The Most Eye Opening 10 Minutes Of Your Life | Chris Evans

what thought process gets you through the ups and downs associated with life with thought process [Music] for me it's trying to stay present you know i i had certain beliefs and and uh desires and i wanted to be a certain type of person but but a lot of my thoughts were kind of um i guess rooted in the ego you know and when i say the ego i don't necessarily mean arrogance i just mean the part of your brain that is the that says i it's the thinker um and and that part of your brain is very uh self-serving and it's very uh it lives in a world of comparisons and uh time and none of these things are helpful and and it just kind of would consistently take me out of a positive place you know the man i wanted to be the man i thought i should be or you know thinking you know how you should be doing things or what you should be doing but then not executing those things leaves you in this kind of spiral of disappointment but again all that thinking is based on time you're basing who you are and what you think you should be on who you'll be tomorrow and who you were yesterday and uh so so for me the the most effective tool i've adopted is just trying to stay present when you're in the moment um it's not like you've uh satisfied the part of your brain that that thinks in terms of time it's that the part of your brain that thinks in terms of time just gets quiet kind of doesn't exist anymore so a lot of my old hurdles have kind of become far more manageable by just just staying present all you really have in life i think is just now a series of nows and i think when you can kind of surrender to that um you can't lose so so for me getting through the struggles that are associated with day-to-day life it's just be present don't don't think about tomorrow don't think about the next minute just where are you right now don't miss right now be here now um and a nice sense of calm just kind of washes over um i probably started thinking this way when i was you know maybe 15 16 years old um and they they say you don't really wake up from uh dreams you wake up from nightmares uh and not to say my childhood was a nightmare at all by any means but but i certainly started to see a pattern uh you know where whatever my struggles or challenges were at that age if they were ever kind of met or satisfied i started to see how the next day my brain found new struggles and challenges to be at odds with and you start to realize how amazingly resilient that part of your brain is um that that can just create conflict and truly be at odds with what is and i started to worry that no matter what happened or where i went in my life will that always be that way what's preventing me from being truly happy or truly peaceful or present what is the thing that's creating this conflict and you start to realize a lot of it you know when you take just it's not those individual things well that girl didn't like me or well that guy is smarter than me that's that's not it it's the part of your brain that is driving this machine the eye that ego it's it's a very self-serving animal and and it lives in a world of comparison um and a lot of eastern philosophies whether it's buddhism or taoism hinduism they all kind of share a similar awareness of that brain noise and it's you know potential pitfalls and and at that age i just kind of that that's the one thing that just made the most sense to me that's the one thing that i saw um as it just made sense to the treadmill that i saw myself running on that was the one thing that i said yeah that's exactly that's what's going on here this this is just this brain that just uh it's no matter what i do it's gonna find new things scared me and that worried me and uh that that's what kind of made me wanna pursue a little bit more exploration into that way of thinking i'm a big fan of reading big fan of eckhart tolle that guy is that guy's it uh the power now is a fantastic book new earth's a fantastic book stillness speaks and i'll say anything by eckhart tolle to me that's kind of like it's like my bible any day i'm having a rough time or i can't seem to change the channel i can pick up any one of his books and just read any chapter and it just resonates and it's a nice feeling to know that you're not the only one thinking this way or going through these struggles or hurdles and uh and it just kind of um exercises that muscle and then works out that part of the brain really well so i try to look at it as practice you know i my biggest struggle um in my early 20s was believing i understood a concept or a certain philosophy that i subscribed to but then consistently not living that way and not executing those those beliefs and struggling and being depressed or um you know disappointed in life and that's that's i knew better but i wasn't living that way and that's really frustrating and and the problem is that's all just ego that's ego sneaking in the back door that that's that's that's you kind of the part of your brain that thinks about the story of chris wants to see that story in a certain light but that's just ego that's that's you know that's not real either so for me it's a matter of being perfectly okay exactly where i am and practicing it's like uh if i was gonna try and pick up a sport you know i'm not going to be amazing tomorrow today i just have to dribble just got to dribble the ball um and if the ball gets away from me today it's okay get it back and just dribble again even if it takes all of my focus and energy just to dribble this ball maybe tomorrow it won't and it won't be as consuming but but it's okay to be where i am i don't have to wake up tomorrow and be a pro and i think that um that mentality has gone a long way for me in terms of just surrendering to the moment surrendering to where i am and surrendering even to my failures you know your failures are okay too i used to really be very hard hard on myself um if i thought i wasn't accomplishing something or reaching a certain level but you know be with your failures they're just as educational and just as opening to the process as the successes and eventually if you're i would hope um you know the notion of success and failure will begin to dilute as well um so yeah just just just practice is there any one piece of wisdom you've managed to integrate fully into your own life that you can share sure it's my favorite it's my favorite uh i did a little uh with lindsay actually i went to uh india we did this retreat few years back and uh one of the guys our our guru on the trip uh as a man a man named nand brilliant brilliant brilliant man and he would you know lecture every day and there were just so many times where i had questions and i would just raise my hand and i and he kind of just kept telling me to shh and it was so frustrating because i just i just had i felt i had good questions and i just if you just give me an answer i'll be quiet um and he kept telling me to be quiet um and it really bothered me and it