[00:00:00]

[00:00:00] Ross: Hi there, and a very warm welcome to Season five, episode 53 of Peoples Soup. It's Ross Macintosh here,

[00:00:06] Richard: But then we've got predictions. And that's when we know what's going to happen. And like we said, that can feed back into the present moment, and I know that won't go well, so I won't even try.

[00:00:18] A prediction that's not helpful to who we want to be. But there's another level, I argue, and there's lots of ways this is described in the literature, but I call it playwriting. We've mentally got absorbed to a future scenario, and we're acting it out in our mind. He said, she said, so then I do this. And all the time, we're not here.

[00:00:39] And now, and all that time we're missing out on opportunities to be the person we want to be. And we're upsetting ourselves. We're feeling those emotions. When I describe that to clients in coaching, it's so often that they will say, that's like when I had a dream, I had an argument with my husband. And when I woke up the next morning, I was angry with him.

[00:01:02] Ross: Pea Super. It's the second part of our miniseries. My new collaboration with Dr.

[00:01:07] Richard McKinnon from Work-Life Psych. Where we delve into all things related to psychological flexibility and act. We're aiming to show you how relevant it is, not only to your work life, but to your whole life.

[00:01:19] Here we present Part 2 of the miniseries where we explore the process of noticing, or present moment awareness. We talk about how we can spend too much of our lives on autopilot, tangled up inside our own heads. We also share how we're developing our own noticing skills and leave you with some top tips and ideas.

[00:01:38] Now, for those of you who are new to PeopleSoup, hi, hola, welcome to the community. we're an award winning podcast where we share evidence based behavioural science [00:02:00] in a way that's practical, accessible, and fun. Our mission is to unlock workplace potential with expert perspectives from contextual behavioral science.

[00:02:09] Let's just scoot over to the news desk because reviews are in for our last episode which was my chat with him off the telly, Dr. Ranj Singh. On Facebook, Platinum P Super Claire Stafford said, They say to never meet your heroes, yet here you are with a long appreciated favorite in our house, Dr. Ranj. He failed to mention his truly wonderful Get Well Soon series.

[00:02:33] my daughter Megan loved it so much that she made me buy a nurse's outfit to match the one worn by the nurse in the show. Word from the wise, do not google adult nurse uniform. Forever scarred by that search. Well, thanks to Claire and to everyone who listened, shared and talked about the episode. with your help, we're reaching more people with stuff that could help them in their lives, both in and outside of work.

[00:02:58] For now, get a brew on and have a listen to the second part of my collaboration with Dr. Richard McKinnon.

[00:03:07] So, folks, welcome to the second part of our series on psychological flexibility. I'm Ross McIntosh. I'm an organizational and coaching psychologist, and I'm joined by my friend and colleague.

[00:03:21] Richard: I'm Dr. Richard McKinnon. I'm an occupational psychologist, and a coaching psychologist, and none of those titles really matter, uh, but this is what I do for a living.

[00:03:30] Ross: Yeah, we're, we're humans, and we're humans who work with people in the workplace to try and make life and work more fulfilling. and allowing people to flourish. But I'm going off on a tangent already, so let me rein myself in and talk about what we're going to cover in this episode. We debated long and hard about where to start, and there's no perfect place to start, but what we're going to start with is the power of noticing, and how it [00:04:00] supports all the other skills in psychological flexibility.

[00:04:03] I often describe it as a superpower. with my coaching clients and team training. So what do we mean by that present moment awareness? Do you want to have a stab at that Richard?

[00:04:17] Richard: Have a stab. In the last episode, when we introduced this series and we talked a little bit about the ways that we can be psychologically inflexible, one of those was to get drawn into unhelpful mental time travel. .

[00:04:29] Now, we want to be clear that not all of the mental time travel we do is bad. We might reflect on experiences to learn from them. That's a kind of mental time travel. We're going back. But when we're not in the moment that we're in, and we're off in our mind, maybe to a scary future, an anxiety inducing future or a catastrophic future.

[00:04:54] It's taking us away from the present moment and all of the opportunities that are in that moment. And this sort of feedback loop, maybe that's not the right term, but the, the pictures of the future in our mind can activate emotions in the here and now. And that can have an impact on our behavior because of what we're feeling.

[00:05:14] So the superpower of noticing the moment we're in, the context we're in, and deciding what we're going to do in that moment, not the past or an imagined future, that's really what we're trying to tap into. How did I do with that?

[00:05:30] Ross: Yeah, I think that's brilliant and I, I love to hear you talk about that sort of imagined future might influence what we do next or how we behave. And that's so powerful because it's absolutely true. Because we don't always notice what's going on around us. We don't always notice those events, those opportunities perhaps, those threats, how people are around us.

[00:05:56] Because we're stuck inside our own heads doing this mental time [00:06:00] travel. And like you, I wouldn't knock that mental time travel, that, because sometimes that, sometimes that's what we're paid for. planning and anticipating.

[00:06:10] Richard: exactly thinking about realistic challenges and how we might deal with them and, and reviewing what we've done, thinking backwards to learn from that and make tomorrow better or make the next project better and so on. So it is something that is really important to being human, the capacity to.

[00:06:32] intentionally take ourselves out of the present moment and learn from that. But what we're talking about is the, it's almost like our mind has picked us up from the present moment. Like one of those machines at the seaside, you know, the claw where you're trying to get the teddy bear. We've been picked up and brought to somewhere else kind of against our will.

[00:06:51] Ross: Hmm.

[00:06:51] Richard: along with it without realizing it because it's very compelling images of the future memories of the past. They're very engaging, but they're not what's happening now.

[00:07:02] Ross: And it's sometimes something in our professional lives that we are rewarded for.

[00:07:08] It's thinking about noticing. We don't always notice how we're showing up in different scenarios in our lives and in our working lives too. We don't notice the impact we're having on each other or ourselves. Sometimes we'll be showing up as a version of ourselves that's If I look back on it I'll be like, oh Ross, really?

[00:07:27] That's a bit cringy. If I take the pause to actually notice and look back, or sometimes I'm showing up as a real version of myself that I'm like, yeah, I'm really connected with my authentic self and who I want to be. But without that skill of noticing, maybe I miss out on both of those examples. And it makes me think of some research done by a couple of fellas at Harvard, Killingsworth and Gilbert, in 2010. And we'll make sure this reference goes in [00:08:00] the show notes. But they measured people in their waking hours and how much time they were in autopilot or mind wandering. And the magic number they came up with was 46.

[00:08:12] 9%. So 46. 9 percent of our time we're not focused on what's going on right now in the present moment around us. And it's weird because when I ask people in the workplace, what do you think that number is? They'll say like 70, 80. They kind of sense that our minds wander more than this actual research told us, but. The fact that people can recognize this is a super important distinction I find in workplace and in coaching, to notice where it might be useful for us to step into that present moment in a particular scenario.

[00:08:47] Richard: I think there's lots of examples in our everyday lives where if we pause for a moment, we could identify if I'd brought my full attention to that. It could have turned out better. If you are in employment at the moment and you've been through a recruitment process, you know what it's like if you're in an interview and it's almost like a wind tunnel of stress.

[00:09:12] You're just focused on their every word as they ask you questions, like the ultimate focus, but also Your focus can then go to noticing what your hands are doing and your sweaty palms and your thumping chest and visions of not getting the job and visions of how you could have prepared better and before you know it, you've missed the question.

[00:09:33] You've not heard them properly because you went off into something else. Listening to our partners, listening to our colleagues, paying attention when someone's trying to give you some important news. These are the sort of micro moments where that is really, really beneficial.

[00:09:52] Ross: Oh, you're giving me goosebumps Richard because absolutely how much of our lives are we in that [00:10:00] wandering state when it would be more useful to be there and you spill the water in the interview. Not that that's ever happened to me. Or, here's the thing, I speak to my dad every day on Zoom. He's 88, he lives alone, and he has done since my mum passed away in 2019.

[00:10:20] And I speak to him every day, and I love that, to hear about what he's been up to. And, sometimes, when he's telling me some latest revelation about the bin collection, Rota, Or something that's happened in the village. My mind wanders off. I'm thinking, oh crikey, I must reply to that email from that client.

[00:10:40] Or, goodness me, I really need to get back to my work. And he's telling me this long convoluted tale. And I'm telling you this, listeners, not in any way am I proud of this. But it just shows how my mind can wander. And that's not who I want to be in my relationship with my dad. I'm conscious that sometimes maybe I'm the only person he's spoken to that day.

[00:11:02] I want to be there with him. I want to be interested, showing that, that, um, camaraderie, that warmth, and that acknowledgement of what's going on for him.

[00:11:15] Richard: important point, isn't it? Because you could have the intention

[00:11:18] Ross: um,

[00:11:20] Richard: could be really important to you to do it, but still it's difficult to do it, because it's the nature of our minds. And I use the analogy of a muscle, you know, you've got to train that muscle over time to be able to bring your focus to something intentionally, because it's not a natural thing we're born with.

[00:11:39] Um, and particularly, and this is a, um, debate that's gone back through the ages, quite literally since the invention of writing, but you know, at the moment we're surrounded by things that are grabbing our attention or want to grab our attention. So in part we're swimming upstream here, we're pushing against the norm [00:12:00] by deciding to focus on one important thing and give it our attention so we can do a good job of whatever that is.

[00:12:07] Listening to someone, interviewing someone, Being in a meeting and being a contributor in the meeting rather than another warm body around the table. All of these things require intention. And all of them require that muscle of focus. And you might be listening to this now thinking, Five minutes into the Zoom call, I'm gone.

[00:12:29] You know, unless I'm speaking. Or, I can't remember what my partner said to me this morning before I went to work. And, and these are the little symptoms of that. They're not human failings. It's a skill. And, um, what we want to talk about today are some simple ways that you could develop that skill and, and cultivate that, that muscle, if you like, and be more aware, um, we talked about noticing there, noticing both where.

[00:12:56] your attention is, but also when it is, you know, am I focused on the person in front of me or am I thinking about my next meal? Am I listening to this presenter or am I still caught up with the feedback I got this morning from my boss, which wasn't great. And being able to bring yourself back gently to that present moment and not beat yourself up about the fact that you have wandered.

[00:13:22] Ross: when people have multiple events in a day, like say a leader has a meeting with the chief executive, followed by a team meeting where they're addressing, trying to create the momentum behind a vision. Then they've got a, a one to one with someone who's been bereaved on that team. They're shifting that focus constantly throughout the day. And how can we support them in honing and cultivating this skill of noticing? I mean, how do you approach it with your, your clients, Richard?

[00:13:57] Richard: find it really useful to give them [00:14:00] some conceptual models to work with. And that's probably a really fancy way of, um, let's use the same words to describe the same thing as we talk about this. And we sort of, you know, noticing is a great way to start because we said it last time, language matters.

[00:14:15] Terminology matters because it has such an impact on our thinking. I try and Lance the boil very quickly about the word mindful or mindfulness. And if someone likes that, we can use that. And if they don't like it, we don't use it. We just talk about intentional focus or intentional noticing. Observing is another way that we can put it.

[00:14:37] You know, you're an observer in that moment and you can direct your attention rather than it being dragged left and right. A little model I use around the future thinking. People might find this useful is to enable the distinction between three kinds of manifestations of that. There's the intentional planning.

[00:14:58] We talked about this. I want to think over the next few months, you know, to plan for my holidays. There's a plan. You're thinking about the future. It's intentional and it's enabling you to do something helpful. But then we've got predictions. And that's when we know what's going to happen. And like we said, that can feed back into the present moment, and I know that won't go well, so I won't even try.

[00:15:22] A prediction that's not helpful to who we want to be. But there's another level, I argue, and there's lots of ways this is described in the literature, but I call it playwriting. We've mentally got absorbed to a future scenario, and we're acting it out in our mind. He said, she said, so then I do this. And all the time, we're not here.

[00:15:42] And now, and all that time we're missing out on opportunities to be the person we want to be. And we're upsetting ourselves. We're feeling those emotions. When I describe that to clients in coaching, it's so often that they will say, that's like when I had a [00:16:00] dream, I had an argument with my husband. And when I woke up the next morning, I was angry with him.

[00:16:05] You know, this has never happened, but the emotions are very real. So it kind of does matter where our attention is, and it does matter that we're able to notice that we're doing that, and then come back to the present moment. So, it starts with talking about the benefits of it, and it talks about noticing, just noticing what, who, when you're focusing, and noticing the opposite of that.

[00:16:33] There's a very scary example I bring all the time, which is for those people who drive. And I asked them, if you drive to work, how many times have you parked the car and not been able to recall the previous 10 or 15 minutes and the hands shoot up there on automatic pilot, doing an incredibly complex thing, scarily complex and dangerous.

[00:16:55] And yet the amazing brain that we have enables us to do that. But their mind was who knows. their schedule for the day, the argument they had yesterday, whatever, but they weren't focused on the moment. And I find that's one that really brings it home to people, that you can be skillful at doing something and yet not be wholly engaged with it. Imagine how much better you could be at that thing if you were bringing all of your focus, your attention to it.

[00:17:24] Ross: lovely. And similarly, I use the example of driving and one person in a recent workshop said, yeah. I see that. I moved house recently and I ended up driving to my old house, sitting outside and thinking there's something not quite right about this picture. Luckily it wasn't a great distance away, it was about 10 miles.

[00:17:46] Richard: Yeah. So let me tell you, I moved house

[00:17:47] Ross: But that person had driven to that old house on autopilot. This complex piece of machinery navigating a well familiar route But with no awareness, not noticing or not [00:18:00] setting an intention for their noticing. Hmm.

[00:18:06] Richard: the road. And after what I think anyone would agree was a bit of a tough day at work, I was walking home from the tube and just found myself in the reception of my old apartment building. And I maybe crossed three, four roads to get there and got all the way there and realized I don't live here anymore. And oh, how he laughed, but at the same time, that was a complex thing I was doing and I managed to get all the way there without the conscious realization that I was going the wrong way. So we can scale that up to our workplace examples. going through the motions automatically without noticing, Oh, it's different.

[00:18:50] There's something different in this room today, or people are speaking about this in a different way or approaching me in a different way. You're just automatic pilot doing what you do.

[00:19:04] Ross: We're not totally knocking Autopilot, let's be clear, because without that sometimes it's useful to be able to drive and think about something else, on a familiar route for example, and without Autopilot we wouldn't have great Feats of imagination, artistry, poetry, music, painting, dance, all sorts of stuff. That's people allowing their minds to wander, but we're just saying that sometimes it overreaches itself. Hmm.

[00:19:32] Richard: with it. Daydreaming is wonderful.

[00:19:35] Ross: Hmm. Yeah.

[00:19:41] Richard: and suddenly you hear your name and you think, Oh yeah, what was I going to do? But it is, it's a, it's about context. We'll keep coming back to that and knowing when it's helpful to you and others to have that focus and when it's helpful to you to just let it go.

[00:19:57] It is great research to show the benefits [00:20:00] of walking for problem solving. We're multitasking right there. We're letting our mind go through the problems while we're walking. And lo and behold, we sit back down at our desk and we've got it. So this isn't about either total focus constantly all the time, which is impossible.

[00:20:22] And it's also not being some kind of Zen. I'm above all of this either. It's just. Context by context, room by room, meeting by meeting. What am I noticing in this situation and how can I use what I notice to good effect?

[00:20:40] Ross: Yeah, absolutely lovely. And hearing you talk about the M word, mindfulness, and how it can, I believe that mindfulness has become damaged by its own popularity.

[00:20:52] Richard: Totally.

[00:20:53] Ross: There are people peddling versions of it that are not mindfulness and are not ethical, but maybe have quite glossy marketing. And it's tricky.

[00:21:05] Richard: It's very tricky because it's plausible. And the same word is used to describe multiple things. And, you know, listeners, you, you might recognize this if someone says, do this to clear your mind or do this to control your mind or control your thoughts. Mindfulness is the opposite of that. Mindfulness is letting that stuff be, noticing you have thoughts, not trying to control them.

[00:21:31] And we don't empty our mind. You know, I've had that pushback in training when people said, Oh, no, I just, uh, It's lovely. It just emptied my mind.

[00:21:40] Ross: Hmm.

[00:21:41] Richard: I said, well, when, when it was empty, what, what did you notice? Oh, it was like a white room. Well, there, there's a thought like you're always thinking you can't empty your mind.

[00:21:50] It's by its very nature. There's stuff there.

[00:21:53] Ross: Hmm. And the way I'd present it is I'd say, how would I define mindfulness? I could use the formal [00:22:00] definition, but I'd say it's like a form of mental training. We might go to the gym or do some light stretching. or walking to look after our bodies a little bit. But we don't often afford the same intention to our minds.

[00:22:15] For me it's about gathering the scattered mind is a great little phrase that I think sometimes resonates with people. Do you ever feel your mind is just all over the shop? Me, hell yeah. Well, practicing mindfulness can just help us gather that and wake up from that autopilot as well. So that's how I describe it.

[00:22:38] And there are so many different ways to practice it though.

[00:22:41] Richard: That's actually, I think, a positive with this. And also it helps us avoid the, well, I, I can't do that because of my life. Whoa, there are so many ways you could practice this, you know, regardless of your circumstances, you can practice this. We talked last time about some of the limiting beliefs. I could never, I just, I'm not, they come up all the time when you talk about this with, with groups in training.

[00:23:08] Um,

[00:23:08] Ross: And there's one thing I must just mention, Richard, is that sometimes when you may be giving someone an experience in a, in a one to one or in a group of a mind guided mindfulness exercise, a brief one, And you gather feedback at the end. And someone says, Oh, I'm no good at this. My mind wandered 15 times during that 10 minutes.

[00:23:29] And I'm like, hang on a minute. You noticed your mind wandering 15 times? That's a marvelous practice. Because if you notice that mind wandering and brought the attention back to the body or the breath, for example, Then that's you building that mental muscle. And you can always see this look of, no, I want to be really shit at this. It's almost like that. And it's a practice. [00:24:00] It's a practice that sometimes you might notice different things.

[00:24:04] Richard: I, I think that's why it's really helpful to use the word noticing,

[00:24:07] Ross: Hmm.

[00:24:08] Richard: because we notice things and we don't change them. We don't interfere with them. You know, we, we notice our neighbor has parked differently today. I noticed that. I'm not going to go over and ask them to move their car just so it was the way it was before.

[00:24:24] I've noticed when I come into the room, Oh, that's moved. That chair is at a different angle. Or I noticed that, Oh, when the sun comes through the window, it doesn't move. Um, as this pattern on the floor, once we can start to realize that everything, not everything that comes into our awareness requires a response, um, or can be controlled. And then we can have this stance of noticing means we're aware, but we don't do anything to it. Our, our default is often, well, I have this thought, so I better solve it somehow. And we're going to talk about that in our next episode and that's why it follows this. The power of noticing is a double edged sword, particularly if you don't like what you're beginning to notice.

[00:25:06] And I think anecdotally with my clients, a lot will push back against practicing noticing because their inner critic is very harsh and they don't want

[00:25:17] to pay any more attention to it, or they don't like the thoughts about the future. That their mind gives them. So we don't want to just do the noticing in isolation.

[00:25:30] That's really important. That could almost be a punishment for someone.

[00:25:34] Ross: Yeah, yeah, this is, this is the beauty of psychological flexibility. It's a combination of skills and they all interlink with each other. So, Richard, how do you practice this skill of noticing yourself? Hmm, hmm,

[00:25:52] Richard: over the years and I have what I would describe as a very vanilla answer to that. So whatever mental image listeners have of [00:26:00] me being mindful or having present moment awareness, I have a morning practice and I just do five minutes of guided meditation every morning.

[00:26:10] And I do it before I do anything at work. So weekdays it happens here in the office. and before I turn on a computer, before I look at a screen, I do that. And I've, I've really noticed that that helps me with whatever I see next. I'm seeing it through the lens of context and the lens, not of panic or doing, doing, doing, but I've just spent a good five minutes, maybe a little bit longer reflecting and practicing, watching thoughts go by.

[00:26:46] Noticing my body, noticing the interaction between body and mind. And it, at this stage, if it would feel like a real shame to wind myself up about the amount of spam in my inbox. So it puts everything in context. I find that's a nice way to start the day, but I answer it another way as well. After. quite a bit of injury, I'm now back running.

[00:27:10] And that for me is a form of mindfulness. I love the repetitive nature of the movement. And I love what I'm able to notice while I'm doing it, the changes around me, if I do the same route, and notice how things look different every day because of the weather. And it's just, it's almost like a meditation in itself.

[00:27:31] And I know a lot of people report that with walking. and running that they get this same mindful focus. So there's no image of me sitting in the corner on a special meditation cushion with a bell. That's not how I do it. It's very, yeah, very vanilla, very, very contemporary as well, because I use an app to guide my meditation.

[00:27:51] I use Headspace. Others are available, but I don't think it's the best or better than others. It's just my [00:28:00] practice. It's what I'm used to. And I find a comfort in that. What about you?

[00:28:05] Ross: Yeah, there's some, there's some alignment there. All right, aye. I use a couple of apps. I tend to alternate between the two of them. I tend to like the variation in voices. So one is called Buddify and the other one is called Balance. sometimes they have apps for particular things like, Ross is feeling angry.

[00:28:26] Let's listen to this meditation. And some of them work really well for me. Some of them not so much, but some of them just help me. relates to a particular event going on. So mine's more mixed about during the day.

[00:28:39] Richard: hmm.

[00:28:39] Ross: But like you, with your running, cycling is for me, and I just love going out on my bike and noticing the changes in nature.

[00:28:50] Maybe there's been a, some rainfall, maybe the sun's capturing things in a particular way. Maybe it's different smells. Things to feel under the bike, so some of the soil is quite sandy if I'm going off road. There's so much to notice and hone my skills that it turns into such a joyful experience, and noticing the animals as well.

[00:29:13] So, that's a great way that I use. And in a working day, if I'm working at home, just stepping out into the garden, Listening is a big one for me. Listening to birdsong or listening to just noises I can hear, that really just helps me reconnect with now.

[00:29:32] Richard: hmm. Something I'm incredibly excited about, but it won't be for a little while. I moved into this office at the beginning of this month, And, um, it's got a roof garden. So when the weather gets slightly better, I'll be going up to the seventh floor during breaks and just, yeah, and they've got, you know, this grass and they've got benches and it will just be a nice place to get away from, from this place and have a change of scenery and

[00:29:59] take a [00:30:00] few breaths. Yeah,

[00:30:01] Ross: yeah, lovely. And if I'm in a city moving between appointments or going to a place I'm going to deliver some training, when perhaps I can have a tendency to be stuck inside my own head. really like imagining me falling off the podium, spilling stuff, whatever it might be. Someone asking me those, one of those questions, you know, when someone asks a question and they go, this isn't really a question.

[00:30:28] Richard: it's more of a comment.

[00:30:30] Ross: Yeah. And you think, Oh God, that sends me into a tailspin sometimes. Cause you know, they're generally going to say I'm considerably more intelligent than you are. In my mind, that's the story I have about them. I digress. But that point is, as I'm walking to a venue, I tend to look up. Say I'm walking around London, look up at the architecture.

[00:30:52] What can I see from this street that I'm surprised that I can see on the horizon or poking up one of those tall buildings? What can I see that maybe thinks, Oh, I didn't know I could see that from here, et cetera, et cetera. And it just really helps me connect with what's going on around me.

[00:31:09] Richard: So mindful movement is a great way to do this because lots of people don't like to sit still or they sit too much. They think, you know, so you can go for a mindful walk, you can mindfully run or cycle, do whatever it is. That is the way I frame it is something, a simple activity can always be done mindfully.

[00:31:28] And we can really broaden that to maybe challenge assumptions. in, in training, I often bring up the topic of where you could do mindful chores. The things that you need to do anyway, that you might race through and try and distract yourself about, why not bring your focus to them, and iron the shirt with a mindful focus. Clean the toilet with a mindful focus. It doesn't, and this is, I think there's a lesson in this, which is, it doesn't make these things fun or pleasurable. You won't necessarily look forward to cleaning [00:32:00] the toilet, but what you're doing while doing something you have to do anyway is building up this noticing muscle so that you can focus and realize what the experience was like, whether it's eating, cleaning, sitting and breathing.

[00:32:15] We often start with that in, in training, noticing the impact of your breath, On you, you got to breathe anyway, no equipment needed, no training needed. Let's just take some slow, deep breaths and notice what it feels like when you have those breaths.

[00:32:31] Ross: Lovely. And I absolutely agree. We're not adding anything to your day. So if you want to try doing the washing up, using your five senses to notice the temperature of the water, the noise from the tap or the plates clanking against each other, the smell of the very liquid. Other liquids are available. And Yeah, that whole experience, it's so rich in a sensory field.

[00:32:58] And if we're just doing it completely on autopilot, we're missing out. And it's a way to cultivate this muscle of noticing that's not adding anything extra to our day. Hmm.

[00:33:09] Richard: So there's a perspective that I speak about in coaching sometimes and I draw on my own experience. So I love to travel and one of the reasons I love to travel, it's not airports, it's not security, it's not packing bags. It's going somewhere new and experiencing it for the first time. Because what I've noticed, noticed, is if I go somewhere new, there's so much I could pay attention to.

[00:33:35] And I do notice things like smells, and sounds, and differences, and people, and how things aren't the way they are when I'm at home. And using that metaphor, imagine if you were visiting your office for the first time. What would you notice that you just don't pay attention to anymore? Imagine if you sat at your desk for the very first time.

[00:33:56] What are the things on this desk you would notice?

[00:33:59] Ross: [00:34:00] Beautiful. Yeah, I love that, and I use that in groups and in coaching. We actually give it a name, we call it Beginner's Mind. Approaching something as if you've never done it or seen it before, like you're this curious alien, like Richard going to a different country. We're just really exercising this Beginner's Mind, because otherwise we're approaching something with our preconceptions, our, I know what this is going to be like, I already know.

[00:34:30] If we're approaching a colleague, a loved one, a situation with that lens of I already know, it's kind of like looking through a dirty windscreen or a dirty windshield. We've got all our history of that built up on the windscreen. Can we just clear that off and just say, I'm going to choose this perspective.

[00:34:52] Just imagining Richard in that new country, or just imagining that idea of I'm going to approach this in a particular way. It can really shift our perspectives, help us appreciate others around us, help us focus in a different way.

[00:35:07] Richard: My final point I'll throw into the mix is to remind people that it's not always comfortable when you start bringing your attention to the present moment. You might notice, as a lot of people do when they do mindfulness training, they might notice physical discomfort. And it sort of grows within them.

[00:35:27] They have an itch, they have an ache, and now they really notice it. But, but actually what we're getting at here is the present moment, what is it offering you? What can you do with what's in the present moment, rather than the imagined future, or the disappointing past, or whatever it is. And using what's in that moment to help guide your response.

[00:35:48] Not an automatic, habitual response, if that's not going to be helpful. And not one that's driven by what might be. But what is in that moment and listeners, you could start [00:36:00] working on this today by just noticing what happens to your body when you breathe, when you're sitting down, it can be as simple as that.

[00:36:08] We'll share some resources on the website. By way of reminder, uh, you'll, you can find that at worklifesyke. com forward slash psychological flexibility. All of the resources we talk about, we're going to put there in that one place. And of course, you can come back to us with your questions, with your examples of how you bring this to life.

[00:36:28] And, anything you want to share about, um, What you've noticed once you've practiced it, you can send us an email, uh, podcast at worklifepsych. com or ross. peoplesoup at gmail. com. Doesn't matter who you email. We'll both talk about these emails and we'd love to hear from you, wouldn't we?

[00:36:46] Ross: Ah, that would be amazing. Yeah. Share us your, your techniques for noticing. I was going to go off on something there, but I, but I won't. that's,

[00:36:56] Richard: noticed that.

[00:36:57] Ross: Yes.

[00:37:00] Richard: Should we talk a little bit about

[00:37:02] next

[00:37:02] episode. Yeah, let's, let's just touch on that. So people know what to follow. I sort of mentioned it a little bit earlier on that sometimes when we notice what our mind is giving us, we don't really like it. So next time we're going to turn to the skill of being able to see thoughts for what they are, not what they say they are.

[00:37:20] Technically we call this cognitive diffusion, being able to step back from thoughts, not argue with them, wrestle them, control them. remove them. None of these things are really possible. So instead to have a new relationship with our, our mental content, our thoughts, so that they don't really hold sway over us in the way that they really can.

[00:37:43] And we all know that they can, they can be very compelling so that when we've noticed something, we could just let it go. We don't have to do anything with it.

[00:37:51] Ross: absolutely. Tune in next time and we'll talk about that space we can create between us and those [00:38:00] unhelpful thoughts and other stuff that our minds produce. And there are really simple ways we can do that. So we hope to, to see and hear you next time.

[00:38:09] Richard: Thanks for joining us. We'll see you in the next episode.

[00:38:12] Ross: Bye for now, folks.

[00:38:13] that's it, folks. Part two of our collaboration in the bag. And a hearty thanks to Richard. We're having great fun with this collaboration. and the next part will be a long before you know it. Here at PeopleSoup, we're on a mission to reach more adults with this behavioral science, and we could really do with your help, so

[00:38:37] you enjoyed this episode of the podcast, we'd love you to do three things.

[00:38:41] Ross: Number one, share it with one other person. Number two, subscribe and give us a five star review, whatever platform you're on.

[00:38:49] Number three, share the heck out of it on the socials. This would all help us reach more people and make some noise with stuff that could be useful. We'd love to hear from you and you can get in touch at peoplesoup. pod at gmail. com. On X, formerly known as Twitter, we are at peoplesouppod. on the gram, known as insta, We are at People. Soup and on Facebook we are at PeopleSoupPod. You can also drop us a review or get in touch using a voice note on WhatsApp.

[00:39:16] Thanks to Andy Glenn for his spoon magic and Alex Engelberg for his vocals. Most of all, dear listener, thanks to you. Look after yourselves, peace supers, and bye for now.

[00:39:30] Richard: Good job. I really enjoyed that.

[00:39:33] Ross: Yeah, me too. I'm gonna press stop recording now, and see what the hell happens