Practice Session #36

Welcome to my show notes for this week’s session of Practice!

We record these sessions every Sunday. I try to publish the audio on the same day of recording, but once in a while, I may get delayed due to various reasons.

Also, I will usually have the AI-generated transcript and my initial notes published on the same day of recording as well. On Fridays, I’ll (try to) go back through and proof the transcript while I add all of my notes.

I’ll be utilizing this opportunity to clarify and elaborate on points that I may not have conveyed as well as I would’ve liked to. I’ll also provide links to further information and resources.

So, on Friday, I’ll intersperse all my notes with the transcription from the audio below (unless I don’t 🤷).

Intro.

[00:00]

Pam: So much more than I expected or could have done myself. So, I really appreciate it. You did a really good job.

CK: Thanks!

Pam: Thank you!

CK: Alright. Ready? Check. Here we go.

Heyo! I’m CK, and you’re listening to Practice. I’m your functional systems integrator, and this is my podcast where practice is not just the theme of the show, but the whole purpose behind it. What started out as a practice of podcasting, as well as speaking in general, has evolved into a practice of self-coaching and self-reflection while espousing half-thoughts and providing unsolicited advice.

As always, I’m fortunate to be joined by my Practice partner and partner in life: Pam.

Pam: Hey, that’s me.

CK: Pam is also my pattern awareness manager, and every Sunday we reflect on the past week and my progress with this practice, along with other lifestyle practices, as well as theories and ideas behind the virtues of practice itself.

We’re doing this on the fly, so don’t hold me responsible for what I say here. Make sure to check out my show notes where I’ll provide some fact-checking, self-psychoanalysis and commentary on things I could have done better. You may find this and more information about this project at ForcesOfEqual.com/Practice.

Catch up with the Anomaly and the Linchpin.

[01:28]

CK: We’re recording today on November 1st of 2020. This is our 36th practice session.

🗣️ Already having issues with my voice.

[01:36]

CK: And I’m having some issues with my voice today.

Pam: Again?

CK: Yeah, I thought I felt really good while I was warming up, and I started a couple of new practices- or I’ve been researching some vocal stuff over the past week after listening to, uh, someone on a podcast.

Um, I don’t want to mention it yet, cause I’m not sure how it’s going along, but I did find out that there was, uh- So there’s tips that he provided in terms of- so… excuse me. So he mentions that caffeine is bad, which we’ve discussed, and I didn’t really know why I- I tried looking into it before and there were some speculations about caffeine inducing maybe some anxiety or something, and that kind of effecting your- maybe your sympathetic nervous system or something which may affect your voice or something like that. And then we kind of speculated on the heat of coffee, maybe inflaming your vocal cords or something like that.

But apparently, caffeine produces mucus or it upregulates mucus production. So that prob- that makes sense to me because that’s- cause I feel like stuff building up in my throat and I get this like gravely and raspy voice thing going on.

So I did drink caffeine this morning, but I- it was like two hours ago since I’ve had it. And so I thought that’d be okay, and I felt good warming up, and I thought, you know, everything was going well. And then right as I get into the intro, my voice starts getting recipe. So not sure what’s going on. Maybe I still need to exercise it. Maybe I just need to cut out the caffeine.

Pam: do you think that you had anxiety about what we were doing right before we started recording?

CK: Um… possibly, but I- yeah, I don’t know. I don’t- I don’t see how that would affect my voice and my throat so much, but it very well could be.

Pam: I get that when we’re recording Not Bad Advice. Like we- I talk all morning and it’s perfectly fine. And then as soon as we start recording, I’m like, brraauughh…

CK: Yeah. It’s so weird. And also I saw that you took a spoonful of honey right before we started. And apparently that also causes some mucosal build up in the throat. So I didn’t use any honey, but I don’t know. I feel like It- my throat feels better with honey, but I don’t know. I’ll keep experimenting and hopefully improve.

Pam: If it’s good enough for Christina Aguilara, it’s good enough for me. We learned in her Masterclass that she uses honey.

CK: Yeah. Did she also mention lemon? Or tea or something?

Pam: She just said that she’ll, like, use her hands to shove honey in her mouth in between songs ’cause she doesn’t have any time.

CK: Yeah, ’cause apparently lemon can also cause issues and tea, obviously, because of the heat, if that does cause inflammation. But yeah, I’m looking more into the vocal stuff, so hopefully you’ll hear some improvements on that front.

👁️‍🗨️ Update on Not Bad Advice.

[05:27]

CK: And before – right before we started recording – I had Pam listen to the Not Bad Advice trailer that I’ve been working on this whole time. And I got some notes from her. And finally- I mean, it’s pretty much complete. There’s just a couple of very little things, and I got some notes from her, and just need to tweak some things.

And there’s- I mean, these are really small things. And it’s kind of annoying because I can’t figure out how to fix them or do them. And they’re, like, super-minor. So, I mean, it probably doesn’t even matter in the end,

Pam: I don’t even know what you’re talking about. So…

CK: Yeah, just, uh, just some effects and some mixing and stuff like that. But yeah, it’s, uh, it’s- it’s there. So I’m expecting that we’ll be able to publish it or start uploading it this coming week. And, um, yeah, I guess we’ll have to talk about that, but we’ll see.

Um, either way I’m thinking we can upload, you know, even what we have and just get it up there. Even if we don’t promote it, just so we can have it up and know that it’s up in- in the directories and people can find it. So when we do want to promote it, that it’s there.

And even if I want to edit it further, I can just re-upload it- or re-upload the edited version. So, I- so what I have now, I’m comfortable with publishing that. So, that’s where we’re at with that.

Pam: Very exciting!

CK: Yeah. So, yeah, it’s exciting for me too, because it’s a huge hill I’ve been climbing for a few months now, I guess. And yeah, I- I see the top and I’m so close. I’m right there. And I’m excited to start taking that momentum, and running downhill with it. So…

Pam: Well, I am very, very grateful for all the work that you’ve put into it. And I’m so happy with that, with the outcome. So, thank you.

CK: Cool. Yeah. I’m glad- I’m glad you’re happy with it.

And yeah, I probably did way more with it than I needed to. And I’ve also stripped a lot from it as well. And yeah, I mean, I- I tend to do- I tend to overdo things like that.

But it was a very interesting learning process. And very useful. And I’ll be able to use a lot of the stuff that I learned for the stuff that I want to be doing. And so, excited- excited for things to come.

Pam: Me too.

📜 This week’s quote to reflect on.

[08:16]

CK: So let’s, uh, get right into the quote for the week. And I actually jotted down like four quotes this week. It was quite- quite a… I don’t know what word I would use to describe the week. I would say very, um, I don’t know. I mean, um, th- there’s a lot of things going on and… And, uh, it’s a very-

It was a very challenging week in terms of me doing things with the trailer. And then of course the political climate going on. And, uh, the fires that are going on here in Southern California. We probably had the worst smoke that I’ve seen since I’ve lived out here.

Pam: It was pretty bad.

CK: Yeah, what… I’ve been out here for like, I don’t even know now 15, over 15 years. Like 16, 17 years.

And we’ve had fires, but these might be some of the closest fires that we’ve had to our home. And the smoke was just terrible. That- the first day of the fires, it was just nasty. And the- what is it? The air quality index was, like, over 300?

Pam: Yeah, it was close to 350 that first day.

CK: Yeah, which I’ve never seen it over 200 before, I don’t think.

Pam: No.

CK: Yeah, so fortunately that’s clearing up and they have a handle on the fires now. And, yeah, the winds are what was the big issues. The winds were- they got up to like 70 miles per hour or something?

Pam: Yeah, the Santa Anas.

CK: Yeah, it was nuts.

But anyway, yeah, lots of things going on, so lots of things on my mind and that’s why I kind of, uh, had a lot of quotes speak to me over the past week.

But this is the one that I ended up with, and I actually jotted this one down before and it came up again. And before it spoke to me, but then there was another one that came up and it spoke to me more at that time. But this one, uh, came up again. And, um, and this one speaks to me most this week. So this is how it goes.

It’s actually from Lao Tzu, who I’ve quoted before – the founder of Taoism. And three out of the four quotes that I jotted down are from Lao Tzu actually. So, I’m very much on a Taoism bent this week. So, here’s the quote:

“Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.”

So it’s. Very kind of overall all encompassing, which is what I like about it. And the first line, it kind of sums it up with simplicity, patience, compassion… I would hope that everybody would agree that those are three very important virtues.

And it’s- this spoke to me, I think mainly because of the political climate, lately – and obviously the elections coming up in a few days. And I don’t want to talk about politics specifically too much, but just the attitude and the feelings that people are having. And I- you know, I ended up getting caught up in Facebook last night before I went to bed, which was… uh, and- and this, this is what happens with social media. You just get caught up.

And I- so the reason I was on Facebook was because I was on the Marketplace and I was looking for music gear. I like looking in the Facebook Marketplace for music gear, as well as eBay and, uh, Reverb.com is a great source for used music gear.

And so I was looking at the Marketplace and just happened to catch a post from a friend. And it was politically based, and I could not tell if they were being serious or not. And I ended up going through the comments and I ended up clicking through, like, other friends, and like… And I haven’t been on Facebook going through these kinds of posts at all until last night, and I was just dumbfounded at how I really couldn’t tell if they were being sarcastic or serious because the messages were just so, I mean, outlandish on one hand in relation to what I know of my friends, but on the other hand, like it was realistic and- and even the comments were mixed, they were like supportive or not. And like, even through the comments, I can tell if they’re being serious or not.

And so yeah, it’s just- yeah, it was just- I was just totally befuddled. And so I liked this quote because the second part. So there’s simplicity and then there’s the patience. And it says “patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are.” And I just want to espouse how we need diversity of thought, diversity of life, diversity of people… and this is all what makes everything so great, and that’s how we get- you know, we- we need to have some- I mean, there’s opposing-

I’m totally getting wrapped up in this, but we’ve talked about the duality of things before and how there’s good and bad, and the same thing can be good and bad. And there’s good thing- you know, there’s good in the thing and there’s bad in the thing. And it has to do- there’s a lot that has to do with perspective, and how you look at things, and how you consider things.

And there has to be bad for there to be good. And, you know, there has to be darkness for there to be light and all- all this dualistic concepts. And I just want people to understand this and realize that.

Um, I’m totally blanking now. I’m totally getting caught up in a different thought cycle, but I, um… Oh, shoot, I’m totally lost now. I, yeah, I just want to say that whatever happens in the election, one side’s going to lose. And the other side- that, you know, there has to be winners and losers. But the thing is at the end of the day, we all basically want the same things. And there is common ground that we can find and, you know, find a place of understanding.

And, you know, we all have basic needs and you know- yeah, I dunno. I dunno what I’m trying to say here.

Pam: I think I disagree with you on that, that we all want the same thing.

CK: Okay.

Pam: I think that there is a faction of people in this country that want minorities gone. That would not have allowed your parents in this country. That are okay with children in cages. That want to pad their own pockets at the expense of the poor,

CK: Sure. Yeah, I understand that, but why do they want that.

Pam: Because of fear and greed.

CK: And why do they have that fear and greed?

Pam: Because they are small-minded, short-sighted people who are living in a scarcity mindset.

CK: So, yeah, I totally agree with that. And that kind of gets to the bottom of what I’m trying to articulate here, I think. And like you said, you know, these people are in a scarcity mindset, and a lot of the division that I’m seeing is due to the individualistic versus collectivistic mindset. And this also relates to the open hierarchical system that I espouse in terms of subsystems and super systems and self-assertion and self-transcendence. And there’s- it seems like there’s a preponderance of individualism going on these days, obviously.

And so what I’m trying to say here, I think is that. A lot of people are stuck in their own individual views, and they’re not thinking of the supersystem and the collective and how that affects the complex systems going on.

And there’s- it’s a short-sighted view because at the end of the day, in the long-term, if you think of the supersystem, and if you take a more collectivistic mindset, that helps the individual more than just being a greedy individualistic person who only thinks of themselves or their immediate circle.

And so does that make sense?

Pam: It does, except that we have an entire party that is basing everything that they do on creating division and, you know, like they- they put together a tax plan that has tax increases on everyone that makes under $75,000 a year, for every year starting in 2021, purposely. So that if Biden wins, it will appear as though the Democrats are increasing taxes on poor people.

I mean, this is an entire party that is purely built on reinforcing division. So how do we have a collective mindset when there’s a very small group of people that really do benefit from not having a collective mindset, and they’re in power?

CK: Right. Yeah, and that’s the thing. Like, ther- the- that- that. So there’s a party that may be based on division and there- the other side may be more unifying. But the thing is, like, I see division occurring on both sides, and that’s not going to solve anything. And you know, it- the side that understands that we need to unite and be more unifying can’t be divisive as well because that’s not going to solve anything.

And so, yeah, I don’t know. And go ahead.

Pam: I know we fundamentally disagree on this because of our neighbors that are flying a Trump flag, and I refuse to look at them, and you still say “hi” to them. And we disagree on that. But I’m on team shame them until they get their crap together. And you’re on team be nice to them, no matter what

CK: Well, I’m on team humans and I…

Pam: I am too, but they want to hurt humans.

CK: Yeah, I understand that. But I also look at it from the standpoint of the unconscious and conscious self-assertion versus self-transcendence and fundamental attribution error as well. And I, from my perspective, I feel like these people who are more individualistic and trying to assert themselves unconsciously, or are also unconsciously self transcendent – and what I mean by that, we’ve been talking about this over the past couple of weeks, but I know it’s probably confusing or esoteric, but you know, when you’re self transcendent, you’re thinking, or you’re trying to be outside of yourself and more about the super system and the collective, but there’s a difference of being unconsciously and consciously self transcendent.

And when you’re unconsciously self transcendent, which I would relate to being, you know, identifying as part of a political group and having that as part of your identity – you know, identity politics, your unconsciously self-transcendent, and you’re being controlled. You’re dependent on the system outside you and you lose your autonomy.

You’re not enforcing your free will. And so you might think you are, but if you are not considering other perspectives and taking the word of your group and following, you know, all the things that your group says, you’re being controlled. And you’re being controlled by people who know how to manipulate your group and manipulate you for their gain.

So, yeah, I don’t, uh, I shouldn’t have gotten into this. I I’m too distracted with what we were doing before and my thoughts aren’t super clear and… yeah.

Pam: Well, I’m going to continue to use my free will to not smile at Nazis.

CK: Yeah. So… I’m- so where I’m coming from is I’m trying to find a place of common ground and see where the actual values are at, and try to unify people and try to make people understand each other on both sides. Because as much as you think what you think is right, the other side thinks that they’re right. Just as much as you think you’re right.

So if you guys- if you don’t understand that there’s different perspectives, you don’t have empathy or theory of mind or compassion, then we’re not going to get anywhere. And, you know, we’re just gonna keep making the divide even wider. And yeah, I don’t need- you know, who knows where things would go from there.

Pam: But you have to engage in conversation with them to have that impact.

CK: Right.

Pam: Do you do that? Do you talk to people on the other side of the political spectrum and try to find where they’re coming from?

CK: Okay, so… that’s the other thing. So, this past week, I’ve been thinking a lot about ego and how that relates to self-assertion. And, you know, you hear all the time how ego is bad and it’s bad to have ego and ego is the enemy. And the thing is, it’s a spectrum and there’s another side to that. And there’s this part where ego is good.

And as it relates to self-assertion, you have to have a balance of ego. You know, if we’re talking about Freud’s model here, we have the id, the ego, and the super-ego and where the ego and the super ego relate to my framework is, you know, the ego is the subsystem or you. And the super-ego is the supersystem and the systems outside you, or the social system.

And you have to have a balance of that. And for me, I’ve- I feel like I haven’t been enforcing or asserting myself. And, you know, I’ve been mentioning that over the past few weeks, and I feel like in a way that I haven’t- I haven’t had, you know, I don’t have the ego. My ego is not in balance with my super-ego.

And so I need to increase or boost my ego and assert myself more. And I feel like in terms of the collectivistic mindset, which would relate more to the super-ego or the supersystem. Might lose some sight of the ego in terms of asserting themselves. So yes, I do need to assert myself more, and I’m realizing that more and more.

And, uh, so to answer your question, no, I haven’t been, you know, participating in these kinds of conversations. And I’ve been working on myself and I’m trying to figure myself out, and I’m realizing that I do need to assert myself more and put more of my ideas out there.

And it kind of seems like it- this is maybe a trend in the side that’s more collectivistic. They’re not really asserting their egos or their individualism enough in terms of creating a balance of both sides. And so one side is much more assertive in their messaging and what they’re doing and what they’re putting out there and what they want to do. And the other side is very, you know, they come off as weak and quiet and, you know, non-confrontational and just, you know, let the other side roll over them.

So yeah, I think both sides need to get in more balance in terms of integrating these aspects of individualism versus collectivism or ego versus super-ego. So that’s what I have to say about that.

Pam: Okay. I appreciate that because my point was that love and light is not going to make things better. We have to have difficult conversations. And if you’re on the right side, you need to be active in conversations.

CK: Yeah, I agree with that. And you know, of course I’m just generalizing here and this is just my perspective, but I would hope that everyone can agree there could be a lot more balance between the two sides in terms of how things are being asserted and how things are being considered. So, yeah. Um, yeah, I think I finally got around to what I wanted to convey.

Pam: Okay.

👾 Pam’s twin might be trying to come out of her shoulder.

[28:39]

CK: Um, so I have no idea how long we’ve been going. My timer’s- I didn’t start it at the right time. Do you have any idea?

Pam: Um, it’s probably been pretty close to half an hour ’cause we started the trailer a little bit after 12:15, 12:20? Somewhere in that area?

CK: So, I mean, let’s talk about something else. I don’t know. How did you- do you have anything you want to talk about or anything more light?

Pam: Yeah, I can talk about my weird chiropractor experience this week, if…

CK: Okay.

Pam: Um, so I went to a new chiropractor for my nagging shoulder issue that’s been going on almost through the entire pandemic. And, um, he deals with energy healing in as well as, um, physical healing. But his whole idea is that you, um, hold emotional trauma in your body and that that has to be released, or it comes out through, um, chronic injury.

So, he was doing a lot of, um, tests, uh, going through potential areas of trauma. And he brought up one, which was, um, that he- he felt very strongly that I had trauma from when I was six years old and it involved my father. And I- I immediately had a memory of it, but I am not the type of person as open as I am, and as much as I will tell you anything and everything that’s going on with my mind, psyche body, whatever, it takes me a little bit to open up to people. So being that this was a stranger, even though I immediately had a memory about it, I was like, no, my childhood was completely fine. There’s absolutely nothing wrong.

Um, but afterwards I came home and, and spent the next couple of days kind of mulling it over and journaling about it and meditating on it. And I ended up putting together the memory that I had with a few other instances throughout my childhood that involved being injured and not getting the treatment that I wanted or the emotional support that I wanted.

So there’s a potential that I carry injury that’s related to emotional trauma there. Um, but the really weird one was that he feels that I may have had a twin.

CK: Oh yeah.

Pam: And that I ate all of the nutrients and starved my twin. So my twin died in the womb. And that is a very strong possibility because twins are very strong in my dad’s family. He had twin sisters. There was a lot of them. So there’s a very strong possibility that I had a twin.

And my entire life, I wanted a twin. Like I talked about it all the time. I was like obsessed with the idea of being a twin, and I have twin cousins, and I was, like, mad that they got to be twins. Like, this was a kind of a big thing in my life.

Um, so there’s the idea that I have, um, like worthiness issues and guilt associated with- with taking all of the nutrients and thereby starving my twin. So like, I now feel like I don’t deserve what I have, or I’m unable to receive – whether that is monetary or care or love or anything like that. So that was my weird week.

CK: How can you know that? How can you like find out for sure?

Pam: You- you can’t. Cause it could have been like cellular, right? It could have never come to fruition. And I don’t think that ultrasounds were a thing when our moms were pregnant. So I- and there’s never been any story about, you know, me having a twin.

But I kind of feel like it was probably true because like, were you obsessed? Did you want a twin when you were a kid?

CK: No. Not really.

Pam: I know. Yeah. So I don’t think that’s a normal thing. I think I just really wanted another one of me. So I thought that I- I just thought I was so cool that there should be two of me, but now it kind of like makes sense that maybe there was,

CK: Huh. So a couple weeks ago, we actually talked about this a little bit in terms of going to- you going to our sports doctor and him saying your issue is emotional and you were totally- you totally rejected that.

Pam: Yeah. And I don’t know that I, that I actually think that my physical issue is emotional. And I’ll get back to your point here in a second. Um, I am going all in and buying into everything this guy is saying, because I, at this point I will do anything to get this pain to go away. So I’m totally on board with whatever he’s telling me.

Like if he told me to go stand in a lightning storm with a fork on my head, I would probably do it to get rid of the pain. But, um, I think this comes back to your point about how words have power, and how we label things, and how the way you say things changes them. And the way our sports doctor told me “your problem is emotional” goes back to my need for care.

I went to him to have to be cared for. And his response was, “I’m not going to care for you because your problem is emotional.” And he basically rejected me. And I have a really hard time asking for what I need. So for me to go and say, “I need help” and to not get it was rejection. So rejection on top of telling a woman, “your problem is emotional” with no context is problematic. So I think that had he done it differently, or had better bedside manner, it would have been received much differently.

CK: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we went over that a couple of weeks ago when you mentioned that, so yeah. Yeah. That’s all- that’s all pretty interesting. I’m interested.

You’re going back tomorrow, right. So, yeah, that’ll be interesting. Maybe we can talk about it next week.

Pam: Yeah. We’ll see. If anything more weird comes up.

🌿 Update on my cannabis abstinence experiment.

[34:43]

CK: So, yeah, I guess we could start wrapping things up now. And I do want to mention that I did not get a lot of sleep last night. So, my brain’s not functioning at the top of its game.

And I also want to up provide an update of my cannabis abstinence experiment. And, uh, so it’s two weeks today that I’ve been abstaining, and I feel like the last two days I’ve been struggling. And I feel more anxiety creeping up over the last two days. And…

Pam: I could feel that.

CK: Really?

Pam: Yeah.

CK: And me, I’m just so, uh, I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I’m very disciplined when it comes to my health. So if I said two weeks, I’m going to do it all two weeks. But you know, now that I think about it, it’s just an arbitrary amount of time that I set for myself. And I, you know, looking back, I- there’s no good reason I couldn’t have taking a hit of CBD yesterday or something like that.

But I don’t know at the same time it’s, uh, enforcing my own freewill (I meant to say “willpower”) and discipline. So, I’m over that and I feel it- so I- I’m- I’m going to start- start back up little by little. I know now that I don’t need it as much, and I still feel like my circadian rhythm is, uh, very much… very well synced.

Excuse me, my voice. We should start wrapping this up soon. But, um, the other thing is my blood pressure has been going up. So, I know the one thing that I can count on to lower my blood pressure is cannabis.

Pam: We know that for a fact.

CK: Yeah. Um, maybe we’ll tell the story some other time, but yeah, it’s been an interesting experiment and I’m glad I did it.

And I feel like the timing was awesome because I got my circadian rhythm sinked up. Right when we’re changing the time back to standard time. And I’m so glad we’re back to standard time, because now solar noon is much closer to actual noon. And yeah, the daylight savings is just stupid. So, uh, hopefully we get rid of that soon.

Outro.

[37:18]

CK: So yeah, we’ll leave it there for now. And of course I want to thank Pam for joining me as always. Pam, where can people find you?

Pam: You can find me on Twitter, where I am @Pamela_Lund.

CK: And thank you to the listeners for joining me as always. And yeah, I don’t know if I’ll be on Twitter yet this week. Uh, this up probably be off it this week. I don’t want to touch social media this week, but if you want to check out my past tweets, I’m @cKdisco.

Pam: If you want to check out tweets from 2018.

CK: Yeah, and I’m very much looking forward to getting more into the music stuff this coming week, and riging this momentum of the Not Bed Advice trailer. So we’ll see what comes from that.

And so thank you for joining in tuning in, and I hope you come back next week and keep on practicing.

Too-da-loo!