Letting Go Of Preferences

In this episode, we are discussing how our preferences often lead to suffering. Glenn dives into the ways we can begin to let go of these preferences that might be closing us off from other opportunities and situations.

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons and Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hey everybody,

Welcome to the show.

So today we are talking about letting go of preferences.

I don't want to.

That's a preference.

You got to let it go.

Wow,

That was almost like we staged that.

All right.

I've let go of all preferences.

Goodbye everybody.

Goodbye.

Well,

I mean,

Lately I've been,

I just reread the surrender experiment,

Which kind of addresses this.

I was implementing it into my life and it's like,

Um,

The surrender experience.

Yeah.

The surrender experiment.

The surrender experiment.

Do you know who that's by?

Michael Singer.

Oh,

Okay.

That's his second book after the untethered soul.

He wrote that one.

I'm a spiritual dumb dumb.

So no,

No negative self talk allowed here,

Ben.

Um,

So you just didn't know.

It's all right.

All right.

Um,

So yeah,

He wrote,

It's kind of like his life story from when he was like in his twenties up until close to the present day.

So,

Um,

And he just chose to surrender to whatever life's flow was bringing him.

And uh,

He,

You know,

He talks about it in a lot of different ways,

But,

Um,

You know,

Now right now we're in the social distancing.

I have to make sure I get the right term.

Um,

And so,

And I've really stepped up my,

My bicycle rides.

So I'm going for a bike ride every day and you know,

And I'm always trying to implement different things in whatever situation I'm in.

And I noticed when I had this in my head,

I noticed that I have preferences for everything and it's neurotic and it's ridiculous sometimes when I fall into it.

So like for an example,

I like I go,

First thing I do is I go into this park and I come out of this park and then I head back towards my house and go on the rest of the ride.

And as I'm coming out of this park,

I noticed as I'm leading up to it,

I can see traffic coming from the right.

And there's also traffic coming from the left and I have to cross the street.

So I'm looking at the traffic coming on the right to try to figure out if I can shoot right across.

And then I see the traffic coming on the left at the last minute.

So like I'm trying to time it where there's no cars coming on the right and it's not that busy of a road,

So it's not that big of a deal.

But so I'm,

I'm like,

Okay,

No cars,

No cars,

Or I'll go a little slower than there'll be no cars.

And then when it,

You know,

Then when I get up,

Is there a car coming on the left?

Do I have to stop or can I go right across?

And I try to time it and like it,

I actually put a fair amount of effort into this and I,

And I was like,

And if I actually have to stop,

Which occasionally I do,

It's like,

Wow,

That sucked.

I'm like,

Why does it suck?

Like,

And I realized that I had developed a preference as to what happened when I crossed the street.

That's ridiculous.

Why is it,

Why does it have to be,

Why is it only good if there's no cars and I can shoot right across?

That's good.

If I have to slow down,

Well,

It's not perfect,

But you know,

At least I didn't have to stop.

Eh,

So-so.

But then if I have to stop,

Well,

That sucked.

It does,

I'm like,

What if,

If I have to go slow,

That's perfect.

It's exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.

If I stop,

That's perfect.

That's exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.

You know,

And that's one little situation where I was lost in my head creating these preferences and if we look at our lives,

You know,

Depending on where you are,

Sometimes people's entire lives are run like that.

Everything.

You know,

If your pizza is just a little overcooked,

Well,

That's ridiculous.

If the crust is a little too thin or a little too thick,

Well,

I mean,

They should have done a better job on that.

Like,

We're judging every little thing all the time as good or bad and we wonder why we're upset half the time.

It's ridiculous.

You know?

Yeah,

Completely.

How do you,

So obviously the point of this episode is to how to move past that.

Otherwise why would we be talking about it,

I guess?

True.

So I guess it's a bad question to ask how do you move past that?

But how do you move past that?

Because I have a separate conversation that I think would be helpful to this,

But I'm going to wait until later.

So how do you move past that?

Well,

Really it's like most things,

It's awareness just to become aware that you're actually doing it.

You know,

That's the biggest piece.

And then to see how absurd it is and to,

You know,

I make a game of it and just see like,

You know,

How many preferences can I let go of,

You know,

And start paying attention to where do I have preferences?

And like with me,

It's,

I don't,

I don't have them in a,

I don't have them in,

I don't know,

Maybe like two thirds of my life.

I don't really have them.

But then there's a third of my life where I just do like,

I do things unconsciously and I don't pay that much attention to them.

And that's when they really start creeping in when I'm just,

You know,

When like,

If I don't get really,

Like,

I don't get really pissed off if I have to stop my bicycle,

You know,

I just get a little irritated.

Well that's fine because it never captures my attention,

You know?

So it's,

You know,

The big stuff I've done the big work on,

But like the little stuff.

Like what?

Oh,

Like,

Like,

Like everything.

Like everything.

I mean,

Like the,

You know,

A lot of the,

The bigger stuff,

I mean,

I've done work of course on addiction.

I've done work on family of origin stuff I've done,

You know,

So like,

Like a lot of,

But it still creeps into my business sometimes,

You know,

I mean,

It depends,

It depends where I am in my head space.

If I'm in good head space,

I do it a lot less.

If I'm in negative head space,

I do it a lot more,

You know?

So something that I found interesting is that I am both losing preferences right now and gaining new preferences that I'm,

That I'm getting upset about,

But it's like a,

It's like a new challenge every day and it's something that's very interesting.

I've become a lot busier in the last two months.

Yeah.

And a little bit at least.

And I didn't used to have a big time preference.

Right.

So I am occasionally a couple of minutes late to things.

Glenn,

You want to roll your eyes now or something?

Yeah.

I'm occasionally a couple of minutes late to things and,

But I also don't care if things run over.

Right.

Those,

Those are two things that you can probably attest to over the last 10 years.

Yes.

Almost eight years,

Whatever.

However,

Now I am,

I have time preferences like crazy.

Like I am upset about,

Like before we started this podcast recording,

I was in a meeting that lasted about,

It was,

It was six minutes over the five minutes over that I gave it,

You know,

And,

And I'm like this,

But like,

I like,

So we started recording it too,

Or you and I were supposed to come on at two and I said,

Can we do two Oh five?

And but at like one 45 I was getting anxious of like,

This meeting isn't going to wrap up in time.

I have another,

I have a rep,

I have a podcast recording session.

I can't get out of it.

Come on.

And then like,

I'm getting angry,

You know,

Like in my head,

I'm not angry,

But I'm getting frustrated with the people in the meeting.

And I'm like,

This conversation doesn't need to last this long.

Stop it.

You know,

Like,

You know,

And I,

And it's,

It's frustrating because those are things that I used to not care about at all.

And and as you know,

I can talk forever about anything.

So I understand it.

But it's also a perfect example of,

You know,

We are our,

Our self work is always right where we are.

So it's like,

You know,

You,

I mean,

You're just too nice.

So it's no wonder you don't,

You can get better at setting boundaries.

So you know,

So that this is where you're being led right in with that.

So that it's like you,

You know,

Because a meeting isn't going to magically end at a certain time because it's supposed to,

It actually needs to be ended,

You know,

By somebody and guess who that somebody is going to be.

If you have some place to be at two,

Then you need to end it prior to not,

Not just hang on and,

And see if it happens to end before then,

You know,

It's like you,

If you want to wrap up,

You got to wrap it up.

However,

The content of things I have,

I have let go of a little bit more.

And that's something that I,

You know,

Used to be more of a stickler on.

I dropped my water bottle in case you heard that.

I used to be more of a stickler on that,

Which is if I'm having a disagreement about the content of something and not necessarily like the content of a show that we're doing,

You know,

I'm not saying that like Glenn and I get into a disagreement over what the episode should be about.

We never do.

But if I'm having a conversation and somebody else is coming at it from a different perspective and like I have zero,

I don't know if it's my self confidence now,

But I have zero qualms over somebody saying something that I think is wrong or even like,

You know,

Hurtful or negative or something like just none of that stuff is affecting me now at all because I'm like,

I don't care.

You know,

Like a lady on the phone this morning was like,

Well,

I don't know.

It's a little expensive.

We're probably going to go with somebody else or,

You know,

We're just figuring out a way to do it ourselves.

I had no qualms about anything.

I was like,

Okay,

See you.

Like good luck.

Let me know if you need help.

Like that's fine.

My preferences for things,

The things that are annoying me are changing.

Yeah.

So now is a great time to be conscious of that.

Yeah.

And pay attention because like,

So this actually led into a good aspect because the reason that people saying things to you,

Like the example you just gave don't bother you is because you don't give your power to it.

Like you're,

You know,

You're,

You bet you're busy.

You have more work,

So you're not.

So somebody says,

Hey,

I might not use you for my work.

You're not going,

Oh my God,

That's horrible.

I,

I'm not going to have work.

So you don't have to defend it because it's not your source.

It's you know,

It's,

It's just a channel and it's like,

Well,

I got plenty of work,

You know?

Okay.

It doesn't come in this channel.

We'll come in that channel.

It's already coming in all these channels,

You know?

So it's like,

So that person is not your source.

So that's really,

You know,

What we have to anchor into is understanding that,

That,

You know,

Our source is our,

Is the big spiritual source,

You know,

And all the things that we're so attached to are just channels and we have to loosen our grip on those things and just be like,

You know,

It doesn't matter.

Most of the stuff that we get upset over,

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter if you're,

You know,

If the pizza is overcooked or,

You know,

Like we don't,

I think a lot of it,

Like for me,

I traced,

I traced it back to,

You know,

Childhood,

Which a lot of this stuff,

You know,

When I was a child,

I had to defend myself against a lot of things,

You know?

So like,

I was always on edge and always defending and if somebody wanted this and I had to push back that and,

And it,

You know,

It's this,

This competition and,

And you know,

Don't show weakness and get the upper hand and all this stuff.

And I think that that leads into a lot of our preferences.

It's you know,

Like,

Like when we're driving,

It's like,

I mean,

You know,

Why,

Why does somebody get so upset,

Like if,

If somebody wants to get in front of them in the highway,

So this is my lane and I'm supposed to be able to drive without taking my foot off the gas and slowing down for you because I have the right away and it's the,

And it's,

This is the way the road works and,

And that's what's right.

And you shouldn't be trying to come into my lane,

Not until I pass.

And then maybe you can try to get in like,

Seriously,

That's exhausting.

I mean,

There's,

There's millions of cars on the road.

Sometimes people want to switch lanes.

Sometimes they,

They need to get off a ramp or something or like,

I mean,

You know,

There's or maybe they're going to soon or who knows what their thought process is,

But we take everything so personally.

Like there,

People are impeding on our lives and it's not right and what's right and what's wrong.

And,

You know,

Of course we,

I think we need to let go of all this stuff and we're different.

You know,

It's like,

Let,

We don't have to defend our,

Our,

Our position so much,

You know,

Like that's why I think your example is a good one because it's like,

It's about defending your position.

It's like,

We don't,

Somebody thinks a different way.

Yeah,

That's fine.

That's how we should be,

It's,

You know,

We should be more relaxed.

And then when things,

I mean,

Michael Singer took it to a whole nother level.

I mean,

This guy surrendered his whole life and the levels of peace that he's,

And success for that matter,

That he's,

Financial success that he's achieved because of that are off the charts,

You know,

Because he did it at a whole nother level.

But it's for him,

He was just like,

He just wanted to go out in the woods in the seventies and meditate alone.

That's all he wanted.

That was it.

So he bought a little chunk of land and built a place to live there alone and meditate so he could get away from everything else.

And little by little things kept coming into his life and he was like,

People started going out there and meditating with him.

He didn't want anybody to come out there and meditate with him.

But he surrendered to it,

You know?

And then somebody started building a house on his land and he was like,

I don't want somebody building a house on my land.

Surrender to it.

Like so he took it to a whole nother level,

Man.

I mean,

You know,

And I'm not saying that we should all do what Michael Singer did.

You know,

I don't know that I could,

But like I said,

He took it to such a level that like what came into his life,

He started with,

I think a 10 acre lot.

Now he has over 900 acres all connected because of just surrendering and letting things fall into place.

And he's had two highly successful businesses just because somebody came out and said,

Hey,

I like that house that you built or that,

That little lean to that or whatever.

That's kind of a cool design.

Can you build me something like that?

Well,

I don't want to,

I'm not a builder.

I don't want to build houses,

I don't want to build additions,

But that's what life is bringing me.

Okay.

I'll let go of my preferences.

I'll do it.

And then all of a sudden it turns into a successful construction company.

Yeah.

You know,

It's just,

It's insane.

Like when you follow,

You know,

He draws a line from the surrender to the result out of hindsight,

Of course,

We can't see it at the time.

But it's,

You know,

I think something that kind of clicked with me is he's like,

You know,

The,

The,

This,

This world has been around for billions of years and it's,

You know,

The,

The only thing that's wrong with the earth is what man has decided to do to it.

There's nothing wrong with the universe.

There's nothing wrong with nature.

There's nothing wrong with the earth.

It's been doing fine on its own for billions of years.

So like,

Why do we have to come in and figure out our preferences and say,

I want my life to go like this.

You know,

If we look at it,

The things that upset us is when life doesn't go the way we want it to go.

And I'm different than you and you're different than them.

And we all have our preferences and we all get upset if life doesn't go the way we want it to.

It literally can't.

How can it go the way I want it to and the way you want it to and the way somebody else wants it to all at the same time?

It can't.

It's,

It's literally impossible.

So like if we let go of our preferences and understand that there's a flow to life and,

You know,

Instead of resisting it,

Going with it,

You know,

That's kind of been my mantra this last week is I'm just like,

I am no longer going to stand in the opposition in opposition to the flow of life.

I'm no longer going to stand in opposition to it.

You know,

I'm just,

Whatever happens,

It's fine.

It's okay if my pizza is a little burned.

I'm going to enjoy it anyway.

It's okay if I have to stop.

I'll take a moment and look around and really take in a scenery that I didn't when I was shooting through and I'm going to recognize the perfection within it.

You know,

It's stopping resisting the flow of life and just going with what happens.

I had to write down that quote that you just said.

That was very nice.

Yeah,

That's,

That's been,

That's been my mantra.

I've been,

I've been loving it.

It makes me feel good when I say it because it's freeing.

It's freeing to stop trying to control everything.

Oh my God.

You know,

I mean,

We don't realize we're doing it until we realize we're doing it.

Yeah.

And it's like,

And that's what it is.

It's like,

We're trying to control everything and there's just the natural flow to life and it's fine.

And if we just learn to go with it instead of standing in opposition to it,

It's,

It's just,

Just such a more relaxed,

Peaceful,

Happy life.

Sounds nice.

And this is just a different way of coming at it.

Like I've done this type of work before.

Right.

You know,

And,

And,

And every time I do,

You know,

It takes me to another level of,

Of success and peace.

So it's,

It's,

I've,

You know,

When,

When we're tight,

That's what we do.

You know,

We,

We constrict and tighten and we try to control and there's no flow.

When we relax and we open and we just go,

Everything's fine,

You know,

And it's not that we can't make adjustments.

It's you know,

Just,

We accept the way things are and then we can still look around and go,

Hey,

I'd like,

I think I'd like to do this.

Oh,

Okay,

Go ahead and do that.

Like we still take action.

It's not like there's no,

So yeah,

Maybe this is a good way to explain it.

Cause I know one of the biggest things that people always freak out about is like,

Whenever you start talking about letting go of control,

They think that the whole world,

Their world is going to come to a screeching halt and they'll never take action again.

Like they're going to sit on the couch and never move for the next 30 years.

And it's just,

You know,

That's,

That's not what happens.

So like the way Michael Singer was explaining it was he talks about like,

Whenever something is brought into his life,

He's like,

Oh,

This is,

This is like a gift from the universe that I've been given to take care of.

So like when,

So he does everything to the best of his ability.

So like when he was,

He was teaching himself how to program when computers first came out.

So he gets a computer and his brain just clicked with it the way writing program,

He just was naturally good at writing programs.

So he started writing programs and everybody kept coming to him going,

Hey,

Can you write me a program for this,

For that,

For this?

And he's like,

I don't,

I don't want to become a computer programmer.

I'm just doing things,

You know,

But it was,

They'd ask him.

So somebody asked him to write this program for medical billing.

And for him,

He's like,

I don't want to write a gigantic program,

But this is a gift from the universe.

So therefore I need to treat it with respect and do it to the best of my ability.

So he did it to the best of his ability.

He said,

Okay,

This is what came in.

It's not really my preference.

I don't think I want to do this,

But it's a gift from the universe.

So I'm going to treat it as such and do it to the best of my ability.

And because of that attitude,

There was no resistance.

I don't feel like doing this.

No,

It's a gift,

You know?

So he did it.

And what happens when we do anything to the best of our ability?

It comes out phenomenal,

You know?

So so of course it comes out phenomenal and you know,

And,

And then the rest is history.

You know,

I mean,

He's,

You know,

Billion dollar software company many years later.

So it's like,

I mean,

It's amazing what happens when you just,

When something comes into your life and you just do it to the best of your ability without preferences.

So,

And I got to say one more before I lose this.

So this ties into one spiritual story that I heard many years ago where this,

This monk was living on the outskirts of town.

You know,

Every spiritual story sets like this.

So there's this monk,

It's like three guys walking into a bar,

Right?

So there's this monk and he lives on the outskirts of town and this girl gets pregnant with her boyfriend that she's not supposed to be seeing.

And so she tells her parents that the monk,

She was walking in the woods and the monk came out and raped her and it was the monk's baby.

So the parents freak out,

Go running over to the monk's house.

So I can't believe you did this to my daughter and he just sits there and he goes,

You know,

My daughter said that you raped her and he goes,

Is that so?

And the parents yell at him and then they leave and then the baby's born.

They bring the baby over to the house and they go,

This is your baby.

You need to take care of this baby because it's your baby and we don't want it.

So he takes the baby.

He's like,

Is that so?

And he cares for the baby.

And then finally,

Eventually the daughter is ridden with guilt and tells her parents the truth.

I was scared.

It's my boyfriend.

I wasn't supposed to be seeing him.

It's our baby.

And so the parents like,

Oh my God,

I can't believe this goes over to the monks.

It goes,

I'm so sorry.

We found out the truth.

It's not your baby.

We're going to take the baby back.

And the monk goes,

Is that so?

And they take,

And he gives the baby back and then they bring it home.

And through this,

The whole story,

The point is,

Is the monk doesn't argue for his preferences.

He doesn't argue the point.

What he does is what's necessary in the moment.

That's how he lives his life.

It's not important what,

Who's right and who's wrong.

It's just important what needs to be done.

You know,

That,

That girl was scared.

She needed,

She needed an outlet.

So the monk was the outlet.

So that baby needed somebody to care for it.

So he cared for it because that's what was necessary in that moment.

He wasn't worried about other people judging him and what was right and what was wrong.

Well,

It's not fair for me to take care of a baby.

It's not my baby.

You know,

He just did what was necessary in that moment.

You know,

And that's kind of how we want to get back to living life.

What's let go of the preferences.

It's not that important.

What needs to be done right now.

It's living consciously.

It's living in the moment and doing our best at what's in front of us.

That was a crazy story,

Man.

Oh yeah.

I feel better though.

Is that a real story?

That's a parable,

Right?

That's like,

I would imagine it's a parable.

I don't know monk.

Anyway.

So that's you know,

The big things and honestly,

I feel like it's the little things that are the difficult ones in this situation.

I feel like we know what our big,

What our big issues are more normally,

More usually than we do our little issues.

Well I think right now,

Yeah,

I mean a lot of times,

But you know,

And I think right now I think it's an incessant in our lives,

In most people's lives right now.

Like I mean if we all look at this,

Really look at it closely,

I bet you every one of us is going to find our brain riddled with a lot of this stuff.

Not everyone.

A lot of people will find their brains riddled with this stuff.

And I think it's,

You know,

It's hard to almost have any conversation right now being in the middle of the COVID situation without,

You know,

Looking at it and going,

You know,

I think that this is one of the things where we're understanding that we don't have control.

We don't have control over it anyway.

We're so full of crap.

We think we're controlling stuff and we're not.

You know,

We don't have control over our financial security.

We don't have control over our health.

We don't have control over any of that stuff.

It doesn't mean we can't do things to the best of our ability,

But we have to understand that we don't have control over anything anyway.

We're in an ever-changing reality.

We're not supposed to have control over everything when we're here.

You know,

So relax,

Enjoy the ride of life a little bit.

Stop trying to think we need to control every little aspect of our lives.

And you know,

Or even the big things.

I mean,

The more control you let go of and the more you trust in the flow of life,

The more relaxed you're going to be and the more enjoyable life is going to be.

Well,

This has been a really helpful episode and I feel more relaxed and calm.

And the only thing that I think that I still wish that I had control over is that I really wish I still had my beard.

Other than that,

Other than that,

I think that's completely transcended.

Yeah,

Probably.

Yeah.

I think I see you floating above your chair.

But I just,

I can't let go of that.

It's going to grow back,

Man.

Let go.

Acceptance.

Practice acceptance.

In a year.

They have magic markers.

I probably have one somewhere around here.

No,

This was a,

I needed this conversation today because of everything else that we talked about.

Uh,

You know,

So I really liked it.

Uh,

Yeah,

Me too.

And it's,

You know,

In my personal life,

It's whenever,

Since I've been doing better with this,

My business is doing better.

It always does.

Like I,

I have yet to like really see jumps in my business.

In seven years,

I have yet to see jumps in my business through action.

It's never happened.

My business has never taken a jump forward through action.

It's always taken a jump forward when I relax.

When I let go of the control,

Things start going more smoothly every time.

It's because I'm an action taker.

So I,

I take too much action.

So my learning curve is to relax and back off.

Interesting.

I've never seen an uptick unless I've taken a bunch of action.

Probably because I'm very laid back.

Maybe.

See?

Yeah.

It all points us towards our growth.

I mean,

I still have to take action,

But it's like,

Mine is inspired action.

You know,

When I'm relaxed and I'm not really pushing and then I go,

Oh,

Maybe I'll do this,

You know,

And then I did real relaxed and peaceful.

Then I do that.

And then,

You know,

Then it might turn into something.

But even that's rare for me,

It's like,

You know,

When I go on vacation and all sudden emails stop pouring in,

You know,

That's usually how it happens.

Reviews

Great content, odd sound balance. Loved the monk parable... And so it is...

Thanks for this fun discussion, a topic I've not focussed on yet... Love and blessings 💖 x

Thank you Glenn & Ben! Inspiring and as always divine timing🙏