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Micro wisdom delivered to your ears every morning in voice notes ranging from 3 to 15 minutes long. Wisdom on how to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Every podcast will ground you in the present moment to ensure you know what's important, the here and now.
Hello. Good morning, everyone. So I just wanna remind you that if you haven't been having the best few days or you kinda gone off track or whatever you wanna say, you can do some change today. You know, today's the day you can start fresh again. It's a new day, new leaf, all this stuff, but really your life is just made up of days.
Speaker 1:So if you want to get back on track, you have to get back on track today or on a day for the momentum to build. Don't think I've got to do it for ten days, thirty days, fifty days, just get rolling today And don't delay, don't think too much about things, just get in and get stuck in. But today I want to read some quotes out from the book. So I'm going do this once a week, I'm going go to my bookshelf and I'm going to take a book out. Usually I have highlighted the quotes in the book that resonated with me and I don't know what quotes I'm going read because I'm going go through the book and just read some of the highlighted ones.
Speaker 1:Is a book by a philosopher called Krishnamurti and his way of looking at things is very, very interesting. So I'm going to share some of these today with you and hopefully they'll help you have a better day. So the first thing, here's the first quote from the book: Be subtle mentally or supple mentally. Strength does not lie in being firm and strong Sorry. I need to resay that because that's our starter terribly.
Speaker 1:Be supplementally. Strength does not lie in being firm and strong, but in being pliable. The pliable tree stands in a gale. Gather the strength of a swift mind. Life is strange.
Speaker 1:So many things happen unexpectedly. Mere resistance will not solve any problem. One needs infinite pliability in a single heart. And What he's really getting at here is, and it's bang on really, you can be as prepared as you want, you can be as rigid as you want, you're going to do this plan, I'm going to do this plan, I'm to do this plan, but what happens when the plan doesn't go to plan? Famously Mike Tyson said everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the face.
Speaker 1:Then they go oh shit, didn't expect to get punched in the face, well you've got boxing match made, you should have expected ah, what are going to do after you get punched and when you could feel off balance and when the stars are in your eyes. And it's the same for you day to day, you can say I'm going to do this today, I'm going to do that today, you expect to hit your plan, you expect to try and be perfect, you expect to hit this hit that, but that's not how it works. You're not going to have perfect days in a row, it doesn't happen that way. Things aren't going go to plan, things are going to pop into your day that you didn't expect and it's going to take your mental energy away, it's going to take your energy away, it's going to take all sorts of time away from your days and some of those days suck and some of them suck less really, you know, when you think about problems. Sometimes you have a small problem, some days you like a big problem comes into your day that you didn't expect or foresee.
Speaker 1:But that's part of the game. Even Marcus Aurelius wrote this in his diary during the middle of a war, and he was trying to make peace deals with these tribes, and they were backstabbing him and this and that. And he knew it was a matter of a time before, they backstabbed him again, and he'd have to move and attack and go to war again. Right? And he wrote in his diary, you know, when you wake up, expect to be met with treacherous people, angry people, people who have not got the right mind, people who think bad is good and all this type of stuff.
Speaker 1:He was preparing himself for that to be the norm each day, because that is the norm of old days as well. Whilst you're not dealing with a Roman war, you are potentially dealing with things in work or family foods or whatever it may be, you're dealing with many things just on a smaller scale but they're similar problems but the scaling is different, if that makes sense. So be swift with your mind today, don't be rigid. And this is why I think when it comes to your nutrition especially, obviously I can give you a custom meal plan to go as a base, can try different meals and all that, but really you have to be the one that makes the decisions and you have to be pliable, you have to be able to have a Mars by here or go to work and it's someone's birthday and they say hey I want you to have this piece of cake and you just say yeah okay you have it and then you just work with that, okay I've had a piece of cake, it goes in my calorie allowance, happy days I swivel and turn and I move with it.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying oh my god that wasn't in my plans and now it's all doom and gloom. No, you're not that pliable, tree, you're not the bamboo in the wind. You're a stiff oak tree getting cut down because you haven't learned to deal with things differently each day. So that's an essential skill. There's decisions we make, right?
Speaker 1:You might go and your friend says or your partner or whatever has bad news and they just want to order the takeaway, and you just want to be there with them, or you want have a drink with them, whatever it is, you end up doing something you didn't plan to do, you just work with it. We don't have to make it a problem. That's not how it works. To be alert to all your thoughts and feelings, don't let one feeling or thought slip by without being aware of it and absorbing all its content. Absorbing is not the word, but seeing the whole content of the thought feeling.
Speaker 1:It is like entering a room and seeing the whole content of the room at once, its atmosphere, and its spaces. To see and to be aware of one's thoughts makes one intensely sensitive, pliable, and alert. Don't condemn or judge, but be very alert. Out of separation, out of the dross comes pure gold. To see what is is really quite arduous.
Speaker 1:How does one observe clearly? A river, when it meets an obstruction, is never still. The river breaks down an obstruction by its weight or goes over it or works its way under it or around it. The river is never still. It cannot but act.
Speaker 1:It revolts intelligently, if we can put it that way. One must revolt intelligently and accept what is intelligently. To perceive what is, there must be the spirit of intelligent revolt. Not to mistake the obstacle needs a certain intelligence, but generally one is so eager to get what one wants that one dashes against it. Either one breaks oneself on the obstacle or one exhausts oneself in the struggle against it.
Speaker 1:To see the rope as the rope needs no courage, but to mistake the rope for a snake and then to observe needs courage. One must doubt, ever search, see the false as the false. One gets power to see clearly through the intensity of attention. You will see it will come. Right?
Speaker 1:Does that make sense to you? Maybe not. One must be clear with within oneself, then I assure you everything will come right. To be clear and you will see the things will shape themselves right without you doing anything about it. The right is not what one desires.
Speaker 1:What he's saying here is the what is' is like a fact, it's a feeling, it's the thing that's there. And we are too quick sometimes to try and change what is'. For example, you could feel a bit of anxiety, you could feel a bit of anger towards you just had a pasty or whatever. We're too quick to change what is', we're not happy with it so we kind of fight it, we go against it quite quickly. It's kind of our natural way to go about things.
Speaker 1:And this just keeps the fight alive, it keeps you fighting yourself, it keeps you fighting what is, as opposed to just letting it speak to you like a flowering. If I eat a brownie now and I just watch what my mind says about that, I'm intelligently watching it and I am just looking at what is, which is there is an arise in me that I didn't want to eat the brownie, it wasn't worth it, why did I do that, I'm trying to stay on track, it wasn't worth the calories, why am I such an idiot? You just leave those thoughts kind of arise and they will flower and they will die. And not doing anything about it is a positive action. That's what he's asking people to do here.
Speaker 1:It's like when these moments happen you have to catch them in the day, in the second they happen. You can't look back and try and puzzle it together. You can see how you react to things that come into your senses if you're very attentive at the time. Does that make sense? And I think this is a very important one about food by the way.
Speaker 1:Our relationship with food is very like we've got this diet culture conditioning baked into us, we've got this is bad, this is bad, this is bad. And even when we know that we can have that food item within our calorie allowance, we still get these thoughts that go, hey. What are you doing? You're definitely gonna put weight on with that. And you can't do anything about those thoughts, but you can observe them, but you can't judge them.
Speaker 1:Once you judge them, you fight it and you come you basically go into a grappling fight and you start rolling and fighting and tussling. You get worn out by air and there's more fighting, there's more chaos. But if you just observe it like a kid is telling you a story, you're just attentive, you're listening, it might not make sense but you're just listening and you're like 'yeah, mhmm' and from that you 'll learn a lot from where this comes from and you realise oh that's come from there. Oh you've got that from my film there. Oh well I got that thought from my mother telling me twenty five years ago that this will kill you.
Speaker 1:If you eat this it'll kill you. That's where it comes from. Okay. So let us crack on with a few more, shall we? Okay.
Speaker 1:Very few are aware of the inward changes, setbacks, conflicts, and distortions. Even if they are aware, they try to push them aside or run away from them. Don't you do it. I don't think you will, but there is a danger of living with your thoughts and feelings too closely. One has to be aware of one's thoughts and feelings without anxiety, without pressure.
Speaker 1:The real revolution has taken place in your life. You should be very much aware of your thoughts and feelings. Let them come out. Don't check them, which means don't stop them. Don't hold them back, let them pour out, the gentle as well as the violent ones, but be aware of them.
Speaker 1:Our petty minds have petty problems and petty answers, and so we spend our days. Yep. I was thinking of how important it is to be innocent, to have an innocent mind. Experiences are inevitable, perhaps necessary. Life is a series of experiences, but the mind need not be burdened with its own accumulative demands.
Speaker 1:It can wipe off each experience and keep itself innocent and burdened. This is important. Otherwise, the mind can never be fresh, alert, and pliable. You know, this is bang on. How many of us are living today with the weights of what we did yesterday?
Speaker 1:Many of us are living today with the weights of what we should have done three months ago, six months ago, five years ago? How many of us are living with the weights of what we did three hours ago? These weights are holding us down, we're not light, we're not playable, we're not alert and fresh. How many of us go to a festival or a holiday that we've been to before and we're trying to live it through the past lens and you can't even see it in this new lens. Say for example you go to a festival at Glastonbury, I was better last year.
Speaker 1:So once you go into that mode you're already not in this year, you're looking through the past. So that means you're not fresh and alert to a new experience or to a new place of being essentially. Same with the food choices that we make, like okay yeah you did have three chocolate bars last night but that weighing you down today is not making you fresh and alert to the what is today. There things could happening in front of you right now, you're not even there. Your friends, your family, your work colleagues, whatever, you're not even there in the room with them, you're thinking about yesterday and the burden of that.
Speaker 1:So then you're not here today to deal with today's things which means you're not fresh. Does that make sense to Hope it does. Okay. One is everlastingly comparing oneself with another, with what one is, with what one should be, with someone more fortunate. This comparison kills.
Speaker 1:Comparison is degrading, it perverts one's outlook. And on comparison one is brought up. Our education is based on it and so is our culture. There's an everlasting struggle to be something other than what one is. The understanding of what one is uncovers creativeness, but comparison breeds competitiveness, ruthlessness and ambition which we think brings about progress.
Speaker 1:Progress has only led so far to more ruthless wars and misery than the world has ever known. To bring up children without comparison is true education. Interesting, Comparison is definitely something that kills. 100%. It's kind of a paradox if you were listening to this podcast you're likely on a fitness plan or you're trying to improve your physique or your mind or whatever.
Speaker 1:So we're trying to better ourselves, we're trying to improve ourselves. But the human mind and the culture we're in has always thought of improvement as addition. When you think about how to make a room better, there was a study on this, they asked people how do you make this room better? 90 odd percent of people started thinking about what they could add to the room to make it better. A small percentage of people looked at what they could take away from the room to make it better.
Speaker 1:So we're often in the addition stage, I need to add more things to my life. But really where we want to be is understanding what we are right now. We don't feel like we need to add anything but what can we potentially remove? That's our way of looking at it and we don't have to compare to add more and more and more but maybe we're holding on to things that we thought would make things better for us and we're too worried about leaving them go because we are hoarders. Know you see those shows of people holding physical stuff and you're like 'I can never be that way' well you are that way but with your mind and not physical things.
Speaker 1:So you need to let go of these things we're holding on to and be happy with who we are right now. And yes progress comes from health, taking things one day at a time, I get my steps in, I will make sure my energy intake is on track, my protein intake is there, and I'll focus on my mind, will read philosophy or read books about psychotherapy, whatever you want to do. But you don't have to compare and think well I'm not as good as XYZ. You can just be here now and just take things as they come. And when you look back you will be able to compare and say wow, there's a big difference in me.
Speaker 1:But it hasn't come from a place of negativeness, it's come from just a journey you're on and you're going to be up and down. So many comments I see, my new weight loss got, I'm four or five weeks in, I've lost loads of weight, and then I'll see the same person at week eight and nine they'll be like my weight loss has stopped, I'm not making progress, this sucks, oh my god! And they feel like they've fallen off, they feel like they want to quit. But you are up and down, you're comparing your rate of progress four weeks ago to today, but things are different. You're not alert to today.
Speaker 1:Today is you're lighter, you can't add more steps maybe because you work, you've lost weight which means your maintenance will drop, so it's going to get harder and harder to lose weight over time which I've spoke about on the podcast before. But it's like taking on this new information. It's a new you there, you're comparing yourself to four weeks ago. When people start a weight loss plan they lose weight, they lose a lot of weight to start with because the body is kind of fresh to it, it's new, the depth is easy to achieve and then it becomes harder and harder. So we can't keep looking through the lens of the past oh well it was easy before' well you're not there now.
Speaker 1:It's a different part. Look at how you're going to do today. Last one, maybe this is one to think about. This is quite deep stuff by way so apologies guys if you are looking for just some motivation. Our days are so empty, filled with activities of every kind: business, speculation, meditation, sorrow and joy.
Speaker 1:In spite of all else, our lives are empty. Strip someone of position, power or money, and what are they? One had all that show outwardly, but is empty and shallow inwardly. One cannot have both inner and outer riches. The inner fullness far outweighs the outer.
Speaker 1:One can be robbed of the outer, outer events shattering what they have carefully built up. But inner riches are incorruptible. Nothing can touch them for they have not been put together by the mind. So I think about that, guys. I hope you have a good day, but remember fresh eyes today, be open to observing what happens in the mind, observing your relationship with food.
Speaker 1:Make a journal if you need to, if you catch any insights about how you've reacted to some kind of thought process about eating specific food and you'll start reading the book of yourself, which is the most important book to read of all. So have a good day, and I'll speak to you soon.