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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's Podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_00: Hello, I'm Mario Tonigus, the managing editor of Canada's Podcast.
[00:10] SPEAKER_00: Joining me today on Calgary's Podcast is Brice Weeks,
[00:14] SPEAKER_00: who is founder of Clear Float Spa in Calgary.
[00:18] SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us today, Bryce.
[00:20] SPEAKER_00: Great to be here.
[00:22] SPEAKER_00: Alright, tell me just a little bit first off, Bryce.
[00:25] SPEAKER_00: What Clear Float Spa is and what you do.
[00:30] SPEAKER_01: Sure, so Clear Float Spa is a spa,
[00:34] SPEAKER_01: and what we focus on really is stillness and meditation.
[00:37] SPEAKER_01: So we have four float pods and one infrared sauna.
[00:40] SPEAKER_01: Infrared sauna is fairly straightforward,
[00:41] SPEAKER_01: and we can talk a little bit about the science behind that.
[00:43] SPEAKER_01: And then we have four float pods.
[00:45] SPEAKER_01: And essentially what float pods are,
[00:47] SPEAKER_01: or float therapy is, is essentially you entered into an environment
[00:50] SPEAKER_01: filled with 8 to 10 inches of water,
[00:53] SPEAKER_01: filled with 1,000 pounds of epsom salt.
[00:55] SPEAKER_01: So it's four times more dense than the Dead Sea.
[00:57] SPEAKER_01: So essentially what you do is you float completely weightlessly
[01:00] SPEAKER_01: in a dark environment.
[01:01] SPEAKER_01: You can turn on the light if you took so choose as well,
[01:03] SPEAKER_01: but essentially you're in complete darkness
[01:05] SPEAKER_01: and floating in that water.
[01:07] SPEAKER_01: And what that does is it activates your parasympathetic nervous system,
[01:10] SPEAKER_01: which essentially deactivates your fight or flight response.
[01:13] SPEAKER_01: And this helps you to naturally slip into a meditative state.
[01:17] SPEAKER_01: So by removing all the thermostimulite your brain can finally go,
[01:20] SPEAKER_01: oh, I'm going to kind of take that graph that we're,
[01:22] SPEAKER_01: you know, constantly overwhelmed with social media technology,
[01:25] SPEAKER_01: and messaging, and it kind of gives that moment to,
[01:28] SPEAKER_01: I'm back down and, and, uh,
[01:30] SPEAKER_01: intern to more of a grounded centered stillness state.
[01:33] SPEAKER_01: How did you start this?
[01:36] SPEAKER_01: Uh, so I, I meditated a lot in my early 20s,
[01:39] SPEAKER_01: um, and found it literally,
[01:41] SPEAKER_01: well, completely life changing.
[01:43] SPEAKER_01: I was meditating for half an hour in the morning,
[01:45] SPEAKER_01: half an hour in the evening,
[01:46] SPEAKER_01: and just achieving really, really intense blissful, great states.
[01:50] SPEAKER_01: Um, and I was blessed enough to have kind of a community around me
[01:53] SPEAKER_01: and, and some great people in my life that were also going through that in my early 20s.
[01:57] SPEAKER_01: And then, um, in my kind of later 20s,
[02:00] SPEAKER_01: so I've been in background as in sales and marketing.
[02:02] SPEAKER_01: And as I continued to grow in that world, I just kind of became,
[02:06] SPEAKER_01: I guess they're just kind of like, what am I doing here?
[02:08] SPEAKER_01: What am I really selling?
[02:09] SPEAKER_01: And I was working for big corporations.
[02:11] SPEAKER_01: And finally I came across full therapy.
[02:13] SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh, my goodness, this is a therapy that can help people.
[02:17] SPEAKER_01: It can bring meditation to people's lives.
[02:19] SPEAKER_01: And in all my skillsets, I can use in my background and marketing,
[02:22] SPEAKER_01: and branding to actually create a community for people.
[02:25] SPEAKER_01: Because meditation is very much a, you know, solo journey.
[02:28] SPEAKER_01: But it's great to have people around you that are going through the same things
[02:31] SPEAKER_01: that you're going through.
[02:32] SPEAKER_01: Um, and you can share with that in the community environment.
[02:35] SPEAKER_01: So this brought all of the best technologies together for me to use my skillsets.
[02:39] SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious.
[02:41] SPEAKER_00: What first brought you to meditation in general?
[02:45] SPEAKER_00: Like, something happened in your life or it was just a long journey towards it.
[02:51] SPEAKER_00: What brought you to that?
[02:53] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[02:54] SPEAKER_01: Well, I think it was just a combination of a lot of things.
[02:56] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was a very hyperactive child, I guess.
[03:01] SPEAKER_01: I think I diagnosed ADHD and lots of people through that term around.
[03:04] SPEAKER_01: But I was a very active child.
[03:06] SPEAKER_01: You know, it always been, you know, losing my keys and was placing my keys.
[03:08] SPEAKER_01: And I just wanted to be a little bit more still.
[03:11] SPEAKER_01: I decided to just try meditation.
[03:14] SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I'm just going to sit for 20 minutes every day for three weeks.
[03:18] SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to see if anything happens.
[03:19] SPEAKER_01: I just mean that small dedication.
[03:22] SPEAKER_01: And I think it was around, I think it was two weeks.
[03:25] SPEAKER_01: And after two weeks, I was like, God, that was okay.
[03:26] SPEAKER_01: But I didn't really feel like I'm going to do one more week.
[03:29] SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, two days into that, that third week,
[03:32] SPEAKER_01: I remember just having one moment where I was just like, no thought.
[03:36] SPEAKER_01: And I just got hooked.
[03:37] SPEAKER_01: I was like, wow, that was such a unique, grounding.
[03:40] SPEAKER_01: I was like, I didn't know that that was out there.
[03:42] SPEAKER_01: And then I just went down, you know, well, an intense journey and continuing to do it.
[03:46] SPEAKER_01: And it just brought me so much more peace and, um, honest in my life.
[03:51] SPEAKER_00: So, so I'm just curious.
[03:53] SPEAKER_00: Obviously, as you said, you're a very active child.
[03:56] SPEAKER_00: And then obviously living in the, and working in the business environment.
[04:01] SPEAKER_00: What was it like the first couple of times to try to meditate?
[04:05] SPEAKER_00: Could you sit still?
[04:07] SPEAKER_00: It was hard.
[04:08] SPEAKER_01: No, I mean, my mind was going the whole time.
[04:12] SPEAKER_01: All I said was I'm just going to sit still for 20 minutes.
[04:15] SPEAKER_01: So I just wasn't going to move.
[04:17] SPEAKER_01: And my thoughts were just going and, you know, I just used a strategy just every time that I had a thought,
[04:22] SPEAKER_01: I would just say thinking and then kind of come back to my breath.
[04:25] SPEAKER_01: And literally I was sitting there for 20 minutes just going thinking, thinking, thinking.
[04:29] SPEAKER_01: So I was constantly thinking, but I was just bringing an awareness to it.
[04:32] SPEAKER_01: So it was very, very challenging for me.
[04:34] SPEAKER_01: But like I said, after that three week, when I just had the one moment of that stillness of like, wow.
[04:39] SPEAKER_01: Okay, there's something here.
[04:41] SPEAKER_01: And then I continued to practice more and more.
[04:43] SPEAKER_01: And during that really intense period in my early 20s, while I was doing a lot,
[04:46] SPEAKER_01: I was having incredible, you know, calmness.
[04:50] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[04:51] SPEAKER_00: Now what about your first time that you experienced a clear float?
[04:56] SPEAKER_00: What was that like?
[04:58] SPEAKER_01: So my first ever float was just mind blowing.
[05:02] SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was, for me, it was like meditation on steroids because you're moving, you know,
[05:07] SPEAKER_01: when you're sitting there in your own house, you still hear, you know, pipes or you're just kind of stuff
[05:11] SPEAKER_01: and it's easy to get distracted.
[05:13] SPEAKER_01: Or you think like, oh, I could turn on the TV.
[05:15] SPEAKER_01: You're just close to things that can distract you.
[05:18] SPEAKER_01: And in a float, you are removed from all of that.
[05:21] SPEAKER_01: I mean, you are in a pod, in naked or in a swimming suit, and there's nothing around you.
[05:27] SPEAKER_01: You can't go get your phone.
[05:28] SPEAKER_01: So it just brings that extra level of stillness to it.
[05:31] SPEAKER_01: And when you get really, really silent, some people are worried about the silence,
[05:34] SPEAKER_01: but your thoughts, you kind of get to the end of your thoughts.
[05:37] SPEAKER_01: They just feel a little bit louder, which brings more awareness to them.
[05:40] SPEAKER_01: And then it dissipates so much easier.
[05:42] SPEAKER_01: So I was just blown away.
[05:44] SPEAKER_01: I came out and I was like, not only is it great for your mind, but then my body.
[05:47] SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're completely weightless.
[05:48] SPEAKER_01: So it increases your circulation.
[05:49] SPEAKER_01: And I just felt like I had a massage for my brain and my body.
[05:53] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[05:54] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the people that you see through your spa, give me a sense of kind of people, are they, you know, male, female, young, old,
[06:05] SPEAKER_00: what kind of walks of life are they from?
[06:08] SPEAKER_01: I mean, every walk of life, which is the really the neatest part.
[06:12] SPEAKER_01: I mean, we have some people who have been meditating for 30, 40 years and have, you know, been to Tibet and meditated with Buddhist monks.
[06:20] SPEAKER_01: Then we have the 20 year old that's literally like, I just want to try this.
[06:23] SPEAKER_01: It seems like something that would benefit me.
[06:25] SPEAKER_01: We have athletes.
[06:26] SPEAKER_01: We have lots of the some county flames come in.
[06:29] SPEAKER_01: Some NHL hockey players come in.
[06:31] SPEAKER_01: We have lots of all different walks of life, some MMA fighters.
[06:36] SPEAKER_01: Lots of moms who are expecting, because it can help during pregnancy to help alleviate pain on the lower back.
[06:42] SPEAKER_01: People with chronic pain, arthritis, fibromyalgia, it really helps with fibromyalgia.
[06:47] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[06:48] SPEAKER_00: So tell me.
[06:50] SPEAKER_01: It's very diverse.
[06:52] SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, tell me when you look at it, you mentioned this about how all the noise that we have in the world today.
[06:59] SPEAKER_00: And you know, this baby is with us, you know, like attached to our hips.
[07:05] SPEAKER_00: You know, literally like almost 24 or 7.
[07:11] SPEAKER_00: Is this, you know, whether it's meditation or what you do, is it kind of desperately needed in our society today?
[07:21] SPEAKER_01: I mean, in my belief, my very strong belief is the same as exercise.
[07:26] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[07:27] SPEAKER_01: If you're not doing it nowadays, I think I think you can see the rise of anxiety, the rise of depression, especially both pandemic.
[07:36] SPEAKER_01: Be grounded and to not get caught up in all of that and the scrolling and this, you know, there's just so much of it.
[07:43] SPEAKER_01: I think if you aren't exercising eating while sleeping well, in some form of mindfulness or meditation, there's so many different minds.
[07:50] SPEAKER_01: You know, you don't need to get caught up in the sitting in a float pod or you can do walking meditations.
[07:55] SPEAKER_01: I think if you don't have some form of mindfulness, that anxiety can creep in very easily.
[08:01] SPEAKER_01: So I think it's just as important as a balanced diet and exercise.
[08:07] SPEAKER_00: So tell me in terms of the meditation aspect of everything, how that has been helpful to you on the business side of things on running and operating a business.
[08:19] SPEAKER_01: Oh, I think I'm immensely, I mean, everyone said starting a business is the most stressful.
[08:25] SPEAKER_01: The most stressful thing you can do next to having a child or moving.
[08:28] SPEAKER_01: And it was stressful for sure when I was starting it up, but I used floating lot and it just felt fairly, I don't want to say easy, but I was just calm.
[08:37] SPEAKER_01: When things were happening, it was just like, okay, what challenge you have to deal with and we would continue to move on and move forward.
[08:44] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't think it becomes, it's just such a key point part of my life, especially when it was opening up.
[08:52] SPEAKER_01: And of course, sometimes I get distracted, I don't meditate as often and I need to come back to it.
[08:56] SPEAKER_01: But when I'm meditating heavily, there's no question things come out and you're like, oh, that's interesting.
[09:02] SPEAKER_01: I guess I'll have to deal with that challenge as opposed to just reacting.
[09:05] SPEAKER_01: And you know, your cortisol spikes up and you start getting really stressed and you basically get elevated like you're fighting a bear.
[09:13] SPEAKER_01: When nowadays we don't need to fight bears and we're releasing cortisol as if we're fighting bear.
[09:19] SPEAKER_01: If we get an email and we get stressed and get all amped up, I think we're in a pretty safe environment.
[09:25] SPEAKER_01: We just need to be a little bit more mindful of that.
[09:28] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, now when you started, oh, sorry, when did you start this, by the way, what year was it?
[09:36] SPEAKER_00: Seven years ago, next month, so May 15th is our seven year anniversary.
[09:41] SPEAKER_00: And you said, okay, and this will probably air after that.
[09:44] SPEAKER_00: So just, okay, so in May, seven years ago, when you first started as a business owner, what were some of the major challenges,
[09:57] SPEAKER_00: biggest challenges you faced?
[10:00] SPEAKER_00: Oh, my goodness. There were a lot.
[10:07] SPEAKER_00: You hadn't been a business owner prior to that, right? You were just working for the man.
[10:13] SPEAKER_01: Yes, I was indeed working for the man for sure.
[10:16] SPEAKER_01: I think, you know, getting, you know, banks on board to believe in me, especially when I hadn't done it before,
[10:23] SPEAKER_01: it was a challenge and the confidence to be, you know, especially that a bank is going to give me money to start up a spa where you do nothing.
[10:34] SPEAKER_01: I think in my head, it was probably more getting out of my head and believing in the idea, which I had a really strong belief in it.
[10:42] SPEAKER_01: I think dealing with that definitely, like negotiating the lease was a little bit outside of my comfort zone.
[10:47] SPEAKER_01: But really, for me, it was about finding the team around me or the people and having the confidence to ask for help.
[10:55] SPEAKER_01: So luckily, I had a lot of people around me and I would find the expert within my network that could help me through each process that I didn't know.
[11:02] SPEAKER_01: So I need, you know, knowing what you know and knowing you don't know, I think is very crucial.
[11:06] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, now does it help?
[11:08] SPEAKER_00: You know, this is going to be kind of a weird question, but does it help, you know, in terms of the meditation that, like the persona that you give out, right?
[11:19] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, just, you know, my amateur psychology here, you know, you seem to be very calm, level headed person.
[11:27] SPEAKER_00: So does that help from the business standpoint of things? You know, when you are forging relationships with different people and, you know, what you have to do and running your business.
[11:41] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I think a calm persona is, or calm state is important for leadership, right?
[11:48] SPEAKER_01: When you're encountering challenges, you don't want the, you don't want the leader that's from them.
[11:53] SPEAKER_01: You know, the house and the entire, you want calm, focused, centered decisions, and then confidently moving forward in them and meditation certainly helps with that.
[12:04] SPEAKER_00: Let's talk a little bit about running a business in Calgary, Bryce.
[12:08] SPEAKER_00: How was that bit for you? What would you say that some of the benefits are of being a business owner and entrepreneurial in Calgary?
[12:19] SPEAKER_01: Oh, my goodness. Well, I think they're immense calories of fantastic city.
[12:25] SPEAKER_01: There's, you know, some great, disposable income from a lot of the people well educated, you know, populace as well.
[12:32] SPEAKER_01: And they really take, I mean, for me personally, in the health wellness side of things, they really focus on their health and wellness here in Calgary as well.
[12:40] SPEAKER_01: The very active people, especially in, you know, in the winter times, people are still going to fitness studios.
[12:45] SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of access to fitness studios, a lot of education on health and wellness.
[12:49] SPEAKER_01: And we've done really well. I mean, we even opened up, you know, in 2016 when there was kind of the downturn in oil because Calgary is a very well centric.
[12:58] SPEAKER_01: We actually, you know, people were worried for me and etc. And we did exceptionally well.
[13:03] SPEAKER_01: Because during those times, people turned to their health and wellness during stressful times as well.
[13:07] SPEAKER_01: So we've not even throughout the pandemic.
[13:11] SPEAKER_01: And then after the pandemic, we've been doing incredibly well because I think the, you know, the news is out that meditation and mindfulness is very important.
[13:19] SPEAKER_01: And I think we saw a lot of the cracks start to show in everything that's health and wellness.
[13:24] SPEAKER_01: We've self-included during the pandemic.
[13:26] SPEAKER_01: But this is the thing that needs to be prioritized at all times.
[13:29] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's become a major issue these days.
[13:32] SPEAKER_00: The mental health side of things are right.
[13:34] SPEAKER_00: And you can't go anywhere without some news report talking about state of mental health in Canada, elsewhere as well in the last couple of years, right?
[13:47] SPEAKER_01: 100% yeah.
[13:50] SPEAKER_01: It's all, it's all we have our bodies in our minds, right?
[13:53] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[13:54] SPEAKER_00: That's stress too is a killer.
[13:56] SPEAKER_00: And it's, you know, you talk about the, the, you know, beyond the mental side of things.
[14:03] SPEAKER_00: Could you talk a little bit about the physical side of things of being in a healthy state of mind through meditation?
[14:14] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, so I mean essentially what happens is when we're, when we're overwhelmed or anxious, what's happening is we release cortisol, which is a stress chemical.
[14:23] SPEAKER_01: And that's evolved from back in the day, you know, when we're out and we encounter a bear, we release cortisol.
[14:28] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[14:28] SPEAKER_01: It's like started driving and we start to, or increases our heart rate and we get ready to either fight or fight.
[14:33] SPEAKER_01: The problem is nowadays we're so overwhelmed with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, emails, phone calls, text messages that are brain.
[14:42] SPEAKER_01: We're so overwhelmed that we're releasing cortisol when we get an email.
[14:45] SPEAKER_01: So an email to us is now like a bear.
[14:48] SPEAKER_01: And that's, that doesn't make a lot of sense, you know, objectively, but when we're in it, that's where it's feel us.
[14:54] SPEAKER_01: So we release that cortisol, our heart rate goes up.
[14:57] SPEAKER_01: It's just a really harmful chemical.
[14:59] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[14:59] SPEAKER_01: And what can happen is is we start getting addicted to that cortisol.
[15:03] SPEAKER_01: We can start, you know, doom scrolling as they call it on Twitter, Instagram.
[15:06] SPEAKER_01: And you're just scrolling and you're getting all these newest feeds of how dangerous the world is and et cetera.
[15:12] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[15:12] SPEAKER_01: And we're in this high date and we're releasing cortisol.
[15:15] SPEAKER_01: And that's a chemical that we should not be, you know, we start to get addicted to it.
[15:20] SPEAKER_01: And that's not the chemical we should be addicted to.
[15:22] SPEAKER_01: We should be, you know, releasing dopamine and dolphins and the good human chemicals that we get from meditation, connection with community, exercise.
[15:32] SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, we're getting hooked to these cortisol chemicals and it really does start to break down our body in our minds.
[15:38] SPEAKER_01: And that stressful state is not, it's not healthy.
[15:42] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
[15:43] SPEAKER_00: And there's so many physical things that happen because of that.
[15:49] SPEAKER_00: But you know, when you're looking at being in in in Calgary, Bryce, I take a year from Calgary originally or no.
[15:58] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, with Gordon Ebbenton, then moved to California, but I've been here since high school.
[16:02] SPEAKER_01: I moved back here in the early school.
[16:03] SPEAKER_01: And what did you do before starting a clear flow to spa?
[16:08] SPEAKER_01: So I was in sales and marketing.
[16:09] SPEAKER_01: So I worked for third party agencies.
[16:11] SPEAKER_01: So I got to work with really big brands, you know, Microsoft, Crudeau, Tellus, probably 50 of the top brands in Canada.
[16:18] SPEAKER_01: And I basically helped execute on their sales and marketing initiatives.
[16:22] SPEAKER_01: So a lot of experiential marketing and sales campaigns.
[16:24] SPEAKER_01: I manage their teams and basic created experiences around that brand that tied to that brand.
[16:30] SPEAKER_00: Sales can be quite stressful, can't they?
[16:33] SPEAKER_01: To sure can for sure.
[16:35] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[16:36] SPEAKER_00: Why worry do you think the stress comes when when in sales?
[16:40] SPEAKER_00: It's a come from the fact that you have to produce.
[16:45] SPEAKER_00: Like it's, you know, a lot of jobs you just, you know, you, you know, you just do your job and, you know, and go your merry way.
[16:53] SPEAKER_00: But in sales, man, if you don't bring in that revenue, like goodbye.
[16:58] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[16:59] SPEAKER_01: Well, yes, the metrics, right?
[17:00] SPEAKER_01: Because you're constantly like, well, you know exactly where you should be at any given time, which is a little bit different than kind of creative field.
[17:07] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[17:07] SPEAKER_01: But I think it's, yeah, I mean, for me personally, a little bit of just the insecurity, right?
[17:13] SPEAKER_01: If you set a goal and you don't hit it, there's the insecurity or the feeling of a failure.
[17:18] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[17:19] SPEAKER_01: But with more experience in sales, as I started to continue to grow in it, it's just saying a goal being confident in it and knowing the steps to get there.
[17:27] SPEAKER_01: But I mean, it can still be as stressful as you, you make it, I suppose, the meditation certainly helps in the confidence of like, I'm going to get there and know how to get there.
[17:37] SPEAKER_01: Well, then just being calm and confident about it.
[17:39] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[17:40] SPEAKER_00: What are you thinking in terms of your business, Bryce, you're looking at expanding in the future, where's the growth coming from?
[17:51] SPEAKER_00: Are we going to be in this?
[17:53] SPEAKER_00: Or are you just happy with just what you're doing now?
[17:56] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I am happy with what I'm doing now, but I do feel the growth is coming.
[18:01] SPEAKER_01: I can't make any announcements right now, but we are certainly looking at continuing to grow.
[18:06] SPEAKER_01: So I think the demand for float therapy is growing the demand for stillness.
[18:12] SPEAKER_01: Really, then the data that's where my passion lies in is, you know, our mission is to help remove pain and anxiety in people's lives.
[18:19] SPEAKER_01: And there's many different therapies that can do that and float therapy is one of those and we're going to continue to grow in that area.
[18:26] SPEAKER_01: And I think others in the future here as well.
[18:29] SPEAKER_00: Okay, then.
[18:30] SPEAKER_00: So running a business and then obviously doing a lot of meditation as well.
[18:37] SPEAKER_00: What are, you know, besides that and maybe family, like, do you have any specific interests and passions, hobbies that you like to spend time with?
[18:48] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
[18:49] SPEAKER_01: Family is obviously very important for me.
[18:51] SPEAKER_01: I have two little boys.
[18:53] SPEAKER_01: So lots of time with them that could be pretty busy.
[18:56] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[18:56] SPEAKER_00: I got to ask you a million dollar question then.
[18:58] SPEAKER_00: That's why they ever tried meditation.
[19:03] SPEAKER_01: So actually, well, I mean, we have 11 month old and a three and a half year old.
[19:08] SPEAKER_01: So it is a little bit challenging, but actually our three and a half year old does do yoga.
[19:12] SPEAKER_01: So we don't do a lot of screen time with them.
[19:15] SPEAKER_01: And the only screen time you ever get is there's this great YouTube for kids.
[19:19] SPEAKER_01: And it's yoga and it's about 20 minutes or so and he lost it.
[19:23] SPEAKER_01: I mean, he actually does.
[19:25] SPEAKER_01: He poses.
[19:26] SPEAKER_01: You know, as calm as he can be and as still as he can be, but he goes through the process and he really understands it.
[19:31] SPEAKER_01: And it's really, really cute to watch as well.
[19:33] SPEAKER_00: I'm going to come back before I interrupted you to that question about your other hobbies and interests.
[19:40] SPEAKER_00: But I'm just curious.
[19:42] SPEAKER_00: How important do you think it is to, you know, obviously when you have this toddler learning kind of these,
[19:49] SPEAKER_00: this stuff at a early age, how important do you think it is for all of us?
[19:55] SPEAKER_00: For people to understand, I guess, and to maybe even practice in some way that stillness and meditation in life.
[20:07] SPEAKER_00: And a young guy starting out of the.
[20:09] SPEAKER_01: I think it's crucial because I think in a young age you're developing your emotions, right?
[20:14] SPEAKER_01: And I think keeping kids busy was a very big part of parenting in the past.
[20:21] SPEAKER_01: And then kind of ignoring emotions to a certain degree would just be like busy, busy, busy.
[20:25] SPEAKER_01: You heard yourself like let's distract.
[20:27] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. When I think processing emotions is very, very important.
[20:31] SPEAKER_01: Sitting with your emotions, learning what your emotions are, feeling sad and actually sitting in that and understanding what it is so that it can wash through you.
[20:38] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's really, really crucial and a lot of parenting techniques are started to turn to that to allowing children to kind of feel it and move through it.
[20:46] SPEAKER_01: So we try to be as confident and calm with their child as well when he's, you know, he still has meltdowns, of course.
[20:55] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[20:56] SPEAKER_01: But I think we practiced a lot of mindfulness as best as we can.
[20:59] SPEAKER_01: Mind them as well. He's going through that so that he can learn those different emotions and move through it as well.
[21:04] SPEAKER_00: Excellent. So back. And so happy, generous passions, anything else you have about there?
[21:10] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. I love, I love playing hockey.
[21:14] SPEAKER_01: I love golf. So I love competition and trying to, you know, push myself in my body as well.
[21:21] SPEAKER_01: So I love doing that. I started getting back into kind of working out again and lifting more weights.
[21:27] SPEAKER_01: I used to do a lot of cardio and in Peloton.
[21:29] SPEAKER_01: I love it now. So try to get back into lifting a few more weights just as I get older. I feel my body isn't as strong as it used to be.
[21:37] SPEAKER_01: So I'm trying to build a little bit more strength for my, for my kids so I can continue to be active for them as well.
[21:43] SPEAKER_00: So I am curious, actually, when mentioning a competition and stuff like that, do you think the meditation everybody talks about whether you're an athlete or, you know, even in the work you do sometimes getting in the zone.
[21:59] SPEAKER_00: Right. Do you think meditation helps with that?
[22:03] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
[22:04] SPEAKER_00: Like you'll see an athlete, you know, that basketball player just sitting and boom, boom, boom, like three point shots continuously, right?
[22:13] SPEAKER_00: It's just like, and I find that myself sometimes when I'm, you know, as a journalist writing, there's certain times I get into a zone and like end of the day, you wonder, holy crap.
[22:25] SPEAKER_00: How much work I've done today, right? So is that you think that's helpful to do stuff like that?
[22:32] SPEAKER_01: Absolutely. So when you meditate, you enter what's called a theta brain mistake.
[22:36] SPEAKER_01: So when we're active in a way, we're in an alpha state or a beta state, usually when watching to be wearing an alpha state, which is a relaxed kind of receiving mode state, when we're active and thinking that's a beta state.
[22:45] SPEAKER_01: And then when you start to meditate, enter a theta state. So peak athletes actually enter theta states quite frequently because they're so single focus.
[22:53] SPEAKER_01: They're essentially in a meditative state where there's nothing else going on. They're not thinking about groceries. They're not, you know, thinking about an email or anything like that. They're single mindedly focused.
[23:02] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. So the more free you can put ourselves into a theta state, the more focused we can be in the more calm and confident we can be as well.
[23:10] SPEAKER_01: And ironically, children are actually in a theta state, an awful lot, which is a really creative state.
[23:15] SPEAKER_01: So children live in a theta state a lot. And as we get older, we start to move out of that and aren't in that as often.
[23:21] SPEAKER_01: And that's where meditation can bring us back into that creative. You know, meditation is very creative as well, which a lot of people don't think of meditation is creative, but it really brings a lot of creativity.
[23:30] SPEAKER_01: And you can be creative in your meditations too, which is really neat.
[23:34] SPEAKER_00: Yeah. Cool. Excellent. Well, thanks very much, Bryce, for joining us today.
[23:40] SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much for having me.
[23:41] SPEAKER_00: There was a fascinating discussion and I'm looking forward to my own meditation.
[23:46] SPEAKER_00: So, yeah. Thanks very much. That was Bryce Weeks, who was founder of Clear, Low Spa in Calgary.
[23:56] SPEAKER_00: I'm Mario Toneguzy with Calgary's podcast. I'm managing editor of Canada's podcast. Thanks for joining us today.
