Eye of the Storm

Eye of the Storm
[00:00:00] FAWN: Welcome back, everybody. Hello, everyone. 
[00:00:02] Hello. 
[00:00:03] FAWN: Welcome to our friendly world. I'm trying to be friendly. I've been feeling Oh, hold on 
[00:00:08] one second. Uh oh. Ruh roh. 
[00:00:09] FAWN: I have been feeling unfriendly for a few months, you guys. Have you noticed? Does it show? 
[00:00:15] MATT: Unfriendly to who? 
[00:00:17] FAWN: Like when I'm talking on the podcast.
[00:00:19] MATT: Hmm. 
[00:00:20] FAWN: It seems like I'm always negative, and you're positive. 
[00:00:23] MATT: Well, I'm just effervescent. 
[00:00:24] FAWN: Never mind. Okay, so what I was going to say was, you know how, people. Like, the last several months, the word, demure has come up so much. Everyone's talking about demure. Have you noticed? 
[00:00:37] MATT: No, but I'm not hip and connected like you.
[00:00:41] FAWN: Alright, so It has demure demure is everywhere that word but much like demure I feel like stoic is now Everywhere all of a sudden. Oh, no, no, no, no, hold on. Let me just explain Cuz this is something Matt's been studying for a while and he wants to do a show on it But we're not quite there yet. But but listen [00:01:00] to this.
[00:01:00] I was hanging out with a friend of ours And at the end he's like, so how's your work going? I'm like, well, it's going great. However, I'm feeling Very introspective. I'm feeling like I'm doubting myself all of a sudden. I'm feeling like I'm doubting the world and I don't know
[00:01:17] I told him what I was thinking. I was thinking of all these questions like, well, am I putting enough heart into it? Am I putting enough energy into it? Am I doing this? And yes, I am. But I'm wondering if I'm doing it enough and this and that, like just analyzing everything. And he said, wow.
[00:01:36] You do realize that overthinking is a form of procrastination. 
[00:01:41] MATT: Okay. 
[00:01:42] FAWN: But he, as soon as he said that, I was like, Thank you! And it just totally set me straight because I'm like, yeah, I'm doing my work. I'm devoting every bit of everything I have into it. I'm putting it all in there. And while I'm waiting, maybe for the next [00:02:00] audition, or I'm, you know, in the bathroom, do you know what I'm saying?
[00:02:03] My waiting times. 
[00:02:04] Mhm. 
[00:02:05] FAWN: You know where I'm doing the dishes in that moment. I have time to think And I started to, question myself, and so it's overthinking. Instead of doing that, do your work and move on. Either do more of your work or move on to just doing the dishes and, figure something else out.
[00:02:24] But what are you doing overthinking so much? Why are you doing that? And so I was telling someone else about this, to see if it had the same impact on them. And they're like, oh, that reminds me, my friend is a Stoic. You know, going back to like, he's totally Greek, Stoic, and everything comes to, we're gonna die, so we better just do this.
[00:02:48] MATT: Right. Okay, I know, but go ahead. 
[00:02:51] FAWN: But that was their idea of what Stoicism was. Right. And I don't want to get into the whole Stoicism thing, because I know that you have a special show coming up about that. [00:03:00] But the thing is that. Everything that what they were saying is life is short. So Don't waste your time because you're gonna die.
[00:03:09] So just do this before you 
[00:03:11] die Yes, 
[00:03:12] FAWN: wow So I'm like, well, I choose not to think about that because I think you know I don't need I don't need to be reminded and I don't want to talk about or think about the constant Impending doom or the impending death to motivate me to create in life. That's not For me, how I create, I create with a feeling of timelessness.
[00:03:39] I create from a feeling of, infinity, infinite, everything. There's no lack. There's no lack of time. For me to truly create, I'm in that space of total, timelessness. Mm-Hmm, . So death is not an issue. It doesn't exist. However, I was like, well, okay, I [00:04:00] understand what this person is saying. However, I choose to think of it like this.
[00:04:03] What if it's a deer in the middle of the road and they see a car coming and they're just stuck looking at the headlights going look at those lights or whatever it is that the deer is thinking when they're just stuck in that position They're frozen just looking at the lights that are headed towards them the impending doom or whatever it is Right, whatever you want to equate it to Instead of doing what they need to do in that moment, which is collect yourself look around figure out a different path Make a move.
[00:04:37] So A lot of people are very upset and feeling the impending doom with politics, with the environment, with everything, right? 
[00:04:47] MATT: Okay. Yes. 
[00:04:51] FAWN: And yet, we're in that quiet mode, I feel like we're in that quiet moment right now where things are still. You could say maybe it's the eye of the [00:05:00] needle. 
[00:05:01] MATT: Or hurricane. 
[00:05:03] FAWN: You know, the eye of the needle.
[00:05:05] Well, no, the eye of the hurricane. Yeah, that's what I meant. What did I say? That's what I said. Eye of the 
[00:05:10] MATT: needle. Needle. 
[00:05:13] FAWN: I thought I said hurricane, but I was thinking needle, but I was thinking hurricane. Never mind. You know what I'm saying. Like, that when you're in the midst of the quiet, but you're surrounded by lot of activity, and sometimes it could be a moment of quiet, So, in that moment, what are we doing?
[00:05:32] Like, there have been a lot of people, a lot of our friends, me included. I've always said this, though. I've said this since I was a little kid. I want to move to another country. I would like to move here and there. I like to travel. I like to experience different cultures. I want to do it before I'm old.
[00:05:50] You know, I wanted to do it before our kids were born. I wanted to do it when our kids were born and they were little, and it hasn't happened. We've been in the same [00:06:00] place pretty much. We've moved a lot. Yes. But we've been in the same culture. Right? I wanted the kids to live in different cultures, so they can speak for real.
[00:06:10] I mean, we've studied five different languages, but to actually get to speak it with people in that country, to experience the cooking and the spices from that country, to experience the music being played in real time, not just listening to an mp3. Do you understand what I'm saying? I do.
[00:06:31] So I've always wanted to move. I've always wanted to live somewhere else. And now I'm hearing a lot of people say, yeah, I want to move. But I feel like there's such fear. There's so much uncertainty. Where would you even move to? And how would you even do it? So I'm feeling like there's a feeling of stuckness and this is what I'm feeling also.
[00:06:52] I wonder how it is you're feeling listening. What can we do? So instead of looking at, staring at [00:07:00] something that's coming at us, that we think is coming at us, what can we do right now? Isn't it the perfect time to make a move? Isn't it the perfect time to use the adrenaline that may be pumping through us to figure out how to pivot, how to turn around or turn to the left or turn to the right, jump?
[00:07:20] What can we do right now? That's what I've been thinking about the last week. Any insights? 
[00:07:28] MATT: It feels like I've been heads down. My goodness. My goodness. 
[00:07:33] FAWN: Kind of like an ostrich at the same time, too. Right? Not, not just you. I'm not saying that about you. But I'm saying it's like feeling so much overwhelmed that you're like, I don't even want to deal with it.
[00:07:44] MATT: Right. And when I do have a moment of peace, I just want to relax. But I do try and schedule moments, inflection moments, I call it gaining altitude, where I just kind of pop up, almost like a prairie dog, and I look around, see what's what. [00:08:00] 
[00:08:00] FAWN: What do you do when you don't like what you're seeing? 
[00:08:03] MATT: Go back in my hole?
[00:08:06] No, it's a question of figuring out where I can focus, where I can re channel, and, you know, what things should I be doing differently. I had a real scare, um, honestly at work, one of my co workers ended up in the hospital. And, who's on a similar schedule, similar curriculum to what I'm on, Mr. 22 meetings last week I think it was.
[00:08:28] Um, yeah, uh, he stressed himself out and he ended up in the hospital. And that really made me stop and focus and then, Monday came around and I didn't feel 100 percent so I'm like, I'm just gonna take the day. Oh my goodness, everybody freaked out. I took a sick day. Oh my god, everybody got confused.
[00:08:50] Ridiculous. And that's just it. I was able to then take another step back and get even more meta about the whole thing and go, this is ridiculous. What are [00:09:00] you doing? 
[00:09:01] FAWN: What are you, what are you talking about? What do you mean? 
[00:09:05] MATT: The fact that everybody freaked out because I wasn't in the office, because I'm always in the office, and they didn't even have an understanding of, I updated my status, I told my boss, that's it, that's how you do sick, right?
[00:09:18] No. Everybody was all confused, where is he? They scheduled more meetings on that day for me, even though I was out? It's ridiculous. But I could see the ridiculousness of the situation by taking a step back, by popping up, by doing whatever. 
[00:09:34] FAWN: Yeah. Two examples, one that I'd like to bring up is the fact that I've been talking about this for decades now, how in America We cannot take vacations because you take a vacation, if you for real take a vacation, I'm not talking about a vacation and still being on your email, like checking your email all day, every day, or making yourself accessible to the office by having your phone connected and they [00:10:00] can still call you, you're still working.
[00:10:02] If you do, if you do disconnect completely, don't check your emails, don't check your phone, no texting, nothing. You could lose your job. 
[00:10:12] MATT: You could. 
[00:10:12] FAWN: People, even though you have a vacation, 
[00:10:16] MATT: time off. And they, you get encouraged. Oh, we, we always, we want everybody to use all, all their vacation time. 
[00:10:22] FAWN: Yeah, but they really don't.
[00:10:23] It makes me think of, I worked at a huge corporation that was very much into, spirit, the, the mind, body and spirit, and they said everyone should be taking a mental health day. You shouldn't get to the point of taking a sick day if you need mental health, like, if you need to recharge for whatever reason.
[00:10:41] Mentally, take a mental health day. Now, I never took one, and I was also part of board meetings and everything, but I noticed whoever did take one, they would talk total shit about them. Right. Like what are they doing? It's like 
[00:10:57] MATT: they would 
[00:10:57] FAWN: get mad that they took a mental health day, 
[00:10:59] MATT: right? [00:11:00] People are talking out both sides of their mouth.
[00:11:02] FAWN: So it makes me think of that. It also makes me think of 
[00:11:06] MATT: oh and I got yelled at too because Somebody wanted to schedule a meeting after I usually stop for the day and I didn't think it was important for me to be in That meeting and they scheduled seven people in the meeting and I said I can't do it.
[00:11:18] They literally asked me Why can't you go? So I responded back, It's personal. And that's it. Drop. Mic drop. But my god. 
[00:11:29] FAWN: Oh. Guaranteed that's probably gonna come back to bite you in the butt. 
[00:11:33] MATT: Well they ended up rescheduling the meeting like three times since. So the whole thing's irrelevant but, Yeah. It will.
[00:11:41] FAWN: I'm sorry. It's terrible. 
[00:11:43] MATT: Tis what it tis. That's just it. On some level we need to protect our own space and we need to make sure that, Yeah. We, Yeah. That we protect our space, frankly. 
[00:11:57] FAWN: That really hurts me hearing that. And now I forgot what [00:12:00] my other example was. Oh dear, I'll be quiet now. No, no, don't. I just forgot my other example of, of that.
[00:12:07] But like, I've been talking about this for years. Of how, in our society, in our culture, whatever force is out there, It's keeping us from becoming friends, being friends with one another, or even if it's family, like being a family, there's no time. There's no time.
[00:12:25] So,
[00:12:27] we need to collect ourselves and figure out what we want and put a plan together to make that happen.
[00:12:34] We need to surround ourselves with people that we work with, that we live with, to have the kind of, Life, lifestyle. That is healthy.
[00:12:42] You know, people call it going off the grid. And maybe the grid right now is some kind of a matrix thing. 
[00:12:48] MATT: Well, also taking a break from social media. 
[00:12:50] FAWN: I'm talking about work too, like. 
[00:12:52] MATT: But that's just it. Disconnecting. It's all getting intertwined now. 
[00:12:55] FAWN: I know. We need to disconnect with that vibe. [00:13:00] And recreate our own.
[00:13:01] community.
[00:13:02] You know, sometimes you have to own your own business. Sometimes you have to disconnect from a messed up family like me and to start all over again, And it may seem lonely, but we're starting our own family. We're starting our own circle, being very conscious of the friends that we have, being conscious of.
[00:13:22] Who we consider family. Being conscious of how we choose to work. And what kind of balance we're going to have with life. It's easier said than done. I know. I'm sorry. Because right now you've been the one But it 
[00:13:35] MATT: starts with getting perspective. Popping up. Doing something different. Shaking, shaking things up.
[00:13:41] FAWN: What can you do if it's like you, and you can't say, look, you know, I work seven days a week. I give it all of everything. I give you everything. I've missed picking up my kids from school. I've missed taking them here and there because I worked Saturday and Sunday as [00:14:00] well. And you're asking me why I didn't show up for a meeting that was, I've already been at work for over nine hours?
[00:14:06] Like, am I not supposed to have a life? And if you talk like that, then you get fired. What can we do? Is this only in America? It's been a while since I've traveled. I know that, but I, I read this article about this, person that came from the Netherlands he took a look at our offices in the United States, our cubicles, and he said, wow, this is totally illegal in my country for someone to be working all day in a space without any windows.
[00:14:34] Like you're in a cubicle like that. It's inhumane. But yeah, we, we don't, you know, we don't even think about it. And yeah, maybe we don't work in cubicles as much anymore, but in what ways are we still in that cubicle? Yeah, maybe we can work from home, but look at what they're doing. 
[00:14:51] MATT: Wow. They're starting to reign that back in.
[00:14:54] FAWN: Yeah, I know a lot of companies are making you go back into the office, and if you're not going to do it, and if you've [00:15:00] moved in a place, like, you know, people said, Oh, I can move to this place and I can afford rent much better than the city I used to live in. If you didn't go back in the office, they're gonna fire you.
[00:15:09] You're done with that job. Right? 
[00:15:11] MATT: Yep. 
[00:15:13] FAWN: This is terrible. I'm sorry. I've let us yet into a very negative space and I don't know how to get us out. 
[00:15:18] MATT: Just gain some altitude, take a moment, take a breath, shake it up. Understand and stay grounded in your own power 
[00:15:28] And be okay saying it's personal 
[00:15:32] FAWN: but also last week We talked about the perceived power the perception of power.
[00:15:37] Is it really power? Does it really have power over you? We are powerful, 
[00:15:43] MATT: right? And there you go. 
[00:15:45] FAWN: We are powerful Re strategize. I know things seem really scary right now, but Be in the moment Find something beautiful. I found a flower in the yard, and I brought it in and I put it on my desk in a [00:16:00] tiny little vase.
[00:16:01] And this flower has lasted way longer than it would have lasted outside, and it just gives me so much joy. And every time I get stressed, I sniff it, smell it. It's so beautiful. It's a little rose that popped out when I thought it was over. Like, you know, no more, nothing coming out of this plant and it makes a big difference.
[00:16:23] So find something to bring in like that close to you. And restrategize, 
[00:16:29] MATT: there you go.
[00:16:30] FAWN: Make a plan for what you love. And that's it guys. I mean, that's not it, but you know, we're here. I know we're all going through stuff. 
[00:16:39] MATT: Yes, indeed. 
[00:16:40] FAWN: All right. We'll talk to you in just a few days. Have a beautiful every day.
[00:16:45] MATT: Be well.