110 There are only Two things Inside - Q & A

Live session Q & A.  Some topics discussed are, there are only two things inside....Being and tension.  Any tension is not you and does not flow from your Being.  How to let it go?  Inner Joy.  Be as a joyful child. Do I need a teacher or can I sit still with my Self and my Truth?  Do I need to visualize or can I trust that life is unfolding perfectly for me?  Why Baby steps?  One asked, "Why don't I feel joy? While another reported that suddenly she does feel Joy!"  Etc.

These podcasts are here to support your personal path of awakening whatever that might be. I feel they are most powerful when listened to in sequence from podcast one forward because each is built on the last. Though they, also, all stand on their own. If anything does not resonate, please disregard it and follow your heart. All my podcasts and website are free. Enjoy!

Though I am a psychotherapist, and these podcasts are offered to be spiritually helpful, they are not psychotherapy. If psychotherapy is ever needed, please reach out to a psychotherapist.

www.williamecooper.wordpress.com for more support. You may, especially, enjoy the short contemplations and the resource page which gives you some supportive material.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome, everybody. Welcome to Awakening Together, Relaxing into Happiness. I'm William Cooper. Oh, I see some friends. Hello. Today, what we can do, is what we do every time we have these questions and answers, is if something's come up on your practice that you're wondering about, have questions, your thoughts really guide our discussion, so they're very valuable to everybody. Some of you may just want to listen in. Welcome, Amanda. Yes. And hi, Yvonne. Hello, Vicky. It's good to see you. And Jennifer, hello. While you're thinking about questions, let's talk about you. Let's talk about us. Let's talk about awakening. Hey, Blossom. Yes, I listened to Blossom's piano podcast live session last night and it was great. And what I mean by talking about us is really, aren't we all looking for our natural free-flowing state to be felt and experienced every day? Free-flowing with happiness and joy. A lot of us had hard childhoods, but nonetheless, perhaps you remember a time when you felt very happy. Maybe it was just a moment or maybe it was a stretch of time. Carefree and happy, trusting, loving, open-hearted, free-flowing. That feeling is the same feeling as the awakened state. People say it's ordinary in a sense. I mean, it's spectacular, but it's ordinary in the sense that it's you and you're here all the time. If you find any tension in your body, any tension, any thought that causes you trouble, any emotion that causes you trouble, those are not you. Those are coming from separation. You are everything you experience now, except for no trouble, no stress, no tension, no hurt emotions, no fear. Yes, I realized that we experience those things because that's our personality. We built it in a state of separation, so it still lingers. But also, as when you were a child and even now, there are moments, perhaps even moments when you're feeling bad that you feel good. And really what's going on is you feel good all the time underneath the surface. If you don't feel good, you're just falling into the trick of the mind. That's why I said that if you feel any tension, any trouble, any hurt, any anger, any fear, it's not you. You just went down an alleyway that's tricked you. Every master says that your beautiful self is here always. It's just that we get caught up in our delusions, our stories, our fantasies, and they could be bad fantasies. It's really a hypnosis. I used to work a lot with hypnosis as a psychotherapist and you didn't have to hypnotize people mainly. You had to de-hypnotize them because we're stuck in our hypnosis. So, you know, the ancient Latin word laxus means free flowing, yielding, open. It's a flow. It's the root of relax because our nature is always there, laxus, free flowing. That's what happened as a child, free flowing. Jesus said, unless you become like a child, you won't enter the kingdom of heaven. Now, I'm not believing any religious stuff around that. I just believe he's saying what we're saying. To have a full life, which in his terms was the kingdom of heaven, that's right here and now, inside of you. Because somebody asked him, where is it? And he said, don't look here or there. It's inside of you. It's you. You're the kingdom of heaven. So, relaxus, free flowing, be as a child, not childish, but free flowing again. So, really the work of awakening is just letting go, dissolving those things that obstruct us or distract us or that we get caught up in so that we can relaxus. I hope that makes sense. It's a very simple process. There's many ways to let go, but that's what you have to do. There's two things, only two. Be in tune with who you are, that part of you that will always be there once you've let go of everything. Just know who that is so you can rest there. Buddha said, take refuge there. Just rest there. As all the troublesome stuff flows by, it helps you sort of survive all the trouble. You rest in your core as all that trouble melts out of you. I hope you've had a chance, and many of you have, to listen to some of my podcasts. They're all free. And we start at number one. I think we've got 109 now, and we work step by step on relaxing and letting go. Different ways to do that. To see clearly. My guru said, to see is to be free. There's so many other good podcasts. I'm not just saying my podcast. If you find some other podcast that helps you or a combination, listen to mine and listen to everybody else's. That's good. Whatever works for you, listen to you. But I'm saying I do have them. And I have these live sessions periodically, usually about every 10 or 11 days, so that you can ask questions. And that's what we'll get to now. But in those podcasts, it's that letting go, that dissolving of anything that's not you. So you can simply be your whole happy self. It's pretty simple. It's not easy, right? But it's simple. And it did take me decades to figure out when I said, there's two things, know who you are and know who you aren't. It sounds very simple, but it took me quite a while to know who I was, because I got so caught up in who I wasn't, all my personality. I thought I was my personality. Oh, I have this attribute, this quality, this thought. If I change my thoughts, if I do this, if I do that, but none of that's me. So it was a bit confusing. And that's what these sessions can be good for, or the podcast. Okay. So thank you for writing some questions, and I'm going to read them and let's just see where we end up. Amanda says, and thank you, Amanda. I've had some powerful experiences lately, and I can feel that I'm opening up quite a bit. Lately, I've been starving for more direction, but I'm more careful about where I get direction as my intuition is refined. In your experience, is it worth looking for new teachers or should I just keep meditating the way I have been? Wow. Great question, Amanda. Really good question. And I'm going to answer just like I do most spiritual questions out of both sides of my mouth, because we are on many realities and these questions are so good, you can't answer them from one reality. Your fundamental question, the center of your question is should you trust yourself and sit still and follow your process, follow your heart? And the answer to that is absolutely. That's all you need. That's it. Keep meditating the way you have been. So often we get caught up in chasing this and that and this and that, and we don't find ourselves. And the only way to find ourselves is to sit still with ourself. So yes, absolutely. That's the core of my answer to you. However, now here comes the other side of my mouth. Sometimes we don't realize, myself included, when we have a blind spot, we don't realize it because that's how I've always been for my whole life, maybe past lives. So what I think is baseline is just a habit. Other stuff, the profound stuff is my being, but it's sometimes easy to overlook things. When you listen to a new teacher, I would not chase them. I wouldn't follow them, but I would listen to them. And for the purpose of, it can reveal blind spots. They can say something and you can go, oh, that resonates. And I didn't think of that. Sometimes when we sit by ourselves, it's very safe. And I'm not saying this about you, Amanda, I'm saying about me and many others. And it's not that we don't have courage. It's just that somewhere 30 years ago, we made a decision not to go down a certain avenue and that's closed off and we don't even see it. Now, if you sit still long enough and you move, I mean, you live life fully. Any blocks that you have will come up, life will show you them. So there's that too. You're your own guru. I like where you're coming from, Amanda. I'm just saying, I'd be open to other teachers here and there, but not overwhelmingly. And even if they're very awake, I wouldn't necessarily follow their teachings. I would just listen to where they're coming from and test it against you and trust you as the center, not them. I hope that makes sense. One other thought keeps coming to me, so I'll throw this out too. When Jennifer and I were in India early this year, somebody sent me an email and they said, you know, I trust life. I trust oneness. I have deep trust. So I hear about everybody talking about manifesting and visualizing the life I want and this and that. And I just trust that the life is going to unfold the way that my life should unfold. So do I have to do all that stuff? And is there any value to it? Am I missing the boat? They said, because I don't feel to do it. And I agree with them, their core, their center. I said that to them. Yes, I agree with you. But in a related way, Amanda, like what I was saying to you, I said, however, you want to ask yourself very gently, is there a block inside of you that you don't see your life? I mean, I don't mean everything in your life, but there are things that your heart is guiding you towards. And if you had a vision of it, would that bring up an emotion? Would it bring up anxiety? What if I put a vision out there and it doesn't happen? Am I doing something wrong? Does my whole worldview crack apart? Now that didn't apply to her, but I'm saying we have a lot of blind spots and sometimes doing spiritual exercises can be helpful to reveal those blind spots. That's what I was saying. When we're out and about in life, life will bring it up. Somebody might make a comment or you might wonder, why don't I smile more? What happens if I do smile? Oh, I feel anxious. Why is that? So, life will be your guru. Okay, that's a long answer. I hope it was helpful, Amanda. I think you're right on target. I'm basically saying, yes, I like where you're coming from and some thoughts. If I didn't answer it thoroughly, please ask again or ask another time or even today. Leanne has asked a question which I like a lot. Can you tell me more about why you say to take baby steps? Yes, that is an extremely good question. And the reason is if you're moving forward, most areas where we're stuck inside are the result of often some trauma or deep hypnosis that we've absorbed. And if we push fast, we're liable to jump over the trouble instead of connect to it, have a conversation with it, let it breathe and look around and update its files and realize everything's okay today. Because traumas believe that they're still at the age of when they occur. They believe they're still in the past. Otherwise, they wouldn't exist. I'm anxious because something happened years ago. Well, why are you still anxious? It's not happening. Because on some level, I think it is happening. So, by taking baby steps, I can connect and be a friend to myself gently. Because even though I might be able to go quickly, the trauma might not be able to go quickly. And awakening is about the trauma. It's not about me. I know there's only one here and I'm talking like there's two people. But it can kind of appear as if there are two when we split off from ourself and dissociated. The conversation that we have with ourselves by taking the baby steps reassociates us back into oneness. And if we push the dissociated part of us faster than it can go, it can't go. We've jumped over it rather than connected to it. For instance, if I did breathing exercises, I can breathe in one way, but the trauma might only be able to take little slow breaths. So, do I listen, even if my instructor says take a deep breath? Is the trauma able to? Maybe the trauma just needs a tiny breath and somebody to listen to it. When you connect, what happens in connection is healing. The second reason, and it's related to taking baby steps, is that when there's PTSD, and there often is, if we push too fast, we release too much pain faster than we can discharge it. And if our system gets overwhelmed with pain, we really want to heal. We really want to be awake. We want to be awake now. We're tired of this pain and we push too hard, too fast. It can release too much and we can lock down. We can lock up. We might not even, we might partially realize we're locking up and then we may just jump over and start using willpower rather than dissolution and connection or the dissolution that occurs through connection. And well-being. Another reason for taking baby steps, there was a famous doctor, Milton Erickson, and he was a psychiatrist. He was very good with hypnosis and he was a genius. And based on his hypnosis, they developed neuro-linguistic programming. They developed systems approach and family therapy. A lot of our current thinking is based on his observations. And what he observed is if you move quickly, it's very hard to heal, probably for the reasons we've just talked about. Jennifer says, good question. Baby steps reminds me of when I talk about just 1% better, just be 1% better today. Thank you, Jennifer. Nice observation and comment. There's a guru that I also, I've had so many gurus. So to Amanda's question about following people, I've listened to them. That's why I answered the way I have, but I don't follow any of them. I listened to all of them. And one of them, Prajnananda, he's the head of Kriya International. His guru was the brother guru of Yogananda. They had the same guru, Yukteswar. And after Hariharananda, the brother guru of Yogananda died, Prajnananda took over the Kriya International. And it's basically that Kriya path around the world. They're not so strong in the United States, but they're probably the predominant one in the rest of the world. And Prajnananda came to Austin where I was living for 30 years, and I was with him a good bit. And he would say, after we meditated, the group of us, he would say, what have you noticed changed? What has changed? What did you change? He didn't just say meditate in that meditation. What changed? Basically, if we wanted to put more words on it, what emotion let go? What habit did you let go of? And this is a 1% kind of thing. Let 1% change per day of your life. Let 1% change per week. And you'll be a very happy person in short order. 1% a month. This is doable. It's something we can do. We can take baby steps. I can do one thing at a time. So baby steps. And there's another reason. Have you ever had a day, Don Miguel Ruiz, with the four agreements, talked about this. He said, just do your best each day. And what your best is each day will vary. Because have you ever had a day when your best was just getting out of bed and barely getting through the day? That was your best. You were overwhelmed. Well, on a day like that, just doing a three minute meditation is keeping your focus. That's a baby step. Just setting a goal is every day. If I just do one minute of meditation, that's my low end. But no matter what, I will do one minute. You'll get there. You'll get there. If I forced you to hop out of bed and do a lot, you probably wouldn't get there as fast. Okay. Well, things like that is why baby steps. Hey, if there's a day where you can take a giant leap, do it. Just don't force yourself. Because awakening is not about force. It's simply about listening and being. It's simply being yourself, not forcing yourself, being yourself. Any feeling of force or struggle is really coming about because we're coming from our personality and we're trying so desperately to remove obstacles. And there's nothing bad about that. That's what I've done. That's what everybody's done. That's what we do. That's all we know to do. But remember, the end goal is no force, no pushing. I got to tell you one other story. Decades ago, I was trying to figure out, I didn't really believe in psychics or channels and things like that. And frankly, it's not my thing. It's just not. But I decided to go about it logically. And I made appointments with about five of them. And I asked them all the same questions to see if they would come up with similar answers. Was there anything to any of this? This is my logical self 40 years ago. And it blew my mind, actually, but some were better than others. But one channel said to me, she was telling me about myself and she says, oh, you get a lot done. You've got great willpower. You're very successful. And I was. You're doing this and that and this and that. And but the way she said it, it just sounded slightly funny, tiny bit funny, like you're saying it's like a good thing, but there's a tone here. And so I asked her, I said, you're saying that's like it's a good thing. But in a way, it almost sounds like your your tone is like it's not a good thing. And she says, oh, no, it's very good. You've got excellent willpower. You're going to get a lot done. And she said, it won't amount to anything, but you'll get a lot done. Awakening is a bit like that. Now, I know there's a middle ground. We do have to do things and we try our best and we've got to work on the level that we are on. But remember, the end point is just being yourself and there's nothing to do when you're yourself. You are yourself. Always without doing anything, you could not be yourself if you tried. Amanda, I had huge anxiety driving on the highway using your technique. I realized it was my three year old self thinking that we were going to get in trouble. She couldn't believe we are an adult with a license allowed to go that fast when she finally took it all in. She was so happy and excited. I haven't had a panic attack since I let her drive to my parents house. Well, now, Amanda, that is so super. It's that all up and down the line. You've got it. That's it. As I said, life will bring up the stuff, the parts of us that have been dissociated. That part looked around, updated its files. You can help it realize, and perhaps you did, that she's okay by saying, do you realize that you're no longer three years old? That we're no longer stuck back then. She might be three years old. So, I'll choose my language a little more carefully. But I would say, do you realize that we're not back then? And it's okay. I'm taking care of you. It's all right. You make it a very simple question, a yes or no question. She looks around and at first she might say nothing like, I don't trust you. Who are you? This is crazy. But then slowly she might start to look around, unfold, and breathe. You said, just breathe. Just relax. Just don't. I'm here with you. And she does. And then she looks around and then you can ask again, do you realize that it's okay? We're no longer back then. We're here now and it's okay. Look, I know how to drive. Is that good or bad that I know how to drive? You happy or sad about that? Because we're going pretty fast in this car. Oh, I'm happy. Good. Then soak it up. Enjoy it. As she does, she updates her files and she realizes that she's okay. She can begin to relax, release and dissolve back into you. And when she does, poof, you and her are one. It's not that she's gone. It's that she's one with you. One ball of happiness. So good job. Leanne, a lot is coming up. How do I take it slow when so much keeps arising? Wow. Another great question, Leanne. This is everybody's experience. So let's answer that in a number of ways. Let's say I'm canoeing down a river. It's a beautiful day and I see giant boulders. I've got to use my observation skills, my willpower. I've got to use everything I've got to steer around those boulders to stay alive. It's like that in our life. The boulders inside of us are troubles that we have submerged inside of us. These dissociated parts, those are boulders and we have to use our willpower to steer around them. However, as we do our meditation and our spiritual practices, these boulders dissolve slowly, sometimes quickly. And now imagine going down that river where all the boulders have dissolved and they're gone. It doesn't require willpower. You just relax and flow. You're being. Now in between you both are being and you flow. In between when all these boulders are dissolved, you relax and flow, but you also use willpower to steer around life's issues, including the issues inside of you. They're not only in you, but they're outside of you. And some people would say it's the same thing inside and outside. The outside is a reflection of your inside. I don't want to push that too far, but there is some truth to that. So you use your willpower and that's where you get sayings like nobody became an astronaut by sitting on the couch praying about it. True. But our goal is awakening. It's not necessarily being an astronaut, but if you want to be an astronaut, you do need to do some things. You do need to learn some skills. So my friend Bob said, the first thing you want to do is get out of the pounding surf. You can't, when you're getting beat around and bobbing up and down, you can't awaken. It's very difficult. I don't never want to say can't, but it's hard. So do the first things first, put your attention, your willpower, everything you've got. And I'm just going to make up a scenario. I'm not saying this is you, Liam, but just for everybody in general, you know, you want to earn a living. You want to get an apartment or a house. You want to have food. You want to have a safe place that's yours or live with people that are safe. You do whatever it takes for you to have safety and stability so that you can get out of the pounding surf. If there are giant emotional issues that are these giant boulders, one of the first steps can be psychotherapy. Now, psychotherapy is not awakening, but it does help loosen and dissolve some of these boulders so that we're out of the pounding surf. In one of my later podcasts, I'll just say somewhere around number 90, I talk about how to have psychotherapy for free or low cost or co-counseling and things like that. So it's available to everybody. There's really no excuse not to have it if you want it, if you need it. Am I recommending everybody get psychotherapy? No, but I'm just saying it's one of many things. It's not only meditation. We use the tool that's appropriate for where the problem is. Some tools, meditation, most of them, meditation helps, but not all of them. In my series of four podcasts on PTSD, I go through that. It's like a muscle cramp, a brain cramp, and no amount of meditation is going to dissolve that. Always work on your spiritual self. Always do some meditation every day. Always do something, but also work on the other levels as well, Leanne. Nature, I'm just going to be practical right now. Nature is very helpful. Touch a tree, walk outside. Some people connect better to music. Listen to beautiful music. Find something that helps bridge and takes you into oneness at least for a moment. The pounding surf is still there. Work on it, but also connect. And Leanne, I know that you've been going through my podcasts. We'll keep doing that. And I just go over through them and cycle through them consistently because I think those steps will get you to where you're want to go, but don't only do those steps. I'm saying do the other things too. I think I probably talk about that podcast also. Blossom says the inner knowing and trust. Yes, that is the answer. Everything dissolves into trust. Everything that's trouble that we think is trouble is not us. When you're in touch with your being, there is no trouble in being. You're fine. That's why Buddha says take refuge in your being. Don't get sucked into all these apparent problems. And I know they're real problems to a degree. And I say that in that way because in Eastern thought there's a big controversy. Is maya an illusion? And some people say yes, it's an illusion because there's so much realized that you get sucked into these things and your inner self is not those things. So all this other is a illusion. However, other people say, and I believe this to be the case, you can believe either side of it, but I believe no, life isn't an illusion. It's a delusion. It's not life is a delusion is that we approach it in a deluded way. So as you do your spiritual practice, these delusions drop away and what seemed to be a big problem can suddenly poof, disappear and no longer be a problem. Even though the activity is still happening. The troublesome activity. I hope that's helpful. Find ways to trust. In my podcast, I've listened to the ones on trust and oneness, relaxing and letting go, things like that. All there is, is trust in the end. And when we let go of everything, all there is, is oneness. All there is, is trust because that's who we are. Our being is trust. It is gratitude and it is trust. It is clear seeing it's knowing that's there all the time. That's you, Leanne, all the time. Even if your world might tell you otherwise. Leanne, thank you, William. I am a much happier person since listening to your podcast. Well, thank you, Leanne. What I've done in these podcasts, I remember when I was sitting in the theological school, I went through a four-year program in seminary and got a Master of Theology. And the reason I was there is because I was so lost. And I was so grateful anytime anybody gave me a ray of knowledge. And I'm not associated with anything. Jesus is my friend. I like Buddha, everybody. I'm not, I'm pushing no direction here, just the direction of you. But what I am saying is I was so grateful. And through those decades, I have scratched forward, baby stepped my way forward with the help of so many people, inch by inch. And I've gone down so many avenues. And in my podcasts, I remember a time sitting on my bed in the dorm room, just thinking, I hope I can get through this and not sure that I could. And my podcasts are motivated only from there. Everything I've found helpful, I've put in those podcasts and continue to put in those podcasts. But the things that weren't helpful to me, I don't put them in there or I'll talk about them and tell you why they weren't because I don't want anybody spending decades moving in a direction that's not helpful to them. So it delights me to hear that my podcasts are helpful to you. That's my intention. They're free. I do them only to give what's been given to me. So thank you, Leanne. That means the world to me. And I'm doing my best. Does that mean I'm thinking these are the greatest podcasts ever? I think they're pretty good. Not that my delivery is wonderful, but I think what's in them is if you work at it, you'll get what you're looking for. But I don't believe these are the only good way to go. I think there's lots of people that are offering such beautiful teachings and guidance. I would listen to whoever resonates with you. I just tried to weed through. There's so much out there. I try to give you a focal point. You got to start somewhere. So I try to give you a center and from there, move any direction that feels good to you. Okay. Sue says, thank you, Leanne. Again, Sue says my daughter who is struggling with her autism is going back to school after summer for her graduation year. For me, that is a huge reason for stress and anxiety. She has had some bad experiences and I'm worried it will be a negative experience yet again. Also, I am diagnosed with OCPD and my school years were very difficult for me and I had to burn out in a graduation year. How can I be there for my daughter and take a step back from all this brings up for me? Life is difficult, Sue. Really. I had a tough childhood also, and I won't go through all of it, but there was a reason why I was sitting in seminary, not knowing what to do, very depressed and anxious. And that's an understatement. I mean, you may have felt this, but just wondering if you could make it through the day. It felt like I just tried to get my nose above water and take a breath. You might be feeling that way. And it's hard. That's the first thing. It just is. But I'll tell you the core is you're okay and everything that's hard is going to turn out to be equally great for you if you keep taking your baby steps. That's why I said baby steps, because I don't know about you, but I didn't have any other kind of step I could make. I was a champ just making a baby step. And you've got a lot going on. And a baby step every day will get you there. Life gave me a lot of lessons. And I'll say what you hear. And when you hear it, and when I used to hear it, I used to, you know, have mixed feelings like, yeah, come on, right. And that's when people would say they wouldn't be who they are today. They wouldn't be as happy as they are today, unless they had gone through all the stuff they had. It made them who they are and drove them deep into knowing and understanding. I can say that's true for me. I am equally as happy as I was unhappy back then. If I was 1000% unhappy, I'm 1000% happy now. And I had no assurance I would get there. Now I always was here, but I didn't. I was so underwater. I couldn't see anything. Every day was horrible. So if you feel any of that, and I think at times maybe every day you have, Sue, I'm sorry. Take baby steps. I would do some kind of meditation every day. I would get therapy. You probably already have and are. I keep it up. You'll get there. I would listen to my podcasts. If you haven't listened to them, listen to them lightly. You've got enough going on. Life is giving you a gift in all of this difficulty. It's just you can't, it doesn't seem like it right now. I'm reluctant. I, you know, I'm not going to slap out some one, two, threes on this, except for listen to my podcast. That's all I can offer. Do therapy. Do your meditation every day. You have to step back. I'd watch TV. I would go in nature. I mean, just to take a break. TV is not helpful long run, but to take a break, it's excellent. Can be, but I would be in nature as much as I can. I walk for hours every day, every day. It's wonderful, but I do it because I can go deep. I can connect to nature. Nature is oneness without all the clutter. Nature doesn't think it doesn't have emotion. So you'd be in the middle of it and you will be one after a while. And all that's not one will come up. It will be terrible at times. You'll be walking and you'll go, Oh, I'm in such a pretty place. My mind won't stop. My emotions are crazy. What's wrong with me? Well, they're releasing the poison is coming out. And we talk about this in the earlier podcasts. I think one through somewhere in the first 10, we start talking about that. So I hope you've listened to them. If you haven't go back and listen, it'll help you. Stepping back life is trying. You need to take a break. You need to connect to healthy things. Yes, but not overlooked that life is giving you a gift. And what's coming up in this so painful is a releasing of that poison. So you don't want to go overboard and try to get away from it. Try to manage it too hard. You want to feel it. And I imagine you don't, you can say to me, don't worry, I'm feeling it, but do it in a productive way. And that's why, uh, listen to those podcasts. That's a start. I hope that helps. Amanda says same here. Leanne William was the first teacher I followed carefully and have been so grateful for the strides I've made. Thank you so much, Amanda. Uh, you know, just in case it seems like I'm a big blowfish put puffing myself. I'm not these. Yes. Lot has come to me by sitting still, but so many people have given me so much. I'm simply passing on the gold. I just simply have sat down and passed on so much incredible gold that I've been given. So that's why I recommend these podcasts. Leanne said at one point, I think my system became overwhelmed by the joy. Oh, I love that Leanne. Me too. Our nervous system has to actually stretch. It's like a muscle. It has to actually open up to contain how much joy that we really are. That's the crazy thing. It's there all the time is there right now. And another crazy thing, your nervous system can actually expand if you can handle all the pain you're going through. And by all, I mean, handle what you can don't push yourself harder than you can go, but handle what you can. And that also stretches the nervous system so that when it opens up, it can handle more joy. It's like a highway of tubes and these tubes expand both to carry the pain and it's the same highway that carries the joy. So you never want to get rid of your pain because at that huge energy, there's a lot of energy and pain, but that's the energy. It's that same energy that melts and turns into joy. It's your energy. It's your aura. It's your radiance. So you never want to think you want to get rid of your pain. I know I mean, pain is horrible. So I know it sounds strange and we do want to get rid of our pain in a way, but I'm just saying it's also, you aren't the pain. Pain is joy that's been twisted into a knot. It's frozen and twisted joy. It's like you could freeze water into the shape of a knife and stab people, but it's life giving water when it melts. That's all pain is. It's been frozen into a shape that hurts. It's joy frozen into us. And I'm not just, it's not a platitude. It really is. When you sit still long enough, like Leanne noticed, suddenly you're overwhelmed with joy. Some of that stuff starts to melt. We talk about it in the podcast. Amanda. Yes. You get the breakthroughs where you have to laugh out loud with joy. Yes. Yes. Amanda. Blossom. I totally agree. I'm so grateful for all burnt out of my second year, university year, depression, chronic pain, et cetera. I am in my awakening journey because of these. Thank you. Blossom. Yes. And your music is beautiful and your awakening is such a relief and joy. Baby steps. Yes. Blossom says, baby steps. Yes. Blossom says, these are all reminders for us to wake up. Yes. And that's what Buddha said. That's the first noble truth. All life is suffering. Why? Because for life to be there, there has to be a creation and creation has to separate from the oneness, right? Or else there's not this individual entity called creation and life and things to do and chores. And so there's only separation. If you're going to have a world, you got to have separation and always in separation, there's pain. But like Jesus said, you can be in this world, but not of it. You don't have to be separated completely. We just have been often. Our society encourages us to do that, to separate. So you're, you're just retracing your steps. So life is suffering. First noble truth. From there you find your solutions. And that's what the other three noble truths are about. Buddha just laid them out. One, two, three, four, Google for noble truths. Sue says, thank you, William, for your advice. Will do. Also wanted to say, I never give up and make the best of every day. Like you say, baby steps. Yeah, Sue, I know you never give up and that's your being. Just saying to life, I'm here. It's the crucial turning point is when I realized there's nothing to do. Everything is fine. Yet I did lots of things, you know, as a psychotherapist, I am a psychotherapist. I've seen over 25,000 people in groups and individually. That's a lot of work. So I've done stuff. I've done stuff. When I say nothing to do, I've seen a lot of gurus. I've been to India 14 times, three months at a time. So yeah, I've done a lot of stuff, but I'm here to tell you there is nothing to do. You know, the old Zen saying before awakening, chop wood and carry water. After awakening, chop wood, carry water. After awakening, you're still chopping wood and carrying water. It just has nothing to do with your awakening. It's just a daily task as nothing to do with your happiness, taking care of your daughter. You'll do it. You can also be happy at the same time. There's no need. There's no law that says you have to be anxious. It doesn't mean that you're no longer concerned. If you're not anxious, you are concerned. You're doing your best. And I'm not saying jump there overnight. I'm not saying it. I'm just saying, chop wood and carry water before, chop wood, carry water after. You're going to keep chopping wood and carrying water. Your spiritual practice dissolves that part of you that's been taught. You need to be anxious. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. That's so beautiful. Blossom quotes, Philip Wade, triggers our treasure. Yeah. They show us where we're not. Things that we thought as I started off saying anything, any tension inside of us, any anxiety, it's not who we are. The triggers show us these things where we're not. Gary, I really wish I could access that joy. Gary, most of my life, I did not feel joy. It's not a thing you can access. It's a thing you are. And that's crazy making for me to say that. I already realized that ahead of time. The problem is when I sit still and meditate or when I do therapy or when all these things, most importantly, sitting still and meditating, I can no longer repress stuff. And what is the stuff that I can no longer repress? It's pain. It's suffering. It's poison. And it comes out and it got repressed because it felt bad going in. That's why I repressed it. And it feels bad coming out. So there was no joy there at first. But look carefully between the problems, between the suffering, because what's always there nice and quietly is you. And when you sit and put your attention on you long enough, it starts to vibrate. It's like attention on attention starts to vibrate and it erupts with joy. It's not like when I get rid of every last tension, then I'll feel joy. Not necessarily. I was with this other teacher, awakened man, Tony Parsons, and this older man said to Tony, I've, I've, for the last, let's say 10 years, I've focused so hard and I've eliminated all my thoughts and emotions, but I'm like a dry desert inside. Have I been doing anything? What have I been doing wrong? And Tony just sighed and said, yes, terribly wrong. It's not that you get rid of your thoughts and your emotions, and that brings you to joy. It's not that. It's that you put your attention on who you are, the awareness and simultaneously triggers are your treasure. Anything that triggers anything that hurts, you let it come up. You feel it. You connect to it. You let it begin to expend its energy and melt. And then you let it breathe in like Leanne's little three-year-old inner self, little child breathed in and realized that it was okay to be in the car and drive in the car. And then she was filled with joy because that part breathed in, it's not enough simply to watch, observe, let it expend its energy. The last part is it has to breathe in the peace that you are. It has to update its files and then it can release, relax and dissolve. And when it dissolves, that boulder is no longer there for you to hit as you canoe down the rapids it's gone. So you're more open now to put your attention on awareness because there's no longer danger. And that just starts to radiate into joy. So it's already there, Gary, you are the joy you're looking for. Keep doing your practice. Keep bringing up these good questions and observations. But sometime I would love somebody to ask, who am I? How do I find myself? Because if you're like me, mostly I thought I was my personality. I really did. Do you really know who you are and how do you find out who you are? Because without that, it's simply thoughts trying to dissolve thoughts. It's simply a separated mind trying to dissolve the separated mind that it is. And you don't get anywhere. You become that man who spent 10 years and he was still like a dry desert inside. So please, somebody asked me that. Yvonne, I think your podcasts are baby steps. I love that about them. Thank you, Yvonne. Yes, that's how I designed them to be baby steps. Each podcast, there's enough in all these individual podcasts. You can listen to them individually, but I prefer if you listen to them in sequence because one builds on the other and it's enough. But if you see a title you like or you want, just listen to that one. It's fine. There's enough in each one. Each one is a podcast. It is a baby step. Amanda says, Gary, it will come. It really will. I know it doesn't seem like it. I didn't think I'd make it. I really didn't. I was like treading water. Once when I was a kid, I was ice skating and I fell through the lake and I was far from shore and I was in a foreign country and nobody was eager to help. It was cold and sometimes you don't know if you're going to make it. But you know what happened? I did. And you want to know how? I first started pulling myself up and the ice broke. I thought, I'll just break ice if I could make it. I was like 12. I could make it to the other side. But what happened? I was with four brothers. We were skating together and the littlest one, the littlest brother, he was, I guess, 12. He got on his stomach and he came out onto that thin ice and you could hear it pinging and he was about to, it was going to crack and pull him in, but he got out on his stomach and he reached out and he gave me his hands. And the next biggest brother reached out and grabbed his feet and he was on his stomach and it was pinging, ping, ping, ping. I don't know if you've been on ice skating on a thin lake, thin ice. The next biggest brother got on his stomach and grabbed his feet. And the biggest brother was at the end of the chain and he pulled us all out. Now the ice kept breaking for a while and I kept going in and they kept holding on. And it was like, I couldn't get on top because it would break and then it would break. And who knows, it could have pulled the next brother in and all of us. But he kept pulling and pulling and pulling. Now the oldest one was probably 16 maybe. And they pulled me out. So Gary, that's what friends do. That's how I can say the things I can say. Because a lot of people pull me out of despair. And I can truly say it's amazing just what Amanda said. Okay, I say that for encouragement. Leanne, William, I'm so happy and grateful to have found you here until next time. Liz, precious time here today with you, William, and excellent questions. Yes, excellent. Thank you. Vicki, I'm so thankful I found you on the Inside Timer. I'm eager to start listening to the podcast. Yes. Thank you, everybody. Take care, everybody. Bye.