Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:03 This is words that move me, the podcast where movers and shakers like you get the information and inspiration you need to navigate your creative career with clarity and confidence. I am your host master mover Dana Wilson and if you're someone that loves to learn, laugh and is looking to rewrite the starving artists story than sit tight but don't stop moving because you're in the right place.
Speaker 0 00:33 Hello everybody. It is Friday the 13th but luck if you believe in luck has been bad for several weeks now. I don't really believe in superstitions or Friday the 13th being a particularly unlucky day, but I do believe that we are seeing some rather unfortunate times right now. And you may agree. So I am recording this podcast outside of my regular weekly schedule in the response to current events. Yes, the Corona virus, the cancellation of work and school and the waves that the outbreak is causing, but also the stock market crash and Harvey Weinstein sentence. And my nephew is having a tough time at school and the rain in LA that has made an appearance in the ceiling and the walls and the floor of my bedroom and my second bedroom. So. So yeah, I'd say when it rains it pours and there are just a handful of emergency circumstances that are requiring our attention.
Speaker 0 01:45 Well, at least my attention in my immediate sphere. So here's the short of it. I believe that the way we respond in emergencies says a lot about us and I have been absolutely fascinated by the wide range of responses specifically to the virus that had been voiced in the news and on social media. Z. I like to fancy myself a person that responds with action, right? I'm a mover. After all action is what I do. But yesterday I got stuck like most of the day watching and reading and scrolling and really truly getting very curious, not scared per se, maybe a little frustrated with myself. And with other people, but mostly just curious like what is making people roll their eyes at this right now? What's making people raid the shelves of a grocery store and pull their kids out of school and leave town or what's making people say that?
Speaker 0 02:52 That's ridiculous. What's the thing? The one moment that's made people care? Oh wait. Or do we even care because I'm scrolling and I'm scrolling and I'm scrolling and there's a sexy class video or a sexy selfie with the hashtag dirty girl hashtag wash your hands hashtag <inaudible> 19 like also curious about when is it okay to make that joke or I had joke ever. What's going to happen? When will this be over? How will it end? I am so curious. So yesterday was kind of like a snow day for me because my plan was to be teaching at a big workshop. Well, my plan was to be traveling to be teaching at a big workshop in Denver, which is also where my family lives. But in effort to decrease my chances of getting coronavirus and more importantly to decrease the spread of the disease. I decided not to go.
Speaker 0 03:52 And that was hugely due to the encouragement of my sister and my brother in law who are both doctors. So instead I didn't go and my plan was to hold up here, hold up here, haul up here, what does it hold up here in my house hole? I don't know. My plan was to stay at home with myself and focus on some personal projects, but my curiosity beat my focus with a one two punch. It was like, sorry, focus. Nope, I'm going to take this day. And I'm, I spent most of the morning reading articles and scrolling through the gram trying to get some solid information and get a sense of, you know, sort of how my community is reacting. Well that didn't result in any ease. So I did something that I do very often actually when I'm feeling stressed or tense. And that is, I cleaned my condo, although you might not know it just by looking at it.
Speaker 0 05:02 Uh, I did, I did the dishes, I did laundry, I made the bed. I busied myself with a handful of mindless tasks. Now here's the funny thing about mindless tasks. Is that your mind, because it's not required on the task, typically stays wherever it was that you were trying to avoid being. So I coached myself into getting back to work and editing an upcoming podcast with my dear friend Nick Palm quiz, which by the way, I do believe this episode will be great. I am very excited about it. But even while it was in this thing that I was excited about and interested in and really committed to, my body was tense. My mind was wandering and foggy. And so I did a different thing that I do often when I'm buffering through negative emotions and that I ate. The good news is I stuck to my food plan, which is at the moment, no sugar and no flour and no booze.
Speaker 0 06:07 I had some healthy fats, some veggies, cauliflower rice. So good. And, um, as I was reaching for a sparkling water, which is also so good, one of my favorite things that there is, um, I heard a water sound, it certainly was not a sparkling water sound and it was also not the uh, water sounds that have been coming from outside as LA is in a kind of a week long rainy season apparently. And it also was not the typical water sound that comes from my washing machine that was handling the laundry. No, this was definitely a new and certainly unwelcome water sound and I actually really wish I had a video of myself, of my body as I was hearing the sound for the first time. It was very funny. I'd been at the knees, I kind of fold forward like I squint my eyes and then the front of my face stops being what my body leads with when I move and it's my ears.
Speaker 0 07:04 Like my ears were leading my body through my houses. It was trying to find this, I don't want to say pouring cause that sounds a little bit much but running water sound well I found it. There was water dripping from multiple places in my second bedroom, one in the ceiling, and then the full blown bubble of paint. Um, the worst, Oh man. It turns out I've got a lot of yoga towels, yoga towels, bath towels, various towels, all the towel. But once those were all soaked up, I had to hit them with the hard goods. The pots and pans, pans on pans, pans on pots, pots and pans, supported by chopsticks. I was really trying to be an engineer about this and um, I really got very scattered. I was shocked. I thought I was a person that could respond to this issue with some, you know, with like a streamlined plan.
Speaker 0 08:00 But I was really all over the place. I took some photos for insurance, then I called my husband and then I grabbed more towels and then I looked for tape and then I text the neighbors and then I grabbed more towels and then I took photos for the neighbors. Then I moved the shoes, then I grabbed more towels, then I called the HOA, no answer. Then I moved all the other things and then it grabbed more towels and then I called the building manager also. No answer. Then I said some profanities, then more towels than photos for Instagram. I mean really I was frantic.
Speaker 0 08:32 Pause for the cause. I want to do a full episode on one of my favorite books, which is called the art of learning by Josh Waitzkin. I think I may have actually talked about it before. Um, and I will, but right now, because I think it's very important. I want to introduce one of my favorite ideas from that book that helped me in this very frantic moment. The other describes what he calls the soft zone and it's a relaxed state where you kind of integrate the distractions and challenges and occasionally hurricane force winds of the real world and you and you roll with those with sort of a flexibility that he likens to a blade of grass instead of the rigidity of say an Oak tree. Even if that Oak tree has really deep roots, a structural analysis would tell you that the blade of grass has a much stronger, I used that word deliberately chance of weathering the storm, so I breathed, I embodied the blade of grass and I tried to find the soft zone and then I kept going with the towels and the pans and the chopsticks.
Speaker 0 09:49 My husband, who was at work got home finally, eventually, ironically, his truck at work was blocked by a van marked water damage. I have a photo to prove this I the irony guys, it's insane. I laughed. I laughed really, really hard. Actually, in the midst of all this insanity, isn't life just the most entertaining? It really is. Like in one day a drama, a horror film, an action adventure and a romcom. I am. I Marvel. It's, it's, it's incredible to me. So my husband came home with a drill and some buckets. Yes, a drill. Thanks to said drill. Going through the beautiful dry wall of my ceiling. Many pots and many pans and many towels turned into one big hole. And one big bucket that I have to empty about every hour and 15 minutes. It's intense. So once we had big hole, big bucket under control, we started making some soup liquids in pots apparently was the theme of the night.
Speaker 0 11:00 So we're in the kitchen and we're talking about our nephew, a bright and budding beautiful young musician who's having a tough time at school. And my husband was talking with such passion and compassion and he took such great care of the, of the situation. And I just like, I started to tear, I almost cried. I became absolutely overwhelmed with love and gratitude that I found this person and, and that he's so special and that he actually thinks that I'm special. And now we're in love. And I thought, look at this crazy world out there that's so nuts. And, and look at this thing that I have in here in my world. I was like, life is so short. Celebrate this thing. Celebrate this thing, this person that you love. And so once again I found myself buffering with food, but this time I was going way off of my plan and this time I was buffering positive emotions.
Speaker 0 12:00 I was buffering, being overwhelmed with love and gratitude. Wild, right? Like responding to a day like today with gummy bears, a white claw and Nutella by the spoonful. Oh, certainly not my best work. So let's talk a little bit about what was going on there as far as my mental model is concerned. All right, well first the circumstances pretty clearly there is a virus, there is torrential downpour and there is my husband making soup in my kitchen. The thought that all of these circumstances led to his life is short and I can't control it, so I might as well live. Well I can, I'll be the blade of grass, I'll go wild with the wind. The feeling that that left me with was surrender. This kind of toss my hands up, give up and go with it. And the action that that feeling led to was I indulged an Instagram endless scrolling till like three in the morning.
Speaker 0 13:03 I indulged in sugary food and booze, which wired me. So I ultimately lost sleep. The result that that left me with is, yeah, I am out of control in my own home and body. That leads to me feeling awful and really truly compromises my health. Really not the goal in this time, really not the goal, and certainly didn't lead to a great feeling when it five 45 my husband woke me up with, do you hear that? I think we have a new drip. Yes we did. We had two new drips in the living room and in that moment, the only way I could deal with it is to go back to bed. But this guy took himself to home Depot, our favorite place on earth, grabbed the buckets, grabbed a water pump, grabbed all the things and came home and we got to work. Okay, so here's the takeaway.
Speaker 0 14:02 Here's the PSA. Here is the actual point of this podcast. A blade of grass in a hurricane on on normal days that thought that imagery really serves me well. But on days like today and days like yesterday and probably days like tomorrow and the next day and the next day for probably awhile, I think we can do better than flailing in the wind. I know we can do better because today my man did better. He responded quickly with tools and with love. And I don't mean love as a tool. I don't believe that love can cure the Corona virus or any other global issue for that matter, but I do believe that actions motivated and executed with the quality of compassion are both strong like an Oak tree and flexible like a blade of grass.
Speaker 0 15:01 So as you respond to the winds of our world right now, keep your tools on you. Use this podcast as a tool. Use your talents and interests as tools. Use your friends, call them, write them. Be kind, be smart, be safe, NDS, be funky. Thanks for listening everybody. I hope that this episode is helpful for you in this very interesting time. If it is, please share it. Please leave a comment. It makes it much, much easier for other people to find the podcasts when they're searching for it. And, um, thanks again. Thanks so much for listening. I will talk to you soon.
