Tankespjärn with Helena Roth

First published on my blog on August 28, 2021. Read the post here: https://tankespjarn.com/convince-me/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tankespjarn/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HERO_Respondi

Website: https://tankespjarn.com/

“The main aspect is always ‘Oh, these are people I would like to spend 10, 20 hours with!’ And I think that needs to be there because of the way the setup is.” ~ Helena

It has to be.

Otherwise I’d never make it to the end of season three, which is where we’re at right now.

Spending this long with every one of my partners in crime, if I didn’t like them, if the conversations didn’t flow, if they weren’t interesting and curious, this format would bomb. It just wouldn’t work.

Luckily.

It does.

At least for me. And my conversation partners – as each of them describe that somewhat surprised insight towards the end of the season, that we could keep going, because there’s no way to run out of stuff to talk about. It’s simply not possible, because what we are talking about is life.

Now.

I never KNOW this is what will evolve during the course of a season. I hope it will. I do my utmost not to expect it too though… and yet:

“You just said ‘the idea of hoping, but not expecting’ and where my brain immediately went was ‘Isn't that the practice of trying to be a graceful human?’ Ultimately there has to be that friction between hope and expectation. How do you have one without having the other? They feel so closely intertwined.” ~ Kate

Expectations are a favorite topic of mine, that I’ve written and talked about over and over again (and yes, it is in the book, in chapter 46!), and so it was fun to meander a bit around it with Luke, Mandell and Kate. And Caspian, hosting this group conversation just as he does them all.

And there’s real value in getting better at spotting your own expectations, not only because Mandell shared a bit of incentive from a podcast he recently listened to, where a marriage counsellor summarized it succinctly:

“People get divorced for one reason only: uncommunicated expectations. So whatever you expect, you don't get.” ~ Mandell

That does not mean we have to agree with everyone around us. On the contrary. I cannot imagine anything more boring than being in agreement with everyone in my life. Which is why it made me extra happy to hear one of Luke’s takeaways from our meanderings:

“To your point that it's kind of boring if everybody agrees on everything, yeah, I think that is what I’m taking away from this experience: more tolerance with people that I disagree with and more of a willingness to sit and hold stuff.” ~ Luke

And with that… [drum roll]: Season three is a wrap, everyone!

Season four won’t start just yet, but there will be something to listen to every week while I go into wintering, recharging my batteries, digesting all morsels of tankespjärn I’ve received during season three.

I hope you do the same, while also sticking around for a bit of extra tankespjärn-seasoning in the shorter episodes that will be published until season four is upon us.

Links:

Find Luke Aymon on Twitter

Mandell Conway you’ve find on Giving is like or LinkedIn

And Kate Inglis, is most easily found through her website

Not to mention Caspian Almerud , dear friend and pod producer

Oh, and you can now find me on Mastodon too: @[email protected]

Season three is approaching the end, and we are concluding with two group-conversations (as we’ve never managed to get a date that works for all the participants of one season). Here you will meet me, Bella and Özlem, as well as Caspian, my friend and pod-producer, who will be facilitating the episode, to make sure we stay somewhat on topic.

Which might seem odd… What, a topic? And there is a topic to this episode (and the next), or at least there’s something that acts as an anchor, as I do want these topics to be a meta-conversation of sorts, about having taken part in these five meandering conversations.

But just somewhat…

Cuz, you know… it IS a podcast of meandering conversations, and there’s just no way that aspect of it, that what want’s to happen-energy, would ever be anything but greatly welcome.

“These are meandering conversations. There isn't a topic, there isn't a specific purpose. The goal is to see where we are. And at first, that felt slightly disorienting. Later on I really, truly enjoyed the freedom that gave as well. I always enjoy deep conversations with friends, so this was, for me, an opportunity to dive deeply and quickly and bounce thoughts off of each other in a way that made us both think. And I love that. It's, to me, that's an essence of a wonderful connection.” ~ Bella

Another essence of wonderful connection was voiced by Özlem:

‘You're one of the few people [participating in the leadership training where we met] that I thought about going out and having a beer with, and I don't even drink beer,’ Özlem said, only to have Helena laughingly retort ‘I don't drink beer either, so that would be really fun.’

It’s been an absolute treat to dance with Bella and Özlem during season three, and I know I will continue to dance with them both. Because it impacts who and how I am, which in turn impacts what I do.

“The beauty of how dancing with another person changes your own dance is fascinating. It’s the same as with meandering conversations. How did we start at A and got to Z and what route did we take? With room for both of us to stir the conversation.

Today there was room for all four of us to stir it, and it was so much fun to see where we meandered, and I think that's the biggest value of what you have created here.”

~ Bella

So.

Another episode, containing tankespjärn, as always.

Do join us for this meandering conversation!

Links:

Find Özlem Tan on LinkedIn

And here’s Bella (and some more of her music)

Not to mention Caspian Almerud , dear friend and pod producer

Slowing down to the speed of life by Richard Carlson

Esther Perel

Episode 62. Parenting: the reactions of the parent | with Özlem Tan

Join the Tankespjärn-community over on Patreon

Fifth and final conversation of the third season.

Wrapping it up by having two group conversations (trying to get seven people to settle on one date with commitments and other engagements as well as time zones to juggle is a bit like trying to herd cat’s. Not the easiest. Hence: two conversations!), but still… a door closes.

And another opens?

Or ‘!’?

(Yes. Another opens!)

A Bella-and-me-conversation wouldn’t be a Bella-and-me-conversation unless discernment was part of it. True for this one too. As Bella is in a state of flux, she’s…

“… trying to establish positive rituals for myself, that feel like they feed me. Trying to do so neither at my expense, nor at the expense of those around me. Navigating how to do it in a way that it doesn't convey conflict, but rather conveys collaboration, which I find challenging sometimes.” ~ Bella

Which, of course, had us off to the races.

Habits. Mindful, or mindless? Might we need a mix of both?

“Sometimes I need a little bit of mindless habit too. Because everything in my work is about assessing the moment, appreciating what is there, what potential is there, what limitations are there, both mine and the other persons. And it's really an intense being-present kind of thing.” ~ Bella

How do habits relate to rituals and traditions? Or ceremonies?

Are they filled with life-force? Or does life-force arise because we do them?

Are they mine? What do they give me? What do I give them? Why do I do them? And how?

“Being the container.

Not being contained by others, by conditioning, by should’s and societal norms and whatnot. Not being contained but being a container for myself. A container for what is there, which is another way of asserting freestanding Yes and Noes.

When I'm the container, I'm the one who says Yes or No. Based on my discernment right now, what's valid, what's relevant, what's emotionally appropriate? How's my heart right now? What am I containing? How am I doing that thing? How much can I take? What can I harbor today and what can't I harbor today?” ~ Helena

As always, a meandering conversation, gentle and soft, and still filled with tankespjärn. What a lovely combination that is! It’s like a delicious meal, one where many opposites are present. Sweetness as well as salt. Smooth textures, and crunchy ones. A bit of heat, tempered by a rich umami taste.

The table is set, so I invite you to dig in!

Links:

Bella (and some more of her music)

77. Conversations that help me be more me | with Luke Aymon

Twilight retreat with@wildherbarista and@whentheblackbirdsings_

Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens

In a conversation around inner light as well as darkness, it’s so easy to substitute light and dark for good/bad, or positive/negative. And I have. For the longest time. But I am reclaiming my darkness, waking my inner bitch up; wanting, needing, a bit less of the goodie-two-shoes facet of myself, and a bit more edge, more anger, more holy wrath.

‘Nobody is all good. Nobody is all bad. We are a mix. The yin and the yang is present in all of us. So how do I use that [mix of lightness and darkness] in such a way that I'm not an absolute and complete total dickhead?’ ~ Helena

And even though I truly feel the need to allow my inner darkness more room, more space, more freedom, still, there’s a fear of becoming that dickhead, and that, I know I don’t want to be.

– Helena, I don't think you have it in you to be a dickhead.

–  Oh, you're wrong, Özlem. I definitely have it in me to be a dickhead!

– It would be so interesting to see that side of you…

– Yeah, well, I'm not sure I will go so far as to let my inner dickhead out, in public…

I know I can be a dickhead. And I wonder… are there any individuals alive who don’t? Perhaps… very young children don’t? But then again, perhaps the dickhead-aspect relies on cognition? Or maybe not…

Hm. So many thoughts, questions popping, with responses arising within me that don’t feel complete. What a treat! It tells me I am on to something unfinished, where I’m not yet ‘fixed’. I haven’t settled, made up my mind, come to any definitive conclusion. And I like that!

‘I think you need a little bit darkness to understand things, underlying motivators and the reasoning behind. Like in fairy tales, where you always have the darkness against the lightness. But I think you onto something: How can you make them coexist and help rather than fight each other?’ ~ Özlem

Özlem and me kept dancing around light and dark, doing and being, and how we show up in the world in this our fifth and final conversation, but we’ve yet to actually get that impro-thing going, so who knows, perhaps there will be a surprise sometimes in the future?

This, and much more tankespjärn, is yours for the taking, if you press PLAY.

Links:

Find Özlem Tan on LinkedIn

Process-oriented therapy with Dominic Bosman Venter

The problem is never the problem, the problem is always your thinking about the problem

The event horizon – a perspective on sleepless nights

Me and Luke in conversation about doing/being

Game of Thrones, reflections from my first binge

China’s Mosuo tribe – last matriarchy?

Are we igned to be sexual omnivores? A TED Talk from 2013

Pia Sundhage, ‘we make each other good’

Per Axbom on leaving algorithm-based social media

Connecting dots with Luke in this our fifth conversation (not to worry, Özlem number five will be published, once it’s recorded…). Dots coming from all places. A recent work assignment. Therapy sessions with Dominic. The book circle I’m running on Women Who Run With the Wolves. Episode 75 where me and Kate spoke about where getting a slight buzz helps us get out of our heads…

And those were just my dots. Luke had his too. A conversation with his sister. The tarot reading he spoke about in episode 73. His experiences with cancer, and how it differs from when he first got diagnosed with a chronic disease years ago.

The value of these conversations, for us both, is apparent. And voiced. (And it’s my hope and wish that there’s value in them for you too. In whatever way that value is shaped for you, I hope it’s there.) I actually think this type of conversation helps me… be. Helps me become. Helps me be more human, more me.

[…] to accept one’s beauty… the shape of one's soul and the fact that living close to that wild creature transforms us and all that it touches. When we accept our own wild beauty, it is put into perspective, and we are no longer poignantly aware of it anymore, but neither would we forsake it or disclaim it either. Does a wolf know how beautiful she is when she leaps? Does a feline know what beautiful shapes she makes when she sits? Is a bird awed by the sound it hears when it snaps open its wings? Learning from them, we just act in our own true way and do not draw back from or hide our natural beauty. Like the creatures, we just are. And it is right. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés, (chapter 6) Women Who Run With the Wolves

Tankespjärn.

Yes.

Plenty of it.

But as this conversation proves, it doesn’t need to be hard and super-challenging.

It can be fun. Come in so many different shapes and colors and flavors.

Luke provides his very own, very special flavor. To me. Perhaps he comes across totally differently to you! Give us a listen to find out.

Links:

Find Luke Aymon on Twitter

75. Dance like there’s no one watching | with Kate Inglis

Doing Gentle with an Edge, e/audiobook by Helena Roth

Process-oriented therapy with Dominic Bosman Venter

Mark Nepo and The Book of Awakening

Come as you are by Emily Nagoski

How to make it in the new music business by Ari Herstand

Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

66. A modern band of brothers | with Mandell

Find and engage with Helena on Twitter @HERO_Respondi

The bittersweetness of closing season three with the fifth conversation with each and every one of my meandering conversation-partners is matched by the seasonal shift that’s upon me – fall is coming. There’s still vegetables and fruit to harvest, the warmth from sunshine makes me toss my jacket aside, and trees are only just starting to change color and let go of their leaves…

All of which is part of the similarity, it’s in the letting go. That just so happens to be part of one of my favorite expressions: Let go, to let come.

I cannot find new people to meander with, if I didn’t let go (of recording conversations) of these five, in the same way I had to at the end of season two, and the end of season one.

“A lot of what I see is how we intellectualize things. We say, ‘how are you?’ and you go ‘I'm fine’. Even when you actually are not fine…

Am I fine? How's my body right now? What's my state of mind? Is there any aches? Is there any tingling, any bubbles? Is there anything that wants to move? There's so much more to find out both physically and emotionally about where I am, how I am.”

~ Helena

And this is just such a place, where I am fine, absolutely, but at the same time…

A bit sad. A touch of excitement for what’s to come, mingled with a slight sense of exhaustion. Should I consider taking a short break before starting season four? Or record a handful of episodes where I read my own blog posts, similar to the style of the first one hundred episodes of the pod?

As you can see, it’s possible to go deep and wide when asked How are you? regardless if the one asking is someone else or yourself. But there’s more goodies in this episode:

“One of Mark Stewart’s [coach in the altMBA] favorite questions to ask people is ‘How is your heart today?’ So he doesn't say ‘How are you doing?’ He says ‘How's your heart today?’ And every single time everyone's like ‘Huh!’ because it makes you go inside, and ask yourself ‘How is my heart today?”. ~ Mandell

How is my heart today?

I answered that question yesterday in my kernel journal. (A bit tender, that’s the state of my heart right now.) That question is a keeper for me. Perhaps for you too? Or maybe there will be some other tidbit in this episode that will be tankespjärn to last you a day, or week, or… a lifetime?

Links:

Find Mandell Conway through his website Giving is like or on LinkedIn

Kaninängen, communal gardening project

Svinnbruket, ‘grown-up dumpstering project’

Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank

Barefoot College and grandmother’s learning solar power

Rescued Fruits AB

Hard to believe that me and Kate have had our fifth and final conversation [well. For this season of the pod, not forever. We will continue to have conversations, I guarantee it. But perhaps not as often. Perhaps not as long. And not recorded for a pod.]. And what a conversation we had!

“I don't want to be stone cold sober for the rest of my life, so I'm on a bit of an exploration, like Huey Lewis and the News, to find my new drug.” ~ Kate

We ventured into territory neither of us had on our radar, which is part of the magic and beauty of these meandering conversations. A testament to the wonder of allowing what want’s to happen to happen.

“What's going to be my altered state? How am I going to manage it so that I feel okay, how do I lose just enough control, just a little, so that I can play in that space of being more free than I feel in my brain?” ~ Kate

Oh, how this resonates with me! I’ve been harping on about the mental vice, which might not be the correct term for it, unless you watch me as I speak of it, taking a firm grip of the top of my head with both hands, holding tight, very tight. Like a band of metal keeping me/my brain tightly in check, under control, not able to venture out into the unknown…

“Music provides an alibi where I am allowed, by my brain, by that mental vice keeping me very tightly controlled, to let go. If there’s music, no problem, I'll dance and sing on the streets, on the bike and the bus, on the train. I'll go up on the dance floor without a care if there's nobody there, dancing and singing and loving it.

Theatre, acting, role-playing, that type of thing, all of a sudden, no alibi in place, so there my mental vice is very tightly screwed on.” ~ Helena

Except when there’s music around.

Music provides the alibi I need, to let loose, let go, relax, and dance like no one is watching, which my friend and one-time-coach Dave shared on Facebook just as I was getting ready to write this episode description:

“dance like there’s no one watching…”

Especially if ‘the watcher’ is you..

Yes. The watcher is me.

A part of me.

A part that is watching, and judging, other parts of me.

Sometimes, the watcher just laughs, and says carry on. Other times…

“If it was me and a partner and I wanted to do the sexy striptease dance? Holy fuck, no! Music would not be enough of an alibi there. It’s that audience aspect: here's the one person I do not want to think ‘She’s just dumb, ugly, silly. What the fuck is she doing? Does she really think that would turn me on?’.

Boom, self-consciousness hits me hard!” ~ Helena

My watcher has different quirks and pet-peeves compared to Kate’s, as we discovered throughout this conversation. But we share the experience, the feeling of not having the bandwidth, for one reason or another, of being generous in our self-consciousness.

“How generous people are when they are unselfconscious. When we're not focused on the self, that's when we're able to be generous. And that applies all the time.” ~ Kate

Such a rich conversation, filled with tankespjärn. For us, and also for you, precisely because we were able to be generous!

I enjoy wise words, collect quotes or longer paragraphs from books I read, videos I watch (I’ve been tweeting single sentence words of wisdom from whatever I am currently watching. During the summer it was Downton Abbey, right now it’s Game of Thrones…), podcasts I listen to etc. I’ve got little words of wisdom saved in many places (…and you don’t need to tell me I should stick to one single system. I don’t. So there.), my kernel journal, my mind, in Evernote, in a spreadsheet with a tab/book, unless if it’s a book I own where I read with pen in hand, making marginalia and sometimes even dog-earing the page to be able to reference it at a later time.

Few actually get lodged in my mind, but now and again, I surprise myself:

“It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.” ~ Jocko Willink

When I read that quote it hit me hard. Somehow, it points to walking my talk from another angle. I can viscerally feel the slippery slope of how what I tolerate can lead me further and further away from my beliefs, from what I ‘preach’.

And when that happens, my inner should:ers have a field-day (which me and Luke also touched upon)!

‘The Saboteur berates you, tells you what is not good, and says ‘You should do better’. The Sage celebrates what is good and joyfully wonders how you could do even better.’ ~ Shirzad Chamine

I’m pretty sure you also have inner should:ers (or Saboteurs, the term used by Shirzad of Positive Intelligence), and I wonder if you’ve entered into conversation with them in any way? In therapy with Dominic he suggested that I…

“[…] enter into conversation with your should:ers. Maybe you can do dominant/nondominant hand-writing and ask ‘Hey, you Should:er, if you knew all of this, why didn't you tell me before?’

Usually when you do that, they get quite uncomfortable because they don't want to be caught out. If you do enter into a conversation with them, how can you make a deal that if they see something beforehand, why not tell you so that their foresight can be of service to you?

They're quite useful allies to have, the Should:ers.” ~ Helena

I deliberately say Should:ers, because I have many, not just one. Two of them seems to be present in Bella as well, as I can definitely relate to this:

“The [inner] one that shushes yourself up is risky because you lose yourself.

The [inner] one that speaks up is risky as sometimes you lose the other because of it.” ~ Bella

I venture a guess that there’s plenty more tankespjärn to be had, once you tag along for a listen.

Links:

Bella (and some more of her music)

Jocko Willink author of the book Extreme Ownership and host of the Jocko podcast

Helena on Twitter

Process-oriented therapy with Dominic Bosman Venter

Ask-culture vs guess-culture

64. Discernment is flexible and judgment is rigid | with Bella

I enjoy having meandering conversations. Period. Give me a soul willing and eager to partake in such an explorative undertaking and I am happy. But there’s something special in having this type of conversation with someone much younger than me, and Luke is just that.

“I think everything can be a portal, a prompt, a door that might open, a seed. There's a signal in everything. Question is, do I want to pick up on it? Do I have the energy to pick up on it? Do I feel any ‘No, that signal doesn't really work right now’, or ‘I don't like the vibes of that one’?” ~ Helena

And I don’t mean to shine a light on the age difference itself, really, but, it does provide extra spice somehow. It adds an edge, in the way that any other type of difference will… and yet, part of the edge of this particular difference, is how there are so many similarities between us, despite me being twice the age of Luke. Perhaps, it’s just another type, or flavour, of signal, for me?

Me and Luke, we dance a lot in this conversation, right on the heels of me and Özlem, who definitely did the same (danced a lot, I mean) in episode 72. Stuck behind a microphone half a globe apart from each other, dance? Together? Really?

“I can intellectually understand something, but to fully integrate and experientially understand it, takes some time.” ~ Luke  

Yeah.

It’s possible. Even under these circumstances.

And a lot of fun too!

Just make sure you don’t fall in the very common trap that Luke pinpointed halfway through our conversation.

Oh, I should definitely dance more!

Oh, I wish I would feel comfortable on the dance floor!

Oh, if only I could dance as well as she can!

“It's very easy to should/would/could yourself.” ~ Luke

It is.

And however much I wish it weren’t so, it still is.

But I do have a choice. And so do you.

So, take that piece of tankespjärn and ponder: when do you should/would/could yourself? What would be another way of being, in those moments? Might the walking barefoot, dancing or going with the flow, be ways of shifting from the shoulding/coulding/woulding, into something else?

Links:

Find Luke Aymon on Twitter