#99 Addiction & Trauma: Vimalasara
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Michael Reiley: We're honored to have Dr. Vimalasara, Valerie Mason-John with us, pioneering voice in the field of mindfulness, addiction and trauma recovery. 

Dr. Mason- John is a founding facilitator of compassionate inquiry, a practice. Co-create it with Dr. Gabor Maté. 



Michael Reiley: and the author of 10 impactful books. Including the award-winning "Eight Step Recovery Using the Buddhist Teachings to Overcome Addiction". And "Detox Your Heart Meditations for Emotional Trauma". Their work has inspired the creation of eight step recovery meetings across multiple continents. Dr. Mason- John is also the co-founder of the mindful based addiction recovery. 

M B A R training program. Offered in both English and Spanish. And continues to make significant contributions as a public speaker. Sharing their expertise on mindfulness for addiction and trauma. In Canada, the U S, UK and Spain. Today we discuss their latest book. "First Aid Kit for the Mind. Breaking the Cycle of Habitual Behavior", which promises to offer profound insights into overcoming the patterns that hold us back.

All today on the sounds of sand podcast presented by science and non-duality. 

All right. I'm here with Dr. Valerie Mason-John on the Sounds of SAND Podcast. Thanks so much for being here today.

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Yeah. It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Michael Reiley: Yeah. I'm looking forward to this conversation. I've been immersing myself in your new book and some of some previous videos and things like that. And I know you did something with Science and Nonduality with Gabor Maté around "The Wisdom of Trauma" a few years ago.

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Yeah, that's it. I'm one of Gabor Mate's founding facilitators of Compassionate Inquiry. So yeah, I have a history with him. He wrote a foreword to one of my books, "Eight Step Recovery". Yeah. So I have a friendship and relationship with Gabor. Yeah.

Michael Reiley: Nice. Speaking of the book that you mentioned the "Eight Step Recovery" I wanted to just get right into, something that's often misunderstood or people have a certain bias against, which is the essence of addiction.

And so I was wondering if we could start by you just defining what is addiction for you and how maybe how that definition has evolved over the past 10 years since writing the book.

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Yeah. Thank you. It definitely has evolved. I think when writing the book, one of the conversation was, are you abstinent? Yeah. Are you the abstinent model or harm reduction model? And today it's more what do you think about psychedelics and working with psychedelics and addiction? Yeah.

There definitely definitely has been a real shift for me and my thinking. And also just to, yeah, to the essence of addiction. I think just really want to start with that. I don't want to demonize addiction because, addictive behaviors have been things that perhaps have kept people alive, that Cohen kept people alive and actually have taken people's lives.

And that actually addiction has been something that has protected people. It's again, I think, quoting from Gabor that, addiction often is a normal response to abnormal things that have been happening in people's lives, and really, again, I just really want to come back to this thing of often when things happen to us in our childhood conditioning and when there's nobody to talk to.

We end up talking to ourselves, we end up attaching to this stinking thinking, this negative self talk. And as we get older, we learn to attach to things that soothe us, that, we may begin attaching to a pet or to a toy. And then we begin to, grow and discover alcohol, discover smoking and whatever, and realize that these are much better soothers for Our maladies.

So and again, what is the essence of addiction? If I look in my own life, I would say the essence of addiction was asking for help and I didn't know how to ask for help. And so I turned to the behavior, to the substance that actually helped me. It was, I can remember literally Michael getting to the point of actually realizing I don't need this anymore.

And I didn't know how to let go of it. And you get to that place of, I don't need it anymore. And again, really I'm familiarizing myself a bit more with the Sedona method and releasing and actually really seeing that actually to say that one is I have an addiction. That's a memory. And how can we move into the moment of now?

Because in each moment of now we can do something different. So I'd say the, again, the essence of addiction is the dis ease, yeah, the dis ease in, in life and it's a cry for help. Yeah. And sometimes we have to accept that's what people choose. People are making that choice and they don't want to stop,

Michael Reiley: Yeah.

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: and we have to accept that.

And again, one more, one more thing if I think of, Carl Hart who writes, , drug use for adults. Yeah. That actually, where is the line? Are we, are, there are people who drink normally? So is it possible for people to take drugs normally? I don't know. I'm not one of those people.

I'm not one of those people who can eat chocolate normally, let alone drugs normally, those people who can buy a bar of chocolate and just take one square and forget about it for a week. I'm not one of those people. It's one square, I've got to eat the whole lot. I think we have to really look at that there are I'm People who are able to relate to some of these substances in a normal, healthy way.

Michael Reiley: Yeah, and I feel that the acceptance around addiction is growing, maybe you've even seen that in the last 10 years that like you mentioned the beginning about demonizing addiction, you look around, so many people are addicted to their smartphones or they're addicted to Netflix or they're addicted to caffeine.

That's a big drug that so many people are addicted to and don't even want to think of it that way.

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: That's the crime of society, isn't it? It's to get us addicted. That's what, marketing, to get us addicted. That's all about marketing, isn't it? It's to get us to identify, to attach and not to let go.

Michael Reiley: And the title of the book, "Eight Step Recovery", obviously that it's a modulation on the classic 12 step recovery. Could you talk a bit about the genesis of the book and how you felt that, you needed to evolve or change the model of 12 step recovery for that?

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: I wouldn't say that the premise of this book wasn't about changing 12 step recovery or a modulation of 12 step recovery. It was really adding. If we think once upon a time, it was just the asylum or the streets. And then Twelve Step came along and saved many lives. And now, again, when I think of writing that book, it was very much just Twelve Step.

Twelve Step is the only way. And now, there is Smart Recovery, there's Refuge Recovery, there's Dharma Recovery, there's Eight Step Recovery, there's Christian Recovery. There were all these different variations. And I actually really want to say, actually, 12 steps is most probably a modulation of Buddhist recovery.

Dr. Bob actually did actually refer to the eight steps and to the Eightfold Noble Path to the Eightfold Noble Path and actually said that could actually be a way. a way out of addiction. And I really do say, I often, people often hear me say that Buddhism is the oldest recovery program or oldest therapeutic program that we know of today.

When the prince became awake, became a Buddha, the first, one of the first things that the prince said And all the Buddha said in his discourse was that there is addiction to hedonism, that is lowly, coarse and unprofitable. And there's addiction to self mortification that is lowly, coarse and unprofitable.

And what we need is the middle way. Addiction it's part of the human condition. Okay. It's something that if we are born into this human form that we are going to have to work with. So In a way, I would say that the genesis of this book simply came from my publisher asking me, did I have another book?

And I was teaching the Four Reminders, which is a Buddhist teaching. And one of the reminders is this precious birth and reflecting it, reflecting on this teaching myself and thinking this precious birth and I can remember at the time, I can't remember what the answers were, but I remember that the answers to this precious birth was so ego based.

And I let go of it because obviously when you're reflecting, you can't get at it through a cognitive way. And at some point I heard, This boy's saying what you have to offer is your recovery. And I can remember turning away from it thinking, oh, that isn't sexy. That's not going to make me famous.

And always training in mind and physical theater.

Many moons ago, my teacher always used to say, if something arises and you turn away from it, it's always really good to turn towards it. And I turned towards it and I thought, yeah, I really, I got my recovery in the rooms of meditation. And, in places like Burma, In places like India, the monks have been dragging people into the temples who've had alcoholism or who have been struggling with a particular substance.

So what we were doing wasn't new. We were just really laying out a program to offer a different way to recover it because we're all different learning types.

Michael Reiley: Yeah, I think about the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha put it right out there at the beginning, that life is suffering, life is dukkha, and just that window, I think, resonated with so many people who were suffering either from addiction or other painful moments in their lives to realize that this is what our shared common humanity is, this this suffering that's related to impermanence and not self and all the other concepts of Buddhism.

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: That was a really important teaching for me and I think that really put me on the path to recovering and I just want to correct that. The Buddha doesn't say life is suffering, just says there is suffering and I think there's a subtle difference with that and when I when I read that too, I, It was almost like I became normal overnight because, I thought I was the only one who was suffering.

I thought something was wrong with me because I was suffering. really gave myself a hard time, but then it's this is normal, there is suffering. Nothing is wrong with me. And of course the question is anyway, isn't it? It's not what's wrong with you, it's what happened to you. What happened to you to be in this mental state of suffering.

of suffering.

Michael Reiley: That leads us into the intersection of addiction and trauma. So could you talk a bit about that? 

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Yeah. I think again, I will quote from Gabor as he says he's definitely one of those important healers in a field of addiction and trauma. And one of the things he says, if I get that that everybody everybody who has addiction has had trauma, but not everybody who has trauma has addiction. Yeah. And again, I think when we think about trauma is not to think that it's got to be something really quite huge. Sometimes people think, trauma, it's got to be something catastrophic. We can be traumatized if we grew up in, in a family where adults don't talk to each other. We can be traumatized if we are conditioned into not having our feelings, okay? We can be traumatized if a pet dies and nobody talks about it. And of course we can be traumatized if we experience the sexual abuse, physical abuse. We are traumatized. If we are born into this black or brown body and growing up in the West, we are traumatized if we're born into a body that we don't necessarily identify with.

In a way, I think it's very hard to escape trauma, because we're all going to experience it, whether we're, Whatever our gender is, whatever our race is, whatever our culture is, we are going to experience trauma. I think one of the most traumatic experience we have is birth, and we can be traumatized in the womb.

If a mother is carrying a child and perhaps somebody, their partner dies. Yeah, or a parent dies, or if two parents, the mother is carrying a child and the parent is abusive, again, that child is going to be traumatized in. In the fetus. In the womb. There are so many things that, that can traumatise us.

And of course, there are some people who come out of the womb completely dysregulated. Needing to regulate needing to regulate. Again, that connection, I don't think that addiction and trauma are separate. They are inextricably linked. Yeah. And how do we begin to work? How do we begin to work with that?

I'll tell you a quick story, a friend of mine who gave birth about a year ago, and the midwife. Didn't realize, didn't actually catch that the, that her child wasn't able to feed fully off the breast. So for three weeks, the baby was quite starved and when they got it, they realized, okay, we have to bottle feed.

Now, the child just grabs It just grabbed, in those three weeks, it's just grabbing the food. And then I heard another thing where a mother, poverty, didn't have enough money to buy food, wasn't much food, wasn't much food around. And six months later, when she was able to get some social security, be able to feed the baby, probably the baby started hiding food in its cheeks.

Again this trance already that, that could create overeating, could create disordered eating as an addictive behavior. 

Michael Reiley: Have you noticed a shift in spiritual circles, let's say of embracing and talking about trauma as part of the path of spiritual life?

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Oh, it's got so much. A friend of mine said he's got kids. It's like you tell them to do something. Stop. You're traumatizing me.

Michael Reiley: Oh, okay. Yeah.

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: so even, it's across kids have got it realizing that's quite a strong word. I think it's the buzzword trauma. Yeah, so people are talking about it.

I, I was just thinking when the war broke out in Ukraine and then it broke out in the Gaza Strip. I was just completely stunned at how many people I knew had grown up in war zones. But prior to these two wars that we're aware of, I have to remember that there are many wars out there, 50 percent of them happening on the continent of Africa.

So in a way, it's it's time, when I'm thinking like these beings have been walking around traumatized, but there hasn't been a word to be able to say. Define what was going on for them. So I think in a way it's really great that we have this word trauma to really talk about what is going on for them and to unpack that.

And then at the same time, it just really, we think of the adverse child experiences. The list isn't long enough. Racism isn't even on, on that list, gender isn't even on that list, but it's a starting point to, to help people to begin to heal. Yeah.

Michael Reiley: Yeah. I think too, one of the openings that's happening in this work of, in trauma and spiritual life. And I don't know spirituality, but trauma in general is intergenerational trauma and how these things become inherited. There's some new films coming out soon in SAND about the intersection of colonialism and intergenerational trauma and the resilience, the inspiration of how these communities thrive and survive despite these legacies.

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Yeah. Fantastic. The epigenetics and then the ancestral trauma it's all there. And then, just again, thinking of trauma and a lot of the work happening with the veterans. I work with organization called the Beckley Retreats, who work specifically with veterans and using psychedelics to really bypass, so that actually People can begin to release some of this trauma, it's I think this is it's not like we're traumatized.

And that's it. That's the end of story. And we have to walk around the world for the rest of our life, carrying this trauma. It can be released. And there are so many different ways. Compassionate Inquiry, Gabor's Compassionate Inquiry is one of the ways of releasing trauma. Dick Schwartz's Internal Family Systems is another way of releasing trauma.

Family Constellations, another way. The Sedona Practice, another way. And Psychedelics is a, is another way. And, coming back To psychedelics, if you think about it, it's actually why have some people become addicted to certain substances? I know for myself that when I was younger I did use recreational drugs because there was a release.

There was some freedom. Fortunately, it wasn't one of the things that caught me. My substance was food. I was a extreme anorectic bulimic. Yeah.

Michael Reiley: Before you mentioned psychedelics and addiction when we started have you Encountered people that do get addicted to psychedelics

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Ketamine Ketamine is actually interesting in why ketamine is under the category of psychedelics, but it is and ketamine is one of the real risky ones. I have I was just talking to a friend of mine who runs a rehab in New York and just says, he really is wanting to steer clear away from ketamine because it's just so easy for people to get addicted to it.

What actually happens is I think in a way we're creating. People we're creating the behaviors for people to get addicted to psychedelics because psychedelic treatment is so expensive. So when people can't afford it, they're going to the streets. And so it's so much cheaper on the streets. And so then when it's on the streets, it's often, cut with something else, it's often not pure.

And then people, it's something else in it that's getting them addicted, etc. So it's like anything, Michael, isn't it? It's like anything that it's possible to get addicted to anything. Are we addicted to life? I don't know. When some people talk about Rebirth and we're going to come back is that us being addicted to life because, we want to continue living.

We want to come back. So it's possible to get addicted to anything and to say that, yeah, we do need to be cautious about medicines. But and then again, people addicted to pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceuticals have seen the healthy drugs, they're the correct drugs, they're the proper drugs, psychedelics, even in the psychedelics now, it's like there are the bad drugs and the good drugs, they're all medicine, all of them are medicine, and how do we begin to use those medicines well, so that how do we begin to use those medicines well, so That the medicines don't take control over us and don't begin to dominate our lives and drive our life.

So it becomes to a point that it's a matter of life and death or a matter of misery.

Michael Reiley: Beautiful so I want to get into the new book the "First aid kit for the Mind" it's a beautiful little book. I enjoyed reading It's would you call it like a workbook? Because it has some space where you can take your own notes and things like that.

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Yeah, thank you for saying that you enjoyed it. Thank you. That's always lovely feedback to hear and it's okay if you've got the book and you don't enjoy it because in a way, would I call it a workbook? I would say that it's a book for people who want some more freedom in their lives. And actually, what I've tried to do, and hopefully that I've achieved, that actually, that the book is, it's aimed at different learning types.

So if you want a workbook, the workbook is there. But actually, if you just want something one minute or two minutes, it's there. You don't have to read the whole book, it's not linear. In a way, in a book there's like a one minute practice, or a five minute practice, or a twenty minute practice.

Whatever you want to do. And then you don't even have to do the practice. Hopefully, you can open the book up on a particular page, and hopefully, You'll open it up and what on that page is just what you need in that moment. So if you want to use it as a workbook, yeah, that's great. You just want to use it as something that's in your pocket and it's oh, emergency, let me see what's on this page, or want to use it as a pack of cards, or just want one minute, five minutes, can't be bothered to read a whole book.

There, there's a mountain Of self help books that we have and how many of you have you read? So in a way I didn't want it to be a huge Among Us book. I wanted it to be small and pithy and to the point.

Michael Reiley: Yeah. One of the things in the book, that really resonated with me is the understanding of our triggers. And again, this is, I think, for people that are suffering from very destructive, let's say, addictions but all the way through to some of the ones I mentioned earlier, like smartphones or Netflix or process addictions.

Could you talk about that? How managing our triggers is crucial to breaking the cycle of addiction?

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Yeah, and this teaching for me. It was a really profound teaching and in a way I came across this teaching before actually seeing the Honeyball Sutter, so definitely. In fact, I'd say I came across a variation of this teaching called the Petrasca cycle of change, which was a a cycle to break the cycle of cigarette smoking, and then working in the field of conflict transformation, there was a very slim down of this version of the vicious cycle of addiction.

And so really coming back to your question, what I really inputted into it is that. When we are activated, when we are Triggered. It's, it's a very small part. If you think of it in a machine, whatever that trigger is very small element, but that trigger really creates activation in the body. And in a way, that's why it's really important for us to become aware, I'd say to really become aware. of what's happening in the body, because I think that's the place where we get to have freedom. We're all, we're always going to be activated, but it doesn't have to spiral out into unhelpful, unlimited limited, Behaviors.

In a way, what's really happening is, if you think we have six sense doors, the mind is a sense door as well. And when one of the sense doors has contact with a stimulus, so for example, I could be walking down the street, I pass a bakery, my nose has contact with the smell of the baking, my eye has contact with the shop.

There's going to be a hedonic tone that arises in my body, and I might salivate, or it might be itchy palms, and it might be pleasant or unpleasant. And the thing is, what happens is that so quickly I can make that, Oh, I want a cake. so quickly I've made it, I want a cake and then, I'm feeling excited.

There's this emotion of excitement and then out of that excitement, I act out and get the cake. Yeah. So not saying that there's anything wrong with this process, but for those of us who have addictive behavior, so for somebody, let's, look at, alcohol. You're in a, you're in a restaurant, you're happily eating your food, and you see a waiter or a waitress or whoever carrying a tray, and your eye has contact with the alcohol and you salivate and you want to press it down.

It's Oh my God, I shouldn't be feeling this. And then there's this memory, there's a thought maybe it's a sign. Maybe I need a drink and you might not order a drink there, but before you know it, you going home and you've stopped off at a shop and bought the alcohol and it can become so quickly.

So in a way. It's great to be aware of our triggers so that we can perhaps begin to guard the sense doors. I know for myself, to get recovery, I had to guard the sense door. I had to ban myself from certain places because I knew I would just be completely triggered. And so I really needed to bow myself for a year before I could actually start going back into those places.

So again, it is important for us to know our triggers if we want to let go of our addictive or compulsive behaviours, and then really become aware of what is happening in the body. And what we make it mean, so again, becoming aware of our perceptions, becoming aware of our interpretations.

And our perceptions and our interpretation can be a big trigger. It's Oh, that's a sign. It's a facilitated thought. We could call these facilitated thoughts. It's I haven't used for a month. Maybe it's okay. That can be a trigger.

Michael Reiley: It seems like meditation and things like that. Just allowing us to slow down our nervous system gives us the space. to notice, that, that space between the stimulus and the response.

Viktor Frankl, I think has that quote. Yeah.

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Yeah, definitely. And I just, for people who are listening, I don't want you to think, Oh no, so I've got to meditate to be able to break that cycle or to have some freedom. No, in a way, actually, everything can be meditation. People often think meditating, okay, I've got to sit cross legged and I've got to be silent for God knows how long.

That is a form of meditation, but a form of meditation can just be aware that you're triggered, that you've actually become mindful of, oh, I'm triggered. I'm at risk. Maybe I need to do something. Oh, I'm feeling unpleasant. That, that, that is a meditation practice, is becoming aware that I'm triggered.

And the second part, if we're really practicing, is Oh, I need to take care of myself. I need not to listen to, to, to that thought. And then there are some practices. It's like just taking a breath, just and we do that. It's you don't want to meditate. Then maybe you don't want to breathe, because the breath of just taking a breath, even at transitions.

It's like before, when this conversation comes to an end and before I rush to catch a ferry, can I just take a breath and become aware of transitions? Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Reiley: Yeah. One of my meditation teachers used to say even if you find you're in a habit of not meditating, let's say you have a meditation cushion in the corner of your living room and you've been neglecting it for days or weeks. He said just sit there, even if it's just for two seconds and then get up.

And then someone will say, did you sit today? And you say, yeah, I did. I sat,

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. That's, yeah, great reminder for myself.

Michael Reiley: Yeah, I have a question that's maybe a little bit esoteric, but it's just came up to me now thinking about the kind of tying in Buddhism and intergenerational trauma and addiction. Is there anything in Buddhist teaching that talks about that that, maybe the karma that we inherited in rebirth is responsible or connected to our addictions.

Is there anything in classic Buddhist literature about that?

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: It, it depends who you're talking to, because as we know in some Buddhist traditions, karma is seen really quite linear. Yeah. In the tradition that I come from and what and what I really think for myself is that really there's a rebirth every moment. Okay, when we talk about rebirth, we've just had a rebirth.

Every moment is a rebirth, which is why this moment of now is so important. Because there is no past, there is no future, what we have now. And so what we do in this moment of now impacts the next now. And that, so it's like my partner who, Or is, my partner's a big book thumper, my partner's been in 12 steps for many years, over 30 years.

And my partner will always say, forget about relapse. That actually what happened is the person picked up and in the next moment they can put it down and I like that because that's the, so when you pick up, it's going to impact the next moment. Now, if you can put it down, it's going to impact the next moment.

Now, if you pick up, it's oh my God, are you going to steal? keep on holding on to it. And at some point when you put it down, it impacts the next noun. And then we have to think, there is the whole teaching of the Nirmahs, of the five Nirmahs. So the biology has an impact. The country we're born in has an impact.

The weather has an impact. There's all these other things that have an impact on karma. So it's not oh, I did something wrong because I've got a cold. Oh, you, maybe you went out and it was raining and your hair got wet, et cetera. So again, what I would say the teaching, which really sits with me in a teaching that I have in Buddhist teaching that yes, there is a rebirth in every moment.

So actions have consequences. And I think people tend to think, oh, consequences. That means it's. it's going to be something negative. No, it just means that actions have consequences. It was a teaching. When I first got interested in Buddhism, I didn't like that teaching at all, Michael. I knew it was true, but I didn't like it because it meant that I had to become aware of it.

Of my actions, I think, Thich Nhat Hanh, Thich Nhat Hanh is really great on this, the late Thich Nhat Hanh, I think the one of the things he says is the only thing we own are our thoughts. And if we don't, our thoughts have a karmic consequence. Yeah. So again, coming back to your.

question. I would say one of these teachings which brings intergenerational trauma, brings Buddhism, brings addiction together, is the centrality of going for refuge. So that teaching of the centrality of going for refuge, of placing the free jewels, the Buddha not the human being, but placing what the Buddha attained, freedom, awakening, placing that at the center of the teaching.

of your life, placing the dharma, the teachings that point to the truth. And again, when we think of that, it's not Oh we focus on the teachings. It's that finger pointing to the moon. If I'm pointing to the moon, are you going to look at the finger? Are you going to look at the moon? So the teachings that point to the truth, the teachings that give you freedom.

And then the Sangha, the spiritual community. So it can be us, but it can be those people who've woken up to the truth to freedom. Okay. If we are able to begin to place some of that at the center of our lives, it's going to have a karmic response. However, those of us who have addictive behaviors, what is at the center of our lives?

the addiction and that is going to impact our thoughts. Where are we going to get it? How are we going to pick up? How, that has a karmic consequence. So whatever we place at the center of our lives, at the center of our thoughts, is going to have a karmic consequence and that's the rebirth.

Michael Reiley: And I know self compassion is a big part of your work. Could you maybe talk about that just for a bit?

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: I would say that self compassion or inner compassion is really important. How do we get to that place though? I, there's a a beautiful. teaching and nobody really knows where this teaching has come from. Gabrielle Roth popularized it, but makes it clear it doesn't come from her.

When I've gone online, it's it's an indigenous teaching, it's an African teaching, but it's this teaching that when somebody was physically mentally, spiritually, emotionally sick, they would be taken to the shaman. And all cultures have shamans and healers. Even, I would say, even the Buddha was a shaman to some people.

Yeah. And four questions would be asked. When did you stop singing? It's compassionate. When did you stop singing? And you can take that on a literal level. When did you, so maybe somebody said, shut up, you've got an awful voice. But actually, sometimes it could be that actually something happened where your voice was taken away, or when did you stop dancing that when people perhaps started looking at your body inappropriately, or if you were abused physically, mentally, spiritually, sexually abused.

When did you stop being enchanted by your own story? And we know that many people with addictive and compulsive behaviours do not want to identify with their story, which is why, again, the substance blocks that out. They don't have to think about it. We hear, we take the fentanyl and heroin because we don't have to think about anything.

I can remember when I was on that binge with food before I was going to throw up. Nothing mattered. It was only me and the food. I didn't have to think about anything. Yeah, blocking out. And that last one is when did you when did you stop being able to dwell in a sweet territory of silence? And I add to that actually, which brings us back nicely to the book is when did you stop breathing, which I think is something that the Buddha really again, I won't go off on that tangent, but the Buddha was teaching us to breathe.

So when we come into the self compassion in a way, we've lost that. We've lost. The ability to sing when can we start learn to sing again, when can we learn to dance again, when can we learn to be enchanted by our own stories, when can we learn to dwell in that sweet territory of silence. And to do that, we have to find ways to like ourselves.

Even if it's just even if it's just, you like your colour of your hair is a doorway in, even if it's. You like your smile as a doorway in, one of the practices that I have in the book is the love practice of just that and as a one minute practice or five minute practice or really the L standing for liking or loving an aspect of yourself. O stands for owning your uniqueness. We're all odd, we're all different. When people say, oh, they're different, we're all odd. We're all on the spectrum somewhere. Some are further down the line than others, but we're all on that spectrum. And V is to validate your existence. You don't have to wait for people to validate us.

And place a hand on the body and feel the warmth of your hand validating your existence. And E stands for embracing this present moment, this present precious moment. And if we work with it longer, the E is around about eliminating some of those things that obstruct the flow of inner compassion.

Some of those things that obstruct that flow of inner self love. It's critical. When I. came across these teachings, I hated myself with an avengeance. In fact, my mantra was, I hate myself. I used to say it ten to a dozen. It was like, I can remember leaving a meditation room when I was living in London and living in England then.

And I remember I was waiting for the tube on the platform and my This would clench tight like this and I was saying, I hate myself. I can't even say as fast as I was, but it was going around and around. And again, if we, if we look at one of those practices, the practice of loving kindness, I found that incredibly difficult to do.

That practice of loving kindness, the first stage is yourself. You've got to give loving kindness to yourself. Forget it. I can. Do it for everybody else, but I couldn't do it towards myself and then actually I had to come into relationship with that the way I love myself is the way that I loved others.

I can remember a lover once saying to me, we were in bed and she said, you look at me as if you hate me. It was, she busted me. I, it was because I hated myself. So in a way it's so important. In fact, in, in, in the eight step recovery book, I had the practice of the four basic needs of the heart, where we begin to pay attention to ourselves.

And then we begin to give ourselves affection, and then we give ourselves appreciation, and we give ourselves acceptance. And even if you can just have one of these as a doorway in, it's a beginning of self love. It's critical. In a way, we are affected by childhood conditioning, and if we are assailed by our addictive compulsive behaviors, that compounds.

at the relationship that we have with ourselves, that self hatred, because although in one moment it might feel like it's giving us relief, but in another moment we can have self hatred because we, because of how it's impacted others in our lives. And again, that's why people continue to use, because they don't want to in the big book, face the wreckage of the past.

And that is, in a way, I would say, anybody who's really struggling, rather than trying to let go of the substance in this moment, is really learn, see if you can begin to find something that you like about yourself. And that will be a way in for you, loosening your grip and attachment to your habitual compulsive addictive behavior. So it's critical. And it's freedom. When we learn to love ourselves, it's freedom. And something I do want to say, one of the things, how I worked with it, because some people might wonder how I worked with that self hatred. It was, I can remember thinking, okay, I'll match it. I'll say I love myself. And so that worked, because 50 percent of the time I was saying I love myself, but the other 50 percent of the time I was saying I hate myself.

So that was still like, wait, what's happening here? And then I got to this point of, oh, there's no self to hate. What am I hating? I'm only hating what's going on in my head. So that began to loosen it. And then I really got to the point of realizing, oh, when that voice arises, An occasion it does, if it arises, Oh, I'm just experiencing vulnerability right now. And it was realizing that I hate myself is so familiar, easy to be with that, than to be with the yuckiness of vulnerability. So now it's Oh, I'm just experiencing vulnerability. I don't need to go into story. How can I just take care of myself? Cause I'm just experiencing some vulnerability.

Michael Reiley: hatred is blocking you from experiencing the awkwardness or the pain or the yuckiness of being vulnerable.

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Yeah. Yeah. 

Michael Reiley: Talking about the you attributed to Gabrielle Roth said it's not her, but when did you stop singing? And I immediately thought about yeah, a lot of people don't sing in public or they're shy about singing, but they'll sing in the shower, when you're naked and you're vulnerable and you're being washed with water.

And it's you finally feel like, okay, I can sing a little bit. I'm by myself. I'm in the shower. Yeah.

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Yeah. It's great. I sing in the rain now. I sing. I'm singing in the rain. I do. People must be thinking, who's that crazy person? I have the umbrella and I'll skip along and I'm with the, yeah, why not?

Michael Reiley: Yeah, of course. Yeah. It's a lovely thing to do. Aside from the book, do you have any other upcoming projects or ways that people can connect with you

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Yes, I, the next imminent thing that I am doing is I will be lead, co leading a retreat in about an hour outside of Vancouver, Canada. And the theme is Who Am I? So it's a non dual retreat, really uncluttering those identities. So co leading a retreat, who am I?

And that's, and then I will be in New York in October for the Buddhist Recovery Network Gathering, which is bringing all different variants of Buddhist recovery together. So that's a conference that is. happening. And then actually I'm going to be in the UK because I I have some of my work part of my work is in, is part of an installation at the Tate Modern.

So I'm going to be on a panel for that at the Tate Modern on the 19th of October. And some of my work is going to be in Somerset House. And then I come back. I'm doing some work around triggers in Mexico. So I'll be out in Mexico in November. And as I'm saying, this is Vimla Sara, Valerie, do you have all this on your website?

No. But people can contact me through my website if they want to know. So I'm doing that. And then I'll be doing a teacher's residency. over the Christmas period and January up at Dharmadena near Palm Springs. Oh, actually one of the things I will say is that terms of working explicitly for addiction, I had my mindfulness based addiction recovery course, which is a 28 day course over December to support people during that time.

And it's a great course. And you don't, I call it a course for actually, you just, if you've enjoyed listening to me, then this is a course for you. You get a 15 minute video every day. Coaching you along and I, if you want to, you can come to the two webinars that I often offer during that time.

So those are the many things that I'm doing. And yeah. And mainly, please. Get the book and get the bookstore to, to buy it. It's so wonderful. It's the first book I feel that I've had that people see the front cover and they pick it up and they open it and they read what's on page. It's it's amazing.

I need a bigger publisher. Is it a publisher to buy out and so to get it out there in the world? I'm with a small publisher Windhorse, which is great. They produce beautiful books, but small budgets, very hard to get it out into the world. So need a way to get the book out into the world.

Michael Reiley: Yeah. The first aid kit, you should get it like in a little first aid kit box and it should be in every drugstore. There's like the band aids and you just pick that up and you're like, what is this? And you open it up and you're like, Oh, this is what I was looking for.

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Exactly, yeah.

Michael Reiley: Nice. So to close, I, we didn't, I didn't ask you about this earlier, but would you be interested in just leading like a brief practice?

It can be one minute or three minute practice, a meditation maybe from the book or something on the spot.

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Yeah, let's do a RUST practice as we've spoken a lot about triggers. It's I love working with acronyms and I call them mnemonics. I love the mnemonics because a mnemonic is a way to remember the practice. So each letter stands for something. So R is recognize, U is understand. S is sensations and T is tell the story to relax or trust this shall pass.

So we'll do a, we'll do a short practice. So yeah, if you could just let go of what you've been listening to really, and really allow yourself to arrive fully onto your seat or you may be standing or lying down and just,

just arrive with me, and just connect into the breath. Don't change it.

Now, if you've been listening to this conversation with Michael and I, there would have been something that would have activated you, even if it brought excitement. Excitement is activation. Activation doesn't have to be something negative, so I just really want you to bring to mind something that activated you in this conversation.

So R stands for relax, recognize, so just recognize what's activating you right now as you bring this to mind.

See if you can catch what is whirling around in your mind. What's that narrative?

And as you're in touch with that activation, recognize that whatever is activating you, it's often full of perceptions and judgments. Not always, and often.

You stands for understand that you're caught in a story. And often, this activation, when we go into stories, a very old story. A story full of judgements, resentments, and it's a story that often changes every time you replay it in your mind. We have our hot favourites, and it's different every time we go through that story.

You might ask yourself, what is the story?

Why am I holding on to the story?

Who would I be without the story?

Is this story true?

S stands for sensation. So we can sit with sensations, or we can stand with sensations, or we can stretch with sensations. So just as I say this, allow yourself to sway the body with sensation. If that works for you, allow yourself to stretch. the body with sensations or just sit with sensations. You might even want to sing with sensations and see if you can feel any tension or restriction in the body.

See if you can identify where the sensations are located in the body and place a hand on this part of the body and just give this part of the body some kindness. Just breathe into it and give it some kindness.

And just know that often all the body is doing is remembering past traumas, past hurts, past wounds. It's an implicit memory that's just arisen.

And T stands for trust this too shall pass. However, sometimes we know that whatever is activating us doesn't pass as quick as we like it to pass. The T can stand for tell the story to relax. Tell the story to step aside so you can have some freedom.

Whenever you're activated, you don't have to go through this whole mnemonic or acronym. You could just call on one, Oh, I'm activated. You just recognize simply, I'm activated. And that may give you an opportunity to do something different. Or you might just think, oh, sensations, oh, let me feel into the body, let me just place a hand on the body and give it some warmth.

Or you might just think, oh, you, understanding this is a story, it's an old story, why am I holding on to this story? Who would I be without this story? Or you might just call on the tea and just trust that whatever is happening will pass, or you may need to be a bit more stronger with it. And just tell the story to relax, ask it to step aside, so you can have a moment of freedom.

And remember, often these stories don't even belong to us, it was a story that was told to us. A story that was shaped by incidences that happened in our lives, that perhaps our childhood conditioning. It's often, it's not our voice in our head. So just breathe. Please place a hand on your body and give yourself some warmth and kindness.

Yeah. Unradiating warmth and kindness to each and every one of you right now.

Michael Reiley: Beautiful. Thank you for that meditation and thank you for your time and all your generous offerings over the years and in this conversation. Thank you.

Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John: Yeah. Thank you for the conversation. It was very enjoyable. Thank you for your questions and prep for the interview. Thank you, Michael. Yeah. It's helped to set up my day. Yeah.