Mindflow Radio #125: The Conscious Mind

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Mindflow Radio.

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Mindflow Radio.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

She's Jalen. And he's Monty. So buckle your seatbelts and get ready to take a trip towards reality.

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Vibration, frequency. All that good stuff. Realizing reality is not what we thought. Right.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Yeah, energy is reality. The foundation of reality.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Or consciousness would be actually the foundation of energy. Yeah. So that's kind of cool. God consciousness, foundation of everything. Tao consciousness. Yeah. I mean, the creator of all things. Perhaps.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Creator of all things. I mean, what else is there?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Oh, yeah. Perhaps it's true.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

So what's our quote today? Okay. Quantum future.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Quantum future. From the quantum future. When the conscious mind finds stillness, the flow state emerges.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

Hmm. Yeah. And the first thing that comes to my mind is what is a conscious mind?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Conscious mind is just our like the lens that we view the world through.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Like you you hear that chattering voice in your mind. That's in your conscious mind. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

You know, when you choose to look at a cloud, that's the conscious mind.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yeah, you're taking you're you're using your spotlight of attention. You're saying, yeah, I'm gonna consciously look at the cloud. I'm gonna consciously, you know, do whatever, whatever we're doing. I'm gonna I'm gonna wake up, I'm gonna get out of bed now. That's the conscious mind.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Yeah. You know, it's my alarm's going.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Yeah, it's it's the it's it's how we it's how we view the our experience.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

Moment to moment, that's the conscious. Consciously, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

I mean, okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

Yeah, because I I feel like the subconscious rules a lot of that, but it does.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

I mean, because we're just typically we're creatures of habit.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

So that comes from the subconscious mind. Yeah, you know, so and that's how that's how let's say if somebody is um um, let's say just they're they're a cigarette smoker or something, a lot of times they'll just grab a cigarette and light it up without even consciously thinking about it, right? Because it's the habit, or a better analogy is like driving a car. Your subconscious mind, the old habit habits are kind of you know, steering the wheel and working the whatever the pedals and all there's a lot going on there, but the conscious mind can be like drifting off and singing a song or thinking about the past or planning for the future, and so it's hardly present, right? Until like there's a deer in front of you, and then the conscious mind is like you know, everything like focuses again, and then you you're moving. Hopefully, you see it in time. If you're that's why it's good to be consciously present when we're driving as much as possible, actually, rather than too lost in la la land.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Yeah, and that brings to mind how uh me personally, I have a phobia of deer on the road. So I'm learning how to just be conscious rather than conscious and fearful.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:43

That the fear isn't necessarily, it's just adding, it's taxing my nervous system, which taxes everything in my body.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Right.

SPEAKER_03 3:54

And so being conscious and aware and paying attention, yeah, but not letting it be from the habit of fear.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Right. Being being cautious rather than fearful, but just being aware, knowing that the more aware you are, the the greater the chance that everything's gonna be okay when you're driving.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

I think what's so funny about this subject particularly is in the Taoist medical qigong that I practice and teach uh white tiger qigong, the deer represents the water element in the the kidney meridians and the kidney qi, and that's about fear. And the deer is this representative of relaxed and aware. Okay, and so for me to take on the relaxed awareness because I'm afraid of the deer is kind of a very interesting paradox.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yeah. Yeah, and the more we can just be in that place of awareness throughout the day, the better off we are. Essentially. And fear is an interesting thing because I think I certainly have an you know, I touch on fear every day in my you know, my conscious mind, maybe my subconscious is like overflowing it. Maybe, yeah. I mean, but it's something that it can be beneficial, but it it definitely has to be for it to be beneficial, it can't be um running the show. You know, it's gotta be moderate. It's kind of like any of these like really powerful emotions like anger. Anger can be helpful once in a while, but usually it's just overdone, and we're you know, people want us to be angry and exploit us because of it.

SPEAKER_03 6:18

Right. And I think the interesting piece of the balancing of fear is relaxed awareness. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, yes, fear can help us because I can hit the brakes in time and I can, but if I don't have the balance of the relaxed awareness to temper that, I I probably have uh kidney pain and uh you know, just like too much fear, adrenaline rushes for no reason, and if you exhaustion.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

You probably your reaction time is probably quicker too if you're in a state of relaxed strength. Yeah. And just like flow instead of like, oh, you know, yeah, just always like freaking out.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

That's how I used to be. I've gotten a lot better. I feel like I'm really starting to harness this idea, and it's it is it it was just so funny learning the deer in the the qigong and being like, well, how funny that the deer is a representative of learning balance of fear because I'm so afraid of deer. So for me that was funny. But could you read that quote again?

SPEAKER_00 7:35

I'm when the conscious mind finds stillness, the flow state emerges.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

The flow state.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Yeah, and I have a good I have a story about that experience I had like years ago, years ago. I you know, I was um I was mugged, literally, you know, cashing a check in a in a in a um low-income neighborhood, right? Years ago. Three guys mugged me, and then boom, I was like, it kind of like shocked me, it shocked my consciousness, you know, instilled some fear in me, essentially. And then I was with a friend later on, you know, after that event, and he's like, I was in his car, he's driving, he's like, We're going to that check caching place again. I was like, no, don't do it, man. You know, I was like scared. It's like, don't do it, don't do it. It was nighttime again, you know, same thing. Go in there, and I but there's no, and he's like, Oh, everything's fine, you like, you know. But um, so then I just I accepted, okay, we're going to this place again. Yeah. And I just uh started working on um deepening my breath, deepening my breath, deepening my breath, deepening my breath, and I just stayed on it, on it, on it, and the fear completely left me. Nice, and I got into that flow state essentially. So I was relaxed and feeling great by the time we pulled up to this place, and then and then it was closed. I was like, ha ha. But I really shifted my consciousness. It was a huge learning experience for me. And that was when I mean that that was you know, over 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 9:28

Oh wow. Yeah, that's when you're starting out on this journey.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Yeah, just learning and understanding, you know, the the power of regulating my breath, essentially.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

Which is how you get to the stillness of mind.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

That's one way to get there, yes.

SPEAKER_03 9:45

It's pretty potent and across so many modalities.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh absolutely, absolutely. And it's something my personal goal right now is to just be regulating my breath and being finding that stillness like the majority of the day, you know, and I'm not there yet for sure, you know. Yeah, that's the goal.

SPEAKER_03 10:12

Yeah, I I find so much peace in my own search through so much knowledge, so many modalities. I've been on this wild search for about the same amount of time, which is so interesting, but solidly for the last 25 years and started thinking about things a few years before that. And what I have found is that there are so many ways to say breath regulation matters across all of these modalities, everything that I've learned. Yeah, the bottom line is learning how to be in touch with your breath in whatever breath pattern feels best to you.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

And it can be the way to tap into our automatic nervous autonomous system.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

That's the only nervous system. The only pathway that we legitimately have to shift from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system. So from fight to flight, fight, flight to rest and digest. Yeah, the only way that we have conscious choice is the breath.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Yeah, we can't consciously, okay, I'm gonna slow my heart down. I mean without breathing. Right. We can try, but if we're gonna do that, it's gonna be through through breath. Or we can't say, Oh, I'm gonna calm my nervous system down.

SPEAKER_03 11:51

Oh, I'm gonna um yeah, because it's autonomic or automatic. So it can't this is this is where we have to consciously work with our automatic systems.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Yeah, I mean, in the bottom line is if we can really get a handle on our breathing, then we actually do slow our heart rate down, and we actually do calm the nervous system down. But step one, a lot of the time is just choosing to at least trying to regulate the breath. Yeah, you know, I mean, the more we try, the better we and I should mention it's a skill that takes training, yeah. You know, and some of some people's will be better than others at like mastering it. I mean, I'm still struggling with it, but um I continue to make progress, I believe, you know, and I've been working on it for many moons on and off.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

Yeah, and you're able to work with it more in the day-to-day. I'm still mainly working on it during my training time when I'm practicing it.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:01

It's beginning to spill over into my daily life.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Yeah, yeah. My goal is to just because I do have a pretty I have a daily meditation practice, and but my goal is for that to segue into just meditating as much as possible throughout the day. You know, just trying to be in that meditative state. And I want to mention too, in my meditation practice, I currently I don't the majority of the time I'm not working on breath regulation either. I'm just kind of achieving that natural mind, more of a um what's it the contemplative meditation state? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:51

Okay, yeah. Yeah. For me, my meditation is very much about getting my stories to a mere minimum and fully doing breath regulation. That's cool. I like your what's your mantra? No story back to the body. It doesn't matter if it's a good story, a bad story. It doesn't matter if it's a realistic story or a fantastical story, it doesn't matter if it's something that just happened or might happen.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Yeah, right.

unknown 14:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

And and what's so interesting is I'm really getting into this Taoist Secrets book called The Immortal Sisters, and it talks specifically about that getting not holding anything in the mind because or or you know, like when we look at a tree and we go, that's a tree, and it has some broken branches, and and that, you know, there's some green there and there's some yellow there. When we're defining it like that, instead of just looking at the tree and just looking at it, yeah, when we start defining it, we're actually adding weight to our brain because we're adding all these details that aren't necessary because we could just enjoy the tree. Yeah. And so when we're grabbing all this information and we're actually weighing ourselves down, aging ourselves faster, and taxing our body.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:25

So when we're just clear, still, yeah, and observing, yeah, there's no taxation on the body.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Well, and we just feel better too. Right, exactly. I mean, one one technique I try and use to get there is just I try and look at everything in front of me, kind of like uh from an artistic perspective, like just trying to see the beauty in it. Because it's easy when you're looking at a tree. Trees are so beautiful, yeah. I mean, they're all like balanced, they tend to be balanced and they they flow and they move with the wind sometimes, and they they shimmer and the lights gleaming off them in a million different ways. And trees, I mean, just like looking at a tree can be a extremely just you know beautiful experience. Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

Yeah, agreed.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

That's the way I I keep coming back to that. I mean, the more I meditate, the easier it is to do to view the world that way, actually, because everything there's so much beauty out there, and even driving down the road, and you look ahead at the road and see it winding around, it's like, wow, that's beautiful, or driving through downtown Milwaukee, or not downtown, but uh right outside of downtown, there's all these bridges interwine intertwining, and you know, it's like whoa, it's just so beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 16:50

And yeah, it really training your mind to see the beauty is very I think that goes to the idea of yeah, not taxing your mind with thought and details. And it's just like, oh, that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah, and the talking heads, they have this, they had this they have a movie they made like years ago. I can't even remember what it was called, but part of the movie they were saying, the true art, the true art, man-made art that's coming that's happening right now are just like the bridges and the you know, the roadways, and the it's like wow, it really I was like, yes, yeah, it's true. I mean it's just so there can be beauty everywhere, and that kind of gets down to you know, taking control of our attention. And and I think it's important that we're however we want our attention to whatever habits we want to develop, like first thing in the morning, let's work on that. Let's work on the attention. And for me, I you know after I get up, you know, I'll be I'll make some tea or whatever, but then I'll go outside and I'll do some tai chi and I'll do some sitting and I'll do some, but all the all the while I'm kind of paying attention to the beauty.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

You know, tuning your attention. It's a really great practice, and it leads to the flow state.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Oh yeah, oh yeah. And it's it's easy to miss things, yeah. You know, I mean, this morning actually it was kind of a little interesting. So I went outside and I forgot to put my chair away. So my chair is sitting there, and there's like a spider web. There's a spider like above it, like he attached to the chair and the tree above it, you know. And I'm like, oh man, you know, so I just kind of like left it, but then I sat in a different place and I just kind of looked at the spider web, and it was really beautiful. Yeah, it was really beautiful. And I looked at it sideways, it's like a line, but then I I looked at it from a little bit of an angle, it's like this this, you know, really kind of beautiful circle.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

Wow, that's neat. Yeah, it is all about the vantage point, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Right, and yeah, it would it would have been easy to just miss that. Yeah, grabbed your chair, back to the chair. Yeah, right, or just been irritated. I was a little irritated, but I was more irritated than myself or not putting it away, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's funny, yeah. So, I mean, that was an example of me just like finding some beauty, you know, and just focusing on it. I did meditate and like look at that spider web for like 20 minutes. Yeah, that's really cool. And the spider right in the middle, right in the middle, just waiting.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

Very cool. So, Monty wrote this book, and it's written under his full name, Lamont McFerrin. And it's the quantum future. It's a really great energetic tidbit. Some of it's handwritten by him, and uh this is what we're talking about right now because it's so worthy, especially in our cultural time of sometimes feeling like there is no hope, and then there's but there's actually a quantum future. And so if this conversation's interesting, then you can s read more of what he is sharing. Uh, you can get it on Amazon. And if this podcast is interesting, please like and subscribe, share it with a friend. You could always reach out if if you wish to hear us speak more on any subject that we might glean over. And if you want to know more, we'd love to hear from you.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yeah, and please like, subscribe, and comment if you're so inclined.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

Yeah. Support the movement. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

That's what this is. This is just part of a a movement, a larger movement that we're connecting with. And the more we can network with each other, the more powerful the movement shall be and will be. Yes, agreed. So let's do that.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

Yeah. So have a great week, and we'll have more to share with you soon.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Yes, peace and love.