The Most Eye Opening 10 Minutes Of Your Life Chris Evans

what thought process gets you through

the ups and downs associated with life

with thought process

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for me it’s trying to stay present you

know i i had

certain beliefs and and uh desires and

i wanted to be a certain type of person

but but a lot of my thoughts were kind

of

um i guess rooted in the ego you know

and when i say the ego i don’t

necessarily mean arrogance i just mean

the part of your brain that is the

that says i it’s the thinker um and and

that part of your brain is very uh

self-serving

and it’s very uh it lives in a world of

comparisons and

uh time and none of these things are

helpful

and and it just kind of would

consistently take me out of

a positive place you know the man i

wanted to be the man i thought i should

be or

you know thinking you know how you

should be doing things or what you

should be doing but then

not executing those things leaves you in

this kind of spiral of disappointment

but again all that thinking is based on

time you’re basing who you are and what

you think you should be on who you’ll be

tomorrow and

who you were yesterday and uh so so for

me the the most effective tool i’ve

adopted is just trying to stay present

when you’re in the moment um

it’s not like you’ve uh satisfied the

part of your brain that that thinks in

terms of time it’s that

the part of your brain that thinks in

terms of time just gets quiet

kind of doesn’t exist anymore so a lot

of my old hurdles have kind of become

far more manageable by just just staying

present all you really have in life i

think is just

now a series of nows and i think when

you can kind of

surrender to that um you can’t lose

so so for me getting through the

struggles that are associated with

day-to-day life

it’s just be present don’t don’t think

about

tomorrow don’t think about the next

minute just where are you right now

don’t miss right now be here now um and

a nice sense of calm just kind of washes

over

um i probably started thinking this way

when i was you know maybe

15 16 years old um and they

they say you don’t really wake up from

uh

dreams you wake up from nightmares uh

and not to say my childhood was a

nightmare at all by any means but

but i certainly started to see a pattern

uh you know where

whatever my struggles or challenges were

at that age

if they were ever kind of met or

satisfied i started to

see how the next day my brain found

new struggles and challenges to be at

odds with and you start to realize how

amazingly resilient that part of your

brain is

um that that can just create conflict

and

truly be at odds with what is

and i started to worry that no matter

what happened or where i went in my life

will that always be that way what’s

preventing me

from being truly happy or truly

peaceful or present what is the thing

that’s creating this conflict and you

start to realize a lot of it

you know when you take just it’s not

those individual things well that girl

didn’t like me or

well that guy is smarter than me that’s

that’s not it it’s

the part of your brain that is driving

this machine the eye

that ego it’s it’s a very self-serving

animal and and it lives

in a world of comparison um and a lot of

eastern

philosophies whether it’s buddhism or

taoism hinduism they all kind of share

a similar awareness of that brain noise

and it’s you know potential pitfalls and

and at that age i just kind of

that that’s the one thing that just made

the most sense to me that’s the one

thing that i

saw um as

it just made sense to the treadmill that

i saw myself running on

that was the one thing that i said yeah

that’s exactly that’s what’s going on

here

this this is just this brain that just

uh it’s

no matter what i do it’s gonna find new

things

scared me and that worried me and uh

that that’s what kind of made me wanna

pursue a little bit more exploration

into that way of thinking

i’m a big fan of reading big fan of

eckhart tolle

that guy is that guy’s it uh the power

now is a fantastic book new earth’s a

fantastic book stillness speaks

and i’ll say anything by eckhart tolle

to me that’s kind of like it’s like my

bible any day i’m having a rough time or

i can’t seem to

change the channel i can pick up any one

of his books and just read any chapter

and it just resonates and it’s a nice

feeling to know that you’re not the only

one

thinking this way or going through these

struggles or hurdles and uh

and it just kind of um exercises that

muscle and then works out that part of

the brain really well

so i try to look at it as practice you

know i my

biggest struggle um in my early 20s was

believing i understood a concept or a

certain philosophy that i subscribed to

but then consistently not living that

way and not executing those

those beliefs and struggling and being

depressed or um you know disappointed in

life and that’s that’s

i knew better but i wasn’t living that

way and that’s really frustrating and

and the problem is that’s all just ego

that’s ego sneaking in the back door

that that’s

that’s that’s you kind of the part of

your brain that thinks about the story

of

chris wants to see that story in a

certain light but that’s just ego that’s

that’s

you know that’s not real either so for

me it’s a matter of being perfectly okay

exactly where i am and practicing it’s

like uh

if i was gonna try and pick up a sport

you know i’m not going to be amazing

tomorrow today i just have to dribble

just got to dribble the ball um and if

the ball gets away from me today it’s

okay

get it back and just dribble again even

if it takes all of my focus and energy

just to dribble this ball maybe tomorrow

it won’t and it won’t be as

consuming but but it’s okay to be where

i am i don’t have to wake up tomorrow

and be

a pro and i think that um that mentality

has gone a long way for me in terms of

just surrendering

to the moment surrendering to where i am

and surrendering even to my failures

you know your failures are okay too i

used to really be very hard

hard on myself um if i thought i wasn’t

accomplishing something or reaching a

certain level but you know

be with your failures they’re just as

educational and just as

opening to the process as the successes

and eventually if you’re

i would hope um you know the notion of

success and failure will begin to dilute

as well um so yeah just just just

practice

is there any one piece of wisdom you’ve

managed to integrate fully into your own

life that you can share

sure it’s my favorite it’s my favorite

uh i did a little uh with lindsay

actually i went to uh india

we did this retreat few years back and

uh one of the guys our our guru on the

trip

uh as a man a man named nand brilliant

brilliant brilliant man and he would you

know

lecture every day and there were just so

many times where i had questions and i

would just raise my hand and i and he

kind of just kept telling me to shh

and it was so frustrating because i just

i just had

i felt i had good questions and i just

if you just give me an answer i’ll be

quiet

um and he kept telling me to be quiet um

and it really bothered me

and it made me doubt but what he was it

was a very effective

tool because the truth is the part of my

brain that needed that answer that

wanted that answer

is the part of the brain that i don’t

need um

that’s it’s kind of this i needed it to

get me to india

there’s a great quote i read you know

you need the boat to cross the river but

once you cross the river you don’t need

the boat

so i needed my you know confusion and my

ego

and my struggle to wake me up to the

fact that i don’t need it

um and i think the part of my brain that

wanted all those answers in india

uh was the part of my brain that he was

telling me just to be quiet with just be

quiet

just be present and if you really

really be quiet like i said it’s not

like the part of your brain

that wants the questions gets an answer

it’s that the part of your brain that

wants the question just kind of

dissipates

there’s no more need for an answer

because there was really no need for a

question

so so for me it’s just you know

very noisy brain

that’s not quitting that’s not giving up

that’s not

forfeiting it’s uh it’s surrendering

which i like to it’s you know when you

use the word surrender you remember that

there was a fight

going on there was a fight in my brain

an unnecessary battle

that i’m fighting with myself uh so so

just kind of shh

just kind of surrender a little bit and

and you you’ll have a flash of something

real nice

and then your brain will quickly try and

understand it and it’ll never be able to

and it’ll be this horrible cycle but

you’ll you’ll feel it and you’ll want it

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again

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