Give Yourself Permission

Part of giving yourself permission to experience joy is moving your away attention from the things that do not give you joy. We sometimes feel that we have to suffer through scary thoughts in case it might be protective to know them, to shore up our resistance for the fight. What is we knew that our joy was part of our strength?

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

The following was excerpted from a Zoom session of Dharma Dialogues,

Which was broadcast from Australia on September 5th,

2020.

It's called,

Give Yourself Permission.

This is from Hafiz.

I once had a student who would sit alone in his house at night,

Shivering with worries and fears.

And come morning,

He would often look as though he had been assaulted by a ghost.

Then one day,

My pity crafted for him a knife from my own divine sword.

Since then,

I've become very proud of the student.

For now,

Come night,

Not only has he lost all his fear,

He goes out just looking for trouble.

He goes out just looking for trouble.

Now,

Obviously,

I don't think Hafiz meant that he goes out looking for bad trouble.

But what is the trouble that he might have referred to?

Is he goes out looking for joy or fun,

Or ways to be delighted.

Right?

So what was coming to me to say for this evening is to tell you to give yourself permission to have more fun,

To really enjoy.

And it can be very simple pleasures,

Very,

Very simple.

Little tiny things.

There have been these plovers these birds nesting on my yard for the past 28 days.

The mother sits on her she had three eggs.

She sits on those eggs.

Day and night.

I have watched her through rainstorms,

Hot days just in the sun in the rain in the night.

And her husband,

I guess because they made for life,

I assume it's the male that is on guard.

He runs around and screams and swoops at anyone who gets near her or the eggs.

This morning,

They had the babies.

So now they're in these three little furry feathery,

Tiny little creatures that you could put in a child's teacup running on the yard and the parents are trying to corral them to keep them nearer to them.

It's the most adorable thing ever.

And I find myself I just,

I just can't wait to go out and look at them.

But of course,

It scares them a little bit.

So I can't get too close to them to really get a really good look.

But and also there's a threat of being swooped.

But it is just been delighting my heart.

I just feel like,

You know,

Overcome with a kind of strange and exhilarating joy.

That one,

I guess,

Is a more dramatic actually,

Example.

With new birth,

You know,

Right there in front of your eyes.

And also appreciating,

Like what a strange evolutionary plan for plovers to have their babies in these big open fields.

But when you actually watch it,

Because their protection mechanism is the swooping with these little,

They have these little poisonous,

Sort of dark things under their wings.

So if ever they did have to hit you with one,

It would be painful.

They usually don't have to they just swoop even dogs,

They do anything they swoop kind of backs off.

I heard even horses back off from them.

So I guess the open field makes sense in that regard.

But the point being that find your own wealth of joy and give yourself permission.

You know,

We have many of us held back.

We've been good boys and girls,

We did what we were told,

We try to do it all right.

We strain and stress and we push around the blocks on the board and grind on another day.

Right.

And I have some time I've been that kind of I've had that kind of way of being a lot of my life.

Just not wanting to make a mistake,

Not wanting to,

You know,

Have any make any trouble.

And I've often marveled at people who have a much more carefree attitude and who kind of cruise along in life and just sort of go a lot more with the flow and have fun and really not have sweat having to nail every,

You know,

Dot every I and cross every T.

I've had to kind of overcome my general conditioning and temperament that did have instilled in it a lot of fear about making a mistake and getting in trouble.

Or making such a mistake that it would inhibit my future plans and dreams.

And instead,

I've seen that,

Boy,

Is that a fool's errand to be so tightened down,

So locked down in the now,

Waiting for,

You know,

Trying to keep things in control for some future that may never come and certainly won't look like one imagines.

What a poignant and sad way to spend a life.

So the sooner we recognize that the better and your joy is an antidote to fear.

Your happiness,

Believe it or not,

And I think we all kind of know this.

Your happiness actually gives you strength.

Your happiness actually gives you courage.

And that is the most fundamental antidote to fear.

So don't be afraid of it.

Get loose.

Right?

Here in the time of COVID,

I've read so many marvelous things about how people are just doing things that are just out of their ordinary habits.

They're getting a lot more loose.

We've talked about it some on these Zoom sessions.

I made a plan with a friend the other day to talk next week in the morning.

And she was saying,

You know,

Can we do it on Zoom?

Can we do it visually?

I said,

No,

Because I don't get out of my pajamas for most of the morning.

I like to be as unkempt as I feel like being for a very long time after I get up these days.

That for me is incredibly relaxing and something that in my life I've not had that much permission to do.

Now I give myself permission to do all kinds of things.

So my point is,

Who knows how much time we have?

Right?

Things are kind of falling apart.

And we all know that.

If you're paying attention to the news,

You know that things are getting tough.

And our assumptions about our ways of life are having to be revised.

So not only was your life always a limited run,

Always in the best of times,

In the best of circumstances,

In the best of health,

Always had that end date baked in.

And now it's probably even more precarious out there and saying,

So this is the time,

If ever there was a time for you to enjoy your life,

For you to love all the little things,

For you to have fun.

You might take more risks,

Not dangerous risks,

Not dangerous to your health,

More like psychological risks that don't harm anybody else.

Step a little bit out of your,

And I'm not going to say comfort zone,

It's more like your fear zone.

Step a bit out of it.

Make some experiments.

This was very good for me,

What you were talking about,

Because I've been doing new things and doing what I want.

And something that's been hard for me is feeling like I'm disappointing another person.

I think that's the toughest part for me is that sometimes what I want isn't what someone else wants.

And handling that movement in myself is hard.

Yeah,

One always has to have a balance of how we interact,

Especially when you're in a family context,

You know,

You have to consider other people's needs and feelings and so on.

But I would say it's completely fair for you to lean into living your own life the way you see fit.

And being as generous as you can along the way,

And explain your needs if need be,

But not to live your life for someone else.

Your children are old enough now,

Right?

Because when people have little children,

They are,

Especially mothers,

Are living their lives for their little children during that phase.

But once they,

Just like these little plovers,

I'm expecting at some point they're going to be able to fly.

And their parents won't have to guard them every second.

But I think that one of the things that can happen with being a parent is that the indoctrination and the conditioning is so strong,

That you're thinking about someone else ahead of yourself,

That it does feel perhaps uncomfortable to start putting yourself first.

Now,

Obviously,

You're not going to put yourself first all the time,

Right?

You'll put them first many times.

But it's fair enough for you to have your turn and to have joy.

And as I'm saying,

That gives you strength.

That gives you the wherewithal to be there for them in a really clear way.

A lot of times,

It's not so much the amount of energy that we're expending with someone,

It's the quality of the energy.

And sometimes a little goes a long,

Long way.

I think that comes to me really naturally to putting the other people first.

And I actually strike an okay balance with my kids and my husband.

I've been meeting some new people and making new friends.

And so it's hard for me with new people to not do that.

To not put them first.

Finding that balance in new relationships,

I think is what's really,

Really hard for me right now.

And it works.

Yeah.

Well,

It's just going to take making experiments.

And noticing when you're feeling a little bit like you're expending too much or that there's an imbalance,

There's a disparity.

It's all going to be about tuning into what feels good to you.

Like,

Is this really joyful for me to help this person?

Or am I doing it because I'm afraid they're not going to want to be friends with me if I don't?

So those are the kinds of things that you start tracking very carefully in your own being and your own body is going to give you the messages.

Yeah.

So it's about staying in tune with that even when with other people,

Which can be a challenge.

And then the other big challenge is when I'm meeting someone new,

There's some questions that people ask that are really normally pretty safe questions.

Like,

You know,

If I go back to the States or things about my family that are actually not easy questions for me.

Do you have a good way how to navigate around those kinds of things?

Well,

I mean,

What I tend to do is I answer because I don't want to create something taboo feeling.

Yeah,

Right.

So I answer it briefly and with as much as I want to give of the information.

You know,

I mean,

It's really case by case,

The words one would speak.

Again,

Like sitting in your own sort of joyful,

Courageous space,

You'll be able to answer in such a way that lets the person know that this is as much as you're saying on the subject without actually explicitly saying those words.

I'm not going to talk about it any further.

You don't have to say that part.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I mean,

Sometimes I'll say,

Oh,

It's a long story and it's so boring.

Right.

And then they might say,

Well,

I won't be bored by it.

And then I'll say,

Well,

I would be.

I'll be bored telling it.

Yeah.

Hi,

I'm in Wales,

West Wales in the UK.

Catherine,

This message today was really what I need to hear.

I kind of realised recently that it seems like I've lost my sense of humour a bit or it's been a sort of creeping realisation that I used to laugh a lot.

You know,

Humour was something that was really it kind of it was a huge part of my identity.

And this seriousness has kind of crept up on me more so in recent times.

And something I've noticed is that when I sometimes when I see something that reminds me of when I was kind of young and carefree,

Like the other day,

I saw a documentary about Bob Marley coming to Britain.

And,

You know,

And it was it was wonderful.

It was joyful.

But I also wept a lot because there's a kind of feeling of I've lost some I've lost some part of that kind of carefree,

Just loving life,

Having fun.

And I think listening to you this morning,

Well this morning,

But it's for me,

It's this evening for you,

There's a realisation that actually that's just a choice I can choose to look for the things that really make me laugh or just bring me real pleasure.

So I get a sense of contentment,

You know,

When I'm out in nature,

Particularly,

I feel peaceful and contented,

But it's not the same as feeling joyful.

I so understand,

I've even written about it in this essay I wrote,

What you're talking about,

About the walk down memory lane to certain parts of times of our lives that were so free and so full of hope,

With most amazing music,

You know,

Are the soundtrack to our particular era of life was extraordinary and the feeling in the air.

And I too,

Sometimes don't like to visit that,

Like when I see a documentary that's about those years or hear certain types of music.

I know what you mean,

I can get very sentimental and it can overwhelm me with a feeling of the different,

The way that it feels so different now compared to that carefree time,

Even though there were problems in the background,

There were nothing like these that we have.

So those were like,

There was nothing,

Practically.

So,

You know,

I do really understand.

And what I do with that is sometimes I can endure those kinds of movies or music or whatever,

But sometimes not.

You know,

One time,

My father had come to visit me,

My father and his wife had come to visit me in Los Angeles.

And my dad and I were sitting alone in the living room and I decided to play his favorite song,

Which was It's All in the Game.

Do you know that song?

The beauty has to fall.

Do you know that one?

Anyway,

It's a beautiful song,

Beautiful song.

And the original version was by this guy named Tommy Edwards.

So I had this idea,

I'm going to play this song for my father.

And there we sat and it starts playing and I'm looking at my father,

I'm glancing over at him,

And I realize he's crying.

And that was very unusual.

My father was not a particularly sentimental guy.

Like he always hated Christmas.

And,

You know,

He just wasn't like that.

But I could tell without his,

Without him saying that what he was crying for was his lost youth,

His lost time as a young man,

Because there he sat as an old man.

And the difference of who he was as a young man was huge.

He was someone who really ate life and was just,

The world was his oyster.

And he had this irrepressible energy all through his young years up until he was probably 60.

But at this point,

He was well into his 70s,

Late mid 70s.

And then he got Parkinson's soon thereafter,

But it was kind of on its way.

And yeah,

It was such a kind of revelation to me,

As to that experience of not wanting to visit that memory,

Right.

So I say with regard to what we're talking about today,

If that,

If putting something on that is,

Is going to trigger all that,

Then don't.

Stay in the now and find some little joy in the now.

You don't have to overcome that other thing.

And there may be a moment when you do feel like having it on or it's on or,

Or you're having a good time with a friend,

You know,

And the two of you share that.

And you know,

When you're in a sort of stronger space.

And this is across the board with all kinds of things for us as well,

That we don't,

You don't have to force yourself to rise above in certain things that you have choice about.

You don't have to force that.

So part of the permission of giving yourself joy is to move your attention off of things that are not giving you joy.

And releasing any story that says you should be able to enjoy this thing or,

You know,

You should not feel these sentimental feelings about how things used to be.

And the,

The,

The,

What I would say is the natural pain of seeing the disparity of how things used to be and how they now are as the background context in which we live.

That doesn't mean we can't have our own internal context that is joyful and is our sanctuary.

And that's one of my big practices these days is to stop spooking myself about this,

The context and to stay with my own sanctuary of my being.

It's not that one can entirely ignore the context and I don't,

But to not put all of the attention there and not sort of,

You know,

Enshroud myself with,

With gloom.

Yeah,

It's a really curious thing,

Isn't it?

This idea that things that used to bring me such pleasure can now really move me to tears.

And I've never spoken a bit with anyone before,

So it's a huge relief to hear you saying,

Yeah,

You,

You understand,

You know,

It's,

I thought it was just a very odd thing.

So thank you.

Yeah,

Thank you.

I found it wonderful what you were saying about making sure you include joyful things in your day.

Because I found it absolutely essential to do that in what I'm presently doing,

Which is I've come down from Queensland,

Which is virtually free of coronavirus,

Down into Victoria to look after my 92 year old mother.

And it's getting towards three months that I've been doing this.

And although I've enjoyed lots of aspects of doing this,

I also find that it's becoming more of a duty and less of a joy.

And a few times I've found that I've gone several days without doing something for myself and found that is,

Yeah,

Not good.

It makes me feel a bit sad.

Because everything that I normally do to be a happy person is sort of gone at the moment,

Like all my struts that I normally use in my life are possible down here,

Including the weather down in Melbourne is just so cold.

And it's also very locked down.

You guys are not allowed to go anywhere,

Right?

Yeah,

That's right.

So my whole world is just completely upside down.

So to find small joys by going out for a walk in nature is absolutely essential.

And yes,

I've been amazed at how virtually everything in my life I use to make my life a happy one or gives me a,

Well,

I suppose a bit of a box to live in.

I don't know whether I'm saying that very well.

Just like all your normal struts and the structure of your life is gone.

So it sort of can,

You know,

Make you feel a bit lost or untethered,

Which I've never had that feeling in my life before.

I'm kind of getting the sense of the,

You're in a phase of frustration,

It sounds like.

And it's quite limiting in terms of any way that you might give yourself enough joy to kind of find that strength to keep going.

So in this case,

It actually takes a lot of kind of a stronger intentionality.

And it may mean that you've really got to treat this as a kind of critical moment for yourself and do all the things you know to do internally.

And in obviously,

You have the internet,

So you can actually be listening to a lot of Dharma,

Mine or Eckhart Tolle or any number of people.

We have so much material that you can spend all day if you needed to,

To just keep yourself reminded.

This is sort of a moment,

This is a phase where it's easy to slip off track,

Especially when it's almost a feeling of imprisonment.

And then on top of which you have the situation with your mother,

Which must be also unsettling and worrying.

But how beautiful that you have gone there to help out.

That is a privilege and it's something that one can imagine that in the fullness of time,

You'll be so happy that you did.

And even though this is hard,

Just keep reminding yourself as best you can that this is what your heart needed to do,

Wanted to do and is going to be very happy to have done,

Even though it's quite hard.

And this is true for so many things that we all go through,

Whereby we find ourselves in a circumstance that,

Oh,

You know,

Is taking every last drop of our energy and our patience and our having to put aside our irritability and feeling that this isn't how I really want to be spending my time and all those,

Those feelings that come up for people in all kinds of circumstances.

My friend and I,

I was thinking about this the other day,

A friend and I,

We were doing something in my house,

We were actually cleaning a room and making the beds and just kind of cleaning up because some other friends had just left because they moved to New Zealand the other day.

They'd been here for a week.

So after they left,

I was kind of tidying up and changing sheets and all that.

I had a friend over helping me,

We were both wearing our masks to be careful.

And after such a short time of being in our masks,

Once we were out in much bigger open space and have areas where there was much more air and breeze and we could take off our masks,

We were both commenting on how hot it was with those,

Just the face masks.

And I was saying to her,

Imagine the medical teams that are,

They're in plastic from head to toe and the masks and the eye gear and they're enshrouded in plastic and hot stuff that they're just sweating under there.

And it's for hours and hours and hours doing super critical things.

These are real heroes of our time.

These are amazing people because yes,

Always doctors and nurses who have been working in triage of any sort,

They're always amazing and it's astounding that they can do it.

But usually they're not having to be covered head to toe in this kind of personal protective equipment that is so difficult to be in when just wearing a little mask for half an hour is sort of hot and uncomfortable.

So I was just reflecting on that.

I was kind of marveling at that.

And these are ways that I do in my own little changing of my mind movie to stop myself from whining.

And so what I would say to you is to stop yourself from any whining,

Remind yourself that this is exactly what you wanted.

You chose this.

You left an area that had no COVID cases.

You went to the one part of the entire country where the most COVID cases are,

Where the most deaths are,

Where they're totally locked down and you did that out of love.

Thank you,

Katherine.

You're welcome.

Reflecting on what you said today,

My own personal situation is in the past three weeks since we met last,

I've had what remained of my tours,

Touring lives completely canceled.

Really?

I thought you said you had started up again.

No,

No,

That was a false lead.

And then that entire agency in New York City,

Perhaps the number one classical music agent,

They collapsed.

That was Columbia Artists.

So my agent has collapsed.

So we are in our community very existentially concerned.

And at the same time,

We're thinking,

When can this start up again?

Because we need this thing.

And so we're contacting all the agents who are still standing and saying,

How about Japan?

How about China?

How about Taiwan?

Let's go,

Let's go,

Let's get something on the books here.

And it's a complete cognitive dissonance with my general outlook.

And you know that how I feel about even near term problems.

And so the idea of finding that small thing that brings me joy,

I identify with very strongly.

And the thing that brought me the greatest joy was picking peaches from my two little peach trees that are growing here in the middle of the city in Berlin,

In a hidden garden.

And I don't know if you've ever picked a peach before.

We had some very warm days and you put your hand around the peach and you feel the warmth of the fruit.

And then you pull it away from the stem of the tree and you hear a little click.

And then the tree gives you the peach.

And that instant you feel the weight of the peach.

And the peach is then a separate entity.

And then you smell it and it smells beautiful and fruity and ripe.

Then you go in and slice it onto your cereal.

And this has been my greatest joy.

That's a pretty good one.

That's up there.

So I agree wholeheartedly that we need to find those joys that would bring us further.

And I agree totally in staying in the present,

Reflecting on the past is too full of things that pull me down.

Because then I reflect on the present.

Oh,

I can't do that.

I can't go here.

I can't meet them.

And that just brings me down.

So I don't even go there.

Watching films that I reacted to in some way in the past.

You can't go home.

You can't go back and relive those moments.

I also realized that a very strong influence in my life was my grandmother,

Who died at the age of 98.

And it's interesting to me that when I think of her in the times in my life when she was there for us,

I remember her physically in different forms.

It's not like I have one grandmother and that's the archetypal grandmother.

And I always see her in that dress,

In that hairdo and with that pair of glasses.

No,

I see her in various physical manifestations of how I knew her over the 40 or 50 years that I knew her.

And it's the same way when we remember those who are departed.

That they appear to us in different ways in different forms.

And in that sense,

They're always with us.

You know,

They're really always with us.

And sometimes I think of my grandmother in such strong terms that it is almost like a physical presence.

I know what you mean.

All the people I have loved who have passed away,

There's a way in which their voice is a certain type of reference in my head.

Like,

It's not that I would know exactly what they would say in a given circumstance,

But I would pretty much know what they might say,

You know,

That I would just,

I feel like I have these kinds of not that they're magically hanging around,

But that I have these feelings of their perspectives live in me as a reference point.

You know,

So,

Like,

I often joke with my brother's best friend about things that my brother would respond to and how he would,

We both agree,

Oh my god,

He would love that or he couldn't,

He would hate that.

And,

In particular with Leonard,

He's been such an influence and I still like often will think,

How would Leonard see this,

You know,

I would sort of see it through his eyes,

You know.

And so it's a way that our loved ones live on in us,

In our,

Like,

They have influenced us.

And they have influenced the way we perceive.

And of course they've influenced us in the way we love and especially when we've lost them.

It makes the preciousness of who's left all the more obvious.

When I go back and listen to recordings of former teachers of mine who have passed away,

It's really,

Really remarkable because I can swear they're standing in the room next to me.

And for instance,

That sound of my teacher's Guarneri del Gesu in my ears,

You know,

It just really sends me to hear the recording because then I can smell his cologne,

Cigarettes I can smell on his hands.

After he played on my instrument,

I could,

You know,

He left a scent on my instrument.

It's all very physical.

It's all very real.

And I have that now.

If I put on a recording,

I can smell his cologne.

I can see his intensity.

And it affects how I play.

You know,

If I start thinking about Julian,

It's like all of a sudden something happens.

Wow.

So,

You know,

For me,

Music is of course,

A very,

Very strong concourse where I meet all of these people and they're still completely alive for me.

Wonderful.

Really wonderful.

Yeah.

Those count as really beautiful joys.

Those kinds of connections that don't trigger mournful feelings necessarily,

But just feelings of,

Like you say,

Like an aliveness in the room.

Yeah.

A presence.

A presence,

Yeah.

Hi,

Catherine and everyone.

Thank you for your encouragement to lighten up a bit.

It was interesting,

You know,

Different things are triggered from what different people are saying.

And I was just reminded there of a friend of mine who died 20 years ago,

Near enough.

And yesterday it occurred to me that he said to me one day,

Take a risk.

And I was reminded of this yesterday.

So it's really in tune with what you're saying about people who have died and taking a risk.

I guess what you're saying about Jack Kerouac saying,

Loss is forever.

Accept loss forever.

Pardon?

The line is,

Accept loss forever.

Oh,

Accept loss forever.

Yeah.

Because some losses are forever and you have to accept it.

Right.

Could you also read it as,

There is always going to be loss.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

That's a really good read of it as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because it's just constant ongoing.

Right.

Yeah.

Today,

You know,

Looking at the little baby plovers,

I live next to a forest and in that forest,

There are lots of creatures.

There's snakes,

There bush turkeys,

There's lizards,

There's all kinds of stuff because this is Australia.

So I wonder if all three of those little baby plovers are going to be here in the morning because now it's night,

You know,

And it is known that not all the little baby plovers make it,

You know.

And I,

In part,

Part of what was happening for me and seeing them and feeling these waves of joy,

They're so cute.

You know,

But there's also this sense of,

I wonder if all three of them will be here tomorrow and the day after and until they get to the point where they can fly and will they even make it to that point?

And so,

Yes,

To your point,

There's always,

Always loss.

Right.

Just part of this life is the constant impermanence.

The only thing that's unchanging is the change.

And so yes,

That's another very good read on it as well.

And would you say as well that,

You know,

The idea that we're always,

In a sense,

The same or would you say that we do change the person that we are,

Say,

Later in life is not actually the person?

You know,

Sometimes people say,

I know I look 80,

But I feel like 20.

But do we really stay or are we actually,

You know,

Actually not the same person at all,

That we have lost something in a sense that does change us?

I mean,

It's a complicated discussion,

I would say.

Because as we know,

As the biologists can tell us,

Our cells change every seven years.

We have all new cells every seven years.

And we all know that even though we might say I feel 13,

In fact,

You're very different from when you were 13,

Or even 20,

Or any number of prior time,

Really.

But there is nevertheless,

There is a thread of consistency.

And I would say that what that thread is,

Is the taste of being.

Just that.

The simple experience in its most essential form of being.

And like when I asked myself,

What do I remember from all those previous times?

What do I most remember?

What I most remember is being.

Right?

Just being.

Like being,

Sitting with my grandmother on the porch.

I don't remember much about anything else.

I was tiny.

Maybe my memory goes to four or five with her sitting on her porch.

Just being.

I mean,

That's really,

I would dare say that if someone showed me a movie and I didn't recognize myself as a child,

I wouldn't really feel any particular relationship to what that child was saying or whatever.

And sometimes,

One time I found an old pocketbook in the attic of my father's house that had been,

That was literally covered in dust.

And inside of it were all these notes that I had written.

All these like notes that I had written.

Even my handwriting was very different.

So I was probably in the sixth or seventh grade when I had written all these notes.

And when I found the pocketbook,

I was around 30-ish.

And it was unrecognizable.

I didn't remember any of the things I was talking about in the notes.

I didn't even remember the friends I was talking about.

Writing too.

Yeah,

Grace.

It was quite an interesting moment for me.

I mean,

I recognized it as my earlier handwriting.

And there was obviously some familiarity.

But so I knew those,

I had written those words.

So it's a complicated question to answer.

It seems more freeing to feel that we can actually,

You know,

We're not that same person.

I have friends recently who were in a conversation saying that they knew me,

But it was a nostalgic thing from 20 years ago.

And they were almost trying to pin me down to who that was.

And I'm certainly not,

You know,

In terms of how they were relating to me,

That person 20 years ago.

So it was this really interesting,

Nostalgic moment that almost they wanted me,

That I should be and think the same.

And it seems quite freeing to feel.

And that's part of loss maybe as well.

That actually,

Yeah,

From one year to the next,

Maybe it's,

We don't have to be that exact same way.

And I do think also that people who are living in a much more presence,

Living in more kind of the deeper waters of consideration about things.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I think there is a more fluid sense of their personalities.

Okay.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Absolutely.

They're more mysterious to their own selves.

They're living as a kind of mystery to themselves.

And that's become very flexible.

Right.

And that's part of what I'm saying tonight.

I'm glad you brought it up in this way is that,

Be much more of a surprise to yourself,

Right?

Yeah,

It's interesting.

It's an interesting way.

Kind of break through the bonds that are invisible anyway.

And I think one of the things how people do get stuck is that they can completely reinforce their habitual patterns of mind.

Right?

So they're just constantly practicing the same way that they relate to things and the same stories about things and they get kind of locked in.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And they keep reinforcing instead of this kind of freshness of being and this mystery of being and this kind of free flow.

They're kind of reinfecting the solidity of their own personalities by practicing them all the day.

And having a background story that's saying,

Oh,

That's not for me,

Or I don't know,

I don't do that,

Or I don't know,

I don't know.

I'm not interested in that.

And it's just a constant way that they have defined themselves.

I mean,

A lot of the whole,

The identification of self is basically a practiced habit.

So in this kind of freshness,

Yeah,

You can keep surprising yourself.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

You can keep surprising yourself by being very authentic when you speak and when you interact with other people.

Right.

You don't know what you might say,

But you.

.

.

Yeah,

You don't know what you're going to say and you stop censoring it very much,

You know,

And you take more risks that way.

You basically,

And then some are going to love that and some are not,

But okay,

Those ones that don't love it,

They don't have to hang around you.

That's one of the other things I was thinking.

Sometimes I can be quite free around taking risks.

And then sometimes what happens is you have a quote,

Or I have a quote,

I think,

From you from many years ago,

You end up dashed up on the rocks and bleeding.

So sometimes I can be great,

Go sto,

And I'm going to die someday,

Nothing matters.

And the next time I'm licking my wounds because of the risk,

You know?

Right,

Sure.

Well,

I mean,

Obviously,

As I said earlier,

Not that you're taking severely dangerous risks,

But sometimes risks in personality.

.

.

Yeah,

Relationships and relating.

Yeah,

No,

That's what I mean.

But sometimes it seems,

Oh yeah,

I can handle anything.

And then,

Yeah,

Bang.

Yeah,

But that's part of the risk.

It wouldn't be a risk.

Yes,

Absolutely.

And one of the things I have found in speaking my heart at times when I was scared to do it,

And having to kind of speak it while being scared,

Right?

As soon as I've done that,

I feel strong from it.

And I kind of come what may,

And sometimes it does cost,

But not as much as holding it in and feeling weak and scared.

So sometimes there's a question or something gets let go or you walk away from something that might have been lucrative,

For instance,

Or all kinds of things like that.

Yeah,

Thank you very much.