Turning Social Anxiety And Sensitivity Into Your Superpower

This is one of the deepest sessions I've ever run because social anxiety is two words that really haunted my life. You will hear some vulnerable stories from me and you will learn why I am who I am today. I shared deeply, and I said it to hopefully help you all to move past your challenges.

I know that this session will help if you really listen to it. Also, write to me if you've ever faced social anxiety, seriously, I know I wished I had someone to talk to, so here I am. I will help.

Transcript

Before I do that,

Put in the chat why you came to this session.

Tell me something about your experience with social anxiety or high sensitivity.

Because that's the title of this thing,

Right?

And you were like,

Oh,

Let me,

Let me come,

Let me spend my time here.

Tell me about how that shows up for you.

Where does social anxiety come up in your life?

Is it certain situations?

Yeah,

Tell me more about it.

Nice,

You're about to take a nap,

But you're reading your phone and saw this.

Cool.

Easily overwhelmed,

But wanting to feel connected.

Makes me snap at people and be negative.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for being so open about it.

So I'll tell you a little story before we begin.

You know,

Like,

If you've clicked here,

There's a reason why you're here,

Right?

And on my side,

There's a reason why I made this event.

Because this is something I've experienced a lot.

And I call this event turn social anxiety and high sensitivity into a superpower.

Because that's what I've somehow been able to do.

For most of my life,

It was my challenge.

It was the biggest challenge ever.

And,

And there was a lot of shame around it.

Can you guys relate to the shame part?

Do you feel like shame comes up after you have a situation where,

Um,

You know,

Like your energy is all over the place and you're like,

Pfft,

This thing again,

When am I going to get over this?

You beat yourself up or you analyze the situation or something like that,

Right?

Yeah,

There's some yeses in there.

Yeah,

For,

For being sensitive.

Yeah.

Why am I like this?

Thanks for sharing guys.

And this is how I want this session to go for us to be really here and open.

You know,

You can put things in the chat.

No one's going to judge you here.

No one's going to shame you here.

Everyone's here and in it together.

And at the very least I'm here to be with you and I get you.

I understand.

So put in the chat,

Whatever you want to put in the chat.

If there's something that you haven't shared with anyone,

This could be a chance to free that and release that.

And I'll tell you why I say that because this whole thing,

I kept a little like,

I kept it like a shameful secret almost.

I pretended like,

Oh,

Everything's okay.

And just kept it to myself.

Didn't talk to anyone.

I was just wondering what's wrong with me.

Of course,

You know,

Someone put,

Why am I like this?

Wondering what was wrong with me for my whole life.

It started from when I was very young,

As far as I can remember,

Like three years old,

Four years old.

I remember this one situation when it's clear as day.

We were at family members,

Like family friend,

That kind of thing.

Like parents,

Friends,

You know,

Friend group,

Let's call it.

And then it's daytime and I get to the place and obviously,

I didn't want to be there because of the anxiety.

I found it very hard to mix with people and it very hard.

And people knew that about me,

Right?

Family.

Anyway,

We get there.

I was really young.

I don't even know how young,

But get to this place and the person that,

I think it was an uncle,

He says,

Yeah,

All the other kids are upstairs.

Go upstairs,

Go and play.

And then there's this like feeling of,

Hmm,

I want to do that.

Just it's a physical feeling as well,

Right?

It's not even conscious thoughts sometimes.

So anyway,

I go upstairs and I see all these kids playing and I'm there,

Just in the corner of the room,

Like not able to just jump right in there.

And then they're all looking at me.

They're like,

Come,

Come,

Come,

Come.

You know,

Like how cute kids are.

They're like,

Hey,

Come and play with us.

And I'm just,

I just don't want to.

There's just something holding me back.

I didn't know what.

So anyway,

Then I remember one of the grownups,

Let's call it,

Saying,

Hey,

Go and mix.

Why aren't you playing?

Why aren't you playing?

Everyone else is playing,

Raj.

Why aren't you playing?

What's wrong?

And I'm just like,

Hmm,

I don't know.

I don't know.

I'm just closed off.

I literally don't know.

Right.

And I think this is maybe something you guys can relate to as adults.

Feels like I literally don't know why.

It's just there's resistance.

It's just happening.

Can't control it.

Can you guys relate to that?

Feeling like you just can't control you out of control.

And that scares you.

Put a yes or something like that in the chat.

Yeah.

So anyway,

Then I remember someone coming up to me saying,

What's wrong with you?

What's wrong with you?

Why aren't you mixing?

What's wrong?

Everyone else is.

Why aren't you?

And I repeatedly heard that right over my childhood and it cemented in like,

What's wrong with you?

What's wrong with me?

Oh,

Something's wrong with me.

Okay,

Something's wrong with me.

Something's wrong with me.

Repeating,

Repeating.

You don't mix.

You're wrong.

Around other humans,

This is bad.

This is scary.

Something's wrong.

That's what happens.

This is how we develop.

So it just carried on for most of my life,

Actually,

When I was an adult,

When I'd just be with people,

I'd feel this thing of like,

I'm going to be humiliated or I'm going to be left out.

I'm going to be shamed.

And the whole body would be in fight or flight,

Worried about it before,

Getting prepared,

You know,

Trying to look for ways to avoid the danger.

Can you guys relate to that one?

Looking for ways in your head to make this easier or to try to make this easier.

Yeah.

I would even Google everything as an adult.

I would Google like if we're going somewhere and there's plans,

I would Google the place to try and observe what it would be like,

Like a restaurant.

Oh,

What would it be like?

Let me look at the Google images.

That's how crazy it got.

Just to wonder,

Like,

What would the social situation look like?

And I'd freak out.

Yeah,

You guys can relate.

See,

This is the thing.

I thought it was just me for most of my life.

Maybe you guys can relate to that one as well.

So I didn't really notice anyone else feeling this way.

Don't think I did.

And then that made it even worse.

More shame,

More isolation,

More there's something wrong.

So then I noticed that my body would be in this sensitive mode,

Fight or flight,

Quite a lot.

So that's what I call the high sensitivity in the topic today.

I noticed I was really sensitive to situations,

People,

Thoughts,

Even,

And everyone sharing in the chat.

I acknowledge you for your honesty,

For playing and sharing and all these things that you got to put in the chat.

I'm reading it all right now.

Someone said your mom and others kept trying to push you.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Exactly.

I can relate to that.

Yeah.

So as I got into this,

You know,

Let's fast forward a little bit to where I am today.

I went on this journey of firstly trying to channel that energy.

So much energy,

Right?

When there's fight or flight and worry about stuff,

Anxiety,

Body is reacting.

The body's on in flames,

You know,

For me anyway.

I don't know about you guys.

You tell me.

So I got into fitness and all of the fitness stuff like weightlifting,

Running,

Boxing.

It was great.

It helped me slow down in the moment anyway.

It was like alleviating the tension.

Maybe you guys can relate because that one's probably really common.

Hey,

I feel tense.

Let me go and run.

Let me go and exercise.

Let me do this.

Great.

Problem solved for the moment.

That's what I that was my conclusion.

I was like,

It only only helps in the moment.

It's like relief.

It's like a relief rather than a long term transformation.

So I started looking deeper.

I was like,

No,

I'm not.

I refuse.

I can't live my life like this anymore.

I can't.

Actually,

I actually couldn't.

There was some debilitating things like I found it challenging to do certain things at work.

I was very highly functional,

Though.

I got really good jobs.

I was working in some great corporate environments,

Great jobs like managerial jobs,

All these things.

But there was this there was this like shameful worry in my head like,

Oh,

My God,

Like one day it's going to happen again.

I'm going to be put into this situation.

So just like this,

This cloud following me.

I can't do this.

So looking for other things,

Got into yoga.

Someone mentioned yoga.

And by the way,

Guys,

I'm telling you all of this.

So you can listen and listen for yourself.

Right.

Don't just listen to me telling this stuff about me.

I'm telling it to show the human potential.

Right.

So I want you to really listen like that.

It's not the RAD show.

It's to see what comes up for you,

What insights come up.

What might you try?

What might be useful?

What clicks?

So,

So got into yoga,

Just like someone said.

And it was a thing that changed everything,

If I'm honest,

Changed everything.

I'd never moved my body like that.

I'd never sat on the floor in Shavasana and felt so blissed out.

You know,

It was like I found something that could really help me channel the energy,

Like channel it in a healthy way.

Instead of like I used to run and exercise and it was like punishing myself,

You know,

Hey,

Let's go run.

I'm feeling this energy.

Let's go run.

I'm feeling this.

Let's go run to just escape literally like a runaway.

And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that,

By the way,

It's helpful,

Right?

It's great to have a healthy body,

Healthy heart is,

It's all,

It's all useful.

I'm still doing that stuff,

But I'm doing it in a different way now anyway.

So anyway,

Getting into yoga and the path of meditation,

Breath practices,

All of that stuff,

I opened up a can of worms.

I really got into it.

I started practicing every day,

Trying different things like a mad scientist for hours as well.

I'll just do things for hours.

I'd spend all my time doing that.

Started off slow,

Of course,

Like I was just trying things and maybe that's where you guys are.

You're just trying things out,

Seeing what's helpful.

I wanted to really understand this,

Right?

I'm like a scientist sometimes.

I like to really understand stuff.

So I went down the whole path that Patanjali laid out in the yoga sutras.

And I was like,

I'm going to,

I'm going to really get this and I'm really going to get to that place that he's talking about.

So a lot of experiments,

A lot of trying things that mixed with reading a lot of books about the mind,

Psychology,

And then reading more books about the body and then trying things with the body,

Foods,

Trying things with foods.

All of these things started opening up,

Right?

And things started clicking.

So getting myself into these states of peace and bliss.

Maybe some of you guys have experienced some of that.

But again,

It was like,

Hmm,

In the moment,

It feels good.

Can you guys relate to that a little bit?

Like you do something in the moment and it feels good.

Maybe it's meditation.

You have a great meditation session in the morning and then you go into your day and this,

The same stuff comes up.

It's like this cycle,

Not getting out of the cycle.

Nothing's really changing.

Yeah.

And again,

I'm not,

I'm really not saying this to put anyone down or to even put past me down.

I was doing a good job.

I was,

It was good efforts.

I was trying things.

I was learning things,

Right?

But there was always this fear that,

You know,

Or not even fears,

Like chase.

It was a chase for,

For escapism.

It was like,

I'll do this yoga.

I'll fill an escape for 10 minutes in meditation.

I was frantically looking for answers,

Frantic,

Frantically looking everywhere.

So I was operating out of fear.

The mind was operating everything.

Things started to change.

And again,

Really listen for yourself.

When I say this,

Things started to change when I really went in deep and I looked at my relationship with myself,

That person I described at the beginning,

The one that had to change and was disapproved of and really took that as a truth.

Hey,

Something's wrong with you,

Raj.

Hey,

There's,

You got to change.

Hey,

You don't fit in.

Hey,

This.

I had to look deep into where is that program?

Where does that live inside me?

Because it's obviously coming up.

Let me go to that thing instead of playing at the surface level.

So it's when I started looking and finding that thing and really going so deep that it allowed me to explore it.

And I say that because the mind is clever,

Right?

I kept finding every time I try and explore these things like,

Okay,

I feel hurt or younger version of me was hurt,

It will create more and more layers to stop me from going there.

I don't know if you guys can relate to that one.

Put something in the chat like resistance.

Let's just say there's a lot of resistance,

Not resistance.

It didn't feel nice.

You know,

It didn't feel nice.

And then it sent me on more roller coasters.

And I wrote about this in my book.

I'm writing a book right now.

And I wrote that this bodyguard takes us over and it's trying to protect us from further pain,

From further pain that we used to feel that it believes might occur.

So it will do anything to stay in control,

To stay in that place where you don't get hurt again,

Ever again.

And what it does is it hides away.

It puts layers around that part of us that we pushed away,

That true us,

The one that was just okay.

It was untouched.

That part of us is in there.

That is untouched by all of this stuff I just mentioned,

Untouched by those memories,

Untouched by what we think we are.

That part's there,

But it's just covered in this bodyguard's protection saying,

Hey,

It wasn't okay to be like this.

You remember that?

It wasn't okay to be like,

That's why I'm putting it away.

I'm hiding it away so you don't be like that again,

Because it gets you hurt.

You get what I'm saying?

So I realize this part is changing that whole relationship with social anxiety or this energy that feels tense.

And to turn it into a superpower,

I've realized I have to go inside and go in,

Go and find that thing that is in there really.

So I want to pause for a moment,

Guys.

I've been speaking for a while and I told you to listen for yourself.

What insights are you having or any questions or something you want to explore right now?

Put something in the chat.

If you really heard me,

If you really heard yourself,

If you really sensed,

Then I'm sure something's moving through you.

So put in the chat whilst coming through insights,

Questions,

Ponderings,

Self-reflection.

Whatever feels like it wants to be said.

Someone said resistance is the worst.

Yes,

We're going to talk about that soon.

Because it's a resistance of ourselves.

How crazy is that?

How crazy is that?

It's a resistance of ourselves that's occurring.

So you said as a child,

You're told you're not normal because you're too creative.

There you go.

There we go.

That's the part I'm talking about where I say turning it into a superpower.

You being creative,

You being sensitive.

That's amazing.

That's gifted.

I call that stuff gifted now.

So all of you guys here,

What if,

What if all these things you've shared,

These resistances,

These anxieties,

Sensitivity,

What if that was a gift rather than a curse?

What if?

And that could be a question.

You can answer that in the chat.

What if it was a gift rather than a curse?

How would that change anything for you?

I'm telling you straight up,

It is a gift.

I'm like in absolute unwavering knowing that it's a gift,

Not just for me,

For everyone here.

So receive that,

Feel that.

What if it's a gift?

All this stuff,

All the resistance,

All the tension,

All of this stuff that doesn't feel nice.

What if that's the gift?

Or this is what I discovered.

What if it's leading you towards something?

What if it's leading you?

What if it's always,

Always,

Always been happening because there's something that's different about you,

Something unique that wants to come out,

That wants to be expressed,

Not being normal.

You know,

I call that,

You know,

The word ordinary.

There's the word ordinary and then there's a word called extraordinary.

Extraordinary.

What if that was true?

Yeah,

Thanks for sharing that you have a lot of resistance and maybe you can't see or fully open yourselves up to what I'm saying right now.

I get it.

I probably wouldn't have some,

I definitely get it.

I probably would have been like,

You're crazy.

Who's this guy speaking?

Who is this guy I'm watching?

No,

He doesn't get it.

He doesn't get how hard this is.

No,

I really do get it.

Sensitivity is a superpower.

I'll tell you why.

Because you're probably very intuitive like me or you just haven't discovered or crafted or honed into that ability yet,

But it's probably there.

If you're in a room and there's anxiety and there's sensing of a lot of energies and people,

There's,

That's an ability.

The only challenge that comes in is when the mind is associating this thing with fear,

Associating the fear responses,

Saying when this happens,

This is bad.

When you're being this way,

You are bad.

So there's three things I want you to,

I want to share with you guys today that I think might be helpful.

Let's see.

I don't know where three came from.

I make these things up on the spot.

Um,

I think it's going to be three and we're going to do little exercises to go through them.

How does that sound?

That sound fun?

Cool.

So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to do a meditation practice and this is to slow down.

If you come to my sessions before,

I talk a lot about slowing down is to really slow down the body and to really connect back into our heart.

That's what we're going to do in a moment.

All you have to do when we start is just listen to my voice and listen to it knowing that I'm,

I'm,

I really get it.

I really understand.

I haven't got a script here.

There's nothing in front of me.

It's coming straight from the heart.

So really allow yourself to receive this.

So close your eyes when you're ready and just observe your breath.

Not trying to control it.

No need to control the breath.

Just notice.

How does it move?

And then notice your body and see if you can find some places in your body where it feels a little tense and release them.

Your shoulders,

Let them loosen up a little bit.

Your jaw,

Relax your jaw.

Let your tongue relax.

Let your forehead go wide and even let your eyes rest and find a little smile inside of you.

A little smile,

A little playfulness that's in you.

You've got it.

And bring your awareness to your left foot and your right foot,

Left leg and right leg,

Stomach and the chest.

Stay connected to the chest where there's your heart.

And imagine with each breath the chest was opening a little bit and there was space,

Little more space in your heart.

Find that inner smile once again.

Remember when you were a kid and you had that childlike smile.

Can you visualize yourself as that smiling,

Playful and innocent child,

So pure.

And now visualize that child being hurt or put down and allow yourself to feel that whilst knowing that they're innocent.

And just watch your breath,

Just observe thoughts,

The emotions and the physical sensations.

Watch your stomach filling with air and releasing air.

Feel your body letting go and notice something is being let go into the ground.

With each breath just observe,

Let go of control and let go of everything.

Just keep watching the breath and slowly open your eyes.

Just stay here in observation.

Keep watching the breath and see what is appearing in your thoughts.

And take a deep breath in through your nose and then breathe out through the mouth.

Two more times.

Breathe in,

One more time.

Breathe in and out.

Okay,

Let me know in the chat what happened for you there,

What happened in that experience.

What came up or what feels different now the practice is over compared to when you started.

Yeah,

I'm sure you went into a deep state.

Yeah,

And if everyone else is feeling like that or anyone else is feeling like that,

Yeah,

Just be with that.

Be that.

And you don't even have to put something in the chat if you don't want.

You can even message me after if there's something that came up that you want to talk about.

I get that a lot actually.

I'll guide a meditation and then people are having all sorts of experiences and sometimes they don't know what happened and they know something feels different and they'll just message me and ask me.

So you can do that.

I'll be happy to support.

Calm down and thoughts were pulling me back in.

Yeah,

This is the first thing.

You know I said there's three things.

This is the first thing.

The first thing is slowing down,

Having an ability,

A practice of slowing down.

And yeah,

You can meditate,

Right?

You can meditate.

But it's being able to do that when you're out of meditation as well.

When you're in situations and things are coming up,

Being able to come into your heart,

Home,

Coming home.

I'm not saying it's easy,

Right?

Obviously there's loads of situations which are so challenging,

Especially when you're highly sensitive and social situations like we're talking about today.

Practice of,

Hmm,

What's in here?

That's my first invitation for you to see if you can bring that off the mat,

As they say.

Sometimes I'll just be in conversation with someone and I'll just,

I'll pause and I'll really just bring my awareness to my heart and listen to that instead of this.

Head,

Body and mind are the bodyguards.

They're on a,

They're working as a team.

These days they call it psychosomatic.

Call it psychosomatic.

Maybe some of you guys have done some psychosomatic work.

They're working as a team.

They're creating all of this tension and like I told you in my story,

It was all of the stuff,

Mind and body.

So much tension.

They're the program.

They are the program.

It's based off survival things from our ancestors,

The whispers of our ancestors.

Hey,

You should do this.

Hey,

You should be this way.

Mixed with even before that,

You know,

The human,

The human physical form is also well built as a machine to stay safe,

Right?

If there was a lion here,

Yeah,

I'll be,

I'm ready to run away.

I'm probably not going to fight it,

But I'm ready to do whatever,

You know,

My adrenaline will spike.

I need it at that point.

So we need this system.

We need these systems when they become like the machine has taken over.

Then that's where I was in a problem,

A mess,

Right?

The way to override the machine.

Imagine you had a robot and you can go into the back of the robot and there's this little like switch you would press and you pull up,

You open its back.

Let's say,

Visualize this,

You open up its back and there's a button which can help override it from going crazy.

That button is in the heart,

It's in our hearts.

So what I tend to focus on is reconnecting to that original self.

I think in Japan,

They call it the original face in Buddhism,

The original face.

If I focus on connecting to that original self,

Rather than the imposter,

The one that had to change because someone said something about me,

I don't need to focus on that.

I can understand that.

I can get it.

I want to always come back to the thing that isn't who I think I am.

I think I have social anxiety.

I think I have problems.

I have this.

If I keep,

When I kept focusing on that,

I kept getting more of that,

Right?

If I kept looking at that surface level,

This is the problem.

This is this.

Let me work at the surface level.

I stayed at that level.

I stayed in the program of the robot.

So what I'm inviting you guys to,

So number one was slowing ourselves down.

Number two is the heart.

Coming back to that original self.

You can call it the soul as well.

The heart,

The soul,

The soul that lives there,

The original,

Having a relationship with it.

This is the work that I did.

This is a lot that I wrote about in my book,

Actually,

Changing the relationship that I had with myself.

Unearthing this original me,

The childlike fun,

You know?

And by the way,

Guys,

I want to make this clear to you that it's,

It's not disappeared.

There'll still be times where you laugh and you have fun and you know,

Right?

There's still these times.

And let me ask you in the chat,

Give me some example of times where you're just laughing and you feel like you're really in your spirit.

You're in good spirits as they say.

Give me some examples of what takes you there.

Laughing and having fun,

You're joking around,

You're,

You're just whatever,

Right?

You're,

You're in your,

Your place of freedom.

What takes you there?

That's a question for you in the chat.

Walking your dog.

Nice.

There you go.

Playfulness.

So there's no such thing as there's a permanent problem.

Ellie laughs.

There you go.

There is no social anxiety.

There is no problems at that point.

So how can it be,

How can it actually be a permanent thing?

There's another thing that really helped me.

Looking at the impermanent nature of life.

Because the mind is attached.

The mind uses time and things that have occurred and turns it into a fixed thing.

So much so that I couldn't sleep at night.

I'd be worried about things that are weeks in advance.

I'd be worried about things that tomorrow I'm not in the frame of presence.

Because the mind doesn't live there.

So look,

Ellie laughs.

Having your solitude.

All of that's presence focused.

You're there.

Let me go into the chat.

And I'm just going to quickly look at what you guys have written.

And then I'm going to tell you about how to turn this into a superpower.

I'm going to tell you more about this.

This is a whole,

This is a whole path.

All of this has to happen.

I call it the pillars.

I made these pillars up myself,

Right?

Because I was like,

Wait,

What has worked?

What do I think is really useful for all humans?

So I made these pillars.

I'll tell you some of them.

And if you want to know all of the pillars,

Then just drop me a message or go to my website.

And I'll send you a nice little graphical representation of it.

Like seeing it in that way would be super useful.

So if anyone wants that,

Let me know and I'll send it to you.

We've already talked about slowing down the body.

We've talked about the heart,

Playfulness.

Talked about that a little bit.

That's also connected to the heart,

The spirit,

The spirit in you,

Being with the spirit in you.

That's another one of the pillars.

And I'll tell you the last one in a moment.

Let me go into the chat.

Thank you so much for that doorway.

I went on my own tangent for a bit.

Hold on,

Let me have a look.

Remember that one?

Ah,

So I see your experience.

You mentioned like you didn't want to go to that party.

You know,

Now you do because there's love.

You see,

Love dissolves things.

Why?

I'll tell you why.

This is what I discovered.

I didn't feel love actually for my whole life.

I didn't know what it was.

I don't even think I've even felt my heart apart from all of those workouts that I told you about.

Cardiovascular versions of feeling my heart.

I didn't feel connection or love is like stone for most of my life.

Closed,

Protective.

Love,

It does something because it's a connection machine.

I wrote,

This is what I wrote in my book.

I wrote something like,

Let me see if I can find it real quick.

I wrote about love being the glue.

I can't find it,

But anyway.

So I basically wrote that when it rains and there's rain falling onto a plant,

How does it know that,

Hey,

It's safe for me to allow it to rain?

It's safe for me to allow this rain into me and be replenished by it.

How does it,

What's the technology that allows that mechanism to occur for the plants to receive the rain?

What is it?

What does a scientist say?

I don't know if there's any scientists in the house.

They probably have something and they will say,

Yes,

A biological process,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

I think it's love.

It's the thing that connects things together.

Anything.

Love allows there to be a connection,

Which is turning singular and another singular into togetherness.

So it was really helpful for me to go down this heart path because when there is less of me,

There's less of the self.

When there's less of the self,

What is,

What is self-esteem now?

What is this self-protection that I need?

If there's people in front of me and I'm socially anxious,

If I'm really with them,

I'm looking at them saying,

Oh,

This is a human being.

This human being wakes up and is probably kind of groggy and goes to the bathroom and,

You know,

Probably get sad sometimes,

Happy sometimes.

Let me,

Let me look at them in the eyes.

Whoa,

It's a human being.

That's what really helped me with the social anxiety as well.

Dissolving any meaning of how I'm different to others by recognizing the unity of us as a whole.

Really going into that process and that,

That,

That pathway.

I did a lot of work around this.

Connecting to people.

Love.

So your comment,

That's what it brought up for me when you said you're going to the party.

There you go.

Because there's,

There's just you being present and being loving.

So there's a way more willingness to connect with others.

That's what I found.

Yeah,

Everyone needs,

Everyone needs some of that.

Cool.

I'm going to go to the other comments now.

Let me know if that brought up anything for everyone.

Something in the chat.

Did that make you feel warm inside or did it make you feel resistant?

Because it can do that as well,

Right?

The mind gets resistant when there's opportunities for new development.

It wants to stay in the program a lot of the time.

So look out for those signals as well when you feel resistant.

Because I think there's an opportunity.

Does EMDR therapy for trauma really work?

I'm not a,

I don't do that.

So I'm probably not best to answer.

I have said in previous talks in the past that I'm not too sure about certain types of therapies,

Especially if it's too much psychoanalytical.

If it's like the mind,

If it's like the mind is trying to use the mind,

If we're trying to use the mind with the mind,

I found that just gets me into more entanglement.

Because,

Okay,

Good.

Intellectually,

This makes a lot of sense.

Oh,

Cool.

Like this,

There's an archetype.

There's this and that.

I want to be happy and free and peaceful.

I don't need to understand and have an intellectual understanding.

I want to be happy and free.

Can this therapist help me with that?

If you hire a therapist,

Can you help me be free,

Happy,

Creative,

Loving,

Have more fun in my life?

Can you help me express myself?

Are you happy?

You know,

These are all the questions.

But therapy can also be useful.

So I'm not trying to put it down.

I'm just saying,

Look at how you're using it and what it's useful for.

And then,

Yeah,

Whatever you need,

Right?

Whatever your situation is.

It's different for everyone.

Cool.

What else?

I'm trying to live outwards all the time.

Oh,

I think I've covered that already.

Okay,

Cool.

How do you focus on living in the moment?

Thanks.

Good question.

So here's the other part of what I was going to share.

And I think that will kind of help with your question.

All of these challenges that I went through now,

And I'm not saying this is how it will be for you,

But this is what I realized.

Now I realized that that all had to happen because it was trying to awaken me towards something in life.

It was trying to show me through pain.

It was trying to show me that,

Hey,

There's a lot of potential in you that you haven't explored yet.

The pain and suffering only came when I was not living into my potential,

When I wasn't expressing myself,

When I wasn't taking actions that I wanted to take.

That's when it hurt even more.

So the other part of this,

I think is really useful.

I said using this as a superpower.

Yeah,

You have all this energy.

What if we channel that towards something?

That's what I started doing.

Before it was like,

Let me go and run and let me go and do all these workouts.

Let me channel it all into that.

Okay,

Great.

I got an amazing body.

I got great fitness results.

So good.

I was channeling it towards something,

Right?

And there's other times where I've channeled this high energy towards other things.

And I've realized the more I'm doing this,

Okay,

All of this tension,

Anxiety,

Whatever,

Whatever.

If I can become present,

It's like I get to contain it and put it into a jar and say,

Cool,

Yeah,

This is fire now.

This is the source of creation.

I get to use this instead of it being this whole problem or this is a mess.

This is bad.

If I can slow down,

Then I really realized,

And it's crazy because I wouldn't have seen this before.

I really realized that there's a lot of potential in all of those reactions that I was having and fight or flight responses.

Imagine how much energy goes into that.

It's like having a nuclear reactor.

Before it'd be like the nuclear reactor would just blow up all day long.

But what if I figure out how do I use that nuclear reactor?

Isn't that a great source of energy?

What if I could use that?

That's what I want to direct you towards next is this is a superpower because it's probably leaning you or pushing you towards something,

Towards a life with greater potential.

So think about that.

What is it that you want in life?

What would a great life look like?

For me,

It turned out I was meant to do these things I'm doing now.

I was meant to go through all of that so I could figure stuff out and then show others how to figure it out for themselves as well and be here speaking and write a book.

I never thought I'd write a book,

But look now I'm funneling.

I'm pushing that energy somewhere.

It's like I can focus it.

It's like this sword,

Right?

I showed this to one of my clients once.

I was like,

This sword can either hurt.

It's not very sharp,

So don't worry.

Can either hurt me,

Either make a mess.

I could cut all of this stuff in the room up if it's all wild and crazy,

Right?

But if it's not,

I become the sword wielder.

So imagine all your high energy,

Your challenges that you're going,

All these responses,

All the fight or flight.

What if that could be helpful?

And maybe it's not like,

Maybe you don't see it like that today.

Maybe you're like,

Nah,

Forget about that.

It could be that underneath all of it.

Maybe you want to write a book.

Maybe there's something you want to explore.

Maybe that true you inside wants to express or something there,

Maybe.

That's what I mean by turning it into a superpower.

But that requires all of the other things I said as well,

Right?

It requires presencing,

Slowing down,

Using the body to slow down.

It requires going into the heart,

Feeling what's in there.

Yeah,

There's a lot of pain.

There's a lot of pain.

I had a lot of pain.

So seeing all this stuff,

I had grief over myself,

Grief over the past.

There's a little bit of a process I had to go through.

But then the more I slow it down,

The more there's a potential there,

Love.

So I've said a lot today,

Guys,

And you can probably see how close this is to me.

The number one actually thing that I feared the most was two words,

Social anxiety.

So let me know in the chat.

Let me know what you got from today.

If you've been here today,

There's a hundred of you here.

Whoa,

Okay,

Cool.

There's a hundred people here.

What did you get from today,

Guys?

What's your takeaway?

What might be,

What might you be seeing differently now?

What might you want to explore?

And any questions,

Put them in the chat before we finish.

Thanks for your attention.

Discovering,

Wait,

Let me see.

What's that?

Discovering who I was before all the trauma.

Who am I truly?

Ah,

Good question.

I don't know if there's an answer.

Dude,

Actually,

That's a great homework.

That's a good homework to try.

I'll try and answer that question.

Try.

Keep trying until you run out of things to say.

Going deeper and deeper.

I don't know if there is an answer to it.

Who is I?

What does I even mean?

The more I've dropped I,

The more it's been really useful for me.

Not pressuring,

Not pressurizing myself from getting over it.

Letting myself accept.

Yeah,

Acceptance is great.

Not fighting too much.

When I was fighting myself so much,

And it comes up still sometimes,

I notice the program and I'm like,

Ah,

Am I fighting myself?

You know,

Someone says something,

Someone will say something to you or to me in the world,

And then we actually think that it's that person that has done something to us.

When really,

There's an inner war.

It's just something's been stirred up by what someone said.

There's an inner war.

Otherwise,

Why would we care,

Right?

If you said to me,

Hey Raj,

You're an alien,

Or I don't know,

Whatever you say,

Hey Raj,

You're not very good looking.

Hey Raj,

You're mean.

Hey Raj,

This.

It's only if I believe it,

It will hurt.

Of course,

The auto response might come up and I might feel some stuff.

Yeah,

Of course,

But it's not sinking in and making a mess in there like it used to.

Why do things look different all the time?

Hmm,

What do you mean by that?

I don't know how to answer that one.

Everything's changing constantly.

Maybe that's a way to answer it.

A lot of things are changing.

There's one thing that doesn't change,

Which is what's in there.

Even if your face,

Your physical body changes,

There's one thing that's always there.

Even when you sleep,

There's always this awareness,

Or some people might call it consciousness,

Or spirit,

Or whatever you want to call it.

There's something that's always there.

Doesn't look,

Doesn't have a face even.

Doesn't look like anything.

And that's kind of what I've been inviting you guys towards.

Moving through the layers to get there,

Right?

It's not that easy,

Always.

I don't like to make everything just sound easy,

Like the books that you might read.

Hey,

We are consciousness.

Hey,

We are awareness.

Yeah,

This is it.

Cool,

But how do I experience that?

You know,

That's what I used to think.

This sounds all good in theory,

But yeah,

Intellectually,

But the experience is a different thing,

Right?

Life hits us,

And that's okay.

Anyways,

I don't think there's any more questions.

Let's leave it as that,

I think.

Let me see what else there is.

Yeah,

I think let's leave it as that.

I appreciate the comments.

I'm glad that you're resonating with this.

Yeah,

Like this is literally the stuff that is true.

So you could probably see that it just comes out,

And hopefully you got something that's gonna inspire you to go on and to discover these things.

Cool.

Thanks for watching.