Kelly Boys

Kelly Boys is a mindfulness trainer with the United Nations Foundation. She is the host of the Mindfulness Monthly program with Sounds True and directed the launch of the Google-born Search Inside Yourself facilitator training program for neuroscience-based emotional intelligence and mindfulness for the SIY Leadership Institute. She’s taught war veterans, prison inmates, humanitarian workers, and psychotherapists. She lives in Northern California. More at kellyboys.org.

Also By Author

Kelly Boys: Illuminating Our Blind Spots

Kelly Boys is a teacher and author who directed the launch of the renowned Search Inside Yourself training program, based on the emotional intelligence and mindfulness program developed at Google. With Sounds True, she has published The Blind Spot Effect: How to Stop Missing What’s Right in Front of You. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Kelly speaks with Tami Simon on the different kinds of blind spots, how we develop them, and how to finally see through those blockages. Kelly describes what drew her to the subject and also leads the audience in a guided practice for homing in on their own blind spots. Tami and Kelly talk about “the endowment effect”—a psychological need to grasp onto what is familiar even if it no longer serves our best interests. Finally, they discuss the greatest (and most common) blind spot of all: the feeling that we are separate from the rest of humanity. (62 minutes)

Recognizing Your Blind Spots

Blind spots, by nature, aren’t seen by you, and cause you to behave unconsciously in ways that have impact on yourself, others, and the world around you. Blind spots are not areas you are familiar with that you are ‘working on’ – qualities you are developing – for example, trying to be more patient with your kids or more loving with your partner. Those qualities may be related to blind spots, but that is not what I’m addressing here. Blind spots are literally what you DON’T see about yourself.

Have you ever had trouble taking in some piece of information – in a talk or a book you’re reading, or sitting on your therapist’s couch? Usually it’s a seemingly innocuous and simple piece of information, but you just can’t get it, or hear it. It’s like you’re going fuzzy. That is a good indication of a blind spot trying to come into the light.

Or perhaps even worse, you keep getting the same feedback from your partner, your coworkers, and even the generalized world around you keeps holding up the same mirror. But it doesn’t quite make sense. You actually can’t really hear or see it. Or even if it makes sense intellectually, it just doesn’t seem necessarily relevant or important enough to demand your attention. Even though you’re hearing the information with your two ears, it flies right past you in terms of actually sticking in your brain, your being, your heart. It actually does not compute. Another signal that it may be a blind spot!

What we tend to end up with as we become adults is an imbalanced view of ourselves that plays handily into the creation and maintenance of our blind spots. What if you saw this mechanism at play, and then saw the pain and suffering you add on top of it? We usually do this in two ways: by personalizing it all and making ourselves either too big for our britches or conversely, unworthy of love and care. This is what I mean by an ‘imbalanced’ self view: too big or too small, over-amazing or under-good-enough. What if you had the courage and humility it would take to admit and embrace your actual place in the world? Even if that means it’s an amazing place in the world? It doesn’t have to be small and hidden just because we are humble and aware. But we are at home.

This is what I mean by learning how to live an undefended life. We aren’t propping up a flimsy ideal of who we think we should or shouldn’t be, or who we think others want us to be. We just are who we are, at home in our own skin, blemishes and all. And we inhabit ourselves so much so that our gifts fall out of us necessarily, rightfully, and with ease.

What if being yourself isn’t essentially about finding your voice, your true calling, your best self, your most significant offering to the world, but instead is about learning to become at home in the world – your world? Learning to become a simple, content, good human being. With no promises on the outcome. Just for the sake of it.

 

Looking for more great reads?

 

 

Excerpted from The Blind Spot Effect by Kelly Boys.

Kelly Boys directed the launch of Google’s “Search Inside Yourself” leadership training program for neuroscience-based emotional intelligence and mindfulness. She’s taught war veterans, women in prison, cancer survivors, those with substance abuse addictions, humanitarian workers, and psychotherapists. She lives in Boulder, Colorado. More at kellyboys.org.

 

You Might Also Enjoy

Connie Zweig: “Meeting One of the World’s Leading ...

As a new generation joins the search for understanding and meaning in our ambiguous and uncertain world, there’s a growing resurgence of interest in the Shadow—Carl Jung’s famous term for the aspects of ourselves that hide in our unconscious yet often drive behaviors we’d rather not repeat. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with acclaimed Jungian therapist and author Dr. Connie Zweig about her life’s mission to help us grow in self-awareness and move toward personal and collective healing by learning how to work with the Shadow. 

This aha-moment-filled conversation explores: meeting the Shadow on the spiritual path; ego formation during childhood; the concept of repression and the problem with the closet metaphor; why the Shadow hides—and when it erupts; “romancing the Shadow”; three cues to explore with respect to compulsive behaviors; “Shadow characters” and the practice of personifying aspects of the Shadow; the intergenerational aspect; engaging Shadow work at midlife; the superego; projection in relationships; sharing our secrets; money, sex, and power; shifting from a persona marriage to a Shadow marriage; the Vedanta tradition and the teaching on leshavidya, “the remains of ignorance”; the moral development missing in many spiritually advanced practitioners; illusions, idealizations, and archetypal projections; why the first reaction to meeting the Shadow is denial; Shadow projection in the politics of our times; step one: self-examination; bridging inner work and outer work wisely; how to practice “holding the tension of opposites”; cultivating nonduality in your own psychology; the “third thing” and the transcendent function; and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

Sheryl Lisa Finn: “Connection Is More Powerful Than ...

With so many valid concerns stoking fear in today’s world, it’s no wonder that more and more of us are living in a state of chronic anxiety that seems irreversible. If you’re feeling at a loss about how to reclaim your peace of mind, body, and spirit, Sheryl Lisa Finn has a life-changing suggestion: Don’t underestimate the power of connection. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with the author of The Healing Anxiety Workbook to share actionable insights and approaches for dissolving anxiety on the spot and experiencing inner safety and serenity (without “bypassing” the realities of our times). 

Enjoy this conversation on: anxiety in a nutshell—sensing a lack of safety; reverse engineering anxiety; working with trauma at the root; when anxiety seeps back in; finding a source of goodness bigger than yourself; grief; building a foundation of connectivity that we can source into in challenging times; creativity and working with our hands; receiving support from the “wise self” within; Jungian psychology, archetypes, and dreamwork; fighting the spiritual fight in the face of systemic problems; anxiety’s hidden agenda—to serve our evolution; a practice to release the anxiety-producing stories we tell ourselves; the power of ritual and the importance of getting out of our rational minds; the practice of asking your ancestors to take your worry from you; anxiety in relationships, and how connection becomes a remedy; panic attacks; anxiety as a friend in disguise; and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

Zach Leary: Psychedelics in the 21st Century and How t...

He’s the son of Timothy Leary and one of today’s leading voices in the psychedelic renaissance of the 21st century. But Zach Leary’s journey hardly unfolded in the way you might expect. In this deeply informative and myth-busting podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Zach about his new book with Sounds True, Your Extraordinary Mind. 

With a “friend to friend” approach to discussing the amazing potential for the safe use of psychedelics, Tami and Zach converse about: carrying forward the legacy of the front-runners of psychedelic exploration, including icons like Terence McKenna, Humphry Osmond, Dr. John C. Lilly, and of course, Zach’s father Timothy and Richard Alpert (Ram Dass); acknowledging the mistakes of the past and dispelling the myths and misconceptions about psychedelics; bringing legitimacy to the use of psychedelics for healing and insight; a review of the major compounds and their sources (natural and manmade), such as MDMA, psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, LSD, and ketamine; the importance of the 3 S’s: set, setting, and sustainability; turning insights into action; challenging experiences (instead of “bad trips”); Carl Jung and shadow work; using psychedelics to overcome our fear of death; Zach’s personal battle with addiction and how psychedelics supported his recovery; the nature of consciousness; psychedelics as humanity’s evolutionary partner; and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

>