88 Inauspicious Awakening, Release VS Repression- Live Q&A

In this last live question and answer session before India, we discussed the usefulness of being triggered during the holidays to see and work on one's reactions, shadow work, journaling, forgiveness, and psychotherapy is different yet complimentary to awakening, inauspicious awakening, the difference between release and repression, working with the inner child, treating our inner self the way Jesus treated me when he appeared to me, Possibility of live sessions from India on insight timer, etc.

Transcript

Welcome,

Everybody.

Happy holidays.

I trust you're all doing well for the holidays.

This is a good time along the way if you have a question about your path of awakening or anything related to your opening,

To type it in the box and it'll give us something to talk about.

But while you're thinking about that,

Let's talk about the holidays for a second.

You know,

The holidays are a wonderful time.

It's when we can go see our family and friends.

It's a good time of sharing love and celebration.

But also,

Have you noticed when you see your family and old friends,

Sometimes stuff comes up?

Sometimes some of your old stuff comes up.

And it doesn't feel so good.

We get triggered.

And since we are talking about awakening and we have previously talked about the fact that we are a multi-dimensional being.

Well,

One part of us is emotional.

And when that part's clamped down,

It can make it difficult for us to open and awaken all through the whole,

Our whole rainbow of being.

I remember Bhagavan,

My friend and guru,

Used to say that if you were close to,

Say,

Your parents,

You would be closed to yourself.

So he thought it was very important to forgive people in your life.

And it's not just parents,

It's brothers,

Sisters,

Everybody.

Jesus,

That was his main vehicle for awakening,

Was forgiveness.

That's mainly what he would talk about.

If we are triggered by somebody,

What that means is they may have been behaving badly.

And they probably were,

Especially back when our trauma first started with them.

But what happened after that has to do with our reactions and how we encode those reactions in our body,

In our thoughts,

In our emotions,

In our habits.

And when those are tight,

We carry them all our lives pretty much and often don't examine them or let them go.

So it creates a problem because in awakening,

There's a huge flow of wellness and joy and happiness.

But if my personality can't receive it,

You'll be like how I was when I first went to India.

I had an incredibly powerful awakening experience,

Yet I felt depressed and in despair.

I was not only seeing the future,

I was the future.

I mean,

This was how powerful my awakening experience was.

One with everything,

Yet at the same time depressed.

So for a total awakening,

A full body awakening,

We have to open up.

It's good for us.

And to open up,

It's good to get triggered.

It's good to go home and see our family so that we can get triggered.

If you haven't been triggered already in daily life.

Because when you get triggered,

That tells you about the places where you haven't let go.

The places where you are reacting.

What does triggering mean?

That means that I have a problem because the other person's not feeling it,

Unless I start yelling at them or something.

But the triggering is happening inside of me.

The bad feelings are happening inside of me.

I'm doing them to who?

To myself.

Awakening is to let all that go.

To let that open.

Now,

Awakening is way beyond that,

Of course.

But this is one part of it.

It's one realm in which we exist.

And thank you when you send in questions or comments.

I'll read some as we go along.

Amanda,

When I get triggered,

I use shadow work to process the root of the trigger.

Yes,

That is extremely great.

That's extremely good,

Amanda.

Shadow work is wonderful and it can move you along very fast.

There are so many different podcasts and processes here on Insight Timer,

As well as on YouTube.

You can Google them and you can get a lot of help.

It can move you forward very quickly.

Isadora says,

I have no family,

No one to spend the holidays with.

My triggers of sadness come from seeing all the holiday cheer and having no one to share it with.

Yes.

Yes,

Isadora.

I have been in that situation before when I had nobody to share it with.

We can make our own families,

But let's talk about our internal family right now.

And what I mean by that,

Let's do a short exercise and then we'll take it from there.

But just to start the process.

Within us,

You'll notice that there's me or you right here,

Right now.

But inside,

If you notice any pain,

For instance,

A tightness in your stomach or your chest or somewhere in your body.

And you put your attention there.

If you'd like,

You can almost imagine the young you.

And you can pick whatever age feels appropriate.

You just make it up what pops into your mind.

So you concentrate on a pain point in your stomach.

And you close your eyes.

And you see a child.

You let a child be there,

A child in pain.

For you,

Isadora,

It could be a child that's not feeling connected because she has no family and she's sad.

And that can be whatever age.

It could just be one year ago or two years ago.

Let your pain guide you to the appropriate age.

And you don't have to be perfect about it,

Just in general.

And you see that child.

And you go to that child and you look that child in the eye.

Very beautifully and lovingly.

And ask that child,

Ask her or ask him,

Do you know that I'm here?

And you give that child a moment to connect to you.

And look at you.

And let that child be the most important person in your life right now.

It's like when Jesus appeared to me,

I felt like I was the most important person in his life because that's how he felt.

So you feel that towards your child.

And you say to your child,

You're the most important person in my life.

Can you feel that?

You ask the child,

Can you feel that?

Because you're sharing the same body.

It can feel everything you're feeling.

He or she can.

And you give your child plenty of time to soak it in,

To think,

Can I feel that?

And then you say,

Well,

Can you soak up whatever you can feel?

Can you take it in?

Can you receive it?

I love you.

And let that child receive your love.

I love you.

And as you're talking to your child,

You could say,

Please forgive me for any times that I haven't been here for you.

Perhaps this is new for you too.

And it's new for me.

And if it's not new,

You could talk about that too.

Say I've tried to be here for you,

Or I'm getting better at it.

And let that child take that in.

Say,

Do you realize that?

Have you noticed?

Am I doing a good job?

Maybe I'm not.

You can ask that child,

What do you need?

What do you need?

What do you want?

I want to know that I'm loved,

Maybe the child says.

I want to have a family,

Maybe the child says.

I want somebody to celebrate with,

Maybe the child says.

So you hold the child,

Picture yourself holding,

And you can hold yourself because you're sharing the same body.

And you ask the child,

And this is always the important part.

As you hug yourself,

You say,

Does that feel good?

Can you feel that?

Can you feel my love?

Please soak it up.

If the child can feel it,

You say,

Then please receive it and enjoy it.

And if the child can't,

You say,

Well,

That's okay.

I'm not going anywhere.

I'm here for you.

At some point,

There may be a bit of a relaxing and a receiving.

It's in that receiving that healing happens,

That opening happens.

And then let that child say something to you.

I love you.

And you receive it.

Does that feel good to get the love from a child,

Your child?

And let that child just feel safe with you as you receive it.

And let that child just feel safe with you and look up to you.

What does it feel to have somebody look up to you?

And to rely on you?

You receive it.

You soak it up.

Now,

If the child has an issue,

We talked about being triggered by your family or friends.

Maybe the child feels so-and-so doesn't love me.

And you sit with your child and you say,

Yes,

That feels really bad.

Aunt so-and-so or whoever it is may have some issues.

They have some issues,

But I want you to know,

Regardless of their issues,

I love you.

You are loved.

And we'll be just fine.

Even though it hurts now.

Do you mind if I sit with you with your hurt and share it with you?

Can I love you?

Can I put my arms around you?

And can you soak it in again?

That's the important part.

All the rest short of soaking it in is helpful,

But it's the soaking in of your love.

That's most important because that's what heals.

That's the healing.

And you feel the child.

The child can look up to you and say,

Thank you.

I love you.

I love you.

Can you feel yourself coming together and becoming a little bit more whole?

Because what is wholeness?

That's taking that which is divided.

And you come together into oneness.

And when that's fully done,

That's called awakening.

Now,

Awakening does go beyond that because you become one with the universe.

But it definitely is that also.

So you kind of have the idea of a process.

This is one of many different processes that you can do on your own.

Anytime.

As I said,

Insight Timer has many quick,

Easy processes that are free.

YouTube has many.

Find something that works for you and you don't have to be perfect at it.

You don't have to do it every moment of your life.

Just do it some,

Maybe once every day or two or three for 10 seconds.

And it will make a big difference longer if you like.

Okay,

So you can open your eyes if they're closed.

Okay,

So this is a pointer and a direction that you can go.

To begin to open,

To trust yourself,

To love yourself.

Very important.

So does anybody have any other questions about your path or your awakening?

We can talk more about this if you like or anything else.

But because of the holidays,

I definitely wanted to talk about the emotional side of things.

Our personalities,

Our emotions.

Because they'll be coming up likely if you go home.

Or if you don't go home,

If you don't have a family,

These will be coming up.

Jennifer and I are going,

This will be our last live session for a bit.

Jennifer and I are going to India at the end of the month.

We come back sometime in March,

The middle of March.

We'll be back home here.

And I'll probably have a live session once we get home.

If you're following me,

You'll get a notice if I do a live session from India,

Which might be fun.

So if you'd like to be notified about that,

Just make sure that you're following me.

I think most of you are.

And it's that stillness,

Really.

You know,

When you get a massage,

Anything that's tight in your body,

That receives,

Just like an emotional,

In our emotional cells,

We receive and that lets our emotional reactions and knots disappear.

But in massages,

We receive and that lets our muscles relax.

Elizabeth says,

Depression feeling.

Depression feeling.

One thing about myself I noticed,

When I sit still and I quit running around,

If there's anything inside of me that still is asking to be healed,

It comes forward.

And it's a good thing that it comes forward,

Because it means that some part of me needs some attention.

And as I said before,

When I,

I suppose most of my life I felt depressed.

I don't anymore,

But most of my life I did.

And when I would sit still,

I would feel very depressed.

And I did a lot of emotional work.

It's very powerful to work with a therapist when that's appropriate,

Doing the kind of work we just now did.

Or any of the others that are offered on any of these platforms is very powerful.

And it helps relax the depression out,

The anxiety,

The troubles,

Change habits.

However,

The larger context,

Of course,

Is our awakening.

And that's what the other 80 podcasts or so before this one,

We really have heavily focused on.

When you sit still,

It's hard to repress things.

So things come up to be healed.

Now,

The very process,

The very act of them coming up and being felt like Elizabeth feeling depression is very productive.

And you don't want that to go away,

Because like in a massage,

Your muscles tense and tight.

And when it comes up and you feel it,

And then the masseuse rubs it,

It starts to relax,

Release and let go.

It receives healing,

It receives relaxation,

Which is awakening.

And it relaxes and it's completely gone.

That's what happens to depression.

At least in my case,

And I think many others.

It comes up,

It feels horrible.

For me,

It came up for a long time.

This wasn't a,

Oh,

It came up for five minutes,

I'm ready for it to be gone.

No,

It was there a lot.

And as I watched it,

It spun around in a sense,

It released its energy,

It melted.

And it's like holding an ice cube in your hand,

It hurts.

You know,

It's gold.

Depression hurts.

And it slowly exuded its pent up energy.

And then I let it breathe in,

Who I had found myself to be through meditation and through my spiritual practices,

Which is the infinite.

It could receive it just like that short exercise we did.

The inner self received your love.

And then just like a massage,

It could release,

Relax and let go.

Just like your muscles receive attention in a massage and the tension releases,

Relaxes,

Lets go.

Depression does that.

Now it's not as simple as all of that,

I realize,

Because sometimes there are sub-components.

You have to work with somebody,

You have to talk to somebody.

You have to change habits,

A number of things.

But I think in the context of,

For me,

Sitting still and meditating and having a practice every day,

And you may be doing that already,

Elizabeth.

But it's helpful over time.

At the time,

It doesn't seem that it would be helpful.

Amanda's saying that her depression is lessening quite a bit.

I didn't think my depression could be healed because I've had it for so long.

I'm cautious about believing I can really get better.

I'm grateful,

But nervous.

Yes,

Amanda,

I went through that same process.

You can get better,

I would say,

And are.

And you will be nervous because nervousness is also a feeling that you watch during your meditation.

And it itself releases pent-up energy,

The nervousness.

So you let everything relax and melt out.

Elizabeth says not enough practice.

You know,

For me,

Elizabeth,

One thing,

I was raised in the military.

So maybe that's my upbringing.

I don't know,

But I have been blessed with I do practice.

And as you've maybe heard in past podcasts,

If you've listened to them.

In my daily practice,

I've been blessed with so much.

Because what is practice?

It's just our time to let everything melt away.

That's not a free flow.

That's not the fullness of our being.

The fullness of our being is pure giving.

It is pure life.

So,

Elizabeth,

What I tell myself,

And I generally practice a lot.

But I have a minimum,

And that is,

Can I do 60 seconds a day?

And if I can't,

Then I really need to get some sort of therapy,

Right?

Because there's some emotional issues if I can't do 60 seconds.

And I'm just talking about myself.

This works for me.

So I know I can,

So I do.

I do far more than that.

But a minimum,

I'm going to do something every day in my practice.

And it's these small practices that add up over time.

That's what awakening is about.

Just sitting still and being with yourself in whatever way works for you.

Laura says,

Amanda,

I relate with you about my chronic illness.

Being very carefully,

Maybe too much sometimes,

Still trying to find balance between doing too much and non-doing.

Yeah,

All this is about awakening.

Thank you,

Laura.

And listening to yourself.

That's love.

I can do 60 seconds.

But it's about listening to ourselves for sure.

To see is to be free and awareness is curative.

So we're aware of where we are and what we feel.

And then to see is to be free.

We just trust ourselves and what we need,

Who we need to listen to,

What we need to do for ourselves.

And I like what Seed said about the mantra,

Random gifts of kindness.

Yeah.

That's a beautiful way to live life.

Because again,

We are being,

We are giving.

And we can do these.

We can give to whoever we want as we want.

We trust ourselves.

But yes,

Laura,

Balance is very important.

Yes.

Random smiling.

Seed says,

Yes,

Even giving out random smiling makes the world better.

That's huge.

Have you ever walked down a street and you say hi to people and they don't smile back?

It affects you.

Can.

It used to affect me.

I remember in college I was shocked because I would say hi to everybody and they would not say hi back.

I felt so grateful for a smile.

Of course,

That was my reaction and we've talked about that.

But still,

It does help open people up.

And Laura,

That's very practical.

She says journaling is really helpful for me too.

Amanda says,

Thank you.

Balance is hard for me.

It's getting easier,

Though.

Giving ourselves kindness counts too.

Journaling,

Laura,

Has been very powerful.

And there was a certain time in my life where I would do that.

That was my main practice.

And I would do that for a set amount of time every day.

What I did was 30 minutes a day.

That's just what I did.

And I would just do it like,

Oh,

What is that?

Art of,

Oh,

I don't know that journaling book.

You just journal whatever you feel.

I feel this,

I feel that,

I feel this,

I feel that.

It was profoundly powerful for me.

Yes,

Amanda,

Balance is hard.

And it does get easier.

Giving ourselves kindness counts.

You know what I found?

We awaken,

Amanda,

On so many levels.

And I've described different awakening experiences I've had.

And even after the depression was gone,

And I'm seeing light around me and feeling,

And having miracles,

Actually seeing them.

I had somebody say,

Yeah,

But you don't have to do that.

I had somebody say,

Yeah,

But you don't love yourself.

And I argued with them.

I said,

Yes,

I do.

Kindness,

Love,

You don't offer it to yourself.

I believed I did.

But over time,

I realized,

No,

I don't.

I do now more and more,

Because I've been working on it.

But kindness is me listening to myself,

Finding balance for myself,

Living and including myself in the love of the universe,

Which we all are.

And this is when I'm already feeling one with the universe.

So we're on so many levels.

And this particular emotional level was more blocked than it needed to be.

So I started to receive love from myself.

And it's very powerful.

And many spiritual practices,

When they're energy-based,

You're receiving energy,

And you're feeling the support of the universe around you.

And when you can't do it on an emotional level,

It blocks you on an energy level to some degree.

You are not the free flow of awakening that you normally would experience.

So it's powerful just because you deserve that.

But it's also powerful in full awakening,

Which you also deserve.

Laura says,

Yes,

Thank you.

Sometimes I feel I am taking too much care of me.

But if not,

I get in bed very easily.

It's a slow process to really listen.

You know,

That's our society partially,

Laura.

I'm not sure you can take too much care of yourself.

Because after you've gotten all the care that you truly,

Truly need and deserve,

You start to feel free and have a burst of energy and will do something else,

Like,

Wow,

Now I want to do this.

Like Seed said,

Now maybe I just want to go walk down the street and smile at people.

Or maybe I want to go work in the yard.

Or maybe I want to bake cookies for somebody or do something.

That happens after you've filled your cup.

Laura writes The Artist's Way,

And yes,

That's the one.

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron,

I think.

What a great book for journaling.

And it's just fun to read it too.

So,

The good thing about journaling,

In a sense,

Well,

It really touches our emotional self and brings that up for healing.

But isn't that what meditation does?

And I mean sitting still.

You sit still and your stuff comes up.

The difference when I journal,

It feels like I can attend to myself better in a more focused way because I actually get into what's the story of what's going on in my life.

The story that's being revealed.

I feel sad,

I feel sad,

I feel sad.

I feel this way,

I feel that way.

Whereas when I meditate,

I experience everything.

I feel it come up.

I let it expend its energy and I watch it because I'm the infinite watching it.

I'm not getting involved in it,

Really.

I'm speaking about myself.

There's so many different kinds of meditation.

I'm sure there's a kind where you do get involved with it.

But in what I call the awakening meditation,

I just let everything dissolve away.

And it does over time.

However,

In India,

There's something interesting.

I remember I was at an ashram and they were talking about awakening.

And they said,

Yes,

You can awaken.

But they talked about awakening auspiciously or having inauspicious awakening.

And of course,

I wondered,

What is that?

And they gave an example.

True story.

This will sound very gross.

But.

You know,

Awakening is different from your personality.

You could work on your personality a lot and still not be awake.

You would be happier.

And that's of great value.

And it does aid your awakening,

But it's not awakening itself.

So you could have a messed up personality and then awaken.

But you still have a messed up personality.

You have to work on it.

So they gave the example of a man in India,

Very poor man.

Now I'm just giving you the story.

It's gross,

But he used to like to eat cow dung.

That's what he ate.

Cow dung.

And then he awakened.

And people didn't want to come around him because he was still eating cow dung.

He didn't upgrade his diet or any.

He just stayed with his old habits.

That's fine.

Nothing wrong with it.

But.

Well,

Now,

On an emotional level,

Forget about the cow dung story,

But on an emotional level,

If I have depression,

If I have anxiety,

If I have troubles,

It's not auspicious for me to go through life depressed,

Even though I'm awake.

That can happen.

Doesn't need to happen at all.

With a little attention,

You can open to yourself,

Receive who you are,

The infinite,

Pure love,

And everything inside that was clutching to the false delusion that I'm separate and not loved can dissolve and drink in the love that you are.

That's basically what happens in good therapy.

The only difference in awakening is the ceiling is infinite.

In therapy,

I only open up as big as whatever I can trust or see.

And if I can only trust or see so much because I'm locked into my personal self,

I can open up and trust that.

But in awakening,

I can open up and trust everything and beyond.

So Amanda says,

Reading over old journal entries shows me the patterns I'm stuck in.

It's interesting.

Then I realized I wrote almost an identical entry two,

Five or eight years ago.

It gives me something to focus on.

Yes,

I found the same too,

Amanda.

Often there's unconscious configurations that we repeat and journaling can be helpful to see those.

In awakening,

We talked about this maybe last time.

I'm not sure.

But as you awaken,

You open,

You open,

You open.

And at some point,

When you've opened and you've also opened emotionally and done emotional work as well as physical and everything else,

At some point you just tell yourself,

No,

I'm not going to repeat this habit.

And that's a conscious decision.

No,

I'm not going to do it.

And you just stop.

But you've already done the work that was supporting that old behavior that you no longer need.

So it's not like repression.

Repression would be,

I haven't done the work.

I want it to go away.

So I'm going to willpower it away.

But it's still there.

Really?

I'm just not going to look at it.

That's repression.

Release is when you've done the work.

You have a daily practice.

Let's say you've been meditating.

Let's say of journaling is what you need to do.

You've also been journaling.

Whatever you need to do,

You've done it.

You've melted out.

It's discharged so much energy that it's pretty well seen by you and experienced and released.

At that point,

It's not repression.

At that point,

You just stop.

You just stop it.

Because it no longer fits how you see yourself.

You see yourself as love,

As well-being,

As health.

Because you are.

You experience yourself that way.

So any parts of your personality that are still informed,

Still have a wisp of believing the old thing,

You let it go.

You say stop and you stop it.

Amanda says,

A podcast on repression or release would be amazing.

That answered a question I've had for years.

Thank you.

Amanda,

I will do that.

Of course,

I'm going to India right now.

So we'll have to wait on that one.

But maybe you could remind me.

I'll try to remember also.

Oh,

Laura says,

That's very interesting and helpful.

Thank you.

And yes,

The Artist's Way is a beautiful book.

Yes,

It is.

I need to do it again.

Yes,

It is beautiful.

Yes,

That's the difference between repression and release.

And there's another feature.

Because in awakening,

Being one with everything,

You trust the universe to work things out.

You trust that.

Because you are the universe.

So on one level,

You don't have to do anything.

Nothing.

And it works itself out in clarity.

However,

From that vantage point,

It might feel a little bit odd to do something.

But remember,

You are part of the universe.

And the universe doing something is to say,

No more.

So you,

It comes through your body and you say to yourself,

No more.

Stop.

And you just stop.

You stop that habit.

You just say,

No.

And I'm not saying you might have,

That that does it.

You might have to say no a number of times every day for a little while.

No.

But you do it when you are confident enough.

You're confident enough that you've done whatever work you need to do underneath it.

Just say,

No.

And you're not missing anything anymore.

In other words,

You're not avoiding whatever you need to address.

And that's a way to love yourself.

You want to work on things as long as you need to because that is you loving yourself,

Right?

You're attending to yourself.

You know,

It did make an impression on me when Jesus came.

And I was,

It was because we were both in the same body.

And I mentioned this at the beginning of this podcast,

That I knew how he felt.

And I can tell you,

And this is how it would feel for you too.

But I was there at the moment and I was the only person he cared about in the world.

He cared about nobody else but me.

That's how it felt.

Well,

How would that feel if that's how we treated ourselves?

Our inner self.

And our inner self received,

Soaked in this love that we are giving it.

And said to us,

Thank you.

And we soaked that up.

Because that's what happened with me and Jesus.

I did soak it up.

I'm telling you about it.

Why?

Because I soaked it up.

It changed my life.

And in some way,

Some incremental way,

It did.

And he liked being with me too.

He received me.

I could feel that.

And what I've learned,

Laura says,

Wow,

That's beautiful.

Thank you,

Laura.

Oh,

Gail says,

Did I miss the story about Jesus?

I tuned in late.

Two things to let you all know.

The reason I brought up Jesus,

The main reason recently is Lynn asked me about my experience with Jesus,

Probably about three weeks ago or something.

A couple of live sessions before.

And it is listed on Insight Timer under my name.

I've got about 80 something podcasts listed under my name,

William Cooper.

Just search William Cooper or follow me or something.

Click on my picture.

It'll show them all.

I don't know that they're all in order,

But in the title,

It'll say something like Jesus.

It'll have Jesus in the title.

And it's questions and answers.

And it'll say Jesus,

Something like that.

So that's the longer story.

And I will post this podcast,

This live session,

After we finish.

Because Insight Timer is going on vacation,

You probably won't get it until the beginning of next year or sometime,

Whenever they actually post it.

But you can go back and get the whole story.

Yes,

Gail says wonderful.

Yes,

You can go back and listen to the whole story by listening to that podcast.

But,

And this was out of the blue,

This Jesus appearance.

I wasn't asking for it,

Not expecting it.

Didn't even know.

It was crazy.

But,

Just to get to the meat of it,

That's what happened.

And it taught me,

As we're talking about it,

You know,

To receive myself like Jesus received myself.

And he was the king of love,

Really,

Right?

In awakening,

I learned,

Just by being with so many awakened people,

And having awakening experiences myself,

And reading so much literature written by awakening people,

That it just boils down to a very simple thing.

Let go and receive,

And poof,

You're one with everything,

Automatically.

Just do that.

That's what all psychology is about.

That's what the Tibetan book of the dead is about.

They read it to you after you die,

Or as you're dying,

And basically it's,

Look,

Oh,

There's a fire,

There's an illusion.

Go through that fire,

It's just an illusion,

And go to the God on the white horse,

And you'll be fine.

And the person keeps getting tricked by the illusion,

Or scared by the illusion,

And they just say,

Okay,

That's okay,

Do it again,

Do it again.

It's basically let go,

Trust,

And you're okay.

Laura says,

Forgiveness,

And especially self-forgiveness for me,

Is a big thing.

Can you speak about that sometime?

Yes.

That would be a good podcast also.

I'll remember that as well.

But quickly on forgiveness,

I wonder if I have done a podcast.

Look,

Scroll back in my earlier podcast,

And see if there's one titled forgiveness.

I might have done one.

Isadora says,

I love Jesus,

And I'm Jewish,

But so is he.

Yes,

Jesus wasn't,

Christianity didn't happen until after Jesus died,

So he was purely Jewish.

But as far as forgiveness,

And thank you for that Isadora,

That's awakening,

Just to let go and receive.

Yeah,

Laura,

Forgiveness is about letting go and receiving.

Most of us have trouble with forgiveness when somebody's harmed us and we're angry,

And it almost feels like if we forgive them,

That's letting them off the hook.

But when we see clearly,

Actually what they did indicates their unawakeness,

Their problems,

Their issues.

It has nothing to do with us.

Yet by not forgiving,

We're holding on to our reaction,

And that does have to do with us.

We choose to react in a way to hurt ourselves.

And so part of loving,

And it's step by step,

This is the human condition,

We all do this,

But to take a breath and begin to let go,

Begin to treat ourselves nicely,

Which includes not punching myself internally in the stomach so that I feel bad when I think of the other person because I don't want to forgive them.

That's me hurting myself.

Laura says,

She finds it hard to forgive herself.

Yes.

Jennifer says,

I think you have a guided meditation on forgiveness and others.

Yes,

I think I do.

Because there's so many of those podcasts,

I start to forget.

Go back in the podcasts and see if there's one on forgiveness.

Isadora says,

Another podcast idea,

How do you combine faith and Jesus with Buddhist or Hindu beliefs of India?

Well,

Yes,

I have a podcast on that too.

In fact,

I have one coming up.

That will come up next week.

And it's entitled something,

How to release Christian guilt and fear,

Something like that.

And basically in it,

It's just all this.

What happens in,

Jesus wasn't a Christian.

Jesus was like Buddha and Krishna and everybody else.

There is no difference.

People start to think there's a difference when they get involved in old cultural things by reading portions of the Bible that don't really apply.

And then they think,

Oh,

Somehow Jesus requires one thing that Buddha doesn't and things like that.

And it's just not true.

And that's what the next podcast will cover.

Gail says,

Oh,

I love that Isadora.

I'm so interested in that as well.

Laura says,

Thank you.

Yes.

Punching myself,

Right.

I'm big perfectionist,

Need kindness to myself about my mistakes or I call my mistakes.

Yeah.

That's the awakening process.

All of us.

Another thing that Jesus showed me,

He says,

You know,

You and I are exactly the same.

The only difference is,

And he put his nervous system up next to mine and he says,

These four or five black dots are the only difference between you and me.

Jennifer says,

Podcast episode 47,

48 and 49 are on forgiveness.

Yes.

So scroll back to my podcast and listen to 47,

48 and 49.

Thanks,

Jennifer.

Thanks for looking that up.

And these black dots that Jesus showed me are simply places where we're blocking ourselves.

And I,

In my other podcast,

I said he never told me how to get rid of the black dots.

But later it occurred to me,

Just seeing the black dots and feeling them does help dissolve them.

And that's what we do on this earth.

Everything moves very slowly on this earth and we can focus on them and let them go.

We can focus on them using psychology,

Psychotherapy,

Our own personal psychotherapy,

Using podcasts.

And there's so many beautiful podcasts on this platform that you can listen to.

Or very powerfully as you trust yourself and do what works,

Make stuff up that nobody's even done a podcast on.

Just make it up because it works for you.

Listen to you.

The answers are there.

Gail says,

Some Christians believe Hinduism is evil.

Yeah,

That's true.

I think you'll enjoy my next podcast.

It will answer or at least join into the conversation that we're having now.

Gail,

Every group is made up of different people at different places of awakening.

Just because someone says something doesn't make it true.

You have to tap into your own spiritual understanding.

True.

And all Christians are not the same either.

And they're all lots of open,

Good,

Open-hearted,

Just like Christ Christians.

And then there are ones that are doing their best,

But it's hard and they're just doing what they're guided to do.

And sometimes that comes out in ways that are,

That's confusing.

Again,

I think you will enjoy this next podcast where we,

That's exactly what we talk about.

Okay,

Everybody,

I've really enjoyed it.

Such good questions and comments as always.

And thank you.

Christine says,

Have a wonderful time in India.

And it was helpful,

This podcast.

Thank you,

Jennifer.

Also,

Jennifer says,

Thanks.

A lot of people saying thanks.

Laura says,

Love your talks.

Insight Timer will send you something if we do a live session from India,

Which I might just try it.

It'd be fun.

All right.

If not,

I'll talk to you in March.

Take care.

Happy holidays,

Everybody.

Thank you again,

Everybody,

For your comments,

As usual.

Take care.

Bye.

Reviews

great talk. i love journaling too. i also do auto writing and stream of consciousness writing.

question: as i listen to this podcast and another one of your i don’t know how to “be” or how to talk to myself when my ibs pain flares up. it’s very painful, creates a lot of fear esp now that my husband has passed ( no one home to make sure i’m okay), and it brings up a lot of frustration too. or maybe i don’t say anything at all? and simply be with the pain? your suggestions are welcome 🙏

🙏 is #87 missing?
Thank you for answering my other questions earlier. Your response was indeed helpful.

Excellent as usual!!! Thanks William… I appreciate your insight.
Be Well,
Jennifer