Black Magic

This talk is on everyday Black Magic. The limiting beliefs we put on ourselves, the words we use that keep us small, the perspectives we take that hold us back. This talk is all about understanding how you are relating to your life and changing your views so they become your allies.

Please note: This track was recorded live and may contain background noises.

Transcript

So,

As we were sitting and meditating,

I tried to allow some of the conversation to kind of wash in and to feel a little bit about what some of the sharings we're asking for and we're saying.

And I really went through a process myself where I tried to allow myself to drop into kind of the most sensitive,

Tender part that was kind of contactable.

And this feeling came up and it said,

You know,

I don't really know anything.

That there's people and they're asking,

They're saying that they have problems or they need help and this feeling comes up like,

I don't know anything.

I don't know what to do.

I can't help anybody.

I don't know what to do.

I don't know anything.

And I just let myself sit and feel that and feel that.

And then I said,

Well,

Do you know that you're sitting here on the floor?

And I was like,

Well,

Yeah,

I guess.

I'm like,

So you know something,

Right?

And I said,

Actually,

Doesn't knowing that you know nothing mean that you know something?

And I was like,

Okay,

Yeah,

I guess so.

And I said,

Don't you know that you're actually sitting here with people?

Yeah.

Well,

Don't you know how to drive your car home after this?

Well,

Yeah,

I guess I know that.

Don't you know how to cook a good meal when you get home?

Yeah,

I can do that.

And I kind of just started going through my head and saying,

You know,

Well,

There's all these things that I actually do know how to do.

And then the feeling was,

Yeah,

But okay,

Well,

Then maybe,

You know,

Some things,

But you don't know.

And I started to kind of call the feeling out in terms of being a very dramatic blanket statement versus what's the actual reality behind that feeling.

And I think this is a really important thing for all of us to do on different levels,

Because any feeling,

Any concept,

Any belief you have is not right.

There is no one belief that can kind of encapsulate all of you,

All of what's going on in any moment.

If somebody comes to me and they say they feel like they're a failure,

Right,

They can't do anything,

They're a failure,

Then I could say,

Well,

You're sitting there,

You're not falling over,

So you're successful at sitting.

Like,

Yeah,

Okay,

But,

You know,

Well,

You drove here,

So you obviously could succeed at driving a car,

You know.

Well,

You're still alive,

So you've succeeded in eating and breathing and clothing yourself.

And if you kind of start opening that up,

You would actually see,

Oh,

Actually,

I'm a success in many things that I do.

Maybe I'm just not a success in that one thing.

Maybe I'm not successful in finding a job.

Well,

Not being successful in finding a job is a very different thing than I am a failure.

And if you took a child who's trying to learn to walk,

They would kind of stand up and they'd fall over and they'd stand up and fall over.

If that child kind of tried to stand up and they fell over and then they just said,

Oh,

I'm a failure.

I'm a failure at walking.

You know,

All of us would still be crawling around in the ground.

Because the only difference between success and failure is that success means that you've stood up one more time than you've fallen down.

That's it.

There's really no difference.

If you fall and you stay fallen,

Then yeah,

You're a failure,

And that's a self-fulfilling prophecy because you believe you can't stand up.

And then if you stand up,

Then you're suddenly a success story because you're standing and not on the ground.

And if you fall down again,

Right,

And then suddenly you realize whether I'm standing or on the ground has nothing to do with how successful I am.

That that's just an arbitrary point in my process.

When I paint pictures,

I went to art school as an artist and I hated,

I hated when people would come and look at my paintings before they were done.

Because they would come and they'd be like,

Well,

What's this and what's that,

And I don't know if I like that.

And I'd say,

Well,

You're just at an arbitrary point in my process and what you see now,

Yeah,

It is ugly,

But it's not going to be ugly when it's finished.

I'm going to bring it to a point that it looks better,

That it makes sense.

And I think often we take arbitrary points in our process,

This cross-section in time and space of our lives,

And we say that's the reality,

That's the truth,

That's how I am,

That's how things are.

Instead of just simply saying that's the situation right now,

Which is a lot more accurate and also gives us some room to say things then can and will change because things are always changing and that's the actual reality,

Is that things are always changing and shifting.

And this feeling of loneliness,

So somebody was,

You were asking me like when I was a monk was I in a cell,

Right?

Like were you in a cell in the monastery?

So I made this joke about it like being a jail cell,

You know.

So being a monk had times where it was incredibly lonely,

As you might imagine,

Right?

It was very painful loneliness at times,

Painful loneliness,

And really no way out except to kind of face it and be there with it.

One thing I learned from the loneliness was that it's not going to kill me.

One thing I've learned from the loneliness is that it passes.

One thing I learned from the loneliness is often I feel lonely because I've abandoned myself,

Because I've abandoned myself,

That I don't like being with me and that's why I feel lonely versus the times that I enjoy being with me,

That I feel lonely.

I'm like,

What do you want to do?

Let's go read a book,

Let's paint a picture,

Let's do like take that child,

Right,

The inner child thing,

Take yourself and go do something,

Be loving towards yourself.

Well,

What do you want?

I can make that possible.

I can give you the feelings that you need.

So sometimes loneliness is actually a symbol that you've abandoned yourself.

And another thing that I learned from loneliness,

Which was for me one of the most fascinating things,

Was that I was sitting there feeling loneliness,

Loneliness,

Loneliness,

Or aloneness either way,

Alone,

Felt alone,

Right,

Alone,

I'm alone.

And I went to the forest and I was like,

I'm alone,

I'm alone.

And then I kind of looked around and I was like,

Well,

There's like the earth and there's the grass and these plants,

These big trees and there's birds and there's things and there's all sorts of beings and creatures around and I feel alone,

But like,

What does that mean?

Like it's not really that accurate and I feel alone.

And then I had this really amazing kind of,

For me,

Very profound moments of experience where I experienced that my heart is a sensory organ,

Just like my hand is a sensory organ.

So if my hand touches the ground,

It feels cold and hard.

If my hand touches my leg,

It feels squishy and warm,

Hairy too,

I guess.

If my hand touches my water,

It feels kind of cool and wet,

Right?

So whatever my hand touches,

It feels that.

So when I felt loneliness,

There was,

My heart was in contact with that feeling of loneliness and it's like,

Ah,

As weird as it sounds,

The fact that I feel loneliness means I'm together with something,

With the feeling of loneliness.

That that loneliness is a feeling that I'm together with,

That I was like,

Oh,

I'm feeling you loneliness.

This is,

Hi loneliness,

It's like that movie Inside Out,

There's all these little characters sitting in the person's brain.

It was like this moment where I was like,

Oh,

You're not a reality,

You're a feeling that I'm in contact with.

And as soon as I felt it,

I suddenly felt togetherness because I'm like,

I'm together with a feeling.

And as soon as I felt it,

It melted away.

And I was like,

What the hell?

It was like the moment that I actually allowed myself to fully feel together with the loneliness,

It lost its hold.

It was like a nonstick frying pan,

It just kind of slipped off because it had no hold on me anymore.

It had nothing to,

Because suddenly I felt together.

So feelings are very,

Very tricky,

Especially how they create beliefs,

How we believe the feelings,

How it creates understandings.

And also how we then self-fulfill those.

So I was talking to a man recently and he was also telling me that he feels alone.

And then I was kind of asking him,

Well,

You know,

Do you do this,

Do you do that?

And he's like,

Well,

No,

I don't really go out.

And then,

You know,

Oh,

There are these people on your hand.

Well,

I don't really like those people.

And then I kind of said to him,

Well,

What you're doing is you're on one hand saying I feel alone or lonely,

But on the other hand,

Every time I'm opening up a door,

You're just trying to close it up as quickly as I open it.

And because he was afraid,

Because there's a kind of like anxiety in there.

There's an anxiety to reach people.

But that's another thing to kind of call out because sometimes that anxiety,

It's a defense mechanism that we think,

Oh,

I have too much anxiety to get in touch with people.

But it's a defense mechanism because actually maybe the thing is you don't feel like you're worth other people's contact,

That you're worth it,

That you're worth something good,

That other people won't like you,

That you have to be something different to be liked or appreciated or to be with people.

Maybe you've been hurt in the past,

You don't want to be hurt again.

So we all have whatever reasons or beliefs,

You know,

And that anxiety kind of comes up in between and we say,

Oh,

I have anxiety,

That's my problem.

But anxiety is not the problem.

Why is there anxiety?

What are you anxious about?

What's this thing that you're really afraid is going to happen?

And it's really funny because when you talk to,

You know,

If you follow that line of thinking,

Well,

I am afraid to connect to people because what if they don't like me and they reject me,

And then I feel alone?

And then I'd say,

Well,

That's how you feel right now.

So the worst thing that could happen is that you're going to feel exactly like you're already feeling.

And this is this crazy thing that we do,

That we're unhappy and we're already feeling the thing that's like our worst fear,

But for some weird reason,

We're afraid to do something because it would just lead us what?

Right back there.

It's,

Right,

Like being unemployed,

Unsuccessful,

Whatever.

I'm unemployed,

So try to get a job.

Well,

What if I try to get a job and they don't want me?

What if I'm fired?

What if they reject me?

Well,

Then you're going to be exactly where you already are.

So there's really nowhere to go except forward or out of it,

Or at least explore that area.

My teacher,

Achim Brahme,

He also told a story.

I think he said it had a biblical background,

But the way that he told the story,

It's the story of the anger-eating demon.

Maybe not biblical,

Maybe like in the suttas,

Like in the Buddhist texts,

But he calls it the story of the anger-eating demon.

Did I tell this one here?

He said that there was a king and the king went out hunting and was out kind of for the morning,

And while he was gone,

A demon slipped in and sat on his throne.

And as the king was returning and the guards were turning,

The guards see this demon and they start yelling at this demon to get out.

The demon kind of starts getting really aggressive and feisty,

Like he's not going to budge.

And they start yelling and they go,

Right,

We're coming.

And they start coming with their swords and they start trying to stab the demon.

But every time they'd yell and hit the demon and try to stab it,

The swords,

They couldn't cut the demon.

And what actually happened was every time they kind of attacked it,

The demon was getting bigger.

And it was getting kind of grosser and uglier,

And just kind of started dripping with stuff and like,

Ah,

Yeah,

You know,

And like really getting more of like this monster and fighting them and fighting them and this whole kind of thing.

And then the king came back with his retinue and then they all saw,

They're like,

King,

You can't go in there,

There's a demon.

So all the guards kind of come and there's this demon and all the guards rush in and they start fighting the demon and shooting things.

And your arrow's just bouncing off him and they're trying to hit him and he just brushes everybody away.

And he's just getting kind of bigger and bigger.

And so he kind of like almost starts taking up like a big portion of a wall,

Like right in the throne room.

He's just,

Ah,

You know,

Really.

And the king is just kind of watching all of this happen.

And you know,

Oftentimes kings are in that position because they have some kind of insight or wisdom,

Or at least in these stories they do.

So the king was observing this and you know,

He kind of realized something and he said,

Guards,

Guards,

This is no way to treat a guest.

And he said,

Lay down your swords.

And he looked up and he said,

Demon,

Thank you for visiting us today.

Would you like some tea?

And the demon's kind of like,

Ah,

And he's like,

Huh?

You know?

And the king said,

No,

Really,

Please let us bring you some tea.

And would you like something to eat?

You must be hungry,

You're awfully big,

So you haven't eaten in a while.

You know,

How about we bring you some food?

And they went,

He said,

Guards,

Bring some food,

Bring food.

And they went and started bringing food.

And the demon's sitting there and he's looking around and he's really trying to get them angry,

And triggered.

And the king said,

Would you like a bath?

I have a beautiful golden bath.

Why don't you come upstairs?

Be my guest,

Come in.

And as he was doing this,

Something amazing started to happen is that the demon started shrinking.

And with every act of kindness,

Every act of love,

Every act of acceptance,

The demon would kind of get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.

And they're like,

No,

Please,

Don't,

Stop getting smaller.

Stay,

We love you,

Don't go.

You're the cutest little demon ever,

Just be here with us.

Until it got so small,

It just kind of,

Just vanished.

And Achyam Rami said,

This is the story of the anger eating demon.

Because there's demons and they feed upon anger,

They feed upon fighting,

They feed upon you trying to get them away,

You trying to push them.

And the more you feed,

When I was in India actually,

I would often use my intuition and go around India and go to crystal shops and buy things.

And there was one time I was walking down the street and I felt this intuition kind of pull and I went to this crystal shop,

Like normal,

Like oh,

There's going to be something good over here.

And I went,

And it was this crystal shop,

But it was like overpriced and the crystals just weren't really that nice.

And there's something weird about the place,

I didn't even know,

And the guy that worked there,

This kind of Indian baba,

Something like off about him.

But I still kind of tried to follow my intuition and it brought me to these crystals and I just,

I didn't know,

And they felt weird,

But this is what I've been doing until then.

So I eventually just said,

Well my intuition said,

So I guess,

And I brought it and I said okay and he charged me more than I would have wanted to pay,

But I said okay,

My intuition,

It makes sense somehow,

But it feels weird.

And then I went to my healing teacher with this crystal afterwards and I said,

I kind of explained the story.

And he picked up the crystal and he looked at it and he held it and he said,

It's not real,

It's fake.

And I was like,

Well I don't get it,

My intuition has always been leading me to the right place,

It's the right things,

I connect,

I can feel the energy of things,

And I was pulled into this place but it was just shit in there,

Like it didn't work,

What happened?

And he just kind of looked at me and thought about it and he said,

Actually I think it's just black magic.

And I was like,

What do you mean black magic?

And he said,

In India,

Just as there's a lot of practitioners of spirituality and good things,

There's also people that use energy,

That use spirituality,

That use this stuff to serve their own self-serving purposes.

To get power,

To get money,

To get influence.

You know,

A lot of these babas,

They'll give people like Rudraksha,

Which is like a seed on a necklace,

And they'll put it on the people and then they'll kind of like,

You know,

Use this connection for people to like drink their energy and stuff,

Or there's just different monks that'll just go around and do ceremonies and do things,

And actually when I was in northern India,

There was,

I was doing a retreat in a cave,

And there's a poison cult that lives up in Sikkim and in Sputan,

Where they think if they poison you and they kill you,

They get your energy.

So they want to poison like Westerners and high lamas because the better karma you have,

They think that's the biggest offering they can give to the poison gods and they get more,

Right?

And they don't always use chemical poison,

Sometimes they use mantras,

That they chant mantras over the food,

And you know,

As we've seen also with water and stuff,

When you send intention into water,

It actually changes the structure,

But that they would do mantras into the food,

And they'd serve it to people and people would die,

And when I was there,

I was told by a few people,

My friend died here,

And another one said,

Yeah,

There's this American and he died,

And that people were dying from this,

Like it was actually happening.

So my teacher said,

He said,

You know,

This is black magic,

And I got really angry,

And I was like,

You know what,

I'm gonna go down there,

I'm gonna yell at this guy,

I'm gonna throw him the crystal back,

I'm gonna demand my money back,

Like all this stuff,

You know,

And at that time I had just learned the Siddha healing that I do,

So I felt really kind of,

I was pretty charged up with like energy,

And I was like,

You know,

I have all these,

This whole like retinue of kind of,

You know,

Good guy helpers to help,

You know,

And he looked at me and he goes,

You should really just bury it,

You should take the crystal and you should just bury it,

And I'm like,

Yeah,

But,

And he goes,

No,

No,

No,

And he said,

When I started practicing,

When I started my healing training,

I set out on a mission to destroy evil,

To destroy blackness,

To destroy it,

And he said,

And the more powerful that I became,

The more kind of like darkness,

The more evil,

The more that I would kind of destroy and push away,

It would just come back even stronger,

And then I would strengthen myself,

And I would really just bomb it with white light and really all this stuff,

And it would just come back stronger,

And he said,

It actually just becomes an ego game,

Because what negativity feeds off of,

What keeps it alive,

Is our attention.

The more attention you give it,

The more it can stay alive,

The more it can keep feeding,

And the strongest attention you can give something is to not want it to be there,

To be pushing something away,

Then you're giving it your attention,

Your energy,

Your focus,

You're pushing it,

And that's what it feeds off of,

And it strengthens it,

It gets stronger and stronger and stronger and more entrenched,

Because you don't want it,

You're pushing it,

You're pushing it,

You're pushing it,

And it's cementing it in there.

And so the story of the anger-eating demon is kind of to symbolize that if there's something that you don't want,

There's another method to get rid of it,

It's not that the king actually wanted the demon to stay there,

Of course not,

He didn't want to serve the demon tea and have him hang out in the bathtub,

But he knew,

He was smart enough,

He was wise enough to know that the more we fight this demon,

The stronger it gets,

But if I open up,

If I love,

If I accept,

If I invite this demon in,

That's actually how to disarm it,

How to pull the energy and the power away from it,

Is to give it love,

To make peace.

This is what I was saying before,

Is that peace,

It's not a destination yet,

Peace is an understanding,

Peace is an act,

That if you want peace,

Be peaceful.

If you want peace in yourself,

Why are you fighting things in yourself?

Think about it,

Think about that really hard.

If you want peace,

Then why are you fighting?

It's the craziest thing we do,

It's like meditators,

I teach meditation classes all over,

I've taught all over the world,

I ask people why do you meditate?

Because I want to calm down and be peaceful.

Okay,

How do you meditate?

I try to push my thoughts away,

I get mad at myself for not being able to sit longer,

I push myself to keep saying I have all this pain and I kind of keep pushing,

I get angry at myself,

They're fighting and fighting and fighting and pushing and trying to change,

Trying to force,

Trying to control,

They're doing everything except being peaceful,

Which is actually what they want.

Because they have this idea of meditation,

That meditation is to be this certain way,

And if the meditation is not that certain way,

They think it's because they're not trying hard enough,

They're not pushing hard enough,

They're not forcing enough,

And then they're just making the demon bigger and bigger and bigger,

And they feel even more like failures,

Even more like it doesn't work.

Never once have they really just tried to say,

You know what,

Everything's okay,

It's good enough,

It's fine.

Everything's fine.

Yes,

I have pain,

Yes there's a situation that I want to change,

Right now my mind is a mess,

I'm like,

Okay,

So if I fight that,

It's just going to get worse,

I'm going to be stirring the pot even more,

So the water's going to keep spinning around in that pot.

If you want that pot to stop,

You pull the spoon out.

Yeah,

And of course,

Once you pull the spoon out of the pot,

The water's going to keep spinning for a little while.

It's not like you pull the spoon out of the water and the water just stops,

You pull the spoon out and the water kind of slows down,

Slows down,

It loses momentum,

Loses traction,

Because you're not stirring it anymore.

Yeah,

So it's about the method,

It's what is the wisest method to really find what we want,

To really go where we want to go.

And that method is actually,

It's love,

It's acceptance,

It's openness,

And I know this sounds maybe like cliché or something,

But it's true,

It's true,

You can't fight,

Fighting is not,

Look at the world,

I mean look at the world,

How many countries,

How many people right now are trying to attain peace through fighting?

Yeah,

It's endless.

And even if you destroy one enemy,

So to say,

Like in,

You know,

Take like movies,

Right,

Like in Star Wars,

Right,

You destroy the,

Ah,

Now it's all over,

But now there's actually new Star Wars movies and they say,

Oh,

Actually even after the bad guy died in the Star Wars movie,

There's still more Star Wars movies that show that there's still bad guy energy keeps going in different ways.

So in movies there's this really nice happily ever after,

The bad guy's dead,

Everything's fine.

You know,

You watch like Beauty and the Beast,

Oh,

They killed Gaston,

He's gone,

And now the Beast and Belle live happily ever after.

You know,

Jump ahead one year,

They're probably like arguing about whose turn it is to take out the trash or something,

Right?

That we get these little snippets of things and we think that's it,

That's like the end of the story.

But if you really open up,

You'll see that when you kind of fight things,

That's an endless kind of road,

That's an endless road.

Yeah.

And especially inside of ourselves,

If you want peace,

If you want love,

If you want to feel worthy,

Then treat yourself like you have worth,

Treat all of your feelings as if they're worthy,

As if they're important,

As if you appreciate and value them.

Yeah?

It's not like when these feelings are gone,

Then I'll appreciate and value myself.

You know,

When I don't have anxiety,

When I don't have,

You know,

When I'm able to do this then.

It doesn't work that way.

And you can look around and you see there's all these people that are striving like that.

There's that if-when mentality and it keeps going,

Going,

Going,

Going,

Going,

And they don't get there.

But if they do get there,

Then they kind of look around and they're like,

This is it,

Like this is it,

This is-I'm at the top,

Now what?

Is this really-you know a lot of actors,

Musicians,

Like they just kind of get drunk,

They do drugs,

Like they're-they get to this place where they're rich,

They're well known,

They have everything they've ever strived for,

And they feel totally empty and hollow inside.

Right?

They're successful by everything everyone else in the world says is successful and even what they themselves in their head said success means.

But then they get to that place and realize,

Well I'm successful but I'm actually not happy.

And they totally didn't realize that success is supposed to bring happiness.

That's why you chase success because you think you're going to get happiness up there.

Right?

And this is something in our culture we do a lot.

It's always this if-then thing.

It's like you go to the mall,

The Rockingham Mall down the street,

Right?

Well if you buy this,

Then you'll get the iPhone,

Get these clothes.

You know,

There's this feeling like that's what consumerism is about,

I guess.

It's like if you buy this,

Then you get that happiness,

Then you get that peace of mind,

Then you get that feeling of like goodness or okayness.

But you don't realize that you're not buying that thing,

You're just trying to get that feeling.

And a lot of relationships are the same way,

We're just trying to get the feeling.

I'm sure a lot of us are here tonight because we're trying to get a feeling.

There's a feeling that we want to have that if I do this,

Then I get this feeling.

If I can do it,

Then I get this feeling.

You know,

And that if-then mentality,

It just feeds the hunger in us and it's kind of endless.

Because it's not like there's this thing you're going to get and then it's okay,

Or there's this thing you're going to get rid of and then it's okay.

It's more like you have to change your understanding,

Right?

So peace is an understanding,

Not a destination.

I can't drive down the road to peace.

I don't know if there's like a peace,

I know there's like a freedom New Hampshire,

I don't know if there's like a peace New Hampshire,

But you can't like go to peace,

Right?

Peace is our relationship with what's there right now.

And this is like really,

Really important.

And that doesn't mean that you don't change it.

That doesn't mean like you just sit here and you're peaceful and then you just die on your cushion because everything's fine and you don't do anything ever again.

You know,

It's not like peace means lack of action.

It doesn't mean peace means lack of intention or movement,

You know.

But peace really means giving understanding,

Giving love,

Giving softness,

Giving openness.

Yeah,

Really just deeply understanding why are things the way they are?

Why am I the way that I am?

What am I afraid of?

Yeah,

Why am I afraid of that?

Oh,

Because this and this happened.

Yeah,

Okay,

Yeah,

I understand me,

I get that.

Okay,

This is why I'm like that.

Okay,

I don't reject myself,

I don't push myself away,

I don't hate myself,

I understand myself,

I get it.

I'm afraid of this,

This and this.

Okay,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Those fears are really scary.

Okay,

I get that,

You know.

And I make peace with that.

I make peace with how I am,

Like okay,

You know.

But then I also keep looking and say,

But like what else is there?

Is that it?

You know.

Okay,

I feel that I don't know anything.

Okay,

Totally accept that,

I make peace with that.

I'm really afraid of sitting in front of people and trying to give a talk and having nothing to say and people needing help and not being able to help.

Okay,

Okay,

There's this fear.

Okay,

I feel like tired.

Okay,

What's going on?

Yeah,

Okay,

Yeah,

I don't want to be like a failure,

I don't want to feel this way,

Okay,

Yeah.

Understand myself.

Okay,

I get it.

But what's the reality?

But is that feeling like the reality?

Is that it?

It's kind of like,

Well no,

That's just a feeling.

It's a feeling connected to memories,

Connected to perceptions,

Connected to fears of the future.

But none of it actually is real.

It's just a,

It kind of is just this network of stuff that comes up.

And I have found for myself,

Because I do these healings,

I do energy healings for groups,

And these healings are really powerful and a lot happens during the healings.

People feel the energy moving through their body and sometimes people see deceased people come into the,

Or they see visions or colors or things open in them.

So all sorts of different manifestations happen.

But I'm pretty convinced that at the end of the day,

Why everybody walks away from the feeling,

From the healing feeling happier,

Is because they were just able to relax for 40 minutes.

Because they were just able to lay down and let go and let somebody else do it.

That they were able to completely let go and open up and just surrender and just let things be.

Let themselves be.

Go on a little vacation from yourself for those 40 minutes and just bliss out to music.

And yeah,

There is a lot of energy work going on in the room as well.

But I really deeply believe in the power of somebody being able just to let go and relax.

And often times we'll see that our biggest problem is just that we're fighting against things so much that our whole head space,

Our whole heart space,

It's just this endless battle and we wake up in the morning miserable because we just know that's going to be another day of struggle and battle and heaviness and hardness and it's not going to work and this and this.

You know,

But who's creating that?

And why are we fighting loneliness?

You know,

If we talk about again like therapy,

Like an inner child,

Right?

That's like your inner child.

There's a part of you that's sad and lonely.

Why are we fighting that?

Isn't that crazy?

Are you going to fight a lonely child?

No,

You're going to give them love.

You're going to give them a hug.

You know?

Why do we hurt ourselves like this?

Why do we beat ourselves up?

Why are we pushing ourselves?

Who taught us that and why do we keep doing it?

Yeah,

It's ridiculous.

It's like the thing about being angry.

You said you're angry.

Yeah,

Be angry.

Who told you anger is bad?

Right?

It's ridiculous.

If you see a baby crying,

You don't tell that baby crying is bad.

You're like,

Oh,

What's wrong?

Right?

Anger often comes from sadness.

Yeah,

Loneliness comes from actually love if you think about it because that space in your heart,

You want it to be filled with connection but instead it's filled with this feeling of loneliness.

So the size of your loneliness is actually the size of your capacity to love.

Yeah?

As crazy as that sounds,

It's the same.

It's your heart cavern.

So you filled it with this huge feeling.

Yeah,

That's the same capacity that you have to be loving,

To be warm,

To be gentle.

And oftentimes,

We're always expecting to get.

I want to get love.

I want to get a job.

I want to get happiness.

We want to get,

Get,

Get.

But we never think to try giving.

What would happen if we went and volunteered somewhere?

What if we went and bought people in our lives presents?

What if we created that warmth in our lives by giving,

By doing good things and opening up and creating a field of warmth around us?

Yeah,

And this is one of those things that we don't realize but it's like if you want more warmth in your life,

Give more warmth.

Yeah,

If you want to be happier,

Give more happiness.

Because then you're going to create it,

Then all the people around you,

Everything around you will become warmer,

Happier,

More alive.

And that's going to feed right back in because then you're painting the walls of your bedroom pretty colors.

So all day long,

You're going to be seeing pretty colors.

Right?

If you're painting the walls of your bedroom black,

Then you're just going to look around and see black everywhere.

Yeah,

So sometimes it's not about trying to get the thing right,

Sometimes it's also about giving it.

Sometimes when you give the thing that you want,

You're actually creating it in the world but also strangely enough,

You then start to feel it.

Yeah,

You give love,

You give help,

You give advice,

You give support,

Then you start to feel what that feels like.

You start to also gain appreciation for yourself suddenly.

Oh,

Okay,

Actually I'm good at this.

Oh,

People actually like me.

The people want to help you.

Then it creates relationships,

Right?

So suddenly you're just sitting there wanting this relationship but you're lonely and instead of trying to get something,

You started giving and suddenly there's all these things,

All these lights,

All these stars in the night sky,

Right?

Before the sky was just black and now there's all these stars kind of coming in because you're starting to create light around yourself.

Yeah,

So there's many different strategies,

Many kind of ways to work with this stuff.

You know,

And it really all involves creating and giving.

It's like positive psychology,

I guess,

Right?

But it's about creating the thing that you want,

Giving the thing that you want,

Putting it out there,

Right?

Starting to feel empowered and I think that's kind of the biggest thing is that we often get to a place where we feel disempowered.

We feel like I work in schools and I go to a school and the kids are unhappy,

The teachers are unhappy,

The principal is unhappy.

I'm like,

Well,

Why is there like a whole building full of people and everybody feels unhappy and disempowered?

Like who can make the change if everyone on every level feels like they can't do anything?

Like yeah,

You're right,

You're not going to do anything.

But if anybody at any level,

If the kids woke up,

If the teachers woke up,

The principal,

If anybody just stood up and said,

I'm going to make the change.

And I've seen that.

I've seen schools that the kids have arisen together and they've transformed the school.

I've seen schools that the teachers have started to band together and change the way they do things.

They've changed the school.

I've seen principals,

You know,

That they've said,

You know what,

I'm going to do things a different way.

I'm going to bring different things.

And they've transformed it.

That it just takes anybody to stand up and say,

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to be the one to transform things.

It doesn't mean that you're special.

It doesn't mean that other people are bad or something.

It just means it's about doing it.

And what the situation that we find ourselves in at any given moment,

In Buddhism,

This is called our karma,

Right?

So karma,

It's cause and effect.

That's like the easiest way to say it,

It's cause and effect.

So if you,

So like,

Yeah,

If you're somebody who pushes people away,

Yeah,

Then the karma is that you're going to feel alone.

If you're somebody that really stresses and worries about everything,

Then the karma is going to be that you feel exhausted and tired and tight all the time.

If you're someone that really starts to love and accept themselves,

Starts to let go,

Your karma is going to be that you feel more soft,

That you feel more free,

That you start to feel warmth in your body and your heart.

So if at any point we're in a situation where we feel unhappy with how things are,

Then you're like,

Okay,

Well also this is my karma.

What I'm experiencing right now is the result of my actions.

So also like what are the things I can do differently?

And I was saying that,

You know,

I've just personally started doing a morning practice a little bit.

I've personally just started going and exercising.

I've started eating better.

And I see that my life is starting to kind of move forward.

And today I had like four hours that I wanted,

Like I could have gone to exercise or something and I didn't.

I kind of felt like I wanted to,

But I was just like,

Eh,

Like kind of like in a funk.

I don't know if it's like full moon or whatever,

But I was kind of just in this funk.

And I eventually just got myself up and I went just before I had to come here.

So I'm like kind of like sweaty,

Like from the gym,

You know,

I came here.

But I felt better about myself because I have slowly started realizing if I do nothing,

Then there will be no results.

Yeah,

That nothing is nothing.

Like if I don't do anything,

There will be nothing.

Yeah,

If I continue just to like sit there on the floor of my apartment,

That will be my existence.

Yeah,

That I have to stand up and I have to go do something.

It's not about fighting.

It's not like I have to fight myself.

It's not like I have to hurt myself.

I do that because I love myself,

Because I want to,

Because the gym makes me feel good,

Because it feels good to do stuff.

It feels good to feel good,

Right?

And sometimes it takes a long time of sitting in a place that doesn't feel good.

Sometimes it takes pain to motivate us to change.

This is like unfortunately part of the human condition.

But very often we need pain as a motivating force to say,

Okay,

You know what,

Like I want to shift something and do things differently.

And it's really about feeling that out and experimenting with that,

Starting where we are.

Yeah,

I wasn't really interested to go to the gym a couple months ago.

I had to first start with sitting on my balcony and doing some mantras in the morning.

I had to start eating healthier foods.

I had to kind of start some other stuff,

Walking in the forest.

And I built up like a base of positive energy for myself that then let me go to the gym.

You know,

And it's really just about building piece by piece what can you do now,

Right?

I have this water bottle,

I put crystals in it,

Right?

Is that just taking the pieces of your life and what can I do to just slowly piece by piece assemble a more positive,

More powerful day to day experience?

Yeah,

And there's always somewhere we can start,

Right?

So it's like if you want a job,

Maybe getting a job is something that's like out there a little bit.

But right now,

Maybe you could go home and you could clean your house,

Right?

Maybe you could put on nice music.

Maybe you could like make some cookies.

Maybe you could do some gardening.

You could get some flowers in the house.

That there's always at least a step that you could do.

Yeah,

Even if it's not like the big one that you want,

There's definitely little things that you could piece together that start to make your daily experience feel better,

Feel nicer,

Feel more inspired and build up that positive energy for yourself.

It's called taking care of yourself,

I guess.

Building up that positive energy that then allows you to start shifting the bigger things around you too.

Yeah,

So this is,

And I say this also just from experience.

This isn't just like a talk.

This is how I've been approaching it.

Yeah,

How I've been doing it successfully and it works.

You don't fight anything.

But I would even say that setting the intention I'm going to wake up and exercise is still kind of part of that fight.

Maybe every night you just say,

I wish you a really happy,

Peaceful sleep.

And then you wake up in the morning and you say,

What would I like to do this morning?

What would make me feel good?

Maybe it's meditating.

Maybe it's painting a picture.

Maybe it's just cooking breakfast.

Maybe it's going for a walk.

Maybe it's going to the gym.

But why do you have it in your mind that says waking up and exercising means success?

Yeah?

That's a program that you have running in your head that says this is what success means.

This is what it looks like.

And you're pushing yourself to get over this bar,

But you're holding the bar.

You can put the bar down.

Going to the gym does not mean success.

My friend's father,

He'd run on the treadmill every day and he just died of a stroke on the treadmill.

You know,

Because he thought this is the bar and it killed him.

So we have no idea.

You have no idea.

Working out is not the end of the game.

Just something different than just getting up,

Going on the couch,

Cuddling in the blanket?

Why don't you just allow it?

Why don't you try cuddling on the couch with the blanket but feeling good doing it?

Not feeling guilty.

Not feeling like I shouldn't be doing this.

Not feeling like I'm a failure.

Why don't you try doing the same thing that you've always been doing but changing your mind about it and allowing it?

Because there's no difference.

That's already what you're doing.

So why not actually allow yourself to enjoy it?

Actually rest.

Enjoy watching a movie.

Get some hot cocoa.

Make it a nice experience for yourself.

Start building up that positive energy.

You don't need to fight anything.

You just need to shift your mind.

And the more that you start to feel good,

The more you're going to want to get up and go do something.

The more that you're sitting in a hole where you feel guilty and bad and wrong,

That's just going to be more of the same.

It's exhausting and you're entrenching yourself in that situation.

So I would really say that the shift for you to make is to not try to do something else but really try to fully enjoy the thing that you are already doing.

To really allow yourself to enjoy sitting on the couch and be as lazy as possible.

I just can't give myself that permission.

I guess I've been there so long that I just want to get out.

I'm always fighting myself.

Instead of sitting here saying a mantra to me,

I can't,

I can't,

I can't,

You have a program running in your head,

I can't,

I can't,

I can't.

Why don't you say I can?

Just change the program.

I can.

Or it's okay.

Or you don't have to.

I can't,

I can't.

Yeah,

That's okay.

That's okay.

You don't have to.

You don't have to.

You don't have to.

I'm scared of being stuck in there forever.

You're already stuck.

You're already at the thing you're afraid of.

So there's nothing that can happen to you.

You're already there.

That's it.

You have nowhere to go but away from the place you're already in.

This is what I was saying is that through the fear,

We're afraid of making a step,

Although the worst situation is that we'd end up right back where we already were.

So why don't you just allow yourself?

Allow yourself to be.

Yeah?

Because can't and can for me,

That's still about willpower.

That's about ability.

That's about worth,

Competency.

It's like all that stuff wrapped up.

Why is your life about that?

It doesn't have to be.

You should work on a new mantra and that mantra can just be,

It's okay.

I'm okay.

It's okay.

I'm lazy.

I want to see it.

That's okay.

I'm good enough.

That's fine.

Give yourself love.

Give yourself acceptance,

Allowance.

Unless you like feeling like this.

And that's the hardest thing for us to admit is that we feel comfortable and we feel safe.

Because we are afraid of the unknown so we stick with our comfortable habits no matter how painful and destructive they are because we know the road so we ride it again and again and again.

Because even right now as I'm talking to you,

As you're sitting there holding yourself,

Walking back and forth looking at the ground.

You are keeping yourself in that for no reason.

Relax your body,

Sit up straight,

Breathe,

Smile.

The only thing that's wrong is that you believe something is wrong.

Because we are so loyal to our suffering.

We are so loyal to our suffering.

We believe in our story so much that we think if we just allow ourselves to be happy we've somehow betrayed ourselves.

We've somehow betrayed something.

That if I'm happy it's like I don't have permission to be happy.

I'm not like allowed just to like drop it all and be happy.

I've somehow betrayed something.

Yeah.

It's crazy but we do it.

I don't know what.

Everybody just wants me to move on and be happy.

I want to be happy but there's that other side that I'm starting to feel like I'm getting happy.

So start by allowing yourself to feel happy where you are.

To start loving yourself and taking care of yourself where you are.

If you wake up and cuddle on the couch then do that but make sure you do it right.

Make sure you get some hot cocoa,

Make sure you have a good movie,

Make sure you're really comfortable.

Do it but do it with love.

Really give yourself fully that thing that you need.

Do it fully.

You're guilty.

I have other people looking at me that wouldn't have brought me back.

I can't be an example right now to my kids either.

You don't want to love yourself?

That's a bad example to be for your kids?

I want to be irresponsible and lazy.

This is what I would call responsibility.

That you are responsible to yourself,

Number one.

If you're sitting there fighting yourself all day,

Miserable,

Guilty,

Beating yourself up,

That's the example you're setting for your kids all day long.

So you're already setting a bad example for your kids.

So why don't you work on shifting that?

And feel free to explain that to them.

And also feel free not to let other people's perceived expectations on you weigh you down even farther.

I guess this comes down to really early childhood.

That's not important.

We love our stories.

We love our stories.

We really believe in our stories.

All that matters is what do I want and how do I get there?

The path is light.

It's easy.

The more we try to bring our baggage with us,

The more heavy it is.

None of that matters.

It's gone.

All that matters is you right here,

Right now.

What do you want?

How do you get there?

That's it.

It's going to be very easy.

So I don't know if we have time for a walking meditation,

But we can do a standing meditation if you want to see what it's like to meditate on your feet.

Or we can just do another sitting meditation and then call it a day so you guys can.

.

.

Did you have something to say or you're just praying for the situation?

Good thoughts.

Yeah.

We'll get up.

Reviews

Thank you Seth Monk, you spoke directly to me. Most issues you've covered resonates with me.

Seth: 1: I actually met someone in Germany who painted their bedroom black. They undid it quickly.😜 2: I suspect you might appreciate the Prayer of Saint Francis (about the power of opposite actions). 3: I’m sending my positive thoughts to the person you interacted with near the end. Thank you for including that. Neil 😃☯️

Absolutely outstanding!
Makes so much sense. Loved it.❤️

Such a powerful reminder “The only thing that is wrong is that I believe something is wrong.”

Thank you for sharing so gently this message with wisdom & love 🙏💖🙏💖

Wow wonderful talk. Really shined the light in a simplistic, doable way. Thank you so much for your insight 🙏🏽❤️

What he talks about and how he puts it for me is AWSOME, I listen to him most mornings during my yoga and it’s very exciting when he puts more stuff on! THANK YOU SETH!