Oh, I'm gonna go back to my room and get some cash for drinks, and then I was spiked later on. So I don't know whether me being spiked was me feeling like I was being followed or I was actually being followed because someone was trying to rob me. But I remember that computer game served me in that moment because I was like, okay, let's revert to hiding in the shadows until sunrise. And I don't know how long it was, it could have been an hour or two hours. I think it was a couple of hours. But I just found stairwells, it was like a computer game. The security guard from the hotel came steps, like come up, hey, it's like it's like couldn't speak English, I couldn't obviously speak Thai, but I communicated to him like you know, I've been spiked, he was like like ushered me out, and then I was like back into like there was a point where there's like a like a bin. I was like, I'm just gonna lie down here, and obviously I'm feeling off as well at the same time, and I just settled, I was like, Oh, I'm just gonna stay here till sunrise, and then I heard like I pumped my head out, and it was like a big Alsatian dog, like just staring at me, and I was like, Oh, why? And I was like, it's literally like a computer game, like backing off, running around the corner, going into the next bit of shadows, and I did that till sunrise, until I like felt normal again, and I saw a couple of people on the beach, like, Where have you where are you coming from? We thought that was you by the way. You were walking down the beach, they were like, Oh, have you you had a good night? Like, they thought I'd just met someone and was coming back from a hotel like at 6 a.m. I stayed out all night and I was like, No, I've been spiked. This is me like coming back round, and they were like, No way. And I knew from their reaction they were aware of something within like the wider group, right? But it was also reminded of that computer game, like how much that served me in that moment. So I think they can be great for a presence and just being present in that space. Also, you don't realise what these things are actually teaching us in terms of life skills as well. What is something outside of meditation that you would give someone as a piece of advice just from you and your personal life experience outside of meditation that could help somebody on their own journey?

Dali 1:43:46

I I would absolutely say read more because when when I started meditating, I very quickly hit a point where it's like I can't just sit in silence. I need to understand I need a guide, but not necessarily from a meditation teacher at that point. I was doing that online and listening to other teachers, but I needed to learn for myself whether that's you know, read about Buddhism or read about stoicism, or and you know the one of the funniest terms I've heard in and not even recent years, has been around for a very long time is self-help. Self-help books. It's like there's no such thing. There's no such thing as like when people say, Oh, they're a self-made millionaire. There's no such thing. It's like what? Did you not have an accountant? Did you not have like there's all these things you didn't do it all on your own? So I think get some books. Don't and I don't I don't read a lot, but I've always got a book in my bag that I can just because again, it's a little bit of

Reading More And Closing Thoughts

Dali 1:44:50

escapism as well, but you have to keep learning things and get different perspectives on things. I want to I want to have these conversations all the time with people because I might be really rigid in my way of thinking on one topic, and one conversation could change that and open it up. And you can be curious, but until you've actually read another angle, it's going back to the algorithm. If you keep looking at certain things on social media, you'll only be served those certain things. You won't ever be challenged, you won't ever get an opportunity to see the other side of the argument. So I think reading is is a big thing. It's it's gone hand in hand with the meditation, but I think it's it's just really important to get a topic that you've never even considered before and just read about again, like the voices on meditation. If you don't like it, put it down, pick something else up. But um, yeah, I would definitely encourage reading more.

James 1:45:40

I want to say thank you for the words of wisdom today, man. This has been I feel like we could keep going. I always feel like this when I'm with a guest, and I'm I'm aware of the time of the podcast creeping up. But invitation one, you're more than welcome whenever you feel like you want to come back and do this. Just drop me a message and thank you for making the journey today. Because coming from London, that's no small travel plan. So I appreciate that, brother. No, thank you. And also great to see you, man. It's been a long time. I know we haven't connected in depth, but now we've done this. Let's keep that connection and conversation and see how our worlds can intertwine and help each other's journeys, but also the people that we're in touch with and trying to help in the world. This is the ripple effect, I think. This is why I think these conversations are important because people on their individual journeys now connecting, having conversation. Like you said, something you said today could spark something in me next week, and I integrate that into something that I do. So I think this is super important. So I want to say a big thank you for making the making the effort, making the journey, and actually being here today. It's a massive thing. So I appreciate it, man.

Dali 1:46:45

No, thank you. I really appreciate it.

James 1:46:47

You're more than welcome. And I'd love you to write a question in the journal for the next guest. Yeah. And send them on there. You can go as deep as the one that you hope.

Dali 1:46:59

That was quite a start. That was quite a start. It's good though.

James 1:47:02

Yeah, whatever works from your point of view. So I want to say a big thank you for today, bro. No, thank you. Where can people find you?

Dali 1:47:11

Uh Insight Timer, I would say, is my main platform that I use. Um, it's a free app. There is a paid for service on it, but you don't have to sign up for that. If you do, it's very reasonably priced. But most of the content is free. Um, so just delete the AI on uh on Insight Timer or on social delay.

James 1:47:31

Let's create some music as well. Yeah, that'd be cool. Let's create some music and provide the uh documentation.