Ep : 210 - The 7 Foundational Attitudes of Mindfulness in the Workplace with Shaida Zin
Show Notes
Wondering how to manage stress more effectively?
Curious about how mindfulness can transform your life and career?
Meet Shaada Zin, Mindfulness trainer and Corporate emotional intelligence expert.
Shaida shares her journey from a challenging childhood and a tough divorce to becoming a beacon of emotional intelligence in the corporate world.
She discusses the seven foundational attitudes of mindfulness and how they can be applied to reduce workplace stress, improve well-being, and empower individuals.
Learn practising Mindfulness can lead to a more fulfilling and productive life both in and out of the office.
Connect with Shaida :
💼 LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/shadaitulintan
Highlights from this episode:
00:00 Introduction
03:47 The Science Behind Mindfulness
06:14 Mindfulness in Religious Contexts
08:09 Exploring the Seven Foundational Attitudes of Mindfulness
12:58 Beginner's Mind and Curiosity
16:52 Letting Go and Acceptance
26:37 Dealing with Emotions: Self-Deprecation and Anger
28:14 Non-Judgment: Stop Judging Yourself
31:27 Non-Striving: Balancing Intention and Attachment
37:37 Personal Journey: From Struggle to Resilience
49:33 Challenges in Corporate Mindfulness
55:47 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
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Resources:
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About Me:
I help you lead with fearless authenticity by smashing the self-imposed heteronormative stereotypes that keep you playing small through emotional healing inner child and inherited intergenerational trauma. Create a purposeful life of your unique design by disrupting societal norms and expectations of who you should be. Explore mindfulness, fearless curiosity and loving kindness through the lens of Human Design to thrive as the person you are born to be.
Learn more about my coaching method and join my emotional healing, mindfulness, and music community at melissaindot.com.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00]
[00:00:01] Melissa Indot: Welcome to another episode of the Fearlessly Curious podcast with me, your host, Melissa Indot. And today we have, especially for you, Shaida, who we met on LinkedIn and literally the first time that we've connected even beyond messaging in the DMs is just before recording this podcast. And this is how I love to flow in life.
[00:00:22] And I love it when I meet people who like to live on the edge. The same way that I do. So Shaida, thank you for joining us today. For those of you watching and listening. It's so great to have you here with us. I'm two days in fresh from fresh back in Malaysia from the UK, and I'm going to invite you to share with us, all of us, what makes you rock and roll?
[00:00:43] Shaida Zin: I wish I could say the same about coming back from Europe and all that. It's just like you, Melissa. Hi I've been in for the past 16 years, how I rock and roll is I spend three to four days a week and meeting people from the corporate people who were sent for corporate training to develop, learning to develop themselves and learning to manage stress.
[00:01:07] I get a lot of that companies. Call me to help their people to manage stress at workplace develop leadership through emotional intelligence kind of thing. And this has kept me going for the past 16 years because I really enjoy connecting with people. I think it's the best part. It is have happened to be by far.
[00:01:29] Melissa Indot: Connecting with people, helping them through, helping them, giving them the tools to navigate stress. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:01:37] Shaida Zin: Yeah, absolutely. And I and during that, it sounds like me teaching them, but I actually get to learn a lot from them because there'll be a lot of space for them to share what they're facing at the workplace, how they feel about work.
[00:01:51] So I, I get to learn a lot as well. And I feel I could feel them. I could feel the burnout every time they talk about burnout. Every time if people come to me talking about how much they stuck, I don't know why I'm doing this job, I have bills to pay and I really feel for them, as much as possible.
[00:02:10] I I give them the tool. And usually in a two days, I give them a couple of tools and I said, if you only use one and you use it until you master it, I can almost guarantee you will feel the difference because everything that I teach in class and I share in class are things that I apply for myself, including a seven
[00:02:31] attitudinal
[00:02:31] foundation of mindfulness.
[00:02:33] Melissa Indot: Okay. Hey, so amazing. You're basically sharing the knowledge and the wisdom of your experience, what you've gained. So it's tried and tested these tools, right? It's not, and these seven foundational attitudes of mindfulness, is it, is this something that you've compiled? today compiled yourself through your experiences.
[00:02:52] Shaida Zin: This is something that I learned when I, my first experience with mindfulness was back in 2003. I had an opportunity to go for a holiday in India. And then I signed up for a yoga. That was my first body scan meditation and I fell in love with it. Totally no idea, but it was one of the amazing experience.
[00:03:14] I feel so relaxed. I feel so connected. I was lying down on the floor and I had that my clothes, I process and body scan and everything that then I didn't revisit it. I tried and learn a meditation here and there. It was until 19, 20, sorry, 2018 to 2019 that I decided to take it seriously. And I took up a certification.
[00:03:38] To understand what's behind the practice, what's behind the breathing exercise, what's behind the everything that you see on YouTube and all that. And that's where I discover the seven attitudinal foundation, which is actually compiled by Dr. John Kabat Zinn. So I actually went through one of his training, it's called mindfulness based stress reduction, eight weeks program, 45 minutes a day of meditation practice.
[00:04:07] And he has used this, he has implemented this in hospitals under Massachusetts University, and he implemented this for patients with chronic illness and, scientists, they measure everything. They see improvement in reduction of dependency on drugs, reduction in pain. We hear stories that people on wheelchair after practicing mindfulness and meditation, they started walking and it's, it has.
[00:04:35] Amazing, amazing healing benefits and it's all science. It's all science. So from there on, I decided I gotta bring this out and break the belief about this being a woo thing. There's a lot of science behind it. In fact, now neuroscientists are talking about it. And And so I am, I truly believe in this when it comes to mindfulness practice, it goes beyond the close eye process and all that.
[00:05:04] Melissa Indot: I love that. I love how deep and committed you've been to learning about this and sharing this wisdom. I'm just going to ask you, if you could repeat again, which course it was, because you mentioned Jon Zabat, because the internet connection, my fault. dropped a little bit and I lost you there. Okay.
[00:05:21] This is the course that I did with Dr. John and then. Oh, okay. So it was
[00:05:26] Shaida Zin: Dr. John Kabat Zinn. Could you remind? Yeah. The name is Dr. John Kabat Zinn. And he brought the mindfulness practice back in 1979. The University of Massachusetts.
[00:05:39] Melissa Indot: Yeah.
[00:05:40] Shaida Zin: So John Kain. So happened that he has the same surname as I do.
[00:05:44] Do I actually have one
[00:05:44] Melissa Indot: of his books. I
[00:05:45] Shaida Zin: can't Oh. So happened that we have the same surname. Oh, so
[00:05:49] Speaker 4: he
[00:05:49] Shaida Zin: does ?
[00:05:50] Speaker 4: Yeah. It's not my brother. I wish he is, but yeah, nothing is,
[00:05:55] Melissa Indot: nothing is a coincidence.
[00:05:58] Shaida Zin: So it was his work. So you
[00:06:00] Melissa Indot: you
[00:06:00] mentioned science based knowledge that we have now behind mindfulness, the benefits of mindfulness, not just for mental health and emotional
[00:06:08] well being, but also for physical healing. As Southeast Asian women. With the multi culture, the diversity of culture that we come from also depending on what religion you were brought up in, a lot of people feel like when I hear, then they hear the word yoga or they hear the word meditation, or they hear the word healing, it makes them feel very scared. It makes them feel almost threatened because they feel yoga meditation and healing is in conflict with what their religious beliefs may be, whether they're Christian, whether they're Muslim whether they're, they come from a Judaic background.
[00:06:51] I don't hear it so much from Buddhists or Hindus, and I believe it's because they practice meditation as a healing practice and yoga within their culture and psych and philosophy, but your traditional religions, let's just take Christianity and Islam as the two main ones from your point of view and from your experience, Do you feel it is a conflict to what people, to your religious beliefs, if you have them?
[00:07:21] Shaida Zin: I, when I've been brought up in a Muslim family but I learned a lot about religion in school. So there's a lot of doing, there's a lot of doing, do this and do that, but there was not much of explanation. I've always yearning for that.
[00:07:39] Okay. So to answer your question, whether it contradicts or not, I'm just going to run through the seven attitudinal foundation and I will relate it, how it is being referred to in Islam. Wow.
[00:07:54] Melissa Indot: Beautiful. Oh my gosh. So by the way viewers and listeners, we did not, this is not how we prepare things.
[00:08:01] This is why I love being in flow and finding women just like Shaida for us to dance in this. Let's go.
[00:08:07] Shaida Zin: Okay. Over to you. Okay. So the first one is trust. So Dr. Don Kabat Zinn talks about the element of trust in self, trust in its surrounding, trust in an environment. So in, in whatever religion that we be brought up trust and religion is called faith.
[00:08:24] So people are taught to pray and to whatever that would be brought up with, yeah, whatever our religious belief is, to pray over something and we're supposed to trust. Unfortunately, I see a lot of people who practice, but So much I just mind boggling to me where, when I see people say, yeah, I trust, I believe I do this, everything, but their behavior doesn't demonstrate that they're in trust.
[00:08:55] So in mindfulness trust, the process, trust ourselves, trust that things would unfold, trust that things will get better. Trust. So in, in religious practice is faith. And sometimes I use the word interchangeably. And I said, if you have a strong religious practice, this is about faith. So if you've been doing all the religious practice that you have, but you don't have faith, then tell me why you're doing what you're doing.
[00:09:25] Yeah. So that's one trust. Yeah. The second one is patience. What's every religion talks about. The value in patience taking time and being okay with taking time to see results, being okay with being challenged. And have that patience and say, okay, this is a challenge and I'm going to go through it and have patience that if you don't get the result immediately, we live in a society with a lot of shortcuts.
[00:09:56] So the desire to get everything done quickly, I want my shortcuts is also a reflection of a lack of patience. So for me personally, patience has kept me. Keep me going. I've been through, or I have my own personal life challenges. I've been a single mother for 20 years. I raised two kids and financially I've lost money, made back, lost again, I've gone through whatever, all the heartache that people talk about.
[00:10:23] I, I've gone through it, but if it's not for patients, I would have been ranting all over the social media about it. Yeah. And Shaida,
[00:10:32] Melissa Indot: can I just chime in here? I love what you said about patience, right? Because, and about our modern living, all about doing things quickly, where's the shortcut, right? An instant gratification.
[00:10:45] And that's also comes from a level of collective trauma, because when we're rushing, when there's a bit of a desperation to get things done, because we're grasping at life, erasing through life and grasping is because it's a bit of a fear response, like we're in survival mode. How much can I get done as quickly as possible in terms of the workplace?
[00:11:06] If I'm not effective and productive and efficient with time. I'm at risk of losing my position. I'm at risk of losing my job. And then I'm thinking about how am I going to pay the bill? So we may not be consciously thinking of these things, but the programming is within our system as a trauma response in the body.
[00:11:23] And so patients become something that is. Become so alien to so many of us. And I think that leaning back into your number one foundation was, which is faith, having faith that we have the capacity to move through these things better. In fact, when we slow down, when we are patient, because then we're not leading from the mind, we're actually Collaborating with life, we allow that collaboration to help to support us to drive us through.
[00:11:56] And those challenges as well, like you mentioned can be okay with the, with being challenged because what's the, how does the statement go? Nothing grows in your comfort zone. Yeah. When we're comfortable, then we feel safe when we're comfortable, but the safety that we search for, we look for outside of ourselves and really what we need to do is create that safety within ourselves.
[00:12:17] That's back to your faith that you mentioned.
[00:12:19] Shaida Zin: Yeah.
[00:12:20] Melissa Indot: Yeah. I love that. And the challenge, what I would add to the challenges. Of course, the name of the podcast right here is lean into your challenges. Fearless curiosity. What can I learn? How can I grow? Why am I here? Like in those wonderful questions as a childlike question.
[00:12:39] So I just wanted to chime in there cause I was very inspired by what you shared about those first two foundational pillars. So
[00:12:48] Shaida Zin: please continue. If anybody say this is against religion, okay, I'll come out with this. There's no way this is against religion. Okay, which brings me now to talk about curious.
[00:12:58] The third one is called beginner's mind. So beginner's mind is actually the state of being curious. I wonder what's going to happen. Which, what minds are there? Beginner's mind. Yeah. So which is curiosity. Seeing things with curiosity. Welcoming things with curiosity. Even when you're challenged.
[00:13:21] You become curious instead of whining and, complaining, but complaining instead, you become curious, Hey, where does this lead me? Where does this, why is this challenge here? What can I learn from this? How did I get
[00:13:36] Melissa Indot: here? How did I get here?
[00:13:37] Shaida Zin: Yeah, what was it? What did I do, man?
[00:13:39] Okay, curious. So it's only with curiosity that we'll start digging in. What can I correct? How can I maneuver in a better way? Which of the opposite of it, we will start blaming the, our surrounding but curious also allows us to be taking ownership of our own journey. If it, if we fail, okay.
[00:14:02] Okay. I fail. So let's take a look. What did not, what did work? What did not work?
[00:14:07] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[00:14:08] Shaida Zin: So
[00:14:09] Melissa Indot: Beginner's Mind, also my favorite. That Beginner's Mind and the alignment with the curiosity reminds me of that inner child that lives in all of us. And I've been writing quite a lot about that as I remember that's what being a child is all about.
[00:14:24] When that innocence, Approaching every circumstance, every situation as if it's the first time. So even addressing failure that way. Okay. Oh, I think I feel I failed. Children don't have that concept of failure, do they? They try. It's I liken it to when we're learning to walk, obviously we don't remember that far back, but if you look at a child and you look, the child falls, they get back up again.
[00:14:50] They don't think I failed. I want to, I'll stop trying. In fact, for me, failure is we only fail when we stop trying. Okay. We don't try, right? Like being able to connect to that childlike curiosity, almost mischievous. And I think you and I aligned this very nicely. It's be the challenger. So if you feel challenged, if you feel challenged, you be the challenger.
[00:15:11] Shaida Zin: Yeah. Take back the talent.
[00:15:13] Melissa Indot: Take back the power. Like you say, ownership, right? How can I make this mine? How can I make this challenge? My challenge? I can challenge, I can be the one challenging the challenge, so to speak, so it becomes a dance. Love this. Back to you and,
[00:15:26] Shaida Zin: And to the point where if you already attuned to have this beginner's mind, you will see challenge and you'll go bring it on.
[00:15:34] Come on, give it to me. Give it to me. Yeah. What's the lesson here? Come to mama. Yeah. Yeah. So it's an opportunity to grow. It's an opportunity to learn. And, I can't imagine life without, doing something very easy and mundane and repetitively. And it's a sure fire win all the time.
[00:15:55] And what's the fun in that?
[00:15:56] Melissa Indot: Exactly. And success. I think what people often miss is that success is literally a series of failures. You fail, you refine, and then you move again, you move forward. So success isn't about a series of successes. That's the paradox.
[00:16:12] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[00:16:13] Shaida Zin: Yeah. It consists of series of the falls and the challenges, the mistakes, and even.
[00:16:19] That's it. KFC Colonel Sanders. He was rejected 1009 times. Can you imagine? Before somebody brought over the recipe to the point that we could all enjoy Kentucky Fried Chicken today. Yeah. 1009 times. Wow. Okay. So then,
[00:16:37] Speaker 3: and
[00:16:37] Shaida Zin: then we have, yeah then if he had stopped at 1000 and say, I give up, we Malaysia wouldn't have, experience what we call KFC.
[00:16:46] So I was there by participants side. Okay, so the next one is letting go. Surrender. Surrender. Surrender. Yeah. So in in a religion, yeah. It's a lot of element of surrender. There's a Malay word called redol. Redol is also acceptance, which is the next one. But letting go is the ability To be detached from the past mistakes.
[00:17:12] And in order to do that one of the things that mindfulness preach is to experience the experience, experience it, the emotions, let's say you're okay, breakup, and then you're experiencing sadness, and then you allow the sadness to go through you and then pass it through. So it's only when you allow that through, then you can let go.
[00:17:35] Speaker 3: But if
[00:17:35] Shaida Zin: you keep resisting no, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to, I don't want to get hurt. So I don't want to meet anybody. What resists persists. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think the ability to let go has. Tremendously helped me to go through from one challenge to another without wasting time.
[00:17:54] I think I saved time on that.
[00:17:56] Melissa Indot: Yeah. I love that you said that you save time. You gain, you take back, you reclaim your time. And I know for a lot of people, In my time, I've worked with have often said, Oh, letting go is easier said than done. And I liken letting go to an exhale. It's just breathe it out, breathe, breathe it out.
[00:18:16] And that attachment is where the suffering is.
[00:18:20] Shaida Zin: It's
[00:18:21] Melissa Indot: needing things to be a certain way.
[00:18:23] Shaida Zin: Yeah. And for some people, they carry that emotional baggage, huge emotional baggage, wherever they go. And the sad thing is they're not aware. And sometimes other people can see that, but they don't see it themselves.
[00:18:35] So they're still not letting go. I'm still mad at somebody who hurt me 25 years ago, 25 years ago, seriously.
[00:18:43] Melissa Indot: And the thing is, even, with your mindfulness practice that, that moment, because we only have the moment, right? The now moment. If you're able to practice this and let go that anger, let go in that moment, it may not be forever, but in that moment, you create space to gain clarity for the person who's pissed you off for 25 years.
[00:19:06] And then you be able to ask yourself, my goodness, back into the curiosity, the beginner's mindset, right?
[00:19:11] Why
[00:19:12] am I being triggered 25 years on? Maybe I need help. Maybe I need therapy or counseling or some healing because that is still triggering me 25 years on. So the mindfulness practice is about what we can do now to gain clarity to move forward.
[00:19:32] It's rather being attached to the past. We create space so we can take aligned action in the present moment. Loving these foundations, how it's building and layered.
[00:19:43] Shaida Zin: And I'm very sure if I go through the, all the seven, I'm very sure in your healing coaching, I'm sure you've been using this because they are all a very healing tool.
[00:19:54] In each, I'm very sure that you have used it to help your clients. Yeah. Okay. Letting go. And I like the next one. Acceptance. Acceptance is the Muslim call it redol. Acceptance and acceptance can be hard for people who are high performance. So let's say somebody at school, top student, in school, success.
[00:20:19] And then suddenly they go to work. Oh. It's not as successful. How I thought it would be, or I start running business because I think I'm smart, I'm sure that I'm going to nail it. But it failed. So when high performers are not able to accept that it's a failure, it's a mistake that I can bounce back.
[00:20:41] Oh, wow. That's going to hit them hard. So acceptance For top performers, they struggle with it because they equate acceptance means, let's say, if I accept this, that means I'm going back to mediocrity. It's often confused with mediocrity. For perfectionists, they want it perfect.
[00:21:03] I don't accept anything less. So for perfectionist, high performance, no acceptance, I cannot accept, I don't accept a no. I don't accept it if I don't hit my KPI.
[00:21:15] Melissa Indot: Wow. What happened to the why, right?
[00:21:18] Shaida Zin: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
[00:21:20] Melissa Indot: That's hard. That's really hard. Oh my gosh.
[00:21:22] Shaida Zin: That's really
[00:21:22] Speaker 4: hard. If you listen to their conversation, you can feel that.
[00:21:26] Melissa Indot: Yeah. It's very constricting. Yeah.
[00:21:27] Shaida Zin: Yeah. You don't breathe
[00:21:28] Melissa Indot: anymore. You're back in that survival mode. Yes.
[00:21:31] Shaida Zin: Yes. Yes. So I'm guilty of this as well in the past. I was very hard on myself and comparing with others definitely didn't help. So I stopped. I stopped. I define my own excellence.
[00:21:45] Yeah.
[00:21:46] Yeah. I don't care what people think of their excellence they have their benchmark. I have my own benchmark.
[00:21:51] Melissa Indot: So I'm not bothered. Since we're on this topic and you're mentioning about you personally being, having been. gone through it yourself, and I raise my hand to recovering perfectionist here.
[00:22:02] I'd love to know, because this feels to me at least, one of the hardest. Foundational attitudes, which is the acceptance piece. How did you personally navigate accepting your circumstances, your failures, your perceived failures? What did, how did you navigate it?
[00:22:19] Shaida Zin: Of course there's some take longer time.
[00:22:22] There's some, I can just quickly, ah, okay, except the fact it's traffic jam. Except the fact I, okay, there's no parking here. I'm going to go to the next one. There's no need to like get all riled up, little things are easier. And of course, things like breakup, financial loss will take a while.
[00:22:39] But what I do is I quickly okay, of course I heal my pain. I sit with my pain, financial loss. Oh, that's painful. How did I lose money? That kind of thing. Of course it's painful. I sit with it. And the more I sit with it, the more I get into the curiosity, the more I let go.
[00:23:01] So let go and acceptance, like really go hand
[00:23:04] in
[00:23:05] hand. If I, once I accepted the fact it is what it is, then I can let go. Yeah. So that helps. So the attitude goes, all the seven work together and that makes it
[00:23:17] Melissa Indot: It's almost like a buffet of an equation, right? It's an equation, but you can mix and match any one of those foundations together.
[00:23:24] So like accepting this is where I am now, and I guess it's all mindfulness is about being in the present moment. So this is where I am now. I can't change. What's past. Yeah. So I'm just going to let that go. Yeah. And be patient with myself. Saba. Saba. Saba. And wherever
[00:23:43] Shaida Zin: we are today, it is what it is.
[00:23:45] Melissa Indot: It is what it is. It is what it is. And you take care of your nervous system, you emotionally regulate, be present. Yeah. Then you can think about what you're going to do next
[00:23:55] Shaida Zin: with them with much more clarity, I would say, compared to, that panicky mode. Oh my God, how can I lose money?
[00:24:03] So what do I do now? What do I do now? Oh my God. Oh my God. So that gives us back into get us back into that fight, fight and freeze. State drown with cortisol, stress hormone, yeah, and it becomes a stressful hustle. No fun. No fun. Yeah. So acceptance. I've experienced that and I thought this is much more fun than stressing myself out.
[00:24:31] And I've just recently listened to a podcast and it was a book called Mind Magic written by Dr. Okay, my God, I forgot his name. Robin.
[00:24:43] Melissa Indot: Should I look it up?
[00:24:43] Shaida Zin: Mind magic. Mind magic.
[00:24:47] Melissa Indot: The nearest science of, oh my goodness, I actually have this book, dr. James Doty. It's on, it's in my it's in my bookshelf, but I haven't read it yet.
[00:24:57] Yes.
[00:24:57] Shaida Zin: Yeah. Yeah. It's wonderful. And, noticed the things that he shared actually mindfulness practice and mindfulness practice in, in manifesting,
[00:25:07] Melissa Indot: creating reality, creating your reality.
[00:25:10] Shaida Zin: Yeah. Yeah. So that's that. So acceptance and letting go, I think a lot of people in the healing space talk about this, especially when people have gone through tough time, divorce business failure, big losses.
[00:25:23] So people take time to grieve. And then eventually they will accept and let go. So it's a process, be patient. So if if you just broke up with someone today and we don't expect you tomorrow, just, okay let go allow us have to grieve. If it's painful, if you feel like you have to sit and cry a couple of days, cry, it is what it is.
[00:25:46] And then after that, you're ready to bounce back.
[00:25:49] Melissa Indot: It's normalizing the practice of feeling as well, right? Yeah,
[00:25:54] Shaida Zin: yeah.
[00:25:54] Melissa Indot: We were so afraid to feel. So it's scary. Of course, it's scary. Sadness can be so scary. It feels so isolating. We're not taught this. No one teaches us about all we know is happy or sad.
[00:26:08] That's it. Yeah. And we're shamed for crying. Yes. That's another
[00:26:12] Shaida Zin: one that the secondary emotion comes in this, the shame and the guilt and it's not making things any better. So example I just break up, I'm sad, and some more to add onto that, I'm shameful, that I'm sad, that I still sad, I'm breaking up for that, how many times I'm still sad, what a shame, it's all bundled up together.
[00:26:36] Melissa Indot: Yes, layers, right? And then you might like self deprecate oh my god, what did I do wrong? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or you might get angry and point fingers and blame the other party. And so then layers and layers of these emotions that you react from rather than just and it's easier said than done.
[00:26:51] No, no doubt. It is. Distance and views. It is. Easier said than done. I'm definitely going to say that for myself. It's definitely easier said than done, but I think having the guidance of someone like Shaida who can talk you through it and explain it. And it's really in the practice. It's I relate it again to when we learned to walk, we kept falling.
[00:27:10] We just kept standing up more times than we fell.
[00:27:13] Shaida Zin: Yeah,
[00:27:14] Melissa Indot: true.
[00:27:14] Shaida Zin: And this is where healing work, like when you do coaching with your clients, these are deep work and it requires. Practice and time. That's where you need coaching. This is where therapies coaches coming into the picture to be with you throughout the journey.
[00:27:33] You're right. Letting go and acceptance. It's one word, but it's a lot of practice, but I can assure you it's worth it. It's so worth it. Better than any material things that you can buy. The moment you can master, okay, I'll let go. Okay. I can accept that. No problem. Let's go. And you feel a lot of your energy conserved for productivity rather than, whining about what happened in the past.
[00:28:03] Why did I, why did I do that on shame and guilt and all that
[00:28:08] Melissa Indot: and focusing on the stuff you can't change actually, because it's already happened, right? Yeah.
[00:28:13] Shaida Zin: Yeah. And the next one is, I like this one, which is non judging. Oh, yeah.
[00:28:21] Melissa Indot: Oh, that's an interesting one. Yeah. Non judgment. Tell me more.
[00:28:25] Shaida Zin: Yeah. So I think the very person that we, all of us need to stop judging is actually ourselves.
[00:28:34] And that in itself, I truly believe when everyone stopped judging themselves, Then we'll stop judging other people because it's, it starts from us and We're all just
[00:28:46] Melissa Indot: mirrors for each other, aren't we? Yeah. We're just mirroring
[00:28:48] Shaida Zin: each other. Yeah. And I used to be very judgmental. Again, I grew up, you know how we are growing, we grew up in a school system, we've got labels, you're this, therefore you're that, they are not same label as you are, therefore they are something else.
[00:29:05] There's always a label to everything that drives us to, fall into that judgmental state of mind. Yeah. And, it gets very stressful. It does get very stressful because sometimes we also label and judge ourselves or I'm this, I'm
[00:29:22] Melissa Indot: that,
[00:29:23] and we become, it's normal at the end of the day, labels are normal, right?
[00:29:27] Because. We, as humans, we want to belong and labels are something that we use in our system of thinking and our societal system. We use these because then we can identify. Identify. Yeah. I'm a woman. I'm Asian. I'm Yeah. I'm I'm Muslim, I'm vegetarian, I'm athletic, I'm academic, right? The thing about labels is that without awareness, and awareness is a parallel to mindfulness, without mindfulness, your labels become our limits.
[00:30:01] So if I'm this, I can't be anything else. But I'm happy to say that I see that's changing more and more, but in the corporate world, I imagine it's different. And I think we're going to come, I'm going to take a conversation to this once we've gone through the seven, with judgment, I love what you're reminding us here as well, is that when we judge others we're literally judging, we're judging ourselves.
[00:30:23] And It reminds me of this quote, which is, I think it was Buddha, it originates from Buddha. I am not who you think I am. You are who you think I am. So we project our perception, our perspectives and our values of the world, our point of view onto other people. If I'm like judging someone negatively, I, then I have to turn and ask myself, where is that in me?
[00:30:48] Because I can only recognize something that's familiar to me. So I love that. I love that. And Shaida, I'm just going to let you know so that you're not stressing cause I, about the time we're just going to flow all for the full hour. Sure. And this, I'm going to, we're going to deliver this podcast to the community before it's published.
[00:31:07] That's the exclusive. Okay. So we're just going to run with this. So we have time to go through the other foundation, foundational attitudes, and then I'm going to, I'm going to dig into your personal story so that everyone can hear why and how you got to where you are today. So over back to you.
[00:31:24] Okay.
[00:31:25] Shaida Zin: So the seventh one, I think this is. Very relatable to people at work who are constantly striving and the attitude is called non striving. So in that definition of non striving Dr. John described it in a three, three, three ways. Yeah. So we can have someone who has.
[00:31:49] Low intention, meaning I don't have any intention to perform or deliver. I don't have intention to succeed deliver with excellence or whatsoever. Low intention and low attachment. So someone with low intention, low attachment is someone like, I don't have the intention to do whatever. And I have low attachment.
[00:32:10] I couldn't care less. So that's low attachment, low low intention, low attachment. Now on the other. extreme, there will be high intention and high attachment. I want to be the best. I want to be known in the company. I'm the guy, I'm a CEO's pet. I'm the one I'm the only one who knows how to do this and high attachment.
[00:32:33] If I not known for this, if I fail, that's it. My life is gone. That's a very high attachment to result. So this is just the two extreme. One is very attached to the result. High intention, high attachment. One is low intention, low attachment. So these two, okay, low intention, low attachment. Okay. If you don't want to be there, you can quit and do something else.
[00:33:01] Simple as that. But the high attachment and high intention can lead to some toxic behavior. For example, I will step on anybody's toes in the office as long as I get what I want, because I'm very attached to my results. I don't care because that's my result. Yeah, so they're very attached to that result.
[00:33:20] So these can lead to some of the behaviors at workplace that we hear can be very unpleasant. People blame politics, toxic and all that. Yeah.
[00:33:30] Melissa Indot: Bullying, even I imagine. Yeah. Oh
[00:33:32] Shaida Zin: yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people have been talking about it. So when they describe the behavior, what Immediately comes to my mind, probably that person with that behavior is very attached to the result, very stressful and really want that result that they're not aware that they're hurting other people.
[00:33:51] So in non striving the attitude is having high intention. I have all the intention to give my best for myself, for my team, for my company, for my employer, for the community, I have the best intention. I'm going to give my all, but at the same time, I'm going to have a low attachment towards my result, which means if I get it, it's a freaking bonus.
[00:34:19] Now, if I don't get it, I'm just going to go back to the drawing board and let's see where, how I can move from there without being so worked out. Why did I get that? Why didn't I hit my KPI? I should have, could have, would have. I have all the leads that I have. I have all the answers. I already got the budget.
[00:34:37] The CEO already said, go ahead. Why did it fail? So that's a conversation of high attachment who, who fails. With the results. So it can be very detrimental. So ideally high intention, low attachment. So this combi can allow all those high performers, they can hustle without being toxic to themselves.
[00:35:02] So
[00:35:03] I've been hearing this conversation that some people think that hustling is a toxic culture. And some people feel otherwise, if you don't hustle, then what are you? So that's too contradicting. Yeah. Yeah. I believe that, Hey, by all means hustle, but at the same time, take care of yourself and take care of the people around you.
[00:35:24] You don't want to hustle all the way and you'd start hurting, especially people you love. I, I learned my lesson when I was a much younger. When I was much younger and I have young children and because I want to, I was very attached to the result. I get very stressed out and the children, my children became my punching bag and I didn't like that at all.
[00:35:45] And now that they have grown up, we do all kinds of things for them when they were young, but all they could remember was the time that mama was so stressed out. So it's true what they say. People don't remember what you do for them, but they remember how you make them feel. And I thought, you must have.
[00:36:00] Left a great impact. I must have scared them all of Oh my God. If I could turn back time, that will be one that I really want to do it differently. And because of that, I, when I go to the corporate training my training, yes, I get orders from the company, the HR, but my training is pretty personal and it's always for them and they.
[00:36:24] They talk about them and the children, we're not just talking about stress with customer. They also put in, I want to be able to go home at five. And have a good laugh with my children and not get angry at them and say, heck yeah, that should be your number one goal. Absolutely. Yeah. And not just about hitting the KPI, the office then you are, then you are hustling mindfully and you hustle at the same time, you could experience joy.
[00:36:54] Melissa Indot: Yeah. I would like to talk a little bit more about the sort of the corporate and sorry, let me just make sure we've gone through the seven, right? That seven was the non striving. Let's make sure we seal that up. And I definitely want to talk more about because making, I think your tagline.
[00:37:10] Your mantra is making the world a better place, right? With emotional intelligence. And I love that. I think that's one of the, one of the key hooks that I was like, I need to get shared on the podcast. I need her. I need her. The community needs her. So I'm happy that you said yes to that. Mindfulness in the corporate world from what I understand is still very much about ticking a box.
[00:37:30] And I want to get to that before we round up the podcast. Before that. I want to get deeper into your story. So Shaida, tell us what was it that happened in your life that has led you to being this North star in the corporate field in terms of training and helping people bridge that gap from this striving, this chasing, right?
[00:37:54] This unhealthy, this toxic hustling in the corporate world to knowing that They can actually have what everything that they want, including a stress. I won't say stress free because stress is also important for us, for our resilience and our growth, but learning how to navigate their stress, manage their stress, reduce unnecessary stress through mindfulness.
[00:38:18] So what happened, can you share a little bit about your journey, your personal journey that led you to do what the amazing work you're doing today?
[00:38:25] Shaida Zin: Personally, I've. From the age of 13, I left home. Wow, that's, you were a child. Yeah. Yeah. I was still a child and I realized that I had to take care of myself.
[00:38:38] I was in a boarding school, but a lot of time I was. I had to take care of myself to defend myself because that's why when you say misfit. Yeah, I totally carry it because I was different that I had to defend myself because I think differently. I don't follow the rule. Yeah, and I don't follow.
[00:38:56] I don't follow what people think because I can think for myself. Thank you very much. And I have to deal with all that. I have to deal with hatred. I have to deal with bully. Thank God it's verbal bully, not physical. And all that shaped me into all my teenage years because I had to defend myself.
[00:39:15] Somehow it has shaped me. It shrunk me because when I was a teenager, As a child, I went to a conference school, all girls school. I was this joyous girl and the teacher said, you can be anything you want. There's no conversation. If you wear a skirt, you can be a, just be a mom at home. None of that.
[00:39:33] So I was lucky. I get to grow up. My childhood was filled with that very loving teachers, very empowering teachers. And suddenly when my teenage years it's the other way around. I had to find myself. Then I found myself, I shrunk and because I shrunk at the age of 19, I fell in love. I get very vulnerable.
[00:39:53] I get very scared. And at a tender age of 23, I got married. Wow. It's young. I know, it's like a
[00:40:01] Melissa Indot: A child bride. Okay. Yes. 23 . Technic. Yeah. We're not technically adults till we're 25. Five. Yes.
[00:40:09] Shaida Zin: And I knew I got married out of fear. Out of fear. What if?
[00:40:13] So it, I shrunk, and I, and because of that I went through a marriage of seven years. I would say that I'm very grateful for that. 'cause I. Two beautiful daughters out of that. And I accepted that part of my life as part of my journey. And that was necessary. So no regrets on having gone through that, but what I like to understand, but what really opened my eyes was how did I make the decision at that time?
[00:40:40] And it has led me to the divorce. So by the time I went through divorce, it was like, yeah, it's not it's not working, it's not compatible. And this is the way out. So there's no story like we have today's story of people because maybe because they're celebrities. So a lot of stories going on where you justify the divorce happened because and and so to me, it was.
[00:41:04] There's no story divorce, non compatible and we move on with life. Yeah. However, it was that point I was I started searching I, I go within, I was totally not interested in what is the third party or whatever that's called it. I'm more interested in How did I got into that?
[00:41:21] And that journey of self discovery, Oh my God, it was scary. That took years. And that has led me to, to become passionate about, Hey, I think a lot of people need to know this. A lot of people need to know how beautiful they are inside. A lot of people need to know how much strength they have inside of them.
[00:41:43] They have superpower, but people don't realize that because we're so drowned in the environmental noise. What does society say? What the rule at the workplace, say, LA dah. There's so many rules, so much noise that we forgot that our crypto night is in.
[00:42:00] It's really in our hand. And when I got the opportunity to, when I left corporate in, in 2009, no, 2004, I jumped into from a steady jaw. into a zero salary job. And that has, I did sales because I was bored in the corporate. So where this is going, I want to try something new. So I jumped into sales, zero salary, divorce with two kids on tow.
[00:42:26] Wow. So when I look back, how did I do that? You took that leap of faith. Yeah, I did. I did. And because of that because of that I, my learning curve went like really steep. And that was the, in four years after that, I found that, okay, this is what I want to do. And every time I go into the space of corporate training I see them, I see myself 20 years ago, and I see that myself as a mom, I see myself as someone who's being thrown with work at the office for fear of what if my performance, it's not that good.
[00:43:06] Is it going to affect my bonus? All those break back memories. For me it's time to give back and give them that too. Cause nobody gave me that, give me that too. When I was in corporate, we had training, but we had team buildings and we have fun, but. That, that, that tool that's really important that kryptonite, nobody passed it to me.
[00:43:25] I had to dig it out myself. So now I'm committed to, to do that, to tell, especially women, because we have a lot of, we have more condition being put on us because. And I think it's when women get drunk and this, we couldn't shine. So basically that's it. I want more women to realize how powerful they are.
[00:43:52] And I'm so glad I crossed paths with you. And this is exactly. What a lot of people need, what a lot of people need to come up from that. So only with their emotional healing journey and all that, then only they will find that, Hey, actually I have strength. I have the superpower in me.
[00:44:10] Melissa Indot: Yeah. I thank you for sharing your story with us.
[00:44:12] It sounds like you've had some very. Very deep troughs in your journey, a lot of struggle, a lot of, but it also is a testimony to your resilience and your courage. And what do they say? God doesn't give you anything that you can't handle. And if God is not what you believe that anybody of the viewers have, life doesn't throw you what you don't, what you're not made for.
[00:44:34] I have a couple of questions which of course being fearlessly curious. But, you mentioned about the, one of the biggest risks you took which is to leave corporate job, steady salary and to, yeah, leave corporate to work in sales with zero salary and you're a single mom with two, two children.
[00:44:51] That's, that is a testimony to the women out there and I'll say the Asian women out there, and I will say the single mothers out there, that. If you trust in yourself, and ultimately, Shaina, you just trust it in yourself. There, there was no logical sense in what you were doing, right? But the thing I feel a lot of the time our struggles are because we live from the mind.
[00:45:15] You, you knew somewhere in your body, you knew. Was it your heart, was it your gut, was it your belly, was it your womb space, how did you, what was it, a sense, was it a whisper? How did that feel like, that knowing that you had? Because that is the power, us as women, we have, right? It's the knowledge we hold in our bodies.
[00:45:34] What did that look like for you?
[00:45:36] Shaida Zin: For me at that time, I wanted so much to give my children a better life. And I knew with a corporate salary scale increment, I can't give that to them. And in order for me to make that leap, I got to do take a bigger risk because that's the part that, that can make me,
[00:45:54] Melissa Indot: provide a better life for them.
[00:45:56] And I'm guessing that you weren't focused on failing at all. No. So that's the secret viewers and listeners. You take that leap of faith. You're not able to take that leap of faith if you're focusing on what could, what's going to fail. The risk of failure. Basically what all you risk is the version of yourself you're leaving behind.
[00:46:15] You're losing that version of you, that old version of you to become the version that you dream of. So for sharing that. And you talked about going to boarding school early, having to fend for yourself. You were a victim of bullying and you weren't. Didn't enjoy being told how to think because I can think for myself.
[00:46:38] Thank you very much. I loved how you put that. So what kind of patterns or stereotypes do you feel that you smashed? In your time, you mentioned obviously being a single mom, right? Yeah. That's definitely one.
[00:46:52] Shaida Zin: Oh, okay. Year 20, 2000, 2001, 2002, becoming a single mom is such a big stigma. I've been laughed at.
[00:47:05] I I was a joke. I've been made a joke. People make jokes about single moms, unbelievable, Ms. J. Oh, you're the one. Oh, no wonder. Yes. No wonder what? So I will ask them. Yes. No wonder what? Tell me. I had to, I've had that kind of conversation and I have a conversation that somebody called me Ms. J and It's like a joke.
[00:47:30] And I say, if you don't stop calling Ms. J, I'm going to put down the phone, and I hate to face that.
[00:47:37] Melissa Indot: And I hate to say it. I also feel that a lot of judgment and discrimination for women that women suffer also suffer at the hands of other women. And I don't want to call this out as women, we are responsible.
[00:47:50] We, we are victims of conditioning and victims of patriarchy and systemic discrimination as women, absolutely. But I think it's very important that each and every one of us look in the mirror and Ask ourselves a very authentic question, and that is, where am I part of the problem? Because we often do it unconsciously, and it happens especially when women gossip.
[00:48:13] So I don't subscribe to gossiping anymore for that reason. And I'll, and also for me, Shaida, I don't, I'm sure for you too, if I hear people gossiping, I think to myself, if you can gossip about someone with me. Then you're probably gossiping about me. I'm so sorry that you went through that. I admire you for your courage and resilience coming through that, right?
[00:48:35] To smash these stereotypes around being single mother. It's definitely not easy. I am, and I can only imagine how difficult it is. I just, even you telling me, sharing with me, sharing with us viewers and listeners, we can still only imagine. So let this be a point of curiosity for our listeners and viewers to ask yourself today, where are you discriminating against other solo women entrepreneurs, perhaps who have been single mothers?
[00:49:03] And your view for or against women, whatever that might be, is there a bit of a women empowerment theme in this podcast? Yes, absolutely. Where are you part of the problem and how can you be better? Because we also like to point the finger at other people and say, Oh, they're bad. We judge, right?
[00:49:21] But really it begins with us. So thank you for sharing your story with us today, sharing the seven foundational attitudes of mindfulness and how you bring this into the workspace, why you bring this in the workspace. And before I let you go, I do want to just talk a little bit about what you find Are the struggles, what struggles are you facing as a trainer or that you see your participants suffer even through the training, where are corporations falling short?
[00:49:52] And I want to frame this in a way where we're not, I'm not asking you to criticize, but I'm, it's really to bring clarity to where, More growth can happen, more awareness into that space because from my limited perspective, I still, and I don't have experience in corporate yet. My experience is very minimal, but my sense, it's very much about ticking a box.
[00:50:13] Because awareness is growing in our mental health and emotional well being space and therefore emotional intelligence, which is your speciality, I feel that corporates are very much doing it because they have to. Doing it because, like I said, they have to check a box. And it's still a doing. Whereas mental health and emotional well being and healing isn't about doing, it's doing less and being more.
[00:50:35] What are you facing? Please tell us so that we can do our part, listeners can do our part, because we're going to have heads of, different departments listening to this podcast potentially. We want you to share with them and I invite viewers and listeners to listen with an open heart.
[00:50:50] Shaida Zin: Sure. So there has been, the good news is there has been a slight shift. When it comes to employees, mental wellbeing in the past, it used to be, Hey, that's your personal matters. You take care of yourself. We're just here to provide you jobs and salary. We pay you based on what you deliver. So that bit has shifted to Partly employer playing their role but what I've seen so far, yes, if you say ticking the box, they have first step, let's provide our people, our employee with skills to take care of themselves.
[00:51:31] That's just one part of the equation. Now, the other half of it is the design of the work, the organization, the work processes, the workload, We think the workload, the rule in organization, you'd be surprised how many organizations I asked. I love to ask this question. Do you have to answer WhatsApp at night?
[00:51:51] Any of them say yes. What if you don't know actually we are obliged to blah, blah, blah, blah. And some even answer on weekend. So why are you answering work? What's that on weekend? Miss, because if I don't answer and if something happens on Monday, my boss is going to scold me and they send the staff for stress management with me.
[00:52:13] So that's an example of, I take the box, you do your part. But the organization still remain that half processes. However, I'm not giving up on that because today we live in a society of trans transparency. I think more and more employees are able to put their rating on glass door. They're able to talk about it.
[00:52:36] There's a lot more awareness and the more people talk about it. The more corporations are opening their eyes and if they still want to keep good talent they got to go full in, all in, not just providing access to psychiatry, psychologist, not just running program on wellness, but they also got to take a look.
[00:52:58] How are we running the business? Are we are we, Purely looking at a shareholder's profit because the nature of any organization is to, it's what I learned in school, maximizing shareholder's value.
[00:53:14] But not employee. Okay. Shareholder's value. So everything that the company does is to make the shareholders rich.
[00:53:20] Yeah.
[00:53:21] Melissa Indot: And China, if you think about it, let's just not, let's just take that as a priority right now. Money. Okay. Cause money makes the world go round. I would agree with that, but guess what? When your mental health and your emotional wellbeing is at its optimum, your productivity and your profits going to be higher because you're spending less on fixing things, on re losing great talent and rehiring and losing that turnover of employees is going to be a lot lower.
[00:53:47] So I'm all in with that with you, I support you on that a hundred percent, and I guess it's like you say, it's a process. And it's good to hear that you're not giving up. And I think if when we, people can move away from the doing part and actually get curious as to why this is important, not because you're trying to fix the stress of people, but to prevent.
[00:54:12] the stress of people and make that part of a culture of caring within the community, your work community, then it's just going to change everything in a more sustainable fashion. I. I'm so grateful that you're here on the podcast. I'm so grateful that I got to speak to you and you got to share with us.
[00:54:33] Likewise,
[00:54:34] Shaida Zin: likewise, Melissa is so happy to be here
[00:54:37] Melissa Indot: and for all the work that you do and to be part of that changing climate within corporate when it comes to compassionate communication. And that that, that's really about managing stress too, and how you look at your employees. And maybe for the leaders out there.
[00:54:54] thinking about getting your hands clean, not dirty, and getting involved in these trainings with your employees. Because at the end of the day, we're human beings. We're not human doings. Shaira? True. Spot on. Yes. When people, I know that when I feel that someone cares I invest myself more in whatever project I'm in and it makes a world of a difference, right?
[00:55:22] You thrive on connection. That's why you do what you do because you thrive on connection. And I have more. Then hope I have faith for a better world and the world's in chaos right now. And I have faith that the climate will change within the sort of corporate outlook specifically in Malaysia too.
[00:55:41] And it would be thanks to people like you who are just not going to give up.
[00:55:45] Shaida Zin: Thank you. Thank you, Melissa. And I hope a lot more people are taking charge of their own emotional healing and not wait for circumstances and not wait for that major event. I think emotional healing should be part of every personal growth.
[00:56:03] And not wait until catastrophe hit and then say, okay, now I need healing. I think it's for everybody.
[00:56:09] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[00:56:09] Shaida Zin: And salute you for doing this work. And Especially I love your
[00:56:14] Speaker 4: tagline, fearlessly curious and professional misfit. Thank you. Love that.
[00:56:20] Melissa Indot: Thank you, Shaida. I look forward to meeting you in real life and for our viewers and listeners, you can find all the links to connect to Shaida and learn from her.
[00:56:30] And, if you want to get her into, to train in your business, you'll know where to find her. Shaida, thank you again. Have a wonderful week. Stay fearlessly curious. Any final words for our viewers?
[00:56:43] Shaida Zin: Let's make the world a better place together. This starts from us. One step at a time, one practice in a day.
[00:56:50] And eventually we all can together make the world a better place.
[00:56:55] Melissa Indot: That's beautiful. Thank you, Shaida. Thank you so much. To all of you watching, see you on the next episode.