Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / A Japanese Concept to Calm Our Minds With Carly Taylor

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A Japanese Concept to Calm Our Minds With Carly Taylor · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to you this week's Mojo Monday. So
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  Speaker 1: today I'm going to talk about a word and a
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  Speaker 1: concept from the Japanese language that I think is incredibly
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  Speaker 1: useful when we're feeling overwhelmed. Now I don't speak Japanese
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  Speaker 1: beyond the few words that I can remember from duo lingo,
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  Speaker 1: but I'm fascinated by the fact that the Japanese have
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  Speaker 1: words that we don't have in English. And this particular
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  Speaker 1: word has really helped me over the past few weeks
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  Speaker 1: because there's been a lot going on for me personally,
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  Speaker 1: and in order to manage it all in a calm
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  Speaker 1: and considered way, I've really taken on board this word
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  Speaker 1: into my life, and that the word is ma, So
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  Speaker 1: it's m a. Now. Mar has a few translations in Japanese,
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  Speaker 1: but the one I'm focusing on here is the space
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  Speaker 1: or the gap between things. So the written character for
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  Speaker 1: Mar is often described as the image of a light
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  Speaker 1: shining through the gap in a door or a gate,
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  Speaker 1: which I love because it tells you straight away that
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  Speaker 1: the gap is not nothing, there's something coming through it,
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  Speaker 1: there's meaning in it. Now we know that there is
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  Speaker 1: a lot of space in Japanese art and design, and
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  Speaker 1: that is mark. It's meaningful in its simplicity. It's been
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  Speaker 1: described as an emptiness full of possibilities. And in music,
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  Speaker 1: it's the silence between the notes. So without that silence,
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  Speaker 1: music would just be noise. And in everyday life too,
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  Speaker 1: in Japan, there is In traditional Japan, there's a deliberate
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  Speaker 1: pause at the end of a bow before the person
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  Speaker 1: then rises again, and pauses in conversation are considered respectful
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  Speaker 1: rather than awkward, because they give the other person sort
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  Speaker 1: of room to reflect. So compare that to how most
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  Speaker 1: of us live. Our days are filled with tasks, conversations, needs, wants,
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  Speaker 1: with very little space in between. We treat empty space
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  Speaker 1: as something that needs filling. If there's a gap in
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  Speaker 1: the calendar, a quiet moment gets filled with our phones,
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  Speaker 1: and a pause in conversation makes us uncomfortable, so we
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  Speaker 1: try and fill it. So I've been applying mar to
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  Speaker 1: my everyday life. And here is what I have noticed.
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  Speaker 1: When you start to pay attention to the space between
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  Speaker 1: the small things, your mind slows down. Now a good
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  Speaker 1: place to start is the breath and it's that space
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  Speaker 1: between the breath in and the breath out. Just a small,
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  Speaker 1: tiny pause, and then the space between one foot settling
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  Speaker 1: on the ground as you wore, and then the other
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  Speaker 1: foot following. Notice that next time you move from one
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  Speaker 1: room to the other, just notice that space between the
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  Speaker 1: steps and then the space between finishing one task and
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  Speaker 1: starting the next, even if it's only for around thirty seconds,
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  Speaker 1: where you just be here, and from there we can
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  Speaker 1: take it further and start to notice the space between
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  Speaker 1: thinking and talking, the space between feeling and responding. That
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  Speaker 1: space holds so much because when we don't notice it,
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  Speaker 1: our lives can head in one direction or another before
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  Speaker 1: we realize that we actually had a choice. The feeling
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  Speaker 1: arrives and we react, the thought shows up and we speak.
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  Speaker 1: Life is busy and it's rushed, it's reactive. But with
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  Speaker 1: mark there is space, and with space comes clarity to
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  Speaker 1: choose how we respond to things. So consider this. If
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  Speaker 1: you're feeling stressed or overwhelmed by life right now, maybe
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  Speaker 1: what you need is not more time, more energy, or
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  Speaker 1: more answers. Maybe what you need is a little more
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  Speaker 1: mar some space that is there between the things that
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  Speaker 1: you wouldn't normally notice. So start with your breath today.
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  Speaker 1: Notice the pause between the in breath and the outbreath.
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  Speaker 1: Walk from one room to the other and notice the
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  Speaker 1: space between each step, or notice the space after a
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  Speaker 1: thought before you speak, or the space between the feeling
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  Speaker 1: and you reacting. Because what I've realized since noticing mar
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  Speaker 1: Is life is full of spaces to help calm our
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  Speaker 1: minds and calm our bodies. Have a great week everyone,
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  Speaker 1: I'll catch you next week.