Latest / The Kathie Owen Perspective Podcast / 316. Stop Forcing What Happens Next | Why Uncertainty Feels So Uncomfortable

Transcript

316. Stop Forcing What Happens Next | Why Uncertainty Feels So Uncomfortable · The Kathie Owen Perspective Podcast

• 0:00
  Kathie (2): Pressure just hit the room.
• 0:02
  Kathie (2): Who do you become in that moment?
• 0:04
  Kathie (2): Not five minutes later, not after you've had time to think about it.
• 0:08
  Kathie (2): I'm talking about that very first moment.
• 0:13
  Kathie (2): Someone criticizes you, someone doesn't respond the way you expected, the meeting suddenly changes direction, you get the email, you see the number, you hear the news.
• 0:23
  Kathie (2): Something happens and pressure enters the room.
• 0:29
  Kathie (2): What happens inside of you?
• 0:32
  Kathie (2): Because I've spent years studying that very moment, and here's what I've noticed.
• 0:38
  Kathie (2): We lose our peace first, then we lose our power, and eventually, we lose our presence.
• 0:44
  Kathie (2): Sometimes all three disappear so quickly that we don't even realize they're gone.
• 0:50
  Kathie (2): That's why I teach people to pause.
• 0:53
  Kathie (2): Pause before you react, pause before you fix, pause before you defend, pause before you create a story about what just happened.
• 1:04
  Kathie (2): Because when you pause, something very important becomes possible: awareness.
• 1:12
  Kathie (2): And awareness creates choice, and that's something I have taught for years.
• 1:17
  Kathie (2): But recently, I've discovered something I hadn't thought about quite this way before.
• 1:23
  Kathie (2): What happens when you pause?
• 1:25
  Kathie (2): You become aware, and you still don't know what to choose.
• 1:31
  Kathie (2): What happens when there isn't a clear answer?
• 1:35
  Kathie (2): I found myself there recently, and I started calling it stuck in the pause.
• 1:41
  Kathie (2): Welcome to the Kathie Owen Perspective podcast.
• 1:44
  Kathie (2): My name is Kathie Owen.
• 1:46
  Kathie (2): I'm the author of Human Patterns Under Pressure and The Truth Bubbles Up, and I'm a consultant who studies what happens to people, leaders, relationships, and organizations when pressure rises.
• 2:01
  Kathie (2): For more than two decades, I've studied psychology, human behavior, leadership, emotional regulation, and the subtle patterns that show up under stress and uncertainty.
• 2:13
  Kathie (2): I've also spent years studying philosophies and consciousness-based frameworks, including the works of Michael Singer, Hermetic Principles, and Reality Transurfing, which is a series of books by Russian author Vadim Zeland, and I've studied intensively and applied it to my own life.
• 2:33
  Kathie (2): And lately, I've become especially interested in what happens when these ideas intersect, because that's where things get interesting.
• 2:44
  Kathie (2): So let's talk about the pause Let's go back to that first moment when pressure just hit.
• 2:50
  Kathie (2): Pressure hits, maybe somebody says something you don't like, your nervous system noticed something.
• 2:56
  Kathie (2): Before your logical mind catches up, something changes.
• 3:00
  Kathie (2): Your breathing, your shoulders, your stomach, your thoughts, your attention narrows, and then the mind gets involved and wants to know,"What does this mean?" That's the dangerous little question, because sometimes we don't actually know, so the mind fills in the blank.
• 3:19
  Kathie (2): "They're angry with me.
• 3:20
  Kathie (2): I'm gonna lose this.
• 3:21
  Kathie (2): This isn't gonna work.
• 3:22
  Kathie (2): I need to fix this.
• 3:24
  Kathie (2): Something is wrong." And now we are no longer responding only to what happened.
• 3:31
  Kathie (2): We're responding to the story about what happened.
• 3:35
  Kathie (2): That's why the pause matters.
• 3:39
  Kathie (2): The pause gives you your power back.
• 3:41
  Kathie (2): When you pause, you interrupt the pattern.
• 3:45
  Kathie (2): Instead of immediately reacting, you can observe,"What actually happened?
• 3:50
  Kathie (2): What am I feeling?
• 3:52
  Kathie (2): What story am I telling myself?
• 3:54
  Kathie (2): What do I know for certain?" That awareness creates space, and inside that space, choice returns.
• 4:02
  Kathie (2): That's why I believe peace, power, and presence are connected.
• 4:06
  Kathie (2): Pressure can take your peace first.
• 4:09
  Kathie (2): Once peace disappears, you may give away your power by becoming reactive or even resistant.
• 4:17
  Kathie (2): And once you're reactive, you're no longer fully present with what is actually happening.
• 4:23
  Kathie (2): You're inside the story.
• 4:25
  Kathie (2): The pause gives you an opportunity to interrupt that sequence.
• 4:30
  Kathie (2): And here's what I hadn't considered deeply enough.
• 4:34
  Kathie (2): We tend to assume that once awareness arrives, clarity will follow.
• 4:39
  Kathie (2): Sometimes it doesn't.
• 4:43
  Kathie (2): What happens when you still don't know?
• 4:46
  Kathie (2): This happened to me recently.
• 4:48
  Kathie (2): I had paused.
• 4:49
  Kathie (2): I was aware.
• 4:50
  Kathie (2): I wasn't spiraling.
• 4:51
  Kathie (2): I wasn't creating something dramatic story.
• 4:54
  Kathie (2): I could observe what was happening inside of me, and yet I couldn't identify the next move.
• 5:01
  Kathie (2): That's when I realized I was stuck in the pause, not because I didn't have awareness.
• 5:07
  Kathie (2): I had plenty of awareness, maybe too much.
• 5:11
  Kathie (2): I could see several possibilities at once.
• 5:14
  Kathie (2): Was it time to act?
• 5:16
  Kathie (2): Maybe.
• 5:17
  Kathie (2): Was it time to wait?
• 5:18
  Kathie (2): Maybe.
• 5:19
  Kathie (2): Was I supposed to surrender?
• 5:21
  Kathie (2): Possibly.
• 5:23
  Kathie (2): Was there something I needed to take responsibility for?
• 5:26
  Kathie (2): Maybe that, too.
• 5:28
  Kathie (2): Nothing was obviously hot, and nothing was obviously cold.
• 5:34
  Kathie (2): I was somewhere in warm.
• 5:37
  Kathie (2): And when you become very aware of your own patterns, you start noticing just how many temperatures exist inside warm.
• 5:46
  Kathie (2): That's where another principle I've studied came to mind.
• 5:51
  Kathie (2): All truths are half-truths.
• 5:53
  Kathie (2): There's a Hermetic philosophy, all truths are half-truths, and I spend a lot of time thinking about that because human beings love absolute answers.
• 6:04
  Kathie (2): Let's go.
• 6:05
  Kathie (2): Take responsibility.
• 6:07
  Kathie (2): Trust yourself.
• 6:07
  Kathie (2): Take action.
• 6:08
  Kathie (2): Be patient.
• 6:09
  Kathie (2): Follow your intuition.
• 6:10
  Kathie (2): Don't let emotions control you.
• 6:12
  Kathie (2): Every one of those can be true, and every one can become terrible advice in the wrong situation.
• 6:23
  Kathie (2): Take responsibility?
• 6:24
  Kathie (2): Absolutely.
• 6:25
  Kathie (2): But responsibility doesn't mean everything is yours to carry.
• 6:30
  Kathie (2): Let go?
• 6:31
  Kathie (2): Absolutely.
• 6:32
  Kathie (2): But letting go isn't the same thing as avoiding a conversation you need to have.
• 6:37
  Kathie (2): Take action?
• 6:39
  Kathie (2): Yes.
• 6:40
  Kathie (2): Except sometimes taking action is simply anxiety trying to escape uncertainty.
• 6:46
  Kathie (2): That's the warm.
• 6:48
  Kathie (2): That's the place between the easy answers, and sometimes awareness allows us to see both sides so clearly that we can no longer pretend one simple rule applies to everything.
• 7:02
  Kathie (2): This is where human patterns under pressure comes into the conversation because uncertainty is uncomfortable, and our patterns are very good at trying to get us out of it.
• 7:13
  Kathie (2): Control says,"Do something." Perfectionism says,"Figure out the right answer." Over-responsibility says,"Surely there's something you should be handling." There's that word should.
• 7:26
  Kathie (2): People-pleasing says,"Ask somebody else what they think." Avoidance says,"Get away from the discomfort." Different strategies, same objective.
• 7:37
  Kathie (2): Get me out of uncertainty.
• 7:40
  Kathie (2): But what if uncertainty isn't the problem?
• 7:44
  Kathie (2): What if there simply isn't enough information yet?
• 7:48
  Kathie (2): That's where Reality Transurfing entered the picture for me.
• 7:53
  Kathie (2): Reality Transurfing is a series of books by Russian author Vadim Zeland that I have studied intensively and spoken about often on my channel.
• 8:03
  Kathie (2): One concept I find especially useful is what Zeland calls the alternatives flow.
• 8:10
  Kathie (2): We have a tendency to decide how life is supposed to unfold.
• 8:15
  Kathie (2): This should happen.
• 8:16
  Kathie (2): There's that word should.
• 8:18
  Kathie (2): Then that.
• 8:19
  Kathie (2): Then I'll know what to do.
• 8:21
  Kathie (2): And when reality doesn't follow our plan, we start pushing.
• 8:24
  Kathie (2): We force.
• 8:25
  Kathie (2): We overthink.
• 8:26
  Kathie (2): We try to manufacture movement.
• 8:29
  Kathie (2): Alternative flow offers another possibility.
• 8:33
  Kathie (2): Pay attention to what reality is actually presenting.
• 8:37
  Kathie (2): That doesn't mean doing nothing.
• 8:39
  Kathie (2): It doesn't mean giving up responsibility, and it certainly doesn't mean avoiding reality.
• 8:47
  Kathie (2): It means we stop assuming that our mind already knows the correct route forward.
• 8:54
  Kathie (2): Sometimes the next step becomes obvious because something changes.
• 8:58
  Kathie (2): Sometimes a door opens.
• 9:00
  Kathie (2): Sometimes a door closes.
• 9:01
  Kathie (2): Sometimes new information arrives.
• 9:04
  Kathie (2): Sometimes a conversation changes everything, and sometimes nothing happens yet.
• 9:12
  Kathie (2): You don't have to create the wave.
• 9:15
  Kathie (2): I've started thinking about this like, like riding a wave.
• 9:19
  Kathie (2): There are times in life when you can feel movement.
• 9:22
  Kathie (2): Things start connecting.
• 9:23
  Kathie (2): One conversation leads to another.
• 9:25
  Kathie (2): An opportunity appears.
• 9:27
  Kathie (2): Something falls away.
• 9:29
  Kathie (2): Something else takes its place, and you move with it.
• 9:33
  Kathie (2): I call that riding the wave of success.
• 9:36
  Kathie (2): But here's what I hadn't considered.
• 9:39
  Kathie (2): What if there isn't a wave right now?
• 9:41
  Kathie (2): What if the water is simply still?
• 9:44
  Kathie (2): We can exhaust ourselves trying to manufacture movement because stillness feels wrong.
• 9:50
  Kathie (2): We paddle harder.
• 9:52
  Kathie (2): We analyze harder.
• 9:53
  Kathie (2): We look for signs.
• 9:54
  Kathie (2): We make decisions that don't need to be made yet.
• 9:56
  Kathie (2): We turn uncertainty into an emergency.
• 10:01
  Kathie (2): But you can't ride a wave that hasn't arrived.
• 10:04
  Kathie (2): Sometimes you have to float, stay awake, stay aware, stay present, and watch.
• 10:11
  Kathie (2): This brought me back to peace, power, and presence because maybe I had misunderstood something.
• 10:19
  Kathie (2): Peace doesn't require an answer.
• 10:22
  Kathie (2): I can be uncertain and still have peace.
• 10:25
  Kathie (2): Power doesn't always require action.
• 10:27
  Kathie (2): Sometimes remaining still when every pattern inside me wants to react is an extraordinary act of personal power.
• 10:36
  Kathie (2): Trust me.
• 10:37
  Kathie (2): And presence, presence doesn't require knowing what happens next.
• 10:43
  Kathie (2): Presence asks me to stay with what is happening now.
• 10:49
  Kathie (2): Not tomorrow, not the story I'm creating about next month, not the outcome I'm trying to guarantee.
• 10:55
  Kathie (2): Now.
• 10:57
  Kathie (2): Maybe that's the deeper purpose of the pause.
• 11:01
  Kathie (2): It doesn't always give us the answer.
• 11:03
  Kathie (2): Sometimes it simply keeps us present long enough for reality to give us more information.
• 11:10
  Kathie (2): And this is where I want to refine something I've taught for a long time.
• 11:15
  Kathie (2): I still believe awareness creates choice, but awareness doesn't create certainty.
• 11:22
  Kathie (2): That's an important distinction.
• 11:24
  Kathie (2): Awareness may simply allow me to recognize I don't know yet.
• 11:29
  Kathie (2): And instead of experiencing that as a problem, I can recognize it as information.
• 11:35
  Kathie (2): I don't know yet.
• 11:37
  Kathie (2): Four words, no catastrophe, no prediction, no story, just reality.
• 11:43
  Kathie (2): And now I have a choice.
• 11:46
  Kathie (2): Maybe I act.
• 11:47
  Kathie (2): Maybe I wait.
• 11:48
  Kathie (2): Maybe I ask a question.
• 11:50
  Kathie (2): Maybe I set a boundary.
• 11:51
  Kathie (2): Maybe I regulate myself.
• 11:53
  Kathie (2): Maybe I do absolutely nothing for the moment.
• 11:58
  Kathie (2): The power isn't in always choosing correctly.
• 12:02
  Kathie (2): The power is that I'm choosing instead of automatically reacting.
• 12:09
  Kathie (2): So the next time pressure hits the room, notice what happens.
• 12:12
  Kathie (2): Where does your peace go?
• 12:13
  Kathie (2): Where does your power go?
• 12:15
  Kathie (2): Where does your presence go?
• 12:16
  Kathie (2): Then pause, observe, become aware, and if the answer doesn't immediately appear, don't panic.
• 12:24
  Kathie (2): You may not be stuck.
• 12:26
  Kathie (2): You may simply be standing in that strange space between awareness and clarity, the warm, the place where two things can be true.
• 12:36
  Kathie (2): The place where you don't have enough information yet.
• 12:39
  Kathie (2): The place where the wave hasn't arrived.
• 12:42
  Kathie (2): And maybe the practice isn't figuring out how to escape that place.
• 12:47
  Kathie (2): Maybe the practice is learning how to remain peaceful, powerful, and present while you're there.
• 12:55
  Kathie (2): Because awareness creates choice, but sometimes the choice is to wait.
• 13:02
  Kathie (2): If this conversation resonated with you, I've created a companion blog post that goes deeper into what we discussed today, including additional insights and bonus resources around human patterns under pressure, reality transurfing, alternatives flow, awareness, and uncertainty.
• 13:20
  Kathie (2): You'll find that article linked in the show notes and description below.
• 13:24
  Kathie (2): And if you're watching on YouTube, I'll put it in the first comment so it's easy to find.
• 13:30
  Kathie (2): And we're going to keep exploring this intersection on the Kathie Owen Perspective Podcast.
• 13:36
  Kathie (2): Human patterns under pressure, reality transurfing, psychology, emotional regulation, non-attachment, and some of the contradictions that appear when these ideas leave the pages of a book and meet real life.
• 13:50
  Kathie (2): Because there's another question sitting beside this one that people ask me all the time.
• 13:57
  Kathie (2): I mean, all the time.
• 13:58
  Kathie (2): "Kathie, how do you practice non-attachment when you deeply care about the outcome, especially when that outcome involves someone you love?" That's a conversation we're gonna have.
• 14:10
  Kathie (2): But for today, when pressure hits, pause.
• 14:13
  Kathie (2): When you pause, observe.
• 14:15
  Kathie (2): Let awareness create choice.
• 14:17
  Kathie (2): And if you still don't know what comes next, don't create a wave just because the water is still.