This is the Rose and Shine podcast featuring the Swedish sisters Josephine Bruce and Victoria Rose Salson They say so come in New York with your experiences from our international lives and careers Good morning. This is Victoria. Hi. Good morning.
This is Josephine and Luca and the bouncy share back at our country house Lindallen that's wonderful and I'm actually in the courthouse of our family Resident or not resident but our family restaurant and from the 1718. That's the year. It's from yeah That's my podcast studio of the day. We have so many nice actually family memories from this place courthouse.
I know Beautiful and just even this weekend. Yeah, we created another one where it was Luca's name giving Germany Yes, now we've had the name giving service for both of the boys Standing under the oak tree that was planted for for mom 20 years ago. Yeah when she turned 50. It's crazy That's already 20 years ago.
Yeah, and you got married there. Yeah indeed. I'm not married in there But had your party. Yeah, you're amazing new year's Eve wedding party took place there Yeah, 16 years ago.
My goodness, but today I'm here because we have the board meeting in a few hours Exactly. So it's a place for lots of different happenings, but anyway, so apart from all of that we are in the mid-swelch We're just starting when we're recording this our second week of our 10 week challenge Yeah, the 10 week wellness challenge we've been there posting a challenge each day on Instagram and Yeah, there's plenty of people that are partaking and it's a lot of fun Yeah, I've identified that we might have up to 20 different nationalities Being part of it, which is pretty cool. That's great Yeah, so it's super nice and if you haven't joined yet You're more than welcome just to jump in and do it an eight-week challenge And you can of course always start anytime and if it happens to be that you listen to this in it's October You know this 10 weeks challenge will be on and you can find it on our webpage for all the details And you can go in on rosin shine on our Instagram account And that's where we post the daily posts and in very short right the basics is that we're doing about three Three days a week of yoga type challenges and three days a week of more pulse and yeah Getting your pulse up type challenges. Yeah, so today we will both be doing intervals hill intervals, right?
Yeah, so I'm hoping that we're gonna record this podcast not too long so that I can have a power walk and like a Hill interval power walk And I'm gonna be running those hills so I'm quite excited about that I actually I'm one of those weird people who actually do really love uphill running. I think some of my friends hate me for that But it's true well, it's really good for your bum Yeah, yeah for many reasons and then one day a week we focus more on mindfulness Being here and being now and reflecting on your week and so on which is also going to be the theme of this podcast Yeah, that's why we thought let's just explore this together for an entire episode And some of you might be all new to this and we know that some of you are and that there's already into this So we really want to go through in a sense the basic and talk about why should we do it? And what is it really where when house kind of like a practical get started guide and I guess if you're already into meditation Maybe you'll pick up a few things that you can think of to enhance your practice Yeah, so what about us? I mean just mean how are you have we been talking and we've been touching on this topic for a few times already But how did you get started and what are you actually doing?
And I think we constantly say you know we need to get better at this and I mean that's part of this challenge as well as Things I mean we really designed a program for us. Yeah, we love yeah Hoping that other people will love it and you and me. Yeah, so of course we've included a mindfulness and meditation We kind of interchange those words using them interchangeably at the moment, right? Yeah, but yeah for me Meditation and mindfulness I was very much inspired by a book that I've surely talked about before which is the Eckertolly power of now Mmm, which I read a number of years ago very fittingly when I was walking and hiking in New Zealand's mountains So like a perfect perfect time to get a little bit deep and and so on Yeah, but that book is incredibly inspiring and it really one of the kind of the key messages is there is really to be listening to realize That you are not the thinker so the the thinker in your head You can actually take a step out of that and you can listen to that thinker And you can decide to not take that thinker so incredibly seriously and you can even you can even smile I think Eckertolly says so at some point in the book, you know think of the the thinker as a you know as a kid and you can smile at it They say, you know how wonderful or how cute or how naive that the thinker is having these thoughts right now Yeah, and then I love that philosophy even that you know the fact that you are not your thoughts You know, exactly what you're saying you can look at them a little bit from from from the sideline and say they're you stops Yeah, they're not facts.
Yeah, they're thoughts. Yeah, no and it's so and that of course is incredibly Empowering to remember to think that way. Yeah, it can really remove you from your from your problems a little bit Yeah, and really creates a lot of happiness in your life. Yeah, what about you?
So for me this I mean I just when we went on our yoga instructor training in Portugal That's when I really regularly started because obviously we were doing it every day and that was really good practice And for me to spin really focused on doing the breathing technique and we'll come back to that later And just recently I've started to explore a little bit to do more Mantras or to think about something because I've just been so focused on thinking of nothing But it's also quite rewarding to maybe have a feeling that you want to explore and just stay with that feeling and I think that's lovely too So I guess I'm used into exploring Meditation and that's maybe we'll come back to this but I will say now because I'm thinking of it now Either you can I mean there are many different ways to meditate in obviously you can focus on just listening to your breath or having this blank Sheets or clouds passing by there many many different ways But I've also heard a lot of people that have really struggled with that like you said and then therefore I read it in Tony Robbins book For example, he decided okay, I've done, you know 10 years of meditation is not leading me anywhere for him Yeah, so he's just that I just feel like I'm sitting there trying not to think so he started to have a meditation Which was much more I thinking through a number of questions So what am I grateful for you know? What am I aiming for today? So he more had a little session which he formed in a way that suits at him Yeah, which was less about creating this blank space and more an affirmation type them I think the combination is good. I like I'm learning to like both of them But so talking about structure I do think it's important to start out with the why yeah because it seems to be like a fashionable thing right now A lot of people are talking about it Is it just a trend or the fact is that there is some really physical and psychological Reasons that's been proven by research and science that really talks for the benefits of doing meditation Yeah, so we I've put up a list of things that we've looked at and that's come from research And one thing that I think is quite interesting is that meditation literally grows your brain So it doesn't just make you smarter, but it increases your memory attention Self-awareness self-control, you know alongside a whole list of other desirable qualities So it's kind of good to know that it does really do something with your brain Yeah, and I think when you say the self-control I mean what I really realized when I do meditate regularly is the idea of the Attention span.
Yeah, and how you can really increase that through meditation. That's true and another thing is that it actually It boosts the immune system because you reduce stress and you because it enables your brain to rest which I think it's super interesting and Muscle relaxation it's quite interesting because even if it's working with your brain It helps your entire body to relax. Yeah, and then the final physical well not final There are many other benefits, but that I thought is really interesting is that it slows the aging process Yeah, no and I've recently heard that now in more and more and any kind of anxiety Deceases and so on the first step is to focus on breathing Yeah, we are seeing as part of meditation right so that's one technique of meditation and we talked about the breath before But really how the breath is this one physical thing that we can control that send signals to the body Which is maybe opposite to what we're feeling so we can basically tell our body No, we are calm even though we're not yeah just by breathing calmly Yeah, exactly now And so so then it goes into the psychological aspects because what it does is it increases positive emotions And the main reason for that is because simply the reduction of stress and once we do reduce the stress as you said We actually return to our natural state of feeling calm and connected and confident and that kind of helps us in that way I just saw sorry. I just saw my husband walking outside in the bathrobe walking in his just like I'm just gonna go down and meditate in the spa pool So some people are talking about it and some people are living it.
Yeah, that's wonderful But he's been in a he's worked a lot, you know recently. It's all good for him to do that You shouldn't see meditation as a reward I think you should just really see it as something that builds strength And that's another reason why because it actually meditation increases your capacity to learn which I I think it's so cool Yeah, and that's why one of the things that I'm trying to do I even feeling it. I'm not doing it so well But now I will Is to to take you know a minute or two or three Just to set that timer and do a little bit of breathing before you start a new exercise or before you start working out And you know before you change a space in your day Yeah, because that really gives you that space to to get the benefits that we're just talking about Yeah, and actually I am talking about that in one of the chapters that I wrote on the famous book that is coming out on first of October Oh, it's not right. Yeah But really used the fact that before you go into that important meeting or you have that important conversation and or change some aspect of your day to Get to the side a little bit and do a little bit of breathing And one now when I was in the US this last time But you sort of just got my colleagues together and I made them stand up and do a little bit of a breathing exercise and everyone just after that kind of Okay.
Yeah, let's get back into focus. Yeah, that's really it's really useful that and I think that is it relates to another Part of our list here which that it increases a sense of connection to yourself and to others Yeah, so it's a way of creating a little bit of this magical moment with yourself and with with others And I think that's such a good point because it seems to be so introverted this meditation practice But it actually helps you to feel more compassionate towards others Yeah, and again going back to my favorite author and the power of now and that reflects to a lot of other books that are written on this topic and this is really how How you are as a being connected to everything else and connected to universe basically? Yeah, and that's where meditation really helps us to maybe get a glimpse of that Yeah To get that feeling I don't think you get that every day But sometimes you can get that and whether that is when you're sitting down or when you're looking at up in the stars sky Or whether that is when you're hearing some incredible music, but when you get that special feeling of connected That's a great sort of transition into the next point because I think that's kind of important to establish for us What is meditation? What is meditation to you?
What is mindfulness? How would you describe that? Well, for me the way that I try to do it is a bearing in mind or keeping with me the Acar Choli and then the thinker and not being the thinker but watching the thinker It's about taking that space and really trying to sit down and Seeing the clouds passing by and not not attaching to them So it is about creating that specific space even though I of course think that it's something that you can do At other times as well. It's not something that you only do same morning or evening but something that you can bring with you What about you?
Yeah, I agree with you and that's what I've tried to incorporate into my life to find a space and a moment where just really closing everything off And and find those five to ten minutes I actually don't do it much longer and I'm working towards 10 and I hope to increase it to 15 and I've heard that 20 is great But I do believe that just a few Minutes actually help us to find that calm and that space because that's what it is Yeah, and then at the same time I mean now I haven't done it so much lately because of my niece but to go out and run for an hour or even two Then you also really get into that rhythm and I don't like to listen to anything when I run I just want to be out in the nature and hear nature or hear the silence, you know, that's such a true runner I love listening to things when I run. I guess it's the opposite to mindfulness. It's kind of like filling your mind with Distraction with noise. Yeah, see I think once you get into the pulse of running, it's just very meditative Yeah, so that's it for me And I also think maybe it doesn't fit into meditation But certainly into mindfulness is to just really take time for a reflection to stop and think and I mean we both do that And I love what I've been doing in the past couple of years It's to also write my journal in the mornings Yeah And to start each day off by really thinking about setting my intentions for the day and that's helped me a lot Now that really that really makes my mood.
It's a great booster of the mood Yeah, and so I think we both do that and I do it a little bit less now when I'm a maternity leave But certainly when I have more of a and normal life and you know a work life I try to write in the morning what I'm hoping for the day and then in the evening what you're grateful for so yes This is less of meditation, but certainly this is mindfulness I can't wait so we have this idea just for the listeners that we're gonna do our own journal roosin shine journal So that's just gonna be the perfect question As morning and evening. Yeah, but yeah, that makes a big difference And I also think that mindfulness for me is to be present and be aware of the moment like when you go for a walk to just really be Conscious or doing anything like eating or having a bath or whatever it is Do you stay there and enjoy that moment a little bit? Have you ever done a walking meditation? No, but I have read about that Have you I've done it at a couple of yoga retreats and I also have it on them on my app And it's really just about you know being aware being aware how you put your feet down how your body is moving And it's really quite interesting when you're like breaking down the movements and feeling that could be one of our challenges Yeah, let's do that one of the Sunday.
Yeah, that would be interesting and I read about walking meditation I thought that was going for like an hour walk But actually the way it was described in this book that I read about you used to walk like three meters And then you turn so you walk back and forth. Yeah, when I did it in the yoga retreat It was really we just walked around slowly it looked really funny from the outside if people would have like filmed us We were walking around like zombies. Not that I was thinking about that. I was clearly concentrating on my On my own walking meditation not watching the others But yeah, no, I mean you don't really have to it's not so much about the walking It's more about being aware where how you're putting on your feet and your toes touching the grass and yeah Yeah, because I mean the ideal meditation poster or the classical or traditional one is the lotus, right?
I mean they say that's even how yoga was invented the physical yoga So you would train so that you could sit in the lotus for such a long time Because that can be quite You know difficult for the body if you're not used to that. Yeah, especially now in our in our world Yeah, but actually another form of meditation for me and anyone with young kids It's watching my three-year-old and how mindful like mindfulness of you know looking at the world, you know The fact it's a butterfly Yeah, butterfly and just runs after it. They're not thinking of anything else It's an insect and it's just being in this awe of everything around you while as a grown up You can just sit out there in that space and not see anything because you're thinking about an email that you're gonna write Yeah, exactly. So I guess we can conclude that you know what it is the traditional Sit down for 20 minutes and be blank in your mind And in a sense see it as letting your brain just rest and find a calm state, which is beautiful But it can also be so much more but what I would say is don't say oh, I'm kind of doing it anyway If you haven't tried meditation yet I would anyway throw that challenge out and see if you can find a little bit of that Blank rest for your brain letting it rest from all these thoughts Whizzling through your head.
Yeah, so that's you know what it is. But where should you do it? What's the ideal space? Do you have a space where you go the top of the mountain?
Yeah, that's where she should do it I love the idea of having a little shrine in your house And it doesn't have to be a shrine but a little space where you have some nice candles and where you do it Yeah, and at the moment I'm doing it's beautiful the space you have My non-existing shrines are just teasing you because we don't really have because I also have this mental image of this beautiful Mini meditation space in my house, but it's only for me and I think that's on my to-do list But I I don't really have it yet, you know, my husband will one at one time get like his man came and maybe I will just have my shrine Space or something. Yeah in a house to be in combination with a yoga studio. Yes I have accomplished that actually I haven't accomplished at all that shrine because it always says, you know, make a little space Does you have where you have candles and so on? I have a lot of nice spaces But nothing where it's not like kids toys and and husbands headphones and stuff like that could be a goal and ambition for us But outside is of course lovely here.
I try to be outside and sit in the nature or I sit somewhere I've really been lucky where I've been living the last eight years I've had incredible views Yeah, so I always try to kind of sit in front of the the views on a terrace and look out And but of course you can do it everywhere But I often have my yoga math and I often do it in in relation to my yoga I did read a book in this author She was saying, you know, she was also looking for this perfect space to do it Yeah, but found that she never really had that perfect space and it was always people around so she just decided to do it in bed As soon as she woke up in the morning. Yeah, and then she had it done But that's not that doesn't really work for me I found but I I mean our conservatory is beautiful and you've seen it space. Yeah, that's beautiful That's very nice. So that works really well for me And you know sometimes at winter also, you know in our downstairs living with the fireplace It's also really nice.
So I just like you I have beautiful spots to do it at home But I would like to have this yeah very special sort of sacred place But that's pretty future ambition and I'm sure we will go all in it will be very nice Yeah, so that that's you know But you know do find a place that talks to you and that it feels like a lovely place to sit down I mean that's at least what I would have is an ambition But I do some people I hear that they do it on the bus so I guess it's quite individual And when should you do it? I've been trying to do it a lot when I commute I find that it doesn't work so well for me because it's now with kids that seem harder because you need to be a bit absurd It's kind of matter you know There's still with you when you get on But now I find that evenings is where I have more possibilities to do it Yeah I always like most the idea of doing it in the morning Yeah, because then also you have more benefit of it throughout the day Yeah, I think yeah But now in my time of life It's the evening that is the time when because I've gone to bed that I have some some space to do it Yeah, I should get better doing it in the evenings because I agree with you for me Ideally I love to do it in the mornings ideally before anyone else wakes up and that is beautiful And then the days when I do work from home, I do it once in a while midday Which is really nice It's kind of like making half day break and then before you go on to the second half But you're right evenings are also really really good because it kind of calms your mind before going to bed and Yeah, it's a good idea And then I think Sunday evenings and that's part of our now 10 week challenge Yeah Is to really take that time to both meditate But then also use the space that you create from the meditation to do a bit of reflection and go setting for the week So that's when I try to do it a little bit extra and really make sure that it happens If it hasn't happened during the rest of the week So for the past week we had we encouraged people to do or all of you Listen, it's a three minutes of meditation And then just having that created that space Reflect on a few questions on how the past week went for you and what you're looking forward to the next week and what your goals and priorities are For the week coming up Yeah, which obviously, you know, if you are used to meditation Increase with three more minutes than you would normally do So then we come to the house just sort of like if you're really quite new to meditation What should you do? How do you do it? How does it work?
If you are completely new to meditation and you think that this is something that's hard and difficult I would download an app That's how I've been using it. And I have a number of different apps to recommend I mean, I've been using calm for many years Yeah, and so they have about 10 minute guided meditations and it will be around the theme So it will help you to focus on something and think about that But then also give you some space to just breathe and try to have a blank space Another one that my husband has listened to and absolutely loves It's called waking up with Sam Harris and it's a program So I'm hoping to do that this summer so you can follow like a 10 15 20 60 day program Where he guides you through a number of different steps That's interesting Yeah, and he really really loves it and it really helps you to To focus about things such as gratefulness for example And then there's also headspace. I know many people are using an app called headspace So that's a very easy way of starting it where someone else is guiding you through But obviously you don't need to pay for an app. You could also just sit down and breathe Yeah, and that's that's what I do pretty much So I sit down I put my timer on five seven or ten minutes depending on where I am And I have a few tricks like either I focus on the breathing and in the beginning when I was getting into it I was just sort of counting my in-breath and counting my out breath You know, you're just counting you say one two or like yeah, I count to five And I hold it and I breathe out and I count to five and I sort of just let the breath You know flow And then there's also that you can do the four times four So you breathe in on four and you hold your breath for four and then you breathe out for four And hold your breath for four and then you know So mentally if you do that you can kind of follow a square So you go up when you're breathing in you hold it and then you breathe out you go down You see you make that mental square So that's one way and in another way that I find that is slightly more creative is that I envision this beautiful sky, you know full of stars So for each breath I go from one star to the other So I breathe in and I go to one star and then you know like the roost and shine star sky You know, and then I I connect every doubt I go to the next star I breathe in So you just kind of continue to travel through this beautiful star sky.
Yeah star sky. Wow. That's very deep and nice Yeah, that's that's one I came up with myself And the third one that I really sort of enjoyed Is that I kind of actually I tried it out just a few weeks ago for the first time And I kind of envisioned that there was this glowing lovely warm fussy feeling within me And I was just letting this feeling kind of spread throughout my body Sounds really weird now But it was just like this I felt an urge to feel a bit more positive and strong So I kind of looked at that in my center and yeah, it sounds maybe all wacky But it was quite beautiful. It sounds great.
Yeah, so that's another way. Yeah, cool I feel like I need to add two more tips to that So one of them is more like your first one Which is the I just think breathing in and then breathing out Yeah, just think those thoughts just a way of concentrating Yeah, I just say it's breathing in breathing out And the other one is and it reminds me of the of the star sky that you mentioned And that's specifically if I feel like I'm overwhelmed Mm-hmm And that is that you start looking at yourself from the outside Yeah, so you just see yourself sitting there Oh, yeah And then you just zoom out and out and out and out So you start to see, you know, your house and then basically the planet and then you're up in space Yeah, and you are just this little dot down there And your problems are then quite insignificant Yeah, exactly In the perspective of things So I think there are lots of those things that you can do And apps are great to get you started but you don't necessarily need them Because you can find little triggers inside you And before you know it, you know, 10 minutes so you just whoops gone and it goes very quickly Yeah Okay, so we're gonna put some of those challenges out there For the Sunday meditation or mindfulness practice Yeah And wish you luck with that and let us know how that's going for you Yeah, so do that And then maybe put together you have this great idea And I'm actually really excited now when I see it To create your own little, well meditation, you know, challenge during the summer So you follow us, of course, but then to really try to do this and incorporate this more Yeah, and remember that don't do this just because it's trendy and everyone is talking about it But actually it's gonna help you get smarter, more focused It's gonna give you less stress and it's gonna boost your immune system There's so many brilliant positive advantages that you know, why not benefit from them? Yes So thank you so much for listening all of you Thank you all of you that have been sending these messages that you're doing the challenge Please keep on sending them to us and we'd love to Yeah, we love hearing from you We love hearing them If you're okay, well they will post some of it to our stories on Instagram Just so that we all, so you all get a sense that you're not alone doing this challenge It's actually heaps of you that are doing the challenge And also please when you are, if you're posting a picture of you working out on Instagram You can also use the Bruce and Shine Wellness challenge Which is the hashtag that we're using Brilliant So please do that because it's really fun for all of us to see Excellent So thank you everyone for listening and have a great Couple of weeks until next time Okay, ciao, bye Bye