I'm going to take some leaps here and throw out some truths that you might not have recognized as truths,
But maybe they will make more sense as we work our way through this.
Kind of like I want to skip to the end and then work backwards maybe.
And so,
To skip to the end,
Some of these conclusions are to say that our emotional experience as human beings does not ever respond to circumstance,
But our emotional experience responds to perception,
Which is to respond to the stories you're telling,
And this is fundamental.
And it can be seen quite clearly,
If there's a degree of honesty,
That if you have identified what we might call a deep pain that you're carrying around,
It's probably associated to some story about a circumstance from your past.
And what I want to invite you to see is that the pain is not wrapped around the circumstance,
But it's wrapped around the story.
Meaning,
Here you are a year,
Five,
Ten,
Twenty,
Forty years later,
And that experience is gone,
But what you brought with you is a story,
And it's the story that hurts.
And another one of these conclusions is that every emotionally painful story that we have is actually an innocent misunderstanding that doesn't see the truth of the matter.
And of course,
Immediately,
The mind in its effort to avoid looking at this can interpret what I say as a personal attack,
Like the assumption is that I'm saying that it's your fault,
And that's not what I'm saying at all.
What I'm saying is that,
In an absolute sort of way,
Our emotional pain is an alarm that says we have misunderstood our experience,
And this misunderstanding is interpreting it as such in a way that means you're less than.
And you can see this,
Yeah,
That if you look at that painful story,
What you're looking at is a painful interpretation that says because of xyz,
It means such and such about you,
And the such and such isn't a very nice story about yourself.
Our perception has gone through an experience on the surface and interpreted it in a way that is not true,
And also in a way that looks at yourself in a very unconstructive way,
In a very painful way.
It's almost,
Not even almost,
It is,
You can see it's also a very violent way of seeing yourself.
And so the point that I'm making,
And I'm a little bit nervous to make it,
And I say that because,
Given the focus of this talk,
I don't really have the time to walk you toward that conclusion,
To really help you see that,
That it's true.
But it's very important to see that.
And this is why,
At the core of this liberation,
Or the way through,
Is why it's required to meet this pain.
Because the invitation is to meet the misunderstanding and allow it to become clarified.
Allow yourself to see it in a more true way,
Which releases the intensity of the pain.
Thank you.
