Honoring Your Nature

Hi,

It's Brooks,

And here we are.

It's good to be here with you.

Today I'd like to talk with you about honoring your nature.

And by your nature I mean the things that you're naturally drawn to.

The things that suit you,

That suit who you are.

The activities,

The things,

The people,

What you're naturally drawn to.

It's an innate part of you that you're born with.

It's genetic.

And I think it's really good to talk about this because there's a lot of pressure out there in the world to be a particular way.

Act a certain way,

Think a certain way,

Have these particular things,

Wear these particular styles.

There's a lot of social pressure to not be different,

You know,

To be like everyone else.

And what happens is we don't follow our natural inclinations.

You know it's like it's like trying to put on a size 8 shoe and we wear a size 10.

It's,

We suffer because it doesn't fit us.

And we can think something's wrong with us.

Oh my god why doesn't this shoe fit me?

I was told it was gonna be so comfortable.

There's something wrong with me.

But that's not the case.

It happens.

We all get sold on stuff that isn't who we are.

No.

Even spiritually,

Like for some people it suits them to meditate.

Some other people it doesn't.

Some people doing service work is really part of the nature and other people it's they're gonna hate it.

Some people love to pray,

Other people it's the worst thing for them.

It's really starting to listen and I think essentially it's noticing,

Starting to notice when you're uncomfortable.

Like I don't like this.

You know what it is like if you had a plate of food and you took a bite?

You know right away if you like that food if you want to keep eating it or not it's like oh yeah this is great.

This tastes great.

Oh my god I hate this.

I don't want anything to do with this.

So the same goes with learning what our natures are.

It's just starting to get that sense.

That radar that goes off in the midst of some activity or wearing a particular shirt or you know thinking in a particular way it's like this doesn't feel right.

You know so I for like for instance for myself it's really easy for me to talk to talk like this.

To talk about an idea and concepts and share stories about things and be encouraging.

It's part of my nature.

You know someone else they wouldn't be any good at it and it's really easy for me to be in front of large groups of people and talk about this stuff and take questions.

Sometimes they'll sing songs in front of people and tell funny stories.

It's like such a simple thing for me but then I'm really bad in social situations.

That's not my nature to be able to talk one-on-one with somebody or a small group of people.

I'm so uncomfortable and I could tell the people and their reaction to me that it's you know it's just it's probably uncomfortable for them to see me like that you know.

It's pretty obvious that I'm not happy and so I'm able to differentiate between what serves me what doesn't nature wise you know.

And it's worth the investigation it's worth the looking because doing something that doesn't serve us because you know we were sold on the idea we're never gonna be happy.

It's gonna make us miserable.

I remember I had these clients and they in the garage they had a bunch of exercise equipment that was still in the original packaging hadn't been opened and they wanted to exercise you know I asked him about it and they're like oh yeah this is the best stuff you know we asked around this is the best stuff and on the boxes there's pictures of people like big muscles and they're flexing them you know shiny bodies.

And I said well I said you're not actually using this stuff and and I said well we should we should really be using it we just we don't want to get rid of it we should use it and can we move on to something else you know.

And it was pretty obvious that that kind of exercising stuff that they bought wasn't their nature you know it was like the plate of food and they took the bite and they're like I don't like this taste you know this is terrible I don't eat this but then that food was just sitting there so to speak you know but I really wanted to help them just trying to help them figure out you know this quandary that they were in.

So I knew they had two dogs really big dogs and I said well do you take your dogs for walks and they go yeah twice a day for an hour in their backyard there their backyard went off into this big woods up in the hills and there are these paths up in the hills and they would walk their dogs there you know.

So I said well you walk your dogs they go yeah and I said that to me sounds like exercise you know that's like walking uphill up and downhill and holding back a dog two really big dogs for an hour two hours total and they thought about it and they said oh yeah yeah yeah you're right that's that's we like that and that is exercise.

So once they realize that then they got rid of all that exercise equipment that would that had been unopened like they donated it but they were so happy because they were they were no longer trying to do something that wasn't their nature and that's why I encouraged the looking looking around to see you know the things you in your life that you do and that you have the people in your life to see like I'm looking at each thing does this serve who I am and it's a great way to learn who you are by just asking the questions you know how people go through books and they're like what about this book and they're like yeah well you know I'm supposed to read it it's like a bestseller I was told it was really good okay we'll start reading that right now start looking at the first page and they would and they're like I don't like reading this I go great let's let it go because they didn't like it you know even though a lot you know a lot of people bought it and there are book reviews this is the book you got to read this the idea being that there's something that you don't like and everybody in the world likes it they like doing it or owning it or whatever but you don't like it then it's not for you because that's not your nature and there's a lot of pressure to be like other people there's a lot of pressure for that it's bigger it's so big and we're social creatures you know we learn from others and we don't want to be ostracized in a sense you know like being pushed out of the group we want to be part of the group so sometimes we do stuff that other people are doing but if it's not our nature it hurts it hurts us and we start to let that stuff go that hurts us we get this tremendous relief and and we move in the direction of our nature and it becomes a lot easier to follow your nature when you remove the things that don't serve your nature I mean really you're when you ask about something and you're like no this isn't for me it's not who I am it's really respecting yourself by by looking to do that and once you do that you feel free to start saying you know what I like I like this without anybody prompting you from the outside or encouraging you it's what it is in my us my stepson when he was a kid he really wanted to learn ham radio you know and nobody none of his friends were into ham radio but he's like I want to do this so we got him the equipment and he learned how to do it he studied it he started talking to people around the world you know but the thing was that was his nature he really enjoyed that and the same goes for all of us there's there's things I guarantee you there's stuff in our lives that doesn't serve in our nature and with that when you start to have that curious openness to start looking around and finding that stuff and you start letting it go then you might surprise yourself on some of the things you want to do and be delighted you know surprised and delighted it's um I mean I felt that way when I first started doing the clutter bust and I had this you know sense like okay let's I want to do this and I wasn't trained for it and nobody I knew was doing it and I was drawn I was drawn in and so and I'm the better for it you know 20 plus years later I'm the better for it I'm happy I'm happy because it serves me so I wish you the best and you're looking and finding something you know that don't serve you and removing starting to remove them and moving in the direction of the things that of who you are you know so I wish you the best and thank you so much for spending time with me and take care bye