Getting to Zen

The following is a Terry Wise production. Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of White Thoughts Terry Weiss and a little bit of a mobile recording today. As I'm out walking and talking with you, it's a little bit windy, but we'll try to clean up some of this in post. Sam just taking a leisurely stroll and there will be traffic going by, as prone to do. Trying to take this a little later in the morning, as usually early in the morning I do live in a rural area, but sometimes later in the day is good. But probably not the case today, as there seems to be an influx of traffic going with me. It's a little humid out. There's a big old truck going by. A little humid out today, a little muggy as it were. The air's a little heavy, I guess you could say. But I hope all is well with you. I hope the weather is pleasant where you are, and you and yours are fine. Had a lot of rain last night, some seasonal summer thunderstorms, which makes for good water for the lawn and the plants and the gardens. Always nice to have. One thing I've noticed is when you get a little bit of that rain, and it's kind of scheduled as it were, by Mother Nature. Tends to make the lawns greener, which is nice, keeps the plants and the animals happy because they all get a drink. So what else is on my mind as we meet up again for this episode of the podcast, Well, why don't talk about getting back to zen now? Zen is a term that a lot of people use for inner peace, calmness, state of mind, a state of being, as it were, and here comes a bunch of more traffic on Amazon. Zen is a state of mind, a state of being a way of thinking now that you can relate to an overall feeling of feeling comfortable. I guess in your own skin and how you relate to the world around you into situations you might encounter outlook on life. And I don't know about you, but I think many will agree that today's world and society, maybe as a whole, if I dare be so bold, is not set up to push us as human beings towards us a stasis of zen. We've got so much coming at us on a daily basis, Deadlines to meet, you know, professionally, even personally. You know, we've got many, many, many, many channels and avenues of entertainment, whether it be from streaming your cable provider, you're outside, streaming services, music, what have you. And also, we've just got a lot of things in our minds these days. Let's just be honest with ourselves. We've got a lot of things on our minds. And someone would argue, and probably rightfully so, that when we were in our more developmental stages, and by that I mean the human race as a species, you know, back Neanderthal days and onwards and upwards in society and medieval times whatever, there were more stressors physically on our bodies. You know, you couldn't just go down to the local grocery store and buy your food. You know, you kind of had to go out and hunt for your food. You had to grow your food. You had to search for water and wells and what have you. And that emplorically, it is true. We had to do a lot more to sustain ourselves, to survive, for basic survival. Some more heavy traffic, Harry, pretty drug. Oh lord, you know, there was nobody on this road. I was watching for a good twenty minutes, and then I step out here to walk and everybody decides they want to come out. Well, isn't that the way? Just we'll deal with it. What was I saying, Yeah, let's get back to that. So, yeah, earlier in our development as a species, we had to overcome adapt more physical labor for sustainability, survival, what have you. And I feel though that helped because what that did you know with that exercise, it got our endorphins going, It got you know, all those things going for us. That helped us relieve stress, which was great, you know, so that was a good thing in itself. Excuse me. It definitely his allergy season. Definitely his allergy season. Here in the Northeast. I can I can see the rag weed out. Ragweed for those of you who don't know what ragweed looks like. It's like purplish. They look like purplish flowers, but they're not. It's a it's a ragweed that emits pollen spores that can reak havoc on your being. So anyway back to what I was talking about, we in our earlier stages of human development, earlier times, we're more physical. Now I know you're gonna say, hey, Terry, we got gyms. Nowadays we can go to people work out in their houses, etc. But for the most part, a lot of us, our sedendary beings, we're, for lack of a better word, some might even say lazy. We sit at computers all day, you know, sit on the couch after that, or sit in a chair and do things like that and don't get that physical exertion that we need to, you know, relieve some of that built up stress and things in our lives. And once that, how does it manifests itself in a whole bunch of ways? I mean over reading anxiety, depression, you know, things like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, all kinds of things that can manifest itself as and it's not good for anybody at all. Now, there are people that work out, you know, schedule this into their schedules and it numerous numerous studies have proven time and time again, and you can go to the internet for all this to verify what we're talking about today. That physical activity, no matter how small doses and what form, releases those chemicals that your body needs to help alleviate stress, calm you down, bring you back to that inner piece. And those are good things, good things, my friends, many good things. And again ultimately will help lead you towards that feeling of zen. That's what I believe. It's a Buddhist term zen cool to be chill, you know, to chill out, as it were. And I just see a lot of us, myself included, we're seekers on that path. We're striving to get to that place of zen, and we spend money on it, time on it, multiple faceted resources. I'm trying to get to that place as zen when it's really as simple as a walk away, a bike ride away, you know, just simply walking up down the stairs in your house, walking around your yard. If you don't want to venture far from home, maybe you live in a urban area, you know, a city area or that might but not be feasible for you, or if you're living in the rural area. You know, I mean, it's good, just a walk. It's amazing what a walk will do for you. I started walking about oh golly, seven years or so ago, if my memory serves me right, and I started it. I mostly exercised indoors. I have what's called a recumbent bike, for those of you who want to know what that is. A recumbent bike is instead of sitting on it like a normal bike, you sit and put your feet forward. And I had gotten one of those from a local store, Golly, about fifteen twenty years ago, and I started doing that year round. And then, you know, because we have winner up here where where I live, in my part of the country in the United States, we have winter and we have spring, summer, and fall, you know, those things called seasons, which sometimes get a little jumbled. But I started doing that, and I was even doing that during the summer, and one day, I don't know, I didn't know why I didn't think of it sooner, but I'm like, what am I doing sitting inside? It's nice out, Get my key star outside and start walking. So I started slow. You know, I had a timer on my phone there and that I took my phone with me and I just started walking. The first you know, the first couple of weeks, I walked for like ten fifteen minutes I think it was ten minutes or so, and did that, and then after two weeks, I increased it by five minutes or so and just gradually kept doing that and I ran into you know, some different challenges. As far as you know, correct shoewear always walk facing traffic. If you're on a road, you don't want to ever have the traffic at your back when you're doing ND and weather conditions. Sometimes I'll be out there and I got caught in the rain, or the weather was a little chili and I didn't think it was that chili when I left, Or the weather was okay, and I dressed for chilier weather, and once I got a little warmed up, I'm like, oh, should I wear this extra coat? But you get used to it, You learn, you learn, you overcome, you adapt, you know. So I started doing that, and so I've incorporated outdoor walks as much as I can, weather permitting. I mean, I'm not there's some folks out here that they'll walk in any weather. I mean, you know, twenty below excuse me, and they'll walk in any weather conditions. But I try to make it reasonable. I don't mind a little wind. I admit. Sometimes the pollen count gets a little too high and I'm trying to walk, I start hacking and coughing and stuff, and I'm like, oh, it's just miserable. But I try to persevere through. But I guess the long and the short of it, what I'm trying to talk with you about today is just try and get moving a little bit, try to do some things that will bring zen to you, some inner peace, because having that starting point of being peaceful, it just I can't tell you in my own life and my own experience how important that is to me, and I think it would be important to you as well, because that way, you know, when you go about your day and something comes up, you tend not to overreact, you know, snap, You know you have more in your your reserve tank. I guess to handle things. Would be the easiest way to say it. You were able to say, all right, I got this man. You know, I'm not going to let this slow me down, this little setback, and whether it's professional, personal, or what have you, like, I got this man. I can do this. I can take on the challenges of the day and I'm good. I find that when I'm not really starting from that low, you know, low level of stress, that place of as much zen as possible, I can overreact. I can snap. I can make poor decisions based on just letting my emotions get out of control. And that's not a good thing because then you got to go back and you know, readjust and correct say, well, let me think about this some more, or let me contemplate you know, this decision. What have you Nobody likes to you know, we got enough stimulants in our life to get us jittery and to keep us going, you know, and to kind of kick us in the pants and when we're not wanting it. So I think it's important to try, you know it, remain in a as much as we can, in a state of zen or peace, starting from a place of zen. And another thing, and again, without getting too specific, but if you're a religious type of individual, whatever, then whatever that may be okay. You may want to pray, you may want to meditate, Just sit quietly in a room with a candle with your favorite you know roma of your candle or incense, and just enjoy that and just do some deep introspective thought. I'm a big purveyor of that, the big introspective thought. I think that goes a long way for and it can help anybody. And it's hard to do, trust me, I know I still have struggles with that, just quieting the mind. Speaking of challenges, there comes another parade of traffic. A truck hits him, smelling exhaust thought it was burning something. Yikes, what was I saying? Oh yeah, I still have some challenges with quieting my mind. Sometimes at the end of the day, I'm just so wound with things I've done or doing or have to do, and I'm like, all right, I know, you know, you get to a point where you're just like all right. It's good to recognize when you got it to say, all right, hang on a second, I've got to take some deep breaths, i gotta take a step back, I gotta take a break, whatever, a time out, whatever, you know, whatever you want to call it, and say, all right, I need some me care, because ultimately that's the best thing to do for you, is to have some me care. And then, you know, that might even involve taking a personal day from work. Nothing wrong with that, my friends. You're not a machine, okay, contrary to what the world might want you to believe. You don't have to be going NonStop with your accelerator to the floor twenty four seven. It's okay to take a me day and just two now and chill out, you know, and take some self care every once in a while. That's that's actually a good thing. I mean, and again, it's okay to work hard and to be driven, to be focused, but it's okay to take a personal care day for yourself. Don't feel ashamed of that, don't feel guilty about doing that if you have to. It's always good to do. And this goes for everyone you deserve that you deserve to take care of you, Okay, because ultimately, the better you take care of yourself, the better you're going to feel, and the better you're going to be for those around you, family, friends, loved ones, you know, perform at your job, what have you. So it's all about obtaining that zen. So I'm gonna go finish my walk here and just think about this maybe the rest of your day today. Hopefully I've provided maybe some encouragement, some insight to you that can help you. I hope so, and do me a favor. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a positive rating and review. You can check out the website wie thoughts dot com. Just make sure you spell my name right, Wyce. It's wise thoughts dot com. If you want to email me, it's mail m Ai l at wie thoughts dot com for any comments, questions, or what have you. Always happy to read your emails, and make sure you check out my YouTube channel, Wie Thoughts on YouTube, and I've also got a Facebook page. It's Facebook dot com backslash Wie Thoughts, and I am also on Twitter. I've been saying for years if you want to tweet at me on Twitter, it's at Terry Weiss. But I guess Twitter is changing their name to X but you can still get there by going to Twitter dot com. Just go to Twitter and you can tweet at me on Twitter. Links are all in the podcast description of the episode as well. Give me a follow on Twitter. I'd love to have you as a follower, and also check out my website Terrywiss dot com. If you are in need of voiceover services, narration for your business, your podcast, what have you. It's all at terrywise dot com. And thanks for listening to this episode of the podcast today. I truly appreciate each and every one of you my listeners out there. And tell your friends, tell your family, tell your pets about White Thoughts. Go take care of yourself and have a great day and we'll meet up again real soon. Take care stat