Are You Suffering Over Unseen Self-Love? GF Live 3-28-26

We cannot see what we will not look at... but it is not “us” who refuses to look.

The vast majority of all (sleeping) human beings believe -- in one way or another -- that they are special; somehow superior to others they judge as less “blessed” than they. But this dream doesn’t free them from the suffering inherent in struggling to protect their favored image of the moment; in fact, the opposite holds true: they live as unwitting captives of a delusion, constantly trying to protect what can’t be protected: the fear that others won’t see them in the same light they see themselves shining in.

Transcript

We're going to look at a few things in great depth today, Including examine, If you will, An ancient myth and an explanation behind it, And hopefully, As the talk title is going to reveal, The end of a certain kind of pain that we are always in without knowing it, And in the revelation of that being released from it. So I think we'll just go ahead and get started. Katie, Let's bring up the title of today's talk, Please. And I can trust that you all see it. It says, Are You Suffering Over Unseen Self-Love? This is a sensitive topic, And I'm not going to dance around it. What we need to see, What we need to recognize, And I would urge you, Beyond the shadow of a doubt, Whether you're listening to me live or you've come back to hear a replay, Don't believe what I say. That's a terrible mistake, But see whether or not what I am telling you is true about you, About this world, And then test it by experimenting. Experience what it is. See the experience being described. Look, Have you ever been around someone who, Despite the immense wreckage in their life, Absolutely can't see the elephant in the room? Yes or no? Someone unaware of the, What's the expression, An 800-pound gorilla on their back? We all know people like that, Don't we? And we kind of marvel to ourselves, You know, How do they not see this? Now the task is, And the question, We turn it around, Have you ever considered that others may look at you through the same light? We never think to ourselves that whatever the pain is in any given moment is due to something that we have brought into the moment with us. Rather, The pain is blamed on what we find waiting for us in the actions or words of another in the seemingly uncaring world unfolding before our disbelieving eyes. So I want to start this talk by actually bringing up the first key lesson, Kate, If you will. It will set the stage for us. It reads, We cannot see what we will not look at, But it is not us who refuses to look. We cannot see what we will not look at, But it is not us who refuses to look. Let me start by disarming something that happens quite often. I hear about it from students, Emails, Texts. Someone will say, Guy, I don't understand why you take this angle, Why you approach the work this way. It sounds like you're in favor of pain because it just seems negative. No, I am not in favor of pain, But I do know better than to set myself against it because any moment that you or I resist any form of psychological pain, In that moment, It is the same as losing the ability to understand and transcend it. We don't free ourselves from suffering by adding things that distract us from the pain inherent in a nature creating it. Rather, We understand the nature that creates it and die in a manner of speaking to our identification with it. And in that way, We don't transcend the condition. We escape by the light that reveals it, The consciousness creating it. Think of it this way. If you go to a doctor, Lord knows the older you get, The more doctors you see. And the doctor says, Well, You know what, Guy, There's something that we really need to take a look at. When the doctor says that, If you're honest, Your spirit sinks. But you know, You don't accuse the doctor of being negative, Do you? I hear that, He has a terrible bedside manner. Yeah, He might, But he's giving you a diagnosis. Do you accuse a doctor of being negative? Or do you understand that the diagnosis is at least part of the beginning of a healing? Yes or no? That doctor is so negative. He said, I have pre-diabetes. He said, I have to do something about this anxiety. It's destroying my endocrine. I mean, You fill in the blanks. We don't get negative when the doctor says, Here's a problem. We resist it, But we don't verbalize the negativity. But when life shows us something about ourselves, That in that moment challenges some image we have of ourselves, Do we not resist that moment, That experience tooth and nail? We say, Oh, That's negative. That shouldn't be like that. And in that moment, When we resist seeing something that challenges whatever is in us that feels threatened by it, In that same moment that we resist it, We missed the chance of understanding what could set us free. And that's the problem, Is we don't know the nature of our captivity. And to talk about our captivity, To talk about the nature of the prison that we live in moment to moment, Because of a certain way in which we see life unfold before us, Is not negative. What's negative is to not see the elephant in the room. So let's look at this together. I have a look at that I hope you will find interesting as I do. So we're going to go to the doctor. Christine, Those of you who follow and listen to my talks know I use a certain character in a certain relationship with a certain doctor so that we can use Christine as, If you will, A proxy for ourselves, An avatar, As you will. And the doctor representing Sophia, Wisdom, Reasoning, Knowledge. So she goes to see the doctor all the time. She's working on herself, As I hope you are, Wants to understand, But every once in a while runs right into something that's just in front of her again. There's an elephant and at least she suspects it, Wants to know its nature. So she goes to the doctor and he says, What's going on with you? She said, I don't know. She said, But I can tell you, I don't know what's going on, But more and more I am so easily offended. I can't believe it. I mean, Anyone or anything that makes even a slightly sideways comment, I perceive it as being some kind of disrespectful attitude. If people don't agree with me, I find them to be offensive. And when I find them to be offensive, I find myself on the defense and I have no idea what's going on. I can't stand it. Please, Can you help me? What's taking place? So let's see if you are aligned with our avatar, Christine, The person whose psychological report represents our relationships. Okay. So we want the good doctor's word, And he always does have insight. She says, Please, Can you help me? He says, Yes, I can. Don't you need to do some tests? She said, No. He said, I know if I tested you, I would find that you are drained, You know, That your immune system is depleted. I would find all the things that are the evidence, But I don't need to do that because I know what's going on. She says, Well, Please tell me. And he says to her, You're suffering from Tepotec, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C, T-P-O-T-E-C. We go to people to talk to them in order for them to do what? Essentially to agree with what it is that we're going through. So we're looking for them to affirm whatever the sense of self is that drove us into basically dragging them into a world they don't need to know about and that they can't do anything about anyway. Have you, Have you seen something like that? Or, Or like this, This is one of my favorites. We've ever been talking to somebody about a problem, You know, Something that's bugging you. And while you're talking, It's like, They don't hear you. And if you're not getting through, Then you think, Well, I need to find another angle to make sure they're tracking with me. And so you kind of double down and maybe a little stronger tone, So forth and so on. But instead of acknowledging you and your circumstance, As you are expecting them to do and secretly demanding that they do, Instead, They ignore you and have the gall to start talking about their own pain. So, So now, Instead of getting what you need, Which is someone confirming the depth and breadth of your suffering, Now they want to bring you into their suffering. Or even worse, When you're describing that to these people, To someone else, They, They make it sound like, Yeah, I'm going through that too. I don't care about what I'm going through. This is about me, Not you. True or not. Can you see it? How irritating it is that you're not interested in what I'm irritated over. How dare you not be involved in what has made a victim of me. And then you have the nerve to want to be a victim too. There can't be two victims in this room. There can only be one and it is me. So what happens when, When that, When, What I just described, We get further irritated, We immediately begin to judge that person for being selfish, Being cold, Uncaring or whatever it may be. And why? If you can see that's happening, What is actually going on in that moment? And it happens almost all the time. Simply put, They fail to see you as someone who deserves and secretly demands secret attention because of how unique you are and you're suffering. And there is no one else like you. Don't you agree? We ask that person without saying it out loud. In other words, Basically, I like this idea. Whoever you're talking to has failed their assignment. They just didn't know they had it. Are you still following me? Everybody? I go to my husband, My wife, My brothers, My sisters. I'm talking to a friend at a bar. I'm laying it all out. And I'm expecting nothing but sympathy. I'm expecting nothing. But yeah, You're right. They're wrong. This shouldn't be this way. Too bad. You're in this situation. That's what I'm waiting for. But that person doesn't know that their assignment prior to me, Even speaking to them is to confirm the sense of self that I've spilled out in front of them. And so we literally expect, And it's an unspoken demand, Usually anyway, That people and events work for us much in the way a mirror would reflect back to us what we want to see in it. So now the question is this, If you're following me, What if taking things personally, Would you agree T. Potep back to the original, The pain of taking everything personally? Can you start to see that this T. Potep is involved in everything? Yes, Please. Before I go on, What if taking things personally like that isn't personal at all, But actually, And again, You have to see it, A very predictable mechanical reaction that belongs to a nature that can't stop looking, Actually demanding that people and life reflect whatever it requires in order to keep the image that it has of itself in place. So this is a tough road to hoe, Isn't it? I don't know if you've noticed this. Sometimes you have to prepare what you want to say so as to set them up to respond the way you need them to respond. What is that about? And yet it goes by undetected, Unseen. And we must see it. If we want the suffering of this need, We have to, To have others constantly recognize that, That we are special. So I want to look at this through a completely different set of eyes. I think I'll have time to do this. What I'm describing to you is actually connected to a series of parables, Ancient myths, Each of them trying to show us the danger of, Of how we have fallen into a certain kind of unconscious relationship with the, With an unconscious nature, Where you don't need to be a scholar to recognize it. It wasn't that long ago that we were taught properly, So that self-adoration, Self-worship, Selfishness, Self-love, That these states were belong to a lower order of being, That they were actually a kind of spiritual disease. So what once was understood to be a spiritual disease that leads to the death of the soul, Now gives us life and has become glorified. Because if you look at the world around you, That's what everybody's doing is glorifying themselves, Whether they're glorifying their pain or their pleasures. I can't wait to put it up on my feed so that everyone else can feed off of that and affirm or deny what I put up there so that then I can feel agreed with, Or I can feel denied, Canceled. Do you understand what I'm pointing at here? Cause I need you to see that before I go on. It is so blatant. It's frightening, But it's so blatant. We don't see it. God knows I loved Whitney Houston, Her beautiful, Magnificent voice, And we watched her be destroyed. And in the end, Near the end, Her song, The greatest love of all is to love yourself and rising music, Everything. Yeah, I love myself. We never, Ever thought to ourselves, Does love ever say I love myself or is love always unannounced? Love is always unannounced. That beatific moment in nature, That split second where you see somebody do something of an unselfish, An unselfish act that love is there and embraces it contains, But not for us. We have to announce it. We have to pronounce it. And that's the sickness we don't see. And that's the suffering we're involved in because we don't recognize yet the following, Take a nice deep breath. I'll slow it down a little bit. Around eight AD, Long time ago, Ovid, A philosopher, Wrote a story called about echo and narcissists, Narcissists, Echo and narcissists. Just listen, Don't get ahead of me, Echo and narcissists. And the whole story was framed around the, Uh, The, The, The, The prophet, His name was Tiresias. He was a prophet in the temple of Apollo who, Who, Who, Whose fame was solidified. When, As the story goes, He, He, He, He said that there was this nymph. Her name was Ly, Ly, Lyriope, Lyrope. The nymph and nymphs were kind of demigods. Uh, The nymph of nymph of water, Mountains, Trees, They were natural elven creatures. And this nymph gave birth to Narcissus and Narcissus was beautiful in quotes, Even as a child. So she went as a custom to see the, The seer, The prophet Tiresias about his life, What would happen. And he predicted that Narcissus would live a long life only if he never knew himself. Tiresias prophesized that Narcissus would live a long and beautiful life, But only if he never knew himself. What? That's staggering. What does that mean? Only if he never knew himself. So fast forward, 16 years later, Narcissus is out hunting with his friends and unbeknownst to him, He's being followed around by a mountain nymph by the name of Echo. And like Tiresias, She, Meaning Echo had had a sensory ability altered by a punishment. Uh, Tiresias was blinded. Echo had taken from her by Juno, Who was the wife of Zeus. Echo interfered. Juno took away Echo's ability to talk, Except she could repeat the last few words of the things that she heard. Are you following the story so far? I just want you to have that, Keep it in mind. So now Echo sees Narcissus and his beauty, And she's immediately infatuated with him and she's following him, But she's frustrated because she wants to speak to him so that she might express her feelings, But she can't. So Narcissus, He senses that he's being followed and he shouts out, Who's there? And all Echo can do is repeat it. Who's there? And that goes on until Narcissus becomes immensely irritated and frustrated so that when Echo finally comes close enough to reveal herself and to embrace him, He's horrified. And he says, Back off. I want nothing to do with you or your affection. And the story goes, Heartbroken, Echo wastes away, Leaving only her voice still echoing through the canyons and the glens. That's the story of Echo. All she could do was repeat what she heard. Now, Story picks up here, Nemesis. Nemesis was an ancient Greek goddess of retribution, Of blame. Nemesis was responsible for punishing excessive pride and was assigned to maintain equilibrium in human affairs. And she, Nemesis, Not just heard the pleas of a young man, Ammonias who had also fallen for Narcissus and was equally ignored and cursed him. Nemesis proclaimed as a curse that Narcissus would never know the love of the one he fell in love with. Narcissus would never know the love of the one he fell in love with. This is a magnificent inner life story. Now, So after spurning Echo and the young man, Narcissus, Narcissus becomes thirsty and he finds a pool of water. And the story goes, Narcissus leans down to drink. And when he leans down to drink, Low and behold, He sees his own reflection. And what happens? He falls in love with what he sees as beautiful as a perfect marble statue, But he doesn't realize it's his own reflection. And not only doesn't he realize it's his own reflection, But he falls in love with it. Now, Remember Nemesis curse, Narcissus would never know the love of the one he fell in love with. Now, Narcissus has fallen in love with his own image and is unable to take his eyes off the reflection of himself. But he loves an image that cannot love, Cannot affirm his love. He loves an image that cannot love him back, That cannot confirm him as being the way he wants to see himself because it's incapable of doing so. Are you following this? So in that moment, So to speak, Tiresias, His prophecy and Nemesis curse came true in the same instance. Narcissus unable to look away from what, Leave let alone leave the sight of his own fascinating image. So literally the story goes, Narcissus stays there until he starves to death. Meaning he's cut off from any form of receiving life because he has cut himself off through the love of himself. And so what happens, The story goes that he turns into that golden white flower called a Narcissus, A Narcissus, Narcissus, Whatever it is, Whatever that word is. That's how the story goes. He falls in love with his own reflection, Not knowing it's himself. He falls in love with his own reflection, Not knowing it's himself and suffers because what he loves, The image of himself is incapable of loving him back. We do the exact same thing. We are in love with our own thinking. We are in love with how we feel when we imagine what we desire, Failing to see that no matter how beautiful that image is, It is made in the image of the nature that created it. And so as we gaze at what we hope will fill us gaze as what we believe will complete our passion, We're looking at something that cannot do it because it lives only in a world of imagination. But it doesn't change the fact that we feel all of that and feel the anger, The frustration, The irritation, When, For whatever reason who or what it is we're looking at cannot give us what we demand from them, Which is to complete us. Can you see this with me? The depth and breadth of that marvelous myth now. Kate, Let's bring up the second key lesson. It'll help the segue into where this talk is going. I know it's long guys. Just read with me, Come back and read it. This is a bit of a summary. The vast majority of all sleeping human beings believe in one way or another that they are, That we are special, That we are somehow superior, That they are somehow superior to others they judge as less blessed than they. I just stopped for a second. What in the name of heaven would cause me to judge another human being? Do we not judge other human beings? And by and large, Isn't what we judge them over is not seeing and taking us the way we want to be seen and taken. They don't get it. They're not as blessed. They're less blessed than we are. How do we know? Because we sit in judgment of them. We sit in judgment of that moment, But this dream that we are somehow superior to others doesn't free them from the suffering inherent in struggling to protect the favored image of the moment. And this is an important point. The favored image of the moment. I'm going to go into this deeply in tomorrow's talk. We don't know that we live with literally a warehouse, An endless archive of certain characters that were created in the moments of becoming attached to, And depending on certain conditions, Certain thoughts, Certain feelings. So that when we go into a moment, We don't know we take with us something that is already ahead of us deciding whether or not what we are experiencing is the right experience, Because that nature already knows how things should be. So we have a favored image of the moment and that's what interacts with people. We want them to confirm the image we have of ourselves as we require it. But instead, In fact, The opposite holds true. Meaning of those of us, We live, They live as unwitting captives of a delusion, Constantly trying to protect what can't be protected. Could narcissists get from the image of himself what he wanted from it? Impossible. He believed he was other than the image he loved. You and I are always trying to protect what can't be protected, Which is ourselves, That feels threatened any time others don't see us in the same light that we see ourselves shining in. Are you able to make sense of this with me? Look, The insight, The glimpse, The revelation of such a realization is not just difficult for us to receive, But we can even say, Yes, I understand it. And then we go someplace and the waiter doesn't look at us the way we expect to be waited on since we're putting out our good money. And even that, That, That, That distance of, Of ours, Of them from ourselves brings up this, What, What's wrong with him? You don't know that maybe he just learned that his mother is going to, You, You know, Nothing about him, But, Oh man, He does not hold me in the esteem that I'm supposed to be held in. And we do it to ourselves. Yes. We actually judge ourselves as proof that somehow what we are judging actually should be present and all powerful. So that judging us for being weak proves to us that the image we have of ourselves is factual. So the problem, Cause I have to keep going here. Here's narcissists over that pond. The problem is not the ripples in the water of life. Cause that's kind of what happens. You know, You're looking, You're, You're at home, You're in a pipe dream, Meaning you're thinking about this. And that's the other thing. We actually will relive where it is that in whatever moment took place, Whoever it was, That that person, They absolutely did not take us the way we wanted to be taken. So we'll actually relive moments that are painful because in doing so, It proves to us that that person failed their assignment. That person isn't who they're supposed to be because they don't see me the way I want to be seen. So the problem is not in life. The problem is not even the ripples that take place. I was thinking about that earlier. Have you ever heard the expression or ever somebody does something and you look at them like this? You may not say it. Don't make waves. Don't make waves. No waves. Don't rock the boat. All of these are approximate the idea that I don't want anything to disturb what I'm looking at and believing is beautiful and good and true. Don't, Don't, Don't make waves. Leave me to my dream. Leave me to the image that I'm looking at so that I can feel the love I have of that image. So don't you dare threaten either one. So the problem isn't that the waters of life ripple, That's what they do. The problem is our attachment to whatever the reflection is we're looking at in that moment. Oh, I wish I could. I wish I was more adept at explaining this to you. When you're talking to someone, I don't know if you're capable yet of seeing that as you're talking, Something is talking to you in silent terms and measuring what it sees as the reflection of your action. So that there's a kind of constant comparison taking place, Whether or not what you're saying is reaching and becoming what it's meant to be. So that we're always in the process of weighing what we expect from that person as they are giving it back to us. And if the measurement doesn't come up, It's they that fall short, Not us for being dependent on some image that can't possibly be confirmed. And that's the other thing. What do you think enabling another human being is about? You confirm the image they have of themselves that can, That includes that you are this special, This, And you are that, And therefore, You must not mess with their image of you. And you fear messing their image of you, Because if you shatter that, Then they're going to come back and shatter the image you have of them in their negativity. Can you see how deep this runs and why it's not negative to look at this? Boy, I go to a group and I've done this before. And I say, Listen, Self-love is a disease. What do you think they do? What do you think? What did they do to Christ? Self-love is a disease that we don't know we have, And that the symptoms of the disease prove that the pain belongs to someone and something else outside of us. So this moment, When someone starts to create waves, This is part of the conclusion. You can feel the waves, Yes or no. I can feel that, That the wave of that anxiety, I can feel the wave of that disbelief. I can feel that ripple of something as it's starting to rip through me and bring me into all this reasoning, Why you're wrong. Can you, You, We can be, We are capable of sensing that, Are we not? This is a critical question. The answer is yes. I, One word would be the contraction, That sudden onset of stress. So that in that moment, The negativity that comes over us, The anxiety, That, That immediate defensiveness or some form of fear, It seems as if those negative states belong to us. But in truth, They don't belong to us. They belong to that nature, Reacting to anything that doesn't requite the attachment it has to its own image, That doesn't confirm it. That's why we get upset, Because something has determined before that moment took place, The way it's supposed to go, The way you're supposed to talk to me, The way you're supposed to look at me. And if your response doesn't match what I'm looking at as being required, Then in that moment, You're the problem. Instead of me seeing that the real problem is that I came into that moment, Believing that whatever it is and whatever's going on, It has its assignment. All it has to do is feed me back the reflection I want. Imagine, Imagine here, Here's, Here's a person going back to the story of echo. Here's a person they get lost in a deep Canyon someplace. And if you were lost in a deep Canyon, What do you do? Is anyone there? Is anyone there? And you're expecting if nothing else, That the echo of your voice will carry through the Canyon. Maybe someone will catch it. So you go, Is anyone there? And instead of hearing the echo, You hear, Sorry, Are you here? Gone for the day. So, So you don't get back what you hope to get back. You get back something that actually challenges the fear that you're in, The fear you're feeling. That's what happens. You're with somebody, You go, Can you hear exactly what I'm saying? Are you on the same page with me? And you expect them to go, I'm on the same page, That you don't expect them to go, Well, I want to talk about my page. I want to talk about the book that I'm reading. And that's exactly what happens to us all the time. Because we can't see that the suffering in that moment is not because of what life or someone is handing us, But because we're expecting them to hand back to us what we need from them to affirm us as we imagine ourselves being. So as we begin to see this, See what? Our negative reaction reveals the nature of the self that has gone into that moment. We don't know. Every instant negative reaction is a form of revealing a character or quality in that consciousness that the moment you're in has stirred and brought forth that demands everything. Everyone lives up to their assignment to affirm it as it imagines itself being. But if we begin to see that, Cause I know some of you are going to ask these questions. If we see the truth of that, Something changes. It isn't because we make an effort to change something. That's what we've been doing all along. We may not see it, But our efforts to change ourselves are the echoes of a self that can't change itself. The efforts to change ourselves according to some image or desire are in fact, The echo of a nature that cannot change itself. It's not through an act of will. I'm going to be this, I'm going to do that. This is where I'm going. No, Any act of will to change the suffering born of me, Not being affirmed by you is an act of will that actually confirms that you're the problem. So that's not the answer. We, If we see it in that moment, Begin to know that we are not that nature. We now say I to the suffering of anything that doesn't affirm us as we imagine ourselves needing to be affirmed. But when we see that the need to be affirmed produces the pain that drives us through this circle, We begin to realize, You know what? The task here is not to affirm or confirm myself, But rather to become awake and aware of this self that goes into that moment, But demanding life do that. So in essence, We begin to see that demand. We begin to see that suffering born of it, Instead of being that demand and the pain inseparable from its actions. And if we see that something new takes place and you will never know what that newness is that takes place until you have died to that old cycle. To that unconscious condition that is completely convinced that if you're not for me, You're against me. When the problem is that we are against anyone that isn't for us the way we imagine they should be. And if we start to recognize the truth of this, Our life no longer requires that life mirror back to us what we want to see in it. I'm going to say it again. We begin to realize that life is, That our demand on life, That it reflects back to us what we want to see in that moment that begins to go away because we realize that we can't place a demand on life to confirm us. We can participate in life and in that relationship, Realize the only problem that we have is that we're so filled with this false self-love and our dependency that others see us and act towards us the way we want them to, That we can't see what's going on. Then what happens is we're no longer at, And it's not an inaccurate, We're no longer at the mercy of what is reflected in the moment. Try to see this in all levels. If you ever looked in the mirror, And had a negative reaction, Happens a lot as you get older, I have a negative reaction to what I see in the mirror. If I do, One day you won't, If you work, You will look at something in the mirror that you know, Isn't you, But now you think it is you. And so you have this reaction. Why? Because it doesn't look the way it's supposed to look, Which means prior to me looking, I expected what to see there and now it's not there. So the comparison is in fact a process by which a very pained part of us wants to prop up and hold in place who it is and what it's supposed to be. And I'm at the mercy of that reaction. You know, You wouldn't believe how much stuff takes place. I look at something it's not the way it's supposed to be. I'm going to go buy what I have to buy. So it looks like it's supposed to look. I'm going to go do to my face and my body, What I need to do so that I look like I'm supposed to look. I'm going to sell my soul to someone else. So they'll look at me the way I need them to look at me. Can you see how deep this runs? And the beauty of it is the depth is not, Does not mean unreachable, Because the beauty of it's right within our reach to see the truth of it and realize the truth of it. So that in that moment, As we realize the truth of it, Something incredibly new takes place, Something altogether new is possible for us. That's the beginning of freedom. It sits there waiting for us to see the elephant in the room. Do your work.