Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Whose Cup Are You Filling?

Transcript

Whose Cup Are You Filling? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Today. Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Today, the last
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: week of summer.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Don't say that that's really sad.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling so excited about it. I'm tired of sitting
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: in my office and sweating in the air conditioning not working.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to the end of summer, cool weather, Autumn.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Here we go. This is why we live in Queensland, right,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: It's just ten weeks twelve weeks of real heat and
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: then we get that beautiful weather for the rest of
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the year. Okay, all right, I appreciate you being so
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: accommodating to my preferences. Hey, today on the pod, we're
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: going to have a conversation about an article that I
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: read back in October last year, and it's just it's
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: that grain of sand in my shoe. It's the provocation.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I heard a great quote recently came from a school
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: leader who said, contented cows give milk, agitated oysters give pearls.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: And I've been agitated and I feel like it's time
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: for the pearl to come out today. So Derek Thompson
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: is a former Atlantic staffer who now has his own substack.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Just look up Derek Thompson on substack and you'll find him.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: We will link to the article on the show notes.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: But I read this back in October and I can't
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: let go of it. It has been a sand in
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: my shoe that has become a pearl in my oyster.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: And today we have a look at whose cup we
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: are filling by Derek Thompson. Because it's just too good
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: to not share as widely as possible. Stay with us.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Happy Family podcast, where you
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: get real parenting solutions every single day. This is Australia's
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: most download a parenting podcast. We so appreciate that you
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: choose to make us that. Thank you for listening. We
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: hope that you're getting great value from it. We ad
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Justin and Kylie course my the parents have six kids.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: And today Kylie, I'm going to just share some thoughts
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: from this substack article from Derek Thompson that he shared
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: last year that has not let me go. I keep
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: coming back to it again and again and again, usually
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: in a guilty way because I'm doing it wrong. And
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: the substack is a really positive way of realigning values,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: realigning intention and I just love for you interrupt me
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: if anything strikes you as I'm reading is that.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, hit me.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: The post is called Whose Cup Are You Filling? It's
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: a Sunday Morning post about attention, finitude, and a game
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: of life. He says, I'm thinking of a game. The
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: rules are simple. Every morning you have a full picture
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: of water and many empty cups. By day's end, you
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: pour all the water from the picture into the cups.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: The goal of the game is to pour the water
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: into the right cups.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm going to stop you right there. Okay,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: this is so hard, like you haven't even got into it.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: And I'm thinking about all of my cups. I'm a daughter,
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: I'm a sister, I'm a wife, I'm a mother to
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: six really unique individual kids.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: So that is six cups right there.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Right, So lots of people think that our kids are
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: kind of cookie cutter when you look at them, that
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: they they look the same. But yeah, to parent them,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: they are not.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: All you have to do is have a second child,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: and you realize this, right, and once you have six,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I want to six, and I just I'm never endingly
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: surprised at how different I am to my siblings, and
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: they are from one another. And so we would expect
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: that would happen with our kids too, and it has.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: I'm a mother in law, I'm a grandmother, I'm a teacher,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: I'm a taxi driver, I'm a nurse, I'm a therapist.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: But then there's also all of the facets that make
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: up me, what's going to me, and it is a
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: mental met and the emotional me, Like there is so
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: many cups, and the idea that we can find balance
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: and all of that is kind of a bit of
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: a fallacy.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't believe in balance. We've had this conversation
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: on the pod before.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: You just think about any one of those relationships and
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: when one of them is in crisis.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Then all of the water goes into that cup.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, keep reading, but I'm just well, before
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: I keep reading, let's just I've lost count of how
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: many cups are sitting in front of me.
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  Speaker 1: Right now, You've mainly been talking about the roles that
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: you feel, but then you added and I think it's
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: worth fleshing it out. In fact, he does it in
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: the next paragraph. There's also the things you do that
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: you're tipping water into, whether it's watching Netflix or going
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: and exercising or spending some time in faith and devotion
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: and putting your energy into reading uplifting literature. Like all
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: of these things also are emptying that picture of water
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  Speaker 1: every single second of every single day.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: My table is big enough.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: No, no, there's a lot of cups. All right, here's
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: what he says. He says sounds like it's a weird game.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I know, But there's a catch. You have been playing
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: this game your whole life, and I think that's worth
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: pointing out. Whether you opt in or not, you're still
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: playing the game. This is a non optional game. This
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: is what our life is. The game is attention. You
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: are the picture. The water is your time, your daily
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: sixteen or seventeen hours of waking consciousness, all your care
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  Speaker 1: and focus and feeling. The cups represent everything you pour
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: your thoughts and attention into. They're abled, work, TikTok, wife
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: or husband dishes, exercise, regret, parents, anxiety. God. I just
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: want to pause there for a sec because attention. I
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: love how you said this. If you're focused on this regret,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: something happens, I don't know, a week ago, or a
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: month ago, or five seven years ago, five years ago,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: that's exactly right. And you wake up and once the
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: morning rushes over and you sit down, and then it
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: just pops back into your head and you spend five
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: or ten minutes thinking about that regret, and maybe you
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: journal a bit about it, or maybe you ring somebody
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: and talk to them about the regret and how this
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: thing just won't get shaken, or maybe you go and
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: spend hours and an enormous amount of money in a
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: therapist's office talking about this regret. This is pouring water
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: out of you into that glass. And here's what he says.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: By its nature, water cannot go into two cups simultaneously.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: When you're listening to a podcast, you aren't listening to
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: your husband, when you're thinking about politics, you aren't thinking
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: about your sister. When you're working, you aren't praying. It's
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: easy to lie to ourselves about our values and our priorities.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: But attention doesn't tell lies. Attention reveals the preferences that
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: we have our values.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Well, there's that kind of well known saying that where
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: your attention goes, your energy flows. So wherever I'm putting
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: my attention, that's where my water is going. Right.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is another way of kind of saying what
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Stephen Covey said, the things that matter most should never
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: be at the mercy of the things that matter least.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: And so if you're getting a nickers in a not
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: about things that on a global scale, really do matter,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: right like the stuff that's on the front page of
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: the news, I'm not going to talk about anything there
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: because it might offend somebody who really does care about
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: those things. The reality is, you can't do anything about
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: that stuff. Well, most of us can't do anything about
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: that stuff. Maybe a few of us in some strange
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: circumstances can, But we can do something about the fact
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: that our daughter is coming home and crying every afternoon,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: or that we've got a husband who feels disconnected and
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: the way that he demonstrates that disconnection is to dispair
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: into his bedroom and watch Netflix rather than coming out
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  Speaker 1: and communicating with the family. We can focus on things
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: that we're concerned about, or we can focus on things
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  Speaker 1: that we have some power to control. Where we put
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: our water, where we tip our water out of our
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: finite resource each day has a huge impact on what
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: the rest of our life feels like and whether we
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: feel like we're in control or not. And Derek Thompson
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: says many people spend their whole lives emptying themselves without
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: taking stock of the water levels of the cups into
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: which they pour their existence. They spend hours, days, and
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  Speaker 1: decades watering cups that they never meant to water, and
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: leaving empty other vessels they always meant to fill.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Clearly, I only have my perspective to go from. But
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: I talk to too many women who feel like their
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: pitch is empty, but they've gotten nothing out of the experience.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: They're just constantly pouring into other people's cups or or
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: other things and feeling depleted from the process.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: This is a question of where we're going to focus.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: I do this activity when I'm talking to staff or
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: parents sometimes or students where I get them to put
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: a broomstick on their fingertips and they look at their
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: fingertips and the broomstick falls over. It usually hits them
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: in the head. But instead of looking at their fingertips,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: if they look at the top of the broomstick, they
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: can balance it on their fingertips. So when I hear
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: you say that, I'm thinking the attention is there regardless,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: but sometimes we're putting our attention in less effective places,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: and that is depleting. If we're putting our attention to
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: something that depletes us. We are going to feel empty,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: We're going to feel horrible. I'll give you a really
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: simple example. Every now and again, I will write a
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: piece for social media, and then I get caught up
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: in what I'm seeing in the comments, and all my
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: attention gets poured into too spending a long time responding
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: to people that I don't know and that I don't
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: need to impress, and that often have been brought in
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: by the algorithm. They're not actually followers of what we do.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: And I sit down at the table and I'm angry.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: You know that I'm angry, and you'll be like, oh,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: you've been on social media. There's so much so that
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I've stopped. I've given all my social media to my team.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: I just write this stuff and I walk away. I
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: don't even look at it anymore. I don't even know
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: how to log in anymore. My team posts it all
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: for me and does it because I don't want to
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: put my attention on it. I made the decision because
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: a little while ago, like I'm talking in the last
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: six months, I made a post about something that was
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: pretty provocative, and somebody came at me pretty hard, and
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: they were just in retrospect. They were thoughtful, but they
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: were impolite, and I just called them a goose on
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: social media, not in my mind. I actually said you're
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: a goose. And then they screened shouldered and said, oh,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: we've got screen sholders. Justin Coulson called me a goose,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: and that they carried on and I apologized them at
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: it right, But I was putting my attention into something
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: that wasn't helpful, and it had flow and effects because
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I had less capacity to put attention into you and
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: the kids that day, that night, that evening, as we
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: spend time together.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: On my side of the coin. Then at the moment,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: I'm putting a lot of energy into my physical health
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: and moving my body and exercising, and that is having
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: a huge toll on my capacity to be as presidents.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: I would like come the afternoon time when I'm ready
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: for bed four o'clock. But the challenge is, as most
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: of us will experience, what I'm doing is not bad.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: And if we recognize and know that balance isn't an like,
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: it's just not it's not achievable, then how do we
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: make the decision about where our energy needs to go
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: and our attention needs to go. If all of these
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: things are good, I have six children, they're all good, right,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: and have a grand baby she's good.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: How do you find the energy to put the attention
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: into it if you've depleted your energy even though you've
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: still you've still got the minutes and the hours in
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: the day, but there's no energy left to direct the
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: attention productively. Yeah. Yeah, let's talk about it after the break.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Stay with this, We're back into Happy Families podcast. Kylie,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: you've asked this really hard question. I don't know that
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: I've got a great answer for you, but I think
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: it would be worth stepping back into the Derek Thompson
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: piece because he does say something that I think really
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: matters here. He says the game of cups is a
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: useful allegory because it recommends a clear action. Think of
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: it as a waterline inventory. At the end of the day,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: you can ask yourself, who got my water today? Did
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: I save my attention for my priorities or do I
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: consistently pour myself into activities and media that I would
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: never say I valued. And I feel a little pad
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: of guilt there because I probably only need to check
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: the news headlines two or three times a day, but
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: I probably checked them eight times a day, and therefore
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: I'm pouring water into the wrong spot. And often I'll
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: do it because I'm feeling depleted and I'm not sure
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: that I have the energy to do the stuff that
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I want to do. Anyway, let me jump back in,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: he says. One can be quite precise about this waterline inventory.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: If you're a white collar worker, for example, you'll have
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: typed hundreds or thousands of words in a given day.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Who or what got your words? Projects you care about
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: or projects you wish never existed, colleagues or family, group
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: chats with people you don't really care about, or group
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: chats with people you love and want to see more of,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: he says, if I'm being strictly honest with myself, there
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: are too many weeks when looking back, I sent hundreds
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: of words to slack channels and group chats I don't
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: really care about without sending a word to a friend
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: I care about and haven't contacted in a while.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: So at the beginning of the year, we shared the
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: three words that we picked to focus on this.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Year, Connection, vitality, intention.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: And as we're talking to me. This is really just
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: about intention. Yeah, attention is about what our intention is. Like,
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: if we want to be intentional, then our attention is
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: going to go to the places that we believe need
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: our focus.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: And I'm thinking about that question that you asked. What
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: happens at four o'clock in the afternoon when you are
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: out on your feet. You've been going all day, You've
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: put a whole lot of energy into other activities, productive activities.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: You've been really good. You haven't even snacked, like you've
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: been really really good and focused on all the right things.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: But you've still got another three to four hours to go,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: and you're kind of thinking, hmmm, I don't think I
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: want to Something that I've discovered is that if you
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: just take that first or second step, just take a
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: couple of steps and get some momentuments and progress, it
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: starts to feel good again. So you might think, I
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: don't want to spend time with the kids, or I
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: don't want to go on cook dinner. But if you
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: can pull yourself off the couch or pull yourself off
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: the bed or wherever it is that you're laying down
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and trying to get that little breather, because you really
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: do feel like you need it if you can switch
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: netflick off, or stop scrolling the Instagram reels. And this
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: isn't about you, This is a general comment. What happens
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: is you take those steps into the kitchen, you open
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: the fridge, you pull the ingredients out, you start chopping,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, you're there. You're putting your
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: attention into it. Or you notice that your daughter is
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: not looking very happy, and you're there. You start to
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: put your attention into it. My experience has been that
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: that attention picture goes from sun up to sundown, from
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: when we wake to when we sleep. We've just got
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: to be intentional about pouring the water into the right cups.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: And this is how Derek Thompson finishes the piece. He says,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the whole project might sound like a major guilt trip,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: but I choose to see it differently. Our attention is
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: a unique resource. Bodies degrade, wealth rises and falls, reputations
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: come and go, but attention refreshes daily. The morning's picture
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: is always full, the morning's cups are always the game
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: begins again, and it's a game you can win today
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: no matter how many times you've lost. So this week,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I wrote myself a note and taped it to my
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: desk where I can't miss it. Whose cup did you
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: fill today?
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: I really like that ending. It's so simple, it's so profound,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: the idea that you don't actually have to think about
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: the hundreds of cups in front of you, because That's
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: what I've been focusing on, but the one cup you
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: intend to focus on.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: We will link to Derek Thompson's article and his entire
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: substack in the show notes because I think it's great.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: It's one of my favorites. Even though I don't always
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: agree with it. I just think he's so provocative and
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: so oh my goodness, he's so articulate. Derrek Thompson substack
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: will link to that. The Happy Family's podcast is produced
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Mim Hammon's provides our
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: admin and other support. If you would like more info
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: to make your family happier, we'd love for you to
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: visit us at Happy families dot com dot au