TRANSCRIPT 🔗
WEBVTT
00:00.259 --> 00:03.934
I was missing compassion. I realized after recording
00:03.999 --> 00:07.237
this video, which if you're watching you'll see I have curly hair,
00:07.318 --> 00:11.043
so it'll be obvious this is an addition. Watch till the end
00:11.543 --> 00:14.489
so you can get the full story if this is useful for you.
00:17.481 --> 00:20.605
I had a very surprising realization recently.
00:21.909 --> 00:25.226
If you know me, you know these do come quite hard and fast, but a
00:25.709 --> 00:29.359
particularly good one. Not great when I first
00:29.859 --> 00:34.001
realized it, and I felt a bit silly or stupid, to be honest, but it
00:34.501 --> 00:38.337
was a really great thing to see, and I'm hoping it'll be useful for
00:38.837 --> 00:42.127
you if I share about my experience. So what I
00:42.627 --> 00:46.383
realized is that I will have a
00:46.883 --> 00:50.623
terrible experience rather than another experience that
00:51.123 --> 00:54.605
I want less. What I mean by that is something I realized about
00:54.718 --> 00:58.024
my anxiety or feeling anxious. So I've had
00:58.524 --> 01:02.514
anxiety as long as I can remember, and it's been at harder
01:03.014 --> 01:06.250
and easier times. And as we sit here now, I have it
01:06.426 --> 01:09.777
really largely managed in lots of ways comparatively,
01:10.756 --> 01:13.946
and it still can be an issue for me, right? But it's very
01:14.283 --> 01:17.955
automatic to feel that feeling. If you have had anxiety or feelings
01:17.987 --> 01:22.028
of anxiety, you know that feeling of that tension in your body or
01:22.092 --> 01:25.782
sort of ruminating worries that don't really land.
01:25.910 --> 01:30.152
They're just sort of an energy in you and a feeling in you of vibration,
01:30.264 --> 01:33.991
right? Uncomfortable vibration at its lesser part.
01:34.184 --> 01:37.376
When it's at its worst, it's kind of hell on earth, particularly if you're trying
01:37.876 --> 01:39.274
to resist it or are scared what it is.
01:41.265 --> 01:44.940
So I will feel anxious a lot, right? Like feel this vibration,
01:45.134 --> 01:49.051
feel this concern. And I don't know how I saw
01:49.083 --> 01:51.843
it, but one day I realized when I was feeling anxious,
01:52.993 --> 01:56.551
For me, and as usual put the asterisks, I'm not talking
01:56.600 --> 02:00.062
about mental illness or diagnosed or any of that
02:00.562 --> 02:03.541
stuff. I'm just talking about my experience of my version of anxiety.
02:04.679 --> 02:07.965
I noticed that I was actually choosing it, not consciously as
02:08.465 --> 02:11.956
usual until I saw it, but I was trying to choose
02:12.149 --> 02:15.451
the pain of anxiety over the pain of what I was
02:15.515 --> 02:19.170
responsible for. Crazy, right? Why would
02:19.346 --> 02:23.049
anyone choose anxiety? It's the worst, particularly when it's
02:23.549 --> 02:26.789
bad. It is so bad. Bad. But what I realized was
02:26.982 --> 02:31.061
I'd rather choose anxiety for being responsible for whatever
02:31.561 --> 02:35.140
choice I made for the week or the day that I was resisting.
02:36.071 --> 02:39.508
So I'll give you an example. If I had some training coming up— this
02:40.008 --> 02:42.929
is very common because I was very anxious a lot of the time I trained—
02:43.667 --> 02:47.168
I would feel anxious. If I looked what was under that,
02:47.457 --> 02:51.119
like I've called this episode The Upside Down, what it was was
02:51.376 --> 02:54.748
that I had chosen to train. I didn't
02:54.764 --> 02:57.413
want to, or I didn't want to prep it, or I didn't want to do
02:57.477 --> 03:01.556
whatever was involved with it. And instead of taking responsibility for
03:01.572 --> 03:05.233
the choice, I put kind of anxiety over the top.
03:06.003 --> 03:09.761
Because if I was responsible for the choice, like the
03:10.261 --> 03:13.261
psychologists would say, I had an internal locus of control.
03:13.454 --> 03:16.633
It was my choice. It was only happening because I'd chosen it.
03:17.483 --> 03:20.931
But if I was anxious, anxiety's happening to me. Poor me.
03:21.235 --> 03:24.747
You know, I'm anxious. There's nothing I can do about that. I'm an anxious person.
03:25.902 --> 03:29.013
So it was really tricky to see it, right? Like Mark
03:29.513 --> 03:32.637
Manson, and he probably got it from somewhere else, but he talks about the idea
03:33.137 --> 03:35.812
of which pain do you choose? Because there's pain in everything.
03:36.887 --> 03:40.767
One of my life sayings, I suppose, is there's good and
03:40.816 --> 03:44.231
bad in everything. And I've said that for a long time and it kind
03:44.263 --> 03:47.759
of ties into this, right? Like, what pain do you choose?
03:48.288 --> 03:51.381
So I was choosing feeling like
03:51.397 --> 03:54.170
a victim and suffering in anxiety,
03:54.747 --> 03:58.113
but I was choosing that over not being a victim and feeling the,
03:58.273 --> 04:01.126
ugh, what did I put in this week? Or why did I do that?
04:01.174 --> 04:03.578
Or I don't want to do that, whatever it might be, right?
04:04.524 --> 04:08.050
So there's lots of examples of which pain do you choose that you might find
04:08.550 --> 04:12.570
useful if you haven't heard it before. You know, the pain of being overweight versus
04:12.618 --> 04:16.128
the pain of exercise, the pain of quitting smoking versus
04:16.160 --> 04:20.173
the pain of some terrible disease potentially. The pain of
04:20.673 --> 04:23.946
an awkward conversation or a difficult conversation versus the
04:24.446 --> 04:28.089
pain of unresolved relationships, etc., etc., right? We're always
04:28.185 --> 04:31.541
choosing our pain. I just didn't realize that anxiety was one of
04:32.041 --> 04:35.603
my choices. And like I said, please don't take that personally if you struggle with
04:35.652 --> 04:38.622
anxiety at a clinical level. And, uh,
04:38.975 --> 04:41.930
it, you know, it's not the
Load full transcript
experience I have, it's your own, right?
04:42.813 --> 04:45.464
But geez, it can be useful to see if you are like me and think,
04:45.930 --> 04:49.481
where am I just not wanting to take responsibility? And I'll actually
04:49.981 --> 04:52.823
suffer in that rather than own it.
04:53.755 --> 04:57.756
So that came from much more of a lifetime habit. And what I
04:58.256 --> 05:01.291
realized— and I realized it a while ago, but it keeps coming back in new
05:01.791 --> 05:04.874
levels of clarity— I actually worry recreationally.
05:05.934 --> 05:09.531
And, uh, what a great decision. So When I was a child,
05:09.563 --> 05:12.304
I grew up in Perth, and I know that a lot of you won't be
05:12.369 --> 05:15.735
watching or listening in Perth, but if you're around my age and
05:16.235 --> 05:19.919
from this little corner of the world, let's just say it wasn't very dynamic
05:20.047 --> 05:23.494
when I was a child. It's basically New York
05:23.994 --> 05:27.101
compared with what it was like in the mid-'70s. And if
05:27.601 --> 05:30.451
you are from here, you'll remember that the shops were not open on the weekend.
05:31.125 --> 05:34.186
If you wanted petrol on a Sunday, you had to hope your car would make
05:34.686 --> 05:38.182
it to the roster station, which was about 6 petrol stations in Perth,
05:38.808 --> 05:42.019
and there was virtual tumbleweeds rolling through the city on the weekend,
05:42.035 --> 05:45.647
right? Didn't suit me, didn't suit my personality. I love
05:45.711 --> 05:49.306
life, I love the world. I hope you can tell I'm really into
05:49.338 --> 05:53.143
everything, right? So I was like, what the hell? Why was I born into this
05:53.432 --> 05:56.594
corner of the world where nothing's happening? And so I got
05:56.626 --> 05:59.547
really bored. I had a lot, a lot of time as a child bored.
05:59.595 --> 06:02.100
And, you know, we used to make up games and do all that thing that
06:02.116 --> 06:05.329
'70s kids did when there was no iPads. But I watched a lot of
06:05.829 --> 06:09.194
telly. There was a telly. Anyway, I decided I'm not going to be bored.
06:09.307 --> 06:12.962
I'm going to be anything but bored. And I have not been bored in
06:13.010 --> 06:16.372
about probably 45 years. The only problem is I've been
06:16.421 --> 06:20.381
extremely worried for that whole time. And I made
06:20.881 --> 06:23.618
a choice, right? Like, I want to be active. I want to feel like I'm
06:23.683 --> 06:27.702
in action. I want to feel like stuff's happening. Worrying is very distracting.
06:27.831 --> 06:31.416
It's very busy-making. And, um, You know, you can spend all
06:31.480 --> 06:34.511
of your time doing that. I have spent a lot of time doing that.
06:34.607 --> 06:37.477
It's a tragedy when I say it actually and think about it.
06:38.503 --> 06:41.629
But, you know, I'm 52 and I'm getting these realizations. I feel like I'm a
06:42.129 --> 06:45.637
little bit behind, but what can you do? So the other day I'm at home
06:46.038 --> 06:49.533
and I think I have this really clear thought.
06:50.062 --> 06:54.552
I worry as a hobby. I worry just
06:55.052 --> 06:58.448
as an automatic thing. It's so automatic that I didn't even realize
06:58.560 --> 07:02.076
I was doing it. So I was sitting at home the other day and this
07:02.576 --> 07:06.382
came to me at a new level of clarity, right? Like, I have all
07:06.494 --> 07:10.205
these positive things I want to do and I haven't done a lot
07:10.705 --> 07:14.671
of them because I have this habitual thing around worrying
07:14.944 --> 07:18.447
and staying very still. They're connected. I must worry and
07:18.479 --> 07:22.607
sit very still. I have art I can do. I have tidying
07:22.720 --> 07:26.029
I can do. I have decorating I can do. I have exercise I can
07:26.529 --> 07:29.814
do. I have a passionate love for my indoor plants. There is
07:30.314 --> 07:34.159
so much positive I could do. And this has been a wonderful revelation
07:34.368 --> 07:38.552
because realizing I'm choosing it, even though it was so automatic
07:39.052 --> 07:42.593
I didn't see it. Now I can go, okay, worry's automatic. It's going to come
07:42.641 --> 07:45.880
up. You've practiced it forever. The neurons in your mind are like ropes,
07:45.992 --> 07:50.161
you know, Rick Hanson, what wires together ties together. But I've
07:50.661 --> 07:52.918
seen it now, so I can go, okay, you want to spend the next hour
07:53.031 --> 07:57.057
worrying or you want to spend the next hour painting? And there's
07:57.557 --> 08:00.927
a very famous YouTuber in Australia called Struthless, and he wrote
08:01.427 --> 08:04.828
a book called— I feel like it's called Doom and
08:05.085 --> 08:08.665
Bloom, but I'll put the link in. And he talks about this
08:08.778 --> 08:12.615
idea of creativity versus negative thinking. I haven't
08:12.631 --> 08:16.244
read the book yet, but what I would say is for me, there was no
08:16.404 --> 08:20.177
point in trying to get creative until I unlocked the mystery
08:20.677 --> 08:23.661
of what was stopping me. And it has stopped me and had me very still
08:23.950 --> 08:27.772
in many ways, trying to stay safe while analyzing
08:27.868 --> 08:31.304
life and worrying internally rather than taking positive action.
08:32.123 --> 08:35.656
I will have to risk space. I will have to risk
08:36.156 --> 08:38.289
potentially boredom. That one's tricky to face.
08:39.686 --> 08:43.395
But if I'm willing to create space and not
08:43.523 --> 08:45.514
use worry as my main hobby,
08:47.330 --> 08:50.480
Wow, like what a nicer life available.
08:51.876 --> 08:55.334
So as usual, hope you got something from that. If you didn't, I'm very
08:55.366 --> 08:58.711
glad, but if you did, awesome. What are you going to
08:59.211 --> 09:03.079
do with it? Do yourself a favor. When I shared this
09:03.192 --> 09:06.948
story about worrying as a hobby, I do
09:07.448 --> 09:11.141
still find that true for myself,
but what
09:11.641 --> 09:15.757
I was lacking was a level of compassion for myself and therefore potentially for yourself
09:15.773 --> 09:19.533
as a watcher or listener in this episode
09:20.174 --> 09:23.877
because I learned something new since recording it. And if you've watched
09:24.377 --> 09:28.013
some of my recent episodes, you might notice that I make additions because
09:28.513 --> 09:31.828
I learn so quickly. I realize, oh, it's not current anymore, I have to add
09:31.940 --> 09:35.290
to it to make it the full story. So what I have
09:35.322 --> 09:38.577
to add to this one is from listening to Stephen Bodian.
09:39.074 --> 09:42.905
You know him if you've listened to me. Infinite Awakening is
09:43.001 --> 09:44.957
his latest book. He is my hero.
09:45.886 --> 09:50.006
Talking to one of his expert friends on his podcast, Stephen's podcast,
09:50.455 --> 09:54.101
who I believe his name is John Prendergast. Now, they were
09:54.601 --> 09:58.086
talking about the fact that when one has had a traumatic experience
09:58.102 --> 10:02.167
and reacted to that a particular way— in my case, in an anxious
10:02.360 --> 10:06.537
way— one will automatically go back to that particular reaction
10:07.037 --> 10:10.361
or feeling state. And they don't use the term habit
10:10.875 --> 10:14.555
like I've said in the video here. I talk about that I've
10:15.055 --> 10:18.539
had worries as a hobby, as I said, And I said, I feel like I
10:18.571 --> 10:22.040
have, and that kind of makes sense to me. But what they helped
10:22.540 --> 10:26.505
me see was if we look at it more compassionately, what comes
10:26.601 --> 10:29.878
up very automatically for people is
10:30.472 --> 10:34.648
when you have had a previous, what I would call, or experts
10:35.148 --> 10:38.743
would call a little t trauma that's in your background. And all of
10:39.243 --> 10:42.437
us have had little t traumas. And of course, many people have had big T
10:42.937 --> 10:46.179
traumas. We will have an automatic reaction to that.
10:46.613 --> 10:50.096
That reaction can get stuck and it becomes a habitual
10:50.289 --> 10:54.077
thing in the system. I have an awareness now that
10:54.577 --> 10:57.721
it's happening. Whilst I will still go to it
10:57.834 --> 11:01.446
automatically, I have a level of choice and
11:01.462 --> 11:04.849
it's sometimes available because sometimes it just is automatic
11:05.349 --> 11:08.429
and I don't catch it, right? But what I want for me or for
11:08.929 --> 11:11.896
you is the extra level of compassion around,
11:12.041 --> 11:15.637
at least initially, we're not really even conscious around
11:15.733 --> 11:18.539
these habits. And even once I've seen it,
11:18.860 --> 11:23.011
I can realize it'll still get me automatically from
11:23.204 --> 11:26.890
this background of little t trauma. And so it's a good context,
11:26.906 --> 11:30.144
a compassionate context to it. Um,
11:31.298 --> 11:34.488
one of the things I'd also mention here in case it's useful for
11:34.988 --> 11:38.559
you or people you know is you'll see a version of this running
11:38.655 --> 11:41.941
where people have one drama after another in their life.
11:42.454 --> 11:45.779
So you'll meet people that are I don't know if the right term is
11:45.828 --> 11:49.210
addicted to drama. You'll see that term bandied about and
11:49.710 --> 11:53.316
it probably lacks compassion. But they experience life
11:53.816 --> 11:57.366
in a particular way for whatever reason. So they might
11:57.382 --> 12:00.854
have a habitual habit of bad things happen to me,
12:01.336 --> 12:04.872
and so one bad thing after another happens. And when I
12:05.372 --> 12:09.118
think about people in my own life with this propensity, for some
12:09.215 --> 12:12.801
of them, their life is stranger than fiction. The number of things that
12:13.301 --> 12:16.775
can happen in one life that are very difficult, and it's It's just one
12:16.904 --> 12:20.273
person. And, you know, even as I say it,
12:20.289 --> 12:23.113
it feels so harsh to say that they might be choosing that.
12:23.626 --> 12:26.851
What I will say is I don't believe for a moment they're choosing it
12:27.351 --> 12:31.343
consciously. For some reason, the expression of their trauma looks like
12:31.407 --> 12:35.322
that. So mine comes out in different ways— internalizing
12:35.418 --> 12:38.531
worry, lack of positive action, procrastination,
12:38.659 --> 12:43.633
self-doubt, ruminating. They're not helpful
12:44.133 --> 12:47.534
at all to anyone external and terribly bad for me. Whereas for other people,
12:47.550 --> 12:50.568
they'll come out with external events, relationships issues,
12:50.761 --> 12:54.501
accidents, one thing after another, somehow expressing
12:54.533 --> 12:57.952
this anxiety or difficulty or pain. So I
12:57.968 --> 13:01.355
hope that makes sense and adds an extra context
13:01.595 --> 13:05.496
to what you both hear about my story, but also what might be happening
13:05.592 --> 13:09.637
for you. What is it that could be running underneath
13:10.086 --> 13:13.517
that whatever it is you are doing, you currently
13:13.549 --> 13:17.636
feel is a better decision, consciously, but more likely
13:17.796 --> 13:21.627
unconsciously. How can the upside down be
13:22.127 --> 13:25.442
a happier place for you or for me? So I
13:25.490 --> 13:29.257
hope you find it useful. I hope you do yourself a favor and be
13:29.322 --> 13:32.591
bravely loving to you first and then those around
13:32.624 --> 13:35.044
you. Lots of love. Thanks for being here.