Change Is The Only Constant - Reality Check Podcast #178

Welcome to the Reality Check Podcast.

I'm Zachary Phillips.

Something I've been considering recently is the idea that change is the only constant.

That of everything that happens,

The main thing that's happening is that we're not stationary.

It's almost like we are a process,

Not a thing.

It's very easy to look at ourselves and be like,

Oh,

I am this.

This is my personality.

This is what I like.

This is what I do.

But in reality,

What you think,

What you feel,

What you do,

What you are is constantly changing.

At no point in your life were you really stationary.

Even if you're doing the same thing,

Like the same job or you're at the same school,

You're progressing in some capacity,

Or at least most likely you are.

But regardless,

Your body is changing.

You're getting exposed to more information.

You're getting older.

Change really is the only constant.

Then from there,

I thought how easy it is to look back over the past at the epochs of your life,

Your primary school times,

Your high school times,

Your uni times,

Or your extra study times,

Or your different job times,

Your early relationships,

Your having kids.

There's always epochs that you go through.

At the time,

It's fresh and new.

The challenges are the challenges.

It's very easy to look back over the past.

Think back to the biggest issues you had in primary school or high school.

It's more than likely that those problems would be no factor to you right now.

You just know how to deal with them because you've got life experience.

You've got that knowledge.

You've got the skills.

The next logical step is to go,

Huh,

Well,

Most likely that's going to happen for the situation that I'm in now.

For me,

I'm doing online writing and online work.

I've got very young kids.

That's the sort of the epoch of my life right now.

It comes with its own challenges.

Of course,

It comes with its own challenges.

It's very easy to think to myself,

Ah,

These are the biggest challenges of my life.

This is the hardest thing.

If I just consider that I felt that way about all of the challenges over my life and whatever epoch I was in,

Then it seems likely that that'll happen for this.

That in two,

Five,

10 years,

I'll look back at this time and go,

Man,

That wasn't actually that hard.

It was pretty easy.

Maybe not easy,

But I managed it well.

I dealt with it well.

There's this risk of waiting to make it,

Waiting to get there,

Be there,

Achieve something,

Before you take a risk,

Before you relax,

Before you live.

That's something I want to avoid.

I don't want to look back on this time of life and be like,

I missed the opportunity.

I should have done this,

Or it wasn't actually that bad.

I could have done this thing.

What I'm really trying to do is be in the present moment and embrace where I am right now as it is for what it is.

Obviously,

There'll be things that I miss.

Obviously,

I won't do everything that I could do,

And there'll be regret.

At least if I'm aware of the fact that I will look back on this time with 20-20 hindsight,

I'll look back on this time realizing that I actually am or was strong enough to overcome it and to deal with it,

And that I should have taken the risk,

That I should have just given it a try.

If I recognize that that's going to happen,

That gives me a little bit of power to actually take the actions to do those things,

To step forward and live out my potential,

Whatever my potential is.

Because this time will change.

My kids will get older.

I will do other things with my career.

Things change.

My body will change,

Right?

You literally only live once.

It sounds pithy,

But it's true.

What I want to consider is,

How can I live that knowledge?

How can I live that wisdom?

The best way I've discovered to do so is,

Once again,

Mindfulness meditation.

I just did a live mindfulness morning session.

At the start,

The little teaching or instruction that I gave was to use labeling to recognize the mental phenomena and draw your attention back to the breath.

The idea is,

Let's say you sit,

You take a seat,

You focus on your breath,

And then your mind wanders,

And you notice that it's a thought.

So you say to yourself,

Thought,

And then you return your focus back to the breath.

Or you notice that it's a memory,

And you say to yourself,

Memory,

And you return your focus back to the breath.

You do this for thoughts,

Memories,

Emotions,

Moods,

Anxiety,

Rumination,

Depression,

Whatever you like,

Physical sensations.

Even for a cloud,

If you can't quite define it,

You can call it a cloud.

You're,

Oh,

I'm having that cloud of mental phenomena.

Then you return your focus back to the breath.

Typically,

I'll go just some broad categories like thoughts,

Memories,

Emotions,

Physical sensations,

Cloud.

Then I'll return the focus back to the breath.

You just repeat that for the duration of the session.

What I find that does is that it helps me to recognize when I'm thinking.

It helps me to recognize when I'm lost in my mind,

When I'm not in the present moment.

Because if I'm lost in thought,

Lost in the past,

Lost in planning the future,

Trapped by an emotion,

I'm not living my life as it is.

I'm not here and now.

I'm off somewhere else.

Then the fact that I'm living my current life off somewhere else will more than likely cause me in the future to look back and realize that I've had a bunch of missed opportunities like we previously just talked about.

If I can be in the present moment by being mindful,

By recognizing,

Oh,

I'm having a thought,

Or more specifically,

That I recognize that a thought is occurring,

I recognize that a memory is occurring,

I recognize that there's an emotion present,

I recognize that there's a physical sensation present.

There's a level of detachment here that we sort of go for with mindfulness because it's not me.

I'm not that thought.

I'm not that emotion.

I'm not that physical sensation.

I'm the thing having it,

Or rather,

I'm the thing observing it.

It just appears.

With time and practice,

We develop the skill set to step back,

Detach,

And recognize that we are not entwined with that.

Then from there,

We can take better actions,

Make better choices,

Choices that are more in line with our goals,

Desires,

Beliefs,

Values,

Things that we want to accomplish now.

One of the reasons why I push mindfulness meditation so much,

Or there's a bunch of reasons,

The mental state benefits,

For one,

But also I think that it's a real way that we can push the world towards positivity in the sense that if we're lost in thoughts and emotionality,

We're very reactive.

It's very easy to react to things.

We see a news article,

Someone says something,

An emotion pops up,

Whatever,

Fear,

And we just respond.

We're reactive and we say or do something that isn't in our best interests nor in the best interests of the people around us or the world in general.

The short-term greedy feelings,

This jealousy,

This hatred,

All of these things that we see in the world right now.

Whereas if we were to accept the present moment,

If we were to understand the reality of where we are as we are,

If we could see what life is like and not get attached to that emotionality,

To those thoughts,

Then we would be acting from a place of reality.

Now,

Don't get me wrong.

There is a bunch of situations and circumstances in people's lives that do need legitimate change,

But there's a bunch more that their main problems are caused by being lost in thought,

By emotions running rampant,

By feeding into that negative thought pattern cycle.

Now,

This isn't a dig on mental health or mental illness.

Obviously,

If you've followed me for a long time,

You know that I'm very positive in terms of mental health advocacy and all of that sort of stuff.

This is more the general human condition.

Okay,

Take mental health out of it.

I'm going to address that after.

A completely mentally healthy person,

No mental illness is present.

That person will benefit so much from mindfulness meditation because they won't get lost in emotionality.

It will help them to recognize the thoughts before they say or do something they later regret.

It will help them to detach and just make better choices,

Choices that aren't made in fear or anger or desperation or jealousy.

It will help them to be a little bit more considerate for those around them.

For those of us that do have a mental illness,

It will help us to detach a little bit,

To maybe give us a breath where we can do some of that self-care,

Where we can do an implementation of an intervention strategy.

Mindfulness is at the core of dialectic behavioral therapy.

It's one of the four pillars.

It's at the core of a lot of psychology because it,

In one form or another,

Because it causes the patient or the person or the client or whatever to see themselves as they are.

It gives them a little break between the challenging thought patterns and gives them a little bit of a chance to recognize them and ground themselves in reality.

Obviously,

It's not a cure-all,

But it can help.

In that sense,

The more mindful we are,

The better the world will be.

If we could all meditate a little bit every day,

I do truly believe that the world would be a bit of a better place.

There'll still be problems,

But we would be approaching those problems from a calmer,

More detached perspective in a good way.

Like I said,

I've been doing mindfulness mornings.

I'm up to,

I think,

Session eight or nine today.

It'll be a bunch more by the time this is posted.

They're running at 6.

40 AM,

Australian Eastern Standard Time,

On Instagram,

At zackpphilips.

I'm also hosting it as a IGTV and a YouTube video so you can look back over them.

The idea being that you get to see me meditating.

I'm there with you meditating on screen.

If you feel yourself waning,

If you feel the motivation dropping,

You'll look up,

You'll see me meditating,

And you'll get back into it.

It's that excuse you've been waiting for to develop a ongoing meditation practice,

To be able to just commit to it daily,

Just a 10-minute sit of silence.

The sessions basically start with a short talk introduction.

What I did today was just talk about the idea of labeling.

Then we sat in silence for 10 minutes.

Then we had a little talk about change,

Basically a miniature version of the talk you just heard,

But with an added 10 minutes of silence.

If you're looking to develop a meditation practice,

Do those daily.

Join in with me live if possible.

If not,

Look over the sessions that are in the archives on YouTube or IGTV and join in because I guarantee you that you will get some benefit from mindfulness meditation daily.

It will help you to recognize that life is happening now,

That there are opportunities that you can take,

That,

Yeah,

There are problems,

But not all of the things that you think are a problem are a problem.

It will help you to recognize real problems from the problems that your brain is just spewing out there.

I know myself,

My brain just is like,

Hey,

Think of this,

Think of this,

Think of this,

Think of this.

Think of these 10 problems,

20 problems,

Or potential problems,

The anxiety,

Right?

When I sit back and look at it,

There's only really one of those things that I need to address.

There's one thing that is an actual issue.

The rest of it is just straight-up anxiety.

I know that the more I meditate,

The easier it is for me to recognize which one is real or which one actually matters or which one will actually make a difference in my life if I focus on an address compared to the other 20 that I can just go,

All right,

Thanks for telling me.

I acknowledge that.

I'm going to return my focus back to the breath,

Back to the present moment.

So,

Yeah,

Like I said,

Join in with those sessions.

I'll chuck a link down below in the show notes.

Anyway,

Cheers.