When was the last time that you lost track of time? In today’s episode, I’m sharing a couple of techniques that help me get back into that flow state.
When was the last time that you lost track of time? Being with my newborn grandson has reminded me of the wonders of nature and humanity. Watching him inhale and exhale, open his eyes, and develop has been a beautiful experience. With automation and the rapid pace of technology, we have less opportunities to observe and tap into a flow state, but in today’s episode, I’m sharing a couple of techniques that help me get back to place.
I’ve been exploring my relationship with goal-setting and achievement lately and realized that striving often crowds out wonder. I’ve been working on mimicking nature and simply receiving what comes my way instead of overworking. Sitting and observing the world around me, also called sit spot, has helped me connect deeper with myself and revisit different lessons that I’ve received from nature over the years.
This precious time with my daughter, son-in-law, and grandson has strengthened my belief that we are stronger in community. Together, we have more to offer. Listen in to hear more of my reflections from my first week as a grandmother.
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Dana Frost 00:03
Hello and welcome to the Vitally You podcast. I'm Dana Frost, your host coming to you from San Francisco, where I am over the moon and baby heaven with my daughter, son in law and first grandchild, little Nico James. I am feeling all the fields over here and I'm excited to share it with you this week because what's happening over here is what has inspired today's episode. When this particular episode airs, I will have spent four days at Dave Asprey, his Biohacking Conference in LA. I want you to stay tuned for next week episode where I'm hoping to share what I learned in a four hour stem cell masterclass. You know, I'm obsessed with the lifewave stem cell patches that activate your body's intrinsic stem cells without injections or expensive procedures. You also know because I mentioned stem cells are little baby cells that they can become any type of cell in your body, and Oregon cell, a skin cell or tissue cell. So I will be able to tell you more about what I learn about conventional stem cell technology next week. So that is a prelude to next week episode. Now let's move on to the softer side of the human experience, love and losing track of time. When was the last time you lost track of time? When was the last time you lost track of time? In 2006. In my life coach training with Dr. Martha Beck, I was introduced to the power of tapping into the activities that make you lose track of time. losing track of time shifts emotional and nervous system patterns through the power of alpha brainwaves. It's what we might consider being in a flow state. Now, do you remember the Heart Math inner East technique, I think I've taught it on the podcast. I know I've taught it on Instagram. And I know I've taught it on other podcasts.
Dana Frost 02:04
But the inner ease technique is what I would consider being in a flow state. So let's do a little inner East technique. Visualize. Now this is inhale and exhale through your nose with your mouth closed, and visualize the inhale and exhale to flow from the heart center. That's just heart centered breathing, the inhale and exhale flows to and from the heart center. Now we bring in the feeling of inner ears, inhale and exhale, flowing from the heart center with the feeling of inner ears. Inhale and exhale flowing to and from the heart center with the feeling of inner ears. You can see and feel how this shifts your breathing pattern from fight flight to calm heal, or could be in a powerful workflow. I want you to recall a memory when you lost track of time. And you might go back to childhood because almost everyone can remember a childhood activity where they lost track of time. For me, it was playing all sorts of make believe so I had stuffed animals and dolls. And I could do this in my room. I could do it outside. But it was this i don't know i created all sorts of different worlds and scenarios and I would lose track of time. There was a big willow tree in the backyard of one of our homes that I would I don't I could spend hours underneath that tree. Now when I got older and I had access to the Kitching, baking became an activity where I lost track of time. Now losing track of time feels like little effort is being extended, expended. You're in workflow, it doesn't mean that you're not working hard if you are in workflow, but it doesn't feel hard. That's the distinction. Time stands still. Time stands still. And this goes against our modern push for productivity. Even though we are more automated, we're almost all the way automated, it seems we have less time for Wonder and losing track of time. So automation started, I think in the late 1800s With the invention of the flour mill, and you can imagine how important that invention was, because daily bread was something that people needed for their daily sustenance, it was was a very
Dana Frost 04:42
palatable concept, this idea of daily bread and so to be able to automate. One part of the process of getting daily bread on the table was It was huge. It was huge. But today we're so you know far down the automated trail that we have Instant gratification with instant gratification with one click, one click we can grocery shop. In a few easy steps, we can feel hungry bellies. And I it also made me think about Ariana Grande song. Actually the lyrics. I don't know what the song is called, but the lyrics are I see it, I like it, I want it, I see it. I like it. I want it. And basically, I can get it. I see it. I like it, I want it, and I can get it. And this is the modern expectation. Let's consider though for a moment if instant gratification is the best scenario for the human. In a world of instant gratification. Nothing feels like Wonder. We have it all. Nothing's like Wonder and does having it all right now we move the necessity for wonder. I don't think it does. I'd love to know your thoughts on this. I think we need wonder now more than ever before.
Dana Frost 05:53
I mentioned last week, my two days of 40 years of Zen, it occurred to me that I had been striving my whole life. And guess what I can simply drop the striving, striving crowds out wonder and you might share I'm guessing most of you share this striving attitude with me. We are the ones who always want to achieve or reaching for goals and the next climb reaching the next precipice. There's nothing wrong with achievement. It can be really wonderful, but it can take us from the most valuable relationships and experiences in life. Years ago, I was I don't even remember where I was. But I was listening to a talk and the person was referencing how nature doesn't strive. Nature, she's not striving for anything, she doesn't overwork, she simply receives what comes her way, and responds as needed. And she keeps on being sometimes she faces destruction. But the roots remain there and create new life. And we see this when there's been a devastating fire the next spring, new life buds forth with fields of flowers. Now one of my favorite things to do is to walk through a forest or a park under and around tall trees. They exude the strength and wisdom that comes from having been in the same spot for decades. And for some of them for centuries. Imagine trees they've been in the same spot for for their whole lives, standing underneath a really tall expansive tree and feel their grandeur just stand under a tree and feel their grandeur. Now, for the past six months, I've been on this tree journey, observation and wonder, since I had my psilocybin mushroom experience. And during that experience, I think I've referenced it on the podcast before but I was taken into the root system of the trees and in into Mother Earth. And do you know that trees communicate with one another I had that knowledge before this experience, but I got to experience their communication. And in real, you know in. In reality, the sounds of trees can be measured on equipment, which I don't know anything about that equipment, but it's this cool little machine that records the sound of trees in their communication. They create their own ecosystem and support one another. Well on my mushroom journey I was taken into the earth and I saw all of nature working in sync like a factory. And the message I received was that underneath Earth's surface, nature devotes her time to healing the humans. It sounds trippy, and it was but it was also real. And it is also real consider that nature has been used since the beginning of time to heal her compounds her rhythms, her sounds and plants have sustained life on Earth. I want you to think about this. And I might get backlash. But I'm going to put this out here. It's not our responsibility to save the Earth. She is saving us. It's not our responsibility to save the Earth. She is saving us. And it just struck me. The human ego is astounding. Imagine
Dana Frost 09:31
our supersized ego that believes we have this power to save the Earth. We were born from the earth. We are not saving the Earth she is saving us and that stops me in my tracks and evokes the sense of wonder. So what urges you out of the matrix of modernity and striving into a sense of wonder what takes you out of the matrix takes you out of striving into a sense of wonder what makes time stand still, so that you lose track of it.
Dana Frost 10:08
I've got one for you, a newborn, a . It's what I'm living. It's what I've been living the past. What's today almost two weeks? Well, actually, he was in NICU. So it hasn't been two weeks for me. But a newborn has to be the purest life form on the planet. And I wish everyone the opportunity to witness a live birth and not be the birthing mother, the female body, it is this. It moves it ebbs and flows like the inhale and exhale. That brings all of the earth and nature and humans together, that's this collective inhale and exhale, the human body it contracts, and releases, it opens, it closes, it opens, it closes and out of the womb of a woman is born, another human. It's really astounding. It stops me in my tracks and brings the sense of wonder, and sang with me in this years ago, I took a nature course to to learn this coaching tool, I don't remember what the course was called. But the tool was called sit spot. Okay, so this is how you do it. Regardless of the weather, you find a place outside in the elements, and you sit and you observe, you notice what's happening around you. You notice your own responses and reactions, you may see critters, insects, animals that come around you you notice sounds and movements, you notice everything and you hold the space that nothing is by accident that everything that you're seeing, experiencing feeling hearing is here for you. Sit spot has helped me to be a better observer of myself in the outside world and to learn from nature, machines waiting to show us the way. And to be honest, she's always encouraging. And I've learned these different lessons from nature. Before I actually learned about sit spot, I had an animal encounter with six bats flying around my head at night. And I thought that this meant a bad omen only. Nature isn't that way. Actually, it was a really encouraging lesson that deeply supported me in that stage of life. So a few lessons I received. These are simple one to two word messages through the years and my sit spots. So trust. You're not alone. Rest, you've got this. And you know what, the days that I heard those little words and phrases, those were days, I really needed that encouragement. And I had another experience last night. Yesterday, I didn't take a walk like I had taken on other days. And I felt myself so tired at seven o'clock at night. And I thought well, I can just go to bed. But what I realized is that my body really just needed a move. And I thought you know what, I'm gonna go outside. It's always the anecdote for me. And so I went on an evening walk alone and simply stepping outside gave me an uptick in my energy and I walked a mile and a half to the beach. And I noticed everything I saw and the most profound lesson came when I arrived at the beach. And what I saw and the beach that's by my daughter's home it's huge it's really really wide and I don't know it's far just to walk to the water the beach is very, very wide and I noticed scattered on the beach were small groups of people five to 20 people and they were all standing around little fires that they had built. So these are people spending time together in community the wind was blowing the sun had just sat the air was brisk that there were clouds floating and there were these small groups of people communing around a fire the message that just dropped in is Yeah well we need each other We are Better Together and and I was reminded that in my research on longevity community is a very strong asset for longevity
Dana Frost 14:29
something so simple as taking a walk and you just you can learn you can hear these messages when you're sit spotting paying attention. I wasn't sitting I was walking but it's the same idea. So walking home, I walked through the grand trees of Golden Gate Park and these trees are amazing. I received the same message and it was community. These were some of the messages have dropped in you know when we're in community we don't get lonely. We are stronger in community. Together, we have more to offer. Together, we provide better coverage from the storms when we're together. And this brings me back to why I'm hanging here with my daughter and her family during these early days of having a newborn and this big life transition. People keep saying, Well, how long are you staying? Where are you going home? You know what, this is the situation. More support is better than attempting to do it alone. That is if the support is respectful and contributes. And there's no reason for a young family or let's say a young adult, to have to strive on their own in the middle of a transition without help from extended family or from what I would call family because they're our friends who feel like family and they are as much of commute as much a part of our community as our family is it's whoever we feel like we get that love and support from so like trees in the forest whose roots are deep and broad and there's this intercommunication this connectedness this mutual support, so shall it be for the humans. So back to tracking. It's not like I said, I'm going to do sit spot with my newborn grandchild. But I realized that I was sick, spotting with my little grandchild as I just held him and lost track of time, the limpers the baby moans that tender tears, the sudden and spontaneous smiles and jerks and skin on skin. All these just observations and being in that present moment you dropped down you're in the present moment, the veil of time and space is removed and your enraptured Your attention is just so in the moment that you lose track of time and I will tell you nothing else matters. This idea of losing track of time and allowing myself to wander was so challenging. When I was raising my children. I just felt like there was always work to do. I've noticed the younger generation coined a term for this they call it adulting. This fits with this focus on all the things I've got to accomplish. There's nothing wrong with it, but I wish I so wish I would have brought more wander into my adulting decades. I guess this is the gift of being a grandma. Now what I see is that previous generations were naturally more in tune with the rhythms of nature. There were natural downtimes porch sitting times people had to wait for their food to grow winter was a natural season for waiting. Summer was the season to lose track of time after you planted fall was robust with the harvest. Spring provided this natural sense of wonder as new life broke ground and produce pretty things to look out again. Today, we are mostly immune from the elements. We sit inside our walls that protect us from nature's whims, our food can be sourced globally, one season flows into the next with little impact on our lifestyle. It's interesting, isn't it? And nature is always mirroring lessons and offering the sense of wonder. So my coyote yoga teacher Francisco coyote reminded a group of students a couple years ago that humans are nature, and they have the same lessons we look to from the natural world. So for all of us big city dwellers who have fewer trees around us, we don't live as close to nature. We need to remember that all the humans living around us are our trees. They are also nature they inhale and exhale, the one breath that flows between all living beings, flows between the plants, the humans, the waterways, the ebb and flow of the tide, the earth. If you listen, do you hear that resonance that we all share the energetic force that ebbs and flows, the inhale and exhale. I feel it in this little newborn. I'm leaning into the subtle movements in the nervous system, the
Dana Frost 19:01
inhale the exhale the size, it's time to lose track of time and restore a sense of wonder. Will you join me in a sit spot, find a place outside, become an observer, track what's happening around you? Look for the collective inhale and exhale since the collective inhale and exhale, feel the collective inhale and exhale. Ask for your lesson and listen with your ears and your heart.
Dana Frost 19:30
Thank you for joining me on the vital EU podcast. It is a pleasure to meet you here each week. And I want to thank hip Georgette for this review, loved episode 49 Be safe. Thank you, Dana for talking about this cultural shift. I think we need to hold firm as the role models in our families and counter this very negative, health negative and health demoting practice of being afraid to live by being safe love your passion Thank you so much hip Georgette if you are enjoying this podcast, please make me smile and hit subscribe, download and rate and review it all helps this podcast to rise above the podcast traffic jam share it with a friend. I would love to hear your sweet spot spot story. Feel free to email and connect. Let's connect on Instagram you'll find all my connection details in the show notes. Until next week, I am streaming love from my heart to yours