Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / 12: why I love Paradigm Shifts
Transcript
- 0:00Hello darlings, how are you today? I'm sending so much love to you, you are precious and you are not a problem to be solved.
- 0:08Okay, as much as productivity culture and dye culture and beauty culture wants you to see yourself as a means to their end, you are whole, you are an end in yourself and you are precious.
- 0:19Okay, and you deserve a world that affirms that truth for you and I'm sorry that that's not the world that we live in, but I'm sending lots and lots of love and sunshine your way, the sun shines from me and into you and right back.
- 0:33Thank you for being here with me this day, whatever time it is where you are.
- 0:38So the one thing that I wanted to make sure I shared with you is why I changed the name from reimagining to paradigm shifts and currently the podcast is paradigm shift with I understood and the reason for that is therefore it's an invitation to paradigm shift together.
- 0:58But the umbrella term for my newsletter, for example, is paradigm shifts and the reason I did this is for a long time, the word reimagining as much as I love it and it sounds so beautiful and it's exactly what I want to do, it's not me.
- 1:17You know what I mean, it's part of me, but it's not me. So when someone would ask, oh, what's your podcast called and I said the word reimagining, it felt like I was describing someone else's podcast and I think when you have, as I mentioned and I'm going to keep mentioning a spiritual relationship to your creations, to your creativity, you want the name of what you call what you're doing to really speak to you on that like spiritual level by that I mean, you know, that
- 1:47magical mystical dimension of life. And I felt that when I said the word reimagining, it was almost as though I was naming it what I wanted to be, which is someone who can help construct what a new world could look like versus who I think I am, which is someone who loves to deconstruct what our world is and also paint a picture of what it could be.
- 2:11So that is why I feel like when I thought about it, like what is the feeling that I chase in my life and what is the common thread that makes my content cohesive because my content is very much, I don't have a certain topic or niche, I resist the niche because I'm a person, you know what I mean, I'm a person and that's first and foremost what I want to be engaged us.
- 2:35So finally, the light bulb moment happened where I was like, well, the central theme to what I chase as a learner and what I tried to share as a teacher, but not in the institutional sense in the sense that we are all teachers in the sense that someone in your life taught you or gave you an insight that completely shifted your perspective or that helped you or that supported you.
- 2:55And in so doing they were your teacher, the student and the teacher in me felt so cold to this idea of the paradigm shift I love learning things that turn conventional wisdom on their head like everyone says X but actually why I'm like mine orgasm I'm there I'm so in that thought process.
- 3:16I love about the paradigm shift is how it bridges both the collective paradigm shift that's needed and the individual paradigm shift that would lead to collective paradigm shifts when we think of what a paradigm shift is the dictionary definition of it is it's a fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions.
- 3:36So it's an important change that happens when the usual way of thinking about or doing something is replaced by a new and a different way.
- 3:45So this is very generative it's this idea of living according to one standard one way of thinking one way of seeing and shifting that to a new way of seeing and being in the world and it's so clear from all the collective despair and trauma and violence that is being experienced now that we need paradigm shifts and we need to shift to a paradigm that is rooted in community and care and love and mutual respect and dignity and repair.
- 4:14Reparations you know and going against the colonial paradigm going against the capitalist paradigm where some people win at the expense of many people all of these paradigms require shifting beauty is a colonial paradigm that needs to shift to a paradigm rooted in inherent worthiness inherent preciousness of human beings as human beings rather than the conditional value that is now attached especially to women and firms.
- 4:42So there's all these paradigms there's climate collapse there's the paradigm of growth at all costs which is capitalism and shifting to a paradigm of degrowth for example so all these ideas that are very generative because they help people see the underlying assumptions of the systems we live in today.
- 5:03And I think that is where so many interesting paradigms lies not on the surface but actually what is underneath what is the underlying assumption that people are making if we can challenge the assumption and if we can see and deconstruct what is going on underneath we then can help generate a new flower a new root a new stem you know what I mean
- 5:23but it really is looking at what are the collective paradigms that we need to shift and also a paradigm shift is a is a is a diagnosis of what's already happening and in what in one sense is always happening we're always we are prone to challenge the status quo so many books are about the myth of some sort of conventional idea so many people are drawn to this idea of breaking down cultural myths them I think there are so many amazing thinkers and artists and feelers.
- 5:53And healers and donses and all of these people who I think are so connected to this idea of a paradigm shift I think for example Trevor Noah as an artist is so much about challenging a conventional idea.
- 6:06Speaking to the cultural zeitgeist and challenging it or or deconstructing it but through the medium of comedy and so there are all these people who do this in their own way and so I wanted something that connected me to that spiritual process of how do you not only shift paradigms but also collect people who want to exist in this other kind of paradigm or these are the kinds of paradigms and then I also like how this word paradigm can mean so many different things like gender is a paradigm you know it's similar to how is you know
- 6:36you're using the prism of beauty there are these kind of like multifaceted multi-layered systems that exist both within our personal lives and within public institutions and in all these different ways and underlie so much of our experiences and of the way that the world is structured and so like there's the colonial paradigm structures the world in a sense the idea that there is a world that there is a global north and a global south that there are developing nations and developed nations well coloniality is the idea that makes the idea of the world.
- 7:06Like in terms of our idea of the world coherent or that brings it to bear it's very difficult to separate the idea of colonialism from the notion of nations and the notion of the world therefore because the world is made up of nations and so it's just so fascinating to me how expansive this is but also how it can go both broad and very specific.
- 7:27So for example gender is a huge paradigm there's also the paradigm of gender roles within a relationship so you can go very specific and you can go very broad okay and I'm not really even though I read the dictionary definition I believe in a spiritual understanding and connection to something I think on a spiritual level you know exactly what I mean when I refer to a paradigm shift.
- 7:47The next thing that I want to say is when I change the name I started to be like but wait there's many other podcasts with this name this isn't like unique to me and isn't that so interesting there's this idea under this like westernized form of individualism where you derive value from being distinct from other people whereas if we're living in a collective a society surely your value comes from sharing and being similar to and recognizing your commonality with other humans.
- 8:14And so this was also a good lesson for my ego that like why do I need to have the only podcast called paradigmships it means that we are connected you know that's beautiful it means like it's like saying oh you know what else connects me to actually what else connects me to other humans well that I'm breathing is that not something to celebrate I celebrate my life each day I say to myself thank you for my life today you know like thank you that I'm still here that I'm still breathing and that breathing is what connects me to other human beings and so it's like this idea that we should only be
- 8:44celebrate what is distinct about us is so rooted in individualism it cannot it does not make sense if you are not viewing it through the lens of individualism and I think in this way it's a good humbling exercise that yes I'm not the only podcast called paradigm shift that's good that means that I am doing something that is resonant that I that is an idea that many people
- 9:04feel called to it's just so important to sit with that that like if we want to build a collective a society which many societies today are and the way I grew up I feel like was in a collectivist family and a
- 9:15collectivist extended family network and of course there's Western individualism because it is pulsates through culture and because the West has the
- 9:24hegemony over like cultural institutions as in media and entertainment these ideas go beyond the borders of you know the US the UK Europe like these are
- 9:33ideas that have spilled out into the whole world this idea of individualism even if the culture itself is collectivist there are
- 9:40still ways that Western individualism has infiltrated it in different ways including in what people strive for which links to
- 9:48the definition of coloniality that I've I've read on this podcast before or at least I think I have but anyway it's definitely on my
- 9:54sub stack by the way which you can go and look at but essentially the fact that you're striking a nerve when you're doing
- 10:00something that other people are doing something to celebrate in you is the things that are similar in others and so that is a
- 10:07paradigm shift that why should you only celebrate yourself for what is different about you than others isn't that isolating like
- 10:14we form points of connection not only through exact similarity but through similarity indeed and so I think that shared
- 10:20consciousness is a beautiful beautiful lens through which to see what it would mean to have a collectivist world is really
- 10:27celebrating what feels resonant in our shared consciousness I feel very connected to even those words shared
- 10:34consciousness it's like they're these things that we just feel are in the spirit of the times and we feel them
- 10:41together and I really like that I think that's also what apps like tiktok show is how much we share in our
- 10:47consciousness how much we think these things that we only do like I also do that we're shocked we're so
- 10:53surprised because we really actually have been made to think that we are so distinct and unique and special
- 10:58when actually what is so beautiful is how much we have in common with others even things that we've only
- 11:03ever done by ourselves so we've never like done them in front of someone else and yet they're so similar
- 11:08because we are so similar because we are shared species which shared consciousness and we've been
- 11:12taught to magnify the things that make us different and this is not a like post racial society argument
- 11:17you know I'm not about that at all all I mean is on a spiritual level we have a lot more in common
- 11:21than we're ever invited to truly consider especially under the context and the purview of the ideology
- 11:28of Western individualism so that is a collective reason why I strongly believe in the paradigm shift
- 11:35and then next I'm going to go into some of the more individual reasons why I love paradigm shift so
- 11:40much paradigm shifts are an embodied form of learning and I'm obsessed with that when you think of
- 11:47those light bulb moments in your life okay it is embodied like you gasped or you stopped in your
- 11:53tracks you read something that was so meaningful to you that you literally could not keep walking
- 11:57or you had to send the video to someone or you had this kind of burst of energy there is this
- 12:02physical experience of learning that we are so deprived of in the colonized imagination of
- 12:09education which most of the world now lives in because they impose institutional like educational
- 12:14frameworks onto the nations that they colonized right so I feel that often learners are subjected
- 12:20to information that is not really of personal relevance to them they're forced to learn facts so
- 12:25they're forced to learn information that has no pertinence to their lives but the paradigm shift
- 12:30is linking the personal and the educational because it's a paradigm shift to you you may send
- 12:37it to someone and they may be like okay it's something that you desperately feel within you is
- 12:42relevant to you and you seek other people for whom that is also a paradigm shift so you know that
- 12:47feeling where you learn something and you want to share it with someone and you want them to be like
- 12:50oh my word that's so interesting I never thought about it that way and how disconnecting it is when
- 12:55they're like okay like whatever you feel rejected why because that piece of information was important
- 13:01was pertinent to you to your life to the experiences that you've had and it's this feeling of like oh
- 13:06now that I've seen this I cannot unsee it and now many people reach out to me and they say okay what
- 13:11happens when you start to deconstruct all these social constructs in your life but you're surrounded
- 13:15by people who still see within those constructs how isolating that feels it's deeply isolating and
- 13:21so I also think that there's the paradigm shift as the connector you know when a video goes
- 13:26super viral I think that paradigm shifts are often one of the underlying mechanism psychologically
- 13:32behind virality is when something really is surprising or resonant resonant in the culture that like
- 13:38combats a common understanding of things it often will go viral if someone is turning something
- 13:44on its head you know and I think that there are also general paradigm shifts where TikTok has
- 13:49taken the paradigm for example of privacy of what is TMI you know too much information this
- 13:55completely shifted and so what I also love about this embodied experience of learning like it's
- 14:00linked to like the orgasmic that gasps can I get at the number of times an idea has come to me
- 14:06and it feels like magic it feels like I have a stroke of insight like sometimes my eyes just like
- 14:12open and I'm like oh my god and it's like you have to tell someone so I like the community aspect
- 14:17of paradigm shifts that they're not meant to be shared alone which is why we congregate in
- 14:21common sections and we're like I found my people which is why we send the articles to someone we
- 14:25know will resonate with it and we want them to be shocked with us we want them to be like oh my goodness
- 14:30and it's so like amazing when we get to share that feeling it really feels orgasmic okay and from
- 14:36a pleasure standpoint I believe that we've been educated in such a way that pleasure is meant to
- 14:41be separate from learning you're not meant to experience pleasure like literally maybe you'll
- 14:45enjoy it but the idea of pleasure is not linked to education and as you know if you know me I love
- 14:52Adrian Marie Brown I love the book pleasure activism my name is Adrian Marie Brown I am the author
- 14:58of pleasure activism the politics are feeling good there's an us before the wound there's an
- 15:03us before oppression and to me pleasure is a way that we tap down into that it's really about like
- 15:07oh I feel very free to me the work was about like how do we remind people that you were free to
- 15:12begin with you're always free to begin with Audrey Lorde's text the uses of the erotic is a
- 15:18foundational text for pleasure activism and I feel like what she was saying to us what she was
- 15:22teaching us so much was that pleasure and the erotic the awakening the erotic awakening is a way
- 15:28that we actually reclaim our whole selves our real selves our true selves and that once we have had
- 15:33that awakening we'll no longer settle for a self negation no longer settle for suffering as our
- 15:39way of life is like oh this is just how it's got to be because we're black women you know start
- 15:43asking myself like how did I unlearn pleasure or when did I unlearn pleasure when I look back it's
- 15:48like oh there's an ancestral unlearning of pleasure a way that black women on this country have
- 15:52been trained to be in service with our bodies rather to be in pleasure in our bodies I realize
- 15:59that we're not the only ones that almost every human on earth in some way has been disconnected from
- 16:04their natural relationship to the planet from their natural relationship to themselves from our
- 16:08natural relationships to each other and that pleasure is one of the ways we know like oh god
- 16:13I'm in nature oh god I'm with my lover oh god I'm connected I'm part of something I belong I'm
- 16:19safe pleasure let's us know all that right so for me also it's actually a measure of freedom it's a
- 16:25way that we say I have decolonized I have returned to myself I have been healing and I love the Audrey
- 16:32Lord essay which I was introduced to through that book the uses of the erotic it is so powerful
- 16:38and basically underlying that ideas once you've experienced erotic energy the erotic force of
- 16:44life which is aliveness you start to realize that that is a standard for your life and that could
- 16:51be the standard for our life in general outside of the sexual context and that's what they don't want
- 16:56us to experience is what if the erotic was the bar and every experience in your life was rooted
- 17:03in the erotic potential of being alive because erotic energy is not purely sexual that's what she's
- 17:08arguing in this in this essay and in that essay she's talking about how the uses of the erotic it's
- 17:15almost like a political standard for how our lives should feel because imagine we demanded that same
- 17:22energy that we've been taught to only demand from sex and many of us can't even access the
- 17:27fullness of that potential because of social conditioning and because of the patriarchy and many
- 17:31other things but basically the erotic could be the standard that we live our entire life with that
- 17:36means every facet of everything could the bar could be that this feel measurable now when you take
- 17:41a sip of coffee and you're like oh my goodness like this is it this is it for me this is life like
- 17:49my life is in this sip that is the erotic and you could have I had that in a cafe today in fact
- 17:53today oh my goodness let me tell you about the erotic so I'm in this coffee shop and I'm journaling
- 17:58okay and I'm listening to jazz music okay and I'm sipping my coffee okay erotic like what oh my
- 18:08goodness have you ever heard something so sexy like I literally you know when you are like I was
- 18:15turned on by the image of myself because here's this girl in our technological age what is she doing
- 18:21where's her phone no way to be seen she's listening we don't know what she's listening to and what
- 18:25is she doing she's journaling oh my goodness she's sitting and I'm fiercely writing right like I'm
- 18:31fiercely I if the page is full of my words and that turned me on as well because I was like this is
- 18:36so cool because it's not a mini journal which is okay if yours is it was a maxi journal so here I am
- 18:42like this I'm thinking about like the the older intellectuals how they produce knowledge like this
- 18:47you know what I mean and it's not that I love journaling but there was something about me taking
- 18:52myself so seriously and I wrote about this in the journal by the way that I would sit with myself
- 18:58and pay attention to my own consciousness in a public space I said that is a sexy thing and whenever
- 19:03I see women in public reading alone sexy beautiful precious stunning you are mysterious you take
- 19:11your curiosity so seriously you're audacious you are such a mystery I have I want to know what are
- 19:17you reading why do you love it like what's making you turn the page you know what I mean I'm so
- 19:20curious I always look at what book they're reading and I'm like oh that's so interesting like yesterday
- 19:25I saw someone read the book strangers to ourselves and I was like oh I wonder how she's a stranger
- 19:28to herself you know what I mean I was like curious I was like ah oh my gosh sexy like we just need
- 19:33to like go and read in public because I honestly think we live in a different world if that I can
- 19:37I'm getting but um so anyway so that was a beautiful moment for me this morning where I started
- 19:46off my day with like erotic energy but what was she doing she was journaling so again I actually
- 19:52have to read you this essay I hope you enjoy me reading you these essays because I think it's
- 19:56going to be the vibe you know why because there are so many amazing essays and I just want to
- 20:02make sure that they land in your brain like inside you know what I mean because I could be like
- 20:07going read this essay you'll be like I will you'll open it up you'll read two paragraphs you'll
- 20:10scroll to the end and be like fuck I have so long to go then you'll say I'll read this another time
- 20:14then you'll switch to the other app then you'll never come back well I know you so well because
- 20:20I am you okay I am your other you you are my other me yes so basically that is a paradigm shift it
- 20:28is taking something that we've been taught only exists in one realm the erotic and saying well
- 20:33what if this is the standard that we apply to our life and so circling it back to what I was saying
- 20:37about agent Marie Brown she's saying that pleasure could be a central politic for like our entire
- 20:42lives that basically when we have freedom and liberation the bar shouldn't be everyone just has
- 20:47their needs met the bar should be a life of pleasure you know what I mean because in order to live
- 20:53a life of pleasure not just only on some like if your whole life as in you go and you access health
- 20:58care and you have a beautiful interaction and you feel safe and you're almost like flirting with
- 21:02you just feel like everything is right you know what I mean you're safe you're in good hands
- 21:06everyone is you know everything is free everyone is treated well everyone on each side of the
- 21:11equation of life is being treated with dignity and respect and love and what pleasure they're
- 21:16seen as sites of liveliness because to the erotic is the is a live energy it's like the idea that
- 21:23we want to feel fully alive think this is what I was journaling about when you feel like you know
- 21:28when we think of the typical understanding of pleasure right we think of these moments where all
- 21:33the senses are really like you know in it you know I mean the senses are alive you're breathing
- 21:39you're smelling you are tasting you're feeling you're touching you're you're just experiencing
- 21:44being alive you know and so often we don't feel alive we feel dead we feel dead okay because we're
- 21:50made to feel dead by the systems we live in right and by the weight of the expectations and the shame
- 21:57and the responsibilities and the bills and the all of these things make you feel dead inside
- 22:02you feel dead dead dead so the erotic would be alive you know what I mean that would be the bar
- 22:09for each institution including education so this brings us back as you can yeah we're going
- 22:13where we need to go you know what I mean we are going where we need to go okay and what I'm the
- 22:18paradigm shift oh my word she got there she got there no one said she would get there but she did
- 22:23and that's all that matters the paradigm shift is erotic okay because it's a gossip babe did I
- 22:28not say that it's a it's a wow it's a it's a yeah I made the loss or not but I feel it so it's
- 22:37erotic because it feels like it's filled with lively energy it's aliveness it's a realization
- 22:44that's gonna carry you forward there is something you want to do with it you do not just have a
- 22:49paradigm shift and do nothing you tell someone you write it down you have you ever someone speaking
- 22:55you grab your phone so far you got to re-gonna write it down you like I have this is so important to me
- 23:01this is so relevant to me and that's a form of education so many of us are deprived of is an
- 23:08education that is relevant to us and so we often have to go through two educations you know you're
- 23:15educated by the system that you're in the school and then you got to go and find your other sources
- 23:19of education which is something you may be doing right now right so the paradigm shift is full
- 23:25of erotic potential because it awakens our senses because it calls on the liveliness within us
- 23:32to realize to receive to understand to learn to unlearn to connect right because the paradigm shift
- 23:40is a connector usually it either connects this the giver of the shift to the receiver or it
- 23:46connects a receiver to another receiver it's a very communal activity of learning so we've got all
- 23:52the things we would want it we've got the community we've got the embodiment like it's all the things
- 23:56we would want and we've got the the relevance to the personal right you know it's not about
- 24:01there it's it paradigm shift isn't there a paradigm shift is in here you know what I mean
- 24:06because if you tell me something irrelevant I'm not going to have a paradigm shift irrelevant to me
- 24:11I'm not going to have a paradigm shift about it right so the fact that the stirred liver I think I'm on
- 24:18that it's pleasurable I just love that I just want us to be pleased you know what I mean like I want
- 24:23us to be pleased and it can be pleasing even in a even when the information itself is displeasing
- 24:29that's the thing about paradigm shifts because sometimes you're learning about awful things like
- 24:33so you know how a lot of information you learn you forget okay you forget it's why because it was
- 24:38not relevant to you or because you didn't have an emotional connection to that information the
- 24:44paradigm shift necessitates an emotional connection because within the mechanism is surprise shock
- 24:51delight or you know what I mean there's wonder there's curiosity there's the desire to learn more
- 24:57there's something emotional within the paradigm shift experience that makes it codified as knowledge
- 25:04that makes it something you cannot forget you know what I mean so today I was thinking of the fact
- 25:09that literally maybe six years ago one of my best friends at the time said to me there's an intimacy
- 25:16to being known excuse me oh what you see everyone is a teacher okay she was telling me this is a
- 25:26friend and that paradigm shift of knowledge and intimacy being so connected has stuck with me all
- 25:34these years and do I forget it sometimes or I forget to remember it in the sense that like it's
- 25:38there but it's not like I'm not accessing it because I'm being like you know there's so much
- 25:42information that I'm getting but today I retrieved it I retrieved it came back to me and I
- 25:47remembered because you know what I had started to live my life differently in accordance with
- 25:52the information but I had forgotten the original site of the shift until I was thinking about it
- 25:57today and there's such a deep we think of intimacy purely oh links to the uses of the erotic we
- 26:03think of intimacy purely in the context of sex and of romantic relationships but intimacy is so
- 26:10much broader and also narrower you know what I mean that's one of those things that just sounds nice
- 26:15but the speaker has no idea but they want you to make sense of it because they know that you can
- 26:20but that this idea of intimacy is something that is connected to being seen
- 26:29and this is why I'm so fascinated by the paradigm of intimacy and redefining for myself intimacy
- 26:34is that which is most intimate to you so similar to the paradigm shape being for you
- 26:39you can define intimacy for yourself in fact keep a little note on your phone
- 26:44when did you feel like you were in a moment of intimacy you will find that many of them are not
- 26:48sexual okay when someone remembers oh and someone just knows you when you feel comfortable being
- 26:55seen or when you share yourself when you also get to know someone like the deeper side you know
- 27:02it's just such an intimate experience oh my goodness so I hope by now it's clear why I change the
- 27:08name reimagining I'll miss you because your precious too like you're so beautiful and oh my
- 27:14word I'm not equating is she is she being defensive because the word beautiful is something that I
- 27:19just use to be like you know this like when someone says something I'll be like that's beautiful
- 27:24but I mean it in the sense of like a tree being beautiful not in the sense of like a beauty sounded
- 27:28but you know who could really know like what they fully mean so let's not do that so reimagining
- 27:33she's precious she is and who knows like I'm really I could change the name again you know like I
- 27:39could just keep changing the name because this is my channel you know what I mean and I'm excited
- 27:44about that because it's nice to find freedom in a platform and it's very easy to lose freedom
- 27:52and it's very easy to underestimate how much freedom you have to create things because you're
- 27:57terrified of what people will think of you and I'm trying to unlearn that fear and it's going
- 28:01quite it depends on the day you know what I mean it depends I feel like I spoke very fast but you
- 28:10know what I accept myself as I am and as I show up that day and today was a day for speaking very
- 28:20fast so I love you so much and I hope that you do well today because I love you and your precious
- 28:23and your wonderful and again you're not a problem to be solved that's where we began and that's
- 28:26where we're going to end okay you're precious I hope you have a paradigm shift or two you know
- 28:30just on the way to the grocery store wherever you are but don't worry if you don't because we're
- 28:34going to have them to get there we're going to have amazing guests and we're also going to have
- 28:37amazing like solo costs they're calling it apparently like okay fine I'm okay with that that's
- 28:43cool and if you have any failed paradigm shift that shifts that you want me to explore please let me
- 28:47know I did make a TikTok and people commented but I am of course like only you know I'm trying
- 28:53and I'm going to get there so anyways I love you sending you so much love so much light I hope
- 28:58you're well okay I love you you are precious and you are loved okay don't forget to find me on
- 29:05sub-stack if you want to join our community thank you to Anna Luisa for commenting on the last
- 29:10video on Spotify you are so precious it's so amazing to see names that I recognize because I
- 29:15met them on sub-stack and I'm just like obsessed with everyone that this community attracts like
- 29:21the people who end up on my sub-stack I'm obsessed with all of you I literally hope one day we
- 29:26meet in person and we just have the best time no phones involved literally just us being present
- 29:31together I can't wait for the day I found my people sending you lots of love meet me there okay
- 29:36bye bye bye have a beautiful day love you bye