March 3, 2025 • 34 mins
In “Watch Where You’re Thinking,” we examine how daily habits and digital choices shape our mindset and emotional well-being. From spending just two minutes reading to distancing ourselves from the 24/7 news cycle, this episode highlights practical strategies that foster a more intentional and peaceful life. We discuss the impact of social media, fear-based thinking, and autopilot habits, offering proactive solutions to regain control and focus on what truly matters.
By sharing personal journeys and thought-provoking analogies, we emphasize the power of self-observation, kindness, and mindful engagement in overcoming distractions. Uncover the benefits of shifting away from negativity, embracing constructive mental habits, and learning how to steer your thoughts toward positivity and growth. It’s time to reclaim your mind, challenge overthinking, and cultivate a life driven by purpose rather than passive consumption.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Morning Motivation with GoGo and Natasha.
(00:08):
Morning Motivation.
Morning Motivation.
Morning Motivation.
Hello and welcome to Morning Motivation with GoGo and...
Natasha.
We are back. We are back with another installment.
(00:31):
We certainly are.
And the name of this episode is
Watch Where You're Thinking.
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Mm!
Ha ha!
Watch Where You're Thinking!
Where? Mm-hmm.
You gotta watch where because this right here,
(00:53):
this is just the bedrock for so many issues that we have in mental society.
Me and Natasha talked about it before is when you are on screen saver mode,
you just allow your mind to just go,
and then next thing you know you are feeling X, Y, and Z feelings,
and then you're, you know, how did I get here?
(01:15):
I love that. I love that screen saver mode for your mind.
It's not a good place to be, right?
It's not. I think there's that term of
idle hands are a devil's playground,
where an idle mind must be his lair.
I mean, I don't know.
Right?
Because I just think about when I allow my mind to just go,
(01:38):
I'm wondering why am I feeling down? Why am I feeling anxious?
Or why am I feeling super excited? Why am I feeling super angry?
Like it can go in whatever direction that it goes,
and what that's doing is creating a habit of allowing your mind to just go,
and then you wonder why people may feel that they're not in control anymore,
because you're in the habit of releasing control.
(02:01):
Yes, and what was interesting, when we were getting ready for this episode,
you came up with this great sentence,
and I want to share it with the audience because they need to hear this.
So you said you can end up where you don't want to be
if you don't keep an eye on direction.
And would you let your dog walk itself?
Mmm.
(02:23):
Would you let your dog walk itself?
You know, it's funny that you say that, and we made a little meme for it.
Maybe the people might see this later. I had so much fun with this one.
If you've ever seen the dog in the crosswalk,
he's got the leash and handle in his own mouth.
He's walking across the crosswalk, walking himself.
And I love that guy.
But it's hilarious. Like, would you let your dog do this?
(02:45):
I've actually seen my neighbors allow their dogs to walk themselves.
It's a sad sight. The dog didn't look happy.
I'm like, for real, like, I saw the dog.
It was not happy walking itself. It did it, but it was lonely.
I think your mind gets to that way, too.
It's like, well, if I have to walk myself,
I might as well just do whatever, right?
Right. You are the captain of your mindset.
(03:08):
And if you're not leading the ship, then who is?
Who is? We're in this time where we have so many distractions.
I got to bring in social media into this conversation
because I have my own level of addiction with social media.
When you are being fed, they call it a social media feed
because it's feeding your mind.
(03:31):
So at that time, if something is feeding your mind,
you have to be careful what you're taking in.
Because what you feed your mind is leading you to think certain things.
Like, I literally saw something today,
and they were talking about the economy,
talking about watch where you're spending.
And it was from this mindset of ask people to be cautious.
But what it really is creating was fear.
(03:53):
And if you have a fear-based mindset,
then you're going to be acting out of fear.
Like, it's cool to watch what you're spending,
but don't watch what you're spending out of fear.
You know, watch it because watch it from a place of abundance.
I want to intentionally put my money over here
or intentionally put it over there.
And that all stems back to where you're thinking.
(04:14):
Yeah, absolutely.
When you're talking about that, it just reminds me of a habit
that I had to get myself out of
because I was being trained into it by the people I love the most,
my family. I love them.
I love them, but I don't want to practice the habit
that they have of watching the news.
(04:36):
Now, they will probably listen to this and say,
oh, there she goes again.
I had no understanding of why.
When I was in my early 20s or mid-20s,
and they had been like, you need to watch the news
and know what's going on, know what's happening in the world.
And I was watching it.
I was coming away from it feeling overly anxious,
like what you were describing, you know,
(04:57):
but fearful, just absolutely on edge,
angry about the things going on, upset.
And I was taking them on and taking them to heart so deeply
that it was actually affecting and disturbing me emotionally.
And not everybody can sit and watch this and just be unaffected.
And the thing is, I was telling my family,
hey, I don't think this is good for me.
(05:18):
And they're like, oh, no, you're just too sensitive.
And I said, no, no, this is not good for me.
I have to stop. I have to stop watching this.
And I made that decision for myself.
I was going to start limiting it. And then I just cut it out.
So over 20 years ago, I just decided, hey,
I'm just not going to watch the news.
Sometimes because I do spend a lot of time around my family,
they will have it on and I have to make the choice.
(05:41):
Hey, I'm going to leave the room and I'm just not going to be around this for now.
Like I just, I can't,
because it actually, it will take my mind in all these directions where I don't feel like I'm not in control anymore of how I feel.
I'm just on this road path with this like highway to fear.
Right. And since we're talking about the news,
(06:02):
the news cycle is about 30 minutes.
So after that 30 minutes, they retell the same stories.
It is the same stories.
It may be a different anchor, a different person,
but they are literally retelling the same stories.
And so it's just on repeat.
So after about 30 minutes, you've seen the news.
Anything past that, they're just retelling you what is going on,
(06:25):
unless there's breaking news.
And then all the news is about that one thing.
And again, once again, you've, after about 15 minutes, you, are you okay?
You know, this thing is happening right now.
This car chase is happening. It's still going on.
When we think about that, that things are on a cycle.
And if the news is on a cycle, they call it a news cycle.
But if the news is on a cycle, we ourselves should be on some type of, we are also on a cycle.
(06:49):
But what cycle are we on in our mindset?
Are we in the, are we in the cycle of fear?
Are we in the cycle of anxiousness?
Are we in the cycle of overthinking?
Are we in the cycle of other people's thoughts?
What are you in the cycle of?
I love that. I love that, GoGo.
What are you in the cycle of?
What cycle have you put your mind into?
(07:10):
Right.
And then, and then right from there, listen, it's happening.
Right from there, I think about a washing machine.
And the cycle that you choose, because you choose how you want to wash your clothes.
Right. And depending on what type of clothes there are, you decide on how they need to be washed.
(07:32):
Okay. And it should be the same for our mindset.
We decide the cycle of things that we ingest.
The cycle you choose is going to determine the outcome of your clothes and or your mindset.
And so your level of success.
And so all that is, it all comes together.
And if it's on the wrong cycle, you will get a product in which you are unsatisfied with.
(07:58):
If you wash your clothes on warm, then it'd be washed on cold and your clothes come out and they still smelling.
Then, oh, then there's a problem.
Or they've shrunk.
Talk about it. You know, you can always tell what has happened in the end when you look at what happened in the beginning.
Talking about the beginning, the first cycle starts as when we wake up. Right.
(08:23):
So we open our eyes in the morning. And what is the first thought you're thinking?
What are you choosing to think the moment you open your eyes? Is it, oh, shit, I'm late. Yeah.
Is it, oh, no, I didn't put the laundry on last night. Yeah. I got to do it now.
What are you choosing to think? Is it, I'm so thankful to be alive another day.
(08:47):
We each have a choice of where we start our mind cycle.
And that cycle that we start will continue to move in that direction with the momentum of a circle.
Your mind sort of propels it along from there. It's like, oh, you want to think this type of thought.
Okay, we'll keep moving in this. Okay. So, oh, why am I awake so late? Oh, well, look at this problem over here.
(09:09):
Okay, we'll give you more problems to look at. Right.
It'll just kind of keep going in that direction and it'll build momentum and keep pushing you down that cycle.
That's exactly right. I mean, you literally that.
And when you take a moment to kind of just be an observer of your thoughts, because a lot of times, you know, we life happens.
(09:34):
But if we take a moment to just, okay, I'm just going to observe, you know, I'm not going to judge. I'm just going to observe.
These are where my thoughts went today. If you just did it for, you know, maybe an hour, maybe two and just okay.
And just saw where your thoughts went. And then you can see, you know, the path that your mind kind of goes on without any type of direction.
(09:56):
Because, you know, our mind will go in a certain way, just based off habits that we've created and past thoughts that we've thought.
And so a lot of times if you put in, you know, new habits of thinking, then your mind will go in a certain way or will stop and say, hey, okay, I know that this is, you know, we don't want to go this way.
So I'm going to switch because our minds can be trained. We can brain train.
(10:21):
And when you do that, you know, then you can be in a certain mindset.
I know that for me lately, I've been like, let me not open social media in the morning.
Oh, okay.
You know, let me wait until afternoon. Let me wait until after 12 because there's nothing on social media that will not be there when I get to it.
(10:42):
It is still be right there waiting for me. It will be right there waiting for me. And some days I want, some days I don't.
But I think it's so important to try. Let me just, let me, can I feed myself something a little something of more substance.
The other day, me and my mom were both leaving to go to work.
And we were not running late yet. Kind of pressed for time, but still waiting for food to get made.
(11:05):
And so then I grabbed this book and I just read a page from the book.
Like, let me just do this since we're waiting here. Let me just feed my mind a little something here.
And I think I read about a page and a half and it was just like, oh, okay.
You know, because when you when you do a little bit of of substance, you give yourself a little bit of substance, your mind and body will react to that because it knows like, oh, this is something new.
(11:30):
And you will feel it. You will immediately feel. You will immediately feel it.
Just like you feel the effects of negative stuff. You will feel the effects of positive stuff just as quickly, really.
And just hopping in here, Gogo, just to say that, you know, what you've what you said is just brilliance and the simplicity of it.
It just took a page, a page and a half, which maybe was like, what, two minutes of your time in that time that you took away from scrolling on your phone.
(12:02):
Scroll on your phone for two minutes. You actually ingested something that made you feel differently.
And it changed your perspective into a direction that you wanted to go.
You are now leading the direction of your mind.
It wasn't walking itself across the street.
(12:24):
Right. Yeah. And I think I talk to people a lot just in life because, you know, we're communicators.
I said, do you have trouble sleeping? Google talk about sleep. And a lot of people say, yeah, because I'm always overthinking. And society and culture have allowed us to believe that this is just a regular set of circumstances that we should be dealing with, which is not true.
(12:49):
And they try to medicate, they try to medicate your bad habits.
And we don't know that their bad habits because a lot of people are doing the same thing. So it's like, oh, everyone else is having the same thing. So I guess it's just the norm. No, it's not the norm. It's not the norm.
You're supposed to be in control of your mind, not your mind in control of you. This overthinking.
Like, what other part of your life are you doing too much of? We all have control.
(13:12):
I can control if I'm holding something and it starts hurting my arm, I'm going to let that thing go. If I'm standing up too much and I'm feeling tired, I'm going to take a seat. If I've eaten too much, I will put down the fork at some point when I'm stuck.
So if I can do all those things with my body, why not with my mind? Because it also is a part of me.
(13:36):
Yes, I love that whole idea that we're medicating. We're medicating it. Instead of saying, hey, you know, this is actually a habit, a bad habit that you could, you have the power to alter.
You have the choice to change this habit and transform it into a more healthful, more life rewarding habit. We're saying here's some medication, here's a prescription. You go take this and this magic pill will solve your bad habits.
(14:09):
Wow. I'd never thought of it like that.
And I hear the naysayers already over there saying, well, I am dealing with this thing and I do need, you know, these things and I'm not at all discounting Western medicine by any means.
Take your pills. If you need to take your pills, take your pills. But what I'm saying is being dependent upon that to change when you have an internal problem, you want an external solution.
(14:35):
No, it's about it's about coming together. I think that there are certain extreme situations where people do need medication for certain things.
Yeah. But also there are also things that you can do on your own. We can't be dependent upon an external savior when internally there are things that we can do.
See, here's the thing. Prime example. When you have an ailment, you know, the doctor says, oh, you have high blood pressure, and then they tell you you need to change your diet.
(15:05):
Well, can we change the diet of our mind?
Yeah, we can. We absolutely can change the diet of our mind. Absolutely. I mean, all these things are saying it's like I'm harkening back to a time when I was I was experiencing insomnia every night.
(15:28):
And when you when you're experiencing a lack of of you want to go to sleep, but you cannot you physically cannot go to sleep. It is like torture. There's there's no other description for it. It's just self imposed in a way, but you can't change it.
(15:49):
You can't you don't feel like you have any control over your own physical being anymore. You're just you're awake. You're overtired and you want to go to sleep. And so, yes, finding an external answer does feel like, OK, I need something.
I need something to help me at this point. Now, I never I never was diagnosed with insomnia or given any medication for it, but I was experiencing it. I think I probably because I didn't want any medication.
(16:20):
I tend to shy away from using it because I feel like I want to be able to figure out what that that's is me. But personally, I want to try to figure out, OK, what internally can I change like what you were saying, because becoming dependent on that external source feels even more disempowering to me than the, you know, your bodies kind of being out of your control.
(16:47):
So long story short, I decided, you know, hey, I'm going to try to figure out are there different habits that I could be using here earlier in the day to change the way my body is, you know, reacting at night.
What is making me stay awake? Let me look into this.
(17:10):
And as I started to, you know, look and observe the all the different ways that I was approaching my day and how I was approaching my bedtime, it became apparent to me that some of these choices I was making was actually impeding my own ability to get to sleep.
(17:32):
Oh, this wonderful like imagery popped up into my head is as if you you went through your day and was just pressing the gas.
And then when you when it was like, oh, in the days here, but you were going so fast mentally that like to try to slow down and now you want a full stop to now go to sleep. But you now you're going 90 miles an hour mentally.
(18:00):
And it's like, oh, you want to you want to stop now. Like, if you think about it, if you tried to slam on brakes at 90 miles an hour, it's going it was going to first of all, it's going to be an extreme jerk. You might hurt yourself or some other people in the vicinity.
You might scare some people around you. And but even still, it's not going to happen. It's not going to go from 90 to zero in one second. Yeah, it's going to take it's going to take a little bit even when you when you slam the brakes.
(18:30):
So then you now I see you know talking about can I ease up on the gas, so that by the time I get time where I need to stop that I can actually stop safely, fully and completely. And what does that look like?
Yeah, and just being curious about it, you know, because that's the thing. It's like, you know, anytime you're trying to change the way you're thinking or the way you're approaching your life or anything. You have to give yourself time to observe that you
(19:00):
come on, observe and observe with kindness, not with a judgmental eye or this needs to change right away or else. This is just you being kind to yourself going, hey, what am I actually doing here? Okay, now we see what we're doing. Oh, that's what I'm doing. Because you might not have been aware at all, especially if you're on screen saver mode. Screen saver mode. I love that. That imagery is just so great. It's just so cool.
(19:28):
That imagery is just so great. It's just like, there's, you know, there's go go. He's in, he's in screen saver mode. He's got a smile. He's going through the actions of being alive, but he's not really mentally there. It's just his body is in autopilot, you know.
And that's a dangerous place to be in when you are trying to live a fulfilled life. You know, and, and to be present minded is so important because you're missing so many, so many things. And yeah, I'm excited to think about where in my life I can make some changes, because me personally, I do tend to be more
(20:13):
present minded. I've been fortunate. I've never had, you know, trouble sleeping. I'd literally will, you know, tire myself out to, you know, I go, I push it to the limit for sure. And to the point where it's like, when I get home, I'm, you know, I'm sleeping for sure. And that's another extreme that's not
necessarily healthy the end in the other direction, where it's like, I can sleep right now. You know, there is a an area of middle ground that that makes sense. And that is what's what I'm looking for that is sustainable. You need sustainable thinking and extreme thinking in one direction or another is not sustainable over a long period of time.
(20:59):
Because when you think something your body will react to it. So you have to just pay attention to that.
And so yeah, wow.
I feel good.
Yes, yes, I know we were going to ask ourselves some questions about this. I think we've each shared a little bit about where we've experienced this but we were going to ask a time when you've ended up where you didn't intend due to undisciplined thinking.
(21:32):
And a time where you've ended up where you didn't intend to do to undisciplined thinking. I mean there I mean there honestly there are so many moments that I can think about, for sure, but I mean, I think one one in particular that comes to mind has to do with my career as an as an actor so a lot of people may or may not know I do voiceovers.
(22:00):
And so one of the things is I sometimes will try to fool myself into thinking that I am going to wake up early and do my voiceovers when I haven't slept the appropriate amount of time so my, my body I like to call it my body is like a it's a thug.
(22:21):
And sometimes I you know I go to the limit, I go to the extreme. And I'll say okay I'm gonna go to sleep for like an hour. My body's like yeah you think it's gonna be an hour.
Wait till you go to sleep. I gotcha. You're out for four. It's four hours.
And I'm like, my body will snap sleep. Because you know I'll deprive it of such. So that's the other extreme that we talked about. And so what happens is, I then am in a situation where I have now.
(22:52):
I missed out on certain auditions, because the time has elapsed and I've woken up late, because I did not treat myself. Well, the day before. And, and then that came from me thinking that oh my body can just can just keep going I can give myself the bare minimum
thinking that that's going to produce a maximum output, which is not. And so my body reacted to that and let me know you're not treating me well. So I didn't have to take things into my own hands, and like force you to sleep longer, because you know you don't want to treat me well.
(23:30):
And so that was a time where I really was just kind of undisciplined in my thought and and thinking that I'm invincible. Well, a lot of times you know when you're younger you think you think that until you have a paradigm shifting experience.
And so for me, it's like okay I now have to have to I have to you know I have to stop. So now what I do now there I had an audition the other day. And instead of, and I knew I needed to take a nap.
(24:00):
And I knew before I even tried to prepare for I needed to take a nap, because I knew that I was not going to the output I was going to get the output that I want I was going to be forcing myself.
I was a little bit late going to take the audition, but which was fine but I slept, and I was present, and I was able to then perform at the level I needed to.
So sometimes the best thing there is taking a pause, taking a break will actually set you up for the greatness you're trying to accomplish.
(24:30):
I love that. I absolutely love that. And yeah, I love what you were saying about the paradigm shift that happened.
And it's hard to imagine that when you are that young person, which wasn't too long ago like you're still a young person go go.
Yeah, I know I am.
(24:51):
Okay. Yeah, but it's just like there is a moment in your life where you're like, oh, I can't do this thing that way anymore and I need to actually like pay attention when my body is giving me cues.
Right about what it needs like sleep. Yeah.
(25:12):
Yeah.
Yeah, go ahead. No, I was gonna just pose a question to you. It was their time for you where you kind of ended up reading, you know, intend to because of because of your thoughts or lack of thoughts.
As you were, you were sharing your story, I was, I was harkening back to a time. Let me take you on a journey.
(25:41):
It was a time where it was similar to what I was describing a little bit earlier about the the thought cycle that I would wake up into every day.
And I just wasn't aware that I was doing this to myself like one part, let me let me take that back like one part of me was sort of observing and going, should I be thinking that way because, you know, I had, I had been very exposed to positive thinking type materials
(26:18):
pretty early on in my life, but I didn't know how to apply all of them. At the time, it was kind of like I was being exposed to them, but I didn't know how to quite apply everything to the practicalities of daily life.
And one of the one of the authors that I was exposed to was Earl Nightingale, which he's one of the, you know, greatest minds of, you know, positive thinking. And if you don't know about his works, his writing, his audio recordings, I urge you to go look that up on YouTube right now you will find some amazing material.
(27:00):
But I was listening to this and maybe age 17 18 and where some of the ideas were being, you know, taken and I was like, oh, this is great and I'm applying it and really getting it. There were other areas that were sort of falling by the wayside and one of those was the way that I was
thinking when I woke up that I wasn't aware of. It's just like each of us have a blind spot and we aren't sometimes aware of it until it starts to become a problem in our lives, right?
(27:34):
We're like we're humming along and we're doing great. And there's this one area of our life where we're like, why isn't that working? And I would wake up every day and sort of, you know, it would just sort of be like whatever what we're talking about.
Watch what you're thinking. I wasn't watching what I was thinking when I woke up. It was just like exactly what I had mentioned before is like, oh no, I'm late. Oh, I better hurry up. Oh no, I didn't do my laundry last night and I don't have any clean clothes to wear.
(28:05):
Oh no, I didn't put any gas in my car because I didn't think about that. And now I'm going to be even later because I have to stop it. Oh no, you know, so it was just like the oh no cycle.
And I would go into that oh no cycle a lot more times than I feel proud to actually admit. And I'd say, oh, I'm going to change. Oh, I'm going to do this better. But what I didn't understand is that it started with that single thought in the morning.
(28:35):
It started with that first thought. And if I had known, hey, if I start with this one positive thought, it might push me to think about things differently and maybe take some different actions throughout the day so I don't end up back here tomorrow morning in the same position with the oh no cycle.
(28:57):
Right. Have we do we are you familiar with the oh no cycle? Is this something that brings a bell at any point? I know you're a very positive person. So, you know, I, you know, I may not be the words of oh no.
It would be like, it's more of a that's why. Like, oh, that's why that happened. Yeah, because I didn't do that thing and then do that thing. That's why. That's why I'm nine minutes late because I spent nine minutes looking on TikTok before I should have been getting in the shower. So, yeah, my oh no cycle is a that's why.
(29:30):
That's why. Yeah.
And what you're talking about is something I didn't come up with this term is something I've just heard growing up is you have to happen to life before life happens to you.
And what you're speaking about is that positive thought that that's you happening to life. I'm going to drop some goodness at the start of my day. I'm going to fill my cup at the start of my day, instead of immediate depletion, immediate withdrawal, let me fill myself up that two minutes of me reading that piece of that book before I went out to start my day.
(30:14):
You know that that just put me in that and slightly slightly better circumstances mentally. And that can literally save your life.
You know, so you just have that that ounce that just kind of gets you get you there and we don't we don't we don't look at it in those terms, but that that's really what's happening. That's really what's happening, because there is a.
(30:41):
What is the word when there's a depreciation of mental power that takes place every single day, because we use that power to get through our day.
And when you deplete yourself to a point of exhaustion, mental exhaustion, that can lead to some very hazardous circumstances.
(31:04):
Talk about it. Oh my goodness. When you say it's it's life threatening. It's this is not. This is not an exaggeration in the least.
Right.
Absolutely right that depletion over time. See the here's the factor if you're lucky enough to have enough time for that depletion to add up.
(31:27):
That's when you start to feel the effects and that's when you become that person that you know has the chronic illness. Right.
That they just don't know quite how. What is it we don't know what it is. Yeah, it's all those depletions all combined. Yeah. Yeah. So, and just like it builds up over time, you can also you can also take it down but it does take time as well.
(31:55):
And, and honestly in the time the amount of time it takes is just depending upon the person.
And I'm going to go to people do extreme things to kind of to kind of you know start again and other people that don't have that luxury. They you know they do little small habits to to bring things and start to see progress.
(32:25):
And that's all you have people that around you to kind of to note your progress. Oh wow. I'm, I recognize that you are, you are not where you were.
And that keeps you going because sometimes when you're in the process. And that's a that's a that's a key word over here. When you when you're in the process, you don't necessarily see the progress in the process until you're done.
(32:48):
And then you look back and have a moment to kind of kind of analyze and look back and see okay oh this thing did happen. Because I like I don't know all the stuff that happened last year in my life. I can't name every single moment that happened.
That's impossible to do. You know and that's why yeah I have to write stuff down right journal a little bit to remember you have to remember the wins.
(33:11):
Remember the wins so you know where you've been up.
And on and on that listen I bet that right there.
I feel like we have we have we've done the work. We've run the gamut we've we've done the whole thing we've gotten you motivated this this is been a very motivating discussion for me for sure like I really enjoyed this.
(33:37):
How about you go go. I feel like I'm going to be a little bit more motivated.
How about you go. I feel so good. And I'm so happy that we are having these conversations, because this is what it's about.
You know just having having the real talk of knowing that we are all humans, having this human experience and looking to add just a moment of positivity to make your day, make your life better.
(34:12):
And on that note, we want to thank you for joining us for morning motivation with go go and Natasha.
Morning Motivation with GoGo and Natasha.
(00:08):
Morning Motivation.
Morning Motivation.
Morning Motivation.
Hello and welcome to Morning Motivation with GoGo and...
Natasha.
We are back. We are back with another installment.
(00:31):
We certainly are.
And the name of this episode is
Watch Where You're Thinking.
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Mm!
Ha ha!
Watch Where You're Thinking!
Where? Mm-hmm.
You gotta watch where because this right here,
(00:53):
this is just the bedrock for so many issues that we have in mental society.
Me and Natasha talked about it before is when you are on screen saver mode,
you just allow your mind to just go,
and then next thing you know you are feeling X, Y, and Z feelings,
and then you're, you know, how did I get here?
(01:15):
I love that. I love that screen saver mode for your mind.
It's not a good place to be, right?
It's not. I think there's that term of
idle hands are a devil's playground,
where an idle mind must be his lair.
I mean, I don't know.
Right?
Because I just think about when I allow my mind to just go,
(01:38):
I'm wondering why am I feeling down? Why am I feeling anxious?
Or why am I feeling super excited? Why am I feeling super angry?
Like it can go in whatever direction that it goes,
and what that's doing is creating a habit of allowing your mind to just go,
and then you wonder why people may feel that they're not in control anymore,
because you're in the habit of releasing control.
(02:01):
Yes, and what was interesting, when we were getting ready for this episode,
you came up with this great sentence,
and I want to share it with the audience because they need to hear this.
So you said you can end up where you don't want to be
if you don't keep an eye on direction.
And would you let your dog walk itself?
Mmm.
(02:23):
Would you let your dog walk itself?
You know, it's funny that you say that, and we made a little meme for it.
Maybe the people might see this later. I had so much fun with this one.
If you've ever seen the dog in the crosswalk,
he's got the leash and handle in his own mouth.
He's walking across the crosswalk, walking himself.
And I love that guy.
But it's hilarious. Like, would you let your dog do this?
(02:45):
I've actually seen my neighbors allow their dogs to walk themselves.
It's a sad sight. The dog didn't look happy.
I'm like, for real, like, I saw the dog.
It was not happy walking itself. It did it, but it was lonely.
I think your mind gets to that way, too.
It's like, well, if I have to walk myself,
I might as well just do whatever, right?
Right. You are the captain of your mindset.
(03:08):
And if you're not leading the ship, then who is?
Who is? We're in this time where we have so many distractions.
I got to bring in social media into this conversation
because I have my own level of addiction with social media.
When you are being fed, they call it a social media feed
because it's feeding your mind.
(03:31):
So at that time, if something is feeding your mind,
you have to be careful what you're taking in.
Because what you feed your mind is leading you to think certain things.
Like, I literally saw something today,
and they were talking about the economy,
talking about watch where you're spending.
And it was from this mindset of ask people to be cautious.
But what it really is creating was fear.
(03:53):
And if you have a fear-based mindset,
then you're going to be acting out of fear.
Like, it's cool to watch what you're spending,
but don't watch what you're spending out of fear.
You know, watch it because watch it from a place of abundance.
I want to intentionally put my money over here
or intentionally put it over there.
And that all stems back to where you're thinking.
(04:14):
Yeah, absolutely.
When you're talking about that, it just reminds me of a habit
that I had to get myself out of
because I was being trained into it by the people I love the most,
my family. I love them.
I love them, but I don't want to practice the habit
that they have of watching the news.
(04:36):
Now, they will probably listen to this and say,
oh, there she goes again.
I had no understanding of why.
When I was in my early 20s or mid-20s,
and they had been like, you need to watch the news
and know what's going on, know what's happening in the world.
And I was watching it.
I was coming away from it feeling overly anxious,
like what you were describing, you know,
(04:57):
but fearful, just absolutely on edge,
angry about the things going on, upset.
And I was taking them on and taking them to heart so deeply
that it was actually affecting and disturbing me emotionally.
And not everybody can sit and watch this and just be unaffected.
And the thing is, I was telling my family,
hey, I don't think this is good for me.
(05:18):
And they're like, oh, no, you're just too sensitive.
And I said, no, no, this is not good for me.
I have to stop. I have to stop watching this.
And I made that decision for myself.
I was going to start limiting it. And then I just cut it out.
So over 20 years ago, I just decided, hey,
I'm just not going to watch the news.
Sometimes because I do spend a lot of time around my family,
they will have it on and I have to make the choice.
(05:41):
Hey, I'm going to leave the room and I'm just not going to be around this for now.
Like I just, I can't,
because it actually, it will take my mind in all these directions where I don't feel like I'm not in control anymore of how I feel.
I'm just on this road path with this like highway to fear.
Right. And since we're talking about the news,
(06:02):
the news cycle is about 30 minutes.
So after that 30 minutes, they retell the same stories.
It is the same stories.
It may be a different anchor, a different person,
but they are literally retelling the same stories.
And so it's just on repeat.
So after about 30 minutes, you've seen the news.
Anything past that, they're just retelling you what is going on,
(06:25):
unless there's breaking news.
And then all the news is about that one thing.
And again, once again, you've, after about 15 minutes, you, are you okay?
You know, this thing is happening right now.
This car chase is happening. It's still going on.
When we think about that, that things are on a cycle.
And if the news is on a cycle, they call it a news cycle.
But if the news is on a cycle, we ourselves should be on some type of, we are also on a cycle.
(06:49):
But what cycle are we on in our mindset?
Are we in the, are we in the cycle of fear?
Are we in the cycle of anxiousness?
Are we in the cycle of overthinking?
Are we in the cycle of other people's thoughts?
What are you in the cycle of?
I love that. I love that, GoGo.
What are you in the cycle of?
What cycle have you put your mind into?
(07:10):
Right.
And then, and then right from there, listen, it's happening.
Right from there, I think about a washing machine.
And the cycle that you choose, because you choose how you want to wash your clothes.
Right. And depending on what type of clothes there are, you decide on how they need to be washed.
(07:32):
Okay. And it should be the same for our mindset.
We decide the cycle of things that we ingest.
The cycle you choose is going to determine the outcome of your clothes and or your mindset.
And so your level of success.
And so all that is, it all comes together.
And if it's on the wrong cycle, you will get a product in which you are unsatisfied with.
(07:58):
If you wash your clothes on warm, then it'd be washed on cold and your clothes come out and they still smelling.
Then, oh, then there's a problem.
Or they've shrunk.
Talk about it. You know, you can always tell what has happened in the end when you look at what happened in the beginning.
Talking about the beginning, the first cycle starts as when we wake up. Right.
(08:23):
So we open our eyes in the morning. And what is the first thought you're thinking?
What are you choosing to think the moment you open your eyes? Is it, oh, shit, I'm late. Yeah.
Is it, oh, no, I didn't put the laundry on last night. Yeah. I got to do it now.
What are you choosing to think? Is it, I'm so thankful to be alive another day.
(08:47):
We each have a choice of where we start our mind cycle.
And that cycle that we start will continue to move in that direction with the momentum of a circle.
Your mind sort of propels it along from there. It's like, oh, you want to think this type of thought.
Okay, we'll keep moving in this. Okay. So, oh, why am I awake so late? Oh, well, look at this problem over here.
(09:09):
Okay, we'll give you more problems to look at. Right.
It'll just kind of keep going in that direction and it'll build momentum and keep pushing you down that cycle.
That's exactly right. I mean, you literally that.
And when you take a moment to kind of just be an observer of your thoughts, because a lot of times, you know, we life happens.
(09:34):
But if we take a moment to just, okay, I'm just going to observe, you know, I'm not going to judge. I'm just going to observe.
These are where my thoughts went today. If you just did it for, you know, maybe an hour, maybe two and just okay.
And just saw where your thoughts went. And then you can see, you know, the path that your mind kind of goes on without any type of direction.
(09:56):
Because, you know, our mind will go in a certain way, just based off habits that we've created and past thoughts that we've thought.
And so a lot of times if you put in, you know, new habits of thinking, then your mind will go in a certain way or will stop and say, hey, okay, I know that this is, you know, we don't want to go this way.
So I'm going to switch because our minds can be trained. We can brain train.
(10:21):
And when you do that, you know, then you can be in a certain mindset.
I know that for me lately, I've been like, let me not open social media in the morning.
Oh, okay.
You know, let me wait until afternoon. Let me wait until after 12 because there's nothing on social media that will not be there when I get to it.
(10:42):
It is still be right there waiting for me. It will be right there waiting for me. And some days I want, some days I don't.
But I think it's so important to try. Let me just, let me, can I feed myself something a little something of more substance.
The other day, me and my mom were both leaving to go to work.
And we were not running late yet. Kind of pressed for time, but still waiting for food to get made.
(11:05):
And so then I grabbed this book and I just read a page from the book.
Like, let me just do this since we're waiting here. Let me just feed my mind a little something here.
And I think I read about a page and a half and it was just like, oh, okay.
You know, because when you when you do a little bit of of substance, you give yourself a little bit of substance, your mind and body will react to that because it knows like, oh, this is something new.
(11:30):
And you will feel it. You will immediately feel. You will immediately feel it.
Just like you feel the effects of negative stuff. You will feel the effects of positive stuff just as quickly, really.
And just hopping in here, Gogo, just to say that, you know, what you've what you said is just brilliance and the simplicity of it.
It just took a page, a page and a half, which maybe was like, what, two minutes of your time in that time that you took away from scrolling on your phone.
(12:02):
Scroll on your phone for two minutes. You actually ingested something that made you feel differently.
And it changed your perspective into a direction that you wanted to go.
You are now leading the direction of your mind.
It wasn't walking itself across the street.
(12:24):
Right. Yeah. And I think I talk to people a lot just in life because, you know, we're communicators.
I said, do you have trouble sleeping? Google talk about sleep. And a lot of people say, yeah, because I'm always overthinking. And society and culture have allowed us to believe that this is just a regular set of circumstances that we should be dealing with, which is not true.
(12:49):
And they try to medicate, they try to medicate your bad habits.
And we don't know that their bad habits because a lot of people are doing the same thing. So it's like, oh, everyone else is having the same thing. So I guess it's just the norm. No, it's not the norm. It's not the norm.
You're supposed to be in control of your mind, not your mind in control of you. This overthinking.
Like, what other part of your life are you doing too much of? We all have control.
(13:12):
I can control if I'm holding something and it starts hurting my arm, I'm going to let that thing go. If I'm standing up too much and I'm feeling tired, I'm going to take a seat. If I've eaten too much, I will put down the fork at some point when I'm stuck.
So if I can do all those things with my body, why not with my mind? Because it also is a part of me.
(13:36):
Yes, I love that whole idea that we're medicating. We're medicating it. Instead of saying, hey, you know, this is actually a habit, a bad habit that you could, you have the power to alter.
You have the choice to change this habit and transform it into a more healthful, more life rewarding habit. We're saying here's some medication, here's a prescription. You go take this and this magic pill will solve your bad habits.
(14:09):
Wow. I'd never thought of it like that.
And I hear the naysayers already over there saying, well, I am dealing with this thing and I do need, you know, these things and I'm not at all discounting Western medicine by any means.
Take your pills. If you need to take your pills, take your pills. But what I'm saying is being dependent upon that to change when you have an internal problem, you want an external solution.
(14:35):
No, it's about it's about coming together. I think that there are certain extreme situations where people do need medication for certain things.
Yeah. But also there are also things that you can do on your own. We can't be dependent upon an external savior when internally there are things that we can do.
See, here's the thing. Prime example. When you have an ailment, you know, the doctor says, oh, you have high blood pressure, and then they tell you you need to change your diet.
(15:05):
Well, can we change the diet of our mind?
Yeah, we can. We absolutely can change the diet of our mind. Absolutely. I mean, all these things are saying it's like I'm harkening back to a time when I was I was experiencing insomnia every night.
(15:28):
And when you when you're experiencing a lack of of you want to go to sleep, but you cannot you physically cannot go to sleep. It is like torture. There's there's no other description for it. It's just self imposed in a way, but you can't change it.
(15:49):
You can't you don't feel like you have any control over your own physical being anymore. You're just you're awake. You're overtired and you want to go to sleep. And so, yes, finding an external answer does feel like, OK, I need something.
I need something to help me at this point. Now, I never I never was diagnosed with insomnia or given any medication for it, but I was experiencing it. I think I probably because I didn't want any medication.
(16:20):
I tend to shy away from using it because I feel like I want to be able to figure out what that that's is me. But personally, I want to try to figure out, OK, what internally can I change like what you were saying, because becoming dependent on that external source feels even more disempowering to me than the, you know, your bodies kind of being out of your control.
(16:47):
So long story short, I decided, you know, hey, I'm going to try to figure out are there different habits that I could be using here earlier in the day to change the way my body is, you know, reacting at night.
What is making me stay awake? Let me look into this.
(17:10):
And as I started to, you know, look and observe the all the different ways that I was approaching my day and how I was approaching my bedtime, it became apparent to me that some of these choices I was making was actually impeding my own ability to get to sleep.
(17:32):
Oh, this wonderful like imagery popped up into my head is as if you you went through your day and was just pressing the gas.
And then when you when it was like, oh, in the days here, but you were going so fast mentally that like to try to slow down and now you want a full stop to now go to sleep. But you now you're going 90 miles an hour mentally.
(18:00):
And it's like, oh, you want to you want to stop now. Like, if you think about it, if you tried to slam on brakes at 90 miles an hour, it's going it was going to first of all, it's going to be an extreme jerk. You might hurt yourself or some other people in the vicinity.
You might scare some people around you. And but even still, it's not going to happen. It's not going to go from 90 to zero in one second. Yeah, it's going to take it's going to take a little bit even when you when you slam the brakes.
(18:30):
So then you now I see you know talking about can I ease up on the gas, so that by the time I get time where I need to stop that I can actually stop safely, fully and completely. And what does that look like?
Yeah, and just being curious about it, you know, because that's the thing. It's like, you know, anytime you're trying to change the way you're thinking or the way you're approaching your life or anything. You have to give yourself time to observe that you
(19:00):
come on, observe and observe with kindness, not with a judgmental eye or this needs to change right away or else. This is just you being kind to yourself going, hey, what am I actually doing here? Okay, now we see what we're doing. Oh, that's what I'm doing. Because you might not have been aware at all, especially if you're on screen saver mode. Screen saver mode. I love that. That imagery is just so great. It's just so cool.
(19:28):
That imagery is just so great. It's just like, there's, you know, there's go go. He's in, he's in screen saver mode. He's got a smile. He's going through the actions of being alive, but he's not really mentally there. It's just his body is in autopilot, you know.
And that's a dangerous place to be in when you are trying to live a fulfilled life. You know, and, and to be present minded is so important because you're missing so many, so many things. And yeah, I'm excited to think about where in my life I can make some changes, because me personally, I do tend to be more
(20:13):
present minded. I've been fortunate. I've never had, you know, trouble sleeping. I'd literally will, you know, tire myself out to, you know, I go, I push it to the limit for sure. And to the point where it's like, when I get home, I'm, you know, I'm sleeping for sure. And that's another extreme that's not
necessarily healthy the end in the other direction, where it's like, I can sleep right now. You know, there is a an area of middle ground that that makes sense. And that is what's what I'm looking for that is sustainable. You need sustainable thinking and extreme thinking in one direction or another is not sustainable over a long period of time.
(20:59):
Because when you think something your body will react to it. So you have to just pay attention to that.
And so yeah, wow.
I feel good.
Yes, yes, I know we were going to ask ourselves some questions about this. I think we've each shared a little bit about where we've experienced this but we were going to ask a time when you've ended up where you didn't intend due to undisciplined thinking.
(21:32):
And a time where you've ended up where you didn't intend to do to undisciplined thinking. I mean there I mean there honestly there are so many moments that I can think about, for sure, but I mean, I think one one in particular that comes to mind has to do with my career as an as an actor so a lot of people may or may not know I do voiceovers.
(22:00):
And so one of the things is I sometimes will try to fool myself into thinking that I am going to wake up early and do my voiceovers when I haven't slept the appropriate amount of time so my, my body I like to call it my body is like a it's a thug.
(22:21):
And sometimes I you know I go to the limit, I go to the extreme. And I'll say okay I'm gonna go to sleep for like an hour. My body's like yeah you think it's gonna be an hour.
Wait till you go to sleep. I gotcha. You're out for four. It's four hours.
And I'm like, my body will snap sleep. Because you know I'll deprive it of such. So that's the other extreme that we talked about. And so what happens is, I then am in a situation where I have now.
(22:52):
I missed out on certain auditions, because the time has elapsed and I've woken up late, because I did not treat myself. Well, the day before. And, and then that came from me thinking that oh my body can just can just keep going I can give myself the bare minimum
thinking that that's going to produce a maximum output, which is not. And so my body reacted to that and let me know you're not treating me well. So I didn't have to take things into my own hands, and like force you to sleep longer, because you know you don't want to treat me well.
(23:30):
And so that was a time where I really was just kind of undisciplined in my thought and and thinking that I'm invincible. Well, a lot of times you know when you're younger you think you think that until you have a paradigm shifting experience.
And so for me, it's like okay I now have to have to I have to you know I have to stop. So now what I do now there I had an audition the other day. And instead of, and I knew I needed to take a nap.
(24:00):
And I knew before I even tried to prepare for I needed to take a nap, because I knew that I was not going to the output I was going to get the output that I want I was going to be forcing myself.
I was a little bit late going to take the audition, but which was fine but I slept, and I was present, and I was able to then perform at the level I needed to.
So sometimes the best thing there is taking a pause, taking a break will actually set you up for the greatness you're trying to accomplish.
(24:30):
I love that. I absolutely love that. And yeah, I love what you were saying about the paradigm shift that happened.
And it's hard to imagine that when you are that young person, which wasn't too long ago like you're still a young person go go.
Yeah, I know I am.
(24:51):
Okay. Yeah, but it's just like there is a moment in your life where you're like, oh, I can't do this thing that way anymore and I need to actually like pay attention when my body is giving me cues.
Right about what it needs like sleep. Yeah.
(25:12):
Yeah.
Yeah, go ahead. No, I was gonna just pose a question to you. It was their time for you where you kind of ended up reading, you know, intend to because of because of your thoughts or lack of thoughts.
As you were, you were sharing your story, I was, I was harkening back to a time. Let me take you on a journey.
(25:41):
It was a time where it was similar to what I was describing a little bit earlier about the the thought cycle that I would wake up into every day.
And I just wasn't aware that I was doing this to myself like one part, let me let me take that back like one part of me was sort of observing and going, should I be thinking that way because, you know, I had, I had been very exposed to positive thinking type materials
(26:18):
pretty early on in my life, but I didn't know how to apply all of them. At the time, it was kind of like I was being exposed to them, but I didn't know how to quite apply everything to the practicalities of daily life.
And one of the one of the authors that I was exposed to was Earl Nightingale, which he's one of the, you know, greatest minds of, you know, positive thinking. And if you don't know about his works, his writing, his audio recordings, I urge you to go look that up on YouTube right now you will find some amazing material.
(27:00):
But I was listening to this and maybe age 17 18 and where some of the ideas were being, you know, taken and I was like, oh, this is great and I'm applying it and really getting it. There were other areas that were sort of falling by the wayside and one of those was the way that I was
thinking when I woke up that I wasn't aware of. It's just like each of us have a blind spot and we aren't sometimes aware of it until it starts to become a problem in our lives, right?
(27:34):
We're like we're humming along and we're doing great. And there's this one area of our life where we're like, why isn't that working? And I would wake up every day and sort of, you know, it would just sort of be like whatever what we're talking about.
Watch what you're thinking. I wasn't watching what I was thinking when I woke up. It was just like exactly what I had mentioned before is like, oh no, I'm late. Oh, I better hurry up. Oh no, I didn't do my laundry last night and I don't have any clean clothes to wear.
(28:05):
Oh no, I didn't put any gas in my car because I didn't think about that. And now I'm going to be even later because I have to stop it. Oh no, you know, so it was just like the oh no cycle.
And I would go into that oh no cycle a lot more times than I feel proud to actually admit. And I'd say, oh, I'm going to change. Oh, I'm going to do this better. But what I didn't understand is that it started with that single thought in the morning.
(28:35):
It started with that first thought. And if I had known, hey, if I start with this one positive thought, it might push me to think about things differently and maybe take some different actions throughout the day so I don't end up back here tomorrow morning in the same position with the oh no cycle.
(28:57):
Right. Have we do we are you familiar with the oh no cycle? Is this something that brings a bell at any point? I know you're a very positive person. So, you know, I, you know, I may not be the words of oh no.
It would be like, it's more of a that's why. Like, oh, that's why that happened. Yeah, because I didn't do that thing and then do that thing. That's why. That's why I'm nine minutes late because I spent nine minutes looking on TikTok before I should have been getting in the shower. So, yeah, my oh no cycle is a that's why.
(29:30):
That's why. Yeah.
And what you're talking about is something I didn't come up with this term is something I've just heard growing up is you have to happen to life before life happens to you.
And what you're speaking about is that positive thought that that's you happening to life. I'm going to drop some goodness at the start of my day. I'm going to fill my cup at the start of my day, instead of immediate depletion, immediate withdrawal, let me fill myself up that two minutes of me reading that piece of that book before I went out to start my day.
(30:14):
You know that that just put me in that and slightly slightly better circumstances mentally. And that can literally save your life.
You know, so you just have that that ounce that just kind of gets you get you there and we don't we don't we don't look at it in those terms, but that that's really what's happening. That's really what's happening, because there is a.
(30:41):
What is the word when there's a depreciation of mental power that takes place every single day, because we use that power to get through our day.
And when you deplete yourself to a point of exhaustion, mental exhaustion, that can lead to some very hazardous circumstances.
(31:04):
Talk about it. Oh my goodness. When you say it's it's life threatening. It's this is not. This is not an exaggeration in the least.
Right.
Absolutely right that depletion over time. See the here's the factor if you're lucky enough to have enough time for that depletion to add up.
(31:27):
That's when you start to feel the effects and that's when you become that person that you know has the chronic illness. Right.
That they just don't know quite how. What is it we don't know what it is. Yeah, it's all those depletions all combined. Yeah. Yeah. So, and just like it builds up over time, you can also you can also take it down but it does take time as well.
(31:55):
And, and honestly in the time the amount of time it takes is just depending upon the person.
And I'm going to go to people do extreme things to kind of to kind of you know start again and other people that don't have that luxury. They you know they do little small habits to to bring things and start to see progress.
(32:25):
And that's all you have people that around you to kind of to note your progress. Oh wow. I'm, I recognize that you are, you are not where you were.
And that keeps you going because sometimes when you're in the process. And that's a that's a that's a key word over here. When you when you're in the process, you don't necessarily see the progress in the process until you're done.
(32:48):
And then you look back and have a moment to kind of kind of analyze and look back and see okay oh this thing did happen. Because I like I don't know all the stuff that happened last year in my life. I can't name every single moment that happened.
That's impossible to do. You know and that's why yeah I have to write stuff down right journal a little bit to remember you have to remember the wins.
(33:11):
Remember the wins so you know where you've been up.
And on and on that listen I bet that right there.
I feel like we have we have we've done the work. We've run the gamut we've we've done the whole thing we've gotten you motivated this this is been a very motivating discussion for me for sure like I really enjoyed this.
(33:37):
How about you go go. I feel like I'm going to be a little bit more motivated.
How about you go. I feel so good. And I'm so happy that we are having these conversations, because this is what it's about.
You know just having having the real talk of knowing that we are all humans, having this human experience and looking to add just a moment of positivity to make your day, make your life better.
(34:12):
And on that note, we want to thank you for joining us for morning motivation with go go and Natasha.
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