Into The Nothing with Patrice

69. No TV for six months with Patrice

Patrice Douglas Season 2 Episode 69

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This podcast started because I got curious about letting stuff go. Like... coffee, makeup, my phone, fake tan, alcohol, even TV. What happens when we stop doing the things we do every single day on autopilot?

This episode is all about creating space and seeing who you become when you let go of something you depend on.

Right now, I’ve just started a six month break from TV. Yep. No big screen for 6 months. And I’m excited to see what comes up. More ideas? More peace? More creativity?

If there’s something in your life that’s starting to feel a bit off ... maybe this convo is for you.

Give it a listen. And if you like it - flick it to a friend.

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https://linktr.ee/patricedouglas

SPEAKER_00:

We are officially getting closer to episode 70. What? And if you're new to this podcast, I do episodes every Whenever I want to do them, whenever I feel inspired is how I roll. So welcome, welcome back to Into the Nothing with your favorite host, Patrice. On this episode, I want to talk about why I started this podcast, the theme of the podcast, Into the Nothing. creating space, letting stuff go and how helpful that is in life. How when we let things go, we feel fuller. These things that we depend on, really everyday stuff. That's how I started this podcast. Now, everyday stuff like it could be coffee, it could be makeup, it It could be social media. It could be your phone. It could be doing a water fast and not consuming food for a day or periods of time. There's been so many times over the last eight years where I have deliberately let something go because I get so curious. I'm like, why am I dependent on these things? Why do I see so many people being so dependent on these things? Why is it... so accepted that this is such an integral part of life. And I get curious what happens when I let go of that thing for a day, for a month, for a year. Who do I become? What do I learn about myself? I find it so fascinating. Into the nothing. Into the nothing. It's like drinking coffee every day and then you could slowly taper off to not drink coffee or to have a decaf or to have one coffee a week. What happens when we Create space and let go. So I want to talk about that today because I'm about to enter into a new phase of that. Well, I have entered into a new phase of that with drastically reducing my screen time, but also choosing to not watch the big screen television for six months. I've just started it. It's the beginning of July. It's been on my mind for a couple of months. And so... I'm going to see what happens. I know there's going to be a lot of clarity because there's going to be less information coming in. There's going to be more of me, more of my genius, more of my intelligence, more of my humor, more of my creativity. I know because I've done this so many times. I know what happens when I let something go that I do all the time more of my true essence comes out to play. It happens every time. And so, of course, this podcast episode is an invitation for you to look at where could you let something go. Is it alcohol? Is it coffee? For me, I've let go of fake tan for the most part. Coffee, alcohol, drinking anything really but water. I 90% of the time just drink filtered water. My food, the quality, the ingredients of the food that I eat, I've stripped back so much processed food. And I notice how great I feel. I notice how much my brain works. I'm clear in my head. I'm so much more relaxed in my body. I have more time when I'm not scrolling on my phone. I go out for walks more. I move my body, which helps me sleep more, which helps me have epiphanies about my work or about projects or about relationships when I'm walking. Things that I'm really worried about, suddenly I'm like, oh, that person hasn't got back to me because they've got stuff going on. Clarity comes through and everything's so connected. Before we really get into this episode, I think it's going to be a relatively short one. Please subscribe. Please share this with anyone you think would benefit from hearing these words, from hearing this conversation. And yeah, feel free to reach out. I love when people send me fan mail or that's actually a thing that you do. Bye. Bye. Bye. And so letting go into the nothing. Now, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you will know that I talk a lot about what I now perceive the words into the nothing to mean. And they mean lots of things. Into the nothing has proven to mean meditation for me. closing my eyes, sitting with myself, not being on my phone, not listening to music, not eating, not walking around, not doing work, sitting with myself. That's a version of going into the nothing. Another version of going into the nothing is spending time in nature. Again, getting out of our day to day and into nature, doing something simple into the nothing. Now, another way to look at Into the Nothing is where this podcast started, like I said. And that's in this interest, this infatuation, this obsession at some points with, wow, okay, the stuff that I do every single day on autopilot, I don't even think about it, I do it. Why do I do that? And the question is, do I need to do that to survive, to keep going? And that's where I started to let stuff go. Now, in 2019, my now fiance, Ted, had a huge accident and he nearly died. We were in Spain, it's a whole story. But in that, I was in a lot of shock. I was in PTSD. And when I came back to Australia from Spain, when we all came back a couple of months after the accident, I was staying with my aunt at the time in Coogee in Sydney and oh my gosh their house they always have beautiful homes but their house at this time was right on the cliff face of South Coogee and going through that traumatic time I would wake up every day to pure endless ocean and I came back to Australia from Spain at a time where it was Wales and breaching and it was a thoroughfare of whales as they moved up and down the coast so it was a very special very special very healing time to be right on the water but in that time my aunt would get me a coffee in the mornings and I was already sensitive to coffee one of my mentors used to say like habits in our life they give us up like it becomes so uncomfortable to drink coffee or drink alcohol or whatever the thing that it actually is saying goodbye to you You're not really saying goodbye to it. That's what it felt like with coffee. Now, I love the flavor of coffee. I love the flavor of coffee. Yum, yummy, yum, yum. But it wasn't agreeing with me. It was making me feel even more on edge. And I was like, Patrice, stop drinking it or have a decaf. And ever since 2019, that's what I've done. Every now and then I might have a half strength, like a half shot coffee if I'm feeling tired, like maybe once every two months. But it's really nice to not depend on coffee for energy. Now, I'm not saying this is for everyone, but I'm saying what's the thing in your life that you can stop depending on, that you're taking, that you're consuming to have a certain effect? Could you find another way to source that energy? For example, with coffee, when I take better care of my sleep, aka not being on my phone the hours before bed, and also exercising in the day, I have better sleep, I wake up more refreshed and I have more energy. Now that's just me, but what is it for you that you need to reconfigure in your life? So you can let that habit go. Alcohol for me, the hangovers, brutal. And what I started to realize was that I love feeling good. I love it when my brain feels clear and I'm so present with my clients or with my partner 10 or with my friends or with my family. Like I love, I yearn for that feeling of being grounded and being centered and being clear and relaxed and saying what I want to say. And I'm like, whoa, I love that I said that. I love that I know when to pause. And I can't be in that kind of state when I'm hungover, when I'm dusty, when I feel like I've poisoned my body. Now, does that mean that I never drink? No. I have a champagne every now and then or a really buttery quality, maybe Californian Chardonnay or a really delicious cocktail. I've got my bachelorette, my hen's party coming up in September this year. And I'm still thinking, will I be drinking or not? But I might have a cocktail. So I pick and choose. And that's another thing with going into the nothing as in letting go of a habit, even if it's for a period of time, is that it... redefines your relationship with that thing and you become empowered and in the driver's seat and it's coming from a place of choice rather than autopilot and dependency oh this conversation gets me going so much because it's been such a big part of my learnings over the last eight years like letting go and going into stillness into nothing is so cathartic it can be so uncomfortable For example, meditation, letting go of having our eyes open for 40 minutes or for 15 minutes or whatever it is a day. Because it's so uncomfortable because there's parts of my body and my brain that are going, get up, go and eat something, you're hungry. And then... fears and thoughts and stories that I usually ignore by eating or by distracting myself or by going on social media, suddenly I'm sitting with myself and sitting with them. And it can feel brutal some days. And I've meditated for well over a thousand hours in the last three years, but I've been meditating for years before that. But I've been really diligent the last couple of years. And I did like a basic math around how many hours I've meditated. And it's a lot. And majority of that time, I'm sitting in a lot of discomfort with myself. And it's really rewarding at a certain point to realize I'm not avoiding myself as much anymore. I'm not cutting myself. bits of myself off and saying that it's wrong and that I don't want to see you and that I'm like no I'm just going to sit in you I'm going to think the thoughts I'm going to feel the feelings I'm going to stop resisting and there's something very integrating about that but it's not easy but it's very rewarding so right now I'm in a place where over the last few years I've done lots of experiments with myself because I believe that this life is a big experiment With ourselves, what can we learn? Who do we become? What do we do? All that kind of stuff. What do we choose? What do we value? How do things change over time? And so over the last few years, if you've been listening to my podcast or following me on, chatting with me on social media, you would have seen me talk about Not having a phone for 10 months of 2021, I think it was. Not having a phone for 10 months. I stopped having a phone contract and I gave myself a break of having a phone. Also that year gave myself a break of buying any makeup. I didn't wear makeup. I think I wore it twice and I borrowed makeup from my sister or had a little bit left over from something and I wore it twice that year. So I went a whole year without makeup. Nearly a whole year without a phone. I've done water fasts where I have for weeks slowly removed certain things from my diet like meat and sugar and again alcohol and caffeine and gluten so then I could ease myself into a three-day water fast where I only consumed water with some salts in it. I have stopped using fake tan for the most part of my life, might use it like A couple times a year. I used to use it every single week in my early 20s. Just didn't feel good anymore. Coffee, let go of. I've let go of alcohol. I let go of my corporate job in 2018. I let go of living in the city for nine months when I moved home to my parents' farm in 2017. So I've done lots of letting go. And I know that you have too. But when we become a bit more deliberate with it, it becomes so refreshing. It's such a lovely thing to do if we can... muster the courage to let it go and I know that there's something that's tapping you on the shoulder right now that it's like this doing this thing it might be drinking cans of coke it might be not exercising in the habit of just sitting around and scrolling on your phone there's going to be a habit that you want to let go of because there's a better habit that wants to come through and going into the nothing I also see it as going into the unknown and that can feel scary because it's not the familiar And it's a part of our brain, the brainstem, which is here to keep us safe. And part of keeping us safe can often mean keeping us in the familiar, even though it might be a place, thought pattern, an experience that we don't like, but it's like, no, no, let's stay here because this is what we know. So it's going to take courage and grit and gumption and everything you got to change a habit. and to go into the unknown, which is the new. Because the old and the stagnant and the looping of a certain habit, whether it's drinking or coffee or not exercising or not drinking enough quality water or not eating quality ingredients in your food or all those things, you get to cook in your shit a little bit. This just becomes so uncomfortable that you make a change. And then you get a taste for how good you feel and you're like, wow, I just want to revolve my life around feeling good and clear and relaxed and on point and doing cool stuff. So right now I'm heading into, I've started July, a phase of not watching the big screen, not watching television. And see what comes from this. It might be nothing. Hopefully it's something. But again, I'm starting another experiment of letting go, of going into the nothing, of creating more space in my life because at night I usually watch some telly with Ted. We usually watch cooking programs, to be honest, or maybe like a bit of comedy. Definitely don't watch the news and I haven't for about a decade now. Thank goodness. That stuff is so fear-mongering and ridiculous. Ew, how do I still get away with that? Like how is– it's just ludicrous. all drama all it's just no I don't want that in my life and I haven't for yeah nearly a decade I think no over a decade how cool is that so we'll see how we go I'll keep you updated I'll do my best done is better than perfect if I fall off the horse I'll get back on as in if I watch some telly because I've got my period and I'm hormonal or something and I just Can't be bothered to listen to myself. I'm going to get back on the horse because done is better than perfect. It's about the process. But what's that thing for you? Coming back to why the... the genesis, is that the word? Why I started this podcast initially. The original meaning for me of how to go into the nothing is to let a habit go and see who we become, see what we learn about ourselves, see what we learn about our relationship with that thing, whether it's coffee or alcohol or lack of exercise or makeup or our phone or social media or something else. What is that thing for you? And can you start to prepare yourself to have a bit of space from it and go into the nothing and spend more time with yourself and see what happens, see what transpires, see what unfolds. Thank you so much for listening. Appreciate you. And of course, I'll see you in my next episode.

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