How To Be Authentic - Life, Lessons & Laughter

In this episode, Aubrey Kennedy and I discuss what it truly means to be authentic. We discuss how to release fear and control in order to live into what aligns most with the life experience we want to create.

Transcript

Welcome to Life, Lessons, And Laughter with your host, Glenn Ambrose. There we go. I think I hit unmute my mic and I think it automatically unmuted at the same time, So I actually muted myself instead of unmuting myself. Anyway, Welcome to the show everybody. I'm getting goofy. I'm going to introduce Aubrey in a second and as she's going to find out, This is what happens when I record multiple podcasts in a row. I get goofier and goofier as we go. Without further ado, Let's bring on Aubrey. Hello. Hey. Yeah, So this is, You might have heard me with Ben. We used to, My God, We used to record sometimes like four in a row. By the time, I mean, I was just a complete screwball by the time we got to the fourth one. I'm going to listen for those podcasts now when I re-listen. Yes. Yeah, There you go. So Aubrey Kennedy in the house. In the house. In the house. Now, And today we're talking about authenticity. How to be authentic. Actually, This kind of rolls off of the last podcast we did about kind of misconceptions about spirituality. This is something that once you're on the path, People start understanding that being authentic is huge. It's a big deal. It's one of the biggest. So being authentic is really important, But of course, Since we didn't live like this our whole lives, It's new. So we have to figure out how to do it. And when you're trying to be authentic, What you don't want to do is be inauthentic. So you start looking at the roles. Somebody asked me this question on the Loving Nation platform that I have. They were talking about being authentic and I've had this conversation several times with people over the years that playing different roles in your life, How can you be authentic? It kind of feels inauthentic because you go to work and you act like somebody that does a particular job and then you're at home and you act like that person. Some people think they're never authentic or they're only authentic when they're acting spiritually or they're only authentic when they're at home and they can't do it when they're at work and it's hard. So that's the topic. That's what we're discussing. So have you had any experience with this? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think with authenticity, Like you were saying, I think that myself, Just speaking from myself, When I started my spiritual path and just trying to discover myself and see what wasn't working and how I could change things and different perspective shifts, With authenticity, It does get confusing at first because it feels like you have to be a constant in every environment that you're in. I definitely experienced that with work because I work in a real estate office. It's a professional environment and I look at it at first glance, I'm looking at it as it needs to be structured, I need to be reserved, I need to be professional, Whatever I look at that as. And authentically me is just fun and sarcastic and cracking jokes and doing all these things and how can I be authentic in an environment that doesn't allow me to be that? I have to stifle myself, My true personality or my authenticity to do well in that environment. And it's just not the case. That's kind of what I started to realize over time. I still struggle with it sometimes now too, But it's just being whatever is true to you, Whatever feels aligned with you. Not a specific boxed in idea of what authenticity looks like and it needs to look the same in every environment with every person. I think it's more of an energy. Yeah, I think so. It is, It's just when we wake up there's a certain level of surrender that we have to go through and when we surrender, A lot of people feel the fear there. Intense, Intense, Intense fear. It's like when you've been working on yourself for a while and you're like, Okay, Yeah, I get it. I want to be it. And then it almost, For me, Especially early on, I used to get really strong visuals about what I was experiencing so I could understand it. And I remember getting a visual of standing at the edge of a cliff and knowing that my salvation was the leap. But if I did, It's the unknown. It's about really letting go of who you think you are, Your egoic identity. And when you're standing there going like, Well, It's the abyss. It's like, Who am I going to be? I can't even comprehend who I would be if I fully let go of who I think I am. So when you're standing there, It's like you either leap or you don't. And the way I stood there, I think like two or three times before I finally took the leap. And what finally made me take the leap was I decided I didn't care. I have to go kind of all the way because of the extremists in my personality. So I was just like, Because I was trying to figure out what the fear was. Because the fear is so immense that it's almost elusive to figure out even what it is. And what it is is not knowing who you're going to be if you let go of everything. So I was like, Well, What are the possibilities? I could be some spiritual lunatic floating around handing out flowers at the airport with a shaved head. Or I could go literally insane and end up in a mental institution just drooling on myself over medicated for the next 40 years. Or I could implode, I guess, Spontaneously combust or somehow die or no longer exist. So those were the things that I was like, Okay, These are the representatives of my fear. And when I could look at all those in one day, I was like, I'm in. I don't care. I'm not living like that anymore. So if I need to drool on myself for the next 40 years or implode or float around out of reality handing out flowers, Not knowing where I am and what reality is, That sounds better than this. What am I trying to preserve? Like I don't like my life. So what am I trying so hard to preserve? So then you leap. And what's cool is on the other side of that is you find out that you don't lose your personality. You don't go crazy. You actually drop into your authentic self who you actually are. I think it's fairly self-evident that anybody that's ever listened to my podcast, That I haven't lost my personality. No. I mean, And I was class clown all through school, Elementary school, Junior high, High school. There wasn't a debate on who was going to get class clown. I got it every school every year. And then my podcast is called Life Lessons in Laughter. I have that sarcastic aspect. I have that humorous aspect and all the other freaking wacky aspects that I have. And even some of my friends, I went to a class reunion probably 10 years ago now. I don't know. And one of my friends was like, We went out last night and we were talking about you. And I said, Oh yeah. And they were like, Yeah, We're kind of wondering what it was going to be like, How you were going to be because of all the spiritual stuff that you're doing. And we're kind of curious what you were going to be like. And we're really happy because you're still you. You're completely who we grew up with. You're still that person. And it's really comforting to see that, Which was a beautiful compliment to me that I do took to heart. Being spiritual is not being authentic. It's just another role. Eckhart Tolle told a good story about that. I think it was him a long time ago. He told this little story about this guy that gave up all his possessions to be in the name of spirituality. And he quit his job, Gave up all his possessions. He rode a bicycle. He wore really drab clothes, Just bottom of the barrel, Just to get rid of all the materialistic stuff. And he's riding his bike down the side of the street and he looks at some guy in a business suit in his BMW driving by and goes, I'm more spiritual than him. And that's the catch. It's like, Not necessarily. Because that guy in a business suit driving the BMW might be completely authentic and might be living a very spiritual thing. And the fact that you're judging him because of the car he's driving, One, That makes you not spiritual. The fact that you think that you're more spiritual than somebody else because you gave up all your stuff, That doesn't make you spiritual. Spirituality isn't an act. It's not a role you play. It's not something you do. If you give away all your money, That doesn't mean you're a good person. It doesn't make you more spiritual, It just makes you grow. So being authentic is just allowing you to come out in whatever situation you're in. It's not playing a different role, It's not playing a spiritual role. It's not bringing spiritual Glenn into a business situation and then going like, Yes, This is me being authentic because I'm wicked spiritual. Like, No, You're just not fitting into the situation that you're in, That's all. You're authentic first, Spirituality should come as a secondary if that's what's authentic and aligns with you. And spirituality and authenticity can be one as long as you don't think an act makes you spiritual or a way of behaving makes you spiritual. I meditate every day, So I'm spiritual. I talk about this with the spiritual snobbery. Once we wake up and we stop becoming spiritual, We're just like, Oh, I'm very spiritual, You're not. It's like, Okay, Well, That's judgment. So you're actually not spiritual because you're judging other people, Now it's not a spiritual act. Yeah, Absolutely. I think that's why I avoided listening to that podcast for so long. I don't specifically remember scrolling around it. And I was like, We're just not going to go there. But of course, I skipped it and here we are. Yes. Yeah. So yeah, It's that we see this and I think that this increases the polarity in society right now. Because even if you don't call it spiritual, We call it good or loving. And people think that they have the right to judge other people if they're standing in love. It's like, Well, You're raping the planet, So you're bad, I'm good. And I can point the finger at you because I'm not raping the planet. So therefore, I'm a good person and you're a bad person. And therefore, I can judge you, I can put you down, I can do everything non-spiritual towards you because you're bad and I'm good. That's the soapbox we get up on. And it's like, No, This is to me, This is a gigantic spiritual principle. It's why I believe the, You know, Like if you believe in spirituality kind of leaning into a religious text about free will, It's like this is why we're given free will because anything other than free will is control. That's a different energy than love. So if there's a universe or a God or whatever you believe in that comes down and says, Well, You know, Glenn would live a more loving, Helpful existence if he wasn't an alcoholic anymore. So, Poof, We're going to make him wake up. Like yes, Does it benefit me? Does it benefit the world? Yes, It could have. But as soon as you do that, That's control. That's not love. I didn't choose it. I was made to do it, You know. So this is why recovery or waking up spiritually is a free will choice. You have to choose it. It's your responsibility. It's nobody else's because it's love. It's an energy of love. Anything other than free choice is control. Hmm. They got that. It's really true. So it's the same when we take that dynamic, You know, I believe that if you go deep enough, This is the spiritual dynamics, Spiritual law that runs the universe. And a spiritual law is true in every situation always all the time, Period, Regardless of the size. So that was the big example. We bring it into the microcosm into a small life example like, You know, Me sitting there going like, This person's bad because I have a spiritual podcast and I'm good and they're bad and they shouldn't be doing that. It's like, Okay, Well, So I have the right to judge and attempt to control other people. That's not love energy. It's counterintuitive to authenticity. Right. Well, So, Yeah. I don't know though. I don't know. So if you're, So what if your authentic self is not someone that wants to do all of those things? You're still being authentic. It just doesn't mean you're a great person. Like, You know what I'm saying? What if authentically you don't want to do the right things? Well everybody wants to do the right things authentically because why would they want to do the wrong things? There's no benefit to it. Very true. Yeah. You know. Very true. And that's funny because like sometimes I've had conversations with people that weren't really interested in going down the spiritual path too much, But they wanted to debate like surfacy stuff. And that's one of the things that comes up. They go, Well, You know, Like there's always going to be negativity in the world. Like we can't just all turn to love and expect like you still have to lock your door. There's going to be somebody out there that's going to want to break in. Right. It's like, Well, Why? Why would somebody want to break in? Why would they do that? Like if they were spiritually open and they're anchored in love, Why would they possibly think that breaking into somebody else's house would be a good idea? They never would. There would be no benefit. Like, You know, I mean if they're deep enough in, They would see that we're all one and basically they're just stealing from themselves. But even if they weren't that deep, They would just be like, Okay, I'm going to go take something that isn't mine. So that's a negative action I'm taking. Therefore, I will experience negative consequences either in the form of getting caught or lack of self love because I can't like myself if I'm doing bad things. So there's literally just no payout when you're awake. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Absolutely. So this is why we do actually have the possibility of a utopian society if we wake up spiritually. And I think it's the only thing that has the possibility of saving us because everything else has the dynamic of two ways. But spirituality doesn't have two ways. It just has love. Yeah. There's only one constant, The spirituality. It's tough in this society too because we have so many things pulling us in the opposite direction from that. But it's just another opportunity to choose which way you want to go. And I think in a practical way, Like a good way, This is so, You know, Using that term authenticity. So what would authenticity look like in kind of the scenario we've just been talking about society wise? So there's negative stuff going on in society and we would like to create a new paradigm that isn't negative. So what would that look like if I were to do that authentically and in alignment with love? It's energy. So like this is the problem with people. A lot of the, One of the reasons that things aren't getting better in certain, Well, I guess, I guess the technically political areas, Like just say, Well, Yeah, In any area, I don't even think I need a topic, But like in any area, The reason that things are kind of stagnant is because you have somebody that is doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. And then you have somebody that wants to do the right thing in the wrong energy. So you have, You have negative energy, Whatever, Selfishness, Stuff like that, That's causing the bad actions. That's one side, Right? And then the people who are trying to be good get angry at that. So then they use anger to attack it. So you have anger energy attacking negative energy, Which is, So you have negative energy attacking negative energy. It's just a mess. Right. So you just have more negative energy and nothing actually gets solved. So the way that we win is by starving the negative, Not feeding it and feeding the positive. So if the negative is over here and then all of a sudden, Instead of getting angry at the negative, We anchor in love and we come at it just non-judgmentally and don't say you're bad for doing what you're doing. You just say, Hi, We're love and we'd like to do it this way. We just, I'm not judging you for doing it bad. I just want to do it this way. We just want to be love and we just want to love each other and we just want to do it out of love and we just want to be love. And you just stood in that? The negativity, If it's not being fed, Diminishes and crumbles and you just starve it and it fades away and then the good comes up. And this is really, If you look at the energetic dynamics of large social change, This is actually how it's always happened. We've had large social change before and it's happened through love. It's never happened through fighting. It's never happened through arguing. It's never happened through demonizing the other side. Nelson Mandela is a great example of that. He didn't accomplish too much crap when he was in jail for 29 years. He was sent in jail and he was majorly negative. But once he started, After he was in jail for a while, He started shifting his perspective and he started having open dialogue with his oppressors, Trying to understand where they were coming from so he could have an open, Loving conversation about what his side's perspective was. He didn't fight them. He forgave them first for the oppression and then he opened his heart and had a loving conversation with them and eventually they saw it. Same thing with Gandhi. Same thing with Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. , One of his most famous quotes is, I'll probably get it wrong, But it's something like, Hate doesn't drive out hate, Only love does that. They all forgave and did not try to attack their oppressor with the same energy that the oppressor was coming at them with. So it's love that has always caused large social change. The whole aspect of starving something of energy is really interesting to me. I remember hearing it on one of your podcasts before and it resonated with me pretty heavy. The idea when something is going wrong, People will go nuts, Including myself, Trying to think of all the ways to remove it from your life and how to fix it and you're just focused on the problem, Focused on the problem and it just gets worse and it just gets worse and you can't remove it. It really is taking that energy and placing it somewhere positive instead until that just falls away. It's a tough thing to understand. It was hard for me to understand initially. I'm like, What do you mean? I just don't look at it. What do you mean? Yeah. This is wrong. I have to get my hands in there and fix it, Which is control energy. Yeah. The more you squeeze, It's not good for anyone. No. No. So it is. It's kind of the practical way, I guess, To verbalize that, I think, Is focusing on the solution, Not the problem. So it's like, You just starve the problem and feed the solution, Feed the solution, Feed the solution because it's hard to not. We got to give ourselves something to do. Oh, Just don't think of the color red. Oh, Okay. Good. Good idea, Glenn. Starve it. That's all I can think about is the damn problem. That's why I think to me the best techniques is replacement strategies. It's not don't do this. Nobody cannot do something. Everybody can do something instead. Yeah, Replace it. Instead of doing that, Do this. Oh, Okay. It's like a diet. Yeah, It's like a diet when people are trying to transition and eat healthier. You don't need to remove it entirely. You can shift it to something healthier. Just instead of eating 14 Snickers bars, Eat 14 Snickers bars. You know, It's just that simple. I'm not exposed or anything. It's fine. Yeah, I'm sure you're the 14 Snickers bar. But so, You know, I guess this is we needed to kind of go over that the energetic dynamic and stuff to better understand the authenticity and, You know, Understand that it's about coming from love. And there really, We don't have to worry about the opposite. You know, It's just come from love. And like you said, It's, You know, In a professional atmosphere, Like you can be professional and still have your personality. You know, And that's what we need to, You know, Of course, I'm going to swear more and I'm going to be more animated and I'm going to crack more jokes and be goofy more in certain situations in life. You know, And then in other serious situations, I'm not going to be that much. Correct. Because it's a different situation. Yeah. So, Yeah, You can be authentic, But the extent in which you express your authenticity. Yeah, It's like, Like, Sometimes, Yeah, In a way, You know, This is just kind of coming through like in a way, I don't know that we necessarily get better at being authentic in different situations. As much as we just kind of stop judging ourselves. That self-acceptance. Yeah. So it's like, So like if you're, If you're like most people, Like, You know, Once you awaken spiritually, You know, There is that aspect that you're more comfortable in that energy and talking and acting like that person at, You know, Whatever, At home or at a spiritual event or whatever like that. You're more comfortable like that there. And then when you go to work, You know, In a professional atmosphere, You're like, Oh, I'm being fake. And it's like, Well, No, You're just being the employee that they hired. It's not fake. You're supposed to be doing a freaking job. That's why they hired you. You know, You're not, You're not supposed to be an accountant and talking to your clients about spirituality. That's inappropriate. You know, So it's not, It's not that you haven't integrated your spirituality into your work life yet. It's that you're just judging yourself. You think you're supposed to be doing something that you're not, You know, So it's just understanding that, Yeah, In a work environment, You're going to behave differently. Like I, You know, I like extreme examples. So like to me, It gets really clear when you start talking about sex. I mean, You know, When you're in the middle of sexual, You know, In that existence and you're in that exchange, That that's a completely different aspect of you than anything else. You know, Like if you're a parent, Like if you picture yourself having sex and then you picture yourself talking to your child or you picture yourself having sex and then you picture yourself talking to somebody at work on the phone about a business conversation, That's completely different aspects of yourself, You know, And it freaking should be. If it's not, That's a problem. For sure. For sure. So I think that's a good example because it's so polar opposite that it's, And you're not going to stop having sex and say, Well, Like, Oh, Well, It's inauthentic of me. Right. No, It's a natural expression of yourself. So you know that that's okay. And so is the work. You know, Who you are at work is okay. That's a natural expression of yourself. And they're all you and they're all temporary. The only problem with those roles is if you start identifying them as they, As who you are. You know, If you're an accountant and you think like when somebody says, So who are you? You go, I'm an accountant. No, You're not. You just do accounting work. Right. You're not an accountant. At certain times of your life. And that is natural. You know, We're supposed to do our jobs and we're temporarily, And we're supposed to behave like parents when we're with our children. And we're supposed to act like lovers when we're with our lover. And we're supposed to act like a child when we're with our parents. And you know, There's different dynamics for all those relationships. And to some degree, You know, We can bring our authenticity into all of them, But to some degree, Yeah, We're always going to be acting different. You know, I don't, I don't go talk to my parents and start life coaching them unless they ask. Of course. I don't give a crap who it is. If you ask, You're going to get it. Yeah. Sometimes if they don't ask, They still get it. So yeah, That's, That's, I've gotten better at that. I'm not perfect at it, But I've gotten better. I'm speaking for myself and I'm not a life coach, So. Yeah. It's okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, That's, You know, That's, That's all part of it. So yeah, It's, It's just, You know, Understanding that we are spiritual beings having a human experience that always has to be the foundation. I am a spiritual being. That's where my sense of safety comes from. That's where the feeling of love comes from. That's where, You know, I'm safe and I'm okay. That's my seat of safety. It's my foundation for everything that gives me a healthy perspective to everything else, To my human experience. My human experience is temporary. It's fleeting. I don't have to attach to it that tightly. I don't have to take it so seriously. I think it's fricking important. It's kind of not. Your spiritual expansion is eternal. So that's kind of important, You know, But your human experience, The universe doesn't give a crap what color your car is or what you do for work. It cares if you're expanding, You know. So how, Okay, So how does someone know if something is aligned with them authentically or not? How do you know if you're operating authentically? Is there a gauge for that, Do you think? Yeah and it's feeling based. I think one of the best ways to do it is to start taking, You know, Start focusing on inspired action, Which inspired action comes out of stillness. So it's, You know, It's about, You know, And honestly, I see this a lot in the New Age spirituality community. It's like, Because everybody, Like you start waking up and your eyes open and it's really fricking exciting and you start experiencing levels of love that you've never experienced before in your heart and it's addictive. And then you find out how wonderful it feels to help others and you just want to go do that and it's like everybody's running around trying to figure out what business they're going to start and, You know, Like, You know, Which 30, You know, Maybe the 50th deck of freaking spiritual medium cards is the one. This is going to be the one that's going to resonate the most. Like, You know, Maybe they need to go to 13 more drum circles to really awaken and, You know, They get caught in doing all this stuff and, You know, I actually, Wow, This is a little crazy. Like I just talked to somebody locally. I left a message the other night about doing some business, Having like a talk with the local people because there's a large spiritual community here and getting them together and one talking to them about the business of spirituality, How to create your own business authentically. And also at the same time forming a community where they can lean on each other and be like, Hey, You know, This is the best person for business cards. This is the best person for headshots. This is the, You know, Like, So you form a community that can lean on one another, But also find out how to make an authentic business out of it instead of floating around, You know, Oh, I'll, You know, I'll do this. I'll do that. That's spiritual. Oh, Well, I got to, You know, So you've got all these people that are certified in IET and Reiki and yoga instructors and, You know, Card readings and life coaching and all this stuff and they've got 14 certifications and they're not doing any of them, You know, Or they are, But they're not actually able to support themselves in it. They just start collecting it at that point. Collecting, You know, It's to add to the resume of under the umbrella of what you want to do. Yeah. And the excuses start flying or the distraction techniques, Like, Which, You know, Sometimes it's, Well, I don't, I can't build websites. It's like, If you studied for two hours, It's literally drag and drop these days. You can put together a website and you don't have to put together a real, Like, Great one because nobody goes to them anyway. Yeah. Like people think, Like, I have to have a business. I have to have this really good website and they spend, You know, Thousands of dollars and three years building it. And it's like, All it is literally is just a landing page. Yeah. You know, People go, How do I contact them? That's about all the websites used for nowadays. And there's a lot of, There's so many different things that you can use to make websites. Like you said. Yeah. So we get lost. Or we spend six months making the perfect business card because it's like, It's fun. Like it's a rabbit hole. You can go down there and you go, Oh, What, What should my logo be? What color should I use? What font should I use? That'll keep you busy for six fricking months. And that's a distraction from it. Right. Because most people throw your business card away and they never even use it. You know, Even business cards are pretty close to websites that just most things that people perceive as what it takes to have a business are like probably 2% of your business. Yeah. You know, Like your business card is 2%. Your website is 10%. You're, You know, Like, And the, And the font is 0. 00001%. People will pull their friends and families for six months to figure out the font. It's so true. It's so true. Anything that prevents getting started, Right? Postpone, You know, Put off. Yeah. It's navigating your way around staying stuck, You know? So it's, It's just, And people do it with their growth too. You know, It's like, Oh, I, I, I listen to podcasts all day and I read books all day. And it's like, Yeah, But are you implementing it? Are you integrating the teachings into your daily life? Because otherwise you're just navigating your way around staying stuck. And people, You know, That time I think is getting shorter because the spiritual shift is, Is picking up speed. So it's like, I used to see people like just reading stuff for 10, 15 years. You know, Now it seems like it's about like five to seven where people are just reading stuff for like five to seven years and they're starting to go, Oh my God, I've just been reading stuff for five to seven years. Maybe I should stop and like, Yeah, I'm not implementing this into my life. It only exists. I'm kind of in the same place. It's like, Yeah, Because implementing is the most important aspect. Yeah, Yeah. So so yeah, So, So I just, I left that message and in between podcasts, I just, I just saw that this, This local person got back to me and what, What'd she say? She said something like very concise and, And comical. This is genius. Wow. She's, She's very immersed. She actually has a, Uh, Is really putting in active effort to have a successful, Good business. And I was, That's why I brought it up to her because she's not one of these ones that is navigating their way around, You know, She's actually doing it. So that's why I brought it up to her and she's like, This is genius, You know, It's like, Yeah, Let's, So, You know, Let's bring this. But it's about, You know, Not navigating your way and doing stuff because it seems spiritual. It's like putting some direction to it and like, Yeah, You can actually have a business doing whatever the hell you want. So it's about, So I guess how I get kicked off on this was, Was about the inspired action. Because everybody's floating around doing different things, Learning stuff, Dabbling, Acting, You know, All that stuff that we just talked about. And it's like, Just stop, Just stop all of it, Just stop it and get still. Because what that does is it, It unconsciously is a model that puts happiness in the future. It pulls you out of the present moment. And it says, Once I build this business, Once I do this, Then I'll be happy. Once this, You know, Once I figured this all out, Then I'll be happy. No, You're not going to be happy once your business is where you want it to be. I guarantee it. My business got to where I wanted it to be and I was not happy. Because you know, For a short period of time, Because I allowed myself to get sucked out. And I had to come back to center and stop striving for something that was a way outside of me and just stop. And in that stillness, That's when the inspired authentic action comes out of. All of a sudden you're like, I don't want to do any of that stuff. I don't want to do any of it. Oh my God, I don't want to do any of it. This is awesome. Because it's authentic. And then you just sit in that and understand you don't have to do any of it. You just relax and just sit in that space. And then you just sit in it. And that's when all of a sudden, But I do want to do this. That's where it comes from when you're still enough, When you stop chasing and reaching and you just get still, Your authenticity will just bubble right up. And it'll be like, This is what you love. And you're like, Oh my God, Of course, That's what I love. Of course, That's what I should be doing. Oh my God, Why didn't I think of this before? It's because you were distracting and rationalizing and playing and busy and Yeah, I'll try that. And what's fun talking with you is like, I can feel you going on the energetic ride with me. Yeah. Yeah. As you were saying that, I know, I knew what you were talking about. I have experienced it, But I've never tried to induce that. It's just happened in random, Just random moments. Really I feel, I understand the energy transmitted there. Like I got that. Because that really is, Because that feeling where you're just like, Oh, Oh, Oh, Like, Where am I? Why am I? There's all this crap and I'm why, Huh? Like, And then it's just very, Things become very simple. It's the spiritual lesson, The way it's been taught throughout the millennia is the muddy water. It's like, You know, Water, Muddy water does not get clear by messing with it. Yeah. Let me, Let me clear this mud out of the water with my hands. You know, Like it ain't gonna work. You got to take your hands off of it and just let it settle by itself. You know, Let it just take, Stop trying to control it. Stop trying to fix it. Stop trying to figure it out and just stop and be still. And if you're patient and you let that sediment just fall down to the bottom, All of a sudden you can see clearly. It's like, Oh, All right. And it's just counterintuitive in our society because we think, You know, Accomplishment, You know, That's how we feed our ego, Make ourselves feel important and good as if we accomplish something. It's this fast pace. This is why like Yogananda, When he came over to the United States in 1920 and he was like, Yeah, I noticed in the United States, It's difficult to teach spirituality as opposed to India because in the United States they're moving too fast. So it's difficult to teach them spirituality because the pace of their life is so fast they have a hard time stopping to actually absorb the information and hear it. That was 1920. That was a hundred years ago. Over a hundred years ago, The United States was going too fast to understand spirituality. And think about how slow the United States was going, The pace of life was back then compared to how it is now. If back then it was going like 60 miles an hour, Now it's doing 120. Wow. Now I guess that that all ties into just simply being present, Right? Yeah. Stopping, Come into the present moment and just being, Getting comfortable. Stopping, Sitting, Being present with what is in this moment. And this is why spirituality is all counterintuitive. It's all non-efforting. It's non-action words. Spiritual terms are forgetting, Remembering, Allowing, Surrendering. So those are all implying non-action, Non-efforting. You can't go into a corner and remember real hard. The harder you try, The less it works. It's so true. It's like, Who sings that song? Who sings that song? I'll stop thinking about it and it'll come to me. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Because efforting constricts. Everything is two ways, Open or closed, Constrict or flow. So when we're efforting, We're tightening and we're constricting. That's what I, I'm going to try real hard. I'm going to, I'm going to make this business and I'm going to make, I'm going to be, Ah, I got to put tons of effort in. And this is often what's taught with manifesting too. This is why most manifesting teaching is for the birds. Oh yeah. Because they're like, Oh, You got to put tons of energy towards it and push. You know, No, It's the opposite. Being aligned, That's it. Yeah, It is. It's alignment, You know, And how do you align with what you want? By just relaxing and aligning. Yeah. You can't effort. You can't align real hard. Yeah. There's a lot of misconceptions, Especially with manifesting and whatnot, Because people think it's like this magic trick or something. Right. I've been asked like absurd, Like, Like just, Ah, I don't know because I practice spirituality and stuff. If I have anyone that doesn't typically, And they don't really understand, Like, I don't, I'm not saying I understand everything. I really don't, But I just practice it a little more than, You know, Some of the people in my life and people will ask me like, Hey, I really like this. Can you just like do your thing? I'm like, Huh? I'm like, Do you think I have like this magic wand and I'm just waving it around? Cause I don't know. Yeah. But it's understandable, Like the way that manifestation is conveyed in our society. When you look at it on a surface level, Um, With, Which is what a lot of people I think are exposed to. Uh, They do think it's just like, I'm just going to think about it and it's going to happen. Yeah. And it's a doorway, You know, Like it's, It's a doorway into spirituality and it's a very popular doorway. It's, You know, That's why the secret was so huge 20 years ago. It's because people like, You know, Like if you want to capture people's attention, You go, Hey, You can get whatever you want. Like, Hey, Do you want to, Do you want a Ferrari? You can get a Ferrari. You want a million dollars? You can get a million dollars. What? I'm in, You know, Like this is how we're in a materialistic society. People say they're not materialistic, But spend all their energy trying to gain material things. So like, And none of their energy on peace and happiness. So yeah, You can say you're not materialistic and you can say you have to spend all your time doing materialistic things. You're materialistic. It's okay. I'm not judging, You know, Just all you can do is take 10% of that energy and put it towards spirituality and probably from it, You know, Be a lot happier. You don't have to quit your job to be spiritual. You know, I'm not saying that. But yeah, It captures people's attention because they can get what they want. And then, But unfortunately the way it's taught by most people is the feeding of the energy thing. You know, Because I say, Hey, You want something, Feed it, Right? Or starve it if you don't want it. It's see the, That's where it gets confusing. So it's actually not our energy that manifests things. It's universal energy. So we don't have to put our energy towards it. The universe is actually manifesting stuff. All we have to do is direct it. That's why most people I know that manifest, Like over the last 19 years that I've been in spirituality, The conversation that people always have with me when they manifest successfully is they always go, Okay. So I wanted this thing. So I put it out to the universe and it was weird. I got busy and I forgot about it. And then it manifested. And I'm like, That's great. You manifested it. And they're like, Yeah. I was like, So how did you manifest it? And they're like, Well, You know, I put my, Put some energy towards it. And I'm like, No, No. What did you just say when you were just speaking your truth, When you were just, You weren't thinking what you were supposed to do. You just told me the story. What did you say? You said you put out the idea to the universe and then you said you forgot about it. They're like, Yeah, But I manifested it anyway. Like no, You manifested it because you forgot about it. Not in spite of it, Because of it. Because that's faith, You know, And you can see it with Amazon. You have faith in Amazon. When you put in an order on Amazon and it's going to be there in three days, You don't call up Amazon the next day and be like, Hey, Did you get my order? Is it there yet? Is it there? I want to put energy towards this to make sure you deliver it. And I wanted the medium size, Not the large. Do you remember that? Did you get the right size? The blue one, Right? You don't go through any of that. You just expect it to show up and it does. So you forget about it and you come home from work and there's a package on the doorstep. Oh my God, I forgot I ordered that. Cool. Right. So like we have, That's basically the same thing we're supposed to be doing with the universe. If we actually trust in something, Then why do we need to keep going? Is it there yet? Did I do it? Let me, Oh, Let me tell them that I want it. Hey, I want it. I really do want it. Did I tell you that I want it? What people are actually doing is they're reinforcing their sense of lack that they don't have it. When they think they're putting energy towards something, They're basically, The energy they're saying is, I don't have it yet. I don't have it yet. So the universe matches. I don't have it. It's like, Okay, You won't have it another day. Congratulations. When you trust energy, You're putting into it, Right? If you forget about it, The universe is like, Hey, They asked for this thing and they put in their order. So I guess we should just send it. Yeah. Thank you. That's why it feels effortless when you actually accomplish it. Like it was so effortless. How did my son Mateo is a master manifester. He's like, He's amazing. And he always has been since he was a little kid. That's why it's so natural to him. And honestly, A lot of younger people are, And I mean younger by like maybe 35 and under. A lot of people are because they come in so much more open than older generations and it's more natural to them. And they have, This is what gets confused with the millennials and their expectations. They go, Oh, Millennials have that. They just expect everything to be handed to them. Yeah. Because they understand manifesting naturally. And they trust. Right. They're like, Oh yeah, It'll come. And our generation and the older generation is going, They're idiots. And they're sitting there manifesting. They're manifesting so much to changing the workforce. I mean, Look at the workforce right now. Ten years ago, Like everybody was going, Millennials are crazy. They want sign on bonuses. They want a bunch of vacation. They want really good pay to start with. They're a bunch of idiots. That's not how the world works. And now here we are 10 years later, That's exactly what's happening. There's huge sign on bonuses happening, Extended vacation time, Because people won't work anymore. If you don't give them what they want, They're like, Screw you, I'll go somewhere else that will give it to me. And that's a beautiful thing. It is. Yeah. It is. And the millennials have been catching crap for it for years. You know, It's like, No, Like think about what they're creating. They're creating a wonderful world. Wouldn't you like to be treated with that work? Right. Are you just fighting to be right or what's up? Right. We're going, No, We've been here longer. We know. Yeah. Like what's underneath that? It's like, Yeah, But you don't know where we're going. The millennials know where we're going, Even if they don't know it consciously, Which that's the, I guess that's the interesting part is, Is the, Well, It's all interesting, But the millennials and younger generations, They don't view it as spirituality. It's just how it is. You know? So like older generations will often come to me and they're going like, These kids are manifesting like fiends, Like, And I'm still over here trying to learn how to do it. How can they do that? It's like, Because they're not, This is just their natural way of being. Yeah. They're not bogged down and yeah. By, Yeah, By generational curses that tell us, No, You've got to get stuff through hard work. Yeah, Absolutely. And then you see the hardest working people on the planet have the least money. Yeah. Figure that out. Like, You know, The billionaires are playing golf every day and the person scraping to put food on the table is digging ditches all day, Working his ass off. And they're like, Working hard makes money. Like really? Yeah. What it looks like. Right. I don't know about that. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I wonder too, If millennials, If the millennial generation is more trusting because there's a larger, There's larger access to seeing different ways of life, You know, With the internet and everything that, That has been brought up from such an early age with millennials. Like I'm a millennial. I'm technically a millennial. And we grew up, I mean, I grew up with internet from a very young age, Like just been exposed to a lot of different understandings and a lot of different opinions. I feel like before the internet, It's a double edged sword, But people were really just stuck in this like bubble, You know, As to what they know and if there's a fixed amount of opinions and, And, You know, Just like expansiveness in that little bubble, How, You know, What are you going to do from there? Right. And it's, And I, I'm sure that it helps it. Yeah. I guess the question is kind of like a chicken or the egg though. Yeah. Because it's, You know, Like Bequis said something years ago that I loved. He said, He said, We don't see because we have eyes. We have eyes because we wanted to see. You know, So it's the, It's the, It's kind of a manifesting mentality where it's like, Okay, Is the internet supporting the millennial vision or did the millennial vision bring in the internet? You know, This is a rabbit hole. I don't know if I can. Yeah. That's existential. Yeah. It's, You know, We have, We, You know, It's, We have ears because we wanted to hear it would be like, Hey man, It'd be cool to be able to hear that. Yeah. Okay. Let's have some ears. Okay, Cool. Yeah, It's, It, It flip-flops it. But you know, When you start, When you're looking at things from, From a manifesting aspect, It's like, Yeah, You know, It's, It feeds itself. It's, You know, Whatever we want, We have to have the, We have to, We have to have the way of, Of making it come into being. This is why I think the spiritual shift is happening now. It's because it's the only time it could have happened because of what you were just saying. The world was just disconnected from in separate pockets before. So how can you have a global shift of perspective if you're not sharing perspectives? Yeah. You know, You kind of can't and, And we're, We're at the end of like, You know, This, You know, The Roman empire fell and then another one popped up somewhere else. Like, You can't do that no more. Yeah. You know, This is the end. This is like, We're either going to shift into a new way of being or we're not. This is, We ain't going to make it. Right. Yeah. There is no place to go pop up another way of being like, We're either going to turn to love or we're going to kill ourselves off in hate. So it's, So it has to be global. So you know, So what came first? Did the, You know, Did the internet like, Or did we create the internet so this could happen? Yeah, Yeah. You know, Who knows? Fun. I'm gonna have to sit with that one. Yeah. Yeah. That's all. I'm not going to get anywhere, But I will sit with it. Hey, You might. Don't block yourself. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Stay open. But yeah, This is, So, You know, We went off on some tangents there, But I guess, You know, To, To, We'll try to try to bring it back and wrap it up a little bit. Like, You know, Authenticity is, Is really birthed out of, Out of the stillness and not a mindset of what we think it is. Yeah. You know, We can't, We can't, You can't really grasp authenticity. You just, When you take away everything else, That's what's left. Yeah, It's like constant and everything else is a variable. Exactly. And it's okay to play with different variables. So you know, I can play a life coach sometimes and I'm not one, But I play one on a podcast. So what I am, I'm a spiritual being having a human experience. And part of that human experience is me playing a life coach, You know, And then, And then I, You know, I'm a friend sometimes and I'm a brother and I'm a father and I'm a son and, You know, I'm all kinds of different things that are all different dynamics of my, My human experience. But I can just, If, If I don't like, So I guess that's it. It's the letting everything else fall away, You know, So let the, Let the attachment to those roles fall away and understand that I'm more than that. I'm a spiritual being. And when I interact in these things, Let the, Let the negative things and the social conditioning fall away. It's, You know, Where, And we land in love. We land in eternal principles. When our false reasoning for needing to be something other than we're not falls away and we're just us, We're all just loving beings. We're all honest. We're all kind. We're, You know, We're, We're all accepting. That's what we are at our nature. So just practice the eternal principles of acceptance and love and peace and joy and kindness and connection. We just practice those and whatever situation we're in, You know, That's the, The difference between the, The, The ego and the spiritual is temporary and eternal. So we bring our eternal nature into the temporary situations. You know, Those temporary roles. So what are eternal aspects? Eternal aspects are love, Kindness, Acceptance, You know? So if we bring those eternal attributes into work, We can be honest at work. It's okay. We don't have to lie. I was in sales for three years right after I woke up. I had to, And that's how I learned it. I mean, I wanted to be honest anyway. I actually decided to be honest and not lie before I get that job, But then I get a job in sales and I had made this promise to myself that I wasn't going to lie. I had to figure out a way to do my job that was counterintuitive to everybody else in that career field to figure out how to be a good salesman without lying. And I did it, But that was an expression of my authentic self coming into a Salesforce, You know, And me. And it was two guys in our shop, In our store, And we went from, We started working about the same time. Now, He was a really good salesman. You got to give him credit. He still is. But with his guidance and my focus on not lying, But still being able to perform my job at a high level, We took that, There was seven stores in the company. We went from the bottom store to the top store in less than a year. And I didn't tell one lie. You know, So we can birth this stuff into our life, Even in areas where we think we can't, You know? Yeah, Absolutely. Yeah. So, There. Have you been waiting for me to say that to you? Only since you said you were trying to wrap it up. Then the expectation was put on. I was like, All right, All right. Yeah, Where the hell is he going? No, It all really, It truly, It really did, Everything that we've talked about here really has resonated with me. Good. So, I'm going to sit and try and be authentic. That's it. And I'm pretty comfortable with it at this point, I think. Yeah. You know, This, Hey, I still have plenty of areas that I need to work on. You know, People think that like I'm just floating on a freaking cloud all day, All the time, No matter what. And it's just, You know, Life doesn't like that, You know? I'm still a real person and I still get tweaked and pissed and stuff happens, You know? So it's like, I still have work to do on myself, But yeah, The authenticity pieces is one of those pieces that I'm kind of, I put a lot of work into it and I'm just kind of like, Yeah, I'm kind of, I'm pretty good with that one. I feel comfortable saying I'm pretty good with that one. It's nice. Yeah, Feels cool. Feels cool. Yeah. For sure. All right, Cool. Well, That's going to do it for tonight. Thank you, Aubrey. Thank you. You're a nice asset to this podcast. I like it. I, I thank you. Thank you. I am receiving. Thank you. All right, Cool. All right. Thanks everybody. And we'll talk with you soon. Looking for more? Check out over 200 episodes of Life Lessons in Laughter, Or click the link in the description of this episode to connect with Glenn directly.