Mind of Snaps Podcast

Mind of Snaps - Positivity Podcast | Ep. 28 - "This Very Moment is the Perfect Teacher"

October 22, 2020 She Snaps Season 420 Episode 28
Mind of Snaps Podcast
Mind of Snaps - Positivity Podcast | Ep. 28 - "This Very Moment is the Perfect Teacher"
Show Notes Transcript

Welcome to "This Very Moment is the Perfect Teacher" - the 28th Episode of the Mind of Snaps Positivity Podcast!

This is a special podcast series that is separate from the regular Mind of Snaps Podcast, with a new release (typically) posted every Thursday for Patreon supporters!

It is my goal to create as much positive & encouraging content as I can during these intense, uncertain times we're faced with. 2020 has been so much more than anyone expected it to be, and nobody should have to take it on alone. The only way I can continue to do so, is with your help. Become a patron, subscribe to me on Twitch, you can send a tip which I'll turn into an investment... or you can simply share my content on social media. Every little bit helps me be able to continue to create the podcasts and other mindfulness & positivity based content in the future.

The format of these podcasts are forever evolving to reflect current events from personal to global, so I hope you are enjoying them. Please reach out to me if you have any suggestions!

Hang in there, friends... we're all in this together.

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Make sure to become a patron on
Patreon to support future content!

You can find new Positivity Podcasts on Patreon every Monday, and as of September 2020 - every Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, & Stitcher!

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Jessy (Mind Of Snaps / SheSnaps)

www.MindofSnaps.com

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Unknown Speaker :

Hello, you beautiful beings.

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Happy today.

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Whatever day it is for you. I hope that you woke up on the right side of the bed today and you are ready to tackle your day. But even if you woke up on the wrong side, I have faith that you will be able to turn things around quickly and make today incredible. As usual, I would like to start out by thanking all of you for the absolutely mind blowing level of support that y'all have been showing lately. It seriously means so much. I told y'all about my intentions to start dropping sponsors for the sake of ensuring we can keep a very cohesive message across the board. And the way that you all have supported this community vision for the future has just been beautiful to witness. I am forever grateful. We've grown by somewhere around 300 subscribers on Twitch Since we discussed changing things up, and now we're up to I think 28 patrons on the Patreon, I find this to be absolutely thrilling, because every morning when I review my goals, I think deeply and I visualize how incredible it will be when we can start really giving back to the community in a wide variety of ways. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the support. Thanks for being such wonderful community members. Thanks for getting out there and spreading the word, not just about our lovely little online mental Oasis, but about the message that matters to us most. We all have immense capacity to change our lives for the better. And by doing that, we can help change the lives of those around us too. For this week's positivity podcast, I want to talk to you about finding the lessons in our everyday lives. One of my favorite Quotes mantras, I don't know whatever you'd like to call it, but I believe I originally heard it from Pema children. And it's very simple. This very moment is the perfect teacher, I think on this concept a lot. And lately it's been really clicking for me. So I'm hoping to pass on some of the lessons I've learned in hopes that you'll start to see the vast opportunities for growth that surround you constantly. In the last two years of my life, I've been almost consumed by my desire to grow and heal so that I in turn, can help others to grow and heal as well. During that time, I would never have expected things to go the way they did or for my mindset to shift in such a massive way. One of the things that has been a very real focus for me lately, has been working to release my tendencies to cling to a version of myself that I now believe to be inaccurate. I know I've been reading Drilling this quote into your brains in the last couple of podcasts, but I'm gonna say it again, because it just fits so well. I'm not who I think I am, I am who I think you think I am.

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Every time I hear it just slaps me.

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I've been finding myself in hammered with Buddhism and other Eastern belief systems, especially when I find up when I find out that they match up with psychology and neuroscience and in stuff that I've experienced through my psychedelic stuff as well. The book why Buddhism is true, the science and philosophy of enlightenment really helped fuel that interest further, ever since being faced with the concept of not self, or the idea that the person we believe ourselves to be doesn't really exist. It's concepts made manifest, it's learned belief systems that became us. And over the years that became so all encompassing Saying that we lost the awareness that the true us is much more vast than just a fucking collection of thoughts, memories and automatic behaviors. You are not who you think you are. You can be whoever you choose to be. Obviously, within reason, like you can't just decide to be a golden retriever and then become one. But you can choose to become a patient person, a caring person, a compassionate person, a humorous person, a disciplined person, a morning person, whatever. All this and so much more is within your reach. Growing up before we even understand what we are, the people around us begin to tell us who we are. You're kind, you're smart, you're dumb, you're quiet, you're impatient, whatever. We hear it and we just accept it. Because we don't have the knowledge that the people around us could be wrong or that in money. cases they're just projecting their own beliefs onto these little baby blank canvases. Now that I've been meditating and practicing mindfulness in as many ways as I can throughout the day, it's given me the space to recognize just how many of the things people said to me, became who I saw myself as, in many instances, this fucked up my chances at being more. A great example. I was told that I was smart, frequently growing up, and you're probably thinking like, Oh, that's not that bad, right? Being told your smartest good better than being told you're dumb, right? I don't think that there's any need to compare, because in this instance, both can fuck up a young person's mind and mentality probably equally. But this is this is how things worked for me. Because I was told that I was smart so often, anytime I couldn't understand or comprehend something. I was tired FIDE that I was going to be outed as someone who was actually not smart. But in reality was just an average person. I deliberately failed at so many things, just so I could say that it was on purpose, because the idea of failing unintentionally would have totally fucked with my sense of self. I remember being in a spelling bee when I was younger, I was cocky as fuck, because I started reading really young and was a great reader. When I was in grade school, they even had me assist with some of the older classes to help them learn how to read better. So you know that that definitely inflated the ego a little bit. Being an avid reader also meant that my vocabulary and my spelling skills were a bit better at a younger age. So I went into that spelling bee thinking Easy peasy. But then I heard the announcement that completely changed my plans. The school announced that the winners of the spelling bee would be going to some kind of national championship. thing, in that we'd all be broadcast throughout the school's TV system on Channel One for all to see. That was my stopping point. I started panicking about how everyone thought I was smart and witty, and that if I went up and I froze, and I misspelled some basic ass word, everyone would lose that belief in me, they'd finally know that I was a fraud, and that I wasn't actually all that smart. I had just done a lot of reading. So at my next appearance in the spelling bee, I deliberately misspelled an easy word and looked as bored as I could on purpose. I wanted to make it clear that I was the one losing on purpose, just because I didn't feel like going further. You know, I got shit to do, man.

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It worked.

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I got booted out of the competition, and then my peers and I laughed and joked about how silly it is to try hard in school. Like what kind of thick nerd does that my sense of self was able to remain unchallenged. That's just one small example of how my identity began to slowly emerge over time. at a younger age, like the rest of you, I was simply a joyful, curious being. Then I found out about my adoption and suddenly a new thing got added on to my identity. I am a person who was abandoned by her mother as a baby. Then I encountered physical and verbal abuse from my adopted father, who, by the way, I loved deeply, and we did have a great relationship before he passed away. But that was where I learned that I was a burden. And that violence is a good way to solve problems and get people to listen the fuck up. Then I grew even more and I learned that by stifling my emotions, people would view me as strong. So I held back much of who I was, then I grew up even more and I learned that my body was more interesting to many of the men that I met than my mind. So I grew to depend on my sexuality to help me navigate challenging romantic relationships.

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Slowly but

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surely this person these beliefs became me. I became an angry, jealous, unhappy person. And it is no fucking surprise. The person that I truly knew I was deep down

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was being suffocated by the beliefs I began to identify with and I was miserable. All kinds of different coping mechanisms were established and behavior and thought patterns emerged and became hardened paths from frequent usage. Every time that quiet voice inside of me said, You're more than this, my brain would kick in and say no, you're stupid fucking burden it over yourself. The absolutely fucking beautiful aspect of meditation and a good mindfulness practice without finally gave me In the distance I needed to get away from my belief systems for a damn minute and just exist. I started to see the thoughts emerging and question them rather than blindly accept them. Soon I have the massive revelation that helps me to begin the inevitable transformation into who I am today. I am not my thoughts, I am not my body, I am not my behaviors, I am not my past nor my future. I simply Am I consciously decided that I would bring as much awareness into my daily life as I could, so that I could ensure that any words that followed the phrase I am would be words that I chose, words chosen based on my chosen belief system of unity and oneness with all words chosen based on the deep knowing that I have now have an expansive self that does start or stop with this body that I walk around in every day. I am actively creating myself with every deliberate thought, word and action I take.

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I am who I choose to be.

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I'm working hard frequently to see if I'm clinging to a version of myself that no longer aligns with my values. This is where the mantra I shared earlier comes in. This very moment is the perfect teacher. If you're on a similar path, and you've chosen who you'd like to be, and you're actively taking steps to get there, it's time that you know the truth. every challenge you face, every burden placed upon your shoulders, every obstacle evident in your path. Those are your teachers. They will show you where you are clinging to an old version of yourself and as soon as you can recognize that you can begin In the process of freeing yourself, freeing yourself from what you might ask, freeing yourself from the expectation of perfection, from the idea that life is about finding a way to eliminate suffering and challenges, these challenges placed in front of you are not there because you've got bad luck. They're not there because you deserve them from past mistakes. They're not there because life sucks. They are not an indication of you sliding backwards and losing all of the progress you've made thus far. They are opportunities. They are your teachers, welcome them in, show them some loving respect and explore them. Life will always have ups and downs. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can learn to ride those waves with joy and compassion. lean in to the lessons that come with this Suffering are the challenges. Be kind to the obstacles and be kind to yourself. For reference, let me quickly share with you some of my teachers from this past week, some examples of where my belief system was challenged by discomfort or pain or obstacles. Expectations expectation was my teacher recently, if you've been keeping up with the positivity podcasts, you already know a lot about that. But having expectations for my future I've learned is keeping me from fully enjoying the now I'm too attached to the outcome. I got to stop that. So I've been working really hard to eliminate expectations and instead just have opposite optimistic goals without being attached to any particular outcome. Pain was my teacher recently, my back has been bothering me on and off for a while and having dealt with chronic pain in the past I have a tendency to just accept the discomfort and try to focus around it this time though, I stopped and listened to it. What it told me was, if I kept myself on a good stretching and exercise routine, it would leave me be. I've been stretching every morning since in my back pain has subsided greatly. Plus, I just feel more energized. A chipped coffee mug was my teacher this morning. I was doing dishes and I saw that a really dope sublime mug that my best friend bought me as a birthday gift last year is starting to deteriorate. My initial thought was to be disappointed and to feel sad that this item I loved and appreciated was probably not going to be with me much longer.

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And then my true self kicked

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in and reminded me that in my actual belief system, my chosen belief system, the one that feels true, material, things don't matter. I reframed the situation as an opportunity To be super grateful for the fact that I've had this mug as a reminder of my friends love for me for nearly a year, and I've been blessed with feelings of joy every time it's been used.

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disgust was my teacher recently.

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This is lesson I am working especially hard on and I'd be lying if I said I'd made the progress I would like to see here. There's a person in the twitch world who was a former acquaintance of mine until he crossed major boundary lines. I tell myself that I've forgiven him that I don't have any ill will towards him. In most days, I really feel that I really do. I know that I don't hate him. I know that I don't think he's some kind of evil monster. But the disgust that is so hard to let go of I see pictures of him surface in my feed. And before I even noticed that my faces contorted like I just smelled Something gross. Before I even realized that I'm thinking these thoughts about how he's disgusting

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to me.

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That doesn't align with my belief system.

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In my belief system, I am working hard to remind myself of the unity that I feel to be true, and that includes him as well. disgust is helping me to learn yet another way that I am clinging to a version of myself

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that I am no longer.

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This week, I'd like to encourage you to look for your teachers. Every moment of your life is presenting you with opportunity to learn and grow. don't squander them. When your mind tries to tell you that it's okay to sit and wallow in your despair over all the things going wrong. Correct it with kindness, look for the lessons that your teachers are presenting you with. Leave the judgments for yourself aside too We all have so much room to grow. There is no need to judge yourself along this path. If you feel like you've been enjoying life and coasting through it lately, and suddenly something comes and slaps you upside the head listen to it. It's life reminding you that you had started to grow attached to the expectation that your entire life could be easy and flow smoothly at all times. let that go. Release the thought that life is against you, and instead be grateful that life is showing you yet another area for growth and improvement. Growth is not a punishment for inadequacy. It is a beautiful part of life growth feels amazing and helps you become who you truly know you can be.

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This very moment is the perfect teacher.

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What is it telling you

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now go out there and make this week incredible. I fucking love you all have an amazing day and manifest dope shit. I