Our Tantric Path: Listening Within For Guidance

So, how do we navigate this tantric path? Listening within - to our intuition, highest Self, Divine Guidance. We may go where there is no path (yet). We may do things quite "normally". We might confuse ourselves and others... But this is our personal, wonderful, and exciting tantric life adventure!

Transcript

So today is our final class in our Tantric Path series.

The rest are all uploaded if you wanted to watch the rest or listen to the rest.

And this one is all about how to listen within for guidance.

And this is,

Well,

I think I've said this for every talk,

This is the most important aspect of Tantra.

This is how we actually make choices.

We can have all the theories in the world,

We can have all the practices in the world,

We can have Sangha,

We can do anything.

But if we don't know how to choose which part is for me in this moment,

Then we're kind of just wandering aimlessly through a sea of a million teachings and a million practices and a million ideas and ideals.

Which one's for us?

Because the thing about Tantra is there's no rules.

There's not a prescribed,

Here are the things that you have to do.

It's not like that.

Because the foundation of Tantra is the idea,

The reality that we are fully divine and physical beings.

We are not physical beings trying to become spiritual.

We're not even spiritual beings having a human experience that we often say in spiritual communities.

We are both.

We are all of it.

It's not separate.

Because there's something weird when we separate it.

So for example,

If I say that I am a physical person and I'm trying to become spiritual,

There's a story of a beggar sitting on the side of the road.

He's sitting on this box and he's kind of got his hand out and he's just waiting for people to give him money and he's getting angrier and angrier.

Until one day someone says,

What's in the box?

And he looks in the box and it's filled with gold.

That's like a physical person trying to be spiritual.

It's already here.

It's who we are.

It's literally the stardust that we're made of.

And then we have this idea,

Well I'm just a spiritual being having a human experience.

And that,

It can be fine.

It's not that I've never said that.

But there can be a danger with that.

That we disconnect from our human experience.

We don't believe that any of this matters.

Our relationships don't matter.

Our job doesn't matter.

What we do here on earth doesn't matter because I'm a galactic infinite being.

This is a blip in my consciousness.

Who cares?

Who cares what we do to the oceans?

Who cares about this relationship?

Who cares about that?

Who cares about the politics?

Who cares?

I'm way above that.

There's this sense that I'm above it.

But why do we think we're here?

Many of us can take that and say,

Oh yeah,

Yeah,

I get it.

It's all good.

But there's a real danger in spiritual bypassing and things like that,

That whatever it is we're here to experience matters.

If we were born to a crazy family and we have all kinds of trauma and interesting emotional struggles because of it,

We aren't supposed to rise above it.

We're supposed to be in it.

We're not necessarily supposed to drown in it or believe that we are incumbent or we are required to suffer within it or that we have to put up with bad behavior or anything else.

But we are meant to stay in the arena and use the fact that we are divine infinite beings to find a different way through it.

But we aren't meant to ignore it.

This idea of listening to our intuition is deeply connected with this whole idea of I am.

Rollo May,

I often talk about,

He was an American psychologist back in the 70s.

He had this whole thing that until you have the I am moment,

Until you realize that you exist as a singular unique consciousness that matters,

It doesn't matter how much counseling you do.

It doesn't matter how much yoga you do.

It doesn't matter what you do until you realize that you matter.

You have consequence and you are the only one that can drive your boat.

Until we have that realization,

We are peeing in the wind.

It can't hold on to anything.

It can't hold on to us.

It can't actually change us.

It can't actually make us happy because it's all connected to something else.

If I believe that everyone else is more important than I am,

Everyone else knows better than I do.

My parents know better.

My partner knows better.

The church knows better.

This author I read,

They know better.

The government knows better.

My doctor knows better.

Everyone else knows better than I am.

What are you?

What are you really?

Are you a human?

Do you have consciousness?

Do you have awareness?

Do you have a mind that can do critical thinking?

Where are you and what are you if everyone else in the universe is more important than you are?

This is really,

Really,

Really important because if we believe that,

If we believe that everyone else is more important,

How in the world can we listen with infor guidance?

What am I listening to?

Well,

I'm not going to listen to her because she's full of nonsense.

She doesn't know anything.

Everyone else knows something better,

So I'm sure not going to listen to me.

What am I even listening to?

How messed up I am?

You know what I'm saying?

Because then we have to look at why do I think that everyone else is more important than I am?

Why do I think that everyone else has better guidance?

It becomes a really important rabbit hole to go down and that really becomes our path in the beginning of our tantric path to understand why do I not exist?

Because this inner connection is the whole point.

It's the whole point.

There is nothing else.

There's actually nothing else in any spiritual path.

In some Buddhist paths,

You might take a bodhi cheetah path where your only path is to help relieve the suffering of others and things like that.

But before that,

You must come to self-awareness.

Self.

Imagine self has a large S,

Not a small S.

Self-awareness.

I am.

I exist.

So all of a sudden,

When I make a choice,

I make a choice.

I am that whole being making a choice.

I choose to do this.

Someone else says,

Oh,

But you can't do that.

I mean,

What about this and what about that?

And you sort of look at them like,

I'm not sure what your perspective has anything to do with my I.

Like it becomes really clear really quickly that every single person we meet is an I and they have their own path and they have their own journey and they have their own thing and so do we.

And so suddenly,

Whether someone else would approve of what you do doesn't actually matter because it shouldn't matter because that's what they're doing.

If I have a friend who's a race car driver and they go to the gym and work out and do all these things and they're learning about cars and everything else,

Well,

He's doing that because that's what he likes to do and that's his path.

Who am I to go in and say,

Why aren't you doing yoga?

Why are you spending all this time on the car?

Why are you doing all this stuff about racing?

What's wrong with you?

Why aren't you living like I am?

Which of course I wouldn't be doing if I was truly following my own I because we all know that it's a challenge.

It's a challenge in our world.

I just saw in the chat,

I try not to read the chat,

But my eyesight is getting better so unfortunately I can actually read some of it.

And I saw the phrase,

We are the Borg.

Of course the Borg was a life form or a collective from Star Trek where you had to have a hive mind.

We all had individual bodies,

But you had to plug into the hive mind and believe in that.

Whatever the Borg believed,

We believe.

This is what we believe.

This is what we are about.

And that we voice is also in our consciousness.

It comes back to our clan mentalities that we believe this,

They believe this.

This is very primal.

This is very fearing the different and all that kind of thing.

We must be of one mind and that way we will survive.

It's very primal.

But we are asking ourselves to access higher centers inside of our bodies.

You know,

These upper chakras of intuition,

Of spiritual connection as they fully integrate into the lower chakras of our connections into community,

Into ourselves and all that kind of thing.

So guidance,

Our internal guidance,

The first place it really applies is inside of ourselves in our own personal journey.

And this is where,

You know it was like yesterday we did a talk in the Radiant Sutras and they had this idea that we needed to return to what they called the Shaiva Tattva,

Which isn't important.

And what that was,

Was this combination of two things.

One,

The original light of consciousness.

The original light of the world that makes up everything.

If you imagine us even on a physical level,

Every cell of our body made up of molecules,

Made up of atoms and each atom is just simply light.

It's all we are.

We really are light beings appearing in a very fun physical way.

The second part of this origin of who we are is what they called reflective awareness.

So this is the beginning of the Tantric path,

Is this reflective awareness of everything that we are.

In my yoga teacher training I ask everybody,

One of the first assignments is to actually write the story of your life in story arcs.

If you were to imagine,

You know if someone writes a novel,

You might have a line and then there's an arc that goes from the beginning,

From birth all the way up and over to this moment.

But in between there,

There are all these little chapters,

All these little tiny story arcs.

And if you want to do this,

I highly recommend it.

It's very,

Very interesting.

And they don't have to even be in order,

But to kind of look at this chapter of my life and with reflective awareness and love and kindness for self,

To be able to look at that and understand how that progressed the plot of your life.

How has that shifted or changed who you are today?

And as you understand all of these different chapters,

You start to deeply become aware of who I am today.

And if there are challenges or if there are patterns I'm still playing out that are causing me pain.

It's interesting when you think of what the goal of Tantra is or the goal of any of these spiritual practices.

It really is enlightenment.

And not some weird enlightenment where,

I don't know,

Whenever we imagine enlightenment to be and we're just like wandering around with white robes blessing people or something.

But it's like enlightenment that we become light and not light,

But not heavy.

That we become light and easy and joyful.

And so it's very,

Very interesting to be able to trace back the things that might have happened that have caused us to become heavy.

That have caused us to have stress,

Have caused us to have fears.

Because we need to look at them.

We need to look right at them.

We need to stare at them and say,

Okay,

What's this all about?

And let's heal it.

Let's integrate it.

Let's understand it.

Let's go into it.

This is really,

Really important.

Well the number one way to do this is through inner guidance.

Someone else can't do it.

I could even give you the assignment and you might say,

Well,

I can't do that.

I don't like journaling.

I'm not really good at it.

Can you help me?

So I might say,

Well,

Okay,

I'll help you.

And I said,

Okay,

So tell me about when you were seven years old,

What happened?

I don't know.

I don't really think much.

I can't tell you what the significant stories are in your life,

But I might be able to say,

What's the first thing that pops to your mind?

And you're like,

Day I got married,

That changed things.

Where did that come from?

Where did that,

Where did that come from?

That was your intuition.

That was guidance saying,

Look here first.

This is a hot poker in the fire.

Let's look at this.

So then you dive into a practice and then maybe the next question you ask is,

Well,

How should I process it?

And maybe the answer is writing it.

Maybe it's audio recording it.

Maybe it's talking about it out loud while you go for a run.

Maybe it's taking it to your yoga mat.

Maybe it's talking to a counselor about it,

But which way do you go?

You can ask yourself that too.

You know,

For me,

I have vision.

Like I don't mean I have visions like a prophet or something.

I just,

If I ask myself a question,

I just see myself sitting down and writing or I see myself down at the beach.

And I'll tell you that is the funnest game.

Intuition isn't hard.

Well,

We're going to talk about why it might be hard,

But it doesn't have to be some kind of cold spiritual practice that you now have to abide.

If I suddenly have some vision,

Then I just do it.

For example,

I'm in this rewrite of my new book,

Divine Union of the Masculine and Feminine.

And I think I told some of you guys that once I got finished with the editors,

Then Gina and I were working.

She was painting the cover.

But for all intents and purposes,

Logic would say,

Now you launch it.

You've written this 300 page book.

Now you would launch it.

But my intuition was quiet.

There was no steps coming before me.

The path was not appearing and there was no excitement.

Almost like literally the wind had died.

There was nothing.

And so I just let that be.

And then the little voice said,

Record the audio book.

I'm like,

Really?

That's a strange thing to do?

Because it's not that you never argue with your intuition.

At least I do.

So I start recording the audio and I realize the introduction is terrible.

It doesn't introduce the book.

And it's interesting because lots of you guys who read the book,

Read the manuscript,

Wrote beautiful endorsements.

And I appreciate that.

But of course,

You guys also have been listening to me and hearing my talks about the Masculine and Feminine and you've got all this amazing context for what I've written in the book.

When I then took,

Because it was a couple of weeks before I started actually reading it out loud,

And I thought,

Wow,

It's missing an entire context.

It's missing a huge,

Probably a whole chapter.

So I started to try to write that.

And then as I continued to read the book out loud for the audio book,

There were these holes in the book,

Like big holes.

And I realized on the weekend that I actually need to rewrite the whole book.

And it's not like a huge,

Massive rewrite.

It's a consciously sitting down,

Not in a sound recording studio,

Actually sitting down and saying,

I allow whatever has to come back into the book to come back into the book.

What was really interesting is I was talking to my friend Nelda about it yesterday.

And I said,

Yeah,

It's so weird.

This is what I'm going to do this week.

It's not going to be a big job.

I just want to do it.

And she said,

I think the book cover had to be finished before you could rewrite the book.

Because the book cover is beautiful.

I don't know if Gina's here right now.

But the book cover is multidimensional,

Divine,

Amazing.

And what's amazing about Gina's process is she read the book while she was painting.

And so the cover was actually created from the spirit of the book.

But it's almost like now that the cover is there and I've seen it,

It's created a different reality.

And I need to rewrite or I need to hone the book for that reality.

As soon as Nelda said it,

It was like everything in me went,

Aha,

That's true.

This is also intuition.

When someone says something and it lands perfectly inside of you.

And it's mm-hmm.

Yes.

And I'm telling you,

It's just like the smoke clears and it's all easy.

And I'm so looking forward to sitting down with my book and doing a bit of word crafting and just adding in and maybe getting rid of a few things.

I'm so excited about it.

So the intuitive process is very,

Very interesting.

But there are a lot of things that we have to come to that aren't always comfortable.

For example,

The unknown.

If we are uncomfortable with the unknown in life,

Our intuition,

It'll be a scary thing to trust.

Because what if I don't know what the outcome is?

We have been heavily conditioned to believe that if I can do A and B and C,

Then D will happen.

This is a linear equation.

And we have a lot of linear equation type thinking.

And it's based in our education system.

It's based in our current society's love of the scientific thought and mathematics.

Which of course,

If you're new to me,

I dig math on an epic scale.

It's not that I don't have that in me.

The challenge is,

Is math does not track life.

There's no equation for an infinite being.

There's no equation for us to find our happiness or an enlightenment.

Because there's more unknown than there is known.

There are more possibilities than anything that we've already accomplished or we've already done.

So following our intuition feels like perpetually stepping into the unknown.

It's like that beautiful saying,

Just enough light for the step I'm on.

That's intuition.

And that is an immense walk of faith.

And I don't mean some religious thing.

I mean your own faith in your own connection to self,

Your connection to your own divinity,

Your own expansiveness,

Your own wisdom.

That is the walk of faith.

And all you know is this,

And you step,

And this,

And you step.

And truthfully,

I believe that the fact that we don't follow our intuition and we don't live on that edge and we don't allow for the unknown is why we get bored.

When we get bored in life,

And I don't mean bored like there's nothing on Netflix.

That's weird conditioning,

Exhaustion,

Lack of hobbies,

Lack of interest in life.

That's not what I'm talking about.

I mean existential boredom.

The word existential is connected to meaning in life.

So when I say I have existential boredom,

I mean I don't even know why I'm here.

What are we even doing here?

There's no point.

This is existential boredom.

And a lot of us suffer from it,

Consciously or unconsciously.

And if we suffer from it unconsciously,

Then we do things to create drama.

We do crazy things.

We take risks because some part of us wants to live on the edge.

Some part of us wants to feel alive.

We want to have some kind of adrenaline.

And if all we can do is get it through our favorite Netflix program,

Or by poking our siblings or our partner or our parents,

Or spending too much money or,

I don't know,

Drinking too much or whatever,

It's almost like we're waiting for something so exciting to happen that it'll turn my boat around.

And so it seems funny after saying all that to say that living by our intuition is even more exciting.

Because it's connected to us.

It's connected to our source.

And when we do something that the world says doesn't make any sense,

And yet when you sit quietly in meditation,

You know this is your path,

And you step into it,

That's very exciting.

Even me rewriting my book.

The truth is,

I don't actually know what it is that's missing,

But I'm quite intrigued to find out.

I'm quite intrigued to see what I'll add or what I'm going to delete.

It's interesting.

And it's my creation.

It didn't exist before I started writing it.

That's what makes it exciting.

I did this.

I created this.

I remember reading a book when my kids were little called 1-2-3 Magic,

One of the all-time best books written on child rearing,

In my opinion.

They talked about how all a child wants is to know that they matter in the world.

And so it's like throwing a pebble into a pond.

They throw the pebble in the pond and they made a ripple.

They did something.

They created something that wasn't there until they threw the pebble into the pond.

And in the context of the book,

This is what they talk about,

Why kids will sort of push their parents,

But I want a cookie,

But I want a cookie,

But I want a cookie,

But I want a cookie.

And if you don't respond at all initially,

They'll just keep going because they threw a pebble in the pond and they're not seeing a ripple.

They're not being rotten.

They just want to know that they exist.

And it's a whole thing.

It's a very,

Very fascinating philosophy about children.

When we live by our intuition,

And we don't have to write books,

It's not that,

But when we live by our intuition and we maybe take up painting or we speak certain words because that just kept coming through us and we say it to our child or we say it to our partner,

We are making a ripple in the world that came from our soul.

Our soul is speaking.

Our soul is making choices.

And then those choices create our reality.

We've also been really trained that we're sort of victims of circumstance.

That oh,

Well,

You know,

There's this and this and this,

And I have all these obligations and I have all these responsibilities and people,

You know,

This,

And then you have to understand my upbringing.

And then there's this society,

This crazy country I live in.

And then there's this,

And then you have to realize the gender I was born or this,

You know,

Whatever.

And that we are just a victim of all of these situations.

But the reality is within wherever we are,

It's the choices we make that create our reality.

If we make choices based on what other people think,

Really those other people are creating our reality and then we still will feel like a stranger in our own life.

But if I make the choices from my soul,

My soul is creating my life.

My soul is making,

Saying to turn right,

Turn left,

Turn right.

And because nothing matters besides our soul,

That's why we're here.

Like there's no other reason to be here.

It's a soul's experience.

And as my soul creates my path,

It becomes very exciting.

It becomes very interesting.

And there are no existential struggles because you're walking your path and you are connected to the path.

This is intriguing to you.

And it could be anything.

If you imagined,

Let's say something in you said,

I'm going to run a marathon.

I've never run a marathon before,

But I'm going to run a marathon.

And all of a sudden your intuition pops and says,

Okay,

You know what?

There's a running group in town and they've got a beginner thing.

So I'm going to start there and I'm going to start drinking more water and I'm going to make sure I get to bed on time because I need to make sure that I'm recovering.

And I also,

I saw this thing online,

Some cool yoga stretches.

So can you feel how completely bought in I am to every single choice?

I want something and I'm going to do this and then I'm going to do this and then I do this and then I'm going to do this and this is going to be my journey.

There's like all this excitement inside about it.

That's the same as following our intuition.

We talk about the path of Tantra and it's all about bliss and it's about ecstasy,

But this is bliss and ecstasy.

Someone comes up to you,

How are you doing?

Amazing.

Amazing.

Really?

Oh my God,

You wouldn't believe it.

I'm doing this thing of blah,

Blah.

I'm already up to running.

I go like 2K every day.

Unheard of.

I didn't even think I could do anything and now I'm doing this and my goal is blah,

Blah,

Blah.

This is what life can be like,

But we have to be personally invested.

Like we have to be personally connected to the choices we're making or else how can we ever be excited about them?

We can't have that kind of soul excitement about choices made by other people.

I do want to talk a little bit about some of the things that cause us to struggle to hear that intuition because it's easy to say.

For me,

I have a rebel streak in me that I will actually rebel against my own intuition.

I will rebel against what is actually best for me and I don't mean best because someone else said it.

I mean I sit quietly and I see my path and I don't do it anyway.

I remember back when I first discovered Kundalini Yoga,

I discovered it by watching a DVD from Amazon.

I ordered every Amazon DVD there was and I did it every day religiously.

I was so thrilled.

It was the most exciting thing.

But I lived on the farm and I lived in the middle of nowhere and so I thought,

You know what,

I need to go and learn from real people,

From real community.

So I traveled to the States and did teacher training.

Well,

I really disliked the main teacher,

Like really disliked.

He was super preachy and he basically guilted us into if we didn't do two and a half hours of practice every day,

An hour of yoga and 90 minutes of chanting every day as the sun was coming up,

We really weren't serious about our spiritual path and should probably consider something else.

I had young children at the time.

We were dairy farmers.

There was no way I was going to scrape two and a half hours out of my life to do anything because half the time I was up in the middle of the night with cows calving or children or whatever,

Like real life,

Real life.

I'll tell you,

My entire being rose up against Kundalini Yoga.

I did the whole teacher training and I didn't do any practice at all.

I went from doing it every single day blissfully to a whole pile of screw you and the horse you rode in on.

That still lives within me.

It still lives within me,

This ridiculous thing and I do it all the time.

What's really weird is I'm sure I have issues with authority.

I'm sure this is not a fully processed thing within my being right now.

We all have stuff.

But I find it fascinating because when I do yoga,

When I do the Kundalini Yoga,

I feel amazing and I get a million ideas and a million insights.

When I sit and meditate,

Oh,

What it does inside of me,

The dials,

It cools down.

It's so good.

And yet there's like a little rebel inside of me that rebels because it's almost like we see,

And I'm going to say this in air quotes,

Our highest power,

Our higher guidance,

Listening to God,

Whatever you want to call it,

As some authority figure,

As something external to ourselves.

So when we hear the guidance,

If it's out of our patterning,

We might actually rebel against it instead of having faith in it.

And I really believe it has to do with having strange,

And I'm going to say masculine,

I don't mean male,

I mean masculine figures in our lives,

School teachers,

Government,

Parents,

Whoever,

Which is why,

Like even when I,

I've been teaching yoga teacher training since 2010.

I don't say you should do this practice.

I can say if you do it,

It'll be pretty epic and it'll change your life.

I'm really,

Really,

Really careful to never be that negative authority figure because I don't want anyone to rebel against me.

So this is a very interesting thing about listening to our intuition.

Like how many times have we sat down and said,

I'm sick of being overweight,

I'm sick of my body hurting,

All I need to do,

If I could just go for a walk every day for 15 minutes,

And then we don't do it.

Why don't we do it?

So if you also,

Like me,

Have this curious,

Rebellious thing against authority,

To also look at,

Maybe look at the authority question,

But also look at why do we see our guidance,

Our inner guidance as something controlling us?

Why do we not see it simply as an integral part of who we are?

This is not my highest wisdom.

This is my wisdom.

This is my truth.

This is what I desire in life.

I've asked a question,

And I came up with an answer.

Why do I see it as above me or controlling me?

So this is a very interesting part of the integration of this.

And again,

This integration of this tantric idea that it's not spirit up here and physical here,

It's one.

We are one.

Because even the whole God thing,

You know,

The word God,

The concept of God has really been bastardized through a lot of religious thought and teachings.

So suddenly that just becomes this father that I'm just rebelling against.

And it's like,

What if we just bring it all into self instead?

And this is just me walking my soul's path and trusting me.

The other thing we have to be really aware of that stands in the way of our intuition is our conditioning.

Originally when I went to university,

I studied math.

That was my first degree.

But then 10 years later,

In the meantime,

I had had my whole experience with the breast lumps where I wrote,

What if you could skip the cancer?

That's that whole story.

Meeting my first spiritual teacher and really my life shifting on a dime,

Not on a dime,

But shifting on a lot of dark nights of the soul.

And then people started coming to me for counseling.

And I didn't know anything about counseling.

I just knew what my experiences were.

And people like to come and talk,

I guess.

So I decided to go back to university to study psychology.

What was really interesting about studying psychology is two of the number one things they talked about in being human were operant conditioning and behavioral conditioning.

And what's interesting about these two ways of being conditioned is they work on our animal selves.

And ironically,

This was actually why I ended up leaving the program after a couple of years,

Because psychology was wanting to be considered a very serious science.

So they only actually considered what could be proven through experimenting on animals,

Which of course are operant conditioning,

Behavioral conditioning.

And I was much more interested in the spiritual aspect of the human psyche.

And so often when we're talking about this,

We tend to talk sort of up here,

We talk about,

Oh,

That we have existential things we can look at and all this,

Which is important.

But we also have to look at the animal parts of us that have been conditioned.

This is important.

I just left the program because it wasn't the whole program.

And it wasn't really that it just went into how to give drugs to people.

That just wasn't my interest.

So when you look at so behavioral conditioning means just like what it says that,

And I'm going to really make this,

It's also been 30 years since I was in university.

But behavioral conditioning is when you're basically trained to do something,

You're trained into a very particular behavior,

Maybe by the clan.

This is what everyone did.

This is what my parents always did.

This is how you cook.

This is how you raise children.

This is how you act in this community.

This is what you do.

You don't even know it's happened to you.

It's like one of the best things when you get a puppy is if you already have older dogs,

The puppy will be naturally trained by the older dogs through behavioral conditioning.

And if they do something wrong,

They're kind of corrected.

And if they do something right,

They're praised.

It's easy peasy.

We have that.

And so this is also a huge part of what we have to look at in the land of what may stand in the way of our intuition.

Because if we have a lot of behavioral conditioning that says,

Oh no,

But we don't do that.

I can't do that.

No one in my family has ever done that.

It's almost like the conditioning is so deep in that first chakra.

And the very fact that because of this conditioning,

I cannot access my intuition tells you that something's amuck in that conditioning.

That your conditioning doesn't breed freedom into you.

That it makes you stuck,

That it makes you unable to make choices.

That's a problem.

So then you have operant conditioning.

And again,

I'm going to tell you my memory of this,

Which is not necessarily a complete description of what operant conditioning is.

This is like Pavlov's dogs.

Lots of you guys obviously know this very,

Very famous experiment where they would have a dog and Pavlov would ring the bell and then the dogs would get food.

And then he would ring the bell and the dogs would get food.

And this would happen every day,

X number of times a day.

And of course it didn't take very long before all he had to do was ring the bell and the dogs would start to salivate knowing that the food was coming.

We have a lot of these kind of Pavlovian responses in life.

Something happens,

Bam,

We react.

You might even want to follow your intuition on something.

You share what you're planning on doing with maybe a member of your family or your partner or a friend and they kind of go,

Really?

Bam,

You feel like some 12 year old loser that just got kicked out of the cool kid crap.

And you're now feeling all,

I have no self confidence and I don't know,

And maybe I'm wrong and da da da da.

And don't get me wrong,

I listen to my friends all the time.

I have great respect for my friends' opinions.

But when we have a response,

It's like,

Let's say you've been studying intuition,

You've been listening,

You've been doing yoga,

You're meditating,

You're reading great books,

You're doing awesome things and you're going to head to a family reunion.

And most families,

There's something going to be loaded there.

Like most families have something,

Something's going on somewhere.

But you're ready,

Like you're on it and you've already decided that,

You know what,

I am going to respond,

Not react.

I'm going to listen,

I'm going to love people.

I am not the same person I was the last time.

I am not 10 years old.

I am 50 years old and I'm okay.

And we go and all is going well.

And then somebody says something.

And that Pavlovian response and bam,

You are 13 years old and you're being made fun of and you're being mocked.

We can't access our intuition anymore because we've been flipped into another timeline.

And that's just one example.

But it's just interesting just to note,

And again,

These are just things to journal about,

Like what in life triggers me,

Triggers a response that I no longer can listen to my intuition.

What kind of operant conditioning has happened in my life to control me?

And the last thing I want to mention is sometimes we have a hard time hearing our intuition because we're actually exhausted.

We're exhausted physically.

We're not sleeping.

We're exhausted emotionally because maybe we have a lot of people around us that are,

I don't know,

Emotional vampires,

Whatever you want to call it.

Full of drama,

Full of stuff,

And you're actually wrung out.

Or maybe you're just spiritually exhausted.

You're just finished.

You're not going to be able to listen to your intuition because you actually don't have the energy to do anything anyway.

You don't have the energy to make a new step in life or to do something new.

And this is where it's really,

Again,

It's so important to connect with self and say,

I need to rest.

Whatever that is,

I need to rest.

Maybe I need a rest from that person over there.

You know,

It's funny.

It happened this morning.

There's this one issue,

And I've been really chewing hard on it,

And it's connected with a person.

The last time I talked to them,

It was just a really upsetting conversation,

And I'd been really chewing about it and trying to decide whether I was going to throw the baby out with the bathwater on the whole thing.

I finally came to a realization,

A happy place,

All is well.

This morning I woke up to a message from her on WhatsApp.

And I looked at it,

And I could almost feel my blood starting to boil again.

And I made the mistake of engaging with her because she had sent me this message,

And I thought,

Well,

You can't just not message her back.

That's rude.

Even though if I was going to follow my intuition,

I probably wouldn't have messaged her back.

But that's rude.

You talk about behavioral conditioning.

So I messaged her back,

And the ping pong match began until I stopped responding.

It's kind of one of those give an inch,

Take a mile situations.

Luckily I got to go to the dog park with Storm,

And I got to kind of get some sunshine on my face and say,

You don't have to engage,

Katrina.

You can just let it go.

Like come back to your peaceful place.

You don't have to do this.

But sometimes we really need to take a break from things so that we can actually find that well-rested space physically,

Emotionally,

Spiritually,

Mentally.

We cannot access our intuition.

If we are tired,

We are going to default to our behavioral conditioning,

Our operant conditioning.

We're going to default to that animal self,

And it has been conditioned by society,

By school,

By family,

By friends,

By everything,

By our partners.

So just really interesting to almost love ourselves enough to become well-rested.

And then you're going to wake up one day,

And all of a sudden you're going to ask a question and some cool answer will come,

And you'll go,

That'd be interesting.

Even if I'm afraid,

Even if I feel kind of like,

That's exciting.

So there are things like that that we really need to actually feel good,

To feel good about ourselves,

To trust ourselves,

And to even know that,

Yeah,

That is my truth.

I need to have the energy to be able to discern,

This is my truth,

And these are just all the voices in my head.

This is my truth,

But I need to be strong enough to stand in that place,

And then it's like the path just appears before us,

And life becomes really,

Really,

Really interesting.

It becomes our life,

And again in the land of a tantric path,

It becomes blissful,

It becomes exciting.

Just can't even believe it,

Something happens,

And you're like,

I can't even believe this is happening.

This is crazy.

This is super exciting.

How is it good things happen,

And then we wake up and feel terrified of what is actually our truth?

I recently got a job offer,

Super happy,

And then wake up terrified.

So the other question is,

Is it fear,

Or is it excitement?

Because I believe that because we seldom actually listen to our intuition,

We seldom actually live this way.

We have forgotten what excitement feels like.

We've forgotten what it is to stand at the top of a mountain with skis strapped to your feet and be excited,

And to ski down the mountain.

Because when you are standing at the top of a black diamond hill,

You've got to go down the hill,

That excitement hones your senses.

It makes you focus,

Like you're no longer like,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

What's for lunch?

Oh look,

It's a pretty bunny.

It's like,

Wow,

I'm freaking out here,

I'm starting to shake inside.

I've got to be serious,

And it causes our mind to focus,

And we ski down the mountain.

I think when new opportunities arise,

Because I do have that too,

When something new comes,

And all of a sudden I'm like,

I don't know,

I don't know,

I don't know,

I don't know,

I don't know.

But it is right.

It's just excitement,

And it's almost asking us to bring ourselves to not a new level of who we are,

But almost a new focus of who we are.

You actually do have it.

You got the job offer,

You have the skills,

You have the desire,

But maybe you've never actually had to apply yourself in this way,

With this kind of intensity before.

And that is nerve-wracking,

Because it's asking us to develop skills inside of us that we already have,

But we have to put them together in a new way.

But we are not accustomed to that excitement,

And so we call it fear.

That's my biggest experience with that,

Is that I am being called to a higher version of myself,

Which is a true version of myself.

But I'm being called to it,

And it always works out.

We just have to do it.

Living according to your intuition and living according to your truth is very exciting.

It excites us.

It's the same thing as if anybody here is a canoer or a kayaker,

And you're going along and you're going along,

And all of a sudden,

There's rapids ahead.

A part of you is like,

Excellent,

And another part of you is like,

Crap.

There's enough excitement for you to respect the river.

You're not floating easy.

Now I have to gird my loins and figure this out,

And I've got to actually navigate full focus.

And what's amazing about that is this is yogic dharana.

This is focus.

This is concentration.

This is a path of yoga.

Why is it part of yoga?

Because it brings us to bliss.

There is something about having to focus 100%.

It is such a thrill.

So thank you so much for being here,

And I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

Always illuminating Katrina, thankyou for your generous 💓 heart

This was an extremely interesting talk! I rely heavily on my intuition but there are times of doubt. it comes down to me trusting me. Thank you for putting this out there. ❤️

I feel like I have gotten to the end of a great book or Netflix series, and I am sad that it is over but grateful to have had the experience.

Another beautiful series!°•♡~
Thank you so kindly Katrina!°•
✨️🫶🏽 ✨️°• 🪷°•♡°•☆

Loved this series Katrina, I agree Excitement & Fear are so similar, often I tell myself “new feeling new feeling” so I don’t let my mind take me down the fear path.. so much unravelling of our conditioning & so blessed to be aware of it 🌸