3000 possibilities in each moment

In this episode, I explore the creative nature of each moment and the space that exists between what happens to us and how we respond.

So much of our lives is shaped through conversation – not only with others, but within ourselves.

Each interaction is like a thread, weaving the tapestry of our experience, aqqqqqnd yet, often we find ourselves repeating the same patterns, the same words, and the same reactions.

In any given moment, there are countless possibilities available to us. Different ways we could speak, act, or respond. Each one subtly shaping the direction of our lives.

So why do we tend to stay in familiar loops?

Often it is because we are not fully present. We act from conditioning, from learned patterns, from the past replaying itself in the present moment.
But there is a space.

A space between stimulus and response.

And in that space lies the potential for something new.

This episode is a reflection on:
• The creative nature of every moment
• How unconscious patterns shape our lives
• The idea of “3000 possibilities” in each moment
• The gap between stimulus and response
• How awareness allows us to pause and choose differently

When we begin to notice our habitual reactions and gently create space before responding, we open the door to change.

Because when we react, we re-enact the past.
But when we pause, we create the future.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Bodhisattva Conversations. My name is Julia Carly, and this podcast explores the practice of being so that we can live with greater presence, awareness and freedom, and experience the truth of who we are. In today's podcast, I'm going to be exploring the space between any stimulus we have and our response to that, and how we can recognise that every single moment is creative, and actually, there is a lot of space between any stimulus we might have and the response. Because essentially, a lot of this comes in conversation. Obviously, there are all sorts of stimuli that go on, but I am exploring it more in the conversations we have, and how life really is an ongoing dialogue, an ongoing conversation that we have with other people, but also obviously in our own head and with anybody we encounter, short conversations when we're out and about, when we're traveling, when we're buying things, when we're in at work with our colleagues, with our family, with friends, we are always in conversation. And I was reflecting that my work essentially is has been and is many, many, many, many, many conversations. And I remember years ago my supervisor Ros, Ros Draper, who's a wonderful, wonderful psychotherapist, and I remember her describing the work with another as essentially a useful conversation, one where possibilities can arise and things can be co-created and go in a different direction to one you might have thought all possibilities happening in that conversation. And essentially the space between is where threads are being woven in a dialogue to make a you know co-create a new reality, to create a story, to listen to a story, to respond differently to a story that somebody may have an idea about, and so it's like a tapestry being woven all the time. And essentially, the richness of life can be expanded and um you know made huge and limitless by the amount of different conversations we can have. If we can have a conversation that we've never had before, and we can have a conversation with someone we've never had a conversation before, they may think completely differently to us, they may see the world differently, they may have had completely different life experiences. But if we can have that conversation, then we are expanded, our life expands, and it's a it's an opportunity for growth simply by listening to another person and having that conversation. The world expands, it opens up in dialogue. But of course, if we close down a conversation, it contracts, it just goes inward, and it's an interesting thing as to why we would do that. Why do we do that? Why would you ever close a conversation down? Because there is an opportunity for the new ideas, new possibilities, but I think people you know close it down because it doesn't fit your beliefs. Often it's so alien to anything you believe that it can be easily immediately shut down. Um, it can challenge your identity. People are very um wedded to the identity they have with themselves, and if a conversation challenges that and makes us look at a completely different way of living or being, that can you know be a place where people shut that down. Also, just because it feels uncomfortable talking about things that perhaps you don't talk about out in the world normally, all those things that people can shut down the conversation, and of course, really it makes life become smaller. And I always think the richness of my life is the amount of incredible stories I've heard, the incredible experiences, the incredible depth of people's experience, but also their joy, their grief, their hardships, their anger, all the things that they've experienced that I'm very privileged to have had conversations with with them about. But this podcast really, I'm looking at the creative nature of each moment. Because in any moment, each moment, there are countless ways we can respond. We can respond with different words, we can have a different tone to how we respond to something, we can have different actions, we can even be silent and just listen, and it's a completely different um way of being, perhaps, than we had been before. And each response or each different way we do something can take our life in a completely different direction. And every moment we've got the opportunity to take your life or our life in a completely, completely different direction than one that we would have previously thought. Because often we think we're being very original, we think that we're, we feel that we're being ourselves, um, we feel we're maybe being spontaneous. But if you really, really examine your thoughts, your words, your actions, and I always think it's a really good exercise to properly, properly examine and be reflective of what our thoughts are, what our responses to things are, our words, our actions, our beliefs, uh all those ways that we historically just respond, perhaps without thinking. Because how many are actually new? How many of your responses, your thoughts are just on repeat? It's really worth an investigation because there's nothing wrong with this, it's not a criticism in any way, but it is just unconscious, and often people are behaving very, very unconsciously. But one of the things I love is that the Buddhist teachings say that there are 3,000 possibilities in every moment. So in that space between the stimulus and the response, in that moment, there are 3,000 possibilities. Well, of course, I don't think that that is a literal 3,000, but it is a demonstration of the vastness, the interconnectedness, the possibilities that lie in front of us within us in that moment. And so, if there are, if there are so many possibilities and um we can make our life up anew in every moment, why do we stay stuck in loops? Because one of the things I work with a lot with people is they have often come to investigate because they're stuck in a loop because they've got a pattern repeating, and and generally, of course, if they've come to investigate it, it's a loop that's not serving them. It can be a loop in relationship or in something to do with their work or their sport or their health, all sorts of things, but it can it's stuck in a loop. So, why does that happen? Why do we stay in patterns? Why, why, why are we caught in these loops? And essentially, it's it. I think the simple answer is that we're not present, we're not present to that moment. We're actually living in a in a dialogue in our head, we're living in a past experiences, we're living in our identities, we've set up with that mental um mental narrative, and so we're kind of identifying with the thoughts, the beliefs, all the things that you know go on in our our head, and they're part of our responses and our habitual responses to people and situations. And so, therefore, in a way, you're you're not recognising yourself as the awareness behind the thoughts. Because when we know ourselves to be the silence, the stillness, the presence behind the thoughts, we'll have the opportunity to use that space because often the concept or the idea or the way of being that I'm suggesting is so simple. It's basically there is a stimulus, somebody says something, something happens. There is a space before a response, a space where we can do something different. It's really, really simple, but it's very, very hard because people think they are the thoughts and they don't realize that they're the awareness behind them. They are the space, they are the moment, they are the stillness, and in that we can take any any direction we want to go. So it is the question of who am I? Who am I? But who am I below the created self, the ego self, the self with who has a story, really? Story of you know, all that's happened, or that we believe, or that's all the patterns, the programs, all the things that we believe to be I. Who is the I beneath that? Because the more we get into that awareness, and I always will encourage the breath, come back to the breath, breathe in deeply, deeply into the belly, and breathe out, and then there's that space. There's a space at the top and the bottom of the breath, but the bottom of the breath is often longer. See breathing in, breathe out, there's that space, and there's that gap. And we can use that gap, the gap that's in the breath is in our thoughts, is everywhere. And if we use that gap between the stimulus and the response, between something happening, and use that space, there is there is something completely different that can happen. Because there's something happening which wouldn't previously have happened before, because if we know there's a space, we're not just coming out of habitual um response, habitual, you know, habitual pattern, habitual uh retort, habitual action, habitual um feeling. Because then in that space, if we come into that space, and and instead of having a habitual response, if we come into that space, then there is the opportunity for some for something new to happen, which is you know awesome. We we might choose the same way, but at least it's with awareness, because without awareness, you've just got that automatic response, and you just do the same thing you've always done, say the same thing, feel the same thing, behave in the same way. But with awareness, we have a conscious response. So even if it's the same response as we've done before, it's a conscious response and rather than an automatic reaction. Because when we react, we generally are just uh re-enacting the past round and round and round and round, but when we press pause, we can create something completely different. Well, we've got the possibility to anyway. It might take practice, of course, because again, we kind of loop back to sometimes we're more comfortable with the patterns, programs, the same habitual responses. So, faced with that um space, sometimes we don't want to use it because we don't necessarily want the new, so that's but that's again interesting to find out because when there's a space and there's the opportunity for something new, you can people can often feel um that they like the old, they're they're familiar with it. But if you would like to at least investigate the practice, it is the pressing pause, and I've obviously said this to many many people. Any of you who are listening know me well, um you know about the pressing pause, and actually it was funny the other day because I discovered, or I didn't actually discover, I was taught by one of my younger clients that on the voice note bit of WhatsApp, if if you need to pause for any reason, you can press pause with the little two little red knots on the on the on the just at the bit at the bottom. And I was absolutely delighted I could press pause because sometimes you're going to cough, or someone comes, you know, the door bangs, someone comes in, whatever, something might happen that you want to press pause. And so I then was saying to another client, Oh, did you know? You can press pause on the WhatsApp. And she said, She loved it. She said, You've been telling me to press pause for years, Julia. So um it is, it's being able to press pause, there's space, and we can do something else. So we and essentially, first and foremost, for this practice of the pressing pause practice, is anyway start to notice, you know, get more aware, notice your habitual responses, notice your tone of voice, notice any repeated phrases that you might say over and over, notice your emotional reactions, just just get to be aware, and then you'll get more in touch with the awareness that you are that's witnessing all these responses. And this truly is a doorway to freedom, the pause, because you press pause, so you'll over a period of time you start to notice these things, and then next time, when there's well, any time, there's a moment of stimulation, and that can be anything, it can be a message from someone, it can be a feeling that you get from you know just being triggered by something out in the world, a comment from somebody. You press that pause button, it is it really is a gateway, a doorway to freedom. Because in that space, you're no longer reacting, just reacting and acting automatically. You are creating, and that's the thing to remember that you are taking absolute responsibility for the direction of your life in every moment, every single moment. There is the opportunity to take our life this way or that, and we are responsible for that. We're responsible for how we use that moment, and it is that you know, it's remembering that life isn't happening to us, it's being shaped, it's being shaped by our responses, it's being shaped in every single moment. And the more present we are, the more you really are aware and use the breath, use the space of uh in the breath to know there's a space in thoughts, there's a space in the words. So it brings you back to presence. Then the more present you are, the more possibilities you can access. The 3,000 possibilities, limitless possibility between the stimulus and the response. Thank you for listening to Babysat the Conversations. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I look forward to being with you again next time.