147 Awakening Happiness, Healing Trauma, Transforming Perspectives, Listener Q & A

This is a recording of a Live Q & A which has been edited for clarity, length, and helpfulness.

Discovering the essence of being in the world but not of it permeates our exploration of spiritual awakening. We discuss how we create internal obstacles that block our joy, why letting go is essential, and practical steps to reconnect with our fundamental state of happiness. 

• Exploring the meaning behind "Be in the World but Not of It" 
• The analogy of consciousness as a sunbeam 
• Understanding how we block our own happiness and well-being 
• Key methods for letting go of emotional burdens and repressed feelings 
• Recognizing and dealing with trauma in the healing process 
• The impact of societal pressures on personal narratives 
• Affirming that joy is inherently ours despite circumstances

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.

Chapters

• 0:00 Awakening Into Happiness and Questions
• 14:34 Healing Religious and Personal Trauma
• 33:05 Healing Trauma Through Awareness and Connection
• 44:27 Transforming Perspectives Through Spiritual Awakening

Transcript

William: 0:00

Hello everybody, this is William Cooper. Welcome to Awakening Together, relaxing into Happiness. I trust you're all doing well. This is a time for you to ask any questions that you might have. Many of you have listened to my podcasts, which are on the path of awakening, hi Alice, which are on the path of awakening, hi Alice, and perhaps you have questions that have come up. Many of you asked me good questions through the reviews and I attempt to answer them as much as I can. If you would type your question in, I'll get to it as we continue along. It'll help guide our discussion. In the meantime, a couple of people did ask me questions already, either through the review or just in person, and I'd like to address those questions first.

William: 0:54

The two that I'm thinking of are very similar. One person asked me a couple days days ago, said you know, you refer to Jesus a lot and you quote him where he says be in the world but not of it. What on earth does that mean? I've been thinking about it and I have no idea what you're talking about. Be in the world but not of it. What does that does that mean? Well, if I was to put that in other words, I would say enjoy everything but don't be troubled by anything. That's the awakened state. And jesus was talking about the awakened state when he said be in the world but not of it. Enjoy but don't be troubled by anything. You're flowing and you're not bound or grasping or tied into knots with inner and outer obstacles. So what does that feel like? To be in the world but not of it? And I thought of an analogy. It's not perfect but it kind of gets close.

William: 2:08

If you think about a sunbeam, that's what consciousness is like a sunbeam. It comes into the world light and it's very silent. When you listen to a sunbeam, you hear silence, there's nothing, and yet it's warm at the same time. If you use another sense, you feel warmth. Another sense you see light. It lights up darkness. If you block a sunbeam, you get darkness. So consciousness is much like that, your true self, which is always there, all the time. Nothing you have to do us from our true being, but always our true being is shining and our true being, or consciousness, is much like a sunbeam. It's very quiet, there's no sound initially. As it comes into creation, you'll feel yourself as light and there's warmth, the warmth of love. There's joy, there's happiness, there's well-being and all of that is a flow, just like a sunbeam flows when you block yourself your love, your joy, your well-being.

William: 3:51

When you block yourself, perhaps you distract yourself by looking the other way or repressing things or creating obstacles, and they pile up and they block you from yourself. You create darkness inside and that feels like depression or anxiety or fear, or hurt or abandonment or grief. Now, there's different reasons for grief, so let's put that over to the side, but there's hurt, fear and anger, some sort of derivatives of that. When you block yourself. We only are troubled inside if we trouble ourselves. Nobody else is inside of us but us. So if we feel troubled, we're troubling ourselves.

William: 4:44

How to stop feeling troubled? Quit troubling yourself, quit creating problems for yourself. How Well? That's what all these podcasts are about. All of you that have listened to them step by step by step. It's pretty much all about the hows. It's pretty much all about the hows Because often in the past, way back when, I might hear about why, but I could never figure out.

William: 5:10

Okay, how? How do I let things go? How do I not be attached? How do I not grasp? You know, I'd hear, don't grasp. But okay, great, how?

William: 5:20

So these podcasts are both about what not to do or what to do, but also, more predominantly, how how not to do these things, and if we have time, we will circle back around to that a little bit in this podcast, perhaps. If not, you can listen to any of these podcasts. They're all free. They're all on Insight Timer. Either follow me or search under teachers William Cooper for those of you that aren't familiar. And if they're not in order, if you're looking for a particular podcast, just put in the number afterwards, like William Cooper one, put the number one and it'll pull that one up. They are most powerful if you listen to them in order, in sequence, because one builds on the next, on the next, on the next, although if you see a title that you love, just listen to that. They each stand on their own as well, but they're about your process of awakening and designed to support you regardless of your path. If something doesn't resonate with your path, just disregard that particular thing and move on. Use what's helpful.

William: 6:34

So let's get back to how do we make obstacles? How do we block ourselves? We are this free-flowing consciousness we are being. That's who we are inside. So how does it not always feel that way, we're doing something to trouble ourselves. What? How do we do that? Well, many of you have studied manifestation, and how do you manifest things? You take your willpower, you bring a strong intention of what it is that you want to create. You put a lot of attitude into it, a lot of emotion or passion, and that is how you manifest things. That's exactly how we block ourselves.

William: 7:23

We take free flowing consciousness and typically, if we want to manifest a thought or an emotion, we take that free flowing consciousness, which is happiness and joy and well being, and we focus and we hallucinate. We create a thought out of it. Now, thoughts are productive. We use thoughts to build houses, create rockets, help each other, come up with lots of creative and constructive ways of doing things. However, thoughts that don't flow from love or peace or well-being or or creativity, thoughts that flow from separation, come from that same darkness that we talked about. When we block ourselves, when we block the sunlight, we get darkness. We get darkness inside. When we block our consciousness, we get darkness in the world when we block sunlight. So, when we block ourselves and we come from darkness, we start flailing around because we're separated from ourselves and we feel very afraid or hurt or anxious or unfulfilled. So we try to then, from that place, create things using our thoughts and emotions. We try to manifest using our thoughts and emotions. We try to manifest when our focal point is darkness, and we twist consciousness. We put our intention into it, we put our willpower and we put our strong emotions, our strong attitude, fear, hurt and anger into it. We twist consciousness which is love, peace and well-being. Everything in the world, in the universe peace and well being, everything in the world, in the universe is made of consciousness. That's the substratum of everything. So we take this free flowing consciousness which we are and we twist it and crunch it into a problem.

William: 9:22

For instance, you did something to me that wasn't fair. I was right and you were wrong. I hate you. I will never forgive you. I hold a grudge I've created that. Is that comfortable in my body? No, so what do I do? That grudge, it hurts. It hurts, but I'm right, I'm not going to let it go. I am right, I'm not going to let it go. I am right, I'm not going to let it go. So what do I do? I can't live with it. Oh, it hurts. I repress it, I push it down.

William: 9:51

So that which I created, that obstacle, that grudge I pushed inside of me and I looked the other way and I pretend that it's not there and I repressed it. It is there and it's blocking me because it's an object that is not transparent. It is thick and hurtful and it's in me. So I do that with all sorts of things. I hold grudges. I maybe somebody hurts my feelings and I don't want to talk about it and I don't even want to think about it. I repress that. Maybe people are threatening me and I just want to press ahead, soldier on and I don't want to feel the fears that I'm feeling. I repress those and, with willpower and courage, I proceed forward. Yes, but I couldn't have proceeded forward unless I repressed that fear. Well, now it's inside of me.

William: 10:50

Is repression always a bad thing? I'm not sure. Sometimes you have to go forward and maybe for a moment, that's all you can do. That's your best option. Just repress it. Repress it Nonetheless. It's inside of you and it's hurting.

William: 11:12

So awakening is just letting all of that untwist, all of that intensity. Let it untwist, let it go. When it untwists, it releases what it's made of. It releases the strong attitude, the hurt. So that's why it hurts when the stuff comes back to the surface. I wouldn't have repressed it in the first place if it didn't hurt. Well, it comes to the surface, it hurts. I release that hurt, just like an ice cube releases coldness in order to melt Obstacles, release the attitude that has frozen them inside of you. It hurts and then it melts back into free-flowing consciousness.

William: 11:53

Love, light, well-being, joy. That's who you are. If you don't feel that all the time, if you feel any tension in your body, any hurt, any fear, any anxiety, there's an obstacle in there that's crying for you to let it melt. It's coming to the surface for you to melt, and that's what the path of awakening is all about. It's about two things being in touch with who you are love, light, well-being and peace and letting all the stuff that's blocking who you are melt. Now, just like on a cloudy day, the sun is always there. If the clouds are thick enough, you can't see the sun, but it's there. Your being is always there behind the clouds of the obstacles that you've created are behind the clouds of the obstacles that you've created. Sometimes the clouds part and the sun shines through at least a little. Sometimes all the obstacles within us part and your beingness shines through at least a little. Any happiness that you ever feel is coming from your being, that's sunlight. Any peace that you ever feel is coming from your being, any love that you ever feel is coming from your being. So what I'm saying is you don't have to wait for all the clouds to melt for you to feel your being. You can feel it right now. To feel your being. You can feel it right now. Even when there's plenty of obstacles. It will shine through here and there and other places. So kind of get used to rest in your being, get used to your being, get used to the sun which is you, your inner sun.

William: 13:41

Somebody asked Ramana. Somebody asked Ramana. The reason I'm bringing this up is why do we block ourselves? I mean, there's lots of reasons, but somebody asked Ramana. They were asking about being awake and he said the only difference between you and between me is I know that I'm awake and you think that you're not. In other words, you are awake but you think you're hallucinating. You're creating an obstacle and you're putting it in front of the sun and you don't feel awake, you don't feel yourself shining because you've created a big cloud. I know that I'm awake. Ramana said the only difference between you and me is you think you're not. It's that simple.

William: 14:34

We treat ourselves badly and we have good intention. Every reason we treat ourselves badly is enough an act of misguided love by ourselves. For instance, if I'm a little kid and I want your love because I admire you so much and you tell me something, say you know, you're really a great person, but you're a little bit slow, you're not too bright, but that's okay, you have a good heart. Well, because I want to be your friend, I'm going to agree with you. Why? Because I love myself and I want to be your friend. So I'll agree with you. Yeah, I'm a little slow, I'm not so bright.

William: 15:17

Maybe I grew up believing that it's maladaptive, but my intention was good. That's true with any block that you create the grudge against the neighbor. I was right. I love myself. That's why I'm holding on to this grudge. I want to stand behind myself. I want to support myself. I'm not going to forgive them. That would be like saying that they were right. No, I love myself. I trust myself too much to do that. No, I'm not doing it. See, I do it because I love myself, but I'm carrying now a block, an unforgiveness that I have to repress. So another thing that we do to beat ourselves up that's related is called hurry sickness, and I'm bringing this up because it's so pervasive and it's underpins a lot of how we treat ourselves, or at least it illustrates Hurry sickness is.

William: 16:12

Well, I love myself, and because I love myself, I am not going to allow myself to feel good until I accomplish a task which I really want to accomplish. I will not let myself relax until I get a good job. In other words, I'm going to block myself, I'm going to beat myself up until I get a good job. Now, once I get a good job, then I say, well, now you can relax, right? Oh no, now that I got a good job, I need to get a good relationship. I really can't rest until I get a good relationship. Okay, now that you got a good relationship, are you going to rest Almost? But not really. I need to get a house so that we can live in it, and until I get that house I've got to work real hard. But once I get that house, I'm going to rest and relax, and it just goes on and on and on. So I'm continually shutting myself down. Shutting myself down.

William: 17:17

Now, the irony of all this is why do you want the job? So that I can be happy? Why do you want the relationship? So that I can be happy? Why do you want the relationship so that I can be happy? Why do you want a house? So that I can be happy? But you are happiness itself, your consciousness. If you wouldn't put that block in front of the happiness that you are, you would be feeling happiness all the time. That's the irony of it all. Feeling happiness all the time, that's the irony of it all. And feeling happiness all the time, feeling the light that you are all the time, is what's called enlightenment. It feels like you're being enlightened, but you're already light. When you remove the clouds that you've troubled yourself with, it feels like light is coming in, but that light's always been there all the time. So be in the world, but not of it, which is enjoy everything. That is who you are, and the world itself is made of the consciousness that you're made of. It's all beautiful. Enjoy everything, but don't be troubled by anything.

William: 18:26

Now I'm going to just talk a tiny bit more, because somebody else asked me a very similar question, and I'm going to read what they asked and I'll read what I wrote them back. It was on a review on one of the podcasts, and this person asked what is day-to-day life like? Post awakening? It may be easier to relate to you as a Westerner than an Indian guru In reading I Am that and seeing the goal to be no desire, no fear. It makes me wonder what is the purpose of life then. I imagine that not everybody can sit in a cave. Do they still work, marry, interact with others, go out and have fun, or just sit on a mat all day laughing out loud? She laughs out loud.

William: 19:20

I know you define awakening as you without your problems, but is it also you without your joy too? Any insight would be helpful, as always, thank you. The ice cube analogy you use has been helpful too. I'm still melting through them all, and then I'll read a portion of how I answered. Thank you so much and such a great question.

William: 19:47

Awakening is enjoying everything but not being attached to and therefore troubled by anything. You are joy, you are happiness, you are well-being. Awakening is letting go of everything that would say otherwise and simply enjoy happiness, no matter what is happening. You both enjoy the creation fully and even more deeply. You enjoy yourself, no matter what the creation happens to be doing. It is truly you, without your problems. That only leaves joy and happiness, always Smiling and enjoying and connecting fully to everything that's wonderful, and also feeling great joy deep inside and within all creation when things aren't going exactly as you might wish.

William: 20:41

Happiness is not dependent on what's going on around you. All people feel this to some degree anyway, and that's why people say that awakening is ordinary. What I mean by some degree is partially, we are blocked and distracted by our problems. When we quit troubling ourselves, we're not troubled anymore. That simply leaves happiness that we feel now and the peace and the well-being. These are all qualities of our being which are always present. And yes, the ice cube analogy is a good one. You are on a path and it's a process. Typically, awakening happens just as melting an ice cube happens, a little at a time. You feel your true self now, and as more ice cube melts you feel more of your true self because there's less obscuring you. But you don't have to wait till the whole ice cube melts to feel at least some of your true self. Feel yourself now, enjoy. Okay, we can continue on with some other of your questions and then, if we have enough time, I might comment a little bit more on what I've already been saying, but I think that's enough for now.

William: 22:01

Christine, I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic of religious trauma. Oh, wow, that's a good one, christine. It's right down my alley Something my niece and her children are going through as we speak. The father of her children, her ex-husband, who hid behind the role of pastor, was arrested for kidnapping just today and reunited with her after a horrible custody battle for the last two months. Oh my, he fed them many lies about their mothers and used his position as a pastor to manipulate the children into thinking she's a bad person. Anyway, their ages are 12, 14, and 15. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. Wow, christine, I hope I can get through that one. It brings tears to my eyes.

William: 23:14

There's a lot of religious trauma out there, as I think maybe a lot of you know. Early on I had my experience in a Christian cult, you might say when I was a college kid. It's what drove me into theological school and you know there's nothing wrong with Jesus. He wasn't a Christian. Sometimes it's the religion. He wasn't a Christian. The religion didn't exist when he was around. He's a good guy, very awake, perhaps the most awakened being ever, and he's my friend. However, oh my goodness, there are so many levels to this, for today let's just look at two of the levels. There's the emotional and family trauma to your niece and her children, their personal trauma, and right now that's the most important is for them to feel safe and okay. But let's address the religious trauma first and then circle back around to what's most important to them and their needs.

William: 24:46

When we become separated from ourselves, which often is what ill-informed religion does, it forces you it's almost by coercion to believe things that just aren't true and they separate you from yourself and they had nothing to do with what Jesus felt and said. They're loosely related and twisted, and it could be any religion. Any spiritual person that's misinterpreted or themselves is not fully awakened can create a real separation and you believe them because a lot of what they say is true. But the moment you start separating from your heart, like you have to believe this or you're going to hell, or whatever version you get in any path, whether it be Hindu, buddhist, christian, islamic, I don't care the soonest you are separated from your heart. It's a problem because then you're coming from to the degree that you're separated from your heart. You're separate, so you're coming from fear or hurt because you've abandoned yourself, or frustration or unfulfillment. So this is not your niece's problem. It's a system-wide problem and it became their problem and it became your niece's children's problem.

William: 26:25

I did a very good podcast it's very powerful on this topic because it will help a lot more than I can touch on right now. I'm sorry we have 146 podcasts now and each one's pretty powerful. I'm sorting through all of these titles. It's really that good that I'm taking the time for your niece and her children. Oh, here it is, number 87, releasing Christian guilt and fear. I would listen to that and if you find that that might be helpful, you might pass it on to them. That is extremely powerful and after four years of theological school, after four years of theological school learning Greek and the Bible and going through this myself as well as Eastern thought and being a psychotherapist, I think I condensed things down pretty well and I think it's very helpful. Anyway, yes, they're going through a lot of personal trauma right now. You are too. What will be very important to them is connection and feeling safe, so you're very important to them right now, just reaching out and connecting. This is a place where psychotherapy can be very, very helpful the support that they can receive from a good therapist, and this trauma has been going on for so long and is so powerful. They could have PTSD and I've done a series of podcasts on PTSD for you to listen to and, if they're helpful, you might point them to some sort of resource that includes PTSD that might help them, such as a therapist who is versed in PTSD.

William: 28:42

A lot of us have PTSD. We can have it when we go through low-level things for a long time, like somebody treating you poorly for a long time, or it could be severe trauma all at once, like a war or a car accident or something, and though there's five podcasts which will get you started on the topic and will be helpful for many people for many things, often we get stuck on our spiritual path, and that's what trauma does, and almost no amount of meditating is going to move us through that trauma. You need a different process. Meditation is always very helpful, but sometimes you need a different tool. As I've often said, we exist on many, many different realities. Our beingness is vast, and so, for that reason, you have to address different problems in different ways, depending on which part of the rainbow that we could call us. It is happening in where the problem is. So PTSD is very important, psychotherapy can be very important, meditation can be very important, but they all touch different places, and the series of podcasts all 146, are attempting to touch lots of different places in your awakening path. You use what is helpful and you disregard anything that doesn't resonate. If it's helpful, great. If it's not, move on.

William: 30:24

But to address your question of trauma, you might want to listen to those two 26 through 30, I think they are. It's five parts. Listen to all five. I'd listen to all of these podcasts, christine. I think you already are, but I would start there because of that question you just asked If you'd like me to talk a little bit more about that. Just ask me the question, christine, in a little different way, but I want to make sure that I get to everybody else. I think those podcasts I just gave you, though, will be very helpful. You're free to ask me more right now if you want.

William: 31:08

Therese says hi everyone. Hi, therese, jody. Good morning from Australia. Good morning. Therese said that was my question. That was the earlier one that I read. Yeah, thank you, therese. That was such a good question. And Christina says be more mindful, immerse yourself in the moments, be truly present during your glimmers of joy. Yes, because so often we can get stuck in just working with the obstacles. It's just as important, or maybe more important, to get used to who are we behind all these obstacles. So, yes, thank you, christina.

William: 31:55

Alice question I experienced lots of physical and emotional trauma growing up. To this day, I look at things like not really invited to a party as real threat when it's not real threat. Is that connected to my trauma? Yeah, yes, alice, that's what it sounds like. Let me answer this in a little bit different way. And you have listened already to the series on PTSD, 26 through 30. That's a start. If anybody needs more, it's not everything, but it will be helpful to many people. If you need more than just that, you can Google somebody that has more podcasts on PTSD or see a therapist. But you want to ask them are you versed in PTSD, do you work with it? Because a lot of therapists don't. It's very specific, but let's look at this in a slightly different way. This isn't going to answer the question completely, because we have those different levels of reality, but it's one part of the question.

William: 33:05

In the awakening process we talk about, you might start with sitting still, so you can't distract yourself and you can't repress things when you sit still. That's called meditation. You can't repress things. Things come up. You let them expend their energy, release their energy, just like a tight rubber band. They unwind, they release their energy, they start to get loose and limp. You let them breathe in and look around today and notice that things are okay and you soak it up, that things are okay.

William: 33:41

Now here's the problem. The reason why trauma is there is because it got frozen and it still believes that things are not okay. It's like it's frozen in the time that it was created. So if it was a childhood thing, and let's say you're seven years old and you have trauma and you're not invited and you're left out and nobody treats you nicely and it's very traumatic and you can't deal with it and you have to press on. You have to go to school, you have to make friends, you have to do things what do you do as a child? You don't know what to do so. You repress it, you just stick it down. You push it down and that repression, that obstacle, still exists until it releases, which is what can happen in meditation or in therapy work or PTSD or so many different things. Yoga can release it on a physical level, stretching or things like that. Again, all in the various podcasts Podcast 16 is about physical release.

William: 34:49

But that perspective of being a child that is frozen in that trauma still thinks the things that were happening back then are still happening to you, still thinks the things that were happening back then are still happening to you. So one of the things you can do, and one of the things that happens in various psychotherapies, is to own the trauma. Let it come up, if you're able. Sometimes it's just too painful to do it too quickly and you want to proceed slowly, but you let it come to the surface and it still feels that it is being traumatized right now, right now. And so you let it connect to something today that is not traumatic, like nature, or just looking at the sky or clouds, or just sitting quietly inside your house or holding your pet or anything that feels good, and you let that traumatic part of you, that part that split off of you. That feels like trauma. It feels traumatized. And you asked are you hurting? Yes, I'm hurting. Do you know it's okay now? And you let it connect to nature or any of those things that I mentioned your pet or the beautiful blue sky and you say does that feel better than how it felt when you actually were being traumatized? And it may not want to talk, but maybe it notices, yes, and then you'll say, well, notice that you're not being traumatized. Does that feel better or worse? You keep it very simple Better.

William: 36:30

Okay, then breathe that in, begin to soak it in and, just like a tight tension when you get a massage, when it soaks in relaxation, it releases, relaxes and disappears forever. The trauma can breathe in notice that everything's okay now and it can soak it in Now. With trauma it's not like a massage. It might take a number of different interactions and it might come up at different times over a period of time, but every time it soaks in goodness, it becomes a little less traumatized, a little bit open, a little bit more flowing, and it begins to release and relax and let go. And as it melts, as it lets go, it turns into what it originally was made of before. Willpower and attitude turned it into a trauma. Originally it was just free-flowing light and love. So it begins to relax and turn into light and love Eventually. It can be like an iceberg. It may not feel like it's moving, but the edges may be melting and there's a little bit more radiance in your aura with every bit of ice that turns back into water or into consciousness.

William: 37:53

A lot of therapies, for instance EMDR, in my opinion, that's where you move your eyes, you connect to something in the present moment and there's no trauma there. But first you are in touch with your trauma. The therapist will say can you feel your trauma? Yes, I feel it. And then you connect to the present moment with, say, your eyes, and you move your eyes back and forth so that you can't go into a trance. You have to stay connected to the present moment, and by a trance I mean being caught in your trauma, getting engulfed in it, where you are entranced by your trauma and become stuck in it. Instead, entranced by your trauma and become stuck in it. Instead, you're connecting to the present moment where everything is okay and then you move your eyes around. Well, that forces the trauma to connect to today, to come up to today and update its files. There is no trauma going on today.

William: 38:57

And in podcast number, let's say 12, I don't remember quite what it was there's one entitled coherence therapy and basically that is when you mix something that's old and not clear with the clearness of what's happening today the clearness of your being or the clearness of nature or something like that the clearest one will melt the unclear one, the unclear one will melt into the clear one. So that happens in EMDR, in my opinion, or anything along the lines of what I just said. So yes, alice, I think it is connected to your trauma and that's a start. Work on many different levels with that. And I know you already take nature walks and you do yoga and you meditate and possibly therapy at times. I'm not sure, but use whatever works and just keep letting that go. Keep letting it melt and just keep letting that go. Keep letting it melt.

William: 40:06

And Christine, in responding to what I talked about with her niece having religious trauma and her children, she said yes, that she believed it to be true, that Christ was very awakened and he's not the same as some of the difficult parts of Christianity. He wasn't a Christian, he was Jesus. And she said I would consider myself a mystic. I believe in Jesus, not the religion, and yes. So Christine says yes, she'd love any resources and those podcasts that I mentioned to you will be very helpful and they're a good start. You can always contact me later if you need more. Nina says Hi, william, nice to see you. My mantra has been this is an invitation to let go. Thank you, nina, and mantras. Thank you for mentioning your mantra, and when you come from a deep place, like you do, nina, mantras can be helpful.

William: 41:14

For instance, if I have a lot of obstacles that have not melted yet, life will try to trigger me. Somebody will cut me off in traffic or do something to bring up what is unresolved. So I'll notice I feel a lot more anger than the situation calls for because life is helping it come up. Now I can get lost in this thing that got triggered. I can get right in the middle of it and keep it frozen by exuding what froze it in the first place more willpower and more attitude. That's a bad driver. I don't like them. I am so angry, I'm so angry. I am just fortifying that frozen obstacle.

William: 42:01

But if I have a mantra that keeps me connected to my beingness. For instance, I am getting used to the fact that I'm happiness itself, or I'm well-being, or I'm joy, or I'm light, or I am that which free flows. I am letting go, or I'm light, or I am that which free flows. I am letting go. I could just repeat that to myself and stay connected to that part of me. That is that, and by chanting it over and over again, I am light or I am letting go, or I am letting go, or this is an invitation to let go. To let go You're staying in your truth and not diving into the magnetism of the obstacle. Obstacles have a pull to them. They want you to jump back into them because, on some kind of maladaptive way, they're satisfying. You did the wrong thing and I was right. Well, that feels good to be right. It's satisfying, but it just maintains the obstacle. So I like it, nina. Use your mantras, christine.

William: 43:11

I recently heard someone said if it's hysterical, it's historical or something like that, meaning when we react disproportionately, then it's something deeper. So beautiful, claire, absolutely true. And if you don't want to turn something that's happening today into an obstacle, into something historical, if somebody says something nasty to you today and it hurts your feelings, just let that hurt continue to flow through your body. You're not hurt. Or if they cut you off in traffic and you feel anger, you're not anger. The nature of your being is. The qualities of being are love, peace and joy, and you feel that when you're in touch with your being. So it's natural to feel anger when somebody cuts you off and threatens your life or hurt if somebody says something bad to you, but to hold on to it is the unnatural part. So just let it continue to flow through your body. Don't react. Just let it flow and stay connected as much as you can and I know it's a tall order but stay connected to the peace that you are.

William: 44:27

Claire says William, you introduced me to Peter Levine. He has incredible work on working with trauma in the body. He really does. His book Healing Trauma is very good. When you go to my website and go to the resource page, I have links to a number of his videos and other information about PTSD. So I do refer to him in the podcast 26 through 30, as well as others. You could start there and then move on to more Peter Levine. He's very helpful.

William: 45:08

Another thought that I have is as you awaken, you're going to notice as you let the different ice cubes melt in all the different ways that we have said. You're going to start feeling lots at the same time because you're going to start free flowing, just like a glacier that's melting might start free flowing water, rivers might flow from the glacier. Well, inside of you, your consciousness are going to be free flowing more and more and more, and you may stop only feeling one thing at a time, like in meditation. One thing might come up and you feel that thought dissolving, and then another, and then another, but maybe you start feeling all at the same time and as more of that melts, you might start to feel a perspective, not a specific thought, but a perspective Like people don't love me in general, or life is hard, or you might wake up feeling afraid, not about any one thing, but maybe everything. This is like an organizing thought that's on the periphery that we often don't touch because we don't notice it.

William: 46:32

It's such an assumption. We just assume the way our day is going to go. We hold our body a certain way. We assume that the universe isn't flowing through us, that, as Jesus said, as you let go the Father and I become one as you let go. God flows through. The more you let go, the more the infinite flows through, because you're not blocking In total, let go. It's total oneness, just like Jesus and Buddha and Shiva and everybody have said. It's total oneness, which means your personal self. You can enjoy it, but you don't have to. It's just like Jesus said you can be in the world, but not of it. You can be in your personality, but not of it. It's the same thing. It's all stuff. Even the personality is stuff.

William: 47:29

So these assumptions, you work with them, the same way that you work with other thoughts or feelings. Let them come up and you start to notice even as less and less thoughts are coming up inside of you. You might bump into a, an upper limit, like I can only be so happy, or all the other things I mentioned, or some other one that you have. Notice it, let it expend its energy, just like you did with the individual stuff. Let it expend its energy. The assumption, let it unwind, let it look around and notice you are unlimited, the infinite is unlimited. It is infinite all that happens and as you, little bit by little bit, become one with all that's around you and in you in oneness, there's pure trust. Sometimes people ask me how do you trust more? Well, it's a process as you let go more and you really feel yourself as one. That's your direct experience. Maybe not all the way, but maybe 50%. You feel one with, with everything around you. Well, to that degree that you're one, you trust the oneness which is you and that is trust. So you've got 50% trust. The next day maybe 51% trust, and again, there are podcasts on that in this series of podcasts.

William: 49:06

So these narratives that we tell us a middle step is what you want to do. Eventually, the end goal is to let all this stuff melt and be in it, but not of it. Your personality is just a collection of thoughts and emotions, and thoughts don't think and emotions don't feel. But they're like lenses that we look through. And when we change the lenses, the best thing is to have no lens at all. All there is is light. But in the meantime, a middle step is to change the lens. For instance, if I put on these sunglasses, everything looks green and I might not even know I have sunglasses on. I just assume the world is green. But as I let more and more stuff go, I bump up against my assumptions, and my assumptions here is that the world is green. But then I notice, wait a second, these are sunglasses. Let me feel, let me experience them, let me connect to them and let them melt. And then the sunglasses melt off my face and I see clearly and it's all light. Everything around me is made of consciousness.

William: 50:25

Okay, that's awakening, full awakening, and it is preceded by a lot of stuff unwinding inside of you and it might be a little confusing at times because when you sit with it, you might notice a lot releasing and you might notice there's a lot of intention in your body that's releasing, releasing, releasing, and you get actually more relaxed. But there's still an obstacle there. It's still painful. Why? Well, you've released the tension that has repressed the muscles that have repressed and pushed the pain deep inside of you. That's been released, but now what's left is the actual pain that you created, tension in order to hide from yourself. The tension covered it up. So you might notice different portions releasing and relaxing, different portions releasing and relaxing. And it can be a little confusing at first because you think, well, wait a second, I've sat with this plenty and I felt it release. But what's what's still here.

William: 51:30

Look closely, don't take my word for it Everything that's going on inside of you. Just sit still until the dust settles and watch it. Look at it and you'll find your own truth. Okay, that's the end goal Let everything dissolve. But there are middle steps, there are baby steps. If you've got green sunglasses on and everything looks green and, let's say that's not pleasant for you, maybe a middle step is to put on pink sunglasses and then another step is to put on yellow ones. Maybe that's better for you, and then maybe have sunglasses that are just lightly tinted. And what do I mean by that? The light that you are shines through the thoughts that you have formed, that you have hallucinated and formed. Those are like lenses, those are attitudes and assumptions that I just spoke of. And, in fact, in psychotherapy, there is a type of therapy called narrative therapy, and it's just that. Let's say, you have a lens.

William: 52:42

I am very weak. I, as a child, I was always picked on, I had no power, and I still feel weak and I still feel traumatized. And that's your lens I am weak and traumatized and nobody loves me. Well, in narrative therapy, you look at those same facts and you change the sunglasses. The therapist might say well, just talk about it from your own perspective. Yes, I'm weak, I'm weak, I'm weak.

William: 53:08

And then the therapist might say you endured a lot going through all that. That was a lot of trauma. And you go yes, I did. And the therapist might say could you speak a little bit about the strength that it took to endure that much trauma that you exhibited? And then you go well, yeah, I'm strong, I did have a lot of strength. I didn't know how to handle it, the trauma and all the stuff. I was just a kid, but you know, I was strong to get through it. I was strong, I had courage. And the therapist said okay, you had courage, tell me about that.

William: 53:50

Well, now look what you've done. You're taking the same set of facts, but now you're creating a different story, which is your lens, and the light that is shining through that lens is now clearer, instead of this dark sunglasses that I'm wearing, which is my lens. I'm weak, I'm weak, I'm weak. Now maybe I'm wearing yellow sunglasses. I can see more clearly. I'm strong, I'm strong. I had a hard time, but I'm strong.

William: 54:21

I did that by simply changing the story of my narrative, and that's a very brief and incomplete version of narrative therapy, but you can do that yourself. Just change your thoughts a little bit at a time. Look at little bit at a time. Look at really, look at what is happening or has happened, as Alice said in your question. Alice, am I being affected by an old thing? Well, yes, maybe, but look at the story you're telling yourself about the old thing and change the lens. Now, eventually, in meditation, you want to let the whole lens go, but this is a middle step because we all have lenses and when you bump into your lens, yes, let it begin to melt away, but maybe in the meantime, change your lens. Okay, I hope that was helpful.

William: 55:23

Christina says the qualities of your being are love, peace and joy. Thank you for that reminder. That is something helpful to remember to keep me aligned with what's really important. Yes, christina, and remember, since we were talking about Christian trauma, trauma, remember in galatians, I think it's 523, and it says something like the fruits of the spirit are love, peace, joy. I can't remember. There's like seven of them. The fruits of the spirit are the same as qualities of your being. That's just how they said it in the Middle East at that time and place.

William: 56:03

Nina says when she was talking about her mantra, staying connected and things coming up to help her let go. When I talked about it, she says, yes, you described the sensations perfectly, and Kathleen says perfectly. And Kathleen says incredible, beneficial, perfect timing for me. Thank you. I am so happy, kathleen, and to you all, thank you so much. We're out of time. Thank you for your great questions.

William: 56:35

You're also courageous. The spiritual path is about doing what we couldn't do when we were children, and that is to quit repressing things, to let things come up and let them go, not repress new things today, and that takes courage and you can only do so much every day. So take baby steps and when it's too much, take a break. Be kind to yourself, because it's also your qualities. The quality of being is also kindness. So be kind to yourself and that means don't feel too much trauma all at once. Don't solve this all at once. Take baby steps and you'll get there. For those of you that haven't listened to these podcasts, I would start with number one. They're very powerful. Always follow your heart. Hopefully they support your heart and if they don't, if they deviate in any way, just disregard me and stick with yourself. But perhaps they're also supportive and in those ways, utilize anything that's helpful to you. Thank you, everybody. I look forward to seeing you next time. Take care Bye.