Barry Boyce on Bridging our Differences

Stephanie Domet: Hello and welcome to Real Mindful. This is where we speak mindfully about things that matter. We meet here twice a month to introduce you to some of the teachers, thinkers, writers and researchers who are engaged in the mindfulness movement. You’ll hear all kinds of conversations here about the science of mindfulness, the practice of mindfulness and the heart of it. And if you’ve been a listener of point of view with Barry Boyce, you have come to the right place, those conversations will be part of this podcast as well. And in fact, Barry is our guest today. I’m Stephanie Domet, I’m the managing editor at Mindful magazine and mindful.org and this is Real Mindful. 

Barry Boyce: You know, just the other day I was having a small hang out with people and I was griping about something and my friend completely changed my perspective just by basically kind of calling into question like, “Really?!” And it was a nice hang. 

SD: That’s Barry Boyce, he is the founding editor of Mindful and Mindful.org, and in every issue of the magazine, he writes the back page column, Point Of View. Barry, himself, has a deep mindfulness practice developed over decades and is the author of the book The Mindfulness Revolution. 

Barry dropped by my place on a warm summer day recently. The windows were open as we recorded our conversation. So you may hear some chirping birds and the odd emergency vehicle siren, keep that in mind if you’re listening to this podcast while driving. 

Amid the birdsong and the sirens, Barry and I talked about how and why we sort ourselves into groups. How mindful awareness can help us navigate the habits and patterns that arise in our in-groups, the refreshing value of encountering other perspectives, the benefits of mindful teasing and the beauty of encouragement, among many other topics. 

You may be wondering, as I was when our conversation began, whether Barry’s alter ego, the mindful vulgarian, would make an appearance. And not to destroy the suspense but I am here to tell you—yes, yes, he would. And I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. 

Barry Boyce, hello. 

BB: Hello, Steph, 

SD: Welcome to Real Mindful, 

BB: Nice to be doing this. 

SD: Great to have you here. Really nice to see you in person. 

BB: Yes, the pandemic has prevented this three-dimensional interchange, so it’s nice to be back, tentatively… 

SD: Tentatively back, back for now. We’ll see what happens next.

In the August issue of Mindful, you write about the ups and downs of community, of being part of the group hanging out. And here you and I are hanging out in person at my house for the first time in a really long time, more than a year for sure, for us. And as hangouts slowly come back into our lives, what do you value most about them? 

BB: Yeah, I think I am someone who likes isolation and being alone and so that wasn’t horrible. I enjoy solitude, at the same time the echo chamber and the thought loops not getting interrupted is not so great. 

You’d like to be around other people and hear what’s going on with them and their vibe and, you know, there’s something that gets created when more than one person is together, particularly a group of people, kind of a hubbub and, where there’s—at least in some cultures I come out of—a little bit of interrupting and but not rudely so. And, you know, it extends your world when you hear what’s going on with other people and how they’re perceiving things. And, you know, it also—when you bring stuff to your crowd or your friends you’re hanging out with—it gets processed externally rather than just internally. 

And, you know, just the other day I was having this morning out with people and I was griping about something and my friend completely changed my perspective just by basically kind of calling it into question like, “Really?!” And it was a nice hang out for that reason and others. 

SD: It’s hard to do that, if not impossible to do that, on your own. No matter how acute your critical thinking is, it can be really hard to change your own mind, bring some fresh perspective. 

BB: Yeah, it’s really hard to do it for yourself because it turns into this little…like, you have to put the devil’s advocate on your shoulder and have him or her talking back to you and just have a little ridiculous tennis match in your mind. 

And, yeah, it’s hard for the person who’s holding the perspective to undercut that perspective. And then there’s just the joy of, you know, just being with other people and they’re different from you. 

SD: The surprise and delight of another personality in the room. 

BB: Yeah. Yeah. 

SD: Thankfully, you touch on two things in your Point Of View column in the August issue that I’ve been thinking about a lot. 

One, we can