The Unlived Life: Recent Episodes
Silas
My personal story of overcoming social anxiety and in the process found a deeper sense of freedom and connection to life. Unraveling fears, insecurities, and inhibitions that had stopped me from living how I was truly pulled to. With guests sharing their stories of moving toward a contented and free existence.
What is it to be ticklish? Why are some people ticklish and some people aren't? Is it possible to become not ticklish?
A series to fall asleep to while you get to know your body.
This Episode emphasizes appreciating your system as a whole.
A series to fall asleep to while you get to know your body.
This episode emphasizes pure observation.
A series to fall asleep to while you get to know your body.
This episode introduces appreciation for your body regardless of its state.
A series to fall asleep to while you get to know your body.
This episode introduces a method for canceling baseline tension we are holding onto.
A series to fall asleep to as you get to know yourself.
This episode emphasizes knuckles.
A series to fall asleep to as you get to know your body.
This episode emphasizes upper ribs.
A series to fall asleep to as you get to know your body.
This episode emphasizes feeling your body without the layer of emotions.
A series to fall asleep to as you get to know your body.
This episode emphasizes back of shoulder.
A series to fall asleep to as you tune into yourself.
This episode emphasizes area behind collarbones.
A series to fall asleep to as you tune into yourself.
This episode emphasizes seeing through habits of feeling.
A series to fall asleep to as you tune into your body.
This episode emphasizes zero effort rest.
A series to fall asleep to while getting to know your body.
This episode emphasizes shoulder blades.
A series to fall asleep to as you feel into yourself.
This episode emphasizes tongue/throat.
A series to fall asleep to as you feel into yourself.
This episode emphasizes the base of your neck.
A series to fall asleep to as you get in touch with your body.
This episode emphasizes tops of shoulders.
A series to transition to sleep to.
This episode touches on what it is to feel our beds and having sleepy thumbs.
A series to get ready to sleep to.
This episode highlights the difference between how our bodies feel and how we feel about our bodies.
A series for sleeping well.
This episode focuses on the spine between the shoulder blades.
A series to transition from day to sleep.
This episode emphasizes the upper thoracic spine.
A series on transitioning from daytime to sleeping time.
This episode emphasizes quads.
One of the most common responses I have when people hear I do a podcast is that I should read bedtime stories.
I decided to do it my way with what I do to fall asleep.
This is the first and was recorded on my phone so please forgive the quality. The rest will be much cleaner audio.
We all live in the bubble of our thinking.
Sometimes they pop and we see a new world.
Then we build another bubble which is the memory of that event.
Hurray for Bubble Popping!
As long as we have a thought we have a feeling and they can be pretty compelling.
We've all had the experience of doing or saying something we knew better than to do when overtaken by a powerful feeling like jealousy, anger, or insecurity.
Its often easier to see in others when they're overwhelmed by feelings their behaviour makes little to no sense in the context of their external environment, but does this same non-sense translate to less intense feelings most of us use to navigate our everyday lives?
Part of having a personal mind seems to be taking what we've already thought and projecting some possible future(s) which we get to compare what actually happens to.
This is a profoundly useful tool, but will wreak havoc on our lives if we don't realize we're doing it and spend our energy fighting, denying, or disappointed with what actually ends up happening.
Certainty and division seem to be a theme in 2020. With unanswered questions that have even occurred to us to ask yet it seems slightly out of place the certainty with which a lot of people are communicating. This word has been helping me survive, maintain relationships, and do my best to remain open.
In the intro I often comment that this podcast is dedicated to insight on living life well from the 'inside-out'. Well, I decided to be explicit in this episode to share what that means to me. Hope you enjoy!
Just a friendly reflection on what might be meant when commenting on how 'woke' or 'unconscious' people are. I've been hearing this type of language used more and more and have been wondering what use or pitfalls it brings to how we see people.
Some things we don't want to deal with can resolve themselves when ignored. Most don't seem to.
Making a habit of simply dealing with what needs to be dealt with rather than pushing it back and pushing it back is a huge, simple, and rather obvious life hack.
You can't blame anyone else or anything else for your own behaviour. It sneaks in the backdoor... we feel justified, resentful, angry, hurt etc and before we know it we're doing something we know better than to do. We're treating other people or ourselves in ways we don't want to ever treat anyone, but it feels like we can't help it sometimes. This episode is a look at that and what we might be able to do to start owning our shit.
Sonder:
"The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own."
This is the first in a series of episodes touching on normal human capabilities that when tapped into are like superpowers.
The first one is our ability to connect. I have on Rachel Dunn who is one of the very best connectors I've ever met. Hope you enjoy the Q&A and learn as much as I did!
A very relaxed reflection with Rachel on thinking we know the way life should go and how that ties into social anxiety.
Bumbling along through life it's sometimes really nice to pause, look up, remember we're only here for a short time, and see what that does to our priorities.
Many of my most delightful lessons came when no one was 'teaching' and I wasn't trying to learn anything. Desthein is a phenomenal teacher I met on Salt Spring island a few years back. Something that struck me in spending time with him is his genuine openness to seemingly all aspects of life and people despite being perhaps uniquely qualified to 'know better'.
Listening as an art. The challenge is realizing again and again that we don't know as much as we think we know.
Today I go over recent reflections on two types of listening and two types of understanding. Both are available to us. Knowing each is an option gives us choice of which we'd like to use.
Listening to our personal thinking is full of separation, judgement, and insecurity. Open listening makes Me-focused thoughts irrelevant.
What gets us in trouble is not what we don't know. Its what we know for sure that just ain't so. -Mark Twain
This episode is an excerpt from a Zoom call I was recently co-hosting.
Its easy to accumulate a knowledge base and take it with us forward in our future learnings, but this has some potential liabilities that are well worth taking a look at.
This is part two in a series with Tessa Buttemer exploring the idea of personal boundaries. In this episode we discuss some of the challenges that come up when we start to move in this direction and the hopeful simplicity that comes from sticking with the sometimes challenging learning curve.
You can learn more about today's guest here- https://themindfulhedonist.wixsite.com/blog
We all react to life in our own way. For some people a crowded party is a place to forget about their troubles and relax. For others that's a nightmarish scenario they'd do anything to escape. Learning to identify your own boundaries moment-by-moment and looking after your own state of mind gives you not only a nicer experience of life, but also has you better equipped to handle whatever life throws your way. This is Part 1 of the discussion where Tessa introduces the idea of boundaries.
You can learn more about today's guest here- https://themindfulhedonist.wixsite.com/blog
My first guest! Today I had the pleasure of having a conversation with Shenan about following our inclinations even when they deviate from our ideas about the direction we expected to be going. He shares a couple stories of times he made major changes in direction and what allowed that to be a relatively effortless and fruitful practice in his life.
I was recently reading the book Atomic Habits by James Clear and he points out that we are inclined to mimic the habits of those we spend the most time with, our community at large, and those we see as powerful.
It got me reflecting on how much of my life is run by fear of the perceptions of others versus a practical consideration of those perceptions.
Here I reflect on examples of being negatively controlled by this question and how that changed to a more useful understanding.
It was realizing I was scared and didn't want to be. I'd never admitted that before I opened to wanting a change. That was the start. More recently, part of 'who I am' was an inability to stay focused on a book long enough to finish it. I might be able to read a couple paragraphs, even pages, but rarely a couple chapters. I realized I wanted to be different. That was the beginning of watching what happened in myself as I chose a book, began to read...then... and as I watched my experience it transformed.
People are locked inside. Some are loving it. Some are finding that nothing is a tremendously challenging 'thing' to do. IMO learning to truly do nothing is the key to mental health, both in the moment and depending a felt sense of well-being over time.
I've been noticing more and more how often I spend my days thinking about something other than what's happening. I get up, shower, make coffee, break my fast and haven't taken a moment to just take in my world. Already up in my head calculating, planning, worrying, etc etc.
How much time do we spend lost in thoughts? Often the same thoughts over and over again...if they were leading anywhere worthwhile surely we'd have gotten there a long time ago.
Do we know our bodies as they are? Experiencing and knowing them directly? Or is there a missing link between our physical bodies and the experience we take as our bodies? What does this mean for being self conscious, suffering from pain, or overwhelmed by nausea?
It's easy to slip into thinking our body is something in our life to manage. Here I touch on some of the surface level changes that we can see in real time that come with slowing down inside.
Our sense of stress comes to us through 'our environment', but our environment is brought to us via our thinking in the moment. When we have a head filled with anxious thinking our system gets the signal that it's time for a fight or flight response. We aren't designed to live like this this on a full-time basis.
Sharing the value of personal experiences, moments of clarity, and insights, but also the liability of being fixated on such experiences.
A short reflection on what I learned from Desthein about what we're left with once an experience passes and what role these peak experiences might have in a more contented life.
It's easy to take our impression of something as the thing itself. This is a perfectly honest mistake as it really looks that way!
What happens when we start to question what we've taken as true? What if we're a little less certain what we see is the whole truth? We have ideas about people, relationships, career options, our childhoods, and even ourselves that we act as if are objective truths.
Learning to honestly look again at life for a new way of seeing and is a critical life skill to develop.
Question: Why is it most people are in a continual hassle with life? It seems to me its one turmoil after another.
"Basically, man fights himself and causes all conflicts within. When one begins to investigate 'within', this investigation leads to love and understanding of oneself and others."
-Sydney Banks
Telling the story of the first time I got a taste of what I was actually looking for. What it felt like not to be blocked by fears, doubt, and continual inhibition.
What does it mean to truly have nothing on your mind? Are there thoughts that you never put down that cloud your judgment? Like having scratches on a windshield obstructing your view while you drive?
Here is the introduction to my podcast where I'll be sharing my experience being 'stuck in my head' and overwhelmed by anxiety on a nearly full-time basis, what I tried to find my way out of that experience, and the insights and experiences I had along the way which helped me exist more freely in the world.