Episode 8: Everything, Everywhere, All At Once: The Infinite Possibility Of You

Hi everyone, in this episode I share my musings around the brilliant 2022 Michelle Yeoh film: Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. It ties in so beautifully with the yogic concepts of self, ego, buddhi and divine love, and brilliantly and weirdly! shows how we can all be trapped by our limiting thoughts, behaviours and self concepts, and how if we are not careful this can turn to darkness. Our power for expansion if we choose to walk towards increasing self awareness and healing, is infinite. I didnt say it was easy, but it is possible.

I hope you enjoy the episode.

If you have any comments, questions or anything you would like to hear about related to this podcast, I'd love to hear from you.

Please feel free to message me on Instagram or email me here: info@shraddhayayoga.co.uk

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Or why not find out how we can work together with Yoga & meditation classes, courses and 1:1 coaching here: https://www.shraddhayayoga.co.uk/

With love and light,

Helen xxx

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Hi everyone, welcome, welcome to episode A, season two. Ah, I hope you're doing okay. Just a little brief introduction here to this episode. These are my thoughts and musings on the film Everything Everywhere All at Once, on our egoic self-concept, limiting behaviors, limiting thought processes, and the power and infinite possibilities we have, the infinite potential we have as expansive human beings, if we allow ourselves to expand into love. I really hope you enjoy this episode, and uh I'll see you on the other side. Hi everyone, and welcome. Welcome to I believe it's episode eight, season two. Um how is your January going? I hope that the start of the year has been gentle. I hope it's been kind to you. And if it hasn't, uh reminder we're still in the year of the snake until February, so you may still be shedding, you may still be um dealing with a little bit of darkness, some heaviness still moving through the mud. But better times are coming, better times really are coming. So be gentle with yourself. Uh, this is this is me giving you permission to be very gentle with yourself this dark start of the new year, and I am coming from I'm sitting at my desk in my new yoga room. It's beautiful, I really like it. It's a little bit echoey, so uh, we're gonna fiddle with the sound. And it's a Sunday, it's a Sunday afternoon, it's three o'clock. I have taken the dogs out for a walk, and it's been a busy week, so we went for a lovely woodland, misty, murky, foggy walk. Met lots of nice people, nice, friendly dogs, got very muddy, and then I've been sitting down doing a few jobs, and then sitting down watching old 1960s films, Sinbad the Sailor. Anyone remember Sinbad the Sailor films? I really love a vintage 60s movie. I don't know what it is. I love uh Vintage Star Trek, the original Star Trek. Um, I love any biblical 1960s epic, all these spot films like Spartacus and um Clash of the Titans, Sinbad the Sailor, all these kind of slightly fantastical oldie world y 1960s. There's something about it so kitsch, I absolutely love them. And yesterday I was reminded of something that I think is really at the forefront of my mind at the moment. Over Christmas, I watched a film that my brother had actually uh really recommended to me and I'd seen it advertised. And as a 1960s film lover, 60s and 70s, I also, because of my big brother, love uh Bruce Lee, vintage Bruce Lee Kung Fu films. I actually did a bit of kung fu back in the day, all because of my big brother was so cool, and uh I learned some Shaolin Gung Fu for a very short period of time when I was kind of 18. And um have always really loved these martial arts films, and over Christmas, I on my brother's recommendation I watched Everything Everywhere All at Once. I don't know if you've seen this film, it's from 2022 and it was on film four, I think, over Christmas, and it's got Michelle Yeo in it, who is I just think an incredible kung fu actress, and she's just beautiful to watch. She's just incredible, and I've always loved her films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, oh, just makes me cry, just so beautiful. Anyway, so I sat down to watch this on a very small screen because I don't have a tell at the moment. I'm using my laptop, I'm saving up to get a telly, and my brother had told me, stick with it, it's weird, and I like a bit of weird. I really like a bit of weird. I am I get bored by films and TV that are just kind of generic, you know, like some of the Marvel films use the same um structure, it's the same formula, it's all very fast. I really like a little bit of different in every part of life, to be honest, but especially when it comes to films, books, art. I like a little bit of different, something new. And this film was definitely that behind it was a really beautiful message which I think ties in really really well with one of the main central concepts in yoga, and one of the main concepts in healing, finding ourselves. So the movie starts, and um Michelle Yeo plays this um aging mum, Asian mum, aging and Asian, and she is keeping herself very small and living a very ordinary life with a daughter who is doesn't feel loved by her, and she doesn't believe in herself, and all throughout her it it conspires all throughout her life. She's never allowed herself to dream, allowed herself to become who she really should be. She's always kept herself small. And the film unfolds rather quickly as she gets drawn in to this kind of multiverse. So the film works on this theory, this quantum mechanical theory of the multiverse. And if you haven't heard about this before, again, I'm not a scientist, so I'm not an expert in this, but the idea absolutely fascinates me, and it's popular in science fiction. So quantum mechanics suggests that there is a theory that there is not just one multiverse and one reality, but there are an infinite number of realities and universes unfolding all concurrently all at the same time. So in one universe, you might sit down and decide to have a cup of tea one morning. In another universe, you might have a matchulate. In one universe, you might be living in London, um, and in another universe, you might be an animal living in a forest. The possibility, the main idea is that the possibilities are endless. So in the film, there is, of course, a baddie. The baddie is this kind of demon person who is trying to uh destroy the multiverse, destroy everything. And I won't give the story away, but the whole crux of it is that because the central character, and I forgive me, I've forgotten her name, Michelle Yeo's central character, the mum, because she has never dreamt big and because she's never allowed herself to reach her full potential as a beautiful human being, darkness arises. And Michelle's character is encouraged really, really strongly. She is the only one that can be the saviour of the multiverse and avoid this huge, you know, kind of black hole catastrophe. And the only way that she can do this is by stepping up into her full potential. And do you know it almost brings me to tears now because it all centers around love, the power of love, the transformative quality of love, the all-encompassing, completely universal, spectacular power of love. And in the story, she has to begin to love herself, to set herself free. She has to begin to loosen up the idea, the this egoic idea of herself. Now, this is really, really important, and you know, this is something that's been very central to my life recently as well. I think it's everyone. Um so we all have these limiting beliefs, don't we? We all have these fears, we all have this conditioning, however, your life has played out, and of course, there are infinite ways that people's lives could have played out. Traumas, how your parents treated you, where you grew up, your demographic, your race, your physicality, um, your karmas, if you believe in the karmas that comes in massively here, but there are infinite ways that your life could have unfold and could unfold, and none of us knows. We just don't know. And the illusion of control is an interesting one, and this film really expounds this idea of our own enforced limitations. So we have our ego, yeah, we have our ego mind, and central to yogic philosophy is the ego is very powerful, but it is not who we are, it's um a part of the mind, but it is not who we are. You could call it Ramdas, you calls it the personality, that's your personality. You also have buddhi, which is the intellect, the discerning part of your mind, which goes, ah, okay, now I'm thinking this. The ego part of your mind is to do with identity and self-concept. So I am Helen, I'm sitting in a chair, I have now brunette again, hair, curly hair, I am a yoga teacher, all of these things that that create our self-concept. I am 44 years old, blah blah blah. Now yoga teaches us that we are not the ego, we are something way, way more powerful than that. But when we are when we were born into this existence, we know that. But as we get older and we learn about pain, disappointment, grief, suffering, social conditioning, cultural values, cultural rules, all of these things when we experience trauma, when we experience abandonment, I mean, literally all of the things that life throws our way, we learn to become smaller, less expansive, limited. And that is all part of the process, and it makes us in yogic speak, it makes us ignorant because we then can't see our true selves. So our work, if you like, as we're here on in this realm at this time, is to move beyond these limiting self-beliefs. I'm not good enough. Because at school maybe you were bullied, or your parents were really strict and hard on you, or you were perhaps overweight, or um, any of these things, anything that made you feel smaller, that made you feel less than. So part of our healing work is to move beyond these limiting self-concepts, these ideas about ourselves. Oh, I can't do that because of this. Oh, I'm I'm not, no, I don't do that. But why should why should we move beyond them? We could say, well, you know, this is this is life, right? We all have our limiting beliefs, we all have this. That's fine if you if you are happy, if that's fine if you find fulfillment and satisfaction in that. But most people, when you go a little bit beneath the surface, there is a true soul voice, an inner voice, and this inner voice is searching for more, more meaning, more connection, more expansion, more love, more understanding. And this isn't a material grasping for more, it's a soul's true voice wanting to reach back to what it once knew in its purest form. So, within the film, this idea of the multiverse, this quantum mechanical idea of the multiverse, lets us explore visually within the film our infinite possibilities. And through Michelle's character, this you know, kind of dowdy, aging, very downtrodden mum whose daughter hates her, whose husband is, you know, they don't really have much of a relationship anymore, whose father was mean to her, and they're running a failing business. In fact, it's all falling apart, they're having tax meetings and it's all going wrong. The multiverse allows her to see, amongst other things, her true power in life. It allows her to see, oh, there's me in another dimension, and oh my god, I'm completely different. It allows her to see the that kind of it's very much a bit like sliding doors, you know, make one decision that will lead to an entirely different life, make another decision, and that will lead in another direction. And what I found so so beautiful about it is that it was all about love. So loving herself, showing the love for her daughter and her husband, showing love for the people around her who have become dark because of their own self-limiting beliefs, because of their own lack of love or lack of understanding about what they're capable of. It's really powerful and it's so quirky and weird and beautiful. There is a universe where everyone has hot dog sausages for fingers, and you're like, what the actual WTF, excuse my language, it's beautifully gloriously bonkers, but it's to explore that point, and the darkness that can happen if we keep ourselves really, really, really small, and it really is my belief the further along I get in this yogic journey on this path of literally self exploration, like deep diving into yourself, getting to know yourself allows us to expand. And when we look at divinity, and we when we look at the the scriptures, when we look at the Bhagavad Gita. When we look at the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, when we look at the Upanishads, the Vedas, divinity is love. Divinity is love consciousness. It's so much more, and it can be boiled down into that essence. So this is my gentle reminder to you to maybe watch this movie. Make a cup of tea, have a drink, get some snacks. Open your heart, open your mind for a little bit of a bonkers ride. And expand into love. Expand into love for yourself first and foremost. Keeping it really real here since uh the big shamanic retreat that I did in September. Big, big themes came up for me on that retreat. Really, really powerful, which I will talk about when it's time. I don't quite yet feel like it's time to dive into that. I'm integrating it all. But one of the big, big themes that came up for me was fear. I hold so much fear. As a child, I was very, very fearful. And my inner child is with me all the time. Here she is. And the fear that shows up and the fear that keeps me small is so powerful. It's so actually terrifyingly powerful. And I didn't realize I see myself as a confident woman, I you know, I do things, I've been brave, I've been courageous, I've done loads of stuff on my own before, you know, I've made big life decisions, big changes, I go out there, I get things done to a point. And this fear element and this keeping myself small really ties in with my kirtan journey. Now, my kirtan journey has been on pause for the last couple of months, and it really is the perfect example of working through your own limitations. My egoic mind, when I sit there, is going, What are you doing? You don't do this, you're not musical, you can't do this, you're gonna get laughed at, you're not good enough. My teacher says to me that when the ego starts to crumble, so recognizing it is massive. It can take some of us a while to really go, oh my god, this is what's happening. Once you've acknowledged it and and you can see it for what it is, it is massive, it's transformative because you can go, oh my god, that is what that is, that's what's stopping me. Once you come out of that ego and into your true self, your self, that that space of awareness and love that is totally free, it takes practice to keep coming back into that space to move away from the ego because the ego is still there. And moving between the two is is hard and it's draining and it's exhausting, but it is well worth doing. So that you could see in this journey that you know, my Kirtan example, the ego is actually really dark. It's saying, No, no, no, no, no, you don't do this. You're no, keep yourself small and safe. Keep yourself safe, you don't know what's gonna happen. And my teacher has said to me, You're terrified of your greatness. To which my ego goes, Greatness? What the what the F are you talking about? What on earth? So be careful, my friends, of the mind games, your ego will play with you. And my teacher also says, Nikki Slade, she also says, when you're very close to crumbling, breaking through that ego and being in expansive awareness, being in love, being in that state which is beyond ego, beyond buddhi as well, beyond mind. Then the ego gets really strong, and I felt that um a couple of months ago, really strong. I had one of my worst sessions with Nikki, I was in tears, I was frustrated, I could have thrown my harmonium across the room, very out of character, really like oh my god, and then I started laughing. Because the more my teacher said to me, move beyond it, move beyond it, move beyond it, the more ridiculous it seems, and how this ties into everything everywhere all at once is because we are not just one thing. And this is why it gets so complicated in its simplicity. We are not just Helen sitting in a chair speaking into a microphone, we're expansive awareness, loving divinity, we are soul source, connected to everyone, everything. That's right the back. And then we have our ego mind, and then we have our discerning mind, and many, many, many different layers in between. And if you've heard of internal family systems, this is why that so appeals to me because it makes total sense. Internal family systems, I think I talked about it once before, is all about this idea that we are made up of parts, and in any one moment, several different parts of you could be expressing themselves, feeling emotion, feeling fear, feeling proud. For example, say someone has done something really lovely for you. A friend of yours has bought you a beautiful gift. You accept the gift. In that one moment, you could feel one part of you will feel really loving towards your friend, another part of you will feel embarrassed, another part of you might feel guilty. Oh, I didn't get her some flowers, you know, before. I've never given her a gift like this before. Another part of you might feel very um proud that your friend wanted to give you such a lovely gift. There are within ourselves there are many, many different elements, and I think that really helps us to explore this idea that we're not just one thing. We're beings made of different parts: spiritual, intellectual, physical, energetic beings made of all elements, earth, air, fire, water. We're not just one thing. We are multi-layered, we are everything, everywhere, all at once, in this one miraculous, beautiful moment, presence in time, here and now. This moment. This is all there is. There's now and the now and the now and the now. So my invitation to you, my lovely listeners, is to really work on expanding into your true potential because each of us holds infinite amounts of potential. Each of us, if we allow ourselves, can expand and expand and expand and expand anything is possible if we allow it to happen. And if we do it with love, then blessings be on everyone and everything. Thank you for listening and blessings to you. Thank you so much for listening to the Be Still and Notice podcast. I really hope you enjoyed this episode and perhaps it even added something that you like. If you know someone that might benefit, please share this episode with them. And of course, a review would be so much appreciated. Please find all the information relating to this episode, including relevant links in the show notes. And until next time, sending you so much love and light on your path to yoga.