E177 - Key Insights to Enter 2026 With Clarity, Focus, and Direction

What's up everyone welcome back to the podcast this is the last episode of the year and it is a compilation episode filled with various different moments of 2025 with different insights and reminders to help you step into 2026 with intention and with clarity and presence. I have as an addition and a bonus gift for you all just because I love y'all and I want to say thank you for being in my life and for making what I do possible. I am linking down below my year-in-review template and also 2026 intention setting guide as well there are just a bunch of different questions with a Spotify music playlist that you can play as well and just reflect on the growth and the challenges and the relationships and all that came up this past year for you and to set intentions for this next year. What are the seeds you want to water what are you calling in and I think it's just in a really incredible time of the year to slow down to get clear to change direction even one degree and that has big effects down the road so I hope you find that useful again link in description for that and that's it. I just want to say thank you guys thank you for making what I do possible. I am very excited about what we're cooking behind the scenes as the team is growing within know thyself to bring you in person community experiences more diverse conversations increasing the quantity of the episodes as well as the quality and yeah that's all thanks for coming along this ride and I will see you next year. I remember maybe it was about 10 years ago when I started doing past year reviews instead of nearest resolutions looking back at the last year every week of the calendar for peak sort of negative and positive experiences positive and negative people right the slight battery drains that seem consistent over time activities and people and in addition to that and I joked with a friend of mine at one point I said you know what I should create as a journal because like people love journals everybody's putting out a journal I was like let me just add to the noise but my journal will be something like worries that mostly didn't come true where you just look back at the things that you were worried about and so I do this when I look back at the calendar and just what a tiny fraction of the whole the smallest percentage that actually become a problem and that gives you I would say two insights for me and I need to constantly remind myself of this because I'm hyper vigilant and actually tend to see the world is like full of danger strangers you can't trust etc that's my baseline what one is a lot of the things you're really really terrified about worried about just don't happen right so in that case the cards fall in your favor but real life has bumps along the way so when the cards don't fall in your favor you figure it out and when you look backwards you can see like if you're actually sitting here you have a decent life you have figured out thousands upon thousands and maybe millions upon millions of little micro decisions and adaptations along the way so it's also doing a retrospective to convince myself and this takes reconvencing that you can figure it out so I would say trusting in the ability your own ability to figure most things out and recover even if something ends up being really terrible which happens you know that's life and I'm curious in your year-end review process like the more that you've done that have you actually seen the needle moving forward of not worrying about those things that are outside of your control like yeah yeah yeah yeah much better yeah so that is a coachable skill or a learnable skill depending on how you do it and I say coachable and learnable because I view those things as slightly different learnable is this self-improvement game right and there's a lot to the self-improvement came but this social component surrounding yourself with the right peer group people who call you on your bullshit when you're blowing little things out of proportion people who remind you of the silver lining when you're focused on the dark side of things people who point to the past for evidence that you have figured something I'll I'll sell before or to say hey you're about to make the same mistake so I really try to I don't try I calendar and invest in time with those people and that's arguably the most important thing that I do at the beginning of each year but look every day is the beginning of a new year so you have to wait for January 1st yeah it's kind of artificial constraint you don't need to do that but is looking forward to my calendar and basically once a quarter let's just say I have at least a long weekend going up to a week where I spend time with those people and you can read you can study you can meditate you can do all those things or you just surround yourselves by the people who embody or naturally do things think things believe things that you want to absorb I it tends to be I think a little bit easier yeah if you just steep yourself in it there's kind of like a shallow level of approval that is easily transmitted and easily like visible to others right you know if you just think about like buying a fancy car or you know having like amazing photos on Instagram or whatever like it's it's like the cheap candy version of belongingness and there's like almost no sustenance there but it's very it's very easy to make that appealing like that's very visible and obviously desirable on like a very superficial level whereas I think the deep meaningful sense of belongingness that sense of like I get I can be who I am completely authentic warts and all like there's a there's a certain level of discomfort and unpleasantness that is inherent in that that is like doesn't is not easily transmitted on Instagram or in a YouTube video like it's not you can't really advertise it like there's no magazine ad and and and vogue saying like 15 awkward conversations to help you be yourself with your partner on a random Tuesday night like that's just that it's not a sexy promotion like nobody's like clicking the buy button for that in a way like our our our our needs get hijacked relatively easily by like the exposure the amount that we're just purely exposed to and I think there's a lot to be said of cutting a certain amount out of your life I'm a big proponent of there's different names for it but I call it a information diet or an attention diet so like being very mindful and thoughtful of like what content and information you're consuming and being careful like the same way I like the metaphor of a diet because I think it maps really well to kind of the information age that we we live in like it's fine to have some of that content you know that like sexy social media content like it's fine have a little bit of that just like it's fine to have you know a little bit of dessert here and there or like you know candy bar every once in a while but like if that is your primary diet day in and day out then your mental health is going to deteriorate the same way if you just ate candy bars all day every day your physical health just like completely deteriorate so I think it's useful to think about like what is like the the vegetables of an information diet and making sure that you have like a strong sturdy portion of that in your life and then like anything that is candy for you like just being very conscious of how much of it you're consuming and when you're consuming it and like and put guardrails on yourself because ideally we would all have perfect self-control and we would like be able to manage or but it's not we're we're fucking animals dude like it's just put guardrails on yourself make certain things off limits delete apps block certain pages at certain times leave your phone out of the bedroom like you know it's like all this like basic mental hygiene stuff that is is it's becoming commonplace but it's becoming commonplace for a reason because it's just like it's it's becoming like the the nuts and bolts it's becoming like the brush your teeth and floss of the 21st century it's just like put your fucking phone away you know like stop following accounts that make you feel bad you only envy the life of people who sacrifices you don't see yes and it's a an alluring and persistent delusion you know to idealize people's lives that we see whether it's through social media or in in different spaces and this one thing to be have something that's admirable and you don't have it be inspiring for you to take action in life it's another thing to think that people didn't work and have to forego many things that you don't want to yeah to get there yeah it's because nobody shows the sacrifices again it's like there's no Instagram account of like all the sacrifices in somebody's life like nobody wants to share that with anybody nobody wants to see it but it's it is it's inherent and and like anything that's good it's whether it's you know developing a skill or being respected or being loved like it's it's I don't want to say you have to earn it because I think that's like a bad model like you it's not you're not earning things but it is it's just that like the the sacrifice is like component of it it's like the it's the part of the iceberg that's underwater I mean I think this is why I just keep preaching the message of health because if you have your health everything else in your life will work better I think the goal of health is to be adaptable people go on vacation they eat whatever they want they don't gain a pound that's adaptability you can be around somebody who sneezes and you don't you don't necessarily go down with a cold like how well are you adapting to the different environments you're putting yourself in to me that should be the goal of health the goal of health it and you're right like where where is there ever a moment where you're like I've arrived like I think the problem with health in general is that we made it a noun it actually should be a verb it's it's an action you take that's a continual process right continual process and then from that um yeah I think I think we're all perfect for me I feel like ultimately humans are the happiest when we are in service of of either each other or a mission or when we're outside of ourselves I think the minute we start thinking too much about what's in it for me where's my stuff that's where the suffering begins so I just can tell you what I told my kids is really to find prayers that light you up and you're excited to go to every day but that are giving back in a beautiful way because when we are in the me me me culture of give me more give me more give me more that's where we really start to find ourselves going into the darkness and the light comes when how can I help you how can I serve you that goes back to the primal this way of design that we were designed that we were designed to serve others and to help lift others up and I really think that's where we miss the mark with happiness and living in one of the most individualistic times and cultures where people are often celebrated and rewarded for kind of being the person who did it on themselves you know the self-made person is such a such a bolt like bullshit proposition there's no self-made anyone we are really successful to the degree we're invested in uplifting others and not just making it all about us you know and and we can receive so much we do receive so much that giving there are many practices that we can have and like you know things we can be devoted to that support the deepening of our experience of our true nature and I found and I've heard you speak to the really bedtime and like the time before sleep our mornings and our nights are some of the if not the most important times to guard because we're in a hit in a gothic state right so if somebody wants to really take responsibility for their life they want to cultivate vitality they want to know their true nature what would be an example of a bedtime routine or something like at night time that can really help us guard that space that's that's so very important you go to sleep at night first of all there's a level of forgiveness of the day petty annoyances you don't want to go to sleep with any of that you don't want that to be a part of your subconscious and why because it will it will create momentum of that perception fuster yeah and then become a part of your mood your attitude and your greater perception so I like to like scan and forgive and then when you say scan you mean like body scan or scan my day okay you know uh so that I'm not holding on to with this person said or what I think they've said or what I think they met so it's just like a forgiveness now oftentimes people will talk about um at the end of your life doing that I say do it every day don't wait until the end of your life and forgive all these people you know just don't allow it to accumulate just just just just forgive everything every single day and then you know when I sometimes when I go to sleep I will close my eyes and I will choose a timeline of a life that I want to live in the feeling tone of it and I choose it choose that is happening now then I go to sleep in it or if I'm dealing with something I need an answer you know I will choose it's not the future but I'm choosing that to answer and the issue is already solved what do I feel like and then what happens is like it retrofit itself it will give me a level of guidance when I wake up in the morning asked to how to approach that situation now when I wake up it's the same thing you still hit the Godgy state so I wake up and I consciously go into a state of gratitude that I exist has nothing it's not attached to I'm grateful that I have this I'm grateful that I have that this grateful that I exist and then I I will get out of bed and I'll stand and I'll do this I'm so grateful to be alive I'll wake and aware and then I do this I surrender to life sometimes I'll use the word God or love or peace and then I open myself up and I'll say I'm available to the energy and the strength to handle anything that comes into my life today my assignments for today because I know I have assignments on my to-do list and then there are things that are going to come that I I don't know they're going to come so my is going to call I'm going to have to respond to this so I asked and make myself available to the energy of that and to and because I've done it so long I don't even it's not even I don't even think about it it's like I'm I'm able to articulate it to you now because you asked me a question but I'm not really thinking about it it's just like so grateful yeah I surrender what's my assignment you know like that and so when you're in those states it goes deeper into your subconscious and then and then what happens is you have less worry you know I people suffer from worry they suffer from anxiety anxiousness they're projecting their worst-case scenario onto what they call the future and they're actually living in those chemicals without the thing even happening you know what I mean so it's happening for them right now physically chemically an immune system but it didn't even happen the thing hasn't even happened with the body doesn't know it so you know I like people to learn that they are they're a sovereign being and they can determine their own perception it's not magic it's just practice you know it really just sounds like utilizing whether it's 30 minutes or an hour before bed to really transition your state right because you're going to marinate in whatever that state you last yes we're awakened and that builds momentum in ways we don't even realize how much it builds momentum and then we wake up in ways we're not even pervy too it's going to continue to infuse that energy you know and so it's like if we want to live a life filled with joy and gratitude then releasing which is that forgiveness stage which you first said those those chains and ties we have to people events and situations in which we have resistance to throughout our day in many ways it's almost like the last illusion because we always think it's like me I am forgiving the other person but really it's like this inner process of letting go right and and just not continuing to not perpetuate you know the state of of pain and within us yes there's so much for us to embrace about the power of every morning because when you wake up in the morning and you go directly to social media directly to the news directly to the stuff of the world it's like you're just saying to the world and to the worst aspects of the world come on eat me alive take my nervous system make me crazy come on do it and especially like before political campaign and stuff we're all just like this yeah and every every religious tradition I've ever read about talks about the power of the morning to calm whether it's the lessons of the course transcendental meditations some mindfulness exercise Buddhist cobblistic whatever to align the nervous system with the truth of who we are the course in miracle says even five minutes in the morning we'll guarantee that the spirit will be in charge of your thoughts forms throughout the day it doesn't mean you're going to be an enlightened master but it means that the chances of you really falling off this spiritual wagon saying something doing something sending an email writing a tweet you're going to go oh what I do that the chances are much less and and also the chances are much greater that you'll catch yourself when you do and you can atone and make amends the second thing is to recognize that everything we go through in life is part of what the course in miracles calls a highly individualized curriculum everyone we meet every situation we're in is perfect for what we can learn that moment that day are you showing up in your best are you showing up with a give mentality or get mentality is your heart open or is your heart closed are you there in support of others are you only thinking about yourself and it's it's about using every experience to train our attitudinal muscles there is physical gravity you you go to the gym because at a certain age if you're not holding those muscles up gravity is bringing them down but there's emotional psychological gravity too if we're not exercising with accumulated repetitions of positivity and graciousness and forgiveness and mercy and personal responsibility then we're headed down to anger to cynicism to anxiety to depression and that's really where we are right now we're at a moment where you're either headed down or headed up that you know we've had this myth of the of neutrality but there's really no such thing as a neutral thought there's no such thing as a neutral life either our energy is being sucked into this maelstrom that's at this point a downward spiral and you see it all around us institutions crumbling people's relationships how people feel about themselves or you're part of this evolutionary spiraling up that is also happening that we're all you know and the kind of people who would be listening to your podcast feel part of and want to be part of these two simultaneous phenomena happening at the same time you know you just take so much for granted when you're younger and when you're older and you look back and you realize I didn't realize I didn't take my life seriously enough or I didn't take other people's life seriously enough I didn't take that relationship seriously enough other people's relationships seriously enough and look at the state of the world you know I've said to people who would have thought we'd been nostalgic from the 1970s you know we just had no idea and I think even you and me having this conversation today I'm sure there are a lot of people for whom nothing we're talking about is new information but rather we're having these conversations to be able to embrace more deeply and experience more deeply the concepts that by now most of us already know it's living living it especially we all have our blind spots and so your life experience is not going to come around to honor your comfort zones it's going to come around to bust your comfort zones to make obvious to you your blind spot so I think it feels hard for so many people right now because everybody's going through their little piece of the crucified world but we have to remember this is all purposeful and it's all taking us to who we need to be because we need to develop the characterological aspects of self to endure these times and to transform these times everything happening is a reflection of who we have been so if we don't like what's happening we have to become someone other than who we have been the renewal of the mind to know that we were we were conforming to the patterns of the world and this is what we got okay have a renewal of the mind be different now and emerge wise or stronger more capable because we have a world to save the core is America says we have the people who've lived on this earth this is amazing to me it says that the people who've lived on the earth who've achieved the most have achieved like think about the people who have achieved the most right have achieved a fraction of what all of us are capable of that's how early this is in our evolutionary journey right and that does mind by and I would just argue with my mind we was at Georgia Elliott it's never too late to become who you might have been and so whether it comes to a secular religious spiritual whatever if you do it at works and you go to the gym it works you do the lectures of the course it works you read books like this you take it in you allow those aha moments to illumine your thinking it works you go to AA you go to the meetings it works and I think that that's where we need to be with each other now I think we need to be a whole we have been so trained by modernity in the last few years to just embellish your wound your trauma your enough and I know from trauma I know from trauma but at a certain point the question has got to be what great thing are you doing and how can I help we've been infantilized we've allowed ourselves to be infantilized I think the higher consciousness movement we've actually contributed to it and we will not literally we will not get out of here alive or at least our greykins will unless men stop acting like boys and women stop acting like girls and we support each other and that and and you yes I can have compassion for your pain until call you to be your strength and know that I see your strength I see the part of you that's going to heal from this I see the part of you that's going to move through this and even be more of a man more of a woman more of a human being that's what we need to be right now and there's an urgency in the air and it's we were born for this in training men is is this idea where if you have just for those who maybe don't know the word if you have a certain oscillating body you know it's just for simplicity let's just take a tuning fork that you can strike a tuning fork it'll vibrate at a very particular frequency if you can bring that near another body that can oscillate at the same frequency you don't have to struck that other one just by the proximity that the vibrational travel through the air and then it'll start to move it and they'll start to vibrate together in sync and that is what we call entrainment and we are multivibrational beings right so we can vibrate at many different capacities and but let's say you go out into the city right you go out into Los Angeles it's a bit chaotic it's kind of crazy especially if you're on the freeway and you get a bit frazzled right and and it's stressful and it like that kind of creates a negative state within the your own being mind your emotion your physical and the way we can take something like entrainment and it's a tool that is a power that we can take into our own hands where once I well one don't get into road rage right you have choice around that right so just exercise like okay I'm just gonna be patient here and I'm just gonna you know be mindful and bless them rather than curse them I mean that's gonna go a long way right there to when you get back into your own environment your own home like put on harmonious music right use tools like things that stimulate your senses in a positive way to create a positive entrainment field so putting on some classical music or some meditation music or you know doing some aromatherapy like all of these are ways that we can stimulate our senses with vibrational energy intentionally they can bring us back into a harmonic state and then also your thoughts right like dr. Emoto showed that with the water crystals like your thoughts really can influence the water into being more harmonious or disharmonious and so if we're 70% water your thoughts have a major influence on whether your cells of your body and all the water in your system is going to be in a in a beautiful and harmonic symmetric state or if it's going to be in a less symmetric state yeah I'm such a big fan on crafting our environment as we create our environment and then our environment creates us in many ways because there is a sense of entrainment happening on a reciprocal fashion right so it's like if we can create an environment in which we're mostly spending which is our home to be conducive towards more of those coherent energies and then when we go out in the world we can be a sense of entrainment you know as people have talked about being in the presence of of awakened beings alone not talking not working through practice or philosophy just alone being in the presence of something that tuning fork starts to affect the vibration of the of those that are around it and so yeah I think it's just such an important takeaway to to craft an environment around you that is conducive people are very strong influences on energy right and so we can learn how to protect our own energy but then we can also learn how to be the one who's in training versus just the one who's being entrained like choosing to consciously spend time with people who are in that more of just like that clean energy is is so valuable so needed and difficult choice at times when you see you feel like especially earlier on your journey you're starting to wake up to these truths and you're surrounded by people who have just no idea about it for better or worse and again it goes back to that you know that point of death and rebirth in terms of relationships yeah and the sacrifice is one of those sacrifices sometimes that we make along the way and you know when people hit that point it can be very it can be a lonely place when you were starting to explore an awakened into these things but your friends and your family or not and they don't get you it can be very kind of you can feel a bit isolated and and sometimes we have to let go of old relationships that aren't like aligning you know if they don't you know when you talk about entrainment it's just alignment are you gonna be supportive of me and in this new frequency or this new way of being or you're gonna try and drag me back into the old way of being and those who are supportive like great they're ready to continue aligning and and being supportive of you as you grow but those who resent you for it or you know try to drag you back into the old dynamics and like hey what's wrong with you why aren't you doing this you know you used to do this well you used to be fun you know they kind of make you feel bad for like the fact that you're choosing something different it's really because they're not secure with themselves and so those sometimes we have to go through that separation a few of the others part of the alchemy and we have to make certain sacrifices and when you do that you create a new room for and making new choices and and aligning with a new group of a new community if you will that will get you you know so so this is all part of the alchemy that we go through on a personal level as we grow and transform and evolve and you know the the key to being able to be that person who brings the positive frequency of entrainment into a group is to know theyself all right the more you know yourself the more you can maintain your own frequency you know who you are you know your center and you usually won't have so much attachment people needing you needing their approval if you will and then that allows you to really maintain that frequency that you cultivate and generate for yourself through your own practice and your own choices in life then my experience the more you put these insights into practice the more that like no reason happiness comes about most people don't need a reason to be pissed off and sad and frustrated about life and we don't need a reason to be joyful and happy you know and I think the more that you examine this the more that you actually don't need a reason or an outcome for your own joy to be present yeah and that's a another controversial idea that might be like offensive to some people at first of of course I need a reason to be happy how could I be happy if things aren't going well in my life but um that's what we're talking about I think is a little deeper than that it's a level deeper than that but the idea beneath it is that attachment is itself a contracted mental state right I'm zeroing in on something I'm focusing my mind on a pursuit of a goal and so I have to contract my mind to pursue the desire the attachment and so desire is not bad or wrong in any way it's very divine we're just supposed to be pointing it or we should point our desire towards divine things you know realizing our purpose and our truth our essence and all of that it's beautiful to desire good loving and godly things but when the ego hijacks desire and points it towards objects and sense pleasures that's where we get lost in the weeds and start suffering and so in the same way that the kind of underlying philosophy of lack is giving right giving is the remedy for lacking in that same way detachment is the remedy for attachment it's like duh that's not a novel concept but it's important to understand what detachment is detachment is not the losing of something you want right it's not the giving up of something you want detachment is the relaxing of a contracted mental state and so the sort of phrase or idea given in the book for the second belief in outcome happiness is to repeat this outcome like whatever it is you've identified you want you're chasing this outcome cannot give me anything I want and you're sort of denouncing the attachment as being fruitless for you and the ego will resist and say no of course it has what I want but the the key you're looking at the key insight is what I really want right what we all really want is to be happy right now to be at peace right now we don't actually want a future happiness the only reason we keep chasing happiness in the future is because we don't think we can have it now I can only get it when I get that outcome so we chase chase chase we're on the hamster wheel but if we actually got serious about what do I really if I could just press a button and have whatever I want we would all press the button that says a perfectly happy harmonious state of being right that's what we all want and if you got the car or the girl or the guy or the house and it made you depressed you get rid of it so it isn't really the attachment you want it's the state of being you want so detachment is like this recognition oh yeah I want to be happy now not in the future and I can't be happy now while I keep my mind in a contracted state a tunnel vision focus on one desire I think I need piece of mind is the absence of striving is the absence of attachment and so I just want to be fully in acceptance at peace with this present moment and so again to recallify that you've got to come to the realization I just described organically it can't just be a a thing you repeat as if it has magical power you really have to see this for yourself no this is actually true I really do just want to be a piece right now and so yeah I can actually see how if I keep chasing this girl or this money I'm just going to be unhappy forever and that's seeing is the the release will come from that and that's the the positive emotion I describe is it should feel good when you recallify because you're moving closer to what's true and farther from what's false and as we said what's true always feels good what's false always feels bad accidentally speaking is there anyone you know you don't have to say their name but maybe one or two people you know in the spiritual communities consciousness communities who are incredible human beings who have incredible gifts and talents that really help heal people they have a presence a love a connection that you're like man this person really influences so many people in the communities but they are just blocked around money they they don't charge money they give it all away for free they they feel guilty when someone tries to give them money they say no I can't take your money they're rejecting it and can you see how that could be hurting them from amplifying their own life's life's fulfillment but also the fulfillment of impacting others do you know anyone like that so many really a lot of people what would you say to those individuals based on your money healing journey or your relationship with money and what it seems to be you know at 28 you have a sanctuary you have a growing business but you also feel free with your money you don't feel trapped by it or feel wronged by it what advice would you give to the spiritual community who has struggles around creating financial prosperity yeah that's a great question I would say that what it means to be human is to have the capacity to move beyond any boundaries and limitations that are set on us and being a slave to money is a limitation and boundary of expressing our true nature as a creative being and so no matter what area what topic of life it is if we have stuck energy around it if we don't feel safe around it if we don't have the capacities to own it then it's limiting us and we are a limitless and so whether it's money or sexual energy or business or you know creativity wherever there's a block there is an opportunity to expand beyond that block and so when it comes to money it becomes a taboo you can get comfortable and the environment that you're in and the people that are around you that share similar beliefs that are on money that are sort of unspoken and so what I would say is to first spend time with people who don't have that same money story spend time around people that think much more expansively and don't have blocks around money and then start to challenge your own notion and write down a lot of questions we had in this conversation what does it mean to live a rich life what are my stories about money and then I think that starts to shift the direction of your focus around it and then you're given the opportunity I feel like in life so often you're given the same lesson until you pass the test and when let's say you're an artist and you sell paintings and you sell it for a couple hundred bucks but you feel like the value is there a thousand dollars or two thousand dollars you're given an opportunity next time somebody wants to buy your painting and ask for a discount to say no this is what it's worth and that's uncomfortable but it is an opportunity for you to really refine what your value is and you'll be shocked at the level of abundance that comes in as a byproduct of you standing for what your value and worth it man that's powerful yeah what would you add to that that's great well I would say that uh you know everyone watching or listening they should you should create your own mastermind and so people can learn from you in the spiritual community about how to expand their message and charge properly for their message that's what I you should start a mastermind that's what I think and it goes back to you said it's like the mastermind habit of being around people that don't think the same way as you and that's being uncomfortable that might be investing in a mastermind or investing in a culture mentor or just saying how can I be around someone like you who has figured out how to create money around this this knowledge or this skill set um but be willing to invest I there's a great story from Jen since Cheryl I don't know if you know her book you are badass I think it's sold like I'm in the five or 10 million copies and she's done a lot of the deep spiritual work but she was a writer in her early 40s like living in a garage you know at some pain like five hundred bucks a month or something in L.A. like being the broke artist vibe not a sell out I'm gonna be like the creative artist I'm gonna make art I'm gonna write and I'm gonna charge minimum because I'm not gonna sell out and she talked about how she was sick and tired of being broke and having this limiting like artist lifestyle and she ended up hiring a coach that changed her life forever this wasn't like the best coach in the world who is like a multi-millionaire but she hired a coach that knew more than her and had more courage to charge more and she spent like I can't remember like a thousand bucks a month on this coach but it was like all of her money it felt like it was so uncomfortable to invest in this coach in this coach pushed her to charge more for her writing and to go write the book that she really wanted to write and then she wrote you are a badass and it made her financially free for the rest of her life she was like if I didn't have the courage to invest I want to know then said I need to figure out how to make this money back so is that kind of stretching myself to invest in something knowledge a person a mastermind coaching to then say okay I need to now expand myself to go be able to generate more you did that when you got this house you stretch yourself financially to create a sanctuary and you expand in your ability to create abundance and that's what I would say like you give the answer surround yourself with people that think different about money and you'll start to take on those beliefs as well or these challenge those beliefs it's it's so valuable because when you see how money really is just a story beyond taking care of your own needs whether a hundred grand or a million or a hundred million it becomes kind of your norm way of like annual revenue it is a story and you learn that when you talk to really abundant people who are extremely wealthy financially and how it's the norm you almost expect it yes and so obviously you create what you expect more of and what you believe your value is worth and also start you know in the spiritual community I would just say don't stick in the spiritual community where people are not giving money away you know are not like investing in things based on what you're worth yeah they'll find wealthy people who are broken and solve their problems yeah they'll pay you a thousand times more than a spiritual person and just trading sessions with each other like go find wealthier people or people that are in a demographic that have money and solve their problems yeah the spiritual community is called planet earth and they're 7.8 billion people go find people of money yeah hey guys a quick share I have been loving this company momentous for their rigorous testing when it comes to the purity and efficacy of their products for example their big three stack which includes 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they self for up to 35% off your first order that's know they self at live momentous calm link in description as always I hope you enjoy try it out back to the show a lot of people would see individuals who are thriving externally and say that is a life that is an ideal life whether it's a sense of freedom or abundance or whatever they kind of denote is like that lifestyle and it becomes very culturally pervasive to continue to externalize and outsource our sense of freedom and security and safety into some event happening outside of us or some relation happening outside of us and the first principles way of kind of bringing this back home instead of seeing the pursuit of happiness and the the goal of everlasting piece of fulfillment is on the on the other side of certain events kind of collapsing it down and realizing we have the capacity to to source that within ourselves and so why do you think it's so pervasive to outsource our sense of freedom and safety and then let's walk us back home in our ability to source that herself yeah great question so we often tune more into what's missing than what's present so if what's missing for me is resource than I imagine if I had resources I would be happy which is why some people are stunned to discover there are wealthy people who are depressed right they're like you know why would they you know seek out therapy or why would they struggle with confidence when they quote unquote have everything but it's like but it's not everything but it sure looks like everything if those are the pieces pieces that are missing so you know we can be tricked by performance or presentation and especially in this time of social media we use this term compare despair you know it's so easy to say like oh look at them and we're looking at like they're curated life right it like it looks well put together it's well-presented or like the matching pajamas or you know but people are struggling so we get pulled into the performance and think like if my picture looked like that surely I would be joyful the other piece which I do think is important in liberation psychology we talk about the importance of not only looking at the individual but looking at context because if we just put it on the individual like then we won't pay attention to the ways in which systems affect people's peace or happiness and then we'll just say like it's an inside job don't worry about those things like you know you should just you know meditate more and so it's a both in and I think you know in psychology we sometimes use like a false dichotomy right it's that you know is it nature or nurture is it environment or internal and both things contribute right so as a society we want to work to create an atmosphere for example where things are fair fairness decreases distress if I can feel like some things are safe reliable fair and then I also while we're working one of those larger things want to do my internal part of what are the ways that I can nourish myself in the midst of this environment what do you wish to remind people about their fundamental wholeness in essence of so much of our life is spent unfortunately in this like enchanted view of the world that it's going to happen after all these things and in your own experience and so many people you've helped kind of guide to that place as well to experience that and to have a reference point for that level of freedom your respective external circumstance is the most liberating thing we can taste in our life and so what do you wish people were reminded of in regards to that I would like to remind people that we're worthy and instead of the world often gives you a feeling like you have to chase worthiness or prove yourself or obtain certain things to be significant right so we're chasing significant validation worthiness and it really requires I'm going to say a stretch of faith because we often base our conclusion on evidence right so if I have been continuously mistreated it's hard for me to believe I'm worthy because the idea is if I was worthy people would treat me better but if everybody keeps treating me this way like there must be some truth to it right and so it becomes this like radical revolutionary act to decide even if no one else believes it I am worthy right that I am sacred that I am enough and I'm going to treat myself that way and then I'm going to gravitate toward people in places that treat me like they see the truth of me so I get how from a zoomed up perspective we're just like a speck of a speck right but from a zoomed in perspective especially since so many of us were very engaged in the world in media and social media and politics it can feel so important in the moment to engage with that world but also so confusing with everything going on so I'm wondering what guidance you have for someone who wants to impact the outside world wants to do it from a clear place and not get confused how do you do that so when it comes to quality of your life the only two things one is profoundness of your experience if you sit here not because of what you're doing just if you sit here how significant is this life how significant it is depends on how profound is your experience at a given moment so when it comes to inner experience profoundness of experience is the most important thing when it comes to activity in the world impactfulness of our activity is the most important thing we don't want to do something that doesn't impact anybody you don't want to do politics that nobody's interested in you don't want to write music that nobody wants to listen to you don't want to cook food that nobody wants to eat you don't want to write a book that nobody wants to read you want to do something that is impactful isn't it so profoundness of experience if you do not establish impactfulness will become accidental and you'll always be worrying is it happening is it not happening no if this experience is very profound what you do will be of a certain quality it'll impact but how much impact is not always in our hands it is the times we are born it see right now for example many great beings have come when they spoke hardly ten people could hear them Gautam Buddha gentle being if he spoke hardly ten people can hear Krishna most exotic being he could speak only to one person and that guy is full of confusion well you Jesus came only twelve idiots and one of them freaked on him I'm saying this has been the unfortunate history isn't it so today because of technology because of various other means that we have today we can sit here and talk to the entire world was it possible for a Krishna to do it a Buddha to do it a Jesus to do it does it mean we are better than them the times isn't it so our activity is dependent on the times in which we exist how impactful are we so we are at a time like never before you can sit in one place and talk to the entire population on the planet never before this has happened not because we are better than them simply because we are fortunate we're in such times where we have such means to deliver which they did not have the had to raise their voice and speak two rows heard third row doesn't hear a damn thing yes or no this is the reality huh every idiot made up their own thing those sitting at the back this is all that happened and everybody wrote their own versions of what they said today it's being recorded if you say this is what Sadguru said they'll play the recording and say that's not it this is what he said never before this was possible so we are at a time where one man can do what ten thousand men could not do just a hundred years ago yes or no so this is a great fortune but we can also make a great misfortune out of it if we handled it sensibly consciously we can make this the greatest possibility if at all if there was a time to transform human beings it's now because never before you could even address them isn't it never before in the history of humanity you could even address them where the hell they are you don't know isn't it today you can address them if at all if there was a time or there is a time to transform humanity this is the time in this generation if we don't do it it simply means we don't have enough love in our hearts that's all there's this idea of chasing delayed gratification so I'm going to sacrifice today to be happy tomorrow that too doesn't really work because oftentimes what ends up happening is people move the goalposts so it's like then the next thing and then the next thing and then the next thing when is it enough so some people go through life forgetting how to enjoy themselves because there's this idea that I'll retire and now I'll have a good time I'm going to trade the best 40 years of my life between the ages of 20 and 60 to have 10 years at the end where I've got I need a hip replacement but I can travel the world so there's this delayed gratification which is still just chasing pleasure so the real antidote to that is dharma so dharma is what allows you to do hard things it gives you a motivating in force that allows you to embrace difficulties in life and my favorite example of this is I have daughters and so if someone were to heaven forbid like threaten them in some way that same thing if someone pulled a gun on me like I wouldn't want to deal with that I wouldn't be like engaging with them I try to run away or whatever right but if someone pulls a gun on my daughter then I'm stepping in the line of the gun and it becomes easy it becomes simple it's like there's no question like I 100% I can have fear I can have worry I can have anxiety I can have all kinds of negative states and I'm like stepping into the path of that so dharma and it makes sense to people right why would I do that because my daughter's involved so dharma everyone in life is like trying to figure out how to optimize how to be efficient how to use AI so they don't have to work hard everyone wants to not expend effort or maximize the gain that they get from an effort we just still agreed at the fundamental so dharma allows you to not do that so when you do dharma it opens up your options so dharma is fundamentally what allows you to give up gratification and live in a different way so it completely expands your options the other problem is that a lot of people confuse dharma with should and a lot of people will be like I should do this this is my dharma I should do it it's psychologically a different thing dharma comes from a deeper part of you shoulds come from mental conditionings of society so when I when my parents were like you should become a doctor there was no passion to become a doctor I ended up becoming a doctor for completely different reasons and but I did it out of dharma and then it became easy like from failing out to being at the top of my class became really easy if you're doing it in service to something one last point about dharma is that we know from addiction psychiatry and plenty of like neuroscience and stuff that in order to give up something good you have to replace it with something so like addiction is about conquering addiction is about wanting something more than what the addiction gives you right so the addiction gives me like avoidance and all this kind of stuff but I want a life I want to be able to live I want to be able to hold my head up high I want these kinds of things and so dharma kind of moves in that direction where dharma can be the substitute for all of the other desires that you have to do your duty and I think your duty is determined a lot by the harm being in harmony with your environment so my duty as a doctor is different from my duty as a husband so I'm not my wife's therapist right if I try to be my wife's therapist it's a mess I've tried doesn't work so I think like the more people start living in service to their dharma which then there's a whole question of how do you find your dharma the better off your life will like you may experience more pain but like your life will feel good and it'll be easy to live so it's kind of like strong that way yeah it seems like a bit of a lubricant in terms of your experience of life there is that again that saying from the key to that when you protect your dharma your dharma protects you protects you and it's just fascinating what comes on the path when you're living in alignment with that it does beg the question of how does one move from sheds to like authentic dharma and discovery of that what have you found for people as the as the biggest catalyst to really discovering and living in that so the biggest catalyst is controlling your injuries or your sensory organs so if we look at where do sheds come from so let's be precise in scientific about this where do sheds come from should come from your perceptions so when I get told by my grandmother oh you'd be wonderful doctor one day when my dad tells me when I'm nine years old get pulls me in my brother's side says one y'all is gonna be a doctor one y'all is gonna be a lawyer like so when I so if you look at most of what you want right and even when you say to yourself I should do this where is that idea coming from it's coming the should is a friction between the internal you and societal expectations that's literally what the word means so finding your dharma is first getting rid of all of your sheds and seeing what is left now the problem is that when we are faced with sheds that creates negativity within our brain it creates anxiety creates fear it creates lack of desire right then we have to use willpower so there's this fundamental tension and then what happens is since since the should creates an anxiety my brain needs some way to fix that that's why we turn to dopamine that's why we turn to pleasure that's why we give into wants right my the way I combat the should is by going towards a want because the should makes me feel bad I don't want to study I should study and so there's a fundamental polarization right the moment I create a positron I create an electron so there's what there's your dharma and then when you get lost of that you fill it up with sheds and then you have these compensatory wants and then you have a struggle which is the core struggle that most people have I should do this I want to do this once you get rid of the sheds and you also get rid of the want so once you get rid of the sheds then the wants will go away too because they're created by the sheds they're created as an alternative or an avoidance of a should right so I the reason I love playing video games is because I don't want to work so there's a certain amount of quietness and evolution that is necessary for that so to get away from your sheds and so the first thing that I would tell people is like you know if there's something in your mind that you should do you'll notice that there's always a want so just step away from all that and just sit dharma will come from within so when we get rid of your societal conditioning you will discover that there are natural driving impulses and the more that you give into those natural driving impulses it's not a want and it's not a should I would say the best language to use this feel like so I'll give you like a really simple example I feel hunger but I don't need to satisfy it with a burger that's a want I don't have to I should eat a salad I want to burger in hunger does that kind of make sense that's how you triangulate the dharma so the hunger and then what you do is you pay attention to what satisfies the feeling it's not a desire and it's not a should I will feel proud if I eat a salad that's wrong direction I love it when I eat a burger that's the wrong direction what makes me feel sated right what makes me feel content how do I remove the hunger and so if you look at like satvik food from ashrams you'll feel a lack of fulfillment from the dopaminergic standpoint but your body will feel good and so dharma is about feeling and feeling comes within should comes without want is to run away from yourself does that kind of make sense so that's how you find parama david here in the scotish swastris said that there's is verse ought I found that those are exactly the distinctions between intrinsic drive and extrinsic drive if you know what the hierarchy of values actually are that is not what they ought to be the conformity of society is deontological normative ethics you access your greatest potential you can actualize your potential people are confronted by their mortality and the anxiety of the eschatological mystery and so they create two mechanisms to survive it a path of individual heroism a path of immortality for the individual or a path of immortality through the collective conformity you know as young says we live in a world that we want to be ourselves in a world that doesn't want us to be and we want to make a difference we can't make a difference conforming you can only make a difference following an individual path the trailblazer the one with machete walk into the thing and not following a path but creating a path the one that had the dharma path not the karmic wheel but I realize that you will trap your life if you're not delegating you can't self-actualize your life very easily without delegation unless you completely simplify your life and do like the synchdiogenes that live in a barrel with a dog they have nothing no attachment or a Gandhi approach so I basically learned at age 27 the importance of prioritization because if you don't fill your day with high priority actions that inspire you your day is going to fill up a low priority distractions that don't and the distractions that don't are going to be unfulfilling and distracting to create a frustration to go back to priority to get you back to yourself because these are not you this highest value is the ontological identity that revolves around your highest value whatever your highest value is if you ask anybody who are they they're going to tell you whatever's highest undervalue that's going to be their answer mine's teacher of if you're raising them of a children and your highest value as a being a mother if you ask her who are you she'll say I'm a mother if you go to a person as a serial entrepreneur and ask him even though he's got three or four kids you ask him who are you he's not going to say I'm a father he's going to say I'm an entrepreneur because whatever's highest on one's value they're ontological identity revolves around their teleological purpose revolves around and their epistemological area of expertise excels there so that's where they're most powerful so finding that out and delegating anything else that devalues you is what I set out to do at age 27 and within 18 months I pretty well gave it all away and I basically teach research right and travel what's about it teach research right and travel I don't I'm pretty useless outside that I I technology I delegate business administration I just teach research right travel pretty well every day I'm like that 27 I'm 28 so I'm like I'm at that point where I'm transitioning into that full-time delegation of all the things that aren't highest priority value most meaningful to me but is there something that just that feel that you feel called to share about what would serve someone like myself who's embarking on the journey of life getting to hopefully living a life that is most meaningful and aligned with my values decades down the road I wouldn't change anything back there but I would say that it was I was very grateful to go through a few intermediate steps to get feedback on how important it is not to try to be seconded being somebody else and not try to worry about whether people like or dislike you when you can embrace both sides of yourself and be the hero in the villain the saint in the center and realize nothing's missing in you you're the most extreme of everything they could be even known the most virtuous the most vicious when you can embrace all of that then you're not going to be distracted by people's opinions but as long as you're disowning any of those the world on the outside will run you and you'll have evoke potentials instead of spontaneous potentials guiding your life so there was a concern in my 20s what will people think or what would happen if I did this and that gradually kind of became less of a priority if that makes any sense because I realized that I could have the whole world against me but the question is do I have my soul against me my soul being the state of unconditional love in my most authentic state and you're going to be liked and disliked no matter what you do I tell people you're only going to grow to the level of embracing of the hero in villain so if you can embrace this much hero but only this much villain you're only going to grow to that level you have to be able to be liked and disliked by the same number of people and if you can do that I mean Donald's a good example that Donald's got a billion people liking and disliking at least maybe four billion liking and disliking him who knows so because of that he's probably on every newspaper in every country every single day his influence how well can you embrace and own all your parts if you any any part you're disowning is emptiness any part that you could ever imagine in anything that you don't own is your emptiness 41 years ago I was about 30 years old and at the time as I mentioned earlier I went to the Oxford English dictionary and I went and identified every one of the traits inside me because that was my attempt to try to own the parts and have a preemptive strike instead of having to wait to people push my buttons and react with fore with hindsight I'd rather have foresight and identify it so when I saw that and people would say things about me I'd go okay that's true too you know somebody says you know you're this or that if I can honor that and see that I don't have a reaction they can't control me but if I try to disown it they can manipulate me and I can be influenced by them prefer of losing or gaining or something and get attached one way or the other these are the Buddhist attachments that stop people from being themselves I'm curious what you think of the balance between like realizing where a creator of reality and we can have an intention and and hopefully manifest things oftentimes and earlier on in spiritual people's journey it's at least in the west kind of directed towards materialistic purposes of trying to attract or make more money or whatever thing there's that but how do you balance that with the feeling of trust and surrender that what's meant for you will be yours and what's not meant for you you will never have and yeah taking the pressure off of trying to create your reality and kind of recognize the inherent abundance around you and and allowing the like to be surprised by the universe in a way so like yeah how do you how do you balance between intentionally manifesting and attracting what you want versus what you're speaking to also which is like kind of letting go of it and and understanding that's a that's a powerful way to live but perhaps a more powerful way to live is to also release the right one ending need for improvement and to be you know in the deeper state of gratitude and appreciation I'm glad you break that up because I've been thinking about this a lot recently because one thing I noticed is that a lot of times with people that are really adamant about creating their own reality the law of attraction manifestation one thing I notice is that a lot of times the people that are really into this kind of work also went through a lot of trauma earlier in life they may have had a spiritual awakening being too understanding that were spiritual beings of intempera human experiences but I can't ignore the fact that even within myself of me being called to it especially years ago there was a certain part of me that wanted to feel more like I was in control there was a part of me that could feel like this is what I want to create I feel like I'm in control I experienced it and then it's like I feel safety so it's almost like trying to create a sense of safety through my manifestations because if anything unknown were to happen that's the scary stuff and what if what you could actually experience in your life was so much better than what you can even imagine but we block it because we're like no I want my manifestations it's on my vision board yeah I've been manifested I've been thinking about it I've been feeling it and the way that I look at this is is kind of simple in the stage that it's basically about are you attached to outcome or are you present to the moment and enjoying the process if you follow your excitement and you're in the vibration of your passion loving what you do what you are in the vibration of is in the vibration of being you're in the vibration of embodiment you are being this version of you because it's who you choose to be not of what the result will get you and what a lot of people do with the law of attraction is they're focusing on what they want and they're trying to in a way control reality because then they can feel safe and because the future moment that they get to is going to be better than this moment right now and what happens a lot is people end up robbing themselves of the joy in the present moment and just following the passion because they're trying to get somewhere else that's going to be better so the way that I work with this is I follow the thread of excitement knowing that it's not my job to control how things happen it's my job to focus on my energy state it's my job to focus on my vibration my energy and knowing that I'm following that because it actually feels good not just because it's going to get me somewhere else and I think where a lot of people get caught up is they do it because how long do I have to do the visualizations for and how long do I have to do this passionate thing for until I get there it's a means to an end and anytime things are a means to an end that's where attachment is an attachment is what creates resistance attachment to I want to attract the partner like this this is how it's going to happen I'm going to go to a coffee shop I'm going to see them at the coffee shop and they're going to say this and then we're going to we're going to have this beautiful connection it's going to work out meanwhile you're on the way to the coffee shop and someone asks you for directions and you're like you're not the person you know what I mean like you're I'm just focused on getting to the coffee shop for that experience and it's like people end up blocking them from experiencing more magic in their life because they're trying to control it all trying to in a way regulate their nervous system through the manifestations of what they create but they end up creating more resistance in the process so I think the most powerful thing to do is to focus more on the process and to realize that it's more of an energy state that you're in because it's who you choose to be like even when I was making videos in 2017 it wasn't just making videos because eventually I quit my nine to five job I'm like oh this energy is who I choose to be and what's funny is most of the time when people are in that bean vibration and they're not just doing it for views they're not just doing it for that purpose they end up they it ends up working out much better like it ends up actually happening very rarely is it someone that's like I'm going to get on YouTube to become a famous YouTuber that becomes a famous YouTuber right it's normally people that are like they feel a calling it's just who they are even when you back in the day I remember listening to people they're like really big YouTubers like I just want to make the best videos possible I just want to make the best videos possible but it's not necessarily like I need to get the most views possible I need to get the most views possible it's more process oriented it's like there's probably a love to making videos you know and I think that that's a lot of times where people block and also when you think of attachment importance is an end result attachment is an end result and the focus is instead on who you are being that's where the energy shifts life has this illusion of continuity like for example the a lot of these lights that are around us are actually flickering maybe hundreds of times per second but because it's so fast so rapid we're not aware to the degree yeah that is actually not a full continuous light source yeah and similarly within our experience of life we have this experience of being a solid self moving through solid space and time and as you deepen from Anapana to Fapasana you're starting to really experience that illusoryness yeah you get a really clear like you know it just sort of jumps you into like what's true it's just like here's the shock of reality like you're not this still static thing you're actually just composed like you're it's a composition of all of these forces coming together and I think it's really like I'm so grateful like I think that's that's been one of my biggest points of gratitude is understanding that my identity isn't static and being able to feel the dynamism of it to be able to feel like you know my body as a rushing river of atoms and really clearly feel that you know which one of these atoms is me like where it is the focal point of my existence if everything is arising and passing away as such incredibly rapid speeds and you understand that oh it's actually okay it actually is rather helpful to understand that you simultaneously exist and you don't exist and being able to live with these two truths like Lady Sireta said you know if you say you exist that's true if you say you don't exist that's also true neither of them are lies and this is something that you get you know because you you could especially when you go to these preposterous treats you are being exposed to the ultimate reality like at the conventional level you and I are having a conversation at the ultimate level what's happening right it's just atoms it's just like a subatomic particle is moving at really rapid speeds and we just happen to be like near each other and I think knowing that has just given me so much liberty and like allowing my preferences to evolve like allowing the past be the past and like moving into the present with just openness like when you experience the impermanence of something that there will be a first and last time that we do anything in life yeah it changes radically how we approach all of our relationships our career our family and how we engage with them because as much as I love you know this conversation and and meeting you who knows what's going to happen to either of us the next moment you know and and that invites actually an immense presence and and and that brings so much more aliveness to life I think and a life that is inherently impermanent and uncertain and how things are going to transpire externally there's this awakening to the realization that of like that backwards law you know of where we try to control things or want things to happen in a certain way and the more that we try to pursue it it almost alludes us like by holding our breath we lose it you know and by trying to stay afloat we can sink and so it's this interesting balance of like you spoke to with it in terms of our internal a character logical emotional wounds and trauma trauma and stuff but then also in terms of like trying to create in the world then build our career and create the life of our dreams and what not there is this interesting balance of intention of action and then also finding the place that arises from that state of inaction of of stillness and seeing that as a bedrock one quote on your Instagram post actually said you you don't find your ground by looking for stability you find your ground by relaxing into instability and so there's this interesting universal paradoxical framing that is really interesting to put into action in our life because it's a very unique philosophical exploration but to actually live it is where liberation comes in yeah this is one of those quotes where if I were to go back I would add a little bit of context um maybe I did an a caption I forget but you don't find your ground by looking for stability you find your ground by relaxing into into instability there's a spiritual truth and that there's also a relative truth that sometimes you need to create enough external stability to allow your system to relax enough to even begin this pursuit um I think sometimes like coming out of poverty coming out of very difficult circumstances where there's a lot of chaos having a grounded relationship even if we're not sure it's like coming from the deepest place but it just like we feel stability and something feels good about that is really necessary for other parts of our system to open up so I want to acknowledge that truth and there is no example in the universe of someone attaining awakening by perfectly manufacturing their external world in many ways it can actually become a prison because it gets so comfortable that you mistake it as awakening you mistake it as freedom or you have just less and less of a reason to try to pursue something else so my invitation to people is really to look at like the classic once that happens then I can start the work and just watch how compelling that is and how subtle that is and what is it like to just meet this moment with an orientation as Bikaburi would say this moment it's like this this moment it's like this it allows us to soften our grip on how this moment should be meet it in its perfect imperfection as spiritually trite as that is and do the practice of instead of entangling ourselves with how does this need to be better in order for me to find refuge how can I keep zooming out and remember that the refuge is already here and that wholeness is not something I have to create it something that I remember I may need to fall apart in order to see that my life can be built on the resonance of space trust and surrender and that often means letting go of the need for stability surrendering into instability and seeing that there can be still a motivating cost that creates your life one really easy way to kind of measure how you're doing is to look at the last I don't know whatever you can remember say the last week go back in your memory and and remember what you did for the last week or if you go only the last day that's all right but remember it and if during that day or week keep track of how many times you had negative feelings when did you feel upset hurt angry abused misunderstood well not just misunderstood but but misunderstood in a kind of a negative way stress all of those things that was certainly anger upset at other people and think how many times did I have negative feelings most people only have to go back about two hours to find a negative feeling most people have negative feelings all the time just the news makes an angry you know everything kind of makes them angry people to disagree with them makes them angry but if you grow up that's not the case you can say well I haven't had any negative feelings for as long back as I can see well now you're doing really really well you are a low entropy person if you're the average person you have negative feelings often on regularly as you grow up it's less and less so that's how you can tell about how you're doing just the negative feelings annoyed upset shouldn't be that way those people they're screwing it all up for the rest of us you know this kind of of of attitude and we tend to blame everybody else for the things that we don't like George made me angry sources make you angry you choose to be angry you have some sort of fear and George is resonated with that fear of yours and you get angry so nobody makes you angry nobody makes you upset nobody makes you have negative feelings all that comes out of yourself so when you get rid of the fear you get rid of the ego you get rid of the beliefs beliefs or traps you get rid of the beliefs you're a happy camper you enjoy your life you smile a lot you laugh you play and you're very productive you get a lot done and anything you need or want falls at your feet just as you need in one it life just you seem to be very lucky but you're not lucky you're just leveling up in a game that's all about you know lowering your entropy becoming becoming love so that's how you know if you look at your life and say well my life is just a series of struggles I thought if I just get past this this relationship just worked out of this my boss just gave me this raise everything would be good after that and it may be good for a few weeks after that or maybe even a few months but you always end up back in that same spot with this hurdle that you have to get by or have to get over if I could just get over this and if that were true everything would be downhill after that and it doesn't work that way the only way everything is downhill after that is if you grow up and start carrying and sharing and cooperating having compassion help people you stop asking what's in it for me and instead you ask how can I help then your life gets to be good and happy I call myself a hope for pessimist in other words I see things going wrong all around me but I remain hopeful and that's partly because I believe we don't know a tent of what's actually happening partly because I think human beings are a wonderful wonderful species we've focused all the time on the things we've done wrong and there have been many of them but we should be more grateful for and aware of not in a vain way but in a humble way for what we can achieve at our best which is extraordinary and is attested to by so many historical examples and then it gives one gives one hope so don't despair and don't say it's all so much bigger than anything I can do uh I often hear you know everything seems to be going wrong but what can I do the world is such a huge place and I'm so small and this world is so tiny in respect to the cosmos yet what does it even matter I think that is the left hemisphere speaking because what the left hemisphere is saying is things are important because of their size measurement will be one is more more quantity not quality and so stop thinking in terms of quantity quality can be important in a very small quantity how big for example other things that are completely immeasurable how big is my love for the person in my life I love more than anything I may say my love is bigger than the heavens is deeper than the sea or whatever the left I was okay how how deep is that and so no that's not what I mean it's like oh what does this person mean to you no I can't explain what you mean this is the left hemisphere doing it's kind of let's get it all charted and measured and then I'll say whether it's worth doing no there are things you can do on a big level you can join organizations that hope to help and that's fine and good they may only not be successful at an intermediary level you can start modeling things like small groups of people who do aim to live together preferably without being embroiled in technology living their lives close to the ground making and eating their food together no doubt one hopes having some kind of spiritual life that they can share together and modeling something that may help us if things collapse and I do think they may well collapse and if they do the most helpful thing will be to have small centers of people rather like the monasteries in the middle ages that kept going despite everything but the third and last is there is an area which sounds so small that it can't be worth anything but it is worth everything which is in you what is in you it's so big that the left hemisphere can't even measure it and what is the only bit that you're asked to take responsibility for you're not asked to solve all the problems of the world nobody is that's completely ridiculous so let that one go instead make sure you've at least dealt with your own self and that can start tonight it can start now it doesn't have to be something that's labelled on for years and it really is the most important thing you'll ever do because you've been given you to look after you to grow as John Keith said amazing man it died at 26 in the letter to his brother this world is available so making you're so it's not something that's sort of given to you oh okay that's nice I've got one of those that's my eternal life is it but no it the soul is something you encounter in you and you grow in you or you fail to grow in you and that matters enormously to you and for you and you matter enormously but it is also part of the saving of the world if we were to put in the word of what is our potential right like you know potential is something that gets actualized over time it's not like you could realize your potential like it's a finite thing it's it's never ending which is why this is such an extraordinary game right the mounting without a top for as much as I've gone and learned and realized and let go of and shed and reconciled and mitigated like it's it's okay there's something that happened last month that I'm like oh shit I didn't even see that too you know and it's it's just beautiful because it's like it's like a sport like I love golf right like in that there's no one in the world at the best of the best they don't get it perfect that you know Ben Hogan one of the greatest he said you know in his best round of golf he hit four perfect shots you know it's like it's the consistent exploration of what it is to be us and there's a joy to that like you know it's at times it can be a pain in the ass because it's never ending but that's also part of the the gift that it is to be alive to taste it or to feel it all and to explore it all yeah it's it's again the paradox of being a limitless being within this finite human experience I remember listening to a tape where Ram Das was talking about how he's tried every plant medicine and every every mantra and he's done and every teacher you know as if there is a place other than the human experience we're supposed to get to yeah and you know the deeper realization was like what if I actually came here to have a human experience yeah how funny you know me us being humans and uh and it just invites again accepting more of our own humanity in the process of what it means to be here in this realm I watched a clip recently on on the on the gram and this guy I don't know who it was just came up with my feet and he was talking about how he because of a really bad accident he couldn't feel anything right like sort of a form of paralysis and it was so beautiful because he said when I got back you know and I started to heal it took months he said I really enjoyed pain not because pain is good but because I got to feel and I really think you know that's one of if we would have looked at this through some bigger lens of the universe that we talked about right at the beginning the gods have sent us to this particular dimension of planet earth I really feel the ultimate intention of what it is to be human is just to feel filling the blanket doesn't matter doesn't have to be joy and like you know euphoria and orgasm it could be like fucking heartache I mean I love the fact that I love my dad so much it hurt that he died you know it's all it's all an expression of love right in different different ways like and that to me is the gift that it is to be human and so whenever we deny ourselves feeling something yeah you're cutting off what it is to be alive and vital and we're so programmed to like well we only want the good shit right like don't want the bad stuff and it's like no there's there's joy in all of it underneath it's just the capacity to feel itself is the opportunity that is to be human that's saying I don't know what the truth is but I know what love feels like