Practice Session #34

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 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 🤷).

[00:00]

Pam: Here we go

Pam: Car next door. There’s three of them in the neighborhood. I think we’re good though.

CK:okay, here we go.

Check. Check. Okay. Okay. 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. 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.

Pam: 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 in more information about this project@forcesofequal.com slash practice. We’re recording today on October 18th, 2020, of course, it’s Sunday as always.

And this is our 33rd practice session and we’re rolling along. We’re on a little bit of a time crunch today because we’re meeting up with my parents for lunch and my brother and his wife. And so try to keep this to half an hour, like I’ve always been wanting to, and I actually feel really good right now.

And, uh, I’m noticing how good my voice sounds to me. I don’t know. Do you notice any difference?

Pam: So far, it sounds the same to me, but I’ll pay more attention now.

Pam: it feels like a it’s more smooth or I don’t know. I’m not sure what it is. I feel like I have more, more, some more breadth behind it or some more power. It’s more stable. I don’t know. We’ll see how it comes out, but we just. Went for a third of a mile run right before recording. And for me, it’s the first time I ran in.

I don’t know how long it’s been now. At least two months. Maybe even three. Yeah. It feels like it’s been awhile, but I’m finally feeling like I can get back to running after injuring my toe and didn’t want to. Start out with too much too soon, which is a common error with a lot of athletes or want to be athletes.

So just did a third of a mile and thought great. And maybe that’s helping me with the power behind my voice. I don’t know. I’m also progressing with. The integration, I guess, per se of my body systems or my like muscular myofascial system. Like my body is feeling really good. And I’ve been doing a lot in terms of posture and alignment over the past several weeks after injuring my toe, because I’ve been feeling twisted and some areas have been feeling tight and.

It may also be downstream from my rib dislocation from however many months ago. Six or so. Yeah. So yeah, I’ve been working a lot on my posture and alignment, and I’ve also had shoulder issues, shoulder issues for a years and I’m finding new. Stretches and exercises in positions to getting to, to try to alleviate or fix that issue.

And it feels like a lot of things in my body are kind of just kind of falling into place and lining up and it’s all coming together and the systems are synchronizing and I feel. Like, I feel like I see a difference in my body structure and like my musculature, like my upper torso looks different and like my lats look different.

So I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s probably super subtle. I just noticed stuff like this, but all in all, I just feel really good. So, yeah. So how about you, Pam?

Pam: um, I’m feeling also hopeful and good about, uh, fixing injuries. I went to the chiropractor this week to have them look at the problem that I’ve been having with my shoulder. And, um, he told me that it wasn’t physical. It was emotional, which. Look, I’m super into intuitive practices and the way that your mental state can affect your body.

But, uh, that, that kind of made me mad and made me like double down on fixing it, uh, physically, because I know my body and I know that it’s something physical and not a manifestation of an emotion. So I spent a lot of time with dr. YouTube and found, um, Some tutorials on scapular placement. And that has been really helpful because I was unknowingly dropping my scapula.

So I couldn’t use my shoulder correctly. So, um, just in the two days that I’ve been working on that is making a huge difference. So pretty excited about that.

Pam: Yeah, I want to ask you maybe that. Emotional terminology is a little off putting, what if, what if you said something like neurological or visceral?

Pam: Uh, I think that that would have been better than telling a woman that she is being emotional about her pain. Yeah,

Pam: Yeah. Cause I mean, I can see, well, I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t want to put words into our doctor’s mouth, but like I can kind of understand where they’re coming from. Because, yeah, I mean, there’s there, uh, art sports doctors are very well practiced in very enthusiastic about both Eastern and Western practices.

And I’m, I’ve dove, dive dived. I’ve dived. I’ve dove in into how do you say I, I I’ve. I’ve dived into, do you know?

Pam: I would say I’ve I’ve dived, I guess, but I don’t think that’s right. You have taken a deep dive

Pam: Yeah. Okay. Thank you. We can use that. I’ve taken a deep dive into more esoteric practices and theories about physical issues and kinetic issues. And a lot of this runs along the lines of, uh, well, even neurological issues in neural myofascial. I don’t even know if that’s a term, but. Like brain, body connection basically.

And so I can kind of see how. We may be susceptible to some kind of visceral or neuro neurological issues in terms of how our body reacts to different things. And, uh, I mean, the reason why this is kind of, um, I get maybe my

Pam: for talking about your voice?

Pam: Yeah. Right. So, I mean, I’m just kind of getting excited here, but I’m kind of thinking about these things now, because like I was saying, I’ve been.

Working on lining up my posture, especially with my shoulder issue. And I been meditating a lot on it as well. And kind of trying to tap into that, this circle and emotional aspect, I guess. And I I’ve been feeling some really weird and new things. With my shoulder and my lat, like that whole complex, when I’m doing these alignment meditations, and I’ve been able to kind of go into like the feeling more deeply and kind of feel more minute minuscule things like.

Stimulations and reactions and stuff and how like my shoulders changing. So it, yeah, I mean, it’s, I don’t know how well I’m doing at articulating this, but like the more I kind of relax into the posture. And the more I realize how I’m reacting to certain feelings that I’m getting from my shoulder. And then once I recognize those feelings and try to relax into those, well, maybe kind of even lean into them.

And then in turn, as I focus on them, I relaxed into them more and feel the change. And I’m not even moving during this time, but. I can feel the area changing. So yeah, it’s really weird and it’s interesting. And my shoulder the way, so when I, what I do is I lay flat on my back with my shoulders out, like my elbows out to my sides, my arms up at like 90 degrees, kind of like in a field goal position.

And I try to line up as at 90 degrees as much as possible and keep it even, and then keep my back flat. Wow. My legs are up at a 90 degree angle bend at the knees up on the couch. So I’ll post the link to this in the show notes, but it’s called static back in guys in the Egoscue method. But as I lay there, uh, why was I getting into this?

Do you remember?

Pam: Because of my emotional reaction to my shoulder.

Pam: Um, yeah, sorry. So I’m kind of getting off course and just getting into my thing, but yeah, I don’t even remember why I was getting into this. Um, Yeah. Like, uh, I don’t know. It’s just interesting because I just lay there in that position and things are changing and I can feel it. And it’s, I don’t know. I ha I enjoy meditating like that and getting those changes happening.

Oh, and the reason I was kind of elaborating on this process is that I’ve been doing that for about three or four for about three or four days now. And my. Shoulder’s totally changed. Like before my arm would start coming up as I relaxed because my shoulder position was still not lining up and it wasn’t settling with the gravity or anything.

So my left hand, which is, uh, downstream from that left shoulder, which is the one having issues, it would come up off the ground and where, you know, I’d start with both hands on the ground. All lined up and as I relaxed into it, my left hand and would come up off the ground. And because that’s the position that it’s used to, but as I’ve been doing the past couple of weeks, it’s been staying more and more closer to the ground, so changes are happening and I can kind of feel the difference in my shoulder and in turn I’m feeling the differences throughout my body.

And so, yeah, it’s just a whole long roundabout way of saying how, why I’m feeling so good. And maybe touching on the neurological visceral aspect of physical issues.

Pam: Well, to be clear, there were three options that it was physical, emotional, or mental, and he picked emotional. So mental was a third option, which is more like what you’re saying. And he, he chose emotional. So I think that that was, um, really. Yeah, that was not the right word to use. Also when you didn’t even do a physical examination

Pam: Yeah, I get that. Okay. Well, let’s get into the quote for this week and I actually jotted this down earlier this week. And, uh, as I think about it right now, I’m not exactly sure why, but I’ll just go ahead and recite it and see what we can do with it. So this one comes from Lao Tzu again, and of course Lotsu is in, is the author of the doubt of Ching, which is the main Taoism textbook.

And the quote goes like this colors blind. The eye sounds definitely. Oh, was this

Pam: That was last week.

Pam: Oh, what? Okay. So I have the wrong notes up. And so this episode, this is session 34, then on the session off and Oh, okay. There we go. I labeled the episode wrong. Okay. Here’s the code? Okay. What are you going back to Seneca?

I think he was the first stoic philosopher. We quoted way back when I started this. Okay. So here’s the cut with trying to your, let me start over.

Pam: Are you drinking coffee?

Pam: Yeah, you think that’s it.

Pam: Yup. I know. That’s it.

Pam: Okay. Maybe I need to rethink that. Actually today I’m drinking a cold brew straight up, whereas the past couple of weeks I’ve been drinking it in my smoothie.

Pam: You just drank more of it.

Pam: Yeah. Okay. So let’s see if I can do this. Here’s the quote

Pam: Okay.

Pam: withdrawing two years. Oh man. Freaking coughing.

Pam: Do you have water?

Pam: No, but let’s see if I can get through this. Take a deep breath, withdrawing to yourself as far as you can. Associate with those who will make you a better man of you who will make it better. Okay. Let me start over,

Pam: Take 17.

Pam: man. I’m having so many problems with this today.

Okay, let’s go again. Let me enlarge this. Okay. Okay. This is the quote from Seneca withdrawing into yourself. As far as you can associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve the processes mutual for men learn while they teach. Okay. So I remember why I jotted that down.

So I’ve been having a lot of thoughts in terms of putting myself forward and asserting myself and trying to pass along my knowledge. And a lot of the stuff like I’ve talked about, you know, pretty much every week is that, you know, a lot of stuff that I think about is kind of abstract and I’m making like new associations between different subjects and topics and disciplines and.

So a lot of what I espouse is kind of new and sometimes it might be viewed as out there and woo, and esoteric and because of its newness and it’s, you know, it’s different from other things and it’s new concepts, new ideas, and it’s not commonplace or mainstream. So. I’ve had like issues and reluctances and hesitations about.

Saying these kinds of things and saying what’s on my mind and revealing these theories and all that stuff. So of course I’m practicing doing that with this podcast and I been getting better and better and more comfortable with it. And so I’m, I have the mindset now that I’m ready to move forward and yes.

Responsibility on, and I’m not afraid of it anymore. Maybe there’s a little bit of anxiousness or nervousness or

Pam: that’s normal.

Pam: Right. But of course that helps me and it informs me and, uh, you know, it gives me signals of how I can get past it or improve. So. And not there is that we had met up with our friends on Thursday.

I believe it was. And, uh, we handed off their dog because we were watching, we were dog sitting for them. Well, they were. Out of state for two weeks. And so we met up to hand off the dog and have a quick little meal outside by the beach. And it just kind of reinforced the notion to me that, you know, we have some really awesome friends.

And not to mention, I talked to another one of our friends, uh, over the last weekend and our conversations are just so productive and very informative to me. Uh, definitely. And hopefully her too, but the, uh, I think this quote spoke to me because the second line, it says associate with those who will make a better man of you.

And of course, you know, there’s the sayings that, you know, surround yourself with, or you, you are the product of the five people, five people that are closest to you or something like that. So, you know, you, you want to surround yourself with good people and that will in turn, uh, help you. And. Uh, of course the first line withdrawn to yourself, as far as you can also is pertinent to me in terms of me wanting to assert myself and tap into my own intuitive feelings and kind of let go, like I’ve been saying before over the past couple of weeks.

So just all kind of, all of those things kind of came together in that one quote. And I think that’s what spoke to me and I think zooming out. In the bigger picture. Uh, I guess I’ve been talking about this the past couple of weeks too, about the synchronicity and things kind of falling into place, and it seems like everything’s happening at the right time.

And that kind of goes along with this quote where, you know, it seems to be the right quote for this time. And you know, every sentence kind of is pertinent to what I’m feeling right now. So that’s why I picked it.

Pam: It was right along with a, uh, an aspect that’s happening with your chart today? Yep. So the moon is in the same place, basically right now that Uranus is in your natal chart. So you’re in is the planet of like transformation and change and, um, like shock of the new is kind of the. The thing that goes along there and the moon is like your emotional needs.

So your natal chart. Yeah. So zodiacal chart natal chart, same thing like when you were born. So when, so with the moon conjunct, which means like at the same place as Uranus, um, You are likely to have spiritual insights and notice that your will to be different is more powerful right now. So like you’re emotionally able to accept and embrace that will to be different and not hide from it.

And like put yourself out there as having different ideas.

Pam: Interesting. Yeah. I mean, that stuff is so interesting and yeah, that’s cool. So, yeah. Uh, so I’m not really sure what else to talk about. Didn’t have really anything planned, I guess we can talk about my progress with podcasting and I’ve been having, well, I guess we can talk about my progress in general with all these things, because.

You know, oddly enough, the past couple of weeks I’ve been going through just as much troubleshooting, if not more than I was like a month or so ago when I was really kind of getting into the weeds and getting frustrated. But I don’t really, I don’t know if you’ve noticed any frustration or any difference coming into me in the past week or two.

Pam: other than this morning. No.

Pam: What happened since morning?

Pam: I felt like when we were recording, not bad advice, you were a little like grumpy.

Pam: Yeah. I don’t remember why.

Pam: You were like fidgeting around with stuff a lot. And you

Pam: Oh, the fricking light tab turning on and off. Uh, okay. So what were you just talking about?

Pam: About, um, I assume that you’re going into how you’re more able to, um, handle all of this troubleshooting now and that your mindset practices have

Pam: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Like I’m much less frustrated with the troubleshooting and it’s been a lot, like I’ve been trying to finish up the trailer for not bad advice. And the issue that I’m having with that is I have to put together clips from several. Recording sessions. And as we’ve been recording those sessions for not bad advice, we’ve been really improving the audio quality and changing things up week to week, basically to find how to improve.

So every week the audio quality is different. So I’ve kind of have, have to match those up, not to mention. We’ve been recording at different sample rates and bit rates. So, and we’ve been using different digital audio workstations, and. Software that we’re recording into.

Pam: And like four different mics.

Pam: Yeah. So I’ve all these episodes that are all different that I have to put together and make it sound cohesive.

So that was a pretty big challenge. And then now that I have them all together and kind of trying to finish it up, There’s like all these little things in terms of trying to figure out the bit rates and matching up the sample rates and all that stuff. And it’s a lot of logic to keep in my head or, I mean, just keep track of, and.

It’s a lot of trial and error. I mean, it’s all trial and error and just trying all these different things and, you know, and then, you know, if one thing works and something else doesn’t work, so I have to do trial and error with debt. So it’s a lot of stuff, but. I haven’t really been getting that frustrated within, I just kind of been going along with the process and I’ve been getting a lot done.

And I think a lot of it has to do with me finding a better workflow with all this stuff that I’m doing, getting more used to the gear that I have, and I’m getting more used to doing. The stuff with podcasting and audio. So I think a lot of it has to do with the flow and I’m just kind of having fun with things.

And I have some really awesome, well Oh really awesome synthesizer that I’ve been making a lot of crazy noises out of that is just super fun to play with. So I think, you know, all these things are coming along and I’m starting again. Into a better flow. And I now understand that troubleshooting’s a part of this. And so, yeah, it’s not really affecting my mindset as much in I’m able to move forward and just keep producing and things are moving along on that note, I’ve been having trouble publishing this practice podcast because I’m having issues with. The script, which is the transcription service that I’ve been using.

And the thing with the script is I’ve also been basically mastering these practice podcasts through D script instead of audacity or Ableton, because that’s just kind of the flow that I got into initially. And the scripts offering is good enough that. I’m pleased with how the track comes out or how the podcast comes out with the tools that they offer.

And so, and it’s really easy and intuitive and user friendly. And so I’ve been mastering the practice sessions through descript, and I haven’t been able to do that because it like skips. When I listened back on D script, it skips like every three seconds. And so I haven’t been able to basically finish these podcast episodes and publish them.

I mean, I could, if I didn’t do it in the script and, you know, did the push all the post-processing in Ableton or audacity, but I didn’t want to go through that whole process in, and, you know, it’s a whole nother new process that I kind of have to figure out. And I’ve, I have all these other things on my plate that I are more of a priority.

And so I somehow just fall in the mindset of, you know, instead of troubleshooting the script, which, you know, I, I sent messages off to support and they’re not that responsive, unfortunately. So I D I just tabled it and worked on just moved on, in, worked on my priorities. So I think that’s kind of something new for me instead of getting hung up into a cycle.

Pam: Yeah.

definitely something that you’ve had problems with before that you like, and I mean, not that it’s a problem to want to finish something, but you would definitely get, like, I

Pam: I get stuck. Yeah. And the thing is it would always be in the back of my mind. So even if I tried to move on and work on something else, my productivity probably wasn’t as efficient as it could be because of that, you know?

Pam: cognitive load.

Pam: Right. It’s still somewhere back there messing with, you know, mental processes.

Pam: Yeah.

Pam: And so, yeah, I’ve been able to get past that and it’s pretty crazy to me to think about it. And, uh, yeah, I mean, it’s really cool to think about in, uh, you know, just a couple, just maybe a month or two ago, it would have been a big problem in, I would have been in a bad mental state, so.

Pam: So, how did you make that shift?

Pam: I’m not sure. I mean, I think it’s just all gradual and iterative iterative and all the things I’ve been talking about over the past couple of weeks. Uh, of course a big thing is the process of. Or the stage of becoming a sear in the headless way that I’ve been talking about. And I just, I think I use that all the time.

If something’s frustrating me, I just kind of, I can pause now and take myself out of it and just kind of see, I try to get into that position where I have no head and see things from outside myself. Or not necessarily just that, but just all integrated and connect, you know, what I’m feeling with all the other things that are going on and you know, the reason and, um, yeah.

Everything else. So, yeah, I think that’s it. Let’s see. Do we. Need to talk about anything else or do we do anything else here?

Pam: Yeah, I don’t think so.

Pam: okay. I think we can start wrapping things up. So, yeah. Thanks for listening as always. And I really hope I can get this issue with the script fixed. So I can get these episodes out and hopefully I’ll be able to get the not bad advice trailer completed soon. I mean, it’s so close in, just, I just need to kind of figure out how to finish it and master it and yeah.

But Oh no, I’m having fun with everything and I’m excited for things to come down the road. So, yeah. Thanks for listening. And thanks for joining me as always and real quick, before we leave off, where can people find you?

Pam: You can find me on Twitter, where I am at Pamela underscore.

Pam: And you probably won’t find me on Twitter at CK disco, but yeah, the thing is I’m really focused on finishing up the nut bed device trailer. And after I get that done, it’s a, I think a lot of other things are going to start flowing and I’ll be able to kind of get into a better flow with it. Things, uh, because a lot of things that I’m doing within that bed and advice trailer is kind of, uh, like overall techniques and strategies.

Uh that’s. Going to, you know, I have to have those things in place and done for the trailer to come out and that’s going to be useful for everything else that I’m doing and make everything else easier. So yeah, hopefully we can get that finished and keep things rolling along and keep things going. And so we’ll see how things go.

So, yeah. Thanks for listening. And I hope you come back next week and keep on practicing to Lou.