116 Center, Connect, Awaken And Shine | Live Q&A

In this live Q&A on Insight Timer, we discussed resting in our ever-present radiance without the need to jump out of our center. We often can become twisted and unhappy when we are lost in tasks beyond our skill levels. What does "Being in the Now" really mean? In the "Now" with an active mind? Being completely open and flowing with all emotions. What is the relation of connection to Peace and Well Being? What are we to do in life? Losing the fear of panic attacks.

Transcript

Welcome,

Everybody.

My name is William Cooper,

And this is the live session of our podcast,

Awakening Together,

Relaxing into Happiness.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

I see a number of my friends.

Hello.

Hello,

Jennifer.

Hello,

Kate.

If you have a question,

Type it in.

And if not,

Or you just want to listen in for a while,

That's great,

Too.

I have 115 previous podcasts,

And they're all centered around what I found helpful in my path of awakening.

And I attempt to lay it out step by step so that the listener can listen to any podcast.

They stand on their own.

But if you start with number one and work your way forward,

I'm hoping that it will shed light on things and processes that might be helpful to you.

And if they're not,

You just disregard the ones that aren't.

Bottom line,

Life can be tough,

And a lot of us are hurting,

Bruised up.

At your core,

Though,

I can assure you that you are a bright,

Radiant light.

You are pure love.

You are pure joy,

Pure peace.

Nothing you have to do.

That's who you are.

That's why in Buddhism,

One of the things that they say,

One of the jewels is take refuge in your Buddha nature.

Why there?

Because that's just Buddhist speak for your innate self.

It's beautiful.

Rest there.

And what do I mean by that?

Well,

Have you noticed that if you don't know how to do something in this world,

You might get stressed.

Like how do I approach my boss for a raise?

How do I say what I want to say just right?

Or how do I talk to my partner and do it in a way that they can hear me and do it in a clear way?

How can I do a hundred different things?

Talk to my neighbor?

How can I carry out a task?

How can I get the best value for my money when I buy a house or when I get a hotel room?

There's so many things in life,

It's infinite.

And have you noticed that if you don't know how to do it perfectly,

You might get a little stressed.

Like,

I hope I'm doing this right.

I don't know how to do it.

And the deeper you go into this creation and try to come up with a solution,

The more difficult and twisted around it can become and the more stressed and tense you can become.

A nice awakening secret is you don't have to do all that.

We think we do.

And yes,

Eventually,

Yes,

We have to deal with life,

Of course.

But in awakening,

It's good enough to just rest in yourself and know that the universe is going to help you.

It might not help you specifically know how to say certain things in Buddhism.

That might be,

They learn how to do specific things and they might say they learn skillful means or right action.

These are things you can learn.

Maybe you don't learn them today,

But you can learn them eventually.

But regardless of whether you learn them or not,

None of them are you.

They're just skill levels of things that you can do out in the world,

But they don't have anything to do with you.

So you can rest in you.

And that is peace,

Joy,

Love.

And unless you feel compelled to get twisted around and jump into creation,

You can just rest there.

Find that place in you and rest there.

You don't have to do anything.

Just stay there.

Give yourself the luxury of an inner vacation and just rest inside yourself.

You can contact everything from your inner self.

You can touch everything,

But you don't have to touch it perfectly.

You don't have to know what to do perfectly.

Keep your center in yourself.

Most of you are familiar with the Tao Te Ching and Lao Tzu noted to the mind that is still the whole universe surrenders.

To the mind that is still the whole universe surrenders.

When you rest in yourself,

Sometimes we overlook that where we're resting is the oneness.

It is the universe.

This is ourselves.

It's one and the same.

The universe is us.

We all diffract the oneness into many different personalities and through different bodies and nervous systems.

But there's only one goodness and that's what you're resting in and that goodness understands how to orchestrate the universe to take you where you need to go,

To take care of you.

That's why you can read any great master from Jesus to Buddha to anybody and they always say just relax.

It's okay.

The universe has got you.

You are the universe.

Better to say the universe is you.

That eliminates any personality aspects of it.

Oh,

Thank you,

Catherine.

Catherine made a very generous donation.

It's only as you feel.

This is not a fun drive or anything.

We're just talking.

I don't want anybody to feel any kind of pressure.

Another good way to give is tell a friend about these podcasts.

They're very awakening and I love to listen to them because in these podcasts,

We don't just make statements.

We look at how to accomplish these statements,

How to accomplish these awakening,

How to accomplish awakening.

But where I was going to the mind that is still the whole universe surrenders.

You've got the power of the universe to work out those things that you think that you have to know how to do perfectly so they will work out.

But no,

There are two ways to approach things.

One is through duality,

Your personality,

Your willpower.

Like you've got to make everything work.

You've got to make everything in the universe happen.

You've got to make it all work out well.

And if you don't do everything perfectly,

The whole thing's going to cave in.

Really?

I do know what you mean.

You know,

It's kind of a odd thing.

You don't want to do nothing.

But on the other hand,

Don't discount the power that's behind you,

The power that's emanating through you.

And as you rest in your Buddha nature,

As you rest,

Which is another word for your innate peace,

Just who you are,

That which is looking through your eyes.

As you rest there from that place,

If you want to do something,

How about do what the other gurus do?

Bless it from your peace,

From your stillness,

Bless your life.

Let the universe bless and work it out for you.

Bless distress that's in your life.

See it opening up and healing.

See it as you would like it.

As if that has already happened.

As if the outcome that you desire has already happened.

See it that way.

Feel it that way.

You are the universe and it's guiding and healing your life.

Catherine asks a question or makes a statement.

Let's see.

To get to joy,

Love and bliss,

We have to go through the door of fear,

Pain and insecurity.

That is my experience just now.

Yes,

Catherine,

That's all of our experience.

I'll tell you why.

Just look at this for a while.

Because we're all going through this and it can be so overwhelming.

It can be hard.

See at our core we are peace,

Love and joy.

We're bliss.

That's who we are.

But if we're caught up in a movie,

For instance,

We forget who we are for a moment and we start to identify with the characters in the movie or the TV show.

Well,

Life is like this.

We forget who we are.

There's nothing we have to do to become peace,

Love and joy.

We are that.

So how do we get away from that?

How come we don't always feel that?

There's a number of reasons,

But two main ones.

One,

We do what we just talked about.

We get into the middle of a situation in our day to day life now and we get so deep into it and we don't know how to respond and we don't know the perfect way and we get so caught up that we become so distracted in the quote unquote effort or process that we forget ourselves.

We forget who we are.

We forget that everything at our core is okay because we're so focused on what we perceive is not okay,

That I have to heal.

That's one thing that distracts us.

And one of the reasons that happens,

One of the reasons we don't trust ourselves and stay in our core is because we have unresolved fear,

Hurt or anger.

These are emotional states that come about when we separate from ourselves.

When we separate from ourselves,

We feel separation,

Anxiety,

Or fear,

Existential angst,

Perhaps,

Or we feel hurt.

We feel abandoned.

We're cut off or we feel angry.

We're cut off.

We're frustrated.

Why isn't this working?

How come life is so horrible?

This is the symptoms of us leaving our inner nature.

So one way we leave our inner nature is that we get involved in things so completely outside of ourselves today,

Trying to solve problems today,

Not trusting that the power of the universe is behind us.

Like Lao Tzu said,

And that I just quoted,

To the mind that is still the whole universe surrenders.

And the universe is powerful.

It surrenders to us to help us.

The second way that we can become cut off from ourselves are decisions we made or experiences we've had in the past.

We construct out of pure consciousness.

We construct thoughts as we've talked about in previous podcasts.

We know we're not our thoughts because if they disappeared for a moment,

We'd still be here.

We know we're not our emotions because if they disappeared for a few moments,

We'd still be here.

You look at a sunset,

You're in awe,

No thoughts.

You're just,

Wow,

Just awe,

But you're still here.

All of your emotions disappear and there's only the bliss of yourself that we call awe and you're still here.

So we know we're not our thoughts and our emotions,

And that's just a quick thumbnail over it,

But we construct out of pure consciousness,

We construct objects inside of us called emotions and thought forms,

And they hold pain and trouble and angst.

This happened,

It wasn't right,

And I haven't resolved it,

So I'll store it inside of my body,

I'll resolve it later.

We're kind of like squirrels and we store up these little nuts.

Well they surface,

We repress them so that we can carry on through life,

But they surface,

They pop up and they sprout and we feel them.

And until we deconstruct them,

They keep emanating,

These problems,

The separation,

And they capture our attention.

They cloud us up.

So life is all about just learning about who we are,

Learning how to let go,

Not just,

Letting go is too shallow of a term about these old constructions.

You have to actually deconstruct them,

Let them breathe in goodness and well-being so that they can relax,

And when they relax,

They release,

They dissipate and they dissolve,

Just like a muscle does in a good massage.

And we've talked about that in the past,

And I say that just in case this is new for anybody.

Go back to the past podcast,

And it's all explained very thoroughly,

I think.

So all of these things emanate old thought.

Thomas Jefferson said,

All thoughts are hallucinations.

We take pure consciousness,

We form a thought,

They're helpful vehicles,

But they're only hallucinations to approximate reality.

The problem is we form a personality made of these hallucination thoughts and emotions are also hallucinations.

That's what personalities are made of,

And we think that's who we are.

So we're already separated from ourself.

That generates hurt,

Fear,

And anger.

So yes,

We have to go through those,

They have to open,

And when they open,

They emanate the energy that they've been holding while they've been repressed,

And that's what happens in meditation.

In meditation,

We have to sit still so that the silt can dissolve and clear,

And we can see who we are and what life is clearly.

But when we sit still,

We can't repress things,

And all these old constructions come up to dissolve,

To release,

To relax,

And we wouldn't have repressed them if they felt great.

We only repress them because they feel horrible,

And that's the energy that they release,

Is horrible energy.

So when you sit still and meditate,

It's generally,

Often,

It's a horrible experience.

And to get away from these horrible feelings,

Our mind will spin and think to distract us.

We'll get involved.

It's like watching TV when you're stressed out.

You want to jump into another image so you don't have to think about your messed up life.

Now,

Remember at heart,

You're fine.

You're not your life,

You're not your problems,

You're not your thoughts,

And you're not your emotions.

You're fine.

The problem is,

We've got such a cacophony,

Such a,

All these pent-up energies screaming at us that we're so distracted,

We lose track of who we are.

And we start thinking we are our personality.

We are our problems.

We,

You know,

We're not.

That's called delusion,

And I mean that in the best way.

It's not pejorative,

It's just,

We're wrong.

It makes sense to us at the time,

Because I remember when I first came across all this stuff,

I was like,

What?

I had no idea.

And it took me years and years and decades to kind of take it in.

So continuing with what Catherine was saying,

However,

If I don't separate and feel everything,

Then I notice pieces there.

So I'm learning not to resist anything,

And this can be powerful too.

Oh yes,

Catherine.

This is so good,

Because when you don't resist and let everything just kind of come up and run its course,

It's very hard to do,

Because it's overwhelming,

Can be,

On our personality,

On our nervous system.

We're not used to handling so much power.

The power of ourselves partially has been captured in these pent up repressed emotions.

So as bad as they feel,

When they unwind and release,

They release an aura of goodness.

So you don't want to get rid of them.

That's the,

That energy is your energy.

It's the energy coming through you.

It's just been twisted into weird shapes.

It's like freezing water into the shape of a knife.

It could hurt somebody,

But when it melts,

It's life giving water.

Our emotions,

We twist them,

Our thoughts,

We twist them into a shape that can hurt somebody,

Namely us.

But when they melt,

They're life giving and you emanate bliss and love and wellbeing.

So this process that you're doing is not resisting and feeling.

Everything helps all of this,

All these old constructions release,

Relax,

And unwind.

They emanate their energy.

It's also important to let that part of you that's emanating all of this quote unquote destructive energy.

I mean really by that I mean it hurts to look around and update its files and notice,

Wow,

Everything's okay now because I made these constructions back in a time when things were not okay.

Everything is okay now.

So let me breathe that in.

Let me receive that.

Receiving is so important.

I'm learning to receive better.

You can be awake,

But in your personality to the degree that you can receive the truth,

Which is peace,

Love,

And wellbeing,

That's the truth,

And trust,

The universe surrenders for your wellbeing.

To the degree you can receive that,

And just usually you can do that only in baby steps,

But to the degree you can receive is the radiance of your awakening through your body.

You can be awake and have a clogged up body.

You can be awake with a radiant body.

The second is an auspicious awakening when you're awake with a radiant body.

When you're awake with a clogged up nutty body,

That's inauspicious.

And you see some gurus halfway,

They are emanating so much light and love and then they go off the deep end and do crazy things.

They're middle,

Auspicious and inauspicious.

They still haven't released some things.

You're doing that.

And Catherine,

I just want to say good job because it's not easy to feel everything and I'm not even saying you do that all the time,

Every moment.

I'm not saying that.

Maybe you do,

But it's hard and you have to give yourself a rest.

Sometimes it is good to flip on the TV or do something when you're just worn out.

You need a break.

Sometimes you really just do need a break.

And as we talked in podcast 27 through 30 on PTSD,

Peter Levine noticed for healing and I bring up PTSD because those are things that are stuck in our bodies like muscle cramp.

And I'm pretty convinced that most of us have a lot of PTSD,

Little or big,

But these little things that won't release.

I think it's very helpful to know how to work with PTSD.

And he says,

There's just some basic steps.

First go slowly.

Don't get overwhelmed because then you'll lock up and you'll be exhausted.

Just do baby steps.

Do something a little every day if you can,

But don't overdo it.

The second is to be in touch with who you are.

First of all,

Be in touch with your pain,

Who you're not,

Your personality that's hurting so much that stuck part.

I'm hurting.

Ow,

Ow.

I'm hurting.

Own it,

But then let it update its files.

Let it touch something good.

If you understand your Buddha nature,

Let's say,

Or your innate nature,

Whatever labels you want to call it.

If you know that,

Breathe that in,

Let the hurting part breathe that in.

If that's still not quite clear,

Touch something in nature,

Touch a tree and let your hurting part receive that.

Remember,

As it receives just a drop or lots of drops,

Whatever is comfortable,

Let it receive it.

You will notice it will open up.

To the degree it receives,

It will relax.

To the degree it relaxes,

It will release.

To the degree it releases,

It doesn't exist anymore.

It's like a tension.

When it's received relaxation and it's fully received it and it's fully relaxed,

It's gone.

There's no more tension to work with because all these things are hallucinations.

They do exist,

But they're temporary.

So they can dissolve.

You're not stuck with any of this.

You're not stuck with any of your past actions,

Any of your past thoughts,

Any of your past emotions.

They're just snarls and knots.

When they relax and release and let go,

They're gone.

So let them go.

Let them dissolve.

When they are dissolved,

Let them be gone because that's another thing.

Sometimes we get in the habit of holding on to things that they've already dissolved.

So upgrade your habits,

Your way of being in life.

That's not you anymore.

Let it go.

Kate says,

Hi Kate.

Hi Catherine.

Oh,

And hi Yvonne from way back.

Kate says,

Your suggestion regarding PTSD has been so helpful.

Touching the tree works for me.

Yes,

Kate,

Thank you on behalf of everybody.

These are simple things,

But they work profoundly.

They can change your life.

That one simple thing,

Everything I put in these podcasts,

Each one can change your life.

How do I know?

Because I'm a person just like you and I'm flopping around out here just like you.

And I've been through a lot of pain and trouble just like you.

And I've tried a lot of things.

I've been to India 14 times.

I'm a psychotherapist.

I have been through so many things and talked to so many masters and so many awakened.

I've sorted through some of this stuff just like you would had you had the opportunities I have had.

So I just pass it on to you.

Many of you have had these opportunities,

So that's good.

Catherine says,

Everybody talks about living in the present and releasing the past and future.

How easy is this given our nonstop brain activity is what Catherine's asking.

You know,

This is such a good question because,

First of all,

We can't be in any place but the present,

Whether it feels like we're there or not.

Where else are we?

The only question is,

Is what's happening in the present,

Which we can't be anywhere else but in the present.

What's happening while we're in the present?

And you put your finger on it,

Catherine,

What's happening is these old constructions that we have repressed that are working nonstop,

Old thoughts,

Old emotions,

Old habits,

Ticking away under the surface where we feel anxious or we feel hurt or we feel angry.

And then because we feel all these things under the surface,

Sometimes they're not even under the surface.

But because we feel them,

We start to project out into the future and we start hallucinating what could happen.

I mean,

Thinking,

Thinking and hallucinating for anybody who just arrived or the same thing.

We make thoughts,

Let's say,

Call it that,

About what the future holds for us.

And then we get afraid,

We frighten ourselves and we think,

Oh,

We better do this or we better not do that.

Or all of this is motivated because we do not feel safe.

We don't feel safe.

We don't feel happy.

We don't feel fulfilled.

Why?

Especially if our nature is safety,

It is fulfillment,

It is love,

It's all the things we're looking for.

If that's who we are and we don't have to do anything to be that,

Why are we thinking we're not that?

Because we're captured by all of these hallucinations.

Just like we get captured in a movie,

Which is a hallucination.

We get captured in TV shows,

Which is a hallucination.

We get captured in our mind.

When we try to escape these constructions of hurt,

Fear and anger,

These emotions that we have previously repressed,

We start hallucinating to get away,

To create a TV show picture.

I'll do this and then I'll do that.

And because I do this and that and I do it just right,

I'll be safe.

See I've now hallucinated a whole show with me as the star and me becoming safe.

Why do I have to do that?

Because I don't feel safe.

Why?

Because I never deconstructed this old hallucination that I'm not safe that I made 30 years ago,

10 years ago,

15 years ago.

And I repressed it because it was so scary.

When you sit still in meditation,

These things come up and then you let them deconstruct.

Painful but very productive and healing.

And then you feel better and better and better.

And then at some point meditation is a joy.

There is a middle ground where half feels bad and half feels good.

But in the beginning,

Mostly for most people,

It feels horrible.

And their minds just race and it's very difficult because all of this pent up junk is unwinding.

That's why.

So we are always in the present.

The only issue is how long will it take for the dust to settle so that we can be in the present without distracting ourselves with our hurt,

Fear,

And angers,

And then all of our projections about the future.

How long will it take until all the dust can settle and we can just feel who we are?

The joy,

Peace,

Well-being,

And love right now that we are even when we're not feeling it,

Even when we're covered up and distracted by hurt,

Fear,

And anger.

We are still at heart,

Peace,

Love,

And joy.

We just can't feel it because we're engulfed in our unresolved issues.

And nobody can,

There are no shortcuts.

I've tried,

I've tried.

You know,

You hear gurus,

I'll take your suffering.

No,

They can't do that.

They can help you.

They can show you what it's like not to suffer,

But you have to stop hurting yourself.

You have to do that.

They can't do that for you.

If I tighten my fist like this,

The only one that can open it is me.

That's what these podcasts are about.

But we do it gently,

Baby step by baby step by baby step.

It's like if you have a room at your house that you haven't cleaned for 20 years and you throw all your junk in that room.

It's scary.

You don't want to go in that room.

But if you ever want a light and airy,

Beautiful room,

You got to start cleaning it sometime.

But if you do it all at once,

You'll be overwhelmed.

You'll be whipped.

So open the door would be my suggestion and take out one pair of socks and close the door and start washing those socks and take a break.

Next day,

Open the door and take one more thing out of that room and just keep doing that consistently.

You'll get to a clean room.

That's what's happening inside.

It doesn't.

It's not like we're achieving peace,

Love and well-being.

We are that already.

All we're doing is cleaning the obstructions away.

It's like we're wiping a foggy glass until we can see out of it.

Our glasses until we can see if our glasses are really caked up,

We've got a lot of wiping to do.

Maybe they've got paint on them and different stuff.

So we need to very carefully work with them until we can see all right again.

It's not that we can't see.

We already can see.

It's just our glasses are fogged up.

So an interim step like we started this podcast out with is be in touch with your inner nature.

Your Buddha nature is what the Buddhists call it.

I'll just call it your you,

Your being,

Which is made of peace and love.

Be in touch with that even before you clean off your glasses because that's a big chore.

Be in touch with yourself first and relieve yourself temporarily of the responsibility of cleaning off your glasses.

Just enjoy who you are for a moment.

Just give yourself a break.

And then don't leave that center if you can,

Easier said than done because we habitually leave ourselves.

But maybe a little bit stay with who you are and then just little bit by little bit every day clean those glasses.

Okay.

So,

Uh,

Catherine says,

Is that what you mean by being in the world,

But not of it?

Yes.

Yes.

Exactly.

Catherine.

Good observation.

I've often,

I'm just quoting Jesus,

Which means stay in your Buddha nature.

That's not in the world.

It's beyond the world.

It's from which the world flows.

Yes.

It's all one in the end,

But for discussion,

We make these distinctions,

But stay in your Buddha nature.

That's being not of the world,

But from your Buddha nature,

Walk through the world,

But don't get all crazy about it.

Do what you can learn a little bit at a time.

Do your best,

But let it go.

Now why wouldn't you let it go?

If I haven't done my past work,

My old constructions that I've repressed will be very sticky and they will erupt when I walk through the world,

I'll feel panicky,

I'll feel that dog looked at me funny.

I'll feel that person.

They said that on purpose to,

To aggravate me and now I'm really getting wound up.

I'm like so reactive because of my past construction.

So it is hard to be in the world,

But not of it if you don't do your work.

But yes,

That's what I mean.

To the degree you can do that,

Do that.

To the degree you can't,

Keep doing your work.

And I commend you,

Catherine,

Because I know you're working hard.

I know all of you are,

But Catherine,

I definitely know you are from your questions both today and in the past.

So good job.

It's hard.

It's very hard.

But baby step forward,

Don't,

It's,

You'll get there.

Now here's another thing.

Everybody gets there,

Quote unquote,

Get there.

Everybody gets there.

And what I know,

I'm not asking you to believe this,

But what I know is even when you leave this life,

You take yourself with you.

And so to the degree of all the work you've done in this life,

Where you are when you leave this world,

That's where you pick up when you began in your next lifetime,

Your next adventure.

I won't even call it a lifetime because I don't even want to put that on that.

It might conjure up this or that.

But wherever you go,

You take yourself with you.

Just makes sense,

Right?

Intuitively it feels about right.

You take yourself.

So all of your good work now goes with you.

And so it's easier.

It gets progressively easier as you do your work.

Yvonne says,

I realized this morning that I have let go of the fear of having a panic attack.

Wow.

Yvonne,

That is amazingly great.

Congratulations.

Yeah.

Because usually there are two fears.

There's the panic attack and then there's the fear of the panic attack.

In a sense,

If you think about it and panic attacks can be intense,

But all of us are having either big or small panic attacks,

Depression attacks,

Anxiety attacks,

Hurt attacks,

Abandonment attacks,

And that's our unresolved stuff.

Panic attacks is just also unresolved things.

I don't feel safe.

Why?

I don't even have to know why.

I just have separated from myself,

Obviously,

Because myself is safe.

But what you've done,

Yvonne,

Is you've taken a big step forward because on some level,

You have found yourself.

You have found safety,

Which is you.

You have safety to have let go and now you just can have a panic attack without having a fear of having a panic attack.

It's kind of like Catherine was saying earlier about just letting herself feel whatever comes up and I'm sure she has very difficult feelings at times.

I have had very difficult feelings at times.

Everybody here,

And I'm just doing that to honor everybody here,

I know life is tough and I know whether you type something in or not,

You've had some difficult times,

But it helps all of us,

Yvonne and Catherine,

When you comment so that all of us listening in can see,

Wow,

Okay,

Okay,

There is a way into wholeness,

Into experiencing wholeness in my body now.

There is a way because they're doing it and they're so courageous.

It takes courage because it can be painful doing spiritual work and there's nothing more exhilarating either.

Yvonne,

I imagine something opened up in you on even a deeper level when you noticed that you let go of the fear of having a panic attack.

There's nothing better than that.

It's your radiance shining through.

Nancy gives a thumbs up to Yvonne and Catherine says,

Absolutely,

We are human.

Yes.

I don't,

I'll give you my perspective.

I'm not,

Again,

Asking anybody to take it for more than just that.

It's my perspective.

I don't know what else we're doing here on this earth other than clearing out this stuff.

I don't know what else.

I told a long time ago a story that in the mid 80s,

I was just getting out of a very conservative religious background and I had started going to a unity church and I was terrified with the thought of psychics and clairvoyance and all that because where I came from,

That was all from the devil,

Satan.

And I didn't want to go to hell,

Of course,

Back then.

Lots changed,

No such thing.

But I went and saw a lot of psychics to see if they would tell me similar things.

And one psychic told me this,

I'll always remember.

She told me about,

At the time I was a partner in a financial planning firm,

I was the board president of a unity church and I was doing a lot of stuff and I had been very successful.

And she said,

You've got good willpower.

I said,

Oh,

Thanks.

But the way she said it sounded a little funny,

Like,

I don't know,

It sounded like it was pretty good,

But maybe it wasn't so good.

So I said,

The way you said that sounds like you,

Like there's some,

Is there anything wrong with that?

She goes,

No,

No,

No,

It's wonderful.

You get a lot accomplished.

Then she said,

It won't amount to anything,

But you get a lot accomplished.

And you know what?

She was right.

The only thing that's amounted to anything in my life is this,

Being who I am and being with others who they are,

Sharing that with each other.

What else?

Really?

I mean,

Other stuff is good,

But anyway.

So my point is,

What else are we doing in this life but that?

The deepening.

Why can't we sit still?

Because there's something pent up that we won't leave ourselves alone.

Why?

Because we haven't released it.

Why?

Because we don't sit and look sometimes.

Because why?

It's hard.

Like Catherine said,

She's available,

Like Yvonne is doing,

Available.

That's hard.

She's talking about releasing fear.

To release fear,

You got to feel it.

It's hard.

Anyway,

Continuing.

Nancy,

The fear of chronic pain,

Flares,

Keep the loop of pain going,

Working on eliminating that fear using the mind-body tools.

Good for you,

Nancy.

That's a hard one,

Yes.

It's all hard,

Nancy.

You know,

Sometimes it's instructive.

If you read the Tibetan Book of the Dead,

It's very short,

But basically they say,

Stay in your center and don't get deceived by all this stuff that's hard.

And they read that book to people as they're dying and after they've died,

To remind them just stay centered.

It's okay.

The reason why it's instructive is because life,

What we call life,

Is the same thing.

And it doesn't make it any less hard.

Chronic pain is hard.

It's very instructive.

And the way you eliminate the fear of pain is,

As I've talked about in the past podcasts,

Just like a fear of anything.

You have to feel it.

You've got to go slowly.

You've got to let it connect.

Touch something.

If you're not touching the light of your own awareness,

If it's not quite bright enough yet for you to feel,

Touch something else.

Touch a tree.

You can touch a wall,

The wall in your house.

Does it feel calm?

The table next to you,

Does it feel calm?

Everything has a feeling.

We scrambled up the feelings with our hallucinations.

We twist the consciousness and we make it feel this way or that way,

Drama.

Does a table have drama?

No,

There's only one building block in everything,

In us and everything around us,

And that is pure consciousness.

And it is calm.

Table's not thinking,

So all it has in it is pure consciousness.

It's calm.

Feel the table and soak it up.

Receive it.

Receive the wall.

Receive the tree.

Walk around and bare feet.

Receive the earth.

Let the fear have what it wants.

It wants peace.

It wants to know it's safe.

Let the table tell it it's safe.

I know that sounds crazy,

But there's something there.

I'm not saying don't read books or philosophy.

We could talk about all that.

And I'm not saying you're asking that,

But somebody would because I would.

So there's many different levels.

We exist on lots of levels,

And as I talk,

I'm talking to Nancy,

But somebody else or maybe even Nancy at another time might bring up another level.

And somebody might say,

But you said touch a table.

Yes,

Touch a table.

But another level of us may need something else,

Another practice for it.

The mind has a different practice than the hand,

Than the heart,

Than the energy body,

Than the bliss body,

Than the cosmic body,

Than the causal body.

You know,

We're so many different parts than our chakras,

Our energy systems,

Our nadis.

Normally it just works out fine and without knowing what we're doing,

If we stay aware,

We'll just gravitate and sometimes do this practice and sometimes do that practice.

Without really knowing why,

All we know is it satisfies us today.

That's good enough.

That's how you know.

Jess says,

Yes,

Thank you all.

I'm in a listening mode tonight,

But every share is important to me,

And I recognize myself to some extent in all shared.

Thank you so much for saying that,

Jess.

You're speaking on behalf of all of us.

There's only one.

We're all the same.

Have you noticed that?

Right now,

We might have one thing in our life that's more pronounced than another,

But we can pretty much understand what everybody else is saying because we have at least a little bit of it,

Probably right now.

Sometimes a lot.

Nancy,

It's making a difference as I dig deeper into the things you are saying.

Thank you,

Nancy.

I want to commend you,

And I want to say what I say isn't what I say.

It's what the universe says.

It's what so many wise people have said.

They don't all say it because they've read the same book.

They all say it because intuitively it's true.

And when people say things,

And you say things,

Nancy,

That are inspiring people,

Perhaps I'm saying some things,

Jess said some,

Catherine,

Yvonne,

Everybody.

That's our deeper self,

Talking to everybody,

And there's something there for us all.

That's why I love these groups.

Yes,

Heidi says sharing connection.

We're sharing connection,

We're both right now,

And also sharing connection in the healing when I'm saying touch a table or a tree.

The healing is in the connection because the connection dissolves the delusion that I'm separate.

When I'm not separate,

When I'm whole,

I find I am peace.

I am love.

The peace I feel on the table is the peace that I am.

I wouldn't feel it if it wasn't me.

I'll tell you another story.

I used to work a lot with hypnosis.

I worked with about 25,

000 people through the years,

Big groups,

Little groups.

I'm also a psychotherapist,

And I did a lot of hypno,

Kind of hypnotherapeutic therapies.

Some I invented,

Some I used,

A lot of experience.

One time a high school calls me up and says,

Will you do a stage show?

I said,

I don't do stage shows.

Oh,

Please,

We've heard good things about you.

Our seniors are graduating.

Will you do the stage show for them?

I said,

Okay.

I said yes because I couldn't say no,

Basically.

And I did it,

And there was a couple hundred people there,

And the graduating seniors were up front,

And it was an alcohol-free night.

I took some people from the audience,

Had the valedictorian.

I had all of them forget the number two,

And then I had them count the number of fingers on their hand.

So I'd go one,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Six,

Seven,

Eight,

Nine,

10,

11.

Now these are kids,

They would get very excited and very upset that they had 11 fingers,

And they knew they did because they counted them themselves,

And it always came out 11 because I had the number two disappeared.

Well,

The valedictorian was very good at math.

I think he was the best at math in his school,

And he was very clear thinking,

But he was hypnotized.

He believed he had 11 fingers,

But he knew,

And he asked me,

He says,

I want to put my hands on your hands.

And he knew if he did that,

Something would happen.

And what would happen is he would see that his hands matched mine,

And it would dissolve the trance that he had 11 fingers because I had 10.

It would dissolve the trance.

That's what happens in these kind of groups.

When we talk truth,

It dissolves the trance of delusion.

When you sit with yourself in meditation,

It dissolves the trance of illusion.

You quit believing all these crazy delusions,

Which are just,

As we shine our being through our hallucinations,

When they're off kilter,

We believe things like,

It'll never get better.

It's horrible.

I will never have a happy life.

All these things.

I'll always have panic attacks.

All of us have these delusions.

Every single one of us.

That's the goal of life in a way,

The process of dissolving these so that we can be clear whole beings because we're hypnotized.

That's the point.

Do you like the guy that like the valedictorian tried to do?

Touch the earth.

It will dissolve your illusions because it's not thinking.

It's just emanating calmness.

The table is not deluded.

I'm deluded.

That's why I touched the table.

Okay.

Um,

Yes.

So Heidi sharing connections that dissolves delusion,

Heidi says we are less in nature and away from our tribe,

Uh,

Learning that a family doesn't have to be by biological.

Yes.

Yes.

It's doesn't need to be.

It's your connection.

Families can be tribal and they can be biological,

But that's not necessarily healthy.

It has a place to it.

There's a power to it,

But it doesn't need to be.

It doesn't mean it's a healthy power.

It is and it isn't.

So find what you can connect to and what,

Uh,

Resonates Nancy touch and pet my cats.

Absolutely.

Nancy.

Absolutely.

They're calming.

Nancy continues and she's learning acceptance.

Yes.

Acceptance is another word for receiving.

If all of us could receive more,

We'd be healed.

In connection is healing.

I did a podcast on awakening through connecting or something like that.

Scroll back through my podcast.

Any of you that follow me will be alerted when I have new podcasts,

But also you'll get a list of all my old podcasts,

All 115 of them.

Go back to the one about connection.

It's very relevant to what we're talking about right now.

Heidi,

Struggle less.

William.

Uh,

Yeah.

Struggle less.

I tell you,

I struggle less,

But there will be times when we don't just have one old thing we've repressed.

I'm speaking about myself.

There might be 500 of them could be a thousand of them.

About 80% of mine,

I'm guessing have dissolved and released and relaxed.

And I know who I am,

Whether they dissolve or not.

I know the radiance of my being some already awake.

I don't need them to dissolve,

But to have a good life,

The more they dissolve,

The better.

Because when you shine,

Even if you stay in your Buddha nature,

When you walk in the world,

You have to shine through those prisms of your personality.

That's what you use to walk through the world.

So to the degree that they're there,

It generates pain and then you get engulfed in delusion.

Everybody would.

The gurus go off the deep end.

That's why sometimes,

Uh,

That's why you will or I will,

Uh,

It doesn't mean it's separate from being awake,

But it is related to being awake.

And when I say be awake through the body,

I mean,

The more you can flow clearly through your body,

The more radiant you can be.

As Catherine said earlier,

She quit struggling to a great degree and she's not trying to fight with her feelings.

She's just feeling them.

When you allow yourself to feel,

You don't struggle anymore.

That takes care of it.

That takes care of it.

Catherine,

There's always something to be grateful for.

Even in the midst of hardship or difficulty,

It's hard to be sad when we're grateful.

Yes.

All of consciousness is that which we're grateful for.

It's love,

Bliss,

Consciousness,

And being grateful is simply recognizing the beauty all around us and in us.

It's always there.

It's just how hard are we blocking it out when we're not blocking it out?

We are what we call grateful because we will resonate.

Catherine put a heart and Nikki says,

Working with the earth,

Walking in the wild.

Can't do enough.

Yes,

Nikki.

It's so powerful.

It was the term earthing.

When you walk barefooted,

Just so thank you.

Yes.

The delusions,

Hypnosis,

We get stuck in so many levels as humans.

Yep.

Baby steps.

Life will give you what you need to work on as you need to work on it.

So you don't have to figure it out.

It will pop up every day.

You'll notice suddenly you've got this thing that you can work on.

The only thing I could say is the most healing thing you can do is sit still and meditate.

That's just another word for meditating.

Sit still because when you sit still,

You can't repress stuff.

And when you can't repress stuff,

It eventually comes out of your system.

It's painful,

But it comes out of your system and you become clearer and clearer.

So just meditate.

And I mean,

Just sit still.

Listen to the meditation if you can in my podcast.

It's something like podcast number seven or something.

And then I go practice it with you in later podcasts.

Thank you,

Catherine.

And thank you,

Everybody.

It is time that we need to sign off.

But I look forward to seeing you all soon.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for such great questions.

Thank you,

Everybody.

Thank you,

Nikki.

Thanks,

Everybody.

Bye bye.

Reviews

i love all your talks. i needed the reminder to be still. i have to set a strong boundary with a woman i sponsor in alanon. and my mind has been racing on how im going to say this. your words , be still immediately stopped my thinking. i can trust i’ll have the words in the moment i need them.
i have a question for you. i’d love your thoughts on what you think is the difference between knowledge and wisdom? 🙏✨🙏✨🙏

Thank you William. Just catching up on leaving reviews as I had (re)listened to several of these podcasts on a flight. Always nuggets of wisdom to be found here! I'm currently reading Paul Brunton's A Secret Path. He wrote it after his Search for A Secret India book. He said he was about to continue his travels to the East but Ramana appeared to him and advised him that he needed to share what he had learned to help others. So he wrote The Secret Path. I'm a few chapters in, it's veryi good. Like a "How To" manual, which I always love AND I know you do too, since you shared that this was the purpose and impetus for you creating these wonderful Awakening podcasts!

A most inspirational podcast, thank you William. A little story from me:- Twenty years ago, my sister passed away, suddenly. When we heard the news, my husband and I were in the middle of creating a small rockery, in our garden, for aromatic herbs. We decided to call it Barbara's Garden, after my sister. Some months later, I was on my knees doing some weeding there. The lavender was so beautiful and the fragrance filled the air. I called my sister and wished she could be here to enjoy the moment. Her reply came into my heart, "I AM the lavender". I shall never forget that moment. God Bless everyone on their journey and thank you, once again William. It's a blessing to have you 'in my life here'.🙏♥️

Hi William, I have completed 152 days of listening to your podcasts. Everything you say is in this podcast and all that came before is absolutely my experience. I have leaned into terrible feelings, thoughts, emotions and physical pain. It is a terrible experience… but none last more than a day and the energy of the fear, hurt and anger is cleared and I feel better. I feel like one of those disco balls with some of the mirrors tarnished. So many little hurts and angers covering fear. I am grateful that I practiced the “instinctual trauma response (ITR)” method with clients as it really is/was about leaning in. Now I understand why it worked so well - beyond the time stamping and cognitive restructuring. You’re the best! ❤️ Zandy

Very helpful - delivered with kindness and empathy toward the listener. 🙏🏼

Thank you 😊 William. I listened to the live session which was great and I enjoyed the recording even more! This is so beautiful and grounding. Your genuine, personal approach to awakening and the universe is to be commended. Beautiful! And the interaction/questions from the group is worth listening again.
Be well! Peace and Love always!
~ Jennifer Lea