Being With Others

Our awareness in its natural state is clear and simple. There are moments when you hear a sound, and that’s it, you heard the sound, there’s nothing extra, you don’t have even thoughts about it. There’s a possibility of living in a type of awareness that is mostly that simple, even though thoughts are rolling through. We can’t stop thoughts, but each one disappears as soon as it arises. They all disappear, but the awareness itself stays clear.

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

The following is excerpted from a session of Dharma Dialogues held in Melbourne,

Australia in November of 2019.

It's called Being with Others.

The audience mic was not working on this recording and we were able to pick up the audience only through my lapel mic,

But you should be able to hear them,

Though not at our usual standard.

Our awareness in its natural state is fairly clear.

One could say it's clear.

It's very simple.

There are moments when,

You know,

You hear a sound,

For instance,

You hear a loud sound and you just,

That's it.

You heard the sound.

There's nothing extra.

You don't have even thoughts about it.

There's a possibility of living in a type of awareness that is mostly clear,

Even though thoughts are rolling through.

We can't stop thoughts,

But each one of them disappears as soon as it arises.

You can check it out.

They all disappear.

Similar ones might arise,

Of course,

But there's this constant flowing,

There's this constant flux of phenomena that rolls through our awareness,

But the awareness itself stays clear and we forget that.

We think we have some issue that is taking over the entire screen of awareness,

Right?

But in fact,

It's just a lot of thoughts about a certain issue and these thoughts are constantly dissolving.

So let's take the case of worry.

I'm reminded of Mark Twain,

The great American author,

Author Mark Twain's line about a man that he knew said he had a great many worries and some of them came to be,

Right?

A lot of what we worry about never comes to be and even if it does sometimes come to be,

It comes to be in a different way than we were imagining it.

So it's another way to understand your relationship with your own imagination,

Right?

It takes up a lot of the screen of your awareness.

Fantasy,

Romantic projection,

Pictures about things you might be doing in the future,

Memories constantly going over memories about the past,

Right?

This bright screen of awareness is actually much more your natural state and you can kind of fall back into it with your own intentionality.

So it's much more,

You start to live much more,

I say this all the time,

In your senses.

Like when you're tasting your coffee or your tea or your water,

You're really there.

And when you're walking up some steps,

You're feeling the surface of the hardness of the surface under your feet and the movement of your system.

In fact,

That's all a privilege,

By the way.

It's a great privilege to be able to move easily.

We forget all these things.

We take everything for granted that we have until it's gone.

But you can actually start to reverse that and start noticing all those little things,

Just walking up the steps,

Walking over to your car,

Opening the door,

A great sense of presence throughout your day.

Now,

Granted,

We are thinking creatures.

Thinking goes on.

But it's possible to have a very light relationship with your thinking.

Now,

Some people are also being paid to think.

Their jobs require that they figure things out,

That they make decisions.

You have to consider this and that and this and that to make a decision.

Okay,

Granted,

You're being paid to think in some part of your day,

Many people.

But when you're off,

When it's your time off and you're no longer being paid to think,

Why be doing what's really just a job of a lot of thinking?

Because it can be tiring.

I've been noticing I have a decision that I have to make and I'm going down lists in my mind of pros and cons and the lists change to meaning daily.

I've been noticing how tiring it is to have this little job in my mind of this decision because I'm quite used to what one might call a floating type of awareness where I'm just sort of floating around from one thing to the next,

Whatever the functionality is needed or some passing insider thought.

But for the most part,

The screen stays pretty open and I'm noticing how different it is when there's kind of a lot on my mind,

You could say.

But I see this as a time-limited circumstance.

The decision will get made one way or the other in the fullness of time and be done with.

This isn't how I used to live when I was younger.

I used to live in a lot of obsession,

Thinking about different things of course.

When I think about what I used to be thinking about it's kind of hilarious since I never think about any of those things anymore.

But they were very important at the time it seemed to me and I was obsessive.

I thought I was a thinker and I would go over my opinions about things and most of those changed over the years.

But I was very fixed on my story about myself and what had been my life and my difficult childhood.

That was a big drama.

I thought about that for years and years,

Talked to everyone I could find that would listen to me until I would wear them out and have to find someone new to tell the story.

Eventually I got tired of it as well.

Romantic obsessions was a big one for me.

I had lots of those,

Just absolutely obsessed.

I bet there were days,

Many days,

When during my waking hours I would not have five minutes that was not being taken up with obsession,

Romantic obsession.

I even had one very glaring lesson in regard to this,

One of my romantic obsession relationships in which I was in the relationship for three years.

In that phase it was just this white-hot fixation.

We broke up and I went back to the living where I had lived prior to meeting him.

When I got together with him I moved to where he lived but then I moved back to where I lived.

He lived thousands of miles away.

A few years later he came to visit our area and because we were friends we went out and had coffee.

A few days later I was walking down the street and he was across the street,

Didn't see me.

He was doing something across the street in the same neighborhood that I lived in.

I didn't cross over the street.

I saw him and I thought,

Well,

We've seen each other a couple of times since he's been here.

I don't need to say anything more,

Nothing's undone or unsaid.

But it was interesting to me,

I literally had this moment of recognition of how much time and thought and obsession and how during the time that that was going on it would be inconceivable that he would be across the street and I wouldn't go.

I'd probably get run over getting across the street.

I make all these points by way of saying that a lot of our stream of thought that seems so very important isn't.

If you think about what,

If you remember,

If you can even remember,

What your general stream of thought was about a year ago or two years ago or ten years ago,

You'll quickly see your current thinking is quite different,

Your current concerns,

And that those concerns have somehow faded away.

I find even with lots of people I've known who have died,

Who I have so loved,

Some of my best friends have died in the last few years.

I noticed that when they were here,

I felt they were part of my life,

They were all in the game,

We're all in the playing field together at the same time,

No matter where they lived in the world.

They were sort of in my current feeling of community.

And with them gone,

It's not that,

It's not certainly not that the love or the importance that they were in my life is not there,

But with them no longer here,

I notice they're not on the playing field of life,

So I don't think about them in the same way anymore.

It throws us into the preciousness of our moments here,

Of our lucky lives,

Of our beautiful days,

Of our fresh and clear awareness,

Which allows us to operate in this world in a much more gentle fashion,

In a harmonious way,

And allows us to show up for those that we connect with without a kind of cloud of thought about you're actually somewhere else.

You know how it feels either when you're in that state,

When you're with someone,

But you're sort of not quite there,

You're thinking about something else or someone else,

You know how it feels in yourself.

You also know how it feels when you're with someone who you think is in that kind of state,

Or they may even tell you,

Sorry I'm so distracted.

So these are all the ways of present awareness.

We hear a lot about present awareness,

About being here,

About simplicity of connection.

These are all the reflections that come with that.

I don't know,

I just think it's a super interesting concept that I've just more recently started to explore,

And I think it's kind of like the antithesis of what we're taught growing up.

You know,

I feel like my more natural state has always been that kind of like clear awareness of what you're speaking about,

But I felt like in order to be perceived as intellectual,

I needed to,

You know,

Become more analytical.

So now that I'm becoming more aware of it,

I can see that,

But it's definitely hard to get out of that mindset that I do feel like mainstream teaches us what it's supposed to be like.

Yeah,

Right.

You're so right.

Isn't it interesting though,

Like when you're with someone and they're very intellectual,

And they're sort of intellectualizing everything,

It's tiring,

Isn't it?

And often it's off-putting.

And on the other hand,

When you're with someone who's just very kind of easy and present,

And you're kind of cruising along together,

How's that feeling?

So much nicer.

So it's interesting that,

Yes,

We do have this way that we're indoctrinated,

Especially in our Western cultures,

To be somebody.

Like you have to be somebody,

Prove something,

And show off in some way.

Make yourself noticed.

And especially now with social media,

You know,

It's creating this very depressing,

Literally depressing self-obsession that's going on.

And there's now a lot of data that is showing,

Especially for younger people,

Teenagers and 20-somethings,

Who are spending a lot of time on social media,

Higher rates of depression.

Because of course,

Everyone's putting forth these glorious,

Glamorous lives they're having,

Right?

And the reality might be quite different,

One suspects that it is,

But for people who are looking at that and then forced to sort of put on their own version of their happy life,

Which maybe they secretly know isn't really true,

It's creating this kind of internal dissonance,

It's creating a lot of comparison.

But also what it's creating is,

As I said,

This obsession with yourself,

Which is never a good thing,

Because it's an endless job that's thankless,

You know?

And so to unhook from all those kinds of ways of being and unhook also from the cultural trance that has been very well broadcast that we all have grown up in,

That is saying,

You know,

Basically,

What about me?

What about me?

That's the trance.

And it comes in different forms,

Having to be intellectual or having to be pretty or having to be,

You know,

Anything,

Having to be somebody.

It's something you have to constantly challenge,

Really,

Not in an obsessive way,

But to every time you feel it or see it coming up,

To just say,

Hang on,

Is it true that I have to be,

I have to present as an intellectual?

Right?

And do I like being around intellectuals?

I like to be around people who are,

You know,

Well informed in their field.

I like,

I enjoy that if they're presenting it in a light way,

Or if it's just kind of part of what they talk about,

But not a kind of lecture every time you see them.

I know a few people,

Though,

Who really do wear it very heavily,

Like their intellectual thing,

They wear it really heavily.

And I just find it exhausting.

Because part of what I'm dealing with in those circumstances is,

I'm dealing with seeing their ego.

So it may be twofold,

The exhaustion may be twofold.

It's maybe that I'm not as interested as they are in their subject,

So that's,

Then I'm just stuck there listening to something I'm not really interested in,

And feeling out of politeness,

Forced to be paying attention.

But also,

I'm getting a little tired also because I'm realizing I'm dealing with eco-material.

And I can do it for a while,

But after a while it's tiring.

A lot of times people's connections are based in a lot of neurotic agreement,

You know.

A lot of people have those kinds of relationships,

And I've seen over the years,

Literally hundreds of people will have the experience that the type of frequency that they were hanging out on,

As you're describing,

You know,

People a lot of agitation,

Or more,

More,

More,

Or just,

You know,

Different interests,

Were no longer interesting to them.

And they had to walk away from a lot of people,

Not out of not caring or being loving to their feelings,

But because they couldn't really engage with them anymore.

And especially if you have no way to help them in it.

In other words,

If you're in a role of being of service in those circumstances,

That's different.

You can have a lot more energy for that,

But if it's just sort of wanting to muck around in neurotic story,

It's hard to maintain much interest in it.

And so it is just the what's so.

But of course,

Some of what we face is that,

You know,

We have families.

And with our families,

We just have to do our best and have as much contact as we can manage.

And do our best,

And take breaks and take,

Yes,

Absolutely.

And also know that we can't be that heroic beyond where our own evolution is,

That we have to be honest about how much we can do and handle.

And yes,

And then it becomes very precious to have Sangha.

It does,

You know,

It becomes very,

It becomes your refuge of where you feel a sense of belonging.

Even if you don't have a whole lot of conversations about this,

You can have a sense of Sangha in a general sense that there are people who do understand.

I consider a lot of my Sangha are people who are already dead.

But,

You know,

I just feel like thank goodness,

Their voices,

Yes,

And that I've had them in my life and also that even historically people I never met.

But just so that you know,

You're not crazy.

This is,

This is a frequency that is rare and is not being broadcast loudly in the world.

A lot of other things are being broadcast.

I predict this is going to start being broadcast more loudly.

It has in my time so far in terms of,

In terms of how,

Like when I first started out in mindfulness study back in 74,

It was a very obscure,

Very obscure thing.

I mean,

We had tiny little courses for years and years and years.

And yeah,

Even the people who were into some sort of spiritual thing,

Very few of them were into what I considered a more sophisticated or more mature Dharma.

There were lots of,

Lots of trips around in the 70s,

But most of them were kind of hedonistic.

But there was,

You know,

This one strand of mindfulness practitioners that I was involved with.

And just as an aside,

This is a story.

In New Delhi,

There was this place called Trips Out Travel,

And it was where every spiritual scene who was coming to India to study,

They would use Trips Out Travel,

Because everybody trusted the guy who owned it,

Harish Bhudraja,

Beautiful guy.

So he saw every,

He saw every single spiritual scene,

Every trip that there was on planet earth,

Whoever went to India.

When you would go to Trips Out Travel,

There would literally be 50 people ahead of you.

They'd just be all inside the offices,

All down the block,

Westerners.

And that went on day after day,

Year after year.

But the people he relied on that came through,

And there were very few of us,

Very few of the Buddhist mindfulness crowd.

They were the ones he made friends with.

And he would even let,

Like I stayed in his apartment all the time,

My boyfriend and I,

We would just stay in his apartment when we were in New Delhi.

He one time gave me $10,

000 to bring to his daughter in Paris,

Because he knew my plane was stopping in Paris.

And he gave me $10,

000 to bring to her.

But he really connected with the mindfulness crowd.

That's my point.

So just by way of saying,

Even though there were all these scenes out there,

There was hardly anyone that one felt that kind of resonance with.

Yeah.

So since that time,

It's an explosion.

I mean,

Comparatively,

It's everywhere.

It's in the universities,

It's everywhere,

The mindfulness practice,

At least.

This thing that we're speaking about,

I say,

Is an even more subtle level of being and of open awareness.

And that has its own,

That's got an interest that's floating around as well.

Way more obscure,

But still out there.

Eckhart Tolle is very much known in the world and so on.

But there's a frequency in those kinds of circumstances.

And you get to be together like creatures,

Like simple like creatures.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No agenda.

Yeah.

Back where I live in Lennox Head,

I watch the birds surround my house quite a bit.

There's all these crazy turkers that are just hilarious.

But there's also these other birds that go around in pairs.

I don't actually even know what kind of bird they are,

But they go in pairs.

It's just so sweet to see them.

They just,

You know,

They just hang out like one,

They share food.

It's very cute.

They'll share food with each other.

But they always,

They're always together.

You know,

Just being together.

And we forget,

We forget that,

You know,

It's such a beautiful way to hang out.

I'm interested in what you said about romantic obsession.

I think for me,

I used to be very romantically obsessed a lot.

And in that state a lot,

Whenever I was in a relationship.

And actually recently,

I'm in a new relationship that I've actually been in for years,

But it's brand new now,

Because we've decided to start it fresh.

And I'm trying not to be obsessed,

And I'm just trying to be more present with it.

But I think we're classically taught in society that actually being obsessed is how you know that you're really interested in one.

You know,

If you can't get them off your mind,

That's a good thing.

And that's how you know you really want to be with them.

So I'm interested to hear thoughts on,

You know,

What a relationship,

What a more healthy relationship looks like,

And how you can kind of measure the success of a relationship and how fulfilling it is to you in a different way.

Yeah.

I think the initial phase of a relationship,

The obsession is sort of impossible to resist.

I mean,

It's just you can't not think about them,

You know,

Especially initially.

But you're saying you've been in this for years.

Yeah,

So we were in it for years,

And then we broke up for a few months.

Okay.

And now we're back in it,

But thought we were going to break up,

But it just feels totally new.

Okay.

We've both gone on these separate journeys,

And I went on an amazing retreat,

And he's done a lot of self-worth.

So coming together again feels totally new.

Okay,

Okay.

Well,

I think it's certainly expected and I'd say allowed to have a phase of obsession when it's kind of the newness,

You know,

And that's exciting.

And there's a kind of sparkle that's very different than almost any other pleasure in life.

You know,

I would say pretty much probably other than maybe having a baby,

Initially with having a child,

You know,

That that's a kind of,

You know,

Just takes over your whole entire being,

Especially for women because of the hormonal response in oxytocin.

So those things that happen for us are in their own category.

We have to allow for a phase of,

You can't think of anything else,

Your heart is stolen.

But once that all calms down,

Then the questions are going to be around,

Is this a great friend?

Is this someone who considers me,

Who has consideration,

Who is fun to explore things with,

To talk with,

Or to be quiet with?

One of my girlfriends once said that her standard is,

Is this someone I can see sitting on the porch when we're old with me in our rocking chairs?

Like,

Is this somebody I'm going to hang out with when we're on the porch?

I like that one.

Things like that,

You know,

Because sometimes we come together in romantic relationships for very different kinds of reasons that have to do with passion,

Romantic or sexual passion,

That isn't so sustainable because you might be that once that kind of cools off,

You discover you're really not even particularly friends,

Or that you don't really,

You might be friends but not have that much in common,

Or that you both live very different lives in a way in terms of your interest.

Those are the kinds of things I think to think about.

Now,

That said,

Sometimes people with very different interests can be such good friends,

Like such great partners in terms of the day-to-day living,

That the fact that they have different interests isn't a problem.

But you have to just weigh it.

Really,

You're the barometer as to whether or not it feels good and that you feel whole in yourself,

Right?

You don't feel desperate in the relationship,

You feel whole and it's an enhancement in life.

I think that the obsessive highs often come the opposite,

The lows as well.

So finding that measured place and being able to embrace that and be happy in that.

Yes.

I think the highs,

They do quiet,

They do calm down after a while.

It doesn't have to be in a feeling of loss,

It's just very hard to maintain it,

Isn't it?

One of my great teachers,

Poonjaji,

When I first met him,

What he was saying was so liberating and so different from everything I had ever learned before.

And he was a real manifestation of what he was saying.

So it was a very powerful transmission.

And in the first days of being where he lived in India,

Which was this horrendous town,

One of the most polluted places on earth called Lucknow,

Misnamed.

Anyway,

In the first days of attending his thoughts on this,

I was so high and so kind of excited that I couldn't sleep.

I mean,

I felt like I was on a very intense drug trip for days and I was having these crazy experiences of consciousness and nothing magical really.

But one time I was in the shower and I felt like I was so blended with everything around me that I could put my hand through the tile.

I didn't try to do it,

But I felt like everything was porous,

Like everything was just dancing molecules and this was all just a dancing molecule.

And I was really in an altered state.

And it went on for days.

And finally it started calming down and everything started to get normalized again.

And I was so relieved.

I mean,

I was so relieved to just kind of be feeling regular and ordinary again after that.

So I think sometimes we can't really maintain certain types of those highs,

Whatever they may be,

Romantic or dharmic or anything.

Sometimes people describe,

You know,

They'll have some big win of some sort,

Whether it's winning a lottery or winning some prize or whatever it is,

You know.

And there's this crazy high naturally,

You know.

But then there can be really kind of either a crash or just a normalization where your happiness set point goes back to what it was before the event.

So you want to be able to,

Living in the normal phase with someone,

To have it be at least as happy as you were before.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My other thoughts were around,

I'm trying a lot more to be present lately and finding a lot of enjoyment in that,

Watching less TV and just in my downtime,

You know,

Enjoying that it's down time and not having to fill it with things.

Yes.

But I do find the transition between work and those moments hard,

Particularly being an entrepreneur and working for myself.

You know,

You never know when an idea is going to hit you or you know,

Lying in bed late at night.

You know,

I'm a night person and so I get onto an idea,

Do I keep thinking with it or do I go back to being present?

So I find it hard to balance those two things.

It is hard when you're your own boss and you're an entrepreneur because it's true,

You're sort of never off unless you really,

You know,

Carve out some time that you are very dedicated to keeping it clear.

I mean,

If possible,

It is sometimes helpful when you're having an idea to just jot something down so that you don't have to keep thinking about it,

Because there might be a sense if I don't write it down,

I'm going to have to keep going over it so I don't forget it.

So maybe,

You know,

If you're having some powerful inspiration,

Just jot it down and then go back to.

.

.

Let it go.

Yeah,

And let it go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah,

No,

I think that's a special case.

If you're being an entrepreneur,

You're in a kind of need to catch those moments of inspiration when they fly in.

You know,

A lot of people don't have to bother,

But if you're working for yourself and you're having to stay quite fluid with keeping everything going and flexible about how things have to change or adjust or be enhanced,

Yeah,

Then you have to pay attention to those.

And yeah,

I have that as well.

If we look at what most of what's going on in people's interest and awareness in the world,

It's very different.

What we're talking about is not even a tiny 0.

000001% of the world.

The rest is,

You know.

.

.

And yet it's kind of an antidote for anxiety.

It surely is.

Yeah.

But not one that,

You know,

For example,

You're going to hear from a psychologist.

Right.

Yes,

Some of course do,

But do speak about this.

But generally,

Yes,

It's still relatively obscure.

My sense,

Though,

And my prediction about this is that it's going to be so needed in the time to come that there will be a lot more people turning to this.

That's my sense.

But I do feel that due to the pressures we're all experiencing now on the planet,

That more and more people are going to be turning to deeper forms of Dharma and that that frequency is going to be being broadcast in bigger ways.

And I'm sensing it and I'm seeing it.

I'm seeing it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I always say that,

You know,

The well-being is downstream.

It's not clamoring upstream all the time.

It's downstream,

You know,

Being content with a bit less or a lot less and loving a lot of space.

For me,

I like to have space around things.

I'll have an activity and then I want some downtime or some space or quiet,

Then another activity and then another space or quiet.

I know I live in a kind of privilege that allows that,

But I also choose it.

Yeah.

I've allowed myself to have more transition time between different things.

Yes.

I mean,

There are times when I do feel like there's a lot of balls in the air because there's a,

You know,

There's this and there's this.

And there's so many different platforms to be answering,

Whether it's checking the email,

Checking the messages,

Checking this,

Checking the email,

Checking the email,

Checking the email.

And I think that's a really important thing.

There's messages,

Checking this,

Checking the that,

You know,

And there's so many different platforms that you have to be kind of spinning at the same time,

But allowing transition between one activity to another,

Even if it's just for a few minutes,

Has been a real blessing.

Yes.

Because it really has allowed me to pause and start something again.

Yes.

So I'm actually aware of what I'm doing instead of just spinning my own.

Great.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I just wanted to make an observation.

I might have a question.

I'm not sure what it is at the moment.

Okay.

And it's just in relation to your story about sitting in the sunlight and just relaxing into that.

So is that what you mean by,

You know,

If you get anxiety and you refocus maybe on sunlight or the birds or,

You know,

Something like that?

Yeah.

You can kind of find your own way,

Whatever it is that you know kind of calms you down.

It might be playing a piece of music or taking a walk,

Like just moving your body or doing some yoga,

Whatever your thing is,

Right?

And knowing that what that is and allowing yourself,

Giving yourself permission in the moment.

Sometimes what happens is when we're having anxiety,

We don't do the very thing that we know could calm us down.

We kind of state,

We kind of stay with the anxiety and keep thinking about things that are increasing it.

So to really interrupt it,

I speak a lot,

Will,

About neuroscience and about understanding what happens to the neurochemistry when it's kind of,

When the brain is creating these pathways,

These groups in a way,

You know.

So when you're thinking about things that are upsetting or depressing or anxiety producing,

You're actually creating chemicals being formulated by the brain that are inducing more of those kinds of thoughts.

So it's important to interrupt that pattern in any way you can.

And of course any kind of relaxation thing is very healthy.

But any way you can is also fair game.

So you know,

If putting a movie on or reading something or anything,

Having a conversation with a friend or any other thing that will interrupt a pattern like that is very powerful.

I've done those things in my experience.

But also the opposite I have found works for me.

I feel a lot,

Like sometimes overwhelmingly.

So if I do those kind of things sometimes,

It's almost like I'm trying to avoid my anxiety where it is.

But I've found that if I gently kind of just go into it like a little feather just going down into it and I feel just the raw sensations.

So it's not so much the story,

But the raw sensations and I feel that it moves and then I kind of just go with the movement.

And then so I'm up here and it might be,

You know,

Another movement down here and up,

You know,

Just all over the place.

And the movement disengages the story.

Yes,

Well that also works.

It's like it's going to physical sensations,

Which is also a way that is certainly helpful going into your actual physical senses.

And that does at least,

As you're describing it,

Break the thought patterns that are triggering it.

But it's important to do it,

You know,

To not just let it run on because then you're just going to get more and more anxious or depressed.

Depression is a big one.

A lot of people have depression due to the fact that they've been thinking depressing thoughts for so long that their whole brain chemistry is now working in opposition to their well-being and just kicking up more and more depressing thoughts.

And it seems like it's like a holding pattern almost like depression.

It's stuck kind of energy and then actually doing something physical,

Whatever that happens to be,

Probably might be quite good initially just to try and shake up the system.

Yes,

Yes,

That's right,

It does.

But for some people there's such heavy depression,

You know,

That it's very hard to,

I mean,

They just end up flattened by it.

So that's another reason why even in sort of little dips into depression it's important to interrupt the neural chemistry,

The neural patterning.

So I heard it described once as like you're going on a hike and you're in long grass and people have gone before you and there's this little pathway and the more you walk on it the more it becomes a path and that's in your brain.

So just see the path that goes down that way.

Yes,

Right,

Yeah,

A neural pathway,

That is how they're done,

Yes.

It's interesting to read about just so you get a good understanding of it,

How the chemistry works,

How the neural biochemistry works.

But what's also heartening is that it works in the opposite as well,

That when your awareness keeps defaulting into present awareness,

Into well-being or gratitude,

When its habits switch around to that,

That also creates neural chemistry.

So that's why it's really good to keep directing the attention in the way that you do it.

Keep directing the attention in those ways,

Right.

I went from a much like a very obsessive,

Slightly depressed mind patterning for years to like a very big change,

Very big change of the mind patterning now.

And I sometimes liken it to the shape-shifting of a sand dune.

Like grain by grain,

It's just shifting from one shape to a different shape,

You know.

I realized something really funny,

The other day I broke my finger and I,

With this whole new mindset I have,

I was like,

It's not a big deal.

I just started journaling but that's fine,

I'll figure out a new way to hold a pen.

It'll be fine,

It hasn't really interfered with my life at all.

And then a few days later I broke my phone,

Totally different story.

I struggled so much harder with a broken phone than a broken finger.

But actually I've been phone-less for five days and I've really embraced it.

And people find a way to get in contact with me and I go out and no one has a way of getting in contact with me and it's so liberating.

Wow,

That's great,

That's so great.

I can just be so much more in the present moment.

It's pretty amazing.

Oh my gosh,

Well two things.

I just spoke recently,

It'll be on one of the podcasts,

About how I get more upset when something happens to my computer than when something happens to my body.

And I added,

Because that ends up being this whole hassle of problems I have to take care of,

You know,

With the computer.

And I'm like,

The computer.

And then the other thing is,

Shree just on Sunday left her phone in an Uber and so she was without a phone until today and she was just kind of cruising around just enjoying.

Yeah,

It annoys everybody else eventually.

I know,

That's right.

Yeah,

I'm kind of loving it.

I'm like,

Okay,

Maybe I don't need a phone or maybe I can just leave it at home more often.

Yes,

Maybe you can leave it at home more often,

Like we used to.

Nothing,

The world won't end,

You know.

It's like,

Yeah.

I wish I had.

The other thing I want to ask you about is,

I'm interested to know,

As your career grows and as you experience more success,

Going back to what you were saying before about the ego,

It's really easy to tie your self identity to your successes.

And I'm trying more and more not to tie my identity to things that I don't really think,

You know,

Are what make me me.

But I do find it difficult even with a small thing like social media,

When you get some likes on a post and you're like,

Oh,

This is great.

Yeah.

You know,

Or you have successes in your career with work,

You know,

And then I find it hard to transition between that and then my ego,

The self that doesn't care about those things.

Well,

I think there's a middle ground in that it's fine and understandable to have satisfaction in your work and to feel your work is being,

You know,

Recognized.

That's just a normal human thing,

You know,

And to post something and see,

Oh,

Lots of people liked it or read it.

That's fine.

It's more when you are feeling like you're superior,

You know,

Or when you're feeling like you're wearing a strong identity.

That then can become very off-putting and can serve.

It'll be the opposite of what you want in life,

Which is to be,

You know,

Loved and admired and respected and those normal things.

So there's a way in which taking pride in your own work is fine.

Feeling good about being acknowledged is perfectly fine.

But then to kind of wear it lightly,

You know,

I spoke recently about,

It's on a recent podcast already,

But how I interviewed Joan Baez,

Who was,

Do you know who she is?

She was an American,

Is an American singer,

But very famous in the 60s and 70s.

Beautiful person and did a lot of work for civil rights awareness and marched with Dr.

Martin Luther King.

Anyway,

She has an amazing voice.

And she once said to me in this interview,

She said,

You know,

People always talk to me about my gift that I have,

You know,

That I'm so lucky to have this gift.

But from her point of view,

She's the recipient of the gift.

She's not the owner of the gift.

She somehow it's like she's just receiving a gift as it's going through her.

And I think that's a really good way to see it.

That,

You know,

Whatever your talents and whatever your your intelligence and your wisdom and all of that,

It's like you're experiencing a gift.

There's this old spiritual saying from long ago,

The 70s.

One to me is praise and blame.

One to me is fame and shame.

One to me is loss and gain.

So that's a kind of bridge a bit too far that is just only,

You know,

That you can always just say they're the same.

But to really see that it can flip around pretty easily and that you can be whole in yourself in loss and in gain in a similar way,

Though one is harder than the other.

And the same with fame and shame and praise and blame.

You know that you.

.

.

Over the years,

I've had a lot of people express love and gratitude for my work.

And sometimes I've had insults and criticism and condemnation.

And I've just learned to just take lightly all of it,

You know,

To not get all puffed up about the praise.

And also not to get shattered by the blame.

To just really see it as a much more impersonal thing and that I just offer what I offer and let the chips fall where they may.

So