Navigating Fear (With Guest: Ash Geary)

In the first episode of 2023, I have a conversation with entrepreneur, spiritual enthusiast, and conscious living explorer Ash Geary around FEAR. What IS fear? How can we navigate our moments of fear in a way that brings us closer to the truth of who we are? This episode explores fear from tools and practices to lessen the pain all the way to the root of fear itself: death and the loss of everything we know and love. Such an honor to learn and explore with Ash and share his wisdom with you all.

Transcript

Wake the fuck up the podcast that mingles mindfulness Buddhism brain science evolutionary biology and real authentic human experience Welcome to wake the fuck up Hello,

And welcome to this episode of the wake the fuck up podcast My name is Tiffany Andres and this week we adventure into our first guest episode Exploring fear with my brother-in-law Ash Geary.

Thank you for being here.

So I want to Maybe let you introduce yourself instead of me conceptualizing what I think is Valuable and poignant about you.

I'll start by saying as we move towards a podcast episode this is Ash Geary and my brother-in-law and as far as I feel one of the smartest most intelligent compassionate and just Fantastic people to have a deep conversation with that I've ever known in my life And so I'm really grateful to have you here and I'd love to leave a little bit of space for You to introduce yourself and in whatever way feels good to you as well.

So Ash,

Who are you for the world?

Thank you.

Thank you.

So now you set the expectation really high so So,

I'm Ash Geary I I think centered around this podcast we talk about fear so I had many experiences in my life dealing with fear and I think that's probably a good point of introduction is around those subject.

So I Kind of lived my life pretty fearlessly until I was in my late 20s and then I started having kind of crippling fear when I started being faced with the reality of Maybe some of the things that I had done in my 20s that I wasn't proud of Or some of the things that were in front of me.

I frankly I didn't expect to live past 28 so when I found myself on the other side of that I had a whole life in front of me that I wasn't really prepared for wasn't really sure what to do and So from that point on it was just for me tackling one fear after another and So at that time I was doing design work Working with the Weather Channel.

I left the security of a corporate job and tried to take on a independent lifestyle working for myself.

That was one type of fear to face.

How do you survive when you don't have a steady paycheck and then moving to San Francisco and being isolated away from everybody that I I knew being away from family just being alone in in the city and trying to survive and As time went on I I you know,

I found myself having to face some other fears which we can we can talk about you know in more detail,

I guess during the the Podcast but eventually challenged myself to move to Tokyo.

I figured that's the biggest city in the world maybe the biggest set of challenges for me the greatest challenge that I could face in terms of my fear and and moving to the other side of the planet with no support structure and Not knowing the language and not having a job and all of those things and trying to figure it out.

So 15 years later I've been here.

I've you know,

It's not that fear goes away,

But I feel like I've I've had some great breakthroughs when dealing with fear and reached kind of equilibrium With fear,

You know,

I've written about it in the past There there are techniques of course that anybody can use but I think tactics are are limited ultimately Really?

It's just like a state of mind that you have to use when you approach a challenge So that's a little bit about me.

So maybe maybe more than you asked for I love that.

There's there's a lot of richness in what you said and there's one thing I want to pull out in particular because Really?

I think you said something that's exactly what spurred this podcast episode when you were talking about moving to Tokyo.

I I feel like I heard you express That you knew it was like the biggest Thing that you could possibly tackle and in that way it was like what's what's the biggest fear I could possibly Overcome and you chose that right and and this episode was spurred last time We talked about me deciding to go skydiving and you asked why did you do that?

And my answer was ash.

I was living in a time that I had so much fear and You really helped me clarify that making that choice was this was the biggest thing I could possibly imagine in terms of fear and I wanted to conquer it So I'm wondering if you want to say a little bit more about Why not just you but also me we we found ourselves in these situations where whether consciously or unconsciously We said what's what's the scariest thing I could possibly imagine and then said let's do this I mean,

I love that you did that.

That's that's maybe that's on my list of things that I'm gonna have to face eventually Jump out of a plane with you,

Okay Let me work myself up to that one,

You know what I've learned let me let me just say that what I've learned is fear fear always connects to death on some level and that we generally have an irrational fear of death As humans,

I think some cultures have More than others.

So I think american culture has an extremely High irrational fear of death whereas what I see in japan There's less irrational fear of death or asian cultures,

You know asian cultures They have a higher fear of death And so I think that's a very interesting point.

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I think there's so much inside of that,

That it really takes experience with just life in general to feel into how many times we as individuals experience a death and a rebirth,

And certainly moving to another city or even just changing jobs or having partnerships change.

There's an old version of us,

A version of us that exists before that shift and a version that exists after.

I think you're absolutely right.

In a way,

We confront the death of self that existed and the rebirth of a new one.

Then there are those circumstances where I think it's an even deeper unconscious death.

Honestly,

The jumping out of the plane experience,

It was sure faced with the realness of death,

But the thing that kicked me into that fear was that my state of being changed from zero feet to 13,

000 feet.

I felt I understood how I was feeling.

I was in tune and connected to my body.

At 13,

000 feet,

My fight or flight system kicked in.

The fear was I can't do this in this state.

I didn't believe in my own competence anymore to handle it.

I think you're right.

That's a great reflection of the moment when we go from feeling capable and in a way in control to the moment where we all of a sudden go,

I don't know what's on the other side of it.

I don't believe in my own competence.

Therefore,

I'm out of control.

I think this is a perfect segue to what you said to me the last time we talked that really has affected me for the last four or five months and ultimately led to me reaching out was you reminded me that anytime we're afraid,

What we tend to focus on is the outcome of the circumstance.

In a way,

That's confused because what we're really afraid of is the pain of whatever that outcome is.

What I took that to mean as well is that if we trust ourselves ultimately to be able to hold ourselves and be with whatever pain,

Whatever suffering,

Whatever emotional experience is on the other side,

Then there's really nothing to be afraid of anymore.

I'm wondering if you want to say a little bit more about how that shows up for you and in your experience of fear.

Yeah.

Before that,

I have a question.

You're in the plane and you're going up and your fight or flight kicks in.

Take me through the steps from when your fight or flight kicks in to where you jump out of the door.

What changed or did anything even change?

Because there's this period of time where the whole path is set and it happened in between those moments like your whole path got set in those moments.

I think it's really crucial and I know I'll add on my perspective.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I appreciate you even inviting the crucialness of that because I'll be honest with you,

That singular experience has changed my life absolutely for the rest of my life.

Before that experience,

I had been meditating for 10 years.

I've been teaching meditation for eight years and I have taught for all of those years.

All of this is about learning to be with our experience,

To be with ourselves,

To hold ourselves.

There's no goal in meditation.

It was this experience that was like,

Oh shit,

Kind of been missing it,

This crucial piece.

Because what happened is my fight or flight system kicked in and I knew it because I went from feeling regulated to completely dysregulated.

My breathing pattern changed and I started to feel dizzy.

The first thought that popped into my head was,

Shit babe,

You can't jump out of a plane if you're about to pass out.

Then there was more fear,

Right?

Like,

Oh my God,

Am I really going to pass out?

I'm the first one out the door.

The series of thoughts,

Right?

In an instant,

I looked over at my instructor who was not someone I would ever have any attraction to at all,

But I looked over at him and everything inside of me wanted to crawl into his arms like a little baby.

I realized pretty quickly that the energy that my body was wanting and needing was to be held.

I wanted someone to hold me and to tell me I was going to be okay.

I say quite a lot to clients and colleagues and friends.

There are times when we show up for our meditation practice and ultimately the hope is that we show up enough that eventually our practice shows up for us.

I deeply believe that what happened next was a moment of my practice showing up for me where what happened was a soft,

Kind voice came into my mind that said,

Sweetheart,

I can hold you.

This is the entire purpose of this time in your life to learn to hold yourself and I can hold you through this.

I don't know if it was three seconds after that or 10 seconds after that,

But from that moment that the voice said,

I can hold you,

That was what I repeated to myself.

I can hold you.

I can hold you through this.

Did you still feel the fear?

100% because I was still out of control.

The fear was still there.

I love that you asked this question because I think the fact that the fear was still there and that I had no uncertainty that I was going to jump out that door anymore is exactly why when you reminded me that what we're really afraid of is the pain,

Not the outcome,

That that moment of going,

I can hold you was like,

Okay,

I can hold myself no matter the outcome.

Yeah.

So it's,

I asked that specifically for a reason.

So first,

You know,

Of course it's,

You know,

People think that if you've overcome fearful experiences,

That it means that you found a way to stop the fear,

Which that doesn't really happen.

It just takes on different forms and it's present.

It's like,

You know,

I,

I've told people before,

You know,

Fear is kind of an ever present thing for me.

Now it's gotten more quiet than it used to be.

It used to be a lot louder than it is now.

So getting,

You know,

To your point about the discomfort,

I think the discomfort,

I'll say the pain,

The pain of the experience,

The discomfort,

That's really all it is because,

You know,

Ultimately what a pain is,

Is something that goes outside of our comfort level.

And our comfort level is our sense of security could be,

You know,

Could be security of our bodies,

Security of our emotions,

Security of our mind,

Anything like that.

That's where this discomfort or this,

This disruption happens inside,

Inside us.

That's the,

That's where the fear is because it's a protective energy.

It's trying to protect us from that disruption.

It wants kind of flat experience.

The,

The,

The mechanism or the ego that's trying to regulate your system,

It wants it to be very balanced and flat.

It doesn't want any disruptions.

And those disruptions are,

They can actually cause us to feel out of sorts,

Not know what to do,

All of these types of things.

So it's,

It's decided that having a flat experience is the best experience that you can have,

Which is actually the complete opposite of what it means to be alive.

And I've been reading,

I went back and reading the Bhagavad Gita again.

And one of the things that really stood out to me is he keeps telling Arjuna,

You know,

You have to let go of the result of your actions.

And it's essentially saying the same thing that we're talking about right now,

Letting go of the result of the actions,

You know,

Where we're thinking about the negative results of an action that's letting go of the,

The fear of the pain or the discomfort,

But in general,

Just let go of any result that,

Or any expectation of result of your actions.

So in that state,

There's a kind of fluidity.

If you can find that state,

There's a fluidity and you don't have to worry about anything.

Like it's a,

It's a kind of freedom that you can achieve.

If you can't get there with all of your actions,

At least you can,

You can confront your clinging to something stationary for the sake of security.

So I think this is,

This is the,

The other way to approach it,

Which is life is going to take things away from you.

That's just how it is.

Life is going,

It's because it's constantly refreshing.

Like I said,

At the beginning,

You're going to be confronted with death on some level at any given point in your life.

And ultimately for real death,

It's going to take everything away from you.

Everything that you think you are,

Everything that you've held onto,

No matter what meditations you've done,

There's always this little bit that you still cling to as an identity of yourself.

And what life is doing is giving you the opportunity to let go of those things early on.

So you're not confronted with it all at once on your deathbed.

At least this is what I believe,

You know,

This is what I think is the purpose of a lot of these experiences that we have.

And in letting go of those clinging to the stationary aspects of life that we call security,

We have the opportunity to live a more rich and fulfilling life.

So this is a new thing for me.

So I can't really fully,

I don't feel like I can articulate it well,

But I've been seeing this a lot in my life over the last couple of years.

I think,

You know,

Some of the things that I've gone through over the last couple of years that have shown me the more that I surrender of myself or what I believe to be myself,

Whether it be my physical body,

Whether it be my beliefs about who I am or my role in a relationship or my space that I exist in.

Anytime I'm clinging to that,

I'm clinging to a very small idea.

And this experience of death,

Which if you can overcome the fear,

Makes very clear to you that you're holding on to a very small version of reality.

So I guess maybe that's the encouraging side of this,

For people to face their fear and to process their fear and be able to move through it,

Is because what it shows you is how irrational some of these things are that we cling to.

And I'll use the space that I'm existing in right now,

Which is a little tiny,

Not even a one bedroom space in Tokyo that last year something happened and I was like,

Oh God,

I'm like,

Money situation,

I'm not going to be able to keep this space like everything,

Everything bad starts coming.

Like you start thinking about this giant collapse of everything in your in your life,

Like all the worst things are going to happen.

Fear starts coming in,

How am I going to deal with this?

How,

You know,

What if this happens?

What if this happens?

And then I had like you said,

You know,

The moment of clarity,

I think this is where the practice comes in when you meditate when you do the work on a regular basis,

Then you get a moment of grace.

I think it's really just a moment of grace that that voice that spoke to you.

It's just grace and grace said,

You know,

This is what you're holding on to.

You know,

This is what you're clinging to this little tiny one bedroom,

You know,

Of all the things you can have in this universe,

You know,

When you were talking about this,

I was thinking about the father,

The archetypal father,

You know,

And the the mother provides these opportunities,

The universe from Mother Earth and you'll get sense the the father is coming in from the galactic universe and giving you these these gifts,

And basically giving you the universe.

But we're holding on to things like our body.

We're holding on to things like a space or relationship.

And how can we ever truly accept those great things when we're holding on to the small things,

You know,

Our hands are full with these little tiny things.

So processing that fear allows you to see that and then you have the opportunity to let go.

Yeah,

What's arriving in my heart and and I love that we waited as long as we did to have this conversation because this piece feels feels novel.

And I love getting to hear you speak about it.

And this is why I love conversations with you.

It always enlivens me things for me.

Thank you.

Me too.

You know,

And I love what you just said,

Because one,

It feels so totally true where we're blessed and burdened.

You know,

I love the title of the book,

The unbearable lightness of being because I think we are so beautifully blessed and burdened with this narrow human perspective,

Right?

We can only see the past and the present and we only see it through the filter in the lens with which we saw it in the moment,

Right,

Which is inherently skewed by what was in that moment past,

Right and past experiences.

And so we're constantly creating our reality,

But our,

Our reality tends to be so small,

You know,

And so I love what you just said that we're being offered the universe,

And we're attached and clinging to these very,

When you look at it from that perspective,

Somewhat silly and ridiculous attachments like a one bedroom apartment,

Or you're,

You're here with me my process of my own death this year of losing a house and a wife and a family and a sense of personhood and the concepts and labels of mother,

Wife,

Partner,

You know,

Business owner to now working for a company and what I love inside of that,

As we talk about fear is that to surrender to the flow of life,

And to let death and loss and inherently rebirth and growth and newness come into our life,

It's really embodying the process of living in such a way that we invite ourselves to have a fully rich human experience that is beyond what we can conceptualize in any given moment.

I think that's a key point conceptualization,

What we can conceptualize,

Because that's,

That's essentially what it is,

It's our narrative that we're creating,

That,

You know,

It's like we are the authors of our book,

And we assume that we are the best authors in the world.

And very rarely,

Do we look to other authors and be like,

Oh,

Well,

They've actually written a much better book than we have.

And let's,

Let's learn from them.

Very rarely do we do that.

And if we do that,

Very rarely do we say,

Hey,

Why don't I stop looking at any other author and trust that there is something greater author with a capital G,

Or a capital A,

That is is capable of telling the story beyond my expectation,

Because my expectation is based on my narrative.

My expectation is based on my experiences that I've gone through.

And so if you if you're okay,

Living in a realm where you perpetually generate the things that you are accustomed to,

Then you should keep trusting your narrative.

But if you want something outside of that,

You have to surrender your narrative.

Yeah,

There's a Sarah Blondin podcast episode or meditation that I used to listen to called learning to surrender.

And one of the things that always stuck out to me was she said,

That which you are resisting,

Might just be your dreams coming into form.

And there's such a truth to that,

That if we have dreams,

If we have goals,

If we have places we want to go,

By nature,

They are outside of our narrative.

Right,

Right.

And typically,

At least what I've experienced in life is they never tend to look exactly like you think they're going to look.

And again,

I think this goes back to the narrative and the concept,

Right,

We can only create a concept inside of the narrative we're currently inside of whatever paradigm we're embodying,

We have a perception and a view of what that dream will look like in the future.

But as we step outside that narrative,

Or that paradigm,

To actually reach towards that,

What we typically find is one,

We're a new person to what we're stepping into,

We never could have conceptualized in the first place.

And then the interesting part is we tend to resist what we're trying to make happen,

Because the shift that it takes to get there is uncomfortable,

Right?

Right.

I think all pains necessitate that.

Exactly.

That's a big part of it is the fear.

I mean,

It's moving through the fear,

It's the discomfort of the pain that comes with and there is some pain,

No doubt,

You know,

It's not as though any transition is without pain,

You know,

Like if you,

If you want to go to the gym and transform your body,

That's a painful process,

And you can do it,

You can transform your very body,

You know,

By doing certain exercises or by eating a certain way,

You can look differently,

You know,

And that that's an amazing thing.

And it can be painful.

But the question is,

Is it pain that you are that you recognize as being worth the experience?

And for me,

Always,

It has been so I've not had an experience yet to where the universe has given me something that I've not found to be better than what I thought I wanted.

I love that.

And I think we've been lightly dancing in a way it feels to me around the word trust.

And I think we mentioned it a little bit earlier.

But what you just said to me profoundly reflects,

At least from what I feel is the human experience,

A willingness to be in trust,

Right.

And,

And as someone who's spent the last few months and and is still in my own process of grief and and getting to be a part of your process of grieving over the last few years as well.

I think it's real for all of us as human beings that we find ourselves in situations where no matter how long they last or what they are,

That that the depth of suffering sometimes doesn't lend very much space for trust.

And finding a footing for that when we're really in the midst of it can be challenging.

So I'm curious,

Again,

I'll,

I'll plug as I did at the very beginning,

You are one of the people I respect most deeply in the world.

And I feel like your ability to trust and navigate these difficult situations in a way that always feels honorable,

Is something I've deeply respected.

And I'm wondering if you have a sense for yourself of what that footing is when you're really in the midst of those hard moments.

There are there are different degrees of those moments.

So there are different intensities and different intensities,

I found require different,

Different approaches.

I want to I want to just put a premise out there first,

And then I'll talk about the some of the experiences,

How I navigate it.

So one premise that I just want to convey is a premise of security versus insecurity.

I recently have been feeling like this is really the root of fear.

And what I mean by that is security in the sense that when we are born,

Or when we are fetuses in our mother's womb,

We have this complete sense of security.

And as we're born,

Slowly,

We start losing that feeling of security.

And we try to find different ways to create that security for ourselves.

And the thing that is growing at the same time is our recognition of insecurity.

And so a lot of what I've been confronting recently is insecurity.

And,

You know,

We use that word to say a person's insecure,

They don't really they're not sure of themselves,

That kind of thing.

But I mean it in a more literal sense of just being without security,

The feeling of being without security.

And that's,

You know,

Like anything else in in a spiritual practice.

If you put your attention on sense,

Sense objects around us,

Like the people,

You know,

Jobs,

Whatever these things that are around us,

They are always impermanent.

And so they will always return back to a feeling of insecurity.

So the question is,

You know,

As as the great teachers have always said,

What is is,

You know,

What is the thing that is permanent that you can turn to?

And it's ironically,

The thing that feels the most insecure to us,

Because we're so heavily weighted on the sense objects in our life,

The things that are going on around us that we,

We have not fully committed to the things that are beyond that,

The thing that that exists beyond that.

And that's,

That's the work,

That's the practice that we all do.

But,

You know,

So I'll talk about some experiences recently,

Intense fear,

Intense insecurity,

Intense feeling of loss,

And not being able to hold something together.

You know,

The,

I guess how we do with with our,

Our minds and our manipulations of things around us,

We try to keep things glued together in our lives.

But when that starts dissipating and falling apart,

And you feel like you have no control over what do you do?

And I went through this back in August,

I think this is around the time you and I spoke.

And the only way that I could get through something like this was,

You know,

This is the kind that wakes you up and at night or like,

You can't get to sleep.

And the first thing I did was meditate,

You know,

That's,

That's,

Of course,

You try this meditation.

But there's,

There's times when meditation,

It just feels like it's not working.

You know,

I've,

And I've been meditating for,

I don't even know how many years,

You know,

And,

And like you and and I rely on it so heavily,

But I felt so alone.

And so I believe that people use the term dark night of the soul.

Dark night of the soul was like where you don't even feel like you can touch God,

You know,

Like it's,

Everything is removed from you,

And you're alone,

Completely alone.

And so I tried meditation and that.

But what meditation did was it got me to a point to where I could get to the next stage.

And what the next stage was,

For me,

Was just 100% surrender to the experience,

Just 100% ego death.

Because the only way that you can stop the suffering is to let that ego die.

It's the only way through it.

Anything else is just pain and anguish and sorrow and grief and all of these things that it,

It was just so overwhelming to me.

That was the only alternative that I had.

And I was I was I remember I was laying down in my bed,

And I just surrendered.

And I felt I felt the energy just moved through my entire body.

And it felt like I was floating in an ocean.

And that ocean was an ocean of pain.

But I was floating in it.

And I remember thinking this is this is this ocean cannot be navigated.

This ocean cannot be,

You know,

Tamed.

It's never I'll never be able to process the amount of pain that's in this ocean,

But I'm floating in it.

And it just went through me.

I mean,

I felt it through my entire being and I just felt like I was just one with it.

So after that,

I think things became a little more manageable.

It's not that things went away.

But I felt like,

You know,

I had experienced it in a level that I had never experienced it before in my life.

So that's that's the extreme side,

The less extreme side.

I think recently,

The most effective way of processing this stuff is to not think about it.

I love that.

That's your answer.

Just don't even think about it.

Because it's it that's all that's going to do is just make things worse.

You never you're not going to think your way out of fear.

You're not going to think your way out of a fear problem.

Yeah.

And if you you know,

If you could just let go of the thoughts and that may be hard for some people to do.

But there's there is a space if you meditate frequently and you you know,

There's a space you can get to where you're like,

Nope,

Just not allowing this into my brain right now.

And you just move,

Just keep moving through it.

And then you're through it.

And that's it.

Yeah,

I love I love both of both of those pieces.

One,

Thank you for your your authenticity and your truth when it comes to the dark night of the soul.

You know,

As you you spoke to earlier,

These are moments that I think we all inevitably experience as human beings and whether we have the the gift of experiencing them early in life or even multiple times before we reach that final moment.

Absolutely.

I think that's a gift,

Right?

Because then the way we show up for actual death is likely different.

I haven't done it.

Can't actually speak to it experientially.

But I certainly imagine,

You know,

And I,

As you recounted that there was a felt sense in my own body,

A recalling of my version of that moment.

And for me,

That's,

That's exactly what I couldn't understand until recently of what it means to be with and hold ourselves to really stop fighting and,

And surrender.

And I,

I love that the way you described the the ocean of pain and it can't be navigated.

You know,

In my loving kindness practice,

I say,

May I or you or we live with ease.

And the image that's always in my mind is being on a few wooden planks floating on the surface of an ocean.

And it's really that,

Right?

True.

Yeah.

And the power is,

It doesn't mean right that moment that all of a sudden the pain disappears as we surrender.

But,

But it is such a profoundly different experience to not fight ourselves inside of whatever version of pain or suffering is existing in that moment.

And I deeply love as well the just don't think about it.

There's a book that I read not too long ago that,

You know,

One of the things that I love is that,

You know,

He basically is like,

Why do you keep going to your mind for answers?

If your mind had the answers,

You would have the answers.

So it's like going to a bankrupt bank and trying to get money.

Good luck.

That's right.

Yeah.

So,

You know,

One,

One thing I'll offer as a kind of an additive to what you express,

Because I do think it's hard.

I'll speak for myself.

It is hard.

And in a lot of moments,

Sometimes to just cut those thoughts,

Right?

And if,

If we're new to meditation or,

Or new to an experience of self-reflective awareness or present moment awareness,

That can be even,

Even harder.

That one thing that I've added to that moment of knowing that the thoughts aren't helping is in a way to recognize that those thoughts are that protective ego and that in a way that's beautiful,

You know,

That,

That look at this incredible part of ourselves that loves us so much that one,

It is stuck around for the entirety of our life.

And I'm pretty sure for most of us,

It'll be there until the end.

It's not giving up on us.

It's going to keep showing up and it's going to keep doing its best to protect us,

You know?

And so in a way,

My practice with that has become just thinking,

Thanking that part of myself.

Like I see you trying to protect me in this moment.

And at least for right now,

It's safe to stay open and just see what happens.

And you know,

For me,

That allows some softening around the thoughts around,

And I don't know if you have the felt experience often those thoughts feel a little bit edgy and softening around the edges,

If you will.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

They're certainly edgy.

They're like the sand spurs because they're very sticky.

And you know,

When you were,

When you were talking about that,

I was thinking about the ego and because the core mechanism of the fear comes from the amygdala,

It's the fight or flight,

Like you said,

The,

The,

It's the,

The lizard brain,

But it's also designed to look for opportunities.

It's designed to look for,

You know,

Ways of survival.

So not just to protect,

That's the,

That's like,

You could think of that as the shadow self of it.

The other side is that it can be looking for opportunities.

And so kind of using that recently to,

As I look around,

Look for opportunity and not focus on the fear of what's being lost,

But just focus on what is the next opportunity.

I love that.

And I love the the allusion to the shadow side of,

Of fear,

If you will,

And the,

The light being opportunity.

And I think it ties perfectly to death and birth or rebirth,

You know,

And yeah,

I just want to add there's,

You know,

It's,

It's easy to forget that these are just energies.

And that's a perfect addition.

Right?

They're just energies.

And they're just one side of,

Let's say a two sided coin or a multi-sided die or something like that.

That's all they are.

And what we,

What we lack,

We're not lacking in rationality.

I think people,

People who have gotten to a certain level of spirituality,

We have plenty of rationality to logically process these types of things.

What we're lacking is perspective.

You know,

We,

That's the thing that we cannot see,

Because if we had the full perspective of things,

And that is like having true sight,

Truly seeing things,

Then that that fear element or that lost side would only be one side of something that is much more multifaceted.

And yeah,

It's just,

It's just energy.

And it's how we use it,

That really matters.

So,

So I think,

You know,

Like you're saying,

The loving it or thanking it for being there is a really good thing,

Because it's,

It's something you can use,

It's still something you can use,

It's available to you to use however you want.

It's not your enemy,

It's not attacking you.

It's just energy.

Yeah.

And I think that that perfectly aligns with the invitation to really just not make anything our enemy,

Whether it's it's inside of us or outside of us.

And,

You know,

I love,

I love that you said it's all about perspective.

I had a friend that gave me the alchemist a few months ago,

And was kind of shocked that I think I'm the only person I know that had not read that.

But at the end of the book,

The thing that really stood out to me was that exactly what you just said,

It's this feeling that we have just such a narrow,

Beautifully narrow human perspective.

And from a wide enough perspective,

Everything is beautiful.

And,

You know,

It's the willingness to dance in and out of that,

You know,

The reality is,

We're human,

And we're going to stay that way.

And so the narrow perspective,

In a way is our,

It's our unconscious,

I don't want to say natural,

You know,

But unconscious state of being,

And it takes,

Takes energy,

And it takes effort to remember that a wider perspective exists.

And,

And from that space,

You know,

I love that you you said,

As well,

The two sides of the coin,

And in Buddhism,

The opposite of fear is hope,

And can be experienced in the body and in the same energy,

Right.

And it's just a different concept.

Fear is the expectation that the outcome is bad or negative or pain or suffering or harmful.

And hope is the exact same living energy with the expectation that the outcome is beautiful.

And,

You know,

I'm not so much an advocate of bullshitting ourselves in a in a moment where fear is naturally arising to be like,

But I'm going to trust the positive outcome and be hopeful.

But instead,

Really to find that that middle path where we accept ourselves for our moment of fear,

We surrender to it,

We're not rejecting it,

We don't need to rid ourselves of it.

But in a fundamental way,

We trust the the natural unfolding of life from a wide enough perspective to be beautiful,

Even if the outcome of this tiny,

Minuscule moment in time is not what we think from our narrow concept is what we like.

Right.

Yeah.

And it certainly it's best to,

You know,

Eliminate any expectation and any expectation of result,

But also better to bullshit yourself with positivity than to defeat yourself with negativity.

You know,

If that's what it takes to get you there,

Go ahead and bullshit yourself.

You know,

So I have to do that sometimes.

So but,

You know,

I it's funny that I think it's funny that we,

You know,

We're really good.

Our minds are really good at dissecting things.

You know,

That's that's what we do.

Humans are have we've evolved to a point where we can just take anything and just chop it up and look at it from 1000 different ways.

But we haven't really done that with our experiences with life.

Yeah,

We haven't figured out how to use that mechanism to do the exact same thing.

We can take an apple and say,

OK,

Here's an apple.

But if you if you look at on a molecular level,

It looks like this.

And if you look at a nutritional level,

It looks like this.

And if you look at it like and then we can we can multiply them and all these different things.

And what is an apple and what color is an apple really?

And,

You know,

All of these perspectives we can take if we did that with life and our experiences with life,

Then I think we'd have a more realistic understanding of these things and less holding on to one thing or another thing.

We'd be more adventurous.

You know,

It's it's the way that we can go to a grocery store and and choose from a wide variety of apples and say,

Hey,

You know,

I think I'll try this one this time.

And I think we could be that way with life if we stopped.

You know,

We widen our perspective and stop holding on to the one perspective that we have about what it's supposed to be.

I love your grocery store analogy,

Because I think it's perfect because how many of us go to the grocery store and we buy the same type of apple,

Even though there's 20 to choose from and we end up with the exact same items in our cart every single time?

You know,

What a what a perfect example of how we tend to narrow ourselves into a particular living experience.

You know,

And you're reminding me one of one of my favorite quotes is you don't have a life,

You are life.

And even the the possession and the attachment to my life and everything that comes with that,

I think,

Falls so in line with what you just shared and the willingness to be open to and curious about and playful with the unending possibilities of what living looks like and feels like if we're willing to step through fear into the unknown.

And the reality is that's scary as shit.

Yeah,

It is.

And,

You know,

Actually,

The there was a book that you recommended to me a couple years ago.

I think this really set me on my really confronting the things that are scary to me that come up.

And this is the confrontation of the karmic seeds that we've planted and just saying,

OK,

I'm ready.

I did this.

I was like,

OK,

I'm ready.

Go ahead and grow.

I had no idea what I was saying at the time.

And,

You know,

Looking back,

I'm like,

Was I really ready for this?

But but I did it.

And then actually it happened.

You know,

Things started growing.

And so this this my sense,

This my sense or I sense that we have,

You know,

You you only hold on to that to the extent that you are blessed to believe that it's true.

You know,

Once you talk to somebody who's lost an arm or a body part in a surgery and ask them if they really believe it's their body,

You know,

Ultimately anything can be taken away.

Any of this physical can be taken away.

And that is the impermanent nature of this thing that we often call my life.

When you get into the my sense,

My life,

My that means my body,

My job,

My relationships,

My personality,

My space.

But that's not at all,

You know,

This this true self,

As you know,

And we've talked about this before,

But the over dependence on it.

It's still something that it's something that I really am trying to understand why,

Why we have this dependence on this thing.

So let me see if I can give an example without being so I want to make sure that I'm not you may have to edit this part out.

I don't want to leave that part in.

Thank you.

Yeah,

I don't want to overshare here.

But you know,

There,

There are,

There are sexual experiences that a person can have that are transcendent.

And,

You know,

This is where two,

Two beings come together.

And it's,

Yes,

There's a physical element to it.

But then there's like a spiritual element to it as well.

And it and you can transcend it can be a meditation.

And I think some people who listen to this will probably know about this.

But there's also still the draw,

Even though that experience is so intense,

And so beautiful,

And so amazing.

There's a draw to the,

You know,

Let's,

Let's say that's a very subtle form of sexual energy.

There's a draw to the grosser side of sexual energy.

And,

And it still pulls us and and we can,

We can look at that experience and be like,

You know,

I know that that experience is is better for me,

I feel better for this experience.

But I still have this draw,

Why am I being pulled to this sense object,

Or you could think about altered states of consciousness,

You know,

It's like I could meditate and I can find this very clear state of mind.

But sometimes I still want to drink.

You know,

I still drink alcohol and I drink and I'm like,

I Why am I drinking?

This is not making me happy.

Like I'm drinking.

I'm like,

I'm not I don't feel better when I'm drinking.

I actually feel better when I'm not drinking.

I'll have a drink.

And I'll sit there and and,

You know,

Like one drink,

Immediately.

This I already regret this.

Why am I drinking?

You know,

Like,

I want to read my book,

And I don't have the clear mind to read my book,

And I want to sleep in it.

But still,

That draw is there.

So there's something that's the part that I'm working on right now.

Or that's the part that I'm trying to figure out right now is like,

If these things are so if we know they're so much better for us,

If we can see it,

You know,

Then what is this thing that compels us still this compulsion that is like,

Drawing us to act on that.

So that that I think is,

You know,

As it relates to fear,

I think fear is a compulsion.

You know,

Even though we can look at things like hope and things like that,

I still think we feel compulsion to feel fear.

It's like an addiction.

And that's the part that I want to figure out next is like,

Why?

Why are we pulled to that?

Yeah,

I love that.

You know,

I don't I don't know if you you've seen the tattoo I got a few months ago,

But I have a new tattoo on my arm that is,

If you will,

Half Buddha and half human.

And through through my journey,

Personally with meditation,

And and one of the things that's taken me many years to lean into as a as a teacher and a facilitator is everybody's path looks different.

And so much of our spiritual awakening has to be inwardly guided that,

You know,

Quote,

Unquote,

To be a teacher,

More like,

I think,

Giving language that people will understand later,

But not trying to guide them along a particular path.

And,

You know,

One of the things that took me many years,

I think,

To understand and accept is,

Ultimately,

Until the moment that we are fully awake,

Right,

And until we transcend,

You know,

This,

This human experience of suffering,

And I'm definitely going to say,

You know,

I buy that as a possibility,

Whether whether I will attain it in this lifetime or not is up for debate,

But I'm probably leaning towards not,

The reality is that we all are just utterly human,

You know,

And so as I hear you talk about the the compulsions,

And you know,

I still drink every now and then too,

And heaven forbid,

I have a second drink,

I'm definitely in that space of like,

Why am I doing?

Why did I drink?

Why did I do this?

You know,

But it is,

It's interesting,

Because I think recently,

Especially,

And the reason for this tattoo is,

I don't think I've ever felt quite as much freedom as I have in recent months,

Giving myself the space to still be human,

You know,

And to recognize when a human compulsion arises,

And should I act on it,

I think the biggest thing that causes pain is not even the compulsion itself,

Right,

Or not the action taken from compulsion.

But the response to that that for me is often shame,

Or,

You know,

Self blame,

Or the quiet texture,

You know,

I used to say my my self critic before I started meditating was a loud,

Angry bitch.

And she's,

She's become a quiet texture,

You know,

It's often it's not even the words that I use anymore inside of my own mind and body,

But the the texture with which I hold myself.

And I don't know if this feels real for you or or inviting,

And I certainly don't know that it's truth with a capital T.

But at least for now,

I think there's something beautiful about giving ourselves the permission to embrace our humanity and our compulsions in a way that sure we learn,

Learn over time,

To soften around those compulsions.

And yet we also have the space to have them and to not need ourselves to be to be different or without them because to be without them,

We're no longer human.

And what does that experience of living really look like?

And certainly,

At least for now,

I don't know the answer.

Yeah,

Me either.

Maybe that's the next podcast we do.

If I solve it,

We'll do an emergency podcast.

If you solve it,

We're going to do an emergency call,

Whether it turns into a podcast or me taking in the energy of whatever you have to say is up for debate.

Yeah,

I mean,

It's just a funny thing to me.

It's like,

You know,

How it is degrees,

Certainly it is,

It's a matter of degrees,

And it is a matter of experiencing life.

And I think there's a balance between how much we restrict from ourselves and how much we experience,

You know,

Because there is the life experience and that should be fully lived.

And certainly it should be lived without regret and remorse as much as possible.

And so I strive for that.

It's just a funny thing that it's,

You know,

Where I find myself,

I was reading,

I can't remember which Sakharov book it was,

But I was reading one of his books.

And he was saying,

You know,

One of the first stages where you are entering,

And it's an odd thing,

Because I feel like I've been on a spiritual journey for 20 something years.

But in a way,

Recently,

I feel like I'm just entering this spiritual journey.

I don't know how else to explain that.

But it's,

You know,

When I look at the signs,

You know,

Like he says,

You see this oscillation,

These two oscillating factors that happen a lot,

And then they resonate together at some point.

And I think that's what you were saying,

You know,

Ultimately,

That there's a kind of softening,

And it resonates together.

And I find myself a little bit in this oscillating experience.

So,

Yeah,

I love,

I don't know how much this has to do with fear.

But I've recently changed my concept and idea around the word balance that I think,

For a long time,

I had a concept of balance being equilibrium,

Right?

It's like,

In a way,

Finding the perfect left and right masculine,

Feminine,

Sun and moon,

Human and Buddha,

Whatever it is in a moment,

Drinking,

Not drinking,

Sex,

Not sex,

You know,

Aloneness and connection.

And that there is a stable state that equals balance.

And as of recently,

What feels more true is that balance is an experience that's constantly in flux.

And,

You know,

I think this really the seed got planted,

Reading Osho's book,

Love,

Freedom and Aloneness,

Where at the end of that book,

He ties everything together to say that meditation is our alone time in such a way that it connects us to the whole,

That wider perspective,

The truth of who we are,

The total peace and fulfillment and doing absolutely nothing such that we become at some point,

So full of love,

Overflowing,

That we become uncomfortable.

And in that discomfort,

We're spurred to move toward connection,

And being with others and giving that love a place to go.

And then inside of that dance,

There comes a moment where we've given our love to such a degree that our cup is now empty.

And in that moment,

Again,

We find discomfort and we're spurred back to our experience of aloneness to refill.

And so it's this dance between becoming so full that we're uncomfortable that we empty and become uncomfortable that brings us back.

And it's never still right.

And what a beautiful reflection of life and living and that everything,

Everything gets taken away,

Everything is changing,

That even balance is a changing state.

Right?

Yeah,

Yeah,

That's great.

I like that.

I always feel like,

You know,

What,

Again,

It's just a matter of perspective,

Like balance,

Balance is,

You know,

It's the it's the eternal is everything balances.

It's just our limited perspective of time and space.

That keeps us from recognizing that it's in balance.

It's all in balance.

There's nothing out of balance in this universe.

It's all in balance.

It's just we don't,

We don't have the full scope of things.

So and then some of it's happening on a on a energy level,

You know,

And I think this is the this is what kind of going back to fear is what we're talking about the fear and hope thing.

It's like,

You know,

There is a there's an equilibrium inside there is a middle way that you can choose and you and ultimately,

That's that's your letting go of,

Of the expectations of the results.

Ultimately,

If you can do that,

That is that is the way that's the middle way.

Just let go of the results.

And why I think there's probably two sides,

The two balancing factors,

Let go of the results and let go of the sense of I,

You know,

Those two factors,

Those are the things that are trying to balance and for that are in balance of each other.

So if you put high expectation on something,

Then it's going to reflect on your sense of I,

Right.

So that's,

That's how it balances out.

Yeah,

I really love that.

The letting go of the expectations of the outcome,

I think is so profound,

Because the reality is,

We have very little control.

And it ties so beautifully to the sense of I because I is never independent of we.

And so when we think about outcomes,

And we think about expectations,

It comes from that sense of I and what where can I exert my control and my power to generate an outcome that I desire.

And the reality is that outcome is tied,

Whether seen or unseen,

To so many other factors and facets so many other eyes that make up the whole of we this earth,

This universe,

That we can never really pull enough strings to create the outcomes that we want in any sort of guaranteed way.

And I don't know that I've had the the conscious awareness of releasing the I.

But I will say,

In my practice over the last few months,

The things and experiences that have really generated fear,

When I release my expectations or need for an outcome to be a particular way,

What happens naturally is the I goes as well.

Yep,

Yeah,

They're they're connected.

Yeah,

That's true.

Let me ask you a question.

How often do you experience fear?

Every day.

You know,

And like you said earlier,

It's varying degrees.

You know,

I definitely believe when it comes to any line of ruminating thought that shows up in my mind,

The source of that ultimately is fear,

Whether it's a really subtle energy of fear,

Or whether it's a profound one.

You know,

Before we started recording,

I think I said that my workload this week has been very hefty.

And,

You know,

I found myself waking in the morning,

Thinking about the to do list of what hasn't been accomplished at work,

Right.

And if I really draw that back to its root,

What that is,

Is fear,

Fear that it's not going to get done or fear that there's not enough time or fear that I'm,

I'm,

Like you said,

Insecurity,

That that I haven't done enough,

You know,

And then there are larger life situations that are unfolding as they will.

And there are moments when thoughts about that arise.

And the root of those is fear,

What's the outcome going to be?

When is there going to be an answer?

Will there be an answer?

You know,

So how often do I experience fear?

Every single day?

Multiple times a day,

Multiple times a day in many degrees,

Right?

Exactly,

Exactly the same for me.

And I so imagine,

You know,

All those things that you just said,

If you didn't care about the outcome,

If you didn't care about anything that happened,

The fluidity that you would have the flexibility that you would have the energy that you would have to approach things I this is what I've been thinking about recently is just,

You know,

When I care about these things,

I spend so much energy on them,

I get tired,

You know,

Like,

I'm not as effective in them.

But if I stop thinking about it,

And I just like do these things,

That's it,

Just stop thinking,

Just do them,

Then maybe it's good.

Maybe it's not good.

You know,

Like,

Maybe the result is good.

Maybe it's not good.

And I like had to be okay with that.

Because I'm a perfectionist,

You know,

Like,

I want everything and I'm a strategist.

I mean,

This Yeah,

Strategist and perfectionist,

You know,

Like,

I'm covering right at making,

Right,

Making things happen the way that I want them to happen and be perfect.

Right?

That's like my whole modus operandi.

And then,

You know,

So just sit back and just be like,

No,

I don't care.

I'm just gonna I'm just gonna send this email.

It's okay,

If it gets a good response,

Doesn't get a good response.

I'm not going to stress over I'm not going to overthink it,

I'm not going to think about the perfect way to structure the words in order to make it trigger this type of response.

And the other person,

All of these things that I typically do when I write an email,

You know,

When I send photos,

You know,

For article that type of thing,

Maybe it's,

You know,

Maybe it's the right photo,

I sent two different ones,

And they choose this,

This one,

You know,

I let them choose,

Like,

I'm not choosing,

I'm not telling them what to choose,

I let them choose,

Let them decide.

And just letting go of that control,

Letting go of that need to define what the outcome will be in that situation.

I'm a lot more fluid,

And things are happening a lot more fast,

Quickly,

And I'm able to respond to things a lot more quickly.

And so that's my practice.

Now,

That's my daily practice.

Now is like when things happen,

It's just like just do something,

Just let it trigger an action.

Let the action and again,

This goes the Bhagavad Gita that he's reading,

He says,

Nature is action,

You know,

Or action is nature,

Which way that that goes,

But nature is action.

And that to believe that you are the doing is a mistake.

It's actually nature that is doing through you.

That's the action that's happening.

And just letting the more you turn yourself over to that,

Then the more in the flow,

As the Daoist would say,

In the in accord with time or in the flow of Dao,

You know,

You become.

So that's my practice now.

And I'm actually,

You know,

Just tracking how things change,

You know,

If I get different results,

But what I can see certainly is I'm responding quicker to things that come in.

I'm not letting them stress me and I just like take an action and let the action flow through me.

I really love that Ash,

One because everything we do and think is energy,

Right?

And so we spend our time ruminating in the energy of fear,

Or we allow thoughts to generate in the mind and we follow those thoughts into a train of thought,

You know,

It's energy expenditure one way or another.

And so in a way,

I love what I am hearing you say,

Because it's taking the energy that fear might normally compel within the mind and putting it into action in the body.

And so it's not rejecting that energy that's naturally arising,

But actually saying,

Okay,

I'm going to use that.

I love what you said about releasing the outcome ties deeply with one of my practices right now,

Which is recognizing how silly it is to conceptualize something is right and wrong,

A good outcome or about bad outcome,

Because it you know,

Like we've been talking about,

What it really is,

Is a snapshot in time.

And say we send an email and it gets a really negative response that sure,

In that moment,

We could conceptualize it as a bad outcome.

But if that moment,

A bad outcome leads to a deeper connection with the client that we we send that to because we have to work through that difficult moment,

And it leads to a deeper,

More rich,

Authentic and vulnerable connection that ultimately produces a better business and relational outcome than was that a bad moment,

Right?

Right.

And so it's just releasing this idea that there's a right or wrong,

And recognizing that even that comes from that narrow perspective.

And again,

Like the alchemist sort of ultimately trusting from a wide enough perspective,

It's all beautiful.

And I love I love the,

The nature element as well.

I just reread something that I wrote a couple of years ago while I was on an airplane and the very end of it said,

Something like the plane shakes on an unseen current of air.

And we don't question whether we are at fault for that.

Right.

But our life shakes on some unseen current of living.

And for some reason,

Our first response is,

Well,

I did that.

You know,

And so just just trusting that,

In whatever way our life shakes and moves,

Whatever turbulence we experience moment by moment,

It's nature that's acting,

It's not us.

And we can either,

Like the the ocean you alluded to earlier,

We can either surrender to that open our arms and open our legs and float on the current of turbulence.

Or we can resist it and sink like a stone to the bottom and feel like we struggle trying to stay above.

Yeah,

You know,

All of those things.

Yeah.

So I had a funny I had a funny observation when you were when you're talking.

So we want to be in total control.

You know,

This is something that we want.

We want to completely have control over our lives and and shape them how we want them to be.

But we don't trust ourselves to do it.

Like there's this other side of us that doesn't completely trust ourselves.

I was thinking about writing this email,

You know,

And it's like,

I want to dictate this,

But I,

I suffer over the exact words,

Because I'm not sure what are the right words to say.

So it's a lack of trust that I have in myself to even communicate the ideas that I want to communicate to these people that I'm writing.

And I think that's the same thing that's happening.

You know,

When it comes to that,

The spiritual process,

You know,

We are we are framing something we're not entirely sure.

So we keep trying to fix things in our life to make it optimal.

So we keep changing little elements,

Or we become discontent with something,

We try to fix this type of thing.

And this is general lack of trust.

And the alternative of this is letting that nature go through you,

You do these things,

You don't have any attachment to you don't take any responsibility for it in the sense of that it's just coming through you.

When when the feedback comes,

Whether it be negative or positive,

You have a learning experience from that you can evolve from that process,

It becomes it adds to your understanding of life.

So I think about like,

Photography,

I was I was used to think about this as a metaphor for existence.

But when when I,

When I was a child,

Photography used to be film,

And it used to be difficult to get film developed.

And so when you're learning how to shoot,

You have to really understand the math,

You have to know the shutter speed or the aperture,

You have to know the film speed,

Everything has to be set properly.

And then you kind of guess,

You take a guess at what that shot is.

And then you do this over the course of maybe a month.

And when you're done,

You take that film out,

You put it in the mail,

You mail it off.

And then a couple weeks later,

Or maybe a month later,

You get the results back.

And you're trying to compare which you think you did at that time and what the light settings were with the result.

Fast forward 20-30 years,

And now we have digital cameras,

And the results are immediate.

So with this immediate feedback,

You're able to respond quickly and you're able to grow.

And I think this is where you see the rise of these photographers,

You know,

When when digital photography came,

Because it's much easier to learn how to be a photographer,

It's much easier to take a good photo.

And because you had immediate feedback.

And I think that's,

That's the,

The benefit of being in the flow of nature is that you're getting this immediate feedback,

And you're you're growing at a rapid,

A more rapid rate than when you're struggling over these things and questioning yourself and is how do I do this?

And how do I hold on to this?

So what you're growing into?

I don't know.

I mean,

That's,

That's the big question that I have for myself.

It's,

You know,

I know,

Sorry,

I'm switching analogies,

But like being in a river,

And the rapids,

And we tend to hold on to the rocks.

Because we don't want to,

We don't want to experience the rapids,

And they're scary,

And they're rough,

And all these things,

But you let go.

And within a short amount of time,

You're down the river,

And you're in a different place,

And things are different.

And what does that look like?

That's the part I'm not sure about.

But I think the the challenge is not really,

You have to get to a point in your life where you recognize,

It's better to find out what's down the river,

Than to stay where you are.

Yeah.

And that's like,

That's like the the the key,

The key turning point for a spiritual journey.

So that's like the,

I think that's one of those moments that you have to just arrive at.

And when you do that,

Then surrender,

And,

And,

You know,

Like the the experience of fear and like surrendering to the fear and floating in the ocean,

That becomes an easier thing,

Because you have already made that choice,

That it's better to go down the river,

Than to stay.

So there's the Patanjali,

The Yoga Sutra,

And I guess the first line,

I've not read them,

But I just heard the first line is,

Is,

And now yoga,

Which means once you've done everything else,

Then then it's time for yoga,

You know,

Like you've tried everything,

You've tried every single thing that you think is going to work,

And it's going to make you happier,

It's going to fix your problems and all this stuff.

And none of that worked for you.

Then it's a very easy thing to say,

Okay,

I want to let go and see what's down the river.

So then it becomes much easier to deal with fear and to deal with other hardships in life,

Grief,

And all of those things.

Until you reach that point,

Then you're still going to be thinking that you know best.

But you don't.

That's,

That's what I know.

That's what I've,

I've learned so far.

I don't know best.

Yeah,

I love I love the analogy of the river.

As you were speaking,

What what arose in me is,

I think we begin the spiritual journey by thinking that the goal is to create a river where there are no rapids.

And then we find at some point that the goal is really to learn how to float and that the river is going to be the river,

And that there will be some parts of the river that are soft and smooth and without rapids.

And there will be some part with,

You know,

Subtle,

Small rapids,

And there will be some that are absolutely turbulent.

And the reality is,

If life is the river,

There is no stepping out of it.

Right?

There is no getting off the river,

The moment that you get off the river is the moment that that we've passed.

And so whether we resist or not,

We are moving down the river.

Yeah.

And it's,

It's learning to float and learning that,

That the rapids create one experience and the smoothness creates a different one.

And one is not better and one is not more right.

All of it is,

Is just life.

And,

You know,

Ultimately the question of,

Of where are we going?

You know,

I don't,

I don't think the,

The river ends in one particular place perhaps,

Or maybe it does,

Who knows.

But I love the analogy of the,

The river.

I definitely think for,

For me personally,

My journey started in that sense of control of trying to create a river that felt good to be in.

And now it's about recognizing,

You know,

Much,

Much like that,

The beautiful experience you articulated at the moment you surrendered to pain,

The word equanimity for me was a concept that didn't make sense for many years,

You know,

Because it's,

It's described in Buddhism,

It,

It falls between attachment and rejection,

Right.

And,

And in that way it falls between love and hate.

And it started out as,

Well,

If it,

If it's between these two extremes,

It's nothingness.

And the experiences that I've had that at least with my current concept of equanimity,

You know,

The experience of that is in that moment,

We surrender,

Even when we're in the ocean of pain,

There's a subtlety of lightness,

You know,

You described floating in that ocean,

There,

There's a subtlety of,

Of love or joy,

Or something that really doesn't have a word bound to it,

Of peace that can exist simultaneous to the rapids,

Then when when we taste that the question becomes how do we not make every single moment a moment of striving towards that?

Yeah,

I mean,

I think it's,

You know,

You,

It's possible that you don't experience those moments without the pain.

You know,

It's,

It's possible that those are,

Will always be elusive to you if you cannot confront your pain.

So I would encourage your listeners,

And maybe they're if they're going through something that's seems overwhelming,

Or painful,

To look at it as,

How can I experience this in and actually come out of this,

The greatest person I've ever been,

You know,

Like,

Take that attitude when you when you face these things,

Like,

I'm going to use this to make me the best that I've ever been,

You know,

Internally,

Not,

Not as a power as a struggle to,

To have a sense of brightness or anything like that.

It's just how can this transform me into something gold,

Golden,

And and take away the impurities.

And every one of these painful situations has the opportunity to do that if you approach it the right way.

Everyone has that.

So you you you can only get through painful experiences,

I think just two ways when you surrender to it when you fight it.

These are the only two ways that we go through painful experiences.

Most most people fight it,

Because it's it's uncomfortable.

And I think to a degree,

We all start immediately like our,

You know,

Our immediate reaction when we stub our toe is to blame somebody like this chair,

You know,

In the middle of the floor,

You know,

It's the same kind of thing is like pain happens,

We want we look for something to blame.

But then after that,

You know,

Have a moment with it,

And just see it as an opportunity.

And and,

And use it as an opportunity to burn the,

The impurities away inside or the things that are,

Are not truly you.

And and then you find that lightness and maybe ultimately recognize you are the river.

It's not even that you're in a place.

Yes.

Take it there.

Yeah.

River all along.

River all along.

Okay,

Can we just end there?

Sounds good.

Sounds good to me.

I don't I don't think we can go any further.

I feel like that's that's the perfect,

The perfect end.

I there's there's something that feels very real and true for me.

And thank you.

Thank you for that.

Pleasure.

I love our conversations.

Me too,

My dear.

Truly.

Thank you so much.

My pleasure.