0:00

In a question, there's implied a correct

0:02

answer, and in games there's implied

0:04

you're fooling around to see what's

0:07

there. Welcome

0:16

to the one you feed Throughout

0:18

time, great thinkers have recognized the

0:20

importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes

0:22

like garbage in, garbage out,

0:24

or you are what you think ring

0:26

true. And yet for many of

0:29

us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower

0:31

us. We tend toward negativity, self

0:34

pity, jealousy, or fear.

0:36

We see what we don't have instead of what we

0:38

do. We think things that hold us

0:40

back and dampen our spirit. But

0:43

it's not just about thinking. Our

0:45

actions matter. It takes conscious,

0:47

consistent, and creative effort to make

0:49

a life worth living. This podcast

0:52

is about how other people keep themselves moving

0:54

in the right direction, how they feed

0:56

their good wolf m

1:10

Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode

1:12

is Brian Tom O'Connor and actor,

1:15

theater director, cabaret performer, and

1:17

formerly depressed guy who stumbled

1:19

onto the source of joy and happiness in the

1:21

background of all experience. He is the

1:23

author of the book Awareness Games.

1:26

Playing with your Mind to Create Joy.

1:29

If you value the content we put out each

1:31

week. Then we need your help. As

1:34

the show has grown, so have our expenses

1:36

and time commitment. Go to

1:38

one you feed dot net slash Support

1:41

and make a monthly donation. Our

1:43

goal is to get to five percent of our listeners

1:46

supporting the show. Please be part

1:48

of the five percent that make a contribution and

1:50

allow us to keep putting out these interviews

1:53

and ideas. We really need your

1:55

help to make the show sustainable and long

1:57

lasting. Again, that's

1:59

one you Feed dot net slash Support.

2:02

Thank you in advance for your help.

2:08

And here's the interview with Brian Tom

2:10

O'Connor. Hi, Brian, Welcome to the

2:12

show. Eric, thanks for having me. I'm happy

2:14

to have you on. You have a book called

2:16

Awareness Games, Playing

2:19

with your Mind to create Joy.

2:21

I'm looking forward to getting into some

2:24

of the different games that you have and and

2:26

asking you a little bit more about why

2:28

you think games are are a good approach.

2:30

But let's start like we usually do with the

2:32

parable. There's a grandfather

2:34

who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life,

2:37

there are two wolves inside of us that are always

2:39

at battle. One is a good wolf,

2:42

which represents things like kindness and

2:44

bravery and love, and the

2:46

other is a bad wolf, which represents

2:48

things like greed and hatred and fear. My

2:51

grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second.

2:54

He looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,

2:57

which one wins? And the grandfather

2:59

says, the one you feed. So

3:01

I'd like to start off by asking you what

3:04

that parable means to you in your life and

3:06

in the work that you do. Yeah, I love

3:08

that parable. I actually read it.

3:11

I can't even remember where, but about a year

3:13

ago I read it, and I

3:15

remember as soon as I read it,

3:18

I found tears welling up in my eyes.

3:20

I found it so moving, and I wasn't

3:22

sure why. I thought maybe it was

3:24

because I was just moved by

3:26

the idea of having such a wise

3:29

and kind and clever grandfather,

3:31

or maybe being a wise and clever and kind

3:34

grandfather. Uh. And then

3:36

I thought about it for a while, and

3:39

Uh. I also realized that whenever I

3:41

hear something with a ring of truth, I find

3:43

that moving, and so that's part of

3:45

it. And then you invited me to be on the

3:47

show, and I thought about it some more in comparison

3:50

to my book Awareness Games,

3:52

and I realized that there's a metaphor

3:54

in the book Uh that I

3:56

think really applies to the parable,

3:59

and it's uh, the metaphor of real

4:02

reality versus virtual

4:04

reality. And in

4:06

virtual reality, it's not exactly

4:08

the same, of course as putting on those virtual goggles,

4:11

but it's kind of what we do when

4:13

we're completely occupied

4:16

in thoughts about

4:18

the past and going over

4:20

what happened in the past and worry or planning

4:23

about the future, or having little conversations

4:26

with other people in our minds. It's

4:28

like putting on those virtual reality glasses

4:30

and all of a sudden, we're not here

4:33

now, We're not in what's actually

4:35

happening at the present. And

4:37

the opposite of that is something might call

4:40

real reality, which is combination

4:42

of a couple of things. It's just this

4:45

that's happening here right now,

4:48

all the things were aware of in our

4:50

senses at this moment, and

4:52

in addition to that, the

4:54

actual noticing of the awareness

4:57

that everything's appearing in And

5:00

I find that that's where happiness

5:03

is and that's where love is

5:05

is in that real

5:07

reality of noticing exactly

5:10

just what's happening now and noticing

5:12

the background awareness. And

5:14

the reason is is that pure

5:16

awareness as opposed to getting involved in the

5:18

content of awareness is like,

5:21

um, what's like a clear mirror that

5:23

just reflects whatever is in front

5:25

of it. It doesn't decide, Oh,

5:28

I'm going to reflect this orange

5:30

on the table, but I'm not going to reflect that banana.

5:32

I don't like bananas. It doesn't do that. It accepts

5:34

everything. And our awareness

5:37

is like that already. It's not something

5:39

we have to do, it's something we have to notice is

5:41

happening. It's unconditionally

5:44

accepting, and that is unconditional

5:46

love, and that's happiness.

5:49

So I find that the more time we spend

5:51

in real reality, which is like the

5:54

good wealth, the more that

5:56

sense of acceptance and

5:59

love kind of colors and flavors

6:01

and perfumes the rest of our lives.

6:04

And when we notice that

6:06

we're in this virtual reality

6:09

of worry and fear and

6:11

trying to fix what's wrong, that

6:13

that leads us astray. And when we're

6:16

and then we're arguing with reality, and

6:18

that's when things start to come

6:20

up that you might associate with a bad wolf,

6:22

like anger and fear, frustration,

6:25

etcetera. So that was sort

6:27

of my reaction to the parable excellent.

6:30

So let's dive a little deeper into that because

6:32

you talk about I mean, the goal of

6:34

the games that you have in this book is to become

6:37

more aware. You you start off the book by saying,

6:40

an infinite well of happiness and joy

6:42

lies within each of us, and people

6:44

from all cultures have been sending reports

6:47

from there for thousands of years. I've

6:49

stumbled upon it within me, So

6:51

let's see if you can find it too. I

6:54

bet we can all experience it if we know

6:56

where to look and where not to look. It

6:58

doesn't appear in the outside world. It

7:00

doesn't appear in thoughts or concepts.

7:03

It doesn't appear in anything you can give a name

7:05

to, which makes it kind of tough to describe

7:07

in words. You can

7:10

sense it by shifting your

7:12

point of view from the content

7:14

of awareness to awareness

7:16

itself. So elaborate a little bit

7:18

more on that last sentence, because I think that's really

7:20

important. Well, Basically, what

7:23

we normally do is

7:25

we think about objects in our

7:27

awareness, the content of awareness.

7:30

So that includes all of our senses,

7:33

our sights and sounds, things that are

7:35

happening, our emotions

7:37

are bodily sensations, even our

7:39

thoughts. These are objects,

7:42

and these are the contents

7:45

of our awareness. And if we

7:47

stop and sort of take

7:49

a little half step back and ask

7:52

what are all these things appearing in

7:55

or appearing too? And

7:58

then we start to notice

8:00

the awareness itself. It's awareness

8:03

of awareness instead of awareness

8:05

of just the contents. And when we

8:07

do that and we

8:10

let the contents be as they

8:12

are, that's a big key. Just

8:15

let it everything be as it is. With some practice

8:17

and with some playing around, we start

8:19

to find this well

8:22

of happiness starting to rise

8:24

up, because that's where it lives, in the background

8:26

of awareness. Tell me a little bit more

8:29

about why games.

8:31

So you've written a book of a series of

8:34

awareness games. Why

8:36

do you think that games are an

8:38

effective way to get

8:41

to this awareness? Because mostly what we're presented

8:43

with and we get into this kind of stuff is

8:46

various meditative

8:48

practices, typically from a

8:50

spiritual tradition of one sort or

8:53

the other. So talk to me about games.

8:55

It's true. In meditative traditions are

8:58

usually given a set of very specific instructions

9:01

that you're to follow, and often there's a

9:03

sense of whether you're doing it right or

9:05

whether you're doing it wrong. In addition

9:07

to that, there's an authority there

9:09

who decides are you doing it

9:12

right or you're doing it wrong, and we just sort of

9:14

naturally give authority

9:16

away. And in games,

9:18

it's like experimenting with something.

9:21

It's like taking a balloon and squeezing at

9:23

one end and seeing if it comes out the other

9:25

where our own authority. We're playing

9:28

with our own minds, we're testing it,

9:30

we're squeezing it. Also, I find

9:32

that sometimes even

9:34

with regular meditation, sometimes it works

9:37

for me on one day and not another,

9:40

or maybe one hour and not another. So

9:42

there are actually a lot of games, even though

9:44

they're all basically the same game designed

9:47

to draw your attention to awareness itself,

9:50

there's a lot of variety in it. So if

9:52

one's not working for you, now you

9:54

try another one, and if that's not working, you try

9:56

another one, and then maybe tomorrow you go back to

9:58

it. There's an example about how to play.

10:01

It's sort of like experimenting. When

10:03

I was a little kid, and I used

10:05

to be in bed and I would be lying

10:07

awake, and I would say

10:09

to myself, what if there was nothing?

10:13

And I found that if I kept

10:15

asking myself what if there was nothing? I

10:17

would get this feeling all over

10:20

my body, this kind of weird pleasurable,

10:23

odd feeling and then it would

10:25

go away. And so I said to myself, Gee, that's

10:27

that's why I want to investigate that. Let's

10:29

see if I can get that back again. So

10:31

I would play with asking these questions

10:34

and imagining, well, if there was nothing,

10:37

who would be there to notice the nothing?

10:39

And it was that kind of sense of experimenting

10:41

and playing with your own mind that

10:44

kind of informed the games. Yeah, I love

10:46

the approach you're taking because you you talk

10:48

about that in order to get

10:50

to this awareness, often

10:52

we kind of have to sneak up on it, and

10:55

and that our desire to find

10:57

it, you know, we work so hard at it. You know, I'm

11:00

going to meditate, you know, really all the

11:02

time, and you know, because I'm looking for

11:04

this thing. And you talk about

11:06

in the book about how sometimes that very

11:08

process can get in the way. Yes,

11:10

and it absolutely can, because a lot of times

11:13

we're actually trying to make something

11:15

happen or trying to avoid something

11:17

happening, and that's actually natural. And that

11:19

was something that I found through trial and error,

11:21

through experimentation. Like one time

11:24

I was watching a video and interview

11:26

and someone said, what if you made

11:29

no effort at all, and

11:31

I start to think, well, what if I made no effort? And

11:33

then I just started to laugh, because first

11:35

of all, trying not to make an effort

11:38

is an effort, and so that was a kind of a funny paradox.

11:41

And then something relaxed and I

11:43

really stopped making an effort, and

11:45

I started to feel this sort

11:48

of marvelous feeling where I

11:50

was smiling so much I thought my face

11:52

would break and that was great. And

11:54

then a couple of days later I would say,

11:56

well, let's see if I can recreate that, And

11:58

it's this amazing paradox if

12:01

what you're trying to do is recreate

12:04

an experience that you've had before,

12:06

or on the other hand, if you're trying to get rid

12:09

of something you're having now, like an emotion

12:11

you don't like, it doesn't work. You have to sort

12:13

of allow everything to be as it is

12:16

and just accept what's happening now,

12:19

and then take that little step back

12:21

to notice the pure background,

12:23

like the white space, like the the

12:25

white board instead of the instead of

12:27

the lettering on it, or the blank page

12:30

or the or the empty screen. It's

12:32

tricky, and you have to play

12:34

and you have to sort of hope that

12:37

you might play around the well and hopes that you'll fall

12:39

in. You also say something that I think

12:41

is really interesting. You say, because you don't have to

12:43

believe anything to play a game. If

12:46

I try and teach you something, your mind

12:48

runs it through the truth checker. Is it

12:50

true? Is it not true? Is it a crock? With

12:52

the game, it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters

12:54

is what you find out for yourself while you're playing

12:57

around. Yeah, that's so key because

13:00

I found myself because I've certainly read

13:02

a lot of spiritual books and talk

13:04

to teachers and both psychological and

13:06

spiritual and philosophical, and

13:09

they would say these things that and my mind

13:11

would say, no, wait, that can't be true. Wait

13:13

a minute, that's that's crazy. I mean if I

13:15

look at a tree and you say the tree

13:18

isn't outside, it's in my head, you know, Wait a minute,

13:20

I don't believe that. And what it did was it

13:22

activated that little part of the

13:24

brain that's always on alert

13:27

for right or wrong or true and false, so that

13:29

you can argue with it. And that's actually turns

13:31

out that's not where happiness is.

13:33

That's not actually helpful. It's

13:36

totally great for figuring out how to get

13:38

to the airport on time, but it's totally

13:40

not helpful in finding out where happiness

13:42

lives inside you. So that's an interesting point

13:44

that I think about, and I don't really know the

13:47

right way to frame the question exactly, but there

13:49

is this idea of that this aware

13:52

mind is the place to be. It's you know, it's where

13:54

it's at, it's what's happening, it's where happiness

13:56

is. And yet there's the other

13:58

part of the mind that we need

14:00

a great deal of the time to do

14:03

a lot of the things that we do in the world.

14:05

So what's your perspective on the balance

14:07

there. Yeah, that's a really good question

14:09

and a really good point. It reminds me of a famous quote

14:12

I can't remember. It was probably einsteiner

14:14

or I may be totally wrong, who said that the mind

14:16

is an excellent servant but a poor master.

14:19

You do need that part of the mind to accomplish

14:21

tasks, and it's really great. And

14:24

what I find is that when you take

14:26

some time to notice

14:29

the pure awareness that's already there

14:31

and already happening, but we don't notice it's

14:34

sort of been clouded over by all our thoughts

14:36

we take a little time to do that, and

14:38

then maybe we take another time, and you know,

14:40

you can do it small moments,

14:43

many times a day, or you can do it for longer

14:45

periods. Once you do it

14:47

often enough, you start to click

14:50

into it pretty easily, and

14:52

then an odd thing happens. It

14:54

actually colors when

14:57

your mind does start to go into a day

14:59

dream or us start to go into planning,

15:02

there's some sort of perfume

15:04

or some sort of feeling that's left

15:06

over that colors and resonates

15:09

the rest of your life, so that when you are actually

15:11

just doing things like going into a store

15:14

and buying something from somebody, all

15:16

of a sudden you realize that your relationship with that other

15:18

person is totally different, because there's

15:20

a kind of a friendliness and a warmth and a

15:22

lovingness to your interactions

15:25

that comes by surprise, even though

15:27

in that moment you're not actually

15:30

playing an awareness game. But it colors

15:33

everything. Hey,

16:04

everybody, I've got a couple of quick announcements.

16:06

The first is that the one you feed

16:09

one on one coaching program will be opening

16:11

up again in several weeks. We're

16:14

opening it less frequently this year, so if

16:16

you're interested, stay tuned for more

16:18

details. Secondly, Chris

16:20

and I want to take a moment and thank you all who

16:22

have donated the show. It is appreciated

16:25

more than you can imagine. We have reached

16:27

our first goal, so thank you so

16:29

much, and now we are working

16:32

on the next ones. Anyone who's donated

16:34

at the ten dollar a month or higher level

16:36

recently got their first private

16:38

mini episode. I released one a month to the

16:40

patrons of the show, so if you're interested,

16:43

go check that out. You get the one that came out,

16:45

and you will get the next ones. And I

16:47

wanted to give a short example of the sort

16:49

of thing that supporting the show helps to do.

16:52

So I got an email earlier in the week from a

16:54

college professor who wanted to use one of

16:56

the one you feed episodes in a

16:58

class, which is his mind boggling

17:00

to me as it probably is to you. However,

17:03

what she needed in order to do it was a transcript

17:05

so that students who are unable to hear

17:07

were able to follow along. And

17:10

one of the things that we do with donation money is

17:12

spending to get episodes of the show transcribe,

17:15

so I was able to turn around and send her the

17:17

transcript of the episode right

17:19

away. So that's an example of one of the

17:21

things that the money for the show does,

17:23

and how by you donating, you're

17:25

helping to give the show to other people and provide

17:28

the experience for more people. So thank you

17:30

so much. We really do need your help.

17:32

So please go to one you feed dot

17:34

net slash support and make a donation.

17:37

It really does matter. And now for

17:39

the rest of the episode with Brian Tom

17:41

O'Connor, at the very heart

17:43

of all these games, they're all a

17:46

series of questions essentially, So

17:48

what is it about a question that

17:51

is so useful and why do

17:53

you call them awareness games

17:55

versus awareness questions? Well, that's

17:58

a good point because it's a good quesestions.

18:01

Yeah, did a good question exactly. The

18:04

question about questions is a good question.

18:06

The difference between games and questions

18:08

is that in a question,

18:11

there's implied a correct answer, and

18:14

in games that's implied you're fooling

18:16

around to see what's there.

18:19

You're really just sort of messing

18:22

around inside your own mind

18:24

and poking it here and poking it there and seeing

18:26

what comes up. But one of the tools is questions,

18:29

like asking yourself the question

18:32

could I not be aware? Is

18:35

it actually possible to

18:37

not be aware and then just seeing

18:40

what comes up? And

18:43

uh so it

18:45

really is a matter of giving

18:47

you the freedom

18:50

to look and play as opposed

18:52

to finding something correct. Yeah,

18:54

as I looked through the book and tried a couple

18:57

of the exercises, I really liked that sense

18:59

of playing as a game instead

19:02

of looking for something in particular.

19:04

And I think, and you say it yourself in the book,

19:06

that every one of the exercises sort of a variation

19:09

on three basic questions.

19:12

So maybe let's talk about those three questions,

19:15

and then maybe you could lead us through a

19:17

couple of the games and so that listeners

19:19

could get a little sense of what we're talking about. Okay,

19:22

sure, Yeah, So the three basic questions

19:25

that are just a series of

19:27

moving back and inside. And

19:29

so first you ask what's

19:32

in awareness? So basically

19:34

you're just noticing what's

19:37

appearing in awareness now, and that

19:39

includes everything that's

19:41

appearing to all of your sense perceptions,

19:44

sites, sounds, smells, etcetera.

19:46

That includes all the sensations that

19:48

are happening in your body, your kinness,

19:50

that extense of your body, your feeling of

19:53

your body against the chair or the floor,

19:55

the breeze on your face. It

19:58

also includes um any

20:00

emotions that may be going through right

20:02

now, or even thoughts. So

20:04

you're asking yourself, well, what's in awareness

20:07

now? And this is sort of what we

20:09

traditionally think of as mindfulness. Right, If

20:11

mindfulness done right, is that

20:14

awareness of everything that's in our

20:17

consciousness? That's right. I think it's very

20:19

related to that, and that's I think where you start.

20:21

And then you ask, well, what

20:24

is awareness? So you're

20:26

moving from the content to awareness

20:29

itself, and you're trying to look at

20:32

awareness. And one thing

20:34

that you might notice is that it's

20:37

the same awareness that a sound appears

20:40

in. Is the same awareness that a

20:42

thought appears in, or the

20:44

same awareness that an image appears

20:46

in, And so you start to

20:48

realize that even within you, it's

20:50

it's one thing. So

20:53

after progressing from what's in awareness

20:55

to what is awareness? The third

20:57

question is what is aware?

21:00

And that's very similar

21:02

to the classic self inquiry question

21:05

of who or what am I? So

21:08

you're realizing that, so what is

21:10

aware? Who or what is

21:12

it that is actually aware? And usually

21:14

you might say well I am well what

21:16

what am I? And that's

21:18

when you can start saying, well, I'm

21:20

aware of the body, is that what

21:23

awareness is, or is awareness separate

21:25

from it, And so it's

21:27

a little shift in identity

21:29

from the objects, including

21:32

your body, including your thoughts, including

21:34

your perceptions and sensations,

21:36

into the pure

21:38

background, or some have called

21:40

it the ground of being, or pure

21:42

subjectivity or just being.

21:45

This this sounds very simple,

21:48

this idea of switching from

21:50

the contents of consciousness

21:52

to what is consciousness. However,

21:55

for anybody who has tried it, it's a relatively

21:57

challenging endeavor. Sometimes it works,

22:00

sometimes it doesn't. And I think that's kind of

22:02

what you're driving at with a variety

22:04

of games, is that you can approach it

22:06

from a lot of different ways, a lot of different things, and

22:08

maybe some of them will trigger something.

22:10

In My experience certainly is that

22:14

the same question doesn't get me to the same

22:16

place. The very first time we had lock Kelly on

22:18

the show, Um whose work sounds very

22:20

similar to yours in a lot of ways, and

22:22

lock Kelly has this question of you

22:24

know, what would be here right now if

22:27

you had no problem at all? And for

22:29

me that was the first time he said that was a

22:31

really profound moment. But it doesn't

22:33

work, you know, I can't get

22:35

back to that same place by asking myself

22:38

that same question again, which is why

22:40

again, I like the idea of the

22:42

games. So let's let's

22:44

maybe walk through a couple of them, and

22:46

maybe you can tell us, you know how

22:49

what a couple of them are and how you do with them.

22:52

One of the games is pretty simple.

22:54

It's there's actually a pair of games

22:57

called future fishing and

22:59

pass catching. And this is just to help give

23:02

you an idea of thoughts

23:04

about the past and the future that are going

23:06

through your head. And it's just helping you by

23:09

giving a little bit of a visual image

23:11

to it. And so in future

23:13

fishing, basically you're

23:16

just letting your mind wander. You're

23:18

gonna let it go where it will, and

23:20

it will. It'll just wander. And

23:23

then you think of your mind as a stream that

23:25

passes in front of you. So

23:27

you imagine you're fishing in the stream,

23:29

but instead of fish, what you're fishing for

23:32

our thoughts about the future. So

23:34

I thought about the future comes you just catch

23:37

it on your reel. You're reel

23:39

it in, you pull it out of the stream. Maybe

23:42

you put it in a little box or a basket

23:44

beside you on the shore, and then the

23:46

game is just to see if you

23:48

can allow whatever flows through

23:50

the stream. And whenever you see a thought about the

23:52

future, you just catch it. You pull it

23:54

out, put it in the box, and

23:57

see if it's possible to clear the stream

23:59

of thoughts about the future. It may be

24:01

possible, it may not be, but it it

24:04

really helps highlight that there

24:06

is another option other than just thinking

24:08

about the future. And my experience

24:11

with what happens is I do some of these things.

24:13

It's similar to what happens in meditation, which

24:15

is I start doing that and then the next

24:17

thing, I know, you know, who knows where my brain

24:19

has gone. Um, and so I come back

24:22

to the game, so to speak. The visualization.

24:24

So it sounds like you're kind of talking about visualizing

24:27

something in this case, yes, in this case,

24:29

so you're using a visualization to kind of help

24:31

you along to focus

24:34

on the thoughts about the future.

24:36

And so in the way that you see it, am I

24:38

actually like spending a fair amount

24:40

of time really trying to see the river and

24:43

the fish and and all that. I'm just kind of

24:45

curious how you do some of these things. I know there's

24:47

probably not a right answer, So well,

24:50

it does depend on each individual person.

24:52

The way I do it, though, it's pretty simple. I don't really

24:55

work too hard at it. I

24:57

try and sounds like I

25:00

think, I like Chris couldn't

25:03

resist. I haven't gotten a good Chris

25:05

joking lately, so I'm glad I could

25:08

afford one here. Yeah.

25:10

I try to use the least effort

25:12

possible. So if I can imagine myself

25:14

sitting on a stream,

25:16

or imagine my mind is the stream,

25:19

and if I thought about the future comes

25:21

like I have an appointment tomorrow, but it's

25:24

going to be too close to another appointment. What am I going

25:26

to do about it? You just snag it. You

25:28

just imagine that thought biting on

25:30

your hook and you reel it in, you put

25:33

it away, and then you just let the stream wander

25:35

again and you play. And

25:37

the thing is, it's not something

25:39

that you do necessarily for

25:42

a long time, because a lot of times

25:44

I'll sit down in one session and I'll play a bunch

25:46

of different games. I'll try one, say oh,

25:49

that's not really quite doing it for me today.

25:51

Let's just let's let's try another one. And

25:53

you play around and then you see one and it

25:55

sort of catches you and you say, oh, that's

25:57

really good, Like slippery Mind

26:00

is another one that one seems to

26:02

be really fun and good for

26:04

for extended amount of times. When

26:07

I was a kid, I grew up in New Rochelle in Westchester,

26:09

and there was this amusement park called

26:11

Rye Playland, and

26:13

it had this fabulous funhouse with a

26:16

hall of mirrors. And this was this great old

26:18

Art deco amusement park,

26:20

and it had this little thing and it was

26:22

a disc. It was a very

26:24

smooth, polished metal disc, and

26:26

all the kids would sit on the disc and

26:28

then it would start spinning, and the idea

26:31

was to try and stay on the disc, but

26:33

the centrifugal force would just push

26:36

you off and you would just slide

26:38

right off the disk. And some kids

26:40

were successful in staying on the disc.

26:42

But we all suspected that there were a little

26:45

screws located

26:47

here and there, and I think that some guy

26:49

controlling it could put a little tiny

26:52

jolt of electricity through it and shock you

26:54

and make you shift your position so that the friction

26:56

of your clothes released you and you

26:58

went sliding right off. So

27:00

when I was thinking about that, I thought, oh, that would be so much

27:02

fun to make a game out of that and awareness

27:05

game. So in Slippery Mind, you just

27:07

imagine your mind is a very

27:09

slippery, smooth surface, no

27:12

walls, no fences, and

27:14

nothing to hold onto its circular

27:16

surface. And you imagine

27:19

your minds that way, and when a thought comes

27:21

in, it can't say it's it can't

27:23

stay it's too slippery. It just slides

27:26

out the other side. And

27:28

so sometimes the thought will come in, it'll

27:31

circle for a little while. And

27:33

so if you notice this thought circling

27:35

and you can you can do something like you can

27:38

tilt the disc a little one make it

27:40

slide off, or you can send it a little

27:43

jolt of electricity or nudget to slide

27:45

off. And this is something that I

27:48

don't know. I find I can sit and play this

27:50

for quite a while. And what

27:53

happens is you don't get engaged

27:55

in the thoughts. They don't take over.

27:57

They don't say, hey, let's get

28:00

involved in me as a thought, and

28:02

let's think about it, and let's ruminate

28:04

over it and examine it. It It just there, it is,

28:07

okay, let's just send it out the other side. So

28:11

it's just kind of a fun way of doing that. Do

28:38

you do these games in addition to

28:40

a formal sitting meditation practice,

28:43

or in place of or I

28:46

think that it can be either. It can

28:48

be complimentary to a formal sitting

28:51

meditation practice. I often sit

28:53

in meditation. I like guided

28:55

meditations. I think they're great. I think lock

28:57

Kelly has some great ones. Rupert's

29:00

Spira is a wonderful guided

29:02

meditation guy. I do listen to those.

29:05

But I found out early on

29:07

that I wasn't the type of guy

29:09

who had this impeccable discipline

29:12

to say, Okay, at eight thirty, I'm going to

29:14

sit and do this meditation for half an hour.

29:17

And and I knew that wouldn't

29:19

happen. I mean, I try it, it might

29:21

work for a week or two, and it would go away.

29:24

And I just despaired. I thought, well, you

29:26

know, this is the way I am.

29:29

I don't think I can change this. And then of

29:31

a sudden I realized, well, I don't have to change

29:33

it, because I was determined to find

29:36

a way out of depression and

29:38

to find where happiness is. And and then

29:40

I said, well, wait a minute, maybe I don't

29:43

have to do that. Maybe I can just

29:45

play myself on my own terms, at

29:47

my own time, whenever it occurs to me

29:49

whenever I feel like it, And

29:52

so I think that there's a little freedom

29:54

that you get when you think about it as games

29:56

that you can play whenever you want to. But

29:59

I know lot of people who have meditation practices

30:02

who love the book and who play the games in addition

30:04

as well. How many different games

30:06

are there in the book? You know, I can't remember

30:08

it, probably about seventy. I'm

30:11

always bad with numbers.

30:13

Four. No, I know it's

30:15

it's more than four. There's

30:18

more than four and less than it's

30:20

a good range. Well. Another thing about

30:23

games is that you know, my background

30:25

is in theater, and my

30:28

mom was an actress and a

30:31

teacher, and she specialized in

30:33

teaching theater to kids,

30:35

and she taught us something

30:37

called theater games. And they

30:39

were invented by a woman from Chicago named

30:41

Violens Bowen, who was very

30:44

instrumental in starting the Second

30:46

City Theater group in Chicago and Improvisational

30:49

Theater. And these were these were games that

30:51

you did in rehearsal for

30:53

plays, and that

30:56

also influenced the

30:59

idea of awareness games,

31:01

of using a playful

31:03

way of arriving at something as opposed

31:05

to an effortful, hard

31:08

working way of arriving at something. I

31:10

love the approach of it as a way

31:12

to augment or, you know, in some

31:14

cases, in place of a

31:16

meditation technique, because I really do think

31:19

there is a lot to be said for

31:21

the over seriousness sometimes

31:24

of some of this stuff, and anything that

31:26

can help with a lighter hearted approach

31:28

I think is almost always

31:30

good medicine. Yeah, I think so too.

31:32

But also I know that my personality

31:34

is such that I respond better

31:37

to lighthearted things, whereas other people

31:39

may may respond better to very

31:41

serious things, and then another book might

31:43

work for them, Yep, exactly. So one

31:45

of the things that I have found when I am dealing

31:48

with this idea of trying not to be

31:50

so focused on the contents of my thoughts

31:53

is that once I'm emotionally

31:56

stirred up to a certain extent, that

31:58

seems near impossible. And

32:00

so I was just kind of curious, what are your thoughts

32:02

on that, and what is the role of emotion

32:05

in this, because one of the questions I'm always exploring

32:08

on this show is trying to strike the balance

32:10

between what I would call sort of a spiritual

32:12

bypass where you just you get rid of

32:14

emotions anyway you can you let them slide

32:16

right out of the slippery mind versus actually

32:19

being more present to them. So I'm just interested in your

32:21

thoughts on that topic in general. I agree,

32:23

and that was one of my thoughts about the good

32:26

and the bad wolf, like do you starve

32:28

the bad wolf? And and you really

32:30

can't, because if these emotions

32:32

come and you just sort of stifle them,

32:35

they're gonna, they're gonna, they're

32:37

gonna form a little eddie inside you and they're

32:39

never gonna leave. But when you are loose

32:42

enough and relaxed enough and non resistant

32:44

enough that when an emotion comes you can let

32:47

it come, it actually flows

32:50

through you to the other side. And this

32:52

is gonna happen when you do any kind

32:54

of approach like this, even

32:56

as playful a one as this, emotions

32:59

are gonna come up. At one of the games

33:01

that I have called include Include Include

33:03

addresses that when you have really tough emotions,

33:06

and what you really need to do is

33:09

you notice the emotion, and

33:11

you notice the awareness

33:14

that it's appearing in and you don't try

33:16

to change the emotion. You allow to be there,

33:19

but you include everything

33:21

else. You include the sounds,

33:24

You include the feeling of your body. You include

33:26

more and more and more, and you just include,

33:28

include, include everything that's in awareness.

33:31

And what happens is that that emotion

33:34

becomes instead of something that

33:37

overtakes you and becomes you and

33:39

becomes everything. It's just really

33:41

one small corner of what's in awareness

33:44

right now. I love that idea. You're broadening

33:46

your awareness and trying

33:49

to be less myopic. Well,

33:51

Brian, thank you so much for taking the time

33:53

to come on the show. I enjoyed the book. I'm

33:55

looking forward to trying more of

33:58

the different exercises as I go on. I'm glad

34:00

to have more than one or two at

34:02

my disposal to to kind of play around

34:04

with. I'm happy to have the book. Great.

34:07

Well, it's a pleasure to talk to you. Eric. Excellent.

34:09

Well, take care. Thank you very much.

34:11

You two. Okay,

34:30

if what you just heard was helpful to you, please

34:32

consider making a donation to the one you Feed

34:34

podcast. Head over to one you

34:36

Feed dot net slash support