Hazel Findlay

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:37:08
Unknown
Flow. Unleashed. Unleashed. Unleashed. When the pressure rises and your instinct is to push on and force your way to stay on top. Fighting for every inch. Instead, are you able to surrender into the slipstream of pressure and use the uncomfortableness to amplify your performance because of the challenge? Not despite the difficulty.

00:00:37:10 - 00:01:06:03
Unknown
Welcome to flow unleashed. I'm Doctor Cameron Noseworthy, scientist and High-Performance coach to multiple world champions in this show. We unpack key insights on specific topics so that you are kept up to date with the latest science and practice of human performance.

00:01:06:05 - 00:01:10:17
Unknown
Before I go break.

00:01:10:19 - 00:01:43:16
Unknown
Left to an ancient Chinese philosopher famous for much of the foundational text of Taoism tells the story. Once upon a time, a novice farmer searching for success indulged himself with ideas like the importance of effort. A hustle culture denoting mantras such as work hard, play hard. Striving to do better, he walked on to his farm, all fired up with effort, determined to make it a great success.

00:01:43:18 - 00:02:11:23
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He started pulling one of the crops as a way to make them grow faster. But this didn't work. Then he began to water the plants twice as much, hoping to make them grow faster, but he drowned them instead. And after trying to force his success, the farmer realized that no matter how much effort he put in acting in opposition to the natural way of things was counterproductive.

00:02:12:00 - 00:02:34:12
Unknown
The same could be said for much of what we do every day, when we are up against it, or striving for our own goals. Often, the only way we know how to get there is to push harder and try and make it happen. And sure, there are times when hard work is necessary and action is appropriate, but on many occasions it isn't.

00:02:34:14 - 00:03:04:10
Unknown
It can be important to make it happen. If we are sitting lazily on a sofa knowing there is work to do and need an injection of motivation, there are certainly times in which we need to purposefully set goals and drive our way down the path to success. But once we are in the car, once we are ready for action, embracing the task at hand, the same tools that got us in the car are not the same that are needed to perform.

00:03:04:12 - 00:03:33:10
Unknown
For individuals already motivated, already trying their best to better the situation. The barrier for most of us is that we often try to hard. As a result, we often experience that forcing things or making things happen leads to short term strained and dissatisfying performances, notably ruin in the long run. Our efforts of seemingly good intention readily seem to backfire.

00:03:33:12 - 00:04:09:07
Unknown
For example, trying not to think about a pink elephant simply doesn't work when under pressure. Making it happen has a counterproductive effect, tightens us up, and creates wooden performances. Writer's block. Clunky presentations, forced social interactions, and disappointing performances. Why? Because this effort stresses our neurology, making our muscles tight just when we need them to be so. Being our best doesn't come from effortful and strained performances.

00:04:09:09 - 00:04:38:08
Unknown
It comes from letting our performance happen, allowing our training and ability to act and shine. Unrestrained. Sometimes we simply need to let it happen. In fact, letting it happen is so often synonymous with the act of flame that researchers such as Kristian Swan from Southern Cross University, in his article Psychological States underlying excellent performance and professional Golfers Letting it happen versus making it Happen.

00:04:38:10 - 00:05:08:14
Unknown
Posited that the description and definition of flow could be embroiled down to one term, letting it happen. When it's time to farm the crop, the farmer can roll up his sleeves and direct effort towards a laborious task. As an athlete may strive to train on days when motivation is low. When it comes to the farmer letting nature take its course, to let the plant grow, or the athlete letting their ability shine in the heat of competition.

00:05:08:16 - 00:05:43:14
Unknown
Trying too hard will only mar our potential, producing average and suboptimal performances. Society today places a lot of importance and conscious human effort, often above other forms of action. We celebrate effort regardless of its actual effectiveness, as we aim to always be busy for the sake of being busy. Consequently, it is easy to get caught up in constantly striving, forcing outcomes, and trying to control everything around us.

00:05:43:16 - 00:06:13:09
Unknown
It is easy to find ourselves obsessing over meticulous plans, micromanaging every detail, and getting frustrated when things don't go exactly as anticipated. Whether we are chasing a performance, happiness, or love when we try too hard, it backfires. Too much effort devoted to being happy or likely mighty miserable. Too much effort in making ourselves and others fall in love will likely leave us disappointed, making us bitter.

00:06:13:11 - 00:06:38:21
Unknown
And forcing a performance will neurologically, psychologically, and physiologically limit our very ability to perform. We only need to imagine going on a romantic date, whilst the person we're going to meet is interested in getting to know us, the person we are, we may want to impress them. And as a result, we overanalyze and rehearse what we're going to say.

00:06:38:23 - 00:07:08:11
Unknown
In doing so, we overthink nerves, disrupt our train of thought, and we overcompensate in many ways. And whilst having the best intentions, our methodology of making it happen rather than letting the day happen makes us sound pre rehearsed, disingenuous and cannibalizes our own success. One person who has a lot of experience of performing under pressure is our guest, Hazel Finley.

00:07:08:13 - 00:07:31:15
Unknown
Hazel is six time junior national champion and the first British woman to climb E9 and summit El Capitan in Yosemite. Hazel literally hangs of dangerous cliffs as her day job. She is considered one of the world's best female climbers, and has an intimate relationship of being able to let it happen when it counts. Welcome to the show, Hazel.

00:07:31:17 - 00:08:04:02
Unknown
Hi, Camryn. For me, letting it happen is making it happen. It's a lot about kind of giving in to the subconscious mind and not overanalyzing, over narrating and not trying too hard. I guess it's a thing. So there's lots of tasks that require us to let go of the conscious mind because that too complicated. So, you know, running down a trail, dodging rocks.

00:08:04:02 - 00:08:34:13
Unknown
We can't consciously navigate between the rocks and think, oh, my right foot needs to be just to the left of that rock. And then my left foot is going to get here. You just have to let that happen and just do it without salt. And I think we often when we're doing slow to high level or anything really, we we should try to remember that, that we can't do everything consciously and we can make things happen all the time.

00:08:34:13 - 00:09:10:10
Unknown
Sometimes you just have to let it happen and give in to to whatever feels best in that moment. And I think rock climbing, such a great analogy for all walks of life with this theme, because when you're struggling, even if it's seven foot off the ground and you're, you're just sort of holding on and your body starts to start to tire and fatigue, in the end, you feel yourself kind of suddenly tighten your mind or, you know, suddenly mind does not exercise people straight away goes to the kind of the fixed outcome of don't fall off or must make it up.

00:09:10:12 - 00:09:35:02
Unknown
So we become quite rigid in our thinking and it's, you know, our mind becomes rigid, our muscles become rigid, my hypocrite. Often our first reaction to that kind of stress or that challenging situation is a willful let's make it happen. And, you know, yes, that can help shorten compliance in certain situations. But generally that's adding stress. It's adding fear.

00:09:35:02 - 00:10:04:21
Unknown
And and it's tightening the very muscles that we need to be relaxed so we can be innovative and we can be smooth and find that fluency in this case, to keep climbing up that rock or, or find a creative way to make a new move or in life, you know, that. Same if we use this as analogy, you know, we become so narrow minded that we we don't see other options or we don't see possible scenarios that could be in our favor.

00:10:04:23 - 00:10:39:00
Unknown
And just that phrase, letting it happen less is making it happen seems to, for me, suddenly give a sense of comfort and freedom in relaxing during that pressure situation. You know, because it's quite easy to sort of say, yeah, okay, let's let it happen over making it happen when you're sitting in the comfort of the armchair or when the pressure sort of mounts and we're in that pressure cooker trying to be or move or think from a place of letting things happen.

00:10:39:00 - 00:11:09:19
Unknown
Rather than making happen, is is often quite counter intuitive for a lot of people or feels counterproductive even though it works how it feels when I fly means that it's the mind that wants to make it happen. And it's that, well, I mean, maybe we're going to get bit too deep here, but I guess that the conscious mind that kind of wants to force it to happen, like it kind of just wants to like hang on as tight as possible and do the kind of most obvious fast moves.

00:11:09:19 - 00:11:31:23
Unknown
The as the as the clock is counting down and your muscles are getting more and more tired. It wants to just kind of like slap towards something. And it's, it's there's this subconscious, but it's it feels like it's coming from my body that that knows intuitively that actually I need to do something more subtle. Well, you know, it needs to mind.

00:11:32:03 - 00:11:57:16
Unknown
You seem to stay where they are, and my hip might need to just shift to the right, and then I can reach the next hold instead of getting my feet really high and just slapping to something, you know? So for me, it's sometimes it's about switching off that narration in my head that says, do this, do that, and that says, no, you can't do that, or you won't reach your essentially it's there.

00:11:57:16 - 00:12:24:04
Unknown
It's the overthinking that's involved with the making it happen for me and letting it happen is about kind of switching off that narrative and all that narration and just going with what is in my body intuitively knows how to do. And that's a really learned skill. And it it takes a long time to practice that. But it is worth thinking about.

00:12:24:04 - 00:12:44:18
Unknown
I think, you know, when you get down from a climb where thinking, yeah, how much was I overthinking there? How much could I just actually given in a bit more and just let my body do what it knows how to do? Yeah, absolutely. And for people new to this theme, you know, might be thinking, well, you know, just making it happen.

00:12:44:19 - 00:13:04:03
Unknown
Isn't that the way to go? Yeah. And I kind of think of this scenario as we grow up thinking everything happens to us. You know, it's not my fault. It happened to me. And then we kind of reach a new level of consciousness, and we start to make things happen, and we become empowered, and we become a bit more directed.

00:13:04:03 - 00:13:30:12
Unknown
And our behavior and our actions and we we start to make things happen and we get a certain amount of success from that. And a lot of people will have a history or a number of previous examples where they've been able to achieve some results with this idea, this feeling and conceptual idea of making things happen and whether that's a determined correct or a willful focus or whatever that might be.

00:13:30:14 - 00:13:51:16
Unknown
I guess what we're talking about here is moving to a higher level of consciousness, where things flows through us. And I love what you were talking about, that intuitive action in terms of sidestepping that narrative that normally sets in odds, whatever that might be. Push harder. I must make it to the top or whatever those words come out, depending on the context, right?

00:13:51:18 - 00:14:18:02
Unknown
And sidestepping that narrative to get to that space where where we're listening more to, as you said, that intuitive action or intuitive response, as opposed to the the thoughts that might be flashing through our consciousness. And how do you go about that? Do you sort of have any sort of go to tips and tricks, or is it more of a kind of a conceptual?

00:14:18:04 - 00:14:49:05
Unknown
Okay, I've been here before, I feel it. Okay. Now it's time to surrender into this moment and let things happen, or you kind of almost change your hearing and tune into a different channel, or what sort of happens for you in those moments. It is quite a complicated idea because you do still need to try really hard. You can try hard whilst also letting it happen, and that's why people are new to the idea and may find this slightly contradictory.

00:14:49:05 - 00:15:25:03
Unknown
But it's trying hard in in the sense that you'll use the minimum amount of force needed to stay on the rock. Trying too much would be using more than what you need. So not climbing efficiently, but in those moments of your hardest out at that moment, of course you will be trying hard. You're also letting it happen as well, and you're not second guessing yourself, and you're not overthinking it and you're not forcing it in a way that isn't efficient anymore.

00:15:25:05 - 00:16:11:20
Unknown
You know a lot, and especially in the sporting, athletic world, I feel that there's, a kind of a sickness directive preparation that's needed, you know, such as visualizing a line or getting the strategy right in your head or visualizing the experience coming up, being successful or being in flow, etc.. But then the shift comes, I think, when we actually go to do the action, like you said, to be more efficient helps, to soften and, and let the body do what it's very well trained to do rather than over try and over think, which often happens when we when we go to apply ourselves and, let's make this happen sort of scenario.

00:16:11:22 - 00:16:42:06
Unknown
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00:16:42:08 - 00:17:13:22
Unknown
If you want to find out whether it's the right fit for you, simply go to Flow center.org. I think one element worth talking about is this tendency for us to want to control things too much. Most want to be in control and also for things to be perfect. And I see that so much in climates where they as soon as their body gets slightly thrown off balance, instead of just letting their body correct that itself.

00:17:13:22 - 00:17:37:12
Unknown
Naturally, you see people overly controlling the situation, or even sometimes just letting go because they're like, oh, well, there's no point now because my body was thrown out. It's not perfect anymore. I'm doing it wrong. And they just let go. I think it's a real tendency for us to see want things to be in our control and want things to be perfect.

00:17:37:12 - 00:18:04:21
Unknown
And we find that a lot of climbers list two types of styles of climbing. I guess is red pointing, and I'm saying red pointing is when you kind rehearse the root of the many days, many tries, and then you finally do it and then on. And it's just trying and it's nice try. And these kind of perfectionist people find it very hard to on set, and they're very good at rehearsing routes, getting the moods completely wired and then doing it.

00:18:04:23 - 00:18:28:20
Unknown
But they'll do it very slowly because they can they can only do it once. Everything's perfect. And these people find it really difficult to let go. You have to analyze everything to death and then they can execute. But it's in those moments where we feel really uncomfortable, where our bodies feel slightly out of sync and it's what you do in that moment.

00:18:28:22 - 00:18:50:22
Unknown
Do you let your body just try and correct itself or do you fall through? And like you said, you noticed, grit your teeth and pull a horrible face. And just how was the real or do you do you have that bit of extra patience to just let whatever needs happen happen? 10 million to a few tips. Yeah, go for it.

00:18:50:24 - 00:19:26:06
Unknown
Yes. I used to have this mantra let the body climb. I think when I first started learning about this stuff, and I realized that sometimes I could be like that myself a little bit too controlling and not perfectionist. But like most people, I want things to be in control. But I'm also I'm an overthinker. So I realized when I started to do this training that actually the thing that kind of got in my way and limited my performance frequently was this overthinking was too much input from the conscious mind saying, oh, know it's not.

00:19:26:07 - 00:19:49:18
Unknown
It's not right. What you're doing is wrong. You you're wrong handed. You got this whole wrong. You've messed up. You know, this kind of commentary in my head which was not helping me climb well at all. And for me to actively learn how to let the body climb better, to let it happen and not and not force it, I would say to myself, let the body clean.

00:19:49:20 - 00:20:18:13
Unknown
And it's just a little mantra is if maybe not even to say it properly in your head, just just to have the concept of that pop up and maybe do some kind of breathing exercise to return to the senses in the body instead of being engaged too much with all of their the narrative that was going on in the kind of the conscious mind, and that was sometimes enough for me to just click into a more intuitive way of climbing.

00:20:18:15 - 00:20:52:08
Unknown
And in some ways, it quite related to their failure as well. I think this is the brain really resisting the potential potentiality, assailing because it feels riskier to just let something happen and to force it you once you kind of you then and take things out of your hands slightly that feels riskier, but seemingly contradictory, is that you actually end up climbing better if you do that.

00:20:52:09 - 00:21:37:15
Unknown
It's one of those weird paradoxes. Yeah, I think you're working on fear of failure might help you let it happen more and make it happen. Sometimes that's that's really the underlying thing. What's going on? Maybe saying a mantra such as let the body climb and also bringing your attention to your senses, because if the reason you're not letting your body climb is because you're too swept away with the conscious thoughts, bringing your attention to your sensor data in your body, whether it's the feel of the rock under your fingernails or the ceiling of your breath, or whatever is your preferred method, connecting back to the senses helps distance yourself from those thoughts, which are

00:21:37:15 - 00:21:59:11
Unknown
massively distracting. Yeah, it's so much good stuff. From there, I, we have like a hashtag letting it flow, you know, which is quite generic, but I think just saying those words let it happen, let it fly, let the body climb, that let tells the body to relax into it rather than fight it. A lot of, you know, it brought up the fear of failure.

00:21:59:11 - 00:22:30:14
Unknown
And I think, you know, that's super key here. And I think it's any fear, whether it's fear of competence or fear of a threat to our competence or a threat to our that we start to, you know, how do we respond in those situations? For most of us, certainly myself and many others that I know, we've been taught from generational parenting and education and cultural messaging that when the going gets tough, we push harder and peak performance comes at the detriment of our internal experience.

00:22:30:14 - 00:23:14:02
Unknown
And no pain, no gain. You know, all those kind of classic messages you see on T-shirts that are pumped into us that, often it's the natural way to deal with fear and subsequent stress is to tighten and to push through. And for some people, this might be a completely new concept altogether. For some people, you might be doing it readily already, but regardless of whether it's kind of inbuilt or are a new paradigm for us, being able to insert a new scripts or insert a new functional pattern, or insert a new way of thinking and behaving is really important than just going, I'm not going to do this or I'm not going to make

00:23:14:02 - 00:23:35:03
Unknown
it happen. I'm not going to force, I'm not going to fight it. We've got to say, like with something that leads us in the direction of where we want to go. And so those are the two things that I really got from what you were saying was this let the body climb and allowing our experience to go towards our senses.

00:23:35:07 - 00:23:58:20
Unknown
So within our consciousness where it's being consumed by our kind of sensory input, you know, what our senses are feeling and seeing, smelling and touching. And then there's almost no room for those normal thought processes or the the ten, 20 years of conditioning that may be holding us back. So when you when you go to your senses, what do you feel the rough on yourself?

00:23:58:20 - 00:24:20:05
Unknown
Or do you go to your bag, or do you sort of breathe and feel the air coming in your lungs? Or how do you invite those senses to take over? That is the experience we. Yeah. So for me, it kind of depends on how much time I've got. So I say I'm on a rest on a rule and I can I could hang there for a long time.

00:24:20:07 - 00:24:44:19
Unknown
I will have more time. So I'll spend more time connecting to my senses, especially because on rests, that's often when you switch out of slow and and all of those distracting thoughts come in your head. I might, you know, focus on my breathing. It might even be useful for me to try and lower my heart rate, or at least watch my heart rate lower as I get ready to move on again.

00:24:44:24 - 00:25:05:21
Unknown
I might feel a rack and mix my fingers. And then one actually that I think is is really powerful is just a stick to just look at a small piece of rock, like the size of a penny, and just zoom in to that small piece of rock and just look at the different colors and the patterns on that small piece of rock.

00:25:05:23 - 00:25:34:11
Unknown
I think it's it's it's the slightly weird one, because I guess if you're you've ever done any mindfulness or meditation or anything like that, it's very rare that you can use vision because it's so it's so vast and dry and complicated. But for some reason it worked really well for me to just look at one spot. I think because when we're a bit distracted and stressed, we tend to rise everywhere.

00:25:34:13 - 00:26:04:22
Unknown
Our eyes don't know where to look, and everything you see kind of conjures muscle. Whereas if you look at one spot intensely and you really absorb whatever information you receive from looking at that one spot, it really comes to mind and kind of it turned the volume up. That sensory data vision. And then if I don't have that much time, I might say I'm making mess.

00:26:04:22 - 00:26:30:10
Unknown
And I'm like all of a sudden discover I'm a bit distracted and I'm forcing things that I and I need to let things happen a little bit more and might just for a split second, zoom in on the piece around. Let's just make as a penny, not even for a second, because there's no time for it. One thing I commonly do is I'll breathe out like, but it's it's not the best.

00:26:30:11 - 00:26:55:03
Unknown
I'm necessarily connecting to you, but the sound of the breath. So it's that sound as it comes into my consciousness that kind of goes right. This is now it's time to focus. Now it's time to just let the body do what it needs to do, and yet also be 100% focused on the task at hand. Right now, it's interesting because I've seen other climates.

00:26:55:03 - 00:27:35:24
Unknown
You've had no mental training. Tall kind of successful climbers do something similar where before hot sequence, they'll you do a breath out like that and it's. Yeah, it's just intuitively part of what they do. And then when you question them about it they like I don't do that. But yeah, that's that's needs to work. Well for me. Do you find it easy to take this approach in other areas of your life other than climbing, or is it almost like a different person in how you do your other activities in life, whether that's editing footage or writing emails or dancing in a, you know, in a nightclub or was whatever it is, do you when when

00:27:35:24 - 00:28:03:14
Unknown
you reach a kind of challenging situation, do you use these skills in other areas, you realize, and does that come naturally and do you have any specific examples that have come up recently? I started a new sport a few years ago, paragliding. I definitely noticed myself forcing it happened, forcing it a lot in paragliding, you know, coming into the land and and just my brain is going mental, like how high am I above the ground?

00:28:03:16 - 00:28:24:05
Unknown
How, you know, was the wind coming from there? Just just trying to take in so many bits of information and just trying to work out exactly where I should be as I come into land. And then my boyfriend, who's much better at letting things happen. You doesn't think about it at all. He just circles alignment field and then just lands.

00:28:24:07 - 00:28:43:14
Unknown
It's quite an eye opener, observing that in myself and, really trying to let it happen. And and like you said earlier, you know, it's one thing saying that now while some sound the same, but it's another thing when I'm in the air, I think I'm getting all these flashes of landing in a tree or landing in the lake and telling myself to let it happen.

00:28:43:14 - 00:29:07:12
Unknown
It's very difficult, I find, whether it's a tax return or a public speaking or things, that ignites a little bit of fear and stress inside me. I start to immediately, you know, the brain goes things. And then I and I kind of try to control and force something to hopefully feel better and perform better, you know, with good intentions.

00:29:07:12 - 00:29:28:20
Unknown
But it doesn't often always end up that way. You know, an important point that I wanted to raise, so there's no confusion here, is that when we talk about letting it happen, there's it's not akin to just being laissez faire and letting anything happen. And just, you know, often people use the term I'll just go with the flow.

00:29:28:20 - 00:30:04:14
Unknown
And it's kind of meaning that you're allowing outside influences to take control of your life. And that's not necessarily what you know it has meant here in terms of we're still very much holding volition and and in charge of our experience and the antithesis of just going with other people's flow, where we're listening internally to our intuition as opposed to the the monkey mind or the the inner critic or the chatterbox, or that a kind of force whale that comes up when we think it needs to be.

00:30:04:16 - 00:30:26:14
Unknown
I think we have a problem letting it happen when we care too much about whatever it is that we're doing. So with me, with clients, when I'm on a route, I care too much about staying on. I care too much about getting to the top. I care too much about performance. And that's why I'm not able to let it happen so easily.

00:30:26:16 - 00:30:50:02
Unknown
Same with paragliding. I care too much about not hurting myself. Maybe not too much is the right, maybe the wrong way. Let's say it like I care a lot about not hurting myself. Whereas if you take that danger away or you take that desire to perform well away, we generally don't has a problem letting it happen. But we might have a problem with not trying hard enough.

00:30:50:05 - 00:31:13:13
Unknown
We might just give up. And and so, you know, with something like a tax return, I never have a problem with that letting it happen. Although I guess you might do if you're really scared of make one mistake with your tax return. But with my coaching business for example, I don't necessarily set this, to letting it happen because although I care about it, I could probably care about it more.

00:31:13:15 - 00:31:37:17
Unknown
And so for me, it's that isn't a problem for me when it comes to my coaching business and letting it happen. What's the problem with it? In a discipline? Some sense, yeah it does. And you brought up some good parallels there. And you know, one is for example, in a more productive business setting, someone might come up with the argument, let's say I need more sales.

00:31:37:17 - 00:32:03:23
Unknown
You know, I've got to make it happen to get more sales through the door. I run a coaching business. So I got a I got to make it happen to get more clients. And I think this it's important to distinguish between being very proactive and doing, sticking to the process and doing what needs to be done versus, as you put it, over caring or over gripping and sort of forcing that scenario to occur.

00:32:03:23 - 00:32:26:23
Unknown
And often this parallel happens a lot in relationships, I think, as well, you know, certainly for myself, thinking that if I'm, you know, I'm not sure if I have the caring is the right word for me. But at the kind of when we have our kind of self-interest goals, heart, whether that's protecting another person or wanting someone else to feel better, we get into that control mode.

00:32:27:00 - 00:32:56:09
Unknown
You know, ego self starts to control the operation, which causes that I'm going to make this happen. And then for me, that's when the problem problems stop setting in. And I, you know, I start shooting myself in the foot by over providing and disempowering my partner arrow or vice versa. I start to control the event and miss opportunities and miss the connection and or the real meaning of the communication and get my brain get stuck in the data.

00:32:56:11 - 00:33:26:08
Unknown
I had sort of spark up when I said relationships. Do you have a similar. Well, I was thinking more about today about, dating. Yeah. You're saying we care too much. And it's one of those things where if you're single, you could be proactive about finding someone without being desperate. You know what I mean? Without forcing it. So, you know, you can go out to social events and just make an effort to meet more people, ask for people's numbers of people you like.

00:33:26:08 - 00:33:52:15
Unknown
But then there's the desperation, where it's like every part of your life since is about finding a boyfriend or girlfriend, and every conversation you have has got that as the as the motive. And that's when you never find someone. The analogy of the bus is, you know, they all come at once and it's just trying too hard, never seems to pay off.

00:33:52:17 - 00:34:16:19
Unknown
But I'm glad we were able to get some dating advice from, okay, that's sex with me I am yeah. Don't try to has. Yeah I need so the last thoughts or oh one takeaway that it's always interesting. Yeah. I really liked the kind of the distinction between letting it happen know doesn't mean being not bothered, I suppose.

00:34:16:21 - 00:34:40:15
Unknown
I think I think that is a point of confusion in it, but it's a very interesting point. And so I'm going to think about that a little bit more, I think. And yeah, just making sure that, you know, there's intention and then that there's care and discipline. But that doesn't mean forcing it as well. We're going to start to come to the end of this podcast now, because we're running out of time.

00:34:40:15 - 00:35:17:07
Unknown
I mean, some really kind of interesting touch points from what happens in the body under stress and perfectionism and focusing on outcome and and trying too hard and surrendering rather than fighting and using little mantras or senses to kind of override what might be happening in our brain and allowing ourselves to sidestep our normal conditioning in order to find that intuitive action that is inherent within us, which when I look at other talkers talk, they often talk about authentic action or different names for it.

00:35:17:07 - 00:35:35:21
Unknown
But thank you very much for your time today. Hey, so I've really enjoyed the chat. Got me thinking. And certainly, I've got a practice talk this afternoon for a Ted talk, and I'm gonna suddenly focus on letting it happen and letting the words come out of my mouth rather than than making it happen. And see what see what comes of it.

00:35:35:23 - 00:35:57:02
Unknown
What's your biggest dream at the moment? And then disseminating November? And, for me, there's no there's no other place as inspiring as climbing on El Capitan. So that's kind of where my dreams are right now. But I, as you know, I'm I'm not the best at setting the goals. I really enjoyed the chat. I thought it was super interesting.

00:35:57:02 - 00:36:18:21
Unknown
And, I'll didn't say when. When it's coming up in my life. Great point. Well, thank you very much. Very grateful to, to have your time. So thanks for joining us. Thank you. Flow unleash it.

00:36:18:23 - 00:36:45:23
Unknown
There is always going to be something in our lives over which we have no control. There will always be times in which we feel out of control, and there will be situations every day in which we over control. Trying to control what is beyond us only leads to frustration, stress, and a host of negative emotions. Instead, we can embody an attitude of letting things happen.

00:36:46:00 - 00:37:18:19
Unknown
We can come back to our composed self and meet in the moment with grace. It is about cultivating a mindset of flexibility, spontaneity and receptiveness, like a water running down a stream, rather than aggressively pushing against circumstance, we can apply minimal effort to navigate the situation and perform moment to moment. We aim to work in harmony with, not in opposition to, what we face.

00:37:18:21 - 00:37:53:06
Unknown
We aim to work in collaboration with rather than in competition with our opponents and the task at hand. Importantly, letting it happen doesn't necessarily make us passive, lazy, or ignorant. This would be passivity and disengagement, not effortless engagement. Letting it happen doesn't mean we will be aimless without purpose or direction. Rather, it seeks to find an internal harmony with our environment and surroundings and personal engagement.

00:37:53:08 - 00:38:26:00
Unknown
It is not to be confused with just being relaxed by cultivating a mindset of letting it happen, we conserve more energy and create space in our psyche. We allow greater synchronicity as opposed to sponsoring further friction and conflict, and in doing so, we discover the paradoxical wisdom of accomplishing more by doing less. To let it happen embodies the teachings of Woo Way and the advice of Kung Fu Master Bruce Lee when he said, be water, my friend.

00:38:26:02 - 00:39:05:06
Unknown
We allow ourselves to meet the task ready, alert, willing, yet keep ourselves agile enough to flow past obstacles and fall into opportunities that present themselves. Sometimes it takes real strength and confidence to simply be in the experience and not try to over control it, especially when under pressure and wanting to engineer an outcome. We may feel the need to be in charge of every aspect of our lives, especially at junctures when we feel scared or threatened, like when facing change or an important event.

00:39:05:08 - 00:39:30:16
Unknown
But by practicing the art of letting it happen, we accept that change is constant. We also accept that control is an illusion. It forces us to slow down and sync up, observe what is happening, and engage with the opportunity of each passing moment. I hope that the idea and practice of letting it happen positively filters into your life.

00:39:30:18 - 00:39:45:08
Unknown
Starting today. If you would like to find out more about Hazel Finley, please see the show notes.

00:39:45:10 - 00:40:16:09
Unknown
Thank you for listening to Flo Unleashed. If you enjoyed listening, please subscribe to get notified when our next episode drops. The more people that subscribe. The better I can make the show for you equally. Please leave a review. Your review will go a long way to helping others find this spot. Until the next time. Thank you for listening to Flo Unleashed.