Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
OK babes, the babe Philosophy grimoire is here.
Traditionally a grimoire is a book of spells and rituals and
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to connect to her inner philosopher.
It's part journal, part love letter, part deep dive into
everything we wish we had when we were figuring out who the
(00:21):
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Download it now at babephilosophy.com and tag us at
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(00:42):
of Babe Philosophy. Eye contact is gnarly hard.
No, I can tell when I haven't been present with myself because
it's hard for me to look myself in the eyes, in the mirror,
because I know I'm going to haveto like, see some shit.
Well, and that's the first thingthat I notice in myself when I'm
moving too fast, when I'm getting anxious, when I'm having
a whole ass experience and I'm talking to Matt, I will not look
(01:03):
at him in the eyes. I'm like darting all over the
place and I can't, I just fucking can't.
I know I'm doing it and I'm like, look at him in the eyes.
I'm like. You're like, you can do it.
Yeah dude, the least the faster I'm going, the worse I am at an
(01:24):
eye contact. This is Babe philosophy.
A podcast where questions mattermore than answers, where liminal
spaces are revered, and where magic is.
Practical. We are your hosts, Mellie Wolf,
and live wickedly. Welcome back to Be a Philosophy.
(01:56):
I love that. We are back.
We're using a new software, so like this is kind of a test run,
but we're here and it is a solo pod.
Today I have little Mita on my lap because she's not feeling
well. We're happy to be back and we're
happy to be just the two of us chatting about something that
has been so relevant. As always, we always talk about
(02:17):
things that are relevant to our current lived experiences, but
this one has had us like in a tug of war with life for, I
mean, maybe our entire lives, but it's just now coming online
in this way. I would say, I don't know.
What do you think? Yeah, It feels like to me this
is a perpetual pattern of mine. Yeah.
(02:38):
And I've noticed through my relationship with you and
witnessing you the last probably8 to 9 months, it's been a lot
louder. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I think that's for a varietyof reasons that we'll get into
later. But the question itself is, why
am I afraid to slow down? And this is such a good question
(03:00):
because I think that if you had told me to slow down in life at
any other point other than, like, right now, I would have
been like, what are you even talking about?
Like, I literally don't even know what that means.
You know what I mean? Yeah.
Like what do you mean slowed? Like slow down in what way?
(03:20):
Exactly. It's like, it's kind of almost
honestly how I felt about when my patient going back to an old
episode when my patient was like, do you believe that Jesus
is your savior? I was like, I was literally
like, I don't even know what that means.
Like I can't, I don't even know what to tell.
Like maybe at some point I mightthink that, but right now I'd
literally just don't even like that doesn't compute in my brain
(03:42):
in a way that actually lands forme.
ANYWAYS, off topic, but point being slowing down like what?
OK, what does that even mean forone, and I think that's where we
should probably start. And then for two, like what is
what does it mean to actually implement that?
And why are we afraid of doing that?
So Mama, why don't you start us off?
What do you think it means to actually slow down?
(04:05):
Like what does that even actually mean?
Cuz it was aside beyond the like, beyond the like obvious
slowing your movement through space-time, right?
Right. Like you're going to walk
slower, drive slower. Yeah.
Oh God, fuck this question. No, seriously, this is like AI
(04:28):
think I've been asking myself that question on repeat is like,
what does it mean to slow down? And I am nowhere near close to
something that I think is going to sound really smart that we
can put on a quote card. Even better.
But I think what I'm really starting to learn, first and
foremost, the slowdown is reallyactually happening in my
internal ecosystem. It's not actually about my
(04:48):
external circumstances moving inwhatever I perceive to be slow
or fast. It's a lot more about my own
processing, my own inner urgency.
And sometimes there's like these, I don't know, we'll call
them like warning flashes of like, you need to hurry up.
(05:09):
You got to get this done. No, no, no, no, no, no.
It's like threat level midnight.And I react to that and I start
moving very internally quickly. It's definitely fucking linked
to the anxiety that I experienced.
So beyond a shadow of a doubt. So it's almost like the slowing
down is really just creating stillness inside of me.
(05:32):
It's like being able to pause and actually like sit in what's
happening. Yes, yeah, dude, I think you hit
the nail on the head with that. And I actually think that I
would love to just unpack something specific that you just
said, which is anxiety, because anxiety I think is a direct
(05:54):
result of not having the abilityto slow down in your internal
world. And it has nothing to do with
the speed that you're walking ordriving or talking or any of
that. It just has has and it has
everything to do with the speed at which you are moving inside
your body. Meaning thinking too far into
(06:15):
the future, Feeling like you need to be at a certain place in
your life that you're not. Feeling like you need to have
certain things in your life thatyou don't.
Feeling like you need to connectwith certain people that you
haven't connected with or whatever it is.
Like have a certain amount of money that you don't have.
Like the list goes on and on andon.
Have a certain body that you don't have.
Have a certain husband that you don't have.
(06:35):
Have a certain wife that you don't have.
A husband. And or, or fearing losing
something that you do have right, getting ahead of
yourself, going too far into Oh my God, if I don't do this, I'm
not going to be able to keep this thing.
Oh my God, I'm going to fail. Oh my God, this person's going
to leave me. Oh my God, my pets going to die.
Oh my God. And then just going so far into
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the future that you create like an anxiety loop.
And I think that is really what we're talking about when we're
talking about moving too fast. It is literally the thoughts in
your mind are moving too fast for your actual physical lived
experience to keep up. So there's like a dissonance, an
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experience of dissonance betweenwhere I am here in physical body
and where I am here in my mind. And then that creates this
experience of anxiety because you're like, I'm here, but I
need to be there and I'm doing this, but I want to do that.
And I'm doing like, I'm taking care of this.
But if I don't take care of that, then that's going to leave
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me. And so that I think is a
experience that probably we can all relate to, which is anxiety
of some type. Even if you're not an anxious
person, I know you've experienced anxiety even like
zebras and the fucking Savannah experience anxiety probably a
lot less than we do, but becausethey either die or get over.
(08:03):
It they get over it, yeah. But anyways, so that being the
fastness and the two and the getting ahead of ourselves and
the lack of being able to go slow.
So then slow being my thoughts and my lived experience, my
thoughts and my physical body, my thoughts and what I'm doing
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right now in this moment are congruent.
They are of the same material, if you will.
I don't know. What do you think about that?
Yeah. So yes, OK.
So when you were talking about that whole thing, I just kept
thinking I was like, Oh my God. It's really trying to catch how
quickly from the point of a stimulus do you go to the worst
(08:49):
case scenario and then immediately start planning for
that. Yeah, dude, I actually have a
really like good example of thisin just my day-to-day life where
I experience anxiety like micro levels of it in day-to-day.
And that is like in transitionalperiods of like, I was just
doing this and I'm going to go do another thing or I don't have
a plan. I'm like a fairly anxious person
(09:11):
though. So I don't think that maybe
everybody experiences this, but I just went to go for a walk and
coffee with my cousin and then literally I got anxiety as soon
as that ended. And we got in the car and we, I
was driving home and I literallystarted being like, oh God, OK,
what am I going to do today? What are the things I need to
get done? How do like, how far do we, what
do I have to finish before the end of the day?
Like where am I going to go withthis day?
(09:32):
And I just started getting anxiety because immediately I
was in presence with my cousin, walking, talking, not
experiencing anxiety. And then as soon as I left him,
I just got into this anxiety loop of like, OK, I need a
podcast. I need to clean, I need to
shower, I need to make sure I dothis.
I need to do this and that and this and that and this.
(09:53):
And I just went off way far awayfrom where I was in the car.
Yeah. So actually, I don't think it's
that uncommon what you're saying.
I actually think transition points are huge.
I mean large and micro, very bigdisruptors for people.
And the reason I think maybe this is not that uncommon.
And I think I'm going back to a version of myself who had this
experience. I was at a women's workshop, and
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the woman leading her name is Heather Ashimara.
And one of the things that she coached us to do was because she
said transition times are huge times to become ungrounded, to
get out of presents, to lose track of yourself.
She's like, those are those, those they start small.
It starts little. And then by the end of the day,
because you've had to make so many transitions, you're a giant
ball of anxiety. So her suggestion was like, OK,
(10:37):
let's say you go into the supermarket and then you come
back. As soon as you sit in your car,
you drop it and you ground, you breathe, you check on yourself.
Did I have an interaction in thegrocery store?
Because here's something that that happens all the time.
We move through our day and we have to get through things.
So we'll have micro interactionsall the time that have some kind
of energy exchange. And if you don't feel everything
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in real time, it does get stored.
Who the fuck is running around feeling everything all the time
right in the moment that it's happening?
I'm sure there are some people who are capable of that, but
that's a lot of fucking work andthat's not me.
And so then the transition time can actually one be a portal for
stored stuff to come up to what you're describing, which is a
(11:19):
place for your mind to fill the void space and put things in it.
And it also can be a good time to drop in and check in on all
that shit. And that's where I think like
when I think of Slow down. Do you remember that movie?
It was like a kids movie when wewere younger, maybe the early
2000s, mid 2000s, I think it wascalled like clock stoppers and
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this like group of kids heavy special time watches.
OK, well, I think I think it'll illustrate it, whether you've
seen it or not, but essentially they could like stop time for a
certain period of time and like,you know, pants people and they
did a bunch of silly kid things.There was a big mission and they
had to like save the world or their town or something like
that. I can't remember the stakes.
It's been such a long time. But I almost when I think about
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slowing down and what that feelslike in comparison to like the I
have to do this and this and this.
OK, now this is like time stops,maybe like mid trip, like you
have a plate of something, time stops mid trip and you're able
to like see what happened and you're able to pause for a
second and be like, OK, there's an orange there, there's a
(12:25):
potato falling this way. There's a plate here, there's my
dog there. I tripped over this fucking
thing back here. This is a rubber shoe and you
can kind of see all the pieces and see what's happening versus
you just plop fat flat on your face.
Wow, that was really hard to come out of my mouth flat on
your face. And then you're like, what
happened? I don't know what happened.
(12:45):
I don't understand. But if you can just like, and
I'm saying this like it's easy. It's not fucking easy.
But in those moments where I'm actually able to pause, it's
like all of those things that you're naming and all of the
different things that have to come in alignment that you were
talking about. It's like the slowing down helps
you see what the fuck's actuallyhappening and not perceive
yourself as your thought, not perceive yourself as your
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emotion, not perceive the outcome that you have to have
happen as this like crucial thing to your survival.
There's just there's space. When you slow down, you gain
space. There's like a spaciousness that
happens. And then you, the observer, can
actually start to orchestrate what's going on and make choices
that are responsive instead of reactive.
(13:29):
I guess, yeah. Yeah, I think that's, yeah, I
think a really important piece of this is that the slowing down
can look the same as the moving fast 'cause you can be moving
fast when you're slowing down. Yes.
And that's exactly what Liv is kind of getting at, is that like
the slowing down is more of a perspective and an awareness and
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an ability to like hold your experience rather than an actual
physical slowing down. But what does happen with the
like, with the ability to hold the experience, what often needs
to happen is you need to do lessat once.
Because if you're doing too manythings at once and you want to
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be too many places at once, you're trying to have too many
conversations at once. You're doing too many tasks at
once. You're thinking about all the
things that you need to do at once.
You can't have a holistic view like Liv was talking about with
the plate. You can't see that vantage point
because there's too much noise. You kind of have to cut through
(14:31):
the noise in order to slow down.And I imagine I am not at this
level because I am not advanced in this at all.
I'm just now like learning how to slow down and like having all
kinds of resistance to it for myself.
But I imagine that it does require kind of a one thing at a
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time, one thing at a time, one thing at a time.
And like an evaluation process of that thing before and after
the thing. And then just like a keep on,
like a reminder to keep returning to presence, keep
returning to presence, keep returning to presence, keep
being with that thing. What are you doing right now?
What do you need to do for that thing right now?
And then once you've done that, OK, now what needs to be done?
(15:12):
And then just kind of going on and on like that one thing at a
time. But I imagine that as you get
more versed in that flow, that slowing down can start to look
like moving really fast because you're so good at taking one
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thing at a time and being connected to that thing that you
just move from thing to thing tothing to thing to thing without
any gunk because you're actuallyso present with each thing that
you're with. For like the counter example of
that would be the experience that I had where I was with my
cousin and then I was, we were on a walk and everything felt
fine. And then I got in my car and I
started to spin out, right. It's like that period doesn't
(15:55):
really happen if you're moving slow enough to be with every
moment. So I had this moment where I was
like, Oh, I'm kind of freaking out.
I kind of need to figure like I need to find my feet.
I need to find my footing. I need to figure like I need to.
It's like this reorientation that I have to go through every
time I start moving too fast that actually makes me go slower
(16:17):
because I'm constantly having toreorient from moving too fast.
But if I master the art of goingslow, I imagine that I won't
have to be reorienting myself constantly so that I naturally
am going to move from task to task to task to task, or from
thing to thing to thing to thing, or whatever it is that
(16:38):
I'm doing or need to do or want to do or want to be or whatever
without that like recalibration period.
Because the presence is there with everything that I'm doing.
So ultimately what I'm getting at is that the slowing down
route is ultimately the fastest way to do things because you're
(17:03):
not dealing with the repercussions of what it means
to go too fast. I'm curious what your thoughts
are on that. I agree with you wholeheartedly.
This is like a classic example of the tortoise and the hare
example. You know, the hair is all over
the place and the turtle is justgoing in a straight line to the
finish line and eventually ends up getting there without
distraction or needing to reorient oneself.
(17:24):
And I was, I'm really grateful that you brought up presents
because this was something that was really helpful for me in
degunking the voices within me that were speaking to a future
state and trying to control that.
Or the voices in me that were hyper fixating on what happened
in the past and superimposing itinto what was definitely going
to happen in the future. Meanwhile, I'm over here making
sure it does. The present moment is the actual
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only moment that exists, right? It's literally the only moment
that exists. Everything that's happened
before, even just the start of this podcast is now in the past.
It's over, it's happened. It's never coming back.
What's going to be experienced in the future is being built
right now. So if you are, if you put your
focus, if you think this has been helpful for me, if you
(18:09):
think of where your focus or energy is going as a way in
which you spend money, it becomes very easy to quantify.
Since we interact with money allthe time, it becomes very easy
to quantify how much fucking energy and focus you are fucking
wasting and leaking. Just like leaking out into these
thought processes that Mellie's talking about into reorienting
yourself into having a panic attack, into needing to go do
(18:31):
something to get regulated or even like disrupting your
friends and your partner to holdyou because you're dysregulated.
Like there's just like so much inefficient energy use.
So if you are spending your thought energy, your emotional
energy, your focus on worst casescenarios, on being so afraid of
your past that you need to do everything in your power right
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now to prevent that from reoccurring, you're certainly
not actually present with what'sgoing on right here, right now,
which means you can't actually react to reality or respond to
reality. And I think that's where
projections come in and start fucking us up because I'm now
overactively thinking I'm pulling things from my past.
I'm putting them in the present moment where they don't exist.
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And now I'm seeing all kinds of things don't actually even exist
there. And now I'm going to do things
that are actually counterproductive to what I
truly want for myself. So everything you said, I was
like, yeah, that's like literally exactly what freaking
happens. And that's exactly what we're
trying to get to is presence. And then I'm thinking about now,
OK, all of that seems so obviousand logical.
So why the fuck are we afraid ofslowing down?
(19:37):
Like what the fuck is up with that?
And I'm curious what you think about that.
Damn it, I was going to bring that up next and I was going to
ask you for. I'm happy to go, but I was just
like, you're on a roll, dude. It's like you're anxious and you
know what's happening. Yeah, I think that, well, if I
think about my own experience and I think about my own
(19:57):
behavior and my own patterns, I am afraid that if I slow down, I
won't get to the finish line, essentially.
And if I slow down, then I will miss all of the things in life
that I actually want to attain. A choir, B, etcetera.
(20:18):
And so the whole idea is if I domore, if I fill up my day,
optimize my day, I mean, really unlike if you really break it
down to the building blocks of what what happens.
I really think it starts with like my daily structure if I'm
(20:38):
talking about myself, right? Like, and I think this is true
for a lot of people. It's like because it's just kind
of the norm in society. It's like you have A to do list
in your day. Everybody does.
I mean, maybe not everybody, buteven if it's not written down,
you kind of have an idea of yourTo Do List in your mind of what
that day looks like. If you have a job, you have a
series of tasks that you're expected to get done and you
(20:59):
have probably figured out a order of events that you want to
do the that work in for the day.Same for me.
You know, I start my day and I'mlike, OK, like I literally have
A to do list. I'm like, OK, I'm going to go
for a run, I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to sauna and
then I'm going to do babe flossie work.
And then I'm going to podcast and then I'm going to make clips
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and then I'm going to make lunchand, you know, etcetera,
etcetera. And then if I finish with more
time, then that's like an opportunity to get ahead, right?
There's always just this, how doI get ahead?
How do I do more? How do I get there sooner,
(21:41):
faster, quicker, better? And that looks like, you know,
filling my extra time with thesethings so I can get that done.
You know, at the end of the day,like I was just saying, if I
finish early, then it's like, OK, can I edit an extra clip?
Can I do an extra thing? How do I complete an extra task
so I can get ahead so that tomorrow I can get even more
(22:04):
ahead because I'll have that extra space where I was going to
do that thing that I'm actually now going to do today.
And then I'll just keep getting ahead.
And when that ends up being is really just me filling up my
time, filling up my time, filling up my time with physical
things that I have to do. And then I don't take that time
to be present with the things that I'm doing.
(22:25):
And so then I have a lot of thatreverberating liminal space of,
OK, I'm out of sorts. My nervous system feels wonky.
I don't really know. I feel directionless.
I feel scattered. I feel frenetic, like my energy
just feels like have to do stuff, have to do stuff, have to
do stuff. And I turn into this little
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like, do monster, right? And like an anxiety.
Junkie. So, yeah, and it's so funny
because that used to be, and it still is on in a lot of ways.
And I think there is a positive expression of this ability.
And I am still figuring out whatthat is for myself.
But I used to call it my superhero days when I would just
get an inhuman amount of stuff done in a day.
(23:10):
Oh yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.
Yeah, and I'm like, I'm a superhero and it's like now and
then inevitably the following day I would feel like a fucking
BLOB because I just went way toohard.
It didn't take any space to not even breaks.
It's more than breaks because maybe I wouldn't actually need a
(23:33):
break if I was just with the moment, with the moment but not
called. But the thing that happens is
I'm constantly thinking about the next thing that I'm going to
do as soon as I finish this thing.
So no matter what I'm doing, I'mthinking about the next thing.
So I'm never here. I'm always there.
And the fear is I'm getting awayfrom the fear.
But what the fear is that if I don't think about what's coming
(23:55):
after this, then after this comes nothing.
And then I'm useless and I'm lazy and I'm not going to get
anywhere. I'm going to fail.
Yo, dude, like that, that I believe we all have a version of
I really genuinely believe that's a huge poisoning of the
way our culture runs of what capitalism tries to take from
you, right. But that whole thought parent
(24:16):
like you even did this motion. I know people aren't listening.
You can't see, but she went. She moved her fingers in a
circular motion over and over again, and she's naming these
things. And all I can see when you do
that is a fucking hamster wheel.Totally.
It is a hamster. Wheel.
It's a motherfucking hamster wheel.
And the only way to get off the hamster wheel is to fucking stop
running and realize, oh, every time I go back to this place I
(24:37):
am going to go in circles. It's an I will go fucking
nowhere very quickly. I will get nowhere so fucking
fast bro, but you will be nowhere.
I can run 20 miles. Per hour in circles.
Yeah, that's essentially what itis.
And I really resonated with everything you were saying.
(24:59):
And then there was this like other piece kind of like
rattling around that I think feels important for me and my
brain and how I process things and what makes me kind of like
go, oh, that's dumb and able to stop doing theses.
On a very practical level, the what you described is a nervous
system in survival mode. You're constantly in a panicked
fear state. You're constantly, you know how
(25:21):
to run your life off cortisol and adrenaline because that's
what you're used to and you knowhow to tap into those places.
But the older you get, the less that produces superhero days and
the more that puts wear and tearon your actual body.
And that's where I think for me,like getting into my late 20s,
early 30s, I really started to notice, especially the more the
older I get, the more I'm like, yo, this is expensive to live
(25:44):
like this. Like constantly being stressed,
constantly feeling like I need to produce things, not sleeping,
not eating proper, like just noteven not putting my body first.
Like the wear and tear of even just one or two bad habits in a
day is becoming exponentially more apparent to me.
And I really think that if we are healed, if we are, you know,
(26:09):
can say that we've done enough work, we have to have gotten to
this point. If you don't perceive that you
are moving too quickly and you're an anxious person, wrong.
Yeah, talk to us in like 3 or 4 years, you know, if you have any
level of perfectionism or peoplepleaser or any of these
(26:30):
conditions that we talk about, right?
That we're like, this comes fromthis in society.
If you have a fucking abandonment wound, if you cannot
sit still in an intimate relationship on either end of
it, there is some part of you that is deeply uncomfortable
being present. There is some part of you
escaping this moment. There is some part of you that
(26:51):
has no fucking idea how to be here now.
And I would argue it's probably many, many parts.
But in totality, I really think what we're talking about here is
you're afraid to slow down because you think you are in.
You're going to survive that waybecause that's what you know, On
a very basic biological level, slowing down might mean you'll
die. I've literally felt that way
(27:14):
sometimes. I've had moments where I'm like
panicking. I'm like literally like, I'm
going to lose all my money, I'm going to lose all my friends.
I'm going to lose fucking everything.
Even just saying no, which is a version of slowing down because
now I don't have other people's 15 tasks on my plate.
It's so poisonous. I'm like looking at this thing
that like constantly is rubbed in my face.
(27:34):
And now we're having this conversation and I'm like, holy,
look, like I, there's a part of me that's like, what if this is
like a massive root of a lot of what's fucking going on and how
we get swept up and all kinds ofthings individually, but also
like on a much larger level, forsure.
It's just how reactionary peopleare to things that in and of
(27:57):
it's how quick are people to geton to a fucking social media
page and just comment some shit without thinking about it,
without slowing down, without considering nuance and
perspective, just that one little thing.
People are doing it all over theplace.
Constantly. Yeah.
I mean, that's the culture. The culture is fast.
Everything is fast. Social media is fast.
The internet's fast, and we wantit faster.
Faster it is, the better it is. And that's kind of the narrative
(28:20):
that exists. And I think that, like I was
saying to bring it back to the beginning of the podcast, you
know, and this is this is comingup based on what you were
saying, Mama of like being present in relationship and like
all of these things that people struggle being slowing down in
and being present with. And you know, the culture is so
fast. We and it's only getting faster
(28:42):
that we really have to be accountable for ourselves in the
spaces that we take to slow down.
And that's fucking hard. And a lot of people won't even
realize that they're not slowingdown.
Like a lot of people won't even realize, like I was saying at
the beginning of the podcast, that you are going too fast,
that your anxiety stems from your inability to be present,
(29:04):
your inability to slow down. You're just lack of integration
moment to moment where you have an experience, have an
experience, have an experience, have an experience.
And they're all fragmented, isolated experiences that you're
not integrating because you're just going boom, boom, boom,
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
And you're not slowing down enough to go have an experience,
integrate it, have an experience, integrate it.
(29:25):
It's like the people that are out there doing ayahuasca
ceremonies every year, twice a year, whatever, you know what I
mean? It's like, that is crazy because
where are you integrating this experience?
Where are you slowing down to take the lessons and learn what
the medicine is showing you? I mean, I did my ayahuasca, my
(29:46):
last, my first and most recent ayahuasca experience over two
years ago and I'm still integrating.
You know what I mean? It's.
Like wow. But anyway, I really think that
something practical and useful to speak to is just like how to
know if you're not being present, if you're going too
(30:07):
fast, if you're not slowing down.
And I think some of the cardinalsigns are, are you a superhero?
Do you have superhero days? Are you just going boom, boom,
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, crushing it?
Like, you know what I mean? And that feels fucking good,
right? Because the culture says the
more you can do the better. So that's very validating.
But like, if you're, are you doing that all the time, that
(30:29):
could be, I'm not going to say it's for certain because maybe
you're just a badass integrator and you integrate things with
the speed of light and that's wonderful for you.
But if you're not could be a sign that you're not going slow
enough to actually integrate your experiences.
But the other one that was coming up for me when Liv was
just talking about being presentin relationship is eye contact.
(30:50):
Can you do eye contact? I think that is the biggest.
Like that's probably the cardinal sign of a person that
isn't able to slow down. Yo, yeah, Do it with somebody
else and with yourself in the mirror, yeah.
Yeah. That's genius.
Eye contact is gnarly hard. No, I can tell when I haven't
(31:12):
been present with myself becauseit's hard for me to look myself
in the eyes, in the mirror, because I know I'm going to have
to like, see some shit. Well, and that's the first thing
that I notice in myself when I'mmoving too fast, when I'm
getting anxious, when I'm havinga whole ass experience and I'm
talking to Matt, I will not lookat him in the eyes.
I'm like darting all over the place and I can't, I just
fucking can't. I know I'm doing it and I'm
(31:34):
like, look at him in the eyes. I'm like.
You're like, you can do it. Yeah dude, the least the faster
I'm going, the worse I am at an eye contact.
That's a good one. Check.
You want to know what I do? I don't.
Breathe are you Breathing? Are you?
(31:55):
Fucking breathing bro. Another one.
Are you actually hearing what the person is saying?
Are you actually like hearing and feeling and receiving the
information? Because I often will be in
conversations where I can tell I'm just my brain's processing
enough to give auto response. But I walk away and I'm like I
don't remember a God damn thing that person said.
(32:17):
Fuck. Yeah, yeah, totally, totally.
Liv and I have had podcasts where.
We like black out. I'm like.
Yeah, yeah. For sure.
Well, and there's there's something to be said for I've
had moments where I've been so present that my retention of
like the exact words that were said or the semantics isn't
(32:39):
there. But I could tell you how I felt
and what the exchange was like. Like I can still comment on we
had an amazing time. We got sucked into this hole and
like I can speak to it versus like it was, you know, it was
fine. Like, you know, he told me some
stuff about his dad. It was fine.
You know how present was I? Yeah, I think the argument here
is that like we are on some level always present, but what
(33:02):
are you present with? That's the question.
What are you fucking present with, bitch?
Because if you're present with what's happening now, you're
going slow. If you're present with what I'm
having this conversation with Liv, I'm very invested in it.
I am, you know, attuned to her body language.
I'm attuned to what I'm experiencing and feeling as a
(33:25):
result of what she's saying or what she's doing.
And we're just like in this interplay.
And I'm just in it and I'm just present with it.
And that's all that's here rightnow.
That's me being present with this moment.
If I'm here having this conversation with Liv and all
I'm thinking about is what I'm going to make for dinner
tonight, I'm being present with my dinner, you know what I mean?
And it's noon right now, so it's.
(33:46):
Like that might be a little early, right?
So. Ultimately, like there is
something to be said for presence, for future, because I
think planning is important. That's what planning is, is
presence with future. However, slowing down requires
returning to the present moment.That would be the argument.
Absolutely. And so I'm thinking about
(34:08):
there's this like especially in the E Ching, which is like a in
Eastern Chinese astrological wheel of wisdom, if you will.
That's my very super high level thin knowledge of that.
Don't take that to be fact. Go Google this if you don't know
what it is. But I do know when they talk
about patience, which is essentially what slowing down
(34:30):
plus presence usually results insome form of patience.
And patience isn't just like waiting.
Patience isn't just sitting in aroom and tapping your foot.
And white knuckling. It right it's an actual like
embodied experience and what they say in this wisdom, and
this is reiterated in Gene Keys by Richard Rudd, that patience
is trusting everything. And I can't think of a time that
(34:55):
I've been anxiously clocking thefuture and felt like I was in
deep trust that the choices I'm making and the things I'm doing
are going to work out in my greatest and highest favor.
So that might also be a check, like if you don't perceive
yourself to be a patient person,if people around you reflect
you're not a patient person, there is an intense amount of
distrust that you have in yourself and the world at large.
(35:18):
And if you go into yourself and notice how often you actually do
not trust yourself, and that's why you need to be in control,
and that's why you couldn't possibly be present.
There's no time to be present. Yeah, that's a good check.
That is a great fucking check. Yeah, that is a great check.
And that is another, like, mind boggling concept, I think for a
lot of people. Myself, I mean myself included
(35:39):
not very long ago was the idea of patients as being different
than waiting. Yeah, I remember when that was
brought to my attention too. And I.
Was like, yeah, like waiting andpatients are fucking so not the
same thing at all because and they're not, they actually
aren't versions of each other either.
They're actually opposite. Energetically, waiting is
(36:02):
waiting for something to happen that you need to happen, that
you're just waiting to live yourlife until it does.
Whereas patience is continuing to live your life in the absence
of the thing, trusting that if it's for you, it will come to
you, and if it doesn't, it's OK.Yeah.
Which is like not the same energy as waiting.
(36:23):
No at all, Nope Nope, not even close.
Actually feel like when I'm in awaiting situation there is an
agitation associated with it because I feel maybe some
perceived injustice, some angst,some anxiety, some something or
other. Right.
And that's another indication ofnot being in presence with the
(36:45):
present moment, being in presence with a future moment
where you're going to get the thing that you're waiting for.
So that's another check. Are you waiting for something to
happen? Are you waiting for something to
happen? Waiting for your breakthrough,
your big day. Are you waiting?
For life to get better are you waiting To get more money?
Are you waiting To get engaged? Are you waiting to get married?
Are you waiting to do these things to live your life?
(37:06):
Because that is not that's. Oh my God, bitch, I'm so glad
you said this shit because I think there's another really
important thing to think about when we're in a rush.
There is so often in my life that my productivity has been a
big fucking distraction from actually doing what I want and
need to be doing for myself. And it's a really beautiful way
(37:27):
to create excuses that feel realand justified that you can
communicate to other people and know feel bad for you because
you're so busy and you have to do instead of if you slow down
and realize, oh I'm actually really miserable because I'm
perpetually creating a life I fucking hate.
And I'm more attached to this ToDo List than my own worthiness.
(37:49):
But I don't want to slow down and admit that because then I
would have to take responsibility for that.
And then I would realize that mylife is a direct result of me
and my choices. And then I would be responsible
for doing something different. And different is really fucking
terrifying. So I'm just going to stay busy.
I'm never going to slow down, and I'm going to break my body.
And by the time I'm 54, I'll be crippled.
There you go. That's it.
All of it in a nutshell, right there for you.
(38:11):
I'd rather give myself a tumor than have a breakthrough.
And I'm just going to wait for whatever The thing is to happen
to me someday. And then I'll boohoo when I'm 70
and I never did because it was my job to make it happen in no
one else's. Yeah, I think that waiting is a
(38:31):
is more is more tightly associated with the realm of
rushing. I agree, and patience is
associate it. Like patience to slowing down is
waiting to rushing. Like these are encompassed in
the same realms of being and if you are waiting for something to
(38:52):
happen, you're actually rushing.Which is a crazy concept because
wait implies slow down. Wait implies.
I think wait, I wait, wait implies nothing's happening.
And I think that's what we thinkhappens in a slowdown.
There's nothing happening if we slow down, right?
Progress is being. Made But the thing about slowing
down is more is happening because you're integrating.
That's the piece that's missing in the rush is the integration
(39:15):
portion, because in the slowdownyou're integrating, you're
taking the information in and you're actually digesting it.
In the rush, you're taking the information and you're just
shitting it out. Right away, yeah, you're not
absorbing any cooking nutrients.And that's how we have bypassing
all over the goddamn place. Just bypassing lived experience.
Oh my God, this has been really good episode for me.
I hope other people are getting something out of it.
(39:37):
This. Is good for me too, because I
was definitely in a state of rushing and waiting and being
impatient and not integrating before as I shared with my story
of feeling all this anxiety in my car on my way over here.
So this is like put me into the why is this happening?
Why am I so afraid of this? Why is this so uncomfortable and
(39:59):
just to like bring it back for myself.
The piece that I was missing is like, yes, that integration
piece like I'm not taking the time.
I think that was a big wow for me in this conversation alone.
It's just like, oh, can I take the time to just do one thing,
see what needs to be digested, and then do another thing and
see what needs to be digested and not eat my entire plate all
(40:21):
at once. Like eat one bite at a time and
then the other piece is that. That slow is fast.
That slow is actually the way tolive life fuller and faster and
more abundantly because everything is essentially like,
(40:46):
now I'm thinking about it like the digestive system.
I'm getting all of the nutrientsout of every experience as food.
You know if I am moving slower, which is ultimately the fast
track to being healthy because I'm absorbing all the nutrients,
right? Fast food, unhealthy, literally
high calorie. Low nutrient.
Right, like energetic cost, but no nutrients.
(41:08):
So and then the last bit is likethe resistance that comes in the
form of the indoctrination of how moving fast is better, how
doing more is better, how getting there faster is better,
and you have to get there fasterby doing it quicker.
And yeah, those three things arethe ones for me that I'm like,
(41:31):
OK, if I can integrate those three pieces in my life, I'll be
good. Yeah, straight the fuck up.
And I, there's this. When we slow down, suddenly we
have access to not only space, but stillness.
We have access to silence. People are terrified of the
sound of silence because inside stillness and silence lies to
(41:52):
truth. And we are all fucking running
away from truth because truth means you have to do something
about it. Well, and I mean, this is a
totally, this is like tangential, but like the
dopamine associated with these two different ways of being is
like on a physiological level, if you are living a fast life,
(42:16):
you're essentially like a strungout junkie.
Dopamine being the drug, it's just like you are next dopamine
hit, next dopamine hit, next dopamine hit, next dopamine hit.
Whereas the slow life is like fewer dopamine hits, but each
one is savored, each one is digested, each one is, yes, more
significant. Each one is just hits different
(42:38):
if you will. Yeah, well, something I say all
the time, and I think everybody who has actually embodied
patients at any point in time will agree, I have never once
fucking regretted patients. Ever.
That has never produced anythingbut the absolute best.
Not waiting, waiting socks waiting has produced some poor
results, but patients 100% of the time is that exchange is
(43:03):
fucking worth it 100% of the time.
Dude, something is just coming through for me right now that I
feel like we, it's like we're atthe wrap up point, but I'm just
now having this moment of like, oh, This is why we're afraid of
slowing down. It's because we're afraid of
losing. Control.
Oh, absolutely. Like that's what it is.
It's the control. It's like the.
Perception of control. Right.
(43:24):
If I move slow, things are goingto happen that happen outside of
my control because I'm not controlling everything.
If I'm moving fast and micromanaging every little thing
in my life, I'm in perceived control of everything.
And if I do one thing at a time,then I do a thing and I watch
(43:44):
the ripple effect. I do a thing and I watch the
ripple effect. The ripple effect I cannot
control. And I am terrified of not having
that control. And I think that at its core is
why we're afraid of slowing down.
If we like really strip down allof the layers, it's we are
afraid of the ripple effect of our actions.
(44:05):
We don't trust the ripple effectof our actions.
We want to create our own ripples.
Oh my God, this is actually whatyou're describing is how it
becomes a hamster wheel because you literally actually, like you
said, you can't control the ripple, but everything you do
creates a ripple. So if you're doing too much,
(44:28):
then you're also always having to catch your ripples and
control those and catch those and catch those and catch those.
So you're just constantly. Oh my God.
This is what I was thinking today.
This. You're just constantly like
symptom curing. You're hearing symptoms with
more pills. This is I sent live a like a
reel of a little Otter trying tograb all of his marbles.
Oh my God, yes, there's. Literally the the fucking Otter
(44:50):
with his marbles. He's just the entire reel.
He's just trying to keep all of his marbles in his hands and
they're all falling out. Because he can't hold all of
them. And he's just trying to grasp.
That's exactly what this is. We need to find that that is
exactly what this is. And as cute as it was, the
otter's experience was probably exhausting and demoralizing.
(45:14):
Oh my God, I think that's a goodnote to end.
Yeah, that is a good. Note to end done we may need to
do an episode on like how the fuck do you slow down for sure.
How do you let your marbles go? Yeah.
Yeah. All right, well, thank you so
much for listening. This is a great conversation.
We love you so much. Like comment, let us know what
you think is the answer to thesequestions.
(45:36):
Like, why are you afraid to slowdown?
Do you think you're slowing down?
Do you think it's a bad idea to slow down?
Because I know I've talked to a lot of people out there who do
think it's a bad idea to slow down.
So let's talk about it. You know what I mean?
Like, let's fucking go, baby. Oh my God, love it.
We will chat with you about it. We won't be mad either.
We'll be excited. So we love you.
Link Comment Subscribe at babe dot philosophy later babe.
(46:04):
Thank you for listening to Babe Philosophy.
If you enjoy the show, please like, rate and subscribe
wherever you listen and follow us on Instagram at Babe dot
Philosophy later. Babes.