Priorities

Excerpted from Dharma Dialogues with Catherine Ingram. Recorded in Lennox Head, Australia in September 2019. From the opening talk: “One of the values of tuning the awareness to a different channel than the usual channel in our worker day, our busy lives, is our priorities become very clear. They just suddenly become 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 Lenox Head,

Australia in September of 2019.

It's called Priorities.

One of the values of tuning the awareness to a different channel than the usual channel within our work a day,

Our busy lives,

Is our priorities become very clear.

They just suddenly become clear.

I used the metaphor the other day,

Like those eight balls that we used to have as kids,

You shake it up and ask a question and the answer just reveals it floats up,

Right?

It is certain or whatever,

Whatever those phrases were.

One gets quiet,

It doesn't mean no talking or engagement,

But just a slightly different use of your attention and there's a stream inside that is very,

Very clear like pure water.

And anything your attention then falls on from that vantage point,

You see,

It just pops.

In our busy lives though,

Our attention is used in a surface way and often that's necessary,

Right?

We're juggling bits of information a lot of time and that's our new way of life in our modern times.

We juggle lots of information and it's very,

Very difficult when there's so much information being juggled and being processed to access that other quieter channel.

So we can see how people can go further and further astray in their lives,

Right?

Just you can see how they're caught in a swirl and they haven't had a moment to just get into their right mind and their right heart.

Marianne just told me that one of our friends,

I didn't know him well,

I had met him a few times,

Died in this last couple weeks.

And that before he died,

Since the death of his wife eight months ago,

He had been experiencing unconditional love.

I was very touched by that,

Very struck by that,

How that is often the way it works,

Isn't it?

You lose someone dear to you.

Your world shakes so fully that you see,

You see the priority very clearly.

It would be nice if we don't have to wait for death to teach us that lesson,

Right?

That would be better,

But we'll take it wherever we can.

It's just very,

Very,

Very beautiful to use your attention in such a way that your priorities stay straight as you go,

Even though we all take missteps and make a mess at times.

And usually we do when we're tired or we're sort of,

Our minds are just so agitated,

Right?

Like being in a brambled forest.

And yet this understanding is never far away.

Poonjaji used to say,

Nearer than your own breath,

Nearer than your own breath,

What's nearer than your own breath?

The simplicity of being,

The sweetness of being,

This sat-chit-inanda,

The bliss,

The truth of the bliss of being.

And really this,

All the swirl and the busyness and the juggling of information,

I keep asking myself,

What is it for?

Like everybody's so busy,

But why?

For what?

Right?

All the emails and all the news and all the conversations and all the keeping up with this and the Facebook and the social media and the Instagram.

And did you see that thing?

Why?

I'm just having a wild,

Ancient memory of,

Really,

Really ancient memory because my half-brother that this story is about is now well into his 50s.

But when he was a little kid,

My father took him to Disney World and they went through the haunted house.

I forgot what the name of that ride is,

But anyway,

They were in it.

And at one point,

My little brother turned to my father with this terrified look on his face and he said,

Dad,

Is this fun?

Like his way of saying,

Is this supposed to be fun?

It's kind of like that.

Is it supposed to be fun?

All this racing,

Racing,

Racing,

Racing.

And it's also become this way that we assume with each other.

It's like everybody always says,

Almost everybody says,

I've been so busy.

I've been so busy.

So if you're so privileged as to get un-busy a lot more,

I recommend that because that will throw you into your highest priorities.

Just use your attention so that you're being in simple ease of presence.

When you walk on the beach,

If you're so lucky to do that,

Really feel it.

Really.

If you can take your shoes off,

If you're so lucky to do that.

I can't so much anymore because I can't walk without some support,

But sometimes I do.

And feel how the cool of the sand,

The wet sand and the smell of the ocean or wherever you're walking,

Even if you're just walking to your car,

Whatever your engagement with this world,

Show up for it and let your attention float a lot more.

And then your clear priorities will reveal themselves.

They come floating up,

Just unbidden.

You can rely on that.

It's an awakened intelligence,

I call it.

It's a natural kind of wise intelligence that is available when we're at ease.

There are many,

Many people who are quite smart.

They juggle information really well and they're smart.

They're clever.

But sometimes one wonders if they've had a moment to be wise.

Someone was telling me the other day about this physicist she knows who is very into plastics.

He wants to create all these new types of plastics and he wants to build a space station.

And he's telling me he's super brilliant and that I should meet him.

And I said,

I don't think we'd have much in common.

It's not that I wouldn't want to be friendly to a person,

But I don't think we'd have a lot to talk about because I don't think the world needs any more plastics.

And I certainly don't think we need a space station.

And so we would be at odds to just have a conversation about what he was doing and what I'm doing.

I'm happy to meet heart to heart.

But what I was reflecting on is there's so many very brilliant minds out there just going down the wrong alleys as far as I'm concerned.

Just heading us further into destruction and mayhem and the end of the world.

And why is that?

What I've noticed in leading retreats over many,

Many years is when you give someone a chance to be quiet,

They come pretty consistently to a similar channel as everybody else who's being quiet,

Which is they start appreciating small joys.

They start feeling into the love that they are.

They restructure their priorities.

Actually,

Without trying,

The priorities just get restructured.

The intelligence wakes up,

The wisdom wakes up.

So give yourself that great privilege as much as you can.

Here's an example of yet another friend who's just died.

Right.

And thankfully he had some immersed time in this channel of love.

The subject for me,

And when you were talking about it today,

For the last while has been death.

If you'd asked me a year ago,

I would have said I had come to terms with it a lot with the sort of punctuation mark of the Amazon last week.

Say that again.

The punctuation mark that happened with the Amazon last week.

It's like,

Oh shit,

We might even make it to the end of the year.

And suddenly it all came back up again in a way of helplessness.

And yesterday I was sort of meditating and going into this and it's like,

Well,

What is death?

What does it feel like?

What does it look like?

What is it?

And this fear of nothingness because I can't see anything else.

So like,

And sense is.

To begin with,

When I hit that,

It was quite a lot of anxiety and then,

Okay,

I can relax with that,

But I still couldn't come up with an answer.

An answer?

Conceptualization,

Understanding,

Knowledge,

Anything of that nature.

It's just like,

Okay,

It's empty.

Feels a bit scary.

Don't know.

Do you know the famous Epicurus quote about death?

Okay.

Prior to death,

I am and death is not.

After death,

I am not.

Right?

So it's like up to that point,

You're living.

And to that point,

You're not.

So you're not there to experience the death.

You could experience dying,

Which also has its fearful components.

But in terms of the death part,

That really we don't need to worry about.

I guess not.

It's just this empty,

High-shaped thing.

Yeah.

And that too is,

You're going a bit into,

Well,

Not even,

I wouldn't even use the word ego.

It's more you go,

You went into conceptualization,

Right?

Not necessarily ego,

Just in terms of naturally,

It's a subject people think about,

But really at some point you realize you can't really think too far along rationally about it.

You just count it all,

I don't think.

So,

Yeah,

Fair enough.

Because you're of an age,

As am I,

We of our age,

We're surrounded by it a lot because lots of people we know have died or are on the way.

And yeah,

It's a reflection that one can use as an ally,

Which is how I see it.

I never seem to mind that reflection just occurring on its own.

I don't sort of call it up constantly or anything like that,

But it's around enough that one can't just ignore it.

And it comes with a softening and a kind of,

Again,

A prioritization.

A reminder to also have fun.

Have fun and play more.

I've been lately,

I went to this rabbit hole the other night that was really,

Really fun.

I watched this great Motown documentary called Hitzville,

The making of Motown.

It's just come out and it actually traces the whole,

Like the making of the business,

But also you're hanging out with all these old stars and you're seeing incredible footage that they had just in their offices,

Which were just part of this big house in Detroit,

In downtown Detroit.

Didn't really understand where all that music was coming from,

But it was an incredibly cool scene with all these super talented people all hanging out in this one house where all these offices were.

And they'd grab Marvin Gaye to play conga on some record they're making.

And then they'd get Diana Ross to sing on the back vocals on some,

Just grabbing each other's talent all the way through.

It's really fascinating how they did that.

But anyway,

I went to this rabbit hole of listening to old Motown,

Which I grew up on and loved,

Always loved.

And I haven't really done that for a long time.

I think I would have stopped myself actually a lot of the time because I would just think I don't have time to be looking up old Motown songs.

But I'm doing that a lot more lately.

I'm doing those kinds of things,

Right?

Like not saving them for a later date.

And what you said about the Amazon,

I feel very much on top of the threat that we face.

So like you,

I don't have any sense that,

I mean,

It could be anything could happen now,

Really,

You know,

Anything could happen now.

And all of our assumptions about time we would have to revise very quickly.

So,

You know,

To really live these days,

Not only because we're of an age,

Not only because anything can happen any minute,

Not only because you can get pneumonia and just die,

What seems to be way before your time.

But because on a world scale,

Things are getting crazy.

You know,

My mother,

This is the third year in a row,

I'll be saying this on a podcast.

Because this is hurricane season where my mother lives,

And they are about to be hit by yet another huge hurricane any day now,

Within the next couple days.

And there's my mother,

You know,

Who's quite old.

You know,

On the 11th floor of a condo building on the ocean with her old lady friends,

They're all old,

Hanging out together,

Some of them are going to come over to my mother's place,

Which I'm happy about.

The place is all shuttered,

They have to have people come in days ahead,

Men,

Heavy,

Strong men,

And put up all these huge,

Heavy,

Heavy shutters on all the windows.

So the whole place is blackened inside,

You know,

She can't,

There's no light,

Even in the day.

And,

You know,

Yeah,

We,

We live in these,

You know,

Kind of soft paradises here,

But we can't assume anything,

You know,

About what's coming down.

We have a lot of contact with people overseas,

And they're terrified about this,

Other things that are going on.

And I look out my window and I go,

Wow,

It looks easy here.

Yeah.

Right,

I know.

We're living in a delusion down here that's incredible.

Well,

It is as it is for today,

But we shouldn't assume it will remain any kind of permanent.

And I think it's also quite,

From my way of seeing,

I think it's also very empathic to keep the awareness of our friends overseas as well,

Right?

And not only just your own personal family and friends,

But just in general,

All the strangers,

So called who are in circumstances that are very,

Very challenging every day.

And so to it also informs our own gratitude for our lucky life,

And not to have any hubris about that,

But,

You know,

To recognize that this is a very fortunate life that we're in.

And I often add,

Because of that,

It's kind of incumbent upon us to keep our own channels clear so that we're not just wasting this incredible gift,

Right?

Dreaming it away or nightmarrying it away or obsessing it away or always looking at what's missing and crumbling about this and that,

Right?

To really keep our own channel bright.

So I'm noticing I'm falling into this silence more and more in my life.

And I noticed you talking before about,

You know,

How we get very busy.

And I notice sometimes I actually have had more opportunity in my life lately to slow down.

And people sometimes ask me what I'm doing.

I've got to scribble around and think up a few things to say so I don't feel too guilty.

Just trying to look normal.

Just trying to be normal.

And so at the same time,

I do find myself sometimes actually,

You know,

Feeling bored with that and then actually maybe watching,

Binging out on Netflix or something to occupy my mind.

It's actually quite a bizarre sort of thing that's happening with me.

And I'm just wondering for yourself,

So having,

You know,

The experience of silence,

But then there is things to do in life and you're busy and taxes and counts and whatever else.

How do you do this and keeping your attention,

The silence and staying there without like being aware of it but not moving from that when you're dealing with everything else that we deal with,

Like dealing with children and my partner and other things.

How do you keep your attention there?

Well,

Sometimes I get a little busy with,

You know,

With work things and obligations of sorts.

And I can notice that if that gets a little too revved up,

A kind of internal agitation starts up.

I can feel that I'm not fully on my game.

Are you feeling a separation?

Would you call it that?

I would just call it a kind of nervousness.

Nervousness.

Yeah,

Like an internal agitation.

And that for me is a signal that I need more,

I need to stop in some way or I need to put some space into the equation.

What do you mean by space?

I like to pace my life such that there's activity and then nonactivity,

Activity and nonactivity.

I like to pace that way.

And sometimes the activities all pile up a little bit too much.

And so then I'm just,

I'm actually waiting for the opportunity to get rest now put into the equation.

And sometimes I'll have to shove something else aside if I can without harming anybody else or causing inconvenience.

I'll just decide,

Okay,

Whatever I was planning to do today,

I'm not going to do,

I'm going to do it tomorrow.

Like that.

So I really notice,

I have a kind of high,

Strong nervous system.

So I notice when I'm stressing it.

And that said,

I also am aware that I'm in a privileged circumstance where I can usually rest or,

You know,

Put in some space.

I feel very,

Very great empathy for people whose lives are such that they're,

They're on task from the time they wake up,

They're doing,

And they're taking care of other people,

And they're going to jobs,

And they're cooking,

And they're shopping,

And they're cleaning,

And they're running here and there.

And I'm very aware,

My own nervous system would have a hard time with that,

I have to admit that it would.

So I've very carefully set my life up all this time to honor that and put a lot of space in.

Now,

Sometimes in my life,

I've had to push through,

You know,

And,

And being aware that my nervous system is stressed,

My mind is getting a bit stressed.

That also to me is a big Dharma bell that's basically saying be careful,

Be very careful,

Be careful about what you're saying,

Be careful about what you're doing.

Right,

Pay very extra attention.

Because I can feel that I'm,

I'm at my edge of comfort,

Or beyond it.

So to really honor yourself in all those ways,

When you start to feel it's too much.

And if you can,

In a non harmful way,

Back off of some things,

Then let yourself have that because it's my premise that then you're operating at your,

At your most elegant and most empathic and most loving channel when you are feeling good.

When you're able to use your attention to its highest form.

And that's what I that's the permission I give myself,

I want to be able to what few things I get to do.

I want to do them well,

And,

And do them from the place that is,

You know,

Just the clearest and wisest.

So by noticing the agitation,

By just noticing,

By keeping your attention on your systems,

Internal systems of,

I know that's the right term to use,

And seeing when the agitation,

Agitation arises,

Then you'll say okay,

I need to,

Yes,

Whether it's for myself,

I'd say slow down,

Yeah,

Take some time out.

Yes,

Exactly.

Yes.

When I start feeling,

I see some people's,

Some people's nervous systems are stronger,

They can actually handle more.

They can do more,

They can have more stress without it being or not,

Let's not call it stress,

They can just have more input without it taxing their system.

It's like the difference that,

You know,

The popular difference between introverts and extroverts,

Introverts are not,

What that means is not just,

It's not that it's a shy person,

An introvert is someone who's hypersensitive and who can't take too much stimuli without it being very taxing for them.

So that's why introverts wouldn't necessarily want to go to a big loud party,

Whereas an extrovert walks in and they're plugged into a juice field,

You know,

But for an introvert,

You're just,

You're like,

You're Superman around kryptonite,

You're just like fading.

So that's how it is for me.

If I walk into a big,

Busy room,

A big party,

All I'm thinking of is how soon can I get out of here without it being obvious,

You know?

And whereas I know people who love parties,

You know,

They stay to the end.

So to really honor your own system and to notice sooner rather than later,

When the signals are coming,

That you're pushing it.

And that's in general,

Right?

It's in general,

Whether it's too much work or too much driving around and too much anything,

You know,

To really understand that keeping your own self fine tuned is so that you are an instrument for everyone around you,

Including you.

But that's your job,

As it were,

Is to keep you really fresh,

Freshened up.

And to not compare to anybody else,

You know,

To not say I,

I'm kind of falling apart in this circumstance,

And the other people seem fine,

Or well and good for them.

But to be really honest and clear with what's true for you.

And then if you only do a few things,

You'll do them so beautifully.

You know,

You'll do them so in such a loving and clear way.

Okay,

Thank you.

You're welcome.

I'm struggling.

And many of the things that you just spoke about touched me.

But I,

I know that you have a similar sensitivity or sense that I do.

But most other people don't in my experience,

And I'm struggling.

I don't find it easy being here.

Yeah,

Just being.

I mean,

Talking about that we live in a bubble,

I just came from the desert.

I went way out west to the area around Kannamulla.

And the drought,

Actually,

You don't need to go very far.

The drought is terrible.

And I was so disturbed by so many things.

But the first thing was the kangaroos on the side of the road.

I mean,

Just carnage all the way out there because the grass grows specially on the side of the road because of the runoff from the road,

Apparently.

That's why it was like,

Whoa,

And not many kangaroos to be seen apart from dead on the road.

But are they dying from the drought?

No,

They're getting just plowed down by trucks.

Okay.

And some are moving away.

Some are dying from the drought as well.

So there's less of them.

So they're more close to the roads.

And the farmers out there with a very small head of cattle still because they didn't want to sell them because it cost them more money to sell them.

But then they're feeding them by knocking trees down,

Just bulldozing for four hours a day trees.

Like things like that.

And it's just there.

It's not very far away from here.

I know.

And people don't seem to feel it.

It's not like they don't realise it's terrible.

They're like,

Oh,

Yeah,

You know,

It's bloody terrible.

But like,

I feel it somewhere in a place that is starting not to be very manageable if I do feel it.

Or I can chuff along and think about how to fix my life and then I'm okay.

If I sort of flip into,

You know,

We're all fine and,

You know,

I'd like to be in a relationship.

I'd like to make more money.

You know,

That kind of.

Do you know what I mean?

Loud and clear.

Yes.

But if I feel into it,

It's actually really,

Really not okay.

No.

Just to keep on moving through life like it is okay.

So I'm fit like and I come here and it's really lovely to come here,

But doesn't necessarily help.

I know I said it before.

It kind of makes it worse.

Because the sensitivity is then heightened.

Yes.

In that empathy.

It's like,

Well.

So I'm struggling with finding a place to stay sort of resilient and grounded in a way that isn't just delusional or avoiding and denying.

So we're in a time of a lot of dying.

We're in a time of the great dying.

And we have to begin accepting that.

Right.

We're going to have to shake hands with that fact.

So any resistance to it is going to hurt.

And we will be feeling resistance because we're being asked to accept the unacceptable in a way that no other generation has had to do.

There have been plenty of other bad times for sure.

There was plagues and wars and all kinds of things.

But this is a new,

Brand new in history.

And so we are in this odd circumstance of being kind of the most privileged generation in some of the most privileged countries of wealth that is just beyond the dreams of any people who went before.

That's what we have gotten used to.

And now we're going to have and we are having a crashing change.

We have to really make some kind of peace with that and let that it's just like I'm talking and I love that we sort of outed death in this room today in that way because that is what we're that's our lot here.

So I quoted I don't know when it was,

But Edward Snowden's great line,

Don't be afraid,

Be ready.

Right?

Start letting yourself ready yourself inside.

It may be why there's something that feels a bit crazy making because I feel like my life is incredibly privileged,

But something doesn't feel right.

Also,

Like something that doesn't feel not just about my life.

And maybe that's what I'm feeling.

Because really,

This is one of the only places that this conversation arises for more than a couple of minutes.

Seconds,

Yeah.

Seconds,

Yeah,

Actually,

Where somebody would just,

Oh,

Yeah,

Well,

It's all over soon or,

You know,

Something like that.

But I feel like something's just I keep feeling.

Yes,

A lot of people are feeling they're sensing the people is there the canaries in the coal mine,

They're sensing it,

You know,

And I'm sensing it.

And I am processing it.

That's why I let myself go down a rabbit hole and listen to Motown for a few hours.

Right?

I'm definitely sensing it.

And I'm wanting to live my days here now.

And as I said to Keerti,

It was always such,

It's just that now the it's getting to be acutely understood.

In deeper places.

So please,

Let's we who have some sense about Dharma,

Some sense about using our attention,

Some sense about being an island of calm in the midst of chaos.

We have to do that now.

We we are called upon now to do that.

Right?

Our big party is pretty much over.

Even though we're still here sipping tea in the garden,

But I think because it's like not quite obvious.

It's right.

Except when you went out to Yeah,

Well,

Then when I went out west,

But no,

It's not not like they're,

There's just saying,

Oh,

You know,

We're hoping it's gonna rain soon.

Yeah,

But I felt like last summer,

The heat and even this winter,

Which hasn't been a winter,

I have been very aware that it's too hot.

It's too hot for this to be winter.

I felt last summer,

I felt,

You know,

The oppressiveness of the heat,

Not that I couldn't handle it and turn the fans on,

But I could just just felt just so hot,

Very different than it was 16 years ago when I first came here and,

And,

And so many people now are in places where it's way too hot,

Way,

Way too hot,

Far hotter in terms of degrees,

Then not so much hotter than where we are,

But hotter than it should be like up in the Arctic and Norway and places like that.

And,

You know,

Greenland.

So,

You know,

And of course,

The with the Amazon being burned and made the point recently,

It's not burning,

It's being burned.

People are deliberately burning it.

And it's,

It's all happening on so many levels and going so exponentially fast.

Right,

And you being an empath are going to feel it very powerfully.

So let this also be your ally to stay calm,

To stay steady,

To keep using your attention to keep going into gratitude,

To be willing to die.

You know,

What is all this Dharma thing been about all of this time,

Right?

We have to be willing to say,

Okay,

Whatever,

I am going to die one of these days.

I was so happy when Marianne told me that our friend was very peaceful.

He just went he even though he got ill with,

You know,

This pneumonia and died,

But that he went out peacefully.

Right?

That's what we like,

All we can hope for.

And,

And it's such a gift,

A gift for us to hear that about someone.

And it's a gift for us to offer in our own lives to just keep being,

Keep being a steady shade tree for others.

And do whatever you need to do for that to be the case.

Take whatever rest you need,

Do whatever fun thing you need,

Right?

Just keep keep your own system topped up as best you can.

And no,

Of course,

When you're directly seeing a circumstance such as the drought and the dead kangaroos,

And talking to the farmers and feeling the sadness and the depression that are going in waves around us.

Right?

And not just because somebody lost their boyfriend or girlfriend,

Right?

It's people who are losing their livelihoods,

Their homes,

Their everything.

To not turn away,

Right to not turn away because you can't,

You're going to be feeling it so you can't try to suppress and deny at the same time.

And I know this is hard to let the also also flow in as well,

Like basically saying,

Okay,

This is what is happening.

You know,

This is what is happening just as people all the world are dealing with now in much more extreme circumstances,

They're all having to either fall apart and become violent and desperate and or they're having to find some way to endure for whatever time they can.

Like I think we're sensing something not even in the mind,

I like my sense is that I'm sensing something not from a scientific,

I don't even read much of the news,

Just something that doesn't feel right.

And it's not.

It's either just me personally,

But it doesn't really feel like that because I don't have big things going on.

But just like,

Like the Earth's moving sense of that.

And that's the only way I can make sense of it.

Yeah.

And again,

Whatever it is,

Your work is going to remain the same.

Right?

You it's still a good idea for you to stay in your highest wisdom,

And apply all of the things you've learned and known and experimented with all this time that's been your passion in life.

Okay,

So this is the time for it.

Whatever is to be,

You know,

It's going to take I've been speaking a lot about two primary things,

It's going to take courage and acceptance.

Even if you just hold those two words floating around in your mind,

Courage and acceptance.

That's what's happening for us as I see it in this time.

That's what we need.

And and you know,

You're saying it doesn't feel right.

And I understand what you mean by that.

Because it doesn't feel like what we've known of as the world,

The right world.

But if we hold it that way,

And we say it that way,

We're in a fight.

And there's a possibility to come to a point and I don't,

I'm not there all the time.

But now and again,

I get a very,

A very beautiful glimpse of being able to say,

This is just what evolution has done.

It is just what it's doing.

Right.

And one can only bow to the truth of it.

There is an incredible awakening going on in the world.

I mean,

We're coming together,

The people who understand what's happening are now coming together in an extraordinary way.

I don't know if there will be much we can really do.

But even that we're coming together and,

And having these kinds of conversations and having this kind of incredible impassioned response is something that's happening on a global scale that really also the world has not seen.

Right.

Such that we're,

You know,

Our awareness is tracking all this people in Brazil and Bolivia and all those cities,

Even in the cities,

Which are far from the fires,

The cities are full of smoke.

Right.

Sao Paulo and places like that,

They're full of smoke,

Darkened by smoke.

You know,

That we're feeling it just,

There's just tremor on the web of life that the whole world is starting to understand,

Even though there's plenty of people who are going to insist on being asleep in it.

And there's plenty of people who are just scrambling at a level of survival that they can't look up from their,

You know,

Task at hand,

Because that's what's going to give them food that day.

But there is in terms of the cultures,

The privileged cultures,

The wealthy cultures,

The intellectuals around the world,

There's starting to be,

You know,

A kind of zeitgeist of consciousness that's coming together and it's coming with love and it's coming with comradeship and it's coming with a lot of beauty and it's coming with a lot of grief.

So be it.

It's just I don't have any quarrel with any of it at this point.

I just know that those of us who can be steady,

That is going to be very needed and very appreciated.

So your process in this that you're going through is going to have a very beneficial effect for others.

Just coming back to where you started from,

Actually,

About the busyness,

Because I have the sense that on that personal level that's tuning into the collective,

That there is this increasing agitation and sense that something's not right.

And one of the easiest defenses,

Of course,

Is to keep distracted,

You know,

And to keep busy.

And there is an acceleration going on because there's a certain urgency that the times are calling for and the urgency really is,

It's time to wake up.

It's time to know what it is that we're responsible for and what it is that's important and what it is that's real.

And they're actually very big questions and it's so much easier just to spin and glorify busyness.

But a lot of that is just really keeping ourselves from sinking in.

And there'll probably be a point where that just becomes unbearable.

I mean,

It already is pretty unbearable.

I mean,

If there's any kind of honoring of what that ease of being and peace of mind gives in terms of clear action,

Then it's already unbearable.

So I guess that's just a recognition of being busy and distracted just isn't going anywhere.

It's just going to spin itself out and just to step off that at least and to turn that attention and the conversation just as we're going about our lives and as we're going about raising our kids and as we're going about realizing how precious every day is,

That we're just kind of being prepared also as part of that movement of life.

And as long as we're not listening to it,

It seems like a bunch of agitated noise about a lot of stuff that doesn't matter.

And that's actually more just the receptivity factor.

So are we tuning into the resistance to that or are we tuning into actually what's being called for?

So,

Yeah,

Exactly.

There's a deep connection there.

So I'm just starting to see more and more clearly.

And as ever,

As always,

And I think this is kind of our litmus test,

It's like,

Wouldn't we do that anyway?

And it's just actually becoming more of just like not a luxury,

But actually like wouldn't we do that anyway?

Wouldn't we want to be more awake and tuned in and listening and taking care of what really matters?

And it's not that that's a luxury anymore.

Right.

Right.

Yes.

As things get more acute,

It's just like with our friend who lost his wife eight months ago and then has so discovered unconditional love.

Sometimes it takes an acute situation for us to wake out of the dreams in which we live.

An important thing I think is really enjoying the beauty now and doing fun things.

That's what I just want to have fun.

Girls just want to have fun.

I think it's really important when I say it again,

Enjoy,

Enjoy your life.

Right.

More than ever,

We now know we're on borrowed time.

So and you're going to be doing that not just for your own pleasure,

But just keeping yourselves topped up,

Keeping yourselves at your optimum responsibility.

Right.

And spreading that around.

We don't really even need to tell anybody actually about any of this now.

We don't.

I used to think years ago,

It's part of my motivation also for writing the thing.

Years ago,

I thought I should write and let people know this is happening.

But now I don't need to tell anybody that.

And if my family is in total denial,

I don't ever we don't talk about any of this,

Even though it's been a kind of subject of mine for quite some time.

So it doesn't matter that they don't know.

It's just as well.

And but for those who do know and are waking up to it and are feeling and sensing,

We have each other and we need to rely on each other as we go forward.

And a lot of other people will rely on us.

This has been In the Deep.

You can find the entire list of In the Deep podcast at katherineengram.

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I am grateful to listen to this. I appreciate the authenticity and vulnerability of all who shared. Namaste.