Origin's
The stories of our lives often define us. Listen to these interviews and learn how and why people navigate their lives.
Origin's
Exploring the Inner Workings of Happiness with Nick
You can reach Nik for a consultation at 248-722-1088 or noahpangea3@gmail.com
What if the happiness you’re chasing is already within you, just waiting to be acknowledged? Join us as we embark on a journey with Nick from the Noah Pangea Project to unlock the mysteries of happiness and fulfillment. We explore the profound ways societal norms and personal experiences shape our quest for joy, from the high-pressure realm of real estate to the calming world of yoga. Together, we uncover the universal yet deeply personal nature of happiness, diving deep into the interplay between our neurochemistry and our emotional experiences.
Guided by riveting discussions on identity and ego, the episode provides fresh insights into how our life roles can both nurture and hinder our happiness. Nick and I unravel the intricate dance between embracing our true selves and navigating the fear of being perceived as selfish. We explore how embracing authenticity and being present in the moment can lead to profound personal growth, allowing us to transcend ego's resistance and find true contentment. Through relatable examples and shared stories, we highlight how letting go of societal expectations can illuminate the path to genuine happiness.
In the final segments, we focus on the power of authenticity and the importance of listening to our inner truth. By embracing what makes us genuinely happy and allowing space for honest emotional expression, we can find a guiding force for our lives. Whether you’re caught in a monotonous routine or contemplating life’s next big step, this episode provides a comforting reminder that happiness is not a distant destination but a journey of ongoing evolution. Join us for an inspiring conversation filled with optimism and gratitude, as we navigate life’s complexities with happiness as our compass.
everybody. It's brian grenadier with the origins podcast, and I'm here again with nick of the noah pangea project, my friend and my mentor, and uh, we've got a great, great conversation to have for you today. So, uh, just prior to going on, you know, we were thinking, well, what's a good topic today? And I was sort of reflecting on my life and thinking in my former life as a realtor, I achieved the highest of highs, still wasn't happy. I had three cars, I had rental properties and houses and money. Still, something always felt like it was missing. Then it was a yoga teacher, which I love, love, love. It's my passion, it's part of my spirit and my soul. I own a yoga studio. I've been doing this now for teaching for 23 years. I'm married, we have a beautiful daughter, we have a good marriage, we have a nice house, I don't need anything and I have money in the bank.
Speaker 1:And I still, to this day, feel something's missing. I don't know what it is and I have studied meditation and Buddhism and lifestyle practices and I'm conscientious and conscious. I think in my world Still something's missing and I go back over and over and think well, maybe a better gratitude practice, maybe I need to do more of this thing, or what could I let go of? What's my attachment that's stopping me and I get stuck. And it's been like this since I was a kid, since I read Jonathan Livingston Siegel when I was 14. I'm like something's been Livingston Siegel when I was 14. I'm like something. You remember that book? Something's been. I've always felt like something's missing and I know it's not out there. I know it's not. If I just acquired one more thing, if I just had a motorcycle, then I'd be happier. If I just got the next widget, you know cool yoga mat, oh, if I found the right meditation, or if I found the right you know anything else?
Speaker 2:um, I know it's not out there but I think it's almost like what's, what is, what is the factor or presence that is, uh, preventing me? And I use that word very cautiously, preventing because, because you know, there's nothing really preventing us, it's just the awareness within it that allows us to be present within our life's changes that really allow us to embellish and flourish in our life. But just playfully, using the word preventing, you can say was it that preventing me from staying in the state of? And then again a lot of people use a different word for um, the. Here we could say um, but we can call it happy, we can call it joyful, we can call it um, ecstatic or horrified. And you know, the honest truth is, you know, I love to talk about this because the reality is that our human essence, the essence of our being per se, is built on the, not the premise, but is actually built on the basis that we can talk about it in the context of neurology and say that, you know, when we're born, the moment that we have, before we actually take a breath per se, we can look and check the brain chemistry, quote unquote and it's almost like the baby has taken all the ecstasy, has taken the whole bottle of ecstasy. So the baby is actually in euphoria at that moment. The baby is actually completely in this state of being. That is what we call happy. However, the issue is is that it's not really an issue? Is that, based on the conditioning we then receive, based on the first look or the first glance we get from our parental guidance, based on, you know, all these other microcosmic factors, the baby then takes its first breath and then becomes very conditioned or reactive, or responsive to its environment. However, it's already been, you know, at the moment of birth, exposed to this magnificence in a way, and some people simply term the magnificence. You know being present. You know being present in the moment because that's what stimulates the.
Speaker 2:We'll look at it on the more simple level of happy in the sense of happy is the most complex and most simple thing we can talk about, because happiness as a word is you know, it's a sacred word in a way because happiness truly is something that is something so very the depth goes beyond we could say, when we look at something, someone, anything that is in a state of happy, happy truly is it's, it's embodied joy and pride. You want to look at it from that perspective, but happiness truly is something that when we actually look at it, when you look at the word and people, you know they tend to misuse this word. I still remember this from one of your circle, your teaching circles, that you actually ran when you basically talked about this concept of an individual meeting per se, this state of happy. In a way, I'm using the word happy and you know there's different words used in the past. I'm not worried about that, but again, the terminology is not as important. It's more like we use different words, describe the same thing, and you can look at this from the multicultural aspect or the different religions, different spiritualities aspect, the scientific aspect. You look at it from any realm, any realm, and I like to use the balance of what we call the modern now in a sense, which is, using the terminology of what we hear.
Speaker 2:Having that doubt allows for the happiness to arise naturally, and that's a little bit more philosophical than I would typically get, because that, you know, tends to draw a little confusion. But the context of it is that once someone has been submerged into that state of happy, we're going to just leave it at happiness right now, and I won't. I've described it, you know, a little bit in a couple of different ways, but the context of it is, once someone has been submerged in the state of happy, everything we do in life that comes after that is chasing or seeking that state. Again, it's an addiction, we could say. We call it evolution in a playful way, which is real Evolution, simply meaning that it's a funny evolution in many ways because we're birthed in that state. The context of it is that the things that step in what we perceive as our way, that tend to block us from that state. In a sense we have an innate sense within our evolutionary body. We can call it our evolutionary self, our core, our animoey self, the part of us that is symbiotically interconnected with others per se.
Speaker 2:We can use many different terminology. The most simple way to look at it is instinctually, instinctually. We have the awareness of happy and the experience of happiness embodied from that momentary growth per se, embodied from that momentary growth per se. And then from there we we start hitting these what we could say perceived roadblocks to maintain that state and the thirst that naturally comes, or the conquest of life that naturally comes for everybody. This is for every single human being. Every single everybody is to maintain that state.
Speaker 2:An animal does a great job of it. Because an animal will just maintain that state naturally, because they'll only listen to their instinctual capacity and their instinctual capacity will lead them towards safe. And I can break that down because there's been many misstudies on this context of fight or flight and you know that has totally misjudged the animal per se that actually lives in perfection, because they're in the perfection of balance being invoked by humans. So, yeah, you go study the animal. Your awareness per se, your presence, has an effect on that animal, which is the thing that I find so funny, because the reality is that, yeah, our awareness is pervasive to the point that if you're a human and you have some skittishness in you, the deer isn't comfortable around you, the bear isn't comfortable around you and you're only going to perceive this animal in a certain way because when you witness it. That's why watching a National Geographic is real in one way, but I mean, I'm not looking, you know, from a sense of a conspiracy theory, but we can say a conspiracy theory here.
Speaker 2:Gorillas left alone. The gorilla acts are different than when man tends to intercede in the study of the gorilla, because now there's, even if you left the camera up and you're witnessing the gorilla, and this is a little metaphysical, but the concept is simple in the sense that you're still present, your presence is still there because you're still witnessing, or the gorilla is still being witnessed, or this will be a more dissimilar explanation that can be kind of thrown out or kept, depending on the individual, but the context of it is is that the the pervasiveness of our awareness is still present, so the gorilla still senses that, hey, I'm being watched by a skittish or scared or by an unstable human who's not happiness embodied. So I don't actually feel comfortable. That you'll actually receive is of an uncomfortable gorilla in comparison to you.
Speaker 2:Know somebody who is, let's say, goes out on a hike on their own and is happiness embodied and meets the gorilla without the camera. They'll have a totally different experience with the gorilla because of the fact that they'll meet the gorilla and the gorilla's nature. And the nature of the gorilla is a little bit different than how we, as human kind we could say, perceive the animal to be, because the animals, acting perfect symbiosis, are in the perfection of their we can even say, quote, unquote, their meditation, use that word playfully but their presence is here, they aren't going anywhere else. So so they've achieved what a lot of people will talk about as being in flow. I call it symbiosis, but being in flow is one in symbiosis, which is one in being happy. But it's like how do we get there? How do we?
Speaker 1:maintain that.
Speaker 2:How do we get there, how do we, how do we maintain that?
Speaker 1:how do we right, how do we sustain that state right? And it's? It's interesting because, like when I teach, I'm in a state of flow, my phone's off. I've got that one hour to focus well entirely on somebody else there and somebody's else and their needs, and to make them happy and be in that state. When i'm'm teaching, words come through me for people I don't even think about it, the poses come, it just comes through and I'm like a vessel, but that's one of my Part of that's the need right, the what you feel, the itch of the individual that comes.
Speaker 2:So we'll put it this way, brian, to break your life down to a certain extent, playfully break it down. It's almost like at birth. You experienced a pure state, yep, and we, we can't well, we can't use the word state. But we'll just say you experienced happiness, not your pure happiness. We'll have pure happiness. You experience pure happiness then, the moment you looked at your, your mom, the moment you looked at your dad, the moment you looked at your mom, the moment you looked at your dad, the moment you looked at you know wherever you're born hospital doctor or whatever it may be you start integrating different perceptions Right away. You know that wheel starts to spin.
Speaker 2:Many words are used in many spiritualities. For what that? You know that. That is called per se, but we don't really have to jump into the wording. It's more or less.
Speaker 2:We get distracted because we get the sense of whoa. You know, I hear you and I hear you and and by here it's more I sense and I feel you and your animal instinct kicks in. But but then you externalize and then, through that initial externalization, we almost forget that innate sense of happy, but because it's integrated within us, we can't actually forget it. So, whether it's conscious or subconscious, the human nature is, then I've got to get back to that place. I've got to get back to that place, I've got to get back to that state, no matter what it takes. No matter what it takes, I've got to get back there. And either I'll get back there on my deathbed per se. And that's why you know, if you look at all the studies for individuals who've had near-death experiences or who are, you know, in the experience of death, and you look at the neurochemistry, it goes back to that it's basically you're on more drugs than a man. You know, quote unquote because your brain is, it gives a full release. So when someone is about to die, or thinks they're about to die, not just thinks, but they're actually in a situation that can put them in a place where it feels like, and it feels like and they think at the same time, there's enough of a factor of environmental and internal coherence to be like I'm about to die. Their brain will then release a full sense of um, we can call it neurochemistry your dopamine level, your serotonin level, your GABA level, all the different, different little neurochemicals that we have are released at once and brain is open to the sense of oh yeah, I'm, I'm back to my natural, my nature, and when I'm in my nature I'm who I was, and the simplicity of that. It's like when you're teaching.
Speaker 2:You know, as Brian, brian is someone who is experienced, happy. But the difference between Brian and someone else is that, you know, initially you brought up a really I'll go linear with it. You brought up a really awesome little segment of your life which is, you know, the real estate part of it. And if you look at your life on a linear perspective, it's almost like the real estate was the initial initiation into saying, you know, fuck it, I'm going to be happy and we can edit as we, but at the same time, this, the, the strength of, of the, the draw per se towards I'm going to be happy, and happiness is we call winning. We can put the two in in the same terminology, because when you're in that state of winning, it is happy, you are happy. There's the truth. I mean the human truth is. I mean you look at individuals who have whether it be drug addiction, gambling, this, that or whatever it may be that individual is in a state of where they're seeking a win in a no matter what way state of where they're seeking a win in a no matter what way. Whether the drug helps induce the feeling of the win and they're just winning because they're alive, which is ideal, or whether they're gambling and they actually win, you know they get a win, you know the finance win. Or you look at it in the context of real estate. You know, you look at it in the context of real estate, you get the sale and when you get the sale, you get that immediate sense of the win, that achievement.
Speaker 2:Now, the win itself is actually just a memory. It's a memory of how things used to be, of the inert self that we are. So that's the innate sense of memory we can say that's inbuilt within us, and it's a memory that's deeper than what we call the mind's sense of memory. The mind's sense of memory is a compilation of the story of our life and that changes in every moment. And we know that because we know how memory functions. The linearity of the story of our life is safe, but the context of it is is that when we're happy, when we get that to the happy, we're present. We're actually living in our memory.
Speaker 2:So what it is is that we go through a natural almost upside down, sideways, especially in our modern society. This is very particular to our modern society. We go through a sideways, upside down mechanism of evolution because we actually experience the happy, you know, right away, and then we have an integration within it, and that integration that we have within it is the fact that we've experienced it now, how long we experience it. For you, x, y and z, you know those are all different factors. We can talk about different. It is different for each individual.
Speaker 2:You know we are who we were is a big statement to make, in a sense that, um, you know, we all have different personalities of expression. We could say, or ways of being is another way to put it, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's not like when everybody reaches happiness per se or finds that sense of happiness, we all start acting the same. That's not true at all. Everyone acts differently, everyone will behave differently, everyone will embody themselves differently in that state of maintaining the happy. However, the initial state is that we've experienced it. Once we've experienced it, that anything that has jumped or stepped in our way which modern day, you know, healing processes, um, or I smile at that because you know, um, the seeker is kind of in everyone nowadays, which is kind of cool. That's why I shy away from using a lot of these words like the seeker, even the word spiritual, you know, things like that. It's just simply because everyone's looking.
Speaker 2:I mean we're around the scientists in the way of observation nowadays, because we're all observing how we feel, you know. I mean mean we may not all talk about it, we don't see need to all talk about it, but at the same time it's like we're all, as human beings, collectively, at this point in human evolution, aware of how we feel, aware of the fact that there's a mind that's present and that mind is observationally aware of a body and that mind per se, being observationally aware of the body, is aware of the sensation that moves through the body, that we're in and we're aware of discomfort. We're aware of the, what we call the emotions that we feel we're. We may not, depending on individual. We may have names for them, we may not have names for them. We may call it a buzzing sensation, we may not. We may not even be aware of the fact that the buzzing sensation is present, but we're reacting to it because there is part of us that is aware of it and then there's a part of us that is immersed in happy, saying I still have this, you know, major memory from birth or whatever, when I remember happy. And then, depending on the individual, depending on their path of life, how many times and how deeply they've been immersed in that will judge the level of discomfort, suffering and struggle in their life when they resist what we could call the microevolutionary changes that occur when one moves toward or back to the state of happy.
Speaker 2:Now, the complexity here is that the nature of the being when you're aware, you can move at an exponential rate. The more aware one is, the quicker per se someone can embody and maintain that state of happy. The less aware someone is, they'll do what we call more subconscious is they'll do it. What we call more subconsciously, they'll still do it, but they'll work the job for 10 to 15 years, even though their evolutionary clock tapped them out. One year in, you know, one year in, there was a hit that he got in a sense of like the real estate's a great example Sold the house, house. You know, whatever it may be, you get the hit and then, depending on the individual, how quickly they integrate the hit, they'll integrate it and then they're actually done with experience. We're ready to move to a new experience of life, because life is transient and experiential. So they're ready for the new experience.
Speaker 2:However, what stands in their way per se is what some will term as trauma, or some will turn term, as you know, roadblock or you know whatever you want to call it, but it's whatever it was in the mental state that began. The consciously aware is ideal, but the, the, the, the mental programming of the. I would call it the imaginative mind, where I'll use a more modern psychological terminology with it from psychosynthesis. But the whole context is people call it, call it trauma. They'll say I have to work through my trauma, to work through my blog, to work through my whatever it is, which isn't necessarily untrue, but it's not really working through them. It's actually being aware of the fact that your system is just simply trying to become who you were. It's trying to evolve. I mean, it's a funny way of putting it, but it's trying to evolve back into who you were.
Speaker 2:Not that you can de-evolve, it's just kind of the nature of life, which is a really uh, um, it's an exciting one and it's a big one to talk about we can talk about that maybe in another podcast just the nature of life itself and how interesting it is that we are, you know, have an inevitability of evolution through life and in life. Yet, at the same moment, that inevitability of evolution that's present, that means we can't go back, in a sense, in a good way. We don't. We won't go back in a sense, in a good way, we won't turn back into who we were in the way that we dislike it. However, our nature of evolution does have an evolutionary context of a circle where what we're actually, what our goal in life is and this is for every human and some will get a little perturbed by it, so I'll be very gentle with how I say it is getting back, that state of happiness, because we have a memory of it, we've been exposed to it.
Speaker 2:So it's like, on your end, the real estate, you know, starting there, it's like the real estate was initially the sense of conquest and a sense of conquest and a sense of conquest coming to, you know, to prove myself, to make money, to be successful. And I know that, you know, based on some of your stories, I know that you're quite successful, you're quite good at what you do, you know people like you, you know you are charismatic, but you're charismatic. You had kind of all the ducks in a row to be a great real estate agent in a sense and you did it. But you did it to the point that I know in prior stories that you've told, you've talked about how you even made the realization when you're driving your new car and it got the little Hit by a rock, hit by a rock, hit by the truck in front of it. So remember the whole story.
Speaker 2:I don't want to put it out there for you, but when that happened to you, in a sense that was your shakeup of. In a way it was your shake up of like I'm not happy, like I've won in a certain way, but I'm like looking at my life, like I mean, you know dad would be proud of me because I got, you know, the money sheet here. I've got, you know, the house is selling, sold and got my own stuff going. I've got the car, you know, I've got the whole shebang in a way, but at the same time, like you said at the initial part of the conversation, I'm not in that state I'm not in, the happy and the realization that you had, luckily being aware of the point that you are, at some point later in your life, when you look back you realize that their real estate game ended well before the car, because your system and this brings us back to a little more of the linear discussion we were talking about but your system getting back to happy, being an evolutionary process process had already taken the step and integrated the experience.
Speaker 2:So once it had taken a step and integrated the experience, it was ready for the next experience.
Speaker 2:It's ready for saying, okay, give me the next experience of life to keep me in per se, that symbiosis, to keep me in that flow. So, so I can self-regulate, and I can regulate is actually the way to put it myself in the state of happy that I know so well is within me. And for you it's a little bit different because you're you became conscious of it later where some don't, you know they'll live their whole life and they'll wait until the, the, the 13th birthday of the career or whatever it may be, and then they have the explosion, you know the, the stress becomes too much, the frustration is too intense and they're like you know what I'm done. I gotta make a change. I have to. I have to change.
Speaker 2:I think you've used this quote from um, whether's from Buddhism or whether it's just in general, you've used the quote, but I know you've used the quote that change begins to occur when we notice suffering. Now, the key is that we're always suffering in a way until we're aware of our happiness. We are in our happiness until we're aware of our happiness.
Speaker 2:So we are in our happiness, Not even necessarily aware of our happiness. It's actually, you know, we are actually immersed within that state you could call it, and when we're immersed within that state, we just we live that way. However, since we've all tasted it, we're all inevitably going in. It's just how quickly can we get there? Because life is so beautiful and so fun, but it's only so beautiful and so fun when we're there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in that moment of flow, in that flow state, and nothing else exists. It's beautiful and, in reality, like when you know from 30,000 feet when you step back or step above. Every challenge I've ever had is was perfectly designed to get me to the next step. Every up, every down, every, every neutral was perfectly designed. But when you commit to a point, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but when you're in it it doesn't feel like that and it's hard to sort of maintain that. And so I feel like we live in a society that pushes just buy more stuff and you'll be happier, just acquire more, do more, you'll be happier, and that's all. None of that works, I mean, and ultimately people figure that out it know it doesn't matter if you oh, I got my brand new car, then you want another one, you got the hit right. When you get the brand new car, sure, even the shopping for the brand new car, you get a hit.
Speaker 1:Oh, definitely the acquisition is always a letdown because it's never quite the way, absolutely. You drive it and then you're like well, I guess I'd change this you drive it and then you're like well, I guess I'd change this.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's because it's not even I guess I'd change this. But the reason that the mind goes there is simply because the hope is misplaced.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go ahead, but none of it delivers. And how do you get back? It feels like once you've had that initial experience and it's sort of hardwired into your brain, somewhere in your amygdala or wherever it is, and you understand what that happiness is, you know. The minute you start crying you're saying, hey, I'm unhappy.
Speaker 2:Somebody fix it. You know what and that's a great point to make is that we all know what happiness is Right. We all know what happens and that's a great point to make is that we all know what happiness is.
Speaker 1:Right, you know how we. We all know what happiness isn't, but we spend more of our time in the, isn't?
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, beautiful way of describing it it's. The simplicity of it is actually kind of just like you said, we all know what happiness is because we've had that initial experience and, like I love how you put it, it's higher, wider than yes, because that's that integration process that people talk about. We integrate it very quickly that we've had this experience, whether it could be at birth or whether someone had it occur, you know, through whatever mechanism of life that they're living, it occurs again where they reach that state per se. However, when we are anywhere else besides that state, we're aware of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we know what yeah, there's this favorite phrase of mine. This guy goes to a guru and he says I'm unhappy, what do I do? I've got this, I've got this, I've got this, but I don't know who I am. And the guru sits back and says then stop being who you're not. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I forgot that stop being who you're not.
Speaker 2:There's such a big set, because that's that is. You know that terminology is we are who we were, which is kind of my motto. Right, we are who you were in in a in a big way, in a very grand scheme of things, you know, it's much bigger because when we reach that state of happiness, it integrates with people in modern day called the ego. There's such beauty in the expression of our personality. We all look and act and behave so differently as humans, yet so coherently, that there's so much beauty to it. There's so much love in our life per se that it's just embodied within us.
Speaker 1:But we don't see it day to day.
Speaker 2:We don't see it day to day. And when we don't see it day to day, that's the trap. It's there, but we don't see it because of the fact that we're looking for it. No-transcript. It's within all of us and some give up very quickly. They give up there, we could say, and those are the individuals that will work the job for 30 years and have the midlife crisis and be like holy shoot, I've worked 30 years at a job that I just realized that I don't like. It took me 30 years to realize it because they initially were seeking and as a seeker, they hit a point where they experienced some sense of happy and they stopped.
Speaker 1:Or happy enough anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean yeah, and the thing is is that they, when they hit it, they hit happy because they wouldn't stop if they didn't hit happy. But they hit happy. It might have just been for a moment when they got hired, it may have been for the first paycheck they got, first time they went home. Whatever it was, there's some sort of connection that occurred when, then, then, at that moment, and they got that, that, that achievement.
Speaker 2:We could say now how long it takes that individual to integrate it and how conscious they are during that state of integration is the key to maintaining that state of happy. And for a lot of individuals, they're not conscious of it. So what ends up happening is they go through what we call suffering because they are so dissatisfied and they're aware of the dissatisfaction, because they're aware of the dichotomy of being happy and being fully immersed within it, and then also hearing a lie, we could say, which is the imaginatory mind, but that's what people call, you know, transcendence of the ego, or growth, or something trauma trauma in that sense, or however you want to look at it, but it is in the transcendence, or the shift of the mind holding on to the past in some sort of way that's a disalignance to embody yourself fully within the present moment, in the present that takes us to the place of what someone would call unhappy or dissatisfied.
Speaker 2:The nature of the being is that, we'd say, happy.
Speaker 1:Got it. So we're born with happy, we are born with that state of bliss, we understand it fully. And then society says well, this is how you get happier, because we get further and further as life goes on, the roles we play, things we learn. But our world says this is how you get happier, this is how you go back to it. And we're in a state right now where there's more people on antidepressants. Now that marijuana is legal in most of the United States, there's a lot of people self-medicating because they know that they're far from it.
Speaker 1:They wouldn't have to self-medicate if they were happy great word self-medicating yeah, and we self-medicate with our phones, with our computers, with movies, with porn, with sex, with drugs, with tiktok and youtube and all these other things. It's all self-medicating, it's numbing out. How do you get there then? How do you get there then? How do you get back? How do I find my way back to that? What's like? What steps do you?
Speaker 2:take. So I love it. So we'll use your life as an example Clayford Sure. We will say you know, as a real estate agent, what happened is is that, well, I'll give you this, I'll give you the direct answer, and then we'll reapply it. And we reapply it. We can kind of see it kind of break down and what this would be is living within evolution, compared to resisting evolution.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Now I'm using the word evolution because evolution is occurring in a sense of change or growth within us in all ways, at all times, for all individuals. It's an inclusive term, um, in comparison to a lot of terms being used, but people could also call it flow, or they could call it all these other things. But we also deem flow, you know, dependent on the individual. We deem flow something else a lot of times, because flow can be, unsacred when flow is interlinked with the moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the consciousness of it is for brian grenadier. He was, you know, seeking happiness, unconsciously and initially, and the initial unconscious seeking happiness was through the, through real real estate, real Now, having the accomplishments and having the boxes in a way checked. In a sense we could say one to two years in a real estate we'll say, brian, again, you had to go through the path, but we'll say one to two years in a real estate, brian realized very quickly at an integritous level, maybe not through the mind, maybe not through awareness, but at a deeper level, we can even say throughative level, maybe not through the mind, maybe not through awareness, but at a deeper level we can even say through that level that we call integrates the happiness. Or we can even say through your nervous system, or hardwiring is the word they use, which is a great word. Through your hardwiring you say you integrate, that I've had this experience of real estate. That experience of real estate is symbolic of so many different things. We don't have to get into that. That's more of a deep dive into that philosophy.
Speaker 2:But the context of it is that one to two years in, brian hit a certain point where his experience of real estate was done in the context of its relationship to his microevolution, back to happy. However, due to fears of the misguided ego, we can say which is really the mind? It's not really. You know ego itself, know ego. Ego is actually very safe in the state of happy, because that's what gives us our personality and our grounding and our whole sense of identification per se as an embodied being is, you know, having an ego, but it's having the aware, like a fully pervasive awareness within the ego. That is the dot within the triangle we could say.
Speaker 2:Now, the context of it for Brian is that, for Brian, he hit a certain point two years in, let's say one year in, say, real estate where he integrated that this is the gift of this achievement and of winning and of conquering and of all this. This is not integrated in me and I'm ready to take. It's like standing on, it's like, um, it's like crossing the river, and when you're crossing river, there's stones in the river and you're stepping on stone after stone as you cross the river and what happens is is that you know you step on a stone until you have the something to take another step to the next stone, and by the something it means. In ideal, you have the happiness that you know. Hopscotch your way down, hopscotch your way through this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm chasing something right, yeah, you're hopscotching way, and that's living in flow, living in symbiosis, because you're happy and you're hopscotching. Yes, you are going to reach other side and there is something on the other side, you know, and that's a reality, a dissimilar reality in a way, that is a little more real and we can talk about that. It's a sense of presence or, um, that's a little bit that has more depth to it. However, the context is, while you're hopscotch in your way, when you pause on a stone, it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just that, let's say, inside your intuition, your instincts, your heart, your, your, whatever you know, you want to look at it as part of your being is saying take the next step. I mean, you're halfway through this dream, or you know, quarter way through this dream, take the next step on a stone, but then you hold yourself back, you don't take it, and when you don't take it, you stand there and you wait until and that until can be any type of sensation that arises. For some it might be frustration, anger, angst, fear, dependent on what, how, whatever it is and how long they're waiting on that stone, but basically they'll fontans of do what would be called suffering to put themselves in enough of a hell that they have to take the next step per se rather than just having taken it.
Speaker 2:So we could just look at it again from the context of the real estate. It's almost like two years in. You hit a point where you have now integrated the wind and your system tells you all right, next stone. Because next stone is getting closer to the everlasting happy, which is the full state of embodied evolution. We could say so. When you hear next stone and then you don't take the step to next stone, what ends up happening? Basically, when I'll simplify it even your leg will automatically move to take the step to next stone. When you resist that natural movement because that's the natural evolution of happy it's just you're about to jump to next stone, you're about to jump the next stone.
Speaker 2:And when you resist that per se, that's the implementation of what we call the ego or the attachment, or you know what a lot of trauma. You know, those are some of the words that will be used where the mind latches on to something that's not necessarily real. So we don't actually take that next step right away. So what happens is we stand on the stone and we get wrapped up in this, you know, mental perturbation that leads to a sense of we could say, paranoia, and that paranoia can exist in the sense of frustration, worry, concern, anxiety, you know, whatever. Whatever it is, but however it exerts itself, it gives some inertia, and that inertia is just take the next step, which might be seven more years, or, for some people, 30 more years of working as a real estate agent, before there's enough inertia, built up from the amount of agony and suffering, for someone to say all right, I'll take the next step and I'm ready to do it, rather than the individual just skipping and taking the step right away. Quote, unquote and go Right, so go ahead.
Speaker 1:So I was going to say when I was the first five years for me in real estate, it was all about banging on doors and cold calling and who's my next paycheck and how can I get more deals done. I got very dissatisfied with that, but I still liked the vehicle. So I gave it a paint job and I said, hey, I'm going to see how many people I can help, not how many paychecks can I get, and I doubled my sales and made more money. But because my attitude was different, my intention was different, my goal set of goals was different.
Speaker 1:It was it was very pleasing but then after, but then yeah, and then after that five years it got hard again and I realized I couldn't do it anymore.
Speaker 2:And so, by hard, what you're, what you're describing hard, it's like the emotional baggage, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. My heart wasn't in it and I just didn't want to do it. You went smiling every day to get that, to do it, no, and I was struggling with the stress, the pressure of it and I wore out. So I made the transition yoga teacher, then, a couple years later, yoga studio owner.
Speaker 2:Next stone, next stone, next stone. Yeah, you got it.
Speaker 1:So I've been doing this now for 21,. Teaching for 23 years, yeah, and when I think about what's the next stone, is it to do something outside of yoga? Is it something else? I got nothing. I ask, I pray, I think about it, I get crickets. So I'm thinking it's not about jumping to another river, it's like. It's like let's get focused on this river more deeply yeah that's that's the mind.
Speaker 2:That's the mind's mental attachment that we talked about. That's that's what we call. That's what would be called attachment or ego nature stepping in or trauma or a block. You know some people will call it.
Speaker 1:So am I stepping on a stone, or am I stepping on poop, poop, right now, poop right now.
Speaker 2:So we'll put it it's a great. It's a great example, though, because the context of it is is that you spelled it out really clearly and how you, you, you even just in the conversation, noticing how you've been stepping stone to stone. Now, the speed you step is based upon your state of awareness. Your state of allowance is really what it is, because when you really, when you're really aware you are, you are one in symbiosis, you're one in the synchronicity of life. So, naturally, when your leg raises to stop, there's no perturbation or no type of contraction to the mind, we could say of that next step. And when there's no perturbation or no contraction to the mind and up the next step, we just take it at the moment that it's right attraction to the mind and up the next step, we just take it at the moment that it's right.
Speaker 1:However, when the mind jumps in.
Speaker 2:We can say that's the level of freedom we're granted as human beings, is that we have the ability to mentally kind of misgrant ourselves a little bit and allow ourselves to play with the imaginative process of what do you think, rather than just taking the next step.
Speaker 2:So it's almost like, you know, with the real estate you had the, let's say, the real estate was three stones that you were walking and like the first achievement, the first sale you you get, you know, you integrate that after a year or two in the real estate, and that that's your first step you've taken is first done, and now your leg is automatically, you know, going to the second one. And as it goes to the second one, it's like I can say, expansion of your, um, your clientele, expansion of your business, in a way, and you take that next step. You take it almost fully naturally and you're like all right things are working out. And that's when people typically your average individual is, you know, that's when work's going well or life's kind of hitting, hitting, hitting it in a way, and you start getting into it a little bit more.
Speaker 1:So, getting into life, you know it becomes your identity too at some point, like this is who I am. Because it's working.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right, that's. The catch Is that when we start holding on to identification of this is who I am and we identify with the mania and paranoia that are present to say take the next step, and there's still some sense of resistance to the mind per se, we have an identification that's dissimilar from who we were, which is that pure sense of God happy. So from that context of it, the reality being that that next step is a I'm not saying it's an easy one, I'm saying in flow, you just keep, you're playing hopscotch. However, when the trepidation comes in, or when something of that paranoid nature comes, in of the opposition, a sense comes in.
Speaker 2:We hear how that next step could be. You know X, Y and Z, whatever. Whatever you might scary, could be dangerous, could be whatever it may be. And then we hold back because we feel like, if I take it, something's, something's going to change, something's going to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if I'm not teaching yoga and I don't own Red Lotus Yoga, well then, who am I? I've done this for so long. I lose my identity. I lose my sense of who I think I am. If I didn't have that identity, making a change would be easy, probably, but I have that identity and I love that. Be easy, probably, but I have that identity and I love that identity. I do love what I do. I love my students, I love my business and it's not.
Speaker 2:And it's not a bad identification, because it's not purely an ego that's reattached yeah, it's basically like you love the identity only because you can only love the identity when you truly sense a sense of happy from it. The reality is we can only identify, and this is where you know it's really fun with psychology, because you know when you play with psychology it's like a synthesis, and all of you know you read all this um research that people have done on this mechanism of life per se, when people have been researching life since the beginning is what we do. We study their lives, but those who wrote about it and those who studied it formally in the modern context, the reality is that it's completely about being present and taking that next step. And then what holds us back is what we call the ego, and that's what the term like if you actually get the proper term of it that I mean it's really the mind, the individual's mind, that's holding them back. It's their reattachment to a certain thought. We could break that down and say the reattachment to that certain thought has a conceptual component around it. That circle of conception around the thought is what your mind calls an ego. Please broke down the ego. But that's that's the concept of you know what an ego is and the transcendence of it is being able to let that thought be.
Speaker 2:Now. Identification can actually be the actual, real identification, not just hi, my name is Brian, I have an ego because I said my name is brian. That's not necessarily true. And ego is a sense of a true ego. A free ego per se is a sense of fully reattached. I'm fully reattached and I can explain that a little bit more. But the context of it is is that when, when brian is, you know, taking step by step and going forward per se, what's happening is he's not necessarily dissoluting his ego, uncomfortable with whatever the next step may be, while his ego is actually realizing its identification at the same moment. Because that's why you can say I love my identity. Because the only way you could say I love my identity is if the truth of your identification is the fact that you've actually realized happiness at a certain level. Otherwise you couldn't honestly say I love my identity.
Speaker 2:So from that consciousness of it. You obviously have a safe identification, which means that your ego isn't living in an attached state where it's constantly grabbing through an unawareness. It's just sitting a little more still for this step to be taken, but there's something holding it back and that's where the mind is kicking in, in the sense of the moment that the ego meets the imaginative mind of you know what could it be? I don't know if I understand.
Speaker 1:That's fear.
Speaker 2:That's fear.
Speaker 1:You know, if I stay doing what I'm doing, what if I fail? If I leave? What if I fail? What will happen to my family? What will happen to my identity? More of an ego base? What will I mean? All that, like you know. It's why people stay in horrible relationships and they stay in abusive situations.
Speaker 2:You know, I get it Exactly, exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:So then the bigger question for me would be I know that my ego is going to take me for a ride whenever there's a big decision to be made about identity and self-worth and value and things like that.
Speaker 1:Yet I also know there's a part of me that understands flow state and can get into it easily yeah yeah, um, how do I remind myself on a daily basis that it's, I'm already in flow, I'm just not seeing it. Yeah, how do you, how do you, how do you, how do you remind yourself of that all the time? Or be in that where?
Speaker 2:it's so easy to go off to you know the what ifs, because that's living in happiness, that's living in happiness embodied. And the thing is is that you're so correct, and I'll put it this way For you, your suffering is much greater than we could say, the conscious individual, or even the everyday individual per se, even the ignorant individual. And the reason it is is because of your exposure to happiness, because, again, it's a drug right, so you've been exposed to it so many times, and every time you teach you taste it.
Speaker 1:I do, that's what you do.
Speaker 2:You taste it per se.
Speaker 2:The innate sense of yourself says, hey, I'm here. And the second you get that innate sense of yourself saying, hey, I'm here, there's the party that says, okay, this is nasty, the goal. But in a way, yeah, this is the goal. Yeah, moment that life changes, whether externally, internally or whatever it is, and those thoughts kick in that you mentioned, because you mentioned, um, a couple thought patterns that were really great.
Speaker 2:That's the reattachment, that's what. That's, where you're taken out of the flow is the second that you reattach. Those thoughts appear and then what happens is your leg doesn't move right and the nature is, it's almost like the life within you and your awareness of happy is naturally picking your leg up and it's it's, it's naturally taking your leg and moving it to the next stone. However, when the mind hears the fear and we look at it and we reattach with it, we say that's the level of freedom we have in beings, is that's when our leg gets artificially stuck, because we're in a delusion, in a way yeah and the moment we hit that our leg, even though it's naturally taking a step, we almost we self-freeze it.
Speaker 2:It's almost like we use a conscious pull um in a way that says stay still lag. I don't know if it's safe to move forward, but lag is saying we. What do you mean? Like, who is who? Who's who's talking? Who's talking to me right now?
Speaker 2:I'm you like, leg is leg is too. Who's talking to me right now saying stay still, I agree not to move when leg is already taking the step, but when it's hearing that fear, um, in the sense of the mind, reattaches and grabs it, that's you basically yelling at leg not to move. And when you're yelling at leg not to move, that's you holding that excruciating pose in yoga in a way. Um, just to conceptually um tie it in a little bit, but I mean, that is that is part of yoga in a way, is being able to say, okay, I'm aware of the excruciating pain that I'm in. Or, you know, in the context of yoga it's not, you know, we don't look at his pain, but the excruciating sensation I'm feeling sensation feeling challenged.
Speaker 2:And at the same time, I've been aware of it, I accept it and I'm going to allow it, allow it to be, and that's the first step to just accepting the fact that, yeah, it might be stuck in a little bit of we could say pride, and the pride is the false sense of attachment to the sense of yourself that is not fully identifying with being happy. It's like three-fourths of brian is living in in the enlightened state of happy and one-fourth of brian retouches to the fear, and it's that one-fourth of brian retouches here that prevents the leg from automation, from being just natural and just playing hopscotch and skipping to the next step, and it's holding, holding now.
Speaker 1:So how does one manage that? Because I imagine everybody has somewhere on that same scale, everybody.
Speaker 2:You got it. I mean, that's the thing. Everybody has what they call the stick point. We're using you as an example, but it's everybody. Everybody has a stick. We hear it in all of these different regards, but every, every career path, every you know basis of whatever, every endeavor that anybody takes, like even just you know someone saying I'm a mother, I say they have a stick point.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they'll notice, they know where their stick point like my job or my kids are overwhelming me, or this or that or whatever it may be. Whatever it may be Everybody they have some sense of awareness of the stick point. It's just the fact that when you actually look at it as being a stick point and you give it that attention now, the mind is completely looking at it. The mind is now consumed through its imaginative, conscious awareness, which is what we call delusion, because now it's imagining things that aren't necessarily real.
Speaker 1:Right, because that stick point is imaginary and it's a moving thing and it's temporary.
Speaker 2:The nature of the being is moving your leg forward, whereas what we call the ego, which is the stick point in the mind, is actually holding your leg back. Your leg is naturally moving forward while you're holding it back.
Speaker 1:So is there steps to take, or is it simply become aware that this is temporary and watch it move, like to step back and go oh, let's just watch the movie instead of being in the movie? Is there like a technique, a tool, a process? Well, these are Nick's five guidelines for happiness, you know or is it just yeah?
Speaker 2:so how do we get ourselves to live in the state of we call it microevolution until we get there? So it's basically the consciousness is like I'll put it in a little more simple sentence how can I live in flow until I achieve? Yeah, so the the awareness simply is is that, yeah, part of it is being aware of it, it's being aware of the stick point. So it's kind of like you said. You know, I'm aware of the fact, the feeling of being unhappy in these degrees and instead of stepping back, actually stepping back is usually what we do as a human being to look at it. But when we do that, we actually separate our mind and our body.
Speaker 2:And that's where people start going into the imaginative state a little bit more and to the delusive state a little bit more, because now they're separating their real per se from the unreal, which is what they think might or the what if.
Speaker 2:You can use what they think might might be a better word to use in the moment. But what they think might is the ego and the what if is the ego compared to the natural step forward is the natural inclination and the fight between the two, as long as you're aware of it per se, observationally, will give some comfort, but there's also got to be engagement with them, because the only way if you think about when you're teaching the sense of flow that you get is because there's an immersion. You're aware, but you're also immersed. You're not just sitting there and what people call you know they don't necessarily call this, because it's an understood term detachment You're not detached, it's actually, you're immersed. Detachment you're not detached, it's actually you're immersed. You're so immersed through your awareness that you're happy, and that's how we can actually define happiness is the full immersion of your awareness into what you, what you're doing, in a sense yeah, there's times where I'll teach a great class and people leave and there's just like they were moved.
Speaker 1:It was physical, it was emotional, spiritual, transformative for sure. And I'll sit to my theater myself and say all right, I wish I could capture this feeling and spray it on myself every morning to to take it with me, because it was so powerful. You know, how do I? How do I stay there? Because then there's a drive home and then there's a problem at home, there's a problem in business. Life just happens, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, it's like it's again. You've tasted ambrosia, yeah Right. So once you've tasted ambrosia, can you drink anything else?
Speaker 1:No, I don't want anything else, I just want to go back to that.
Speaker 2:Nothing is good enough.
Speaker 1:It's like your first high, or your first kiss, or your first anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's nothing. Again, it's that consciousness that, once you've tasted the ambrosia, nothing is good enough and gone Right and nothing will be Right enough.
Speaker 2:And gone right and nothing will be right.
Speaker 2:And that's actually why, again, going back to some of the fathers of psychosynthesis and psychoanalytics and all they talk about how the individual who's tasted more and more ends up actually in more and more suffering, because they naturally go through that microcosm of evolution from every taste they get, and the more they've tasted it, the more they can't live without.
Speaker 2:So you could call it her, you know, look at it as like, uh, as like your wife, you know, in a sense. So it's almost like saying like you can't necessarily live without her once you've been exposed to her, because now, and the more exposed you get, it's, you know, from you flirting, it's turned into a crush, to a full-blown romance in a sense, and in that romance you can't step away because don't want to. Yeah, yeah, there's no, there's no part of you that that will even have the capacity to, because the fact is that you've tasted again. You've tasted happiness so fully that you actually have the awareness of its existence so clearly, because of the amount of times you've tasted it, that the relativity of it is that you're gonna anything that isn't like, anything that isn't pure happiness is going to be a sense of suffering and it intensifies because then again you taste it again, you taste more, you taste more.
Speaker 1:So I've been drinking a lot of Ambrosia for the last 23 years. Yeah, and that's exactly it, and because of that, anything less than that just doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, you're not willing to settle any longer so then, what do I do? So that's the key. So the first one is kind of like what we talked about, what you hit today is, you know, and again we're using you as the most.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just using me as an example and being honest about my emotions the reality of it is.
Speaker 2:You know, anybody who is, everybody, has, you know, a stuck point. Yeah, and their stuck point is, you know where, a point in their life where their go button is being hit and they're not going because of some, something that's holding, and the more, like we said, someone has tasted or drank that ambrosia. You're not going to settle for anything less than ambrosia. I might only drink ambrosia I've, you know I'm I've, you know I've tasted. The taste of everything else is it's great, but ambrosia, yeah, like you, you kind of have to have the ambrosia to even enjoy anything else.
Speaker 2:So the consciousness of it is that, yeah, the first step is it's not detaching from it, it's being aware of it. So you kind of hit it and you said, like, do you observe it? And just say, hey, okay, I can see that I'm here and it's. And, yeah, the first step is observing yourself on the rock standing there with your leg naturally twitching to move forward, and then something within your mind saying, yeah, and that's what you go, so that you, your mind, pulling it and pulling your leg back, even though your leg naturally is filling with happiness and, you know, ready to jump forward. So having that awareness is the first step, because then we can settle down a little bit to say, okay, I'm just kind of, you know, I mean you leave it as a you know, because it's like a little bit of annoyance and frustration with it, because it's a sense of like, all right, so that's great, now I'm I aware of it.
Speaker 2:But then from that space, if you sit there and you stay in a sense of detachment, you say I'll just observe it, I'm just going to observe it. Nothing ends up happening. You end up moving, because as much as life moves us and life will end up moving, you being consciously aware means I'm fully engaged in life, not that I'm detached from life. So when we have this awareness, we realize that just observing and waiting is great. But the immersion into the observing and waiting is a tough concept. I can break it down a little bit more. But the immersion into the waiting per se is actually what will speed up the process and allow someone to take that next step, in a way.
Speaker 1:So for me it's fully immersing myself, even more, maybe, in the needs of others, being of service, being the best version of brian, I can be and just staying where I am on that rock for a little while and then magically that rock's going to shift forward all by itself. The river's going to push it, or it's going to push me off of it, or something yeah, yeah, okay, you got it.
Speaker 2:You got it and you know. As much as it kind of sucks to hear, it's almost like, yeah, embracing it so fully that you're ready for yourself to be even knocked off the rock onto the next breath got it because you're so immersed in it.
Speaker 2:In whatever ways you immerse yourself in it, the wave will hit you at a certain point and it'll force you to the next rock, but the only way for there to be any movement is actually the immersion got it you have to immerse, because when we observe and we say, okay, I'll just wait for it to kind of shift and flow on its own, the truth is that we actually detach from it to the point that we go into a state of ignorance and get lost in the delusion of our mind, and then we actually start chasing something else and we don't even know why.
Speaker 1:So for the person working in a cubicle, you can sit there and hate it the line Right. So with a person working in a cubicle, you can sit there and hate it, or you can say I'm going to fully immerse myself in what I'm doing and then allow the next thing to come, rather than I'm just stuck here in this box all day long, eight hours a day. Like change the perspective on it. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in many ways it's immersing yourself in what is in the moment. I know that's a little cliche, but the honest truth is a little bit different, because it's a little bit more difficult for most people to well, the idea of mindfulness is like a big thing now, where everyone wants to be mindful.
Speaker 1:I want to aware, I want to see what I want to be aware of what I'm doing, and and and. It's hard to do, but it's the letting go of something that allows you to be present. Essentially, you know paying attention to what you're doing, but we're so distracted we don't do it.
Speaker 2:So not getting so caught up.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, right, it's. It's basically the simplicity is not getting so caught up. Yeah, right, right, it's basically the simplicity is not getting so caught up, because when we're in the moment per se, you can't help but be present and be aware. It's like there's something to our humanity that we have to bow and give credit to, and that's the fact that our humanity's nature is to live from that space. And that's the fact that our humanity's nature is to live from that space. And because its nature is to live from that space, we realize that as long as I stay aligned with my humanity, I will never leave that space. However, every time I disalign from my humanity, I do end up leaving that space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, stop being who you're not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, stop being who you're not. That's exactly it. So how do I do? That is actually again immersing yourself in who you are, which ideally would be immersing yourself in happy in every way possible, the point where you live in as much of happy as possible.
Speaker 1:So whatever is stimulating that state, you do more right more and more, and more and more, until it burns you out in a way to take the next step yeah, and not about manufactured happy like alcohol or drugs or video games or I'm gonna watch so much youtube that you know uh not like.
Speaker 2:Well, it could be to a certain level for a conscious individual like yourself, for example.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It could be saying that I'm going to consciously immerse myself. It is. It is the sense of saying I'm going to be selfish for a little while. I'm going to be so selfish that I'm going to focus on me as myself. I'm going to focus on you know, what I like and what I, you know, would like to do.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You do it because it makes you a sense of aware within the happy, but it's still not going to be enough. And even though you may be a sense of where that's not going to be enough, it's exciting enough for you to do it because that's where you're at. So then you just do it and then when you do it per se, you realize you will burn out of it. It's like how we had the prior talk and I talked about the cigarette smoking and things like that.
Speaker 2:It's like when you do something consciously in that way and you say you know, I'm going to go home and I'm going to let myself just watch movies, because what keeps me in this state of happy is teaching and watching movies and spending some time with you know X, y and Z, you know. So if that's what's making you happy at the moment, it's saying that's what I follow. I follow the happy no matter what.
Speaker 2:Follow the happy and the happy is leading me home, because home is true happy got it so when you follow the happy, all that ends up happening is you observe yourself is not really how I put it but you immerse yourself within it. The point that it it turns into, you naturally will observe yourself, got it. It's the nature of the being so, so it's kind of like if someone was to broaden the question and to bring it back to you at the same time and create the link, um, the whole segment that we're shooting right now. The link is simply the fact that immersing yourself in what makes you even have a sense of perceived happiness will move you towards the next step.
Speaker 1:And even if the job isn't it, maybe there's a thing in your life you can bring in and go. This feels happy, and then you're like okay, I'm going to now add a second thing in and a third thing in until it expands out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you keep falling happy Yep, exactly, no matter what it is, you follow that and that makes you happy. So it's like all right. So working this job for these many hours is what makes me happy. So I'm working these hours. Watching this TV show makes me really happy and I'm going to watch it for six to eight hours a day. I'm going to binge watch it, and what makes me happy is sleeping for four to six hours after that, and then, okay, I'm going to do it. So I mean, I'm using just random examples right now, at the moment, but the consciousness behind it is that when we immerse ourselves in happy, happy will lead you home. Happy is whom we are, so happy will lead you home. So, coming back to the code of stopping, no, you, you're not, it's simply who you are is happy. So anytime you do something that is in any way an antroverse to you being happy, you'll notice you'll lie, like especially the right side of the body, the mouth, the physical side will lie you feel in your heart to me like I'll.
Speaker 1:I'll know when this is sucking my soul, I know when I'm not being who I am. Yeah, yeah, and I notice it, I'm aware of it, but sometimes you have to suck it up and do it, but in general I get it and that's the tough part is that, yeah, so it's being able to balance yourself enough.
Speaker 2:But then also say that you know, if my awareness of what true happiness is is real which it is because I've tasted it then it's worth the immersion per se. Again, it's always an exchange until we get there per se and then it turns into a universal sense. So the exchange is simply realizing that the happiness is worth it. It's worth it because you already know it's worth it because you do anything to get it, because that's the. If you look at the intention behind all of your actions, on any human actions, it's to embody happiness. It's no matter what they're doing, no matter who you are. Your deepest intention with whatever you're doing, is to try. Not even try is is to be happy yeah so that's the deepest intention that you're working with.
Speaker 2:And when you're working with that intention, that intention is setting you, whether you're aware of it or not, that who is aware of it is, you know, one step ahead of the game. Because then they can allow themselves to do something that may seem silly, like watch six to eight hours of youtube a day, and have thoughts that come to them saying you're an idiot, like, you're wasting your life, you could be doing so much more, you could be teaching seven more classes, making so much money. You know all these thoughts that will come up, which are natural in a certain way. It's a line of thoughts that come up and say no, I'm choosing happiness, I'm choosing happy over everything. That means that I'm going to be selfish, and when I'm selfish, selfish means you know, you know the word selfish if you actually break down the definition of the of the word. It means you know I'm gonna be happy is really all I mean. I'm gonna do what makes me happy. I'm not gonna worry about anything besides doing what makes me happy. It's not that bad of a word, you know, and if you look it down in that sense, I'm going to do whatever I enjoy and there's nothing happy because, if we look at it, for most people, giving them the go on, that is actually very safe.
Speaker 2:Yes, there you know different people in different states of awareness or consciousness, and this is a different story. We call mental illness, we can call it all these different names. We're going to call it who you know. A little more coaching, a little more mentorship is a little more necessary and, yep, that's an open prospect for those individuals who are in that space. But otherwise we worship happy and we say how we worship happy is to live in it. That's the greatest way to worship it.
Speaker 2:And when you worship happy, it's initially when we're at a stick point and we're not allowing ourselves to see very clearly the path beyond the stick point.
Speaker 2:When you say I'm going to stick with what makes me even perceive that, even if I'm sitting there watching YouTube and I'm aware, or even if I'm going to the mall, I'm aware that buying the necklace, you're buying the next car or watching YouTube, isn't necessarily going to, isn't, isn't me reaching other side. It still is a perceived sense of happiness and if you're aware of it, it's safe to say I'm just going to engage in this selfishness of doing whatever makes me happy all the time. And when I'm in a perceived state of happiness, you actually notice agitation will start to build, frustration will start to build. You'll start to get upset because it's not real happy. You know what real happy is, but you're still in alignment with happy. So happy says okay, listen, we've got to change and we're going to do this from this sense of happy which is coming back to it, your true nature, your true sense of self got it rather than trying to change in a sense of.
Speaker 2:we never want to go through that word. You know the word trying, because the reality is that that's an opposition to whom we're not, we're made of that. Our nature is that To go through it is to commit suicide to one sense of self. You know that's a whole different talk in its conquest, yeah.
Speaker 1:I get it. I mean, I feel like this is sort of like a good wrap up where, when we were born, we were born with a sense of happy, that sense of purity, oneness. When we were born, we were born with a sense of happy, that sense of purity, oneness, etc. Over the years we've fallen distant from it, but we're always chasing it. But because we always know it and have always known it, to come back to that and know when we're fully, we're sort of when our actions are taking us away from it, and to be aware of that, and if you're like I can't get out of this thing, all right, well then, immerse yourself in it, because you'll pass through you, that's exactly, you got it that's okay, you got it perfect wrap
Speaker 2:no, I just hope I can remember it tomorrow well, the simplicity of it is again, like I said, be self-aware. That's the only memory, that's the only takeaway, that's that has to be. Um, that is necessary in a scenario when someone is stuck per se. And we all know when we're in a stuck point. We all, we all know it. We all know when we're in the repetitious, you know we're in the rat race in a way. So, whenever someone is in a stuck point, it's time to be self got it it's.
Speaker 2:It's sometimes for those of us who, especially having read and enjoyed a lot of the concepts of compassion and you know love in many degrees, you know it's. It's tough to um say I'm gonna have the giant tantrum and just say F it and step away and say, okay, that's how I avoid the suffering. I actually immerse myself into the hatred and the anger that I'm feeling in the moment towards what it is that's holding me back and I let myself lash out on it fully. That's a little bit tougher for most people because the fear of someone won't like me, I'll be perceived as being mean. So it's a little bit easier for someone to say I'm gonna be lovingly selfish and you can even play with the word of saying I'm gonna go and give myself um, a radical sense of compassion in a way of loving myself. And how I love myself is I allow myself to. And this is all a diabolical um way to justify it, but it's the only way to get ourselves to do it sometimes. But the concept is, I'm gonna fully immerse myself is tough until we have a justification, and the justification is simply you know, you can think about it, you know what your happiness, you know, gives the world that it's the next path, it's the right thing to do, and you know, if you trust the person you're talking to, who's telling you to do it, you do it.
Speaker 2:But the reality is that when we realize that, when we're selfish, all we do is what makes us have a sense of happiness, we don't do anything that doesn't make us happy when we're being selfish. And when we're being selfish, we can then allow happiness to guide us, which is our true sense of self, and it can only guide us to good. It can only guide us to good so we don't have to fear it. But for most people, there's that fear that comes up around being selfish, that there's something going to take it the wrong way and say it's all about me. And then, if you treat on my selfishness, I act like this or this. It truly is. You know, if you're truly, a lot of times I'm really happy. You allow that because you notice you're happier if you, um, let yourself express your feelings and you notice, okay, yep, that might mean yelling at you know, blah, blah, blah at times and it's like hey, well, it doesn't sound very nice, it doesn't sound very yogic or very loving whatever.
Speaker 1:But it's kind of like in a relationship sometimes when you need to say the unsayables to your partner or your co-worker or your whatever, because it frees up all that space to come back to happy. Um, it's, it's. It's the hardest thing to do sometimes. You know, if my wife and I are having an argument or I've got this perception about her, and I had, and you know I'm holding it in, I'm holding in, I don't want to hurt her feelings, I feel like I'm being an idiot, and then eventually like I need permission to say the unsayables. You say them, they hear them, they say theirs, they hear yours. And suddenly there's this whole new connection that's formed because stuff out of the way.
Speaker 2:Authenticity.
Speaker 1:You're're, more you're more real and it's not done with hatred, it's just you got to get it out yeah, it's just it's.
Speaker 2:It's just the. The concept is is that? I mean, hatred is basically just a full claim over?
Speaker 1:yeah our, our heart it's like I love you enough to say this to you yeah and I love you enough to hear what you have to say about it. Yeah, we're still going to meet, and this is from you to a person, or you to yourself. You know that's perfect Hard truth.
Speaker 2:It's exactly what it is. It's being selfish enough to love yourself, enough to say I'm going to be fully authentic in no matter what way. Yeah, and sometimes that may be being a little pissy, it may be a little like this and maybe acting a little like this. Right, either way, I'm gonna stay authentic.
Speaker 1:so I am in the moment, no matter what, because I'm gonna keep myself happy, right and you get away from that illusion that happy has to look like all the time, right.
Speaker 2:The thing is it's it's almost like saying that is what happiness looks like. So it's okay if you're pissed off and you don't feel like that, yeah. But when you're pissed off, you don't feel like that, it's okay to immerse yourself in being pissed off about it. Like it's okay to immerse yourself in being pissed off about it, like it's okay to be upset, it's okay to have a tantrum of like, like, what, what, what's going on? I'm so upset, I feel stuck, I feel this, I feel that I feel all these feelings and there's all you know, this going on and that going on, and you know it's okay to have that explosion first, because that is what drives us to being able to take that next gentle step to the next stone, because our nature is gentle, our nature is kind, our nature is, you know fully, but at the same time, at moments, we have the, the, the lash out in a way, and as long as it's a conscious lash out, because it's coming from selfishness, of following happy, it's going to lead you to take that next step rather than lead you to being stuck. Yeah, which I feel like is the biggest thing for most people is they refuse to follow the authenticity of how they feel, because sometimes their feelings feel so intense that they dislike their feelings and they don't express them right, rather than just expressing how frustrated or agitated or whatever it is we are. And when we allow for that expression to come through so openly, what ends up opening from that is you end up getting closer to taking the next step, because that interlinks with the selfishness of being happy, right boy, authentic being myself.
Speaker 2:And the second you make the. You take it, you're being yourself. You'll notice, even just saying I'm being myself and acting or acting like how you feel for a moment, you suddenly notice I'm a little happier, a little, a little bit more. And the more you do, the more you stay authentic to yourself. But authentic yourself means it goes to the degree of saying I wake up in the morning and I'm actually going to cancel my um, blah, blah, blah because I'm watching tv today, because that's what feels good, that's what I'm going to do, just because that's what made me happy, and it's not that I don't care at all. It's I care actually so much. That's why I feel like this, putting yourself in that spot, and if you can handle that, that would be, I'd say, the quickest way for you to get to the spot where you land in happiness, because what you're describing actually is energy. Right, and when I say energy, I'm not talking about the metaphysical context of like. Can we feel each other? We all can feel each other. We're all empaths that's a different conversation that I can rant about on another day. All on paths Like we that's a different conversation that I can rant about on another day.
Speaker 2:Um, this term has driven me a little crazy in the sense of it's a very sacred term, but we as human beings are symbiotic and we do share, but we do share how we feel Everybody, we're all evoked as, as one in a way. And, um, to think of yourself as having your it's, it's a, it's a whole different thing, but we'll talk about that. Probably well, for the other end, and reaching the other end can be looked at as an achievement at this point, because, sure, why not? It's fine if that thought comes in. And when I reach that end, it's just knowing. It's the knowing that keeps us going through the blur here. It's the knowing that when we reach the other end, that it's all. It all falls together because the other end is the embodiment, right, and we have that embodiment up. We can't shift from it because you can't un-evolve or deep again once you, once you're just drinking ambrosia, you can add to the ambrosia, but you're always going to be drinking ambrosia you're never.
Speaker 1:You're never going to want to drink dirty water again yeah, you know you might taste it, just to remind, remind yourself. Oh yeah, I don't like that, yeah you even have a creation gratitude.
Speaker 2:You even enjoy the quote-unquote dirty water. Um, but at the same time, your cup of ambrosia you still won't put down yeah you'll never put it down. And, and that's the cool thing is that, that's the micro evolution, is that, you know, we, we don't put our cup down, but once it starts to get more full per se, we, we do start to get a little bit more restless because we actually realize this cup is supposed to be completely full, right, three-fourths. This is get to the other end and fill my freaking cup.
Speaker 1:You know right like that's.
Speaker 2:That's where we really are, right inside. It's just that we're not allowing ourselves to embody that so that when we get to the other end, you know, we can have our cup with us and allow it to be filled to the point that we live from the space of the filled cup per se rather than from a cup that we are looking to fill. And while we're looking to fill it, it's the surrender to happy. And the surrender to happy comes with the space of, we could say, the exert and the selfishness, which is which is very, very tough for, like I said, a lot of people to swallow, because to be selfish usually feels, even though it'll stimulate happy. It feels through a perceived mind, like we're doing something wrong and that we can play with, you know, in a very, very, um deep way.
Speaker 2:Another segment too it's like how someone feels guilt in their physical body. Another person can feel that as happy, right, because guilt is just actually the attached thoughts to the physical sensation. And then you call that that guilt. But then when it's the sensation itself, the sensation itself is just, it's energy sensation. And when you look at energy as energy, as just like the very basic definition of energy, when somebody is living from happy, they have unlimited energy. They're living from a full sense of. I feel so alive because they're. They're immersed into life in every moment. When you're tired, you're not immersed in life right you sleep, you're not immersed in life.
Speaker 2:When you're groggy, you're not immersed in life. You'll notice at any time that you've ever been immersed in life to say I just lost your.
Speaker 1:I just lost you. I can't, I can't hear you.
Speaker 2:Oh, did it cut out?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 2:I will put it back in, but yeah, so what I was, what I was simply saying, is that once you, once you've been immersed at a certain level, what I was simply saying is that once you, once you've been immersed at a certain level into we could say happy, you're not going to pull back from it.
Speaker 1:Right. People say to me all the time well, you know what? Have you ever tried to do? Real estate again. I'm like couldn't do it. Yeah, can't go back, can't go.
Speaker 2:Cause there is, there is, let's just say there is a next step, but right now the next step is blind. So when you have a blind next step, that just means I'm stuck, I don't have an awareness, I'm unclear.
Speaker 1:Right and then stay where you are.
Speaker 2:Yep, stay where you are and follow the truth. And when the only truth you hear is the truth within you and you follow that truth in the space of authenticity, happy will lead you the next step, no matter what and then your cup fills in your cup calls exactly that's a good place to finish.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, that's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I feel like um, I feel like we hit it. I feel like your rap that you actually made even earlier, when you kind of wrapped up conceptually I think that was dream two, but I feel like the the the biggest thing and the biggest takeaway is simply when you follow happy, happy, we'll always leave you the home.
Speaker 1:I, when you follow happy happy, we'll always lead you to home. I love it, nick. Thank you so so much. I love this. My day is brighter, and I hope other people's is too thank you, brian.
Speaker 2:I'm happy to share, happy to be here and thank you until the next one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, alright, see you, bud, see you.