Aasif Mandvi: Getting out of my own head

This episode explores Aasif Mandvi's personal journey dealing with chronic tinnitus, his struggles with identity and control, and how these experiences lead to personal growth and acceptance.

1. Chronic conditions like tinnitus can profoundly impact one's professional and personal life.
2. Vulnerability and a lack of control are common feelings among those dealing with chronic health issues.
3. Acceptance and mindfulness are crucial in managing the psychological effects of chronic conditions.
4. Personal relationships and interactions can provide meaningful support and perspective.
5. Life's unexpected challenges often lead to significant personal growth and understanding.

1: The onset of tinnitus

Aasif discusses the initial appearance of his tinnitus and its immediate impact on his life, describing his struggle with the constant noise and his journey through various treatments. Aasif Mandvi: "I try anything that anyone suggests that might possibly make things better."

2: Personal reflections and relationships

This chapter delves into Aasif's personal relationships, particularly with his wife, and how these have been influenced by his condition. Aasif Mandvi: "Our son Ishaan is born... I'm so focused on getting Ishaan to sleep that the city sounds barely reach me."

3: Coping mechanisms and mindfulness

Aasif shares his approach to managing his condition through mindfulness and meditation, reflecting on the importance of focusing on positive experiences. Carrie Goldstein: "And when we notice something positive or pleasant, we make a silent note to ourselves a one word label that approximately describes it."

1. Practice Mindfulness: Engage in mindfulness exercises to manage stress and focus on the positive aspects of your experiences.
2. Explore Various Treatments: Be open to trying different treatments and therapies, understanding that what works is highly individual.
3. Accept Vulnerability: Embrace vulnerability as a part of the human experience, allowing for deeper personal growth.
4. Maintain Relationships: Lean on personal relationships for support and understanding, sharing your experiences openly.
5. Prioritize Mental Health: Regularly engage in activities that promote mental well-being, such as yoga, meditation, or therapy.

Actor, writer and comedian Aasif Mandvi has given us so many laughs in his role as a correspondent on The Daily Show – on stage and in television and films. But when a doctor diagnoses him with tinnitus (ringing in the ears), he has to come to terms with his own vulnerability and the unpredictability of life. This eventually leads him to imagine a world with more possibilities, including falling in love – when he asks himself, "What could life be like, if I wasn't trapped in my own head?"

If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podcast player. It helps other listeners find their way to the show, and we’d be so grateful.

Each episode of Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with immersive music and gentle mindfulness prompts. Read the transcript for this story: meditativestory.com

People

Aasif Mandvi

Content Warnings:

None

Rohan Gunatillake

Hey, it's Rohan. Throughout your week, it's important to find moments of inspiration to keep you empowered and uplifted. Lately, I've turned to how to be a better human from Ted, a podcast about the little things you can do to improve your life. Each week, comedian Chris Duffy has refreshing and honest conversations with experts that can help you look at life differently from cleaning your house to having a healthier relationship with work. So check out how to be a better human wherever you get your podcasts.

Aasif Mandvi

A shop, at gallery openings or events to meet friends and realize, this is too noisy for me, I can't actually go in. How did I suddenly become this old guy who can't hang with people? The ringing is all consuming, all the time until eventually it's not. After some time, it slowly begins to recede into the background. My brain adjusts to its presence.

It's part of me. My brain starts to go, oh, okay, this thing that I thought I was afraid of, maybe I'm not as afraid of it anymore. I still hope to find some way to heal myself of my chronic condition. But as my brain begins to cope with the ringing, I begin to become aware of an underlying truth about my life. I'm more vulnerable than I think I am.

I'm less in control than I think I am. I'm more lonely than I like to pretend.

Carrie Goldstein

Born in India and raised in England, actor comedian Asif Manvi has given us so many laughs in his role as a correspondent on the Daily show. Many of you will also know him from his lead role on the television series Evil. Asif is a great storyteller and when youre next at the bookstore or shopping online for something to read, pick up his collection of humorous and personal stories called no Lands man. In todays meditative story, Asif shares a delightful, relatable story about falling in love that starts with a ringing in his ear. Thats right, keep listening.

All will reveal itself. In this series, we combine immersive first person stories, breathtaking music and mindfulness prompts. So that we may see our lives. Reflected back to us in other people's stories and that can lead to improvements in our own inner lives.

From wait. What? This is meditative story.

Rohan Gunatillake

I'm Rohan and I'll be your guide.

Carrie Goldstein

The body relaxed, the body breathing. Your sense is open, your mind open.

Meeting the world.

Aasif Mandvi

One summer, a new friend invites me to join them at a house in the Hamptons, a ritzy seaside community a few hours outside of New York City. I accept.

I head out of the city and meet them at this spacious five bedroom home. Except for my new friend, the others in the house are all strangers to me. The house itself is quiet. It's not by the ocean and it's not by the road. I'm not used to this.

I'm used to the noise of the city. I'm used to hearing the traffic, cars honking, the thrum of strangers talking over each other, whooshes of stale air. Subways come and go, but out here in the Hamptons, once night falls and everyone else goes to sleep, it's quiet.

Still silent.

My bedroom is modern, posh and minimal. The bed has white sheets and white pillows. I switch on the white lamp on the matching white side table. I stroll across the pale blond wood floors to look out the window. It's dark outside, so dark all I see is my own reflection, mirrored back.

My life is going great. Just great. I've been a working actor for two decades now, but recently I've found the kind of success that I only ever dreamed of. I'm a correspondent on the Daily show with Jon Stewart. I make good money.

Movie roles are being offered to me. People recognize me walking down the street. I'm also single and meeting women who would never have spoken to me ten years ago. My life is mostly about my career. That's just what it takes to make it as a brown guy in show business.

And now it's all finally paying off. I sit down on the bed. I turn off the bedside lamp and in the darkness I hear it for the first time. A high pitched sound like electrical wires. What is that?

I sit up and switch on the light. I look outside the window. Nothing. I walk out into the hallway. It follows me.

I walk into the bathroom. It follows. The sound, I quickly realize is in my right ear. I reach my finger inside to block my ear, but that only makes it worse. Nothing works in this silent, sparse room.

There's nowhere to go. To distract myself, I walk around the room, not knowing what to do. I can't escape this sound, and I dare not make a noise in this quiet house where everyone is asleep.

What am I going to do about the sound in my head? I breathe deeply to calm myself. Finally, I think, to reach for my phone and put on some white noise. It helps. I can't tell if it's the white noise or exhaustion, but I finally fall asleep.

Carrie Goldstein

Let's enjoy the relief here. I'll sit finally asleep after all the turbulence thanks to white noise. Let your shoulders be soft. Your hands let go of any noise in your head. We'll just take this moment.

Aasif Mandvi

After my trip to the hamptons, I sit in a cold, sterile ear, nose and throat specialist's office. Ive been sent here by my last ent, a young, attractive, vivacious doctor who I found myself flirting with until the day she looked in my ear and said, it looks like your canal is closing. I dont know. Ive never seen it before. Not the thing you want to hear from your doctor.

She does a minor surgery. It causes scar tissue that leads to hearing loss, which leads to, you guessed it, tinnitus. The new doctor is cold and sterile. He tells me you have a chronic condition and we can open up your ear canal. But it'll keep closing down.

I say, but the tinnitus will eventually stop, right? No, probably not. Afraid you're stuck with that, I stammer. What do you mean, stuck with it? Exactly what I said.

You get used to it. It's fine. How can he be so dismissive?

Doctor, what do I do about restaurants and bars and loud places? It's really hard because the ringing gets even worse. And with an irritation in his tone, he answers, well, don't go into loud places. Then I walk the streets. Is this the end of my career?

I'm an actor. I'm a comedian. I make a living performing in loud venues. Going to parties and hobnobbing is part of my job.

For my work on the Daily show, I need to be able to actually hear the people I'm interviewing. I live in New York City. I'm always in loud restaurants and bars. Western medicine has no answers for me. So I begin my own search for the cure.

I try anything that anyone suggests that might possibly make things better. I cut vinegar out of my diet completely. I stop eating mushrooms or anything fungal. I eliminate gluten. I go to chiropractors and osteopaths.

I get so much acupuncture, I look like pinhead. I fly to Denver in the dead of winter to visit a healer to unpack traumas that may be hidden in my body. I send a lock of my hair to a guy in Toronto who uses my genetic code to custom make pills that I have to take four to five times a day in order to heal my ears. None of the miracle cures work. Part of what makes this condition, this ringing and the hearing loss, so hard is that it's invisible.

If you break your leg, people look at you and see that you have a broken leg. But this isn't a broken leg. It's all happening inside my head. It's completely lonely, standing in a crowded room. I seem fine, except that I'm having a totally different experience from everyone else.

I used to relish having it be all about myself, my career, my own space, my own memento. But now I'm trapped inside my own head, obsessed with the noise that won't let me have a moment of peace. I show up at gallery openings or events to meet friends and realize this is too noisy for me. I can't actually go in. How did I suddenly become this old guy who can't hang with people?

The ringing is all consuming, all the time, until eventually it's not.

After some time, it slowly begins to recede into the background. My brain adjusts to its presence. It's part of me. My brain starts to go, oh, okay. This thing that I thought I was afraid of, maybe I'm not as afraid of it anymore.

I still hope to find some way to heal myself of my chronic condition. But as my brain begins to cope with the ringing, I begin to become aware of an underlying truth about my life. I'm more vulnerable than I think I am. I'm less in control than I think I am. I'm more lonely than I like to pretend.

Two years later, the doors open onto a packed Christmas party in a loft on the lower east side of Manhattan.

I look over at Shefali standing next to me. We're friends. At least that's what we tell each other. She's nothing like the women I date. She's so chatty.

Before her, I'd never met anyone chattier than me. It leads to long, late night conversations. But she's beautiful and interesting and really smart, and we both feel a connection. But is it more? It's been a few months since we met, and clearly neither of us has taken the risk to find out.

It's the kind of party that I already know I'm too old for. There are beer stains on the floor and paper cups stacked up by the pillars. That's right, there are pillars. I can tell Shefali's thinking what I'm thinking. We won't be staying here too long.

When I come back from getting us drinks, I see that she's smiling up at some other guy. He's giving her his number. She takes it, I think to myself, oh, I guess to her, I'm just a guy that she knows. She's getting numbers. She's out there in the world.

She's not waiting around for me. And I realize that I can either turn back inside my own head and let this person slip away, or I can take a chance.

I ask, who's that? She says, it was just some guy she was talking to. But you took his number. She looks up at me. Yeah, what do you care?

She knows, but she's going to make me say it. A little bit jealous, I tell her, and when I say that, the energy shifts.

Suddenly, for the first time ever, we're kissing in this crowded party with beer stains and paper cups. We go upstairs to get our coats so we can get out of there. The hosts have thrown everybody's coats into our bedroom, and when we open the door, there are just coats everywhere. There must be a hundred coats on the bed, on the floor, everywhere.

We dig and dig and find our coats, pick them up, and we're kissing again, and we start to lose our balance, and I think, oh, God, oh, God, we're gonna fall over. Don't let her hit her head. Oh, my God. Do not let her hit her head.

We crash to the ground with a huge thud. Seconds later, five people burst into the room to see if we're okay. Shefali and I are on the floor, laughing in a sea of coats. Her head's fine, but it must have sounded like this crazy loud bang downstairs. We didn't hear it.

The woman I fell into a pile of coats with is the woman I marry. One night when we were first dating, Shefali tells me about her dream to go to Italy and sit in a restaurant in Tuscany and eat pasta. She has this lady and the tramp fantasy where shes splitting a plate of housemaid linguine with the man of her dreams. I dont eat gluten, I say casually. Its a holdover from my years of trying every diet under the sun to heal my ears.

You dont eat gluten? What? How can I be with a man who doesnt eat pasta? She says, very seriously. Ill order chicken, I say.

But her dream is to go to Italy and eat pasta, and I dont fit that. We stop fighting about it, literally, about how things could possibly work between us, until I finally take a step back and I realize, you know, wait, we have no plans to go to Italy. No one's bought a ticket. We're home in our apartment in New York. This fight is just a fear of something that might happen.

And because this is a fight about imaginary pasta, we both start laughing. We have this saying now in our marriage, pasta in Italy. It means we're fighting over something that isn't real. It means we've chosen to go down a rabbit hole based on something we've created in our heads. I'm terrified of getting married.

Needing someone, or having someone need me feels like a trap. Shefali and I love each other, but we're also very different. But these differences have opened me up to a new depth of experience, exploring and challenging the parts of myself that was shut off to me. On some level, the same is true with my tinnitus. It's still here.

It's still hard. My chronic condition is still there, but it reminds me every day how much stronger and bigger and more resilient I am than the things that I fear.

Carrie Goldstein

When faced with the difficult, we can either turn away or move towards it. Both can be the right thing to do. Lets do what Asif does. Let your mind rest with hearing all sounds that are being received wherever you are and open out to them, letting them be here, breathing with them.

Aasif Mandvi

Our son Ishaan is born in March. New York City is just beginning to shut down from COVID It's quieter outside on the streets now, with less people out. Still, some ambient noise trickles into the darkened corner of my son's bedroom. In our apartment, I sit on a rocking chair. Ishaan lays on my chest.

It's taken me 54 years to get here. I sing him to sleep. I cradle his head, mindful to protect it a little, like I did for his mother as we fell into a pile of coats together at a Christmas party years ago. I'm so focused on getting Ishaan to sleep that the city sounds barely reach me. The ringing in my ears has taken the back seat over the years.

Still there, still a nuisance. But I look around at the life I've created and I look down at the life I've created and it is bigger than the sound in my head. I sing Elton John's your song as I rock back and forth gently and watch a Shawn's eyelids grow heavier and heavier. It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside. I sing him the same song every night.

Shawn doesn't know that I never thought I'd be here holding him. He doesn't know about the noise of the city outside or the ringing in my ears.

He doesn't need to know anything about any of this yet.

He only needs to hear me singing to him so he can fall asleep.

I'm still me. I still battle what I battle. So here I am. I'm exhausted. It's 03:00 a.m.

There's a pandemic raging in the world. Uncertainty everywhere. But I have this baby napping on my chest and I have this wife, the pasta lover, trying to catch some sleep in the room next door.

Carrie Goldstein

Thank you Asif.

For me, the theme that struck me most from Asifs story was of letting go. Letting go of the tension around his tinnitus and letting go of the need to be the centre of the universe. And more besides. The idea of letting go is a bit of a meditation cliche, but for good reason. It's a real rabbit hole and the more you understand what letting go means and how it works, the more you fall in love with it.

So for our meditation together, we're going to play a little letting go game. And it's based on the idea that we as humans tend to pay more attention to the worrying and the stressful compared to the pleasant and the positive. Not sure if you've noticed.

And while there are parts of life when that can be useful, it's not especially useful when we're trying to get to relax and be stable. So let's try out a special technique which changes that around and emphasizes the positive over the negative, encouraging us to move into the next part of our day, open and lift it.

But before we get into the technique itself, lets just start by settling in.

Letting where youre standing or sitting or lying down support you. Letting it take your weight, the ground, the chair, the bed, whatever. Doing all the work so you dont have to do anything. Feeling the weight of the clothes on your body, enjoying the warmth and allowing your body to relax and soften into it. Safe, protected here.

And the technique we're going to use here is called noting the positive and noting everything else. Release. That means that we're looking out for any positive or pleasant sensations and thoughts, such as warmth in the body, a feeling of calm or a kind thought.

And when we notice something positive or pleasant, we make a silent note to ourselves a one word label that approximately describes it.

Whatever word makes sense in the moment, there are no wrong answers.

Warmth. Calm. Kindness. Softness.

Silently saying to ourselves a single word that simply represents the pleasant parts of our experience that were aware of relaxation, fuzziness, quiet breath, whatever the pleasant or gentle sensation is, however quiet. Just giving it a name.

And when you notice something that could be called negative or difficult, instead of naming it with any particular detail, just noting the one word release.

Whatever it is, difficult. Physical sensations or thoughts or patterns of thoughts. Not getting tangled up with the details, but just noting. Release.

Release.

Release.

Release.

Naming the positive or the neutral and letting everything else just be noted as release.

The big idea of this meditation is that we're tuning our mind more into positive experience, just leaving the other stuff alone, letting it go, letting it release.

And because positive experience is naturally relaxing, it sets us up for what comes next with lightness and joy.

Thank you Asif and thank you.

Aasif Mandvi

On. Behalf of the team at Meditative story. Thank you for spending time with us today. We love creating the show for you and if the show serves you in a meaningful way, wed love to hear from you. Would you take a minute right now to write us a review in your podcast app?

Rohan Gunatillake

When you leave a review, it really inspires our team and were a group who derive so much energy from understanding how meditative story impacts you. Its also a way for you to pay it forward by helping others discover the show. So if leaving a review speaks to you today, wed really appreciate it.

Meditative Story is a way to art original in partnership with Thrive Global, the show is produced at the studio inside Sy Partners in New York. Our executive producers are Darren Triff, June Cohen, Arianna Huffington and Dan Katz. Our supervising producer is Jay Punjabi. Our curator is Carrie Goldstein. Original music and sound design is by the Holiday Brothers, mixing and mastering by Brian Pugh.

Special thanks to Anne Sachs, Julianna Stone, Summer Matice, Monica Lee, Lindsay, Benoit O'Connell, Libiduke Smithy, Sinha, Stephanie Gonzalez and Sarah Sandman. And I'm Rohan Gunnichilika, creator of the Buddhify Meditation app and your host.

Visit meditativestory.com to find the transcript for this episode.