Torre Returns!!!

Katrina Mondragon, MS, LPC, LMHC and Special Guest, Torre!!!

Sponsored by Katrina Mondragon, PLLC (Est. 2016)

Join us as Torre Talks more wisdom on this week's episode of I Don't Know, streaming everywhere under the artist name katrinadragon

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Greetings, fellow humans. Katrina here. Quick disclaimer, I'm professional, not your professional, so nothing we should talk about today. Should be taking the medical legal or otherwise advice is podcast is feeling for education and amusement. That's the disclaimer. And I'd like to welcome Tori back. Hey Tori.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Hi everybody. How are you doing? Glad to be back. We had such a fun conversation last time, so I'm glad to come back and continue on those really interesting topics.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

We did. We discussed a lot of stuff. And so what did you think would be, I don't know, what would be good for us to start with?

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Well, one thing that I do remember us talking about that was really kind of like I think a touchstone of everything else. Like there was very many generalities you could say about what we talked about, but then we really went deep into mindfulness. And so I think right now I'm being reminded on like why like how that's a facet of life and what other facets are there to use as kind of like guidelines.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

That's a big word. A facet is like an aspect.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Yeah, yeah, like a dimension of something or like a side a major side of a bigger thing. You know, you might think of it as like a part of an archetype. Anyway, beautiful puppers. Yeah, so I thought a cool way of tying in like what we talked about with mindfulness as one of like an aspect of the things that you can really use as a guiding stone is also talking about synchronicity.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Oh, explain synchronicity.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Oh, I think my headphones are letting me know things, they're like putting off weird cues. So if I lose volume, we'll just take a pause and you know reconnect all that good stuff. So, yeah, synchronicity, it kind of plays off a lot of stuff we talked about last time between spiritual traditions as well as like philosophies with life and some of the delineations of what we learn from older ancient precepts and things like that, you know, concepts and philosophies they might have.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

How much how much are you into philosophy?

SPEAKER_01 2:03

I would say it's a huge portion of kind of what I do on the personal side of my own journey. Uh, so for example, like I tie in a lot of philosophy into my spiritual journey, but also I would say it's a huge part of my personality, more so on the logic side and how like logic teaches you argumentation and reasoning, really the argumentation and reasoning are really the backbones of logic as a as a concept in a you know academic field. And so what I had to take those classes as part of humanities throughout my degree programs for my associates, as well as within my bachelor's degree. I've taken probably about six or seven philosophy classes, and if I could, I'd probably make it a minor of a part of my my overall education, just because it's such a fascinating field.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

And I've done a lot of research. I don't think I took any philosophy classes in college, but after college, I've learned a lot about the philosophy and different aspects of it. Like uh Marcus Aurelius, Epithecus, even the more modern one, Ryan Holliday.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Yeah, and I would honestly say there's more contemporary work and a lot of modern stuff that I haven't actually gotten into. Really, I've dived into kind of classical philosophy with like Kantian, Kantian logic and stuff, Emmanuel Kant's work, in other words, but then also going back to like precepts and concepts from Diogenes and Plato and Socrates. Like I love Plato's allegory, which is a section of logic and sort of argumentation that Plato puts forth in his book, The Republic. And the Republic is kind of I don't I won't speak from a scholarly point, but my gathering is that it's basically his end-of-life work, uh, because it it surmises with what happens with him and Socrates.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

I love Socrates question everything.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Yeah, yeah. And again, I would say I really dive into more of the Plato's, the Platonian side of that, versus you know, who is Socrates and who, you know, what's the the whole pedagogy of philosophers back in the old times? I've really cherry-picked, in other words, certain philosophers.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

What about Aristotle? That's one that I just remember very key point about how to tell a story from Aristotle. Have you ever heard that?

unknown 4:19

Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

He says, Tell people what you're going to tell them, then tell them, and then tell them what you told them. That's essentially the steps.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Oh, yeah, I've never heard that. That's really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Yeah, that comes from Aristotle. Random, random bit of ancient philosophy.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Yeah, I one thing, one component of philosophy that is important for a lot of the work that I do is logic as an aspect of it. Because I think I've learned throughout my life that emotion really can guide an ego, especially when I was younger. And it's not even so much a harmful ego, but that, you know, as you probably know from your line of work, ego can be what about what we deserve. It can be a question of esteem.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

How do you define ego? Because it's different definitions. How do you define ego?

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Oh, my computer's rocking. Yeah, so let me think of yeah. So going to jungian work. And again, this is also from like my don't know, you mean Carl Jung, right? Yeah, Carl Jung. Often referred to in the Western vernacular as Jungian work, you know, and that sort of thing. But yeah, Carl Jung. And I'll dive into that, but uh as a note, I would say a lot of my work comes from that spiritual student aspect and academic student, where it had to learn and had to dive in, and then opening that that that world up more and more. And so looking at Carl Jung's i Carl Jung's ideas of the shadow or the work he did in his red book, which is really about his own dealings with the shadow work as well as his own psyche.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

But then I'm gonna put you this quote, but you know that quote about him where it says, like, that which bothers us in others is evidence of something in ourselves, or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Yeah, yeah. And I've really dived deep into my personal understanding of what Carl Jung is really trying to teach us about self and self-awareness. Going into that shadow work within my own spiritual practice and community, shadow work is a huge component of the uh spiritual evolution and journey we like to take and undergo, especially when we feel like there's deeper conflict. And so for me, using logic as well as Carl Jung's point of view, it's been easy to take his lessons on what those things are on a psychological level and apply them to that spiritual journey. You know, your your shadow work should it just be rooted in something spiritual, it should be rooted in the mental and in the open aspects of your daily thoughts and awareness and even your unconscious, you know, and that's kind of the point of that shadow work. And so I've really used philosophy on that level, taking the sort of philosophical principles they're putting forth and say, well, how does that apply to me as an individual on the just the everyday sort of life, but then also within those spiritual practices and applications. On the logic side, I really think I'm such a Gemini and I'm such like a creative person, and I tend to be very zany or silly when I get the moment to. And I think logic can be something that's often put to the wind for people in those positions. You know, I'm very familiar with that. You know, let's think imaginative and outside of the balance. But logic is really sort of the bare back engine of how everything gets done.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

When you say logic, do you mean like computer logic, if then, or do you mean like conceptually, or how do you mean logic?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Well, yeah, I'll tie it into that, but really the the mental components of how we make decisions and how we perceive that decision making, but how do we reason with that? And that is argumentation and reasoning. So, you know, for example, a good point would be to say, well, if you observe that it's raining, then you might find a raincoat, an umbrella, or rainboots. So that's a logical point to make, right? One thing equals the other, cause and effect. If this, then that. And so that's a logical argument. But logic and argumentation also teaches you that you could put forth logic that is actually unsound. And I that's where logic gets interesting for me as a as a thing to learn, because well, what do you mean logic can be unsound?

SPEAKER_00 8:29

In other words, what we're saying, cognitive dissonance or like exactly opposing things.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

And and I think that's a great like natural place for us to ease into here in a second, on why I think that is one of the most important things about being a human being that also is a mammal, that also is a conscious, probably, you know, this weird fourth-dimensional being thing, right? And so, why is that such an interesting component? And why does it sort of derive from that conversation on logic? Because we're taught that humans as an evolutionary perk, right? Our biggest component is being able to manipulate our environment, control our environment, use tools, right? And those are all aspects of our posable thumbs are amazing. Yeah, we're all of that is about complex logic decision making. And that's what multicellular life had learned in mammals, right? Through us. But it really gets interesting because we're so deeply attuned to that evolutionary perk that logic is not just a benefit, it is a way of being, right? So, like, you know, fish are so attuned with water that, well, yeah, it might be a benefit to live in water, but it's also just a part of their way of life. They don't know and they won't have any comparison, right? So we're stuck being logical, whether we want to be, whether we're not, whether we're being illogical, it's all about how we're using logic or the absence of it. And it gets interesting because, like, you pointed out with cognitive dissonance. I remember, so I took a few philosophy classes in junior college, and then I ate that shit up. Oh, excuse me. I ate that up, and then I had like a communications class I had to do. And it was really my first chance to do public speaking. And I was like, what do I want to present on? Oh, you know, I want to be cerebral about it because I'm a nerd. And I chose cognitive dissonance as something to present on. And the irony was that the only person who understood what I was talking about was the teacher, and everybody was cognitively disassociating with what I was trying to tell them, and why cognitive dissonance is so important, because it's it like you were alluding to, it's the logical error that we can make from dissonance with understanding, the separation of not really knowing what's going on with being able to comprehend the cause and effect of something, the value and appreciation for something, the multiple multitude of perspectives that go into any real decision making. You know, we're often lacking in those that wide range of information in short seconds of trying to make decisions. And so we can lean into cognitive dissonance if we're under pressure or need to disconnect for a lot a number of you know divergent reasons, right? And so turning that into a conversation about duality, I think, is really interesting because when I heard about basically what all that concludes to, all that boil boils down to is that humans can make logical errors and we can believe in them. We can create a version of life in our head that's rooted not in logical fact, but in irrational fantasy, right, and delusion on how life really comes together.