Loura and Stephen discuss their takeaways from the prior episode with Julianna. They share: 10 how her insights related to mindfulness have been instrumental in their lives; 2) whether the quote: “Your always in freefall and there is no ground” is inspirational to them and 3) how they’ve used awareness to help untangle the constrictions that impact the ability to follow your gut.
Transcript:
Stephen Christopher 0:00 Hey, how's it going? Stephen Christopher here with my awesome co host, Laura Sanchez for today's episode of connect the dots from the exciting unknown podcast episode with our amazing friend, Juliana Ray, where we get to talk about probably one of my favorite subjects at least recently, which is mindfulness and awareness and how that ties into decision making and choice and feeling better and feeling less stressed and all of that kind of fun stuff. Yeah, she gave us cert she gave me certainly a lot to think about. I know that you've worked with her in the past, so I'm sure some of the stuff you heard was you kind of already knew it. Yeah, but a lot of what I heard was just the way she presented it. It really stuck with me. Good. Yeah. Well, alright, let's, let's dive in a little bit. If you're listening to this today, I highly recommend one if you haven't listened to the episode with Juliana, I highly recommend going back and doing that. And I've been a proponent of meditation. In a mindfulness for well over a decade, and so I highly recommend if you don't have some sort of practice, take some of the stuff that that we talked about today and put that into practice it, I promise that it will dramatically improve the quality of your life. Yeah. Awesome. You know, I think that that really was one of the takeaways that I had was just the way she explained it in the sense of there being kind of the three aspects of mindfulness being the, you know, concentration, sensory clarity, and equanimity. Because when you think about it that way, at least for me, you know, that's the way my brain kind of works. It seemed like something that I could easily do, as opposed to, you know, I think she talked about Oh, meditation and, you know, you're thinking you have to do it for a certain amount of time or with your eyes closed or in a quiet environment, or all those kind of things and being insane. Wait a minute, no, it doesn't have to be that first. Just having those three things. kept in mind would really go a long ways towards it. Yep. And that's one of the great things about her is she makes it so simple, right? She's been practicing for so long that she's been able to go what you know, kind of through the challenging parts of figuring it out untangling all of it. And what does this mean? What does this mean testing this and learning from this teacher, and then practicing it for so long on our own, that she's been, she's been able to really help make it simple. Yeah. And she's been through that. been through the weeds for over 20 years. And I mean, 150 weeks of silence. I can't even imagine, you know, you and I did three hours, four hours, four hours, I was able to shut up for four hours, which was pretty amazing. Um, but I can't imagine doing 120 weeks. Yeah. Yeah, that's quite an accomplishment. Yeah, it was good. I mean, the site we don't have to go too far down this rabbit hole, but the the silence piece is I think one of the fastest ways to start getting into a pro a program like this maybe are just like to jumpstart something like meditation or mindfulness. It's definitely not for everybody it is a it's a it's a major shock to the system. But yeah, because you've done weekend three days, five days, five days Wow. I mean, but even four hours I think that in our world today and most of us you know, if you are a high achiever you're motivated all those words. We don't know how to slow down number one, right? It's Go Go, go, go go. I mean, we my boyfriend makes fun of me, like Do you ever sit still? Rarely. So what goes with that is I also don't shut up and sit still and be quiet those things are. It was really, really hard for me, but I remember at the end having done that, number one If I was by it, but number two really being aware of where your mind goes, and what comes up for you both during it and after, I think really was enlightening. Yeah. Unknown Speaker 4:13 So I can see the value of it. Awesome. So, before we started recording this, Stephen Christopher 4:21 you are going through some interesting and heightened times right now. So you're in the middle of moving. You just sold your house, you don't have a new house to move into. You put a bunch of stuff in storage. And you know, obviously we talk pretty much every day. I can tell that you're a little, we'll call it stress wire. Yeah. And, and so interesting enough, before we hit record today, I said, Well, have you been practicing some of the mindfulness stuff that Juliana taught us a week ago, or a couple days ago when we recorded the original episode? And your answer was no. So this is interesting. So Do you know why you didn't practice some of this stuff during one of the times that it would be the most helpful? Yeah, well, I think first of all, at the conclusion of the recording with her, one of the things I said was, oh my gosh, she's got a 10, video free 10 day free online at unified mindfulness, comm backslash core, I think, where you go, and you could do for free, and I said, Oh, my gosh, I'm gonna do this, right. Well, I didn't do it immediately. So I guess why didn't die. The first thing was, I didn't do it immediately. And we all know, right? If you do something immediately after you hear it, you're more likely to stick with it, as opposed to a few days go on and you kind of lose sight of it. I think that's one thing. I think the second thing is, even though I've been struggling with what's going on, and I know what I know, I'm stressed I know I'm edgy. Whatever nice word you want to say or a nice word. I, I didn't look for new ways to deal with that. I quickly went back or not quickly, I easily fell back into Alright, well, what do you do when you're stressed? Laura? You work harder, right? You get it done, you get through it. You take control. That's probably my big one is I control it all. All right, this is what I'm gonna do. And I try and make that happen. And honestly, that hasn't probably served me well. I've had a few interpersonal kabooms you know, with people that are really close to and luckily they understand. That's who I am. And that's what's happened. But it hasn't served me well. But it was it was it was easy to do that as opposed to trying to do some of the mindfulness. I think that number one I wasn't even just aware enough to be like, okay, Laura, you're in this until you ask me the question till it I didn't say Oh, yeah, why didn't I do that? I would make perfect sense. No. So I think it's a great. I think this is a great topic because oftentimes what happens is, we look for new answers in times of heightened, you know, call it stress or when we're in the middle of something, right? Or maybe, maybe right afterwards. And, or in anticipation of, yeah. And so from for me, what I take away from this is that, when is a good time to start a new practice like this? The time is now it's always now and it's especially now if things aren't as stressful or aren't, you don't need you don't need it as much like what's the I don't remember if she said this, or if somebody else told me this, but they said, a warrior doesn't Prepare for battle on the battlefield, right. And that's what I always think of with mindfulness and like a lot of days, you know, I have a daily meditation practice and some days when I feel really good Like when I'm having a good week or a good month and I'm just on, I'm tempted to say, Well, you know, I'm pretty good, like, other stuff I can do. I don't need to meditate today. But those are the days that we need to do it most. And so I think just just being aware of Hey, when when is a good time to start a practice like this? It's today. Yeah, matter what, you know, I think that's so in line with other things that we do for for ourselves, right? Whether it's exercise, or better to exercise. Always start it today. Don't wait until you feel like shit. You've gained 30 pounds and then be like, oh, guess what, I'm going to start it or things like having massages with no, right. Don't go in for a massage when you're all tied up and not and you expect it to be easy and pain free and have miracles. It's far better to do it in advance and to maintain that over time. So you're probably exactly the same. Yeah, yeah. So all right. Good luck, you know to self. That's right. Glad we could pull that one out. There. recording was going yeah. So what else? What other big takeaways did you get? From our episode with Juliana? You know, one thing that also kind of resonated with me and it wasn't. It was the way Giuliana said it, but also conversations that we've had with Trish. I mean, there's some threads that are coming up here, right? The dots, they're starting to connect. And one of those was when we started having discussions about the knot and being tangled. Right? And when you get in that situation, you're like, Okay, you know what, this doesn't feel right. And for me that oftentimes that comes up around what is it people expect me to do? What is it that I want to do? And what is it that my gut tells me to do? And I was thinking about it in the sense of Looking for a house? Like, okay, what is it that I really want to do? Well, what will people think if I do that? will people think that? Gosh, why would she make that decision? She spent too much money on that. She has no business buying a property that has acreage, what does she think? And that's a lot of work, right? And then sometimes my gut, my gut isn't even necessarily what I say I want. But my guts more like yeah, this is it or no, this is wrong. And so I get gets really tangled up. Interesting. And then I find myself, you start going round around in circles, right? Because one moment, it's really clear, Oh, I should follow my gut. Then the next minute. It's like, well, but wait a minute. If I do that, then what are people gonna think? And then it's like, well, screw everybody. I'm just gonna do what I want. And I would say for me, that's that. It's tangled up. Yeah. And so how do you get untangled? And what Took away from Juliana Juliana. Yeah, I get it. It's, Unknown Speaker 11:03 well, it's it can be both. Stephen Christopher 11:04 That's right. She did say it was both, um, is in that moment to really be present. Right? That's that concentration of, okay, what's really going on here? Why am I feeling those things? what's Unknown Speaker 11:21 what's going on around me? Stephen Christopher 11:24 then having that clarity. And that alone then freed up your energy to be like, Okay, what choice do I want to make here? And I think that's going to serve me really well, because I looked back on times in my life where I feel that I have done that I've been more aware, and I think I'm able to get out of that entanglement. I'm not saying it goes away, right, because some of those tangles are deep, right, particularly if it's involving people and relationships. to disassociate it with disassociate from it enough to be able to say, Okay, I see what's going on over here. But I can still move forward. Yeah. So I think that mindfulness is going to continue to, if I frame it in that way, I think I can continue to use it as a tool. Awesome. Yeah, I think those are great. I think those are great points. And those are great awarenesses and connections that that you're making of where it can be beneficial. And, you know, for me, having worked with Juliana for quite a while, you know, really kind of like my true introductory introduction to real heightened mindfulness training. Since I've been doing that. It's, it's created opportunities for a lot less stress, better choices better, you know, decision making. less stress around things that generally in the past would have really stressed me out, like company decisions or what if we have a Bad month or what if we lose clients? Or what if a relationship fails or stuff like this that I've maybe would have a heightened, emotional feeling. And in the past, I would just, I was I was that feeling I didn't even realize that there was that. Yeah, I've done that feeling, right. And now what it allows me to do is kind of separate from that and look at and say, Okay, I'm feeling scared, or maybe I'm feeling frustrated or something like that. Well, if I really trace it down, it's I'm feeling frustrated because I don't know that one of my past companies should have been growing faster or making more money or something like that. And really, when I traced it down, it was like, Okay, I was feeling frustrated because it wasn't growing fast enough, and it wasn't growing fast enough made me scared because we weren't going to have enough, you know, we weren't making enough money or that I had invested this time and it wasn't giving an outcome that I wanted or somebody else, you know, everybody else around me was growing faster than I was. And so when you start to trace it down, and I guess kind of untangle those knots, what I would get down to ultimately was, maybe I was frustrated because I hadn't taken the time and the energy to do one or two little things and set up a system correctly, that then would have multiplied over and over and over and then would have gotten us to a different place that I really wanted to. So when you can get down to that place, now I can take 100% responsibility for that thing. And I can choose differently and say, Okay, cool. Like, here's, here's where I could have done better. Here's where I didn't maybe follow through, but I'm not blaming the outside these external things that I don't have control over, and we don't have control over something that creates frustration and fear and anger and all that. So just that whole thing has been super helpful for me to be able to process things better. Like I mean, you've probably seen like the, I don't, I can't think of somebody maybe like a Richard Branson, right, but I don't know Richard, but he comes off as this person who is like, it's an ease of decision making. And if this one doesn't work out, that's okay. It doesn't even Unknown Speaker 15:09 Yeah, this will present this opportunity or something else will come or Yeah. Stephen Christopher 15:13 And so there's just kind of this ease and flow. But he seems to always be using his energy to be moving forward, instead of using our energy in our life force wrapped up in this feeling, or this emotion that really isn't actually real for the situation that we're in. And I think that is what mindfulness has really done. Yeah, I mean, and you know, Juliana talked about the that stabilization right then our brain, our brain, our head, prehistoric brain, right? flight, fear or freeze. Yep. And what our brain is really trying to do is it's trying to protect us it's trying to make a stable. Yeah. And how do we feel stable? Well, sometimes we feel stable by having control. We right sometimes we feel like Stable by having all the answers. Sometimes we feel stable by not taking any risks, not going into the unknown. But in reality that isn't serving us. Because what we really want is we want to have the experiences that come from new things and having our life force be forward moving. And when you're trying to stabilize, you're not moving forward, you're just stabilizing. And ultimately, if you're stabilizing, you're actually you end up moving backwards. Anyway, nothing stays. I mean, truly, nothing stays Unknown Speaker 16:36 the same. Stephen Christopher 16:41 Yeah, tell me stuff. Yeah. Anything else on your list or your notes that you had? Unknown Speaker 16:46 So it's funny, you know, Stephen Christopher 16:49 I know you listen to Tim Ferriss, sometimes. I like Tim Ferriss. I like his he does a Friday. My camera what he calls it a Friday email and he always has on their coats on laundry. Yeah. And one of the things I wrote down from Juliana was you're always in freefall. But there is no ground. And I think she didn't take credit for that. She I can't remember who she said it was, but I actually put that on a mirror in my house until I packed it. But it was like, Okay, what does that really mean? And how is it showing up in my life? Because this whole journey for us into the exciting, unknown and what's coming and, you know, we want that feeling of freefall. That's pretty exhilarating. But yet, we're afraid that the ground is going to be there. And so I am going to continue to focus on that. Awesome. Yeah, I love that. That's one of my favorite quotes. She told me that years ago, right when I started working with her, and she said, she said, Well, Steven, there's good news and there's bad news. The bad news is, you're in freefall. The good news is there is no ground. Yeah. And so it's when we become so comfortable, but for some people, it might be the opposite, right? Which The good news is, you're in freefall. And the bad news is, there is no ground, so you're gonna feel like this forever. Yeah. And if you like that feeling that might be good. Yeah. So, yeah, so good. Awesome. Well, great. Well, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen to this. We greatly greatly appreciate it. If you got value from this, please share it, comment, ask any questions that you might have. If you have any questions that you want us to follow up with Giuliana on, please post them in the comments or send me an email wherever you're watching or listening to this episode. And yeah, thank you so much. We appreciate you. And stay tuned for the next episode of the exciting unknown. And then with the follow up from from connect the dots. And until next time, we'll see you guys. I was gonna say embrace embrace the exciting unknown or just until next time, Next time. Awesome. Thanks again so much everybody for listening. Have an awesome rest of your day.
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