Speaker 1: Before we get started, I want to give a shout
Speaker 1: out to our new Patreon members or A G. Holly S. Maddish,
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Speaker 1: go to one you feed dot net slash join. We
Speaker 1: need to let go of fear and step outside of
Speaker 1: our cocoons. And the angiogram describes at the same time
Speaker 1: your cocoon and the way out of the cocoon. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have
Speaker 1: recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like
Speaker 1: garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think
Speaker 1: rings true, And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking
Speaker 1: our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Susan Piver, a New
Speaker 1: York Times bestselling author of many books, including the award
Speaker 1: winning How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life,
Speaker 1: The Wisdom of a Broken Heart, Start Here Now, An
Speaker 1: Open Hearted Guide to the path and practice of meditation,
Speaker 1: and The Four Noble Truths of Love, Buddhism Wisdom for
Speaker 1: Modern Relationships. Susan has been a practicing Buddhist since and
Speaker 1: graduated from Buddhist Seminary in two thousand four. She's an
Speaker 1: internationally acclaimed meditation teacher known for her ability to translate
Speaker 1: ancient practices into modern life. Her work has been featured
Speaker 1: on The Oprah Show, Today, CNN, The New York Times,
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, and many others. In two thousand thirteen,
Speaker 1: she launched the Open Heart Project, the largest virtual mindfulness
Speaker 1: community in the world, and her newest book is The
Speaker 1: Buddhist Angiogram Nine Paths to Warriorship. Hi, Susan, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Hi, Thank you it's so good to see
Speaker 1: you again and be with you. Yeah, it's a pleasure
Speaker 1: to have you on again. I don't know if this
Speaker 1: is time number three four, I don't know. It's been
Speaker 1: a number of times, and so we are happy to
Speaker 1: have you back. You've got a new book out called
Speaker 1: the Buddhist Angiogram, Nine Paths to Warriorship, So we're going
Speaker 1: to be jumping into that, but before we do, we
Speaker 1: have to go through the pair double. It's kind of
Speaker 1: part of the show. So God, yes, great, I love it. Okay,
Speaker 1: you can tie it to the indiogram. Here we go.
Speaker 1: In the parable, there's a grandparent talking with a grandchild
Speaker 1: and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside
Speaker 1: of us that are always at battle. One is a
Speaker 1: good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love,
Speaker 1: and the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and
Speaker 1: thinks about it for a second, looks up at their
Speaker 1: grandparents as well. Which one wins, and the grandparents says,
Speaker 1: the one you feed. So I'd like to start off
Speaker 1: by asking you what that parable means to you in
Speaker 1: your life and in the work that you do. Thank you,
Speaker 1: it's so beautiful. The first thing that comes to mind
Speaker 1: is don't feed either. And when ideas of goodness and
Speaker 1: badness drop away, according to wisdom tradition, you will be
Speaker 1: in reality. I love that. The place I was thinking
Speaker 1: about that parable in relation to your book, is thinking
Speaker 1: about the idea of these arcs of transformation right that
Speaker 1: each type in the innagram sort of has a journey
Speaker 1: from its passion or neurosis to its virtue or its brilliance,
Speaker 1: which will get into Let's start at the beginning, because
Speaker 1: the innagram is something that some people know and love,
Speaker 1: some people know and don't love, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't know. Let's start with what is it perfect?
Speaker 1: Anya e n n e a is the Greek prefix
Speaker 1: for nine, and the angiogram describes nine ways of being
Speaker 1: and sometimes called nine personality types. But I have discovered
Speaker 1: or feel that it just goes way beyond personality. It
Speaker 1: describes nine essential kinds of being ways of being, and
Speaker 1: each of us are one of them. And it's a
Speaker 1: beautiful and complex and also very direct into the point
Speaker 1: system for describing the differences between people. You hit on
Speaker 1: something there that I wanted to dig into a little bit,
Speaker 1: because the indiogram, on one level, at least, is the
Speaker 1: way it's often presented, is a personality test. I answer
Speaker 1: a series of questions about how I respond to things
Speaker 1: in the world, similar to I would if I was
Speaker 1: doing Meyer Briggs, I'm given some sort of type, you know,
Speaker 1: and Myers Briggs. I'd be an I, n F J
Speaker 1: or I don't actually don't know what I am, but
Speaker 1: I would be given a type, and that would say
Speaker 1: some things about me. I have heard over and over
Speaker 1: from people the the inngiogram is a spiritual system, not
Speaker 1: a personality system. And when I've asked people that question,
Speaker 1: I've never gotten what felt like a satisfactory answer as
Speaker 1: to why that is. And so I'm wondering if you
Speaker 1: can tell me why. In your mind, it's more than
Speaker 1: a personality system. And in order to do that, we
Speaker 1: might need to define what we mean by personality, and
Speaker 1: that may be where the confusion in my mind is.
Speaker 1: But say a little bit about that. Well, it is
Speaker 1: a personality typing system, but it is so much more
Speaker 1: than that. It depends on the mind of the user.
Speaker 1: Just like meditation. Is it something that will help you
Speaker 1: calm down, is something that will help you be a
Speaker 1: better parent or better leader? Yeah? Is it something that
Speaker 1: can guide you to liberation from suffering and enlighten to
Speaker 1: full enlightenment. Yes, it really depends on what you are
Speaker 1: looking for or the door you enter. So it's very
Speaker 1: similar with the angiogram. If you want to have a
Speaker 1: fun parlor game to you know, talk about, well, what
Speaker 1: would five's order at Starbucks and so on, you can
Speaker 1: do that. If you want to use it as a
Speaker 1: personality typing system, you know, you always focus on this
Speaker 1: this is your talking style. Great, you can do that too.
Speaker 1: But if you're looking for a way to see what
Speaker 1: you cannot see about yourself and to gain more knowledge
Speaker 1: about your particular path of transformation, what blocks you and
Speaker 1: what guides you in a healthy way, you can find
Speaker 1: that in the aniogram. So it's in the use of
Speaker 1: it that it can be used as a spiritual tool,
Speaker 1: or it could be used as a personality tool, or
Speaker 1: it could be used as a parlor game. It's really
Speaker 1: the point to which we're using it and when you're
Speaker 1: tying it to your Buddhist practice. In your Buddhist practice
Speaker 1: is tied to liberation, the aniogram then becomes a means
Speaker 1: towards liberation in the sense that you want to use it.
Speaker 1: It helps you go deeper in your own journey, and
Speaker 1: it generates tremendous compassion, first for yourself and then for others.
Speaker 1: So if compassion which doesn't mean being nice, it means
Speaker 1: being awake. If compassion is part of your practice, this
Speaker 1: is the most potent, skillful means I have ever found.
Speaker 1: That's just me to going deeper in my capacity to
Speaker 1: be compassionate towards myself and others. Well, you win the award.
Speaker 1: You've finally given me an explanation of when people say
Speaker 1: that the inniagram is a spiritual system, that makes sense
Speaker 1: to me. It's in the use to what we're trying
Speaker 1: to do. Wonderful. The subtitle of the book is Nine
Speaker 1: Paths to Warriorship, and you mentioned that the means nine,
Speaker 1: so we come up with nine types. Why do you
Speaker 1: call it nine Paths to Warriorship? Well, this gets back
Speaker 1: again to your question of what makes it a spiritual system.
Speaker 1: And as you mentioned, each type has a passion, which
Speaker 1: in the angiogram language is considered passion not in the
Speaker 1: good sense, but a neurosis. And each type has a virtue.
Speaker 1: So for example, for type number one, the passion is
Speaker 1: called anger. When things don't go their way, they get
Speaker 1: angry and we all get angry, but it's their first
Speaker 1: go to. The virtue is called serenity. So in the angiogram,
Speaker 1: the journey is from anger to serenity. So if you're
Speaker 1: looking for a psychological instrument or a personality test, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: stop being angry and start being serene. However, you can
Speaker 1: figure out how to do that. But if you want
Speaker 1: to use it as a spiritual journey, and this is
Speaker 1: very consonant with the Buddhist to you in the Vagriana tradition,
Speaker 1: in any case, that within each afflictive emotion there is
Speaker 1: a seed of wisdom. So anger and serenity are on
Speaker 1: a spectrum with each other. So it's not like you
Speaker 1: chop off one into the spectrum and grasp the other end.
Speaker 1: You use the end that you start add to traverse
Speaker 1: to the far end. So anyway, anger and serenity in
Speaker 1: this sense are not in opposition. They are two sides
Speaker 1: of a single coin. So if you're a one, this
Speaker 1: is one way of looking at your journey, your arc
Speaker 1: of transformation. And because you have anger, you have a
Speaker 1: connection to serenity because the negative space around anger, you
Speaker 1: could say, is serenity. So each type has their own
Speaker 1: journey to make. That journey is to be a warrior.
Speaker 1: Takes courage to look at what you can't see about
Speaker 1: yourself and don't want to see about yourself on behalf
Speaker 1: of your own awakening. Yeah, there is a phrase in
Speaker 1: the book You Had that I loved, which is the
Speaker 1: primary obstacle to spiritual attainment is being afraid of yourself.
Speaker 1: In the tradition, I was trained in warriorship, which is
Speaker 1: not about going to battle. The warrior's enemies are grasping, aggression,
Speaker 1: and delusion, and the first definition of a warrior is
Speaker 1: a warrior is one who is not afraid of themselves.
Speaker 1: So it all begins there. The journey begins there, whether
Speaker 1: you would call it warriorship or something else. The angiogram
Speaker 1: has helped me, and not just me, be less afraid
Speaker 1: of myself because it's given me a way to see
Speaker 1: myself in a gentler light for who I am. I
Speaker 1: can stop trying to be someone else. Personality tests, I'm
Speaker 1: going to use that term broadly, can lead to typing
Speaker 1: and can lead to labels, which I have a mixed
Speaker 1: feeling about these things, because, on one hand, understanding yourself
Speaker 1: is really powerful, like, oh, okay, I'm not bad. This
Speaker 1: is kind of the way I am. And if we're
Speaker 1: not careful, I worry about living into it. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of debate in the addiction community these days.
Speaker 1: Is the label alcoholic damaging? Right? Is the belief that
Speaker 1: you're this thing damaging? Now, let's not go down that
Speaker 1: rabbit hole with alcoholism today, but talk to me about,
Speaker 1: you know, the concern about defining myself and the risk
Speaker 1: of living into my definitions. Yeah, so the angiogram is
Speaker 1: not nine ghettos, although it can be used that way.
Speaker 1: You can use it against yourself, like, well, these are
Speaker 1: my limitations because the Instagram told me, and you can
Speaker 1: more dangerously use it against others. You're only going to
Speaker 1: do it this way or that way because you're a
Speaker 1: seven or two or whatever it is you are. So
Speaker 1: you stop seeing other people's humanity and you stop seeing
Speaker 1: your own. The label becomes a box. And there are
Speaker 1: people who don't want to be labeled anything. Okay, but
Speaker 1: you're already in a box. You're in a box right now.
Speaker 1: So it's not like the angiogram is going to put
Speaker 1: you in a box. You're in a box now. So
Speaker 1: do you want to find your way out? Well, there's
Speaker 1: nine paths out, you could say, in a very oversimplified way.
Speaker 1: And if I try to do it the way a
Speaker 1: seven would, for example, by finding the joy in the journey,
Speaker 1: that would be not great for me. That's a beautiful way.
Speaker 1: But if I try to find the way out through
Speaker 1: deepening into my sorrows, that is a good way for me.
Speaker 1: It don't sound fun, I know, but I'm a four
Speaker 1: and that embracing the blue notes in the various situations
Speaker 1: you encounter is helpful to me. If I'm standing next
Speaker 1: to someone that it wants to find the joy in
Speaker 1: the journey, we're looking at each other like you're crazy. However,
Speaker 1: if I see, well, this is just how I do it,
Speaker 1: and that's how you do it, you know we can
Speaker 1: walk side by side more readily. Yep. So the question
Speaker 1: everybody has is, all right, well, how do I know
Speaker 1: what type I am? And you say that there is
Speaker 1: no test for this, and I think what you mean
Speaker 1: is there are tests. There's a whole bunch of tests
Speaker 1: out there. No one test is going to necessarily give
Speaker 1: you the right answer. That it takes more than a
Speaker 1: five minute test to understand what your type is. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: that is firmly my opinion, and there are other people
Speaker 1: who have equally firm opposing opinions. Cool. But what I
Speaker 1: have seen, and I've been studying the angiogram and Buddhism
Speaker 1: now for close to thirty years, I have no idea
Speaker 1: how that happened. If you want to know your Myers Briggs,
Speaker 1: or you want to know your Coldbys, or you're interested
Speaker 1: in the strength minders, these other instruments, those are good tests.
Speaker 1: They will be accurate. If you want to know your
Speaker 1: angiogram number, it's very iffy. There's no single instrument like
Speaker 1: there are for these other systems. Like you say, there
Speaker 1: are many tests, and I mean I take them all
Speaker 1: and I find a new one just to see if
Speaker 1: because I know what my type is, I try to
Speaker 1: answer honestly and see if it comes up with my number.
Speaker 1: But my suggestion to for finding your type is take
Speaker 1: all the tests. Like you say, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of them, take all the free tests, and then start
Speaker 1: to notice, oh, these two numbers are these three numbers
Speaker 1: come up more than others. Okay, those are great starting points.
Speaker 1: Those are data points, they're not answers. So take those
Speaker 1: data points and then you can dive into the angiogram
Speaker 1: from any number of places. First by noting that the
Speaker 1: nine types of making a circle you can't see me
Speaker 1: that are grouped around a circle, and they comprise three
Speaker 1: groups of three according to center of intelligence. You have
Speaker 1: all the centers of intelligence, but one of them is predominant.
Speaker 1: It's not always easy to tell which one is yours.
Speaker 1: So eight, nine and one rely predominantly on the intelligence
Speaker 1: of instinct, two, three and four rely predominantly on the
Speaker 1: emotional intelligence, and five, six and seven on mental intelligence
Speaker 1: the reasoning mind. So again we all do all three.
Speaker 1: But if you start to notice that five and four
Speaker 1: come up for me, well, five is on the mental triad,
Speaker 1: four is on the emotional triad. So you can start
Speaker 1: to think, well, I do both, but more this or that,
Speaker 1: and those are really good entry points. Is it possible
Speaker 1: to be more of a nine than another person or
Speaker 1: more of a seven? Whenever I've taken the Instagram, whenever
Speaker 1: I've taken other personality tests, I seem to be like
Speaker 1: if you could land right in the middle. I seem
Speaker 1: to land like right in the middle. Partially, I think
Speaker 1: that's because all the questions I'm like, well, it depends
Speaker 1: would I rather read a book or go to a party? Well,
Speaker 1: I need a whole lot more information before I can
Speaker 1: before before I can decide upon that simple fact. Right,
Speaker 1: But I do have this tendency to land and very similar.
Speaker 1: So some of the instigram tests give you your numbers
Speaker 1: like thirty points on a nine and twenty eight points
Speaker 1: on a seven and ten points on a four, and
Speaker 1: mine are like there's a bunch that are grouped like
Speaker 1: right by each other. Three, seven, and nine seem to
Speaker 1: show up most for me. Nine is the one I've
Speaker 1: been operating under. But when you talked about the talking
Speaker 1: styles of nines, I went, that is not me. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of the polar opposite of that. And I should
Speaker 1: explain that for listeners, you talk about different things that
Speaker 1: are inherent to each type. I don't think we'll get
Speaker 1: through all of them, but but one of them is
Speaker 1: a talking style that each type has. The talking style
Speaker 1: for a nine is a saga, but that is not me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, if I can say in three words what
Speaker 1: most people would say in three sentences like that's my challenges.
Speaker 1: It's like I have like three words. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know how else to say this, but like
Speaker 1: I am tired. You know, I got nothing to add
Speaker 1: to this. Full respect for that, by the way, So
Speaker 1: my talking style doesn't match the nine, But three, seven,
Speaker 1: and nine are the ones that seem to come up
Speaker 1: most often for me. So that's very interesting because three
Speaker 1: is in the center of the emotional triad. Each central number, three, six,
Speaker 1: and nine are disconnected from their core intelligence. That would
Speaker 1: be accurate. Threes are disconnect they have trouble finding their heart,
Speaker 1: and they rely significantly on appearances because when you don't
Speaker 1: know what you feel, then all you have to go
Speaker 1: on is appearances. So I'm not saying that about you. Obviously,
Speaker 1: seven is on the mental triad, and the talking style
Speaker 1: is called planning. We could do this, we could do that.
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting. What if you put these two things
Speaker 1: together and it's the exteriorized type on the mental triad
Speaker 1: putting the mental energy out there, and nine is in
Speaker 1: the center of the intuitive triad. So you've got all
Speaker 1: three intel aigences in your results, and nines are disconnected.
Speaker 1: From their instincts, and each type has an avoidance. As
Speaker 1: you mentioned, I'm talking style and all sorts of other things.
Speaker 1: Not for nines. The avoidance is conflict. Yes, if you're
Speaker 1: not particularly conflict avoidant, you may not be a nine.
Speaker 1: Oh I am. I am highly conflict avoidant. I've gotten
Speaker 1: much better at it, but yeah, my default is to
Speaker 1: hide from conflict. The other thing that I've heard about
Speaker 1: the indiogram and what I've heard about nines is that
Speaker 1: nines encompass all the other types to a certain degree.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if that's accurate or not, but
Speaker 1: that's another reason I thought, well, maybe I'm a nine,
Speaker 1: because as I read them, I'm like, well, I don't
Speaker 1: feel really strongly like that or really strongly that, but
Speaker 1: it maybe to your point, I'm sort of cut off,
Speaker 1: you know, from that deeper nature or knowing. Nines can
Speaker 1: see all points of view except their own. Yes, And
Speaker 1: that's why I think my superpower and my super weakness
Speaker 1: is exactly that. My superpower is I can see everybody's
Speaker 1: point of you. I would be an outstanding diplomat. But
Speaker 1: if you ask me what do I want, I'm like what,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what kind of question is that, do
Speaker 1: you have trouble making decision? Sometimes it's interesting because the
Speaker 1: way I have framed it in the past, and it's
Speaker 1: so interesting when things start layering over each other. Right,
Speaker 1: Because when I have trouble making decisions is very often
Speaker 1: when I am what I would call depressed, right, And
Speaker 1: that is a symptom of depression. Right. They say a
Speaker 1: symptom of depression is an inability to sort of decide.
Speaker 1: So sometimes yes and other times no, it depends what
Speaker 1: it is. But when it comes closer to my personal life,
Speaker 1: it's harder for me to make a decision, like I've
Speaker 1: got the afternoon free, should I go to the rock
Speaker 1: climbing gym? Should I go to the record store? Should
Speaker 1: I go to the library? I don't know. Ask me
Speaker 1: to make a decision. Business wise, I can usually sort
Speaker 1: of think my way through that and be like, this
Speaker 1: is it. I don't have a lot of hesitancy. I'm
Speaker 1: willing to go. So within each tie there are three
Speaker 1: sub types, and one of them doesn't look like the
Speaker 1: other two, and that can make it harder to find yourself.
Speaker 1: So this, to me is the third piece in typing yourself.
Speaker 1: And we'll relate it back to you in nine in
Speaker 1: a second. But take all the tests, see if you
Speaker 1: can identify with one or another of the centers of intelligence,
Speaker 1: and then look at your sub type as it's called
Speaker 1: or instinctual drive in the angiogram. Now we all have
Speaker 1: all of these instinctual drives, but one of them is predominant.
Speaker 1: And the first instinctual drive is for self preservation. I'm
Speaker 1: worried about threats, you know anything from what if I
Speaker 1: go somewhere and it's too cold, I better bring layers two?
Speaker 1: Are the walls about to fall down? And where's the exit?
Speaker 1: How do I get out of here? That's me, I'm
Speaker 1: a self preservation for the second drive is social drive,
Speaker 1: drive to belong to something bigger than yourself, or to
Speaker 1: be in a tribe, or to relate with a group.
Speaker 1: And then the third drive is the sexual drive or
Speaker 1: intimate drive, which doesn't just me and want to I
Speaker 1: want to have sex with everyone. It means I want
Speaker 1: to connect with someone someone in the important experiences of
Speaker 1: my life. So if the three subtypes are going to
Speaker 1: a work event, let's say, the self preservation person, whether
Speaker 1: there are nine or four or whatever, will be like
Speaker 1: what if I don't like the food, and what am
Speaker 1: I going to sleep on? And what if it's too cold?
Speaker 1: That's me. The second social subtype, whether you or whatever number,
Speaker 1: will wonder things like how will the room be arranged?
Speaker 1: Will people be able to see me? If people go
Speaker 1: out to eat together, will they invite me? Do I
Speaker 1: feel proud to belong to this group or not? What
Speaker 1: does it say about me that I belong to this group?
Speaker 1: So that's really different than I better bring snacks? And
Speaker 1: then the third subtype, the intimate subtype, will think will
Speaker 1: there be someone there who will get me? Who I
Speaker 1: can talk to, who I can share this experience with.
Speaker 1: We can like sit next to each other, we can
Speaker 1: have you know, give side eye each other when things
Speaker 1: seem weird, and you know, spend time together. So that's
Speaker 1: easier to find. Usually, whatever your type is, that's the
Speaker 1: hardest to find. Your subtype is easier to find. Hi, everyone,
Speaker 1: I wanted to personally invite you to a workshop that
Speaker 1: we are offering at the end of October at the
Speaker 1: Omega Institute, which is in the Hudson Valley in New York,
Speaker 1: and it is really beautiful this time of year. It's
Speaker 1: going to be a great chance to meet some wonderful people,
Speaker 1: recharge and relax while learning foundational spiritual habits that will
Speaker 1: allow you to establish simple daily practices that will help
Speaker 1: you feel more at ease and more fulfilled in your life.
Speaker 1: You can find details at one you feed, dot net
Speaker 1: slash omega. I'm really looking forward to meeting many of
Speaker 1: you there. Do any of those three resonate with you?
Speaker 1: I think the first or the second in probably fairly
Speaker 1: equal measure, Like is the food going to be good?
Speaker 1: Am I going to be comfortable? And what's the social situation?
Speaker 1: Usually if it's an event, is the anxiety around the
Speaker 1: social situation? Like don't put me in a room with
Speaker 1: fifty people. You know what I should say is don't
Speaker 1: put me in a room with fifty people and no alcohol.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm recovering fifteen years sober, so alcohol is
Speaker 1: off the table. Put me in a room with alcohol.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to wander in there and make some friends,
Speaker 1: but I don't like to do that, although I am
Speaker 1: pretty good one on one with people. So what you're
Speaker 1: describing is anxiety in the group situation, which I share,
Speaker 1: and that's a fear thing I'm not generally speaking, it's
Speaker 1: a self preservation related okay, okay, So I would invite
Speaker 1: you to consider if you're a nine, that you might
Speaker 1: be a self preservation nine, which looks different than the
Speaker 1: social nine and the sexual nine. Self preservation nine is
Speaker 1: called appetite, and that doesn't mean you know you're eating
Speaker 1: too much. It means you're looking to self narchetize by
Speaker 1: some means, whether it's alcohol or television or making money,
Speaker 1: you want something to self narchetize. Social nine is called participation.
Speaker 1: They're in groups, but they don't have a particular role,
Speaker 1: and sexual nine is called union. They're looking for the
Speaker 1: partner to provide an agenda for their lives. So those
Speaker 1: are really different. But self preservation nine is very particular
Speaker 1: and something to investigate. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I've I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously being a recovering alcoholic and heroin addict that literally narcotics.
Speaker 1: I don't want to derail this entire interview into my typing,
Speaker 1: although I think it is helpful to sort of give
Speaker 1: these things a little bit of a reference. So we've
Speaker 1: talked about how to type yourself, which is, take all
Speaker 1: the tests you mentioned, try and identify your primary triad,
Speaker 1: right intuition, emotion or reason, try and understand your sub type.
Speaker 1: What are some other things that we might do? You know,
Speaker 1: if we really want to go deeper into this, and
Speaker 1: you know we've taken the one test and we want
Speaker 1: to know more, what are some other things to look at.
Speaker 1: You want to know more about the angiogram, or you
Speaker 1: want to know more about which type you are, more
Speaker 1: about how to figure out which type we are. So
Speaker 1: there's one additional thing you can do, and it's called
Speaker 1: be patient, because it can take time, and this system
Speaker 1: is deep, it's incredibly nuanced, and we want to use it.
Speaker 1: I would say, not to reify ourselves, but to discover
Speaker 1: who we are beyond our conventional way of being, and
Speaker 1: that takes patience. If you want to learn more about
Speaker 1: yourself and learn more about other people, and learn more
Speaker 1: about how the world works, great, I want all those
Speaker 1: things too. But if you want to discover how to
Speaker 1: let go of aspects of your identity that don't serve you,
Speaker 1: this is a way to do it. This can support that.
Speaker 1: So if you want to be more awake, more compassionate,
Speaker 1: and more powerful, because those, as I was trained, are
Speaker 1: the three qualities of the awakened mind. The awakened mind
Speaker 1: is wise, meaning clear, It is compassionate, and it is
Speaker 1: confident or powerful. We need to let go of fear
Speaker 1: and step outside of our cocoons, and the angiogram describes
Speaker 1: at the same time your cocoon and the way out
Speaker 1: of the cocoon. That's what drew me to it originally,
Speaker 1: was that very thing you said that it's sort of
Speaker 1: pointed out, here's what you might look like when you're
Speaker 1: and there's lots of different words for this, right, I'll
Speaker 1: just use here's what you might look like when you're wishing,
Speaker 1: and here's what you might look like when you are
Speaker 1: not doing so well. Because I've always felt that about myself.
Speaker 1: Like again, on one hand, there's a heroin Addict who
Speaker 1: is homeless, and then my life today, and in some
Speaker 1: ways I can look at those two people and be like, well,
Speaker 1: they do not seem at all the same. Now they
Speaker 1: are obviously in some ways. In some ways they're not.
Speaker 1: But that's what I liked about the anagram as I went, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: like I can see that is me at my worst
Speaker 1: and that is me at my best. That makes sense,
Speaker 1: you know? Do you call those the arc of transformation.
Speaker 1: I think what we're talking about is the passions in
Speaker 1: the virtues, which is the arc of transformation. So one
Speaker 1: part of it is it gives us an understanding of
Speaker 1: that and what that transformation looks like. And then there
Speaker 1: are the arrows of integration and disintegration. That's something different.
Speaker 1: Explain what that is. Yeah, if anyone looks at a
Speaker 1: diagram of the angiogram, they'll notice that there are lines
Speaker 1: connecting the points pointing in different directions, and those lines
Speaker 1: have meaning and they point to what you were saying,
Speaker 1: integration and disintegration points. I've heard that some people in
Speaker 1: Instagram circles don't want to use those words anymore. I
Speaker 1: don't know why. I think they're accurate. I can never
Speaker 1: remember the journey for nine. Let's say you're four, and
Speaker 1: you take your seat, and you own your fornas, and
Speaker 1: you embrace who you are and so on. You don't
Speaker 1: stop at the beauty of four. You sort of go
Speaker 1: through the ceiling of four and take on the high
Speaker 1: qualities of a second type that's called the integration point.
Speaker 1: Four's integrate at one, which is a very crisp, clear,
Speaker 1: black and white point. Force are not unethical, but it's
Speaker 1: a little soupy in here. So when force integrated one,
Speaker 1: that's a kind of rigor that is more accessible. And
Speaker 1: when a four goes to their natural defenses, which is
Speaker 1: to cry and hide, and I wonder why no one
Speaker 1: thinks I'm special and withdraw and that doesn't work. Four
Speaker 1: drops through the floor of four embraces the low qualities
Speaker 1: of two, which is the most giving and generous of
Speaker 1: the types. So a four in stress reaches out to
Speaker 1: others for reassurance, and that's not a terrible thing to do,
Speaker 1: but for a four, that's that's a sign of things
Speaker 1: aren't working for me. So those are the integration and
Speaker 1: disintegration points. And in the Buddhist angiogram, I try to
Speaker 1: equate them with peaceful and wrathful deities. In the Tibetan tradition,
Speaker 1: I was trained in each deity, or most deities have
Speaker 1: various emanations. Some are peaceful and some are wrathful. The
Speaker 1: peaceful ones, you know, they're in flowing garments and sitting
Speaker 1: in clouds and stuff like that. And the wrathful ones
Speaker 1: have bangs and they're standing on babies, and they have
Speaker 1: necklaces of skulls, and you know, what's up with that?
Speaker 1: And because according to the lore, the peaceful and wrathful
Speaker 1: deities have the same focus, which is your wakefulness, and
Speaker 1: how can we help you with that? So the peaceful
Speaker 1: deities through you know, gentleness, and the wrathful deities through sharpness.
Speaker 1: So it's useful to integrate, and it's useful to disintegrate
Speaker 1: and to learn more about your specific journeys of integration disintegration.
Speaker 1: The angiogram can really help. And so the ways you
Speaker 1: describe the intagram being useful to you. It gave me
Speaker 1: direct in specific instructions on how to meet my world
Speaker 1: with an open heart, not on principal but with actual guidelines.
Speaker 1: M I did say that, did I did? And I
Speaker 1: stand by it. And it's very pragmatic and useful on
Speaker 1: a practical level. So for instance, if you are a
Speaker 1: nine and my stepson is a nine, and I've been
Speaker 1: in close relationships with many nins, I love nines. I
Speaker 1: love all the types, but I really love nines. I
Speaker 1: know that if I ask him a question point blank,
Speaker 1: what do you want to do? Do you want to
Speaker 1: do this? Or that he doesn't know. If I keep pushing,
Speaker 1: well know this is good because of that and that's
Speaker 1: good because of this which one it won't work. I
Speaker 1: can't push him because nines, for all their flowing nous
Speaker 1: and ability to see all points of view, are unbelievably stubborn.
Speaker 1: You cannot move them. So if I'm saying to him,
Speaker 1: would you make a choice, I have to give a
Speaker 1: lot of space and just oh, he's going to do
Speaker 1: it in this non linear way. Great. My husband, my partner,
Speaker 1: is a one who sees right and wrong. The first
Speaker 1: time we talked about so I'm concerned with that, but
Speaker 1: that's not the first thing that gets my attention. So
Speaker 1: when we get in an argument, he wants to see
Speaker 1: where it went wrong and who made a mistake. I
Speaker 1: don't find that useful. I want to know what does
Speaker 1: this mean about us and our relationship and how does
Speaker 1: it make you feel? And I want you to know
Speaker 1: how I feel, and I can tell you very precisely
Speaker 1: exactly how I feel. So wanting to know where we
Speaker 1: went off the rails and wanting to know what the
Speaker 1: impact is on each of us emotionally, those are both
Speaker 1: really important things, and they're different, and for the longest time,
Speaker 1: I'm like, why are you wasting our time? Trying to
Speaker 1: assign blame, and he I'm sure I thought something similar
Speaker 1: about me. If we can only figure out where it started,
Speaker 1: we cannot do it again. So it just gives more
Speaker 1: space for meeting each other, which of course is everything.
Speaker 1: It's interesting if I think about the nine and the
Speaker 1: conflict avoidance, right, If I look at conflict avoidance through
Speaker 1: the lens of the indiogram, then I go, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I'm avoiding conflict because I'm a nine. You're not avoiding
Speaker 1: conflict because you're nine. You're a nine, so you're avoiding conflict.
Speaker 1: Got it? Got it. The other lens is I avoid
Speaker 1: conflict because I had angry parents. Wasn't safe to enter
Speaker 1: into conflict. So I guess this gets it a question
Speaker 1: that I think is sort of unanswerable, which is, to
Speaker 1: what degree does our conditioning, the experiences that we had
Speaker 1: in our lives make us a particular type. And if
Speaker 1: that were the case, if that was the sole factor,
Speaker 1: you would assume you would change type throughout life based
Speaker 1: on the experiences you were having. And you believe that
Speaker 1: we kind of are a type. So say more about that.
Speaker 1: Do you have siblings, yes? Did they respond to the
Speaker 1: aggressive home environment? In the same way as you. One
Speaker 1: of them did, another did not. Yeah. So I have
Speaker 1: siblings too, and we responded in our own ways. I
Speaker 1: don't know at what point conditioning makes you a type
Speaker 1: or your type colors the conditioning. I don't know. But
Speaker 1: three people or twenty three people can grow up in
Speaker 1: the same household and have three or twenty three different
Speaker 1: defenses built. Yeah, so I think the angiogram can deconstruct
Speaker 1: the defenses. But I don't think the conditioning makes the type.
Speaker 1: I think the type makes the reaction to the conditioning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm making that up. I don't really know. I'm
Speaker 1: not a therapist or anything like that, but that's my observation.
Speaker 1: We've been talking about the inagram through the lens of
Speaker 1: viewing ourselves and working with ourselves more skillfully. You also
Speaker 1: say that it enables us to see others apart from
Speaker 1: our likes, dislikes, opinions, and judgments. You sort of touched
Speaker 1: on it with your husband there, but say more about
Speaker 1: the way the angiogram leads us to compassion for others.
Speaker 1: That's my favorite subject probably. So here's an example from
Speaker 1: a place I used to work. I had a person
Speaker 1: I worked with great, guys, we're still friends. This is
Speaker 1: twenty years ago or so. And we worked on creative
Speaker 1: projects together and I would sit in my office and
Speaker 1: noodle around with ideas, and then I go into his
Speaker 1: office and I go, I think we might be able
Speaker 1: to do this. I think this could be a good
Speaker 1: direction for us to go in. And he would listen
Speaker 1: to me, and then he would list all the reasons
Speaker 1: it wouldn't work, boom boom, boom, boom boom, and I
Speaker 1: would leave defeated, and I didn't like myself. I didn't
Speaker 1: like him. Then I realized he was a six on
Speaker 1: the angiogram. Sixes are attuned to danger. They can point
Speaker 1: out where the pitfalls are better than anyone else. They're
Speaker 1: at tuned to what could go wrong, and at some
Speaker 1: point in a creative project, always you need to know
Speaker 1: what could go wrong. So I stopped telling him my
Speaker 1: ideas in the German Nation phase, and I only told
Speaker 1: him the ideas when I wanted to know what could
Speaker 1: go wrong. So that's not like the world's most glorious
Speaker 1: example of compassion, but it softened the relationship that we had,
Speaker 1: and I understood him better and enabled us to work
Speaker 1: together more closely, and I stopped trying to make him
Speaker 1: respond in a way that would make me feel heard
Speaker 1: and instead work from our strengths together. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: It totally doesn't. I think that's why workplaces more and
Speaker 1: more embraced things like strength Finder and Myers Briggs and
Speaker 1: all that, which was if you can sort of understand
Speaker 1: the way people around you respond to certain things, you
Speaker 1: can take it in a very different way. Like you said,
Speaker 1: you don't have to take it personal. In that case,
Speaker 1: you use the word skillful means a lot to describe
Speaker 1: the indiogram, right that that's skillful means when you can
Speaker 1: be like, all right, this is the right time to
Speaker 1: approach this person with this thing. This is the right
Speaker 1: way in this example, did that person sort of tell
Speaker 1: you they were a six? Did you into it they
Speaker 1: were a six? You've said you really probably shouldn't type
Speaker 1: other people. Talk about how we do that skillfully. Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you. That's really important because we can't really type
Speaker 1: other people. So when I read someone, or I'm working
Speaker 1: with someone or teaching and I have a student or
Speaker 1: a fellow teacher or whatever, I can't help it. I
Speaker 1: don't do it consciously, but at some point I start
Speaker 1: to notice the flavor of the type, except sometimes I
Speaker 1: can never figure it out. But what I have encouraged
Speaker 1: myself to do and what I encourage others to do,
Speaker 1: is to never say, either verbally or through your actions,
Speaker 1: you are a six, because I don't know, and I
Speaker 1: sometimes worry about these tests in a workplace environment that
Speaker 1: they will naturally limit other people and that that makes
Speaker 1: me upset. So that's not a good use. So instead
Speaker 1: of saying you're six to myself or you, I say
Speaker 1: I feel the energy of six right now, and let's
Speaker 1: go there. Let's go with that, and maybe you're six,
Speaker 1: maybe you're not, but I feel the energy of six.
Speaker 1: So that gives me some ideas about how to speak
Speaker 1: skillfully or not speak yep, because it does strike me
Speaker 1: if you mistype someone that could be problematic, seriously, because
Speaker 1: you go fifty miles down the road thinking they're one
Speaker 1: person and a kind of person, and then if you
Speaker 1: discover you're wrong, it's very hard to go back to
Speaker 1: take those fifty miles away. I mean, we're all doing
Speaker 1: that anyway. We may not be saying you're a six.
Speaker 1: We might be saying you're a jerk or you're impatient
Speaker 1: or you're right, but we're still assigning people characteristics, which
Speaker 1: we have to do. But yeah, there's no sort of
Speaker 1: avoiding it. But like any of this, I think it's
Speaker 1: really helpful to recognize, like this is just my or
Speaker 1: an interpretation of this, and how can I hold it loosely?
Speaker 1: And how can I be willing to see it change?
Speaker 1: And I think that's beautiful. I totally agree that those
Speaker 1: are the important questions. Yeah, I love being wrong about people.
Speaker 1: I really do. I am wrong about people so often. Yeah,
Speaker 1: usually for me, when I'm wrong about somebody, it just
Speaker 1: doesn't happen as much anymore. It happened in the corporate
Speaker 1: world a lot more because you were exposed to a
Speaker 1: lot of people with very little depth. As a human,
Speaker 1: you make an opinion of someone, you have to like,
Speaker 1: it's just what the brain does. And I just love
Speaker 1: to be just over time, be like, boy, I did
Speaker 1: not see that coming, or that is not what I thought.
Speaker 1: I just I just love that sort of surprise because
Speaker 1: A it's fun and be it is a reinforcement to
Speaker 1: me like you don't know, you think you know, but
Speaker 1: you really don't know. That's lovely, that's really good, and
Speaker 1: I agree. I agree, you really don't. We really don't know.
Speaker 1: At the same time, it's important to make judgments and
Speaker 1: to assess things and to have your own opinions, and
Speaker 1: we need to do that. You know, the world is okay, Dick.
Speaker 1: But as you say, it's also important to hold those
Speaker 1: things loosely and be willing to see them change. Just
Speaker 1: as you said. Yep. So I want to change directions
Speaker 1: a little bit here and talk about some other things
Speaker 1: that were in the book that I really like that
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily Anio Graham specific, although you may bring them
Speaker 1: back there. But one of them is a quote that
Speaker 1: you use from I think it's a zen master sokus
Speaker 1: On who said, then of the mind untangles itself in space.
Speaker 1: I love that phrase. Say more about why you love
Speaker 1: it and what it means to you. How fabulous is that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so good, But not of the mind untangles itself
Speaker 1: in space. And he's a great teacher. Anyone wants to
Speaker 1: look up so KU's on. He teaches in Michigan or Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: Sorry people in Michigan and Wisconsin. He's a great, wonderful
Speaker 1: zen teacher. I think what this points to is something
Speaker 1: so essential, which is that the things that we want
Speaker 1: most in this life. And I feel very confident saying
Speaker 1: this about all of us, even I can't see any
Speaker 1: of us except you. Is that we want love, We
Speaker 1: want wisdom, insight, to be able to see clearly, we
Speaker 1: want creative self expression, we want to innovate. These are
Speaker 1: the things that most of us value above other things.
Speaker 1: Those things all have one thing in common. They are
Speaker 1: things that we receive, not things that we can transmit,
Speaker 1: not things that we can will into existence. You can't
Speaker 1: will love into existence, you can't will insight into existence.
Speaker 1: But if you relax and make space, insight arises. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's a mystery that some of the world's
Speaker 1: greatest discoveries have happened to people who are sleeping, you know,
Speaker 1: or taking a shower, because there's a space and things arise.
Speaker 1: So meditation practice is the practice, among other things, of
Speaker 1: becoming comfortable in that space of receptivity and in beginning it,
Speaker 1: and in beginning it, I know that's not a word.
Speaker 1: The not of mind untangles itself in space is saying
Speaker 1: much more eloquently and beautifully, I think the same thing.
Speaker 1: If you just relax, everything will untangle itself. So once
Speaker 1: I heard a teacher say Tibetan Buddhist teacher that the
Speaker 1: more he studies and practices, the more he sees that
Speaker 1: the entire spiritual path can be boiled down to one word,
Speaker 1: and that word is relax which doesn't mean sleep, It
Speaker 1: means be with, it means allow. Yeah, it's so interesting
Speaker 1: that that idea or that point of spiritual practice being
Speaker 1: relaxing or allowing, because like you said, it doesn't mean sleep,
Speaker 1: and the idea of doing spiritual practice that takes a
Speaker 1: certain degree of will or discipline to engage in these practices.
Speaker 1: And yet it's like we need the will and discipline
Speaker 1: to carry us part of the way, and then like
Speaker 1: they become absolute hindrances. That's my experience. It's like the
Speaker 1: will or the discipline is helpful to get me to meditate,
Speaker 1: but at that moment it becomes a huge problem. It
Speaker 1: becomes a huge block, you know, And there, you know,
Speaker 1: it really is about like okay, now I kind of
Speaker 1: have to let this be the way it is within
Speaker 1: your technique. So if you let things be and also
Speaker 1: sort of slump into the technique metaphorically, you're literally doesn't work.
Speaker 1: So it needs some combination of precision and letting go.
Speaker 1: And for meditation, the technique is the precise piece. You
Speaker 1: take a posture, you work with your breath, you work
Speaker 1: with your mind in a particular way, and that creates
Speaker 1: the container for whatever will arise. But the great Julia Cameron,
Speaker 1: who wrote The Artist's Way, said the first rule of
Speaker 1: magic is containment, and I will never forget that as
Speaker 1: long as I live. And in our spiritual practice. The
Speaker 1: technique or the practice, whatever it is you do is
Speaker 1: then trainer, yes, and without it there is no magic. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you have an upcoming class. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you call it a class. Maybe you'll call it a program,
Speaker 1: a seminar. I don't know what you call it, but
Speaker 1: it's on the Heart Suitor retreat retreat that you're gonna
Speaker 1: teach at your house in Austin. And as a Zen student,
Speaker 1: I'm very familiar with the Heart Suitra. It's I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't turn around without getting hit over the head
Speaker 1: with the Heart Sutra. I wasn't as aware though. Is
Speaker 1: it that big a part of Tibetan tradition also or
Speaker 1: is it it's just something that has meant a lot
Speaker 1: to you both. It's been a central part of the
Speaker 1: Tibetan traditions that I've been trained in, and it's meant
Speaker 1: a lot to me. I think the Pressna parmy To
Speaker 1: Sutra is valued across the board in all Buddhist traditions,
Speaker 1: but I'd say especially in the Mahayana and Vasariana traditions,
Speaker 1: it's viewed as essential and very much connected exactly as
Speaker 1: you said with Zen, because it is from the Mahayana
Speaker 1: schools and is a I book, you know, directions for
Speaker 1: understanding emptiness to the point that you are liberated from suffering.
Speaker 1: I don't know, not having actually completed that task myself.
Speaker 1: I trust that it's true, but I don't know. It
Speaker 1: is one of the things that for a long time
Speaker 1: I heard and I went, I have no idea what
Speaker 1: they're talking about. I have no idea. I read a
Speaker 1: lot of Buddhist stuff and I feel like I understand
Speaker 1: kind of what they're saying, and then I would hear
Speaker 1: that and I'd be like, all right, I am completely lost.
Speaker 1: So I've now done enough reading about it that you
Speaker 1: know it has some context for me, and my zentering
Speaker 1: is put into context. But it is a particularly interesting text. Yes,
Speaker 1: And what I tried to encourage myself and students to
Speaker 1: ask is not what does this mean? Because you will
Speaker 1: never ever get an answer to that question, but what
Speaker 1: does this mean to me today? Because it's like a
Speaker 1: living text, you know, it speaks the language of another realm.
Speaker 1: I don't want to sound all woo woo, but it's
Speaker 1: like a miss it from beyond the beyond, and so
Speaker 1: can you relate with it? Is better approach. Then can
Speaker 1: you understand what it means? Because it points to non
Speaker 1: dual reality which cannot be understood because once you think say,
Speaker 1: oh I've understood it, then you've stepped out of it. Yep.
Speaker 1: Makes me think of I don't know who said this,
Speaker 1: might have been the spiritual teacher Audio Shanti. He said
Speaker 1: when I would hear someone say something like a spiritual
Speaker 1: teacher would say something that would make no sense to me,
Speaker 1: I would ask myself what might the mind of someone
Speaker 1: be like for that statement to make sense? I just
Speaker 1: thought that was a really like fascinating way to go
Speaker 1: into it. I also think, as you're saying, it's also
Speaker 1: really important to go, okay, well, that's maybe what that
Speaker 1: mind looks like. And I have to trust my own experience.
Speaker 1: What does this mean to me? You know, along with relaxing,
Speaker 1: I would say that has been the other thing that
Speaker 1: I felt like. It's been a real aid in my
Speaker 1: later years of my spiritual journey, is to really trust
Speaker 1: my own experience, like, this is what is happening for
Speaker 1: me inside me. I'm not putting what I think I
Speaker 1: should be feeling or what this should be like, but
Speaker 1: this is actually what is happening for me. My own
Speaker 1: experience has been a big piece along with this sort
Speaker 1: of relaxing. That's so important. That is so important because
Speaker 1: that's the inner teacher and it is trustworthy. I once
Speaker 1: heard contrap a great female Buddhist Rupa say, the job
Speaker 1: of the outer teacher, the audio shanties who is so great?
Speaker 1: The contra repper chaise, and so on. The job of
Speaker 1: the outer teacher is to introduce you to the inner teacher.
Speaker 1: And the job of the inner teacher is to introduce
Speaker 1: you to what in Tibetan Buddhism is called the secret teacher,
Speaker 1: which is the nature of all things. And if someone
Speaker 1: doesn't make their handoff, something's gone wrong. So your outer
Speaker 1: teachers have introduced you to the inner teacher. It's wonderful
Speaker 1: that that voice of wisdom is present. It's you. It's
Speaker 1: not some strange voice, it's you. But it is trustworthy.
Speaker 1: I would say, all right, I want to end with
Speaker 1: one other thing that you write in the book. You said,
Speaker 1: whether it's Buddhism or the indiogram, we use to try
Speaker 1: and shut the door door suffering. It simply blows open
Speaker 1: again and again. And then you say we could latch
Speaker 1: it tighter, or just walk outside into the storm. Both
Speaker 1: are understandable choices, but problems arise when we try to
Speaker 1: do both at the same time, or think we are
Speaker 1: doing one when we are really doing the other. Say
Speaker 1: a little bit more about that. That sentence really intrigued me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot to say about that, and I'm listening
Speaker 1: to it. I'm like, what did she mean when she
Speaker 1: said that? Oh? That was me? Okay, Well, I and
Speaker 1: other many, all of us somehow think, well, I'm going
Speaker 1: to find a way to suffer less by appearing to
Speaker 1: walk out into the storm, by taking on difficult situations
Speaker 1: with an agenda, And my agenda is to suffer less. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a good agenda. But then once there's an agenda
Speaker 1: attached to it, like I want my meditation practice to
Speaker 1: make me this and unmake me that, and well practice
Speaker 1: sort of turns its back on you. We all have
Speaker 1: an agenda. No one does spiritual practice without one. But
Speaker 1: if you can let go of it while you are
Speaker 1: practicing and just allow an experience to unfold, then something
Speaker 1: begins to metabolize. And I guess I said walk into
Speaker 1: the storm, because when you open to your experience, it's chaotic.
Speaker 1: It cannot be made sense of, it cannot be ordered,
Speaker 1: it cannot be predicted. You're buffeted about. That's also why
Speaker 1: I think I would say it's a warrior's journey. It
Speaker 1: takes a lot of courage to do that. And what
Speaker 1: I try to tell myself when I'm like, oh enough
Speaker 1: enough already with all the spiritual practices and then walking
Speaker 1: into the storms and so on, I just want to
Speaker 1: feel okay and I do. What I try to remember
Speaker 1: is something that the Tibetan meditation master Ruggum Trunk rip
Speaker 1: Chet said, which is the bad news is you're falling
Speaker 1: through the air, nothing to hold onto, no parachute, and
Speaker 1: that is what it feels like. The good news is
Speaker 1: there is no ground. You're never going to at the ground,
Speaker 1: So can you relax in the action of falling? I
Speaker 1: guess is the takeaway there sometimes? Yes, sometimes Now. I
Speaker 1: love that quote, and I think that's a great place
Speaker 1: for us to wrap up. Thank you so much, Susan
Speaker 1: for coming on again. It's always a pleasure to spend
Speaker 1: time with you. I really enjoyed the book. I learned
Speaker 1: a lot about the angiogram that gives me more to
Speaker 1: think about. So thank you so much. If what you
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