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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