Ep #30: A Mindful Conversation with Janet Morningstar Archer

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I have a conversation with Janet Morning Star Archer. Janet is a teacher and student of yoga, mindfulness, meditation and author of An Invitation to Pause. A combination of her mother being diagnosed with Dementia and her training as a Master Life Coach unleashed her passion, supporting women whose parent has dementia find a calm within.

One of the tools in our weight loss tool box is mindfulness, as we’ve discussed in previous episodes.    Well, Janet has used mindfulness to find and keep her right-sized body, but, as you’ll hear, she doesn’t always get it right. She shares what tools she uses when she isn’t perfect and why they are so necessary to her mindfulness practice.

If you like what you heard today, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave a review. The more reviews we receive, the more women will learn about the podcast and learn from these lessons. If you know someone who is struggling with food, send them a link to the podcast and maybe they can find something here they haven’t heard before!

Listen to the Full Episode:

What You’ll Learn in this Episode:

  • What mindfulness truly is
  • How postpartum depression led Janet to mindfulness coaching
  • How to use a mindfulness practice
  • The importance self-compassion and humor in your mindfulness practice
  • How mindfulness helped Janet lose and keep weight off
  • Using mindfulness to disrupt perceptions and perfection
  • The gift of perennials
  • The importance of learning how to be uncomfortable
  • What Janet does for fun

Featured on the Show:

Full Episode Transcript:

Full Episode Transcript

With Your Host

Pat Beaupre Becker

You are listening to It's Never Too Late to Lose Weight, a podcast with Pat Beaupre Becker, Episode 30.

Welcome to It's Never Too Late to Lose Weight, a podcast for women approaching 60, who have been successful at everything but reaching their weight loss goals. Tune in each week for tools and strategies to help you lose weight, create a strong body, and support a healthy mind. Here's your host, certified weight and life coach, Pat Beaupre Becker.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 00:02 Hello. Welcome to It's Never Too Late to Lose Weight, a podcast with me, Pat Pat Beaupre Becker, where we're going to talk today to Janet Morningstar Archer about mindfulness, mindfulness as it relates to any struggle that you are having to change your habits, to stop what we're eating, and really to look at how you judge yourself and how to learn some techniques for mindfulness to how we can help to really live more joyfully, maybe more simply, but with more awareness and with more self-love.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 00:42 So, we have Janet here. I have her book, An Invitation to Pause, which we're very lucky because I think we're going to get her to read from it a little bit later on. But, Janet is a teacher and a student of yoga, mindfulness and meditation, as well as master life coach. Both Janet and I have been certified at the Life Coach School, which is how we met. Janet focuses some of her work, in addition to mindfulness, on dementia because of her mother's diagnosis. If you get to read An Invitation to Pause, which I highly recommend, then you'll hear some of those struggles or some of her using mindfulness to deal with the difficulty of having someone you love in the stages of dementia. So, Janet, welcome.

Janet Archer: 01:36 Thank you, Pat. I'm so excited to be here.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 01:39 Yeah. We're excited to have you. I like to start by asking you just a little bit about your beginnings, where you were born, your family a little bit. Maybe you can talk about if there were any roots of mindfulness in that growing up.

Janet Archer: 01:58 I have never had anyone ask that question before, if there were any roots of mindfulness. My first reaction is no. None. I grew up in Summit, New Jersey. Both my parents were from New Jersey. I have an older brother and an older sister. I guess I grew up in suburbia, they would say. I was about an hour out of New York City. For school trips, we used to get on the bus or the train and go into the city. That was very exciting.

Janet Archer: 02:36 But as far as mindfulness, it was funny because I just had my 50th high school reunion like two weeks ago. Somebody came up to me and they said, "Oh, I remember you. You always had me pass your notes for me in classes." I was like, "That was me." I was always passing notes. I was all about the boys and you know? Anything but school. It was so funny because I would love to go back and redo high school just to see what I could learn.

Janet Archer: 03:12 I was not mindful in any way, shape, or form.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 03:15 Oh my God. Yeah, I could tell you my high school stories. It was a nightmare. Yeah, definitely not a mindful person. More like totally fearful and hiding most of the time. So, what? If you could explain to us, what is mindfulness?

Janet Archer: 03:32 Well, mindfulness, really, at its basic terms is it's paying attention moment to moment on purpose. So it's just like being. You know, you hear that term being present, being grounded, being where you are when you're there. That's pretty much what it is. If I was, like right now, I'm kind of talking to you, but I'm also thinking in my head like, "I wonder if people can see my picture. I'm not sure what's going on here. You know, I wonder if you can hear me. I'm hearing noises outside my window. What's happening there?" But then, when I shift my attention in a mindful way, it's like I become very aware of everything kind of slowing down and I'm just like ... It's like you come out of your head, and all that racing around, and all that monkey mind, that fast chatter-chatter, and you just drop. So, I can feel myself sitting in the chair. I can actually feel the sensation of the clothes on my skin. I can feel my breath right now.

Janet Archer: 04:45 I can see the trees outside the window and the clouds. You know, I could even hear my voice just starting to slow down a little bit. Mindfulness just brings you here.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 04:55 Right, beautiful.

Janet Archer: 04:56 Does it make sense?

Pat Beaupre Becker: 04:57 Yeah, it makes sense. You know, I remember reading that mindfulness was different than relaxation, that a lot of people think that mindfulness is to relax or meditation is to relax. But in actuality, it's really to awake-

Janet Archer: 05:13 Yes.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 05:14 ... to get awakened, right?

Janet Archer: 05:16 Yes. Absolutely. But, one of the interesting things is that people don't equate being awake being relaxed in the same breath.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 05:24 Right.

Janet Archer: 05:24 Right. So really, to put those two together is magnificent. How can you-

Pat Beaupre Becker: 05:30 Okay. But it doesn't necessary ... If I'm going to relax, it doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to spend time being mindful. Like, mindful is more of an activity, would you-

Janet Archer: 05:40 No. No. Yeah. Relaxing is just this effortlessly surrendering, which is totally different. It's just like this real letting go.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 05:49 Right.

Janet Archer: 05:50 But, mindfulness is you end up letting go, but that's not the intention. You're just paying attention and getting present.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 06:01 Right. I think for me, and when I work with my clients, my belief is that when we are in the present moment and when we can forget all that stuff in our heads, we really connect with our, what Martha Beck calls our essential self, right?

Janet Archer: 06:01 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Pat Beaupre Becker: 06:19 That self that is the not chatter, doesn't matter what we ... Doesn't even matter what we look like or what we've done. It's just that energy of being alive. When we connect with that without the food chatter, right? The problem with food problems is this all creates all this distraction and this chatter. When you can get to that present moment, I mean it's like ... And in your book is perfect. It just shows the joy, that's there's joy there. It's not even like you try. It doesn't appear in your book. You're not trying to be joyful. It's just that once you stop the chatter and you're present, joy, like, I have a friend who always says it arises. Joy just arises. Yeah.

Janet Archer: 07:00 Yeah. Absolutely.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 07:01 So, I love that.

Janet Archer: 07:02 Yeah, you explained that really well.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 07:05 Great, great. So, how did you come to mindfulness in your own life?

Janet Archer: 07:12 Yeah, that's such a great question. How we come to everything, you know, why people are listening to you now, because there's a struggle. There's some kind of struggle going on in your life and that's how I believe just about everybody comes to the practice of mindfulness. It's like something isn't right in my life, and I'm not sure what it is. Let me try some other things to see what they ... what the result of doing that is.

Janet Archer: 07:44 For me, and some are more dramatic than others, for me it was pretty dramatic. I had just had my first child, and I got postpartum depression, which this is almost 38 years ago. At that time, it was very unknown. I mean, it was ... You know, they were just coming out of the time where when women had postpartum depression they'd actually lock them up, you know, back in the ... Well, back in the '20s, so it's was a little bit farther back in the past, but not that much. It was sort of like, "Well, there's something wrong with you," you know? Or, "You need to relax." That was what they told me. "You need to relax, and you need to calm down. You just have a baby. You know, blah, blah, blah," and all this stuff. I was like, "No. Seriously, I'm not okay." It took me advocating for myself and going out and really going up against everybody who was trying to tell me that either, one, I was crazy, or two, just get over it-

Pat Beaupre Becker: 08:55 Get over it. Yeah.

Janet Archer: 08:55 To find somebody who finally said, "I get what you're saying. I hear what you're saying." This woman, I thought she was a therapist. Therapist. I can to find out later that she was actually a therapist in training. She wasn't even certified yet or anything, but she's the person who taught me how to meditate. She said, "I will give you a tool that I think will really help you. You know, see how it works for you," so I ... You know when someone gives you a tool and you just like ... It's like a lifeline.

Janet Archer: 09:36 Like, yes. You know, it's like what you give your clients, you know? It's like, "Yes. Okay. Let me apply this."

Janet Archer: 09:45 So, she just didn't give me the tool and I did nothing with it, she gave me the tool and I practiced it.

Janet Archer: 09:53 It completely changed my life in so many ways. When I came through the other end ... Because, postpartum depression is interesting. It only lasts for a certain amount of time.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 10:06 It's hormonal, isn't it?

Janet Archer: 10:07 Yeah.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 10:08 It's like six months.

Janet Archer: 10:10 Yeah.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 10:10 It's a long time when you're-

Janet Archer: 10:13 When you're kind of crazy. It's a long time. When I came out the other end, it was just like, "I want to take this and teach other people." You know? So, I thought I was cured. Then, I had another child. I went to the same thing.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 10:37 Wow.

Janet Archer: 10:37 I was like, "Okay. But I know what this is." I thought, "Well, meditation would keep me from having it again."

Janet Archer: 10:44 But, that wasn't the case. Then, I went through it again. Then, I was just more than ever was like, "What helped me the most was my practice of mindfulness and meditation and just knowing deep down that there was nothing wrong with me inherently."

Pat Beaupre Becker: 11:03 Yeah, yeah. Beautiful. I love that.

Janet Archer: 11:05 Which is what you really come to learn.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 11:07 Yeah, yeah. Also, I love the experience and how you saw that. Because many of my clients, when I ... I'll teach them how to feel their feelings so that they don't have ... they're not eating emotionally, but then they think they want the feelings to go away, but the feelings don't go away or people don't act in ways that irritate them, you know? It's like things continue to happen, and it's really a practice.

Janet Archer: 11:07 Yes.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 11:30 I think mindfulness as a practice is very similar, right? It's like it's brushing your teeth. You have to do it every day. That, I think, some of the hardest things for people, but I love that you really felt the value because it made you feel so much better. So, that is where I came to working with life coaching is when I was ... And in some ways, it is a lot about mindfulness, because I had to understand, first off, that it was my thoughts creating these feelings.

Janet Archer: 11:58 Yes.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 11:58 Right? So, I had to learn to stop and notice, which is how I use mindfulness practice in terms of weight coaching. It's like being aware of your thoughts, being aware of your feelings, which is mindfulness, would you say?

Janet Archer: 12:14 Oh, I'd say it's absolutely mindfulness, which is why I love coaching so much because it dovetails with my mindfulness practice completely. I mean, they both go together.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 12:14 Great.

Janet Archer: 12:25 I was just going to say something else. I can't remember what it was, but it was really profound.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 12:33 We'll come back to it. It'll come back. As my friends says, if it's that important, it'll come back.

Janet Archer: 12:40 Yeah

Janet Archer: 12:55 So, one of the things that I really teach, and it was in my book, and I know you know all of this, is that you can't practice mindfulness without a sense of compassion for yourself.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 13:12 Oh, yes.

Janet Archer: 13:13 Curiosity.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 13:15 Huge.

Janet Archer: 13:16 You know, you just have to have that compassion because you're going to find all sorts of stuff going on in that crazy mind, right?

Pat Beaupre Becker: 13:27 Yeah, yeah.

Janet Archer: 13:28 It's like to really get that, that's just the mind doing its thing.

Janet Archer: 13:32 And that that's not who you are, and to separate that out and to just be like, "I'm just ... " You can't take a look at yourself if you're not practicing compassion for yourself, because it will be ... You'll be judging what you're seeing. Then, you'll beat yourself up for what you're noticing, and ...

Pat Beaupre Becker: 13:53 Yeah, that's a huge part, again, of what I work with clients, because, boy, women are the worst. They beat themselves up. They call themselves names. I recently was visiting with some friends, and boy, the way they talk to themselves about what they look like, it's like, it's mean. We are just mean girls to ourselves, and that is a big part of really ... Even when you get better at it, it's still, I find for myself, is always just this tiny, little criticism that doesn't seem as bad because it used to be really bad, but it's still there, right? It's still like a little smack as opposed to openness, curiosity, which I think curiosity and openness, which I'm reading a book now about positivity and they talk about positive emotions actually open you up.

Janet Archer: 14:42 Yeah, I think I'm reading the same book.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 14:44 No way.

Janet Archer: 14:45 Is it called positivity?

Pat Beaupre Becker: 14:46 Yes. But the way she talks about the investment in positive emotions as being of benefit your cells and your health, but also this idea of opening you up. That's what curiosity does, right?

Janet Archer: 14:46 Yes.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 15:04 It gives your brain another direction to look in, whereas judgment and asking those really terrible questions really just shut you don't and also [crosstalk 00:15:14]-

Janet Archer: 15:14 So much so.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 15:15 ... cells in your body.

Janet Archer: 15:17 Absolutely. So well said. The other key ingredient, of course, is humor.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 15:24 Absolutely. Without that, I'm sorry, I don't think I would survive. Yeah, I love it.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 15:31 I love it. Yes. So, I wanted to ... The last time we met, actually, you had mentioned to me that you weren't planning it, but you actually gave up flour and sugar and you dropped 30 pounds and have been keeping it off, the weight off, and keeping to that food plan. I'm wondering, what happened? How did you find that? Did mindfulness help you in breaking the habit of eating? What was your experience?

Janet Archer: 16:01 Yeah, that's really interesting. I want to say it wasn't mindfulness. It was vanity. If I'm being honest, that was the initial impetus.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 16:12 Whatever works.

Janet Archer: 16:13 Yeah, exactly, right? What happened was I started losing my hair. And if you can see, I'm like big on hair.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 16:23 Beautiful. Your hair is beautiful.

Janet Archer: 16:24 I actually just got it cut, but I love my hair. I mean, I've always loved my hair. All of a sudden, about, I don't know, three years ago or so, I started losing hair. My hair actually thinned out, like to ... it used to be so much thicker and now it's so much thinner, and which is a really fortunate thing for me because since it was so thick, I didn't lose all my hair, but I was losing my hair. I was like, "I need some help." I went to my doctor, and my doctor said, "Well, listen. I'll send you to the best dermatologist." I'm in New Hampshire, so up at Dartmouth-Hitchcock.

Janet Archer: 17:07 So, I went to this dermatologist, who is a lovely man, and he did all this testing and stuff. He said, "Okay, well, you have blobby blob. You know, these are your things that you can do. You can take this, a birth control pill." You know, like a 67, yeah. I doubt I'm going to be taking a birth control, especially someone who's had postpartum depression. So I'm like, "Yeah, that's not happening." Then, I think another one was an antidepressant. Another one was something that you put in your head, and he said, "But, it will drip down, so-

Janet Archer: 17:44 ... you'll start growing hair on your face." I'm sitting there going, "Are you serious? These are my options?" He was like, "I'm afraid so." I'm like, "You are lovely. I really enjoyed being with you. Thank you for everything, but you won't be seeing me again." Then, I went online and I ... My husband is a massage therapist, and he's into all sorts of stuff. He kept saying to me I should locate a functional medicine practitioner.

Janet Archer: 18:15 So, I listened to some podcasts, which is where people find you. There was this man talking to another man about a case of this woman who was losing her hair and what they were advising for her, blobbity blob. So, I contacted him and said, "Oh my God. You know about ... This is like other people. They're losing their hair, too? How can you help me?" So, he did some testing, but he said, before the test even came back, he says, "I'm going to tell you, first thing you need to do is stop eating flour, stop eating sugar." He had me stop eating all dairy, no coffee, no alcohol. I can't remember. It was like pretty much stop.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 19:04 So, it was elimination diet in a sense.

Janet Archer: 19:07 Yes, but he said, "The things that you will stay not doing is flour and sugar." So, they're just gone, you know? Because they are doing ... They're not helping your body out in any way whatsoever. So, I wanted my hair, so I immediately just stopped everything. I was just in for the hair. Then, before I knew it, I was just dropping weight. I'm like, "This is amazing." Then, I was just so excited about losing weight that that inspired me to keep going. You know, I've just I've stuck with it. I have to say that we have a house down in North Carolina. I was just down there, and they're big on hush puppies.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 20:00 Okay.

Janet Archer: 20:01 Who knows what they are. I was like, "I just want some ... " They're fried. They deep fried something with just flour and sugar.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 20:01 Oh, oh, okay.

Janet Archer: 20:01 Stick them in a fryer.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 20:11 Like donut, like a fried donut.

Janet Archer: 20:13 I was like, "I want some hush puppies, so I had some. I'll tell you, I felt so bad the next morning. You know, I can really feel when I do that now.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 20:28 Yeah, yeah.

Janet Archer: 20:29 So, I just started feeling so much better. It was really a fun side effect to just lose all that weight.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 20:39 Wow. Wow. So interesting. So, it's really ... But in terms of changing, it's so really didn't ... It was easy for you to do because you were inspired to take care of your hair.

Janet Archer: 20:51 Yeah. I'm sure my thinking was, "This is not a hard thing," but my thinking was, "I'm so glad I have found a cure."

Janet Archer: 21:01 Because in my mind, that what I was doing. I was curing myself.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 21:06 Nice, nice. Good, good. So, I would love to ... I know we're not ... We don't have that much more time, but I would love to have you, I would love to invite you to read.

Janet Archer: 21:16 I would love to. It's one of my favorite things to do is to read. I know you said that you had a favorite.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 21:26 Well, I loved the Confessions of a Sometimes Mindless Arm Dangler because it's just very funny, and I want to talk about arm dangling a little bit.

Janet Archer: 21:39 Who doesn't have any arm dangling?

Pat Beaupre Becker: 21:39 I know.

Janet Archer: 21:42 That's what I want to know, unless you're 20.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 21:44 Exactly. Exactly.

Janet Archer: 21:46 You know? Okay. So, I have a confession to make. I'm not always mindful of what I'm doing. I had just finished sending out an email to someone exclaiming that I was going to pay very close attention to everything that I did and make no more mistakes by being mindless. That, at least, was my intention. Exactly 15 minutes later, I pulled the handle on a waffle batter machine at a hotel. I pulled that handle right off the machine. Without the handle, the machine began pouring batter steadily onto the counter, onto the floor, and onto everybody standing nearby. After tons of commotion and cleanup, my eye caught sight of a sign, the directions that were posted right there on the machine, saying "Don't pull the handle". Oh, dear. Right out of the gate, mindfulness ... I'm sorry. Mindlessness was ahead by one point.

Janet Archer: 23:02 Back at the room, standing fully clothed next to the shower, I leaned over and turned the water on, because I wanted to allow time for the water to warm up. Next thing I knew, everything in that bathroom, including my fully clothed self was soaked. It took me a few more moments to realize that the shower head had been turned away from the tub and aimed into the room. I'm not sure where this one falls, because I don't normally check shower heads. I usually assume they are pointing in the right direction. Probably, assuming falls under the heading of mindlessness. At this point, I decided to take my exclamation of always being mindful, going to take that back, and from now on I would stop keeping score. I would do my best to be mindful and I would leave it at that.

Janet Archer: 23:57 As we drove down the highway leaving the hotel back in the dust, I decided to embrace myself and the morning's events by practicing the most wonderful healing, free medicine that we have in this world, laughter. I rolled down the window, hung my arm out, and watched my 63-year-old arm do some serious wiggle-waggling in the wind. There was nothing to do but laugh. So now you know, I'm not who you might think I am. Miss Mindfulness is sometimes a mindless, batter-pouring, arm dangler who's just plain happy to be alive, laughing at herself every chance she can get.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 24:45 Love that. Thank you. I love that because it's ... You know, sometimes I know for myself, if I get into this head set where like I'm going to do something new, especially if you're going to do a new food plan, and I'm going to eat right, and then I'm going to meditate, and then I'm going to exercise, and then it's like, "Okay," you know? It doesn't really go always as smoothly as you want and the idea of lightness ... For me, because of my age, I think, I think it's ... Maybe it is, anyway. Maybe it's just my brain that I've practiced enough lightening up is that it's just so much more fun and more workable when you can let it go, right? Allow yourself. Know that nobody's perfect. This is human. Humanity is funny. It's ridiculous. Sometimes it's sad. It's all the emotions, right? But, to always be able to come back to lightness and laughter, what a gift.

Janet Archer: 25:45 Yeah. It's been the best gift for me. I think it's been the best gift that I've been able to give other people. Because when they see that that's okay and here's somebody ... So, as somebody who teaches something, like ... Okay. Let me just backtrack a little bit. I had a meditation teacher. One time, I was with her and she ordered a Coke. I was like, "What? Why are you ... You drink a Coke?" This was years ago before Coke was really a not to drink. But I'm like, "You drink a Coke?" So, my thought about her was she's elevated, you know?

Janet Archer: 26:31 You know, she never would drink a Coke or do anything like that or, you know, she walked on water. I find as a teacher that people do the same thing with me. So when I talk about things that are going on with me and I laugh about stuff that other people would be like, "Don't let anybody know any of that because you got to keep that hidden and secret and ... " You know, and then when I bring it out and they see that I'm still okay, it gives other people permission to do the same thing.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 27:08 Yes. I think when we talk about mind wiggle, I mean, arm wiggle, right? It's mine is pretty good. I've actually been going to the gym. Look at that, but there's still [crosstalk 00:27:20]-

Janet Archer: 27:08 I was just going to say, Pat.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 27:20 And there's still, you know, from losing weight, there's some skin that's hanging. I realize, and I've talked to bunches of women, we don't show it. We are so ashamed of our bodies because we have this image of perfection. You know, I am about body positivity when it comes with health, right? But, we are so hidden in terms of our bodies, and as we age it's only going to get more wrinkled, and more interesting, I'll say, as the skin changes and as our bodies change. If we continue to hate our bodies and hate ourselves, where is it going to go? Just continue to be more of that negative emotion, that closing down. So, I really love the idea of your arm wiggling in the wind and really having each of us be responsible to share our bodies in the way that they are, right? Whether they're a little overweight, whether they're overweight, whether they're wrinkly, this is what we are, and we're hiding it. You know, like you said, we don't show it.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 28:29 I even went to a presentation and a woman said, "Women should not, older women should not wear anything that shows their chest. They shouldn't do it. It's just horrible." I'm like, "Whoa. No." You know? I'm like, "I'm showing mine and it's not young, you know?" But that's the kind of rules we set up for ourselves, and being mindful of how that feels, right? Because that feels terrible.

Janet Archer: 28:55 Well, I think one of the things that you're talking about is being mindful of who made up that rule.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 29:00 Yeah, that's another thing, yeah.

Janet Archer: 29:02 That's a really good thing of like, "Is that really your rule or is that a rule that's been passed down from somewhere? And do you want to still have that be your rule?" [inaudible 00:29:12] want to believe something else.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 29:14 Like you have a choice. Oh my God, right?

Janet Archer: 29:16 Yes. I have a choice.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 29:16 That we have a choice.

Janet Archer: 29:16 I know.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 29:19 Yes, yeah.

Janet Archer: 29:19 You can go out in the beach and you can wear a bikini and you can decide how you feel in it.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 29:25 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I love that because I think that part of the problem with a lot of weight loss, especially as women are younger, is to get that perfection, right? I don't know. I think I wrote about it once. I think I had what I thought was perfection 15 minutes, like when I was 21.

Janet Archer: 29:43 15 minutes.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 29:45 15 minutes of total, hairless body. Then, it all went to hell, right? Hair started growing. You know, I ate something, and you know? It's like to hold ourselves to that statuesque, it's just so sad. So, I really love using mindfulness in order to understand that when you think something, you feel something. When you change that thought, you can change that feeling.

Janet Archer: 30:12 So, the body and the mind are completely connected.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 30:17 Yes, yes. So, I love to talk a little bit, like what are your thoughts? I love using this word, perineal. I got it from an AARP. There was a woman who wrote Disrupt Aging, and she uses the world perineal for the ... instead of ... I was looking for what to call the generation, and it was like elders, or seniors, or older people. I mean, there's not a lot of words in our society that defines, other than the problem of growing old, you know? So, I love the idea of perineal because I feel ... And I think people, younger people, don't know this yet, and I didn't know it, is that when you get to be older, you still feel younger, like you don't think-

Janet Archer: 31:02 I know, right?

Pat Beaupre Becker: 31:03 Inside, you're like, "I'm like a teenager still," right?

Janet Archer: 31:03 Yeah.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 31:07 It's like, "I am filled with fun, and silliness, and without all of the dreaded fear and self-consciousness that I had," right? And-

Janet Archer: 31:17 Our bodies just look older. We're a little grayer or whiter, but it's all still there.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 31:23 Yeah, which I love. I think that that's part of the perennials. When I was thinking about it this morning, is in some ways every generation, right? Every elder generation is kind of perched between so much like ... I remember when there was no fax machines, you know? When there was certainly no color TV. I mean, it's like so crazy in terms of the technology. Then, my grandmother, she saw there were no airplanes, you know? I mean, there were no cars. So, the technology that is facing us is it's pretty spectacular. But because we have access to all this education, all this science, I feel like our generation, in my opinion, of course, it's very self-centered, but is really in a great place because we know that you need to have human contact. We remember going to the bank and standing in line and talking to somebody. That doesn't happen anymore. People don't talk to each other. They stand in line and they're on their phones, or they go to restaurants and they're on their phones.

Janet Archer: 32:32 That's true. I live in a small town, though, and it happens here.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 32:36 A lot. Good, good

Janet Archer: 32:37 We talk, yeah.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 32:38 But, I think that there's a lot. I live outside of San Francisco, so there's lots of Millennials, and there's lots of ... Everywhere I go, I see people on the phones all the time.

Janet Archer: 32:47 People are, yeah, exactly. So, two things-

Pat Beaupre Becker: 32:47 But, I love technology, too.

Janet Archer: 32:52 Two things are coming up for me. One, I just want to briefly say I can remember when we got our dishwasher, and we all pulled up a chair to sit around the dishwasher to listen to the dishwasher, like there's just a machine that washes the dishes is like, "Whoa." But, the word perineal, I love it because I feel like we are just always reinventing ourselves if we allow that and if we have that mindset that that's a possibility.

Janet Archer: 33:22 You know, somebody asked me, you know ... I said something like, "Well, I'm afraid of what's going to happen to me when I'm 85. You know, that I won't have money or I won't have something." They said, "Well, what are you going to do if that happens?" It was just so easy from all the practice just like, "Well, I'll create what I need. I'll create whatever." That is almost how perineal seems to me. It's like we just keep creating. You know, it's like well, senior, okay, stop. Senior and we're done and you just kind of that's it. But, it's like this bloom. It's a time of blooming.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 34:07 Yeah, which I love. But, the other thing that's interesting is that I also thought it was going to be a time of easier. I think there's a lot that is easier, but it still takes effort to do things that you want to do that are hard, right? I mean, I know you and I-

Janet Archer: 34:23 Oh, yeah. I just did something this morning.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 34:25 Yes. So you know, growing a business, right? It's like, "Oh my God. This is not easy." So if you are challenging yourself to, say, changing your eating habits, it's not that it's going to be easier, but thinking that you deserve ease when it prevents you from achieving a goal that's going to benefit you in the long run is not very helpful.

Janet Archer: 34:48 Yeah, not helpful at all.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 34:50 Yeah, yeah. I think it's a combination of knowing that things will get easier or retirement, but at the same time taking all the skills that we have developed and all the hard things we've done and applying them towards creating something that we want I think is brilliant, actually.

Janet Archer: 35:09 Yeah. It's just what you were talking about before with all that smorgasbord of feelings that we have. It's like in order to do something, like go after a weight loss goal, you've got to be willing to be uncomfortable.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 35:23 Exactly.

Janet Archer: 35:24 You got to be willing to feel some things that maybe you haven't wanted to feel.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 35:29 Yeah, yeah. Which is what I love is being able to teach people that that is a skill.

Janet Archer: 35:35 Yes.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 35:35 Right? If you don't know how to do it, if you've been overeating your whole life, it's just because you don't have the skill.

Janet Archer: 35:41 Exactly.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 35:41 It's just like there's nothing wrong with you. It's just let's teach you the skill. Let's teach you what we now know from science about the brain, right?

Janet Archer: 35:49 Yes.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 35:49 Your brain can change. You can grow. Mindfulness is a big part of that, is applying mindfulness will help you realize where you are and help you to grow to the next point.

Janet Archer: 36:01 Yeah, absolutely.

Janet Archer: 36:02 So good. I love what you're doing in the world.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 36:05 Thank you. Thank you.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 36:07 So, I guess I want to, I love the idea of having fun, so I have two questions for you. So, tell me, what do you do for fun?

Janet Archer: 36:18 Well, gosh, I do a lot of things for fun, but one is this ... What's the other question? What did I just for fun?

Pat Beaupre Becker: 36:26 Is, what are you ... Give me, share one of your favorite things.

Janet Archer: 36:29 Oh, well, I think they kind of go together. So, I was just talking about how we have a house in North Carolina. One of my favorite things to do is to ... I have a beach bike, so I have one of those no-speed. It's pink. It's not huge wheels, but, you know, a three-speed, the kind we used to ride when were young.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 36:51 Oh, yeah.

Janet Archer: 36:52 I have a big basket in the front. In the morning, I get on my bike. If it's really windy, I don't go to the beach. But if it's not windy, I'll go and ride on the beach. But, one of my favorite things is just to get on the bike and ride up and get coffee. Then, I stick it in my basket and wrap up a towel and stuff so it won't fall over, and then ride back and just simple stuff like that I just love. I love walking. I love ... It's really funny because I'm in place right now where love just about everything I do.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 37:30 That's fantastic.

Janet Archer: 37:34 I know.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 37:35 That's fantastic. And it's mindset, right?

Janet Archer: 37:35 It's a mindset completely.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 37:37 I bet you there's some things that do that ...

Janet Archer: 37:41 I had to really use mindfulness to see that because my mind was telling me, "You don't like this. You don't like being busy. You don't like doing that. You don't like having free time." So, I had to really start and pay attention.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 37:53 Sure.

Janet Archer: 37:54 When I was doing something, how do I feel about this, really? What's going on? That's when I realized I actually really am having ... I like this. Or, I actually really don't like this, and then I stopped doing those things.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 38:09 Right, right. Yeah. Great.

Janet Archer: 38:11 Kind of interesting.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 38:11 I mean, I think that's a great way to ... I mean, I like deciding to like what is good for me. I really learned that, especially through the coaching. It's like, you know, for me, people think, "Oh my God. How could you never eat ice cream?" I don't think anybody has to give up giving ice cream in order to maintain or be healthy. But for me, it's like I really like loving what loves me, you know?

Janet Archer: 38:11 Yes.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 38:37 I did that in my mind. So now, when I see things that aren't good for me, I don't even have the desire for them because I've changed my mindset.

Janet Archer: 38:45 Yeah, I love that.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 38:46 It's not a struggle, right? It's not ... If I decide I want to have them, I can have them, but you know, it's really it's all about the mind.

Janet Archer: 38:55 I love that. Yeah. Did you say, "I love what loves me"?

Pat Beaupre Becker: 38:58 Yeah.

Janet Archer: 38:59 That's so good.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 39:00 Yeah, because I spent a lot of time loving what ... not loving anything that loved me. I was like, so I couldn't figure it out, right? So, loving it makes it so much easier to choose it.

Janet Archer: 39:12 Yeah. What you just said, everything is created in the mind.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 39:16 Yes, yes. So, thank you, Janet, so much. It's been so fun.

Janet Archer: 39:21 Oh my gosh. This was so [inaudible 00:39:23] to hear. This is very ... This is my point in fact this is another thing. So much fun.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 39:27 Yes, favorite. This is one of my favorite things. Let me tell you, when I did my first podcast, I was terrified, so this is ... Practice is everything.

Janet Archer: 39:37 Practice is everything.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 39:38 So, how can we get in touch with you, so I will put a link. I already actually put your book as one of my favorite things in a prior podcast. But if someone wants to get in touch with you, how do they reach you?

Janet Archer: 39:50 Yeah, so it's Janetarcher.com.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 39:58 Okay. All right. Fantastic.

Janet Archer: 40:00 Perfect. Thank you so much.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 40:02 So, go about your day and thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today.

Janet Archer: 40:06 You are so welcome. Thank you, Pat.

Janet Archer: 40:09 I really enjoyed it.

Pat Beaupre Becker: 40:10 Thank you. Bye-bye.

Janet Archer: 40:12 Bye.

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