The end of the month is here which means it's time for another deep stretch. All month long, we have been clarifying Inner Workout’s core concepts.
In today's episode, Taylor talks about the connection between mindfulness and one of her favorite movies, Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Mentioned In The Episode
Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Welcome back to Inner Warmup where your inner work begins. My name is Taylor Elyse Morrison. I'm the creator of Inner Workout and you as always are our expert guest. Today's a Deep Stretch episode, so I get to share what is on my mind. And if you join the Inner Circle for $5 a month, that's one of the perks that you get, you can join these recordings live, and have a Q&A afterwards, time for discussion, meet other members of the Inner Workout community. Before I get into the content of this week's episode, a quick reminder that next week, we have our November workshop. Another perk of the Inner Circle is that you get 40% off of all of our workshops, and the workshop for November is called "Practicing Gratitude When The World Is A Dumpster Fire." I'm honestly so excited for this conversation because I personally have seen the conversation about gratitude used in some ways that feels pretty icky, and can ignore the reality of people's situations. And so I wanted to build a gratitude workshop that I needed. One that is intersectional and is practical, and meets you in the current moment where you can open any social media app or news app and see ways that the world feels really, really dire. And also, there's a lot to be grateful for. And so this workshop is an opportunity to explore, have conversation about the intersection of those two truths. If that sounds compelling to you, there's information in the show notes. And if you join the Inner Circle for $5 a month, you can get 40% off for joining us in the workshop.
Okay, so this whole month, we have been clarifying definitions, getting really clear on what we at Inner Workout mean when we are talking about things like self expertise and inner work. And for the Deep Stretch episode, I wanted to share this weird connection that has been percolating in my head for months about mindfulness. So when I talk about mindfulness, I always come back to this definition by Jon Kabat-Zinn. He is a person who has really popularized mindfulness in the West, he has this book called "Wherever You Go, There You Are", we'll link to it in the show notes. And the definition that he uses is that mindfulness is paying attention on purpose in the present moment, non judgmentally. So it's this very intentional, and focused attention. And I kept coming back to his definition of mindfulness as I watched Everything Everywhere All At Once. It quickly has become one of my favorite movies. I've seen it a bunch of times already. And every time I watch it, I notice something different. Or I'm drawn to another aspect of the story. I love that it's silly, and also deals with some really heavy topics. And, man, it just makes me look at life differently. And isn't that what all great works of art do? I will pause here and say that if you have not seen Everything Everywhere All At Once, watch it first. It really is worth like paying the five bucks to rent it. And then come listen to this because there will be some spoilers. So let's talk about what's happening. This is the spoiler zone. This is my last warning before I just nerd out about Everything Everywhere All At Once. So for those of you who have seen it, you know that in the movie, the villain, Jobu Tupaki, her mind is split, because she now has the ability to be everything everywhere all at once. Thus, the title of the movie. And the movie is science fiction. So it's really easy to dismiss this fractured state of mind as something that can't happen to us, like that's in their universe or in their multiverses. But I don't have to worry about that, that technology does not exist yet. But the more that I thought about it, the more that I realized that it actually is possible to a certain extent. And it is happening.
You know, or you may not know, depending on how long you've been around. I have a fraught relationship with social media. Inner Workout just stopped investing a lot of our time, effort and energy into social media. I personally have been experimenting for the past couple years of how I relate to it and what energy I want to bring to social media. I never was a person who got into Snapchat, I just didn't get it. I didn't understand it. Not that I didn't get how it worked. I just was like, why would I want to be doing this all the time? I didn't get it. And when stories came on, it was the same thing. Like, that's Snapchat. Why is this happening here? Like, I purposely am not on Snapchat. And I resisted stories for a while. Now stories are one of my favorite places to connect, to share snapshots or to share things that are funny. So it's, it's always interesting to see how our minds can change. But what social media has done, I'm guessing you are like me, that you have some relationship to social media. What it's done for many of us is, it's shown us more possibilities than our brains are meant to handle. I could be anyone, I could I see someone who blew up on TikTok, and I'm like, that could be me. I see someone who has this job. And I think, ooh, should I have gone to law school? Or should I have pursued that dream? Or should I stayed in corporate and then I would have been able to go on this vacation or go on this cushy retreat? I can also compare myself to anyone. And I see that this business has more followers in a shorter amount of time, and this person seems to be making more money. And that person seems to be happier or less happy in their relationship than me. I could be at a restaurant with my friends going to the bathroom, and I'm scrolling as I'm sitting there. And all of a sudden, I'm transported to a concert that someone's at, and I'm seeing the fans freaking out and screaming along to the lyrics. And then in the next swipe, I'm transported to a party, and then someone's vacation with the picturesque views of the Amalfi Coast. There is so much possibility that we are exposed to when we're scrolling on social. And for Jobu, what happens is she gets to this, I would call it black pilled place where nothing matters. She's like, I have seen everything. I've done everything. I've been everything, I've been exposed to everything and none of it matters. It is all so pointless. And in the early part of the movie, we see her taking that out on others. And you see this these fantastical scenes of her ending people's lives in these ways that I've never seen in any other movie, someone turning into confetti, for example. But what we learn over time is that in even though she's taking it out on other people, she's actually really deeply unhappy with herself. And Eleanor, her mother is determined to save Jobu Tupaki slash Joy. And she decides that in order to save her, and she says this in the movie, I've got to become like her. And she gets to this point where she isn't caring and she is very much following in her daughter's footsteps before she decides to take a different path inspired by her husband Waymond. And towards the end of the movie, finally, when Joy and Eleanor are reunited in their original universe, in the parking lot, Eleanor says we can do whatever you want. Nothing matters. And we end back at the IRS with Eleanor having access to every universe imaginable. But she chooses to be there, in that one. That choice that Eleanor makes, that presence, that's mindfulness.
And I wonder how many of us are more like Jobu, at least in the way that it's accessible to us right now to be like Jobu, where we're constantly consuming. We're constantly scrolling, seeking, sharing, trying to feel like what we do matters. And then when the algorithm doesn't cooperate, when the person that we were hoping would see our selfie doesn't like it, we feel like it doesn't matter. We feel more like Jobu. And what would happen? What would happen if we both acknowledged all of the possibility, all of the things that we could be, all the people that we could become, all of the people who appear to be better off and worse off than us in the tiny slivers of their story that we're able to see? What if we could acknowledge how cool it is that we can see a heartwarming story from someone on the other side of the world. And choose to be with ourselves in the present moment? To realize that we yes, we can do whatever we want. We can scroll for hours on TikTok, if we want. We can scroll for hours on Instagram, we can spend forever editing a video so that our lips or stomach looks perfect. Or we could say you know what, that doesn't matter. I want to be here with the people I love. I want to be here immersed in making art, or laughing or sitting with this emotion that I would rather avoid and numb out by scrolling, but I'm choosing to be here. I'm choosing to be in the present.
So that's my, my thought. And I just keep coming back to this when I am tempted to pick up my phone, when I am putting something out there. Even having the attitude of : I'm choosing to share this because it's really interesting to me. And then I'm going to let it go. And if it's well received, it's well received. And if it's not, it's not, but I was present in the process. And then I'm going to be present in whatever comes next. And how people receive it isn't my responsibility.
So yeah, I'd be curious if this makes sense to you, if you're nodding your head and you're like, oh, yeah, maybe I have been kind of fracturing in my mind the way that Jobu Tupaki did. And I don't know, if I want to intentionally choose that. I'd love to hear from you, you can shoot an email or we do still check our DMs, you can send us a DM on Instagram. And normally in Deep Stretches, I don't have a built in time for reflection. But I actually wanted to give you just a shorter one minute moment of reflection to think if there is a particular situation where you need to step into that choice, where you need to acknowledge that there is so much possibility at your fingertips. But I need to choose to be here in this moment, in this difficult situation. In this emotion that isn't passing as quickly as I am. See if you can identify it and choose even for a few moments just to be there with it in the present. Take a minute to do that and then I'll close us out for the month.
Thanks for spending time this month clarifying definitions and hopefully finding some clarity within yourself. I love and appreciate getting to spend this time with you. And if anything stuck out to you this month, if this podcast has been a source of support to you, and you haven't already rated and reviewed the podcast, please do that. It's super easy if you do it on Spotify, all you have to do is click five stars. But it's also really useful if you have access to Apple Podcasts and you can give it a five stars and say a few words, it helps more people find the podcast and supports the growth of this work that we're doing together. So thank you so much for your time and thank you as always for your expertise. Take care
