Latest / Impact Ready / 206. From Thoughts to Character: Buddhist Wisdom for Mindfulness, Habits, and Lasting Impact

Transcript

206. From Thoughts to Character: Buddhist Wisdom for Mindfulness, Habits, and Lasting Impact · Impact Ready

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  Welcome to Impact Ready, a show dedicated to helping you elevate
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  your impact in the world. I'm Steph Safra, your host.
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  Let's explore the power of showing up with intention and
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  energy each day. This is for those who seek to
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  make life truly meaningful. Get ready for impact.
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  Hello my friends, Hello team. Welcome to the Impact Ready
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  podcast. Welcome to the beginning of May.
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  I don't know how this year is going so fast, but here we are.
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  And it's a good month to be in Portland, OR.
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  It starts to get very beautiful around here today.
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  In this episode, I want to talk about some Buddhist wisdom that
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  has informed and inspired some of the ways that I think about
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  impact. As many of you know, I came from
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  a health background, specifically Chinese medicine
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  and acupuncture. I've been practicing acupuncture
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  for 16 years, and during the time between 2006 and 2009 I was
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  in grad school, I was immersed into the world of Chinese
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  medical theory, which was often interwoven with Buddhist theory
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  and Taoism. This was a really important time
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  in my life, very influential. I was 24 years old when I
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  decided to go to grad school and the catalyst for going was that
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  I had been getting acupuncture for a year prior.
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  The reason that I was getting acupuncture was because I had a
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  slew of different symptoms that were kind of dragging me down.
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  After I graduated college, I immediately started working for
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  a construction company in Portland and while it was really
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  fun, I actually loved being in the corporate setting and my
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  colleagues were awesome. It was such a memorable 2 years
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  of my life. I was also dealing with a lot of
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  existential angst. I had no idea what I wanted to
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  do with my life. I I knew that what I was doing
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  was not where I wanted to be going.
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  As much fun as it was, it was not my purpose.
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  And I was feeling a lot of anxiety around that.
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  I wasn't sleeping, I was overwhelmed.
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  I felt a lot of tension. My back was killing me from
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  sitting in a chair all day. I had knee pain that was never
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  really resolved after playing sports all through high school,
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  and I just kind of felt like a mess.
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  So I had been going to this practitioner and getting
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  treatment, and after getting acupuncture for a year,
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  everything felt so much better. I was like a different person,
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  and I was so inspired by the medicine and how much it could
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  help people that I couldn't stop talking about it.
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  My practitioner at the time said, hey, why don't you go to
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  grad school for this? You would love it.
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  It's right up your alley. And I don't know what it was,
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  but something just clicked. It felt like the right move, the
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  right decision. And within a month of him saying
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  that, I had quit my job, I had applied to this graduate
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  program, been accepted and moved back in with my parents and
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  started this grad school journey.
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  And that started off the trajectory of me immersing
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  myself into the world of Eastern culture, something I knew
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  nothing about, to be honest. It introduced me to the idea of
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  yin and Yang and the true meaning behind it, which is how
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  so many things in this earth are interdependent and
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  interconnected. It's one of the most beautiful
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  concepts that I've ever learned and that I live by now.
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  Something that was in direct opposition to my young mind,
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  black and white thinking at the time, with my only exposure to
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  yin and Yang being that little pendant that I wore on my
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  necklace in 8th grade. You guys remember the 90s?
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  It was such a fantastic time, Yin and Yang and peace signs and
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  flowers and all the hippie stuff that was really trendy and
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  popular in the 1990s. I was also introduced to Daoism
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  and Lautzi, who is the legendary Chinese philosopher.
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  He's considered to be the author of the Dao De Ching, which is
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  one of the foundational texts of Taoism.
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  And all of this changed my life in a lot of different ways.
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  To start thinking about the way of the Dao, which essentially is
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  wisdom on living in harmony with the natural underlying flow of
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  the universe. It was a pretty sharp left turn
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  for me. It was a 24 year old who went to
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  high school and College in Oregon.
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  I didn't have much exposure to that kind of philosophy or
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  thinking. All that to say, this type of
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  theory and wisdom is very appealing to me even now.
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  It feels familiar. It feels very resonant.
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  I remember the first time reading anything like that.
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  It felt like I was remembering, like I was coming back to
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  something that I've known before.
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  It was the most truth I could feel in my body that I had in a
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  really long time. When I started getting
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  introduced to some of these ideas and concepts in Taoism and
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  Buddhism, there's a quote that I really like that has origins in
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  Buddhist teachings that I want to share with you today.
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  And to be honest, there are a lot of iterations of this
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  sentiment, and this is a much more modern version of it, but
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  it goes like this. Watch your thoughts, they become
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  your words. Watch your words, they become
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  your actions. Watch your actions, they become
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  your habits. Watch your habits, they become
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  your character. Watch your character, for it
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  becomes your destiny. And I think about this a lot,
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  this sequence of events from thoughts to destiny.
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  Watch your thoughts, they become your words.
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  Isn't that true? And we talk about this all the
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  time. I call it the language of your
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  life. The words that we say out loud
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  about different circumstances in our life are reflections of the
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  thoughts that we have inside, to be aware of what we are
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  thinking, to challenge what we're thinking and push back on
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  some of the ideas that we hold to be the strongest.
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  I think it's a really powerful practice to shift the way that
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  we show up in the world. You can tell when somebody has
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  been doing that work because they speak differently.
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  They catch themselves in the middle of a sentence that
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  reflects an old pattern. I have a group of friends who
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  are all coaches and it's hilarious to sit and listen to
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  our conversation because everybody's always self
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  correcting. They'll say, oh, I didn't mean I
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  don't have to do this. That's not what I meant.
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  I get to do this. I chose this, I asked for this.
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  It's not an obligation. It's something I get to do
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  always self correcting. And it's kind of ridiculous, but
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  it speaks to this idea that our thoughts become our words.
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  And then watch your words. They become your actions.
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  Where focus goes, energy flows. The way that we talk about
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  things becomes how we behave. It's crazy to see how often
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  people say they're having a bad day and then the rest of their
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  day turns out to be bad. Scary how powerful that is.
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  Our words become our actions. And then watch your actions.
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  They become your habits. Any action done repetitively
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  becomes a neural pathway that then becomes a routine and a
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  habit. James Clear talks about this in
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  Atomic Habits, you know, America's favorite book.
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  But people miss a really big part of what James Clear says in
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  his book when talking about building habits.
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  He talks in the beginning about thinking about the identity that
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  you want to embody first, thinking about what you want to
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  embody, letting that identity direct the actions that you take
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  to build the habits you want. But people skip over that
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  identity piece a lot because it's a little bit more of a
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  heavy lift, right? Thinking about identity, it
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  feels a lot easier to just change your routine and to not
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  have to worry about the stuff that's deeper than that.
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  But that's really what this is about.
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  Watch your habits. They become your character.
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  The way that we show up over and over again in our life is how
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  people know us. It becomes the attributes of our
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  identity. The characteristics of us are
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  built from the things that we do every single day.
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  What are the habits that you hold every single day?
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  The person who has a habit of telling it like it is has the
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  characteristic of being forthright, of being honest.
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  Someone who has a habit of doing what they say they're going to
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  do has the characteristic of being reliable, dependable,
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  accountable. People would say they have
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  integrity, but most people don't think about habits that way.
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  Habits become your character and then finally watch your
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  character. It becomes your destiny.
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  You know, sometimes I find it hard to think about my destiny
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  when I'm in the middle of my life.
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  But what I would hope is that whatever it ends up like, it
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  reflects the character that I bring.
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  And so an effort to have the best possible future for myself
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  and the people that I love, I will try to bring the best
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  possible character. It's a practice every day.
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  It's something that is evolving 'cause we are always learning.
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  But what a worthy cause, right? Because you never know the
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  ripple effects that your life will have on other people's
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  lives or in the world at large. And that's why this quote sticks
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  out for me. I think it reminds me that the
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  little things add up to the big impact that we have.
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  It reminds me that even the smallest efforts can have
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  massive ripple effects. And it reminds me that we are in
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  choice around the impact that we have, but it has to start with
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  awareness and intention. I guess if I were thinking about
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  where to begin with all of this, I would start with watching my
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  thoughts, the very beginning of the equation and the sequence of
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  events that leads to our impact, which means we have a lot more
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  to cover in future episodes. I hope this inspired you today.
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  I hope you can take this quote and think about how it applies
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  to your own life. I'm so glad you're here.
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  Thank you for listening, as always.
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  And once again, thank you for being ready to impact.
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  Thanks for. Listening to.
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  Impact ready. I hope today's episode inspired.
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  You to own your impact and recognize that you are powerful.
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  By elevating our energy and awareness.
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  We can. Create exponential change in
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  this life. If you enjoyed today's insights,
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  share them with a friend and subscribe to the show for more.
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  I truly appreciate you. Thanks again for being here.