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Episode 56: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise
49 Plays6 months ago
We hope you guys are ready for a profound thought to start the year! In this episode we discuss the book Golden: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise by Justin Zorn & Leigh Marz.
Follow us on IG @woundedhealerspodcast
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Transcript
Introduction & Personal Reflections
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Wounded Healers podcast.
00:00:10
Speaker
I'm Janessa. And I'm Amy. We were brought together by our shared wound of an autoimmune condition in our early twenties. This is a place where we explore our wounds with our listeners and guests who recognize the challenges of being human in hopes of helping all of us let the light in. Hi, my love. is Welcome back to the Wounded Healers podcast. I'm Amy and I'm here with Janessa.
00:00:36
Speaker
Hey everybody, happy new year to you. It's 2025 for you, even though we're recording this in 2024, so hello future self. I have to say, side note, but I am really excited for it to be a new year.
00:00:55
Speaker
This year, like 2024 just wasn't amazing for me. It wasn't like, no, there were no disasters, but it also just didn't like quite go as I planned. So I'm really looking forward to moving on from it and having a fresh start. This is the first time in a while where I've been like, thank God, let's go again. One more time. One more time, guys. Play it again. Yeah. How do you feel about your 2024?
00:01:23
Speaker
um I think my 2024 was, it was mixed. It wasn't great either, but it was filled with, I'm proud of like the hard decisions I made in 2024. But now what I'd say is now I'm ready to kind of reap the benefits of what I've sowed in 2024. 2024 was a lot of just like rebuilding the foundation and I'm really hoping to enjoy, you know, the work I've put into that.
00:01:49
Speaker
Yeah, do you feel like, because obviously 2024 was the year of your Saturn return.
Spiritual Journeys & Dietary Choices
00:01:54
Speaker
Do you think, you do you think she's returned now or do you think you're still working through stuff? Oh, I think I'll always be working through stuff, but I think Saturn is much more happier with me and to personify it. Yeah. Because I think I've just stepped into a little bit more of who I am and I've been able to kind of decipher more of like where I want to spend my time and my energy um even though I had that before I wasn't fine tuning it so now I've been fine tuning it so I think Saturn would be like hey girl good job keep going yeah do I feel like your Saturn return
00:02:35
Speaker
was has been a lot of spiritual awakening from what I've seen from you. And I think that's the opposite of me. like I think I did a lot of spiritual awakening like before, and I feel like my Saturn return really brought me back down to Earth. Interestingly, like it brought me a lot more like, yeah, it made me more grounded. It made me like think about like more practical things that I want. It's very interesting. yeah Whereas you've been a bit more like reaching for the stars. Yeah. Yeah. And like, which I i love to see. And like, yeah, and it's not yeah kind of beautiful. Love it. But yeah, we are ready for 2025. So yeah bring it on. 2025. One thing that we're, we're in hot debates about right now is our hot or not today. And that is in 2020, 2025, is it going to be hot or not to eat animals?
00:03:31
Speaker
because oh yeah i like i because I was doing a meditation the other day and it was all about inner strength and the the guy leading the the meditation was saying think back to a time in your life when you felt most aligned, most strong, most capable, most in a phase where you were getting what you want and what were you doing in your life? And something that stood out to me was when I felt my best, when I felt my most spiritually aligned was when I wasn't eating animals. um And I also had a conversation with my dad the other day about how, you know, you when you're eating animals, you are harming life. And those, you know, consciousnesses kind of do weigh on you.
00:04:26
Speaker
um And it's really got me thinking. So Janessa, what did you think? Hmm. Yeah. um Oddly enough, before we started recording, I was telling Amy, I've actually been considering the same thing. And my husband and I changed our like, hello, fresh box or like meal box, I guess I'd call it to vegetarian for from now on. um So the timing of this is super kismet. But yeah, I,
00:04:54
Speaker
I think it's it's a hard thing because I understand from a nutrition science standpoint the need for protein, iron, and what meat can provide for us and give us. However, in that same vein, um We were not necessarily designed to be eating meat like every single day. um Our bodies, if you think about like hunting back in cavemen or cave women days, whatever you want to call it, cave people day. If you think about hunting back then.
00:05:28
Speaker
Don't offend any of the cave people. If you think about it back then though, you know, they it was like a really good day if they hunted down the animal. And it was rare. It was rare. Yeah. And other than that, it was a lot of forging. So I think it's almost in our nature to not be eating meat every single day, but to have that as an option. So then to speak from my my gut, literally, my gut is saying,
00:05:59
Speaker
no more ah No more meat right now. Like I really need to just eat more vegetables. I think I also felt like a deeper kind of well when I was eating vegetables more often. yeah um And also there's something to be said about people who can cook with vegetables and not meat because it requires so much talent. There's just like nothing there to like you know, shadow over what what you're eating. So I really admire that. So yeah, i'm I'm for it. I think it's hot. Nice. Nice. Um, yeah, I ah completely agree with you. So when I have been vegetarian in the past, my scalp has literally like peeled off, like because of some sort of deficiency, like I get
00:06:50
Speaker
like a painful itchy scalp when I don't eat meat. and I will say that was like in my early twenties when the RA hadn't happened yet and I had no clue on what health was, like never taken a supplement in my life apart from the multivits that my mum would like give us when we were kids, you know. So I think I i am sure in fact that I wasn't covering any deficiencies but through supplementation.
00:07:17
Speaker
um But no, i it really does feel, yeah, it's weighing on me the same way you said that like it's kind of your feeling.
00:07:29
Speaker
What did you say? it Like weighed down, like spiritually weighed down. you you I think you didn't say that while we were recording, but you said it pre to when we were recording. And that's exactly, yeah, that is exactly how I feel. I feel like spiritually weighed down by it. And we were like having chicken wraps the other night and I was just like eat, biting the flesh. And I was like, this feels itchy.
00:07:50
Speaker
like you know when it's like really fleshy like I think like minced like minced beef you're not you don't really feel like it's like meat but when you're like taking a bite of like proper flesh I was like oh it gave me the ick and I didn't eat anymore so I think I'm gonna listen to that and I'm gonna do I'm gonna try and have less I'm gonna do mindful meat not just a constant churn of meat I love that. Mindful me. That's a good one. Yeah. I think that's, I think that's a lot. And again, I think it's just hot that you're listening to your body and like, and that we are listening to our bodies and it's okay to fluctuate. Like, I think that's the other thing. Like in the past, I was like, I'm vegetarian. And I was like, damn, I have to hold this up for the rest of my life. Like I have to perform as a vegetarian. or else people will be mad, you know? They'll know I'm in a meet again. And it's like, yeah, do what's right for you when it's right for you. I also go into this complete spiral when I'm a vegetarian because I love a high quality accessory. Like I love a leather belt and I love a leather bag. And I actually think like plastic bags are like fucking with the world. Honestly, like if we keep churning out these plastic bags,
00:09:05
Speaker
Not plastic bags like the ones you get from the grocery store. I mean like pleather, like the like pleather bags. Like still well made but made of man-made materials. They do not last the same as leather. Like they just don't. You have to churn them more and obviously they can't really be destroyed. so I love a leather accessory. I think it's morally correct. But how does that tie in with eating animals not being morally correct, correct? So I'm like, I'll wear their skin, but I'm not comfortable with eating them. And then I just go into a spiral of like, where does it end, you know? yeah And that's hard. You got to give yourself grace there. I mean, just think that like not everyone it needs to be a vegetarian necessarily. So I like to think of it as there's enough people in the world who are still consuming meat that yeah What's left over after that consumption, if there's something we can do with that, I think that that is serving a greater purpose of like not wasting hundred something's life for just one use, the by-product.
00:10:09
Speaker
and a phrase that I remember from, I loved the Princess Diaries books when I was a kid, like the actual books that Disney made them into a film, but the OG's will know that there was like seven books and they were phenomenal. But that, she's very sharing that and in the books.
00:10:23
Speaker
she rationalizes wearing Doc Martens boots because leather is a by-product and it's exactly you just took me straight back there and isn't it so weird what your brain remembers from like books when you're a child like how did I obviously it was speaking to me even at that time even at that time the vortex of time was like Amy you're going to need to take note of this what Mia Thermopolis thinks about leather as a by-product anyway that's robb I want to read the books yeah So eating animals isn't hot. It's not. I don't think it is, but I'm still going to do it sometimes. Yeah. I'm going to just, I'm going to throw in there and just, it's hot to listen to what you need and to switch it up when you need to and to not give a shit what anyone may think of that. Just do what you need to do for you. That's so hot.
Silence & Productivity in Modern Life
00:11:15
Speaker
So hot.
00:11:16
Speaker
Love it. Okay. Janessa, this is your episode. So tell us about it. yay okay so i had a moment of inspiration yesterday and i texted amy out of the blue saying oh my gosh let's do this let's do this and amy was like yes so i laid out and like but i'd like you guys to bear in mind that i was drunk when she sent me this and then while she explains to you what this is imagine being drunk and trying to comprehend what you're gonna have to do the very next day so just bear that in mind
00:11:47
Speaker
ah Yes, so here I am across the world in a cafe, you know, just thinking of this and Amy is having her ah like late day drink. I'm at my soiree, I'm at my Christmas soiree with my friends. And I sent her a fucking PDF. yeah So alright you guys, so our episode is about silence in a noisy world.
00:12:12
Speaker
And um we are going to be taking everything that we're talking about is going to be coming out of this book that I've been reading called The Power of Silence in a World of Noise. And the book is also called Golden on the Front. It's written by Justin Zorn and Leah Mars. And this is uh years long years long well year-long studies um of people's experience with silence and it's exploring how disruptive noises to our nervous system to our psychological ability to just exist alone and not constantly surrounded by things um they interview and i would highly suggest you read this the interview
00:12:59
Speaker
hundreds of people throughout their research so there's Zen Buddhists they've interviewed there's priests they've interviewed there's teachers there's everyday people they've interviewed there's scientists neuroscientists like it is just a treasure trove and what they do is they kind of condense all of that what that person said down to a paragraph or two and then they go to the next person so it's like the most beautiful bite-size amount so With that said, we'll get into kind of more of the opener about this so now you know about the book. What we're going to talk about is that now more than ever in our world it's filled with constant stimuli. So consumer-based industries and social media is profiting from our consumption of materials that are designed to captivate and hold our attention hostage.
00:13:44
Speaker
these industries often profit from our unrest and distress and this episode will be exploring the radical silence in a world that's fighting for your constant attention and we'll be reading from the book i just mentioned the power of silence so i also want to just add in there that like our society has made productivity into an idol like we idolize people who are constantly busy and it's shown as like a really amazing thing to be yeah so like And we reward those who are persistent through their busyness. So it's not something we often look down upon when someone says, sorry, hang on, I'm very busy right now. I'm doing a lot of
00:14:26
Speaker
work even though it's outside the work hours. So that's an example. yeah So yeah, it's crazy. And so then in society, we've managed to make people confuse their own self-worth with that productivity and work performance. So while we can take pride in what we bring to the table in our jobs and careers, it's a fine line to walk when it consumes so much of our mental space um that the time to rest when we are not being productive it makes us so nervous because we outwardly feel like we appear as lazy or unproductive yeah so yeah that's it's a mouthful but we're gonna get into it yeah it's so it's so the whole productivity thing is so ingrained in our culture and i think the prime example of this is when you're catching up with someone
00:15:22
Speaker
You often, if it's not someone you don't know super well, like if you're really in an intimate relationship with someone, you might ask, how are you feeling? But so often it's, what have you been doing? Like, hi, what have you been doing?
00:15:38
Speaker
like as a conversation starter rather than like, hi, how are you feeling? You know, like we're always, where it's like we're like checking up on each other to see who's been more productive and like measuring like deep down, we're like actually measuring like, what are they doing? Am I doing enough? Like the the competition between peers and people, even if it's subconscious, it still is bred into our everyday conversations.
00:16:09
Speaker
Totally. Yeah, that's baked into me fully. Yeah. Yeah, that's so interesting. I saw a friend who's been one of my good friends since third grade recently, and she lives in Oregon. Heather, she'd be fine if I said her name. So we were hanging out and I was like, what have you been up to? Like, what are you doing? And then I realized after we started talking about that, that I love that she's doing things, but I really wanted to know more deep stuff. So I was like, what's bringing you joy?
00:16:35
Speaker
And then we just got into it and we were just talking about, you know, ah where energy was going. So yeah. Oh, yeah. I think it would be great if we could have more people like you in the world. the awesome I'm trying. That's the first time that I remembered to like, be like, Oh, what else? Good. Great first up.
00:16:57
Speaker
Okay. Should I kick us off? Yeah. and with a with one of the first, because we're going to read you some pages and food for thought um so that you have a little bit of context. So the constant obligation to have to think of the right thing to say, to deliver on other people's expectations can create, in Cyrus's words, a static that crowds out the signal and the signal.
00:17:25
Speaker
Oh, sorry. And the signal, he says, is what is truly in the heart. I feel like I didn't read that well. I'm going to read that again. The constant obligation to have to think of the right thing to say, to deliver on other people's expectations, can create in Cyrus's words, a static that crowds out the signal. And the signal, he says, is what is truly in the heart.
00:17:48
Speaker
Over the past decade, a range of authors including Alex Sujeong Kim-Pang, Chris Bailey, and Arianna Huffington have described how busyness is now a primary status symbol in our society. Like Cyrus, we know that feeling when quiet reflection gives way to self-doubt, even guilt. Shouldn't I be doing something? Shouldn't I be earning my keep?
00:18:15
Speaker
Shouldn't I be getting my voice out there or staying in touch or building my brand? The writer and researcher Linda Stone suggests there may even be more at play in this situation than just our worship of productivity. Nearly 30 years ago, she coined the term continuous partial attention, which she argues is distinct from multitasking.
00:18:40
Speaker
Whereas multitasking is motivated by the desire to be efficient, continuous partial attention is trying to ensure that we never miss out on an opportunity. We constantly scan the landscape, typically a digital one these days, for connections, validations, and openings.
00:18:59
Speaker
It's non-stop hustle. It's FOMO writ large. Stone says that continuous partial attention mimics an almost constant crisis in our nervous systems. These underlying feelings of missing out or falling behind with respect to social expectations explain at least partially why a reported 69% of millennials experience anxiety being away from a smartphone even briefly.
00:19:31
Speaker
um and On that, question the question of, do you ever feel fear when you're away from your smartphone? I just have to talk about this time that happened to me recently, which is a prime example of this. I was walking after work with my phone in my pocket, with my hands also in my pockets because it was cold.
00:19:54
Speaker
And I must have somehow turned my phone onto this mysterious setting where it's like voice audible. So like for blind people, every it tells you what you're clicking on on the screen. So sort like if you press the time, it says 2.45 PM. and If you press the date, your phone speaks out the date.
00:20:17
Speaker
Um, but it meant, because I didn't know how to use this setting, it meant I was essentially locked out of my phone. Cause rather than like just putting my pin in, it was reading me back the numbers, like, and it it was very hectic. so ah So I was dealing with, but I couldn't figure it out. I was like, Oh my God, I'm going to have to get all the way home, which is like an hour and a half commute sometimes without my phone. Cause I couldn't use it.
00:20:42
Speaker
Um, and I was spiraling. I was literally spiraling. I was like, what am I going to do? Just sit there on the train, like a staring. out the window for an hour and a half. Like I was losing my mind, like trying to sort of out and I like managed to Siri voice call and watch me like, can you Google how to get a phone off of like this voice thing so that I can see. Yeah. I was freaking out. I was freaking out. So unfortunately I am fully within that 69%.
00:21:13
Speaker
I am too. I am too. I, oh gosh, there was, it's different than forgetting the phone, but there was a time where I, gosh, where was I? I think I was just walking, like literally just walking downtown and I hadn't charged my phone and my phone went dead, which isn't common for me, but it did. And there I was with my AirPods in and I thought, okay, I guess I can take these out. And all of a sudden I was like, ew, no.
00:21:41
Speaker
Like, no. And then I got really worried because then I was like, well, I have nothing to listen to. Like, what am I going to do on this walk downtown? And like, I kept these fucking AirPods in my ears with nothing playing. And that was something that gave me
Technology, Anxiety & Social Dynamics
00:21:56
Speaker
comfort. But literally, yeah, I was in a fear state of like, how will I be entertained? Like, well yeah, it's it's kind of mind blowing. It is a real jolt of fear. Yeah. It's wild. It is concerning. And I think it's it Yeah, it can't be good for us. And I always envy, there's always old men, at least in the UK, old men just like walk around outside like with their hands behind their back, just like strolling, looking at the trees, looking at the sky. And I kind of envy them. I'm like, I wish I could be like, I wish I could have that level of peace.
00:22:35
Speaker
ina shiha But you could argue that old men aren't concerned about missing out on opportunities anymore. So like part of what this is saying is that we're trying to make sure we don't miss out on an opportunity.
00:22:52
Speaker
and Yeah, which is obviously something old men are first about. They've had all their opportunities, they're just chilling now. And that's something too that's really interesting to me because she also says like, we're worried about falling behind with respect to social expectations.
00:23:09
Speaker
expectations so I've had actually that fear as well quite honestly where I've worried when I left my phone at home and I ran to the grocery store that I was gonna miss some important text or some friend might be going through a crisis and if I don't respond they're gonna be offended that they think I don't care like I have worked myself into that little mindset of absolute crap where I know that like realistically if you were to say I'm sorry I didn't have my phone on me like it could be fine like right it's fine but also at the same time that's the other thing about this day and age is I think it's really bizarre to hear someone say sorry I didn't have my phone on me right yeah because it's honest all the freaking time so there is an obligation and expectation around it
00:23:55
Speaker
Which is that's rough, but I also just want to point out to that like she's literally telling us that our nervous system is It she says here it almost you're almost in a constant crisis when you're worried about these things your body Doesn't understand that these are not the reality and that these are your thoughts. So you're mimicking a crisis situation and your nervous system is just going wild trying to regulate itself around the fear of like forgetting your phone or or worrying about not being there for the social events.
00:24:35
Speaker
yeah it's a huge part of how we're connected to um like the gal i've thought at times even get i really would love to not be on social media but it it's hot as awful as it is to say I don't even like really talk to my distance friends anymore I just see what they upload on their story and that's how I know what's going on in their lives like my friends are literally like moving to new places and like actual friends like from school not just like acquaintances like actual legit friends and I just don't talk to them I just like send a ah heart
00:25:16
Speaker
yeah like moved to a different town. um Yeah, it's concerning. It's good. This is good for me. This is holding up. This is holding a mirror up for me already. So Amy mentioned Cyrus in the the paragraph prior. And now he's talking about you know, should I be earning my keep, you know, should I be getting my voice out there? And I want to take us back to that again, because um we're going to talk about his story a little bit more in depth too. And so Cyrus Habib, he was a politician, so I'll give you that as a background and
00:25:52
Speaker
Then I'll just start reading it. So it says, in November of 2020, Cyrus Habib went straight from Lieutenant Governor's office into a 30-day silent retreat, where he prayed and examined his thoughts while learning how to rigorously practice the 500-year-old spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola.
00:26:14
Speaker
It was the time of the presidential election, but Cyrus, the consummate politician, wasn't even able to learn the results. He had no phone or internet and no contact with his family or friends. When it came to auditory and informational stimulation, he was on a total elimination diet.
00:26:34
Speaker
And yet Cyrus noticed that he still had to continue with hearty heaping servings of internal noise. I'd have these pangs of doubt where I start to ask myself, oh my god, what am I doing? Have I made a huge mistake?
00:26:52
Speaker
While Cyrus tells us that he had become a Jesuit in order to tune his life to the key of the divine, he kept encountering the discordant notes of of his consciousness, um internal chatter, and left him agitated, unsettled. So after a few weeks in silence, he realized why he was facing much so much internal noise. He says, I wasn't asking myself, am I happy?
00:27:20
Speaker
I was asking myself, how do other people see what I'm doing? Cyrus realized he was continuing to stake his whole sense of fulfillment on other people's perceptions of him. This was especially problematic because by this point, he had come to assume that people thought he was totally nuts. He had just gone from being a prominent public official to a novice member of an Austria, I don't know how that says.
00:27:49
Speaker
I'll share a thank you religious order. He says, I mean what an off the wall thing to do. As Cyrus sat in silence with his insight about where he was looking for fulfillment, something shifted. He says, I reached a point where I realized what my heart actually desires.
00:28:08
Speaker
if If I just ask myself, what do you want? The answer was to be exactly where I am. So I want to back this up a little bit because in the first chapter of this book, it talks about how stressed out Cyrus was as a politician and how he was extremely good at what he did. And so when he Outwardly it seemed that he made an abrupt decision to become a Jesuit a Monk pretty much he like went and lived with the brothers there and People were like whoa, and that's what he means by they must think I went totally nuts but He actually had just tapped into what he really wanted for the first time
00:28:56
Speaker
Yeah. And so there's, so we were looking at this and our notes around this are, you know, what stands out to us is he was continuing to stake his whole sense of fulfillment on other people's perception of him. Oh,
00:29:13
Speaker
Let that sink in, you guys. like i i I struggle with this. This is a Janessa struggle for sure because there's times where I yeah kind do feel like um I question myself like, why am I doing this? And then I'm like, yeah oh and and especially when it comes to social media recently i've started asking myself like why are you posting this yeah like what does it put out into the world and especially because those things exist for a long time even if they disappear on a story they have a digital footprint like
00:29:54
Speaker
It's almost like a carbon footprint. Like you can't see it, but it's detrimental and it's there if it's not done well. So a lot of the times when I'm asking myself this, I think, oh, it's going to look good. And it's like, well, for who, who is it going to look for? Like, what am I doing? So I definitely, I have fallen for this and I continue to fall for it. And it's something I'm personally working on. And I thought it was so brave of.
00:30:24
Speaker
this person to just outwardly say, you know... yeah i I wasn't asking myself what I wanted. Yeah, I'm getting to the point where I don't even know what I want or like without the influence of an influencer yeah or my Pinterest board. And there's a prime example of this because um it's just been Christmas, Edward got me a watch and I'm like, I wasn't in love with it. I was like, if you're going to spend like quite a bit of money, we should get one that I absolutely love, you know?
00:30:57
Speaker
um So he's been like, okay, which one do you want? And now I'm like, I don't know. And like my first instinct, I was like, let me go on Instagram and see what other watches people have. And then like that will like give me some guidance on what I would like. Or like, yeah, let me go on Pinterest and see which ones I've like pinned. Which is insane. Like I couldn't even look through, I was like looking through the jeweler's websites.
00:31:24
Speaker
just like I don't know which of these I like. Isn't that insane? like And I think i'm I'm sure I'm not alone in that. like Someone's like, I want a new coat. Let me see what coats people are wearing. you know yeah it's just um yeah It's quite scary to think that I couldn't even draw draw my own conclusion on what I might like because in my mind I was thinking like whatever watch I wear, I want people to look at it and think something about me because of it.
00:31:53
Speaker
yeah i went and i And I want to appease them by wearing a watch that they think is cool. Rather than just knowing in my heart what's cool. Yeah, bit of a mind fuck. ah Yeah, I'm right there with you. I literally am straight there. It's a man need to work on So, ah you know, I think it's it's also notable that it's like it's a really relatable place like we were just saying um you know to place your worth in those earthy things and such as people's opinions of us and what cars we drive or clothes we're wearing or you know watches like we're just saying and and how many likes we'll get on social media if we're seen wearing these or we post them. So it's pretty interesting because what Cyrus did, it's radical because he wants to be exactly where he is. And I don't think a lot of us can say that. um And it's not the same thing as not wanting to grow. That's not what he's saying. He's not saying I'm happy, satisfied here, and I'm never gonna strive to grow.
00:32:53
Speaker
That's what we would place on it from being alive in a world that just wants continuous productivity. But what he's really saying is he understands that those worldly earthly things cannot determine what he believes about himself anymore. That his worth is completely determined on where his heart is and wanting, his worth is wanting to be where he is right now.
00:33:20
Speaker
yeah So he would feel a lack of worth if suddenly he's like, oh, you know, I don't want to be here right now. Or like, I should be doing this. I should be doing that. yeah So that's just... I need to get myself to one of these retreats.
00:33:36
Speaker
right yeah and it's it's amazing too because the other thing too is like he he says you know it wasn't easy he says he couldn't tune out his own voice and that so while it was silent in the room He had a world of chaos in his mind and I want to just touch on that for a moment because I think we're going to touch on that a little later too. It's just, it's something that if you're trying to like meditate for the first time or you're trying to just be without a phone, without music in a room for the first time,
00:34:16
Speaker
you will start to hear yourself but what you'll start to hear is the programmed reactions of your mind. Things that have been said and going on but you haven't noticed them because you haven't gotten quiet and it's really uncomfortable to notice them.
00:34:36
Speaker
yeah yeah exactly like it doesn't even to the point where like it doesn't even feel natural to like notice your own thoughts like it it makes you feel bad to notice your own thoughts which is crazy like the the level of disconnect is crazy It was super wild. Yeah. and Did you have any more notes for showing me on
Silence, Ego & Self-Discovery
00:34:58
Speaker
to the next page? No, i'm I'm excited for what's going to come next. I think it'll all kind of tie nicely into into what we just said. Okay. So decades before the words attention economy entered the popular lexicon, a Swiss completative. This is really pushing our vocab. The girls are reading today. You got it. as the way it's kind of narrative. Max Picard was thinking of about the question, why don't we seriously weigh the costs and benefits of all the noise we generate? Silence, Picard wrote, is the only phenomenon today that is useless. It does not fit into the world of profit and utility. It simply is.
00:35:43
Speaker
It seems to have no other purpose, it cannot be exploited. Picard wrote that there's actually more help and healing in silence than in all the useful things in the world. It makes things whole again by taking them back from the world of dissipation into the world of wholeness.
00:36:04
Speaker
He concluded, it gives things something of its own holy uselessness. For that is what silence itself is, holy uselessness. About six months after Cyrus left office and started his Jesuit training, he was already immersed in service. He was working in a group house in Tacoma, Washington.
00:36:28
Speaker
where people with and without intellectual disabilities live together and serve one another in a fraternal way. We caught up on the phone with him during a half hour break in his responsibilities there. Cyrus was obviously making himself useful and yet he seemed to embody this spirit of holy uselessness.
00:36:48
Speaker
as he engaged himself in volunteer cleaning and dishwashing that didn't register as any kind of measurable revenue generating activity, according to GDP. He had stepped out of the logic of productivity and constant connectivity, the logic of performing to other people's expectations, the logic of the world of noise, spending time in that group house,
00:37:12
Speaker
Cyrus was hardly in monostatic silence, but his mind was remarkably quiet. Love it, yearning for it. um What does holy uselessness make you think of, Janessa?
00:37:31
Speaker
o Okay, I think it's such we like came up with these questions and I'm like oh um my answer oh Well, you know, it's something that like when I read that that page really hit me in the feels as well because holy uselessness what I think what I believe is holy for me and it might resonate with you is that holy is a state of being, a state of mind where you you feel complete with where you are right now and you're not concerned about the past you're not berating yourself about the weird things you did or worried about how it looks and you're also not concerned about your future
00:38:19
Speaker
you're in a moment experiencing that moment with minimal judgment to no judgment. And that to me is really holy. um And that's a really hard place to get. I've gotten there a handful of times in my life. It's so hard because like we were just saying the noise in your mind is really hard to work through to get there. yeah um But why I think it's beautiful that it's useless and why what stood out to me in that passage is that you can't exploit silence, is that it's it's useless to the earthly world because it doesn't make anyone money when you go inside to work on something so great within yourself that only you can do.
00:39:11
Speaker
That is mind-blowing. That is mind-blowing to me that that literally I believe like it is a form of I'm gonna just straight out say it's a form of evil I think to live in a world that is so concerned with making money off you that they don't even want you to have that time to know yourself.
00:39:31
Speaker
because if you do become wholly useless, you become in some way a whole in that part of yourself. And guess what? If you start to like yourself, the industries are fucked because you probably won't consume as much as you have been because you are going to notice a whole world within you that you cannot put nice clothes on or you cannot put like, you know, earthly value on because it's, it's you, it's just your whole soul.
00:40:01
Speaker
So you know the actual meaning of holy is unique. Like that's what what the the word holy actually means in, I don't know, whatever translation. Yeah. So it means like, you know, to be set apart, like to be unique, be not like other people or not like something else.
00:40:20
Speaker
um And that kind of ties in really nicely with that, what you were saying in terms of where we are in a current late stage capitalism. um We are, it is unique if you are useless.
00:40:37
Speaker
um So yeah, I think that just ties in really nicely with holy uselessness, the idea of it. um It makes me think of quiet time to listen to either our own inner voice or God's voice or something greater that is set apart from this material world. um Because we already have the answers to all of our questions within us because we are born of this world. like every part of us has already experienced life before here on this world, like in some way. We know we have the answers like when people get into a place of silence, holy uselessness, whatever, like if you think about monks or really highly spiritual people,
00:41:25
Speaker
they have had answers given to them through meditation that like no one else has got in this world. yeah like there's There are things that our systems can't answer, but those those answers have been given to people through being quiet and listening to something that doesn't even like exist here materially.
00:41:48
Speaker
Does that make sense for my chatting show? Oh, no yeah yeah It totally makes total sense. We didn't we we didn't include it in the material that we're looking at today but I highly encourage you to read this book because there is actually a story of um a man who is from New Zealand and he is his I guess his background is he's native to New Zealand He's part of a tribe and I can't recall what the tribe's name is right off the bat, but he was saying and it was um Again, it was like translated. He said, wow, silence. He's like, I don't have, you know, really a word in our tribe to say like what that means to us. wow That makes sense to you. So he put it that he, they believe that everything has biological understanding of what it's supposed to do. Like you were saying, Amy, and he said, we know this because even whales,
00:42:43
Speaker
are born into this vast ocean and they are they already know what to listen for without being taught and they find their way through this huge sea through this whole world under the water and he also mentioned like bees the bees rely on on the sounds of the other bees and the scents and it just is this whole there's a whole language within us that it knows what it's doing there's an innate intelligence and so what he's saying is that you know for people he's saying in western culture and biology they'll tell you we don't have really those kind of biological rhythms and that we learn but we do have those biological rhythms and
00:43:25
Speaker
You know, even things like the circadian rhythm just to your body wants to be up when it's light wants to sleep when it's dark and If you don't feel that it means you've been kind of kicked off that rhythm but that's something that I believe what you're saying is so true Amy because it's like I Yeah. Like when you get quiet, you tap into something that's just like you said, been there all along that maybe you just forgot about or you just haven't heard it in a really long time. yeah Or it might be, it might be your first time hearing it. Yeah. Even, but your body knew it or your, yeah, somewhere your consciousness knew it.
00:44:06
Speaker
Wow. All right. Are we ready to move forward again? Yeah. Okay. So we're going to continue with our readings. So there's going to be some mispronunciations coming up.
00:44:19
Speaker
So Roshi Joan Halifax, um a trailblazing anthropologist, Zen priest and inventor in end of life care says,
00:44:32
Speaker
In the presence of silence, the condition the conditioned self rattles and it scratches and it begins to crumble like old leaves or a worn rock. Silence is real and practical it's a real and practical way to dethrone the ego from its assumption assumed perch at the center point of everything.
00:44:55
Speaker
This seems particularly challenging for Westerners, she writes. We have filled our world with multiplicity of noises, a symphony of forgetfulness that keeps our own thoughts and realizations and feelings and intuition out of audible range.
00:45:12
Speaker
She laments all we're missing when we when we drown out silence and adds, silence is where we learn to listen, where we learn to see. Yeah, this kind of is exactly, she worded it better. ah She did, yeah. And that's why we have her, guys. ah So um my notes here, say my thing just froze with my notes, but- Should I read your notes?
00:45:41
Speaker
hi Yeah. um What was turned out to you was dethroning the ego, which is yeah so key. Like it's just everything, everything is about us in our lives, every single thing. Even like people having children, their children are made to feed the mother's ego at this point in our world and our society. You see it all the time.
00:46:10
Speaker
um Yeah, it's really at the center of everything. Like we've made, but yeah, our world turns around our egos now. It's atrocious.
Ego, Capitalism & Feminism
00:46:20
Speaker
It reminds me too that, you know that thing that like gained traction on social media where people were like, I'm in my main character era or like main character. car to energy Main character to energy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:34
Speaker
I ah maybe it's just the ways I've seen it represented but I think it's so funny and detrimental and silly to me to see people be like I am the main character and because I am like yeah that's ego you are in your viewpoint but truly everybody's the main character of their own experience And the moment you realize everybody thinks that, then you realize, hold up, wait. what What kind of film is this? Like, what am I in? We're all the main character. It's a very, it's a wake up call. um yeah And I just feel like the main character energy thing, while it can be really fun and, you know, it can be also used as a term of endearment, I think. I think it just like went too far in social media to like,
00:47:27
Speaker
validate people in being vain and only yeah caring about how they look or what they think of their life and how um not caring how they impact other people because they're the main character. But if we all thought that way, we'd live in a really sad, sad world. yeah i think controversial thought but i'm just gonna throw it out there i actually think this is a like symptom of the feminist movement because we've through feminism women have been told that like men see us as not equal they see us as less than like they see us as like we play a secondary role we aren't the main character if you will versus the patriarchy um
00:48:12
Speaker
so we've because we've been told that we see main character energy or whatever like alpha female all of that as a like um a way to cure the repression of the patriarchy um when it's actually got women further away from something meaningful because it's just feeding the egos of women yeah it's interesting i think that goes back to the exploiting part i think i'm i think truly for me i understand that patriarchy does exist i understand it has a lot of issues there for women however
00:48:54
Speaker
I really see know now that I've been getting silent with myself the ways in which you're saying, Amy, that it's being exploited to create emotion and disrest and disruption around the way we think and feel about it so that we continue to use outlets to make content around it. And why is that exploiting? You maybe you may think it's just interesting because every time you get a like on Instagram.
00:49:26
Speaker
It's taking you out of your life and back into a virtual world that isn't real. It's not real, babe. It's literally not real. um But it's designed that way. It's designed to bring you back. And oddly enough, when you haven't been that, so algorithms do a lot of different things. But in this book too, they explore the meta algorithm of Facebook and Instagram and your,
00:49:55
Speaker
Instagram and the fine print and Facebook, they have access to a lot of your phone and a lot of your other apps to see what you do, what you look up. And that's why you get ads that you're like, whoa, I was just thinking of that. Well, they know they're looking all over your phone and they're bringing it to you.
00:50:12
Speaker
So one thing about that that's kind of wild is they have, and we've talked about this with fashion before Amy and I, but they have psychologists on board who have created the like button, who have created the heart button to be as dopamine hijacking as possible so that you come back because every time you come back to the app, you make them money. And I know that sounds really funny, but the more time you're on there, the more money you're putting in their pockets. So they are going to make it as controversial.
00:50:46
Speaker
as enticing yeah as possible. And that's part of what you're saying, Amy, is like, I think a lot is amplified on platforms with feminism, like against the patriarchy. And I think there are valid points, but I think it's gone so far because they know it hooks people in yeah and it makes people disagree and that keeps them on the app longer. It literally is exploiting your feelings.
00:51:11
Speaker
of course yeah every insecurity and even building on that maybe you're getting a little bit too far away from like the main message but you know the whole like 4B movement of like women that aren't having kids and like aren't getting married and aren't having kids because they think like if you do that you just end up like serving a man and you waste your life it's such a false like sense of strength because you're not gaining anything you're just you have more time to work to feed capitalism like if you're not taking care of your children all you're gaining is more time at work like it's such a
00:51:55
Speaker
It's such a trick. And I'm not i'm not saying like everyone should have kids. 100% you need to do like whatever is right for you. But like it it's you don' yeah you're not winning. You're not like beating the men by not marrying them. You're just... You're the only winner is capitalism and the economy. Thank you. Absolutely. a Mic drop. Yes.
00:52:19
Speaker
So yeah, i want to I totally agree with that. And and I also want to you know bring it back too. She says that the the silence, so she's saying when we dethrone the ego, the silence is where we learn to listen and when we learn to see.
00:52:35
Speaker
And I think that is so God coded or universe coded, however yeah you want to put that. And it's something bigger than yourself because it's like the Amazing Grace song. You know, I once was blind, but now I see. yeah I don't always think of that as like a literal blind person. I think of that as someone who yeah didn't realize what was around them finally tapped into themselves and what they want and what makes their heart thrive and now they're seeing the ways that they've been exploited or they're seeing the way that that their old life pattern wasn't serving yeah them it was serving capitalism or some other greater system and so I just love where she says you've learned to see and it's just such a
00:53:24
Speaker
Scary intimate experience to really witness yourself in this lifetime But I but I would highly encourage it because this person we just read about while she's got quite the repertoire She's like everything but she also is innovative in end-of-life care and I think something I've noticed um now I've been in the room while a family friend was passing away and what I noticed is even though we're talking they're going through such a deep experience alone and it's not to get morbid but like when you die you you die with yourself even if you're surrounded by other people dying
00:54:10
Speaker
you pass with yourself no one else can be in your body while you're dying and like I don't want that to scare you I want that to empower you to be silent and to get to know yourself because when when our time on earth is done and we all don't know when that is I hope you know who you are i hope you know who you are because what you were wearing what you were driving where what your social media following was it's gonna feel like monopoly money once you're gone it was never real yeah it was all really silly you know so i just think yeah i just think get to know yourself and like yeah face
00:54:58
Speaker
face those fears because she says conditioned self rattles and scratches and that goes back to what Cyrus was saying where your mind just is noisy at first and it's uncomfortable to sit with yourself like we were just saying but Amy said last episode I think that the obstacle is the way and I think Amy you're spot on because it's like if you can sit in silence and hear your thoughts and you can receive them but pull away from reactivity of them so you know your mind is in a thousand places you
00:55:30
Speaker
Some people say you see it like a cloud floating by and you acknowledge it, but you don't follow it. You let it float by. yeah So if you can do that, I think you're able to find a new dimension of self or a deeper meaning of yourself that's beyond the construct of your daily life. So I think Amy's totally right with us that the obstacle is the way. So when you're getting silent and it gets uncomfortable, don't give up yeah on yourself. yeah Stay there. It's so worth knowing the wisdom that you have in there.
00:56:01
Speaker
yeah completely wow thank you thank you for watching my favorite quote and there's really there's really nothing i can't be related to it's so good and yeah you know it also i just have to put in there too like something that i've struggled with so i used to do like nutritional coaching through instagram and i really love working with people it actually lights up my soul but why One of the main reasons why I stopped is I recognized in the space I was in that a lot of coaches, counselors online, not meeting therapists, I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about people who are like certified, but not gone to school. A coach. ah Yeah, a coach. Those folks are exploiting
00:56:58
Speaker
a really serious sadness in the world sometimes not always but what i mean is because we can't get silent we don't know ourselves and we're looking everywhere in the world for ourselves and it's really inviting to find someone who says i can help you calm your whole life down and figure out what to do And people can inspire us and they can help us for a time, yeah but it will always fade and never last the test of time. So unless you've invested and you're really truly doing the work in yourself, you're not going to see those results. And what I was seeing is really people profiting off knowing people are lost right now. yeah And that made me feel like shit. yeah And I noticed the ways in which I had done that in the past. And so.
00:57:47
Speaker
I would say it's, I'm not saying coaches are bad. I'm not saying they're not necessary. I'm just saying try to get silent with yourself first to know if you even need one. Yeah. And I will also say I i completely agree with you. You are right in everything you're saying. I think some coaches don't even realize that they're profiting off of like people's insecurities. Yeah. they I think some of them genuinely think that they are being helpful because they they don't even understand the concept of this. They don't even understand the concept of like being silent and meeting yourself. I just want to put that out there just in case there's any coaches. The coaches think that Phil read to Phil's, which is good if you do. That's a good opportunity for you to take stock. But yeah, you also, it doesn't mean they are ill-intentioned.
00:58:41
Speaker
No. And like I said, yeah, I've done coaching in the past. I wasn't ill intentioned, but I'd noticed the system that was at hand. Yeah. And I think it's really radical to know this information for yourself, Anna, if you're a coach, because the most ideal way to bring this in, if you are a coach,
00:59:02
Speaker
is to remind people that they have the answers, that it's not you, that it's always been in them, and that you're just there to guide them through their journey, but you can't walk the course for them. yeah So, yeah here I'll reprimand what I said. no jane no No, you shouldn't. You don't need to, and you shouldn't. yeah okay well Yeah, well, anyway, you guys, that is our episode for today. Yeah. And yeah, I just want to thank you all for being here. Like we know this is a deep one and Amy and I are very conscientious of making sure we're not always going too deep so that you're not like, Oh my gosh, this is like work to listen to. Yeah. for the yeah So we'll be definitely bringing you some lighthearted content soon. Um, but yeah, I, I think there's a lot of food for thought here.
00:59:51
Speaker
And I'd highly encourage you to read this book or to get the audible of this so that you can listen to it. um yeah and yeah Beautiful. Thank you so much for seeing it and sparking the inspo for us to do it. I always like when you... I learned so much from you, Janessa. I really like that about our friendship. I'm always learning from you. ah Likewise, same here. Obstacles away. yeah
01:00:19
Speaker
Um, okay, everybody. Thank you for listening and for being here. And we'll see you again in two weeks. Um, until then, remember to let the light in. Goodbye.