Start Before You Know

What becomes possible when you stop waiting for certainty and simply begin.

On the 26th episode of Embodied Wisdom, I reflect on the unexpected journey from the first podcast to today. Through stories about weather, creativity, astrology, integrity, and personal expression, I explore how expectations often keep us from beginning, while experience reveals what is actually possible. Sometimes the breeze is waiting just outside the door—but you’ll never know unless you step outside.

Walk with me.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Good morning.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome to Embodied Wisdom. A walk and a talk with Dr. Brook. Live from my neighborhood.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

So last week was my 25th episode. 25th uh podcast. And when I stepped outside this morning and thought I would just congratulate us because I can't do this without you guys. Um on if you do have something to say but no one listens, you know, it's I don't know, you can't have, I guess you could, but you need kind of like every doctor needs a patient. Um every uh podcaster needs a listener, right? So thank you. Um it's a pleasure to be here with you. And so then I stepped outside. I was contemplating that. And I was thinking how, like, you know, at podcast one, you don't know, you think you might know what the future is gonna look like, but you never do. You never do. And so I stepped outside this morning, and yesterday was an extremely kind of humid day here, and really hot. And so I expected because it looked, I don't know, the house felt hot and it looked hot outside, you know, kind of like uh that the heaviness, I could see it.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

And I was like, uh, I don't know if I feel like walking and talking in that. Um I don't think I do.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

I can really I don't feel I don't think I feel like walking and talking in that. But then I stepped outside and there was like this in between that heaviness, there's like and stillness, there's just like lovely breeze. And I was like, what? Like what there's a breeze? Like, oh, this is so nice. Like, had I not stepped outside, I wouldn't have known. Like, I would have postponed talking today, you know, and it's like, what if you never try?

unknown 2:54

Right?

SPEAKER_02 2:54

What if you don't try? What if your expectations are a certain way about how things are gonna turn out? And I know I talk about this in like a lot of different ways, but like look at what you miss out on. Like, you miss out on a beautiful walk because you thought it was really humid outside because you looked outside, but you didn't go outside. So I think that's a really interesting metaphor for, you know, it's kind of like for me, I was like thinking as I've gotten older and who's really been a morning person. I was like, oh, you know what? If I sleep like a half hour later, that's not gonna really help me feel better. You know, no, I'm not gonna, or an hour, you know. Like, it's a difference. I'm already going to bed early enough. Except it has made a difference. Like I changed my schedule has made a difference. So I think a lot of times we don't we don't try because we expect something. Like, if I didn't try that first pot, I could never get to the 25th one. And at one, if you asked me if I was gonna get to the 25th one, I would have been like, I have I'm gonna do this 25 times. Wow. It's a lot of times. Um I can't possibly have that much to say. Except I always have something to say, which I guess you if you listen to me, um you don't find that to be irritating, but if you live with me, you might so uh always talk. Talk, talk, talk. My family talk, talk, talk. So and so talking, I will just say this for a minute, you know, talking can be as much of uh distraction as you know, you could, because people talk sometimes we can fast from talking. That's like what silent retreats are, and because it forces you to go in. So when we stop and we're quiet, forces us to go in. A lot of times, families that talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, they're avoiding that stillness or that quietness inside. Like they're afraid to really sit and see. So that's why it takes a lot of strength to go silent for a while. And it's a great exercise because when we stop, we don't create more karma. Most karma is created with our mouths, meaning once we speak something out, then we can easily create a reaction. And I am by no means saying that means now let's be quiet all the time. It's more like let's be discerning about what we say and what we don't say, or to know that everything we say can have a consequence. So side note, but anyway, so it's like how do we use our voice if we like if we like to talk? Right? So it's good to be a therapist if you like to talk all day. So anyway, it's a good use of the voice. Um, or I enjoy it. So if we circle back now, it's my little tidbit diversion there, back to if you start, if you never start, you can't get to 25. You really can start to maybe neutralize expectations, negative or positive. And so if you just do it and you don't use a past experience, so because if you start something new, it's new. And this is a great time, astrologically, because uh the nature of in the Vedic world, Jupiter shifting into cancer, Jupiter likes being in cancer. So when people say that, I'll just explain a little side note there for a minute. When people say that a planet went into a different sign in the zodiac, and that leads to this type of energy, it's so they I'm just gonna explain for a minute actually today. So if you have an you know, you have an astrological chart. The astrological chart is nothing, and the people will often think astrology is woo-woo out there, like you know, they don't give it a chance. Here, they don't try, they don't try, so they don't know. And I was one of those people, total naysayer. I remember a bunch of years ago when a colleague of mine asked me not to put something that was on her, it was in her office, but it would that she's like, that's an altar. This is really interesting. She's like, please don't put anything on that. I'm like, uh. Wow. You know, I mean, part of partially it was because she, I think because I felt so ignorant. But I definitely rejected any idea that that table with the Buddha on it or whatever else she had on it was uh woo-woo. Back in the day, I think I mentioned Shirley McLean's come up a couple times, but she was like that, she was the icon in the 80s of the um all the mysticism mystical stuff. And I don't remember my mom talking to my friends about it, and I was like totally rejected. Because I also thought it wasn't, I didn't understand it's a science. So if I just give you this one example, so I'll say, like, we have an astrological chart, that is where the planets were, are when you were born, and all that means, or what that means, is that there's certain energy poles, gravitational pulls, towards certain, and it's like kind of kind of having like a predisposition, like your body has certain poles, like different bodies have different constitutions, and you put additional weight on one body type, and that body type, it's fine with that body type to have the additional weight. It's almost like it's almost part of it, which is why it's interesting, right? You could have a skinny person, and their blood blood work can look like crap, but you honestly could have no one really tells you a much heavier person or no even obese person, but their blood work is good, you know, and that's because their constitution manages the weight. Another person puts on weight, their blood work goes haywire, it's not good for them. So, look, I think everything in moderation is the way to go, but it's really important we understand that because otherwise we judge ourselves and others based on a template that they don't get to have, or we reinforce ourselves on a template, but really everybody has this individuation, and it all of this, these things I'm talking about, I learned from the Vedic system. The Vedic system is the eastern system of astrology, the eastern um underpinnings. There's also western interpretations of astrology because they're just looking at it from a different perspective, Western astrology versus eastern. My teachers have both studied both, but I like the eastern system because it's more specific and it's very specific. It breaks up the different signs in the zodiac. It breaks it up into like a like greater level of personality um styles. So in other words, it's more specific, it's less general. Um it's almost like I see it as like the what like Western astrology is sort of a watered-down version of Eastern astrology. I always like to go back to the to the source. So um, okay, so the day you were born, the time you were born, the place you were born has a chart of where the planets were. And those planetary poles dictate the type of experiences and energies and way ways of being. It kind of dictates that. Coming up on someone now, so one second. Morning, hi, hi guys. Um okay, so that's it's a snapshot of that. It's kind of like where if you think about gravitational pulls, it's sort of like where are you getting pulled from? And what lens do you see life through? These are all like parts of the zodiac. Okay, so when when I when people reference this, they say Mercury's in retrograde, you know, whatever you hear about this, it is literally has to do with the planets actually moving through the zodiac. And when planets move through the zodiac, which is the sky, right, they move through different parts in the sky, wherever they're sitting may welcome them or may reject them. In other words, some planets like sitting in certain places and they don't like sitting in other places, but they move around in different transits. So, for example, Jupiter sits in one time of the zodiac for a year. So the example is Jupiter's in cancer. Jupiter likes being in cancer, so it's a time of blessings. Now, where does that blessing come to you? How do those blessings come? What what um type of blessings does that mean for you? Well, now we go a little bit deeper, and it depends on where and what your cancer represents to you in your astrological chart. Okay, so I won't go into that much further, but sometimes I just like to ground these things for myself too, because otherwise they just sound so ridiculous. They sound so ridiculous. So, going back to my point is Jupiter's in cancer, and it's a great time to grow new things. And because Jupiter likes being there, it's very powerful, it can bring blessings to whatever it is you begin and grow. Okay, so if there's something you like to begin to grow, and again, this doesn't have to be anything material, it could be an attitude, it can be an expression, but let's say let's let's focus on the positive rather than growing the negative, because Jupiter will help anything grow. And but the positive could to you could be some kind of neutrality, but anyway, if we are more neutral when we start anew and we don't have overwhelming expectations in either direction, and we just do it, then we need to watch and see what what what comes from it, right? We need to watch and see what comes from it. Right, and so now what's really interesting is you know, my original, oh my god, I came outside. There's a breeze. Okay, it is now fifteen minutes later, and this air is getting heavy. Okay, so and it feels like it's gonna pour. No breeze back here. So this is more what I had anticipated, but it still is cooler than I thought it would be. But oh wait, and I was thinking about that, like as I kept walking, like it's getting stiller. So what happened to that breeze? I felt really good. And is it gonna pour? Now, the weather report didn't say it was gonna pour, not till later. So here we are about being you know flexible, and then sometimes, like, you know, it's like things don't turn out the way we expect them to, most of the time. So if like if you're worried about something negative or and or you're looking forward to something positive, and there's not evidence of that, do you know what I mean? Like you don't have evidence, you didn't live it yet, you really can't stand on that. I mean, except if maybe it's a repetitive action that you do over and over again, because in that case, you can rely on the output, you know what I'm saying, because you've done it again again. So, not like if you start something new. So, if you have a negative attitude towards something you want to do or towards yourself, then you really might not ever do anything new, and then you'll stay in your old ruts and you'll complain. We uh I've been talking with uh people this week about people just complaining now all the time. That's all like complaining is on an all-time high, I think. Um and I'm I'm down with that. But not if you forget the blessings. Like earlier this year, um I was uh at a Story Slam event, Mount Clair's telling a story, practicing, and it was around Thanksgiving, and one of the judges said something like, Well, it's really hard to be thankful this Thanksgiving, and I was like, Not for me, wow. I understand people are upset about the political climate, whatever they're upset about, and they of course they have feelings and people have feelings, but really, you're not we're not thankful? We're not gonna be thankful for what we have. So I think of course we always have things we can complain about, but if we don't understand the context of where we're speaking or talking from or complaining from, we're really, really, you know, not really thinking about how safe we really are. Um just because we live in this country right now, and people would disagree with that, but I just mean look around you. That's what I mean. We're not in a war, no one's coming to get us. Okay, not this minute anyway, and I'm not saying that couldn't change, and I'm not don't know what's gonna happen. See, don't know what's gonna happen. AI, all you know, all these things, and it is, it's intense. But it's sort of like if you want to do something, goes back to my first podcast. If you want to do it, do it, at least try to do it, have the experience of it, and then see what happens, and see what happens, and discern and pay attention, all these different messages, messaging that come through me to offer you again and again, and you know, along this journey, a couple things have popped up, like maybe someone says, Oh, I referred so-and-so to listen. Or I I heard, you know, I started to hear, like, oh, people are sending it to so, you know, so-and-so sharing the podcast. And then I can get a little bit get this icky feeling inside, like, oh, I should change the material, like, oh, I should really think about what the broader audience wants to hear. Okay, I should do that. That I think these are things that come up when we go into a new space, or maybe this is even the new space, could be a new space, like this is the um, I keep caring too much about what other people think space, right? So if you go back into, so this is what happened. It was like I I could feel that I could fall prey if I worry about the odd who's receiving me, that I could fall prey to coming up on another fin. Hi, Dr. Ben and Ricky Bobby. Have a good before it gets too hot. I I know, right? Yeah, definitely. Or before it rains, which one I don't know. See you later. Um, sorry, quick uh quick hello to a couple friends there. Um sorry, uh got diverted. Um So if we go back to the idea of the integrity of the works, this is something that's come up over the time. Like, and I'm like, oh, I gotta think about that. Or someone suggests, oh, you gotta talk about that. You should talk about that on the podcast. You know, and it's like, well, the podcast for me is extemporaneous. So not to say I don't see a theme emerge through the course of the week with my work that ends up showing up on the in the in my voice, but right now this is what this is. It's an extemporaneous type of exercise, um, purposefully. Um, not exactly sure again what the purpose is. I'll give you another thought on that in a second. However, what I did really come to realize is that would hurt the integrity of the work. That's what happens. We outsource the approval of like of another, okay, or we look to that as the guide, and then we lose the integrity of our own work because we lose the integrity of our own, because we're, and that's like this idea of giving your power away that people talk, giving your power, that's my conceptualization of giving your power away. It's like I'm not gonna talk about what comes through for me to talk about on my extemporaneous podcast. I'm gonna decide what I think I should talk about based on what I think other people want to hear. And as an artist, which I'm starting to get used to calling myself, again, not a professional artist, just a run-in-the-mill artist. Um maybe I shouldn't even decipher that anymore at some point. Well, anyway, um, well, then that's compromising the integrity of the work because now I'm no longer artists or revolutionaries, and what that means is they cut through convention, they cut through tradition, you know, tradition, they're the revolutionaries, they're the creators. They don't they say fuck everyone, you know. Um, so that you can't be worried about how you're received. And to me, that's like, you know, the bravery that I see and that I respect so much. Um, you know, it's like people, they're like, I want to do this and I want it to go viral. Okay. But the people who went viral, they didn't know they were gonna go viral. They didn't know. And if you listen to some people who start out really uh the artists, the researchers, and they just do what's in their heart to do, and then they end up where they end up. But the integrity of the work is not based in who's gonna, let's say in research, who's gonna fund it. This is would kill me when I would sit in these meetings early, very early in my career, and they're like, well, that's a great idea, but that's not gonna get funded, so forget it. And I understand that's a practical issue, and if that's the world you're in, there's a limitation there, you know, so be it. Except that that I didn't want to live in that world with that restriction. I didn't want to have that as my lens, right? I wanted my lens to be open, I wanted to learn, I didn't want it to be closed by what another wants to see in the research. Okay, so another, another guy, another guy. It's what you know, so that's what like giving away your power would be. And then what it does is it takes away from the integrity of whatever project you're working on. And so that's why those people are brave, like they are just doing what it is they do. Good morning. Hi, sweetie, how are you doing? Hi, have a great day, beautiful. Um so if we're if we if we want to do something new, we want to think something new, we should just go for it, especially now. And especially positive, positive newness, not negative newness, right? Um, and you do that from a place of integrity. You do that from maybe I could argue it's faith-based. Because all that matters is how you feel in this moment. There's nothing coming. There's nothing coming. It's like we have today. We have this moment, and I am reminded of that shout out to um a podcast listener who recently lost a very dear friend quite tragically, quite quickly. It goes back to the podcast where I was walking by the house of the man, young man, younger man who had passed away, and I saw the graduation. Um, you know, I saw the I saw the graduation sign and I knew that this poor young woman is graduating and dad's gone. And this is in the same vein, a young family, a young father uh taken in an accident. Um so that's why we need to do this. We need to know that all we have is this moment. So stop looking to the future and get started now, and then sit, then see what happens, because maybe something you do one time will turn into something you do 25 times. Good morning. Um now look, the rain's coming, and I would not have expected that once I stepped out the door, and here comes the breeze. Because also the breeze seems to be on this side of my neighborhood and not on that side. Funny, interesting. So um thanks for walking with me. Thanks for walking with me 25 times. This is 26th, and more to come. And seize this moment, appreciate what you have, and if there's something you don't have and you want, start that today. Or tomorrow or whenever. But again, thanks for walking with me and walk with me again soon. Have a good week.