I would suggest that it's more selfish to not take care of yourself because then you're not functioning in a way that can actually contribute.
Your attention is lost in the egoic version of yourself.
This form of selfishness in its obsession with who you think you are is also concerned with who other people think you are.
And this sets up a whole host of difficulties as it relates to taking care of yourself.
It's like I can't spend time taking care of myself because somebody else might think I'm selfish.
That's selfish.
You're not gonna honor the reality of what you really are because you're concerned about the image of what you are in the eyes of other people.
See how that works?
Topic of exploration.
Putting yourself first.
Selfish?
Nope.
That's the title.
And I'm inspired to talk about this.
You know,
Again,
We are so adorable in all of the excuses we come up with for not taking care of ourselves.
And those excuses,
They're really bad.
I know they might sound good when they first come out of your mouth.
They might make you sound like you care about other things going on,
Things you think are important.
But really,
As you investigate these excuses,
It's really a disaster.
And in this example,
In the conversation I was having,
The excuse was from a parenting perspective.
I'm so busy taking care of this child who's becoming a teenager that I just don't have time to take care of myself.
That's sweet.
However,
I said something that I thought was super profound,
And I'll share it here.
And I invite you to sit with it for a second.
If you don't take care of the one who is taking care of others,
Then the caretaker will fail at taking care of others.
This is so deep.
And there's lots of beautiful examples of why it is monumentally important to take care of the one who is living this life.
Another great analogy is if you look at a car,
You might be someone who has a thousand places to be,
Appointments every which direction.
If you fail at taking care of the car,
You're going to experience an inevitable disaster going to all those places you want to go.
You're going to experience some pretty major and costly interruptions if you disregard the well-being of the vehicle you're driving in.
And in recognizing this,
It is seen that in order to enjoy all those experiences of the things you would like to do,
Even though a lot of us think there are a thousand things we have to do,
So we rush around,
Which is often why we don't take care of the car because we think they're so important.
However,
If you don't recognize how important it is to take care of the vehicle,
You're setting yourself up for a major disaster.
This is really a question of awareness,
To be aware of what's happening,
To be aware of what's going on.
And in this case with the vehicle,
To understand that to a certain degree,
The instrument or the tool that you're using in order for it to function demands a certain respect,
A certain honoring of its reality in order for it to function properly.
This speaks so much to the nature of self-care and why it's important.
Because often I speak to people and they're burnt out,
Riddled with discomforts and pains,
Which in many cases are just signs of wear and tear from a vehicle,
Including the heart and mind,
That isn't taken care of.
It hasn't been a priority.
And I would suggest that taking care of what you are is the highest of priority.
Putting yourself first,
Taking care of these three aspects that I consider to be of monumental equal importance.
However,
There's an order to that importance in which they build on each other,
But they're all equally valid.
There's three aspects to what I would call vibrant living.
Number one,
Heart and mind.
And this speaks to the nature of self-inquiry,
Compassionate self-inquiry,
Points towards a willingness to check in,
Look beyond all the chaos in the mind,
Look beyond your fears,
Look beyond what you're hiding from,
And connect with a deeper authenticity of what you are.
This also includes what you put into your mind,
Information consumption.
Sometimes as human beings,
We are consuming an enormous amount of conflict and looking for things to be afraid of,
Which serves as a distraction from a deeper issue.
It's like we look for problems on the outside to help us avoid the problems that are going on on the inside.
And so we're not bringing loving attention to the reality of what is.
We're being distracted by unnecessary information that does not pertain to the reality of your life.
And so it diminishes the amount of presence,
Presence in heart and mind.
Number two,
On this list of three things,
Your source of fuel.
What are you putting in the body?
In the same way as a vehicle,
If you pour grape juice in your fuel tank,
You're going to have some issues.
Likewise,
If you eat cardboard,
You're going to have some issues.
As it relates to having your vehicle operate optimally.
And this goes so far beyond what we are conditioned to believe about being healthy.
How we're educated on being healthy from the status quo,
I would completely ignore.
Right?
Like if you if you go to the establishment,
And you say,
What do I need to put in this body in order to be healthy?
Personally,
That would not be my source of information.
Primarily,
The encouragement is to find out for yourself and listen deeply to the body in the same way that you can put grape juice in your gas tank and then be present while you're trying to start your car and you will get feedback that kind of points to the issue.
There's an awareness that's like,
Oh,
Okay,
Well,
I put grape juice in.
And now the car's not working.
It's not operating optimally.
So maybe that's not such a good idea.
And these things could be different for different people.
Granted,
I think there's some similarities that are universal.
But the opportunity is to find out for yourself and to pay attention.
And a lot of these things we already know.
But because there's not an awareness of the importance,
We kind of keep doing things that we know don't serve also because of a lot of other issues that aren't resolved that stem from point number one of self-inquiry.
And if the self-inquiry is done properly,
It sets the stage to make practical changes like altering your fuel source much more effortless,
Much more important,
Much more beautiful.
The third thing,
Play.
This is so much easier when you've established part one and part two,
Because in part one,
We've eliminated a lot of the confusion that takes life seriously,
That says it's not okay to play.
And then part two has you operating in a much more optimal way that contributes to a healthy heart and brain function.
So you don't have a lot of fogginess going on,
Which is something that I encounter a lot.
If you just put crap in your body,
It's going to affect your brain health,
Your brain function,
Which is going to result in not being able to think clearly,
Not being able to make choices that contribute to joy and allow you to enjoy this life.
And part of this third aspect,
Play,
It also involves using your body in a playful way that you might also refer to as exercise,
But I'm not a fan of exercise in the context of doing something that you don't want to do in order to reach a future benefit.
What I am a fan of is doing things that you enjoy doing that playfully challenge the physicality of your body that in some way or another builds strength.
Like for me,
What I like to do is take long walks.
I like to play tennis,
Do things around the house to burn energy,
Pushups,
Pull-ups.
It can become something else.
This aspect of play,
When you allow yourself to move,
It moves energy.
And this again is important for all three aspects.
Like for example,
If you put gasoline in your car,
But you don't go anywhere,
Sooner or later,
You're going to have a problem.
Now,
The beautiful thing about all of these is that when they're working in harmony together,
There's an effortless flow that kind of takes over where these things just happen.
And this sort of care isn't trying to do these things.
It's a care that happens naturally because it's a natural function of being human.
Often,
I can talk to someone and they say,
You know,
Well,
I want to do these things.
I want to move my body and I want to,
You know,
Go for walks and all of this,
But I just don't have the energy.
And I say,
If you don't have the energy to take walks,
Then taking walks is not for you right now.
That's perfectly fine if you don't have the energy.
The last thing I would suggest is that you force yourself.
That's like swimming upstream.
If the energy isn't there,
We need to look at why the energy isn't there.
And that rolls us back to number two,
Which is your fuel source.
If you had the proper fuel source,
You'd have an abundance of energy where you'd just be like,
Hey,
I've got to go walk.
I've got to burn off this fuel and find a playful way to do it.
There's not an efforting.
There's not a trying.
It's just a natural consequence living in a more optimal way according to your human function.
And then if there's problems with maintaining healthy fuel source,
Meaning that we are entangled in some sort of addiction or emotional issue that refuses to do what benefits you because you're in a painful cycle of self punishment,
Then that rules is back to one self inquiry and figure out what's really going on there.
And then there's a few flips of the switch where you're like,
Oh,
That's not necessary.
And then in that realization,
Again,
In an effortless way,
There's a unfolding of proper fuel source that's effortless.
When you think about the concept of self care,
You can look at it through this lens of efforting.
Like this is supposed to be hard.
This is supposed to be difficult.
This isn't supposed to be playful.
And that's not the case at all.
It's almost like saying life made a mistake and I've got to force it in the other direction.
No,
If you come into harmony in alignment with what life has created,
You'll find an effortless flow.
And this effortless flow will carry you through this human experience so that you can enjoy the human experience because you're here to enjoy the human experience.
My goodness,
This is a gift to be alive.
This isn't a prison sentence.
It's not something that you have to get through.
There's opportunities and discoveries around every corner that are doorways to experience more love.
What an epic adventure we're on.
I really invite you to see deeply how important it is to take care of the one who is taking care of others.
For example,
In order for me to take care of my business,
To show up and do this with you here now,
It's important that I take care of myself.
And there's been many times when I'm not taking care of myself and I can't show up.
And then maybe I try and force myself to show up.
That's a disaster.
It really speaks to how monumentally important it is to put yourself first.
And the question,
I guess in the title,
Is that selfish?
And that's something I really wanted to speak to because as far as I'm concerned,
There's a massive social confusion about what it is to be selfish.
Traditionally speaking,
It can be interpreted that selfishness means that you're thinking about yourself and it's not uncommon for you to spend time nurturing your relationship with yourself,
Nurturing those three aspects we talked about,
And for somebody else to call you selfish.
However,
I would suggest that it's more selfish to not take care of yourself because then you're not functioning in a way that can actually contribute.
And how is that selfish?
Well,
If you're not taking care of yourself,
Your attention is lost in the egoic version of yourself.
And we can say that there's two forms of selfishness.
There is the form of selfishness that is focused on your self image,
Which is your ego,
Who you think you are.
This form of selfishness in its obsession with who you think you are is also concerned with who other people think you are.
And this sets up a whole host of difficulties as it relates to taking care of yourself.
It's like,
I can't spend time taking care of myself because somebody else might think I'm selfish.
That's selfish.
You're not going to honor the reality of what you really are because you're concerned about the image of what you are in the eyes of other people.
Selflessness is to remove your attention from that image and come back to reality and offer care and attention to the reality of what is happening,
Which is to tend to what you really are.
And if you listen to what you really are,
You will hear what you are point toward what needs loving attention.
The second element of selfishness,
Which is related to the first,
Is demanding that other people not be other people so that you can hold on to your illusions,
Which wrap around the illusion of yourself,
The ego.
And this is super common.
And it's playfully hilarious that often calling other people selfish is an act of selfishness.
That person only thinks about themselves,
Which is me under the surface,
Wishing they would think about me.
I want them to think about me and not think about themselves.
So I'm asking them to not be them,
To not pay attention to what they want to pay attention to.
And I think that I know that they should be thinking about me.
And really,
This speaks to my own issue of my own inadequacy,
Of my own attempt to get what I'm looking for from others rather than giving it to myself.
And so there's a deeper selfishness there,
A selfishness that wants to withhold freedom from other people's lives that says,
Don't be what you are,
Be what I want you to be.
That's selfish.
This is super common,
Super common.
I hope that brings clarity to the nature of selfishness and helps to destroy a lot of illusions that can restrict ourselves from that can restrict our sense of freedom,
Just being ourselves and taking care of the reality of ourselves and to not let it further intensify a delusion of seeing yourself as being selfish.
Like if you look at the example of a knife,
In order to use the knife and to cut things properly,
You have to sharpen the knife every once in a while.
If you don't sharpen the knife,
The knife becomes much more dangerous when you're using it.
It's more dangerous to use a dull knife than it is a sharp knife.
And so in a way you can say that that's selfish to not sharpen the knife,
To not take care of it because it can put the user in danger.
Again,
Playfully speaking,
I can say that it's selfish to not put yourself first,
To not take care of the one who's actually living.
So often we're busy trying to help that we remain disconnected from a more authentic form of help that comes effortlessly and naturally when you are first helping yourself.
The more you start operating optimally,
Which is you're operating in alignment with life and your own self-sincerity,
Helping becomes a natural byproduct that is not something you try to do.
Because so often in our trying to help,
Really what we're doing is seeking validation,
Which again is running away from point one of self-inquiry and realizing that you don't need to seek for validation.
There's a recognition that when you're operating in alignment with life,
That it is your fundamental nature to be helpful without even trying to be helpful.
A great example of this was in my Zoom conversation,
We were exploring the things that this person can do that contribute to self-care.
Like what are the things that give you energy?
And there was a beautiful example here that I felt made a valid point.
And that example was spending time with horses.
This was a extremely emotionally recharging experience for this person.
Occasionally once a week or so,
Just spend a few moments with some horses and without even realizing it,
She ends up taking care of the horses without even trying to help the horses.
Just doing what is being asked to be done for the sake of her own well-being automatically contributes to the world around her.
There's such a beauty in helping without trying to help.
Very similarly to like the work that I do,
I spend a lot of time in the appearance of helping others with zero effort in trying to help others.
That's not my intention,
That's not what I'm trying to do.
I'm doing what I enjoy doing.
I'm doing what fuels me,
Which is kind of hilarious that my work gives me energy.
It's really fascinating.
Like when you live in and on purpose,
It also becomes a fuel source rather than a fuel drain,
Which is an interesting thing to investigate.
That if you're spending your time doing something that is a drain,
It might be an indication of being out of alignment with your own nature.
If you have comments or reflections,
You can put them in the comments.
I'm not going to scroll back through all these comments and see if there was anything.
So you can use the magic of copy and paste or write it anew.
We've got over a hundred people watching live from all around the world.
Isn't it fascinating though?
Because behind all of the innocent misunderstandings and confusions,
There really is this,
Let's call it a pathway for coming back into harmony with yourself in life.
The opportunity is there,
And it really comes down to a deep listening,
A deep willingness,
And sometimes asking for help.
That's part of it.
Don't give up on yourself if you feel like your vehicle's just not working,
Because there's a way for it to work through love and attention.
Doc says,
How about surviving toxic relationships?
Oh my goodness.
Oh my goodness.
I don't see something called toxic relationships.
In my world,
That's not a real thing.
Again,
I might have experiences that could be potentially perceived that way,
But as I investigate what this really is,
Then the phrase toxic relationship would not be the conclusion.
If anything,
I would say,
Wow,
This is an educational relationship.
Meaning that there are clearly things for me to see here.
Most notably,
How is it that I am contributing to this something that feels toxic?
Because if I am experiencing something that could be described as toxic,
I'm the one that sees and experiences toxic.
That's my creation.
And so easy it is,
Especially for us as humans,
To say that there is something or someone out there that is responsible for my experience of toxic.
And so it takes the toxic that I experience and says it's somebody else's fault,
Which now proclaims I am powerless as it relates to my internal experience.
And that's not true.
And so to speak to it briefly and how to deal with that,
I would say,
First and foremost,
Take your power back by recognizing that there is nothing outside of you that can dictate your internal experience.
And furthermore,
Investigate all the subtle ways that you are blaming the person you're in relationship with for your internal disturbance.
Not in a self-judgment way,
Which is actually quite common because if there's judgment towards the other person,
It's a reflection of your own self-judgment.
It's not uncommon that when one engages self-inquiry,
They just recognize all the self-judgment and then just add to the self-judgment rather than seeing it in a very compassionate and playful way.
Like,
Oh,
Wow,
I really like to give my power away.
That's not working.
And so the question of surviving it,
I'm not sure I'm such a fan of that,
Surviving it as if it's something imposed from the outside that I have to get through.
I don't see reality as happening that way.
I see that it's all a mirror of what's going on inside of myself.
So it's kind of like saying,
How do I survive myself?
Well,
If your self feels like it's something to survive,
Then there's a dramatic confusion in the self and in your relationship with life.
This points back to a fundamental invitation that I speak about all the time,
Which is if there's emotional disturbance,
It's an alarm that's telling me that I am not seeing clearly,
Most notably traced back to how I see myself.
Traditionally,
Human beings think that if I'm emotionally disturbed,
It's because of what's happening out there.
And that's just not how it works.
And so I would invite an openness to the disturbance,
An openness to what I think is happening rather than a resistance,
Rather than a rejection,
Rather than a judgment,
But an openness to it.
And a heart that asks,
Help me see what's true here,
Not help me get what I want,
Not help me control this person,
But help me see what's true.
Alan says,
When we are having this strong feeling of wanting to change other people's behavior,
How do we honor our wants and needs without putting the responsibility on those people?
That's a great question,
Alan.
When we are having this strong feeling of wanting to change other people's behavior,
Ask yourself why,
Right?
This goes back to self-inquiry.
And you know,
There's a million examples of this and maybe a million different answers,
But the invitation is to get profoundly honest with yourself.
You know what?
Look at it this way,
Alan.
What if you were having this conversation with life?
What if I was having this strong feeling of wanting life to change and be what I want?
Like,
What if I have plans to go play outside and it starts raining and then I start feeling depressed because life is raining and I really don't want it to be,
And I really wish it would change.
Because so often we have these expectations of how other people should be in the same way we have these expectations about how life should be.
And we want other people to change in the same way that we want life to change,
Which is really us not coming to terms with the truth of things.
And the more I recognize that life is doing what life needs to do in order for life to be life,
I recognize that my issue isn't really life being life.
My issue is coming to terms with the truth of life.
Same with other people.
It's like coming to terms with the truth that people are not mine to hold on to.
We can say,
Oh man,
I really wish I could hold on to this person.
I really wish I could know they're going to be here for another 10 years.
How do I do that?
And it's just completely the wrong question.
It's in opposition to the truth of life.
The truth of life is that other people are not meant to be held onto.
You can't.
You can try,
But it's just going to result in suffering.
It's in opposition to the way of life.
And the more I recognize the reality of the situation that other people are not meant to be held onto,
I can gently release my grip and release them,
Which also releases a lot of my expectations and the false illusions that I'm holding onto.
I hope this and I hope that when really it's like,
Oh wow,
I'm just going to let go of you.
You're not my property.
And I want you to be my property so that I can avoid what I'm scared of.
I want you to be around in 10 years so that I don't have to deal with being alone.
I don't have to come to terms with the truth of my inherent aloneness,
Which is I don't have anything in the world to hold onto,
Which terrifies the ego,
But is profoundly liberating for the soul.
And so we have to walk through that fire of discovery so that we can connect more deeply with the truth of ourselves,
The truth of life.
Laura said,
I liked your car analogy.
Sad,
But true story.
When I bought my first car many years ago,
No one told me that you had to change the oil.
And one day at a stoplight,
My car caught fire and died.
Lesson learned,
Right?
How is that not different from somebody having a heart attack?
Are somebody developing some sort of sickness,
Which is a result of not taking care of yourself?
It's the same.
So,
I mean,
You can,
You can wait for those things or you can investigate through a deep awareness and presence.
What's,
What's really needed here.
And like in the example of a car,
Right?
It's like,
Oh,
Well maybe I should read the owner's manual.
Maybe I should educate myself on what's best for this vehicle.
And with a vehicle,
You know,
That's different from the human body,
Mostly because there's not a lot of dogma and morality wrapped around it like it is with the human experience.
And so the information is to get intimate with an inner guidance that will tell you what's helpful and what's needed and what feels good.
Okay.
You guys want to drop into this meditation space with me and we'll do a quick one.
That's the plan.
I guess we'll officially see how long it's going to be,
But let's do that.
Let's drop in to the meditation.
Here we are right now.
Let's just acknowledge this moment.
We can acknowledge it through the discernment,
Recognizing the commotion in the mind,
Thinking about this,
That,
And the other.
And then we can connect with here.
Just see the difference in this moment.
There is a reality beyond thinking.
There is a spaciousness where all is well.
Let's relax into that spaciousness,
Into the truth of this moment.
Here we recognize a loving attention that simply comes home,
Honors the reality of what you are,
The you that is here.
Can we just remember that this moment right now,
Regardless of the imagination,
Regardless of what you think is too much,
Not enough,
Should be or shouldn't be.
But right now,
There's nothing missing taking care of.
And so please take care of yourself.
All aspects of what you are.
These are all gifts given to you without asking for anything in return so that you might experience of being alive.
Let's go play.
Thanks for meditating with me today.
