Yesterday my friend Heli and I launched our podcast Squiggly Lives where we shared our first three episodes. In the podcast we talk to a different guest each week about finding purpose, what that means to them and their different life journeys.
For each podcast I’m going to write a blog post on some of the things I thought about and reflected on after we’d finished recording.
For our very first guest episode, we talked about human rights, stoicism and finding joy. You can listen to the full episode below.
This episode for me made me reflect on self awareness.
Here are some of my thoughts.
I loved that from a young age Phoebe had a deep drive and need to help, serve and give back to society, and human rights law became the avenue to do this.
I really admired her focus and I particularly loved the story at the beginning of the podcast where she talks about her studies in the Netherlands and how she was inspired by a friend of hers who spoke to one of her lecturers and said “Hey I’m interested in this area of law — Can I help you with anything?”
Phoebe then went on to share her own story about doing exactly the same thing simply by asking that question “How can I help you?” which opened doors to human rights law and working with some really inspirational people.
One thing I did think a lot about after this podcast was the relationship between being introspective and working on yourself, and then being externally focused and being of true service out there in the world.
In the yoga and wellness world there is a lot of talk on working on yourself first. I’m in no way dissing this. It’s important.
But when does this very self focused attitude become less about you and more about giving back or your relationship with the world at large?
We didn’t go deeply into this in the podcast but it’s something I feel is incredibly important, and that’s self awareness but not in the way you might think.
About a year ago now I listened to the book Insight by Tasha Eurich which is all about being more self aware.
If you want an example of someone who embodies self awareness in the way Tasha Eurich is talking about, then Phoebe’s podcast is the one to listen to.
I feel, self awareness has often been hijacked by the wellness world to mean being aware of yourself.
There was a really uncomfortable part in the book, where Eurich says something along the lines of the fact that we all have that token friend who meditates loads and goes on long meditation wellness retreats, but is the least self aware person. I remember thinking, is that me?
What she’s saying here is that we spend all day going inwards and being aware of the inner workings of our minds, bodies and psyches, but how are you in relation to the rest of the world? This book changed my whole perception on what it means to be self aware and I think this quote from the book neatly summarises what I’m trying to say.
“Be an informer, not a meformer: Focusing less on ourselves and more on engaging and connecting with others. Cultivate humility: Admit to our failings and put our successes in perspective Focus on self-acceptance over self-esteem: Know our flaws and choose to like ourselves anyway Tool: Monitor your inner monologue”
Tasha Eurich, Insight
To finish, I loved that Phoebe’s answer to the question, ‘In one word what does finding your purpose mean to you’. The response was Joy.
The nature of our podcast — at least right now — is that it’s more of an interview format, so myself and co-host Heli talk less, but I know Phoebe too and she’s someone who is just genuinely interested in people and what you have to say, and absolutely does bring joy to everything she does.
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