This is a transcript from our podcast episode with Loch Kelly about mindful glimpses.

Axel Wennhall
Hi and welcome to the Swedish podcast “Meditera Mera”, which in direct translation means “Meditate more” with me Axel Wennhall and Gustav Nord. This is a podcast made by the Swedish meditation app Mindfully. I’m currently sitting at home in Stockholm and are just about to call our next guest, Loch Kelly. Loch Kelly is a licensed psychotherapist and a recognized leader in the field of meditation and awakening. He is the author of the books “The Way of Effortless Mindfulness and Shift into Freedom”. Loch is the founder of the non-profit Openhearted Awareness Institute and has worked in community mental health, established homeless shelters and counseled family members of 9-11. He also has his own app, called “Mindful Glimpses”, in which he teaches effortless mindfulness. Loch has been on our podcast several times before. He is one of my greatest inspirations in how to live an awake life, and I have also translated a few of his meditations to Swedish in his app. So in this episode, we will dive deeper into Mindful Glimpses, unpack a few of them that I have translated and see how they can be integrated into how we can actually live an awake and compassionate life. The reason why I have this talk now is that you invited me to translate and record a few of your mindful glimpses to your new app. So first of all, congratulations. I know now you’ve been up and running with your app for a while. So how does it feel to be an app mindfulness teacher as well?

Loch Kelly
It feels better to be launched than to be in the development phase, because that was quite, that was an advanced practice for me, not having a lot of business background. So I had to rely on a lot of people and learn different languages, not just Swedish, but, you know, startup language and development language and coding and all that just to make sure it all worked. But now it is launched and I think it’s a beautiful, simple way to get out what are short and of advanced yet simple practices to people around the world in a way that it’s accessible. And that’s why I did it.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, as you know, I’m a huge fan of your content and I’m so happy that you have your own app now with all of the amazing glimpses, but also you have a lot of talks and deep dialogues and other amazing content. So congratulations again. I know how, what effort it is to build an app. It’s easy to have the idea to say let’s create an app and then two years later and a lot of gray hairs, you understand what it really is about, right?

Loch Kelly
That’s right. Yeah. But I just kept in mind that people would benefit and that having had my glimpses on other people’s app, they seem to, even if they had never meditated before, give me this feedback. Oh my God, my life changed. I just did these five or 10, 10 minute glimpses and I’m in another world. I’m, uh, you know, ask my wife, you know, she’ll tell you how, how much change happened.

Axel Wennhall
That’s a, that’s a great feedback. Asking, asking your wife or asking your family, that’s then you, then you know it works.

Loch Kelly
That’s right.

Axel Wennhall
So before we, because today I wanted to kind of unpack and go into some of the meditations, micro meditations, mindful glimpses that, um, I translated and recorded for your app. But before that, um, I was a bit curious in, in your own teaching role, what would you say has been most alive for yourself in, in teaching other people effortless mindfulness lately?

Loch Kelly
Yeah, I think the main thing is, um, I just finished teaching a seven day retreat in Costa Rica. And the thing that was most alive is that I feel at the end of teaching a retreat, I feel like I’ve been on a retreat. So it almost puts more into practice what I’m now calling awake, loving flow, or in the IFS language is called self-leadership. So it’s this ability to live and speak and relate and respond and create and be openhearted and relational in a way that’s so different than, you know, how I felt when I grew up or even in the first stages of meditation or psychology. So it reinforces by teaching it and doing my glimpses and sharing it and seeing the results. That’s kind of the most alive experience that I’m, you know, that I’ve experienced lately.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. Yeah, that resonates with me as well. And, and also when we hold our retreats here in, in Sweden, and sometimes we go up to the northern part of Norway as well in Lofoten, what kind of, what I’ve seen as really the cash value for myself doing that, taking that time, except what you, you said, really feeling alive and awake and compassionate is the kind of community feeling that arises from the retreat. So we always end with a circle of, of sharing and gratitude. And it just strikes me that it’s so beautiful to be able to, to share this with other people.

Loch Kelly
Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s exactly the second half. I mean, you could see there was, I happened to be there for a retreat before and after. And the way that I’m doing retreats now is we have a silent breakfast and then we have a morning session, but then everyone can talk if they like at lunch or at dinner. And we end up going down to the beach together. And so what it is, is it’s kind of a Tibetan style retreat of not all silence, but really doing glimpses intensively in the morning. And then mostly dyads and other types of peer glimpsing and community glimpsing exercises in the afternoon. And then the community, people are just having so much fun. They’re just all the, all the staff is like, what are you doing? What are you putting in the water? You know, like, are you, are they doing drugs or what are they, why are they laughing so much? This is supposed to be a retreat, you know?

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, that’s, that’s great. And I think that that part, I’ve benefited so much from, from going to silent retreats, but in the integration phase, kind of making a retreat more seamless into, into daily life, talking and relating it’s, it really helps with that.

Loch Kelly
Yes. That’s really the focus where I am now is, um, you know, there’s so many people who do wonderful silent retreats and other types of introduction to meditation, but my interest is really on the integration of how you do this off the cushion or in the midst of your day. So glimpsing certainly as a morning meditation, or sometimes I call it marination that you can do. And then in the evening as kind of a silent sitting, but really learning to do some just where you would take a coffee break or you take a tea break or you take a, you know, used to take a cigarette break, but most people don’t know, but maybe they do in Europe, you know, I don’t know, but now you do a glimpse break, but then also, um, as we can talk about how in the moment when you get triggered, uh, by an interaction with somebody and you start to feel a part of you come up and take over and blend with you. So you become identified with a certain attitude or judgmental part or feeling, you know, shame, how you can recognize that and accept it and even love that part of you, even if it’s a angry part or a fearful part, and then step out and then come back and include it and respond. So it took me longer to describe that than it actually takes to do it. So once you learn the how to navigate your own consciousness with these glimpse style, uh, shifts of awareness, you can immediately open and include and come back home to a place where you feel that the part within you is taken care of and that you can respond to somebody, uh, or a situation that is difficult.

Axel Wennhall
So just what you kind of explained there, that’s one of the glimpses that I translated that I wanted to unpack with you. But before that, perhaps we should just take a moment and I want to give you the opportunity to say a few words about the difference, what you see between a glimpse, a mindful glimpse and a meditation.

Loch Kelly
Sure. Yeah, and let’s do a little, I’ll do a short glimpses. So a glimpse is based on kind of a premise or a hypothesis that there is already this awake consciousness that’s here within each of us, as each of us, and that is our nature of mind and we can shift into it immediately and that ultimately that’s what an awake life is founded in. And so a glimpse is a shift into this. So rather than the style of meditation that might be called deliberate or progressive, where you’re building a skill of calmness and insight, you glimpse or shift, you wake up from this kind of contracted, identified sense of self and you wake up from it, but then you wake into an awake consciousness that is pure awareness. And then that pure awareness includes the aliveness, your body and everything in the room and all the parts of you, so that you’ve kind of just done this figure ground shift of consciousness that most people don’t even know they have. They don’t know that this is something that is possible or isn’t only for Olympic athletes of meditation.

Axel Wennhall
So hearing that, I just want to elaborate a bit on that. You who introduce a lot of people to this kind of practice, mindful glimpses, would you say that it’s the feeling of being awake and aware and being this pure awareness, as you called it, would you say that they kind of recognize that in one sense, in a sense that it’s the feeling of just being me?

Loch Kelly
Yes. I think that it isn’t just that first shift to the pure awareness, which is kind of the, what I call self-essence or pure awareness, but then in this more Mahamudra style of Tibetan Buddhism, the next discovery or awakening is recognizing that the non-dual presence is that the pure awareness is not other than the aliveness, the energy, your imperfect personality and the world. So it’s that unity discovering and the pure awareness or the nature of mind remains primary, but now it’s flowering or expressing itself as this imperfect pleasure and pain and but that you are able to respond and create and relate from this non-dual unity of pure awareness and relative human life.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. And I think what I’m trying also to kind of get at is that in my experience, when I speak to people, they’ve had these kind of glimpses, but usually doing other stuff.

Loch Kelly
That’s right.

Axel Wennhall
I remember, I think I talked to you about a friend who just became a dad, and it was so obvious for me that what he experienced was what we’re talking about now, but he wasn’t meditating, he was just naturally shifting into that kind of awake, loving flow in relationship to his son. Also being out in nature and having that kind of contact with nature feels like a doorway.

Loch Kelly
Yes. Yeah. So, you know, that sense that if this is natural, why haven’t we experienced it? And as you’re saying, most people have, they just didn’t know what it was. So they were in nature or they were climbing up the hill with a group of friends and they got to the top and they looked out over and they let go of the effort of seeking and they just dropped into the sense of connection with their friends and nature and they were just themselves. They were just, ah, free of that ego driven identity, which we’ve been kind of trained after, you know, going from dependence as a young child to independence as a young child and school age person, we learned to identify ourselves with this kind of problem solving mind that’s independent. So one of the glimpses is, you know, works with this kind of problem solver part of us. And the assumption is there is this awareness here already that is alert and clear and can respond. So if I were to give a glimpse now, if people were available, you don’t have to do anything special, but just consider this inquiry. So just notice what’s here now when there’s no problem to solve. So just understanding the question, finding that problem solver, and then letting it rest. And then feel what’s this that’s aware that’s not scanning for danger. And then just being aware of this. And then what’s it like to rest as this awareness? And then as you rest as this awareness, what’s the relationship to vibration, sensation, thoughts, feelings, your body and the world? What if they’re not separate? Do you notice about this? Does this feel familiar in some way?

Axel Wennhall
The listeners, they don’t see my face right now, but there is a smile here. And it is this when you kind of learn to shift into or drop out of the problem solver and just shift into this more open, spacious awareness. For me, it’s a feeling of coming home and it’s almost like I want to laugh about how serious I’ve been taking life and myself. It comes in with a kind of like, in Swedish, we call it busig, I would say like playful, perhaps in English, it’s a little playful attitude to life. It’s just like, let’s have fun.

Loch Kelly
Yeah, because you can respond. And yeah, so as you said, like that, I did a series there so that what’s here now and there’s no problem to solve and that problem solver can rest or step back or just relax. And then the awareness, the field or openness is here. And then the next pointer is, are you aware of this spacious awareness? And then you move from recognition to realization. Are you aware as this spacious awareness? So rather than it being an object, it becomes the subject or the me or the nature of mind. And then the next pointer is, what’s the relationship between what’s moving? Because it’s spacious and you could say still or open or contentless. And now what’s the relationship to content, to movement, sensation, thought, feeling, your body and the room? Are they two things? Are they or are they not two? Is there some way to include and be fully human so that you’re both kind of unbound and have boundaries, that you’re infinite and intimate and imperfect and you’re kind of accepting your different parts of you that are, you know, not having to be pure in their need to kind of express themselves and be healed?

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, for me, mindful glimpses is really about shifting identification. And I think here with the problem solver is the tricky part is that for most of us, it’s so active. It starts literally when you wake up in the morning and it kind of goes on until you fall asleep. And I remember when I attended my first Vipassana retreat in the Goenka style. I mean, we had literally no task to do. It was a set schedule. They even woke us up in the morning. It was literally nothing for the problem solver to solve. But of course, the mind started to create new problems and started to kind of count the hours I was meditating, making small new tasks. And it was really fascinating to see that there was nothing for it to do, but it still kept wanting to be relevant in a sense. Yeah.

Loch Kelly
And so it’s, you know, it’s exactly that. It’s really not about becoming a better meditator, but it literally is a shift of identity, almost like, you know, awakening is a stage of human development. So your identity shifts. You’re still a human being. You still have your own whole history, but who’s aware changes. So what you’re aware of is still the contents of your consciousness, but who it’s appearing to and what, where you’re aware from is so subtly different. And eventually it, there’s a self leadership or with a capital S or a awake loving flow that the problem solver is seen as, you know, just a helpful, you know, younger part of you. So you, as soon as it arrives, you, oh, there you are, sweetheart, thank you so much for trying to help. And you know, well, you know, like a kid coming into the room, can I, you know, I’ll do that. It’s okay. We got it handled. It’s all right. You can, you can relax. You can semi retire from being the ego identity and just, we need you on the team, uh, to be kind of an ego function or a part of remembering how to drive a car or when we need you, we’ll call on you. And so this is a kind of an important way that I combine, um, this kind of advanced, uh, yet simple, effortless mindfulness from the more Tibetan tradition with internal family systems is realizing that the mind is multiple. We have these different sub personalities or parts and none of them are bad. Even the ones who are protective and aggressive and angry or judgmental, they’re trying to help. They just are ignorant. And so once you can be aware, oh, that’s just a part of me. Or if you feel very sad, you can say, oh, I’m really sad. And then you say, oh, wait a minute. Am I aware there’s a part of me that’s really sad? Oh, yeah, there is a part of me that’s really sad. So can I be with that part? Uh-huh, yeah, I can. So all of a sudden you’ve shifted identity from being blended either with a judgmental part, angry part, sad part. Now you’re not denying it. You’re not trying to zap it away with spiritual. You know, it’s only a thought. It’s only a story. You’re literally doing this other including and healing of this way that thought, feeling, sensation and worldview constellate when we have our eyes open. So it isn’t just, you can use a lens of kind of a pasana to use a microscope and make everything, you know, kind of dissolve it into, oh, that’s just coming and going. It’s a rising and passing. That’s just thoughts, feelings. That’s a story. There’s nothing there. But as soon as you get up and walk around, someone’s going to say, hey, Axel, how are you doing? What’s going on with that thing you were, you know, telling me about the other day? And you can’t just sit there and go like. There’s just words coming at me and I am aware of the words and you’re, you, it constellates into a part of you. So your hand is a part of you and your, your psychological parts of you, you have managing parts and, and they can each be included. But then we’re just upgrading the previous stage where we were caught in that school age, you know, problem solver, trying to be right, trying to be safe, the body, mind, survival program. And we’re allowing that to be part of us, but we’re upgrading to this awareness based. And the key about the awareness based knowing is to really feel that it can’t be hurt. So that and not spiritually bypassing by saying, oh, you know, that’s all I am is pure awareness because there’s some traditions that go, you know, that who I am is pure awareness. Everything else is a movie. But when you realize that the essence of who you are can’t be hurt was never hurt, then that, and it has loving, compassionate, unconditional love toward those parts of you that felt hurt, then you’ve got a whole different world going on.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, I think that last part is, I think we need to, there was a lot of there, a lot there I wanted to unpack, but that last part, it seems like that it’s so important and and also so profound. And and I would assume that most people listening to this haven’t really had perhaps that full experience of feeling that the kind of identification shifts into that loving awareness that can’t be hurt. Can you perhaps talk a little bit about how it kind of feels for you and how this kind of realization came to your life and how it impacts you today in terms of perhaps guiding people to a more understanding it?

Loch Kelly
Yeah, I mean, in some ways it, you know, now for me, it starts with just having a simple map that’s not too simple and doesn’t stop halfway. It doesn’t stop at preliminary practices like let’s just watch our breath and focus using concentration to calm the body and mind and go into a calm state. It doesn’t stop at a mindful witness that sees everything coming and going. Doesn’t stop at no self or absence of that what seemed to be a solid self, but it goes to this pure awareness or what’s called awake awareness or Rigpa in in Tibetan R I G P A Rigpa, which means nature of mind or awake awareness. So this is the foundational discovery or of this system of Zog Shen and mahamudra that is called the ultimate medicine. So that ultimate medicine isn’t just for cave yogis to go and escape and sit in a cave and be aware of nothing, but it literally is the foundation of who we are. So there’s the what’s called awareness of awareness, which we just did. And I’ll go back to that again in that simple exercise of what’s here now and there’s no problem to solve. And then, but not staying there, because then there’s another system that never recognizes Rigpa, but it just says there’s everything’s just emptiness. And then the next system says form is emptiness. Oh no, emptiness is also form. And then this is say form is emptiness. Emptiness is awake and it’s form. So this feeling of what people experience, as you say, you know, kind of when they’re in a flow state or they’re in for moments in nature or in love, or certainly people in certain psychedelic experiences or and under on long retreats at the end of a three weeks or something like that can be shifted into in moments. And once you familiarize yourself with this and then make the non -dual move of including everything else, so transcend and include, there’s this relief, there’s a feeling of a new kind of safety, there’s a feeling of an interconnectedness, and there’s a feeling of non-fear, non-worry, and non-shame in this essence of who we are, that then when something like shame arises or fear arises, it’s not watching it from above like a mindful witness, it’s literally feeling it from within like an ocean and a wave, like the wave of shame will arise and the non-dual presence will feel it and love it right in the midst of its own kind of shaking and shake and bake, you know, kind of feeling or kind of stormy sea or stormy sky. It’ll be just like, yep, here’s the weather, but there’s a knowing on a certain level, oh, but I’m the sky or I’m the ocean, no wave is gonna, no matter how big, is gonna crash and hurt the ocean, nor is any storm gonna hurt the sky. And it’s not an intellectual feeling, it’s a discovery or a realization that becomes the foundation of identity.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. In our last episode, I spoke to an Australian meditation teacher who shares the same interest as you and I about integration, and she said something that I’ve brought with me, is that you’re not happy that you are sad, but you’re happy that you’re being aware that you’re sad. And that also kind of highlights that kind of shift into, as you spoke about with the different parts, and I see that in myself that there’s such a big difference of realizing that wait a minute, a part here is upset or a part is agitated stressed word, rather than me being it. Yes. In that kind of, there is just a piece in there.

Loch Kelly
Yeah. And it’s a feeling of just, you know, kind of having more capacity or feeling more spacious and more inclusive. So it’s kind of funny, it’s like you’re more spacious, but you’re also more intimately within what you’re feeling.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. I think one of the issues in seeing parts is that, as you’ve been speaking about, to really also, it is this both end that you are aware of this part, and you are this part, so you really feel the feeling of this part, you’re not observing it from afar. That’s right. It helps in the beginning to just de-identify, but then there is this process of moving in and also kind of melting back with the part of being fully human and being fully alive.

Loch Kelly
Yeah. And, uh, you know, it happens once you get a feel for it, it kind of, you know, it kind of, uh, self liberates like writing on water. So it starts happening and you’re, it goes like that. So I just give you an example from my life. Uh, so I was at the gym, uh, last week. And, um, so as we come in the gym, you, you put your, uh, boots and your, uh, winter coat up on the hang it up outside so that you walk in, put your sneakers on. And so I said, okay, I’ll put my coat here at the end. And so I’m finishing working out. I start walking out and I see, and I’m thinking, oh yeah, my coat’s at last one at the end. And I see somebody take my, take the last one at the end and start walking out the door. And immediately it was like, oh, he’s taking. And then I thought this, this part of me said, the keys are in there. He’s going to take, he’s going to take my, you know, I’ll be stranded. And then it was like, oh, wait a minute, that’s a part. It was like, he’s, you know, he, I don’t have to run after him. He’s right there. You know, like, but, but immediately like the part wanted to say, hey, you come back here. You know, like, and it was like, and then it’s just opened. And then I was like, dropped in and I said, excuse me, uh, is that your coat? And he was like, yeah, it’s my coat. And I was like, okay, could you just check? He was like, oh, so sorry. You know, that’s not, oh, mine’s right next to yours. Okay, you know, but it was that immediate trigger. So it’s not like you don’t get triggered, but you, you, you live a full, you’re not like a, you know, like no reaction. I will not be, you know, nobody will make, make me upset ever again. It’s like you’re fully alive. Like, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. It’s like a rollercoaster. But it’s fun.

Axel Wennhall
I have a similar story of attending a retreat and I left the shampoo. It was this, we were sharing showers and I came back and then I just felt the shampoo and it was like half empty and I got so upset that someone stole my shampoo. And I was like swearing in the shower and then it was just like a moment of clarity and I was like, oh, wait a minute, why am I angry? I left it here. It’s wonderful that someone is using it and it was just this shifting perspective and starting to laugh about myself. And I think, I think that’s a good, um, you know, you are awake when you can laugh at yourself and, yes, and, and your dramatic parts.

Loch Kelly
Yeah. And that, and that, you know, it kind of gives that aliveness. You know, it’s like one of my teachers, so, you know, we got to be juicy. You know, we can’t be, we can’t be dry meditators. You know, we’re not trying to become robots. Or he would say when he first came to the United States, he said, uh, to a group of us, he said, why is everyone doing stupid meditation? What he meant by that is everyone was doing just the shamata practice and getting very, very calm. And he’s like, no, no, you got to get, you got to open your heart. This is essence. Love is his word for it. You know, that’s the, the goal is, you know, to be in the, to have capacity to be in the mix of life and to feel creative. And so that, you know, coming back to that first transition that can’t be left alone is this awareness that can’t be hurt, that then mixes. So there’s, you know, the two uses of these word non-dual. So non-dual is often used in most, like if you just Google it, it tends to describe pure awareness. So non-dual awareness, as if, it’s describing something that’s not dualistic. So there’s pure awareness, which is the same. But in Buddhism, non-dual means that pure awareness and the relative aliveness are not two. So we’re not stopping at non-dual awareness. We want to have non-dual awareness and non-dual embodiment. And then that’s non-dual. So it’s those, but to get that feeling of this relief, this essential essence that isn’t, isn’t mental, it isn’t, I think therefore I am, it isn’t just the agitated survival mode of the brain. And yet it’s not spaced out either. It’s, it’s actually within and it, it feels, you feel more safe and more responsive.

Axel Wennhall
In terms of, um, also coming back to the translations I did for your mindful glimpses, I think one of the really good pointers to this is, is what you used to say with spacious and pervasive.

Loch Kelly
Yes.

Axel Wennhall
Which is harder to translate in Swedish. It doesn’t, it doesn’t come to the same. It’s harder to kind of grasp it because.

Loch Kelly
Outside and inside.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it is this, but I really like the spaciousness because it’s everywhere, but pervasive is like inside and yeah, it’s, it is this kind of, because also inside and outside, it’s kind of in your mind, oh, there’s two there, inside and outside.

Loch Kelly
That’s right.

Axel Wennhall
But it, it is this intermingling of, of awareness everywhere.

Loch Kelly
And, uh, yeah, so you do want to say something about any of the glimpses that you translated or.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. So just before that, I wanted also to just say a few words or have a few words with you about, so we spoke about the problem solver and we’ve been speaking about meeting different parts of us. And I think one thing that I, that I see in my own life right now, facing different kind of challenges and changes, and also that you kind of briefly spoke about in the beginning when you, when you were developing. Your app is that some parts of our life is more difficult in that sense. We become much, much more triggered. So the problem solver, for example, is way, way more active in me right now than it was a couple of years ago when we kind of first met and I was doing a month long retreat. Just being in a cabin, enjoying, enjoying myself and, and just meditating every day. And now having two kids, having my company and just life full on, it’s happening more in inside of me. So I just wanted to kind of linger a little bit on that because I think it was something, you said something really useful there that this practice is not about stopping the triggered parts from showing up. It’s how you deal with them or handle them and become aware of them and accept them.

Loch Kelly
Yeah. And, and certainly, uh, having been both from early on, uh, meditator and having done psychotherapy and become a psychotherapist and a meditation teacher, I’ve always blended the two. And, um, there is a way that as you go deeper with and find this sense of awareness that is more of who your identity is, you can begin to explore some of these earlier parts that are getting triggered. So often the ones that show up are the protective parts. So the protective parts are the judge and the critic of others or of myself, of the reactive parts and things like that. But what they’re protecting is some earlier exile or shadow part or child, inner child that felt like, oh, you know, there’s some, nobody’s acknowledging me, I’m not being heard, nobody sees me, I’m, I’m being ignored or I’m being, uh, I’m going to be abandoned or, um, you know, uh, so, so, you know, working with the, the protective parts in the beginning, but then being willing to really go in and be with these, uh, younger parts that have a worldview that are, that are, have felt like they haven’t had the love that they wanted. So mostly they’re, they’re hurt is around, you know, not being bonded to or not feeling loved. So they’ll say things like, nobody listens to me, nobody loves me. Uh, and then you say, you know, you stay with them, whether it’s energetically or verbally, um, you can do both. You don’t have to talk to them, but you say, yeah, I’m here, I’m listening. Yeah, but you don’t understand. Nobody’s listening to, no one ever listens to me. Okay, I hear you. Yeah, but if you really heard me, you’d hear nobody listens. Okay, I’m here. What do you, what else do you want to say? Oh, okay, okay, well, yeah, I guess there’s other things, you know. So it starts to be this, you know, mirroring or being with that. You have to kind of go a little deeper into the earlier parts that are a little more wounded, um, and sometimes that helps to do that with someone else, like a coach or a therapist, at least for a certain amount of time, because then they can, you know, kind of guide you if you don’t have to feel that you’re playing both parts in your own mind.

Axel Wennhall
Definitely, and I think also what I’ve seen in terms of like progress or in this path is that it’s not really how you always feel, but it’s kind of how you skillfully can, can relate to, to life and yourself, and perhaps that sometimes when I try to sell in meditation, I say, okay, wait a minute. So what’s the commonality of all the best moments of your life? You were there, you were fully awake and fully alive. Yeah, so here’s a way that you can practice to experience more of the best moments of your life. And people are like, yeah, I like that, let’s go with that. But what I’ve seen, what I kind of seen is the real cash value is that, okay, how do you handle the worst moments of your life?

Loch Kelly
Yeah, and I can share a little, uh, you know, because it’s really the one of the things that happened is I ended up getting long COVID. So I had some serious symptoms. I felt at one point at the worst, so literally lasted about two years, but the worst was like six month period. I felt like I was a hundred years old. I, my nerves wouldn’t fire to my shoulders or my legs. So I get up in the morning and I couldn’t walk. And I would get these, um, these symptoms like, uh, chills and blood pressure would go up and down my capacity. I couldn’t exercise because I couldn’t, I didn’t, couldn’t breathe very deeply. And also, if I reached a level of exhaustion, um, they would crash the whole system. And it felt like about four in the afternoon, it would be like a battery on a, on a cell phone would just like go, just drain. And I’d be like, but what that did is it kind of what you were saying. It’s like, okay, what’s the body, mind, what’s the emotions? What are the, what are these? You know, what if I was a hundred? You know what, what if I was, you know, uh, what if I was sick and it wasn’t severe pain, which is interesting because that’s, it was severe symptoms, but some people deal with chronic pain. I think that could be different. So this, this was, I was able to just completely be with it. And when I taught, I like I had brain fog normally, but if I taught, I would just be clearly talking and like, I have no idea what I’m about to say, but it sounds pretty good and it’s coming out of me. And, and I had, you know, kind of a, a sense of, I had to get to the root of identity and where there was a sense of ease. And love and safety and wellbeing and happiness that wasn’t based on physical, emotional, energetic conditions. Just, it just, I couldn’t, there was no way to, to manage those that really helped me kind of give me a foundation to, um, to kind of fine tune, uh, the awakening.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, it really strikes me hearing you and hearing other people and experience it in myself occasionally, uh, that when we are able to, to shift into this awake awareness, identity, it’s, it comes with this full allowing of the moment to be as it is. There is just this peace that comes with it, this kind of, yeah, freedom from suffering really.

Loch Kelly
Yeah, that’s it. Yeah. Yeah. So there wasn’t a real feeling that it, you know, obviously I did everything I could to try all the different alternative and, you know, get, you know, but nothing worked really just kind of, you know, wound its way out. But, but it was really finding the peace that passes understanding the peace that is, is there a peace here that isn’t dependent on the conditions of pleasant and unpleasant physical, energetic, body-based sense of self? And can I still show up? And, you know, and, and during that time I was doing, I was creating the app. So, so I doubled, I doubled it up. And, and the thing that was difficult about that is it required so much left brain, like new material, like, what does that mean? What do you mean by that? What is that? Oh, what are we going to do? Oh, we got to do this or that. Okay, well, I think that sounds good, but I’m not understanding what it is. Can you explain to me? So it was a lot of pushing the problem solver and trying to, but I did work with the problem solver to get to what’s called unburden it a bit. So the idea is that, you know, the problem solver or ego managers or this kind of managing committee that we have that deals with life and tasks, you know, there’s a kind of a, a should, or I took on like, I better be good at it. Or, you know, don’t get it wrong. Or, you know, oh, that, you know, I’m not understanding. Or so those burdens, I kind of worked with them and let that those earlier problem solvers know that you just have to show up and you don’t know your beginner’s mind. You, you’re just going to do what you can. You have to rely on other people. And it actually helped a lot to help me, um, learn about community. Cause I had to trust other people on my team to do things that I couldn’t do. Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
How are you feeling now?

Loch Kelly
Are you, and now I’m, yeah, I’m about, uh, 85%. So, so I still, I still, I still, you know, get little symptoms once in a while and I’m not, I don’t have, uh, probably I also aged while I, while I, while I recovered. So there’s some, uh, some, but generally, you know, generally good. I’m still, you know, I think, you know, as good as most peers. So that’s good enough for me.

Axel Wennhall
Seeing you here now and listening to you, you seem to be in good spirit at least.

Loch Kelly
Yeah, good spirit, that’s for sure.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, yeah, that’s great. So lastly, I wanted to also to perhaps explore one of the glimpses called panoramic awareness. Yes, yeah, because I think it’s very useful in daily life. It also kind of for me personally, really in an experiential way, shows you quite quickly that awareness is aware of itself with both your visual but also with sounds. So perhaps a good way to explore the panoramic awareness. Would you mind perhaps doing a short glimpse of it?

Loch Kelly
Yes, you know, I’m going to, I’m going to translate in, uh, sometimes I use hand gestures if I’m doing a video, so I’ll have to, um, ask everyone to just follow me with just, uh, verbal cues. So, so the first pointer is, this is sometimes called panoramic awareness, and it starts with what’s called returning the eyes to their natural condition. The eyes tend to be connected to the grasping mind and kind of going out to scan for danger and and grab things, whereas the ears tend to be a little more naturally, as the in most people kind of naturally receptive. So if you just notice hearing sounds in the room and notice if you hear a sound outside, that it’s coming from a certain location, sound waves are coming through the room and through the space and coming to your eardrum. So just to see whether you tend to experience just on a common level that hearing is receiving. And now just with your eyes, just look at an object in the room and now look at another object and look at another object and notice which way the arrow of attention is going or the arrow of seeing as you look at something, whereas with hearing it’s coming from outside to your ears. But normally with seeing it seems to be an arrow going from your head to the object. But that actually isn’t how it happens on a physical level. So here’s the first pointer is just notice, looking at any object. What’s it like if light reflects off of objects and comes to your eyes? So hearing is receiving and now seeing is light traveling to your eyes. So seeing is receiving. And then just notice that you can also begin to feel as if you can see like a circle above you to the sides of your eyes. Of you and below you like a soft lens of a camera. So that you’re not straining, that you’re receiving. And kind of have a more open feeling. And then the next pointer is to begin. To move your awareness. From in front of you. To begin to open awareness to your left and right at the same time. And your eyes will remain floating in their sockets, just resting. But as your awareness opens to the sides. You may notice your peripheral vision open. So your view is opening. And as you continue to the sides and even around. To the side. You can let go of. Awareness connection to seeing and become aware of the space at the side of your. Ears or sound is coming going. And somehow continue. To have the awareness continue around behind you. So that awareness is aware of sounds moving. Through the space behind you and you feel as if awareness has your back. And then just open this panoramic awareness. So now that you’ve opened awareness. In front of you to the sides of you. Above you, below you, behind you. And feel what it’s like to have this open view. And notice that if the space is open to your left and to your right, it must also be within. So feel this spacious and pervasive. Equally outside and within. Like a seamless. Field of awareness. As if you’re more. Expansive and yet. As you take a little deeper breath in and let your breath go out with a sigh. Oh. Feel also that you’re. Able to be within your body and notice that you can feel your body from within and all around. So as if you’ve dropped from. Head. To. Your body. And to this open space. So you’re aware of this open mind and open heart. Your eyes are receiving, your ears are receiving, but they’re coming to this field of awareness that’s within you and all around you. So that you can. Respond as if you’re walking in nature, as if you’re in a flow. State as if you’re. Feel the sense of safety. Ability to move your hand if you wanted to. Ability to use a thought if you wanted to. But you can put your hand down. And you can put thought down. And still be. Alert in this spacious awake mind. That’s embodied. And open hearted.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, that was beautiful. And my experience in just remembering that the eyes are receiving is an activation in the heart space. There is this dropping from head to heart. Almost in an instance. I think that’s really valuable in terms of. Integration. That. To not only meditate with eyes closed, but to meditate with eyes open and really kind of. As you pointed out there, receiving light with your eyes.

Loch Kelly
Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
And at the same time receiving. Sounds with your ears and and just noticing that. The space is just aware by itself. There’s literally nothing you need to do to hear my voice right now. It’s just happening naturally by itself. And just dropping back and resting as that. Yeah.

Loch Kelly
Yeah. So check out as you’re more dropped into your heart and you’re aware of this effortless mindfulness. Just notice how effortless it is. And then notice if the problem solver were to arise. As a part of you and just kind of say, come on in. Like without taking over, just kind of like. As a small part of you. What is that like? Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
Hmm. It’s interesting. The problem solver wants to be the main guy.

Loch Kelly
Yeah. Now that’s, that’s its main burden is it, it doesn’t know yet that it’s part of the team. And so you got to say like, really need you, you’re really, but you know, just check out, just you could start saying, just check out what this is like to be openhearted and expansive and receiving and not grasping. And you know, how do you like this? You know, so you get it to start to feel the love and the safety that it’s really looking for. It’s trying to help you find it. That’s what it’s. It’s trying to solve that problem. So if you let it know, we already got this problem solved, like, and we need you for, for details, you know, yeah, it, it comes back to identification really.

Axel Wennhall
So it’s, hmm. And I think one interesting inquiry is just what am I identifying with right now? Yeah. Who or what part? And see, can I shift out of that?

Loch Kelly
Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
And the only, the only reason, I mean, the fact that I can answer that question means that there’s something seeing that part.

Loch Kelly
Right. So that’s the key is that introduce to get a feeling of that. Um, not only the mindful witness as a way you could shift out into a mindful witness, you could shift out into pure awareness, or you can shift out into this open mind, open heart, interconnected flow. So when you shift into that, then you kind of, as you say, drop naturally. Oh, okay, I could live from here. You know, this is not, this is, this is me, you know?

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s a great way to end. Locke, thank you so much for joining the podcast again. You’re one of few guests who’s been part three times now, so really happy to have you back. And I feel, I feel very honored you asking me to translate and record some Swedish meditation for your app. So if you want to check them out, you can download Mindful Glimpses and we will all, of course, add a link to this episode as well.

Loch Kelly
Yeah. And I want to thank you so much for, for your beautiful contribution to the app. I just feel it’s so important to have people hear glimpses in their own language and you have a real direct experience of them. So I’m glad you were willing to, to share what you know with others.

Axel Wennhall
My pleasure. Okay.

Loch Kelly
All right.

Axel Wennhall
Take care. Thank you, Locke. You too.

Loch Kelly
Thank you, Axel.

Axel Wennhall
Thank you for listening to this episode of the podcast Meditera Mera. We hope you have been inspired by our conversation and by Locke’s different glimpses. If you liked this episode, please share it to your friends or family so we can inspire even more people to meditate and shift from the problem solver into awake awareness. And if there’s something that I will bring with me from the conversation with Locke, is it that the eyes are receiving? So thank you for listening. Take care and be well.