Do sadness and anxiety always get you down?
Sadness and anxiety are natural. They are emotional responses to certain situations in life. But if you experience them too often, or they stay longer than usual, then these emotions require further and urgent attention. Normally, these problems can be managed through meditations, a couple of yoga sessions, and sometimes just a few days of rest and reflection. The ability to heal from depression and anxiety lies within you — you just have to learn how to tap into that power.
In this episode, our special guest is Yung Pueblo, who teaches Visappana meditations on self-healing. We will talk about his meditation journey to self-discovery, managing ego to survive and thrive, and how to break down the walls by doing nothing at all.
It’s a powerful conversation about self-transformation, so be ready to be inspired by his wisdom.
Who Is Yung Pueblo?
Yung Pueblo is a popular mediator, motivational speaker, and bestselling author on self-healing and self-awareness. His bestselling book, Inward, is a collection of prose and poetry that explores the journey from self-love to unconditional love, the art of letting go, and the power and wisdom that comes from self-awareness, reminding us that freedom, healing, and transformation are possible. His other popular book, Clarity and Connection, illustrates how emotions affect our subconscious and condition our minds to react and act in certain ways.
Yung Pueblo is the pen name of the man behind these works, Diego Perez. He chose the name “Yung Pueblo” because it means “young people,” which serves as a reminder of his Ecuadorian roots and his staunch participation in activism. Diego is also known for his Vipassana meditation practices, founded on the teachings of S.N. Goenka, giving him a deeper understanding of liberation. Today, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people every month through his written works, and people around the world are obsessed with his quotations.
“Sometimes deeper mental clarity is preceded by great internal storms. Healing yourself can be messy. Seeing yourself through honesty can be jarring and tough — it can even temporarily cause an imbalance in your life. It is hard work to open yourself up to release your burdens, like removing thorns from your body. It may hurt at first, but it is ultimately for your highest good. The dark clouds of rainfall are necessary for new growth.” – Yung Pueblo
The journey towards self-discovery and growth is not an easy path. There will be struggles and pain, but these difficulties are necessary for growth as we transform into the best versions of ourselves.
The Meditation Journey to Self Discovery
Yung Pueblo teaches the power of meditations in healing and self-growth. His journey towards a life full of meditations was not planned but one which was birthed out of curiosity. Yung Pueblo admits that he had never meditated in his life until he joined the 10-day Vipassana Meditation sessions to see if it would bring significant changes to his life. Initially, he believed that he was born with an inclination to feel sadness, and the meditation program seemed like an opportunity to uncover the solution to this problem. After the sessions, he had shocking discoveries.
“The idea around actually being able to heal yourself — that to me was a shock that you could do that. The fact that I could decrease my anxiety, … decrease my sadness, and figure out how to no longer just react to life but actually be able to respond to life in a way that was much more conducive to who I actually want it to be. … All of that was a shock.” – Yung Pueblo
Sadness can be a result of a biological problem down to the cellular level in the brain. In this case, you have to take the battle to the physical plane by taking the prescribed medications or undergoing therapy. But if the problem is mild to moderate, the battle can be held in the mental state through meditations, and Yung Pueblo realized that you could actually heal yourself and minimize anxiety and sadness with meditation.
“I’m always trying to go deeper. … I’m trying to continue excavating and just keep going to free myself as much as possible. But at that moment …. you’re so deeply immersed in this meditative process, … and you’re like looking at it too closely from a microscopic view that you need to look at it from a macro view and take a big step back, and … my behaviors have totally changed. … My habits are totally becoming much kinder, gentler, and conducive to my happiness, and the way I treat people is much better. … I’m improving in all these areas.” – Yung Pueblo
Sometimes you have to look deeper into the root cause of the problem to identify and acknowledge its existence. Likewise, you have to step back to zoom out and get the macro view of the problem so you’ll better understand the whole picture. This will help you thrive in difficult situations and survive the challenges ahead. But there’s another factor that can also help you survive amid the difficulties and challenges in life — your ego.
Surviving with Your Ego
Our self-esteem or ego is critical in building our self-confidence. It allows us to get through the day and create confidence where uncertainty and self-doubt lurks. In essence, our ego leads us to self-awareness on our importance — that we are needed and good at what we do best. However, we must also take extra care of our egos. It could help us survive but not thrive.
“[The] purpose of our ego is survival. When really difficult things happen in life, it’s the ego that picks you back up and keeps you going. But in no way is the ego going to help you thrive. It’s not going to help you be happy, but it will help you survive. So a lot of the composition of the ego is these defensive reactions, … like greed, hatred, [and] fear. These are all things that are there to help defend you from some type of external attack.” – Yung Pueblo
We need our ego to survive. In the midst of threat, we use our ego for our defense reactions. But when we are loved and cared for, we have to loosen our ego to allow transparent and genuine communication for the relationship to thrive and grow. Otherwise, it will serve as a barrier that hinders communication in a relationship, causing it to fall apart.
Our ego is both an enemy and a friend. It’s a friend when we face challenges. Without ego, you won’t have enough self-confidence to overcome fears and the struggles in life. However, too much ego can also destroy relationships and friendships. It can build walls and separate you from others, believing only in yourself to get things done. So, it’s important to tame the ego to avoid the ego getting into a relationship and causing it to fall apart. There should be proper balance, allowing ego to help you survive while taming it so you can thrive.
Breaking Down Walls by Doing Nothing at All
As we carefully thread the challenges while putting our ego at the forefront to survive, some obstacles are sometimes too much to bear that we need to step back and power down to energize. Some situations may call for some actions. But there are also scenarios where doing nothing at all is the best action to take.
“I think … about no action being an action. … There are three types of actions. There’s hard action. There is soft action, and then there’s no action at all. And those are always choices. … I do have a situation where … the present just needs like a second to cool off because it’s been a tough day at work and … you just need a moment to unwind … like powering down.” – Yung Pueblo
Powering down will only take a few moments of time, and does not even have to last one hour. Just a few minutes to relax and unwind is enough to help you to get back up stronger and sharper in your decisions.
“Powering down … is like 30 minutes. … [of] totally unplugged. … close my eyes and whether I fall asleep or not. … It’s really valuable to understand that those three things are always an option. … Hard actions are usually used when you do have to defend yourself. … Hard action can be done in a loving way. And then soft action [is] when you are standing for yourself, … doing so very gently with compassion. [But] a lot of times, we have to do nothing at all, and the wall, or whatever barrier it is that you’re overcoming, it’ll just fall over itself.” – Yung Pueblo
I just love the thought that no action is an action. There will be obstacles that demand no action at all, and things will fall into place. But other times, you may have to act accordingly — either to defend yourself or to make a stand for yourself. That’s why you need to step back and power down so you can make wiser decisions on your actions.
Get Loved Up with Yung Pueblo
This interview with Yung Pueblo was so powerful, and I’m so happy to have him on the show. If you have friends who are down and anxious due to some difficult circumstances in life, give them love by sharing the full episode of this conversation with them. You could make someone happier today.
To get more wisdom from Yung Pueblo, check out his website for some free resources and podcasts on self-improvement and living a happier life. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook for more updates.
If you felt the love and motivation from Yung Pueblo, tag him, @yung_pueblo, and me, @koyawebb, on Instagram with a screenshot of this episode and your greatest takeaways. We would be happy to know what your learnings are from this conversation.
Before I ended our conversation, I asked Yung Pueblo one last question — “If you could have any other occupation other than the one that you have right now and be successful in it, what would it be?”
“Definitely, [to] be a full-time organizer on the national level … like Greta [Thunberg] who’s been doing all that work — the young woman who has been doing all the climate change work and … getting like hundreds and thousands of people together and doing real movement-building work to make a systemic change.” – Yung Pueblo
That was wonderful — creating an impact not just in the community but also for the environment. We can actually make an impact through our daily activities. By avoiding the use of plastic and observing proper garbage disposal, our daily efforts can have a long-term impact on the planet and the community.
If you’re ready to break through any limitations and live your purpose, check out my Wellness Entrepreneur Mastermind for a step-by-step process and a trusted team to support your growth and evolution.
Until next time, love yourself, love others, and love the planet.
- How Diego started his meditative journey (1:31)
- Who Diego was before discovering this method (4:51)
- How the vipassana process works (13:46)
- How taking care of yourself is important to helping and serving others (16:07)
- How rest plays a big part in Diego’s everyday (18:27)
- How Diego’s conflict resolution with his wife is so important to his well being (22:31)
- How this conflict resolution is put into play (29:13)
- How doing nothing will help walls come down (35:18)
- How juicing has changed Diego’s life (41:01)
Links mentioned in this episode
- Vipassana in Cuenca
- Order Koya’s book Let Your Fears Make You Fierce
Comments +