Practice Session #49

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 I may get delayed now and then 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]

CK: There 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, and our dialogue here is unedited, 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.

CK: We’re recording today on January 30, first of 2021.

This is practice session number 49, and I’m going to start off with yet another new ish segment where we check in with ourselves, which we’ve done. In past episodes or most episodes in terms of our week. And I want to kind of standardize it a little more and structured a little more and borrow from a practice that we used to do every morning during our morning walks, where we checked in with each other, and it was more Pam checking in on my mental condition.

So. This was, this was developed. Pam developed this when I was dealing with a lot of anxiety and insomnia and mental health issues along that end. So what she would do every morning during our walk, after we wake up is asked me how I felt on a scale of one to 10, and that was pretty much it. So she gets some idea of what level I’m at.

That day. So do you want to explain anymore why you developed that or?

Pam: Um, well, it was, I think it came out of a conversation where you were having a really stressful day and you kind of, um, Snapped at me a little bit or said something like you should know that I’m not feeling good or like that I’m anxious. And I was like, well, how would I ever know that? Like, if you don’t tell me, I have no way of knowing that I’m not a mind reader.

And so I wanted to get some sort of, um, empirical, is that the right word for something measurable that, so I wanted to get something that we could measure every day and have as a consistent. Um, rating system. And so I w I had you give me a score from one to 10 every day with 10 being the best day of your life, and one being the worst day of your life.

And then after you gave me the number I would ask you to give me, um, the why, like, why are you feeling that number so that we could start to correlate. You’re rating with causes. And that was really, I mean, within a very short period of time, we identified that insomnia was what was triggering the majority of your anxiety or your bad days.

CK: Yeah. So, yeah, that was very useful for us. And it was. Good in terms of giving Pam an idea of how I was feeling, because I’m very good at not showing my emotions and my mood and state, uh, I, I tend to be very level throughout most days. So I don’t know if you agree with that, but that’s what I

Pam: You project that your level. And now I think you’re more level, but you weren’t before, but you were still acting like you were.

CK: Right, right, exactly.

Pam: there was that point where I told you that, that for eight years, I thought you never had a bad day. Meanwhile, you were dealing with debilitating anxiety.

CK: yeah, exactly, exactly. And that’s basically the premise of our podcast, equanimity that we’ve been in the process of developing over the past. Two years or so we’re still in the process of that, but we’re learning a lot about podcasting through this practice and also of course not bad advice, so that will come around sometime.

We’re still working on it here and there. So we’ll see what happens with that. So with this check-in I want to go through three different categories. And that’s mental, physical, and social. And we’ll just do a one to 10 scale on all three. And you could briefly say why you chose that number. So do you want to start?

Okay.

Pam: Um, let’s see. So mental, I would say last week was like a nine. I had a really good week felt really balanced and, um, present and creative and had a lot of mental energy. Um, so that was really good. Um, physical, I would say like a seven, I’ve got a couple little nagging issues with my shoulder and my knee, but after six, seven months of a lot of issues with them, they are finally getting better and my workouts were able to progress this week to being a little bit more challenging again.

So that was good.

CK: Nice

Pam: And then what was the last category?

CK: social.

Pam: Social. Hmm. That’s a difficult one for me. Um, let’s see. I would probably give it an eight because I reconnected with someone that I haven’t spoken to in over a decade. And I think that it was a really good thing to have happen and I’m really trying to close loops on, um, You know, negative interactions or problems that have occurred with relationships in my past.

And this was one that had been kind of hanging around. So I get to close that loop now.

CK: Nice. So your scores were nine, seven and eight, so pretty good week.

Pam: Yeah, it was a good week.

CK: What does that add up to

Pam: 25 w was Oh nine. Okay. 24. Yeah. Sorry. I thought I gave myself a 10 in the first one.

CK: So I was thinking like a score above pony would be a good week and a score above 25 would be like, you know, awesome. I mean, this is pretty subjective. I mean, it’s more subjective than objective obviously, but it gives us a good idea and we can kind of track trends and stuff like that. And so for me, I would say mentally I’m my week was at a seven, six or seven.

It’s a little lower than usual and physically, I would also say six and socially, like one or two. I mean, I haven’t done anything socially or the past week. And so my scores were pretty low the past week. Uh, so I’m gonna say seven for mental six for physical and two for social. So what’s that 15, which is not very good.

And, and it does reflect my past week because I still had problems with my sleep wake cycle. And as I discussed last week, I was. Trying to head that off. And I was working on that throughout the week, but in spite of that, it kept getting worse and worse. So I think last week I was going to bed around midnight where I would, whereas I would usually be going to bed around 10 or 10 30.

And so I was trying to, I give myself a small, incremental goal of trying to get to bed at 1130. And ended up going to bed later, like at 1230 and then, so I kept trying to hit 1130 throughout the week and it kept getting later and later until like two nights ago, I didn’t get to bed till like two or two 30.

And then I didn’t wake up until 10, 10, 15. And I did not like how that felt. I mean, in terms of. Physical status. I, I felt fine and I was able to go through the day, the day fine, but mentally, I just didn’t like the rhythm and the cycle and my schedule has been getting out of whack. So I’m trying to head that off.

And fortunately, last night I got to bed at 1130, so I finally hit that goal last night. And I got a decent night of sleep. I’m still short on sleep. I’ve been sleeping less than six and a half, seven hours each night over the past week. Whereas usually I get at least eight and so I’m a little lacking with the sleep, but I still feel fine physically.

My lower number for physical is more because of a hip impingement that I’ve been dealing with for the past couple of weeks thought I got better, but the past couple of days, it kind of flared up a little bit again. So rolled it out a little bit this morning and it’s feeling better now, but over the past week, you know, I really didn’t do much of anything physically because I was a little low on the mental and.

And I think all of that also contributed to the social and I, I didn’t go on social media at all. And I just realized that this morning, when I checked Twitter for something that didn’t go on Twitter at all throughout the week, whereas before I was getting on there pretty much every other day, or maybe almost everyday, even just to look up in school through the latest.

In politics and coronavirus and all that stuff. But yeah, I, without even realizing, I didn’t even go on it at all this past week. So, uh, I’ve also been meaning to catch up with some friends and also my parents, but I haven’t talked to anybody. So yeah. I feel like I’m lacking very much on the social lane.

So I want to. Work on that as well this week. And I think that’ll also help with everything else because social health is a huge element in terms of overall health. And I relate the social. So I, uh, I wanted to use these three categories, mental fiscal, and social, because I’m kind of relating them to complex systems in terms of. Physical being your subsystems, basically, and social being your super system, obviously, and mental being you, your system. And I’m not sure if this makes complete sense, categorizing it that way or relating it that way. But. Based. I mean, the quality of your life depends on the quality of your mind. So everything is mine based in your life.

So that’s why I’m starting to, you relate the self and the human system and like the of the human system in terms of. Designating the system, the subsystem in super systems and the human system is more fundamentally based on the mind. And so that’s kind of how I’m looking at these three categories in terms of mental fiscal and social.

And so I, um, uh, of course I always speak about integrating the subsistent, the subsystems with the super systems. And you have to achieve a balance in order to be optimal. And so my social super system balances way low and so I need to work on it. And so I think I’m thinking I’m hypothesizing that that will also help with everything else and also helped me align my cycle, my sleep wake cycle, and boost all my other systems. So does that make sense?

Pam: It does. I’m wondering for going forward, are we counting each other in our social, uh, ranking? Cause like you’re my best friend. So I consider you my social circle.

CK: Yeah, definitely. But that’s, it’s going to be more consistent, I guess, you know, it’s not.

Pam: the way we really could be different though, like you’ve been tired and not. Total, like how much you talk to me and how conversational you are definitely fluctuates with how much you sleep and how good you feel. So

CK: yeah. I mean, yeah, we could definitely include that.

Pam: just wondering what the rules are.

CK: yeah. I don’t know where this is all we’re, you know, we’re keeping an agile and adapting on the fly. So this is all kind of iterative and it’ll constantly be. Forming in different ways. So I guess, uh, yeah, well, uh, move on to our next segment.

And I think this is where I will recite the quote for the week.

Pam: Cool.

CK: So this quote today’s quote comes from Buddha and I actually had another quote from Buddha Jetta done as well. So Buddha. The quotes from Buddha have been new. I just edited them into my own readings a couple of weeks ago. And they’re speaking to me. So, um, I don’t remember exactly why I chose this one, but it’s short and simple. And this is what it says. Three things cannot be long, hidden the sun, the moon and the truth. And again, that’s from Buddha. And now that I said that I’m sure that some of it had to do with the whole sun and the moon and sleep wake cycle and all that, that I was thinking about and going through, and I’ve also been diving more into philosophy lately and looking into.

What I would say are maybe three kind of find it foundational or fundamental philosophies. And those are objectivism, relativism and motive, ism, and they all have some, I mean, they’re all kind of, they all interrelate somehow in some ways, And one of those ways is the objective portion of it. And that’s kind of where I’m coming at this, or that’s kind of where this quote kind of stood out to me, I think is that it relates the truth to things that are true in nature and the sun, the moon, obviously, and the truth is. Going to come out some way or another. And whether that’s going to be recognized by you or not, it’s still there. Like, it kind of goes along with the saying that science is going to be true, whether you believe it or not. And so I think that’s kind of why it’s stuck to me. But do you have any comments on that quote?

Pam: Um, not necessarily on the quote, but on why you picked it

CK: Yeah.

Pam: today. The transiting moon is in aspect to your sun, to your natal sun. So they’re both very active in your awareness right now.

CK: Oh, wow. Interesting. Okay. So let’s see if we can relate that anymore to the session, but in another thought that I’m having right now is before we started the session. I was having all these technical problems with my computer. And these are problems that I never had before. I would try clicking on some system stuff in it.

I couldn’t even click on it. And I tried to bring up a browser and it wouldn’t click, but I could right. Click on the desktop. And so I couldn’t get to the programs I needed to get to. And I had never experienced that before on this machine. And. Couldn’t figure out what was going on. Not even control the wheat would bring up the test manager.

So Pam was saying before we started that mercury is in retrograde and that has to do with, or that could affect technology. And she warned me not to get frustrated if I was having issues with tech. For, as we were getting ready to record, and of course it happens. Like I like, yeah. So that was weird and crazy and frustrating.

And I don’t know if it’s coincidental or mercury is really messing up my systems or

Pam: We’ll see, you got three more weeks of it.

CK: But yeah, I, that was pretty interesting. So I guess we can move on to our progress, progress our progress with podcasting. I think that’s actually what kicked off. That was the night that I. Got knocked out of my, like, uh, was that, uh, that I can’t even think or talk. So the person I’ve had advice episode is what I’m talking about. And I think was that the night that I stayed up until two or something really late. Do you remember

Pam: Um, I don’t know. You got it done before

CK: Oh, that’s right. No, it was the week before. Yeah. So it was a week before and that kind of knocked me off my schedule and that carried on through. And then, yeah, so not that vice went fine this past week. I had to deal with a lot of audio issues because that, I think that was the first episode that Pam was using the SM seven being.

And I was using the ni team B and I think we were really close to the mix because there was a lot of mouth noise that I had to take out. And that took a long time.

Pam: Okay.

CK: I didn’t tell Pam any of that after she listened to in the car, she said, it sounded great. So I was really glad that it came out good. So that, uh, so that ended up well, but yeah, I’m still having issues with banking episodes.

Although this next one I have about half done, so hopefully I can get that done tomorrow and then I don’t have to worry about it. And. Have it affect my sleep or anything like that. And hopefully I can my cycle, my sleep cycle and get to bed early in and earlier, and hopefully get that fixed. And yeah, I guess in other news, just I’ve really got the studio and music years situated really well.

I still have some connections to figure out between the sense. Since synthesizers and other mini controllers, but the flow that I have going on right now is really coming together and it’s really fun and exciting. So hoping to have more music stuff coming out soon and also working on some other stuff.

But I’ll keep that under wraps for now and see where that. It takes me and when I want to talk about it. So yeah, I think that’s all I wanted to talk about in terms of podcasting. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Pam: No, I don’t think so. Just, uh, we’re starting to get really good feedback. We’re getting, um, you know, more listeners every week and people are sharing to go back and catch up on old episodes of not bad advice. So really appreciate all the people that are tuning in and, um, sending us feedback on social media.

So thanks for that.

CK: Yeah, definitely. And so let’s move on to our next segment and this is the weekly ForceCast and we’ll start off with Podspo where we recommend podcasts that stood out to us over the past week. And I think I forgot to do this again. I can’t think of what

Pam: I’ve got one. If you know,

CK: Yeah. Perfect. I’m going to turn it over to you.

Pam: I caught up on an episode of heavyweight from Gimlet. Um, it was actually their like holiday special that

CK: Yeah. Like check-in specials or

Pam: Yeah, which I usually kind of think of those as like kind of throw away. They’re like something I just put on in the background, but, um, I just listened to it this week and there is a really great story in there about, um, a gravestone of all things and a misunderstanding.

And it’s just. Uh, a really delightful story that was funny and sweet. And, um, I dunno, I think everyone should listen to it cause it was really endearing and, um, uh, just really brought out how connected everyone is, whether it’s in meaningful ways or kind of silly ways. So

CK: I actually put that on the other night when I was trying to fall asleep and I ended up falling asleep to it. So I don’t remember that. Segment that you’re talking about, but yeah, I do like heavyweight, it’s a cool, like human behavior narrative And the host is that Jonathan Goldstein is just really, his demeanor is really funny.

It’s interesting. Like it’s not. I don’t know how to describe it. He’s just like, man, whatever. And

Pam: He’s a weirdo.

CK: yeah, it’s funny. It’s fun. It’s I mean, it’s not like a comedic podcast per se, but it does have light moments in. Yeah, I would recommend that as well. So yeah. Thanks for that recommendation, Pam. So let’s move on to the next portion of the weekly ForceCast and this is Linchpinspo where Pam provides us with some inspiration from the planets or the stars or the car

Pam: All right. So, um, in the last two episodes, we talked about mercury being retrograde for the next few weeks and about that, creating an opportunity for rethinking. And also about how this half of the moon cycle that we’re in is really good for letting things go. So over the next couple of weeks, we’re really in this period of review and release.

So I wanted to bring those two things together and I want to give you something to focus on in that review and release process by talking about, uh, the Empress tarot card. So the emperor’s card asks you to think about how you receive or take in anything like money, friendships, pleasure, food, anything that you can receive.

And I picked this card because we have so much abundance. Like we’re surrounded by cheap stuff. Um, in high quantities you can buy 3000 calories for $2, or you can have, you know, a large group of people that you call friends that don’t actually know anything about you. Going back to what we were talking about, about social interaction earlier, um, or you can have, you know, a closet full of cheap clothes that don’t last, but can be replaced easily.

So we’re in this like abundant throwaway culture.

CK: Yeah.

Pam: And we take all of this stuff for granted, precisely because it’s cheap and meaningless, and that comes at a lot of costs, but one of them is that most people have a disconnect between what they have and what they want. They try to fill their needs with this pursuit of more meaning meaningless stuff, instead of having the confidence and the self worth to actually receive.

Or ask for what they want. So you can have abundance and you can take more without actually receiving it or without feeling fulfilled, you can accumulate without appreciating, but once you start to really look at what you’re accumulating and see it for what it is, You can shift your attention to attracting what you really want, what you actually need.

So with the Empress card, I want you to think this week about what you are accepting, where, where you’re accepting things, that aren’t what you really want and things that you’re settling for and how that’s affecting your life. What are you taking that? Isn’t what you want. And what do you want that you’re not asking for from yourself or from others, believe that you deserve and are worthy of receiving abundance and quality,

CK: I like that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that. And that brings us to the end of the session. Oh yeah. That went pretty well. I think I like these segments and the structure and organization and feel like I’m reigning in these practice sessions. And I know before we kept it agile and kind of did things on the fly, but I’m organizing things and structuring things a little more now and it’s. Easier on my mind for while and for it to, I’m hoping to become more regular, I guess, per se, with these episodes. So listeners can know more or have a better idea of what to expect. And so I hope you guys are enjoying these new segments and give me some feedback. And I noticed that. Some of my episodes are getting like 20 or so listeners, which I was totally surprised about because I haven’t done really much of anything in terms of promoting the podcast.

And I didn’t really care, you know, it was more for me. And of course I want these ideas to spread and, you know, I want to share what I’m thinking, but. The first priority was for me to practice and gain some self-confidence and figure out how to assert myself. But yeah, I mean, if you’re listening should be a message.

I’ll get back on Twitter and yeah. Let me know what you think. Give me some feedback and I may start promoting things a little more and tie some other things and kind of start. Putting together, all these other things that I’ve been working on and start releasing more content. So that’s kind of the idea. And before we leave off, I also want to mention that I kind of wanted to differentiate my status today versus over the past week, because or the past week I’ve been dealing with, uh, hints of insomnia and lack of sleep. And my sleep cycle has been out of whack. But today I feel awesome. I feel great. Most likely because I started getting my sleep cycle back on track overnight.

And also I’ve been testing out a new supplement called energy. And I know I’ve talked about quality of mind before, and that was quality of mind is one of the only supplements that I’ve taken that I can actually feel effects from. And Callie, mine’s a nootropic, so it’s a cognitive supplement to help your brain functioning. And so, yeah, I love quality of mind. I use it once a week and I’ve been using it before these podcast sessions and now I’m testing quality of energy and it, I, I feel that. More than I feel quality of mind even. And I’ve today was my fourth day of testing it. And even though I’ve been sleeping less, I’ve been really alert.

Like my brain has felt alert and it’s also suppressed my appetite. It seems like I’ve been doing one meal a day, the past two days. And not even getting hungry. Whereas, I mean, before I could do that as well, but I’d have some hunger pains and then, you know, if I waited it out, I would get over them, but I didn’t have any hunger pains at all, like the past two days.

So it’s really interesting, but yeah, I feel the energy and I feel like I feel even more today because I got a good night of sleep last night. So I’m interested to see how it’s going to make me feel tomorrow. Tomorrow is my last day of the test. It’s a five day test and it actually it’s a full week test, but the protocol is five days on two days off.

And that’s actually the same protocol with quality of mind, but I’m only taking that once a week. And I only take supplements when I feel like I need to, or they actually supplement something that I need it for because. Like I said, I don’t really feel effects like direct effects from most supplements. I do trust the science and that’s why I take some supplements, but yeah.

Other than Qualia and maybe ketones and cannabis. Yeah. I don’t really feel effects from supplements in one speculation of that is that my. Nutrition is very, very good. So I’m thinking that I may not need a lot of supplementation or if I do take it, it’s not going to be as effective for someone like me versus someone who’s deficient in a lot of those supplements.

So that’s just a hypothesis I have, but yeah, I never really felt anything from any supplements until I tried Qualia and also ketones and of course cannabis, but. Yeah. So actually what I, why I got into all of that is because I wanted to say that today, mentally, I feel like a nine physically, I feel say eight socially still low.

I still haven’t gotten to any of that yet, but yeah, today I feel great. And hopefully I can keep this going and get back on track this week. So yeah. So Pam, anything more to say before you leave us?

Pam: Nope.

All right. Uh, so yeah. Thank you for joining me as always, of course, where can people find you?

You can find me on Twitter, where I am at Pamela underscored London.

CK: you can find me on Twitter at CK disco and thanks for joining us. And I hope you come back next week. Should I forget something? I thought you made a face.

Pam: Get ready for keep on practicing.

CK: You just said it, so yeah. Hope you come back. Nice to meet you and keep on practicing. Toodaloo