85. Back to Basics: The Ever-Present Now

Free New Year Webinar

In Person New Year Retreat

"Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels." -  Ann Richards 

Because it's the beginning of the new year. I wanted to bring things back to basics and talk about present moment awareness. This is a concept that is explored in philosophies and religions and science. Of course, there are decades of research about making contact with the present moment gives us a better handle on our mental health, and making contact with the present moment requires a little bit of willingness and a little bit of knowledge. 

Present moment awareness is described, as being in the moment with kindness towards the self, as freedom, and the single moment as the place in which we can truly be alive. 

So get our of your mind and into your life as we practice making contact with the present moment!

Transcript

January In person Retreat
Free New Year Webinar

“Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.” This quote from Ann Richards is one that I've been wanting to share for a very long time, and I thought perhaps you came across some old holiday movies this season and this would resonate. 

Welcome into the Modern Creative Woman podcast. I am Doctor Amy Backos your creativity expert and hostess on this audio creativity journey. And I've designed this podcast just for you. For women who want to make life a little more interesting and creative and move past some of those uncomfortable thoughts and emotions that tend to plague us when we worry about what others are thinking of us. Creativity is in every act you take, how you dress, how you set the table. Every aspect of your life involves creativity. And of course we're going to talk about art. Let's get started. 

I'm recording this just a few days before New Year's, and when I worked at the VA hospital, I learned a lot about helping people change. And I know I've mentioned this before, we got trained in all of the evidence based strategies for helping people quit smoking, which is one of the most challenging things that a person can undertake in terms of physiological and psychological interacting and making the choice very difficult. Quitting substances is a challenge and smoking it presents particular problems. What I learned in that program, though, was about how to make really big change and how to prepare for it. What I learned is that we set our date of when things are going to change, and we start practicing right away for a New Year's resolution. It's time to start now. Just practice a little bit here and there before you actually commit to the change. How many women commit to a vague change starting January 1st or January 2nd? That is about doing something more with their health, or committing to doing the thing that they love to do art or knitting or reading. And what happens is the vagueness makes it difficult to accomplish the goal, and they have not prepared for the big change. So I encourage you to pick a different start date. Maybe you want to start January 15th, maybe you want to start January 25th. And so then you have a couple of weeks to prepare for your change to practice, kind of work the kinks out, understand your own psychology better as you make efforts. And the other aspect of this is doing things that are very specific. And you can do a resolution like focus on your health, but then you have to get very specific. What does that mean, walking every morning. Does it mean joining a gym? What does it mean? How often will you go to the gym? It really does have to be specific when you're going for those kinds of goals. I want to give you an alternative, though. Is a bucket list a good old fashioned bucket list? What would you like to accomplish each month, month by month? And you can make it a topical idea, such as how? If you want to read three books about how this year you can check that off, it's a little easier than trying to schedule every single day. I'm going to read a chapter about how, from a health book, it allows you the opportunity to look at your month and say, okay, I'm going to work on my first book this month and work my way through it. It allows you the freedom of kind of removing artificial deadlines and schedules that we can't really commit to. So I want to really encourage you to focus on what's realistic, what's most meaningful to you, and then what's realistic, what can you commit to? And if you commit to a lot less than what you actually want, that's a much better idea than trying to overcome it to too many things. You'll really struggle so much less if you under commit on your bucket list or in your New Year's resolutions. I have a gift for you. It is your Creative New Year free webinar and it starts the day after this podcast drops. The first one is January 2nd at noon Pacific time, and I offer it two more times next week, January 6th and January 7th. I will drop the link in the show notes and I would love to have you attend. You can really stretch your creativity. Muscles will be using expressive art journaling, visualization. You've got a complimentary workbook. You'll really be able to move your creative thinking skills to the next level. And of course, you'll get to be a part of the vibrant community of women that we inside the modern, creative women are known for. There will be prizes when you attend, live some amazing art supplies, and all you need to do is reserve your spot and show up. And I really want you to put your phone away. Light a candle, make yourself a cup of tea, bring your creativity workbook or your journal and your favorite pen. If you don't have any art supplies, that's okay. Just grab printer paper and a pen. And this webinar is really for any woman who wants to enhance their life. Get clear on your decisions and take either bold actions or little bitty steps towards a more meaningful life. This is really about decisive thinking and making your dreams for 2025 much more practical and obtainable. Be sure and sign up. You'll get the link in the show notes and I will see you there.

Because it's the beginning of the new year. I wanted to bring things back to basics and talk about present moment awareness. This is a concept that is explored in philosophies and religions and science. Of course, there are decades of research about making contact with the present moment gives us a better handle on our mental health, and making contact with the present moment requires a little bit of willingness and a little bit of knowledge. So I want to talk about the difference between the content and the process, and let you know a little bit about how this relates to Artmaking. And of course, the concept of flow. The idea of be here now is what starts us off. So are you in the present moment right now and on a scale of 0 to 10, how present are you? It's sort of like a switch on and off to make full contact with the present moment. And we make contact, and then we lose contact at the beginning of every modern creative woman class. We have three a month. We start out with a check in. That's where are you on a scale of 0 to 10, how present are you? And then I ask again at the end of the class and women's numbers move up. If you start at a seven, you at least are staying at a seven, or you move to even a ten. So are you in the present moment right now? What's your number? And let's talk about how do you know if you're in the present moment? Being in the present moment is experienced quite differently from being aware of the actual content that you're attending to. And I'm pulling that definition from Russ Harris, who is an Act psychologist. So right in this exact moment right now, you find yourself listening to my voice, my words, the ideas and your interpretation are the content on which you're focused. Perhaps you're going for a walk or you're driving. That's another aspect of the content on which you're focused. So now that you have an awareness of what it is that you're listening to, the words, the ideas, you're making, synaptic connections, and you're integrating this information into your existing knowledge base, that's exciting. That's what's happening in your brain right now. And since this current content of what I'm saying is about awareness, you may just naturally find yourself noticing if you're sitting in a comfortable position or if you need to move around, you might want to change your breath and take a deep breath. You may notice that you're enjoying learning about this with some curiosity. You might also find that your mind is strategically and intentionally wandering to ways that you could use this information in your life. They could you make better contact with the present moment when you're parenting or when you're in a conversation with your significant other? The answer is, of course, yes, but your mind might be wandering in those directions, and you're using a lot of brain power right now. And the aspect of when you become aware of your body, your emotions, any of these new thoughts, those qualities become the current content. As you continually shift your attention to the ever present and constantly evolving now, the ever present now, and our minds and our awareness shifts very rapidly. The idea that our mind is a barrel full of drunken monkeys, from the Buddhist ideas of how our mind is so active and busy. I love that description. It's a barrel full of junk monkeys. So what you're doing right now? Listening to my voice, going for a walk, driving whatever you're doing is fundamentally different from your awareness of what you're doing and how you're doing it. This is where contact comes into play. These are two very distinct processes, the content about which you are aware, and your awareness of the present moment. They're both happening simultaneously. In other words, you can be aware of both what you're doing and that you are doing it. I think of another way to differentiate between experiencing the content of your thoughts and awareness in the moment is to think about how a therapist might talk about group content versus group process. And this comes from Irving Alum's work on group therapy. And he writes prolifically. And if you're not a therapist, he has a whole host of really interesting fiction books as well. Lying on the couch is maybe where I would start. The content is whatever people are talking about in the therapy room or whatever people are talking about at the dinner table, the content. But the process is how it's going. So at dinner last night, we're talking about our dinner, and we were also talking about our favorite kind of food. And then we were joking a little bit. So the content was the food we were eating. And the process was laughing a little bit, being playful with one another. My family dinner process is really nice. You can consider content versus process when you sit and talk with your bestie. Now she may be telling you a story about something that happened last week, and that's the content. But the process is you listen in, maybe the two of you laughing together, maybe you're bouncing back and forth, you know, talking quickly, finishing each other's sentences, having a good time. That's the process. I hope you see the difference. And you can see it when you're in a group. And I want you to be able to see it when you're just thinking about yourself and being with yourself or being with others. Cognitive diffusion is a process by which we observe our mind. We observe our thoughts, and we notice them for the phenomenon that they are. Any thought you're having is merely. One neuron firing across a synapse to another neuron and then spreading out in a pattern. What's happening is a biological process. Thoughts are not facts. It's biological process. Your heart beats, your brain thinks there is no truth or fact about a thought. And I hope this is a huge relief to you, because a thought that is negative about your body is a biological process. It has nothing to do at all with the fact. This gives us the freedom to choose our thoughts, to not believe our thoughts as facts. We all have wild thoughts. Some of them are very negative. Some of them are uncomfortable and scary, yet they are just a biological phenomenon happening. They are not facts. If you've ever struggled with negative judgments towards yourself and then later you realized that wasn't true. You experience the process of cognitive diffusion? If you ever maybe got mad at someone and felt that they were doing something negative towards you after you had a conversation, you realize that was not the case. You realize those thoughts were not true. They're just a biological process. They are not Bacs. The cognitive diffusion exercises really provide us with the ability to disengage from the content of our thoughts and see them just for what they are merely thoughts. Now, while these may be, you know, merely thoughts, I think women often find ourselves wrapped up in the content of the current moment. Our mind urges us to attend to these thoughts and feelings. Now, Eckhart Tolle repeats over and over in his writings, you are not your mind. That's really important, especially as we move into the New year, and especially as we are talking about making art. You are not your art, you are not your mind. You are not your writing. I use that mantra every time I worked on my books. And once I discovered that mantra, that ability to diffuse my my ego from the content of what I was writing, writing got so much easier. I am not. My writing or writing is the thing I'm doing at the moment. And with ongoing practice, you can train yourself to concentrate on the process of being a human in the present moment instead of wrapped up in all of the content of our thoughts. Now, thoughts and feelings are a part of the now. We become aware of them when we make contact with the present moment, but the more we're able to diffuse from our thoughts, the more we can be present in the now. I can have a nagging thought and not have to say it. I can have a upsetting thought and they don't have to believe it. It's just part of what I'm aware of. They can come and go. We get stuck when we get hooked by these thoughts. Now, if you're still unsure about if you are in the present moment, try answering these questions out loud. And as you answer the questions, just kind of go slowly and savor or linger a little bit on that sensory input. So I'll ask you a few questions. And this is a powerful exercise to ground you in the present moment. And even if you've done this exercise before, do it now and you'll see how incredibly powerful it is. So first, on a scale of 0 to 10, how present are you right now? Zero being not at all completely checked out. Ten being fully in contact with the present moment. And five is kind of half and half out, getting distracted by parts. So now what are you seeing? What's happening now that you see with your eyes? Are you looking at something? What is it that you notice? So now what are you tasting? Is there any sensation in your mouth? Next is really about smell. What are you smelling? Take a deep breath in. What are you smelling? Next. What are you hearing? What are the sounds you hear? You hear my voice. What else? And what physical sensations and touch are you experiencing? And now, what's your number? 0 to 10. How present are you in the current moment? You may have used this exercise before, when you wanted to ground yourself, or you felt maybe a little dysregulated in your emotions. But this exercise can and I think should be utilized often. It really brings the present moment awareness to the forefront. It gives you appreciation and gratitude. And I'll use this when I take my dog for a walk. There's really no benefit to me walking and just letting my mind wander. There is so much benefit. I feel so much more relaxed if I stay in the present moment. If I'm notice my steps or the neighbors or someone put up a new plant in their front yard, whatever it is making full contact with the present moment. During these moments when my mind just might wander has been so good for me. I feel so much better, less worried, less anxious when I allow myself to anchor in the present instead of anchoring in passing thoughts. So now that you have this sense of being in the present moment, hopefully your numbers are increasing as this podcast goes along. You've also likely noticed how quickly your mind can become distracted and shift you out of the present moment and back into content of your thoughts. So let me define present moment awareness for you, and it is one of the six key concepts in acceptance and commitment to present moment. Awareness emerges by specifically attending to your conscious awareness of the present moment with kindness towards yourself. And that's the definition from Jon Kabat-Zinn. That definition is from 1990. This stuff has been around a long time in the field of psychology, and there's zero research. I can find that mindfulness will not help you. There's so much positive benefit to making contact with the present moment, and there seems to be no drawback. Present moment. Awareness happens when we purposefully pay attention and keep our focus on what's occurring in the present, and we're observing without judgment. That's how I described it in my PTSD and Art therapy book. So if we're engaged in judgmental thoughts about ourselves, and I think women often are, we lost the kindness aspect of mindfulness. So, for example, when I was beginning my own meditation practice, and this is stuff my mom taught me when I was a little kid, my mind would go to, I'm doing it wrong, criticizing myself. Oh no, I lost track of the present moment. So we're farther away from the moment then, if we just notice we slipped out of the moment and returned to the now. So slipping out of the moment and then throwing judgment on top of it is the opposite of the kindness that Kabat-Zinn is talking about. A really great meditation. To go to sleep is to just count to 100, or count backwards from 100. And you'll lose track. No problem. That's part of the process. I do the Loving kindness meditation every morning and every night. And I mean, it's really it's just four lines and I usually lose track of the contact with the present moment. My mind will drift and I no longer judge myself for losing track. I celebrate when I remember, oh yeah, I'm in the middle of my lovingkindness meditation. Oh yeah, here I am. I'm back. Hooray! Zero judgment. Your mind wanders. That's what it's supposed to do. It's always scanning. Your brain wants you to be safe. So zero judgment contact with the present moment is the place to practice self kindness. I just want to remind you that our minds normally get distracted by our thoughts. As we move in and out of recognizing the present moment. We can catch our mind wandering and then do it without judgment. Celebrate that you came back. Awareness in the moment will eventually include being present with both thoughts and the moment without judgment. This is a description from Stephen Hayes, who founded and created Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and he describes being present as being able to direct attention flexibly and voluntarily to present external and internal events. So he's talking about being able to move our attention around to where it serves us. Now, if we're navel gazing and worrying what someone might think about us at a party that's not very flexible, it means we are not making contact with the person in front of us that we're talking to. Eckhart Tolle says the present moment is a timeless state of intense, conscious presence, and many psychologists and therapists have described this intense, conscious presence totally describes the aspect of the self that is aware of our thought as the thinker. And the part of the self that is conscious and attending to the process as the knower. So the thinker in us is having thoughts about our walk or train or the podcast, but the knower is the person who is observing all of this and aware of all of this. And it becomes particularly relevant if you experience anxiety or trauma reactions, that losing contact with the present moment makes those things so much worse. Remember, the thinker is actively engaged in the thoughts. That's okay. But simultaneously, the knower part of us diffuses from these thoughts and remains in the moment, noticing both the now and our thoughts. I've talked a lot about Thich Nhat Hahn before. He's an exiled Buddhist monk, and he dedicated his whole life to teaching mindfulness. And when he was alive, he described presence as freedom and the single moment as the place in which we can truly be alive. So in the present moment is the only place where we can truly be alive. He said that in 2010, and if you're looking for some great ways to make contact with the present moment, I highly recommend him -  his writing is so easy to follow. He really talks a lot about how we're often lost in our mind, in our plans, our thoughts. We might time travel and shift to regrets from the past or plans from the future. We might call up anxiety or anger, and that's a practice. Your mind doing that is a practice, and you can practice in this other way that allows you to feel good, be in the present moment, and not be caught up in what your mind is doing, but be caught up in your life and what's happening in really exciting ways. Now, teach not on Eckhart Tolle and Stephen Hayes, and many, many others also refer to activities of the mind as alternating between past and future. This time travel in the brain, present moment awareness is about being aware of the external and internal events, which is thoughts, feelings, emotions, bodily sensations. Memories are a certain category of thought. All of that is an internal event. And when we can focus on the internal and external events. Rather than focusing on past or future. It feels so much better. To make art requires present moment awareness. Artmaking allows us to be lost in what's happening in this really powerful way. And I've talked about Flow, the original researcher on that is

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and the idea that we love the experience of flow. It feels so good to be engaged in something that requires both focus and a little bit of a challenge. So this past week, I've been working on a kimono blouse, and now I'm working on a dress. And sewing is something I only do a couple times a year, so it requires quite a lot of my attention. It's not just measure twice, cut once. I measure and remeasure and remeasure. Then I make my pattern. Cut that out. I pin my fabric. I check it a couple of times. It really is necessary for me to measure a few times before I cut my fabric, just because I'm out of practice, so that attention for me is high. The skill is it's not difficult for me, yet I know that I'm not in like great practice all the time of sewing, so I have to be very careful and keep my mind on the task. And sometimes my mind will wander and I'll say, oh, this is gonna look terrible. Or look what a terrible job you did cutting. But those are just biological processes that are pushing me to make sure my cut is even that I'm, you know, using my pattern the way I want to. Flow always happens when I sew, and the requirements really are attention and a little bit of a challenge. Not too much of a challenge. So remember what I said earlier in the podcast to choose your resolutions or your bucket list of resolutions in a way that is a little bit of a challenge, not a huge challenge, just a little challenge. And you can change your resolutions. You know, after three months, if you've read all the books that you said you're going to read that year, you can add or change or you can say, oh yeah, I did it, I'm done. But the smaller the challenge, the more likely you are to try it, do it. Also, I've had women tell me, they say, why bother? That's not going to do anything if I just take a little bit of action. All the evidence points to a little bit of action is how we make change. One thing, one step is the only way to do it. How do we make a journey of a thousand miles? We take the first step. I hope that you will join me in the webinar Your Creative New Year. And if this kind of work appeals to you, I have an in-person retreat in San Francisco, January 25th. I will drop that link in the show notes as well, and it is going to be a powerful, deep dive into this kind of work that helps you prepare for a new year in an exciting, visual, creative and expressive way. This stuff is so powerful. It's evidence based. It's also art based, and it uses art as a way of knowing. And because we're so visual as human beings, 60% of our brain is connected to the visual experience we are going to be using art, and it's activities that I've never done before, except with myself. And I want to teach these to a group of women. It's going to be incredible. Happiest of New Year's to everyone. 

Drop me a message. Let me know what you got out of this episode. I would love, love, love to hear from you. And you can also drop a question in the show notes. There's a button for you to ask a question, and perhaps I will answer your question on the next podcast. Have a wonderful rest of your week. Now that you know about how to use your creativity, what will you create? Want more? Subscribe to the Modern Creative Woman digital magazine. It's absolutely free and it comes out when some men and I know you can get a lot out of the podcast and the digital magazine. Yet when you're ready to take it to the next level and want you to know you have options inside the membership, and if you're interested in a private consultation, please feel free to book a call with me. Even if you just have some questions, go ahead and book a call. My contact is in the show notes and you can always message me on Instagram. Do come find me in the Modern Creative Woman on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest at Doctor Amy Backus. If you like what you're hearing on the Modern Creative Woman podcast, I want to give you the scoop on how you can support the podcast. You can be an ambassador and share the podcast link with three of your friends. You can be a community supporter by leaving a five star review. If you think it's worth the five stars, and you can become a Gold Star supporter for as little as $3 a month, all those links are in the show notes. Remember to grab your free copy of the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge. The link is in the show notes and you can find it at Modern Creative women.com. Have a wonderful week and I cannot wait to talk with you in the next episode.