Latest / I Am Astrology Readings Podcast with Paul Heath / Presence Avoidance: Why Your "Hustle" Is Actually a High-Speed Escape

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Presence Avoidance: Why Your "Hustle" Is Actually a High-Speed Escape · I Am Astrology Readings Podcast with Paul Heath

• 0:08
  What is presence?
• 0:10
  Presence is being where you are fully without needing a moment to be different or further along than it is.
• 0:19
  It's not a technique.
• 0:21
  It's not a practice.
• 0:22
  Your schedule.
• 0:23
  It's the simple radical act of letting right now be enough to deserve your attention.
• 0:29
  Your full attention.
• 0:31
  When you're present, you actually hear the person that's talking to you.
• 0:36
  You feel the wind before you move on to the next goal.
• 0:40
  You notice the morning before the day consumes it.
• 0:44
  You are in your life while it's happening, not managing it from a distance, not already three steps ahead, not somewhere else entirely.
• 0:55
  While your body goes through the motions, presence is the difference between a life you lived and a life you passed through.
• 1:06
  Most people want it.
• 1:07
  Few realize how consistently they run from it.
• 1:12
  Most people would never describe themselves as someone who avoids their life.
• 1:18
  They're busy.
• 1:20
  They are productive.
• 1:22
  They're putting out fires, hitting deadlines and keeping things moving.
• 1:27
  But what if the speed itself is the problem?
• 1:32
  Speeding is what absence looks like in motion.
• 1:37
  What if the rushing, the urgency, the constant motion is not ambition?
• 1:43
  But avoidance is the question you need sitting on.
• 1:50
  Who set that deadline?
• 1:52
  Not that work deadline, the internal one.
• 1:56
  The one that makes you feel like everything needs to happen right now.
• 2:01
  That slowing down means falling behind.
• 2:04
  That stillness is somehow dangerous.
• 2:09
  For a lot of people, when they trace that urgency back to its original source, they find something that's gonna feel uncomfortable.
• 2:19
  Nobody put that deadline there.
• 2:22
  They did.
• 2:24
  The fire they been running from, they lit that shit themselves.
• 2:30
  This is what presence avoidance looks like in motion.
• 2:34
  Not laziness, not apathy.
• 2:37
  Constant self generated motion used to avoid the one thing that would actually require something from you.
• 2:46
  Being fully here.
• 2:48
  Right here, 10 toes down on earth.
• 2:51
  Presence avoidance is the pattern of creating motion, distraction, or busyness to avoid being fully engaged with the current moment.
• 3:04
  It's not always conscious.
• 3:06
  In fact, it rarely is.
• 3:10
  It shows up as mentally writing your response while someone is still talking to you.
• 3:17
  Staying so busy that quality time with the people you love never seems to find its way on your calendar.
• 3:26
  Over planning instead of acting.
• 3:29
  Consuming information about growth without ever integrating.
• 3:34
  Everyone wants to grow until it's time to grow.
• 3:37
  Shout out to mental reset.
• 3:38
  Hitting a milestone and immediately jumping to the next goal before the current one has a chance to land in your body at its core.
• 3:50
  Presence avoidance is about accountability.
• 3:54
  Huh?
• 3:54
  Accountability?
• 3:55
  Yeah.
• 3:56
  If you're never fully present, you never have to be fully responsible.
• 4:01
  You cannot be held accountable.
• 4:03
  For a moment you were not fully there.
• 4:05
  Oh, oh, oh oh.
• 4:07
  I was busy.
• 4:09
  The urgency, the manufactured Chaos all created.
• 4:13
  Just enough noise to give you an excuse.
• 4:17
  Or is that excuse or valid reason?
• 4:19
  I just didn't have time.
• 4:21
  Mmm.
• 4:22
  Things are so crazy right now.
• 4:24
  I had to put out all these storms and fires.
• 4:28
  But you set that shit.
• 4:30
  You put that shit in motion.
• 4:32
  Nah, I got a lead foot.
• 4:35
  When I drive, it's hard for me to keep the speed down.
• 4:43
  Well, that was me in the past.
• 4:46
  I don't know if that's you.
• 4:47
  Think about you when you driving.
• 4:49
  Most people with the lead foot are not trying to speed.
• 4:54
  They just wired for motion.
• 4:56
  The foot drifts, the speed climbs.
• 4:59
  Before you know it, you're 20 miles over the speed limit without having made a single conscious decision to get there.
• 5:07
  Now you're on the side of the road, police behind you.
• 5:12
  Now you're signing your name on the dotted line.
• 5:16
  Super speeder.
• 5:17
  The urgency in life works the same way.
• 5:21
  It just creeps in.
• 5:23
  The pace accelerates and suddenly you're moving so fast that nothing around you has time to register.
• 5:31
  Not the problems you need to face, not the people who deserve your attention, not the winds that were supposed to feel like something.
• 5:41
  Where the champagne.
• 5:42
  Aren't we supposed to be popping bottles?
• 5:44
  The practice is simple to say, but it's very hard to do.
• 5:50
  What's that?
• 5:51
  Do you think you can drive?
• 5:53
  The speed.
• 5:54
  Speed limit.
• 5:56
  Pick one area of your life where you've been exceeding the natural pace of things.
• 6:03
  The relationship you keep rushing.
• 6:06
  The goal you keep forcing.
• 6:09
  The morning you blast through before your mind has even settled and choose deliberately to slow your ass down.
• 6:19
  This is where cruise control comes in.
• 6:22
  You need an external structure to hold the pace while your mind adjust to it.
• 6:29
  A scheduled block of unstructured time you protect ruthlessly.
• 6:35
  A technology boundary.
• 6:37
  Disconnect the plug.
• 6:39
  A daily practice that forces you to stop before you feel ready to stop.
• 6:43
  Meditation, whatever, removes the options to unconsciously accelerate.
• 6:49
  The goal is not to fight yourself forever.
• 6:53
  The goal is to use the tool long enough that the new pace becomes the default.
• 7:01
  The mind adjusts first, then the foot catches up.
• 7:05
  Presence avoidance is usually framed as a way of escaping discomfort, and that is true.
• 7:14
  But the cost is not only the hard things you avoid, you're also outrunning the good times.
• 7:22
  The moment of genuine connection.
• 7:24
  You're moving too fast to notice that compliment.
• 7:28
  You deflect before it could land.
• 7:32
  The wind you did not let yourself feel because you were already focused on the next goal.
• 7:39
  The peaceful moment you fill with the next task before the current one had finished.
• 7:45
  Meaning anything.
• 7:48
  You cannot smell the roses at 90 miles an hour.
• 7:52
  Not because the roses don't have a smell, because you drove past them too fast.
• 8:00
  Presence is not only the price of accountability, it's the price of admission for the full experience of your life.
• 8:10
  Both sides of it.
• 8:12
  Slowing down is not a personality trait.
• 8:17
  It's a skill.
• 8:19
  And like any skill, is built through repetition, not intention.
• 8:25
  What do you mean, Dawg, you gotta practice.
• 8:28
  What?
• 8:28
  Practice.
• 8:30
  Not a game.
• 8:30
  Not a game.
• 8:31
  Practice.
• 8:33
  But first, be honest about what slowing down threatens.
• 8:39
  For some people, the lead foot is not just about a nervous system habit.
• 8:45
  It's an identity.
• 8:47
  They are the person who handles everything, who keeps moving, who never drops the ball, but her fingers.
• 8:56
  Stillness does not just feel uncomfortable, it feels like erasure.
• 9:01
  If that's you, the real work is not behavioral.
• 9:06
  It's learning who you are when you're not in motion.
• 9:12
  Start with awareness.
• 9:15
  Notice when you're moving faster than the moment requires.
• 9:20
  Notice the self imposed deadline.
• 9:23
  Notice the urgency with no source.
• 9:27
  But don't judge it.
• 9:29
  Just see it for what it is.
• 9:31
  And then at that moment, set the cruise control.
• 9:36
  Choose one concrete daily practice that holds the pace for you until your nervous system learns what the speed feels like.
• 9:46
  Over time, the practice becomes the default.
• 9:50
  The tool becomes unnecessary.
• 9:53
  The presence becomes yours.
• 9:56
  You cannot experience depth while avoiding death.
• 10:01
  You also cannot avoid depth forever without paying the price of a life that feels like it's happening around you instead of with you.
• 10:12
  Slow it down.
• 10:14
  Not because life is not urgent, but because the urgency you feel might be the very thing keeping you from it.
• 10:24
  Motion feels like control.
• 10:27
  Stillness feels like explosion.
• 10:30
  Only one lets you actually live a life of freedom.
• 10:35
  If this resonates with you, leave a comment below.
• 10:39
  Come to iamastrologyreading.com you you can leave a message there.
• 10:43
  You can also sign up and become a member.
• 10:46
  Make sure you go through the blog section.
• 10:48
  If you want to have a private conversation with me, come to imastrologyreadings.com go to booking.
• 10:55
  Book your reading there.
• 10:57
  I'd like to have that private conversation with you.
• 11:01
  The conversation is free.
• 11:03
  The time isn't.
• 11:05
  See you there.
• 11:06
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• 11:10
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• 11:16
  I'm Paul Heath.
• 11:18
  This is I am Astrology Readings.
• 11:21
  Know thyself and balance your energy.