In this episode of Simple Shifts: Conversations on Food, Life, Weight and Mindset, Martha and Peter explore the concept of self-control, discussing its importance in achieving personal goals and maintaining healthy habits. They delve into the challenges of self-control, the significance of understanding one’s motivations, and practical strategies to enhance self-discipline. The conversation emphasizes the interconnectedness of self-control with overall wellness, highlighting the roles of habits, sleep, relaxation, and mindfulness in fostering a more controlled and fulfilling life.
Key Takeaways
- Self-control is about executing our intentions.
- We often struggle with self-control due to ingrained habits.
- Celebrating small wins can reinforce positive behavior.
- Understanding your ‘why’ strengthens your motivation.
- Breathing exercises can enhance self-control.
- Exercise, even in small doses, boosts willpower.
- Nature has a profound impact on our mental health.
- Sleep deprivation compromises self-control.
- Relaxation techniques are essential for maintaining self-discipline.
- Awareness and mindfulness are key to making lasting changes.
Tips for Boosting Your Self-Control Podcast
Video Transcript
Martha McKinnon (00:00)
Hi, welcome to Simple Shift’s conversations to fuel your body, mind and soul. I’m Martha McKinnon from the blog Simple Nourished Living and with me is my brother and partner Peter Morrison.
Peter Morrison (00:23)
Hi there.
Martha Mckinnon (00:26)
Hi, how you doing?
Peter Morrison (00:29)
I’m doing good, how are you today?
Martha McKinnon (00:35)
I’m doing really well. So for our podcast topic today, we’re going to be exploring the best ways to boost your self-control. Do you feel like sometimes your self-control needs a boost?
Peter Morrison (00:54)
Maybe.
Martha McKinnon (00:58)
Maybe, maybe. Before we get into that whole discussion though, what’s going really well in your world?
Peter Morrison (01:08)
Let me just look at this spreadsheet, but I’m happy to report that I believe this is podcast episode 25. We’re quarter of a way to 100, whatever that means. It’s something, halfway to 50.
Martha McKinnon (01:20)
It means something. Right?
Peter Morrison (01:27)
It means that we’re still working at it and trying to figure it out.
Martha McKinnon (01:41)
Yeah, I read a great quote that I’m gonna have to look it up because I thought it was really good and it speaks to so much of our lives. It was so good I jotted it in my phone. I wanted to remember it. Of course, but then you can never find it when you want it. Here it is, “Time plus attention equals results.”
Peter Morrison (02:02)
Hmm.
Martha McKinnon (02:05)
That speaks to everything that we’re trying to accomplish in life, right? If we focus on it, if we give it enough time, if we pay attention, we’ll move forward. And these podcasts are a great example. We’ve taken the time and attention to show up to the point where we’re at episode 25. And it’s so analogous, I think, to the anytime you’re trying to change your behavior.
Letting go of an unhealthy habit, building a healthy habit. Whenever you’re trying to accomplish something in life, it’s about focus, time, and attention. Attention and focus sort of being the same thing.
Peter Morrison (02:34)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (02:39)
So what do you think about our topic for today? The best ways to boost your self-control. This comes to me, I’ve started another book. I’m in this phase right now where I’m reading, reading, reading lots of books. And this is a book called The Willpower Instinct. And it was written by Kelly McGonigal, who’s a psychologist, a researcher, teacher at Stanford and she’s made it her, you know, she calls herself a health psychologist where she really focuses on the psychology of health and wellness and trying to help people live their best lives.
And this book came out of a course that she taught on helping people develop better habits and figure out ways to strengthen their self-control.
Peter Morrison (03:49)
I think, not to be all Debbie Downer, but it has kind of a negative connotation, right? To boost your self-control, because it kind of implies that we have no self-control.
Martha McKinnon (04:02)
Well, do you feel like sometimes we don’t have the self-control that we intend? Like we say we’re going to get up and accomplish something tomorrow and at the end of the day we haven’t accomplished it, or tomorrow I’m going to get to the gym and I don’t get to the gym. Do you feel like in life there are things that you intend to do that you have difficulty with?
Peter Morrison (04:48)
Yeah. Cleaning off my desk, which I’ve been meaning to do for about six months now and the piles just keep growing. So yeah. Yeah.
Martha McKinnon (05:03)
Okay, yeah, so, so really, so I think we do in life, if we start to, if we step back and think about it, there are things we’re trying to accomplish in life, intentions we have to get things done that don’t seem to get done, right? Or habits that we intend to break that don’t seem to get broken. And so there’s lots and there’s lots of research around it and I guess this is one of my areas of interest, so I’ve read quite a bit on you know habit formation.
And really when we’re talking about self-control, we’re just, I think, talking about the ability to execute on our intentions and what we’re intending to do. Instead of getting distracted and swept away through the circumstances of our life to really set some intention, some internal guidance for ourselves, and then being able to execute it without ending up off track because of all of the busyness and the distractions that can come up in our lives.
Peter Morrison (06:22)
Hmm.
Martha McKinnon (06:25)
And I think that’s really true for me. I mean that’s a big part of the whole weight loss journey and what it’s meant for me the fact that there were many many days where I woke up and said tomorrow’s the day you know. I was unhappy where I was in my life and not being able to fit into my clothes and feeling overwhelmed and feeling as though I was being controlled by food and cravings and just not being able to figure it out. I perceived that I didn’t have the kind of self-control that I wanted around the food.
Peter Morrison (07:04)
Why do we tell ourselves tomorrow – I’ll start tomorrow?
Martha McKinnon (07:14)
Yeah, well, so why do you think that is?
Peter Morrison (07:16)
I don’t know, but it seems to happen a lot. There must be reason.
Martha Mckinnon (07:19)
Right? I think, well, I’m just a regular person. I’m not a scientist. I’m not a counselor. I’m, you know, I have no credentials beyond a real interest in this topic. But I think what I’m coming to understand is that because of the design of our brains and our bodies, because of evolution, because of the survival instinct, we are really the way that our brains and bodies work is that we’re creatures of habit and that we tend to repeatedly do what we’ve done the day before because these ways of being just get really really deeply ingrained. They talk about in our brains this whole concept of neurons that fire together wire together.
It’s just sort of like we just keep repeating today what we did yesterday you know and if yesterday we you know, the alarm went off and we hit snooze and we rolled over. There’s a good chance that that’s what we’re going to do today unless we take some real conscious steps to try to change that way of being. So there’s a lot of science, I think, that says that why we say tomorrow is because it’s easier and we’re sort of, as humans, there’s part of us who just likes the path of least resistance. Does that make sense?
Peter Morrison (07:58)
Unfortunately. But I must say I’ve been struggling a bit because I’ve been, the older I get, I know like strength and balance is gonna be more important as I age. And I’ve been telling myself I need to go to the gym. I need to start strength training. I just need to start. I’ve had several gym memberships over the years.
Now I live in a community where I have access to a gym and it still hasn’t happened. I’m getting closer, but I’m still not there. But four or five days ago, I did start doing pushups. So I’m sad to say I’m, I’m still not good at like the full regular pushups. I do them from my knees, so it’s not my full body weight.
Martha McKinnon (08:49)
Uh-huh. Mm-hmm.
Peter Morrison (08:53)
And so I did 10 and then the next day I did a couple more and then a couple more. So while I’m not yet going to the gym and don’t have a strength training routine, but I have been consistent at least with following through.
Martha McKinnon (09:11)
Mm-hmm. Good for you and are you celebrating that? Are you congratulating yourself? Are you patting yourself on the back?
Peter Morrison (09:27)
Not really. I’m just trying to keep the streak going at this point.
Martha McKinnon (11:06.516)
Well, that brings me up because I do love this whole topic of habits and I’ve read many, many books about habits. And one of the books that I read was called Tiny Habits. And in that book, the author strongly suggested that, again, you make the habit as tiny and small as possible, that you link it to something that you do regularly so that it’s really obvious. Like you said, you’re linking it to right before bed.
Or in his example, he tied it to each time he went to the bathroom, he worked from home. So that was okay. It would have been a little weird maybe if he was in an office setting, but every time he came out of the bathroom, he would do a push up. But what you learn is that if you get down to do a push up, you’re going to do more than one usually, in my experience. So I’ve played with that a lot. But then once you do it, you find a way to celebrate you high five yourself, you give yourself a little boost somehow.
Peter Morrison (11:58)
Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (12:03)
And that somehow in the way the way the brain works with dopamine or the rewarding system, it can be really just another powerful piece of just encouraging your inner being to to do it and want it again. So maybe after your push-ups you just give yourself a little high five, or a little fist pump and just like you know sort of pat yourself in the back and see if that makes it even a little easier next time.
Peter Morrison (12:35)
I’m hoping it builds to the point where I do want to do more.
Martha McKinnon (12:40)
Well, it’s interesting because as a result of reading this book by Kelly McGonigal, I’m really loving, I’ve mentioned it here a few times, I think the Happier app and low and behold, in the Happier app, there is a I don’t know how many part course I just started it, but it’s a course on building healthy habits and Kelly McGonigal turns out to be one of the co-creators of the course along with another meditation teaching expert.
And so I’m starting to work my way through that. I love these little courses because they’re usually about 15 minutes of video in length. So it’s not a huge commitment. But one thing that Kelly mentioned in terms of building habits and what her philosophy and her approach is that when you’re trying to really build a habit, if you can link into why, really the why of you’re wanting it, that can be very, very helpful.
So the bigger your why and the more it aligns with your values and your priorities, the more strength that that habit is going to have as you try to build it. If it’s just sort willy-nilly and it’s kind of sort of like, well, it’d be kind of cool if I did this. There are so many ways that life can get in the way of a goal or a habit like that. But if you’ve got a really, really significant why, then that can be helpful in giving you that extra push, that extra motivation to keep you on track as you work to build it.
Once it’s a habit, it’s easy. It’s just getting to that point where it’s automatic.
Peter Morrison (14:34)
Yeah, I think I need to I need to work on that why probably a little bit to strengthen it.
Martha McKinnon (14:42)
Yeah, because I think for me, my why, you know, my why has become really, really strong and really, really consistent. And it is my why for wanting to be healthy and happy and strong and flexible is that I, I want to grow old, I say oftentimes that I want to grow old gracefully and vibrantly. And I want to enjoy life and maintain my independence and the ability to do the things I want to do for as long as I can.
I know that, like you said, I if we don’t take those steps as we age of building our strength, of building our balance and flexibility, then our world can get smaller and our ability to do things can get lessened and we can become more dependent upon others. And we don’t have a situation like others, I can’t call the children to say help me up, I’ve fallen today. And so that’s an extra boost I think in motivation and my thinking – and that can be real strong and real powerful. I mean, know, fitting in the jeans maybe used to be the goal, but as you age and as you start to witness people who are suffering from the you know, the loss of wellness and the loss of health and the loss of strength. I mean think it can be for me just a real strong motivator to push past the you know the few minutes of discomfort to try to stay healthy.
Peter Morrison (15:50)
Mm-hmm. But interestingly enough, I have no problems popping out of bed at 6 a.m. to try to go play pickleball at seven or at a certain time, or you get a call a certain time of the day, hey, are you available? And it’s like, that is so less difficult.
Martha McKinnon (16:13)
So what do you think is different? Like what’s different and is there some way that you could take the pickleball feeling and transfer it into like the strength training? Is there something that you could do to make it more like pickleball?
Peter Morrison (16:50)
Well, I’ve been playing pickleball much longer, so it’s a bit more ingrained, it’s a bit more, it’s much stronger draw for me. This other thing is that it’s new. So it’s at a much earlier stage of developing as a habit, as a lifestyle, so there’s that.
Martha McKinnon (17:08)
Right, and I think of pickleball, it’s interesting because in this, going back to this course that I’m watching through the Happier app, this healthy habit building course, Kelly McGonigal was working with a group of people, one of whom wanted to build the going to the gym or wanted to build the fitness habit. And he was really struggling as you did because you said, well, I should get up and go to the gym or I should join CrossFit.
It just seems like such an uphill battle. And when he was queried about what his real values were, what was really important to him, he talked about connection, social, something like he wanted to connect with people, he was looking for social, and he enjoyed hiking and rock climbing. And so what he ended up doing is joining a rock climbing, hiking group which gave him what he was really seeking. So he was going to get the fitness in addition to what he was really, really looking to get. So I’m just wondering, might the same be true for you if you were able to meet somebody? Would it make a difference if building the strength was done in partnership or in more social way?
Would that make it a lot more easy and a lot more fun to accomplish? If oftentimes like a workout partner can be so helpful.
Peter Morrison (18:06)
It might be because it would, the way I’m thinking of it – like doing pushups. Well, it’s just me doing pushups. I want to go to the gym. It’s just me. It’s kind of a solo activity, whereas pickleball is a very social and I’m sure that’s a huge piece of it because I, for the most part, I really enjoy the people that I do play with.
Martha McKinnon (18:18)
Right. Right. So I’m just wondering if maybe there are some people you’re playing pickleball with who have the same challenge where, you know, they would be benefited from strength training, flexibility training. So maybe there are a few of your pickleball friends who might be willing to also partner up with you to do strength training or to do exercise a couple of times a week. And I think that could probably change the whole experience to where now it becomes something you look forward to instead of something you’re trying to force yourself to do.
Peter Morrison (18:40)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s worth exploring.
Martha McKinnon (18:45)
Always worth the exploration, right?
Yeah. So in relation to the self-control, think we’re sort of hitting on some of what the science says about, you know, what causes us, for example, to bypass the pantry and not grab the cookie. What kind of self-control do we need to hit the gym or to stick with making the healthy choice when we go out to lunch versus opting for the burger and fries.
What kind of things can we do to boost our self-control? As I was reading this, I was kind of dumbfounded by what I discovered because what I discovered was that I’m doing a lot of the things that naturally build self-control without ever having the understanding that these things can help with self-control.
Peter Morrison (19:26)
Hmm.
Martha McKinnon (21:05.192)
So I found that like very surprising. And I guess it helped. I began to wonder, are all these things that I’m doing helping me to be where I am today? Because I often look back and say I struggled for so long, you know, with my relationship with food and weight and I’m to a place where suddenly it seems effortless and I automatically attribute a lot of that to what I learned like we’ve talked about through Mindless Eating. But as I was looking at this list I thought hmm, I wonder if part of my ability to stay on track is as a result of these things that I’m doing that I didn’t even realize were helpful.
So the first thing that comes up in a way to boost your self-control is to slow down your breathing to like really so again it’s about getting out of the flight or flight response and into a more relaxed state, so when you’re in that place of needing to get to the gym even though you’d rather just sit on the couch or needing to say no to the to the cookie jar, the donuts in the lunch room, actually just slowing down your breathing, just doing deep breathing, slowing down your breathing.
And I’ve been doing yoga now for 25 or more years. And breathing’s a big part of that. And so I do a lot of breathing exercises. Is breathing something, I know you were doing yoga for a while, Peter, focusing on your breathing, slowing down your breathing, is that something you do in pickleball? If you’re in a stressful situation, is slowing down your breathing something you turn to to help with control?
Peter Morrison (22:11)
It is, but that’s sort of the only time that I’m aware of it and I that I actually consciously tried to incorporate it. Definitely.
Martha McKinnon (22:23)
So breathing, and again, we’ll link out to some breathing exercises. So it’s really just about taking nice, slow, deep inhales and deep exhales and trying to extend your exhale is very soothing to your system. So playing with breathing, playing with deep breathing, trying to slow down your breathing, the suggestion in the book is to slow it down to where you’re breathing four to six times per minute.
So playing with breathing, playing with deep breathing, trying to slow down your breathing, the suggestion in the book is to slow it down to where you’re breathing four to six times per minute. So just really just, so if every day you started to just practice taking five minutes at some point in the day just to practice deep, slow breathing, over time you may find that that helps you with your self-control. So that was the first thing.
The next thing was exercise. Exercise came up as like the magic elixir for helping people to have just better modulation of their willpower. And specifically just even like five minute little doses of exercise movement outdoors. There’s a magic of being in nature and of moving your body and even in five minute bursts. Just like a five minute walk outside showed up in the research as being very beneficial for helping you to boost your self-control.
Peter Morrison (23:33)
What do you think that’s tied to? I mean, what do you think it is, endorphins or something else?
Martha McKinnon (23:52)
Yeah, Brenda and I last year did a really interesting thing, it was put on by an organization up in Wisconsin called Trees for Tomorrow. And it was a class where we all just went walking in the woods. And it started in Japan with this whole concept of nature bathing, right? This whole concept of just, there’s something very powerful that happens to our our bodies, minds and souls when we’re in nature.
Peter Morrison (24:20)
Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (24:24)
I think it’s just really, you know, we’re just, we’re animals at our core. And I think our biology, I was just reading something recently that said, you know, humans are 99.9 % all the same. And you think about all the variation of humans, but from a DNA perspective, it was only like 0.1 % that differentiates us.
And we’re very much like evolutionarily, the animals from which we’ve evolved over the millennia. And so I think there’s some things that are just not even sort of understood completely through science yet, but you’re able to measure the benefits even without totally understanding the why of it.
Do you notice just in how you feel like if you get out into nature how that makes you feel versus being inside?
Peter Morrison (24:57)
Well, yeah, we pretty much have a routine where we walk sometime in the afternoon. There’s a park near us. We walk down to the park. It probably takes us, I don’t know, 30 minutes or so. But absolutely.
Martha McKinnon (26:32.19)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so there’s just something magical about nature. We are creatures of nature, but we’ve been removed from nature more and more. And I think we suffer some of the negative effects of it. And I think just getting back in nature can be helpful.
Peter Morrison (27:02)
Well, that makes me think of something. I don’t even know where I came across it. And I know you’ve done some experimenting with grounding, but I’ve read things that said even just like taking your shoes and socks off and going out and standing in the grass somehow has some kind of grounding connecting. I don’t know. I’m not describing it very well, but I’ve done that a few times purposely and it’s weird, it does do something because if you think about it, we have shoes on, we’re always insulated from the earth, not from nature, you’re outside a lot, but it’s interesting.
Martha McKinnon (27:52)
It is interesting and I mean we can get really really woo-woo here right I mean because all of this seems so real but when you talk about like quantum theory you know it’s been proven that everything is you know when you when you take an atom and you break it down down down down we’re really just talking about you know waves and particles and space.
Peter Morrison (28:18)
Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (28:21)
Everything that seems so real at its most fundamental is really just space and particles and waves and information. And there’s a lot of talk about vibration and the earth. I mean, it is proven that the earth is a big magnet. People who study this will tell you that. So I did study and I have read a little bit about grounding and one of the founders of this whole concept remembers back to his childhood where he was, he lived in close proximity to, he had Native American friends and family and he remembers as a young child like when the Native American elders would say to the kids like, take off your shoes, they’re gonna make you sick. They sort of had, still had this understanding that to be connected to nature, to be in your bare feet was just very healthy.
Peter Morrison (29:07)
Hmm.
Martha Mckinnon (29:09)
Over time we’ve just sort of lost that understanding. Pretty cool though.
Peter Morrison (29:22)
Well, I know I’ve got yard work to do later today and it’s like, I love digging in the dirt. It’s like, no gloves, just get your hands dirty. Something about it just feels good.
Martha McKinnon (29:26)
Right? So I think we have to start to trust. I think there’s an inner I mean, I’m getting more and more into the fact that we have this inner wisdom and this inner knowing we have to trust it and when something feels that good, even if we don’t totally understand the science or the why, I think if we trust that then it can it can help us immensely to just go with our instincts go with our gut go with this sort of inner wisdom and inner knowing. Yeah, so take off the shoes.
Peter Morrison (29:47)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (29:56)
And if anything feels that good, it’s going to naturally put you out of the stress response, right into that relaxation response. And we know that that’s where healing happens.
Peter Morrison (30:09)
Mm-hmm. Right, well think about going to the beach and taking your shoes off and walking in the sand or walking in the surf or the surf’s breaking, it’s like, my goodness, it’s great.
Martha McKinnon (30:21)
Right? It feels so good. You know, anything that feels that good, you know, it’s good for you. Yeah, absolutely. So, we’ve talked about the importance of slow breathing, about exercise, and particularly exercising outdoors. The next big one was sleep, like getting enough sleep, getting a good night’s sleep. And if you are a sleep compromised, figuring out how to nap as a way to just replenish your self-control because all of the science does show that over the course of the day, your self-control wanes and that it is much more compromised if you’re sleep deprived. So sleep is another big consideration if you’re looking at just living an overall healthy life and you’re looking at better management development of your habits and self-control.
Peter Morrison (31:18)
I’m not good in that department.
Martha McKinnon (31:21)
You’re not good at sleeping or taking naps?
Peter Morrison (31:24)
I’m terrible at taking naps and sleep. Not great. Yeah. Not great. How about you?
Martha McKinnon (31:33)
I sleep really really well. If sleeping were an Olympic sport I would be a contender. I think that I’m very fortunate. I’m very blessed that I do and this has been true you know, I’ve college, know friends you live when you live in a college dorm and the space is so small and you’ve got bunk beds close to one another. I used to be frustrating to my college roommates even back in those days I mean there are times of course where sleep can be, you know compromised but overall, I feel very fortunate that my sleep is pretty good.
But the final thing that comes up in terms of a way to help boost your control is learning to relax. And so even if I can’t sleep necessarily, again, and I think the yoga training helped me with this, whole concept of Shavasana, that final relaxation at the end of yoga class, which yoga teachers will tell you it’s just as integral as the main movement time of the yoga class.
Even if I can’t sleep, I’m pretty good about recognizing when I need to just chillax for five or ten minutes. If you can learn to just put yourself, lie down, sit in a really comfortable position, recline in some way, get yourself comfortable. From the yoga days I love lying on the floor with legs on a chair or legs on the wall and just sort of breathe. Focusing on my breathing a lot and tuning into my body doing sort of a body scan and just encouraging my body to relax and chill. So that’s another suggestion to just really learn how to consciously you know take five or take ten to just allow your body to relax.
And if you’ve never done that, there can be a little bit of a learning curve. But I remember, I know that in the time that I’ve taught group yoga classes, oftentimes I feel as though the students came to class just like for permission for Shavasana, because I think we live in a world of do, do, do. And sometimes I think we feel guilty about just not doing.
And I could just watch people let go and just watch their whole bodies just melt and relax and kind of benefit from that experience.
Peter Morrison (32:59)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, for me, and I know what you’re talking about, because when I was going to yoga regularly, I used to love that. But I’d say my sleep now, I’m not consistent for the times that I go to sleep. I mean, oh, I’ve got work to do, or oh, I’ve got this to do, and I feel like you’re kind of scrambling, and then you just go to bed.
Martha McKinnon (33:25)
Yeah. It’s a problem.
Peter Morrison (33:30)
I tend to wake up before I necessarily want to and whether it’s anticipation or my wheels start spinning. But every, let’s say every two to three weeks, I just feel like I hit the wall and it’s, you know, we have dinner, we tend to eat on the later side, but we’ll have dinner and like eight, 8:30 rolls around and I just, I’m done. I just say, I’m going to bed and then I wait, invariably I’ll wake up like feeling awesome the next day. And it’s like, I need to do that again tonight, but it’ll be another couple of weeks before I’m able to actually get there.
Martha McKinnon (33:58)
Once you focus on it, mean, you again, like anything, I think you need to focus and make it a priority. And once you make it a priority, you can start to tune into there’s so much out there to help you in terms of techniques, you know, for winding down for creating good sleep habits, lots of meditations, guided meditations on how to sort of relax and chillax and prepare to go into sleep. So once you’re ready to really focus on it, there’s a lot of support out there and tools to help you with your sleep.
So, I think that’s sort of a wrap on what I know about the Willpower Instinct so far. I’m going to continue to read the book and maybe we’ll have some future episodes based on more that I learn. But for now, if you really feel like you struggle around self-control of getting done what you want to get done, you know, sort of engaging in habits that you’re trying to break, take a look at and consider these steps.
And all of these steps are interesting to me because while they’re related to self-control, they’re all just related to overall health and wellness. And so that’s what tends to be cool about this. Whenever you do one thing that’s good for you, it’s not good for just one thing. It’s good for lots of things, you know, getting better sleep, breathing, exercise, relaxation. While these are good for your self-control, they’re good for your overall health and wellness. So it’s like you know, win-win.
Peter Morrison (34:55)
And they all, I think they all seem to be like about slowing down.
Martha McKinnon (35:03)
Well, I think that’s the other big part of it. think that what I’ve come to understand, what I’ve really come to see in myself is that, you know, change has to start with awareness, you know, and you build awareness through slowing down and being able to pay attention and sort of noticing if you’re going through your life on autopilot, you know, lost in space, lost in your thoughts, lost in your your story, your activity, your movement. I mean, don’t think change is even possible at that point because you’re not even aware that you want to change or that it’s possible. So I think you’re right. That’s a wonderful observation that all of this is talking about ways to slow down and to become more present. And it’s only by being present, by being aware that you can start to notice things about yourself, notice the way that you’re doing things.
And then start to realize that you want to make changes and shifts. So absolutely. It all really starts with sort of slowing down, you know, and sort of paying attention and tuning in instead of just being lost in the busyness and the distraction of our lives.
Peter Morrison (36:02)
Very good, a lot to think about.
Martha McKinnon (36:06)
A lot to think about, so thanks everyone for tuning in. If you enjoyed this, we’d love for you to like and subscribe to our channel and please share with friends and others as we try to grow our presence here in the world of podcasts.
Peter Morrison (36:27)
Thank you, have a good day.
Martha McKinnon (36:30)
Thanks everyone. We’ll be back soon.
