Our Diaries with Becky and Paula - Shorter edit: We talk with Kay Rubacek #brain #1minutewonder #carryforthtradition2 short

This is our friend Kay and Kay's in America. She's done research, filmmaking, producing, she's a musician, she's got channels and books, she's written books and today I've invited Kay to come on because she's just started a new YouTube channel called One Minute Wonder and I absolutely love it and it's actually about the brain and how the brain functions and I find her little, she does little short videos and that's why she's called it One Minute Wonder and they're all so interesting. Thank you ladies for having me, it's such a pleasure. I've been a producer for most of my life, professional life, working as a producer and but I've produced a lot of things whether it's movies or books or music and after my last movie that I put out, we released it during COVID, during 2020 and it was the worst year in history to release a movie, all the theatres were closed and the film was heavily censored because it talked about human rights abuses in China and so it just became so difficult to release those types of movies and that movie took us six years to make. It was a real labour of love and we had amazing access inside a slave labour prison camp in China and the people were able to interview were just amazing people but I just found that with, it's so hard to distribute content that is maybe a bit sensitive, politically sensitive so I thought I really need to reach people in a different way, then people will find my work instead of having to try and rely on these big platforms to beg them to take my movies when they're saying no we get too much money from, in this case China, we're not going to take your film which is what I was told from all the big platforms so that was really, I needed to find another approach and so I thought what do people really need and through making that movie, it was called Finding Courage, the biggest solution to most people's problems is how to survive like mentally really bad situations and the people I were interviewing had been through these horrific things like brainwashing, torture, really, really terrible things and the way they survived it just was so encouraging and so inspiring and that sent me into a whole investigation for myself as to what really strengthens someone's brain against manipulation, against what I call cognitive capture. We're in the time with social media and these little screens and they're all changing our brains, they're changing how we interact with each other, it's changing society and we're just not told, it's not in the benefit of these big corporations to tell us about how much power we have ourselves without anything external, just completely, just in our heads, just in our minds and I thought really that is the greatest power that I and I learned this from interviewing all these survivors of tyranny and terror and how they were able to get through it with a smile. You wrote, I just want to mention a couple of other books that you wrote because you wrote one in lockdown about survival didn't you, what was that one called? Nowhere Left to Run, 10 Steps to Survive Tyranny Today, that's really where this podcast came from and but I thought I don't want this to just be about survival, I want it to be more than that, that it just can, I want it to be about being human, the great things about being human because we're kind of thinking that machines are being, we're being taught that machines are better than us and that machines are stronger, smarter, faster but we kind of really forget, we don't even think about how powerful our brains, our minds, our hearts, our bodies are, they're just absolutely amazing so I've been for years collecting these little tidbits of this fact and that fact and I have such a long spreadsheet and I learned about a micro podcast, I thought what's this thing called a micro podcast and it's anything, any length and I thought well I could do that, I have so many ideas for this so that's when I thought well I could just do one minute, one minute a day and that's a short video, people like short things and I thought that's really manageable for me and that way I don't have to pick like just focus on this part of the brain because I'm not a neuroscientist, I'm a human being with a brain that is trying to understand how it works and learning from those who are just brilliant people they've done all the research. One of the things that I really liked about your channel was when you were talking about the superpowers, the brain's superpowers you know because I thought that's exactly what people forget, you know how much we can actually offer to the world and it's, and it's just even just in your own home with your own family you know and it doesn't have to be anything huge does it, people, people are sort of misled to think that they've got to reinvent the wheel or go off and be completely famous or make loads of money and and your little videos are just really sweet. Your voice is so soothing and I was like oh this is great. I did work for more than two decades as a voiceover artist while I was a producer, when I record my one minute wonders I record them all at like for one week in one day, I write them and then I record them because that way I get myself into the right mental state and and I think about like like I'm really excited to record them, I like these are for me too, like I really, I need all of these, I'm taking my own advice on all these things, they're helping me so much. When I record my voice, my wonders, I really, I'm excited but I bring my energy, my voice lower, I go softer, I really go to this type of style which is, it's deeper, it's closer to deeper breathing and I pause and I don't try to rush which is what the algorithms on YouTube and Instagram, they have said, you know, I've had feedback, if your videos were faster, if you had more edits, if you did this, you would get this, this and this and I said I don't care, I'm only giving calm to people and people don't want it fine but I'm not trying to go viral, I'm not, I just want to be steady and reach the people who need that, yeah. Because I need to slow down, I mean when I'm with Becky, she's always telling me to like stop walking so fast and I know I need to slow down and I think a lot of people need to slow down and just to listen to your voice, it's like you're talking about the wavelength or, you know, the resonance or the frequency or something, it just has an effect on people when you're in that state and what really got it for me was when you said in one of your videos, I'm doing this for me, I was like, oh, I'm locked in then, you know, when a lot of people are trying to get their message out to others and projecting rather than you're actually coming from somewhere else and you can really tell on the video. Going back to the content on your channel. There's tons of different stuff on there, you can't really put it in a category. I've tried to, you know, I was testing things out to see what people resonate the most with and definitely things related to the brain, which is great because we all have a brain. I try to get across ways to help remind myself and others that you have a brain, you should be responsible for your brain. Don't wait and say, oh, well, I need to see a psychiatrist or I need to see a neuropsychologist, only a shrink can tell me what's in my brain. No one is going to know your brain better than you, not even an fMRI scan or a neurosurgeon, they're not ever going to have your own experience. And I'm not saying don't go and see those people if you need to, that's not a problem. But it's just, we've been trained to think that we should just solve everything with a pill or a specialist, but actually we really have that independence. So that's ultimately what I'm trying to do. I am critical of some of the narratives that have been pushed upon us, things that make us feel that we are, as a human being, are not smart enough or good enough or not fast enough, not comparable to a machine enough. And I try to remind people why they are better than they've been told. They're stronger than they've been told. They're smarter than they've been told or that smarts are overrated. So I try to have a balance between brain, emotional regulation type facts, everything is grounded. So each day is grounded in a scientific fact that I can back up with studies that I've looked at and that I've said, okay, yes, I trust this organisation, this publication, and then yes, I can say, okay, I can stand behind that. Did they get it wrong? Well, it's in the peer-reviewed papers, so I think it's okay. So I'm using science to help people hopefully see spirituality, how powerful they are. So I do like the physics side. I studied art in college, but our art department was next to the physics department, and so I got to know the physics guys, and I went and hung out there and took a physics subject. And I found it so fascinating that I just got into quantum mechanics and I stayed so interested, and that was actually what led me into a path of spirituality at the time. It was through science that I came back into spirituality and faith. And so to me, even though I think science has done a lot of questionable things of making people see things very narrow, it can really help people look more broadly at the world. So I try to each week give a bit of a mix between the brain, the emotions, something really cool about like physics or deep space or something like that. I actually read the Holographic Universe just before I started to practice Falun Dafa, so I'm with you on that. I've got five topics that I've broken it down into, so can I throw them at you and you give us a little insight into each of these topics? Right, so the first one is you talking about the brain's superpowers. So can you think of any offhand? My favourite, absolute favourite, and so relevant for this particular week, it's Thanksgiving in America. Things like calm and gratitude, they've just been misbranded. And we've been told to think that they're just cliches, that they're just weak, but they really are superpowers for your brain. I have a video about this coming out tomorrow, and it's just, to me, it's so powerful and kind of culminating in everything I've been doing, is that you can't be calm and grateful while you are feeling threatened at the same time, threatened and stressed. You can't have both. It's one or the other. Only one will win. But when you have gratitude, the benefits to your body, your mind, your soul, your environment, everyone you interact with are huge. And equally so, the negative effects upon your body, your mind, your soul, and people around you when you feel threatened and stressed are huge as well. But you can't actually feel both at once. It's one or the other. So to me, that was such a revelation that I even wrote an article about it a few weeks ago, and I published it for Thanksgiving, is on this aspect that I wish we were taught that in school, that how powerful gratitude is for healing your body, your mind, your relationships. It's not just something written on a coffee mug. It is really a very, very extremely powerful tool to where neuroscientists see the reaction in the brain when they're doing brain scans of someone feeling gratitude. You can't feel stressed or threatened at the same time when you truly feel gratitude. You've covered the second thing as well, slightly there. And that is, I've written, responses are sometimes beneficial, even though we could believe they're bad, like anxiety, for example. Right. There was a neuroscientist, Dr. Caroline Leaf. I love her work in particular on anxiety. We're really lacking nuance when it comes to understanding ourselves. And we think stress, anxiety, bad. Okay. It's just bad. Take a pill for it. And gratitude, calm is good, but it's a luxury. Don't bother with that. But stress and anxiety do have benefits for the brain. It's just, you don't want it long term. So it's really finding that balance and recognizing like, okay, sometimes you need that stress to actually get something done. It's like the last minute deadline. If you don't have that, sometimes I know I won't get something done. And when I do get it done, I feel gratitude that I had that deadline and that I actually achieved something. If I didn't have it, I might've just been lazy and not done it at all. So it's those things that the nuance is where we've been delegating them to people that are specialized in one particular area and thinking, well, they'll decide the details. I'll just check a box and take a pill. That's sort of the modern mentality, but I think we need to take more responsibility and understand more about what's going on in our heads. We're on to point three, which is the importance of being calm and time and meditation. I had this question of like, why does time feel like it's getting faster? Our perception of time, when we're not making memories in a very, like not really connecting with our memories, things just start to blend together. You get to the end of the day and you think, what have I done? And the day has just passed by so quickly. But you can actually, using your own perception, because our perception is just so powerful for yourself, is if you pay attention to something, maybe you're driving, you just notice something on the road. You notice patterns in the number plates. You notice a tree. You put that into your memory. It becomes a memory and that memory will expand your perception of time for the day. Even better if it's a relationship with someone, a conversation that you had, or maybe a meal. Instead of just gulping down the food and rushing out the door, you actually smelled it, tasted it, savored it, or you had a conversation with someone and you really listened and then you responded. Before you responded, you really listened first. Then that signals to your brain, this is important. Then your brain will store it as a memory. It says, oh, she thinks this is important. Okay, let's put that in there. Your perception of time suddenly gets wider because instead of just a whole day of blur, you had some things that really slowed down your time. That can help with calm, making you calm as well, because you don't feel so stressed, like I haven't done anything, but I did so much and the day's gone so fast, but I don't even know where it went. Social media and technology is a part of that, but we really can counter that by being aware. And then leading on to meditation, I'll talk about spirituality on here. When you can calm your mind, and I've had people asking me, well, how do I calm the streams of thoughts in my mind? I try to remind people I'm not a meditation teacher. I am not a guru. I'm sharing the things that are benefiting me and I have the sources to everything that I have for anyone who wants to know more, because it's coming from people who are much smarter than me. I'm just a communicator. So there's so many benefits of meditation. Every culture has some form of meditation, whether it's prayer or contemplation or so many forms. And when you can put yourself into that meditative state, just the benefits physically, chemically, everything within your body is amazing. But really the only way to do it is to practice at it. And just to start with two minutes, you put your timer on, because some people, they just say, I just can't do it. And that's because you do have to practice. It is a skill that, as you would know, as meditation practitioners yourself, you have to work at it. It doesn't just come overnight. I really encourage people to take advantage of this just amazing tool that is there for us at any moment. You don't need anything external for it. It's just amazing. This is Dean Chappell, Michelangelo's artwork of, in particular, the creation of Adam with God. You know, the two things are just meeting. God is in the shape of a brain. So what does that tell us about how we communicate with God? Yes. And it's spirituality. It's like through us, through here, and through here as well. It's actually called, I think it's referred to as the creation of Adam. And his thing is slightly limp, isn't it? And then God's is like more powerful. And he's got all these angels, divine beings behind him. It's so fitting because of the title of that painting being the creation. Like the way we do create our worlds around the world that we interact with through our thoughts. And I can't remember who said it, but there was someone who's done brain scans and things like that. They said if you could see what every negative thought physically does to your body, you would never have another negative thought again, because that's what your brain is doing. Your brain is creating your reality. It's that all of the sciences back that up and not with any, without even looking at the whole spiritual aspect, which adds so many more dimensions, but just looking at the very physical sciences. Even in physics, your observation changes the result at a quantum level, which we are all made up of particles that exist at a quantum level. So even though we may not see that here at this level, it's only because our eyes have these limitations of what we're allowed to see, but we're made up of all of those things. So when you start connecting those dots, it just blows your mind away. And that's when you say creation and the brain. And I just think that the connection is no coincidence. I saw an experiment a few years ago where somebody had taken somebody's blood out and they were asked to think of love and then they were asked to think of hate and things like this. And when they were thinking of love, all their particles came together. And when they were thinking of hate, they all started to separate away from each other. It's really like the experiments that have been done with water as well, where people when people are having not just thoughts of gratitude, but feelings of gratitude. When it's connected to your heart, because your heart has its own type of neural network in it, so a type of brain in the heart, and it's constantly sending messages to the brain. Your heart sends more messages to your brain than the brain sends to your heart. So the heart is such an important center for your brain. So if you just think, I must be grateful, it's nowhere near as powerful as in like, I feel yes, that's when the real power and energy comes out. And that starts to sound like, well, that's a little bit not scientific. But if you're doing the brain scans neuroscientists show, look at that brain when the heart is really feeling it. And it's the same if you are feeling intense resentment, or anger, or negativity, that can lead to extreme physical damage and cancels and things. So it's very powerful. It's nice to stress out people's feelings, don't they? Even people who aren't thinking like this, it's just common if you say, you know, he's had heart problems, they'll say, well, he's so stressed out at the moment. And people link stroke as well to being stressed out, don't they? Yes. And actually, before I was a producer, I did study, I got certified as a stress consultant many years ago. Now I see the benefits of it, because especially I look at, I'm so concerned about youth these days, their levels of anxiety are much higher than any other generation ever. Their levels of loneliness and depression and suicide rates are through the roof. And I do think the algorithms play a huge part of that. And that's where calm is my contribution to help people counter that. Because if you have a calm mind, you can make better decisions. And then you can have, then you go and do whatever you want to do. It doesn't matter what you want to do. You can stay calm, you can do anything you choose to do. So that's ultimately what I'm trying to do is give people that tiny reminder of like, you can be calm, you got this. And then whatever you need to do, just go ahead and do that. It doesn't matter what age, what nationality, what gender, it just doesn't matter. It's human, very human. I feel really fortunate because I practice Falun Dafa. A lot of the teachings in Falun Dafa reminding me, you know, what you're saying is reminding me of these teachings to just be able to take a step back. And every time I've had an absolute nightmare, you know, I've always managed to pull through. Yeah. Because of the practice, you know, I don't recommend it to anybody. And compassion arises from the heart, isn't it? When we do the meditation. Yes. And I've practiced Falun Dafa too, since 1998. And when I do these wonders, that spiritual guidance is there, is a drive for me. But when I write them, I'm like, okay, well, what facts make me say, wow, or help me a lot? And what can I ground that in? So that if someone that isn't spiritual, doesn't have a faith, or has a different faith, what would resonate for them? And what would be like a baseline that everyone could agree upon? So I thought, what about if people don't have any faith? What if they really feel like life is meaningless and lonely? I thought, how could I reach those people? And if I just try to tell them to practice this great meditation, it may not may not work. But if I if I say, well, remind you, you're really powerful, you're really awesome. If you just calm down, you can do whatever you want to do, then maybe they will look for some sort of meaning in their life and come to a practice like this or whatever is going to work for them in their life. So I think, yeah, it's just trying to help people in ways. To connect back to themselves, isn't it? And that's exactly what you're doing. And that's why I thought it was brilliant, you know, when I first started to see clips, I thought, wow, how wonderful, because there's so much crazy stuff going on in the world now, you know, and everything's political, and it's just like, divisive. And it's like, just trying to put good stuff out to people, that's not going to divide people and it's not going to become politicised. And that's why I set up Carryforth Tradition, because people can relate on that level, you know, like knitting and making things and painting with the family. And just because everybody does that, no matter what the views are, no matter whether they've got a spiritual practice or not. And there's two now, now, this is going to throw a curveball in because we've just been saying all these lovely things. And now these are completely different. So I don't want to end on anything negative. But I do want to bring this up, because you were actually interviewed on NTD about this as well. And it is the darker side of the data centres, and the amount of resources they use, and everybody's downloading apps. And I don't put apps on my phone. Because I think every time I'm adding a new app, I mean, I've got four or five on there. And I'm like, everything wants you to put an app on there now. And I'm just thinking, people don't realise the actual amount of resources that these things take up. And they've actually given droughts to places. I do this podcast on the values of being human. I look at what also what are the threats of being human. I can't say I'm against technology, if it needs to do its thing, and people need to use it for whatever. But I think we need to be really aware of what it's doing to us. And so I look at it cognitively. Okay, what is it doing to my mind? What's it doing to my kids' minds? And then I looked a bit further out. I'm like, look at these data centres. And look at the costs. And yes, they have been putting them into areas where they need extreme amounts of water, extreme amounts of power. And local communities haven't always been informed. And so when I was able to research and write about that, it was able to help some communities share knowledge, share information. And certainly in, I mean, this is something for all around the world. But in America, there are a lot of data centres going up all around the country. So it is a big issue, very pressing issue. The government is designed here to work slower, to go through things very carefully and have debate on both sides. But the way tech is going, it's going so fast. So I'm trying to give people a way to stay calm so that they can look at these issues and look at the facts and then deal with it. Okay, I'm going out even further, because you said you were thinking about your family, then you went a little bit further. I'm going right out there now. I'm really aware that there's a lot of solar flares going on at the minute. And I know a lot of people are feeling tired. And, you know, I mean, to me, it's kind of obvious that if you've got things going on like that, then it will affect us down here. You know, my husband's been feeling sleepy and I keep saying, don't worry, darling, it's just the solar flares. And he looks at me like that. Okay, I'm just gonna go and have a lie down. But you touched on it, you touched on it as well. And I did one on the, there was a supermoon. And then there was auroras and the giant solar flares. And I just think very traditionally, every culture looked at how the cycles of nature affected human life and how human life can integrate with the cycles of nature. And so we have so many cycles, whether it's plants, seasons, then you head outside of the earth, and then there's the solar cycles, there's the lunar cycles, then there's the planetary alignments, everything. There are things going on in the solar system. And generally, we think that's very far away. That has no connection to me. And things like astrology have been given a really bad rap. But if you go back to like ancient times, say in ancient China or other civilizations, they all looked at the planets. And even though they may not have had the same tools as us, they saw alignments between the cosmos and different systems within the human body and around us. And so I joke and think, well, look, we're just told the weather report of it will not rain today, or it will rain today, take an umbrella. And I just think if only they would tell us, okay, this is the season when the humpback whales are migrating down there, you can go get a great view. And this is the time when you need to plant this. This is the time when you need to walk outside. That's the type of show I've always wanted to do. But I would need a big production team. So I try to integrate a little bit about whether it's cosmic weather or real weather, like Earth-based weather. There's so much of that. The magnetic fields that are around the Earth that are affected by giant solar flares, earthquakes, and things like that, we can't see them. And we're only told about them after something bad happens, like a blackout or an earthquake. But a lot of people can feel it. Maybe they get headaches, or they need to sleep more when there's excessive solar radiation coming through. So I don't go too much into that, but I do try to cover it when I can. And I saw those solar storms were coming. And I thought, well, I'm going to talk about it. So I did. I'm glad you did. Because I watch things like that. I'm aware of it. And I think I probably maybe do sometimes feel a little bit of it as well. It's just, to me, silly to not realize that we're in this huge cosmos and these things do affect us. And people have just lost so much of that connection with nature, haven't they? So that's what we're hoping to do, is remind them of all these connections and not be afraid of it, because this is going on all the time. Every Saturday, I put out a sort of special wonder video that I do outside of the studio, somewhere in a different room or outside of my house. And I focus on something to do with nature. And nature is just, I talked about calm and gratitude being so powerful. Nature just blows my mind when I think about how powerful it is. And we just can't see the benefits, the ways it's changing us. But I do that with my kids. If they're really overwhelmed or stressed, I'll say, let's go for a walk or make an excuse. We're going to go shopping, and then I'll just take a little detour and we'll go for a walk. And I get comments from people saying, oh, this is so basic, basic reminders. And sometimes I've misunderstood the comment and thought that maybe it was a criticism. And I replied and said, well, thank you anyway. And they said, no, no, no, I mean, it is a good way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just remember where we're from and who we are. And what heals us. The human body is so miraculously created and so brilliantly resilient. And it's just supercharged by our thoughts, for better or for worse, and by nature. And those things just astound me all the time. It's back to the beginning where I was so inspired by these survivors of absolute devastation, things that would have destroyed most human beings, and they were able to get through it. Most of them did have a spiritual practice and they had a way to keep them calm, whether it was through meditation or through reciting scriptures or whatever it was that they did, or having a foundation in something like Falun Dafa, which teaches truth, compassion, forbearance, that they had something to give them a sense of calm. And that was able to strengthen their mind to get through really things that a lot of people would find impossible to endure. For these people that have really been through the storm and been able to come out on the other end, for those who haven't been through such a storm, you really can get through anything. Yeah, I try to make them simple and superficial, but I think that the meaning there is quite meaningful to me when I think about the origin of where this came from and the people who I interviewed and how they inspired me. That movie is available on Ganjing World, Finding Courage. So, yep, you can go there to watch it. Thank you so much. It was really, really great. And, you know, I encourage people to, you know, the ASMR ones are great, but this is great and this is valuable. And but anytime, watch it, watch them anytime. They're just great, short, powerful. They stick with you. And they've been really helpful to me as well. So on a personal note, I'd like to say thank you as well. Yes. You're so welcome. And they are on podcast. If you don't want to watch anything, you can just listen to. They're on all the podcast platforms and all the platforms where it's on is you can find that on my website, which is the number one, OneMinuteWonder.com. If you don't want to watch on screen, then I have an email. So every weekend I send just a summary of what we covered during the week and then you can just catch up on them in one day. Maybe we'll catch up with you in a few months, see how you're going. That would be lovely. Thank you, ladies. It's been my pleasure. Yeah, great. Enjoyed it. Thank you. Bye. Bye.