Mojo Monday: When Reality and Desire Don’t Align With Carly Taylor

Ever found your mood shift instantly because of something small—like someone cutting you off in traffic, your partner’s mess, or the physical discomfort of anxiety?

In this episode, Carly explores a powerful concept from Japanese Psychology called shiso-no-mujun—the internal tension between how things are and how we wish they were.

Using a very real (and very relatable) moment from her morning, she talks about how recognising this tension can help us respond to life’s little irritations with more clarity and less reactivity.

This one’s for anyone who’s had their mood hijacked by the everyday—and wants take control of how they respond to those everyday challenges.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey everyone, it's Cully here and welcome to this week's
Mojo Monday. So this morning, something very trivial happened, but
it's a really common thing happened to me and it
got me thinking and inspired me to do this podcast.
So I was turning right onto a double lane highway

(00:31):
and it's one of those highways where you can stop
in the middle before you actually turn right. And so
I had stopped in the middle and this big forward
truck pulled up right beside me. So he clearly didn't
want to wait for me to go before he came up,
but by doing this, he blocked my view so I
couldn't see the traffic coming towards me to turn right.

(00:56):
This was totally unnecessary for him to do this, and
I've felt it. I this wave of irritation just rose
up in my body, and I was really annoyed, and
for a moment my mind went where it went, exactly
where you would expect it to go. So I was
saying things like, why would you do that? You know,

(01:17):
that's so rude. I can't see. But then something else
kicked in for me. And what happened was I noticed
the annoyance and I thought, ah, here it is. I'm
experiencing what we call she no mujhon. So let me
explain that term, because it's a really, really powerful one,

(01:40):
and I would guarantee that the majority of you, if
not all of you, have experienced this. So she saw
no mujon and I apologize for my pronunciation to all
the Japanese speaking people out there, but you don't need
to be Japanese to really understand this concept. It comes
from Japanese psychiatry Showmamrita, and it refers to this internal

(02:03):
conflict that we all experience when reality doesn't match what
we want things to be. So it's that tension between
what is which is reality, and what we wish was
happening instead, which is just an ideal. So this relates
not only to outside events like trucks blocking your way

(02:26):
and the blocking your view in the traffic, but it
also relates to our internal states. So we don't want
to feel anxious because it's really uncomfortable, so we struggle
with trying to fight it off, which often makes things worse.
So he describes this as the opposing tension between one's
desire that life and a sense of self be a

(02:50):
certain way and the facts of how life is. And
this morning, that was exactly what was going on with me.
So I didn't want the truck to be there. So
frustration showed up and then all of a sudden, my
mood and my state is changed. But he was there,
and frustration was also there, and that was the reality. Now,

(03:12):
because my awareness of the emotions came up, I had
a choice. So I could stew in the irritation and
let it dictate how I behaved, like you know, beeping
him or giving him a dirty look. Or I could
simply acknowledge that the situation wasn't what I wanted, it
was a minor inconvenience, and still choose to respond. So

(03:36):
I just went with it. I inched forward slowly, I
got a clear view, saw my lane was open, and
off I went. So there was no drama, There was
no horns, no did he looks, no big story. I
just moved on. Now I'm not telling this because I
always handle things in this way, because I definitely don't.
But this morning it was just such a good reminder

(03:57):
for me. So we deal with she saw normal on
every day in different ways and in different intensities. You know,
things like you want peace and quiet because you're trying
to work or study, but the neighbor's dog is barking NonStop.
Or your room looks like a floor robe because your
partner's clothes are just thrown on there, and so you

(04:20):
start to feel resentful, or you're injured and you can't
exercise it, you can't play the game, so you start
feeling depressed about that, or you feel anxious and you
wish you felt calm already. And it's that gap between
reality and our desire for something, and it's uncomfortable. And
the more we struggle with reality, the wider that gap gets.

(04:46):
But it's not something to fight, it's something to notice
because the more we can acknowledge both the reality and
our ideas of how we want things to be equally
and not focusing on one more than the other, and
that's our internal experience and our external circumstances, the more

(05:09):
space we have to be able to respond with clarity
rather than react with emotion. So this week, if you
find yourself irritated or anxious or disappointed or just fed up,
just take a little pause. Ask yourself, is this a

(05:30):
moment of she saw no mujon am i caught up
in this tension between what is and what I wish
was happening, and can I hold space for both and
still move forward with intention. So I hope you got
value from that. I certainly get value from this from

(05:53):
she saw no mujon. This is just increasing our self
awareness of the nature of our humanness. So I am
wishing you all a very calm and clear headed week.
I hope people don't get too annoying in the traffic,
and I will see you next Monday. See yea