We can't help but relax when we speak with Dicken Bettinger. His way of being is so calming and the way he points to our innate health and wisdom is so clear and grounded.
Dicken learned about the understanding we work from directly from Sydney Banks. His life was transformed both personally and professionally after listening to Syd just one time, and he was able to enjoy many more opportunities to be mentored by Syd.
Prior to meeting Sydney Banks, Dicken was heavily involved in self-development. After meeting him, Dicken pivoted and dropped self-help and shifted his approach to counseling. He no longer saw mental illness only wellbeing. He now viewed his clients (and his family) as having perfect mental health, but for being caught up in their thinking. He helps his clients to see their innate resilience and capacity to wake up from conditioned thinking.
Dicken reminds us that we are built for shifts -- we're designed to have insights. And the best way to be impacted by an insight is to open to the feeling of it, rather than trying to understand it intellectually.
This episode explores:
Dicken Bettinger, Ed.D., received his doctorate in counseling psychology and practiced as a licensed clinical psychologist for years. His career spanning 44 years focused on psychological well-being. Dicken co-founded a training, counseling, and education center in Vermont and was a member of senior staff at Pransky and Associates for 16 years, where he developed and led corporate and university leadership trainings, team development, and executive coaching. In 2012 Dicken founded his own business called 3 Principles Mentoring. He offers 4-day immersion retreats for individuals and couples and offers development for 3 Principles practitioners. Dicken co-authored a book called Coming Home: Uncovering the Foundations of Psychological Well-being. He has been happily married for 52 years.
Angus & Rohini Ross are “The Rewilders.” They love working with couples and helping them to reduce conflict and discord in their relationships. They co-facilitate individualized couples' intensives that rewild relationships back to their natural state of love. Rohini is the author of the ebook Marriage, and they are co-founders of The 29-Day Rewilding Experience and The Rewilding Community. You can also follow Angus and Rohini Ross on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. To learn more about their work visit: therewilders.org. Read Rohini's latest blog.
Episode 33 features the music of RhythmPharm with Los Angeles-based composer Greg Ellis.
See full show notes here.
We can't help but relax when we speak with Dicken Bettinger. His way of being is so calming and the way he points to our innate health and wisdom is so clear and grounded.
Dicken learned about the understanding we work from directly from Sydney Banks. His life was transformed both personally and professionally after listening to Syd just one time, and he was able to enjoy many more opportunities to be mentored by Syd.
Prior to meeting Sydney Banks, Dicken was heavily involved in self-development. After meeting him, Dicken pivoted and dropped self-help and shifted his approach to counseling. He no longer saw mental illness only wellbeing. He now viewed his clients (and his family) as having perfect mental health, but for being caught up in their thinking. He helps his clients to see their innate resilience and capacity to wake up from conditioned thinking.
Dicken reminds us that we are built for shifts -- we're designed to have insights. And the best way to be impacted by an insight is to open to the feeling of it, rather than trying to understand it intellectually.
This episode explores:
Dicken Bettinger, Ed.D., received his doctorate in counseling psychology and practiced as a licensed clinical psychologist for years. His career spanning 44 years focused on psychological well-being. Dicken co-founded a training, counseling, and education center in Vermont and was a member of senior staff at Pransky and Associates for 16 years, where he developed and led corporate and university leadership trainings, team development, and executive coaching. In 2012 Dicken founded his own business called 3 Principles Mentoring. He offers 4-day immersion retreats for individuals and couples and offers development for 3 Principles practitioners. Dicken co-authored a book called Coming Home: Uncovering the Foundations of Psychological Well-being. He has been happily married for 52 years.
Angus & Rohini Ross are “The Rewilders.” They love working with couples and helping them to reduce conflict and discord in their relationships. They co-facilitate individualized couples' intensives that rewild relationships back to their natural state of love. Rohini is the author of the ebook Marriage, and they are co-founders of The 29-Day Rewilding Experience and The Rewilding Community. You can also follow Angus and Rohini Ross on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. To learn more about their work visit: therewilders.org. Read Rohini's latest blog.
Episode 33 features the music of RhythmPharm with Los Angeles-based composer Greg Ellis.
See full show notes here.
Angus Ross (4s):
Welcome to Rewilding Love. This season is with a couple on the brink of divorce.
Rohini Ross (11s):
This is episode number 33, an interview with Dicken Bettinger.
Dicken Bettinger (17s):
When I first met Syd, I cried because of his absolute certainty that everybody, no exception, already had perfect wellbeing.
Rohini Ross (30s):
I spent a lot of time thinking that I needed to improve myself so that I could feel better
Dicken Bettinger (37s):
That insight into the principles would very simply bring you back to your natural state
Angus Ross (45s):
The ego and the intellect constantly making me feel like I need to get somewhere or go somewhere.
Rohini Ross (50s):
To take it beyond the concept to the lived experience is what's important and that's what we're pointing people to. And that's really what the rewilding is all about,
Dicken Bettinger (1m 0s):
The rewilding would happen, through insight. You would come back to this natural state of pure presence, pure being
Rohini Ross (1m 10s):
It's so easy to forget that that wellbeing is just one thought away
Dicken Bettinger (1m 15s):
All from that one first realization. When I relax my thinking altogether, I don't lose anything of value. I discover what I had been looking for for years and years and years.
Angus Ross (1m 30s):
You are listening to Rewilding Love with me, Angus Ross
Rohini Ross (1m 35s):
and me Rohini Ross.
Angus Ross (1m 37s):
Rewilding Love is a podcast about relationships.
Rohini Ross (1m 40s):
We believe that love never disappears completely in relationships. It can always be rewilded.
Angus Ross (1m 47s):
Listen in as we speak with our guests about how they share the understanding behind the rewilding metaphor in their work
Rohini Ross (1m 54s):
and how it has helped them in their relationships.
Angus Ross (1m 57s):
Relax and enjoy the show.
Rohini Ross (2m 9s):
I'm so grateful that we have Dicken with us today. Dicken was one of well, he was the first teacher that I worked with, who had learned directly from Sydney banks. And one of the things that he said about me was when I first started working with him, I had this look of deer in the headlights about me, and then I finally saw something and settled pretty deeply inside of myself.
Angus Ross (2m 32s):
You first started working with Dicken? When did you work with Dicken?
Rohini Ross (2m 36s):
I think it was 2012.
Angus Ross (2m 37s):
I didn't know that I don't think.
Rohini Ross (2m 39s):
I might not have mentioned it.
Angus Ross (2m 41s):
Wow. You're very privileged. I haven't had that experience working in close quarters with Dicken and in that fashion. Oh yeah. I want some of that.
Rohini Ross (2m 49s):
Yeah. Well, I can tell you about what he does.
Angus Ross (2m 53s):
Okay. Please continue. Pray. Continue.
Rohini Ross (2m 54s):
Yes. So I will have a quick look here so they can has a doctorate in counseling psychology. And since meeting Sydney banks, he's worked for the past 44 years looking in the direction of psychological wellbeing. And he has a business called three principles, mentoring, where he offers four day emersion retreats for individuals and couples, as well as development for three principles, practitioners. So you could go,
Angus Ross (3m 19s):
I'd like to, and I will. He's also written a book called coming home. He's coauthored, a book called coming home, which I've read, which is fantastic. And it is uncovering the foundations of psychological well-being is part of the pointer of that book. And as I say, it's a really good read. I strongly recommend it. Yeah.
Rohini Ross (3m 41s):
It's an, it's a, it's a thin book too. So it's a really nice, easy read books, but it's also one that you can go back to. It's the kind of book where you underline every line exactly.
Angus Ross (3m 55s):
Inclined to underline. Like I might be my book kind of looks like it's, it's actually the pages of pink because I've got so much highlights on that.
Rohini Ross (4m 5s):
And given that we're talking about relationships, I think it's worth noting that Dick has been married to his wife quizzy for 52 years.
Angus Ross (4m 12s):
Yeah. And a whole slew of grandchildren, I think at this point to two kids and four grandchildren or grandchildren. Right.
Rohini Ross (4m 20s):
And he's just a wonderful, loving kind man. And it was so much fun spending time with him,
Angus Ross (4m 30s):
Those qualities, those unique qualities that perhaps are best exemplified by a coving like, Hey, I was going to say a cunning kind coming line, a loving kind, man. I think it's those qualities that make Dickens so special. I think that with Dicken, there is no mask he's so approachable because of those coving loving kind qualities. He's so approachable. And they're just feels like are, as I say, there's no mask, there's no real ego that I can see that makes you feel really comfortable.
Angus Ross (5m 11s):
I think I said this in the interview. I think part of it for me is there's something about dicking that allows us to kind of put our ego down and be natural and authentic and what a relief to be with another human being when you can put that to one side and just have a really open and honest connection. I think there's something about him that invites that.
Rohini Ross (5m 31s):
Well, I think that we talk about how we're like tuning forks, how people can be like tuning forks. And so they can is this tuning fork for wellbeing. And so it seems to me that even though the experience is coming from inside of myself, being him being in his presence invites me into that space of wellbeing.
Angus Ross (5m 51s):
Yeah. He's a bit like a piano tuner, but a spiritual one. Yes. The other thing that I really liked in this interview, which I think has kind of given me hopefully a deeper insight about this understanding was the idea that there are these two sort of two main insights. So it's like, and I said in the, in the interview, how I feel like I, I felt like at the big to begin with, I was constantly sort of trying to collect insights and really, I think there are probably two very simple insights. And I think that's really good to hear from someone at his level of understanding. And he's been doing this for a while and he's still referencing those two main insights.
Angus Ross (6m 32s):
And I think that's something that's really good to hear and to talk, are you going to say the insights? No, I've got to keep everybody on Tinder. And then the other thing that I thought that came up for me was that I know that I quite often, I think in my practice or our practice too, I guess, because I spent so many time, so much time running for trains in London, in the Southern region that I often use that as a reference point about how I might want to not get on board a train of thought. And there's also almost like there's a suggestion that there's a technique involved or I'm going to ignore that thought. But there was something in this conversation too, around that, for me, that sort of made me reflect on that metaphor that I share around not getting on board, those trains where for me, I think that was a little bit of a technique involved.
Angus Ross (7m 21s):
And I think that techniques, you know, it has value for me that works really, you know, on a good level personally. But the idea that I felt from this conversation, I could suddenly see that there's something inherent in getting on board, those trains, where this metaphor takes on greater meaning where those, the it's kind of like destination, destination travel, like my intellect and my ego has somehow convinced me that I need to hop on board this train that will take me to a destination of wellbeing that I'm trying to get away, trying to get away and go somewhere, catching a train, to train to wellbeing when all along well being and paradise is, is, is at, is where I'm at.
Angus Ross (8m 5s):
At this point in time, I don't need to get on any train. I don't need to go anywhere. It was always here or belong all along here in my heart here in this state of presence. And yet the ego and the intellect is constantly making me feel like I need to get somewhere or go somewhere. And there was something about the personal growth work that is inherent in doing that work is like, we've got to get somewhere when all along it was having an awareness that we're already here. But yeah,
Rohini Ross (8m 31s):
Yeah, that was a game changer for me in term, in terms of taking pressure off of myself. Because as you know, because I exposed you to it, that I spend a lot of time thinking that I needed to improve myself so that I could feel better. It was almost like I had to earn peace of mind through self-improvement and that idea or that truth, I would say, not an idea, the truth that it's in the now it's in this present moment here and now that feeling of peace, that feeling of love that feeling of wellbeing, the drop-in center that dicon talks about in the episode that any moment we can drop into it and is said, banks in his teaching said we're only ever one thought away from it, never more than that.
Rohini Ross (9m 19s):
And there's such a hopefulness in that. And I think for relationships when we are in that sand papering experience and we feel annoyed, upset, react to whatever the experience might be. It's so easy to forget that that wellbeing is just one thought away and that we can be intentional about looking in the direction of wellbeing and that actually that's us putting the oxygen mask on ourself. And no matter what's going on, that is the first priority.
Angus Ross (9m 52s):
You know, the idea that that wellbeing is one thought away. It's almost like for me, it's kind of one thought too far because I hopped on board that train expecting to get to that destination when really all, again, all along I was home, right?
Rohini Ross (10m 7s):
So you should have got out.
Angus Ross (10m 10s):
I shouldn't have got on it in the first place
Rohini Ross (10m 14s):
And it, it can sound like a nice idea. And I think this is talked about a lot now with the prevalence of yoga meditation. This is talked about a lot. These concepts are not new concepts. I mean, they've been around for thousands of years, but to take it beyond the concept to the lived experience is what's important and that's what we're pointing people to. And that's really what the rewilding is all about is seeing how this happens in your own lived experience. That's what's important.
Angus Ross (10m 47s):
Yeah, I think that's beautifully said. And I think that there's a lot of clarity around this conversation with Dick and that really points to this understanding in a way where it makes so much sense.
Rohini Ross (10m 59s):
Should we just slip into the smooth tones of Dick? Yes.
Angus Ross (11m 3s):
Smooth delts. It turns a Dick in Enjoy. Enjoy.
Rohini Ross (11m 17s):
Thank you so much for agreeing to have this conversation with us. We are both excited to be speaking with you. And I know that I always feel impacted when you share and see new things. And so on a very personal level, I'm really looking forward to this conversation because I really appreciate how you speak to the spiritual nature of who we are and how that fits with our human psychology and how the teachings of Sydney banks have impacted you in your life. And it's just, you know, I love how you put all together. So looking forward to it, it a helicopter right on time, right
Dicken Bettinger (12m 3s):
On time. Perfect timing. Pretty soon I have my dog barking and then the next star will use the leaf blower and we'll be good to go. None of our feathers.
Angus Ross (12m 15s):
Yeah. Thankfully the leaf blowers seemed to do Mondays in our neighborhood. It is Monday I'm lost. I'm lost, completely lost touch with what day of the week it is. We
Rohini Ross (12m 24s):
Just did an intensive this weekend. So Angus probably what you probably think is Friday before
Angus Ross (12m 28s):
Not going to be doing an intensive, but they, you know, it was in another part of the world we're in different time zones. So we had to do most of it at night, New Zealand,
Dicken Bettinger (12m 37s):
Right? Yeah. The next day, the next day problem. Yeah.
Angus Ross (12m 40s):
I didn't know. I don't know where I am in terms of what time of day or the time of
Dicken Bettinger (12m 49s):
So big question. Maybe we should talk about that
Angus Ross (12m 54s):
Present for a moment. Well, to get back on
Rohini Ross (12m 58s):
Track, we won't say on track. That's boring. Wow.
Angus Ross (13m 2s):
I, I just want to say how much I love you Dicken and how much I feel it it's such a blessing always to talk to you. I think the, one of the, one of the things that I've always loved about you and why you are an absolute, one of my absolute favorite teachers is I just think you just have such a big open heart and I don't know if this is the right way to look at it. It's just like, there's just no ego with you. I just like, you're so approachable. And you know, I feel like you're someone that anybody could just walk up to and just, you know, have a conversation and, and you teach this understanding is such a beautiful way. No,
Dicken Bettinger (13m 38s):
I was just listening to a little clip of a talk from a lunch from the last live London conference where I talked about ordinary yet sacred life. And I think that's one of the main things I've learned is it all the ego creates such a story in pretense and Assad that it's great to be or to fall out of that and just be an ordinary schmuck. You know what I mean? It's such a relief. Yeah. Such an it's so much more enjoyable to you just get your lighten up and get a kick out of life.
Angus Ross (14m 18s):
Yeah. So, and I, and I think that's, that's part of your X-Factor I think, because you kind of got a handle on that and understand and see that is that it gives everybody else around you permission to kind of probably drop their ego whether or not, whether they're even conscious of that or not. I think it kind of falls away. Well,
Dicken Bettinger (14m 34s):
That's certainly happened around, said he was the most down to earth, ordinary person. I admired. And around him, if you stayed in your facade pretense, it was so it became so evident to you in his presence and painful, oh, either people felt the pain of their ego or they felt freed from ego in his presence.
Angus Ross (15m 6s):
Yeah. You're the ego killer, the ego Sapper. Well,
Rohini Ross (15m 11s):
As we said, it's lovely spending time with even, so you mentioned, said, I think that would be a great place to start in terms of looking at how you have been impacted by the teachings of Sydney banks and how that's helped you personally and professionally and impacted you in profound ways. W one of the reasons that we're doing these guest speaker interviews is to show how the understanding that Angus and I work from how universal it is and how other people share from it. And there's so many different, there's not one way to do it, but yet there's a universal understanding behind it. That's so powerful.
Dicken Bettinger (15m 51s):
Well, I was a psychologist for 10 years before meetings said, and, and don't kid yourself, people become psychologists so they can try and get their own neck together. You know, and plus I was a parent of a 13 year old daughter and an eight year old son. And I love being a parent, but I sure at times sounded like I was channeling my father when he upset and like that. And so I was always wanting to become a better dad and better husband.
Dicken Bettinger (16m 32s):
And I was certainly, as you guys experienced too, was fully embracing the south improvement model, man. I didn't have wellbeing. I needed to work really hard to get it. And my wife used to say to me, before I got came to said, was you work harder on yourself than anybody? You know, anybody I know. And I thought she was giving me a compliment.
Dicken Bettinger (17m 15s):
You know, I was only sleeping four hours a day. Cause I had so much work on myself to do, you know, meditating for hours a day, dreamwork affirmation work tied. Didn't have restructuring journals books to read. And yeah, later when I started having insight into the principles, I came back to my wife on and the knee said, oh great. Why is one, forgive me?
Dicken Bettinger (17m 55s):
I was so ignorant that I thought you had to become more like me when in truth, you're walking around one of the most content loving, compassionate people. I should've been discovering what your secret was all these years and thrown away all my efforting, but in, in the motto I was living from that made sense. So when I first met said, Dan, your question, that was quite a preamble. When I first met, I cried because of his absolute certainty that everybody, no exception already had perfect wellbeing.
Dicken Bettinger (18m 50s):
And that insight into the principles would very simply bring you back to your natural state. Your re as the rewilding would happen, throw insight. You would come back to this natural state of pure presence, pure being. And I had been a meditator and after two hours of working on my breath or a mantra or whatever exercise technique I was using, I would experience what it was like to fall into presence.
Dicken Bettinger (19m 39s):
Just have little glimpses, but I assumed that could only be reached through years of effort. And here's that bang saying, no, you're a thought away from your wellbeing at all times, you just get caught up in the trying, striving, efforting, doing, thinking and that when any human being falls out of that, they drop into metaphorically, drop into their wellbeing. They fall into the love that we are.
Dicken Bettinger (20m 21s):
And while he was talking, I just stopped. My self-improvement searching efforting mentality. And oh my God, it was like, holy present, wide awake. My senses were singing. And this feeling of just love and kind of action was there. And here I thought I didn't have that. I had to develop it.
Dicken Bettinger (21m 1s):
And I immediately began to Intuit. Everybody is what they're looking for before I heard anything about thought or the principles or I in his presence, as we were talking about sort of the power of presence, it just relaxed. I got to do it said, calls just be, be yourself. But I guess not the story, not the idea is about yourself. Not your beliefs, not your concepts.
Dicken Bettinger (21m 42s):
That's a fabrication. He called it an illusion it's just purely made up. And so that very first experience of what said was talking about, and the recognition of this is true. Allowed me to set aside 20 years of psychology training, set it aside and go, that's the old psychology. This is, this is paving the way for a brand new foundation.
Dicken Bettinger (22m 22s):
When he taught principals, I looked it up in the dictionary and principles. Most people in the world use. I live my life by these principles, which just means these good ideas that I've read. And he used the word dictionary. There's also a means now, which is most foundational. And he would say, what can be more foundational than infinity and the universe you are connected to that energy? There is no separation. There's really one principle. There is an infinite field of formless energy and it dances and the form in a way that's creative.
Dicken Bettinger (23m 8s):
The principle of thought in the way that's aware of the principle of conjures knows in a way that this field intranet field is wise because it knows how to create and operate and guide. So three, the fundamental characteristics of our true self. And we already have that connection and alignment with the universe itself. Our true nature. Well, that was just you guys in first.
Dicken Bettinger (23m 50s):
Yeah. Fuck or meeting.
5 (23m 53s):
And he lived from that healing space and you just said, you are that. And I've heard other people say that, but fuck me, experientially, what he says, just get a teeny, teeny glimpse. And it was a teeny glimpse changed my life right then and there. What I'm looking for,
Angus Ross (24m 34s):
How immediate was that in a way where my goodness, I mean, to be a professional psychologist and to have all that experience and all that education under your belt, it's like your ego probably wants to really hang on to that. Did it take a while for it to sort of like sort of fall away where you kind of finding yourself in conflict about that
Dicken Bettinger (24m 59s):
Insight was instant. The restructuring of my understanding and my way of looking at life, then it, I had to adjust to having a whole new way of looking at psychology and looking at life and looking at my wife and my kids. But the insight brought about an irreversible shift in my understanding that would get lost when I got thinking about it. But every time, not even every time I occasionally I would just wake back up and fall back into what I then started to realize was our true self.
Dicken Bettinger (25m 47s):
I think all the years of meditation were helpful, but it still was in the paradigm of self improvement. And this was a whole different ball game from the get go. It said he didn't have a teacher. He didn't have a practice. He didn't work hard. He had a insightful realizations, two big ones. And so you knew when he's said it's not a function of practice, but of insight.
Dicken Bettinger (26m 34s):
It was someone worth listening to, as you couldn't say, he couldn't say, well, I had 50 years of meditation practice. And then I had this realization and it would be hard to convince people that practice didn't attribute to that. But for a ninth grade, educated welder does say, yeah, no, my life was transformed in an instant, which didn't mean I immediately had no ego forever and ever thereafter, but I, I deeply realized the truth of our true nature. And that was irreversible.
Dicken Bettinger (27m 13s):
And I couldn't lose that. Knowing others is a learning process does sort of where my human side had to catch up with the realization of my being sign.
Angus Ross (27m 27s):
Yeah. Heavily trending towards wellbeing. From that point on,
Dicken Bettinger (27m 29s):
That's a good way to say it. You know, George likes George, Pransky likes to say, once you're on a learning curve, you can't stop it from happening. And either it happens to you really quickly or slowly, it doesn't matter. You're on it. That's the important thing on, I'm not learning curve of a new paradigm. And
Rohini Ross (27m 50s):
That I think is so key. The distinction between the paradigm of self-help versus the paradigm of innate wellbeing and that in self-help we have the thing, cause I know that I lived with that thinking for a long time too, and was pretty exhausted by it that I needed to improve myself and improve my psychology in order for me to be able to have more peace of mind and more experiences of wellbeing. And so could you speak a little bit more to what the other paradigm of innate wellbeing is and how that's different?
Dicken Bettinger (28m 33s):
Basically psychology focused on the past, all psychology, because they would focus on tell me what happened to you. That's past help me what you were feeling yesterday when this happened or 10 years ago or 60 years ago, what were you feeling? What were you thinking? What were you doing? What was your behavior? And it's focused on already created thinking content, even if it's unconscious thinking content like Freud, dead, unconscious thinking content depth.
Dicken Bettinger (29m 26s):
Psychology was the exploration of what he called depth psychology, which isn't really is the exploration of stored memory. So content past stored, feeling all the, all the so Freudian psychology, the cognitive psychology focuses on what you were thinking. Existential humanistic focused on what were you, you were feeling behavior is focused on what you were, but what they all had in common is they were unknowingly just going over.
Dicken Bettinger (30m 6s):
It's a memory based, psychology focused on the past. And Sid said, get content become. I'm aware of the fact that right now that neath are behind or beyond your content right now in this moment is everything your login for it's creative. It's a source of internet, new and fresh of possibility. It's, it's the source of awareness and higher levels of consciousness as the servers of new thoughts and ideas and deeper feelings of wellbeing.
Dicken Bettinger (30m 48s):
But they can only be found beyond time, which means beyond concepts in the now. And so all of his teaching was pointing in that direction. So on a practical level, in my first training, I started seeing my wife and kids differently. And then my clients also as having perfect wellbeing majors get caught up in their thinking and don't realize that that's where their experience comes from. And they don't realize that it's various planning, assembly covering their greatest resource all from that one first realization it's here.
Dicken Bettinger (31m 37s):
When I relax my thinking altogether, I don't lose anything of value. I discover what I had been looking for for years and years and years. And that changes relationships dramatically, that alone, that it's here and when we all have it, but it gets covered up by getting caught up in an involved in, in believing our thought content is the one problem. And the one solution is insightfully waking up out of content into the now where we find new and fresh and alive newness and love and creativity and compassion.
Dicken Bettinger (32m 22s):
And all it said called that space. The ultimate answer for everything human beings are looking for the ultimate answer. My, so that was my very first insight that almost immediately, as I listened to them said, talk, I tear it. And it was like, I can't believe it. I have what I've been looking for all these years. And it's so readily available to people there. A like why isn't every human being on the rooftop, shouting this out or on it's easier than you think I had. That became my new bumper sticker mantra.
Dicken Bettinger (33m 4s):
It's easier than you think it is being a loving, alive, compassionate person. Matt, shall I go to the second one? And then we can go wherever you want with this. But this was immediately what happened to me before you even got back home with my wife and kids and how much it changed. My understanding of relationships. Another practical insight is in as Sid would talk about how we live in the world of thought. And that's the only thing that covers our wellbeing.
Dicken Bettinger (33m 46s):
But he said, there's a huge misunderstanding is that people don't realize that what they're feeling at any moment is always only being created by the mental activity thinking they're doing in this very moment. And I didn't, I had studied the umpteen psychological theories about feelings and where they come from. And everybody had a different theory. The past personality biology in a parenting personality, other people's circumstances, situations.
Dicken Bettinger (34m 29s):
That was all part of my training. That's part of traditional psychological training is there are many, many, many, many influences on your experience on your feelings and said, says, we live in the world. The thought from the cradle to the grave, the power of thought continually generates mental activity and whatever thought is created in the moment we're going to feel. And it's instantaneous always. One-to-one always true. It's a fact, it's a psychological fact. It's not a theory insisted it was extremely scientific because it's not scientific to have a theory that isn't supported by all the evidence that there is exceptions to theories of principle doesn't have exemptions.
Dicken Bettinger (35m 26s):
Right? Okay. So on a practical level, I'm sitting in a room by myself, I'm in a beautiful room. And I start thinking about a that's coming up a week later. And I realized all of a sudden I'm really up tense and anxious. And I think it was the first time that I in the moment woke up and realized, wait a minute, the meeting isn't even here, I'm in a beautiful place.
Dicken Bettinger (36m 4s):
And I'm thinking of incredible anxiety as there's no other source to this anxiety minutes before, if you'd asked me, why are you anxious? I'd say, because I have a meeting coming up and it's really important. And there's lots of things going on and it's making me anxious. And I couldn't do that once I started realizing, wait a minute, I'm just feeling what I'm thinking at this moment. And then the evident, obvious question that follows that from most people in my clients is when they start to catch themselves caught in thought that's creating tension, stress or upset.
Dicken Bettinger (36m 50s):
I start going, why would I keep thinking this? If this is what it's doing to me, I could, I have free will. I can keep thinking of I won, but why would I it's like when you have your hand on a hot stove and you realize is burning, you could go out and give it here. But why would I? Well, Sage says, this blew me away. If you really see, thought that is creating this tension, you'll take your hands off your thinking automatically. You said it'll just automatically bring you back to the now, if you really see it, like if you put your hand on the hot stove, you don't go, what are the seven steps for removing your hand from a stove?
Dicken Bettinger (37m 31s):
What's the technique? What technique would you use? Right. So without technique, I started catching myself all the time. So how is this practical? Well, in terms of those are relationships, I now was catching myself left and right every day caught in thought crazy, helped me get it simple. She's she just said, oh, you just, we get caught in thought and then we have trouble. And then when we realize it, we stopped being caught in thought and it just dissipates and it goes away.
Dicken Bettinger (38m 11s):
So here I am in relationship with, I think after I started to realize this 60% less anxiety that I'm bringing into my relationship from my initial first insight. Oh my God thought creates every feeling I have, including my biggest bugaboo worry, anxiety, tension, shoulders up. It will say Dickens, a nice guy, but boy worries a lot. You know, he likes people he likes, but boy, you can see him worried a lot.
Dicken Bettinger (38m 53s):
And I used to go, yeah, I got a lot to worry about. I'm an adult. I got responsibilities. I got a lot of work. I got problems. I'm working with people who are suicidal. Of course I'm anxious. So my family celebrated, I came home from my first training and I didn't feel like I had to sit to try and meditate any moment disengaged from my thinking and be in a meditative state. I was part of since teacher realization of the principles brings you back to a natural, natural meditative state of being present, awake, alive, alert, relaxed.
Dicken Bettinger (39m 49s):
That's a meditative state, natural. And it's built in to everybody without realizing we're all meditators. People say, well, I don't meditate. I lay oh meditation as a natural state or default setting rather than something you do in order to get to our natural state. So I stopped meditating for hours a day and I became more present, more meditative. I stopped working on my dreams because they're just thoughts I'm having at night. And so just like during the day I can get caught up in my thinking or not.
Dicken Bettinger (40m 31s):
My wellbeing doesn't have anything to do with yeah. I stopped doing all my job journaling. I stopped doing all my work. I, I started reading maybe one book a week instead of three books a week, which was a big improvement. And in other words, I became more present. That was the first thing that happened in my relationship. I was less preoccupied by my own. Self-taught thinking, searching, working on myself, thinking, and my family recognized that.
Dicken Bettinger (41m 15s):
And my wife I've said, it feels like we have you back with us again. I may have told you guys one time I came home and I'm so preoccupied. I was, my kids called me space cadet. I was always thinking about something. And I thought to be an adult with responsibility that was reasonable and necessary. And my wife came up to me. She's very playful. And she knocked on my forehead. He goes, hello, Anybody home, Hey, Hey Dick. And how are you going to come out tonight and play with us?
Dicken Bettinger (41m 55s):
Are you going to stay in there all night? And I would try, try to really be present. And I failed miserably because I was still in the old paradigm. And then with this, I became the hat. I began to have more and more moments where I wasn't preoccupied and what that did also in relationships as I wasn't so quiet, really serious. I was more openly lighthearted.
Dicken Bettinger (42m 36s):
I get silly. I'd come home and say to the kids let's play. And it used to be, I'd come home. And they'd say to me, let's play. And I say, wow, I got a lot of work to do. And you know, maybe in an hour I can. And you know, and I put it off and put it off. And, and I'd say, you know, I'm so tired. I've been working all day and pretty soon I'm coming home. I was more present, which means you're less caught up in thinking that weighs on you, which means you have more energy. And I'd say, Hey, kids let's play and they go out, dad, you don't understand. We've been in school All day. We're tired. We need a Turning the old paradigm by how I was living my life.
Dicken Bettinger (43m 19s):
And here I, I, young dog, you can see that in people who have been around the principles, I didn't know abundance of life.
Angus Ross (43m 35s):
That's a good way of looking at it. Isn't it? I noticed that for sure. It's funny because this is just something that's been occurring to me lately. I think that when I first came to the principals and I heard that there was so much emphasis put on having insight. So I thought I've got to go around collecting insights. Like people collect baseball cards. Have you had an insight this week?
Angus Ross (44m 16s):
If you haven't, you're somehow falling short. And it occurs to me that it seems more evident to me now is that it's probably, I've had, you know, I probably had one major insight and it's kind of like, it's been like this sort of slow release medicine, the gift that keeps on giving and you start to see more and more around that particular insight, from what you've shared, it seems like you had this one really beautiful insight where you were kind of reacquainted with your essential spiritual nature. And then you had this other incredible insight of around how we create our own experience through four. And that may be it it's like it all grows from there.
Angus Ross (44m 57s):
I
Dicken Bettinger (44m 57s):
Couldn't agree more though said had two realizations. And I feel like I've had two realizations. And he started saying, there's how the mind works. And there's the nature of the mind. And it's important for people to have insight into how the principles via thought, create experience. And people need to know the very nature of the, the essence of the mind, what he called pure thought, pure consciousness, pure mind that can only be known or intuited or insightfully realized when we drop out of all personal thought, all concepts.
Dicken Bettinger (45m 43s):
So he says, you can have, he would say this in almost every talk. Don't listen to me. You have to go beyond the words mine in yours. You have to go beyond all concepts. The second book about Sid's early teaching is it called beyond beliefs. You have to go beyond all your ideas and beliefs. You have to close the laptop. Like we tell our teenagers, you've had enough screen time thinking about life, close the laptop. And just for a minute, in a sense, stop thinking. And you, you, you look back on the first book written about, said he taught not thinking.
Dicken Bettinger (46m 28s):
Cause he felt like if people could just see that we can when, and if we want to disengage from our rental life, that's what he learned from his real, his enlightenment experience was he could disengage from his intellect and go beyond the influence of all of that. And the experience of that is vast and open. And he said he experienced a love, like he's never felt before. And then he realized what any one of us can disengage from intellect, close the laptop.
Dicken Bettinger (47m 8s):
Like we tell our kids get off the screen just for a second, you know, but I'm addicted to ideas and beliefs and, and just for second and then rest and this space, that's always here when we're not caught up in our thinking, find out about that space. That's what he meant by look within, find out about that space. Get intimate with that in the only way you can find out is not by thinking about it, but by dropping into it. So don't be in your ego, waiting for insights, drop into a space where you see the world from within.
Dicken Bettinger (47m 56s):
So you live insightfully rather than chase after search, try and find that's ego's self-development project live insightfully. You're going to have to label it or say, you said, if you have an insight, the biggest problem people have is they think is in the word. So they hold on to the words that here's my insight look at. I'm so proud. I have it now. I've, I'm holding onto this idea that I just had. He said, that's the easiest way to kill an insight. He said, if you have an insight, let go of and immediately let go of the words immediately and stay with the feeling.
Dicken Bettinger (48m 38s):
And I don't keep unfolding. That's not in the words, not in the words. That was a huge part of his teaching. Go beyond the words, everything I'm talking about, you can experience for yourself. If you have the courage, he would say things like take one little step beyond your babbling thought system. I'd say just take one little step beyond your precious little ego mind. Just for a moment. Just, just one, he'd say just one second. You said don't get greedy. I had four seconds.
Dicken Bettinger (49m 19s):
She has one second of where you just from and pay zero attention to what you're thinking and believing. And in that unknown, you'll discover your spiritual nature and it will be ordinary. His presence is it feels open, vast, alive dynamic. And that's the world of new and fresh. You're looking for new and fresh. You're looking for the silence beyond your noisy thought system.
Dicken Bettinger (49m 60s):
You're looking for a feeling that truth is always, always, always found in the quiet, beyond our words. And then the feeling that's always there in that space. That's where you'll find everything you're looking for. It took me years of unlearning to gain deeper and deeper trust and faith. That that's true in every situation in my relationships. No exception, no, no exception. I put it to task every well for a couple of years, I was like, are you telling me I didn't feel close to queasy or was annoyed and bothered and pass just for fun.
Dicken Bettinger (50m 45s):
I go, okay, let me just wait a second. And usually at first I had to walk out of the room cause I was pissed and annoyed and bothered. And not that that doesn't still happen, but I was doing this experiment if you will, because Sid would say, find out for yourself, don't take my word for it. That's what I mean by doing the experiment. And I would go in the other room and let go of everything. I was thinking intentionally I closed the laptop pretty well. I can, if I want to anytime and I would close it and just I'd find myself breathing deeper, relaxing without trying no technique as resting in the now.
Dicken Bettinger (51m 34s):
And it felt like my thoughts were liberating themselves or just sorta melting into this energy, just opening, falling away. And inevitably, at some point I would realize I feel more relaxed, more calm. And I would walk back in to the other room with my wife and I'd look at her. And I swear, somebody switched out. My wife Has, I saw a different person, even if she was still in a low mood and complaining and critical, which is her habit.
Dicken Bettinger (52m 23s):
He looked cute to me. That's sort of like when I fell in love with her, it didn't matter what she presented. I go, aha man, you are so cute. I'd fall back into a love. That was unconditional. And I had to see though, if that was always true and every moment and every situation I put it to the test, like I said, and every time I felt tension, stress rubs that I'd see if the cure was touching. It would say just one step can just touch that space for one instant and something beautiful must come into your experience of life.
Dicken Bettinger (53m 7s):
And then you would say, but don't take my word for it. Don't believe a thing I'm telling you. You see that that's not how we're designed. You find out, oh, that helped my learning curve. And that was in the last few years that I got really so motivated and intrigued and inspired to just find out because it would say love is always, always the answer. And if say, well, that sounds good. I believe it until I'm not feeling loved. And then I don't think it's the answer. I think if my wife changed, I'd be fine.
Dicken Bettinger (53m 47s):
That's kind of be at least one of the answers.
Rohini Ross (53m 52s):
Is it a multiple choice answer I think is so key for relationships because it, in the struggle in relationship, it looks like the other person needs to be different for us to be okay for sure. Right? And it looks like, well, if only they would do that, then our relationship would be fine. And, and it's what you're saying is that, that is the misunderstanding that doesn't see where experiences coming from.
Rohini Ross (54m 41s):
And doesn't recognize where well-being is actually residing, which is inside of us. Not outside of us.
Dicken Bettinger (54m 47s):
You know, I started calling it. I mean, this is just me making up shit, but it was fun. I started thinking that it, because back in the seventies we talked, we talked a lot about centering being centered in the face of Y you know, doing exercises and practices to be centered. And tons of books were written about how to do it. But I started thinking when I realized I'm caught in thought creating tension, stress or upset when I realize that I'm caught in that thinking, there's what feels to me like dropping out of, I talked to Mike only about this, right?
Dicken Bettinger (55m 41s):
We had similar experiences. It felt like dropping out of my thinking and dropping into what I started affectionately calling the community drop-ins center. That's open 24, 7 it's non-discriminating it accepts anyone as they are. The door is always open. You're always welcome in that space. Of course, I use the metaphor of coming home in my book, but I liked this idea of having a community drop in center, where we meet our one being.
Dicken Bettinger (56m 31s):
And in that drop in center, it's like a little waist. That's always here in every moment. And that's where we can be renewed in spirit, where we can be uplifted, where we will be guided or free that when I fall into that space of not knowing, and there's this welcomed feeling always with that is a knowing that's not of the intellect, which is how Sid describe wisdom. And it's a knowing that doesn't even have to go through the end delight. It can just move you the way wisdom moves plans toward the sun moves.
Dicken Bettinger (57m 14s):
I watched the birds and my bird feeder without making conscious effort in plans. They just know when they eat when 90, when the look around and when the fly away, right. That's I started saying wisdom is this universe. So movement of energy that moves life toward thriving when we don't interfere with its natural ability to do that. And boy, has that been the most recent, no mento of Angus, like you said, of seeing that one insight, deeper, discovering deeper nature you're of the mind over and again, creative aware and why is, and trusting more of that guidance in relationships.
Dicken Bettinger (58m 17s):
So if something doesn't feel right, I've been learning more and more that if I drop into this drop in the center where I don't have a frigging clue what to say or what to do, or how to deal with this person who I'm pretty convinced as drive me crazy that in this drop-in center, I'm uncommitted loved, welcomed, loved uplifted. And then I just seemed to know, I have more common sense if you will, and how best I walked back in the room and I'll know whether to say something or not.
Dicken Bettinger (59m 0s):
And I, and things are occurred to me fresh to say that I hadn't even thought that I would say, and seeing that one deeper and deeper as men phenomenally liberating, even dealing with our new puppy, that at times I wanted to kill once again at eight, another remote, Or, oh, we have that going on. Totally decimated my favorite pair of slippers or, or it, you know, and or it would you tell it one thing and it, you know, it's anybody who's worked with dogs and I love training dogs.
Dicken Bettinger (59m 44s):
And this dog is the most stubborn Apps. Tell me what Has an oppositional defiant disorder, how much college is forgotten. I know the dog is the problem Is and how Humbling, how humbling to see, oh man, here's another learning curve area yet another. And I've really, really been learning a lot because of this little being and deepening my understanding literally.
Dicken Bettinger (1h 0m 25s):
I mean that I really thankful.
Rohini Ross (1h 0m 29s):
Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's such a huge gift that relationships are in our life. Whether it's with people, whether it's with animals, that being in relationship helps us wake up to who we are. And some of the ways it helps us wake up as it reveals our blind spots to us, it reveals where we can't see that it's coming from inside of ourself,
Dicken Bettinger (1h 0m 51s):
Rohingya that's that's music. That's beautiful. A lot of people used to say, you would never evolve. If you're on a desert island by yourself, it's the blessing of relationships that we bump up against our egos most directly and immediately. And it's humbling. Once you realized that this is an opportunity rather than a curse, and it brings us back out of our self righteous, upset into a humility where you gone Jesus, they screwed up and I, I don't know what I'm doing.
Dicken Bettinger (1h 1m 34s):
And, but I'd love to see something new. And we rest in that drop in center. The blind spots become more and more renewed to us. That certainly happened to me during all the George Floyd ways, in which it created an upheaval, especially in white people of what we weren't seeing and our blind spots. And I remember talking once with Dr. Roger Mills was no longer alive, but was a pioneer in bringing this understanding into communities.
Dicken Bettinger (1h 2m 17s):
And he said, reaches the point where life rather than study and reading and going to webinars where day-to-day relationships in life itself become your greatest teacher, presenting the most opportunities for you. And that, thank God we feel tension, stress, and upset and means we've gotten to separate from our spiritual nature, from wisdom, from love, that's unconditional, and that's an invitation to drop in or come home.
Dicken Bettinger (1h 2m 57s):
And then we are really an unconditionally gifted with new and fresh feeling insight, knowing Hayden's
Rohini Ross (1h 3m 25s):
I love your metaphor about the drop-in center is like, if we all know that we can drop in and have that experience. I mean, ultimately that is the answer is said, banks was saying like, that has everything we need within it within ourselves. And we just forget that it's available to us, or we maybe don't even realize consciously that it's there. But how profound to know that that is always the direction to look in
Dicken Bettinger (1h 3m 58s):
When it starts getting simple, then advice like said would give, okay, forget everything you've learned about the principles going, enjoy yourself, just throw yourself into the now and enjoy yourself, going picnics, be with your family, go do, go and enjoy yourself. And when you start not enjoying yourself, if you know it has something to do with thought that will bring you right back to the now, no, bring you right back to this drop in center. You'll it'll refresh your page.
Dicken Bettinger (1h 4m 38s):
It will rewild you. And the best Sense of that term. And you'll become natural rather than artificial. You'll be real again, you'll be, you'll be a real ordinary down to earth person.
Angus Ross (1h 4m 54s):
Yeah. I like the idea of the drop-in center comes with this free gift of a sort of spiritual navigational system that, that, that piece of equipment that we then get to see if this really works in the realm of relationship, whatever that is. That's when we get to really see, oh, does this shit work?
Dicken Bettinger (1h 5m 15s):
Yeah. Does it come on? And I hope people all have that burning desire to, I'm not going to take your word for it. I want to find out for myself. Yeah. That's, that's huge where we begin to take responsibility for finding out what people have been saying is true and a fury, if it is always true, if it's true for every human being. Yeah.
Rohini Ross (1h 5m 48s):
The person who produces the podcast and does the music for us, we had a conversation with him and he said that this is no longer the time for self-help is the time for self discovery.
Dicken Bettinger (1h 6m 2s):
No, that's, it's very beautiful. And, and sometimes even discovery can become a goal. That's true. Yeah. So it was interesting to me to hear the said, say, I didn't discover the principles I dropped into this space and they were revealed to me. Yeah. And there is something that is really powerful when I work with clients, I now have confidence that if they touch the space, something will get revealed to them. Even if they don't know what they've discovered.
Dicken Bettinger (1h 6m 45s):
At some point in my goal, look what I discovered. But even before that stage, they will realize something will become real through them in terms of feeling and guidance. That's not of the intellect. Yeah.
Rohini Ross (1h 7m 2s):
That's why, when it's not of the intellect, it does feel kind of magical in how things unfold because the intellect can't quite figure it out. Like if I were to look at my relationship with you, Angus, and sort of how it all unfolded, it's like the intellect can't quite grasp how I have a realization that says, oh, I'm I can't lose my wellbeing is inside of me. Angus. Can't take that away from me. Even if he's in an, you know, expressing anger toward me that doesn't take that away from me. It's there. And that clarity shifted, like, how does that shift a relationship?
Rohini Ross (1h 7m 43s):
But it it's, it did. I mean that, that was enough. And obviously Angus you've had your realizations that you've had for yourself. But, but that, that one thing changed everything.
Dicken Bettinger (1h 7m 57s):
Wow. I love that notion. It shifts happened, you know, one time a day at the conference in London, I said, I want to get a bumper sticker that says just happened. And wouldn't, you know, I go off for another few weeks of trainings and I ended my training by doing a free training at the rabbi shawls place in London. And yeah, he's late. And I had been teaching and I take a break and all of a sudden he walks in the back of the room and he's got the biggest smile on his face and he's carrying something like this.
Dicken Bettinger (1h 8m 44s):
And he walks up and it's all tied in beautiful bow and I tie it and it's, it's the bumper sticker. You know, that's what it was a sudden shift. It's easier to think of it as we're built, they have shifts. And that when we begin to touch more and more of that space that go to the drop-in center, it's inevitable that at some point shift will happen, we're made to evolve and consciousness, and then that's very helpful.
Dicken Bettinger (1h 9m 29s):
You're built staff shifts. Yeah. It is so horrible. A bit shifty. And it's a lot more helpful than just, oh, bummer. The world is a mess and shit Happens. At least there's some hope in this. Yeah. That's very helpful.
Rohini Ross (1h 9m 48s):
Well, Dick, and in terms of just that simplicity, I think it really underscores, you know, what the rewilding is all about, that it is coming back to that natural state and the way that you're saying it, and it's not difficult. It isn't about hard work. It's simply about being willing to go to the drop-in center. Are we going to allow ourselves to spend some time there and that it feels good. We're not suggesting people are going to be spending time doing something that isn't first and foremost good for themselves and, and going to allow them to have more of a beautiful feeling inside of themselves.
Rohini Ross (1h 10m 28s):
And we're just saying to start there and then see what unfolds from there in terms of any changes in life.
Dicken Bettinger (1h 10m 36s):
I love it too, because it honors the physical in our humanity. It says when we get in our intellects, there's enormous benefits when we use that wisely and all of us at times where you use it unwisely. And then thank God there's tension, stress, and upset to remind us, we're trying to use our in light for something it wasn't built for. And that helps us drop out of that limitation and stuck point and bad feeling.
Dicken Bettinger (1h 11m 19s):
And it's, it can free us, then there's something deeper. And so he says, we get really good at going back and forth between the two worlds, because I love thinking and duality and concepts when it's helpful and it's fun to use the intellect and until it's not. And then, so he said, then there begins to be this natural balance between intellect and wisdom. It's not disparaging the human, the intellect, not judging it, not calling it bad is having balance.
Dicken Bettinger (1h 12m 6s):
And when I have balance between intellect and wisdom, then the intellect is guided more and more by wisdom. So that's what said men by using the gift of thought, why is this Lee intellect wisely? I can't figure out how to do that, but wisdom knows how to use my intellect more and more wisely. It'll tell me when it's helpful to make plans or lists or play around with an idea or a concept. And he'll tell me and guide me. But it also by the feeling immediately lets me know when it's time to come back to the come back home, come back to the drop-in center, get rebalanced.
Dicken Bettinger (1h 12m 53s):
So in rewilding, I see it's finding our natural balance between human and being, which also then celebrates our bodies and our sexuality and our, you know, we can, we, we get freed of concepts that limit us to male and female role roles so that we can be Robert Keeney and Agnes alter ego. I've been waiting. I've been waiting for whole time that try and slip that into the camera. I just was cracking myself up before we got started.
Dicken Bettinger (1h 13m 36s):
I'm thinking of, and Agnes, It'd be a row guess. Yeah, yeah. Gone rogue is my gender or rigidity wilding
Rohini Ross (1h 13m 57s):
Stepping into that formless space where there are, you know, what, it's that beautiful Rumi poem. Step out beyond the right and wrongdoing into that field and say, let's spend time there. And that open space without the concepts of who we are and how we should in resource ourselves and see who we come back as. And what's good. What gets reformulated along the way? It might be a rogue. Guess we better find that community center and figure
Dicken Bettinger (1h 14m 29s):
It out. Can't get our reassignment open 24 7. Really confusing.
Rohini Ross (1h 14m 37s):
Well, Dick, thank you so much. Did you have another question? I guess no,
Angus Ross (1h 14m 41s):
I feel so full. I feel like this has been so rich.
Rohini Ross (1h 14m 45s):
Yeah. Thank you. I love,
Dicken Bettinger (1h 14m 47s):
I love you guys. I love what you're doing. I love how you teach. I love how you're getting to things that a lot of people are not getting to. And, and they're important to understand in the context of what we're talking about. I love your notion of rewilding. I really do. I've become more and more of a diehard environmentalist as I deepened my understanding. So thank you. No.
Rohini Ross (1h 15m 16s):
Well, we love you too, Dick in so grateful and want to send you off with lots of love. Thank you so much for listening to rewilding love. If you enjoyed this podcast, please let us know by subscribing on iTunes. And we would love for you to leave a review there.
Angus Ross (1h 15m 38s):
ITunes reviews. We'll steer people to this podcast who need help with their relationships.
Rohini Ross (1h 15m 42s):
If you would like to learn more about our work and our online rewilding community, please visit our website, the re wilders.org.
Angus Ross (1h 15m 50s):
Thanks for listening. Join us next week.