Options are Paralyzing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hey friends, welcome back to the channel, welcome back to the podcast. Um, welcome to the first day of the rest of your life. Have you guys ever thought about that? It's a it's a cool thought. I mean, every day we wake up, every day is an opportunity to change our life, to do something different, to do something better, to do something cool, uh, to have new experiences. Literally, every day we wake up is a new chapter in our book and a chance to have the first day of your new life or a new chapter in your life. So we should think about that when we wake up in the morning. I know I can speak for myself, I usually don't because I'm not really a morning person, to be very honest, and I kind of dread having to get up and do morning chores and morning routines. Uh but I should try to work on that because every day we're able to to get out of bed, and every day we're able to go out there and do the things that are important to us, or at least have the chance to do the things that are important to us, is truly a gift. And and we should we should roll at it with that attitude. You know, this is this is the this is an opportunity, this is the first day of the rest of my life, and a chance to write the rest of the book however you want to write it. So that being said, what I wanted to chat about today, and it's storming really, really bad here, so um hopefully that does not like mess up the the audio or whatever. Uh but if you hear any noise in the background, that's probably what it is. But the thing I wanted to chat about today is mindfulness and and more specifically, mindfulness in our current world, in our current society, and and what that means and what that looks like, and the fact that options can be paralyzing. So I I got to thinking about this. Well, if you've if you've tuned into here before, you know I'm a big fan of mindfulness practice, mindfulness meditation. You know, it it changed my life for me. And although everybody is different, I I definitely think that it is something that could help a lot of people out there with their struggles with anxiety, depression, feelings of worry, stress, all of that that kind of plagues us, you know, currently in our current world. So the thing that got me thinking about this is I love to put on, I love to put on the YouTube, uh, I don't know what you call it, like the little music stations. Like in the winter, I call it the U logs because a lot of times they have the music playing to like the background fire, and then you know, as during the different seasons, it's a different thing, but it's basically just instrumental music put to the backdrop or the setting of some Zen like scenery and something pretty. And when I'm doing stuff around the house, like chores or cleaning, things like that, a lot of times I like to turn that on and just have that background ambiance going. So I went to put this on the other day, and I found myself, because there's a lot of like different stations and things you can listen to, and I found myself flipping. Like I found one that I thought was good, but I couldn't just settle on that. I had to, I had this urge to flip to the next one and see if it was better, and then the urge to flip to the third one and see if that's better, and then the fourth, and then the fifth. And I realized at some point it kind of hit me, like, wow, you know, why can't why don't I just turn to a good one and leave it on and appreciate it for what it is and and be in that moment, in that experience for what it is, instead of flipping, flipping, flipping, hoping to find the next best thing. And I say this a lot: options can be paralyzing. We think a lot of options are great, a lot of a lot of decisions, a lot of options, a lot of opportunity, a lot of different things we can do. That sounds like it would be great, but in reality, it's just our nature to when we have all those options in front of us, it is just our nature to want to flip the channel and see if we can find something better. And the same, just like the that is true for TV, I think for a lot of us, it is true in life as well. We have a tendency to just think, okay, I like this, but what if there's something better out there? And I think that has become much more profound in our current world with you know the addition of things like social media and the internet and this, how do you want to say it, this mass, this ability for mass and rapid communication and information exchange. I mean, you go on, I mean, I have Facebook, a lot of us do, right? You go on Facebook and you'll see 20 different ads for essentially the same product. And it can be overwhelming, and then it can also lead you, if if you're in the market for said product, it can also lead you down this rabbit hole of, well, I can't buy this one yet, I have to look into this one, and then I have to look into this one, and then I gotta check this one out, and maybe this one's better than that one. And you find yourself potentially find yourself lost in this rabbit hole of how do I make the decision to dedicate myself to this one product when I have the option to look at all these other products and you know which one's the best one, which one's the best one to go with. And I think although it's awesome that we have all these options in life now, one could argue that all those options, aka too many options, can actually be paralyzing. And I don't think that that is something that society had to worry about that much many generations ago. And you talk about the rise of anxiety, the rise of depression, you know, the rise of social anxiety, and just difficulty in coping with life in general, which is what we're seeing a lot of from a lot of people, especially the our younger generations, and it just makes you wonder it's like, have we overloaded their brains with too much information, too many options, too much to sort through? Like, would they actually be better off with less options to choose from? Would they be better off not having all the channels on the TV to flip in and out of? And social media is such a component of this. Look, so there's a lot of great things about social media, but in my humble opinion, and again, I'm not an expert, but in my opinion, it can be blamed for so much of the mental health problems going on in this country. It's our brains have not evolved to the point of being able to handle the influx and rapid information that we get from social media. Not to mention just information, but communication with with other people, you know, hearing comments from other people, opinions from other people. Your brain is not designed and not evolved to the point to handle that rapid influx of vast information, vast options, and be able to deal with that in a healthy way. And this brings me to mindfulness. If you've tuned in here before, you know I'm a big believer in mindfulness. And I think in our world today, because it is so hectic, and when I say hectic, I mean hectic in this world of technology, which which makes everything fast paced, which makes every again the influx of information, all this information all the time just bombarding you, you know, every minute you're awake. It lends our minds to become anti-mindful because our minds are now caught up in any and everything possible except the present moment. So, what is mindfulness? I know we've talked about on here before, but just looking, I just googled it, I went to Mayo Clinic, which is a reputable website, in my opinion. What is mindfulness? How do they how do they define it? Alright, this is their definition straight from their website. Mindfulness is a state of being mindful and aware of the present moment. It is a type of meditation in which you focus on your thoughts, feelings, body, and surroundings. You do this without any judgment, and there is only awareness of the moment as it is. That's an important one. No judgment and awareness of only the moment as it is. You're not thinking about what happened yesterday, you're not thinking about what could potentially happen tomorrow, you're not thinking about the 20 different products that you're considering buying because you saw advertisements on Facebook. You're not thinking about the posts that you saw from your friend and how the comments on that are affecting you. Like you're not thinking about any of that with any sort of judgment or preconceived notions or any opinion. And that like no opinion. Just those things are what they are, and you're not going to form an opinion, you're not going to form judgment, you're not going to try to change those things, you're not going to try to alter those things, you're just going to exist with them, and you're going to only live in this current moment that you're in right now. The thing that I always envision, because again, this is this is from the Mayo Clinic on their website, but they list on here, you know, one of the one of the aspects of it is being aware of your thoughts as they are, and being aware of your body and your environment and everything going on in the world as it is, and letting all those thoughts pass without dwelling on them, without getting caught up in them, without without casting opinion or judgment or worry or you know, concern of what happened in the past, concerns of what happened in the future. The way I always envisioned it, I read this in a book somewhere, I can't remember which one, but this this analogy was in there, and that's kind of how I think about it. When you're practicing mindfulness, meditation, envision yourself sitting beside a river or a stream, and every thought that enters your mind, because again, mindfulness is not about this, isn't I think this is something people misunderstand? Mindfulness is not about blocking thoughts out, because the art of blocking things out is by definition trying to control, trying to pass judgment because you're passing judgment on which thoughts you allow in and which ones you block out. So the goal is not to block anything out, the goal is to allow the thoughts to happen and not to have a reaction to them, not to judge them, not to have an opinion about them, not to have a feeling about them. Like when I say feeling, I mean stress, anger, fear, worry. It's just to allow the thoughts to happen and then allow them to pass. And so what has worked for me is envision yourself sitting by a stream or a river, and you're sitting there, and every thought that passes in your mind, it comes down that river, and it passes by you, and you have that thought, and then just imagine that thought goes on down the stream, goes on down the river, floats away from you. It's not about blocking that thought from floating past you, it's about allowing that thought to be in front of you on that river, and then letting that thought float past you on that river without having any reaction to it. The science is out on this, the the effects of doing mindfulness meditation in a dedicated fashion. We're talking about doing it for five to ten minutes a day, most days a week. It will reduce stress, it decreases cortisol, and it also rewires your brain. And I think I've said it on this podcast before, they've done MRI studies on this, and the brain, the way the brain looks on the MRI changes when people start practicing mindfulness in a dedicated way. So it's not just though it's not just the report of how people feel, it's there is physiological changes to your mind when you practice this. And because of all that, it it rewires your brain, it strengthens your ability to focus and strengthens your ability to have emotional regulation, reduces depression, increases resilience. Like we talk on here all the time about keeping your your mental meter, as I call it, in the green. So you can handle stress, you can handle problems when they arise. Mindfulness does that, like it will push your meter closer to the green. So I think, and I'm so passionate about this because again, I'm not an expert in mental health. These are my when I talk on here, I'm talking about my lived experiences, what I have learned just reading and going through stuff myself. Of course, talk to people who are experts in this field for the best information possible. But in my humble opinion, I think mindfulness practice is more important and more relevant now than it has ever been. Because our brains, in our current world, our brains are pulled in a thousand different directions all day long. We have work, we have family, we have kids, we have hobbies, we have email that's on our phone and is coming through instantaneously. We have text messages, we have all the social media things which are constantly bombarding us. We have more news and radio stations than we've ever had that are constantly shoving their opinion down our throat and giving us news and giving us information. We our minds are stretched in so many different directions, and there's so many opinions, so many options, so many things on our plate that mindfulness, in my opinion, is more important now than it than it ever has been. And I think the other thing that I think about when I when I think about this is we have less, and again, this is my made-up term. This is not uh to my knowledge, this is not a real term out there in science. I have made it up, but it's what I call forced mindfulness, and by forced mindfulness I mean something external that forces you to be mindful, and I mean we would just went through what mindfulness is, and so think about your life. Is there anything in your life that forces you to be a hundred percent present in the present moment? For me, is for me riding the horses, excuse me, riding the horses is an example of this. When I'm riding my horses, I have to be a hundred percent mentally in that moment because if not, somebody could get hurt. If I'm not right there a hundred percent attentive, somebody could get hurt, something could go wrong, and when I'm riding horses, it's a state of forced mindfulness for me. Like I am right there, 100% present in that moment, and my mind does not wander, my mind does not get caught up in thoughts of yesterday, of tomorrow, caught up in judgment or opinion, regret, worry, stress, none of that. Like my I'm a hundred percent right there in that moment, and the only thing that matters or that is that is important to me is riding the horse and doing the right thing and keeping us safe. And I think that's one of the reasons, for me anyway, one of the reasons horses are very therapeutic because they force you into that into that headspace. But I don't think there's a lot of other, you know, I don't think a lot of people have something in their life that forces them into that headspace. And with how busy and and hectic and crazy our lives can be nowadays, I think that that's one of the reasons it's so important to sit down and force yourself to practice mindfulness and practice being in that headspace because you're not getting it very often in other natural ways. I definitely think forced mindfulness is something you can seek out. I think for me, the other examples that come to mind are hiking, being in nature, walking a trail, hiking a path up to the top of a mountain. For me, that that really forces my mind to just I don't I don't know what it is about it, but it just forces my mind to get real tunnel visioned into that one experience, that one moment, you know, experiencing it for what it is. And I you know, there's other things too, there's other things too that will put you there. And depending on what your life looks like, you gotta find those things for your own. But practicing it, practicing being mindful, even if you can't do it every day, five days a week, ten minutes a day, doing that. I promise, I promise you, if you do it and you do it right and you do it consistently, you're going to notice the difference. Not right away, it's not gonna happen overnight, but you will notice a difference in how you feel, how you react to the world around you, how you view the world around you. And again, you are living, we are living in a world of perpetual information, perpetual options, rapid influx of things to pull our mind in a place that is not present in the moment, and because of that. I think it is more important now than ever for people to figure out how to make sure they're having moments of mindfulness in their life, whether it be practicing them, finding them in other things, it's more important than ever now. And let me find this book that I know I've probably talked about on here before. Because it was like kind of my gateway book that started it all for me when it comes to practicing mindfulness and understanding it. Yes, I just found it on Amazon for all you Amazon shoppers out there. It's called Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World, and it's by Mark Williams, and it's 10 bucks. And for me, that was the first book I read that jumpstarted all of my quest for more information and my quest on being mentally healthier. I think it's a great book. It's really simple, it's a simple, easy read, and it really helps you jumpstart your own journey to practicing this and being good at it and being better at it, and hopefully potentially changing your life for the better. So that's my little talk today. I hope that it helps someone out there. If you if you haven't ever tried practicing mindfulness meditation, I urge you to at least get the book or read up on the internet. I mean there's information out there everywhere. Read about it, try it, and don't give up on it. That's the other thing. People think that it people underestimate how challenging it is. And when you when you try it and you realize how challenging it is, for me, that's that's the biggest telltale sign that you need it. Because obviously, the more challenging it is, the more your mind is having a hard time focusing and being in the present moment. So the more you need it. So if it's challenging, don't throw in the towel, just keep going, it'll get better, it'll get easier, and you will notice a difference if you stick with it and you keep doing it and you do it the right way and you do it faithfully. It's just like going to a gym. If you're weak, it's gonna be hard when you start. But slowly but surely you can build those muscles, you can get stronger, you can you can feel better about yourself. So good luck with the rest of everyone's week. Like I said, when we started this, it can potentially be the first day of the rest of your life. If you if you got some great things you want to do, changes you want to make, things you want to do better, it's a chance to uh start a new chapter in your book. So have a great rest of your day, and please tune back in again. If you have anybody that you think might want to hear this, please share it with them. That would be amazing, and we'll talk again very soon. Thanks, bye.