January 18, 2024 • 15 mins
Welcome back to another episode of Cliffs Notes from a Curious Mind! This is an abbreviated list of the top 7 things that I've learned, loved, listened to, and/or labored over. Today's topics are:
1) A bit of Martha Graham's wisdom
2) the vibrant spirit of John Batiste's 'American Symphony' (and his upcoming tour).
3) we peer through the lens of 'fundamental attribution error,' encouraging a deeper understanding of our judgments.
4) Dacher Keltner's book, 'Awe' takes us on a tour of wonder, inspiring us to seek out the extraordinary in the ordinary.
5) We dabble in neuroscience and find the healing properties of tears.
6) Brene Brown on finding friends who protect our light.
7) Rick Rubin and his advice on Metta Practice
***Bonus Quote at the end!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
LeAnna Azzolini (00:02):
Welcome to Curating the Curious, the
podcast that celebrates stayingcurious in life and never
settling into a box.
This show is for the creators,the seekers, the explorers, the
truth tellers and the foreverstudents of life, no matter what
age or stage you're currentlyat.
(00:22):
This is not as good as it gets,and it is never too late to
begin.
Join me as we explore all ofthe questions that come with the
idea of curiosity, a placewhere the possibilities are
endless and you can always startagain.
Today I'm getting back to oneof my favorite little things
(00:45):
that I invented with thispodcast, and it is called Cliffs
Notes from a Curious Mind.
What that means is that we willtalk about the seven things
that I have learned, loved,listened to and or labored over
in the past several days, weeks,months who knows at this point,
(01:07):
years, because it's been solong.
The first is a quote that I amshocked nobody has read on this
podcast yet, nor have I which Ican't believe.
It's by Martha Graham, and itoften gets cut off early
whenever people are quoting it,and the ending is so good and I
(01:30):
don't know why people cut it off, so I am going to read it to
you.
There is a vitality, a lifeforce, a quickening that is
translated through you intoaction.
And because there is only one ofyou in all time, this
expression is unique.
If you block it, it will neverexist through any other medium
(01:50):
and be lost.
The world will not have it.
It is not your business todetermine how good it is, not
how it compares with otherexpression.
It is your business to keep ityours, clearly and directly, to
keep the channel open.
It's just this is what you wantto express.
Express it, don't judge it.
(02:13):
You have no idea whose life youcould affect by expressing this
.
You have no idea what you'redoing to yourself by keeping it
to yourself and not expressingit, not letting it out.
I love the part where she talksabout and if you block it, it
will never exist through anyother medium and be lost.
There's only one of you in alltime, so this expression is
(02:37):
unique.
It means maybe somebody hassaid something like that before,
maybe somebody has createdsomething like that before,
maybe somebody has danced inthat way before, but it's always
unique coming from you.
So please just let it out andgive it.
No two artists can createanything exactly the same.
(02:58):
It's the best reminder for allartists, for all people, when
they feel that stirring insideof them to share something but
they're doubting it.
The second item that I want toshare, number two, is the John
Batiste documentary that I justwatched American Symphony.
(03:19):
Wow, that was.
It's so inspiring.
He is such an amazing guy, anamazing artist and person, and
to watch the relationshipbetween John and his wife,
suleika, and what they gothrough during the filming of
that documentary, their views oncreating art and why they do it
(03:43):
and it's just a way of survivalfor them and hearing them talk
about that it just reallysolidified for me why we do
these things.
I highly recommend you go watchAmerican Symphony documentary
and also, I would say so, whatspurred me to watch it was
(04:04):
sometimes I listened to ArmchairExpert with Dax and Monica and
I listened to that with JohnBatiste.
I don't know which one I likedbetter the podcast episode with
John Batiste on Armchair Expertor the documentary.
I don't know.
That podcast episode was soinspiring and then I watched the
(04:27):
documentary and I couldn'tfigure out which one was better.
So do both.
And then John Batiste he isdoing a tour coming up this year
and it's called Purifying theAirwaves.
He's chosen to do this duringthe election year because he
wants to put some good energyout into the world during
(04:50):
something that could get messy,and he's only doing it in small
theaters across America and hedoes it with his Stay Human
group and if you watch thedocumentary you'll hear about
that and also in the podcast andhe calls it a love campaign,
love revolution.
He wants it to have a town hallfeel, where it's intimate.
(05:11):
It was so inspiring listeningto him talk about all this stuff
just run towards anything thatfeatures John Batiste.
Really, I just love that he isgetting so much attention right
now because it's sowell-deserved and what a
beautiful and amazing soul he isand his wife Sulayka.
(05:37):
Number three is a little termthat I learned and I love having
a name for it.
It's something that we humanbeings do all the time and it's
so frustrating when you hearsomebody doing it.
But no, we all do it.
It's called fundamentalattribution error.
(05:57):
Basically, what that is is sortof like oh well, me, when I do
something, that's just acircumstantial.
Those are my circumstances atthe moment and so I'm behaving
in that way when you do it.
That is your character.
That is everything about whoyou are and I will condemn you.
(06:21):
Basically, I loved hearing thatword for it.
We're all guilty of it, butit's interesting if you really
think about fundamentalattribution error and how often
it happens and how actuallyridiculous it is.
I don't know Me, circumstantialyou, it's all character.
(06:44):
It's kind of a good littlecheck-in.
Number four is a book that Ijust started actually listening
to.
The book is called Awe by DackerKeltner.
It's a W-E-aw and I love it.
It's really.
(07:06):
It's got me thinking aboutpaying attention, noticing,
being in a state of wonder orawe, just looking around and
paying attention to the thingsthat really make you stop and
think or stop and stare.
Something that I thought wasreally interesting about that is
(07:28):
I think when we all hear theword awe, we think of nature.
In the book they talk about aglobal study that was done on
determining the top ways that weas people experience awe.
After this global study,everybody was assuming that
(07:50):
nature would be number one and Iwould completely think that
nature would be the first waythat people experience awe.
It actually came in at numberthree.
This is what really grabbed meabout it all.
The number two way was calledcollective effervescence.
We experience collectiveeffervescence when we go to a
(08:14):
concert and you feel that you'rein that ocean of human joy.
Or Burning man, which I stillhaven't gotten to experience and
that is on my bucket list.
Or people who go to church withthe Gospel Choir those things
are collective effervescence.
(08:35):
Once I heard that I thought, ohyeah, you know what that might
be higher on my list.
Number one was called moralbeauty.
I don't love that term when Ifirst hear it because I think of
you know, judging the moralityof people.
But what moral beauty really iswitnessing people at their best
(08:57):
, when they're showing courageand kindness and kindness and
equanimity.
So number one on the awe scalewas moral beauty witnessing
people at their top.
Number two collectiveeffervescence.
I love collective effervescence.
I'm a concert junkie.
(09:19):
Number three is nature, takingin nature.
So this book is pretty cool.
So far I haven't finished it,but it's got me thinking about,
you know, joy, awe, wonder,curiosity.
It's pretty cool.
Number five is it has to do withone of my favorite topics in
(09:39):
the world, which is neuroscience.
I listen to people like HubertMann.
I love the scientific part ofall of the brain and behavior
things, why we do what we do,what causes us, the reactions of
things and I loved hearing thatcrying literally heals your
(10:01):
body and when we cry and releasethe tears, we release oxytocin
and endorphins and it brings ourbodies back to a
parasympathetic state.
So scientifically, it's healingand something that we actually
need to do, physically andemotionally, obviously, but that
(10:21):
was a pretty cool littleneuroscience fact.
Number six is a term that Ijust recently had a talk with my
daughter about that I learnedfrom Brene Brown.
I just loved the analogy ormetaphor I never know the
difference between the two thatshe shared on.
(10:43):
I think it was in her Atlas ofthe Heart show on Netflix, but I
saw a little clip of it in avideo.
She's talking aboutcandleblower outers and she says
you know, you have this flameand this flame is your spirit,
it's your soul, it's your lightand sometimes it's going to
(11:04):
shine really, really bright andyou want to surround yourself
with people who, when it'sshining bright, they think wow,
what a beautiful light and theyprotect your light.
And you want to be the kind offriend who protects others'
lights too.
You want to surround yourselfwith people who love and
(11:24):
appreciate your light, whoselight you love and appreciate,
and we do not want to surroundourselves with candleblower
outers.
And after Brene told about allof that, she asked the audience
to raise their hand if they'veever had a friend or someone in
their life who was acandleblower outer.
And as my daughter was watchingthis, she raised her hand.
(11:46):
I think it's so powerful andimportant who we surround
ourselves with.
It could be for any reason thatthey're a candleblower outer.
It might just be a phase oflife, but for whatever reason it
is, we have to be able to pointthose people out and move them
over to the side where theycan't blow out our candle, they
(12:07):
can't blow out our flame.
And number seven, my last one,is it's called meta-practice,
and Rick Rubin was talking toRich Roll.
I will listen to anything thatRick Rubin speaks on, because I
love what he has to say.
He always has something new anddifferent to talk about and his
(12:29):
voice is amazing.
So he shared with Rich hismeta-practice that he's been
doing for years and it's verysimple.
It's something that everybodycan write down and repeat to
yourself every day, everymorning, whenever you want to
kind of remind yourself, to getinto a certain mindset, or if
(12:51):
you do meditate, like I do.
It goes like this May I befilled with loving-kindness, may
I be well, may I be peacefuland at ease, may I be happy.
And you repeat those four linesover and over.
He does it, I think, for atleast five minutes.
(13:12):
He says 10 minutes, I can'tremember and he repeats it.
I like that so much that Iwrote it down for myself, I have
it up on my wall for me torepeat each day and I put it in
my daughter's room for her torepeat, because it's very simple
and easy and just kind of likemakes you feel good when you
(13:32):
repeat them.
So those are my seven thingsthat I wanted to share today.
I want to make sure to keepcoming back here and sharing
things and make this asconsistent as possible.
I don't have any hard and fastrules right now.
I'm just sort of trying to getmyself back into the swing of
(13:54):
being here.
I want to get moving on anotherinterview very, very soon and I
just want to keep coming backhere and sharing because I love
it.
So hopefully it'll be everyweek, if not maybe twice a week
and maybe like I'll skip a weekhere and there, who knows?
And Rachel Larson Weaver'sinterview was my first one back
(14:19):
here at the beginning of thismonth, january.
Check that out if you haven'theard it, because she's just
such a light, so joyful andwonderful and eye-opening and
just a very cool person allaround.
Ooh, and one quote I want toshare with you.
I love this In winter, I plotand plan.
(14:42):
In spring, I move.
I love that.
That's kind of a reminder youdon't have to be doing all the
things right now.
You can be plotting andplanning and restructuring the
way you do your daily life, yourdaily habits, and then, when
spring comes and thawseverything out, you make your
(15:03):
moves.
And that quote was by HenryRollins Alright, until we meet
again, stay curious.
Welcome to Curating the Curious, the
podcast that celebrates stayingcurious in life and never
settling into a box.
This show is for the creators,the seekers, the explorers, the
truth tellers and the foreverstudents of life, no matter what
age or stage you're currentlyat.
(00:22):
This is not as good as it gets,and it is never too late to
begin.
Join me as we explore all ofthe questions that come with the
idea of curiosity, a placewhere the possibilities are
endless and you can always startagain.
Today I'm getting back to oneof my favorite little things
(00:45):
that I invented with thispodcast, and it is called Cliffs
Notes from a Curious Mind.
What that means is that we willtalk about the seven things
that I have learned, loved,listened to and or labored over
in the past several days, weeks,months who knows at this point,
(01:07):
years, because it's been solong.
The first is a quote that I amshocked nobody has read on this
podcast yet, nor have I which Ican't believe.
It's by Martha Graham, and itoften gets cut off early
whenever people are quoting it,and the ending is so good and I
(01:30):
don't know why people cut it off, so I am going to read it to
you.
There is a vitality, a lifeforce, a quickening that is
translated through you intoaction.
And because there is only one ofyou in all time, this
expression is unique.
If you block it, it will neverexist through any other medium
(01:50):
and be lost.
The world will not have it.
It is not your business todetermine how good it is, not
how it compares with otherexpression.
It is your business to keep ityours, clearly and directly, to
keep the channel open.
It's just this is what you wantto express.
Express it, don't judge it.
(02:13):
You have no idea whose life youcould affect by expressing this
.
You have no idea what you'redoing to yourself by keeping it
to yourself and not expressingit, not letting it out.
I love the part where she talksabout and if you block it, it
will never exist through anyother medium and be lost.
There's only one of you in alltime, so this expression is
(02:37):
unique.
It means maybe somebody hassaid something like that before,
maybe somebody has createdsomething like that before,
maybe somebody has danced inthat way before, but it's always
unique coming from you.
So please just let it out andgive it.
No two artists can createanything exactly the same.
(02:58):
It's the best reminder for allartists, for all people, when
they feel that stirring insideof them to share something but
they're doubting it.
The second item that I want toshare, number two, is the John
Batiste documentary that I justwatched American Symphony.
(03:19):
Wow, that was.
It's so inspiring.
He is such an amazing guy, anamazing artist and person, and
to watch the relationshipbetween John and his wife,
suleika, and what they gothrough during the filming of
that documentary, their views oncreating art and why they do it
(03:43):
and it's just a way of survivalfor them and hearing them talk
about that it just reallysolidified for me why we do
these things.
I highly recommend you go watchAmerican Symphony documentary
and also, I would say so, whatspurred me to watch it was
(04:04):
sometimes I listened to ArmchairExpert with Dax and Monica and
I listened to that with JohnBatiste.
I don't know which one I likedbetter the podcast episode with
John Batiste on Armchair Expertor the documentary.
I don't know.
That podcast episode was soinspiring and then I watched the
(04:27):
documentary and I couldn'tfigure out which one was better.
So do both.
And then John Batiste he isdoing a tour coming up this year
and it's called Purifying theAirwaves.
He's chosen to do this duringthe election year because he
wants to put some good energyout into the world during
(04:50):
something that could get messy,and he's only doing it in small
theaters across America and hedoes it with his Stay Human
group and if you watch thedocumentary you'll hear about
that and also in the podcast andhe calls it a love campaign,
love revolution.
He wants it to have a town hallfeel, where it's intimate.
(05:11):
It was so inspiring listeningto him talk about all this stuff
just run towards anything thatfeatures John Batiste.
Really, I just love that he isgetting so much attention right
now because it's sowell-deserved and what a
beautiful and amazing soul he isand his wife Sulayka.
(05:37):
Number three is a little termthat I learned and I love having
a name for it.
It's something that we humanbeings do all the time and it's
so frustrating when you hearsomebody doing it.
But no, we all do it.
It's called fundamentalattribution error.
(05:57):
Basically, what that is is sortof like oh well, me, when I do
something, that's just acircumstantial.
Those are my circumstances atthe moment and so I'm behaving
in that way when you do it.
That is your character.
That is everything about whoyou are and I will condemn you.
(06:21):
Basically, I loved hearing thatword for it.
We're all guilty of it, butit's interesting if you really
think about fundamentalattribution error and how often
it happens and how actuallyridiculous it is.
I don't know Me, circumstantialyou, it's all character.
(06:44):
It's kind of a good littlecheck-in.
Number four is a book that Ijust started actually listening
to.
The book is called Awe by DackerKeltner.
It's a W-E-aw and I love it.
It's really.
(07:06):
It's got me thinking aboutpaying attention, noticing,
being in a state of wonder orawe, just looking around and
paying attention to the thingsthat really make you stop and
think or stop and stare.
Something that I thought wasreally interesting about that is
(07:28):
I think when we all hear theword awe, we think of nature.
In the book they talk about aglobal study that was done on
determining the top ways that weas people experience awe.
After this global study,everybody was assuming that
(07:50):
nature would be number one and Iwould completely think that
nature would be the first waythat people experience awe.
It actually came in at numberthree.
This is what really grabbed meabout it all.
The number two way was calledcollective effervescence.
We experience collectiveeffervescence when we go to a
(08:14):
concert and you feel that you'rein that ocean of human joy.
Or Burning man, which I stillhaven't gotten to experience and
that is on my bucket list.
Or people who go to church withthe Gospel Choir those things
are collective effervescence.
(08:35):
Once I heard that I thought, ohyeah, you know what that might
be higher on my list.
Number one was called moralbeauty.
I don't love that term when Ifirst hear it because I think of
you know, judging the moralityof people.
But what moral beauty really iswitnessing people at their best
(08:57):
, when they're showing courageand kindness and kindness and
equanimity.
So number one on the awe scalewas moral beauty witnessing
people at their top.
Number two collectiveeffervescence.
I love collective effervescence.
I'm a concert junkie.
(09:19):
Number three is nature, takingin nature.
So this book is pretty cool.
So far I haven't finished it,but it's got me thinking about,
you know, joy, awe, wonder,curiosity.
It's pretty cool.
Number five is it has to do withone of my favorite topics in
(09:39):
the world, which is neuroscience.
I listen to people like HubertMann.
I love the scientific part ofall of the brain and behavior
things, why we do what we do,what causes us, the reactions of
things and I loved hearing thatcrying literally heals your
(10:01):
body and when we cry and releasethe tears, we release oxytocin
and endorphins and it brings ourbodies back to a
parasympathetic state.
So scientifically, it's healingand something that we actually
need to do, physically andemotionally, obviously, but that
(10:21):
was a pretty cool littleneuroscience fact.
Number six is a term that Ijust recently had a talk with my
daughter about that I learnedfrom Brene Brown.
I just loved the analogy ormetaphor I never know the
difference between the two thatshe shared on.
(10:43):
I think it was in her Atlas ofthe Heart show on Netflix, but I
saw a little clip of it in avideo.
She's talking aboutcandleblower outers and she says
you know, you have this flameand this flame is your spirit,
it's your soul, it's your lightand sometimes it's going to
(11:04):
shine really, really bright andyou want to surround yourself
with people who, when it'sshining bright, they think wow,
what a beautiful light and theyprotect your light.
And you want to be the kind offriend who protects others'
lights too.
You want to surround yourselfwith people who love and
(11:24):
appreciate your light, whoselight you love and appreciate,
and we do not want to surroundourselves with candleblower
outers.
And after Brene told about allof that, she asked the audience
to raise their hand if they'veever had a friend or someone in
their life who was acandleblower outer.
And as my daughter was watchingthis, she raised her hand.
(11:46):
I think it's so powerful andimportant who we surround
ourselves with.
It could be for any reason thatthey're a candleblower outer.
It might just be a phase oflife, but for whatever reason it
is, we have to be able to pointthose people out and move them
over to the side where theycan't blow out our candle, they
(12:07):
can't blow out our flame.
And number seven, my last one,is it's called meta-practice,
and Rick Rubin was talking toRich Roll.
I will listen to anything thatRick Rubin speaks on, because I
love what he has to say.
He always has something new anddifferent to talk about and his
(12:29):
voice is amazing.
So he shared with Rich hismeta-practice that he's been
doing for years and it's verysimple.
It's something that everybodycan write down and repeat to
yourself every day, everymorning, whenever you want to
kind of remind yourself, to getinto a certain mindset, or if
(12:51):
you do meditate, like I do.
It goes like this May I befilled with loving-kindness, may
I be well, may I be peacefuland at ease, may I be happy.
And you repeat those four linesover and over.
He does it, I think, for atleast five minutes.
(13:12):
He says 10 minutes, I can'tremember and he repeats it.
I like that so much that Iwrote it down for myself, I have
it up on my wall for me torepeat each day and I put it in
my daughter's room for her torepeat, because it's very simple
and easy and just kind of likemakes you feel good when you
(13:32):
repeat them.
So those are my seven thingsthat I wanted to share today.
I want to make sure to keepcoming back here and sharing
things and make this asconsistent as possible.
I don't have any hard and fastrules right now.
I'm just sort of trying to getmyself back into the swing of
(13:54):
being here.
I want to get moving on anotherinterview very, very soon and I
just want to keep coming backhere and sharing because I love
it.
So hopefully it'll be everyweek, if not maybe twice a week
and maybe like I'll skip a weekhere and there, who knows?
And Rachel Larson Weaver'sinterview was my first one back
(14:19):
here at the beginning of thismonth, january.
Check that out if you haven'theard it, because she's just
such a light, so joyful andwonderful and eye-opening and
just a very cool person allaround.
Ooh, and one quote I want toshare with you.
I love this In winter, I plotand plan.
(14:42):
In spring, I move.
I love that.
That's kind of a reminder youdon't have to be doing all the
things right now.
You can be plotting andplanning and restructuring the
way you do your daily life, yourdaily habits, and then, when
spring comes and thawseverything out, you make your
(15:03):
moves.
And that quote was by HenryRollins Alright, until we meet
again, stay curious.
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