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Mojo Monday - Understanding Peripheral Consciousness: A New Perspective on Emotions with Morita Therapy · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Hi everyone, it's Callie Taylor here and welcome to you.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: This week's My Joe Monday. So this week I want
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  Speaker 1: to take a deeper dive into how our attention can
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  Speaker 1: influence our mental well being, and we'll do this through
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  Speaker 1: the lens of Marita Therapy. So one of Marita's key
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  Speaker 1: insights was around something called peripheral consciousness. So stick with
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  Speaker 1: me on this one because it's actually really fascinating and
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  Speaker 1: it is quite a unique way of looking at consciousness.
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  Speaker 1: So let me explain it. Peripheral consciousness is this idea
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  Speaker 1: that while we focus on one thing, we still hold
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  Speaker 1: an awareness of other things in the background. So, for example,
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  Speaker 1: you might be absorbed in a book but still be
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  Speaker 1: vaguely kind of aware of the sound of the birds outside,
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  Speaker 1: or the hum of the fridge, or maybe the smell
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  Speaker 1: of your fear. And these background impressions sit on the
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  Speaker 1: periphery of our consciousness, so they're not front and center,
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  Speaker 1: but they're still there, and although we may not be
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  Speaker 1: thinking about them, we're kind of still aware of them.
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  Speaker 1: So here's where it gets really interesting, because we can
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  Speaker 1: talk about this in the context of our emotions and
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  Speaker 1: our feelings and our thoughts. So let's take anxiety as
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  Speaker 1: an example. So in the West, it is very common
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  Speaker 1: that we see anxiety as a problem to fix. So
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  Speaker 1: before I can get on with my life, before I
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  Speaker 1: can do the things that are important to me, I
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  Speaker 1: must fix this. So the dominant approach is symptom reduction.
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  Speaker 1: So we try to calm the body and control our thoughts,
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  Speaker 1: control our breath, and when we feel better then we
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  Speaker 1: can get back to life. But Marita's view was radically different,
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  Speaker 1: so he didn't see emotions like anxiety as anything to
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  Speaker 1: be fixed or controlled or tampered with. He saw the
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  Speaker 1: problem as what he described as misdirected attention. So he
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  Speaker 1: teaches us that feelings and emotions and thoughts are all
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  Speaker 1: natural occurrences, so a natural part of being human. And
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  Speaker 1: if we just left them as they are, so if
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  Speaker 1: we stopped kind of control them and allowed them to
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  Speaker 1: take their natural course, so when they arrive, they may
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  Speaker 1: peak and then they kind of taper off a bit
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  Speaker 1: like a wave, but that's only if they are left alone.
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  Speaker 1: So let's get back to anxiety. The issue wasn't the
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  Speaker 1: anxiety itself, but the way we narrow our focus onto it.
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  Speaker 1: So we bring our attention onto it, and by doing that,
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  Speaker 1: we're bringing the anxiety into the foreground of our lives,
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  Speaker 1: and then we're pushing everything else, so our could be
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  Speaker 1: our relationships, our hobbies, the things that are important to us,
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  Speaker 1: like our values, our goals, we're pushing it into the background,
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  Speaker 1: so the anxiety becomes the conscious focus. And for those
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  Speaker 1: of us who are emotionally sensitive, because we are all
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  Speaker 1: different the way we respond to our emotions, and some
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  Speaker 1: of us, especially if you're more introverted, are more sensitive
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  Speaker 1: to emotions than others, and this what can happen is
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  Speaker 1: this narrowing can happen really really quickly, so you might
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  Speaker 1: notice your the physical effects of anxiety, so racing hard,
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  Speaker 1: at tight chest, shaky hands, and then suddenly your entire
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  Speaker 1: world it's like it collapses into these sensations, and the
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  Speaker 1: peripheral awareness can shut down, so all the things that
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  Speaker 1: are happening around you, you're actually not aware of them,
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  Speaker 1: because all you're focused on is this internal discomfort that
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  Speaker 1: you have. And of course, naturally it's very normal that
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  Speaker 1: you want this feeling to go. But the paradox of
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  Speaker 1: that is the more we fixate on trying to control
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  Speaker 1: the anxiety, the more power it gains, and so Marita
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  Speaker 1: teaches us that or he explains that this is what
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  Speaker 1: he calls obsessive inward attention and it traps us into
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  Speaker 1: what he calls shiss or normal. Jon, I hope I
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  Speaker 1: pronounced that right. I have talked about this in previous episodes.
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  Speaker 1: But what it is is the contradiction between how we
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  Speaker 1: want to feel and what we actually feel. So you
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  Speaker 1: think about it. When you feel an emotion, that is
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  Speaker 1: the truth on how you feel. But when it's really
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  Speaker 1: uncomfortable and it's painful, we don't want to feel like that.
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  Speaker 1: We want to feel something different. So you can see
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  Speaker 1: there's this gap there between the truth of how I
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  Speaker 1: feel and how I want to feel, and then we
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  Speaker 1: start resisting it. And that's when the the more we resist,
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  Speaker 1: the more we analyze our symptoms, it's like why am
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  Speaker 1: I feeling like this? The more we can get stuck.
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  Speaker 1: And the neuroscience now backs this up. So what it's
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  Speaker 1: telling us is that what we repeatedly pay attention to
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  Speaker 1: becomes reinforced in our brain. So when we give anxiety
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  Speaker 1: or other emotions constant airtime by talking about it, trying
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  Speaker 1: to control it, we're literally wiring it in. And of
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  Speaker 1: course there are avoidance strategies like scrolling through social media
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  Speaker 1: or episodes of Netflix, or a couple of glasses of wine,
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  Speaker 1: which give us temporary relief, but often the anxiety comes
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  Speaker 1: back with vengeance. So what's the alternative. Well, because Marita
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  Speaker 1: teaches us that feelings are natural. He wants us to
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  Speaker 1: feel how we feel, not fight how we feel, and
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  Speaker 1: allow ourselves to feel these emotions without resisting them and
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  Speaker 1: allow them to take our net that to take their
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  Speaker 1: natural course. And this completely goes against the grain. But
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  Speaker 1: the goal is not to get rid of our emotions,
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  Speaker 1: which is what we kind of divert to you, because
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  Speaker 1: that's what everything's uncomfortable, so we want to get rid
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  Speaker 1: of them. But what Marita Therapy teaches us is to
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  Speaker 1: allow them to exist in the background, allow them to
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  Speaker 1: be as they are while we move forward with purposeful action.
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  Speaker 1: So that means allowing the anxiety to be a part
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  Speaker 1: of your experience, not just the whole story. So you
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  Speaker 1: can still feel your heart racing and put your shoes
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  Speaker 1: on and go out for that walk, and you can
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  Speaker 1: still feel the nerves and hit send on that email,
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  Speaker 1: or just like the bird song outside your window. The
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  Speaker 1: anxiety doesn't have to disappear, but it just doesn't need
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  Speaker 1: to be the thing that you're staring out, the thing
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  Speaker 1: that all your attention is on. And when we expand
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  Speaker 1: our awareness to include both the discomfort and the world
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  Speaker 1: around us, it's kind of like we're reclaiming our freedom.
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  Speaker 1: And that to me is a really powerful thing, because
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  Speaker 1: we don't need to feel good to do good. We
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  Speaker 1: just need to stop making emotions. The main character of
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  Speaker 1: the story, and what I find fascinating is Marito. He
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  Speaker 1: was a Japanese psychiatrist in the nineteen twenties, very prominent
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  Speaker 1: psychiatrist and scholar. And just imagine that a psychiatrist who
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  Speaker 1: doesn't focus on the symptoms of his patients. His patients
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  Speaker 1: suffered from what he called shinkitsu, which now can be
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  Speaker 1: kind of aligned with anxiety disorders like generalized anxiety disorder,
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  Speaker 1: obsessive compulsive disorder, and a range of other disorders. But
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  Speaker 1: he didn't focus on symptoms. Through his therapy, he allowed
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  Speaker 1: his patients to feel how they feel, and to almost
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  Speaker 1: through experience, they started to become aware of the nature
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  Speaker 1: of their emotions, their relationship with their emotions, changed. So
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  Speaker 1: these strong emotions that were showing up were no longer
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  Speaker 1: the enemy to try and get rid of, but they
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  Speaker 1: were able to allow them to be, and they then
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  Speaker 1: turn their attention to purposeful action of what needed to
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  Speaker 1: be done. And Marita described this as pure mind, and
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  Speaker 1: we know it also as Arrogamama is making room for
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  Speaker 1: our emotions, allowing them to be, and then shifting our
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  Speaker 1: attention to what needs to be done. So I hope
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  Speaker 1: this has been helpful. I hope it's been interesting. It
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  Speaker 1: certainly food for thought. It is a bit of a
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  Speaker 1: shift in adue towards our emotions. It's something that I
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  Speaker 1: practice every day. It's been incredibly helpful for me, and
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  Speaker 1: of course you are more than welcome to reach out
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  Speaker 1: to me. If you have any questions at all about
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  Speaker 1: Marino therapy or anything else, you can go to my
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  Speaker 1: website at Culi Taylor Coaching dot com dot au. I'd
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  Speaker 1: love to hear from you, and thanks for listening. I'll
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  Speaker 1: catch you next week. See ya,