Tune it out

The (men’s) Tour de France finished yesterday and given that we’re currently residing in the French-speaking part of Belgium, the official post-race interviews—conducted in the lingua franca of English—are live-translated into French by the studio commentators.

It’s funny, because I’m used to hearing it the other way round at home: a rider gets asked a question in their native tongue, and the British commentator talks over their incomprehensible (to me) answer.

This way round, it’s the English answer I want to hear that’s being drowned out by an over-dub.

But I found it was relatively easy to just tune out the (much louder) translated answer and hone my attention in on the (much quieter) English one.

After a while I didn’t even notice the commentator’s narration.

And because consciousness is bonkers, it’s like it didn’t even exist.

In our lives, so often we want to be more in tune with wisdom – with that quiet, intuitive voice that’s guiding us, guiding us, guiding us… but there’s this loud, yammering voice of our Thought System 📦 blatting on about this and that and what it means and what’s wrong with it and what’s going to happen and why it’s a bad idea and why we’re not good enough and what other people will think of us and on and on and on it goes.

I don’t think you can stop it from doing that (how would you even do that?!) but you can learn to tune it out and hone your attention in on the much quieter rhythms of life itself.

Who knows, after a while you might not even notice the commentator’s narration at all.

😎

Giles

p.s Thank goodness we’ll have the (often more thrilling) Women’s Tour de France to see us through the next week, without getting withdrawal symptoms!