Process of Progress

After reviewing some takeaways about willpower, Hollis presents the fascinating concept of viewing your energy as currency, and the homework unfolds from there. We want to practice the suggestion of it’s not a “Hell, yes,” then it’s a “No.” As two people pleasers, we’ll see how we do.

So mote it be, indeed. This episode is about willpower, and what better way to celebrate Halloween than a little witchy way of saying, “My will be done.”? What breeds willpower is another question, but we have an assignment to foster some conclusions. AND:

There’s a few scary tales from the past, which mostly leave Hollis aghast. On Halloween night, you might get a fright, from the Process of Progress Podcast! Thanks for your time on this All Hallow’s Eve. The spell is cast, so mote it be!

We just can’t make up our minds! Seriously, we can’t, and we speculate that it isn’t just us. Decision fatigue in this modern life has us stressed out and worn out when we could be using our energy elsewhere. Let’s see if we can clean up some of that mental dilly-dallying and reclaim a chunk of our power.

With our new structure in place, we review last week’s homework of recreating a project we hate, each of us with very different—but very healing—results. We also couldn’t help but notice how much we procrastinated, building up expectations before we even started. Initiation seems to be more difficult than the project itself. With a bit of observation and some research, maybe we can figure out why that is.

It’s the Process of Progress’ nineteenth episode! (We think…we hope…yeah, if you exclude the specials, we’re pretty sure it’s Ep. 19.) We’re trying out a new structure for our podcast, dividing into two parts! Tune in for our reflections on the previous episode, Commitment, alongside a new topic and a new challenge to accompany it. We’re so excited to grow, change, and try out this new format. We’re especially stoked you’re here to listen in.

What keeps us coming back to our projects? What motivates us to keep going and keep showing up when we’re pretty sure we should have quit a while ago? Commitment is a funny thing we do despite the odds. We each have our reasons for sticking to our guns, and even though they’re quite different, we’re sure there’s a psychological tie between them—one we’re committed to figuring out. ;)

Step one: we visualize the future. Step two: we doubt it could ever happen. Step three (optional but most likely): we freak out about it. As far as we know, faith is unique to humans, our built in failsafe to keep us going when our future-vision makes things look impossible. After a healthy dose of “patter-aid,” we dive into how we’ve kept the faith with meditation, raw experience, and a bit of Bon Jovi.

We all need it, but not everyone has one to support them. Modern life can be isolating, and the definition of community has changed with the times. Cecylia revisits her loss of community, and Hollis shares how she made roots in New York City. We hash out our own definitions, which hopefully makes it easier to recognize common ground in the future.

It’s our first reflection of many (we’re certain) as we move through our podcast journey. Listening to ourselves talk has inevitably brought on some self analysis, critiques, and praises for the work we’ve been producing. We’re only fifteen episodes in, and producing a podcast has already helped us improve in some very expected and unexpected ways.

Revolutionary energy is explosive and powerful, inevitably transforming into equivocal creations. Whether that energy becomes a painting, conversation, activist group, song, or written word, the result is vital to the collective change. In Part II of “Revolutionary Energy” we touch on the work, both general and specific, that emerges from these tumultuous times.