Resilience Is In Letting Go

People mistakenly think of resilience as a way to hold onto things, to try to keep things as they have been. True resilience is in being able to let go as needed, to adapt to changes even when those changes may mean one has less of something. Resilience is found in yielding to the truth of a situation and in finding gratitude in whatever the new situation might be.

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 December 5th,

2020.

It's called Resilience is in Letting Go.

Where I live here in Australia,

In what was once considered kind of a hippie surfer town,

It's become sort of the it place of Australia in the last few years.

It's kind of the Australian Hollywood now,

Even though it's a pretty small place,

But it's gotten very kind of shi-shi over the years.

But still,

They're the old feral types around and the old hippies and the growers of various things and still has a lot of soul.

But we hear a lot about the notion of resilience.

And perhaps in your communities,

Or just in your own considerations,

You think a lot about resilience.

In these times,

All kinds of resilience are needed.

For some people,

It's very basic.

It's how to get through financially through this phase of time.

For others,

It might be more of a psychological issue.

For others,

It may be thinking about the future and wanting to have some mode of resilience,

Some form of resilience.

Different people are planning all kinds of things in the world in different communities.

There's a lot of planning going on here for more resilience,

More sustainability,

Considerations about food and water and all kinds of ways that we might be delinked from the major systems.

These are naturally the kinds of things we'd be thinking about and talking about with our friends and our communities.

But I'm going to speak a bit about the kind of resilience I rely on the most.

And it's not really an inner strengthening,

Like developing a superpower.

It's a kind of knowing that I've already been through a lot.

And I can let go.

So it's about letting go.

It's not really about some kind of big fortitude,

Although one could use that word.

But it's just a shift in the focus of how you think about it.

And letting go,

Especially letting go of that which is going anyway,

Seems to me the easier path.

So it's the flexibility,

The bending,

The yielding to what is.

The making do if something is gone,

Or it means you have less than also.

So many people I see in the world,

Their idea of resilience is to kind of keep everything going in some new form in some new fashion,

Keep the whole machinery going somehow.

That's the idea of resilience a lot of people are clutching to.

That might just prove to be truly a fool's errand and a cause for a lot more heartache and misery and feelings of loss and panic.

So we have had quite a lesson lately since the pandemic erupted on the world stage.

And all the political dramas we watched,

Especially those who were watching the United States election debacle.

And there are waves of fear rolling through the world and lots of people are facing tremendous hardship.

Probably a great deal more than any of those of us on this call.

And I hear about some of these cases I hear about them peripherally in a sense,

Or I read about them.

One's heart breaks.

But I'm also struck with when I see someone on the news or here I read a story.

I'm also struck with often a sense that they've been they've been adapting throughout this process.

They've been adapting to a new way of life.

And those who are adapting,

They are the ones who are going to be the most resilient.

So for myself,

I'm always wanting to float downstream,

I'm always wanting to just go the way it's going,

Bend the knee to reality.

That's always the inclination.

Letting go.

Even just hearing the phrase is calming.

I often speak with people,

Typically in private sessions.

Perhaps people who don't want to speak certain things in a public forum.

I often speak with people who are going through a big loss.

And I'm just amazed over time,

How much grace I have witnessed in those circumstances.

Now those who can just say,

Okay,

This is how it is.

Not fight with the fact of it.

The grief is one thing and it comes with loss.

But one just piles on the misery when we're clutching to something that's gone.

Letting go.

That's the resilience.

And as that muscle I often speak about the letting go muscle.

So kind of mixed metaphor.

But as you as you go and we all have this experience,

You realize,

Okay,

I'm still standing.

And all these things have left and gone and there's been lots of loss and heartache.

And heartache comes in all forms.

It can come from the loss of a love or a job or a talent or a skill you used to have that you can no longer do.

Some kind of physical thing that is impairing.

It can come in the form of betrayal,

Disappointment of all sorts.

All kinds of losses come our way.

This is a total aside.

I'm part of this group here in my area.

I'm actually part of a resilient group.

We speak a lot about ways of resilience.

But I speak a lot about sort of a Dharma resilience.

Anyway,

One of our group was sent out an email to all of us just with this little video about the sharing economy.

Many of you know what that means.

But a sharing economy is a community that begins sharing really basic resources.

Like not everybody has to have tools.

Some people can have certain tools or they might have a shovel and you have hedge clippers.

So more and more start to live like that with your fellow neighbors and your community.

So anyway,

Someone sent out this video about this sharing economy and I wrote back to our group.

I had actually lived like that for an entire year in British Columbia on an island,

Remote island in the 80s.

So most of the people in this group are quite a bit younger than I am.

This seems to be a theme in my life lately.

So one of them wrote back and said,

You know,

It's always amazing to me that we talk about something and you did it decades ago.

I wrote back,

Yeah,

I'm like an ancient turtle just wandering the seas and back again,

Out and back again.

So in all of this wandering,

There has been a lot of loss and a lot of barnacle's collected along the way and betrayals and dramas and this and that.

And yeah,

The letting go muscle gets better and better at releasing,

Psychologically releasing quickly.

Right,

Just if something goes,

You release quickly.

Also,

Today,

It was very hot here.

It was probably 38 degrees Celsius,

Something like that.

And it was windy.

So that's kind of like fire danger when it's super dry,

Super,

Super hot and very windy.

And I was thinking,

Oh,

What if the big fire,

You know,

What if we have the big fires again that we had last summer?

What if a fire burns down my house?

And there was this moment of that kind of feeling of freedom,

This wave of like,

Okay,

I would probably have a lot of pain mixed in if it actually did happen.

And certainly,

I would not want to be in it.

But there was this moment of just freedom of letting go.

And perhaps if it did happen,

Even though I would have a lot of sadness about all the things that,

You know,

Would be considered precious to me that would be gone.

I would hope that that letting go and that sense of freedom would prevail.

So I'm aware that many people are getting really tired of the way of life that is so constrained.

In some places,

People are going back into lockdown.

There's all this hope about the vaccines,

But frankly,

We really don't know what those things are going to do or not do,

Or if they're dangerous.

And in any case,

They can't get them out to everybody in any short hurry.

So it's more months of living in a more constricted way.

And I really encourage us all.

Just love your days,

Love the moments,

Improve your attention as needed.

And still your beautiful,

Precious life.

Hi,

Lovely to see you all again.

Thank you for your words.

I just wanted to say that the other day I was listening to your podcast,

The one hunger or not hungry and not hungry.

Yes,

I was really struck by it.

I mean,

I just found it very powerful.

At one point,

You said someone asks you,

Do you believe in karma?

And you gave this really sort of detailed answer about why you don't believe in a very in the sort of standard,

I think,

Buddhist view of karma,

Not that I know much about it.

And you said,

Well,

I don't really believe in afterlife.

I mean,

There's no proof.

And I just found that all very powerful and very helpful and very sort of,

You know,

I don't know,

Whatever.

And I just wanted to ask you,

Okay,

That I get that.

And I,

I appreciate that.

But what what do you believe in,

In the sense of how do we connect to the universe?

Well,

You're,

You're,

You're of it.

You're,

You are of the universe,

Right?

There's a line I love Carl Sagan,

Who was a famous astronomer in America,

Died quite some time ago.

But he said,

In order to make an apple pie from scratch,

You would first have to create the universe.

You get it.

So in order to make a you from scratch,

That you'd have to have a universe,

Because you're just made of the elements,

The stardust and gas and all kinds of mysterious elements,

Actually,

As we all are.

And that for me,

Is the that is the connection is understanding that we came we came from from this cosmic blast.

And,

You know,

There's this long line of DNA as well,

That that came from that,

And that had some kind of intelligence encoded in it,

Something that was evolving.

But to lay on anything,

You know,

Most of the beliefs,

The,

You know,

The beliefs of afterlife,

In my opinion,

And from what I've understood in looking into these matters for a very long time.

There were ways to calm down in a sense primitive people,

And they they all came up with afterlife stories,

Different ones.

Now we have these big modern religions,

Modern in the sense that they're,

You know,

Only a fraction of human history last few thousand years,

That those are the ones that are stuck have stuck around.

You know,

They all have their,

Their afterlife myth.

It's a really comforting thing for people.

Very comforting to think you're just going to be with all your dear ones in the afterlife.

I'm always amazed that everybody is wanting to get there sooner.

But anyway,

If you don't have that,

And you sense that this,

This experience that you're having is completely unique,

A one off,

As far as we know,

As far as you or I know,

Let's just assume that we have to go with what we know.

We don't have any guarantee there's anything else.

After this for us,

It's possible that we just return to molecular dance.

And if that's the case,

And that's how I see it,

Then it makes this life very precious indeed.

It wakes you up,

Wakes you up,

And it doesn't need to be oppressive.

You don't have to sort of have this thought of,

You know,

I love this Eckhart Tolle image where he says he likes to go to cemeteries and look at the tombstones,

Which I also like to do.

And there's the birth year,

And there's the death year on the carved in the stone.

And there's the dash in between that represents the life,

That dash,

Right.

So it is like a dash,

Actually.

And if you are too sort of hyper aware of the preciousness of it,

Or the limitation of time,

It can be paralyzing,

It can be debilitating.

So it's a little bit of a razor's edge that you have that awareness,

And you understand the preciousness of it.

And yet you have to live a normal day,

You know,

You go about your business.

And yet you can have this,

I like to say coexisting awareness that acknowledges that this is a short run,

The dash is really true.

No matter how long the life,

Lots of people who had a long life,

Say that it went by really fast.

The other part of this too,

Is that because you don't have that comfort,

If they if you don't have the belief,

You don't have that comfort.

It calls on on a deeper place for you to walk through life.

It's braver somehow.

Because when you have loss,

It's real loss forever.

Like when you have loss,

Or I should say it in my own case,

When I have loss,

It's loss forever.

When people die,

Who I love,

I mean,

The love lives in my heart,

That's true.

But their good company is gone.

And it's a deeper heartache.

It's a deeper pain than thinking we're going to just meet up somewhere.

You know?

Right?

It's far harder.

So it's much more tenderizing.

And it requires a lot of steadiness.

I am a great fan of Richard Dawkins.

Do you know who that is?

Yeah,

You would.

Yeah.

And he talks about how,

When he and his wife,

When they lose a friend,

Actually,

He's divorced now.

But when he when I heard him say this,

He talked about he and his wife would go to a memorial.

So if it was a religious memorial,

They could get through it without shedding a tear,

Because they were just mostly annoyed.

But listening to a bunch of what he thought as nonsense.

But he said,

If it was a memorial that was secular,

It would just have them in tears,

You know,

The whole way through because they would be playing the person's favorite music,

And they would be reading poetry that the person loved,

Or people would tell stories about their,

Their friend or relative,

And that would be far more powerful,

And emotional,

And a reminder of the tapestry of a life.

Far,

Far more intense and experience.

Like that,

It's it,

It takes a certain brave heartedness actually,

To,

Well,

Actually,

This,

In a sense,

There's no real choice in it.

It's like,

If this is how you see it,

Then this just you have no choice in it.

But it takes a certain brave heartedness to endure loss like that and keep going.

And again,

It's all part of the letting go.

Nice to see all of you.

You too,

Dear.

It's very,

Very provocative,

Your comments.

And it really,

Really sets me thinking about so many things.

When I know we met the last time as a community a month ago,

And in the intervening time,

I've thought about best ofs,

What's the best thing that happened?

What's the best thing I read or saw or did?

And the best of,

I mean,

I have two best ofs that I want to share.

The first was a concert that I gave about two weeks ago,

With a conductor Daniel Barenboim.

We played Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique,

That in the corona time,

Was a complete denial of all the negativism and all of the defeatism,

All of the isms,

The negativism.

Because,

Although we had no audience at all,

Just the microphones and the cameras,

We played like there was no tomorrow.

And it went,

You know,

We like to play for our lives,

You know,

For our very lives.

And the way Daniel conducted in his 78 years,

We all thought about having ambulances waiting.

Because,

You know,

The man has smoked a cigar or two in his lifetime.

And he was standing in front of us with his arms over his head and just screaming in the final orgiastic moments of the symphony.

And it was such a catharsis for everybody.

And we just thought,

Oh,

You know,

That's why we're here on this planet.

And what an affirmation of life in the midst of.

.

.

It was beautiful.

Yeah.

The second and more related to what's going on here today,

Although affirmation is certainly related,

I saw an amazing interview with the Israeli historian philosopher Yuval Harari.

And the first thing that all of this brings to mind is that we're thinking thoughts today,

Or currently,

That we weren't thinking five years ago.

We weren't thinking them of certainly not 10 years ago,

Not 15 years ago,

But five years ago is a close enough time for us to think about,

Well,

Why weren't we thinking about resilience?

We weren't thinking about resilience five years ago.

That's a current thing.

We weren't thinking about climate change.

We weren't thinking about methane hydrates.

We weren't thinking about any of that five years ago.

This is all new thinking.

And Harari was.

.

.

His whole presentation was about the myths that we as a society,

As a community,

Need to tell ourselves so that we can function.

And it's very interesting for me to hear about your resilience community and the fact that we now agree that resilience is a good,

That we should work together to create.

This in contrast to your thoughts about how we have to be flexible in accepting the way our world is changing and accepting the losses that these changes are presenting us.

So I'm wondering if resilience,

And because resilience is something that.

.

.

It's a feeling.

It's not truly a state.

Because if you look at resilience to the people who practice it in the United States,

And they work as communities,

They agree,

Okay,

You build the bunker,

I'll buy the guns.

You build the defensive trenches and buy the bulletproof vests and the helmets.

I mean,

Their way of approaching resilience out of a state of abject fear is certainly different than your state of resilience where you have this heat and this.

.

.

I mean,

Your conditions are totally different.

Your point of view is different.

You're telling one another different myths or different basic programs to deal with it.

So resilience is something about where are we going to get our food?

Your issue is the central one.

What will make us resilient as human beings?

Because all of these guns and trenches and all this other nonsense is completely meaningless exercise without the basic needs as human individuals.

Correct.

All of that other stuff makes us less safe.

So one of the big emphasis that our group has is we're only as safe as our community feels safe.

So it's all about community.

And it's all about the whole ethos is about helping each other and working as a community with very local sustainability as the idea of behind the resilience.

And I think that anyone can do that wherever they are.

I've plenty of times lived in cities and felt very resilient to actually,

If I think of the word in the way that I now think of it,

Because I had so many friends,

I had so much community and we would help each other and share each other and if your car broke down,

You can call your friend and they'll come and get you and just all those little ways that you.

.

.

It does take intentionality.

And I do recommend that we all start leaning in that direction,

Having that intention to know that you are you know,

Living among friends and that you're helping each other.

One of the focuses of our group is that we've created neighborhood groups.

So we're encouraging people to actually get to know your neighbors and to just make plans with each other.

If a fire comes,

Right?

Or if a flood comes or if the trucks don't come as frequently as they used to,

All those kinds of questions to just start having conversations with people around you.

Like,

You know,

How could I help you in a situation like that?

And then they'll be happy to help you back probably.

These are the kinds of intentions that we are having.

But I often feel that what I bring to these meetings is no different than what I'm speaking here tonight,

Which has to do with Adharma resilience.

And that is that you do everything you can to help out or to have things go a certain way,

To make things easier,

To make things more equitable and so on.

But you can't control everything,

Obviously.

And there's just going to be a lot of letting go along the way,

As there already is.

You know,

We've all I would imagine every single person on this call has already been doing a lot of letting go in this past year.

You know,

It's been a year of big adaptation.

And to just know that that exercise can be a real ally for you going forward.

You can do it.

But I love your two examples.

I think the the concept of resilience and combining that with the necessary losses that await all of us is for me the potent combination that really works.

And combined with the flexibility that we have to exercise like a muscle right now,

It feels like I'm exercising this,

You know,

I'm losing that.

Oh,

Okay.

All right,

That's gone.

And then the whales are going,

Okay,

We've lost the whales and the giraffes and the okay,

And we're going to lose these.

And it's sort of being a bystander sometimes.

But realizing also that it does every loss needs me in some direct sense.

But I don't want to take up too much time,

But I appreciate your comments very deeply.

And it's certainly something we follow on a daily ongoing basis.

Yes,

Yes,

That's right.

The losses are piling up.

I mean,

It's been in this last phase,

It just feels like things are really intensifying going so much faster than than we even had thought even those of us who were paying attention to how fast it was going,

It's it's dizzying.

And there's so many threads now just so many different world dramas going on at once,

You just you're overwhelmed easily.

And that's also why it's very important to be as steady as possible in the midst of it because so many people are falling apart.

Hello,

Everybody.

Thank you for sharing so much so richly.

I wanted to just share that I'm actually very literal person sometimes.

And my my lesson in in resilience has taken form in my knee,

My right knee.

And this idea of letting go.

I think the older we get,

The more practice we have of that.

I've had to let go of collagen and hair and memory and sort of the youth gifts.

And what I'm learning in my body right now,

I had a doctor say you need a knee replacement,

Which I really don't want to do.

And so I started doing some postural alignment practices.

And what I've learned about my knee is that one of the reasons it's crumbling is because on one side of the knee,

It's so tight,

It's so holding on,

There's pulled something out of alignment,

And the other side has just given up.

It let go too fast.

And so I'm sort of learning physically how to become more resilient by letting go a bit on this side and toming a bit on this side.

And so I really feel like that's a beautiful metaphor for me to understand resilience in my life.

How do I surrender and at the same time take flight?

And the idea of story or myth even,

The stories we tell ourselves can either be an uplift,

A lightness,

Or they can be a burden.

Or I wrote down story tape.

Sometimes stories hold things together for us in a way that gives meaning to grief or anguish or loss.

But sometimes that tape needs to be ripped.

And it hurts actually,

It hurts sometimes to let go of a fantasy story.

Like,

We're going to get through this together and it's just fine that we all have,

Whatever the story is,

Sometimes it just needs to be let go.

That's the lightness that I need for resilience is that just to feel in the simplest form.

Well,

Thank you,

Dear.

Beautiful.

I just can't express how joyful you make me feel in these sessions.

The resilience,

It's a perfect message.

I've been aware of friends struggling.

We're all pulling together more in the community now.

And yeah,

It's a perfect message.

I feel very close to this forum,

To everybody here.

Thank you everybody for your honest and very deep sharing.

It's a joy to me.

I'll be going out shortly for a walk with a friend and sharing everything and I can't express it.

I'm full.

Thank you.

Are you still helping out your neighbour downstairs,

The older woman?

Yes,

She loves it.

And my partner as well.

She loves my partner to bits and we've brought joy into her world.

It's wonderful.

And I think this slowing down,

You know,

We have to slow down with work and everything.

And so it gives you more time,

More time for people.

Yes,

It does.

And also just so much more time for reflection.

There's a kind of contemplative wave going on around the world.

I mean,

I mentioned it on another podcast.

I see it in like the newscasters and I see it in all kinds of people who you sense that their lives prior to COVID were so busy,

So constant,

Many balls in the air.

But I can hear more wisdom,

Frankly,

Coming from them when they speak because they've been kind of in retreat,

You know.

So it's good in many,

Many ways.

We may miss it when the big machine starts up again.

Hi,

Good morning,

Everybody.

Well,

I suppose we've just come out of level five lockdown in Dublin and into three.

So there's a little holding of breath,

I think,

You know,

To see what happens.

You know,

We haven't kind of reached the point,

I think,

That we had hoped from level five.

And so it's going into level three,

Really with Christmas in mind and with the economy in mind and trying to get the balance of it all.

So it's an interesting time,

I suppose,

At one level and a bit of a nerve wrecking time as well,

Because it depends then on the goodness of everybody.

And so I'm really tuned into that whole concept of community and responsibility and sharing.

And I suppose what's around for me is less of a practical thing,

But more of a social conscience piece just around each person doing what they can do,

You know.

And if everyone has a little bit of the cherry rather than trying to have the whole thing,

You know,

It might be better for everyone.

So I suppose it's just a curiosity about behavior and,

You know,

Personal responsibility and all of that.

So it feels a bit heavy,

To be honest,

At the moment because the risks are really high.

We're a small island and we depend on people having a social conscience and taking responsibility.

And I suppose then,

You know,

There's the bit about not becoming judgmental.

So lots of challenges,

I think,

You know,

And for me,

You know,

In terms of resilience and letting go,

It's a bit about letting go of a bit about being a bit,

Well,

You know,

They know what to do to stay safe and why are they,

You know,

Gathering in crowds and not taking the kind of measures that we've been asked to do.

So I get a little bit kind of on that and I have to pull myself back and think,

You know,

I can only be responsible for myself.

But I suppose what I'm saying in all of that is,

You know,

Because I am working full time and I work in healthcare,

So it's very busy and it's tiring.

But there was a moment yesterday,

I had a moment,

I'm a psychologist by profession and I run a counselling and therapy service in the east coast of Ireland.

And yesterday,

All of us who were present at work were actually in session with clients at the same time.

And I had that moment being in the moment and doing what we're here to do.

And for me,

Being a therapist,

You know,

And it was fantastic.

I came out of my room and,

You know,

It was so funny because we were along a corridor and all of us came out of our rooms at the same time.

And there was just that moment of,

Yes,

You know,

We're doing,

We're not in panic,

We're not in preparation,

We're not,

We're just in the moment of doing what we're here to do.

And the fact that help is a helping piece is,

You know,

Is nice.

So yeah,

So that was lovely and that kind of really,

I think,

Was a great resource yesterday.

And when something like that happens,

I think it kind of just puts a little bit more in the,

You know,

In the well of resilience,

You know,

A little bit more thrust from.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And also because of the constraints that we've had for all these many months,

And as I was saying,

Just the spaciousness and the quiet and the contemplative inclinations that people have had more of.

A moment like that,

It sparks in a different place because it's sparking in a context of more space,

Right?

That is a higher relief,

You can see it in higher relief or feel it in a higher relief.

Like you and I have talked about it on previous conversations with what happens in Italy,

Like where you're just,

You know,

You're just sitting on the lawn together and looking at the sky and yet you feel like you're about to be overcome with joy.

And yeah.

I mean,

For me,

It's a lovely description of presence as you've written about it and as you talk about it.

And I think for me,

If I was to name a goal,

You know,

And I don't want to make it concrete,

But it's just that,

You know,

Just bringing myself back into present moment so that I'm not getting into the shoulds and the coulds and the panics,

You know,

But rather just coming back into presence.

And,

And,

You know,

And I'm totally responsible for that and I can do it at any point in time.

And it's my responsibility to bring myself into the moment.

And it's not about denial of what's going on around or,

You know,

Any of the,

You know,

The anxieties that you named at the beginning,

Whether that's floods or fires or virus,

It's about just stopping and breathing and being present right now here,

You know?

Yes,

Absolutely.

I love what you just said.

Yes,

Indeed.

Yeah.

You know,

This Python took up residence in my Jasmine hedge that's just opposite my kitchen window.

But it's also an area where my friend and I had just been weeding and it was above us and we didn't realize it,

But I could see it once I was inside and I could see,

Oh,

Wow,

There's there's a Python curled up in the Jasmine.

And so then I kept an eye on it over the next days.

And sometimes it was there and sometimes it wasn't.

That means it was somewhere else around the house,

Like outside.

So we have this group here called WIRES,

The Wild Animal People,

And they'll come and move an animal.

They won't hurt it.

They'll just move it to somewhere else.

So I thought,

Oh,

Should I call them?

And I just kept,

You know,

But I was had a little bit of a,

I don't know,

Not paranoia,

But just a heightened awareness.

But there were so many moments toward the end of its visit,

Because it's now seemingly gone,

That I just stood there in beingness.

I just stood there and it was all curled up peacefully.

And it was quite beautiful,

In fact,

To look at.

And I just I had many perfect moments with this magnificent creature,

Just doing its thing.

And I'm sure it was out at night hunting,

You know,

Poor little animals,

And I'm glad I didn't have to see any of that.

But yeah,

I feel with my life,

I don't know if it's the sign of the times or the sign of my age or whatever,

But I really can access that without needing anything particularly exalted.

Right.

Those exalted ones are great,

And I'm happy to have them when I do.

But they're they're more few and far between now.

And in terms of like,

I'm just so much at home,

And no real,

Not much activity in terms of confraternity with others.

So yeah,

I have a lot of these little these little perfect moments hanging around.

Yes.

About how things are changing here and going to something and not remembering whether I was shy or not,

Or into it,

Like I've forgotten who I was.

And those sort of like letting go of things.

It's also become letting go of bits of the story.

I kind of go,

Did I used to be shy at gatherings?

I can't remember.

Forgetting aspects of like,

I really haven't reminded me of like,

Okay,

What bits missing?

Or is it?

I love that you're saying this.

Yeah,

Because I think a lot also about the concept of identity,

Or the way that we make a construct of who we are.

And one of the things that I think is a huge challenge for people,

For people in general at this time is that the the construct of their lives,

Whether it's their work,

Or they're famous,

And they're used to be in front of cameras,

Or they're movie stars,

Or whatever,

Or they're,

Or they have a job that they can't do,

You know,

Right now,

That a lot of the struggle is not just from the pure not having the income,

But it's from the loss of identity,

Or the the adjustment of being much more simple,

A creature,

Right,

Just another creature on the planet here,

You know,

Without the story,

Without the story being relevant at the moment anyway.

So yeah,

I've been observing that.

That's so much of myself.

I don't,

I used to have more of a construct of who I was,

And what I did,

And all that stuff.

But it's been gone for quite some time,

Not entirely,

But I don't really think much about it.

I have other issues that I get caught in,

But but not so much that when I get caught a lot more in the story of the world.

And I get I get into resistance about the world.

But in my perfect moments,

The world is also perfect.

And I step back,

And even with all the destruction,

And all the extinctions,

And the,

You know,

The great barrier reef being bleached out,

And the ice caps melting,

And the desecration.

And that is in a de sacralization of the ecosystem on which life depends.

It's a heartache.

And yet there are moments in my perfect moments that I just,

I bow to all of it.

And I say,

Okay,

This,

This is what evolution did,

Who am I to say it should have gone a different way,

Right?

I mean,

Really,

What hubris?

And I certainly can't see that it could have gone a different way,

Either.

I mean,

We did what we did,

Because we were very programmed to do it that way.

As humans,

That's what we did.

And that's what we keep doing.

So there's a way in which I part of the,

The bowing to the reality is is this profound yes to all of it.

And I just get those glimpses now and again,

And boy,

Are they sweet.

Because the story I get caught in is the huge loss of the innocent creatures who had nothing to do with causing the loss.

And that will catch me,

The injustice of it and all of that,

That one,

That one will get me sometimes and I'll,

I'll have a wave of anger,

Like a wave of anger will come up about humans.

Like I just I just sort of think of it generically.

I like a lot of them,

By the way.

I like all of you.

Like a lot of the humans.

But I will sometimes just in a generic sense,

I'll get angry at humanity in watching what we've seen what we've done here.

And that's also some kind of story must be connected with some kind of identity or some kind of deep conditioning about injustice.

I do know that I have that.

So like I said,

When when that is released,

The sweetness of those moments when I just go,

Okay,

So be it.

So be it.

Yeah.

Perfect moments.

Yeah.

Yes.

Lovely.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

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