Mindflow Radio #122: Compulsive Thinking vs. Stillness

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Mindflow Radio.

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Mindflow Radio.

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She's Jalen.

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And he is Monty.

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So buckle your seatbelts and you're ready to take a trip towards reality.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

If you say so.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Alright. Adventure. It's a great adventure.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Yeah.

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And we're going to be talking about the mind states of compulsive thinking versus stillness.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Yeah. And how to balance. Oh, yeah, that's true. It's all about balance. Yeah. Because we can't just get rid of the thinking.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

No, no, no, no. Maybe, maybe the highest state of enlightenment. It's just like the universe thinks through you, perhaps. But yeah, we don't know. No, we don't. We don't. But what do we know now is that uh one thing I do know is that I do have the tendency to overthink.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

I overthink a lot. My my latest contemplation is how can I let go of seeking meaning for everything? Oh my gosh, yes. And it's it's huge. I am constantly seeking meaning. Yeah, right. Meaning and purpose.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yeah, yeah. And then a bun, yeah, right. That's not realistic.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

It's funny because it's a great thought, except it can end up being compulsive and obsessive. Well, right.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Unless you really, really boil it down. What do you mean? Well, for me, it's like the meaning is that you know, I have this spark of the divine within me, and I'm a confused God creature. Bam, that's it. Guess what, guess what you are?

SPEAKER_00 1:41

The same. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Guess what, guess who everybody is.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Oh, that's what you mean by boiling it down.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Yeah, it's like, okay, we're all confused God creatures. Okay, that's the meaning.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

You know, let it go. Let it go. Yeah, because it's find some stillness.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

It really is difficult. And the stillness piece is also super lovely. I wish I had more of it, but one earlier today we meditated for an hour together. And uh about I I don't honestly know how far in, but I was doing the primordial breath series from White Tiger Qigong in my mind. And it's seven levels of energy focuses. And the last one being letting go and going into the nothingness. And I went into this place that I've been experiencing lately where it's full stillness.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

And there's this added added dimensional quality to it where it just feels weightless and expansive and beautiful and relaxing and content and meaningful. And as soon as I acknowledge it, it goes away. So I would say elusive. Yeah. Uh I would say um it was about 45 minutes in, and we were super still, and then the there was some adjusting that was happening, and so I checked to see what time it was, and it was 45 minutes in, and I was like, wow, that was really cool. Can I get back there in the next 15 minutes? Which I didn't. Okay. But I really appreciate that I'm given these glimpses of what stillness can mean and feel like.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Well, it's interesting because I was getting to a place of really deep stillness too before I started moving around and distracted you.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

So we we both got to like a deep state. But then I just couldn't hold it. I was like, oh, how much time? You know, I how much time has gone past. And then I like started? Yeah, and then my mind just like zing of revved up. I guess.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

So so you were noticing it, but it didn't go away till you were wondering what time it was.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Interesting. Because when I notice it, it leaves.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

It's you what?

SPEAKER_00 4:04

When I notice it, it leaves that that like dimensional quality of like weightlessness and stillness.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

I mean, just it's such an art form holding to that um higher state of consciousness.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Yeah. It's not easy. I don't know how yet. But I've I've been experiencing it fairly regularly because we meditate usually about 30 minutes in the evening. I think if we had a little bit more time, I'd probably experience it even more. But what I've I used to do long meditations for a while, a while back, and I also was hitting that state. So I think it's for me, it's there's something about so long going by to get my nervous system to chill out. I and so it's it's not getting shorter, you know. Like I don't touch that if I I'm just doing a 10-minute meditation or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Yeah, it's interesting because I feel like I get to that stillness, I guess. Sometimes when I'm playing music, or maybe sometimes when I'm working out, or sometimes when I'm you know sitting, you know, just or a variety of ways.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yeah, I guess I'm I'm saying that this is not just stillness that I'm talking about. This is like some, like it feels like it's beyond 3D. And I don't really, you know, people talk about 4D and 5D. I don't know what I'm experiencing, but it's beyond stillness.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

I think you're perhaps from my perspective, you know, we have the this like three-dimensional living here on earth. That's material reality, but then there's spiritual reality, which is maybe no zero dimension or one dimension. It's like a different, it's a different experience.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah, it's it's very cool. Beyond space and time, I don't know. Just stillness, just stillness. I can get there pretty quickly. Okay, but it's by using a mantra, you know. Okay. Um, we've been doing this so hum challenge. I don't even know how long it's been, two or three weeks now. And um sharing this with our clients and friends and each other, and challenging each other to the so hum experience. And that just simply means doing so hum as much as possible, which is the mantra so hum, it means I am that. And when you work with it silently with your breath, you inhale in your mind thinking so and exhale in your mind thinking hum.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Yeah, you can just work it into your day.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Yep. Yeah, you can do it while you're driving, walking. So hum challenge, join us. Yeah. So I definitely reach stillness with that.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Mm-hmm. So the chattering mind quiets down.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Right. But I'm using a mantra. I don't know if that counts. Like a stillness.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yeah, there you're there's still some internal dialogue thing happening, but it's just you're saying a very chill mantra.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Yeah, it's definitely not compulsive thinking.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Right. That's good, you know. I mean, it's the compulsive. That's why I think of Eckhart Talks about, you know, compulsive thinking, obsessive thinking, you know, it's just like uh epidemic in our culture. And he he was talking about the Native Americans when they would meet like the white people, you he said the their their take. Well, and this is like a a real generalization, of course, but according to Eckhart Talley, the the natives would look at the white people with their like compulsively thinking minds and just think they were insane. You know, which is true. You think of it if you're compulsively thinking all the time, it push pushes us towards insanity. Yeah, because there's no peace, right? And there's no quiet, there's no real presence, there's no connectedness with the moment. It's like our minds are just like rolling like data processing machines, and and then that it does create like a lack of sanity, yes, it does, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

That's uh kind of sad and scary.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Well, it's kind of it kind of explains things too, and it explains why people can be so easily manipulated. And if we're in this state of like hyper agitated mind, you know, and just like spending hours and hours every day watching screens that like tell us what to think and you know who to hate, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:02

And then that all adds up to like this compulsively disturbed mind state where the mind is just compulsively thinking about negative things, and you know what goes through my mind is that the Native American spirituality was nature based, and just like in Taoism, the spiritual basis is nature, and um other shamanic practices are all based on nature and I have been thinking about this a lot lately. What is suffering? What constitutes suffering? Because we we talk about, you know, like if uh animal gets hit on the road, right, and then the next car hits it on purpose to put it out of its misery. Yeah, you know, are we projecting suffering or is it suffering?

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Well, I mean, yeah, we were kind of talking about how there's such a thing as pain. Let's say I I cut my finger, I'm in pain. And then if I if my mind is just focused on the pain, if my mind is like focusing, focusing, focusing, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain. Oh no, this is painful. Oh no, this is gonna be painful for the next 24 hours. This is pain that I'm I'm dealing with right now, is pain. No, that's like suffering. Another way of dealing with it is I cut my finger, I look at it, I do what I need to do, you know, put my band, oh, it should be okay. Then I just try to not think about it.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Yeah, you know, there's not equivalent to like having your leg smashed by a car.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Well, right, but how often do we under, how often does that happen? Usually our suffering is created by, you know, it's more like a paper cut. It's like yeah, it doesn't even have to be physical pain. It could be we could be suffering over lots and lots and lots and lots of things, including pain, including feeling dissed, including I hate that I hate those people over there, and I hate those people, and I wish those people would okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

So on that note, right? So the squirrel is stealing the egg out of the nest. Does the bird hate the squirrel? Because it sure goes after it.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

I don't I don't think it does hate really. I think it it just it's his instinct, his or her to protect. Yeah, it just goes after it. Goes after the squirrel.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Does it grieve losing the egg?

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Maybe not.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Yeah, see, these are the things that I hate. Which is overthinking. But granted, I understand I am an overthinking queen.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

No, but that's important to recognize, you know, that a lot of our suffering is just because of our mental focus on like problems. And think of it, I mean, with when we're focused on our problems, and when we've been trained to be focused on our problems, when you watch the news, guess what? It's problem after problem after problem after problem, you know. Sure. But that's what creates suffering. What I'd rather focus my mind on are the solutions, not the problems. Not and then my suffering is vastly reduced. Not like you escape suffering, we're all gonna suffer.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

We're all gonna suffer.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

That's what I was saying.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

That's the gig, but we can suffer less or more, right, depending on how we think our attitude, our level of acceptance, our ability to like envision a better future and move in that direction. How about that one?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Oh, the air is too polluted. Oh, let's let's come up with a solution. Okay, well, and then we'll get we'll get those solar panels and you know, and then we'll get that that thing, and then we'll we'll stop polluting the air as much, you know. Oh, okay, let's let's work on that, you know. So there are solutions we can focus on, even solutions we haven't thought of yet.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

And and I want to point out that a lot of the times when a solution comes, it's out of stillness, it's out of the rest.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Well, that's it. Yes, great. That's so true.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Because when we we don't when we don't have that stillness, we just get caught in loops. And we're ruminating. Ruminating means the same kind of theme over and over and over and over and over. And I think we've all, or most of us, have dealt with that. I certainly have dealt with that at times. I'm like, yeah, like I'm thinking about this thing again, it's like, oh, you know, and then the mind gets in habits, and uh physically what happens to our brains is these neural connections are like lighting up and they're like superhighways in our brain. Yeah, and that's what that's like the rumination is due to the superhighways. So, what do we do? We need to like create new neural connections, we got to disengage like the unproductive ruminating aspects of our brain, and let's let's start awakening some uh you know ingenuity in our brain or solution-focused thinking.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Well, yeah, and it kind of goes back to the Eckhart Talley quote you were mentioning, and and you know, that was a long time ago when I don't even think there was as much overthinking as there is now across the board. And of course I'm making that up because I don't really know.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

No, you're probably right.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

There there was a lot less overthinking then, but how do we even get back to that nature-based stillness?

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Well, we gotta push back on our screen time, that's for sure. Yeah, you know, because if if I'm engaging in three, four, five hours of screen time a day, I my mind is not gonna find much stillness. Because you're what you're doing is you're eating information. Your mind is eating data, it could be information, misinformation, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is, it is definitely data, and your mind ingests it, and then you turn the screen off and you feel like super dull, and then the mind is processing the information, the data, and it's just we get caught in that cycle, and then there's no real room for stillness. Right. You know, and the only stillness we find is when we reach that like deep sleep state, and then where the mind actually disengages, the conscious mind actually turns off, and then oh, and that can be affected by screen time too.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Oh, sure. You have less of it on the screen to bedtime. I've definitely experienced that when I try really hard to not look at the screen two hours before bed. But sometimes, especially having friends across the world, sometimes I'll get a notification and be like, oh, I want to reach back, and then I'll be in this conversation with somebody up into bedtime, and then lo and behold, I can't fall asleep. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. But the one thing I I uh a little confession that I have to make, and maybe I'll figure it out. But we'll we'll meditate after dinner for 30 minutes, and the first thing I do is look at Facebook.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Like that is so bad. That's one that's interesting you say that because that's one of my new rules for my meditation practice, is right when I'm done, I can't look at the screen.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Do you have like a a time limit? No, but I I just because I do have that instinct too.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

I was doing that for a while.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

It's so weird.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Especially because it was the timers on your phone.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Right. So you turn it off and it's like bang.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

So yeah, that's one of my rules is like, nope, shut the phone, turn it off. I gotta do that. Put it away, then you can look later if you want to do it.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Back to Facebook, Land. Like, wait a minute, what am I? You know, like one part of my brain's like, I shouldn't be doing this, and the other part's like, I wonder if there's a funny video. And you know, it's like, wait a minute, I was I was just still and quiet. And and I'm like, Oh, I gotta get busy again, you know, gotta get those neural highways. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

And it it's so automatic. I've been working against it the last few days, but okay, I I need to make it a new rule because I don't like what happens. It's so weird. Yeah. No, that's it's like I work on all this training and then bam, end it with Facebook.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

But at least you you're recognizing, you're recognizing how Facebook affects your state of consciousness, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yeah, it's like a drug. Well, it yeah, it's like oh I did my meditation, so I get to get my drug now. Got my substance of choice.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Indeed.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Okay, so finding that balance between compulsive thinking and stillness.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Yes, and that makes our thinking more effective. Like you said, that's where the good ideas come out of the stillness. Even like playing music, the the best ideas come out of like kind of like a quiet. If you're like if I'm pressuring myself to come up with something it usually just kind of fails, doesn't sound good, you know. But if I just like if it just sometimes just happens, it's like, oh, yeah. I'm gonna pay attention to this.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

One of the things that we we've tried recently, and we haven't hit record yet, but uh I have a Tabla app on my phone, and we'll pick some odd time signature to play with and then start. I'll I'll be doing percussion with it, and then he'll be working on the bass and wait till some melodies come. But it's very interesting challenging ourselves with these odd time signatures because they're not a 4-4, so you can't like fall into an old familiar routine.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

An old familiar pattern of we've heard a zillion times.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

It's very it's it's just a way that we uh try to exercise new neural pathways uh with music. And I know uh I don't know, but I remember you saying something about uh some scientist, and when he would get like his brain would feel fatigued, then he'd go play violin. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Who some scientists he was this little-known scientist called uh Einstein. Oh yeah, okay, yeah, but that's he he would he was like uh a very excellent violinist, but yeah, he would use it because he he would just ponder these like complex theories and walk around the room and ponder, ponder, ponder, and then he would, okay, that's enough. I need to play the violin. And also, by the way, one of the things he how he ascertained what was a a good theory versus a bad theory, which I find very highly interesting, he would consider uh a bad theory ugly and just too complicated. And the good theory was beautiful and kind of simple. Think of the E equals M C squared, that's very simple, but that theory alone had just like huge huge effects on the scientific community and the world and at large. Yeah, so they discovered the atomic energy and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Yeah, so that's where the solutions are, is not in the thinking.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Right, right. Yeah, and then the solution just appears out of the blue, yeah. It's like boom, which perhaps that's like from the divine, you know. That's what well, and that's what the Quakers say as far as like sitting, they want to quiet their mind to a point where they're able to hear the subtle voice of the divine, yeah. And it's that's it. Boom. Thank you, Quakers. We have a nice Quaker community here in Baroque, I want to say.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Yeah, yeah. So thinking is not all bad, but no, not at all. It can get out of balance.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Rumination is bad, or not bad, but unproductive. Or speaking of suffering, you will suffer more if you ruminate. Oh, yeah. Let us know. There's no doubt. I think that's I suffer more when I ruminate, much more. Yeah. So suffer less, ruminate less, yeah, find more stillness, have fun, and let the solutions pop up. Yeah, and then at that point, guess what? We are the solution we've been looking for.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Because we're just it it flows through us.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Yeah, totally. Thank you for listening to our share today. We hope that you get something out of it. And if you did, share it with a friend. And you can look back at other podcasts we've made. This is, I think, the 123rd or 24th podcast that we've made that has been shared online. We've also done a bunch of radio shows before we shared online. So we've been doing this for 10, 11 years now. And we created, I know, right? We created an ebook that is our gift to those who wish to be a part of our online tribe. And it is called the Peace Reset Toolkit, and it's seven practical skills for you to calm stress, clear your mind, and return to yourself.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

It's at mindflow radio.

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Life.

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Life. Mindflowradio.life. It's free. And so it's an it's a helpful little ebook, really.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Yeah, yeah. And it's a way to join the tribe and stay in the know. And um, yeah, let's grow the tribe. Let's grow the conscious living frequency.

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Conscious community.

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And we will all around the world be sharing again with you soon. Yes, peace and love. Be well.