Understanding and Embracing Life's Significant Shifts

Speaker 2: 0:06

Hello everyone and welcome to the Curious Ulsterman podcast, the podcast designed to equip you with the tools and wisdom you need to fravise an adult. I am your host, johnny aka the Curious Ulsterman, and today I am joined by my good friend, rob Vips. Rob has come on today to discuss the concept of a paradigm shift, and this is essentially when we go through huge mindset changes or just when life feels a bit surreal. There can be big events such as weddings, your firstborn kid or just a huge change in your own mindset that then informs your future decisions. This was an outstanding episode and I can't wait for you to hear it. But without further delay, here is today's episode on paradigm shifts with Rob Vips. Hello, rob, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1: 1:01

Finally, yeah, thanks, johnny, so glad to be here. Yeah, like you said, finally we had a couple of glitches, but glad we made it happen.

Speaker 2: 1:08

It's great. Yeah, 100%. I want to say. This meeting's been in the planning for what six, seven months now, and there's just problem after problem between scheduling conflicts. And then, I know, last time my computer decided to not identify as a computer anymore, and just now, it's a paperweight now. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But yeah, man, I'm so glad to have you on the show and I know the audience are going to get a lot of value from this episode, because it's a very interesting topic that I don't think I've ever heard actually discussed and that is the concept of, like a paradigm shift or when life just feels surreal. I know in a previous episode I was having a chat with my co-host, nathan, and I said I just had this feeling I wanted to have an episode talking about when life feels surreal, those big mindset change moments and all that kind of thing, and then, thankfully, you messaged me out of the blue and was like I listened to your episode and I feel like I can talk about that. You know, especially with your podcasts, that's in the making and I really am looking forward to hearing what you have to say, because we're part of, like, the same men's group and there's some very interesting conversations that take place there. But before we get into the concept of what a paradigm shift is and stuff, I would love to have you introduce yourself to the audience just to get a flavour for who you are.

Speaker 1: 2:37

Yeah, yeah, well, my name is Rob Kipps, as you can probably see in the notes. But yeah, I was born in New York in the United States. My folks moved to a little island off the coast of Maine when I was four and that kind of plays in later in the story with something we may talk about or we may not, but it was kind of a formative experience because I moved from a place with a really strong accent to another place with a strong accent and so as a little kid, you know, you immediately stand out. So that was kind of a formative experience, kind of being, you know, shuffled into this new community. Yeah, an interesting place to grow up. We had to take a ferry to get over to school, so it was a very different lifestyle and that sort of did inform my childhood a bit. You know. It had its great points of being on this beautiful little island and then also had its challenges with the commuting and, you know, being a little separated from your schoolmates and stuff. So, yeah, and then after that, after high school and everything, I ended up actually going out to. After about two years of working in restaurants, I ended up moving out to the Midwestern United States. People say why? And I usually just give the short answer which is there was this girl and so kind of a kind of a long-distance talking gone. Well, not really. That's not a funny thing, I should say, but you know. But yeah, so and eventually we ended up getting married and we moved out to Maui, hawaii, for the next four years. Oh nice, yeah. So that was another crazy shift of life and something I always dreamed of was living in the tropical environment and I fell in love with the culture out there and learned a lot about myself and just a different way to see things also be. You know, being a racial minority was really interesting flip, because where I grew up here it's very much, you know a lot the majority of folks are Caucasian or white. And then moving up to Hawaii, and suddenly I was the minority and so I got a chance to kind of have that flip flop experience, which is, yeah, very interesting again, you know. And then after that, yeah, then we had our first child, my first daughter was born in Maui, and then we decided to move back to Maine, back here in the northeastern United States, to be near family, to have that support network, and it was time to come home. I was missing the four seasons, yeah, all the stuff I grew up with. So, yeah, that's. That's in a nutshell, biography, I guess, without the career shifts, all the chicken leather, yeah, but that's, that's quite interesting.

Speaker 2: 5:03

Something I've noticed a lot with Americans in general, if I may generalize, is you don't have a real fear of moving about where opportunities present themselves. You know, with a lot of the Americans I would chat with, you know they do talk about, oh, I was born here, but now I live here and it could be 3,000 miles away from where they originally grew up. And it seems to be that you know, you, you've definitely no fear of seeking out new horizons or planting roots in somewhere new, which I've always admired about. You know Americans in a way. I'm not saying that Americans, this is exclusive to Americans, but you know nine times out of ten. A lot of the people I know or know through other circles generally stay in the same geographical area. It's. It's if someone moves about in our neck of the woods oh, they went off to Australia, like really, really, it's like not, not a bad thing, fair play. But you know what you were saying at the end they're wanting to move back to you know watching you and you know the support of a family network. Totally understand, I think if I was ever going to move to America I would really like the living man like that. I've got a real thing for the east coast. You have seen the photos and I've. I think that I would vibe very well there. Started like a store farm but, alas, um. So it's interesting. You were talking about your life story there and I would definitely like to ask about you know that that change that mind, mindset change, potentially when you were like four years old and moving to somewhere new. But to sort of help that seamlessly come into the conversation, I think it would be first important to discuss you know why we're having this conversation and I think that you know especially I'm 29, going 30 in November, I think I kind of help. I think at every birthday, and especially the big milestone birthdays, people cannot help but reflect, or when they get married, or when they have their first kid, or they secure that promotion, join a new job, move country there. Can't, you cannot help but have these. Life is surreal moment, is this really happening? And it causes a lot of introspection and reflection. And I think I personally haven't really heard this conversation and especially, you know, with the aim of this podcast, supposed to be equipping young adults with the skills and wisdom they need to thrive as adults. I feel like you kind of. You kind of go into your your late teens and your early 20s as having a lot of these formative, you know, surreal experiences and not really knowing if everybody else feels the same as you do. You know your journey is unique, but I think that a lot of us still experience those. Life is weird at the moment and I'm not quite sure how I should feel about it, you know. But I think it would be really good to define what you yourself mean by a paradigm shift and then we can, I think, explore further on both your life story and the experiences I've had as well.

Speaker 1: 8:10

Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, we should define the terms for sure. The way I see it is, it's a big shift in your understanding, and I usually say my understanding of myself and the world, and I think it's kind of in that order too. And it's, I think, what defines one you know you've had one is, once you've kind of gone through that shift in understanding, you don't see the things the same way you did before at all. It's almost akin to climbing up to the top of a mountain peak. From that vista you can now see things from a completely different angle, but you can't really go backwards from them in most cases. I think it's just you suddenly realize that like wow, I was totally wrong about that. I just you know like when great example, when I was 16, I knew everything and suddenly I went to college and I remember this massive shift happening where I was like I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. And I remember I wrote a letter to my dad and I said to him you know what? I remember you telling me when I was 16 that there's going to come a point where you realize that you don't know anything and that feeling of not knowing anything is going to multiply as you get older, not get better. I was like well, that's really dark dad. But he was absolutely right and I wrote him a letter to say you know, you're right, I wasn't know at all, I knew absolutely nothing, and now I'm becoming acutely aware of how little I know. So, yeah, that's a great one, because then you can't go back, you know. You suddenly know like, wow, I don't really know and I'm just a newbie at this, I'm trying to figure things out.

Speaker 2: 9:32

So yeah, yeah, 100%, and I can totally relate to that because, you know, when I was 17, I went off and joined the maritime industry and if that is a very quick way to get humbled, because suddenly you are, I moved country, started a new career and I met people from every kind of background and nationality, and you know as much as I love Northern Ireland, you know to speak frankly. Unfortunately, there's a lot of prejudice which I'm not going to go into because we don't. There's not this episode is not long enough to detail it but there's a lot of unnecessary prejudice, as with there's in every country. There's always a minority who ruin things for the majority, and there was a lot of stereotypes and there was a lot of perspectives that you know I held in my own mind that got completely obliterated and I couldn't help but, thankfully, grow, because you know you have to. You know I was never a big. I was never, you know, held hate against anyone. But even as a young man I still held certain ideas and perspectives that, thankfully, I grew out of, you know, and you do, because when you grow up in a certain environment, you do become an expert in it. Like you, you're very, you're very acute or astute to sorry, that's the correct word. You're very astute to your own culture and the do's and the don'ts, and then that's when you do, I think, get that comfortable. I mean, I know it all, I know how my family reacts, I know what they expect from my family, I know what they expect from my peers and my culture. And then suddenly, as you say, you went to college, I joined the maritime industry and you are a very small fish in a very big pond and it's suddenly this and you can't go back, can you? Because you know it's, once you've learned this information, you can't unlearn it. What you choose to do with it, you can ignore it, you can, you know, play ignorant or you can grow with it. As you said, you ascend to that mountaintop and you suddenly look down with brand new perspectives and you realize not only like how much you've grown but perhaps how ignorant you were as well. But it's, it's interesting. That one line which you said really struck a chord with me. And you cannot go back because you know I discussed a whole episode on nostalgia and me and my co-host went into depth about that but how our culture has a bit of a love-hate relationship with nostalgia and I think that I don't know about yourself. What's your perspective? It always seems that we look at the past with rose-tinted glasses and life was so much simpler before we acquired all this knowledge and we realized that life, you know, life was never simple. It was very complicated and things. But what's your perspective on that, and especially with the overall theme of paradigm shifts?

Speaker 1: 12:29

Yeah, well, it's interesting too, as you said, that about nostalgia, I think. I think we do both things at once, which is strange. We're not at once, but we do both sides of that coin, so to speak. So we definitely, you know, get nostalgic and we forget the harder parts, the struggles, the things that you said rose-colored glasses, you know, we view it through that. But then I think, at the same time, the human mind is so strange because it has a tendency to like filter out whole segments of information that are super relevant. So with nostalgia you filter out the difficult learning experiences, the things that kind of shaped your reality that you live now. But we also go back, I think, and we do it in the negative as well. I don't know what the opposite of nostalgia would be, but it's kind of. There's that? So we go back and we look at the past. You know, I've caught myself doing this. I remember I was talking to my girlfriend and I said I was saying this old story, I was repeating this thing about my past, you know, and in mid-sentence I was like you know what? I've heard myself say this line over the last three decades and I'm not sure in this moment if that's actually true. I might just be repeating this narrative. That's getting rooted into the neural pathways in my brain because it's a well-warmed groove and so I just go down this road. It's like an easy. It's like you know, when the sip comes and they hold up the cue cards, it's almost like there's a little cue card in my brain that says here, this is how you feel about your dad, and I'm like that's not even true. So I think we selectively filter the past in both directions. We filter out the meaningful hard lessons because they're uncomfortable, and then we also can filter out the positive and look at the negative when we get into a script about it. So yeah, it's kind of strange.

Speaker 2: 14:07

Yeah, it's so interesting. You know we've talked with everything you've just mentioned. You know, especially with nostalgia, that you filter out whole bits of relevant information and the struggles we went through. And you know, I think every person but I risk upsetting a few people here, but I want to say boys in particular cannot wait to grow up when we're eight, 10, 12, we cannot wait to be adults. And then we have that paradigm shift of now I'm an adult and what's the one thing we want to do? I want to go back to being a kid. I don't want to pay bills and I don't want to. I just want to play tag or something. You know it's so strange, isn't it, how we yearned and yearned to be adults and then the moment we get that, that adulthood and like the initial taste of freedom, is amazing. And then you realize with a lot of freedom comes a lot of responsibility. You know, if your social contract to your community, you've got duties and responsibilities to your community and your family and you're like man, life was so, life as a kid was so easy. I only had to worry about what was for dinner tonight. But yeah, but just in line with that same theme I know you mentioned earlier in your in your own personal story about moving to Maine. Was that correct? When you were four years old? Yeah, yeah, If you don't mind discussing it, what was there a paradigm shift there? Or do you think it was just a formative experience for yourself?

Speaker 1: 15:36

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if there was really like awareness of a paradigm shift at that point I'm sure I was sort of too young. There was. I think it was more formative in that it sort of set up this, this belief system. That took me a very long time to recognize and to start to really examine which is being an outsider, and that's been a really powerful life theme that I've dealt with over the years and I didn't recognize it. Honestly, I don't even know when I recognized, but it was. I'm 50 now and it embarrassed to say it wasn't all that long ago that I really started to see it was a persistent pattern that I've been playing with again, like that narrative that's somebody holding up the cue card and then you start to go, oh wow, so I'm believing that I'm an outsider. Where am I like actually, you know, maybe making that experience come true, almost like a self fulfilling prophecy. So, yeah, it's more of a formative thing and that was a big one because that theme just kept kind of repeating and repeating. And, yeah, as I went through life and you know, and I and moving to Hawaii was another one where it was like there was this outsider piece. Yeah, it's interesting, it's very interesting yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:46

No, but that that that is so interesting, how you put it like that, how did you notice that you were telling this pattern to yourself? Like what was? How did you recognize it? Because I feel like the you know, as kids we are assigned roles within our families. Like you are the sporty one, you are the thoughtful one, you are the so on, so forth, and there's a lot of identities I feel like that are put on us as kids, which we then carry through into adulthood. But do you have any advice for people who perhaps are living in identity that's not truly there as I hope I'm saying this correctly but like they've, whether they like that or not, had an identity thrust upon them? You know, for example, I don't know, let's say, the university student whose parents are insistent that they become a doctor, so they're going to go to the finest university, they're going to study hard, but nobody ever asked this person what did they actually want out of life? Maybe they don't want to be a doctor. And it's like all these patterns are saying well, the part, the pattern and the internal dialogue I have for myself is I must do this, I must do that. It's like well, actually much in the same way that you were telling yourself oh, I'm an outsider. Subconsciously, a lot of people will tell themselves a narrative that's simply not true. But how did you recognize that? So other people can do the same and not have to wait until they're 50 to recognize this?

Speaker 1: 18:16

Yeah, that's an excellent question, as you're asking that, I think what came to me was that I think the best we can do is really get tuned into what feels very uncomfortable, and I don't mean it's almost. It's difficult to give a prescription for it, because I think it becomes a bit with discernment and it comes a bit with noticing the contrast between things Like when you know you're doing something. Let's give a positive example. When you know you're doing something that's really in alignment with who you are, there's this effortless flow you slip into. Time passes really quickly. Let's say you're doing your favorite sport or hobby. Pay attention to the way that feels and then pay attention to the experiences that seem to be the polar opposite of those. And when someone like, for example, when a parent will say to you like, oh, you know there's, like my mother used to love to say, oh, there's angry Robbie, like whenever I get mad and it was this label and ironically it made me very angry. So it's a self-pilling policy.

Speaker 2: 19:12

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:15

I'm not angry, damn it, you know I'm not like, yeah so, but yeah, noticing, you know, when you, when you take on that identity label or when you start to go down a path, you know that contrast between how you feel when you're in the flow and this really kind of like claustrophobic, compressed, uncomfortable in your gut. And I think it's that growing in that discernment between the two that can really help guide us a bit. And you know, we know the difference through experience. Like there's a difference between excitement, butterflies of something you should be doing. You know, like, if you're going to go like on this podcast, it's like I felt like a little bit of nervous excitement, but it wasn't like, oh, I shouldn't be doing this, like that's a completely different feeling. So it takes a little bit of practice, but I think that might be a good way to kind of navigate is just to compare those two together and then do a little bit of a gut check, gut check, take a breath and just sort of check in and be like, okay, well, my body's feeling really, you know, strange right now, I've got this tightness in my chest. Is this excitement, anticipatory feelings, or is this like my gut telling me like this is not what I should be doing, or this isn't really me. Yeah, that's. I think that's what I came to with that.

Speaker 2: 20:23

That's phenomenal and I can totally relate to that because you know, to be totally honest as well, like this will be the I want to say 58th episode when I eventually releases 58 episodes in. I still get nervous with podcasting. Like it's weird. It's literally just having a really nice conversation, but for some reason I still get a little nervous. But it's exactly as you said it is. It's an excited nervous, it's not a wow. I feel I feel in danger here. I really, really feel uncomfortable and you know you always do get that high after natural high after podcasting, because you go, man, that was such a great conversation. I feel uplifted. You know I'm leaving the, I'm leaving this smarter than when I started. You know it's, it's such a fantastic feeling. But I think we have all been there, haven't we? Where we're, we're doing something, whether we because we chose to do it or it sort of forced upon us a little bit, either by you know society or or bearing parents or something, and it's like, yeah, I'm, I'm really not comfortable with this and I guess it's real mental drain and physical drain as well. I think this is where it's important, very important to have people you can trust to bounce ideas off and to help help you reflect like a good mentor or coach. We did do an episode on that, me and my co-host, nathan, so do check that out. But yeah, it's. That was such a good answer because it it it articulated what I sort of felt but couldn't express, and I hope that it does the same for the audience as well. I wonder, if it's. If it's, I don't want to risk the sound of repeating, but how do you? You done that, you've done the hard work and recognized that inner dialogue. That was false. But how do you recognize when you're going through a paradigm shift? Because what I'm wondering is is how many paradigm shifts do we have? Is it four or five? Is it you know your, your first childhood sweetheart? Is it you're going to college? Is it your wedding? Is all these big life events or is it, could, could it be a daily or a weekly thing when you receive new information that challenges your whole belief and mindset? So you know, how do we recognize or going through a paradigm shift and, in your opinion, like do you think this these are big paradigm shifts or do you think we go through a paradigm shift constantly?

Speaker 1: 22:58

Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know if you can necessarily recognize it in the moment. I think in my experience of them they typically happen at points either like during something really intense, or just afterwards. So you know, that might be a moment where we could kind of, you know, if you're lucky enough to say, well, maybe that's the pattern. So if, when things get super, super intense or you know it's like, say, with a relationship that's just blowing up or something really, really intense, you know it's, it's a tall order, but to be able to get present and just be like, okay, well, this is another one of those crazy intense experiences. You know, can I stay present with the rushing emotions and the rushing thoughts and just kind of stay a little bit alert for some insights that might come? You know some patterns that might get revealed, because I think I had one of those in a relationship situation at one point and it hit me like a ton of bricks and it was very humbling and it was embarrassing. It was all those feelings at once and I realized, like you know what, here I am again in the same situation. These two women couldn't be more different, but this exact scenario. What's the common denominator it's me, it's me. And that was a. That was a paradigm shift that was like and that pattern actually was seen through pretty quickly after that, because once that pattern was revealed to be about me and not them, it cut the cord to that idea that, oh, if I just find the perfect woman who doesn't isn't like her, it's like no man you're. You're jumping through these relationships and you're bringing your garbage with you and that's the stuff that is actually causing the suffering. It's not about them, because I just happen to have that insight. And again, it was contrast, which is a big theme with me, when, when it comes to inner learning, it's usually about, you know, noticing the contrast between things. It was that contrast between the two people who couldn't have been more different was what showed, which showed up, but again, it was right after a very intense experience and they often are in my, in my experience, positive or negative could be super positive experience too can cause you to have sort of that insight. It might be that might be a way to kind of clue it and say, well, you know, this is a super intense thing, and then just sort of be, be sort of open and aware that you may, you know, be the recipient of some some grace for lack of a better word, because I feel like that's kind of what it it almost is. There's one teacher that I really like. He's an American teacher in the Adyashanti and he talks about descending grace and he's not even really making it about, you know, a God to person kind of thing. It's almost like his idea is that there's always this sort of flow of intuition, of grace coming down, and it's whether or not you're open to it that dictates whether or not you'll actually receive and understand it. So that just gets me thinking about, like, maybe it's just the case of when we're open and these, these pivotal moments. Maybe it's just the case of, like you know, we're contracted into our mental tight focus. Instead of the 30,000 foot view, we're kind of laser focused. And when you're laser focused your peripheral vision closes down and our insights and intuitions are limited. And then when we have an opening, which happens oftentimes after a really intense experience, that's when perhaps we're just open to receiving. What was always coming down on us is this sort of the wisdom and intuition. You can look at it as coming from the inside or coming from the outside. I don't think it really matters.

Speaker 2: 26:11

But yeah, that's, that is incredible, Like I absolutely love that answer. You know, I want to say that's possibly one of the best answers I've ever heard on a podcast, but that's so enlightening actually it really is. And I love that idea that you just said about descending grace, your grievous, giving yourself some grace, because I feel like it's quite natural to be quite hard on yourself. You know, you're always your own worst critic. You know, a fantastic piece of advice I was offered was you know, when you're going through something really intense, sort of, take yourself out of the situation. And if your best friend is going through the same situation, what would you say to them? Because it's so easy to criticise yourself, but if, like your best friend, who you love the best, was going through the same thing, you wouldn't criticise him. You would give them, you know, a hug or you would say look, it's not, yes, that's not, that's not the ignorant here. This is a serious situation with serious emotions and serious consequences, but however, you know, don't beat yourself up about it, because that's not going to help the situation in any regard. So giving yourself that grace I think is very key. But why also love what you just said was being present and you know, I feel like it's in an incredibly intense emotional state, whatever circumstance that may be. It's so easy to for lack of a better description like pinball off the sides between one side is the past and the next side is the future. And you're thinking to yourself oh well, my bad habits or I'm so screwed up from my past, I keep making these mistakes and I'm leading me to this emotional distress I'm in right now. And then the emotional distress you're in right now. You're thinking, oh, the consequences of the future, what's this going to bring? What? Oh, and then it's going to make me even more distressed. But I love what you just said about being present and you know, another word I would have for being present is being grounded in the moment. And from your experience, do you have any advice for the audience who you know, whatever really intense situation are going through emotionally or, you know, physically, whatever? Do you have any tips from what you use to ground yourself in the moment?

Speaker 1: 28:30

Yeah, there's a few. I mean, it depends on the situation what I use. If I'm really wound up and I can't seem to get my just even get to any sort of groundedness, I'll use breathing techniques. There's an app called Breathe that I really love. It's super simple and it has different ones like box breathing, four, seven, eight, breathing continuity. And the great thing is it's totally bare bones and you can just grab the app, you can hit start and it'll give you a visual that gets larger as you inhale and gets smaller. It has a sound. It's so basic and there's. You don't have to mess around with 10 million meditations to do. It's like, oh, I'm having sort of a thing. And then, once you get used to doing the box breathing, for example, in those real crisis moments, you can just drop into that breathing, do the breathing long enough so that you can get back to at least a place where you can say, okay, my heart rate's back down. Now I can, now I feel more present and I think that gives you a chance to, you know, see a little bit from a detached kind of higher perspective and you don't have to be, like you said, pinballing between past and future. I think you're dead on too. Because that is what happens. You go into the past and then you then you forecast into the future. You say you know, clearly I'm going to do the same thing again. I'm so screwed, oh my God.

Speaker 2: 29:43

Yeah yeah. Yeah, I was. Oh no, no, no, no, I'll not enter. This is the best bit about Zoom is being able to chat with yourself thousands of miles away. And then the worst bit is there's always like a second delay, two seconds delay. But no, I'll not interrupt. I'd love to hear what you would have to say, and then I've got a couple of questions.

Speaker 1: 30:02

Yeah, yeah, I wanted to piggyback off the great observation that you made about you know, if you're chatting with a best friend, you wouldn't. You wouldn't go to that place. You'd kind of, yeah, you'd step back and you'd be like, yeah, you know, this is really intense, but let's look at the other side of that and not beat up on them. But I think another part of that too that I realized at one point and I've said to a lot of people my kids and my friends, clients, et cetera and other guys is that you know you wouldn't look back on your four-year-old self and say, you know who didn't know how to tie their shoes, and you know, if you could watch that video or like, let's see if you could interact with that four-year-old self and they're having trouble, you wouldn't go up to that kid and be like you, idiot, what's the matter with you? Are you a moron? What's the matter? You never do that. You would do that, hopefully, to any child. But that's exactly like here's the phrase that I love that popped in one day. It was like if I knew better, I would have done better. That's literally always the case. You cannot operate from a higher level of wisdom and understanding you have in this second right now, and it doesn't. This is the flip side. You have to be careful with paradigm shifts, because it's very easy to let the ego or the mind take the paradigm shift and then to go back and viciously judge that previous version of yourself. You did not have the wisdom and so you know that child example is a great one or the best friend example is equally good, because that will force you to pull yourself up and out of that critical mind place that wants to go in and kick that person when they're down. It's like it literally isn't possible for you to have got note in the past and this is something that came up recently where I was having a discussion in the men's group about regret and this came up and I made this point, the same one I made to you guys is that you just can't go back and judge that prior level of understanding you had. It doesn't make any sense. It's just the same as going back to the child and telling them that they're an idiot because they can't tie their shoes. It's not that we don't go and apologize if you wrong someone from that level of understanding. Of course you go back, maybe even with a higher level of understanding and say, gosh, you know, I'm so sorry I did that, I know I hurt you or you take whatever responsibility that needs to be taken. But that's very different than the self-flagellation that we can fall into when we go back in our minds later and do the AR, do the after-action review and like, start kicking ourselves like that.

Speaker 2: 32:27

Yeah, 100%. That was so well said and the only thing I was going to say was I'm a big fan of the breathing techniques as well you were describing earlier for grounding yourself. Big fan of box breathing, big fan of the Wim Hof method as well, absolutely fantastic. The Headspace app I've used that for gosh six years now and it's been so good because there has been moments where it's been really intense in work or life in general. And having now learned that I don't even need the app, I just know what I need to do and just take two minutes to breathe and that stops any, in the moment, highly emotional, bad decisions I've often found I'll have a much more grounded and calm mind and I love what you said about you. Can't judge the past you with your current wisdom. It's like that old analogy of to be old and wise, you must first be young and foolish, and you know it's. It's such an interesting thing, a bit of an off the cuff question, but you know, for anybody who is dealing with regret I know you somewhat answered it with like, you can't judge previous you by modern, more wise you, but off the cuff. Do you have any advice for people who are dealing with regrets, because I think everyone will have regrets. I think it's just a case of going to your grave with the least amount possible. Do you, off the cuff, have any advice for people who who do have regrets and are maybe struggling with them?

Speaker 1: 34:09

Yeah, I suppose that's a tough one and you're right, a lot of really really common theme that people struggle with. I guess the best, the best case scenario, is to see that there there has to be. You have to almost put a little bit of a limit on what you're doing. So in other words, that the reason for examining where to grant is to is to take a lesson from it to prevent you from repeating something like that in the future, and to maybe set that boundary with yourself and maybe even write them on a piece of paper like what are the lessons I can take to prevent this? And then using that as a springboard to go forward and hopefully not make the same mistake. But it's interesting if you can get very quickly into again it's that same pattern. I shouldn't have done that. I should have known better. That means I'm this kind of person and I guess you know I would just go back to that same advice about you know, you just have to recognize that you can't judge that old version. I think that's really the.

Speaker 2: 35:03

The two boundaries of that is yeah, I think that's that I had something I'd probably give yourself and give and give, and probably that that flows in nicely then with what you said previous about giving yourself grace. Because I think once you afford yourself the grace to go, okay, I messed up, what am I going to do about it, instead of just constantly going over right, I feel bad, I feel bad. I feel bad, okay, fair enough, feel it, own it and then right, how am I going to make this right? Or you know what can I do? Taking personal responsibility for myself, going forward to make sure this doesn't happen again. And you know, I think that it's impossible to have this human experience without having some form of regret or without having wronged someone, you know. But I think it's part of that growth into being good man or good woman that you recognize where, where you've gone wrong, learning how not to do it again and then proceeding forward with the new people you meet, taking the lessons learned. And you know that paradigm shift of you know, I think it's, I think with especially strong regrets, I think it's when you internalize and recognize that you didn't live up to your core values and the you know you, there's that integrity gap that's often that that phrase is often used within. You know our sort of circles and you recognize that there's the person you are, who you know, who you know, who you are in your core values and that the act you just done does not line up. And that feels awful, it feels truly awful. But then you again, as you say, extending yourself, that grace, ground yourself right. Okay, how am I going to make this right? And if the other person wants nothing to do with you, that you've wronged, well that's. There's nothing you can do about it. You've got to respect that. But how are you going to be better for the next person you encounter? You know so, again, that's another paradigm shift. But I'm not sure if we already answered this question, because it's been such a great conversation, my mind's been going everywhere. But in your opinion, do you think we have only a handful of these like as a paradigm shift, a life changing what you know three or four times in your life? Or do you reckon we can have a paradigm shift almost daily, weekly, monthly, depending on what new information we get?

Speaker 1: 37:24

Yeah, no, thank you for going back to that. I think I don't think there's a limit on it. Honestly, I think you know there's probably some massive ones that are maybe a handful in a lifetime that we really you know that, just radical changes of who we are and how we behave, but yeah, there's little ones. I mean, I think, yeah, anytime there's that change in understanding about something and maybe we, maybe we just blast right past a lot of them and kind of like, yeah, okay, and now we move on. But sometimes you get them in retrospect, you think back and go, oh, you know, wow, that's interesting. I don't have that happen where I suddenly realized someone would say something and I go, oh, that would have triggered me like two years ago and I felt nothing and that was maybe a paradigm shift that I walked right past and it wasn't even noticed until the later experience comes. But it was pretty little, it wasn't even a major thing, but yeah, so I think it's a great question. And again, maybe, yeah, just being kind of and that's, you know, that's a great, that's a great leads to a great point, I think, is the other side of taking an after action review or post mortem on something is that you know part of that is what did I do? Well, and I think that might be, you know, as like a gratitude practice. That's a great time to like really take stock and pat yourself on the back and when those moments happen, don't just gloss over them but say, like you know, that's pretty cool. Like I don't, I don't believe that anymore, like I don't. Like you said, you know, going into the maritime, you know, you, you had some, some prejudices, perhaps you know, but the fact that you shed those in the light of new experience, like that's a huge thing and you think about how it's colored your interactions with, with people going forward the rest of your life, you know, and that's that's not a small thing. So I think we should also, you know, grab onto those as as, like a, as David Goggins say, put that in the cookie jar. You know that, because that expression where you, when you're having a tough time, you don't believe in yourself, like those experiences, we kind of keep in that mental cookie jar. But like you know what, I did some awesome stuff back then, like and I have a tendency to do that where I move very quickly past an accomplishment and just kind of like yeah, what's next? And I think that's why David Goggins to be perfectly honest, it kind of he kind of irritated me a little bit when I read his book, because he has a tendency to kind of do that even though he's cookie d'arthing and I so he does. He wins this like 200 mile extreme race in the desert and like two minutes later he's like yeah, whatever, let's just race through the desert like with no water for like 200 miles, you know. But then I think it probably pushes my buttons because I have that tendency, you know. It's like oh, that irritates you because you do that man.

Speaker 2: 39:56

Yeah, definitely, I can totally relate, but it's it's. It's so true, isn't it, that we don't. We look at like what achievements we have and we just brush past them and like I really like that concept of the cookie jar, because you know, I'm in five seasons of this podcast soon to be season six and I still sometimes go, my God, this is garbage, why is anybody listening to this? You know, I have that doubt, I have that oh, I wish I wouldn't communicate this way, like if I would listen to especially my earlier episodes in the podcast and be like, oh, I say I'm a lot or I have some really bad communication techniques, and it's like, yeah, all this sat on the other and you know you really judge yourself badly and then you think, hold on a second. Two years ago I didn't have a podcast and two years ago I didn't try stand up comedy and two years ago, you know, the list of things that I've accomplished in two years, without hopefully sounding too vain, has been incredible, just because it's my own personal growth and things like that. But I think that that cookie jar analogy is is fantastic. I'll definitely use that, taking that forward especially, you know, we all have days where we're just not on form or we just don't feel good about ourselves and things. But something you did mention I'm very familiar with it but I don't think the audience will be is the concept of an after action review. So you know if you're going through a power or you've gone through a paradigm shift and you've only just recognized it, you know describe what an after action review is and how that is applicable to a mindset change or a paradigm shift.

Speaker 1: 41:35

Good question. I hadn't really thought of it as a formal structure with a paradigm shift. Yeah, what did I do well? Or what went well? You know, what didn't go so well, what can I do differently next time? That's the main parts that I usually jump to and I always for me, I always have to remember that, speaking of cookie jar, like what did I do well? So, yeah, with a paradigm shift. It's interesting because I think maybe what we would wind up doing in a or might be how we behaved through that shift. Perhaps you know like, because there probably will be a little bit of those sort of regret if it was an extreme experience. You know, say I lashed out at my dad, for example, and yeah, what did I not do well? Well, the way I communicated with my dad. What did I do well? Well, I apologized afterwards and I made amends for it. What did I learn from it? Or I do differently going forward. Well, next time he triggers me, I'm going to take a deep breath from this Say, hey, dad, I got to go outside for a second, take a walk. You know, just inserting that gap can be, you know. So maybe that's a good use of an AR. I'm not sure.

Speaker 2: 42:39

No, that's fantastic. That's a really good example and especially, it's especially good because you're dealing with other people. If it's something you were dealing with yourself, it's very easy, I think, to analyze your own actions because you know why you did it. But if you're dealing with other people, that's a whole other level of complexity and you know being able to not react in the moment in a bad way, excuse me, and to take that moment, that grounding, as you've talked about before, to have a proportional response. You know, I think that's really good. I've always really loved the quote and again I've heard it within our circles. You know, boys react, men respond, and that really challenged me the first time I heard it, because I sort of looked back, you know, at my own paradigm shifts, especially as I grew in my 20s. I was like how many times did I react in the moment and it had long standing consequences afterwards, whereas you know, there's been times, especially in the last four years, where I've applied that principle as much as I can. And you recognize that the contrast between you know, not only are you taking more credible, you're also your response is, you know, usually dignified, it's usually proportional, it's usually measured, you know it's it creates and also, if you're dealing with another person, it can give the, it can give basic respect because you know if you're you react badly and you're getting in people's faces and calling names and saying things, it's only going to escalate the situation, as it were. So if you have a measured response you know, especially in a very emotionally intense, you know situation, that's a potential paradigm shift, a life changing event. You know it would it can make all the difference to have a response rather than a reaction.

Speaker 1: 44:32

Yeah, that's a great point and you know, as you said, that last part too, it made me think like maybe that's also something that determines whether an intense experience is able to transform into a paradigm shift versus it just being. It's always going to be a lesson, but maybe you know, like, let's say, you get hyper reactive, we take the path you describe, you get in somebody's face, you scream at them, you're going to deal with this, this huge backlash of that integrity gap, you know, and you're going to get very, very, you know, potentially down on yourself and maybe, if you're lucky, that's going to lead to a shift. But maybe that's one of those moments where the best lesson you're going to get is just in the contrast of like, oh God, that felt terrible and your after action review can help you through that. But it also might be as I'm thinking out loud it might also be the difference between moments that become, you know, a significant paradigm shift right then, versus ones that take a lot longer, after you've kind of moved through all those turbulent emotions you just churned up by reacting versus responding.

Speaker 2: 45:31

Yeah, no, 100%. I think that it's such a shame because you know, especially when you're in your late teens, early 20s, and your brain hasn't quite formed it's full growth and full maturity. You know it's so easy to react. You know, especially depending on the environment you were brought in, it's so easy, unless someone is there to stop you like a mentor or coach, to overreact to a situation and to go very badly and have consequences not just for yourself but for other people. And it seems to be only as you. It seems to be a right of passage that you have to go through these hard lessons, especially as a bloke. Not discounting women's experiences at all, I'm just. I'm speaking as an expert on being a bloke and the various mistakes I've made and regrets I've had. You know, in the past it's like it's so easy to mess up, it's so easy to just do what feels good in the moment and then afterwards they're like, oh damn, when you know when the temperature, the temperature has gone and you're out of that somewhat threatening situation or embarrassing situation to go, ah, that was, that was a bad move, that was, that was not a good call, but it seems to be. You have to go through those lessons to then learn that a response is a far more appropriate way to go about it than a reaction. But yeah, I don't know if it's been the same for yourself.

Speaker 1: 47:01

Yeah, well, that's the double-edged sword I think too of. You know, I think the the whole theme of the podcast that I, as I understand it, you know, is kind of giving these, these gems, to people that are younger and coming up, and with the hope that they, they obviously can use them as, as guideposts to navigate better and have a little bit more of a smoother experience than maybe we did. And yet there's the other side of the coin. That, that's true, like you just said, is that, yeah, you know what, though, like you're also going to step in it, you're also going to put your foot in your mouth, you're going to say something horrible to someone and just feel the burn of regret, you know, and that and that's all. That's all great life lessons, you know. The key is, again, is to go back to that, that self forgiveness, that grace, that. You know, what did I learn from it? You know, make amends, because sometimes that's crucial so that you can set it down. But you know, sometimes you don't somebody who passed away that's another point with regret is that you have to find a way to, to realize that you don't know a how that person actually took that and what lessons they learned and what paradigm shifts they may have taken from your outburst that seemingly negative. We all have had the experience, I think, of someone lashing out at us and yet you go through all your emotions and anger and maybe you even hate them for a while. But there's times where somebody does that and I've learned significant lessons from those, those, those outbursts. And they don't know that. So they go away with a snapshot of oh, I hurt Rob's feelings and I did this to him, but it's almost like in their mind, your evolution stops with the event and we do that with our people that we've offended and hurt, but we don't give them the credit of realizing they're an evolving being as well. So it's like you don't know and it's not your responsibility really, beyond making amends, to think you can understand what impact that may have had, like you could actually positively change the course of someone's life, paradoxically, by being a complete ass to them. Yeah, that's the bad bit kidding, going around doing that. Look, I'm helping people screw you, you know.

Speaker 2: 48:55

But yeah, it's a I hope I'm saying this right it's that concept of tough love, isn't it? You know saying, you know, I, I, that's. This is where I need to improve personally, just as a self-assessment on a character thing I, I would say it's a strength that I see the nuance in most situations, but sometimes I need to just apply it more and say it is what it is and be have that, draw the line tough. No, you, you made a bad call. Like, I can give you a hug, I can, you know, give you support, but you made a really bad call and I'm calling you out on it. You know, that's something I need to get better at. I have done it in the past, but I don't think I do it often enough. I, I, I was so powerful what you just said there and it's so true. I've just, it's weird how you keep saying things I feel but can't articulate and you just, you know, say it. You're like, yes, that's what I was feeling. Finally, someone said it.

Speaker 1: 49:51

That's great. Yeah, I love when that happens too. That happens to me all the time, and somebody will be like, yes, that's the thing I can't think of that.

Speaker 2: 49:59

The words. The words aren't materializing, but yeah, that's fantastic. The only well, couple of last questions for you before we wrap up. So, given everything we've discussed, to summarize, then, when someone is going through a paradigm shift, what is like, say, actionable steps they can take? They recognize, okay, this is potentially a life changing moment? I'm not quite. Life feels strange. I'm not sure how to feel about this. It could be positive and negative, but you know what? What do you do when you're going through a paradigm shift?

Speaker 1: 50:37

I think the thing that's helped me the most and I don't know if this is going to be a applicable or necessarily helpful to everybody, but maybe the concept would be is that some of the spiritual work that I did in the past really helped me see that the thoughts that are coming up in my mind are not synonymous with what I am, that they're just things that kind of come through. Like I love the analogy of the blue sky and the clouds. You know that the blue sky is what we are and the clouds just pass through and they're constantly morphing and changing. We're always there to see them come and see them go and actually getting into some teachings. There's one teacher I'll throw out there who's actually from England, he's Andrew Pertzpira, who's pretty fantastic in general in laser clarity, very, very intelligent, and he does a great job of helping people experientially play with this idea of watching strong emotions come up without trying to make them go away, and getting more contrast and experience and understanding that the thoughts we experience are simply just sort of energy passing through. And so I think a long-winded way of getting back to your question is that in the moments where we're in a paradigm shift or pre-paradigm shift where it's very intense and things are happening. I think sometimes the best we can do is to simply just remember that, and that is easier to do if you've done a bit of practicing when things aren't crazy. So if you've played a little bit with some of these teachings and some of these practices that you know, even if you're just meditating and you realize the point of meditation is not to control your mind, it's simply to be with whatever is coming up and let it be there. And that simple technique of just meditating, with the idea that you're not trying to change anything, you're trying to notice what's already here and just let everything be exactly as it is. And then, when you hit a real turbulent patch with a pre-paradigm shift kind of moment, just that awareness and that experience that you've had in little moments of going, you know, yeah, that time when I had that thought about my background, my parents, my brother, I just let that kind of pass through and then I was actually fine at the other end of it. That might be a good way to go about it. I mean, that's one of the things I definitely recommend to people when they ask me about what I've done in the past and how I've gotten to where I am with. Whatever level of understanding I have is those practices were huge. Just that's a big paradigm shift, actually massive. To know that your thoughts are literally not synonymous with who you are, that's a big one.

Speaker 2: 53:05

That's incredible. That's really powerful. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think, judging from what you just said, a good analogy might be that paradigm shifts are inevitable. But in the same way, you know, a football team doesn't turn up to the Super Bowl having done no practice Practice is key before the big game or you know there's no point. You know this big event in your life coming up and you are not adequately prepared physically or mentally. You know so when game day arrives, you know, do the hard work, do the prep, because you know it's coming. It's just a case of how ready you are You're going to be when that day arrives.

Speaker 1: 53:45

Yeah, no, I think that's totally spot on. Yeah, that's what I love. The benefit of that kind of meditation is just simply that, because it's like a daily experience of a kind of a control not controlled, but a more mellow experience of and you know, the good thing is, you're inevitably going to have a day where you don't want to meditate. You plop yourself down and your mind is swirling, and the practice of letting it swirl and realizing that you're still okay after that and everything's pretty, and you actually start to notice, hey, not only am I okay, but I'm actually like, really okay and like that stuff didn't actually stick with me, whereas in the past, maybe you spun for three days based on some thought you had, and then you suddenly know I only, I only dwell on that for like six hours instead of three days and to pat yourself on the back. I think one thing I tell my clients I'm a massage therapist but one thing I tell my clients is that every time you notice you're hunching your shoulders up, don't berate yourself. Congratulate yourself, because you're growing body awareness. So every time you have you notice that you're having a thought come up, even if it's when you'd rather not think, you know, congratulate yourself and say well, wow, I noticed that my awareness is growing, my awareness of thoughts, instead of being so tightly wound up in our thoughts we think it is us like. That discernment and that contrast, that awareness growing, is a huge deal. So to flip that script, that's another paradigm shift, to realize that you know, the awareness of it is really an accomplishment instead of a failure.

Speaker 2: 55:15

That's amazing. There's really given me food for thought as well, this whole episode. I'm going to have to really sit and meditate on everything you've said and all the conversations we've had, because it's been really enlightening. I've really enjoyed this conversation and it's definitely, I think, given me a little mini-paradigm shift. I'm not going to lie, but to wrap everything up, a question I have for every single guest is what's a question you've never been asked?

Speaker 1: 55:49

You know, it's actually kind of what we talked about, which is interesting because I've heard other people then ask what would you tell your younger self or what would you wish people had told you, so that was the kind of things. That that's the general type of question that I've never been directly asked myself, but I've heard other people then ask it and I've asked myself because I've heard them ask it but I don't think I don't know if I've ever been directly asked that that kind of question directly. So yeah, and I know we didn't hit that like on the nose as far as that direct question, but I think that's kind of what I've been doing as we've been going through this process of like going back to some of my earlier experiences and as I'm thinking about your audience and what can I say to them that might be a little bit of a leg up so they don't make the same mistake I did.

Speaker 2: 56:35

Yeah, 100%. I mean just to be sure of just trying to think of being respectful of your time. Do you feel like sharing what you would share with your younger self, or is that private to Rob?

Speaker 1: 56:50

No, not at all. Yeah, I actually I jotted down a couple notes around that idea as I was thinking about this upcoming conversation and I think you know one of the things speaking of my pattern is that I would say everyone feels like they're the only one who's an outsider, who's awkward and who's weird, like everybody. And I would also say, like, don't look at the adults that are older than you and assume that they have it all together, because you learn as you start meeting people of all different age brackets and all different backgrounds and you really get into the nitty gritty conversations like this and you realize, hey, everybody, everybody is kind of clueless and you're all bubbling around. And yeah, you meet people like even the great spiritual teachers, but the good ones will admit to you like, oh yeah, you know, like I still every once in a while, man, I just step in it and I say something stupid or whatever. So let's see what is the other one I wrote down here. So yeah, here's another one One of my friends from the men's group told me which has hit me so hard. He's like, look man, everybody's walking around thinking about their own stuff, their own lives, their own thoughts. It's like they're really not that focused on you. So when you get that imagined audience, you know like when you're a teenager you ever hear the term imagine audience syndrome. You know, like when you're 13 and your mom says something to you, you're like, oh my God, mom don't say that. Oh my God, nobody really cares. Nobody cares, nobody's really watching this. And they're not all just hyperscrutinizing. They're so wrapped up in their own dramas that just relax yourself. That's what I would tell Billy. I'm gonna need this door, for sure.

Speaker 2: 58:31

Oh man, that was so well said. Like you could hear teenagers everywhere going no, no way, Surely not.

Speaker 1: 58:40

No, I know they're watching me.

Speaker 2: 58:46

Oh, fantastic. Well, I'm sure everybody will get a lot of benefit from that and I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been an incredible conversation and you're welcome back on the show anytime, because I'm sure there's. I could chat all day about this, so I can't see any reason why we can't have you on the show again to discuss this kind of thing. You know, especially as you know your upcoming projects take off and you know various other things that you're focusing on. I'd love to have you back on the show to you know, connect people with you, know your content and things like that. But you know, once again, rob, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Speaker 1: 59:27

Yeah, thank you, john. It's been a real honor, right? You know I was thinking I didn't say earlier but as I was getting ready to come on the show, I think some of my nerves is that I was having a bit of a fanboy moment. I listened to this podcast in my car. I was like, okay, don't think about the fact that you're going on this podcast that you listen to in the car. It's Johnny, it's just you and Johnny, it's okay.

Speaker 2: 59:45

So it's like it's a joy, it's an honor though.

Speaker 1: 59:47

I love this podcast. It's one of the ones I recommend to folks because it's this unique combination of like these really, you know, wholesome like friend type chats, but they have really solid content. But I said, you feel like you're sitting with two good friends by a fire, you know drinking a pint, and it's like so it has that really like homey feel to it, but it's also really solid stuff that's going to give you something to take away, which is a really nice blend. So it's one of the first ones I recommend to folks because I just really enjoy it and it's I love it. Like going from work and I I flip an episode on and then like, oh, it's Nathan and Johnny and it's like I feel like I'm sitting with you guys, you know just around the table.

Speaker 2: 1:00:26

Well, with any luck, if you're ever visiting the UK, let us know and we'll definitely have you on in person. That would be nice to have a point or if we're ever in America, we'll definitely get something sort of what we'll have a beer and a live podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:00:40

Yes, absolutely, I would love to do that. Yeah, I'd love to come back on here too. I appreciate the invite, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:00:46

No worries at all. Once again, rob. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 1:00:49

Absolutely my pleasure.

Speaker 2: 1:00:52

There you go, folks. That concludes today's episode. I hope you got a lot of value out of the content provided. If you did, then please do consider subscribing to the Curious Ulsterman podcast on your preferred streaming service and leaving us a five star reading and review. That really helps the podcast grow. Thank you very much. If you would like to follow the Curious Ulsterman on the various social media channels to view upcoming content, the Curious Ulsterman is on Facebook, instagram, twitter, tiktok, youtube and Twitch all at the Curious Ulsterman. If you know someone who would benefit from this content, then please do share it with your friends and family on the various social media channels. You can also check out our website at wwwcuriousulstermancom, where you can view our full catalogue of episodes across all the seasons. If you would like to get in touch with the Curious Ulsterman, then please do get in contact on the various social media channels mentioned, or there is a voice note option on our website. As always, folks, I'm open to suggestions to make this podcast a better experience for you, the listener. If you tuned in today for the first time, thank you very much and I hope you got value from the content I provide If you're one of our seasoned listeners. Thank you so much for the continuous support. I am eternally grateful. Until next time. I wish you all the best. Bye for now.