Practice Session #30

Welcome to my show notes for this session of Practice!

We record these weekly 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 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.

Pam: Can little girl, girl.

CK: We’re already recording. Huh?

Pam: You’re already recording.

CK: Here we go.

Hey, yo. 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. I’m using this platform to practice podcasting. Actually, I was going to change this. So basically what started out as a practice of podcasting, as well as speaking in general, has turned into a practice of Sophos has turned into a practice of self reflection.

And I still need practice speaking. So as always unfortunate to be joined by and my practice partner and partner in life, Pam. Pam is also my pattern awareness manager, and this is her birthday week. 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 some more information about this project at dot com slash practice. We’re recording today on Sunday, September 20th of 2020. And this is our 30th, 30th practice session watching Pam eating something right now.

Pam: it’s honey that I was saving for later in the show, but it’s hot enough that it was melting off the spoon. So I had to eat it now

CK: Uh, where are you saving it for your voice? Huh?

Pam: voice, or if I started to crash cause I’m tired, a little sugar rush.

CK: Yeah. Okay. Well, we’ll try to keep this for too long. Try to keep this to half an hour. My brain’s not functioning at the top of its game right now, so

Pam: Yeah. I’m not at full capacity either.

CK: yeah,

Pam: I’m missing a couple of hamsters. Yeah.

CK: It’s Pam’s birthday week. And we mentioned starting the celebration last week during the last session. And man, that feels so long ago.

Pam: Yeah. It does. Time went so slow on our trip,

CK: yeah, yeah. We took a little getaway down South in Southern California. Sculpt out an area that we’re interested in relocating to, and for me it was everything and more than I was hoping for. So it was really exciting. Yeah. So yeah, it was such a nice couple of days of getting away and not really doing anything other than.

I guess we did a lot of reflection and just relaxing and reading and

Pam: yeah, a lot of reading and talking and staring off at nature.

CK: yeah, that’s, that’s what we loved about where we went. And I don’t want to reveal all that or the exact location just yet if ever. But yeah, it was just a great view of the mountains and the Hills. I don’t know what you classify those as, I don’t know when a Hill becomes a mountain.

Pam: I dunno, maybe they’re like foothills,

CK: Okay.

Pam: Kilz at the bottom of the mountains.

CK: I could see that.

Pam: I don’t know. I don’t know the rules.

CK: Yeah, me neither. But anyway, the views were amazing and we were able to just chill on a deck that overlooked a Valley in Hills and foothills and mountain ranges or whatever they’re called. In the distance. So yeah, that was, that was really nice and relaxing. And it’s been, and something that I’ve been Ching for, for awhile, not necessarily since the start of the pandemic, but we haven’t really taken a break like that since the start of the pandemic.

Pam: I haven’t gone anywhere.

CK: Yeah. And I’ve been wanting to, and yeah, I probably alluded it, alluded to it here and there in these sessions about. Getting a break and getting away and all that. So, yeah, that was our week. We spent two days away and yesterday we had a surprise visitor for Penn’s birthday

Pam: My best friend is a crazy person and did a seven hour round trip drive to spend. 15 hours with me.

CK: Yeah. It’s very nice to Varian, but. Yeah. We always love having her around and catching up with her. And yeah, hopefully sooner than later, we’ll be able to catch up more often or more intimately, per se, rather than this physical distancing. We do have a dog with us today

Pam: if you hear crying in the background, it’s not me.

CK: Yeah, that’s Lilo and we love Leila.

She’s a cool snuggly dog, but she gets a little squeaky.

Pam: She’s a little vocal.

CK: So it’s not Pam that’s Leda. Should we go ahead with the quote for this week?

Pam: Let’s do it.

CK: Alright. So the quote for this week is from Seneca, who I believe was the first stoke philosopher that I quoted a couple of weeks ago. So we’re back to Seneca again. And the quote is if you live in harmony with nature, you will never be poor.

If you live according to what others think, you’ll never be rich. So, again, it’s pretty simple this week, but it has to do with your mindset and how you consider what other things, what other people think of you and other people’s thoughts, which as we’ve gone over several times before are things that are out of your control.

So if you’re to reason. Then, well, one first of all, so, okay. So this week I’ll probably go on a lot of tangents and bounce around. Cause I don’t really have anything top of mind to you talk about, because there’s a ton of stuff bouncing around. And like I said, we did a lot of reflection this week and I’ve been diving into a lot of different things and I’ve been falling into.

A lot of philosophy by niche nichey, Micha, Micha.

Pam: I think, yeah, I don’t, I’ve heard, it said so many different ways. Nicha.

CK: yeah, I’ve been finding that very interesting and still working on wrapping my head around the headless way and stuff that we’ve been talking about over the past couple of weeks and. So, yeah, I’m not sure where I’m going to go. Probably just kind of have ever on, but yeah, so I mean this quote by Seneca, it’s very much about your mindset and how you consider what other people think of you and how you live in harmony with nature.

The Stoics were very much about being an aligned with nature and following nature. And if you’ve been listening to us at all, I think you’d understand our connection and love of nature as well. And as human beings, we should all. Be connected and have a relationship with nature. And I think that may be one of the biggest issues in our modern society today, with all the technology we’re inundated with in all these artificial constructs and concepts and all these different routines that we’ve fallen into through technology that is taken away, taken us away from nature.

And so a lot of people, these days don’t even see sunlight during the day, whether they’re just cooped up in the basement or cooped up in an office, they’re inundated with fluorescent lighting or some kind of artificial lighting. And so the sun is probably the basis of all nature in. Our solar system anyway, or at least earth.

And so if you think about it that way, the sun is like almost cut. You can consider it like an essential nutrient and everything starts with the sun. There would be no life without the sun. So if you want to start at a foundation, the sun, is it so. Yeah, follow nature as this still say, and as we say, and so I’m kind of a, trying to figure out what to talk about.

Um, Pam, do anything,

Pam: Mmm.

CK: sorry to throw this on you.

Pam: No, that’s okay. Let’s see. So I think something that I can say that is in line with that quote in something that I’ve been working on is, um, Being more open and telling people things that either like telling them what they mean to me or telling them what I need from them, or just in some way, being open and vulnerable in that way.

And the reason that I haven’t in the past or that a lot of people might not is because we worry about what other people are going to think. So like, you know, uh, with our, a friend that came in surprised me last night, when she left today, I just told her that I loved. And that’s not something that I really like say to friends, you know, like I might like text it offhand, like love you or whatever, like that kind of thing.

But like expressing that kind of affection for someone is not really like the kind of thing that I would have done before. Cause it’s like, what are they gonna think? They’re gonna think I’m a weirdo or like, whatever. And even when you are close to someone, you still worry, like, what are they going to think when I.

CK: Oh yeah. I mean, there’s, there’s so much behind those words. I mean that there might be another point, like we’ve constructed this. Thing out of love or that concept. And we placed so much value on the word love, especially at like the beginning of our relationship or something. And then now we’re kind of stuck with how we’re expressing it.

And on one hand, even like, it’s just saying, love is. A limiting way to express how you feel, because for one just the word love can mean so many different things to different people. And to even trying to define the word love is pretty difficult within itself. So in terms of. Living in harmony with nature, like Seneca says this word love is an artificial construct.

So we’ve, you know, you can get to this point where it loses. The meaning that you’re trying to convey, I guess, is what I’m supposed to, what I’m trying to articulate here. So yeah, with like just language in general words, put limits and constraints to the reality that we’re trying to express with the words.

And so that’s kind of a lot of what I’m trying to do with this practice of speaking is to try to. Be accurate with the words that I use. And that’s, I mean, that’s always been kind of my hangup and why I keep correcting myself or using synonyms and stuff like that. But yeah, I kind of going off on a tangent here.

Sorry to interrupt you,

Pam: No. That’s okay. Yeah, just, um, so yeah, the point that I was trying to make it, that that’s all valid and I think, um, to add onto what you were saying, we overuse love in a lot of ways. So then it loses its meaning when you really do mean it.

CK: Yeah, so we kind of overuse it maybe in the, not necessarily so accurate ways. And then under use it when we actually want, I mean, what we think it’s supposed to mean.

Pam: Yeah, but with the, with the quote about worrying about what people think, I think that we get so wrapped up in worrying about what people will think or how they will respond or how they’ll take what you say. And so we end up not saying the things that. Matter, or that will have an impact. We stay in a safe zone. So, um, I’ve been really making an effort to be more open and vulnerable with people in my life for my own benefit, but also for theirs, because it increases the connection that we have, which only benefits both of us, but then it also freeze up them to be able to express themselves because they feel safe to do it once they’ve seen me do it.

CK: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That’s great. And thanks for taking this over for a little bit, because now I have my mind going in the right direction. So one of my big accomplishments or milestones, I guess you could say lately is getting over this notion of supposed to. So throughout my entire life, I feel like I’m supposed to be a certain way, or I’m supposed to do something a certain way.

Or, or even that’s not support, so that’s not how it’s supposed to be, but all these supposed dues were artificial constructs that I developed myself somehow, or the people that I was around developed or, you know, someone else before us developed and that we still follow. And we think that we’re supposed to be doing these things.

So I’ve been wrapping my head around. Not adhering to these supposed students. And this goes along a lot with what I’ve been cultivating with my practice with Taoism and going with the flow and just to be, and just letting go. Basically, I had a posted note on my desk for a long time, probably over a year that just said, let go on it.

And I wrote that down after we went to, uh,

Pam: John Wineland.

CK: Yeah, it’s a little embody.

Pam: It was actually a yoga sexuality class. That’s what it was built debts.

CK: interesting. But it’s, it’s just another method to. Perform some self reflection and mindfulness. And in that class, there was a talk, John talked about this concept of letting go and it struck me. And so I wrote it down either that day or it was the next day. Like, there’s quite a funny story that goes along with

Pam: Well, yeah, we don’t have time for that.

CK: Yeah, we might. Yeah. Um, yeah. We’ll have to

Pam: That’ll go in our book.

CK: Yeah.

Pam: well you wrote, that was the only thing that you wrote down in the notebook that we took that night was the let go and give freedom. Yeah. And the concept was that that is, so he talks about how there’s the masculine and feminine everyone has that. That’s not about, it’s not about gender.

It’s not about any of that. It’s that everyone has a masculine and feminine energy and that the goal of the masculine is to let go and give the feminine freedom. So like your, your goal in our relationship as, as the masculine partner is to let, go for yourself and to give me freedom. That was the concept that he was trying to get.

CK: Yeah, exactly. And so I didn’t really. Understand how to incorporate that. I guess you could say, like I knew the notion and I felt that I wanted to embody that notion, but I didn’t really get my head around it until these past couple of weeks of practicing the headless way in reading up about that.

And. Getting this concept of letting go of the supposed dues. And so I’m finally getting around to that and I feel like, you know, that it’s like, I, I get that meaning now to like go,

Pam: what, what things do you think you’ve changed or how are you behaving differently? That is embodying that Liko and give freedom.

CK: I am. Like, it’s really interesting because I’m so not. So, um, how do I say this? I feel like I’m not so tightly bound to my past ideas, like my own past, um, uh, how do I say this? Yeah. I don’t know what it is. It’s it’s that putting the space between it was in response or stimulus in reaction. Like I’ve been able to build that up so that.

I’m not so reactive and I’m able to let go of that reaction. So maybe it’s related to what I’ve been espousing about how emotions get stamped with your experiences. And I think I’ve been able to decouple my emotion from experience. Maybe that’s more along the lines of what I’m feeling. So, whether it’s emotions that I had stamped from childhood or adolescence or emotion, new emotions that are being stamped now with new experiences, I feel like I’m much more mindful and much more able to separate the emotion and the experience and to let go of the emotion basically, and to.

Look at the experience more closely and be more present in that moment and

go about life in that manner. If that makes sense.

Pam: I think maybe I was asking out of maybe selfishness because for the last couple of weeks, you’ve been really helpful. And like T like almost more like you. Um, appreciate my experience more so like, you know, you’re, you’re like, Oh, you know, you don’t need to rush for me or I don’t, you don’t have to do this, or can I help in any way?

Like, you’ve been much more active in helping. And I’m wondering if you were just doing that for birthday mode and or if this is new CK.

CK: Oh, there’s definitely more of it for birthday mode. It’s not going to be your birthday all year, but I think there’s a lot of new CK in there too. And I can’t believe I’m talking about myself in the third person right now, but,

Pam: I do it all the time.

CK: but yeah, I do feel like. I’m thinking differently. And I’m like, my mental process is different and I feel like I’m seeing more clearly, I guess, and this all goes into the stuff that I’ve been talking about the past couple of weeks in terms of creating space in the stage of the sear in the headless way.

And I feel like I’m just being available. To take things in or take more things than I had been before. I’m trying, I’m just basically trying to find a different way to say that. I feel like I’m seeing things more clearly. I don’t know how else to explain it, but it’s. I mean, it’s really awesome. And I’m trying to, to figure out how I can disseminate.

The process and how I’m feeling, but it’s so hard. Like, I don’t, it’s still hard to put this stuff into words. And like I’m saying, like I was saying before with language and stuff, uh, you know, I can kind of describe some things, but then it’s not like it’s not the right word. It’s not the right feeling that I’m trying to convey.

So that’s like, What I’m trying to figure out these days, I guess, like how, how can I help other people to get into this mindset that I’m enjoying so much now? So, yeah.

Pam: The that helps me cause I’m going through the same thing as I’m trying to, you know, learn how to talk to people about finances and astrology, two very diametrically opposed kind of, um, ideas there, I guess one responsible one, maybe not so much. Um, but uh, I just spend a lot of time listening to other people talk about it because I.

Pick up how they phrase things or how they explain things. And that that’s helpful for me

CK: Yeah, definitely. And I do that a lot too, but it’s, this practice of podcasting is probably what’s helping me the most and just forcing myself almost to

Pam: the words.

CK: write, write, write. And like I mentioned before, it’s like exposure therapy for me to try to improve my vocabulary. So yeah,

Pam: maybe that’s how we’re different. Cause I will talk for 20 hours straight, whereas you will listen. So maybe I need to listen more and you need to talk more.

CK: Maybe, so let’s see, what else can we talk about? Oh, we’ve got about five minutes left. I’d like to fill that up with something. Let’s see.

And this is good podcasting

Pam: yeah. Yeah. Good. A good nothing going on.

CK: Yeah. I mean, we, we took this week as kind of like a rest and relaxation week, so we’re not really in thinking about right now.

Pam: we can do ’em. So we took a few minutes, uh, yesterday morning to set intentions for the year. So as we’re coming up on the end, the second half ending, what. The fourth quarter words, words, words, as we’re coming up on the fourth quarter of 2020. Um, and before we know it, new year’s is going to be here and, you know, it’s going to be a whole nother year.

The world is crazy right now, and there’s just so much going on and there’s so much out of our control. Like, you know, even stuff that affects us on a day to day basis out of our control. So. Um, something that you can do right now or start thinking about for new years is what you want out of next year and what you can actually control.

What is the next right move for you to accomplish your goals in the context of everything that’s going on right now, and take some time to say those goals out loud, set your intentions of what you want to get out of the next three, six, 12 months. And, um, put those words out. You know, kind of into the universe thing, but it’s not just about like saying it under the end of the universe.

It’s about seeing it for yourself so that you know, where you want to get and then put that plan into action. What’s the next step that will get you towards those intentions.

CK: right. Yeah. Great, great advice. And I noticed some people listening that that might sound really simple and hooky. But if you actually do the practice and perform it, you’ll eventually get benefits from it. And maybe the first time you might not realize any benefits, but it could also. It could have to do with your mindset.

So, you know, you have to want to improve and progress and you have to want to put in the work or understand that there’s work that needs to be done in order for you to progress.

Pam: Yeah, you’re not just saying it.

CK: Right.

Pam: got to do it.

CK: Right. I mean, there are benefits to just the embodied cognition and just kind of faking it until you make it. But. You also want to couple that with mindfulness and the mindset of progress and growth.

So, yeah, I mean, even if it sounds cheesy, try it out and embody it and you know, what better way to become something that you want to be. Other than trying to become that and practicing that and putting it into action. So, yeah, I mean, even still, it, it’s hard to actually do it in putting the process. I’ve talked about the chance through it.

Transtheoretical model of behavior and there’s the action of pre-contemplation contemplation preparation and then action. So you got to go through three stages even before you get to action, but yeah, it gets started on those first three stages in start now so that you can get to that stage of action sooner than later.

So I think that’s a good way to end today’s session. Cool. So thanks for joining us this week. And Pam, thank you for joining me as always. And before we sign out Pam, where can people find you?

Pam: You could find me on Twitter where I am at Pamela underscore Lund.

CK: And you might be able to find me on Twitter at CK disco and Oh, so real quick, I still have a minute left. So before I sign out, I want to provide an update on my. Strategy with the podcast episodes in the show notes. So I’ve been getting stuck kind of on doing the show notes and all that stuff every week, because it started to become tedious for me.

And I didn’t want to take the time to do it. And what I was doing before was we were recording on Sundays and then I was putting out the audio. I was publishing it on Mondays with the transcript and then. I would sometimes go back over it on Friday to add more notes to the transcript and use it for my own self reflection for the next session on Sunday.

But that. Work to transcribe the episode at first on that Monday has been something that I been kind of avoiding. And so in avoiding that I kind of been avoiding the whole thing of the reflection on Friday and doing all that. So now what I’m doing is I think I’m going to. So we’re going to keep recording on Sundays and I’m going to probably publish the audio on Sundays with just the raw AI generated transcripts.

And then I don’t have to worry about anything until Friday when I can self-reflect and then I’ll go through the transcript. To edit and add my notes and stuff like that. So yeah, that’ll be a much more efficient and appealing process for me. And it’ll keep me better in line with the schedule and what the stuff that I’m publishing for people to look at.

So, yeah, just wanted to let you know about where I’m at with this proxy process. As you know, we’re keeping an agile and adapting on the fly, so that’s going to be it for this week. So thanks for listening. And I hope you join us next week and keep on practicing. Toodaloo