Conversations about the power of mindfulness meditation for stress, anxiety, deepening awareness and living with ease. Listen as international teachers and practitioners share their insights on how meditation helped them find clarity, inspiration, creativity, wisdom, strength. Mindfulness is a powerful tool to manage stress, anxiety and the challenges in life with courage and compassion. Produced, created and hosted by Dena Argyropoulou. In each episode you'll learn practical tips on how to start a meditation practice at home, how to face the most common meditation challenges and the power that comes when you work with your mind through mindfulness meditation. Each episode will help inspire you to create the meditation practice you've always wanted! Create the meditation practice you've always wanted with Dena, your personal meditation teacher. https://www.denaargyropoulou.com/sessions re/st your mind νιούζλετερ - διαλογισμός για να ξεκουράσεις το νου σου, ένα email που δεν θα σε αγχώνει. https://denaargyropoulou.substack.com/ GET DENA'S book "CLARITY OF MIND IS POWER: a 5-week journal to support your meditation practice and train your mind to see clearly." https://www.denaargyropoulou.com/book Produced, created and hosted by Dena Argyropoulou. Sound editing and mixing by Dimitris Misirlis at Matrix Recording Studio, Athens, Greece. Song "In a world" written and performed by Tiger Gang. Founder and CEO of mindshift, Asimina Efkarpides is a trained industrial psychologist with experience in both personal and organizational psychology. Alongside a selected team of psychologists and consultants, mindshift is capable of adapting to any given situation.
Conversations about the power of mindfulness meditation for stress, anxiety, deepening awareness and living with ease. Listen as international teachers and practitioners share their insights on how meditation helped them find clarity, inspiration, creativity, wisdom, strength. Mindfulness is a powerful tool to manage stress, anxiety and the challenges in life with courage and compassion. Produced, created and hosted by Dena Argyropoulou.
In each episode you'll learn practical tips on how to start a meditation practice at home, how to face the most common meditation challenges and the power that comes when you work with your mind through mindfulness meditation.
Each episode will help inspire you to create the meditation practice you've always wanted!
Create the meditation practice you've always wanted with Dena, your personal meditation teacher. https://www.denaargyropoulou.com/sessions
re/st your mind νιούζλετερ - διαλογισμός για να ξεκουράσεις το νου σου, ένα email που δεν θα σε αγχώνει. https://denaargyropoulou.substack.com/
GET DENA'S book "CLARITY OF MIND IS POWER: a 5-week journal to support your meditation practice and train your mind to see clearly." https://www.denaargyropoulou.com/book
Produced, created and hosted by Dena Argyropoulou. Sound editing and mixing by Dimitris Misirlis at Matrix Recording Studio, Athens, Greece. Song "In a world" written and performed by Tiger Gang.
Dena Argyropoulou: Asimina, thank you so much for being here with me today. I'm really excited to hear about your meditation journey. So if you don't mind, why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and how and why you started meditation?
Asimina Efkarpides: Thank you for having me. I have I'm hoping to share my my short journey with meditation, but I'm hoping it'll inspire others. I am a therapist. I've studied psychology, and I work as a therapist in primarily based in Athens, Greece, but through Skype and Zoom and everything. My, I guess my services are worldwide at the moment. And my journey with meditation started through yoga. When I lived in L.A., I wanted to try yoga because in 2010, 2011, it was the eighth thing to be doing. And I figured, okay, I got to try this. I got to see what the what the buzz is about. And I joined this yoga class that I didn't know at the time was mostly a meditation slash yoga class. And the instruction was for one hour to just sit quietly, don't move, don't speak, just breathe. And those instructions stressed me out because I needed more information. I wanted to hear more, I needed a guideline. And I did not enjoy that class at all because for a beginner I thought it was way too vague to just throw someone in the pool and say, Oh, just don't do anything. Only breathe. And I kind of left it because I was disappointed, I guess I thought I wasn't doing it right, so I shouldn't do it again. Fast forward a couple of years after I was living in the Netherlands and I had a lot of stress, I was going through a lot of anxiety and I figured I had to do something. I had to try and calm down. So I searched YouTube and I found these like calming sounds, relaxing frequencies, and I just started breathing, I guess, with the music in the background. And I realized after some time that this is a form of meditation. You I actually did it. I started meditating.
Dena Argyropoulou: So it's interesting that you say because it's very common, like when someone first tries meditation and it sounds like you had an intense experience and it's like that's really intense, you know, sitting for an hour without any guidance, not knowing what to do. And it's hard for even a more, you know, experienced, I guess, meditator to do. But that is also a common factor in people not proceeding or not continuing with meditation, like they don't have this framework and guidance to tell them, like you're not doing it. First off, you can't do it wrong, you know, like that that doesn't exist. But also just having some more guidance and it's interesting to always hear people's stories about what happened. So so you did that and then how how has your practice evolved since then?
Asimina Efkarpides: I think when I accepted and realized that there's no perfect formula when it comes to meditation, while it seems, you know, amazing and appealing for people who can sit at the beach for 90 minutes uninterrupted and meditate, I love that when I see it, but I understand that that might not be the journey for me. So in terms of evolving it, I just accepted that. Listen, I can meditate in the car. I can meditate when I'm washing the dishes. I already do so many things in my day to day life that can be seen as meditation. So I just started accepting it more and, and including it, I guess, in, in my day to day life. And I realized that it doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't always have to be quiet. But the more I do it, the better it's going to be. So I just try to incorporate it in many different aspects of my day to day life. Instead of saying, Oh, every morning, only in the morning, I should meditate. I'm just trying to see what works best for me.
Dena Argyropoulou: You know, trying to figure out like what works for us is always the best way to go. And it sounds like, you know, you're trying to incorporate, like mindful moments and meditative moments, you know, and those can be really helpful to, you know, and for a lot of people that that works. And, and, you know, having like a formal seated meditation practice doesn't work for a lot of people, but that doesn't mean that we can't incorporate, you know, meditative and mindful moments into our daily life.
Asimina Efkarpides: I started actually realizing that in a way, I've been meditating since I was young and I may not be able to to pinpoint how exactly it started. But as a child, as a person in general, I'm not a reactive person. I like to take my time, take a few deep breaths. I hate conflicts and confrontation. So whenever something happened, whether it was in, you know, my sort of like family area or school or with friends, I would always need a few seconds either before responding, before realizing that I need to walk away, whatever. My reactions sometimes are delayed. And I realized that that was a form of meditation, me needing to take a few deep breaths before if someone was like yelling at me, I need to take a few deep breaths because I can't react right away. I'm not a person that yells. I hate screaming. And as I said before, conflicts. So I sort of realized that in a way, I've been maybe meditating and even at a younger age without actually knowing what it was that I was doing and practicing.
Dena Argyropoulou: And I know you're a psychologist and have you noticed there so two things. Have you noticed or do you know of any shift and change of like being mindful starting from a very young age? Like are there teach? I know they're teaching kids, you know, breathing and mindfulness techniques. So that's one if you, you know, have an experience with that or what your thoughts are on that. And the other one is like, what have you seen with your clients? If you have seen anything? Like how have are they incorporating meditation? You know, how are they responding to what's happening right now?
Asimina Efkarpides: For the first question in terms of teaching it, I guess, to kids or in general introducing it to a younger target group. I think that in a way, when we tell kids, take a deep breath and tell me what happened or take a deep breath, you know, don't you don't need to yell. You don't need to scream. You don't need to hit. Introducing that the instruction to take a deep breath. I think that's just the beginning of how you can work with kids and build on that. So I think it's a it works wonderfully when parents take the time to show kids how important it is to, you know, count your breaths, try to close your eyes and, you know, imagine yourself being in a calm situation. We don't have to react right away with everything. We don't have to be always the loudest, you know, kid in the group. So I think if if things that parents already do, they just take a few steps to build on that. The results can be amazing. I'm hoping in the next, let's say ten years where kids are now sort of exposed to meditation and mindful moments, we will be able to see many promising results, I guess, in the next ten years or so. I'm sure you'll be able to report on that too, from your perspective.
Dena Argyropoulou: And like, yeah. And like, you know, I refer to the dysfunctions that served our, my parents, you know, and their parents. I call them like these old apps that are just really old now and we need to uninstall from our system. True. And yeah. Yeah. So hopefully those apps won't exist.
Asimina Efkarpides: Yeah, they're outdated. They're outdated. We need to let them go. I think kids are always excited to try new things and it's all in terms of how you're going to introduce this new variable to kids. If you say, Oh, this is something you have to do and I'm going to teach you something in terms of like as a punishment, no kid, is one going to try it, no kid is going to want to try it. But if you introduce it, it's something rewarding and calming. I'm sure they'll be up for at least trying it, you know, and and seeing how it works in their day to day life. And for the second question, I think with adults, there's a lot of fear when it comes to meditation. I think people assume it's something only, you know, yoga instructors do or you have to be a very calm and Zen person that you don't get to meditate if you're not already a calm and very quiet and peaceful person. There's this misconception. So whenever I try to talk about meditation in therapy and introduce it, I do find some resistance. Not always, but in, you know, most cases. But I try to give my example to people that, you know, when you're in your car or you're driving to work, you talk to yourself. You say it's going to be fine. Everything's going to be okay. You're doing your best. That's a form of meditation. It doesn't have to be this, you know, sitting on the ground with the perfect setting and ambiance and candles and, you know, reciting some some mantras that work for you. You can find your own form of meditation, and I've noticed that that works best so far.
Dena Argyropoulou: So kind of demystifying those mindful moments. And then if people want to try like a formal practice that, you know, they also can but you're right, it's about providing, you know, the right information. And for people to know, you know, what they can do and have options and have options in doing it.
Asimina Efkarpides: I think for what worked for me is taking out of the equation the perfectionism aspect. There's no such thing as perfect meditation in my experience, of course. So once I stop chasing that and I realize that, listen, some days are going to be better, some days are going to be worse. It's just a matter of showing up and trying. When I share that with with clients in therapy and I help them understand that, you know, it doesn't have to be perfect and it's not going to be the same every day. You just have to show up and try and see what comes out of it. And that's that's helped me so far.
Dena Argyropoulou: What was the idea of perfection? Like, what does that look like?
Asimina Efkarpides: Maybe it's even a stereotype, honestly, when it comes to meditation, the peaceful, no thoughts sitting still, eyelids not even moving, your body just completely relaxed. Whereas me, my shoulders are always like up to my ears and just being being okay with sitting for one hour or 45 minutes. Not so much the duration, but more so than not having any thoughts. Body Completely relaxed. Jaw relaxed, which for me never happens. And, and just honestly, I think not having any thoughts comes through your mind. I realize that I don't I that doesn't work for me. I have thoughts I need to, to process them. And then I just sort of started sorting them out like, okay, I can deal with you later. You're an intrusive thought. I don't want to deal with you now. Something like that.
Dena Argyropoulou: It's interesting. What how did that image of perfection you think got created?
Asimina Ekfarpides: Yeah, I think that would be the stereotype of living in L.A. and very torn. Yeah. And and I know I love my L.A. people. Obviously, it's just, oh, I do yoga and I'm so calm and I don't worry about anything. And if I drink my green juice and do my meditation, life is going to be perfect. And I thought to myself, Why aren't you trying a seminar to make your life perfect? You should drink your green juice, go meditate for an hour, and I'm almost certain I won't have any worries after that. So I think it was this image of seeing other people telling me like, Oh, I meditate for an hour and that's why my skin is so clear. And I guess I just thought, Oh, okay, yeah, you should you should do that. That's that's the end game. Like, that's 100% perfect. That's what you should do, too.
Dena Argyropoulou: It's so interesting. And but you didn't seek out a teacher or anything, right? You kind of tried to figure it out on your own.
Asimina Efkarpides: Yeah, because I was apprehensive in terms of finding a person who actually certified and I didn't know at the time how to, I guess, look for the right person in terms of credentials and certifications, because anyone and everyone was claiming to be a yoga instructor, a pilot is instructor. And I was I was apprehensive, I guess, because I wanted to find the right person. But then again, I didn't know how to look for the right person, how to search for the, the keywords, you know, on Google. Yeah. So I just I thought, okay, I'll go to a yoga studio and then I'll try it out with yoga and then I'll decide how I want to proceed if I want to try it again and keep up with it.
Dena Argyropoulou: Yeah, that's, that's really smart that you wanted to find someone that had the credentials and it's hard. You know, there's not really some board, you know, international board besides them like international, I think a yoga federation or something like that. But there are programs that, you go through some type of credential. I don't I don't even know the terminology. But, you know, they're like, okay, this program fits with these standards. It, you know, follows these guidelines. And so we can give you credits, for example, you know, to okay. To apply for your whatever, continuing education, I don't know. But there are certain programs that do that. But you're right, it's hard because you don't know what to search for. You know, you don't know who to look for. And yeah, but you know, it's also important to ask around or do some research or there's a zillion people, like you said, that can claim to do everything. But yeah, you know, you also have the option to like check those people out and see like, do they have a website, what's on their website, you know, who trained them, which is a very important aspect as well, like who was their teacher and their lineage and their background.
Asimina Efkarpides: That gives a lot of information actually. You're right. Who trained this person and how they they decided even to become an instructor for for meditation. Yeah. I just didn't know exactly, you know, how to search it back then. So that's why I guess after one time I, I was disappointed in myself mostly. And then I just. I gave up.
Dena Argyropoulou: Yeah, I mean, who knew? None of us knew, you know? None of us know.
Asimina Efkarpides: True.
Dena Argyropoulou: But that's that's interesting of like, because I hear you say, you know, you're disappointed in yourself or like you thought you did it wrong. And that always in me as a woman and having experienced this life so far, you know, as a woman that self aggression and being like you failed. You can't do it. It's a constant, like, companion and voice, you know? And I wonder if that has shifted for you, if that has changed throughout the years.
Asimina Efkarpides: I think once I ventured out on my own in terms of finishing my bachelor's degree, moving on to my master's, I was extremely tough on myself. I was my worst critic. You know, my inner voice always had a harsh tone, never kind, you know, never understanding and living in the Netherlands and going through this experience with high stress and anxiety. I guess I just I shifted the focus within myself and I realized that, you know, you have to do something. You have to calm down. Not everything can be perfect. There are only so many things you can control. I started really looking at my surroundings and realizing what's in my control and what has nothing to do with me. Internal external factors pretty much that helped me realize that I can't be perfect all the time. I can't always give 100% to everything I do, and that's okay. I learned to love the results and and be content and satisfied with my efforts, as my mother always says. The only thing I care about is that you tried. I don't care about the outcome. Good grades or, you know, perfect performance. Nothing like that. I just want to know that you tried. Are you satisfied with your effort? That's all that matters. So I just started practicing mostly that.
Dena Argyropoulou: It sounds like a really great phrase from your mom, so kudos to her. And also, it sounds to me like you you started listening to yourself in like a different like you started listening to a different tone and a different voice that came from within yourself. Does that sound right?
Asimina Efkarpides: 100%. Yeah. I realize that I can't search for, you know, I guess, validation or help in external factors. You can do all the yoga you want and I can work out 20 hours a day and read all the books that are out there. But if I don't start listening to myself and if I don't start showing up for myself in a more kind, I guess at the same time productive manner that it doesn't really matter what else I do on the outside. If the if the voice in my head doesn't calm down and starts speaking in a, you know, in a kinder manner, it's nothing else is going to help.
Dena Argyropoulou: Yeah. And it's so interesting to how we're all we're all wired in a different way, you know, so different things work for different people. But at the end, there's also like a, you know, there's a few common things, right? And that being kind to ourselves and having talked to a lot of people on this podcast, I hear that that's one of the common experiences too, that especially the women that we are really hard on ourselves, really harsh, we're our own worst critic. And that shift and changing that tone is something that, you know, I'm committed to like bringing awareness and trying to change, you know, because I, I see it in all the women in my family, and that's where I learned it from, you know, and it made me incredibly sad and then it made me incredibly angry. And anger is such a difficult emotion to process. And I wonder as a psychologist, what your thoughts are on, you know, these emotions that in my experienced I was like taught to not deal with or like we don't express anger, you know, we hide the difficult emotions. We don't deal with them. We avoid and, you know, we put them away. So I wonder what your thoughts are on that.
Asimina Ekfarpides: To be honest, in my family, we were always allowed, you know, we always had the space to express our concerns, dissatisfaction, feelings. You know, we weren't really the my roof, my rules. I mean, I'm sure my parents at some point had to say it, but we always had we always felt sick, my brother and I. That's why I say we we we had the opportunity, you know, we felt safe to express any sort of emotion. I realized that for myself that when I started really, you know, bottling up emotions was with my with my friend group, mostly because I was, you know, having lived in a couple of different countries. As you can relate to that, I don't think it matures you. I don't want to, you know, come off as, oh, I was in, you know, middle school and I was the the smartest kid or the most, you know, child adult. But it does mature you in a way that other people might not understand. And having half a life in Greece and another half in the States, that never leaves you. You always have to carry that with you. So I was with friends who of course, had other concerns and other priorities. And I, I wasn't, I guess, really in tune with that. And instead of expressing my dissatisfaction or saying that, you know, we could do something else or I don't really feel comfortable with that, I was so keen on making friends and building something stable, like, okay, we live here now, it has to work. That's when I, I noticed now that that was, I guess, the beginning of me, you know, sort of swallowing any sort of disappointment and just disagreeing in general, maybe even anger at some point. But I think that's where the pivot happened for me, mostly in my friend group.
Dena Argyropoulou: I can 100,000% relate to that. I did the exact same thing, you know, in the States. And it's hard, like you said, if someone hasn't experienced it, it's hard to relate to it 100%. But yes, I did the same thing. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to belong. I wanted to have a group of friends. And then I would ignore all the crappy things that happened, you know? Yeah. And that was the beginning for me, too, which led to me, you know, silencing my own voice, you know, and not trusting myself later on, which when, when a really shitty situation happened a few years ago, that exploded and all those things came out. And I didn't know how to deal with myself because it was like this eruption of a volcano of everything I had stuffed in, exploded in my face. And I was like, I don't I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with it. And to circle back to meditation, I was looking for a way to deal with that situation and, you know, heal my broken heart. And meditation was one of those things. But it's it's messy, you know, meditation, like you said earlier, it's not this perfect thing. It's literally just us with ourselves. And there's nothing more simpler than that. Like it's our body, our breath, our mind. You can't take you can subtract anything from from those things, right? You can't take anything out of that. That's really our essence and what is left. Even, you know, the meditation I was trained in in practice, there's no music, there's no mantra, there's no nothing. It's you know, sitting there. It's an eyes open practice our breath, our body, our mind with a specific, you know, guided technique. And I didn't know and I don't I didn't know how to do that. I didn't know how to be with myself and sit with myself. And that's really terrifying and scary. But I can say that, you know, that's what practice has offered me. Having those experiences from the past that we just talked about helped me reconnect with my true self, with my courage and my power. And I know these are really, really big words, you know, courage and power, bravery, but I don't know have any other words to describe it because that's just the truth of it. So I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm just expressing this experience.
Asimina Efkarpides: Yeah, something I would like to add on that I, I've always been very comfortable being alone. I even though, you know, I grew up with a brother, we were very independent as well. My parents didn't have this need that, oh, my kids have to do everything together. If one is doing soccer, the other one has to do it too. So I had my alone time and I noticed that I loved it. I thrived, I guess, in my alone time. And one of the issues, as I said before, I had with my friends is that they wouldn't understand, Oh, why don't you want to come over? Why don't you want to go out? I was okay and content with staying a night in or two nights or five nights. I feel very at peace and comfortable in my house. I'm okay with being at home. I don't have this need to always, you know, be doing something and on the streets and planning something. I don't have FOMO and I think that is something that's something my at the time friends struggled with because they would see it as she's not committed enough to our friendship, you know, what do you mean you don't want to be with us? Whereas that's not what I was saying. I was just saying that I also need to be with myself. So I think a lot of people think that in relationships and in friendships specifically, you have to give up your self and. Only be, you know, a part of the other person. And that doesn't work. You you will definitely lose yourself in that. So, you know, standing your ground and knowing that I'm okay with myself, I need time to to be with my thoughts. That is the smallest step you can take in and starting meditation and practicing it in your day to day routine.
Dena Argyropoulou: I think you just explain and give me an answer to me why a few of my friendships were like, You only care about, you know, you don't care about our friendship. Holy crap. And this is like in the States and oh my gosh, I see me now. I think you're just like to me because I'm like, you know, I love I'm an introverted extrovert, I guess I don't know how to call it, but I love my alone time. Yeah, but I also love being with people but balanced, you know, and. Oh, my gosh, I think I just know what happened with that one girl. She was like, I don't want to be your friend anymore. You're not putting in any effort. Oh, my gosh.
Asimina Efkarpides: It happens to the best of us. Yeah, it's all around us. And I see it. I, you know, I still see it in adult friendships too, that be wanting to be my myself doesn't mean I don't want to be with you. It means I need both things. I need my alone time and I also need our US time, I guess. And I'm allowed to want both.
Dena Argyropoulou: Yeah. And also being aware though that this is what I need because for me I, I wasn't aware of this is what I need. Even though I was doing it, I still wasn't aware and I was trying to pressure myself to be this other person that I wasn't, which resulted in, you know, just me resenting a lot of the things I did and resenting myself for a lot of the things. But I just I didn't know, you know, we're just all learning. And sometimes it's such like this, this clusterfuck and mindfuck. We can cuss if you want, but because it's like four years, I would like ruminate, right? And I would be like, I did this if I knew then I wouldn't do it. And then I'm like, I realize, though, I couldn't have known because of, you know, all these factors around my life, I couldn't have known. And I'm like, but if I knew and keep going, like, I wish I knew, but then I didn't know. And it's kind of like this back and forth. Yeah. That, you know, my practice and just a lot of like spending time with my myself has made me realize like, okay, I can like tone that voice down of like, it's okay that you didn't know. Yes, maybe things would have been different. But also I just I'm starting to accept that I think this is just really the path of being a human. Yeah. Like, I don't know, a lot of people that were born and didn't face any type of, you know, difficulty or some type of doubt. Yeah, yeah. I don't know any. If anyone is listening and you are this person, please contact me. I would love to know your life experiences. Yes. So I don't know what your thoughts are on that.
Asimina Efkarpides: I think whoever assumes that, you know, life is easy. Of course, for some people it's easier. Definitely. I don't want to claim that I have had the most difficult life, but in terms of accepting that this is how it's going to be, this is your journey. You're going to have ups and downs. You're not made to be a perfect human from day one. You know, you have to allow yourself the years to go by and sort of shape your character and your likes and dislikes. Once you accept that I'm going to be 50 at some point and I'm still going to be learning valuable lessons and I need to be okay with that. I can't expect myself to have everything figured out, you know, this constant pressure selfmade and you know, having you know, 1,500 side hustle businesses and and all that. That's great. You know, great job to whoever is doing it. But I, I need to be okay with that, that it's not going to be me. I'm still evolving, still learning. And that's just going to be my path, I guess, sort of like what you said, you know?
Dena Argyropoulou: Yeah, it's hard. It's hard accepting that sometimes, especially if, you know, you have been in an environment where it's like you got to succeed and you got to do all these things, you know? And I know a lot of people that have been in that environment as well. So that pressure is is a lot.
Asimina Efkarpides: Yeah. And I think I don't see it going away anytime soon. That's what scares me the most is that I see this, this hustle culture, even though through COVID, a lot of people realized, you know, self-love and self-care and what it is. I need you to be okay. But at the same time, I think this it it also did some damage in terms of, oh, I'm home all day, might as well work.
Dena Argyropoulou:; Or like write 16 books and, you know, learn ten languages and...
Asimina Efkarpides: And bathe and and, you know, have a beach body and all that. I think this, this hustle culture, I think this is what it's called. I just don't see it going away any time soon.
Dena Argyropoulou: I think it has shifted, though. I think, though, that there's more awareness to it not being what it was promoted and marketed to be like. I think more and more people are aware of the fact that it's just not working, you know, and it's not what I want. So, you know, there's, there's some hope there, but it's not gone. Yeah. And all of these things, they just take a lot of time to shift, you know?
Asimina Efkarpides: You're right. You're absolutely right. Yeah. I think time is is the key word here for everything and anything that we do.
Dena Argyropoulou: This remind me of something I read the other day where it said, you know, the notion that time heals all. Which I agree with. Now, that's not necessarily true because time is not the one that's going to heal things. If you bury shit inside, time's not going to heal that. You got to put the effort in and along with time, you know, together, combined. And I think as a psychologist too, maybe you, you can, you know, relate to that, that like if people don't put the effort in because I see it with my grandma, she's 84 years old, you know, and my grandpa, he's 90. And there's shit where their generation went through shit and none of that has healed, you know, so as time has gone by. But if you don't put the effort, I don't think it's going to do anything.
Asimina Efkarpides: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Time can only do so much, you know, it's not a magic potion. And if anything, it can make things worse. If you're if you're the person that buries things, you're just going to keep digging, you know, a deeper hole and stuffing everything there. So time on its own, I'd love to say, you know, as there are so many expressions when it comes to time, time heals all, you know, trust the time that'll come and all of that. But if you don't do the work, if you don't show up, if you don't become vulnerable with yourself, time is not going to, you know, magically fix things. I think you're right with that. Yeah.
Dena Argyropoulou: So as we're approaching the end of our conversation, I wanted to ask you if there's anything you want to mention, anything you want to bring up regarding meditation or your profession?
Asimina Efkarpides: I think what I would like to share with people is. Mostly my own experience, you know. Notice already the areas you have in your life that you might already be meditating in. You know, for for people who get up early in the morning and like to sit and enjoy their coffee and just be with their thoughts. That's meditation. It may not be perfect, but it's it's a form of meditation. So I think what I would like to share with people is that before you go out and, you know, try and find the perfect environment and the absolute perfect setting. Notice the things you do in your life already and where meditation might sort of exist in some areas and work on that before you pressure yourself into creating a whole different set of musts and, you know, sort of rules and guidelines. Just notice what you already have. Work with what you have. That's an expression I use a lot.
Dena Argyropoulou: This podcast is created for people like you who want to finally find out what this meditation hype is all about. The One Fierce Heart podcast is produced and hosted by me, Dena Argyropoulou. Sound editing and mixing by Matrix Recording Studio in Athens, Greece.