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.
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
Meditation is not what you think. You don't have to stop your mind from thinking, sit in any weird postures or make any bizarre sounds. All you need is a little guidance. And after that, the practice will show you the way. I'm Dana Rirobulu, a meditation instructor and creator of THE ONE FIERCE HEART podcast. And in each episode, I talk with experienced teachers and practitioners to demystify meditation, giving you practical tips on how to start ways to face the challenges, while also acknowledging the transformative power and clarity that come with meditation. So please join us as we dive deeper into this mysterious yet ridiculously simple practice that's been around for over two and a half thousand years. If you want to learn how to meditate, you can join my free weekly newsletter at the onefirstheart.com where I share audio guided meditations and occasionally programmed in ways to work with me. So take a deep breath, let it go, and let's begin.
Dena Argyropoulou
My guest today is Pavlo Addimando, and I think that you will really appreciate his calm tone of voice. Pavlo has been a very curious person since day one of his life, he told me. And his goal as an artist, movement artist is to observe, express, and serve. So I hope you enjoy our talk with Pavlo today.
Pavlo, I'm very, very excited you are here with us today, and I would love to hear a little bit about what it is that you do. And then we'll get into the whole meditation journey and your experience with it.
Pavlo Addimando
Hi, Dena. Thanks for having me here on your show. It's always a pleasure to get the chance to talk about my life things I do. And I love the fact that your show is based on the meditation and benefits we can get from it. And I can't wait to dive into this conversation.
Dena Argyropoulou
Fantastic. So how did you get into meditation and then maybe backtrack a little bit? And why?
Pavlo Addimando
I've had some very hard times the last couple of years in my life, some things that happened in my personal life and my family. And I was seeking ways to get a bit more comfortable in the things that were going on. So I was having anxiety attacks, panic attacks. I've had a few also. So suddenly I discovered that I have to work on this really because it's not going well. So through movement, which is the art I practice as a movement artist, I slowly started to discover that even in the stillness, which is like the opposite of movement, but it came from movement. In my head, I can actually be calm as well, not only when I move, but also when I'm staying still. So to put an example, so it's easier to understand. I would do my movement research and then I would take five times when I started to just lay down and feel just my breath. So I would just observe how I slowly catch my breath again. And then I discovered that this was very effective because I was starting to connect once again with my thoughts and my body and my surroundings as well. And that was a very profound moment for me.
Dena Argyropoulou
It's always interesting to me because we always start by, which is great because that's our base. We start by looking for something like we need help with something or there's something going wrong and we need to help ourselves. So it's always interesting to me that pretty much all of the stories I've heard and my experience with meditation is that there was some difficulty and we are trying different things to help ourselves, which is a good thing. And we kind of start wherever we're at, right?
Pavlo Addimando
Yeah, exactly. And this is not like a competition between people, humans with certain DNA. We all have a brain that has the same functions more or less. And I say more or less because it's up to you how far you want to take your potential. So that's always with a positive aspect. I think our stories are always interesting because we're all unique. And if we get to share more stories, then we get to share more knowledge, in my opinion.
Dena Argyropoulou
So you realize that you said the stillness, right? You realize that there was some type of power in that space. Can you talk a little bit more about that? What does that mean to you?
Pavlo Addimando
Yeah. So basically, when I was staying still at first, I was very scared because we are used to getting all these fast forward kind of, let's say, setting that we have nowadays because information is always running out there. There's so much noise in the outside world, but there's also inside us very useful and important information, and that can be heard from the stillness. So when I was starting my stillness practice, as I mentioned before, I was very scared because I didn't know how I should act in this state, but slowly with practice because it takes a lot of practice. And I want to mention that because most people try to see things by the first time they try to meditate. That's a common misunderstanding in my opinion. So I would come back and come back again and try more. And I would notice that in stillness I was getting some insights about myself. And from then I would start to work on that slowly. And one day I would notice that my thoughts are running very fast. Then the next day, maybe they were like slower. And day by day I was building on that. And then I discovered that one day my stillness was all about stillness, and I can actually control my thoughts and just focus on my breathing or then take it on my visions and just enjoy 5, 10, 15 minutes or maybe hours. It can depend on where you want to take it and how you want to feel, I guess.
Dena Argyropoulou
So what was your practice like and how has it evolved throughout your experience and what does it look like now if it has changed?
Pavlo Addimando
So I would try at start to focus on my breathing. For example, I would count 5 seconds of inhaling 5 seconds of holding my breath and then 5 seconds of exhaling. Then I would focus that my breathing comes from my stomach and not from my upper chest. So I could actually feel the effectiveness from the breathing from the stomach because then you can actually engage the parasympathetic system, which is very important. And then the next practice, maybe the next day or the day after doesn't have to be always under a stressful way to day by day. That's also a common mistake. I would practice the meditation of vision. That's very simple. I would try to imagine where I want to be, let's say, in the next year or two years from now and see myself in the process and what should I do? And that's like the validation I call the arrangement of thoughts. It's easier like that to have it.
Dena Argyropoulou
I know there's so many resources and wonderful resources out there. Did you seek any help from a teacher or guidance from a teacher or were you just experimenting on your own?
Pavlo Addimando
That's very interesting because I was so stressed and so lost that I actually started to practice by myself. I've read a few books which were based on spirituality and some other books from some doctors which are based on neuroscience and of self development. And from there, I guess, taking small notes, and then I tried to implement them on my practice, but I didn't have a teacher. I don't know what it's like to have a teacher in meditating. I guess I would love to have the experience of being guided one day, but it's a constant process of learning, I guess. And one should always seek the most of knowledge that she or he can get.
Dena Argyropoulou
That's really interesting. And this reminded me, I think it was like 2008 or something like that. That's when I kind of started like a spirituality I would say journey meditation came a lot later. But I remember then in 2008, I was reading a lot of books. I didn't know what was happening to me. I started like realizing, oh, maybe I'm not all these things that I'm thinking. And I kind of experienced this detachment of self, you know, like I'm the observer of whatever is happening. So I remember I was reading Eckhart Tolle's book that's kind of what did it for me, I started with The New Earth. Someone gave it to me, right? And I was like, what the hell is going on here? And that book made sense to me. And I remember then it was like Twitter had just started to explode. And Jim Carrey, the actor. I don't know if you have followed him at all, but he has been really deep into spirituality. And I remember he was posting stuff. And I'm like, oh, my God, Jim Carrey is my friend. I understand what he was saying. And I felt like I didn't feel like I had a lot of guidance in the beginning of my journey back then. So I'm always interested in hearing how people have started and what happened to them and how that evolved. So I kind of feel like we started like, I understand how you started researching books and reading on your own and doing things on your own. And that's always interesting to me.
Pavlo Addimando
Yeah, exactly. And there comes a time that you're so stressed, so fed up with everything that you just have to start for somewhere. That's what happened to me. So I didn't have the time or the clarity to seek a teacher or teacher in meditation. And I was like, soft it up. That was like one day, okay, you will sit down, you will deal with your thoughts and just see where it takes you. And not to sound mean, I was very gentle with myself because it's important. But I try to go beyond the distress that one day and I just sat down, as I said before, and try to see what's going on and point being on the thing you said that I actually understand Jim Carrey. You said before, right? Yeah. So for me, it's like meditation is not like an actual language, but it is universally understood. So that's fascinating to me.
Dena Argyropoulou
What do you mean by that?
Pavlo Addimando
Well, I mean, you can't really communicate, like in a special language through meditation. I mean, you can have someone meditating next to you and maybe you can communicate in the same language, but she or he will understand you and you understand by meditation. That's what I mean. Yeah. And it's interesting because it's very humane. It's like the most humane acts I can think of.
Dena Argyropoulou
Right. I'm really glad you said that, because we can read and talk and I'm doing a podcast on meditation and all that. But it's the most simplest thing because we're literally just sitting down doing nothing with our own cells, our breath, our body, our mind. There's literally nothing else that we can take out of that whole thing. And once we've subtracted and taken away the unnecessary things, then we see that we're left with our body, our mind, our breath. And that's really the common thing, like you said. The common humanity that we have because we're all just at the core, those three things. And none of those things can be taken away.
Pavlo Addimando
Exactly. So would you say that this is a transformation that we experience?
Dena Argyropoulou
I think it's a transformation of our perspective, of how we perceive ourselves and how we perceive others. And I think it's a transformation into actually seeing our real selves. What do you think?
Pavlo Addimando
Yeah, I agree. And on a side note about this, I loved what Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher, said about the transformation. So he would say that the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own transformation. And I'm sure he meant some of the things were mentioning here, which is to go inside your soul or your psyche as one would like to call it, and just to observe what's going inside you and then to share that insight, that's knowledge for me and what's been powerful for me and I'd love to hear your experience.
Dena Argyropoulou
Even though I read and I was guided and I was trained by a meditation teacher to teach meditation, the most powerful thing for me was that I made my own discoveries. And even though I had the guidance, it was emphasized by my teacher as well that look, don't believe anything I say. Try it for yourself and see if this is true and something being true and me discovering it is extremely powerful for me. And that has helped me reconnect with my courage. Right. And my power to stand in my power. I guess I'm using the word power a lot because that's how I have experienced it. What are your thoughts on that?
Pavlo Addimando
I agree with the user for power because if you feel empowered, then it means that you expand your potential. And that's what meditation is about. Sometimes it's just to expand your potential and to feel the power coming from inside you because we have immense power, we just have to be patient to work on it. For me, it's pretty simple. What you will find inside your mind and your soul can be amazing to have it as like a tool. And then with that you can build your goals, you can build your visions and it will affect in a good way your surroundings because we all have a certain energy, the surrounding beside us as energy as well. The universe has its own energy and if we can get around this idea, then our potential is just immense. I know based on your posts that I see on Instagram, tell me a little bit about the type of movement that you do that you practice. So as a movement artist, I started from the martial art of capuara, which is an Afro Brazilian martial art and way of moving. It has dance, it has acrobatics, it has lethal moves because it's a martial art. And from there I sort of started to develop my own philosophy around movement because I've had very good guidance in this area. And what I practice today is a mindful movement which has acrobatics, dance and a bit of calisthenics as well.
Dena Argyropoulou
For many years I was disconnected in quotation marks from my body. I wasn't mindful of my body, even though there was a period of time where I was working out really hard, but that was a form of self aggression towards myself. I didn't know it then. Right. I thought I was whatever, being this cool, like, really strong chick. But I realized later, and these are the insights that come later when you practice meditation. Like you mentioned, there's like insights that come to you right out of nowhere sometimes. Exactly. Yeah. And I was like, oh my gosh, I was really self aggressive towards my body, towards myself, and that after years of being a woman in this Earth, experiencing it as a woman and hating my body, I slowly started to realize that I need to love my body and I need to take care of my body instead of being aggressive towards it. And I'm still working on that. And it seems to me, from your post and the way you're talking about the movement and the mindful movement, I can tell it comes from a place of love. At least that's what I see that you express. So that's really encouraging to me, and I don't know how you've experienced that.
Pavlo Addimando
I agree 100% on your last point. If you don't learn to love yourself, then unfortunately, you can't love your surroundings. And that's a very cliche point, but it's actually true. So from a calm state, we can pretty much achieve everything in the movement to be particular. That is 100% true. If you're nervous and you're not gentle with your body and the way it can move, then things will get a bit tough because you won't have the clarity to see your potential and nervous way of moving is an unhealthy way of moving, in my opinion. And I feel like, at least for me, I just didn't know how to do that. I just didn't know how to do that. And my environment was completely the opposite. And I hadn't learned how to love myself. Right. I mean, there's so many things that we can say in society patriarchy. Everything, of course, has played a role in how this has happened. But I really feel this shift is really transformative now, and I'm really excited and glad to be a part of it because I really think that moving forward, things have changed and things will change. We're being more mindful of our body, more mindful of our minds. And that's really exciting and positive for me.
Pavlo Addimando
It's never too late to get around new things because time is just a matter that we humans develop to make our lives easier. So from that, if you observe nature around you, it's always in a calm state. Like, even when the weather gets angry, there's a reason for that. Everything is, like, connected and it can be explained. So if we just observe ourselves and try to stay calm, we will discover that this is our true nature. And unfortunately, today in our societies and the way this world works is that you have to do this in order to do that. That's like a way of seeing things. What I'm trying to say is that just try to be where you are and don't try to be where you are just to be on the next place after. Just try and be there. Even when you're just breathing. Millions of things are going on inside you and you have no idea. Like, the flow never stops. We're all in a constant flow. And for me, that's an important point that people should remember. And I know that it's totally opposite that the world works in the other way. But this is our nature. I really believe that it's both we're in the flow and we're also in the stillness at the same time.
Dena Argyropoulou
Exactly, yeah, exactly. Like the stillness itself is a flow. You know how you said that we go from the next thing to the next thing, right. And we're trying to grasp onto all these things, and it's like, well, this is how I've experienced it, too. And it happens during meditation. And this is why it's called the practice, because during meditation, you practice just not trying to change what's happening, but you are sitting with what's happening. And in that moment, our mind is like, oh, mine is. I mean, sometimes I'm even sitting there and I'm like, oh, I'm just sitting here and I just need to finish with my meditation. Right. And go do my thing. Even in that moment, my mind is still like the next thing and the next thing, but the practice is okay. You're observing that you see how your mind works, and you're like, okay, kind of like a little child, like, all right, I know you're doing this right now. You can sit here and let's go again and let's start again and again. But it's so interesting to me that my mind is so used to doing that in, like, the next thing and the next thing and chasing after all these things. And there's nothing wrong with me trying to achieve things. Right. We're not talking about, like, not doing things. It's more of changing the relationship with doing these things and how we do them.
Pavlo Addimando
It's funny because on the last thing you said about the state of your meditation, there's one picture I saw the other day on Instagram which said that my meditation is like this, and it had all the emojis, like the sad, the angry, the frustrated, the nervous, the calm, the happy. And it's true because it's what you said. Every meditation, let's say, session is unique because that's you there. That's like your current state, and we only have to hug this current state. Maybe our meditation will be a bit more nervous one day, but that's okay. Maybe the other one will be a more calm or a happier one. That's fine, too. Or maybe on the other one we'll try to reassess our thoughts because we're very stressed. But that's exactly the art of meditation. It's to connect with what you feel. I think so, yeah.
Dena Argyropoulou
Because that's a common myth that we're going to meditate and while we're meditating, we're just going to be calm and we're going to be in this state of like not feeling anything. Right. And that's the biggest myth because it's not about trying to force anything to change in that moment, including feeling calm. We are simply allowing the space to be with whatever it is that's happening in that moment with ourselves, with our minds, with our bodies. Unless we're like in some type of danger. In that moment, then no, but yeah, the awareness is also an art. We have to be always careful. But it's being with ourselves as we are. And like you said, I know we use a lot of these phrases that sound cliche, but I don't know how else to describe it because that's just the way language can limit a lot of things. But it is being with yourself as you are. And when you sit there when sometimes you're mad or sad or angry and those are very difficult emotions because and I mentioned that because we don't want to feel those emotions. Right. We want to push them away and we only want to feel like the good things. But what meditation has given me is the ability to allow more space for these difficult emotions to be and then for me to assess and see how I can be with them and see what the next step for me will be with these difficult emotions. I wonder how you've experienced difficulty and emotions and what your thoughts are on that.
Pavlos Addimando
That's some truth you just laid there, facts. No, it's true. Yeah. Today's society, like I said before, based on this fast forward mode and this way of consuming everything without taking a step back to see what's good for me or what's bad for me. It's just crazy information and noise going all the time. Just like our mind works, right. Our mind is always like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Exactly. Yeah. But the good thing about this is that we can actually control our mind and we can't always control the world even if we wanted to. So what's the wisest thing we could do? We can just take a step back and focus on our mind and just observe for sure. It takes a lot of time and effort because it's a habit. So to be able to deal with adversity and with difficulties, it takes a lot of work and effort and patience and nothing comes easy, unfortunately. But that's the beauty of life. If everything was easy and we had the key for everything, then I don't know if that would be life. That would be something else that we can't even think of.
Dena Argyropoulou
Well, part of being human is suffering. We've always known this and we try. I have at least I tried so hard and especially in the past, to run away from it, you know? And I try so hard to not experience and not be human. I mean, what I'm trying to say is I thought bad things wouldn't happen to me or difficult things wouldn't happen to me. Right. And then when shit hits the fan, literally when things bad things happen, I didn't know how to deal with it because I just didn't know how to do it. But I learned. And it takes patience, like you said, and accepting that shitty things will happen. And it doesn't mean that I'm a bad person. It just means I'm just a human being.
Pavlos Addimando
Exactly. There is suffering. Yes. And it's completely understandable that you don't know how to deal with this at first, because we're not taught from a young, early age that we have a soul, that we should always aim to be gentle with ourselves, and that sometimes things are easier for some people or sometimes they're harder for others. So that's a problem for me. It starts there, that we're not schooled in some important things, and we're schooled in some, let's say, useless things, in my opinion. I agree with you. I agree. It does start from a young age. And it's really exciting to see that steps have been made around the world. Right. For this to change, to introduce all these modalities to children so they can better deal with life and being human. And also on the point about suffering that you mentioned, we actually suffer because we care. We just don't know what's behind caring. That's the point. I'm trying to say that we're not taught the art of caring, and usually it goes with kindness. I'd like to point that out as well. We can get that maybe into later. But yeah, to suffer, it means to actually care about yourself, to care about the world, to care about the nature, about your family. So how can one go through this suffering without, like, going all the time through pain? Meditation is certainly one of the tools we can use. It is or at least it's not about numbing our emotions, but I think it's about changing the relationship to suffering and to pain. And when my heart broke over something years ago, that was the opening for me and experiencing that pain, like you said, I really did. See, I was really compassionate towards other people. That's when I realized, like, oh, well, other people's hearts have broken. Right. And then I felt their pain, and I understood what that means. And that's where the kindness part, like you mentioned, comes in. Or that's how it happened for me. And I was like, oh, what has your experience been like? It's pretty much the same. So usually when we humans hit rock bottom, we take two roads. We take them the road of compassion and of caring, or we take the road of completely not giving a fuck about anything, and we just get really sad. And that's a very dangerous road, in my opinion. So I have more or less the same experience. I was completely lost. I was demotivated to do anything. So I chose the way of compassion because as I was growing up and that's an important point as well. Unfortunately, as I was growing up, I was learning how to be compassionate and how to be kind. And when I connected these two, I started to transform myself. And that's the biggest insight that I've experienced so far in my life is to be able to transform yourself through very small steps, but yet very important ones. And unfortunately, this can only happen through suffering, at least the way I experienced it. I don't know if that's a universal truth, but for me, the suffering was the most important part of my life because I embraced it and I saw in the darkness that no one should go through this darkness as well. And if I can be of a small help, then I should go out there and help as many people as I can through my experience.
Dena Argyropoulou
It seems to be that suffering is universal for stuff, and then it seems to be the way that I don't think it's a prerequisite for someone to reach compassion. No, but it seems to be the quickest way to get there. It seems to be like the one that just kind of that's how I experienced it, to get there. And then there's a lot of insights and wisdom within that.
Pavlos Addimando
Exactly. It's like this funny image that it has, like this small child that jumps in the water and the brother next to him tells him, okay, swim. And then the other one is like slowly taking into the water and under guidance, it's learning how to swim. So unfortunately, some people will experience transformation through immense suffering and try to stay afloat. But of course, it's not a rule, and no one should go through so much suffering if it can be avoided. Yes, I agree. But I'm really glad to hear and it's inspiring to hear that you are motivated to help wherever suffering is present. I think it's the only way out to save the world, actually, and to stay connected because with all this technology and all these incidents going on around the world as we speak, we all have to do our part and we are all capable of turning things around. I really believe in that.
Dena Argyropoulou
And it's hard, though. It's hard. It's not like we're sitting here talking, or at least I'm speaking on my behalf. Like, oh, I'm here trying to save the world, and meditation is the thing. And that's not what I'm trying to say here. It's more of like, look, sit with yourself, connect with your heart and through that, connect with others and try to not be an asshole. If you can do good, do good. If not just don't do bad, and that's totally cool. It's not like we're on some moral high ground here better than anyone else just because we meditate, for example. That's not at all what I'm saying. It's more of like how to be a good version of a human while we're here. And what does that mean, and how can we do that? It's hard, though. It's hard. It's like if you don't want to be anything, just be kind and don't be an asshole. That's like a simple way of putting it. Yeah, and that doesn't mean, like, allowing shit to happen to you. Quite the opposite. What I've realized, too, is the more aware I become and the more grounded I am in my power and in my voice, the less I allow things to have effect over me like I did in the past. I'm more able now to open, speak up, defend myself, say no where I didn't do that in the past. So being kind doesn't mean taking shit from people. It means listening to people's shit and try to make logic out of it.
Pavlos Addimando
That's one way of looking at it, yes. And in that way, you're helping yourself and the other person as well, because sometimes people are very angry and do bad things and they don't actually realize it. But once they realize it, they then feel very bad. And that means that not everyone is, like, evil and a bad person. It simply means that most of those people didn't have the chance to connect with themselves, and they're probably completely frustrated inside them. Well, there's hope. I feel and change and shift is happening.
Dena Argyropoulou
And as we're approaching the end of our talk, I want to ask you if there's anything you want to add and anything you want to share with the people listening.
Pavlos Addimando
If it's helpful, that's a small tip I try to give to my friends, to my circle and students I have is to find a small art or craft that you enjoy doing it and try to get around it as much as you can. In other words, try to master it because that small art or craft will tell a lot about yourself and it can be a very useful insight to develop and transform yourself. And that's a very important point for me. And it doesn't have to be something big. Just try and see what you love doing. It can be a hobby, then it can become your job later on. It doesn't really matter. The important thing is to keep going and to keep learning.
This podcast is created for people like you who want to finally find out what this meditation hype is all about. Thanks for listening and don't forget to sign up for my free weekly newsletter. You'll find that link in the episode. Notes The One Fierce Heart podcast is produced and hosted by Me Dinahiro. Pilot some editing and mixing by Matrix Recording Studio in Athens, Greece.