The Clouds Are Up

When was the last time you looked up at the clouds to see what you could see? Or the last time you sought deeper connections to others and your purpose as a visionary by looking to wonders of the natural world to diminish your ego? 

In this episode, we activate your opportunity to notice things with a higher perspective without relying on your worries or your thoughts. We discuss how inviting more awe-inspiring moments into your life can be the natural way to turn attention outside yourself and diminish your ego so you can finally connect they way finding and following your vision requires.

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Speaker 1 0:06

Hello and welcome. Here's a podcast just for you where every day I'm teaching you something new about how to be the best version of yourself. So you can be an inspiring visionary for everyone else. I'm showing up to guide you. There's some things that you may have often overlooked such as how to strengthen your mindset. Without having to read a book in a world where everyone's focus is on what everyone else is up to. I'm hoping I can help you slow life down so you can focus on what you can do. The world needs more people to believe in what they see and to have visions beyond diagnoses with a focus on possibility. So I'm asking that as you listen in, please open up your mind and together, let's see all the ways we can make better. What we find. This is a podcast about diversity, equity and inclusion. And it's also about my experiences with exclusion. And it is my hope that in each episode, you're able to connect with me. And when we leave the conversation, I hope you are forever committed to the cause. See me not ASD. Let's get started. Hello and welcome. This is episode nine of Simi , not ASD the podcast. I'm your host, Devika Carr . In this episode, the clouds are up. We're going to be talking about what it's like to use the natural world around you to step into a different kind of awareness and honesty. And it's one of my favorite episodes to have prepared. So I'm really excited to share with you this, this episode, what I have in mind. So the monologue question for you this time is when was the last time you looked up at the clouds to see what you see, or when is the last time that you saw deeper connections to others and your purpose as a visionary, by looking to wonders of the natural world outside and around you to diminish your ego. The segment goal is to activate your opportunity, to notice things differently, to notice things with a higher perspective, without relying on your worries and your thoughts. I'm inviting you to, to bring more all into your life so that you can diminish your ego, turn your attention outside of yourself. So you may feel more connected to others and to your purpose and the vision that you're pursuing. So ever since I was a kid, one of my favorite activities has been to look up at the sky and look up at the clouds. And it always leaves me feeling renewed. It leaves me smiling, feeling at peace and whatever it is that exists around me, I'm observing it without judgment. I'm just observing it as it passes, as it exists, as it comes, as it goes. And I feel so much peace and calm when I'm, when I'm finished that it's always an activity that I'm, I'm happy to go back to. And so I did a little bit of research based on how I feel after I do this. And clouds actually have a lot of symbolism. Uh, they are remarkable in the way that they , uh, generate different thoughts and ideas and symbols to individuals. And some of the things that I found are obviously called they're made of air, water , uh, dust and energy. And so these four things kind of represent higher thought and intellectual ideas. That's the air. The water represents a necessity for all of life, right? All of life needs water to survive energy, which is a vehicle for angels and inspiration and dust as symbolic of the inevitable changes that occur in life. And as life will always end in death, you know, the dust settles , uh , you think of, you know, when, when individuals are buried, they return to back to the earth. And so clouds also have like this representation of the cyclical effect of what life is, and each moment observed, right? Each moment that you're observing the clouds, there are uncontrollable shapes that occur the uncontrollable shapes that clouds take on the things that you notice about what you identify them as being there's evolution of thoughts and ideas. There's this representation that as often as the sky stands out, so to do the clouds, the clouds actually stand out sometimes more than the sky itself. And while we cannot isolate the shape of the clouds and the clouds themselves, right? If you've ever been in an airplane and you have flown through the clouds or in any other capacity have traveled through the clouds, you find that you're going through air and in the space that you're in, but yet it's amazing when you're observing them from the ground that they look like something you could touch and hold and grab and move from one place to another. But in reality, they are constantly evolving shapes that we cannot touch, that we cannot , uh , isolate and move on our own, but we can appreciate them through memory and so much about this, this energetic process and experience and observing the clouds, which I would consider to be an observation of nature around us and the wonders of the world , uh, much of this process is about awareness. And it's living in a moment without judging what that moment is. And yet without the judgment you have and appreciation for the power that the moment has, and you come to that appreciation of, of the power through your memory of it, right? So when I am laying on the grass and I'm looking up at the clouds and I'm observing them and I'm feeling happy, I'm smiling. I don't notice that I was feeling happy. I don't notice that I was smiling. I don't notice the shapes that I was observing until after I stop and think about the past experience of having observed it. That seems sort of convoluted or eerily unfamiliar to many of us, the idea that we aren't actually really thinking about what we're experiencing as we're experiencing it. Instead we wait until we, I recall those thoughts and those emotions to explain the experience through memory. And that's , it's really the difference between living in the moment and recalling a memory to re-experience or to recall the experience of the moment that has already passed. And what I've discovered for myself is that when I look up at the clouds and then I recall my experience in doing so, I want more moments like that. I want more moments where the experience as I'm living it is so wonderful that when I went , I recall the memory of that experience. It leaves me feeling as renewed as I felt when I was in the moment, it's wanting to experience more moments that leave us feeling renewed at peace. And without worry, it's realizing that all of life's experiences are a product of inevitable changes of rapidly moving ideals , uh, experiences and moments. And yet each moment as we're living, it can become a source of inspiration as we recall the memory of having lifted. And when we recall those memories and we experienced the higher thought of our recollection, we come to the intellectual that are going to bring us to the next phase. The next moment, the next experience, we begin to collect memories of past experiences. And we re we call upon them to inspire us, to move forward in one direction or another, to inspire us to think intellectually and to contemplate what's what's the next moment we want to experience. And this goes also for negative emotions and negative recollections and negative thought processes. Uh, if you experienced something and it has, and you recall the memory and it's negative, you likely don't want to experience something like that again. So then you avoid the types of moments and experiences that you believe might conjure up similar emotions or similar thoughts or similar negativities in, in similar experiences. And that's also to say that we have an opportunity to sort of test out our fears and our worries and our need for control by also realizing that every new moment is its own. And yet, even if we've experienced something one way, there is a significant chance that if we experience it again, the past memory of it will have a different feeling, a different thought, a different set of intellectual ideas and higher, higher thoughts and, and feelings. So we can't control the way the wind blows. We can't control how the air moves. We can't control how the clouds are shaped, what shows up for us as we're watching them. You know, whether we see a dog or we see a smiling face or across or prayer heads , we can't control what we see, but we do have the ability to shift our perceptions. As we recall the moments we can control, how often we look outside of ourselves to connect, we can control how authentic we are when we look outside of ourselves to connect. When we participate in the moments that are outside of ourselves, such as connecting with the natural world around us, then we can start to have control over the kinds of experiences and memories that we create. There's this book , um, that used in preparing this episode, the wisdom of insecurity by Alan Watts looks like this. If you're checking out the YouTube video , um, and on page 82, there's this entire paragraph that I'm going to read as part of our creative connection. But before I get to that , uh, I do want to recall or call upon your call to action this week. And it really is for you, you to step outside of yourself and step into the world around you and look at the natural things that exist around you, that can bring all inspiring moments into your life. I want you to possibly live a moment looking up at the clouds. Um, and don't just think of this as you know , uh , a second of your life or a second, an exercise that only takes a few seconds. I would like for you to take a dedicated amount of time, maybe five to 10 minutes, and just look up at the clouds and see what you see. I don't want you to think, I just want you to live the moment, right? So now there will be thoughts that come in your mind, but I don't want you to think about the moment that you are in. So for example, if you step outside and you look up at the clouds, I would suggest laying down to do this or sitting in a reclining chair. So you don't hurt your neck, but , uh, if you go outside and you look up at the clouds, what I don't want you to do is look up at the clouds and say, I'm looking up at the clouds because that interrupts you living in the moment, because then you're actually thinking about the past moment of having looked up at the clouds, if that makes sense. So don't think about looking up at the clouds, just do it just, and then when you're finished, then I want you to recall the memory of having done it. Think about what you remember about the past experience of looking up at the clouds. How did it make you feel? What did you observe? What did you notice? What did you see and recognize that in your present moment of reflection, you are actually choosing to be aware of your past in your present moment of reflection, you are actually choosing to be aware of your past and then see what you saw. How does it inspire you? How does it prompt you to have of higher thought, how does it encourage and inspire intellectual? And then how does all of that move you forward in one direction or another? So the wisdom of insecurity , this chapter is called on being aware. Um, I'm just going to read this entire paragraph. We, we are seeing then that our experiences all together , momentary from one point of view, each moment is so elusive and so brief that we cannot even think about it before. It has gone from another point of view. This moment is always here. Since we know no other moment than the present moment, it is always dying, always becoming past more rapidly than imagination can conceive yet. At the same time, it is always being born, always new emerging, just as rapidly from that complete unknown, which we call the future, thinking about it almost makes you breathless. So what I love about this creative connection and this entire paragraph is, and it does take some reading a few times over to really digest the basic meaning of , of it. But if we, you know, everyone always says live in the moment, but I don't think people really know what that means to actually carry it out. And it's not live in a moment and think about the moment that you're living in it's experience . What's happening now, right now, I'm recording this podcast and I'm sweating and it's very hot outside. And I have the garage door open and I can hear my kids screaming in the background. But me telling this to you is me recalling the past experience of having lived in the moment of all of those things just happening.

Speaker 2 16:44

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Speaker 1 16:45

Yet if I just sit still and I look, and then I think about the re the experience of having looked, I recall how I felt. And so it's just an exercise that I think brings a different kind of awareness to how we're connecting with others and the experiences that we're living. If my recollection of an event is not positive, then I think to myself, how might I want to change the next moment that I live? And so if looking up at the sky and looking at the clouds and just observing how things are passing you by in each moment and how you have no control over them as they're happening, but you do have control over how you perceived them and how you felt then perhaps you can start changing the way that you connect in your next moment. The mantra for this is this. I invite the natural wanders to connect me to a new moment. A new moment is always here, always born, always emerging. I will experience each moment as it arrives only to think about it as a reflection of my experience, their memory, and there , my ego will diminish my vision will grow. Thank you so much for tuning in for episode nine until next time, a new moment is always here. Always born, always emerging. I will experience each moment as it arrives only to think about it as a reflection of my experience through memory and there, my ego will diminish. My vision will grow. Thank you so much for tuning in for episode nine until next time, you've just listened to see me not ASD the podcast with your hosts . Devika , thank you for joining. Please connect with us beyond this week's episode so we can continue the conversation. We hope that you'll have time to visit our website. See me not asd.com, where you'll discover show notes, bonus content, be able to sign up for access to our other resources and submit any questions, comments, or topic ideas. But if you're currently multitasking while watching or listening to this podcast, and you're not able to get to the website right now, we simply ask that you remember us on Instagram. See me not ASC. We have some bonus content that we've bookmarked for you, easy access, and you'll be able to get started. We believe we are the number one source for inspiring visionary supporters around the world so that they can elevate the exceptional people in the world as well in the pursuit of diversity, equity, and inclusion. So as you meet individuals, see them for the exceptional people that they are and do your best to elevate that.