Shadowing Practice: know yourself without labelling yourself - Learn English Speaking with Video

good morning today i want to talk about something

that i feel like i've gotten quite a lot of questions about

and that is knowing yourself i also for today have got a new candle

that hopefully won't die and spill all over my desk halfway through the episode oh okay well

okay that looks awful to be honest um okay guys maybe we're going to be candleless this episode

because this isn't really working anyways the first ever podcast episode i did was about the defining the self

and the fact that I'm kind of uncomfortable with the idea of like people being one singular thing

and like people having these really really firm labels

that they attribute to themselves and to other people

and how I personally felt like my life was made a lot easier

and a lot more comfortable and also a lot more exciting

and it's been a lot easier to forgive myself

and forgive other people and love other people and love myself

and be happy

and excited ever since I've kind of tried to let go of labeling myself as this fixed thing

so I feel like the conclusion some people might draw from that is

that i probably don't see much point in getting to know

myself however as fun as it is to have this like

big loop -de -doo crazy definition of what it means to be a self

and stuff i still do feel like there can be something to say about understanding yourself

and getting to know yourself and learning who you are even though i don't believe

that i am anything fixed

so i've written down a few things a few kind of ideas about the topic

that i have and from there hopefully we'll be able to build some picture of whether it's helpful to know yourself, how we can know ourselves, what does it even mean to know ourselves

and also what things can we do to help aid knowing

ourselves without then getting a bit too obsessed with having an image of ourselves that we are trying to constantly recreate.

Okay let's go.

So the first thing I've written is I want to try

and define what I mean roughly by knowing myself

and I don't think I'm going to do a very perfect good clear -cut job of that in just one episode.

I feel like it's something that I perhaps haven't thought too much about.

Perhaps because I haven't felt it very important to necessarily define what I mean by knowing myself.

I personally feel like I've skipped that step in my personal life and just gone straight to like attempting to do it.

So I've not really given it much thought and I don't want to like rush to an answer.

So spoiler, I'm not gonna be able to give you guys an exact answer.

But I've written in my mind map a kind of like

circle flow chart of the steps I've mentally taken around what I mean by knowing myself.

So first of all, i think i used to before i kind of let go of the idea of self and all

that kind of nonsense i was talking about the first episode i think i used to have this frustration

because i had this very unrealistic definition of what it meant to know myself

and also i extended that definition to other people

and i had this really unrealistic view of what it meant to know myself

and other people

so i thought knowing other people meant like this crazy level

of intimacy where i'd understand them better than they know themselves

and i would be able to know every thought they're having

and I know why they're doing certain actions

and I would understand exactly what drives them

and I think I had a lot of frustration

because now I maybe I'm just like a shit friend I don't know maybe other people are able to do

that but I feel like that is a very unrealistic level of intimacy

because I don't think a lot of people can even do

that about themselves and obviously people are always changing

so like how can I possibly know someone who is always changing

and isn't always revealing everything about themselves to me and I think

that I also had

that unrealistic expectation towards myself where I expected knowing myself to be almost like envisioning myself as a separate person

that I know completely and entirely

and I would completely be able to analyze every single aspect of myself

and know exactly what drives me and why

and for context I'm someone who's been in therapy from early childhood

so like I've done a lot of intellectualizing

and like making sense of why I do things

and like understanding logically my behaviors and i think

that again not only was my expectation of what it meant to understand myself quite unrealistic

but also i think that if i could get to

that level that would be pretty detrimental because something

that i've had to undo is the fact

that i absolutely over intellectualize my emotions and i think

that knowing yourself in that way

that very kind of logical i guess like knowing yourself like knowing yourself as

if you are a fact that needs to be understood

and broken down in this very logical way i think that

that ultimately yeah could be detrimental and i think it's also just very unrealistic

so then i took a huge step back i think especially

when i realized that i think that's just very unrealistic

and i'm probably not going to be able to know myself

because i'm also always changing even

if i like figure myself out in one moment the next moment boom i'm different now what you know

and it just kind of felt like this big impossible task um

so then i think

that i reached this point in my life where i was

very satisfied with the idea of knowing myself as i am in every moment

and meeting myself in every moment and i can't remember my first podcast

but i think that was kind of the conclusion in

that podcast of what i think myself is

and what i think i am i think that i am just something

that i i'm here and every moment that i'm totally present with myself

and here with myself i am knowing myself

and i do think there's some merit to be had with

that like i think it's a lot more realistic i think it perhaps in some ways is also more accurate because Because.

I'm not kind of, I think when you label things, and this is getting into like, I'd love to do a podcast on language at some point, but now's not the time.

So very briefly, I feel like when you label things, you run the risk of perhaps adding a layer of reality to a situation that exists in the labels you add,

but doesn't exist in that situation itself.

Like for example, if something happens and I label it bad, whatever I mean by the word bad, even if

that situation did have some of those elements i think by

labeling as bad i'm kind of giving it new reality anyways

that is a whole other thing

that i'm sure i'd love to go into at some point

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because of that when i'm not labeling myself

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and i'm just being with myself and present with myself i'm perhaps understanding myself

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and processing what's going on in a more truer way i

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guess um obviously depending on how you understand knowing yourself truly

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to be how i understand it though i felt a lot more satisfied with

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that way of knowing myself however that is a bit impractical

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because as great as it is to be like i don't

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want to create any stories about myself i just want to let myself be there's obviously like some facts

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that i have to recall like for example someone asked me what's my favorite ice cream flavor

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or even like actually taking it back a bit more like

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if let's say i'm like trying to figure out what job

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i want to do i need to have an understanding of what skills

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and strengths i have and what things i like

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and what things i don't like

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and what i kind of want my life to look like

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and i can't really just like go with the wind i think as much

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and so linking back to knowing yourself i think i do have to know myself

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but what does that mean my current working definition of knowing myself

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or not even perhaps a definition but like how i'm understanding

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that task of knowing myself what i'm understanding

120

that to be for me is balancing ensuring that i'm introspective enough

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and have an ability to be introspective without over intellectualizing so kind of hitting that balance between understanding myself, understanding why I do things,

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being able to kind of tell this story of what has led me to be a certain way.

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Why have I been this way?

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What do I like about myself?

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What don't I like about myself?

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What situations do I seem to behave best in?

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While also not allowing that to be the only way in which I understand myself, but also allowing myself to be present with myself and be in myself as like a body,

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I guess, and be with myself in a much more kind of stripped back raw way.

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So how do we do this?

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As I said I was in therapy for a lot of my life

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but also I think during very formative years

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which really impacted the way in which I understood emotional processing

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and like I don't know just like a lot of I

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do wonder in what ways perhaps I was affected by the fact that I was in therapy at such a young age.

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I think that I absolutely fall into the camp of over intellectualizing.

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I'm really introspective I think I am very able to understand why i do certain things

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and kind of like i guess catch patterns and like things

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that cause certain behaviors in me and that's great

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but i think it's hit a point where

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and it hit a point a long

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while ago i think where it no longer was great

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and it was impacting my ability to feel feelings

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and i also think it got to a point where therapy wasn't even really working on me anymore

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because yeah i know how to intellectualize my emotions i know

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how to understand why i'm doing things i feel like i know myself in

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that definition really really really well but that was really impacting my ability to know myself in other ways.

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So I think what makes most sense to me is to start with how I recommend being introspective

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and understanding yourself in that way that I perhaps I'm quite good at

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because I feel like maybe I have a bit of authority maybe to speak on the subject considering

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that like it's a bit of an issue that I default to this

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so much and then afterwards we can go into how to not succumb to over -intellectualizing

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because that is what I struggle with

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and I guess rather than giving like my ironclad tips as to how to do

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that instead I'm going to like hesitantly suggest some things

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that i'm trying

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so how to be introspective how to know yourself in a

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way where you're able to tell a story about yourself i think

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that there are a few things that i recommend

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that really really help a few of these things perhaps will sound very like yeah of course um

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but i want to recommend them in a way the things

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that i'm going to recommend are tools

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but i feel like perhaps some people slightly misuse those tools

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so i also want to explain how i think you can

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get the best out of them how you can get the bang for your buck the first thing

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that i want to start with is something

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that i see people talk about online a lot

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but like no shade to anyone

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but i feel like sometimes the way i see it spoken about isn't perhaps the most helpful

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and that is journaling and

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that also brings me to today's sponsor hi i see a lot of people describe journaling as this thing

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that needs to be written perfectly and linearly

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and i disagree i always encourage playing with journaling whether

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that be through the way you tell the story

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or whether you tell the story at all

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but another thing i really love doing is drawing while journaling and

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that is why i've really enjoyed taking dylan mirzwinski's skillshare class

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illustrated journaling 14 days of prompts i love illustrated journaling

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but i think i've mentioned quite a few times on this podcast

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and on my channel that i am not very good at art

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which is why i found this class so helpful i really like the prompts

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but i also felt like it took a lot of pressure off of me watching them do it

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and then getting to do my own illustrations alongside dylan

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if you're trying to be a bit more playful with your journaling

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or trying to find new ways of journaling

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that work for you i really really recommend this skillshare class

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but i also really recommend skillshare in general skillshare has

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so many creative classes for hobbyists creative professionals and everyone in between

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and they're taught by world -class creatives

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which i think really comes across in the quality of classes

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that you're getting i'm sure that everyone is very very busy with their lives

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and that's why i really like

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that with skillshare you can learn at your own pace whenever

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you want with on -demand learning the first 500 people to the link in my description

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or scan the qr code will receive a one -month free

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trial of skillshare plus 20 off of their first year this offer is only available in november

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so please please

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if you are interested in joining me in learning new fun

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creative ways to journal as well as many other things then use the link in my description

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or the qr code to sign up to skillshare now thank you

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so much skillshare i think my gripe with the way

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that some people and definitely not all and definitely not even most

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but just like a group of people i've seen talk about journaling

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and also this isn't to like suggest

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that there's like a wrong way of journaling i think just specifically for this purpose

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so like journaling to know yourself i feel like some people recommend this very overly aestheticized

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and result -based way of journaling

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that although can be helpful for some things for example

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if you are somebody who really wants to create something visually appealing

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and you feel like

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that is what you want to get out of journaling then go for it

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but i feel like using journaling as a tool to understand yourself

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if you are too focused on the product then you can

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kind of lose i guess a lot of what makes journaling

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so helpful it's so useful also i think

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that i see some people recommend these very rigid structures

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that work for them and that's great i think it's wonderful

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that people have these structures

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that work for them for example i have my whole like

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journaling ecosystem i even have like a video about it

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but i think that then what is maybe not the most helpful is

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that some people are like okay great this is a great journaling ecosystem i'm going to use this exactly

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and i'm not going to tweak it to any of my needs

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and then it doesn't work

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and they're like oh well journaling is just like shit you know um i think

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that it's important with journaling to try

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and understand what you're getting out of it what things work for you

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and what don't but another thing is that like

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that sounds like quite a big task to like set out

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with i recommend trying out a few different ways of journaling

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or just like find a system that you like start doing it

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and then tweak things to fit your needs as you are doing it

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so if you've like set out

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that you want to lay out your page exactly like this

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and you want to have like three questions

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that you ask at the start of the day

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and then you're doing it and you're finding it's not working don't try

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and push yourself to keep doing it allow your kind of

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like journaling system to just come about i feel like as you have needs

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and as you have like ways

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that things work for you better eventually those things will just come to light

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and you will find a system

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that works for you will just emerge just get a pen get some paper

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and just write about what is on your mind and if you start to feel like what your writing's boring you, just start writing something else.

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If you feel like writing in itself is boring you, start drawing.

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If you feel like writing in a linear kind of like

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I guess normal way of writing isn't helping to get your point across, draw a flow chart.

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Do whatever it is

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that you feel helps you to make sense of the information in your brain

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and get your thoughts across on paper so

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that you then can have it out of yourself

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and you can have that kind of like I guess dialogue with yourself because for me journaling is like speaking to myself.

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And then you don't ever have to read that back again to be honest.

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I can't remember ever reading back my journals really other than like maybe funnily like with my friends or something

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or like with my partner being like oh my god wait

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like what was going on my journals are really ugly my

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journals are really really ugly on the inside they are written

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so scribbly sometimes i'll start a sentence

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and i'll be like actually i don't want to talk about

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that and i'll just write about something else

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and the sentence will just like hang

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and that's fine like use it as a tool

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and don't worry about it being the perfect way of journaling

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just speak to yourself i also recommend spending time alone this i know is something

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that some people struggle with and i used to struggle with so much

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so i'm definitely not coming from a place of like i

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don't know some people seem to just be really able to spend time alone

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and i'm completely happy to i i'm coming from a place of i used to hate to

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that and find it unbearable

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and kind of like impossible to be honest i would always have to be with someone

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and if i wasn't i would just like be on my phone the whole time

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because i could not stand being alone

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but slowly as i kind of got better

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and i became my phone addiction

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and la la la la i just forced myself to sit with the discomfort of being alone

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and being alone of my thoughts and then i realized after doing

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that for a while and overcoming that discomfort

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that i'm actually really enjoying it and i actually really like spending time alone and

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when you spend time alone again try not to distract yourself

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try not to use your phone try not to listen to

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music depending like i don't know i'm a bit iffy of music i feel like

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if you listen to music with the intention of listening to music then that's fine

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but i feel like

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if you are constantly having to play music in order to

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distract yourself then maybe not just reflect on it like what are you doing

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that is distracting you and what are you trying to be distracted from

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if it's discomfort sit with that discomfort write about

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that discomfort think about why you might have that discomfort feel

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that discomfort which of course we'll get into

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when we talk about not over intellectualizing i also really recommend walking alone it can be so boring

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but i think another like big advice is let yourself be bored sometimes i think about the fact that like i

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very rarely have to be bored

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because i have access to all of this entertainment constantly

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and also like such rapid fire boom dopamine frying crazy entertainment like yes i don't have to be bored

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and sit and wonder what i'm going to do today

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because i can look at this app

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that will show me different people every like five seconds

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and different faces that i have to process

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and different stories i have to hear and i can just scroll on

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that for hours that's crazy so yeah try let yourself be bored

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and see what you end up wanting to do maybe you'll

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realize oh my goodness i really really want to learn an instrument learn an instrument

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because if you're not using your phone especially

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if you're somebody who has a phone addiction

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if you swap phone time for learning instrument time you're going

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to realize you actually have a lot of time to learn an instrument

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if you realize oh my goodness i actually really always wanted to learn to cook

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or maybe you'll be alone

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and you'll be like oh my god i'm really craving a carrot cake

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and you'll make a carrot cake and you'll be like wow

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that was brilliant what else can i bake you know it's like let yourself be bored

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and i feel like things will just come out with you

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the phone is like the biggest killer sorry i'm like the

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number one phone hater my last podcast was literally just like

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get off your phone i hate phones i hate my phone obviously phones can be useful

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but i feel like the way that people are using

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and i'm saying people like not in a pointing fingers way

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the finger should be pointed at me i was the biggest

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escapism avoider using my phone to not think about things person ever i

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and other people definitely use our phones way too much in order to not be bored

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and not have to actually think about things

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and not have to do things and not have to face things enough to face uncomfortable things.

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How do you expect to know yourself if you're not facing uncomfortable things that you're feeling?

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So yeah honestly

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if you want to know yourself I recommend getting off your

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phone just like I recommend getting off your phone for most things because I'm a phone hater.

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So so far I recommend journaling but journaling as a tool to know yourself.

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Journal in a way that feels natural to you.

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I've also recommended spending time alone but specifically facing whatever it is

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that makes you uncomfortable about spending time alone

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and just really like being alone in order to give yourself

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that space and time to understand what it is

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that you are avoiding and also allowing yourself the space

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and time to do things that you want to do but perhaps don't have the space and time to do.

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The last thing

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that I recommend in order to learn to be a little bit more introspective is to talk to people

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but I don't just mean.. okay hang on I'm getting ahead of myself.

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First of all I recommend the classic thing

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that like I think most people think of and their brains jump to

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when I say talk to people which is talk to close friends

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and close people in your life about how you're feeling

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and about philosophy and about things that make you feel existential

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and things that make you feel uncomfortable and your hopes

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and your dreams i think that's so helpful and especially

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if you can find someone who is open to talk about

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those things as well you can really have a fun back

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and forth and i feel like those conversations have been like there's been some i've had in my life

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that have truly been life -changing

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and made me realize some like really insane things about myself

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that like like i wow i feel like i love myself

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and know myself so much better for those conversations

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but I also recommend talking to people and listening to people about things

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that like aren't

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that deep I just recommend connection I guess ask the people around you how they are

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and really listen to how they are and you know talk to people

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but also when people are talking to you really listen

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and try not to jump to conclusions about what they might be saying

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or jump to understandings of why you think

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that might be happening just allow yourself to listen to the way they speak

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and what they're probably feeling and why they think certain things

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and the conclusions that they seem to draw from things

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but also talk to people about things

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that seem almost like pointless to talk about i used to

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be a small talk hater until i realized like i don't know small talk is

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so intimate in a way especially

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because perhaps the reason i used to not like small talk is

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because i was really bad at it and i'm still not very good

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but i feel like sometimes

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when i'm having small talk with someone it really feels like i love you

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so much i don't really know you but i love you

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so much in this moment that i just want to talk to you

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and i want to converse with you and i want to connect with you

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and i don't know you very well

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so i don't really know what to talk about

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but i love you like i love you as another human

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being i'm a human being let's talk it's awesome i love small talk chat to people try

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and really investigate other people not in a way

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that sounds kind of creepy i don't mean like ask invasive

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questions by investigate i just mean like i don't know for example recently i went like perfume shopping not shopping

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because i'm on a perfume buying ban i went perfume smelling

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because of the fact that i am not allowed to go perfume shopping

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so i went and i smelled some things

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and the guy at the counter i just asked him like oh well

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which one's your favorite perfume but i didn't ask just

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because like i don't know i didn't ask because i wanted a recommendation or

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because i wanted to just like throw away ask something i

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really was like hmm you've taken a lot of time to get to know my perfume once

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and i guess that's probably because you want to sell me something

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but i genuinely want to know what does your nose like

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what kind of perfumes do you like we ended up having

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such a long conversation like i feel like slowly building on

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that he ended up asking me like quite a lot of personal questions

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but i was fine with it luckily

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and then i asked him like i guess mirroring questions

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and i was genuinely really interested to hear about him

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and he was such a cool guy he was

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so interesting he had so much like really really cool insightful things to say

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and you know it mostly was kind of small talk like

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we did speak a little bit about like we spoke quite a bit about identity

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which maybe isn't really small talk

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but um you know like it never got it's not like

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i don't you know i don't really know this guy i

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asked him his name oh that's another a thing ask for people's names but yeah we just kind of spoke and

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don't know it's like yeah there was quite a bit to reflect on

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and it was really interesting but i think also it was just

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so nice speaking to someone

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and feeling this like i just really wanted to talk to this guy

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because i love talking just talk to people about things i

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don't know ask people about like let people speak to you

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about their interests i feel like i don't know it's just

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such a nice feeling maybe this isn't even to do with knowing yourself

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but i just love talking to people

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and yeah also asking people's names is a really really big one as well

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and just also like this is all like i guess

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if you try and be more present and off your phone

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and stuff you'll just start to notice people more

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and i just love like looking at people again in a

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like not creepy way i'm really sounding a bit freaky

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but like i just love people

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and i feel like the better i know people the better i know myself now moving on to something

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that i struggle with and i don't know

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if i'll even be able to give very good advice i'm

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actually maybe gonna ask you guys for some advice how to avoid over intellectualization

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because i think

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that i used to be someone still am i'm the goat of over intellectualizing okay probably

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because of the fact that i was in therapy

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when i was quite young since a young age i've been

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very able to like draw conclusions as to why i'm a certain way

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and like i don't know sometimes i'll ask my partner to rate what he's feeling

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and like tell me where he's feeling it

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and he's like what are you talking about he sometimes isn't

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able to like rate things like on a scale of one to ten

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and i've noticed like damn this is so easy for me probably

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because i've had so much practice um

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and i'm really good at like i don't know

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if i'm feeling anxious being like i feel anxious in my chest

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and it's currently a four out of ten and that's great

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that i can do that but i'm not very good at feeling anxious

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and like i don't know i i just really struggle with it

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and like even talking about it i'm not even sure what i'm trying to describe

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because it's something that i am not very good at experiencing something

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that i've written down in regards to the lack of introspection versus over intellectualizing

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and trying to kind of strike a balance between the two is

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that with being introspective it's about taking time to speak to yourself

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but with not over intellectualizing that you have to also allow yourself to feel so things

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that i have done first of all guess what it could

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be guess take a wild guess as to what i'm going

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to recommend right now getting off my damn phone getting off my phone

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and i mean that not just like getting off your phone

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but also getting rid of distractions

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and anything you're doing to avoid your feelings kind of linking

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to knowing yourself in a more intellectual way i also feel like this is

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so crucial for knowing yourself as like a living breathing thing

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that feels things and has sensations in its body

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and has like senses that it like i don't know it's just

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so cool and i feel like when i was in a lot of pain

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and when i was really anxious and

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when i was really not doing well it was a lot

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easier to numb myself in order to avoid feeling those things

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and my favorite method of doing

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that was using my phone for like 16 hours a day

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or something stupid like that and it was really uncomfortable

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but i think

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when i tried a bit harder to like consciously make the effort to feel my feelings more

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and actually like exist in my body

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while those sensations are happening a big thing is to kind of reflect on whether you distract yourself

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or whether you have some form of escapism

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and try to ask yourself why try if you can to eliminate

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that and then see what comes up for me mostly discomfort a lot of discomfort would come up

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and then instead of going like oh my god I need to soothe myself right now

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if you're able to handle it just breathe be in the feeling

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and what does it feel like and not too much over intellectualizing

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if you can but just be with it

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and just kind of exist in that state for a

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while it does get a little bit easier I found

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but also it's really cool

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because I feel like it's a different way of knowing yourself another thing I like to do something

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that I think I might have mentioned in the first podcast I make myself try

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and process the things around me without language like I'll try say to myself language isn't real anymore

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and then I try to like look at the things around me

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and process like the signs around me and like everything around me as

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if language isn't a way to pass information back and forth

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and what will happen is I will become very aware of my surroundings

483

but in a very different way like writing I mean it's difficult

484

because when I see English I kind of automatically process it as like the information that's trying to convey

485

but like if i try really hard i can instead see it as just like symbols

486

and stuff and i feel like it's so cool

487

because it's a different way of being here and i feel like

488

that is like a really good hack

489

that helps me to feel really in my body like

490

so present but also

491

so aware of things in a very like it feels very primal like in a really raw way

492

because i'm not able to be like i feel sad right

493

now language isn't real anymore i have to just feel it

494

and that's a really really like useful hack so avoiding distractions

495

and facing your feelings head -on language isn't real hack another

496

thing is meditating I think every podcast episode I've recommended meditating

497

and I probably will recommend meditating many times to come my favorite way of meditating is guided meditation especially

498

if I've been like out of practice of meditating I use balance

499

which is usually 60 pound a year

500

but every time I've checked I don't want to say for sure

501

that they'll have it but every time I've looked they have like one year free

502

which is really cool because

503

if you can't afford the 60 pound a year by the

504

first year you probably will have really good meditation like skills

505

and you'll be able to do it without the guided meditation I don't even think

506

that I necessarily need guided meditation anymore but I think

507

because they have a lot of very specific meditations like aimed towards certain things

508

and I am like especially now that I'm on my phone anymore oh my goodness I am

509

loser so bad at meditating now so i do find it really helpful

510

but i don't think that you have to necessarily pay for it

511

if you're able to get onto that free trial

512

that is definitely like more than useful enough i do have a friend though

513

that said she really didn't like balance

514

so it really is like depends on your needs

515

and what works for you

516

and what doesn't for me balance is like the best thing i've ever tried

517

and i have tried other guided meditations

518

and just like other ways of meditating also for some context my dad was a monk for a

519

while and i grew up in thailand i was very little

520

when i lived in thailand so i don't know whether other people had this experience

521

but for me i remember there being a lot of emphasis on meditating

522

and like i remember learning to meditate and stuff

523

which doesn't seem to be the case in like europe i don't want to say europe as a whole

524

but like being polish and also living in england i don't really get the impression

525

that other people were exposed to meditation as much as i was as a child

526

but i also don't know whether all kids in thailand were exposed as much either

527

but i personally was exposed to meditating quite a lot

528

when i was young so it's something

529

that i have a lot of practice in

530

and yeah balance is like my go love balance meditating is amazing

531

because like you really just have to be in your body

532

and just experience it for a while

533

and i feel like in a world this is gonna be my fucking boomer rant

534

my boomer anti -phone rant again but like in a world

535

that is so fast -paced and

536

so full of distractions you really like don't have to know yourself

537

if you don't want to like you can spend your whole life thinking

538

that you're happy because you have like a fancy car

539

and a nice house and you've bought loads of things

540

and you love the fact that you have all these wonderful status symbols

541

and you can use your phone all the time

542

and you can have this fake persona online where you post all these things

543

that like you want people to see about yourself

544

and la la la la la you can do all of

545

that but like i personally having like dipped my toes into like thinking of myself about

546

that way for a while when i was younger

547

and like really phone addicted

548

and like not like as fucking on it as i am now i'm

549

so much happier now i'm so happy i love life

550

and i feel like being able to be in my body

551

but also through meditation giving myself these little chunks of time I'd like to say every day

552

but nowhere near every day because I'm definitely a bit phone addicted at the moment

553

but um when I used to be better at meditating every day

554

and also nowadays like here

555

and there giving myself a chunk of time where I'm like

556

okay I am giving myself 10 minutes to just be completely in my body

557

and just allow myself to experience being here you know what the hell I'm in here like that's crazy

558

and being with myself in that way is so helpful

559

and I feel like has made such a difference in my life

560

and also then like makes me calmer

561

and more generally meditative for the rest of the day

562

because i think ultimately the goal for me at least is to be generally extremely present

563

but i feel like giving myself

564

that chunk of time where i am like actively i guess meditating

565

and like doing nothing else for like 15 minutes is

566

so helpful so yeah anyways i don't know whether that's helpful this is what's worked for me

567

but i think another part of knowing yourself is knowing what you want to know about yourself I guess

568

and I think the things that I have described and the things

569

that I have felt

570

and tried to do with knowing yourself clearly reflect what I want to get out of knowing myself

571

so ultimately my final piece of advice perhaps like ask other people

572

and try to seek it from sources like I don't know for example a lot of people ask me

573

and a lot of people also seem to infer things from my video

574

that then help them to understand what they'd like to get out of knowing themselves

575

and that's awesome I'm so glad that I can give people

576

that um and yeah like I also said earlier like with listening to people

577

and asking people ask other people like what does it mean to know themselves

578

and la la la but I think sometimes maybe people do

579

that hoping that an answer will be given to them

580

and maybe it will but I also think try to look at it as an active process

581

that you have to decide for yourself rather than something that will suddenly poke you and arrive for you you know

582

anyways guys i still don't have a podcast name i've still

583

not also thought about it i think in the last podcast

584

i was like it's my job to come up with a podcast name i'm gonna think about it

585

and i'm gonna get back to you guys um

586

and i didn't think about it i did get a comment

587

and i'm so sorry i can't remember the user's name

588

but it was something like room for thought

589

because most of my podcasts take place in my room

590

and i think like i still want to reflect a bit

591

i think i wanted ideally something a bit shorter although

592

that is actually really short so like maybe it will be

593

that but something about like room four is really cool

594

so like that is like the direction i'm heading a little bit

595

but we'll see thank you so much for listening sorry

596

that i couldn't give a clear -cut answer

597

but to be honest this is something

598

that i am also trying to figure out and something

599

that i'm learning as well uh but

600

if you have any thoughts any opinions any things

601

that you like to do anything that you disagree with please do comment

602

and let me know because i love reading your guys's comments please subscribe

603

if you haven't already and also please like this video because

604

that really really helps to push my videos out

605

and allows me to keep on doing this as my job

606

which I'm so grateful for thank you so so much um and yeah I will see you guys next week

607

bye bye

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Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

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