Episode Transcript
In today's episode I wanted to talk about fixations. Now whether these are physical, mental or emotional fixations, big or small, it doesn't matter. But I wanted to talk about a remedy for those fixations using mind-body awareness and a process that I call coming off the centerline.
Now probably the hardest part of this is going to be getting a felt sense of a fixation. Like I said, these don't have to be big, they don't have to be habitual, although they can be. It can be just as small as something as being stuck in a train of thought or being stuck in an emotional state. But we get so used to these fixations that we kind of think that we're normal. They think they're just a part of life. But they don't have to be and there is a way to come out of them without using force.
So these fixations don't have to be dramatic, but I want you to start to get a felt sense of what they are. Like I said, they're not wrong and they're an extended stay in an active state if you want to think of it that way. So when we become active, we lean into something. We lean into a way of thinking or a way of doing something and we follow that track and it helps us to get something done. The problem is when we get stuck in just one way of doing it.
And to give you just a brief example, now we've probably all been shopping, although a lot of us maybe don't shop so much anymore that we get delivered. But you'll have shopped at one point in time and with the shopping trolley. Now you may have noticed that as you're walking along with the shopping trolley, sometimes you tend to lean on it. And this is kind of that felt sense of just leaning into something. It's almost like you're sort of going slightly downhill and you're almost bracing yourself in that forward motion. And sometimes it's hard to get out of that forward motion.
Now this doesn't have to be an uncomfortable fixation, but it can lead to it. So we can get stuck in certain ways of thinking and we can get stuck in certain emotional patterns. And sometimes it's hard to get out of that and then we try and bring ourselves out of it, but we end up just keep going straight back to the same thing.
So a lot of the examples of fixations is in the language that we use. So you know, you're having a one-track mind, keeping people in line, having tunnel vision, being blinkered. And as much as we have a lot of words and phrases for getting stuck and being fixated, there's almost none of these phrases for how to get out of it. And that gap tells us something. That gap tells us that we have gotten into the habit of just treating all awareness as one awareness. And what I've found in exploring and experimenting with self-awareness over 30 years is that that's not necessarily the case. And there's different types of awareness.
And what I want to introduce to you today is this idea of coming off that center line. And I call it a mind-body process because you use mind and body to do it. If you can think of a plane and it's going along its flight path and then it banks off to the right or it banks off to the left. That's what I mean by coming off the center line.
Now this isn't just a one-off thing. This is something that you can practice. And we're not using any force here. We're kind of just rolling off to one side. So when we get stuck in a certain thought pattern, we just roll off to the side. And just that sort of being mindful of rolling off to the left or rolling off to the right and even using your head to sort of roll off to the left. You'll notice there's a felt sense difference. You'll notice a slight shift in how you feel. Whether that's in your head or in your body somewhere. It's very subtle but it's there. And you'll notice that it breaks the pattern. Now we're not trying to come back. We're not trying to use any kind of force. We're not trying to change anything. It's just that real simple and that slight shifting to the left or to the right.
Now I'll give you another example of a fixation and how it can affect us. This came up last night. I was making gravy. This was packet gravy and I was mixing it. And I started to have these thoughts. And I was like, "What? Why is it every time I make the gravy I have these same kind of thoughts?" It's the same when I'm doing the washing up. I tend to have these recurring thoughts, these triggered patterns. And I started to think about it. It's a fixation and it's getting triggered. So we have these fixated thoughts or we have these fixated emotions. And we end up having them when we're doing a certain activity. And so when we do that activity again, they get triggered.
And I've been practicing this idea of coming off the center line. And the progression of that is a process that I call the return path. So once you've learned to come off that center line, you get this sense of release. You're not so much in the grip of that pattern anymore or of that way of doing things. And it gives us just enough of a gap to sort of... And what you'll find is as you come off that center line, if you just allow it to keep going, you'll find yourself sort of almost coming back, almost balancing yourself. And it's a mind... You'll feel it in your body, but you also get a sense of it in your mind.
I don't think we have a full understanding of the power and the abilities of our mind in regulating our thoughts and feelings and emotions. I think it plays a very big role. And that's what I've found over the years, is that making these subtle little shifts in our mind, it triggers the same shift in our body. And those two things together can actually create changes in our awareness. We can sort of get away from these stuck and fixated patterns.
And I've mapped things like stress and heavy mood and the inability to focus. I've mapped it to these fixated directions. And you can find that if you go to my website, which is www.nonordinaryliving.com. I actually have these, what I call, "minutes to mastery." So they're these return pathways, these mind-body processes that you can use to get yourself unstuck. And they're all for free. You'll also find them on my YouTube channel, which is @nonordinaryliving.
And these are sort of the "minutes to mastery" practices that, I think the longest one is six minutes. So they're very short and they're designed to be that way to get you into the feeling state of being able to control your awareness and shift the state that you're in. Whether that's a stuck mental state or a stuck emotional state or a stuck mood. Whatever it is that you find yourself stuck in, you can learn to identify and map them using mind-body awareness.
This is a part of that process. This is something that you can practice moment to moment. This idea of not getting stuck in any kind of tone. And that's a good way I like to think of it. When we get into these fixations, there's an overall tone to them. Whether that's angry or frustrated or doubting or upset or sad. There's a tone to them. And once we come off that center line, we can start to look at variations and how to create variations in that tone.
And like I said, the "minutes to mastery" because what I found is that we don't just become, we don't just arrive in these states. There's a pathway that gets us there. Whether that's a certain way of thinking or whether that's us getting triggered in our life. But once we identify the path that took us there, and a lot of these patterns and states of awareness can be easily defined. They can be easily described once you have the language to do it. So once we understand the pathway there, we can just bring it back. We can come back into our center.
And as I said, a lot of these states that we get stuck in have a particular direction and a particular intensity. And we can use mind-body awareness to shift that. But this idea of coming off the center line is something that you can practice all the time. Until you start to sort of, you know, you'll find yourself not getting stuck in those states. You'll see changes in the way that you think and act and feel. And you become more dynamic.
And start to, if you think of awareness in terms of shape and animation. So your awareness can be in a constricted shape and it's animating in a very stunted way or an angry way. Or, you know, whatever shape and animation that you are expressing or experiencing, you can change that shape. And you can change the animation that's associated with that shape. And they play off each other. You know, the shape creates the animation. And so changing the shape can change the animation. But it works the other way too. You can start to shift the way that you're... shift your emotional state. You can start to sort of rise it and lower it and turn it off to the left and change the tone of it. It's just playing. It's playing with awareness.
And so, like I said, with the minutes to mastery and the progression of that is what I call the neutral state. So that's kind of what we're aiming for. Is to get away from these fixed paths and these fixed states and come back first into a neutral state. But with coming off the center line, we're just trying to open our awareness. So you can think of being stuck in these fixated states as closed awareness. All we're trying to do is come off that center line and create open states of awareness. And then from there we can look at winding it back, taking the return path to the neutral state. And then, well, that's where the fun starts because that's when you can start to become a dynamic shape with dynamic animation. Or you can start to create your own kind of... You can start to design the kind of person that you want to be by working on your awareness.
Alright, so this is not a one-time fix. Think of it as constant play, intentional play. So you just want to notice when you collapse and notice what the feeling is. Notice that sort of sense of almost... It's almost like there's a sheet and you're leaning into the sheet. And you just want to sort of just roll off it a bit and then... As I said, you'll notice that your mind and body will naturally want to come back into center. And you'll even maybe sort of lean back a little bit.
So practice that for a week or a day, five minutes. See how you go. And yeah, come and check me out. Either on YouTube @nonordinaryliving or come across to the site. And it's all laid out there in how to use the minutes to mastery, how to access the neutral state. And like I said, it's all for free — down the track when we get into taking what I call "Dynamic Self Awareness" into building the kind of life that you want to live. But that's down the track. You don't have to worry about that for now.
Just practice coming off that center line and just sensing the shift that simple movement creates in your mind and body. And watch what happens as you continue to do it. And then go from there. Like I said, just treat it like play. And I'll see you on the other side.
