Living With Anxiety

Excerpted from Dharma Dialogues with Catherine Ingram. Recorded in Lennox Head, Australia in October 2018. From the opening talk: “William Penn, who was a Quaker in the United States and founder of the colony of Pennsylvania, had a great quote: "Silence is to the mind and the spirit what sleep is to the body."

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

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

Australia in October of 2018.

It's called Living with Anxiety.

William Penn,

Who was a Quaker in the United States and was the founder of the colony of Pennsylvania,

Had a great quote,

Silence is to the mind and the spirit what sleep is to the body.

In other words,

It's a nourishment,

It's a sanctuary,

It's a revival.

Now sometimes people hear the word silence and they think that it means some kind of like being a cave dweller or just withdrawn from everything,

Not speaking,

Not engaged.

But of course,

The silence to which he refers and to which many of our teachers have referred is a deeper kind of silence,

Is a kind of fundamental quiet so that you actually do stay engaged if you choose to or if that's the roll out of your destiny.

And you speak and you laugh and you cry and you feel loss and love and all of the things fully,

Even more fully I would propose.

But all the while,

This sanctuary that your attention lives in a lot and that it returns to a lot for revival,

Just like when you're tired,

It's time to sleep.

All through the day you might be taking many dips into this well of nothingness as Poonjaji called it.

I had to take quite a few of those this past week.

I'm about to go to Europe in the US and I got an email just a few days ago from the carrier that was going to take me from Rome to Florida where I was going to be visiting my mother for her 88th birthday.

And I got an email from the carrier saying they've canceled the flight.

So I went online to try to get another flight,

But due to the lateness of the date and it getting closer to our Thanksgiving over there,

All of the flights left were phenomenally expensive,

Just really crazy.

So there was this swirl and this rush and having to make all these new plans on different dates that were more accommodating financially and even still very,

Very expensive.

And so I noticed there was a little,

These are not the biggest problems in the world,

But it was just,

I noticed a kind of tension rising until there was the wake up call,

Often the tension is the wake up call for me to go to quiet and let it be.

What's the worst that's going to happen,

Right?

So then another day passes and I get another email from a different carrier,

The one that was to take me back from the US,

This time from Newark,

New York to London.

And they too are canceling the flight,

Different carrier.

So again,

Another scramble of new plans and also involving all kinds of people that I had planned to meet and have dinner with and so on,

Friends in London and this and that.

Again,

Just kind of a witnessing of watching myself make the new plans.

Just,

As I said,

These aren't the biggest ones.

There's some other big ones recently.

I'm sure you all got the email about my friend who died in the car crash two weeks ago.

And the point being that this is something one can test yourself many times in the day.

And the more that you accustom yourself to that sense of sanctuary of going to quiet,

Of an immediate surrender to what is,

And in that simplicity of just,

Okay,

I'm just going to hang out through this.

You can test this many,

Many,

Many times until it becomes a very strong habit.

Because there's another habit we get caught in,

Which is that there's a problem.

And let's say it's a legitimate problem.

And we start just going around and around and around and thinking and thinking.

And we go more and more into a kind of panic.

The mind just swirls around and becomes panicked.

I was watching that as it was happening the other day,

Just all the different threads of the problem.

And the mind was going over them,

Oh no,

And this one and that one,

I forgot it.

So when you're just lost in the conceptual realm,

Of course some problems require that you think about the situation.

You have to figure something out.

But when that is done,

When that is accomplished,

There's then no need to keep sort of rewounding yourself.

Go to quiet.

It's never far away.

And it's a place that one can generally live.

Like when nothing else much is happening,

You're just hanging out.

Not very different from these birds that we're listening to.

Thank you.

It's nice to be here again,

Catherine.

What you spoke of went straight to the core.

It's absolutely what I can relate to.

And the place of,

I felt many things.

First,

I felt gratitude that I know this place of quiet.

And then the issue that you talked about of getting caught up happens a lot.

It actually seems to be the foundation of my ego structure.

So that when one thing is sorted,

Which can be as you described,

That's certainly one of them,

There's immediately almost like an automatic looking for the next one.

It might not be that conscious,

But it keeps happening.

So it's replaceable.

And I know that that is just what I learned to survive.

If I take care,

It's on my shoulders.

If I take care of the situation or the people or whatever it is out there,

Then I'm going to have some degree of relief and safety in here.

Yes.

Very good.

That's a very good insight.

Yeah.

It's so what's happening.

I can't believe that you addressed it so succinctly.

And that it's kind of like,

There's a bit of helplessness in there.

There's nothing.

I can't actually do anything about it except to.

.

.

Because when it happens,

It feels like it's not exactly life and death,

But much more important than it actually is to my nervous system,

To this me person.

Sure.

And I think a lot of people have that kind of conditioning whereby they feel that I need to stay prepared,

Right?

I need to stay prepared in case,

Yes,

You're pointing out to preempt the problem and to be safe.

I saw a documentary the other day and the other night about Nina Simone,

The singer.

And she was asked,

The interviewer was asking her,

What is freedom to you?

And she paused and she said,

It's being free from fear.

Right?

I thought it was a great answer.

That's a kind of fundamental truth,

Isn't it?

And I think a lot of the mental gyrations that we engage in are trying to avoid things that we are imagining could happen and might happen or have happened.

And we think,

Don't want that again.

And so the mind is a very busy little beaver,

Trying to think of every possible threat.

And it's a habit.

A lot of us have it,

Depending on the conditioning in childhood and so on.

It's a really strong habit.

It's also something to do with trust here,

Because I couldn't,

There's a fear,

Also again,

If I stop and allow that,

Whatever name you gave to it,

Hanging out,

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a fear there that A,

Things that get out of control,

B,

I might somehow lose it.

So there's a lack of trust.

You could make some experiments on your own,

Because the trust is only going to come through your own direct experience,

Not through anything you hear from anybody else.

It's going to be,

You know,

You'll know it because you've done the experiment yourself.

And you could afford probably to make a few experiments with it,

You know?

Just kind of give your mind some time off,

Right?

Just take some sort of situation,

Whether it's a walk on the beach or a particular phase of the morning or an evening or something simple,

Really at hand,

And just give your mind the night off.

I do,

I do too.

Good,

Good.

I do that a lot.

It's more the other syndrome that I'm talking about.

Okay,

So let's say that syndrome arises,

There's the mental busyness of worry and anxiety and,

Yes,

Afraid that you're going to drop the ball and things are going to get out of control,

As you said.

Okay,

So let's say that your conditioning is that it sometimes does that.

You don't have to eradicate that,

I hope you understand.

You don't have to eradicate that tendency.

You can just start interrupting it in any way you can now and again,

Right?

Until your whole system returns a bit more to the quiet and the calm.

Always very gentle,

Very,

Very gentle.

No need to rip the skin off the snake.

And to understand that that conditioning is strong.

So in my own case too,

I tend to anxiety.

I have anxiety as a lifelong conditioning,

It seems,

You know?

And I just manage it with my own awareness and where I'm placing my attention.

So to not fight with the arising,

That's not necessary and is also just more strain.

But to let it come up and you feel it,

You notice it,

Let it be your wake-up call.

You can choose something different.

Yes.

And that can be anything.

It doesn't have to be some sort,

It doesn't have to look spiritual for God's sake.

It can be anything.

Just move your attention into a more calm and peaceful place.

You know?

That might mean you're going to make a slow meal or you're going to call a friend and chat or,

You know,

Anything.

Yeah.

You just keep making these experiments.

I'm recognizing there is some choice.

Yeah.

Yes,

There is.

You can probably move your attention around quite well.

Not everybody can,

I always point that out.

Not everybody can move their attention easily.

But most everyone can.

And we often don't even use that facility.

It's an incredible thing to understand that we don't use the one facility to keep us calm.

It's a very different place,

You know,

Being a victim of it and having that responsibility or taking choice around it.

Yeah.

And somehow what you said was just so perfect and I just want to thank you.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Talking about choice and having a structure who doesn't,

Very,

Choice is not so easy because before anything happens,

The reaction,

The closeness,

The protection,

The.

.

.

And while we were speaking in this morning too,

Just the possibility that you're saying of the silence and arrive us,

Let something come from the inside because my whole thing was protection or management or the fear managing life comes from immediately taking I have to do it.

Yes.

And that place this morning,

Having a situation with my little grandchild that I'm not the perfect grandmother.

Some people like children more than others.

And when they grow up and they can talk.

Anyhow,

So I was making an absolute situation.

This is her,

This is me,

This is how it is.

And then suddenly the little voice inside actually,

It can be new.

Yeah.

Good.

I can make a space for something new.

Every time I encounter her,

It's a different moment.

Yes,

Beautiful.

So to watching that is really,

My structure is really quite big.

Oh,

That's great.

It's a structure who,

That's how it is.

Yeah.

But it's great that you could interrupt it and say,

Okay,

That we don't have to- Silence is the,

You know,

To create in this space so that can then happen.

It's where it is,

But it's difficult.

It's beautiful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's to your point that when you are able to be more quiet or live more in that quiet,

You do see that,

First of all,

You feel the mysteriousness of just being,

You know,

And that you do look at into the eyes of another who you've seen many times,

Such as your grandchild,

But you have these moments of everything kind of,

All the past and all the conditioning dissolving in those moments.

And it's just two creatures,

You know,

Looking at each other.

Yeah.

And there is no her or me as such.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yes.

It's just being,

And that's it,

To be,

To the mystery of ourselves,

The mystery of existence rather than I know and that's how I'm going to manage and that's the story.

And,

You know,

Just the wonder of it.

I mean,

It feels like it's an understanding,

But it's also something to do with the heart.

Yes.

There is a quality of having to be open in the heart for it to happen.

Yes.

You have to be willing to be contactful.

Yes.

And permeable.

Permeable,

Yeah.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

That's difficult with my structure is just the texture.

But,

You know,

The understanding is there and just trying to,

You know,

More and more allow it and more live it more.

Yes.

Lovely to come here.

Lovely to have this in this area,

You know,

A real gift.

I,

As coming here,

Will listen to such wonderful Advaita singer and there's something about Advaita in the feminine.

Advaita with heart was something that was really moving me,

You know,

Because sometimes it can be a bit.

Yeah.

Mental.

Mental,

Yeah.

And that feeling in the heart with it,

You know.

And it's so powerful when,

As we were just saying,

And what you said about being with your granddaughter in the moment when there's no her and no you.

There's just the beingness together.

And also all the concepts and all the spiritual concepts fall away at that time as well,

You know,

And you really do land in the mystery,

You know,

Where you don't know much.

This is a big show going on here,

Right?

This existence.

Men.

Yeah.

Really,

You know.

Yeah.

And I sometimes feel that,

You know,

We're just playing with these frankly monkey minds.

I mean,

Not very different,

You know.

And to kind of,

You know,

Just come to a much more,

A greater humility,

You know.

Even watching An Attenborough,

The millions of forms alive that we've been this week watching it.

And the wonder of the enormity of existence,

You know,

Like,

Yeah,

It does feel like a monkey mind.

Yeah.

Basically trying to.

Yeah.

And from that vantage point,

There's a person I follow and admire his work,

Derek Jensen,

And one of his recent books is called The Myth of Human Supremacy.

The Myth of Human Supremacy.

And to really start to live in that understanding too,

You know,

That we're just another animal,

Frankly,

We're a rather destructive one.

And,

You know,

To the kind of hubris we have about what we think we deserve on this planet and that what we've taken from it and from the other creatures that we're driving to extinction and so on.

But I mean,

It really unhooks this sort of superior sense that we have,

Even to think of ourselves as sort of spiritual or anything,

Right?

And you do keep coming back into the quiet where you're just another being,

You know,

Here for a little while.

In the sense of I am,

There is,

I did who I am.

I have no idea.

It's just happening,

Isn't it?

Yeah.

Including my life.

You didn't grow you.

No.

No.

I have no idea.

So a lot of the time I think stuff happens in spite of me.

Very much in spite.

It's grace,

You know,

Somehow.

Yeah.

Wow.

Thank you.

Beautiful.

I want to ask about a bit more of a clearer definition about quiet.

Yeah.

Just had a week where I've had four quite big blow ups with people quite close.

Yeah.

And in three of the cases,

I'm pretty sure that my boundaries,

It's just like,

You know,

I had to say no.

Do you know what I mean?

Distance and space and no.

And in the past I would have chased,

I think like your plane fare,

I would have chased to just kind of make things okay and kind of quiet the situation down.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But there's some part of me that just doesn't let myself do that anymore.

So I don't know,

Some old notion and teenage notion of God that would have wanted me to like make things okay everywhere.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

My idea of divine love or something stupid.

Or fear of some sort of punishment that might come later.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Due to not being a good boy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So then when there's so many,

I've actually quite anxious,

Right?

There's quite a bit of anxiety.

I didn't want to act anywhere,

But I felt anxious.

And so being quiet,

At least this is my interpretation.

I think I want to check it out.

It was like,

Okay,

I'm really anxious and that's as good as it's probably going to get right now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I started watching David Attenborough documentaries,

Right?

Yeah.

Which kind of calms me down.

Yeah.

It's beautiful.

Cool.

Great.

But if I'd been going with the notion that this,

It's like I had to accept that I'm anxious.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

And that's about as quiet as I could get.

So I guess I want to check,

You know,

If that version- Yeah,

That's how I do it too.

I mean,

Definitely.

As I said,

Anxiety arises for me relatively easily,

You know,

Surprisingly.

Given that I mostly choose peace in my life,

You know,

But if something happens,

Some situation that's now going to mean a lot of hassle,

I'll notice,

You know,

The system will go into a nervousness.

I mean,

We can discuss the historical reasons for that.

It turns out that people who've had difficult childhoods or abuse in childhood,

They tend to have a lifelong high trigger for anxiety.

It's too bad it works that way.

You get double punished,

But you don't sort of develop an immunity.

You develop an allergy.

And so,

You know,

So there's just that.

And so for myself,

I don't fight with the fact that the animal's getting anxious,

Right?

I know that that's a pattern that's quite familiar.

It's all about,

Okay,

What now?

How is this going to get addressed?

Or what are the steps?

Just try to get to calm.

And that does have to do with what am I going to be doing with my attention now?

All right.

So in your case,

Sounds like a great strategy.

Watch the Mattanboro.

And also,

I liked what you said too about the not putting your,

Not doing it the old way of having to fix it all,

Right?

Because sometimes the silence around a situation is the fixing,

Right?

Is the communication and is the best communication.

And it often does have straggles of thought that go with it,

Especially when there's a big estrangement or a big blow up,

As you said,

That will have trails of thoughts naturally,

Inevitably.

But then you,

In the quiet,

The discernment is also there.

And you can really see,

Okay,

Is there anything that needed to be said more?

And if the answer to that is no,

Not really,

Then you just manage the feelings that are left over.

Yeah.

And I love that you saw the conditioning about the teenage,

What was it?

The teenage God?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We all have a lot of that kind of conditioning,

Old stuff,

Old beliefs,

Right?

I mean,

We were conditioned with so many fantasy characters.

Santa Claus was watching.

The Tooth Fairy knew.

It was like God.

It was a big eye in the sky somewhere.

And it's a really weird kind of indoctrination to do to a child.

It's kind of quite cruel.

It is really,

Isn't it?

Yeah,

It is.

I've started saying,

And it just helps me differentiate from that voice to people when it's around,

I don't care if God loves me anymore.

I'm talking about one particular kind of relationship there,

But I just don't care.

It helps me kind of get clear of,

You know,

No,

I'm not doing that.

Yes,

Yes,

Yes.

It's just a phrase you use for yourself.

Yes.

It stops me.

Thank you.

Thanks,

Catherine.

It's great coming here.

You mentioned the animal responds that way as if you're talking about an aspect of yourself as a sort of animal soul or an animal responding in an animal way to an emotional response.

I have trouble reconciling the dialectic,

If you like,

Between the different layers of perceived self.

It seems to form a kind of a false duality as if the ocean is actually I and Thou and all these separations.

And I just wonder how within myself I can reconcile non-dualism,

You know,

True Advaita Vedanta vision or understanding with this dialectic and these layers of perceived self and make sense of the world in a more oceanic,

Holistic way.

Well,

What is specifically your question or is it just a statement?

No,

It wasn't just a statement.

I struggle with a sense of this perceived sense of subjective non-dualism,

Which is one aspect of myself which is very strong,

But an undeniable sense of objectifying things all the time as well within that.

So I've got this duality happening and I just wonder how for yourself then,

If you like,

It is a question you reconcile appearances in consciousness like that.

Yeah.

What's coming to me to say is Walt Whitman's quote,

I am vast,

I contain multitudes,

Right?

So I'm sure you experience yourself in this mysterious way as a kind of free-flowing expression of all kinds of things,

Of ways of being and of feelings and emotions and who you were when you were 20 is different than now.

And in any given day,

Right,

You might be manifesting all kinds of complicated emotions and perceptions and so on,

Right?

And who you are with one person might be really different than who you are with another.

There's a weird chemistry that happens when any of us is alone with a friend,

Right?

There's a special chemistry that's with that friend or with a particular group.

So you are vast and you contain multitudes and all of those multitudes,

If you want to speak about it from the Advaita point of view,

I don't particularly claim to be an Advaita adherent.

I find that teaching was very,

Very influential and it's one of many.

It's one of multitudes that have been influential for me.

But if we want to speak about it in that way,

We would see that the multitudes are contained within the ocean,

If we wanted to characterize it that way.

That's what came through for me as you started to speak.

I realized that simply embracing the multitude or owning the totality of all of that,

And this and this and this is the only way out of the conundrum because for me,

I get slammed back into these two corners of object and subject all the time,

Where I become very small and contracted and I become vast and oceanic and I live in this sort of dichotomy or this dialectic with myself.

I'm trying to make sense of that.

Yeah,

Interesting.

I'm going to presume to make a suggestion and of course take it if it feels right.

And this is based on my own experience.

I just stopped thinking about those kinds of things.

I literally did.

That's good.

Thank you.

That was great.

I've had a relaxing morning and at the same time quite an intense morning.

I spent time with some friends yesterday and felt like sometimes it's really hard and I felt reacted.

But this morning I was sitting and I just had,

And it's still there,

Quite a dense feeling in my abdomen.

Because of what it felt like with the friends?

Just the relating.

It's like,

Sometimes I want peace also.

I'd like to have a deep connection and sometimes it feels like I'm reacting but also everyone else is reacting and dealing with that is exhausting and it stays with me because I don't know why.

You might have anxiety.

I have anxiety around relating.

Let me just understand a little bit more though.

Is it that you feel disappointed in your friendships or in people?

Because I was thinking of a Flaubert quote as you were speaking and it may not be applicable but it was something like I read it so long ago and it went straight in.

Something about the pain of being surrounded by dancing bears banging on drums while all the while your heart is yearning to make the stars weep with mercy.

It's beautiful.

It's sort of like if you're that sensitive of a soul,

Of a person,

Sometimes it can feel like you're with dancing bears.

There's a denseness of consciousness or of sensitivity or of even just noticing nuances ordinarily.

It can feel very lonely in that regard.

So if that's the case for you,

If that is the situation,

You have two ways to play it.

You can sort of shake your fist at the heavens and wish that things were different or you can take care of yourself and enjoy your solitude.

Well,

I've just had a very long period of solitude travelling by myself and really enjoying it.

Then I come back to those people actually that I love.

Yeah.

It really does.

That part actually can be a given.

There might be any number of people we all love and yet in their company there is some loneliness because I often say the deeper the space you live in,

The more that you are the one offering understanding without being understood.

It's just the what so.

There's no other way around it.

If you live in very deep space in yourself and if your reflections are of the eternities,

You know,

It's like Poonjaji said,

The wise are attracted by the eternal while the foolish pursue the transient and are thus bludgeoned by time.

So the wise are attracted by the eternal and it's like,

You know,

If that's where your thoughts and insights and perceptions tend to flow in bigger space,

Right?

And then you're listening to a lot of conversation around the transient and a lot of desperation around the transient and all the things that come with it,

The greed and the hatred and the protection and the fear and the jealousy and on and on,

The endless,

Right?

And it's very tiring,

Right?

It's tiring because as a sensitive person and a person of empathy,

You see this,

You're constantly confronted with the suffering in it.

And it's like,

Like yesterday I tried to offer,

You know,

An alternative,

You know,

Like to be able to move this relating to another level.

Another level,

Yeah.

And I just find it's really hard,

You know,

It's like.

And what's also the case is that sometimes people can't,

They can't go on to another level.

And it's amazing that no matter whether you meet them today or 10 years from now,

And they're still on that level.

Right?

And bless their hearts,

I'm not,

There's no judgment in this.

It's just how it is,

You know.

And,

You know,

Other people though,

You might find are much changed.

You meet later.

But it's almost like there's a frequency that people are resonant on.

And if you happen to be one of those who's attracted by the eternal,

Especially in a world where almost everyone is into the transient,

Right?

And they're into the stuff,

They're into the drama and the battle.

Right.

You know.

It's exhausting somehow.

Yeah.

So you,

You,

You,

You grant it that and then you enjoy your solitude.

I think it's true what you said about the,

Like there's the loneliness,

Because it's like,

You know,

This is a dear somebody who,

You know,

You really want to meet heart to heart.

Yes.

And it's not happening.

You know,

It happens sometimes.

Yes.

But there's this whole other time where,

So I can see it's also a non-acceptance of the situation that makes it difficult.

Yeah.

And there is also another piece of it that's quite human and tender.

And that is that there's a yearning on your part to have that kind of merge.

Right.

To have that kind of real deep love that is very,

You know,

I like to say like water into water,

You know,

Just blended.

And there's an impulse for that that we have naturally,

Especially with those we love,

You know.

I mean,

Many of us would say we probably feel that about our family.

Right.

Right.

I'm about to see my family in a month.

And,

You know,

I'm already giving myself pep talks.

Because I really love them so much,

You know,

And I miss them,

Not having seen them in a year.

But I'm also aware that it could be like every other time it has been that I'm no sooner in the door than all the frequencies are pretty much the same as I left them,

You know.

It doesn't detract from the love.

The love is kind of even more strangely pure in a sense that you can love despite,

You know,

The lack of that particular kind of meaning.

It's why also we so love satsang,

Right.

Because you can be with a room full of strangers and you feel,

Okay,

You know,

This is more my crowd.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Kind of on that note,

I have only met you once before.

And as I sat down and was sort of rushing to get here,

And I sat down and then there was a moment when you opened your eyes and I had my eyes open.

And there was just this beautiful trust that I didn't have to do anything when you opened your eyes.

And I don't,

I've already met you once.

I'm sort of curious about how I know that there's permission for that here deeply.

You know,

There's a,

Like that what relating is and how we meet and who we are and the trust and then the love that I felt.

I have no idea who you are.

You know,

It's just like,

Whoa.

You know,

Because I also have had a week of struggling to relate.

It's just like,

Oh,

Just like that,

This sort of balm of me giving myself permission,

Actually.

And I think in some way an assumption already on my part that you're going to give me that permission,

But also an attunement to the space.

Yeah,

And I would like to propose that it's really a shared osmosis that this kind of gathering creates,

You know,

So that you walk into the room and there are all these gentle beings here who are pretty quiet and who have come for that very purpose,

Who have an attraction to that.

So that amplifies a certain,

You know.

So I know it cognitively,

But there's another space that is,

I don't know,

It's like there is a knowing of it in the moment as well.

I mean,

You're a feeling creature,

Of course.

You don't even have to know it cognitively,

Right?

It might be that a cat would walk in here and feel very,

Very,

Very mellow and safe,

You know.

One time at one of our retreats,

In the wilds of Oregon in a big wilderness area,

One of our guys,

One of our people in the retreat,

Was just standing very still in the forest and a bird came and landed on his shoulder.

When does that happen,

You know?

Just landed and just rested on his shoulder.

Obviously his vibe was such that the bird must have mistook him for a tree or something,

But that obviously,

You know,

Usually birds don't just go land on the shoulder of a stranger.

And so something was,

You know,

It's about the vibe.

And that there is,

Like,

Trusting more that place in me where I can recognize that,

I know that.

And also,

Conversely,

When I'm not able to open up or speak or that I trust that the space isn't,

You know,

Not sort of throwing myself at a wall.

Then just wait.

Exactly.

Yes,

Yes.

Right.

Absolutely.

Right.

Something like that.

It's just such a simple,

Sweet moment of.

.

.

It's not like I thought,

Oh,

I don't have to smile.

I just didn't have to smile.

I just was able to just look at you.

And really,

Like another animal.

Yes,

Right.

Yeah.

And I didn't register anything about whether you smiled or not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just another being.

Yeah.

I know.

And that's another thing to consider,

I think,

Is the way that,

You know,

We naturally,

As humans,

We like to be accepted.

That's built in.

We like to be accepted.

And sometimes we're very.

.

.

We're over-trying.

You know,

We're basically over-working it.

Right?

When,

In fact,

Just being much more natural,

Much more authentic.

And in the quiet,

In that deeper layer of quiet,

Those qualities are allowed to be stronger.

Right?

The willingness and the holding to that authenticity.

Because you start to feel,

In that quiet,

Any time you are being inauthentic,

It really,

It's banging in your head.

It's really,

Really strong when you notice it.

And uncomfortable.

And it's also curious,

Isn't it,

That when you're around people who really aren't trying and they're not trying to impress you,

And yet they're just being and they're quite lovely to be with,

You're attracted to them.

They're not trying.

And yet that's maybe why you're attracted to them,

You know.

It's such a relief.

Yes,

Exactly.

It's lovely to be here.

One of the things I was just reflecting on,

And maybe you can share some techniques of how we can more fully let the past and our conditioning fall away.

Well,

I wouldn't even say that you have to let the past or the conditioning fall away,

Necessarily.

But that in this habit of quiet,

When thoughts about the past arise,

They're lighter and they dissolve fast.

And the conditioning is really strong for all of us.

We have many different types of conditioning.

We have biological conditioning,

Which is super strong.

It's kind of reptilian brain level stuff,

You know.

And we have limbic conditioning as well,

Kind of emotional animal conditioning,

How an animal behaves,

Right.

And then we have the conditioning of culture and of nationality,

Of parental,

Siblings,

Time you came around,

Where you went to school,

Who was there,

You know,

All of those kinds of conditioning.

And it's ongoing,

The conditioning.

Now,

What I like to say in this regard is that you can start to have a kind of conditioning and freedom.

You can have a new conditioning added into the mix.

And the more that you're using your attention that way,

It starts to supersede some of the other conditioning.

It doesn't eradicate it.

It subsumes it,

In a sense.

So in other words,

Let's say,

In my case,

I'll use me as an example again,

The anxiety will arise.

I don't have a fight with that.

I know it's the conditioning.

This is how the creature,

It's like you've got a dog at the pound and it's been beaten really badly and now you see it's nervous,

Right.

It's the way it is.

You don't just get mad at the dog for being,

You know,

Nervous,

Right.

You do everything you can to calm the animal down.

That's my position with this one,

This creature.

And what has happened for me over the years is with this habit of going to quiet as frequently or whenever necessary,

Just living in that space,

The anxiety calms down a lot faster.

So in the old days,

The anxiety could just kick in and be in a kind of steady loop and it could go on for days or week,

You know.

And I think a lot of people live in almost continual anxiety and it would be reflected in the fact that many,

Many people have,

Live on anti-anxiety medication,

Right.

If they stop taking it,

The anxiety just wells up instantaneously,

You know.

So this is a different way.

It's a different kind of reconditioning and it doesn't fight with the fact that the conditioning is there.

Because if you thought that you had to,

If you thought you had to eradicate whatever past troubling thoughts there were or whatever happened in the past,

You would just lose that fight,

You know.

That would just be a fight that you would lose.

Same.

Thank you.

The other image I have is like a waterfall or a stream washing that,

The past and the conditioning,

Which can hold us but it's flowing.

Yes,

Good.

As long as it flows,

Then it's in a state of movement.

It's in a state of movement.

And connectedness.

Yes,

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And I want to say the extraordinary synchronicity I was just reading about William Penn,

Literally before I phoned you.

Really?

That is weird.

Because I've never in my life quoted him.

No,

I hadn't heard of him.

I've never quoted him before until today.

And I'd never heard of him when I was reading a book about education and using his biography as an example.

Wow.

So I looked,

Who is this chap?

And so I was just reading about him.

So thank you.

It's amazing.

I'm not really sure what my question is.

Oh,

Maybe.

Yeah.

It's so nice to see you again.

You too.

It's lovely to be here.

Yeah,

I'm following the thread of,

There's been a lot of talk about kind of anxiety and,

Yeah,

For me,

There's like a conditioning of wanting to be liked.

It's very strong in my being.

And so when I step off either the things that my family,

You know,

I've mentioned this before that I've kind of stepped off the trajectory that my family kind of approved of,

And that's causing me a lot of anxiety.

But even in everyday situations of,

You know,

Will this person like me?

Do they like me?

And I guess I'm wondering,

You know,

And I've really been,

That's,

I've been feeling that a lot today,

Actually,

And just sitting with that during this hour or so and been like,

Just really feeling into it and into all the layers and deeper and deeper.

And I'm actually finding some peace in it as this goes on.

But I'm just wondering for those moments where,

If you have any advice for those moments where you are,

Where I'm relating to someone and I feel that take a hold of me and then I just,

Because for me,

The pattern is to kind of just go like that,

Just kind of come in and almost freeze,

I guess,

And just not say much,

You know,

Just feel kind of a bit trapped or something.

And I'm wondering if you have any suggestions for that.

Or,

Yeah.

Well,

First off,

I'd say that it's such a natural thing to want to be liked,

Right?

It's just a very human thing,

You know,

And now I guess the problem comes in your discomfort in the collapse part.

Is that the case?

Yeah.

So my recommendation always is being very gentle with yourself,

You know,

Even just having some kind of words you say internally to yourself,

Like,

There,

There,

Dear.

I say those a lot.

You know,

Like that,

You know,

Just,

You know,

And any way that you,

Any internal movement of your attention that you're trying to do,

You know,

Is a very natural thing to do.

And it's just,

You know,

Like,

Just having some kind of word of your attention that just makes you feel a little more calm in the circumstance,

But not to make it a problem or beat yourself up for wanting to be liked,

If that's what's arising.

You know,

Some people have that more than others,

For whatever reasons,

Whatever conditioning.

You know,

It all starts to come down to,

You really don't have to mess with the program right,

All you're now needing to do is move your attention around with managing it.

So,

Right,

So you might have some idea that you'd like to present a more perhaps self-confident persona to whoever you'd like to be liking you.

Right.

But it may not even be true that that persona would be more likeable,

Right?

It might be that your way of being is quite endearing and that whoever's attracted to that is actually attracted to you.

Are you following?

Yeah,

I like the thing that really hit me with what you said is that you don't need to mess with the program.

Yeah,

Right.

Just let it be.

Let it be.

It just is.

Yeah,

Right.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Appreciate it.

It's all,

You know,

I quote this all the time,

So I will just do it again.

Krishna Murti,

Who said,

When you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it,

Then what you are undergoes a transformation.

And the transformation is all just about the relaxation.

If you're not trying to change you,

Right,

And you really aren't trying to change you any longer,

Then you will be more relaxed.

And so there may be times that are arising that you want to please.

I think most of us have that,

Actually,

Or want to be liked,

You know.

But if there's a kind of relaxation around that,

It's just watching the personality,

You know,

Doing its thing,

That's the transformation.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

I had an experience in Bali recently when I went there,

As you know,

To help with the birth of a child.

And so I was in the hospital and I was in the hospital and I was in the hospital and I was in the hospital and I was in the hospital and I was in the hospital and I was in the hospital.

And I stayed the first few days with my granddaughter and great-granddaughter in the house that I'd built with my partner,

Tansen,

Who is not with me anymore.

He died.

But,

You know,

I found very confident going back to Bali again.

I'd been there recently.

And so I went this day to visit the mother whose baby I was going to help with.

And the driver who was going to drive me home got lost or disappeared.

And so they put me in a taxi,

Gave the address,

The taxi driver knew the address,

He said,

And they paid him really well.

And so I'm kind of dosing,

I'm a bit jet-lagged.

And I recognize the corner we turn around.

And then suddenly there's nothing familiar.

There's nothing familiar.

We drive up,

I tell him to drive back and suddenly my Indonesian,

Which is not very good,

He didn't understand at all.

And then he was just driving everywhere and it was like Kafka.

It was like,

I've lived here,

I know this place and there's nothing familiar,

You know.

And then I begin to get,

He keeps driving.

I'd ask him to stop,

I want to ask somebody,

He keeps driving.

Oh my goodness.

And I knew it wasn't to get a big affair because it already been paid.

Yeah.

And then suddenly I just felt so overwhelmed and I felt the lack of Thompson.

I'd always been there with him every time.

And suddenly I was,

You know,

This 81-year-old woman of my own,

Like a pantyhose.

Like I panicked.

I felt totally panicked.

It was like surreal.

I was like looking at all these plays,

Unfamiliar places.

And then I just said,

Just be quiet,

You know.

So I said,

Stop.

And he wouldn't,

Very loudly,

Stop.

So he stopped.

And I just said that,

I asked him if he had a GPS.

He said,

No.

So then I thought,

I rang my granddaughter and said,

Please send me the map on the phone.

Wow.

And when she did that,

He turned the GPS on.

He had it all the time.

It was something about being,

Me being a white old woman or something.

Some power trip anyway.

But by,

As soon as I went,

Stopped and went quiet,

Then I knew what to do.

But it was so unreal.

And it also showed me that there were a lot of things happening inside me that I wasn't acknowledging,

You know.

Yeah.

Still feeling so much the loss of tons and that.

Yes.

So it,

And from then on was really,

So then we got to my place and it was fine.

But I also realized that I was being very strong and capable and that I really wasn't.

So from then on,

Everyone was like taking care of me and loving me and being beautiful to me like an old lady.

And I was just accepting it.

So I had a wonderful time.

But that panic when you don't recognize anything was.

Yes.

Yeah.

That's what happened.

Was it nighttime?

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

It was nighttime,

Very little lighting.

Yeah.

And it was just,

I could only think it was like a cabernet.

Yeah.

But it was,

I needed to address some of those things.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

I like that there's sort of two parts to this in that you did get strong and clear in the circumstance,

Right?

But that also you were,

As you say,

You know,

You were willing to let people take care of you also.

So it's good to have both.

This has been In The Deep.

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Woke up with anxiety pressing on me and am thankful to you for giving me a new practice. Blessings to you!