Speaker 1: Often we're believing stories that we've made up about ourselves
Speaker 1: and life as though they are fact, when they're not
Speaker 1: necessarily fact. They're just interpretations of reality that we made
Speaker 1: up at a young age to just make meaning of
Speaker 1: the world. Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time,
Speaker 1: great tinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true. And yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Kote
Speaker 1: Blackson and inspirational speaker and transformational teacher. He speaks had
Speaker 1: countless events around the world, as well as events like
Speaker 1: a fest, Young President's Organization and Entrepreneurs Organization Kut is
Speaker 1: also a member of the Transformational Leadership Council, a select
Speaker 1: group of one hundred of the world's foremost authorities in
Speaker 1: the personal development industry. He's the winner of the two
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen Unity New Thought Walden Award and the author
Speaker 1: of the book discussed here, The Magic of Surrender, Finding
Speaker 1: the Courage to Let Go. Hi, cute, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Great to be here. I'm excited to have you on.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be discussing your book, The Magic of Surrender,
Speaker 1: Finding the Courage to Let Go. But before we do that,
Speaker 1: let's start like we always do with the parable. In
Speaker 1: the parable, there is a grandparent who's talking with a
Speaker 1: grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves
Speaker 1: inside of us that are always at battle. When is
Speaker 1: a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery
Speaker 1: and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the
Speaker 1: grandchild stops and thinks about it for a second, looks
Speaker 1: at their grandparents and says, well, which one wins, And
Speaker 1: the grandparents says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means?
Speaker 1: To you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do. Yeah, I think put it straightforward, and that
Speaker 1: what you focus on expanse, you know, and you focus
Speaker 1: on what's beautiful, what's beautiful will expand within you. And
Speaker 1: the wall you focus on, you know, what you don't
Speaker 1: love or you don't enjoy, that will expand. And there's
Speaker 1: so much that's beautiful about us. So focusing and loving
Speaker 1: who we are, what we have, uh well lonely bring
Speaker 1: healing and expansion within ourselves. That's a beautiful way to
Speaker 1: think about it. I want to start with a line
Speaker 1: that comes from your bio and I love this you say,
Speaker 1: Unlike those who promised to help people simply get what
Speaker 1: they want, coots work instead reveals to people what they
Speaker 1: have to give. Share a little bit about that and
Speaker 1: why that's your orientation. Yeah. Look, I think many times
Speaker 1: and I've worked with hundreds of people, I mean thousands,
Speaker 1: to be honest, one on one, and what I've seen
Speaker 1: is many times we can achieve in the wall, manifest
Speaker 1: in the wall, succeed in the wall, and we sometimes
Speaker 1: get what we set out to achieve. We achieve the thing,
Speaker 1: we get the place, we get that relationship and we're
Speaker 1: still left with a feeling of dissatisfaction. Well, we get
Speaker 1: what we thought we wanted, only to realize that what
Speaker 1: we thought we wanted was not what we really wanted.
Speaker 1: It was just what we thought we wanted based on
Speaker 1: who we thought we were, but we weren't willing touch
Speaker 1: with what we really were. And so many times the
Speaker 1: idea of like, get what you want. I'm going to
Speaker 1: help you get what you want. It's great, but it
Speaker 1: can be very limiting because if you're not in touch
Speaker 1: with who you are, then what you think you want
Speaker 1: not gonna be what you really want. It's just gonna
Speaker 1: be what you think you want based on who you
Speaker 1: think you are and what you think you want. Even
Speaker 1: when you achieve it, it's not going to fulfill you
Speaker 1: because it's not what you really want. And so I
Speaker 1: think it can leave us empty handed, which is why
Speaker 1: a lot of people attain goals, dreams of desires and
Speaker 1: still are miserable. A lot of people attain wealth what
Speaker 1: have you, and aren't really happy. I've worked with a
Speaker 1: lot of billionaire clients, I've worked with a lot of
Speaker 1: successful achievers, CEOs, entrepreneurs have every reason to be happy
Speaker 1: and they're not. And that doesn't mean there's anything wrong
Speaker 1: with wealth and success and making money. Nothing wrong with
Speaker 1: that in the material world, but it's not the source
Speaker 1: of happiness. It's not the source of fulfillment. In fact,
Speaker 1: sometimes our goals and intentions and dreams can be projections
Speaker 1: of unmet needs from childhood. You know, I wasn't loved,
Speaker 1: I wasn't valued, dead, didn't spend enough time. I was bullied.
Speaker 1: I felt unworthy, I felt not enough, I felt unloved.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't have strong self esteems. But if
Speaker 1: I can just make that billion dollars or get that body,
Speaker 1: or win that Oscar or be famous, then I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be enough. And nothing outside of us really can make
Speaker 1: us feel enough unless we feel that inside. And so
Speaker 1: for me, the orientation is less about helping people just
Speaker 1: simply achieve. It's more about helping people connect with who
Speaker 1: they really are, because I think when we connect with
Speaker 1: who we really are, underneath the patterns and layers of conditioning,
Speaker 1: underneath the stories and the labels, the wounds, the hurts,
Speaker 1: when we really connect with our true essence, our authentic
Speaker 1: nature as whole, perfect and complete. When we connect with
Speaker 1: our true self as were for beings. When we connect
Speaker 1: with the perfection of our essence, then I think we're
Speaker 1: less motivated by inadequacy, insecurity, not enoughness. The less we
Speaker 1: seek that in the world, the more we can come
Speaker 1: from a place of wholeness. And from that place, I think,
Speaker 1: the more we're able to truly navigate and see authentically
Speaker 1: what our motivation is and what we truly authentically want,
Speaker 1: then our ladder is on the right wall, you know.
Speaker 1: Then it's more about this is what's true, this is
Speaker 1: what I'm here to do, this is who I am.
Speaker 1: Then life becomes about expressing that, and we're no longer
Speaker 1: trying to get somewhere in order to feel something. And
Speaker 1: so for me, all sorts of suffering comes from not
Speaker 1: knowing who we truly are, knowing that we're perfect. Like
Speaker 1: as children, you look at a baby or a child
Speaker 1: that's very recently born. They're in touch with their restence,
Speaker 1: they're in touch with their liveness, they're in touch with
Speaker 1: their joy. You know, a child will jump on the
Speaker 1: table and saying it doesn't care if it's not Bruno Mars.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just for the joy of it. And
Speaker 1: I think the reason when we look into a child's eyes.
Speaker 1: We melt, you know, we were reminded of that beauty,
Speaker 1: that innocence, that perfection that we all were at one point.
Speaker 1: A child with one naked and they don't care if
Speaker 1: they're fat or what people think or what they look
Speaker 1: like on Instagram. A child will go and hug you,
Speaker 1: and it's just so open. Yeah, what happens, you know,
Speaker 1: by the time we hit we're all kind of contorted
Speaker 1: and have all sorts of defense mechanisms and hearts closed
Speaker 1: and with sabotaging and screwing up relationships, And so what
Speaker 1: happened to that free flowing, open hearted, you know, energetic,
Speaker 1: alive beingness that we were were born, we incarnate into
Speaker 1: the human experience. We meet our parents. Our parents they're
Speaker 1: just doing the best that they can do based on
Speaker 1: their childhood, and they're upbringing their grandparents. And now we're
Speaker 1: born into a preset framework, compattern of conditioning from even
Speaker 1: parents and ancestors and society and media and religion and
Speaker 1: you know, this culture. And so maybe dad was an alcoholic,
Speaker 1: maybe mom had mental health issues. Maybe they were fighting
Speaker 1: all the time, Maybe they just went around. Maybe they
Speaker 1: were great people, but they didn't know how to, let's say,
Speaker 1: meet our emotional needs. And so what starts happening is
Speaker 1: we begin to two things, disconnect shut there not feel.
Speaker 1: We begin to suppress all sorts of pain, her guilt, shame,
Speaker 1: all sorts of pain in order to function and survive.
Speaker 1: And so the unfelt feelings begin to layer and layer
Speaker 1: on layer and build up, and so our true light,
Speaker 1: our true essence, what we really are, kind of gets
Speaker 1: buried underneath the unprocessed feeling, the unprocessed, incomplete feelings and
Speaker 1: emotions that we've learned to not deal with. And then
Speaker 1: we develop all sorts of shall we say, defense mechanisms
Speaker 1: in order to not feel this pain again. We erect walls,
Speaker 1: and we disconnect, and we go into our mind and
Speaker 1: we become over the analytical, and we close our hearts
Speaker 1: to never feel that pain again. And so we also learned,
Speaker 1: i would say, where of being in the world, the
Speaker 1: sense of who do I need to be in order
Speaker 1: to get love, validation and approval, And we developed roles
Speaker 1: and masks and personas, and we become this version of
Speaker 1: ourselves that we think we need to be in order
Speaker 1: for dead and mom and society and parents and everyone
Speaker 1: to love us, and we become independent, we become funny.
Speaker 1: For me, I thought I needed to be the perfect son,
Speaker 1: get all lays, the responsible one, take care of everybody,
Speaker 1: and I thought that's who I needed to be in
Speaker 1: order to get love. And there was so much of
Speaker 1: myself that I ended up betraying and disconnecting from. And
Speaker 1: so we control ourselves into this version of ourselves that
Speaker 1: isn't who we really are, but with conditioned to believe
Speaker 1: that's who we are, and now we're not really in
Speaker 1: touch with who we really are. And from that this connection,
Speaker 1: we end up going into life, creating our life, setting
Speaker 1: our goal, trying to get what we think we want,
Speaker 1: and it's never fulfilling. And so I think when we
Speaker 1: compeel those layers away of conditioning and really connect with
Speaker 1: what we truly are, who we truly are, then we
Speaker 1: can live life authentically. And I think that is real power.
Speaker 1: I think it takes tremendous courage to be who really
Speaker 1: off in the world that is constantly conditioning us to
Speaker 1: not be that. And so that's kind of what I mean, right,
Speaker 1: because it's one thing to say I am perfect and
Speaker 1: whole and in my being and hold that, but the
Speaker 1: world is conditional. It's not that like I was wrong
Speaker 1: that I needed to be a certain way to get
Speaker 1: my parents to love me. I may have been very
Speaker 1: right about that, and I may be very right about
Speaker 1: the ways I need to contort myself to get my
Speaker 1: partner to love me. And so what you're saying is
Speaker 1: that the real courage comes from saying there's something in
Speaker 1: me that I can connect to that tells me that
Speaker 1: I'm whole the way I am, and that may externally,
Speaker 1: as I change more into my authentic shape. Externally, I
Speaker 1: may find that some of the things aren't working the
Speaker 1: way they used to, and then those are not the
Speaker 1: things that life holds for me or wants for me.
Speaker 1: Would that be a way to say that, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think from that misalignment, like the degree to which were
Speaker 1: condition is the degree to which we're not free. The
Speaker 1: degree to which condition is the degree to which we're
Speaker 1: looking out of the lens of the sunglasses, so to say,
Speaker 1: of our conditioning, and we perceive life a certain way
Speaker 1: that may not necessarily be accurate, because from the layers
Speaker 1: of our conditioning, we've made up all sorts of labels
Speaker 1: about ourselves that aren't necessarily true. We've made up all
Speaker 1: sorts of stories about ourselves. I'm unworthy, I'm unlovable, I'm
Speaker 1: not enough, I'm not this, I'm not that, I'm not
Speaker 1: smart enough, I'm not creative. And we've made up all
Speaker 1: sorts of stories about the way life is. Life's not safe,
Speaker 1: people are there for me, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. That's not
Speaker 1: necessarily reality. But now we're looking out of this lens
Speaker 1: of conditioning, a kind of goggle, so to speak, thinking
Speaker 1: and projecting those stories into reality. So we're not necessarily
Speaker 1: seeing clearly, and from that sort of misperception of ourselves
Speaker 1: and life, we are creating our reality. We are creating
Speaker 1: and reinforcing those stories. And so for me, it's about
Speaker 1: being willing to question those stories, being willing to question ourselves,
Speaker 1: being willing to question who we are, so that we
Speaker 1: can begin to experience something different in life, so that
Speaker 1: we can start seeing who we are more clearly, and
Speaker 1: we can start seeing life more clearly. So we have
Speaker 1: to start questioning our stories, like is this true what
Speaker 1: I believe about myself? Is this true what I believe
Speaker 1: about life? Because often we're believing stories that we've made
Speaker 1: up about ourselves and life as though they are fact,
Speaker 1: when they're not necessarily fact. They're just interpretations of reality
Speaker 1: that we made up at a young age to just
Speaker 1: make meaning of the world at that moment. For instance,
Speaker 1: let's say I had a client who she was eight
Speaker 1: years old and her mother ran away and left her
Speaker 1: with her father and her entire life, she had this
Speaker 1: reality that she felt was reality that I am unlovable.
Speaker 1: I'm unlovable, unlovable. That was for her the way it was.
Speaker 1: And she met men in relationships, and she kept attracting
Speaker 1: men that left, men that didn't love her, men that
Speaker 1: didn't commit to her, men that you basically reinforced that belief. See,
Speaker 1: I'm not lovable because so and so left, because so
Speaker 1: and so cheated on me, because so and so didn't
Speaker 1: want me, and so this was her reality that she
Speaker 1: felt was real. I am I lovable And so one
Speaker 1: day I asked her is it fat? And she said
Speaker 1: to me, absolutely as fact, I'm not lovable. And the
Speaker 1: fact was, it's not fat that she was unlovable. It
Speaker 1: was an interpretation that she made up that she was
Speaker 1: holding onto. And now from that perception and that conditioning,
Speaker 1: she's going through life unconsciously trying to prove that to
Speaker 1: be true. And so, you know, I asked her, can
Speaker 1: you show me unlovable? Like? This is a phone, this
Speaker 1: is a watch, this is a piece of paper, like
Speaker 1: is it a fact? The fact is this is a
Speaker 1: piece of paper, at least in this dimension, in this moment,
Speaker 1: in my hand. But where is unlovable? It's a story
Speaker 1: that she made up, and at a young age, she
Speaker 1: made up the story because my mother left. That means
Speaker 1: I'm unlovable. So we have to be willing to question
Speaker 1: those stories. So I asked her, could the fact that
Speaker 1: your mother left, could it have meant something else? Well? No, oh,
Speaker 1: but could it have meant something else? The answers, of course,
Speaker 1: it could have meant many things. It could have meant
Speaker 1: that mom was crazy. It could have meant that, I mean,
Speaker 1: mom loved me so much that she chose to leave
Speaker 1: because she knew that she was incapable of taking care
Speaker 1: of me. There's many different interpretations, and so as children,
Speaker 1: because we don't have the bandwidth necessarily and the full
Speaker 1: perspective and maturity to decipher the real meaning of things,
Speaker 1: we make a meaning in that moment to the best
Speaker 1: of our capacity. And we hold onto that meaning, and
Speaker 1: often that meaning we take that meaning into our lives,
Speaker 1: and that meaning that determines our reality. So I think
Speaker 1: it's important that we asked ourselves, is what I believe
Speaker 1: about myself and what I believe about life? Is it
Speaker 1: fact or is it fiction? Because if it's a story
Speaker 1: that we made up to make meaning about life and
Speaker 1: make things make sense so we could feel safe in
Speaker 1: a certain way, which served the purpose back then. You know,
Speaker 1: I think so much of our mechanism will survival, and
Speaker 1: many of them work for us when we were five
Speaker 1: and seven and ten and fifteen, but they usually comes
Speaker 1: a moment as we move into our adulthood where many
Speaker 1: of those condition defense mechanisms which mean well begin to
Speaker 1: limit us, and they begin to limit our full expression,
Speaker 1: and they begin to get in the way of our
Speaker 1: ability to be fully who we are, to fully fulfill
Speaker 1: our potential. And so I think we have the question
Speaker 1: is this fact or is this fiction? Is this reality
Speaker 1: or is it a story? Because if it's a story
Speaker 1: that we made up, then we can also make up
Speaker 1: a different story when we become aware that it's a
Speaker 1: story not reality. There's a couple of things I want
Speaker 1: to dig a little deeper on there. And I think
Speaker 1: one is you sort of described how in the case
Speaker 1: of this woman, and I think it's very true for
Speaker 1: many of us, we can't see beyond the story on
Speaker 1: our own it seems unequivocally true, So there's real value
Speaker 1: in having other people help us with that. That's the
Speaker 1: first part of my question. The second part is really
Speaker 1: around often even when we see, oh yeah, that's not true,
Speaker 1: we've believed it to be true for so long that
Speaker 1: we've internalized it to such a degree that it's not
Speaker 1: like we suddenly see that and immediately twenty years of
Speaker 1: conditioning throw off our shoulders. Sometimes it does, but most
Speaker 1: of the time that's not how it works. So first
Speaker 1: part of my question is how do we see through
Speaker 1: things that we can't see ourselves, And secondly, how do
Speaker 1: we take that initial insight once we have it that
Speaker 1: a story that's defined us isn't true and integrate it
Speaker 1: into our lives in a deeper way. I think they're
Speaker 1: both very valid questions. I would say that, yes, many
Speaker 1: times we on not able to see it on our own.
Speaker 1: We're just living life and we think the way it
Speaker 1: is is the way it is, and who we are
Speaker 1: is who we are. It's just conditioning and it's not
Speaker 1: even denial. We're just unconscious, so to speak. And it's
Speaker 1: not like bad. We we just don't know. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's why a guide, a therapist to coach,
Speaker 1: like the eyeball can't always see itself. It can't unless
Speaker 1: you have a mirror. And so a guide, the teacher
Speaker 1: of a coach, the therapist can really help reflect back
Speaker 1: to you things you're not seeing and sneaky things your
Speaker 1: ego might be trying to avoid seeing. That's one I
Speaker 1: would say, be humble and willing to get the guidance
Speaker 1: from someone skilled who's able to reflect back to you
Speaker 1: aspects of yourself. Also, I think in life, one of
Speaker 1: the most powerful ways to see ourselves, whether we like
Speaker 1: it or not. This is kind of a side note,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to come back is relationships. And it's
Speaker 1: often through human interactions and relationships romantic or not romantic,
Speaker 1: but many times romantic relationship because that's often where a
Speaker 1: lot of emotion is triggered, can be a profound source
Speaker 1: and opportunity and mirror to see ourselves. And it's often
Speaker 1: in relationships that we can't hide our patterns. It's often
Speaker 1: in relationships that we can't pretend. It's often in relationships,
Speaker 1: especially romantic relationships, that touch into some of the most
Speaker 1: sensitive aspects of our own conditioning and sensitivities and vulnabilities
Speaker 1: that love can bring up everything unlike itself. Love can
Speaker 1: bring us and show us and reflect back to us
Speaker 1: all those subconscious patterns and stories and conditionings and how
Speaker 1: we really feel about ourselves that just come up when
Speaker 1: you fall in love, like bom, take a look, Take
Speaker 1: a look, because it often comes up to the surface
Speaker 1: in order to be looked at. And so I think
Speaker 1: relationships can be a profound mirror and profound evolutionary path
Speaker 1: for us to see ourselves in a really powerful way,
Speaker 1: if we're willing to embrace it, you know, because many
Speaker 1: times we're not conscious and we look at that person.
Speaker 1: Is that No, it's Eric? It's cool? Isn't? But if
Speaker 1: we understand why the second relationships a mirror, then we
Speaker 1: can use it and go on, what is Eric? What
Speaker 1: is cool? What is Susie? What is this showing me
Speaker 1: about myself? What is this person reflected to me about myself?
Speaker 1: About what I believe about myself? They cheat on me,
Speaker 1: and they don't value me, and they don't love me,
Speaker 1: and they don't make me a priority, and they're not
Speaker 1: committing to me. What does it show me about myself? Okay,
Speaker 1: let me break up with that person and go to
Speaker 1: another person. You might find that you still keep attracting
Speaker 1: the same dynamic, the same experience, because all lessons are
Speaker 1: repeated un to learn, and so eventually after a few
Speaker 1: relationships or a few similar relationships, you start realizing there's
Speaker 1: a common denominator here and it's me. Then we have
Speaker 1: to be willing to take responsibility for the mirror reflection
Speaker 1: of what's showing up in the relationships. I say, there's
Speaker 1: no relationship out there, there's only a relationship out there
Speaker 1: that's a projection of your own self. You're in relationship
Speaker 1: with yourself in the people that you attract. And so
Speaker 1: one of the ways we get to shift as usual
Speaker 1: relationships as that mirror and be willing to take responsibility
Speaker 1: for what's showing up, so that rather than focusing on
Speaker 1: what's out there, which we typically do, we start then
Speaker 1: focusing on what's in here to shift what's in here
Speaker 1: as a feedback mechanism of what do I believe about
Speaker 1: myself because I think I found consistently we will attract
Speaker 1: people that reflect to us those unresolved, un dealt with
Speaker 1: aspects of our own consciousness, those parts of ourselves that
Speaker 1: we need to heal, embrace into great learn deal with
Speaker 1: our own belief systems in the form of the other person,
Speaker 1: and life too as a relationship like life is often
Speaker 1: also a mirror manifestation of our consciousness. I often say,
Speaker 1: if you want to see what's in your subconscious you know,
Speaker 1: and obviously it's a generalization, but if you want to
Speaker 1: see what's in your subconscious, look at your life. Your
Speaker 1: life will tend to be a projection of your most
Speaker 1: deeply held beliefs about yourself, your most people helped belief
Speaker 1: about money, your most deeply health beliefs about who you are.
Speaker 1: You will tend to attract that in the situations and
Speaker 1: experiences in your life, and so then life can become
Speaker 1: a profound feedback mechanism about well, what do I believe
Speaker 1: about myself? What do I believe about life? How is
Speaker 1: my life reflecting that back to me? Then you have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to perhaps question your beliefs about money, life,
Speaker 1: the universe, God, etcetera, etcetera. Can you claify your second question?
Speaker 1: It was about the holding on. Yeah, it was that
Speaker 1: even once I see okay, maybe that's not true. All right,
Speaker 1: I might be seeing this wrong. I've believed it for
Speaker 1: thirty five years exactly, okay, And so I think that's
Speaker 1: a great thing because many times when we see it,
Speaker 1: it's not like magic. Let go. It's awareness is the
Speaker 1: first step, because most of us were unconscious. And then
Speaker 1: what happens is we move into the next phase of
Speaker 1: sometimes like going into denial, but now with denial, and
Speaker 1: then we move into resisting. We deny and then we resist.
Speaker 1: We resist by not telling the truth, we resist by
Speaker 1: going unconscious. But I think what's important to know is
Speaker 1: that resistance, conscious or unconscious, is natural. It's completely natural,
Speaker 1: is completely normal, is completely okay. That resistance is a
Speaker 1: normal part of the process. The ego is resisting, and
Speaker 1: the ego is our perceived sense of what we believe
Speaker 1: ourselves to be. Those stories, those beliefs, those ideas, those memories,
Speaker 1: those feelings, what we've learned to hold onto. You know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of talking about earlier, that shape, that pattern
Speaker 1: of conditioning that we've learned to become, to avoid pain
Speaker 1: and to get love. So that version of ourselves that
Speaker 1: is held by out conditioning and our belief structures ego,
Speaker 1: which we believe ourselves to be, and we're conditioned by
Speaker 1: society to believe that that's what we are. It's not
Speaker 1: going to let go that ease, that grip, it's not
Speaker 1: meant to let go that easily. It's not going to
Speaker 1: let go that easy. Ego is our sense of identification
Speaker 1: as ourselves, the sense of perceived self that we are
Speaker 1: that we hold onto, and the job of the ego
Speaker 1: is to reinforce this existence. The job of the ego
Speaker 1: is to protect us. The job of the ego is
Speaker 1: to make sure that we never get hurt again like
Speaker 1: we were hurt when we were five. And so how
Speaker 1: we do that is we hold on and we don't
Speaker 1: let go and we don't change. The ego wants everything
Speaker 1: and everyone else to change, but it doesn't want to change.
Speaker 1: And we can be mad at that, or we can understand, like, oh,
Speaker 1: see to me, having a right relationship with ego, that
Speaker 1: mechanism of resistance is part of the transformation, is part
Speaker 1: of the healing. So when we can understand what it
Speaker 1: is that doesn't want to let go. It's not bad.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's just a pattern of conditioning of how
Speaker 1: I've learned to function and survive. Then we can understand
Speaker 1: the impulse behind the holding on. Then we can understand
Speaker 1: the impulse behind that grip is survival. And when we
Speaker 1: unders stam that and we realized, Okay, I'm not the ego,
Speaker 1: that's not who I really am, And this holding on,
Speaker 1: even though sometimes it's sabotage is and it's limiting me,
Speaker 1: is not bad. The intention is positive, then I think
Speaker 1: we can change our relationship with it, with ourselves and
Speaker 1: meet our holding on with a bit of compassion. And
Speaker 1: it's that compassion and ability to meet ourselves in that
Speaker 1: space of compassion, that space of mercy, that space of understanding.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, I held on for a reason. I
Speaker 1: can see why I held on. I needed to hold on.
Speaker 1: There was nothing wrong, nothing bad, It's just all I
Speaker 1: knew at the time. Then I think when we can
Speaker 1: not just force ourselves to like let go now, surrender now,
Speaker 1: but meet ourselves and hold ourselves with that empathy and
Speaker 1: love and patience and compassion, because underneath that holding on
Speaker 1: often all of the feelings that we have been suppressing
Speaker 1: and hiding from our entire lives, and underneath it holding
Speaker 1: on are some of those layers. It is a fear
Speaker 1: that we don't want to deal with because we're afraid
Speaker 1: of if I really let go, then I'm gonna feel
Speaker 1: like I felt when I was fired, helpless, or whatever
Speaker 1: it was, and I don't want to feel that again.
Speaker 1: So the holding on even is such a beautiful attention,
Speaker 1: and so we don't have to reinforce that. But if
Speaker 1: we can just have a relationship with that and be
Speaker 1: patient and understand, then we can start feeling safe within
Speaker 1: ourselves as we meet ourselves, and then we can kind
Speaker 1: of hold ourselves with that love and compassion and just
Speaker 1: a gentle relaxation, a gentle opening can start happening as
Speaker 1: we feel safer, so that we can also start to
Speaker 1: feel some of the layers of emotion and feeling that
Speaker 1: we have learned to suppress, because feeling some of those
Speaker 1: feelings that we've learned to deny can free up the
Speaker 1: need for us to hold on, because now we're letting
Speaker 1: some of those lasers feeling go, and so in order
Speaker 1: to integrate, as you were saying in a body. There
Speaker 1: is no real transformation and embody in a sustainable way.
Speaker 1: Just logically in the mind information like okay, let go. Okay,
Speaker 1: I understand, but in my body, I'm not because there's
Speaker 1: all of the stuff we haven't let ourselves feel. So
Speaker 1: part of the necessary process is the willingness to be
Speaker 1: compassionate and just gently with a guy with a therapist,
Speaker 1: you know, in a safe space, start feeling and releasing
Speaker 1: and letting go of some of the layers that we
Speaker 1: have been conditioned to avoid. And that's really why we're
Speaker 1: holding on. And so when we understand the nature ego,
Speaker 1: then we can also begin letting go, so the feeling part,
Speaker 1: but also understanding the nature of vegos. Ego is not
Speaker 1: good or bad. Ego is a process. It's not a thing.
Speaker 1: It's just a process and mechanism of identification that we've
Speaker 1: learned to function and survive. And as we understand that,
Speaker 1: we realize ego is a vehicle that we all need
Speaker 1: in the human experience to navigate the human experience, but
Speaker 1: it's our relationship with it. And so I think compassion
Speaker 1: is an important thing, and feeling those layers of unprocessed
Speaker 1: feeling is also a necessary important step. It doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be all at once, but in a really gentle way,
Speaker 1: you say, egos just a set of patterns that's been
Speaker 1: solidified over time. And I love that as a definition.
Speaker 1: So you've talked a lot about feelings, and I want
Speaker 1: to go there because you've got another line that I
Speaker 1: really like, and I'd like to go into this a
Speaker 1: little bit deeper. You say that surrendering to our feelings
Speaker 1: is not succumbing to our feelings. Talk to me about
Speaker 1: the difference between that, because I do think there's a
Speaker 1: real art in feeling what we feel, not denying, not repressing,
Speaker 1: but not getting lost in Yeah, I think to not
Speaker 1: get lost you have to realize that you are not
Speaker 1: your feelings. And many times we believe that we are
Speaker 1: our feelings. Then we get lost in our feelings and
Speaker 1: kind of collapse in them. But when you can realize, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not my feelings, that also is a shift where
Speaker 1: you can step back and begin to have a relationship
Speaker 1: with these feelings and observe whatever you can have a
Speaker 1: relationship with an observe you are not that you can
Speaker 1: observe that there's some space. And so, yes, feelings are
Speaker 1: so important to experience and feel and allow them to
Speaker 1: move through. Many times we're afraid of feeling our feelings
Speaker 1: because we think that we are them. We think if
Speaker 1: I feel these feelings, it will overwhelm me. I won't
Speaker 1: be able to cope, I won't manage. I want to
Speaker 1: be broken, I'll never come back. Sometimes we don't feel
Speaker 1: the feelings. It could be grief of someone dying, pain
Speaker 1: from a break up. Sometimes we don't feel the feelings
Speaker 1: because our ego is even more shall we say, committed
Speaker 1: to being right, and I'm not going to feel this
Speaker 1: anger because I don't want to give that person the pleasure.
Speaker 1: I don't care. But we're not aware that we're actually
Speaker 1: giving more power to the feeling in that person. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we don't allow ourselves. In the example of grief, sometimes
Speaker 1: we don't fully allow ourselves to feel let's say the grieving,
Speaker 1: because there's a deep fear of if I really let
Speaker 1: myself feel this feeling and grieving, then I'm going to
Speaker 1: have to acknowledge the reality of the situation ship. Then
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to acknowledge the reality that this relationship
Speaker 1: is indeed over, or my mother has actually died. But
Speaker 1: if I don't deal with the feeling, then I can
Speaker 1: stay in denial and I don't have to acknowledge what's happening.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we don't deal with the feeling as a spiritual
Speaker 1: bypass too. You know that everything is good, everything is great,
Speaker 1: everything is good, and have to deal with it. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to come to my feeling, and so I'm
Speaker 1: going to stay in a high vibration and so sometimes
Speaker 1: that ends up facilitating a spiritual bypass where we're so
Speaker 1: addicted to being in a higher vibration that we're still
Speaker 1: suppressing the lower vibrational energy of grief or negative feeling.
Speaker 1: And often we can only elevate and sustain and transform
Speaker 1: to the level of the unfelt feeling that we haven't
Speaker 1: dealt with. Because even if you have a great high
Speaker 1: or meditation or what have you, the unfelt process feeling
Speaker 1: that you haven't dealt with, will often bring you back
Speaker 1: down to that level. And so I think when we
Speaker 1: can realize that we are on our feelings, and all
Speaker 1: feelings remain present till fully felt. All feelings have a cycle,
Speaker 1: No feelings are permanent, so then we can have a
Speaker 1: relationship with feelings. Feelings are just energy. Feelings aren't good
Speaker 1: or bad. They're just energy in motion and they're often feedback.
Speaker 1: There were signals, And I think one thing that really
Speaker 1: helps people. Sometimes people think that they're feeling they're feelings
Speaker 1: and they'll say to me, but I've been feeling my
Speaker 1: feelings and it doesn't end. I still feel that way.
Speaker 1: So we sometimes think that we're feeling our feelings, but
Speaker 1: we are analyzing our feelings. We're thinking about our feelings,
Speaker 1: which is not feeling our feelings, or we succumb to
Speaker 1: our feelings and we're like in sort of hyper emotionality, like,
Speaker 1: but we're not really feeling our feelings. Like I see
Speaker 1: a lot of people get emotional, but that it is
Speaker 1: still another layer of subtle disconnection. So to feel your
Speaker 1: feelings fully with awareness is to embrace them consciously without
Speaker 1: resisting them, without trying to fix or change it. Every
Speaker 1: feeling has a natural cycle. So what that might look
Speaker 1: like that may help people is take the label off
Speaker 1: of the feeling. This is something that can help when
Speaker 1: you take the label off of the feeling good, bad, anger, madness, grief,
Speaker 1: no name, just label. Feeling is an energy, has an energy,
Speaker 1: it is a sensation, and then you can experience the
Speaker 1: feeling without a label or preconceived idea of good or bad,
Speaker 1: as a sensation in your body. Then when you can
Speaker 1: just be with the sensation in your body, oh, in
Speaker 1: my stomach, in my belly, in my heart, in my
Speaker 1: you know, wherever it is, you can just be with
Speaker 1: it as a sensation without resisting it, without getting rid
Speaker 1: of it, without manipulating in a way with it. Just
Speaker 1: just be with your experience of that sensation as it's happening.
Speaker 1: And notice what happens, Something really profound starts happening when
Speaker 1: you're fully with it without this thing it, without collapsing
Speaker 1: into it, without wallowing in it, without trying to push
Speaker 1: it away. But you're just being with the sensation. And
Speaker 1: notice now you are experiencing really feeling. You're experiencing it
Speaker 1: because you're completely present to it on all levels. And
Speaker 1: you will often find that that energy of that feeling
Speaker 1: of sensation has its own movement, its own energy, and
Speaker 1: the impulse of that begins to complete itself. Because every
Speaker 1: feeling sensation has a natural cycle. No feeling lasts forever,
Speaker 1: even the worst sadness, at some point it completes. And
Speaker 1: so when you're able to be with the sensation in
Speaker 1: your body and really just track it and be with
Speaker 1: it and notice what happens fully being with it. You'll
Speaker 1: find that a layer of that feeling begins to dissolve
Speaker 1: quite often. And I think that's what it is to
Speaker 1: really be with your feelings without succumbing getting lost in it.
Speaker 1: And we often succumb and get lost in it when
Speaker 1: we are telling ourselves a story about the feeling, like
Speaker 1: why is this happening to me? And now we're a
Speaker 1: victim of making up a story about and a meaning
Speaker 1: about it, interpretation about it, like it always happens to me.
Speaker 1: God doesn't love me, life doesn't. Now we're victim about
Speaker 1: the feeling, not just purely with the feeling. That's right,
Speaker 1: And I think that idea of being with the felt
Speaker 1: sense of the feeling is a really great instruction. And
Speaker 1: in practice, what I found is that what you say
Speaker 1: is true, and just like meditation, you have to keep
Speaker 1: coming back to because the brain keeps yanking me out
Speaker 1: of it. Right. It's not like the brain is just like,
Speaker 1: oh good, okay, then go ahead and feel it right,
Speaker 1: because it's been working for a long time to not
Speaker 1: feel it. So you drop in and I feel the
Speaker 1: energy of it from and the brains just like hang on,
Speaker 1: I got you know, something else to say about this.
Speaker 1: Learning to do that, I think is a skill, just
Speaker 1: like learning to stay with the breath and meditation is
Speaker 1: a skill. Yes, it's a process. Yeah, it's a process.
Speaker 1: And you know, any feeling, even grieving, it doesn't happen
Speaker 1: all at once. It happens in stages. Remember for me
Speaker 1: when my mother passed away, you know, because I had
Speaker 1: this understanding, I really just let myself have the moments
Speaker 1: of feeling the grief, and I would give myself so
Speaker 1: what it might look like for me, It looked like
Speaker 1: I wasn't like sitting in the grief seven but I
Speaker 1: was doing my work and going through my day and
Speaker 1: just being with what I was feeling. But in the
Speaker 1: evenings I would give myself an hour to whatever I
Speaker 1: needed for that initial a few months, I gave myself
Speaker 1: what I call grief sessions, where I just gave myself
Speaker 1: full permission to just feel whatever I felt. It was
Speaker 1: really during the evenings where I could write about my grief,
Speaker 1: cry whatever, just just feel it without you and just
Speaker 1: let it move through. And one of the most helpful
Speaker 1: powerful things that happened for me was just feeling my
Speaker 1: grief feeling. And here's the thing, when there's no story
Speaker 1: about the feeling. To me, that is the key to
Speaker 1: not succumbing or resisting when there's no But I shouldn't
Speaker 1: be experiencing the scree. I shouldn't have the scree. I
Speaker 1: should feel a different way when there's no story that
Speaker 1: you're running about the grief and you're just giving yourself
Speaker 1: permission to be with it. It starts moving. Does that
Speaker 1: mean there's not pain? No, there's pain. Does that mean
Speaker 1: there's not tears that there's gonna be whatever there is
Speaker 1: that's not we can't predict and we can't necessarily control.
Speaker 1: But that's how the completion and clearing happens for me.
Speaker 1: When I felt the grief when my mother passed away,
Speaker 1: it was like there were moments of tears, remember the
Speaker 1: first stages where my heart broke, And during these evening
Speaker 1: sessions several times, like a month, it was like I
Speaker 1: feel it and just be with it. It felt like
Speaker 1: my heart broke and then there were like these tears emotion.
Speaker 1: But what was interesting was it felt like the grieving
Speaker 1: broke my heart open to another level of expandedness, and
Speaker 1: in the moment it broke open and then it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm still here, okay, But the grief gave me access
Speaker 1: to more loving at the same time, and so it
Speaker 1: was like heartbreaking open. What I found is there's a
Speaker 1: tremendous strength that arises. There's a deeper strength that arises
Speaker 1: from allowing yourself to feel the feeling, in this case, grief,
Speaker 1: to feel the feeling and breaking open and after breaking open,
Speaker 1: realizing that you're not broken. I realized, I'm breaking open,
Speaker 1: but I'm not broken, and I'm still here. And there's
Speaker 1: a deeper strength that arises from being broken open than
Speaker 1: holding it all together. And so there was a real
Speaker 1: power and strength that arose through the process of grieving,
Speaker 1: which took a while, you know, it took a my moment,
Speaker 1: and it was a beautiful process that gave me access
Speaker 1: to more love for my mom, for my friends, for
Speaker 1: my loved ones, for my father, for humanity, for myself,
Speaker 1: the compassion for myself and my own humanity. And so
Speaker 1: it's beautiful, you know, it's a beautiful process that is
Speaker 1: really beautiful. I've experienced something similar with dogs passing. I'm
Speaker 1: not equating my dog passing to your mother. But what
Speaker 1: I realized was, like you said, when I let go
Speaker 1: of the resistance, like it shouldn't be this way. It's
Speaker 1: not fair. You know, why do dogs live shorter than humans?
Speaker 1: Like when I let go of all that and just
Speaker 1: went let me just feel the feeling. The word I
Speaker 1: have for it is just very pure. It's a very
Speaker 1: pure energy that flows through and it's a really beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: So i'd love to turn now and talk about since
Speaker 1: you brought up your mother, I think this is a
Speaker 1: great way to kind of get into the latest book.
Speaker 1: And I'm just gonna read what your mother said to you,
Speaker 1: if that's okay. She said to you. I believe this
Speaker 1: was after she was diagnosed. She said, coote, none of
Speaker 1: us has control in this life. Our demand that life
Speaker 1: go the way we want is what causes so much suffering.
Speaker 1: Know that the degree to which you surrender determines the
Speaker 1: degree to which you are alive, the degree to which
Speaker 1: life can use you, the degree to which you can
Speaker 1: enjoy life. It's a beautiful message to get from your mother. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't know how special my mother was. I mean,
Speaker 1: I knew she was special, but you know, she's just
Speaker 1: your mom. But I really realized who my mother was
Speaker 1: in that year of her passing. I realized her greatness.
Speaker 1: To be honest, I realized she was an enlightened being.
Speaker 1: I didn't I really didn't know, because she was so
Speaker 1: ego less, you know, And I think that's part of
Speaker 1: what being truly awake is. It is just transcending your
Speaker 1: own ego in the sense she was really ego less
Speaker 1: and in the face of her mortality. You know, it's
Speaker 1: one thing to say it when we're all healthy and well,
Speaker 1: but when you know you're in the face of your
Speaker 1: mortality and you're dying. She was fearless, you know, when
Speaker 1: when the doctors confirmed, hey, we don't know how long
Speaker 1: you have to live. There's nothing else we can do
Speaker 1: for you. You're probably going to die in the next months,
Speaker 1: but it's not going to be probably more than a year,
Speaker 1: So get your affairs in order. Shocking moment we knew
Speaker 1: it was coming. I looked at my mother and I
Speaker 1: said to her, are you afraid? And she looked at
Speaker 1: me and she said, as plain as day, Erica is
Speaker 1: plain as day. She said, I'm not afraid because I
Speaker 1: know I'm not this body, and this body is just
Speaker 1: a temporary vehicle for my soul, but completely at piece,
Speaker 1: like she just knew, you know. And that conviction really
Speaker 1: moved me. And then I asked, my mother, is there
Speaker 1: anything I can do for you in your final days?
Speaker 1: Like what, what do you need? What do you want?
Speaker 1: And this is where I think the c for the
Speaker 1: book was planted. But this is where something in my
Speaker 1: soul was activated that I wasn't even aware of. I said,
Speaker 1: what can I do for you? What do you need?
Speaker 1: And she said, there's nothing I need and there's nothing
Speaker 1: I want. All I want what God wants from my life.
Speaker 1: And there was such a surrender in that she wasn't
Speaker 1: attached to living, she wasn't attached to dying. She was
Speaker 1: truly surrendered to the highest unfolding of her destiny. And
Speaker 1: it was honestly an honor and privilege to experience those
Speaker 1: moments with my mother. Really really special. It's a really
Speaker 1: beautiful part of the book. Let's move into talking now
Speaker 1: about surrender, since that's the title of the book and
Speaker 1: it's what your mother told you. You talk about what
Speaker 1: surrender is and what it isn't. And I thought maybe
Speaker 1: we could go through a few of these because I
Speaker 1: think it's really helpful to kind of get an idea,
Speaker 1: because that's a word that a lot of us come to.
Speaker 1: I guess most words are this way. We come to
Speaker 1: them with our own ideas about what they mean, and
Speaker 1: when we hear somebody say them, we may react to that.
Speaker 1: And so you spend a lot of time in the
Speaker 1: book saying this is what I mean, and this is
Speaker 1: what I don't mean. So what are some of the
Speaker 1: things that surrender is? Yeah, yeah, there were many misconceptions
Speaker 1: about surrender, and I just want to clarify that, you know,
Speaker 1: we think has given up within the white flag, it's
Speaker 1: not that. To me, surrender is taking the limits off
Speaker 1: of life. I want people to get the sense of like,
Speaker 1: we think that when we surrender, we're not going to
Speaker 1: manifest our goals, teams of desires. We think that we're
Speaker 1: going to lose control, we think that we're going to
Speaker 1: get less. But for me, just to start the conversation
Speaker 1: is like, what if you've got more? What if in
Speaker 1: letting go of your limitations on how do you think
Speaker 1: it's going to turn out? What if you got more
Speaker 1: then you could have ever planned and imagined with your
Speaker 1: limited egos capacity and perception, because the ego in and
Speaker 1: of itself is very limited in its ability to perceive
Speaker 1: reality because we're conditioned. So surrender is letting go of control,
Speaker 1: or I should say the illusion of control that we
Speaker 1: think that we have. And I think if the last
Speaker 1: few years have shown us something, it's kind of showing
Speaker 1: us we're not as in control as we thought as
Speaker 1: as a humanity, you know, And so it's a letting
Speaker 1: go of control. It is when we stop manipulating and
Speaker 1: forcing life to fit into our idea or limited egos
Speaker 1: idea of how we think it's going to be. It
Speaker 1: is letting go of the idea, the preconceived attachment and
Speaker 1: idea who we think we should be and how we
Speaker 1: think life should be. Sometimes we get so attached to
Speaker 1: a goal as we talked about, that we think that
Speaker 1: this is the only way and not realizing that attachment
Speaker 1: is putting limitations on life and we're not open to
Speaker 1: everything else. And so it is to let go those limitations,
Speaker 1: to go of attachment. It's to be open, is to
Speaker 1: be available. It is to allow is to let life
Speaker 1: leads you and trust that when you let go that
Speaker 1: letting go can lead to more, and that's the beauty.
Speaker 1: It's letting go of what's not aligned, letting go of
Speaker 1: what's no longer working, letting go what is no longer
Speaker 1: vibrational match, so that you can make space in your
Speaker 1: life for the authentic life that is seeking to emerge
Speaker 1: in unfold to to happen. And so surrender is not forced,
Speaker 1: its flow. It's living and flow rather than forcing everything.
Speaker 1: You know, like the old paradigm and self help is
Speaker 1: all that they can happen. Control, do it, take charge,
Speaker 1: you know, you can manifest that way. It is possible.
Speaker 1: It's not like it's impossible. But what I found is
Speaker 1: it's limited. It's limited when you are creating your life
Speaker 1: from the level of the ego. And so we have
Speaker 1: to be willing to let go of what's good for
Speaker 1: what is great. That's when you tap into I think,
Speaker 1: the infinite possibilities of life. Like the reason I called
Speaker 1: the book the Magic of Surrender and not Art of Surrender,
Speaker 1: the pal surand it's called the magic for reason. Magic
Speaker 1: is that which is beyond your mental capacity, that which
Speaker 1: is beyond the norm, what is beyond your wildest dreams.
Speaker 1: And so everybody says yeah, I want more magic, but
Speaker 1: nobody wants to surrender. And the past word to the
Speaker 1: magic is surrender. And so we want to hold on
Speaker 1: to who we were and what we have, but we
Speaker 1: want the magic doesn't work that way, and so surrender
Speaker 1: is a letting go, is letting go of what's not
Speaker 1: aligned so that we can be truly open. And I
Speaker 1: have found that when we do that, you know, consistently
Speaker 1: in my life, and I have many experiences because I've
Speaker 1: kind of experimented with this thing of surrender as a scientist,
Speaker 1: so to speak, as an adventurer, as an experiential you know,
Speaker 1: sort of Indiana Jones of surrender, like let me try
Speaker 1: to see if the ship works, you know. And I've
Speaker 1: seen in my life in ways I couldn't have imagined
Speaker 1: or plan things work out better than I could have imagined.
Speaker 1: So I would ask everyone to just consider for a moment,
Speaker 1: think of all the things in your life. Think of
Speaker 1: the best things in your life that happened, meeting that person,
Speaker 1: going to that thing. Did you plan it? Most of
Speaker 1: the best things we didn't plan, They just happened. Think
Speaker 1: of when something didn't work out in your life, didn't
Speaker 1: work out according to plan, but it turned out better
Speaker 1: than you could imagine. Now, someone might be devil's advocac
Speaker 1: and well, no, I had the situation that worked out
Speaker 1: worse and I ended up homeless or whatever. You had
Speaker 1: to move back home. But I would say if you
Speaker 1: wouldn't look back at many of the things that you
Speaker 1: thought didn't work out in the moment, from the perspective
Speaker 1: of the ego, it seemed like it didn't work out.
Speaker 1: But if you didn't move home and didn't go back
Speaker 1: there and didn't have to get five from that job,
Speaker 1: but perhaps you wouldn't have been put in that place
Speaker 1: where you met your soul mate in the coffee shop,
Speaker 1: you know, in your hometown, or perhaps that other thing
Speaker 1: wouldn't happen. And so often what seems like the worst
Speaker 1: thing from the egos perspective is really grace from the
Speaker 1: soul's perspective. And so part of surrender is the willingness
Speaker 1: to trust that, even if you can't see it right now,
Speaker 1: the universe is always working for your highest good. The
Speaker 1: universe is always working for highest good. When things don't
Speaker 1: walk out, it's a trust to say, Okay, life is
Speaker 1: going to bring me something better, And so surrender is
Speaker 1: not an abdication of responsibility. Surrender isn't just sitting around
Speaker 1: at home saying, Okay, you know, I'm gonna surrender, sit
Speaker 1: here and just wait. Like the old paradigm is all
Speaker 1: about what do you want? What do you want? What
Speaker 1: do you want? The new paradigm, I believe that we're
Speaker 1: being invited into it. The humanity is to ask a
Speaker 1: different question, And that surrender question is really about what
Speaker 1: is it that life is seeking to express from? What
Speaker 1: is it that the universe is seeking to express from?
Speaker 1: What is it that the divine innate intelligence my soul?
Speaker 1: What is the deepest and impulse of what life is
Speaker 1: seeking to express through me? And to feel that, to
Speaker 1: align your ego, align your personality, align yourself with that
Speaker 1: most authentic impulse. Then when you align with that, like,
Speaker 1: this is what's true, this is what is in my integrity,
Speaker 1: this is what my true purpose is, not what I
Speaker 1: think I should be doing. Then you take action, Then
Speaker 1: you go into strategy. Then you bring your ego to
Speaker 1: help you fulfill that. Then you plan, then you market.
Speaker 1: But now you're working in alignment and in harmony with nature,
Speaker 1: with your soul, with your essence, And so I think
Speaker 1: when you surrender, you might end up working harder than
Speaker 1: you've ever worked from one level, because now you're on
Speaker 1: a mission that is authentic like Gandhi, Martin, Luther King,
Speaker 1: you know, Buddha, Jesus, the great ones. These people work.
Speaker 1: They weren't sitting around being lazy like Gandy was NonStop
Speaker 1: of going around the world, going around India. But he
Speaker 1: was in alignment. And so I just don't want people
Speaker 1: to think surrender means that I just sit there and
Speaker 1: be lazy. No, no, no, that that's just called laziness.
Speaker 1: That's not surrender. And so I think surrender is the
Speaker 1: most powerful thing that we can truly do, and that's
Speaker 1: when the magic happens. So I got sober in a
Speaker 1: twelve step program a long time ago. And right, we
Speaker 1: start with powerlessness, right with the surrender to some degree,
Speaker 1: which did not mean doing nothing obviously, Right, there was
Speaker 1: an enormous amount of action that went with that. How
Speaker 1: do you think we go about determining what we surrender
Speaker 1: to in life and what we don't or is that
Speaker 1: not the right way to think about it? What we
Speaker 1: surrender to or what to surrender? Question? Well, I'm facing
Speaker 1: a situation in my life. Let's just pick a situation
Speaker 1: I don't like in my life. You know, how do
Speaker 1: I know? It's sort of the serenity prayer? Right, what
Speaker 1: can I change? What can I change? You know? How
Speaker 1: do you know whether something is asking for you to
Speaker 1: surrender and let it sort of be, or when it's
Speaker 1: asking you to take action? Well, first I'll say if
Speaker 1: you feel some level of pain in your life as
Speaker 1: a signal that likely a level of surrender is necessary.
Speaker 1: And so if there's pain, I love pain, not because
Speaker 1: I want more of it, but pain gives me feedback
Speaker 1: where I'm holding on tightly. And so if you're feeling pain,
Speaker 1: that's feedback that you're probably holding on tightly that you
Speaker 1: get to look at them go Okay, what am I
Speaker 1: holding onto? What do I need to surrender? And so, yes,
Speaker 1: there are two levels. There's the what is happening in
Speaker 1: the situation. Here's the situation like someone you know stole
Speaker 1: money from me, And what surrender is just saying Okay,
Speaker 1: it's fine, I love you and I'm just gonna move
Speaker 1: on with my life. But they're so let's make up
Speaker 1: a numbers and I'm just supposed to be great about
Speaker 1: this situation, you know, Eric, So let's be clear, that's
Speaker 1: not necessarily surrender. What surrender is is, though, let's say
Speaker 1: injustice kurk. First, you have to acknowledge that it has happened.
Speaker 1: You can stay stuck in well, it shouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't be happening. The experience that's happening is not
Speaker 1: the experience that should be happening. Suffering. You can stay
Speaker 1: in that and for the next five years being the resistance,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna be mad, angry, resentful, stuck, you know,
Speaker 1: bitter for the rest of your life. And that person
Speaker 1: who did that, so called injustice is gonna move on
Speaker 1: and you're piste off and they've moved on. That doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense. And so you can't necessarily control what
Speaker 1: that person does, what life does, what the government does,
Speaker 1: what whoever does. You can't control that. But what you
Speaker 1: can't control is yourself. So the first place is and
Speaker 1: what surrender looks like. It's not like, okay, let's all
Speaker 1: hold hands and I just get over it. No, it's
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that this is happening, because whether you like
Speaker 1: it or not, it's happening or it's happening. That is
Speaker 1: the fact that you cannot change. So surrender is to
Speaker 1: completely accept they took fifty dollars from you. They did
Speaker 1: X y Z. It is what it is. It is happening,
Speaker 1: it's happening. It's reigning outside, it's storming outside. There's a
Speaker 1: hurricane outside. Let me not go into like please let
Speaker 1: them not be a hurricane. They shouldn't be. There's a
Speaker 1: hurricane outside. Now with that complete embrace and surrender to
Speaker 1: what is, that moves you into relationship with what is,
Speaker 1: then you can go into now that I'm accepted there's
Speaker 1: a hurricane and not pretending that it's sunny. You don't
Speaker 1: go outside in a bikini or you know, some swim trunks.
Speaker 1: Now you can get prepared based on your acceptance. So
Speaker 1: surrender is first step except reality as it is. Then
Speaker 1: as you accept reality as it is, then you can
Speaker 1: ask yourself, Okay, what is in my control? Okay, it's
Speaker 1: raining outside. Well, what's in my control is I can
Speaker 1: get an umbrella? Okay, that's one. What's in my control
Speaker 1: is I can call an attorney. Okay, what's in my
Speaker 1: control is I can get a consultant? What is it
Speaker 1: my control? And what is mine to do. That's the
Speaker 1: next step. Once you accept that, then you can acknowledge
Speaker 1: what what what feel things do I have about the
Speaker 1: situation that I need to deal with them freaking angry
Speaker 1: about the situation. So now you get to deal with
Speaker 1: those feelings so that those feelings don't run you and
Speaker 1: control you and keep you off balance, keep you from
Speaker 1: not seeing the situation clearly and not be not not
Speaker 1: being able to act in alignment. Then I think part
Speaker 1: of the surrender, the real next level of surrender that
Speaker 1: will energetically unhook you from the situation. Once you've done that,
Speaker 1: it's okay, this is what needs to happen, and this
Speaker 1: is what I need to do. This is a situation, okay.
Speaker 1: Click is the role surrender is to the lesson, not
Speaker 1: just the situation. If you stay stuck at just the
Speaker 1: level of situation, you will often feel resistance to surrender them.
Speaker 1: Surrender is the open hearted participation in the process of
Speaker 1: life that has happened, whether you like it or not.
Speaker 1: And it's hard to say, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: roll my sleeves up in and and just embrace the situation.
Speaker 1: Ship The only way that really happens typically is when
Speaker 1: you can say, okay, let's go spiritual for a moment.
Speaker 1: We are souls incarnating to the human experience. To me,
Speaker 1: life is a classroom for our university for ourselves evolution.
Speaker 1: That means every single experience, every single situation, every single
Speaker 1: relationship is part of the curriculum and the teaching, the
Speaker 1: syllabus for ourselves evolution. If we understand that we're souls
Speaker 1: and all of life is our evolutionary classroom, there on
Speaker 1: some level everything is serving our souls evolution and awakening
Speaker 1: and helping us remember and awaken to whom what we are.
Speaker 1: Then if we understand the real purpose of life, which
Speaker 1: is your evolution, rather than being used by a situation,
Speaker 1: you can then use the situation to learn, grow and evolve.
Speaker 1: And that happens when you say, okay, I'm going to
Speaker 1: learn from this situation. So it's a different focus. What
Speaker 1: is my soul seeking to learn from this situation? What
Speaker 1: is my soul seeking to learn from this seemingly messed up, dynamic,
Speaker 1: seemingly unfair situation. I attracted the situation. I'm in the situation.
Speaker 1: It is happening, whether I like it or not. I'm
Speaker 1: going to propose that if I'm a soul, there must
Speaker 1: be a reason that I'm in this and so what
Speaker 1: is my soul seeking to learn? What do I need
Speaker 1: to see about myself, my beliefs, my unconscious you know,
Speaker 1: belief system. What do I need to see and learn
Speaker 1: and let go of as to why I'm in this
Speaker 1: classroom right now. When you can then surrender to the
Speaker 1: lesson in the situation, then you start focusing on a
Speaker 1: whole different evolutionary possibility that learning that lesson in that
Speaker 1: situation where that person can unhook you from that situation,
Speaker 1: and that is often the key to unlock the lot
Speaker 1: to the next level of experience. All lessons are repeated
Speaker 1: until learn. So if you stay a victim and then
Speaker 1: move on, you will tend to attract another situation, similar patent,
Speaker 1: similar dynamic. But to me, the real surrender is too
Speaker 1: learning the lesson. That's the for me, the surrender in
Speaker 1: a situation. You talk about purpose in a great way,
Speaker 1: and I'd love to talk about that. You say, what
Speaker 1: if seeking your purpose was actually an avoidance of it?
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that? UM? I think the
Speaker 1: ego wants to seek and seek and seek and seek,
Speaker 1: and seek the job of the egos to reinforce its existence.
Speaker 1: So the ego wants to seek and seek and seek
Speaker 1: and never find and not fun. And so how the
Speaker 1: seeking is part of the egos dynamic to to stay active,
Speaker 1: to stay alive. And so sometimes you want to keep
Speaker 1: seeking our purpose because if I keep seeking my purpose,
Speaker 1: then I don't have to live my purpose and I
Speaker 1: can keep seeking my purpose, and it becomes an avoidance
Speaker 1: from just living just being, you know, So the ego
Speaker 1: is constantly trying to reinforce it existence. Seeking is one way.
Speaker 1: And so for those that are trying to find their purpose,
Speaker 1: I just tell people stop seeking it. We're often trying
Speaker 1: to figure out our purpose from our current level of consciousness,
Speaker 1: which is limited. Firstly on a spiritual level. Your purpose
Speaker 1: is to evolve, that's it. So your purpose isn't so
Speaker 1: much what you're doing. Your purpose is your evolution and
Speaker 1: the degree to which you learn the lessons where you
Speaker 1: are with who you're with. So in any given moment,
Speaker 1: regardless of what job you have, so long as you
Speaker 1: are learning, growing and evolving, you can live your purpose
Speaker 1: every single moment. Now in terms of an individual purpose,
Speaker 1: instead of seeking from the sidelines trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1: Just move in the direction of what lights you up,
Speaker 1: moving the direction of what terms you want, moving the
Speaker 1: direction of what inspires your soul, your being, where you
Speaker 1: feel the most energy. To me, that's a signal because
Speaker 1: what I found is when you're moving that direction rather
Speaker 1: than just trying to find this ultimate purpose. Oprah didn't
Speaker 1: wait to find her ultimate purpose. Obama didn't wait to
Speaker 1: find their ultimate purpose. But they went in the direction
Speaker 1: of what they felt, of what termed the march. And
Speaker 1: so when you move in the direction you take a step,
Speaker 1: life then reveals to you the next step in the process.
Speaker 1: And then you think another life reveals to another step.
Speaker 1: Then life reveals to you another step. So your purpose
Speaker 1: is not something to figure out, but it's a revelation
Speaker 1: of what life reveals to you in the process of living.
Speaker 1: And when you take a step, you go on a
Speaker 1: journey of growing and evolving. That journey of growing and
Speaker 1: evolving prepares you even more for the next step. And
Speaker 1: then you grow and evolving more. Then that prepares you
Speaker 1: for the next step. And so if we sit on
Speaker 1: the sidelines trying to figure life out, figure out purpose out,
Speaker 1: we never grow. We never evolved, we never learned, we
Speaker 1: never expand we don't learn the lessons, so we never
Speaker 1: become truly ready for the ultimate purpose, so to speak,
Speaker 1: because we're sitting on the sidelines and we haven't taken
Speaker 1: the steps necessary to develop and grow into the version
Speaker 1: of ourselves that's capable of reaching a million people, that's
Speaker 1: capable of starting that theme because we're on the sidelines,
Speaker 1: and so I just tell people, don't wait. Part of
Speaker 1: surrender is your purpose may not be what you think
Speaker 1: it is. Your purpose may not be what you think
Speaker 1: it is. That sometimes we think, oh, it's the be
Speaker 1: a TV star, is to do this thing, is to
Speaker 1: achieve that thing. And you know, the reality is your
Speaker 1: goals evolutionary and your goal will take you on a journey.
Speaker 1: And the real success in life to me is not
Speaker 1: the achievement of that goal. So don't confuse the goal
Speaker 1: and achievement of the goal will living your purpose. The
Speaker 1: will success in life is who you become, the process
Speaker 1: of the pursuit of that goal, who you become. And
Speaker 1: the real purpose of the goal is who you become.
Speaker 1: That is will success, That is evolution, That is the purpose.
Speaker 1: I think that is as good a place to end
Speaker 1: as I can imagine. Uh, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming on. I've really enjoyed this conversation. The book is
Speaker 1: called the Magic of Surrender, and we'll have links in
Speaker 1: the show notes and where people can get access to
Speaker 1: all your work into the book. So thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Thanks very much. If what you just heard was helpful
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