Focus, Distraction, and Those Difficult People - a podcast by Carla Royal, Juliet Fay

from 2023-12-12T20:03:42.095982

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Here’s what we explored:

self-awareness is a superpower. It is often enough, simply to notice what's going on in your mind.
does it have to take as long to calm down as it did to get wound up? Is that just more thought in the system getting in the way?
Juliet wonders whether it is as simple as letting our minds settle.
Carla shares her experience of sometimes just dropping out of a revved-up mind
and also her experience of TRYING to drop out of a busy mind and not succeeding
if you're thinking is stressful, more stressful thinking won't get you out of feeling stressed
what we may not realise is when no longer experience stress, it is simply because we are in a different state of mind, not that the externals have necessarily changed
when we make eg being distracted a problem, we tend to get more of what we see as a problem, in this case, being more distracted
the metaphor of a car engine in neutral when you're revving the engine by putting your foot on the gas pedal: the solution is to take your foot off the gas
our judgment that we are having the wrong experience is what keeps it in place
as we get more interested in the wonder of everyday things, something happens, that it becomes more available to us to leave our thinking alone
excessive gentleness and being okay with not being okay are helpful
using what you understand about spirituality to beat yourself with or to anesthetize yourself is not helpful
you're not going to find peace of mind using 'I'm wrong' thinking
whatever your flavour of thinking: that's the experience you'll get
if I feel irritated trying to tackle what is irritating me is not going to help because that's not where the irritation is coming from
we over-identify with our thoughts and believe they are us
we can't necessarily stop our thoughts or change them but we don't have to over-identify with them
we live in our thinking: if it's revved up; we'll experience being revved up
we know that something we're very wound up about today we likely won't even remember in a day, a month, a year
not identifying with our thoughts - how do we do that?
a deeper part of us gets touched, we wake up to something bigger than us, to a deeper wisdom at play
for some that is Nature, God, or simply the wonder of a newborn, a young animal
contemplating and wondering about that something bigger seems to lessen that over-identification with our personal thought system
that connection is available any time: washing the dishes, sitting at the computer, or in a high rise apartment
Juliet shares her experience of watching 'My Octopus Teacher' - the redemption of one man who immersed himself in understanding an octopus living in a kelp forest off the Western Cape of South Africa
Juliet was struck by the power of immersive, gentle curiosity. What would happen if we bring that to the things we care about?
your loved ones, your work, your pets, this deeper wisdom, social justice, saving species in your neighbourhood
Carla recognises the point when she became present to the conversation and acknowledged Juliet being present
Carla shares her difficulty with someone she cares for who has different political views to her and she recognises that she feels so much anger
she is not going to say anything until she can feel soft and compassionate
underneath the anger she senses she is afraid - there is no sense of curiosity or compassion or honouring who he is when she is gripped by this anger/fear
without curiosity we cannot focus on who someone else is at their core
distracted by anger and judgment, we can't ask, what is going on for that person?
what are my blinders around this?
shadow puppets - your thinking is playing out with your thinking about his thinking
so neither persons' deeper wisdom is experienced
we can tend to reject or annihilate what feels alien (like the octopus) but through eg the film-maker's story we get invited to enter the world of the octopus as a beautiful other experience
when we are looking for the point or purpose of something we miss all the richness of its just being
when we go into wonder at how a creature exists, we can discover something beautiful
we get distracted by our labels e.g what this is, who this is, what this means
go out and look at a tree but drop the label 'tree' because labels give us a very limited view
you see how someone can reject a whole group of people but then get to know an individual and have a totally different experience from the one filed under that group label
Carla sees she is labeling her friend and not seeing him for who she knows him to be
our labels distract us from the full experience of self and other
labels feel safe (because they give you all the answers) but they cut us off from so much
fundamentalism, in any form, is a very narrow view of life and people, a teeny, tiny box, it distracts from humanity, from God, from mystery, from the Lifeforce
it distracts us from bringing our curiosity fully online
everyone wants the same things: peace of mind, love, and understanding, to take care of their families
how we think we get that looks different for each of us
human beings are all looking for connection.
when there's conflict, we're struggling with difficult thinking about a person not a difficult person
our natural state is one of curiosity
just knowing that at any moment you could have a different perspective about anyone or anything is very hopeful and can help us wait or hold back until we get fresh thought
getting curious about what's beyond the edges of what is known
when we're distracted we're often just re-hashing old, stale, thoughts
focus feels lighter and more open
as we realise deeper and deeper that we are always at the effect of what looks true to us in any given moment, we get more and more curious about what could happen as more and more of us have a change of heart

Quotes and References

Mooji - search on YouTube
My Octopus Teacher - Netflix documentary
“As the uneasiness and reluctance to face it cut him off more and more from all real happiness, and as habit renders the pleasures the vanity and excitement and flippancy at once less pleasant and harder to forgo...you will find that anything or nothing is sufficient to attract his wandering attention. You no longer need a good book, which he really likes, to keep him from his prayers or his work or his sleep; a column of advertisements in yesterday's paper will do. You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but also in conversations with those he cares nothing about, on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say...'I now see that I spent most my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Maya Angelou - Caged Bird poem

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Carla is a mindset & performance coach working with high achieving, high-performance entrepreneurs who are dealing quietly with anxiety.

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Poet & 3 Principles facilitator, Juliet loves exploring and pointing towards freedom of mind for those curious to engage more fully with all aspects of their life.

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