Melissa Albers  0:00  
Hey everyone, you are listening to the self awareness journey podcast. This little banter is about a car ride long and features your hosts JJ Parker, and Melissa Albers. JJ owns a tech company. And Melissa has been a coach working with influencers for the last 18 years. Hey, you know how you get those Facebook memories that pop up? Like a year ago or two years ago in your past?

JJ Parker  0:26  
Yes, I love those. I always forget what I did last year.

Melissa Albers  0:30  
Exactly. I got a pop up this morning from my best friend in the UK. A Facebook memory from two years ago today. We were in Paris. We were in Paris with my favorite daughter. Okay, I just have the one. And we know she's listening. Exactly. We had just landed and we were so excited to explore the city. We dropped all of our bags in the little hotel room, because everything is much smaller there than here. And we ran out to the sidewalk to start exploring. And we were so happy and so excited. And the pop up memory was a screenshot of the iPhone activity app. Showing that day, we walked 27,000 steps, which was the equivalent of 11.8 miles. Wow, that's a day and we were in flip flops. And we were in flip flops. Again, my daughter was not she was insensible tennis shoes, but Fiona and I there we were in our flip flops out to conquer the world don't care.

JJ Parker  1:53  
So you're just like so excited to explore the city that you just, like didn't even think about what you were doing. just jumped right in,

Melissa Albers  2:01  
right being the seasoned world travelers. You know, actually we have done a lot of traveling, but you we still make incredibly stupid decisions. That being one of them. But you know, it got me wondering about how much has changed in the last two years? How much has changed in Paris, with the loss of that beautiful Notre Dame, that just with all of the world, things that have changed, and it got me thinking, I wonder if with self awareness changes as we grow in self awareness, do our worldviews change?

JJ Parker  2:41  
Well, that's a really good question.

Melissa Albers  2:45  
Yeah, I just be curious what you think about that?

JJ Parker  2:48  
That's a question that makes me really have to think hard. I don't have like, off the top of my head to answer your question. Okay.

Melissa Albers  2:58  
Maybe did I maybe did too. Cue a little bit, maybe just a little with that. But you know, like, if you start thinking about this on a more on a bigger scale, right, yes. How we see everything can be affected by our own how we see ourselves.

JJ Parker  3:17  
Yeah, I was just thinking, you know, from for me, I would say, working on self awareness and actually working on what I consider like the trigger or the reaction part of self awareness. I definitely has an effect has had an effect on my worldview, right. I I think it actually has caused me to, like think more globally. Yeah, right. Not get so stuck with like, what's happening right now and what my reaction is right now, and just say, Oh, yeah, okay, I'm having a reaction. But let's think About that enough, you know, say global context, right? They actually matter that much. If we think more globally,

Melissa Albers  4:09  
that's interesting and like, and even if we maybe change the word that we're using instead of globally, if we use the word expansive, like, does this change our view of, you know, does this make our view more expansive, and like, you could take it? You could take it in a lot of different directions here. But what if we just start, like, at the very broadest point and say, with greater self awareness? Does it change your view of the entire universe? Like your spiritual? Yeah, yeah. Music Cue the music. But does it does it change your aware your spiritual awareness?

JJ Parker  4:53  
Well, I think it definitely does. You know, I, I, I'd say that I'm gonna guess that a lot of people that maybe listen to the podcast work on things like self awareness are probably also working on other parts of the way they see the universe to interesting, right? Mm hmm. I don't know that, like our work and self awareness is isolated to just

Unknown Speaker  5:20  
yeah. Yeah,

JJ Parker  5:22  
of course this real, you know, so, I'd say as, as I work on self awareness, I'm, you know, I'm also working on how I see the universe and how I think everything connects and, you know, sort of working on that spirituality. side, too.

Melissa Albers  5:42  
Yeah.

JJ Parker  5:44  
Like I said, I think part of the self awareness stuff definitely plays in there because, you know, as you unpack some of those bigger questions, you know, you have to kind of make sure you don't get yourself knocked off center. I mean, Part of that exploration is making sure you're staying really centered and, and, and in really a place of contentment, right, that's what you're searching for. Right. Right. And using some of these techniques. Yeah, it's really helpful for that.

Melissa Albers  6:17  
You know, what's interesting too is as we're having this conversation, you went to the reactive side, how you would have a feeling or have a, an awareness and then the reactive side, I actually went on the other end of the stick, which was the proactive side. Mm hmm. And that's super interesting, just how we did that even in our own conversation right now because for me, like, when I'm working on self awareness, I feel like before I was highly aware, everything that I did, came through more judgment. And it started with judging myself. I was a lot more judgmental on Myself, I beat myself up a lot. I've talked in, you know, previous lessons and podcasts, about my high sense of everything has to be perfect. I put myself under these unrealistic expectations all the time. And then if I hit them if I was, if I was successful in hitting an unrealistic goal, I didn't even celebrate that. I just said to myself, well, you probably didn't set the goal high enough. I mean, I was under constant self judgment. It was like a death of 1000 cuts. And so whenever I would look outwardly, I had the same view and how would you not, you know, how would I not have the same view? So I judged everybody and everything that I saw through the same harsh lens that I was judging myself. And I feel like this work has afforded me a lot more flexibility and a lot more gentleness The the phrase that I use weekly, is that it is afforded me the perspective of assume goodwill. Assume goodwill on myself and everything else around me.

JJ Parker  8:13  
Yeah. Well, I bet that's having like positive effects on your relationships. Well,

Melissa Albers  8:22  
yeah, yeah, it I mean, it certainly is and most importantly, with my relationship with myself. But like when we're talking about this self awareness in worldviews are more global perspectives or a more expansive views of things like this would just be interesting. Like, how do you see how would I see global issues happening today? Hmm. If I were to compare myself five years ago and now

JJ Parker  8:55  
Yeah, yeah, I you know, my my reaction to that my, you know, experiences a lot like you said, like, I'm a lot less judgy Yeah. And actually, I think I'm a lot more tolerant and compassionate for other people's views. Right? I mean, even if you think if you bring it down, you know, we started you from the universe, but if you just bring it down to even the global issues, or you know, even us issues, yeah. Not that we want to get into, you know, politics about things, but like, you know, I think I was much more rigid and my thinking around what people should do, what they should think how they should act. And I think that this, you know, the self awareness journey has helped me become more compassionate and to say, Hey, you know, there's all these different opinions. Yeah, it's okay. And my reaction To them shouldn't be a judgment of them.

Melissa Albers  10:04  
Yeah. Well, and even how I love how you even just started the conversation how you said, you know, we don't have to make this about politics. And and you said that because we are all under such heightened emotion and heightened reactions to things right now that even in a conversation like that we're having right now we almost feel the need to sort of say, No, no, we're not going to take a hard stance, you know, we're not judging. We're simply we're simply having an awareness of how we are feeling and responding to things. Yeah. It doesn't mean that we're taking a hard stand on things. As a matter of fact, we're suggesting that we've really lightened up on that.

JJ Parker  10:49  
Yeah. Yeah, that that's like, that's an interesting way to think of it right because we had a whole we had a whole teaching about just because you don't like reactively disagree with something doesn't necessarily mean that you agree with it.

Melissa Albers  11:09  
Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly right. And we you know what I just realized we've mentioned the teaching a couple of times in this podcast, if other people are interested in seeing those teachings, they can find it at our website, which is the self awareness. journey.com. So I just it's not I'm not trying to shamelessly plug us but our people are

JJ Parker  11:28  
curious if people are curious thing they keep talking about.

Melissa Albers  11:35  
So I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I just thought I better add that

JJ Parker  11:39  
it's not that we shamelessly promote ourselves, but it's just that we're really bad at promoting. It was terrible.

Melissa Albers  11:47  
But you know, so so just but as we're, as we're thinking this through a little bit, I find it very interesting that as we're talking about how we see things globally, and we started talking a little more about like us issues. And then we've got, you know, closer to home issues such as our communities, right? We've got neighborhoods that we live in. We have schools, our children's go to we have churches, we have organizations that we're a part of. and with more self awareness, I certainly feel that it creates a little balance. At least it does for me, it allows me to engage in I'll tell you, it's allowed me to engage in even highly charged conversations without taking a stand. Mm hmm. And not feeling bad or guilty about that. And, or without feeling like I'm getting amped up because other people are,

JJ Parker  12:50  
yeah, like the or not as a way of saying it like you're not letting other people control your emotions. You're not letting groups situation Politics, you know, you're not letting these, you know, we talk a lot about like, one on one interactions, right triggers with other people. Right. But certainly, like, there's there's triggers that are more based on like, what groups of people are doing right or right. Or, or actually, it gets actually even weirder, maybe like, there's triggers based on ideas that are floating around on the internet, right? Yes. Yes. Like, even if even an idea or a concept can, can really trigger you. Yep. Yeah. And, you know, some of them are just, like, dumb or made up or false or whatever. But if you get triggered by that stuff, and then you're not able to rationally Think about it. It's not, you know, it's pretty tough.

Melissa Albers  13:51  
Which brings it back to what you were saying is that this allows self awareness for you allows you to have a different relationship with your reality. Yeah, and and for the for those moments when you're sideswiped, and something hits you and you're not, you weren't looking for it, you weren't expecting it. And then bang, somebody all of a sudden throws some major thing at you and expects you to pick up the sword and run with them.

JJ Parker  14:17  
Yeah, I think that's basically the entire fundamentals of the internet right there.

Melissa Albers  14:29  
Well, you certainly see it in certain pockets with you know, like with Facebook, for example, I have noticed so many of my friends that are, you know, all on different spectrums of awareness, all on different spectrums, politically, socially, economically. And I have noticed many, many of them taking themselves off of social media right now. Yeah, because yeah, it's It's just so heated, or it's so convoluted and extreme that people are shutting down there. They don't know what else to do. So they just hide or run away.

JJ Parker  15:14  
Yep. So let's think about that, right? Because like, I've, I've done that, right. I don't like want to engage in that plot, that kind of that kind of interaction and that kind of platform. Although so what's interesting is, I did that years ago, right? Because for the exact reason, like, I don't even know how to deal with this. This makes me feel crappy. When I go on here. There's all these people with different pins. I don't know how to deal with it. So a totally natural reaction is just hide from it go away. But you know, like, my wife would always give me a hard time for like, not knowing what's going on in the world. And I was just kind of like, I am just blissfully have my head in the sand. I know this. Right. Like I've been like, on purpose like, Yeah. Because, like, I Facebook, I like watching the news. I can't watch the news. Like, I can't watch it. It doesn't make me feel good. Yeah. Makes me feel like crap. Yeah, so I don't want it. I don't watch it. So I also the side effect is I don't really know, like, daily events very well. Yes. What else tells me Yeah. But so just reflecting on that, like, hiding is, is definitely a technique right Yeah. Which is obviously well employed. But why was I doing that I was doing that because, like I I wasn't really connecting, you know, like, my reactions, my physical reactions. I didn't have very good self awareness in that time of my life. So, like, I just felt I was being jerked around by, by this media. Right? Right. Whereas now if I watch it, I can watch it through a much different lens like, yep, the whole point of that is to try to actually get my jerk my emotions around. That's okay. I can take it for what it is I can have a better understanding of it and I can actually like just, you know, deal with my own internal reactions and and it's not so bad, right? It's, it's now I can watch the news and not get so upset.

Melissa Albers  17:30  
Right. Yeah, but but but that's really real. And I think too, that the reason things are so amped up right now is because there is just a lot of there are many big things happening in our world today, the pandemic, you know, the George Floyd situation. There are, you know, huge weather events happening in communities where people are already sick. I mean, there's, there's so many and this is also the year of high of reelecting or electing a new president. So there's so many things that are happening that are really, really big things. And I think people have all these emotions, and they're not exactly sure where to put them. And, and I think depending on the level of awareness, and maybe the level of emotion, people are making decisions to engage in ways they never have before, or certainly expanded ways. Mm hmm. And I think that you'll see people getting much more hostile. If there isn't. everyone is on the same page, you'll see people becoming much more angry. You know, there's a lot of anger but as I always say, anger is a secondary emotion. And the first emotion is always fear. Yeah, and with all of these big things going on, that's a lot of change. And that creates a lot of And, and I think that a lot of times, even when you see a lot of people that are, you know, trying to take big political stance, you know, they're becoming very vocal, they want to be a thought leader in their community or they want to be the loudest voice in their circle of influence to prove that they believe in a certain thing one way or the other. But where I think self awareness really impacts This is if you are very aware of yourself and the energy that you are putting out. The way that people take you is also really different based on that.

JJ Parker  19:45  
Mm hmm.

Melissa Albers  19:47  
Because if I have an awareness of myself more, and I'm practicing every day, my hope is that I can be a center centered stabilizing force to make people feel more safe, and to make people feel more calm. And so the way that I might come out and try to be a thought leader in my community or an influencer, would be very different than even me five years ago when I talked about how judgmental I was and how everything I did was through the lens of competition and judgment. a thought leader or an influencer that is leading with that energy is much more divisive.

JJ Parker  20:41  
Yeah. Yeah, like what you're, you're saying the, you know, we've had conversations around, you know, the kind of energy you put out, and being purposeful about it, right. And they're like, you know, you're saying, hey, self awareness has allowed me to understand the kind of energy I put out. decide the kind I want to put out.

Melissa Albers  21:03  
Exactly.

JJ Parker  21:04  
Yes, exactly. And that has an impact on the kind of influence you can have.

Melissa Albers  21:09  
Right and and and the whole point of it is not to create your influence externally that's not the point. The point is to be really clear with how you validate yourself. And then you become an influencer as a secondary you're not doing it because that's your goal but that's what ends up happening

JJ Parker  21:32  
Yeah, that's probably a whole that's I'm just like wow, that's probably a whole episode in itself is like self awareness and and influence. Yeah, right, man. Yeah. And and that's why we shouldn't probably get completely derailed on that topic right now. But

Melissa Albers  21:46  
oh, you're such a buzzkill. It was so fun. I know. I but I do think that you know, for me, like, I really like what you were saying is, is being more aware of yourself and how you feel And what things are going to make you feel your best? You know how to avoid certain things that just set you up for not being successful? Yeah. Which like you mentioned watching the news. I don't watch the news either. I won't watch the news. As a matter of fact, I now have my husband not watching the news with me. And he used to Oh, no, we're watching the news. everything stops in our house when the news is on. Talk about

JJ Parker  22:25  
influence.

Melissa Albers  22:32  
That's funny.

JJ Parker  22:37  
Well, I mean, this is a pretty been a pretty interesting conversation, you know, the, the idea that self awareness can, you know, not only change our view with things right in front of us, you know, how we interact with our friends, our family, and then moving beyond that to how we respond in, you know, in our communities in our lives. Contrary, and all the way to how it's maybe changed our view of the entire universe and how we maybe fit into that puzzle.

Melissa Albers  23:10  
Yeah. And I think to like, as a takeaway, for those listening, it would be really interesting to, to just for a moment after listening to this, it would be really interesting to sort of do an inventory check your, you know, do a quick inventory of yourself and notice, what are the things that you really react to quickly in a favorable sense and what are the things that you react to every single time in a way that doesn't make you feel good? Notice that piece and and then also sort of notice your energy? What is it that you kick out? You know, what is it that you are proactive about? And has your awareness helped you to decide on both of those fronts? ways that you can do that make you feel good? That's a really great activity. Yeah. good conversation.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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