Speaker 1: There's a huge difference between being here for life and
Speaker 1: being in a conversation about life. Welcome to the one
Speaker 1: you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the importance
Speaker 1: of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think ring true, and yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf m Thanks for joining us. Our guest on
Speaker 1: this episode is Mary O'Malley, an author, teacher, and counselor
Speaker 1: whose work awakens others to the joy of being fully alive.
Speaker 1: Her inspired and transformative approach to compulsions offers a way
Speaker 1: to replace fear, hopelessness, and struggle with ease, well being,
Speaker 1: and joy through her individual counseling and coaching books, classes,
Speaker 1: retreats and ongoing groups. Mary invites people to experience the
Speaker 1: miracle of awakening. Mary clearly sees both the big picture
Speaker 1: and the details of human patterns and conditioning. She possesses
Speaker 1: an extraordinary ability to understand and connect with people, and
Speaker 1: she is skilled in empowering people to work with difficult
Speaker 1: mind states, resulting in greater inner awareness and presence and
Speaker 1: greater capacity for joy. Her latest book is called What's
Speaker 1: in the Way Is the Way? Hey, everybody, We've finished
Speaker 1: the first round of the one you Feed coaching program
Speaker 1: with a bunch of people who have successfully made significant
Speaker 1: and sustained changes in their lives. I'm happy for all
Speaker 1: of them and have enjoyed getting to know and working
Speaker 1: with everybody. We've incorporated their feedback into the program, and
Speaker 1: as a result, it has evolved into an even more
Speaker 1: robust experience. We are now ready to make it available
Speaker 1: to you starting today. One of the changes we've made
Speaker 1: to better serve you is to have a limited window
Speaker 1: of time during which people can sign up. Starting today,
Speaker 1: you can go to one you feed dot net slash
Speaker 1: coaching program and sign up to learn more. This window
Speaker 1: will be open for the next two weeks. The enrollment
Speaker 1: window will close at midnight on May which also happens
Speaker 1: to be my birthday. If you're interested, don't put off
Speaker 1: looking into and signing up for the program. You can
Speaker 1: make the changes to your life that you've been considering.
Speaker 1: I'd love for you to be one of the success
Speaker 1: stories here, so go to one you feed net slash
Speaker 1: coaching program and get started today. And here is the
Speaker 1: interview with Mary O'Malley. Hi, Mary, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad to be here. He are right. I
Speaker 1: am very excited to get you on. Your book is
Speaker 1: called What's in the Way Is the Way? Which the
Speaker 1: minute I heard the title, I was like, I think
Speaker 1: I want to talk to her, and after having read
Speaker 1: the book, I want to even more so I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to getting into your book. You cover a lot
Speaker 1: of topics that we spend time on talking on the
Speaker 1: show a lot, and you've got some interesting perspectives on
Speaker 1: all of it. So we will get to that in
Speaker 1: a minute. But we're gonna start like we always do,
Speaker 1: with the parable. There is a grandmother who's talking with
Speaker 1: her granddaughter and she says, in life, there are two
Speaker 1: wolves inside of us that are always at battle one
Speaker 1: is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 1: bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the granddaughter stops and she thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 1: and she looks up at her grandmother and she says, well, grandmother,
Speaker 1: we juan wins, and the grandmother quietly says, the one
Speaker 1: you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking
Speaker 1: you what that parable means to you in your life
Speaker 1: and in the work that you do. Well, it's been
Speaker 1: around for many years, and it comes from what I
Speaker 1: call duality. You know, there's a good part of us
Speaker 1: and then there's a bad part of us. And I
Speaker 1: think if we look at history, uh, we will see
Speaker 1: that actually fighting the bad always empowers the bad. And
Speaker 1: if you look at the you know, to me, one
Speaker 1: of the most uh important symbols that have ever been
Speaker 1: on this planet is the yin and yang symbol. And
Speaker 1: here is the dark and the light that they aren't
Speaker 1: on opposite sides of a line, that they're actually inner
Speaker 1: twine mind. And in the dark is a point of light,
Speaker 1: and in the light is a point of dark. So
Speaker 1: in my experience, I tried to get rid of the bad,
Speaker 1: you know. And I'm a Taurus, so I have a
Speaker 1: very very strong will. And a great example out of
Speaker 1: my life is that I learned how to take care
Speaker 1: of the heartache of my childhood through eating. I started.
Speaker 1: The first memories is when I was around ten, and
Speaker 1: then I dieted and ate and dieted and ate, and
Speaker 1: and then being a Taurus. Uh, you know, I once
Speaker 1: went one month without food, and two more times, two
Speaker 1: more times for two weeks without food, and a number
Speaker 1: of one week periods without food, because by God, I
Speaker 1: was gonna get rid of this urge to overeat. And
Speaker 1: it eventually brought me to the place where I gained
Speaker 1: ninety seven pounds in a year. And it was only
Speaker 1: when I began to realize that, yes, there are these
Speaker 1: two parts of me. But rather than trying to starve
Speaker 1: the so called bad, I like to use the word dark, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, much more than bad or evil. Rather than
Speaker 1: trying to starve it or make it bad or wrong. Uh,
Speaker 1: my work is about creating a relationship with it. And
Speaker 1: it's very interesting that the statistic that I want to
Speaker 1: bring into this conversation is that the US certain General's
Speaker 1: report is ninety eight percent of every pound that is
Speaker 1: lost in America is gain back plus some within a
Speaker 1: year and a half. And that's what I think. We're
Speaker 1: beginning to take another step beyond that parable and realize
Speaker 1: that what we fight, we actually in power. And it
Speaker 1: was when I learned how to be in relationship with
Speaker 1: this so called bad part of me that would you know,
Speaker 1: just eat absolutely everything uh under the sun, that it
Speaker 1: began to calm down. And now, you know, I lost
Speaker 1: the extra weight, and now a body stays the same weight,
Speaker 1: you know, and and I can eat whatever I want
Speaker 1: and have for years. So that's my offering to this
Speaker 1: conversation is that it is in creating a relationship with
Speaker 1: the so called dark side that you actually uh heal
Speaker 1: excellent And your book at its heart really says that
Speaker 1: most of our life, the challenges that we face and
Speaker 1: the trouble that we face are a result of the
Speaker 1: fact that we basically are struggling with the way everything is.
Speaker 1: You basically use an analogy of we are always in
Speaker 1: what you call a peaceful meadow, but that we are
Speaker 1: surrounded by clouds of struggle, and those clouds of struggle
Speaker 1: are largely self invented. And I think it's really important too.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't quite use the words self invented that when
Speaker 1: we were young there, when we first showed up here,
Speaker 1: we were like dry sponges and there wasn't a thought
Speaker 1: in our head and we just absorbed the uh energy
Speaker 1: of the people around us. I'd like to say, if
Speaker 1: our parents were arguing in a soundproof room down the basement,
Speaker 1: we were up in the attic, we could feel it.
Speaker 1: So it is, it's like we send it down from
Speaker 1: generation to generation. We absorbed what I called the condition
Speaker 1: self or what Eckart tole A calls the mind made me.
Speaker 1: That our mind actually makes this me that talks all
Speaker 1: day long. And if you had a little door on
Speaker 1: your forehead and you could open it up and watch
Speaker 1: what it's due going. It's mainly struggling with life. Usually
Speaker 1: little struggles, you know, like the length of the stop
Speaker 1: light or how your hair looks on a particular day.
Speaker 1: But it can struggle. It can go all the way
Speaker 1: into you know, life at death struggles. Just because your
Speaker 1: UH boyfriend didn't call you when he said he was
Speaker 1: going to call you. And so we are I like
Speaker 1: to say, we're addicted to struggle, and yet that's not
Speaker 1: who we are. That's something that was conditioned into us.
Speaker 1: There are so many lines from the book that I love.
Speaker 1: I could probably just read them over and over to
Speaker 1: the audience and they would do well. And I'm going
Speaker 1: to put some of the favorite ones that I had
Speaker 1: in a downloadable we'll have which we can listeners can
Speaker 1: get it one you feed dot net slash Mary, but
Speaker 1: I'm going to read one right now because this, I
Speaker 1: think describes me very well. One of the mind's favorite
Speaker 1: ways of staying distracted and far away from what you're
Speaker 1: experiencing is to create problems and then try to figure
Speaker 1: out how to fix them. In fact, it could be
Speaker 1: said that your mind is a problem factory, churning out
Speaker 1: problems all day long. It is astounding to recognize that
Speaker 1: once it solves one problem, there is usually only a
Speaker 1: very short period of time before it comes up with
Speaker 1: another problem. And we keep on feeling that if we
Speaker 1: just solve this, if we change our husband, or if
Speaker 1: we lose ten pounds, or if we win the lottery,
Speaker 1: then everything would be okay. But we don't see that
Speaker 1: that puts these clouds between us and the living experience
Speaker 1: of life that really what we long for is not
Speaker 1: the uh joy of the fancy new car. That's that's
Speaker 1: you know, kind of a fake joy. We long for
Speaker 1: the joy of coming back to life, to actually be
Speaker 1: here for life, and most people are not. They think
Speaker 1: their way through their lives. You talk a lot about
Speaker 1: sort of like a low grade suffering that permeates us,
Speaker 1: and and I definitely have that problem mind. I've gotten
Speaker 1: a lot better at learning not to listen to it
Speaker 1: so much. But one of the things that you talk
Speaker 1: about is that the problem mind is largely driven by
Speaker 1: what you call the storyteller. And we we talk on
Speaker 1: the show all the time about the stories that we
Speaker 1: tell ourselves. And so my question for you is, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to see if I can articulate this well,
Speaker 1: because largely what you're what you're suggesting is that we
Speaker 1: turned towards the things in our life that seem problematic
Speaker 1: and we experience what those emotions are. And that makes
Speaker 1: total sense. And again it's something that we talk a
Speaker 1: lot on this show about. We also talk about not
Speaker 1: believing the thoughts that you have. And so I'm curious
Speaker 1: about Let's just take an example of I am telling
Speaker 1: myself a story about how nobody likes me because for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, nobody was friendly to me today. So there's
Speaker 1: there's two options that I can go to. Their one
Speaker 1: would be I could go into what that feeling feels
Speaker 1: like and turned towards it. The other option is to
Speaker 1: recognize that what I'm telling myself there is probably not true,
Speaker 1: and so I'm not going into the feeling and experiencing it.
Speaker 1: In that case, I'm actually trying to, you know, more
Speaker 1: of a cognitive behavioral therapy way. I'm trying to sort
Speaker 1: of recognize the untruth of that thought. And I'm curious,
Speaker 1: from your perspective, are those both just different tools that
Speaker 1: we use to get to the same place or help
Speaker 1: me understand how you balance those two things, beautiful question.
Speaker 1: So down towards the end of the book, there's what
Speaker 1: you call the four lets, and the first let is
Speaker 1: uh let life. There are challenges that each one of
Speaker 1: us have that bring up such deep feelings, you know,
Speaker 1: like the illness of a loved one or our own illness,
Speaker 1: or a foreclosure on our house, or you know, we're
Speaker 1: involved in a robbery. You know that they come into
Speaker 1: our house and there's just so much they get stirred
Speaker 1: up that we have very little option until we have
Speaker 1: awakened for a long time to actually stand with these
Speaker 1: feelings and let the move through us. And that's where
Speaker 1: we use the art of living in questions, we actually
Speaker 1: turn it over to life. Then the next is let
Speaker 1: it be. And that's a big chunk of this work
Speaker 1: of where you learn how to actually bring your attention
Speaker 1: into your immediate experience. And you can do that in
Speaker 1: your body, with the emotions, with this stories, and you
Speaker 1: begin to realize the power of focused human attention to
Speaker 1: heal what I call bound up energy. A lot of
Speaker 1: people call them feelings. They're really bound up energy. It's
Speaker 1: all it is. And we're discovering that when our energy
Speaker 1: and our immediate experience come together, than these ancient feelings
Speaker 1: they move through us. That's when you begin to move.
Speaker 1: You move to the next let, which is let it go.
Speaker 1: And the more you do that that there's something about
Speaker 1: not just overriding a feeling, you will see that you know. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's say the boyfriend doesn't call. He said he was
Speaker 1: gonna call it ten and he doesn't call it at
Speaker 1: all until the next day, and we have all sorts
Speaker 1: of feelings about that. But if we follow it back,
Speaker 1: you'll see it's rood. It in something very young. And
Speaker 1: so if we just say, you know, that's not true,
Speaker 1: that's not true. Uh, we don't go in and and
Speaker 1: get down to the root of it and with our
Speaker 1: attention set it free. But the more you do that,
Speaker 1: the more you come to that place you're talking about,
Speaker 1: something arises and you see that's not that's not the truth,
Speaker 1: and you just let it go. And then that brings well, actually,
Speaker 1: the better way to say it is it let's go.
Speaker 1: But it didn't work in my four lets. So but
Speaker 1: then that brings us to the final let go that
Speaker 1: you actually begin to open to life, not as you
Speaker 1: want it to be, not as you think it should be,
Speaker 1: but you're actually here for life, and feelings and thoughts
Speaker 1: and sensations are dancing through you, but you are the
Speaker 1: awareness that is present for it all. The warmth of
Speaker 1: the sun, the sadness into your chest, the wonderful taste
Speaker 1: of the morning coffee, whatever. That's who we are. And
Speaker 1: those four lets really help you to see how we
Speaker 1: can move into let go. You say that learning to
Speaker 1: see what your mind is really doing rather than being
Speaker 1: lost in it is an important step towards unhooking from
Speaker 1: the game of struggle. Right. The first step is understanding
Speaker 1: that there is something that talks in your head all
Speaker 1: day long and it's very, very busy, and it has
Speaker 1: an opinion about everything, and then be getting to think
Speaker 1: of the possibility maybe this is not who I really am,
Speaker 1: and my job is to make you fascinated. I use
Speaker 1: the word curiosity a lots the ability to be curious.
Speaker 1: So it's the difference between saying, you know, you have
Speaker 1: a meeting at work, you know, and you have to
Speaker 1: do a presentation, and you know you're sitting in your
Speaker 1: office before the presentation and your heart is pounding wildly
Speaker 1: and you know, sweat as driving down your face. Add
Speaker 1: what most of us would say, Oh my god, I'm
Speaker 1: so I'm so afraid. I'm so afraid. You know what,
Speaker 1: what did I learn that class the other day? You know?
Speaker 1: How can I manage this fear? What awakening is about
Speaker 1: is the discovering the ability to say, ah, fear is here,
Speaker 1: rather than I am afraid. And the more you can
Speaker 1: do that, the more you can see these different stories
Speaker 1: that most of them are rooted in the first six
Speaker 1: years of their your life. You know, that's when the
Speaker 1: foundations of this storyteller were created. And so you get
Speaker 1: familiar with how your anxiousness talks, how your terror talks,
Speaker 1: how your despair talks, how your hopelessness talks, how your
Speaker 1: self judgment talks, how you're not enoughness talks, and you
Speaker 1: get to know them enough that they arise and you say,
Speaker 1: oh hi, and they pass right on through. And so
Speaker 1: this is the sort of thing that is traditionally very
Speaker 1: easy to say and much harder to actually do. And
Speaker 1: so let's talk a little bit about the path from
Speaker 1: I am a identified with my thoughts and my emotions
Speaker 1: to a place that I am relatively open and spacious
Speaker 1: around those things. It's it's not, at least my experience
Speaker 1: has not been in the experience of a lot of
Speaker 1: people I know. Is you don't go from one one
Speaker 1: of those extreme to the other in you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of days. So what what would you say to
Speaker 1: people who are just starting on that process about how
Speaker 1: you work with those things because you're maybe not and
Speaker 1: I know the word successful is not really we're not
Speaker 1: trying to be successful, right, but but we're not getting
Speaker 1: much space around our thoughts were not becoming more spacious
Speaker 1: or more open or more welcoming. It's it's a hard process,
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying. But it's the only game in town,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh And my main mentor, Stephen Levine,
Speaker 1: was once asked, how long does this take? This the
Speaker 1: mind of how's all the stake, you know? And he
Speaker 1: said it's the work of a lifetime. And what I
Speaker 1: say to that is that, uh, it really is the
Speaker 1: way out too. It's almost like we've been caught in
Speaker 1: a prison of this separate, conditioned self. And this mind
Speaker 1: has only been around about a million years, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, give or take a few years, so that's
Speaker 1: a very short, you know, segment of time, you know,
Speaker 1: in universal time, and so we're very young as a species,
Speaker 1: and we have been totally identified with this struggling self.
Speaker 1: And all you have to do is look at history
Speaker 1: or the Emmy News to see what that is like.
Speaker 1: So the first step is beginning to contemplate the possibility
Speaker 1: that maybe whatever talks in your head all day long
Speaker 1: is just a condition self. That's the first step that
Speaker 1: begins to intrigue us. And I would say, well, I
Speaker 1: I in the book, there's uh. At the end of
Speaker 1: each of the ten chapters, there's what's called the remembering section.
Speaker 1: And I really started just by laying a very basic foundation.
Speaker 1: You know, what we're doing is different than anything we've
Speaker 1: ever done before, and this is not something you can do,
Speaker 1: and you can do it right. But what you can
Speaker 1: do is start cultivating curiosity. You can start doing things like, ah,
Speaker 1: you're saying that for five minutes every morning, I'm going
Speaker 1: to sit on the porch and my intention is to
Speaker 1: have my attention with the sound of the birds and
Speaker 1: the Christmas of the air, or the smell of my tea.
Speaker 1: And you'll find that most of the time you'll be gone,
Speaker 1: you'll slip away. That's the first step to really see
Speaker 1: there's a huge difference between being here for life and
Speaker 1: being in a conversation about life in this struggling self.
Speaker 1: When you begin to see that there's a huge difference
Speaker 1: and you begin to see what you're missing, you're missing life,
Speaker 1: that the the experience, like we knew when we were
Speaker 1: very young, that there was no separation between us and
Speaker 1: this living adventure of life. That's when you begin to
Speaker 1: feel the passion that you don't want to get rid
Speaker 1: of this storyteller. You need it from maneuvering through reality.
Speaker 1: You don't want to make it bad or wrong. It's
Speaker 1: all about becoming curious and to give yourself the gift
Speaker 1: of just five minutes a day where you choose one
Speaker 1: thing that you're curious about and bring your attention back
Speaker 1: to it. Now a really important point. I was a
Speaker 1: part time meditator for ten years and then Stephen Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: And then Stephen told me, he said, you know, if
Speaker 1: you sit for one hour and bring your attention back
Speaker 1: to your focus one time in that hour, that's time
Speaker 1: well spent. It totally changed my experience because before, in
Speaker 1: those ten years, I was trying to sit to get
Speaker 1: some place. Now and I sit every day and half
Speaker 1: for decades. Now now I am sitting, and I try
Speaker 1: even not to use the word meditation. I Sundays call
Speaker 1: it a returning practice, or I call it a listening practice.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting because I want to be curious about what
Speaker 1: sits here. And the more I'm curious about what sits here,
Speaker 1: and the more I can see how it all operates,
Speaker 1: the more I see through it, and here I am
Speaker 1: back in life. Yeah, the term curiosity seems to just
Speaker 1: keep coming up for me in I mean, I read
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff, right, I'm talking to somebody every week,
Speaker 1: and that just seems to be a theme that keeps
Speaker 1: coming back. This, this attitude of being curious about what's
Speaker 1: happening with ourselves seems to be such a powerful thing
Speaker 1: if we can, we can engage in it. Why is
Speaker 1: that because anything else beyond curiosity is still this fix
Speaker 1: it problem solving mine and oh my god, it wanted
Speaker 1: to problem solve. I felt like such a failure. I
Speaker 1: can remember the first long meditation retreat I went to it.
Speaker 1: I would open my eyes and oh my god, I
Speaker 1: knew everybody else was in nirvana there that wasn't And
Speaker 1: now I know that World War one, two and three,
Speaker 1: Vietnam War, you know, maybe a little of the rack
Speaker 1: war was going on in everybody's hand, you know, but
Speaker 1: it sure didn't look like it. But when I became curious,
Speaker 1: that's when things began to open again. And that brings
Speaker 1: us to the second skill. And I used to call
Speaker 1: it compassion, but I now call it spaciousness, and compassion
Speaker 1: is is an attribute of space. Aciousness, also kindness and
Speaker 1: allowing and forgiveness. And acceptance, all of those. But the
Speaker 1: more you're curious, and the more you can begin to
Speaker 1: see how young this struggling self is. You know, in
Speaker 1: your head, let's go back to the boyfriend not calling,
Speaker 1: you know, And now it's an hour later and he
Speaker 1: hasn't called, and there's a voice inside of you that says,
Speaker 1: I'm never going to speak to him again ever ever.
Speaker 1: You know, of course you tomorrow, but if you listen,
Speaker 1: you'll live here how young that voice is. And the
Speaker 1: more you see that, the more you just begin to
Speaker 1: have space. Oh that's the sad one or the rejected one.
Speaker 1: And the more that you bring spaciousness to what's going
Speaker 1: on inside of you, which naturally arises from curiosity, the
Speaker 1: more all of this stuff can just pass right through you.
Speaker 1: So you talk about that, there are I think it's
Speaker 1: eight core spells. You call them that basically we cast
Speaker 1: over ourselves, or you know, we're cast over us as
Speaker 1: part of our upbringing. Can you explain what you mean
Speaker 1: by spell and maybe give us an example of one
Speaker 1: or two of them. I love the word spells, and
Speaker 1: and this has come out of I've worked with people
Speaker 1: over thirty years now, and I've gotten to see into
Speaker 1: the minds of hearts of thousands and thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of people. And Stephen Levine once said, the very first
Speaker 1: time I saw him, he said, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to create a hat. And when you put it on
Speaker 1: your head, it instantaneously broadcast over a loud speaker all
Speaker 1: of your thoughts, and everybody in the room groaned. There
Speaker 1: was really a collective groan that moved through the room.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's it's not only that we don't
Speaker 1: want other people to see what's going on in our
Speaker 1: story teller, but we don't want to see what's going
Speaker 1: on in our storyteller. And as I began to listen
Speaker 1: and you know, and I create a safe place where
Speaker 1: people can begin to be real and then explore the storyteller,
Speaker 1: I began to see there was eight core spells. And
Speaker 1: I love the word spells because it's something that's laid
Speaker 1: over the top of us. It's not true, and it
Speaker 1: can be lifted. And let's just do the basic thing
Speaker 1: of let's say your mother was very afraid of spiders,
Speaker 1: so you became afraid of spiders. So the eight core spells,
Speaker 1: the first two are the basic, you know, the real
Speaker 1: core basic foundational spells. You know, I'm separate from life
Speaker 1: and life is not safe. Then there's the three you know,
Speaker 1: operating spells. You know, I gotta do life, I gotta
Speaker 1: do it right, and I'm not doing it right enough.
Speaker 1: And if you watch, you'll basically, you know, if you
Speaker 1: had that little door on your forehead and you could watch,
Speaker 1: you'll see that's what the storyteller. It's really trying really
Speaker 1: hard to get this all together so then it would
Speaker 1: be happy. And that's the fix it mode. That that
Speaker 1: you know. The sad thing about the fix it mode
Speaker 1: is one and a hundred times it works, So it's
Speaker 1: the carrot in front of the dog that is the
Speaker 1: problem is that it occasionally works, or it works for
Speaker 1: a very short amount of time, which makes it so
Speaker 1: much harder to see through. It's easy to see through
Speaker 1: something that never works, but that occasional challenge, yep, it
Speaker 1: just keeps us sucked into it. But what we don't
Speaker 1: see is all of that operating, all of that. I
Speaker 1: gotta do life, and I gotta do life right, and
Speaker 1: I'm not quite doing it right enough. And I got
Speaker 1: to adjust this and lose weight and make more money
Speaker 1: and whatever is all trying to take care of what
Speaker 1: I call the three hidden spells. And before I say them,
Speaker 1: you know, I've worked with people all all the way
Speaker 1: from CEOs of major corporations to UH to you know,
Speaker 1: developmentally abled teenagers to you know, housewives to therapists, and
Speaker 1: we all have these hidden spells. Eric, And the first
Speaker 1: is because I'm not doing it right, I am wrong.
Speaker 1: And because I'm wrong, I'm unlovable. And because I'm unlovable,
Speaker 1: I am all alone. And if your listeners would take
Speaker 1: a moment and think about those middle of the night things,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're woken up and the mind is
Speaker 1: just going crazy, you know, and you'll see these spells,
Speaker 1: but you'll see it all comes to the real core
Speaker 1: spell of this separate self. I am all alone. So
Speaker 1: you ask for an example, I think that the thing
Speaker 1: that comes to mind is that I really, truly I
Speaker 1: might try to kill myself three times because I was
Speaker 1: completely unlovable. I mean not only was I unlovable, I
Speaker 1: was bad and wrong to my core. And even at
Speaker 1: one time I've been drinking, it was mad at myself
Speaker 1: and I hit the bed too, you know, just I
Speaker 1: was just so frustrated and there was a board, you know,
Speaker 1: across the end of the bed under the Dubai cover,
Speaker 1: and I just kept on hitting it and hitting it
Speaker 1: until I passed out and then woke up the next
Speaker 1: morning with a broken arm. So I know those hidden
Speaker 1: spells very well. And I tried therapy, and I tried
Speaker 1: you know, uh, psychologist, psychiatrists, medication group therapy, hypnotherapy, you
Speaker 1: name it, mental hospitals. And it wasn't until I began
Speaker 1: to become curious, and especially about this judging quality in
Speaker 1: my head that I swear I went to law school
Speaker 1: and was president a debate club, and it could convince
Speaker 1: me of anything. And once I started being curious about it,
Speaker 1: and I actually carried a notebook around because I really
Speaker 1: wanted to see this operating. And I started looking at
Speaker 1: I said, I'd never judge you that voice, did you know?
Speaker 1: So I carried a notebook around and and I went
Speaker 1: and and drew a wheel on a piece of paper,
Speaker 1: huge piece of paper in my bedroom, and on the
Speaker 1: spokes I began to put all of these different things
Speaker 1: my judger would say. And the more I could see it,
Speaker 1: the more I unhook from it. I call it look
Speaker 1: to unhooked. So here I am. I now travel the world,
Speaker 1: I write books. You know, never ever had any vision
Speaker 1: of that whatsoever. And every once in a while that
Speaker 1: judge you will come up when I'm I'm you know,
Speaker 1: very very close family member has been very ill and uh,
Speaker 1: it's very heartbreaking and uh and you know, I work
Speaker 1: full time and try to be there for this family
Speaker 1: member and and at times I just am stretched. And
Speaker 1: when I am, the judger will come. But I say, oh, hi,
Speaker 1: are you having a bad day. So that's the power
Speaker 1: of beginning to see. That's why I did the spells.
Speaker 1: It's it's all about learning how to see how this
Speaker 1: storyteller operates. And in the seeing is the movement. We
Speaker 1: don't need to fix it, we don't need to judge it,
Speaker 1: we don't need to rearrange it, rise above it, get
Speaker 1: rid of it. In the seeing is the movement. And
Speaker 1: that's what we're discovering the power of human attention to heal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that's one of those things that we
Speaker 1: were talking a little bit earlier about how this isn't
Speaker 1: easy and it doesn't happen immediately. I think there's a
Speaker 1: tendency to do this for a couple hours and go, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't feel any better, whereas really, this
Speaker 1: is a process that we need to keep doing it.
Speaker 1: It's part of the reason I started the show, honestly,
Speaker 1: was to be reminded consistently like that that thing that's
Speaker 1: carrying on all the time in my head is not
Speaker 1: the truth because left to my own devices, I I
Speaker 1: identify pretty strongly with it. And so you know, getting
Speaker 1: that sort of constant reminder to like, okay, you know
Speaker 1: that's not you take it, take a step back. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is why I do groups and phone counseling and
Speaker 1: retreats and all of that, so we can gather together
Speaker 1: and be real about it. And we discovered that everybody
Speaker 1: else is doing the same thing. It's just so wonderful.
Speaker 1: So a really nifty thing to add into our lives,
Speaker 1: you know, is to become what I call a tightness detective.
Speaker 1: That you begin to realize you look out in nature
Speaker 1: and you see that everything flows in nature, you know,
Speaker 1: water flows, light flows, day flows into night, winter into spring,
Speaker 1: sap flows for heaven, say, and you begin to realize,
Speaker 1: if you're around a baby, you see that everything flows
Speaker 1: through it, you know, madness, sadness, gladness, you know, and
Speaker 1: then you see us as adults. There was a study
Speaker 1: done ones of children that all of them were breathing
Speaker 1: their natural breath like dogs and cats breathe the whole
Speaker 1: trunk before they went to preschool. Not one was breathing
Speaker 1: their natural breath by the time they went to first grade.
Speaker 1: So we've all learned how to tighten. And it's when
Speaker 1: we begin to use this tightening as our bio feedback
Speaker 1: mechanism that you begin to see that any thought that
Speaker 1: tightens you is not the truth. It's from the condition self.
Speaker 1: And it's almost like we have to have that because
Speaker 1: some of these spells are spells. They are very strong.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, if I could break my own
Speaker 1: arm through the spell of I am unlovable and broken
Speaker 1: and bad and wrong, you know, that's how strong they
Speaker 1: can be. But you begin to see, you begin to
Speaker 1: have these moments where you relax back into life and
Speaker 1: your belly let's go, and you your chest begins to
Speaker 1: open and you feel this aliveness and you're just here.
Speaker 1: And then somebody hanks their horn, you know, and then
Speaker 1: you know, and then you begin to notice, oh, and
Speaker 1: that helps people immensely, you know. And here's a thought
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night and it's just you know,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden awareness kicks in and says, wow,
Speaker 1: I really think that thought is true, but it makes
Speaker 1: me tight, so it can't be the truth. So I
Speaker 1: have the little statement. If it makes you tight, it's
Speaker 1: of the fight. One of the things I really liked
Speaker 1: in the book that you did was sort of very
Speaker 1: consistently every couple of pages was was, you know, an
Speaker 1: invitation to drop back into the current moment in a
Speaker 1: very concrete way. And I thought that was really in
Speaker 1: addition to the practices that you did at the end
Speaker 1: of the chapter, which are very well structured. And I
Speaker 1: think what I like about it is one of the
Speaker 1: things we talked on this show all the time about
Speaker 1: is start really small. If you start small with something,
Speaker 1: you can build into something really great. But most of
Speaker 1: us start with you know, I'm going to meditate an
Speaker 1: hour a day, and that's just doesn't work. And so
Speaker 1: you're you're, you're, you call them remembering practices build very
Speaker 1: slowly from a very small which is great, and and
Speaker 1: then just these very small invitations, like I said, to
Speaker 1: come back, and I find one of the things that
Speaker 1: helps me more than just about anything. A lot of
Speaker 1: the time is just to come back to recognize, like
Speaker 1: what where am I and what's happening? Like what do
Speaker 1: I see? What do I hear? What do I smell?
Speaker 1: What do I feel? Just like it sounds so simple,
Speaker 1: and it is so simple, but getting in the habit
Speaker 1: of doing that, you know, three times a day, really
Speaker 1: makes at least for me, makes a big difference. Yeah,
Speaker 1: me too, because that's what we long for. I love
Speaker 1: that quote by Alan watts Uh, the very beloved Zen philosopher.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, no matter how many times you
Speaker 1: say the word water, it will never be wet. And
Speaker 1: we long you know, we we got this idea that
Speaker 1: enlightenment was oh coming to this unending state of orgasmic bliss,
Speaker 1: you know. And really it's about opening right here, right now,
Speaker 1: everything we long for, Everything we truly are is right here,
Speaker 1: and we long for it. But we long for this
Speaker 1: version of the now. Oh I want the now, but
Speaker 1: the now includes loss, death, pain, and so much of
Speaker 1: this work is what's in the way is the way
Speaker 1: that the more we begin to become curious and we
Speaker 1: notice there's something pretty spectacular we're missing, you know, Yes,
Speaker 1: it it has suffering in it, but you know, it's
Speaker 1: pretty wonderful, this thing called life. And then we notice
Speaker 1: how much we are away from it. Then we begin
Speaker 1: to become fascinated by what takes us away. We're not
Speaker 1: trying to get to the now. I can't tell you
Speaker 1: how many people have told me I don't do go
Speaker 1: being in the now. Very well, well, we can't be
Speaker 1: try to be in the now. That's our natural state.
Speaker 1: All we need to do is learn how to see
Speaker 1: with our attention all of this conditioning that we've taken on,
Speaker 1: and it's just when we step back from it, it
Speaker 1: begins to become as ephemeral as a cloud, and you
Speaker 1: begin to understand that the light of your attention is
Speaker 1: like the sun on the morning fog. It literally dissipates it.
Speaker 1: And then here we are now. I just watch the
Speaker 1: clip from Andrea Levine, Stephen Levine's wife, and Steven just died,
Speaker 1: you know, a few months ago, and to me, Stephen
Speaker 1: Levine is one of the most aware hearts that we
Speaker 1: have on this planet. And she talks in this clip
Speaker 1: about that they really have been able to, you know,
Speaker 1: have a life where they really are practicing all of
Speaker 1: this and yet in the last couple of years in
Speaker 1: his life it was challenging, of course. And can we
Speaker 1: you know, Stephen would say, die before you die. Can
Speaker 1: we learn how to be here not only for the joys,
Speaker 1: but for the headache, for the heartache when the boyfriend
Speaker 1: doesn't call, for the stomach cramps, or for the anxiousness
Speaker 1: at the light when it's taking too long because now
Speaker 1: you're gonna be late to work. Can we learn how
Speaker 1: to be curious about these and bring them spaciousness so
Speaker 1: that when we die, and it's true that all of
Speaker 1: us are going to have that, and as we get older,
Speaker 1: this whole system begins to break down. Can we have
Speaker 1: that breaking down and opening into the next phase be
Speaker 1: a process that enlivens us rather than a process that
Speaker 1: contracts us. Yep. And that is the as you say,
Speaker 1: the only game in town. And you know, the reason
Speaker 1: that I sort of keep coming back to these small
Speaker 1: steps is that it is a path towards, you know,
Speaker 1: of of going from complete identification with our brain to
Speaker 1: that spaciousness. And I think I know I did, and
Speaker 1: you know you talked about it with the meditation. You know,
Speaker 1: I I finally started to get a daily meditation practice,
Speaker 1: when I stopped expecting anything to happen from it exactly,
Speaker 1: you know, when I when I just finally went oh, okay,
Speaker 1: I did it. And I think that so many times,
Speaker 1: this idea of being able to work with our thoughts,
Speaker 1: of being able to get some distance, of being able
Speaker 1: to see the storyteller, for me, is the sort of
Speaker 1: thing that just took a lot of reps. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying I mean I am in no way, shape
Speaker 1: or form like done with that. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: still happens a lot, and I still get entangled. But
Speaker 1: I think it's so important when we talk about these
Speaker 1: things too, to talk about that that this stuff you
Speaker 1: do it over and over. It's not instant results. It's
Speaker 1: not you know, it's not like taking a drug, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and the ego expects a drug. The ego wants a drug,
Speaker 1: and that's not the path back home again. And in
Speaker 1: my book The Gift of Our Compulsions, I put the
Speaker 1: uh when I self published it, before my publisher picked
Speaker 1: it up, I put the story of the tortoise and
Speaker 1: the hair in there three times, and of course when
Speaker 1: they edited it they took it out all except for
Speaker 1: once because it is the plot, and that's not how
Speaker 1: the ego works. The ego wants it results right now.
Speaker 1: You know, Oh, you know, actually tasting my morning coffee
Speaker 1: is going to make a difference in my life, says
Speaker 1: the ego, you know, and I say, yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: And I've got a little uh analogy that I used
Speaker 1: is drops of water in a bucket and you look
Speaker 1: down and the bucket is not even the bottom isn't
Speaker 1: even covered, and you say, oh, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do this anymore. But if you keep on
Speaker 1: with it, you know, you look down one day and
Speaker 1: oh my god, the buckets half full, and then one
Speaker 1: day your foot is wet. So it's just that that
Speaker 1: it's it's not a half to it says something that
Speaker 1: begins to happen when you really see there's a difference
Speaker 1: between this story about life and actual life. And the
Speaker 1: strange thing is we really want this, but we're also
Speaker 1: terrified of it because the last time we were fully open,
Speaker 1: we got scared. So we need to be so kind
Speaker 1: with ourselves and we need to, as you are so
Speaker 1: beautifully saying, go slowly. And we also need to realize
Speaker 1: that most people at this time on the planet still
Speaker 1: go to their deathbed identified with this condition. South and
Speaker 1: a lot of people in power are totally identified with it.
Speaker 1: But there's more and more people. I'm working with engineers,
Speaker 1: and I'm working with it just you know, it's really
Speaker 1: exciting to see how I'm working with people at Amazon
Speaker 1: and at Microsoft. You know. There this is beginning to
Speaker 1: uh come into cebe into the cracks in so many places.
Speaker 1: And I think people want to make a difference in
Speaker 1: the world, and they don't realize that one of the
Speaker 1: most powerful ways they can help the healing of our
Speaker 1: planet is to heal the war inside of them. So
Speaker 1: we're nearing the end of our time. I want to
Speaker 1: visit one area of the book that I found challenging
Speaker 1: for me, like that that sort of I went, I
Speaker 1: don't know about that, and so I'm really curious about
Speaker 1: it because it's an area that that I often um, well,
Speaker 1: that just it raises interesting questions for me. And you
Speaker 1: talk about the fact that there is an underline intelligence
Speaker 1: under everything, which actually the way you describe it made
Speaker 1: so much sense, like, oh, of course there is, Like
Speaker 1: because I'm this creature and you know, how did I
Speaker 1: go from a single cell thing into this creature. How
Speaker 1: did I how does my heart beat? How does my digestion?
Speaker 1: That there's this that there is this intelligence drive in everything,
Speaker 1: and that there's this underline beauty. And you talk about
Speaker 1: life being for us, and I'm good with the intelligent
Speaker 1: peace up until there's almost like a conscious design for
Speaker 1: me that's out there. Like I believe, like what you
Speaker 1: say that the what's in the way is the way.
Speaker 1: I absolutely believe it is those things. It is the
Speaker 1: barriers and the challenges and the things of our life
Speaker 1: that are the grist for the mill um. But I'm
Speaker 1: curious about UM. I guess I'm just curious what you
Speaker 1: think about you know what I'm saying that there's a
Speaker 1: I have that challenge with there being sort of a
Speaker 1: um like that, for example, that my girlfriend breaks up
Speaker 1: with me, because that's a way for me to um
Speaker 1: experience challenge in life that seems I don't know, I
Speaker 1: I wrestle with that. So I'm just kind of curious.
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure that's what you were saying, But
Speaker 1: I just thought it'd be a fun thing to talk about.
Speaker 1: First of all, I don't think any of us know
Speaker 1: really what's going on here, and I think it is
Speaker 1: very helpful to to have a set of beliefs understanding
Speaker 1: that we can never really know if they're true, right,
Speaker 1: but a set of beliefs that engage you more with
Speaker 1: life rather than cause you to struggle with life if
Speaker 1: we don't know, we should choose stories that give us
Speaker 1: power versus stories that take our power away, exactly. And
Speaker 1: that my experience is is the more that I've come
Speaker 1: out of the clouds and the more I see this
Speaker 1: spectacular thing. I mean, I'm looking out this window to
Speaker 1: this this magnolia tree that I'm looking right over the
Speaker 1: top of it, and it's all these bare twigs, and
Speaker 1: it's just filled with these purple and pink flowers. I mean,
Speaker 1: and all of that was made out of stardust. And
Speaker 1: what is it that took stardust and created the DNA molecule.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: we've given it the name God, and we've created all
Speaker 1: sorts of religion around it, which is really mostly the
Speaker 1: human ego. But when I quiet down, I see there
Speaker 1: is an intelligence here. And when I begin to realize
Speaker 1: that this this came all in one fell swoop. When
Speaker 1: I was writing the book that life is set up
Speaker 1: to bring up what has been bound up, so we
Speaker 1: can open up to be freedom, so we can show
Speaker 1: up for life. And when I began to get out
Speaker 1: of that idea that this is happening because I did
Speaker 1: something wrong or they did something wrong, or God whatever
Speaker 1: God is, fell asleep on the job, all of a
Speaker 1: sudden I was not the victim anymore. Now I am
Speaker 1: being fascinated. And it just really uh amazes me sometime
Speaker 1: to watch how with myself and with people that I
Speaker 1: work with, when you begin to realize how much this
Speaker 1: dance is for you. Now, truth is always paradoxical, you know.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's is there a divine you know,
Speaker 1: thing underneath it that has everything you know set you
Speaker 1: know in stone? And well, no, there's free will and
Speaker 1: you know and all this, Well it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a combination to both of them. And what it is
Speaker 1: is you begin to be fascinated by what is showing up,
Speaker 1: and you know, whether it's my mind deciding, you know,
Speaker 1: oh it's more peaceful if it sees this, or you know, whatever.
Speaker 1: When I begin to notice what any particular situation brings
Speaker 1: up inside of me, and I begin to do what
Speaker 1: I call in the book the you turn the y
Speaker 1: ou turn, and you begin to notice what is going on.
Speaker 1: You begin to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
Speaker 1: And the best way I can describe it is I
Speaker 1: describe it sometimes like we're in the wind tunnel. Great analogy, Yes,
Speaker 1: picture puzzle, you know, and everyone's around the wind tunnel.
Speaker 1: You can just get it right, and you're just, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I got this. Flying is wonderful. That we're slammed against
Speaker 1: the wall, or clothes are ripped off, and you know,
Speaker 1: a puzzle goes into our I had and all that.
Speaker 1: And what we're doing in this work is we're stepping
Speaker 1: out and we're becoming curious. And that's the place where
Speaker 1: life is for you. And you just take a piece
Speaker 1: out and when you look at it, you're not the
Speaker 1: victim to it anymore. And then you put it down
Speaker 1: on the table, and more and more that puzzle begins
Speaker 1: to fill out, and you see by these situations that
Speaker 1: life is putting you in that help you to bring
Speaker 1: up what has been bound up. You can see it,
Speaker 1: you see through it, and you're not hooked anymore, and
Speaker 1: you're not a victim to anything. You're now more and
Speaker 1: more fully engaged, and I'm like you, I get hooked.
Speaker 1: And and Andrea shared it so beautifully on the video.
Speaker 1: You know, you know she said, we've done all this practice,
Speaker 1: and you know it was challenging at times, but she said,
Speaker 1: we had this ability to come back to the heart,
Speaker 1: which is our main brand, back to this which which
Speaker 1: is This brain is dualistic, likes this, it doesn't like that.
Speaker 1: I think this is good. That is bad, this is right,
Speaker 1: that is wrong. Look at history. This brain is engaged,
Speaker 1: it is sensitive to what is it. It is inclusive
Speaker 1: rather than exclusive, and as far as I can see,
Speaker 1: it's the only way to live. And and by this brain,
Speaker 1: you meant your heart, heart brain. Yes, it is a brain.
Speaker 1: We found that out. Now it's a brain. Yeah. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of great stuff in your book about that topic.
Speaker 1: To um it. It really is a wonderful, wonderful book.
Speaker 1: Um I really enjoyed it. I love what you just
Speaker 1: had to say there. I mean, for me, I'm a
Speaker 1: I'm a member of twelve step programs right where there's
Speaker 1: an idea if you turn your life over to the
Speaker 1: care of God. And I'm like, well, I don't know
Speaker 1: what that is, and what I finally recognized for me
Speaker 1: was it didn't really matter. It was that it was
Speaker 1: the letting go of it, you know, taken out of
Speaker 1: my clutched bad hands, that I'm not sure what the
Speaker 1: mechanism is, but everything works better when I do that, right.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, that's that seems to be the
Speaker 1: evidence that I can see, is like me, letting go works.
Speaker 1: And so you just imagine, you know, you're you're at
Speaker 1: your family, you know, for Easter or whatever, and you know,
Speaker 1: Uncle Bobby is having a an argument with Aunt Josephine,
Speaker 1: you know, or something like that, and and somebody else's
Speaker 1: doing something else, and you can just feel yourself tightening,
Speaker 1: and then you go, no, wait, life is for me
Speaker 1: that there's something here for me to see all of
Speaker 1: a sudden. It's not happening to you all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: You are engaged with it. And my experience is every
Speaker 1: single experience has something to show you, not only about
Speaker 1: this condition self, but also about how it is safe
Speaker 1: to open and engage with life. And then life becomes
Speaker 1: an adventure. And that's what we long for, you know,
Speaker 1: when we buy the fancy are or have the LiPo
Speaker 1: section or whatever, what we really really long for is
Speaker 1: to be here. I couldn't agree more. Well, Mary, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. This has been a very fun conversation.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I really enjoyed the book. I got
Speaker 1: an email today from um, your publisher, who said, really,
Speaker 1: I mean I rarely see gushing like that over a book,
Speaker 1: and so it was very It's a special one. So
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, thank you. It's my joy. You
Speaker 1: can learn more about Mary O'Malley and this podcast at
Speaker 1: one youth feed dot net, slash Mary