The Upward Spiral_Downward Spiral

Transcript

 I'm talking about the spirals today, there are two spirals available to you in your life. One goes downward and gets worse and nastier, and more awful, and more painful and destructive, and terrible, and alone. The other becomes more true, more beautiful, more rich, more deep, more magical, more ecstatic, and more awe inspiring.

Sounds pretty obvious which one you wanna choose, so I'm gonna tell you how to choose the right one. I'm gonna make it really simple. If we enter authenticity, we are on the upward spiral. Upward spiral ins implies more peace, more joy, more beauty, more wonder. All good? All good. All good. It is. All good to be on that spiral, but it requires something that is not easy.

It's simply completely worth it, and it is authenticity. I'll come back to that in a minute. On the other hand, the downward spiral is also available to you and you will find yourself on it if you avoid authenticity. Denial. Avoidance and distraction, lead to destruction, denial, avoidance, distraction from yourself, from your true essence will take you on a downward spiral, which will ruin relationships, which will ruin.

Your ability to be really fulfilled in your job, in your life's work, it will take down everything if you continue in denial, avoidance, and destruction. So most people do that. Denial, avoidance, destruction. I mean, distraction. The reason they do it is because of the layers that this world has put on us that show us and tell us that we're supposed to strive to be this and strive to be that and become more cool and become more whatever, and, and that's just simply not true.

So when we put on a face, when we put on a mask, when we go out and try to morph into what people want us to be, that is a low level of denial of ourselves, but that has a momentum to it. If we, if we get caught in these traps, there are so many traps in this world that try to capture us into doing those things.

But if we do it, make no mistake, they'll ruin everything slowly over time. The reason that is, is because we were born with all of the things we needed to be ourselves and to be taken to a life that we're in love with, and that is in our, in intuition. It's in our bodies, it's in, it's in everything that we are.

And so when we tune back into what we really feel, that's our inner guidance system. That was the gift we were given that from divinity when we were born here. That is our essence. That is our truest self. I often use the analogy of Russian nesting dolls, that the tiniest doll in there is us. That's where our inner guidance system speaks to.

That's our true essence is that little tiny doll. But all the layers of the bigger dolls are the layers that the world put on us. It told us how we're supposed to, you know, behave this way. We're supposed to be selfless and we're supposed to be all these things, and then we try to be all those things, and then they don't really work because they're not authentic to us.

So life takes us on a journey where eventually, if we're paying attention, it sheds those layers. When we start listening to our inner guidance system, we start being truer to ourselves. Those layers remove and we become more true to our natural essence. The more we do that, the better our life becomes because we were already equipped with our essence.

It's our guidance system. It tells us what we are here for it. Lights us up when something's true for us, meaningful for us, rich for us, and then we follow that. It also lights us up in a different way. It, it repels us from things we are not supposed to be. And when we pay attention to that and we don't choose those things because those do not feel right to us, we upward spiral again towards what's true for us, what's right for us.

This becomes a beautiful. Upward spiral of life becoming more and more beautiful, not constantly. We have to go through ups and downs and difficulties and challenges, but it's ultimately taking us to life, becoming more and more beautiful, more and more aligned, and more and more in flow when we are more in touch with our true selves.

When we face ourselves now, it's easy to face the wonderful things about us. Right. We can easily love the wonderful things. That part's not hard, but that one doesn't even need talking about really. What about the hard part? That's where you need guidance. 'cause that's where it's difficult. Accepting and allowing our fears, our doubts, our judgments, our insecurities, all of that when we allow them to be and don't avoid them.

That keeps us on the upward spiral. Anytime we face any kind of fear and we allow the fear to be there, and instead of running away from it and avoiding it, we go right into it. We admit it, that we're terrified that we can't stand it, that it hurts, and we do that. That's a tunnel we go through. That purifies us.

Any kind of fear that we feel and allow to move through us changes us, and it purifies us by coming, by, becoming clean, by removing itself. So authenticity and admission and ownership of whatever you feel and allowing what you feel takes you on an upward spiral. Most of us cannot do that alone. We need either.

A very safe person in our life that we can share our deepest vulnerabilities to and or a therapist to help us with it because it's super scary to face them and we just need to hold somebody's hand. Somebody who knows that this is good, a good thing to do. Sometimes our closest people, our family and spouses and friends can't really do that for us 'cause they may not be able to do it themselves.

But a good therapist knows that this is a good thing to do. They can be there to hold your hand through it. They can be there to usher you into the safety that's on the other side of it. And when you do that, you are purifying your, your whole being and remembering returning to your natural. Perfect essence that you came in, came into the world with.

You're removing the layers of conditioning that were never true. And the more you align to your truth, the more your world reflects it back to you. Your work becomes more meaningful, your relationships become deeper. You are able to speak your truth more. And then people who really understand you stick around and those who can't handle truth go away, but you, that's okay, because you don't wanna live in, in non-truth anymore.

Your whole world reflects it beautifully. Back to you. Now, the other spiral, denial, avoidance, and distraction. It will get worse because life loves you. Life is ushering you towards yourself, and if you say no, it tries to wake you up and it's gonna hurt more. It's going to take you to deceit. It's going to take you, for example, how does that happen?

How does someone become deceitful? Because it feels so bad and it's so hard to keep pretending and upholding the impressions that they want people to think that it, it's just so much work to even be alive that it gets exhausting. So then what if something comes along that's just shiny and wonderful, like someone hitting on you?

Well. Life's that exhausting because you're trying to uphold these images and then something that's just freeing and just takes you away into ecstasy, you're not gonna be able to deny it 'cause you're not feeling any of that in your life. So now suddenly you're having an affair. We're all susceptible to that.

We're all capable of that. If we go into denial, avoidance and distraction, and pretending we're all capable of having an affair. Let's just admit it because if none, if we get to the point because of denial, avoidance, distraction, that we can't stand how life feels, then something that feels as good as someone thinking that you're the apple of their eye, that's gonna feel too good compared to how everything else that you feel that you are going to follow it, which in temporarily will feel wonderful, and then the other side of it will feel terrible.

Now you don't even like yourself now. You can't respect yourself now. You can't face your spouse. It's so messy. It's so tricky. What? What do you even do? So now you've got another mess. And if you don't wanna face it and you don't wanna deal with it, and you don't wanna admit to a therapist, I'm out of control.

I've lost control of myself, well, then you're gonna keep going. It's gonna get worse. The deception will get deeper. That drug will run out and you'll need another one. And then you've got more layers that you're not. Being honest with, and now if you have children, at some point you know that you're not a good parent and they'll feel it.

They'll feel that you're not really reachable because you're hiding something and now your relationship with your child is damaged and it will keep going. That's just one example. It happens in so many different ways. Overeating, using drugs, using porn affairs, um, gambling, I mean just a addictive behaviors because you need to feel good happen.

Then those cause destruction and those cause more having to admit something eventually that's gotten so big that you can't, so you avoid it and then something worse happens. It's how it goes. So I love when things after 30 years of seeking have become simple. After I've gone through all the complexity, and many of you understand this.

After you go through, you wade through the complexity of what is life doing? What does it mean? How do I live it in a way that matters? And you've, you have to know that you so much that you wade through all this. On the other side, it becomes finally simple. So believe me, this is now simple. It may not be easy to live, but I promise you it is this simple.

Face yourself. Face everything that lives in you and bring it to the light. Admit it to somebody. It may have to just be a therapist. That's the safest place to go if that's all you have. It might not be your spouse. It might not be your best friend. It might not be your parent. If they won't get it, then go see a therapist and admit this stuff.

Have one place where you speak the truth of yourself and you take it out of you and stop carrying it around. A good therapist will help you know what to do with it, and only gently. They will take you so slowly and so gently that nothing will hurt too bad. It will. You will be able to get through the layers that you've built on yourself through avoidance, distraction, and denial, and unravel it slowly and gently and lovingly to a place where you can be more authentic and grow into safety and know that you're okay, and then you'll get on this upward spiral.

The things that are simple, I love that they're now simple after all of the agony and the seeking and the. All of it. So this is simple and it's true. And from nine o'clock to six o'clock, Monday through Friday, and a couple of appointments on the weekends, I see it in all kinds of people, in all kinds of forms.

In all kinds of stories that all reveal this to be absolutely true. There's an upward spiral. There's a downward spiral, and the weight of the upward one is authenticity, admission, openness, and owning whatever is in there and bringing it out and admitting it to someone. And then you get better at it. The better at it that you get, the more authentic you become, the more real you become, the more beautiful your life becomes.

It's so worth it. So when you know that on some level you've been denying, avoiding, or distracting, the first step is to notice, oh, that's not exactly true. The best book on this exact concept is The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck. That book is divinely inspired. Every word of it is true. It's also fun to read and entertaining, and it will knock your socks off and prove to you in a, in a deeper way that what I've said is absolutely true and guide you to start doing it slowly.

But if you start noticing where you deceive. Yourself and other people. If you start noticing what you are avoiding and what you're distracting yourself from, that you're distracting yourself with something that makes you feel better, 'cause you have a bad feeling you don't wanna face. The first step is noticing that you're doing it.

So if you start noticing that as a result of this podcast, great. That's why I've said it. That's why I've done it. You're already on your way once you've done that. 'cause once you crack open that door, you can't stop noticing. And once you can't stop noticing. The next natural step is to stop doing it and to back up and go, wait a second.

That wasn't exactly true, and refine your statement. When you just insulted someone say, oh crap, I'm sorry. I don't know why I just insulted you. I think I've got something going on inside of me that I have to deal with. That's enough in the moment. You don't have to know everything. Just know what you know.

That wasn't kind. I'm sorry. I don't even know where that came from. If that's true, say it. I'm sorry. I don't know where that came from. I got some work to do. Beautiful. That's the truth in that moment, if that's all you know, and that's the truth you've stated. You're already on your way. When you find yourself pretending back up, refine it, make it more true, this will get momentum because it'll show you that it feels better.

The moment you back it up and you say something more true, that person that you're engaged with softens, you're like, oh, that's a good thing to do. So you do it more. It will take you back to the center and it'll get you on that upward spiral. This simple truth, meditate on it, start your day with it. Every day has 10,000 opportunities to choose the upward spiral or the downward spiral.

All you have to do is notice. Then refine and there are 10,000 opportunities every single day. And if you start to get hungry about what that's gonna do for you, you can do this pretty quickly. You don't have to go quickly, you can go slowly. It doesn't matter. Whatever you are comfortable and ready for is the first step, and that's the step to take.

And it will take you the rest of the way because life will hear that you're paying attention and it'll want you to go that way. It will support you to do it. Alright, keep this with you. Notice the opportunities 10,000 times every single day. Every moment, every single moment is a choice. Upward or downward.