The Conditioned Mind | Conversation #1

*This Conversation is a deeper dive on the Companion Meditation Episode!*

In the very first Greater Peace Conversation, Amy and Ryan Lindstrom introduce the vision behind the Greater Peace Podcast and share the personal experiences that inspired them to create it.

Amy explains the unique weekly format of the podcast, where each Monday meditation introduces a simple practice, Wednesday's conversation explores that topic in greater depth, and community discussions continue throughout the week.

The conversation then turns to this week's theme: the conditioned mind and the Sufi teaching that "the soul is covered by a thousand veils." Together, Amy and Ryan explore how childhood experiences shape the beliefs we carry about ourselves, how those beliefs influence our relationships and behaviors throughout life, and why self-awareness and compassion are essential parts of healing.

Drawing from psychology, trauma therapy, meditation, Buddhist teachings, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and personal life experiences—including grief, parenting, marriage, and midlife growth—they discuss how we can begin recognizing the stories we've inherited, gently question them, and uncover the peace that has always been within us.

This episode is an honest conversation about healing, purpose, relationships, and the lifelong process of becoming more fully ourselves.

In this episode:

• The vision behind the Greater Peace Podcast
• Why Amy became a mental health therapist
• Ryan's perspective on growth and self-awareness
• The conditioned mind and negative core beliefs
• The Sufi teaching of "the soul is covered by a thousand veils"
• How childhood experiences shape adult relationships
• Why meditation helps us observe rather than become our thoughts
• Compassion, healing, and peeling back the layers that hide our true nature

Whether you're beginning your own journey of healing or simply looking for thoughtful conversations about psychology, mindfulness, spirituality, and personal growth, we hope you'll join us each week as we continue exploring practical ways to cultivate greater peace.

If you enjoyed this conversation, please follow the podcast and share it with someone who may benefit. Your support helps us continue creating meaningful conversations that encourage hope, healing, and a more compassionate way of living.

*Subscribe to the Greater Peace Podcast for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday.*

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Welcome everyone. This is the Greater Peace Podcast. We appreciate you joining us. And uh I am Ryan Lindstrom. I am not your host. In fact, I'm only sitting in this chair because I happen to be fairly closely associated with and actually married to the actual legitimate real host, Amy Lindstrom.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Hi, everybody.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Yeah, so um kind of what I thought we'd do.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

And we haven't talked about any of this, so she has no idea, but uh kind of figured we'd do uh maybe five minutes or so of just to get to know who you are and what you do and why you do it. Well, that's not important.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

No, it is. It is.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

All right, fine. So we'll do that. And then uh we do have a topic for today's conversation, correct? So um so if you're not already aware, the way that uh why why don't you tell them, Amy, how do you kind of have this set up as far as episodes and release, you know, post dates and all that?

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Okay, so on Mondays we are doing the um Greater Peace Meditations. That's just like a little introduction to like a little topic that we're doing, and then um it's just kind of like a little taste test, a 50,000-foot view of an idea that we will focus on for the week. And then on Wednesdays, we will do Greater Peace conversations with me and Ryan. Um, and then we will kind of focus on the topic and go a little bit deeper with it. And the reason why I think I really liked the idea of that is because um I've been I'm a mental health therapist, but I also do um a wellness class. And Ryan has come to the class three times.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

I'm triple wealth.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yes, triple wealth. And it has been so helpful to have him there. He just kind of I what the way we're going to do it is I have the topic. He does not know what the topic is. So he will uh we will record the meditation, whatever. We'll be releasing them on Mondays, and then but he won't see it or know what the topic is before. So I'll just bring it up and teach some things and whatever, and get his ideas on it and and just any of his questions. Because he tends to, I tend to be more abstract um emotional thinking. He's more analytical, logical. Not that I'm not locked in.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

More man thinking, is what she's saying.

unknown 2:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

But he is also to me like uh very, very wise, and I really enjoy like he makes me think about things in a different way a lot. And so I just think it's beneficial to have his input or like in real time, him processing it and all of that. So hopefully that's beneficial.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

I'm sure it will be.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Yeah. Oh, and then on Friday. On Friday, we're also going to do the, I think it will be on Friday. Um, and we'll do like a Facebook Live or something. And that way, if any questions come up in the process of the meditation or in the conversations, anything you want to go deeper, if I say something, because a lot of things like my brain will just pull up information. And if I say something that you're like, hey, I would like to know a little bit more about that, then let me know in the Facebook Live. And then depending on how it goes, we may also end up releasing the Facebook Live to the podcast as well. So um most likely we will, just any conversation, but we'll just see how it goes. We're just kind of winging it a little bit and trying to figure this out as it goes.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

Yeah, a lot bit like 100% winging it. So there's the Monday meditation.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

There's the Wednesday conversation, yes. And potentially the Friday follow-up.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Perfect.

unknown 4:05

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Sounds good. So that's what you can expect from us uh pretty much every week. And if for some reason we're gonna skip a week or whatever, we'll give you a heads up and let you know. But um also, just uh so you're aware, um, the meditation and the conversation will be posted as audio only and as video. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah, the video will be on YouTube. Um and then also on some social media, um, which we will try to make sure that we link in the description. So if you want to follow along there for little clips or anything like that, you can. But yeah. YouTube will have the um video, and then on all of the major um podcast sites, you should be able to find the Greater Peace podcast with Amy and Ryan Lindstrom.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

So let's um let's do a real quick get to know you and why the heck we're even here.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

And then uh we do have the topic to talk about, and I don't even know what it is. So I'm excited to find out though. So first question two minutes or less.

SPEAKER_03 5:15

Um thank you.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

Uh who are you?

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Uh I'm Amy Lindstrom.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

What do you do? And not why do you do it? Just who are you?

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Ooh, good question. Um I'm Amy Lindstrom. And I just I don't know, what do you want to know beyond that? Like, not what I do.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Who are you outside of what you do?

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Oh, how I like I'm a mom and I do all of I don't know. I'm just a person who I think I just like love life, love living it to its fullest. And um I've been through some things in my life, and I think I just have a real passion for learning why people do what they do, but also like just helping people and having fun.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Yeah, so um so tell everybody how old you were when you decided to go to college.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

I was, oh, I don't know, 35? 35. Our son passed away um 15 years ago, our little Dawson, he was four and a half. And I think that something happened in my life that just like woke something up in both of us really, it was just kind of like this everything that we're striving for, everything that we're trying to produce and become, and everything suddenly uh got a different perspective entirely of what actually matters.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

And so Yeah, it just didn't matter anymore. So much stuff was like why are we even doing this?

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Yeah, it's like thinking we were living the dreams and went, wait, this isn't it. And then um, shortly after, I think Mallory, our daughter, now she's almost 21, she was going into first grade, and I thought, yes, full days all by myself, and I lasted two weeks before I was like, this is not good for me. And I signed up and went went to school. So yeah, and I mean it was terrifying, but and you killed it.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

I did good job.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

I kind of did, but I really I mean I did just in the sense that it's like, you know, I grew up with ADHD and did not think that I knew how to learn very well. And now I just I really truly cannot get enough of it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

All right, so what do you do?

SPEAKER_00 7:38

So I'm a mental health therapist. Um, I have like I worked when I just got out of my undergrad. I started, um I was on the rape crisis team in Utah County, and then a physician up and I became the director of the program. Um and then learned there that I, it's like trauma was absolutely like a passion of mine, but I saw so many people really struggling with addiction uh in trauma. It's like the ways that they were coping with stuff. So I uh went and started doing substance use disorder counseling, worked in a um residential treatment center for a while while I was doing my master's, I did my master's and the um substance use disorder counseling certificate at the same time, and then um clinical mental health counseling. But even as I was doing all this, then started doing like some uh sex addiction or unwanted sexual behavior, worked with um Dr. Skinner, who is um kind of like the specialist in the field and also just a really good man that had a a lot of influence on my own. Like he would tell me, like, you've got to create and and stuff like that, which really then led me to creating a test group, which I got permission for and did a test group on my wellness class that I wanted to do three years ago, and then started Greater Peace. Um, and so I do all of it, like addiction and therapy um for trauma and all of that, but I also really, really love uh helping people like just live happier with more compassion and working on myself all the time, work in progress.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Yes, absolutely. It's like you come home from work and you're just processing, seems like all night. And that's yeah, never stops.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Yeah, it's just a like sometimes I think that it's like self-awareness is a gift and a curse because as soon as you get it, as soon as you start to become aware of things that you do, uh, it can be dysregulating. But I know learning the skills that I'm like, okay, like I am doing this, I don't want to hurt be hurtful, I don't want to be harmful to anybody. So I need to like, I don't know, like confront myself and figure this out and why do I do this, and then kind of boiling all that down, not in a victim state, but just like in an understanding how the brain works and how people work and all that kind of stuff and and whatever, just finding it and then becoming a better version of myself over time.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

That's the thing I think that that blows me away with you is your what your willingness to confront yourself. Because I think everybody, you know, on and off through their lives, they they see themselves in the mirror and they kind of see what they got going on and stuff that they do that they don't want to be doing. Um but it's just so easy to be like, yeah, maybe tomorrow, and drop it for now. You know what I mean? But just the willingness to say, okay, nope, I'm gonna confront myself on this and dig and see where it comes from and and why it's there, that takes that that takes a lot of strength. So and and what I've what I've I think I've learned in in the c your three classes that I've been to years are first of all, everybody deals with all this. You you you're not the only person that's having these thoughts or not having these thoughts. And second, there's there are different ways to have realizations about you and why you feel the way you do or why you do the things you do, that almost it's very difficult for those realizations to come about in your normal everyday life without changing something. And that I think therapy can be huge. Um going to a class, like the class you do, listening to podcasts. I mean, you she listens to books on like nine speech. Nine times, I think.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Just two. Just two.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

But anyway, I I just wanted to say that I I admire you for the way that you you look it you look to confront yourself, and if you don't have the skills, you look for the skills. So anyway, great. Thanks for sharing all that.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

No, I think uh when you were saying that, it made me think of, you know, like Jennifer Finlays and Fife has been somebody who has just had a lot of impact on me. But I think one of the things that she has taught that has been meaningful to me is when she said, like I she said it multiple times, but I remember hearing her once say, if somebody tells you what is difficult about you or something that is hard or something that you've done, and they tell you 10 things about you, it is, and they got nine of them wrong. It's so easy to focus on the nine where they're wrong and ignore the one where they got it right. But if you can have the courage to deal with the one that they got right, ignore the others, but just go all at that. It's like that's where real growth is. And I think, you know, I think part of it to me is like losing, it's like, of course I can be hurtful. Of course I can be harmful. I'm a human, you know, I'm reactive and whatever, just like everybody else. But it's like, but once it disconnected from my worth and my value is absolute, just like, and if that's true for me, it's true for literally everyone. Then it's not free, not then it's not um difficult to look at myself. I think of, you know, it's like I have experienced difficult relationships. I have been hurt by people. I do not ever want to be the source of hurting people like that. And I think I probably, you know, I mean, surely I have unintentionally, but like if I can address that and and learn how to be more aware so I can be more kind and more loving, then it's then that's what I want to do. And so it's it's worth it to to self-confront just to make sure we're not, you know, unintentionally hurting people.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Aaron Powell Yeah. I I like when you say it. Um talk about when you do something, you know, you ask yourself, is this um I don't even remember how how you say it, is this who I want to be in the world?

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? Well, yeah, because Greater Peace, the name Greater Peace really just kind of popped into my head. But I think the whole thing is that I was saying for a long time before that, which is a concept learned from Jennifer as well, is that it's like, you know, integrity is being true to who you want to be in the world. And so, and so it's like I use that to build a skill for connecting to intuition and stuff like that. But but then like Paulo Coelho in um he has a few books that I love, but he said, if it costs your peace, it's too expensive. But you can't have peace if you don't have integrity. So if you betray who you want to be in the world for any other thing, peace is the cost of that. If I if I betray who I want to be because I want you to accept me, then I lose peace. And I think, you know, it's like to an extent, we do that always, all the time. But for me, it's like if you want to be true to who you want to be in the world, um, that's integrity. And the outcome of integrity is peace. And then the outcome of living consistently with integrity and continuing to work on that is virtue, which is just strength developed over time until it just becomes like, I mean, just the way I would define it is like the most like true version of yourself.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

Yeah. Definitely. So you've kind of gone into this a little bit already, but why do you do what you do?

SPEAKER_00 15:54

You know, I'm gonna butcher this. Um, but this popped into my head. So I um okay. Uh I think first it's like going through difficult things in my life. Um and overcoming those things, and but not only that, but it's like evolution in the sense of using something that is difficult to become a better version, a more kind version of myself. But um there was a friend of mine who was a detective that worked um doing very difficult uh things with, you know, uh stuff at the police department. And his name is Dan Bstrom, and I remember once uh I was talking to him, and I don't remember exactly how he said it, but I was like, How are you doing this? It was the first time that I looked at the job of law enforcement and and didn't see the bulletproof vest. I saw the mental load. And I remember going, How do you do this? And I don't remember exactly how he said it, but it was something like um some of us, um, I know I it's like some of us know like the dark spaces or whatever and and found our way out so that we can take light back into those spaces. I'm totally butchering it. But it's the idea of like if you've been through hard things, but you know that there's light on the other side of that, then use that. Like if you can go back in and and help other people. So there's kind of that, but also um, I don't know, I just feel like it's I just feel like it's so aligned with my purpose, if that's a thing, you know, like the who I am. I feel more me than I've ever felt when I am in this space. Like more confident, more at peace with myself. And so I think that that means something. It lights me up. It I'm constantly thinking of new things that I want to do or ways to help. And so it's just that should we talk about you?

SPEAKER_03 18:00

No.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Let's do all right. Why are you here?

SPEAKER_02 18:06

30 seconds or less. No, yeah. Why am I here? Um because I love you. I just love supporting you. I love watching you find something that you really want, and you just go and do it. Um I don't know. I've had a very difficult time in my life figuring out what I want to spend my time in my life doing. Um and so a lot of times that means you don't choose anything, and so you end up defaulting to what you know, and um you know, not finding joy in it, and all that. And it's I think over the years it's become so frustrating that for me it's kind of a cop out to just go, oh good, she knows what she wants. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna support her. But it's it's so fulfilling to just see you like come up with an idea or you're dealing with someone and you're trying to help them, and then you you think of something and you do it, and I and you come home and it all worked out great, of course. And you I don't know. I just love supporting you. And so I'm happy to sit here in a chair and just not do anything. I know to support you.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

I know. But I'm like, okay, tell me about why you're here, and you then you then it's like me too. Well, yeah, obviously. Well, yes, I mean, in a sense, it's like for years I've been talking about doing this podcast, but it uh it's like it I I think that I just have some trust that it's like the universe, whatever it is, is it's like if it's come into my mind and it's meant for me to do, that the way will be provided. I mean, you know, I sit here in my own practice and whatever, and I think of, you know, uh if if 34-year-old Amy, if I would have said, hey, by the way, in the next uh 15 years, I had to. I'm 49. If in the next 15 years, you need to go back to school. You'll do this, you'll do this, you'll get a master's degree, blah, blah, blah, and you'll start your own practice. If somebody had shown me a picture of my life right now and and told me that I needed to figure it out from the beginning, there's no way. I don't even think I would have started because it was so scary. But in the process, a good friend of mine, um, Patty Call had told me when I went back to school, she was like, There are going to be days where you're so overwhelmed and you're thinking, why am I doing this? And on those days, put your head down and focus on just the next thing that needs to be done. And that saved my life. That is the best, you know. So it was, it's, yeah, it's just, you know, working at it. But anyway, back to it's like for me, why did I want you to be here? It's like trying to figure out all of this. But I think that it was you coming to the group, it added everything. Like it wasn't complete until you were a part of it. Because we do think very differently, we see the world very differently. And sometimes it's difficult, but I think we have a lot of, I mean, like all the love and a lot of respect for each other. And I think that it has been like it's like there are things that I don't see that you can see. And so I think if it helps more people to have both sides of that, it just clicked in the last group. It was on the first week, after you had answered a question or something that somebody had asked that I was just kind of like trying to see it from their perspective, and you had said it. And then I told Bailey, our daughter-in-law, I was like, oh my gosh. Ryan is supposed to do the podcast with me. And she was like, okay, that you know, like, okay, that makes sense. You know, but um, but yeah, it's like forever. Like, you know, we've been married twenty almost twenty-nine years. I think I from the time I met you, I just like you are very wise. And um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

All right, enough about us. Yeah. Or at least me. Um overall for me, I think the thing is I just want to do something that matters.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

In my life, I struggle to try to I I enjoy doing things that make a difference and that actually matter. And that I I especially with my uniqueness or whatever, can contribute that maybe someone else can't contribute or do.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

Because I mean everybody's unique, everybody's their own person. And so everybody can do something that not a lot of people can probably do. So by doing that, um, yeah, feel like I'm in the right spot doing the right thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that that you said that too, because it's like, oh man, there's like i i in the beginning, it's like so scared, and then uh, but I'm not an authority on everything and whatever. But it's just like it isn't even about that. It's like I looked at the I look at the world through a specific perspective. So so do you, because of our own upbringing, which this totally brings us into the topic for today, by the way. Oh, but it helps with it's like we all see the world in a different way. And so if if anything that we have to say helps somebody feel more grace, more love, more hope, more compassion, more peace in their lives, then then it's absolutely worth doing. You know? Yep, I agree. And and then if it inspires anybody to go and look elsewhere to find more information, what lights you up, all those kind of things, then then awesome. So the topic of this week.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yeah, what is the topic of the week?

SPEAKER_00 24:02

So I know that you've heard me say this quote a bunch of times, and you'll understand what it is. Yeah, we should get a drink.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Mine is pink. In case you can't see that. Orange because you're just listening to the audio. Mine is pink and it says words on it.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

It says boom fitness, I think.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Yeah, that's what it says.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

That's mine.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Mine is orange because her life is orange. That's like my soul color. Yeah. Follow the dopamine. That's what she tells me. That's what she does.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

All right, so the topic is.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Okay. So you've heard me say this before a bunch of times, but it's it's kind of like building off of the idea of the Sufi belief or the Sufi um What is Sufi saying. So the Suf Sufism is they are more like uh it's the mystic spiritual side of Islam. So it's the um, it's a religious or a spiritual practice that is really about becoming one with the divine, like experiencing the divine God in a more meaningful way, which is like the thing about mystics, is mystics, um, it's like very experiential, their faith and practice.

SPEAKER_03 25:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

So Sufi, a Sufi belief is the soul is covered by a thousand veils. So I love this because um, as I have worked with people over times, it's like you learn IFS, it's um internal family system, or we call it parts work, where it's understanding that there are all of these different um uh parts, right? So, okay, for example, let's say um you are, I don't know, somebody cuts you off in traffic and you freak out, but that's not how you normally are. Or you're dealing with your kids and you're a little short-tempered and you react and you yell at them, but that's not who you want to be with them. So um to see it in like a parts kind of way is it's like um sorry, organizing thoughts. It's like um uh like Eckhart Tolle says, it's like being possessed by an entity of your past self, right? So it's like almost like this reaction that takes over, that feels younger than you are, and whatever. We'll get a little bit more into it. But anyway, it's I think the thing that I really like about the um that is seeing that as parts, also seeing it as negative cognition. So in EMDR, which is eye movement uh desensitization reprocessing.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Okay, what is negative cognition? So it's what do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Negative cognitions are like in EMDR, when we are doing trauma work with EMDR, we are trying to reprocess. Usually the reason why we're doing it is because there is a negative cognition or a way that your brain made sense of the world around you based on you being the problem. So that's normal. Oh, yeah. So so it's normal in the sense that as we're growing up and we're going through developmental phases growing up, this is like a super uh like simplified view of a complex thing. But when you're firstborn, you you develop a sense of self based off of your parents. So you don't even know a sense of self for like the first, I don't know, it's like 18 months. You're like an extension of your parents. And then like the terrible too is why are they terrible? It's because they're starting at two and three, they're starting into a stage of autonomy where they recognize themselves as their own person. But then they are also uh like if like the people in their immediate family are helping them build a sense of who they are. So all of this is because the brain is running on a system that sees everything as a threat, right? So does that make sense? Like, am I making sense out there?

SPEAKER_02 28:08

So the it's the six-year-old who didn't do anything wrong, but his dad comes home from work and he's had a stressful day and he's about to blow it, and he yells, he yells at the kid, and so now the kid thinks that he's bad because his dad's mad at him, even though he didn't know what he did, he didn't do anything. So he's having a cognitive thought, I guess that would mean he's having a negative experience about himself, even though he didn't do anything.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Exactly. So then when we're growing up, it's like egocentrism, we're all egocentric, which means that like our sense of self is at the center of everything. So I don't have, as a six-year-old, you you don't have the ability. Your dad comes home and he yells at you from work uh when he gets home from work. And I don't have the ability as a six-year-old to go, oh, I bet my dad had a hard day at work. Yeah. Instead, it's I'm bad. My dad is upset because I'm a bad kid or whatever. And so that it's almost like like synapses close together, which are like your brain's thinking, okay, this is what makes sense in the world. I'm bad.

SPEAKER_03 29:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

I'm the problem.

SPEAKER_03 29:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Okay. Then um, the great news is I will say, because sometimes when I talk about this, people are like, oh my gosh, I lose my patience with my kids all the time. So I have not read the full book, but I just uh attended a conference where um uh researchers were talking about some of the work that they're doing, and there is a book that's called The Power of Restore that's on my list. But I listened to them talk about the process of writing it and what it means. So it actually is expressing that our brains need the process of like upset and restore to heal. So if everything was perfect all of the time, that does not make for a perfectly formed brain. Failure and restoration are also needed. Um, just as long as the restoration comes and it depends on the degree to which a parent blows up, like how it affects the mind over time, right? Um, but it makes me think of like my an example for me as well. Like I like the the six-year-old, it's as easy as that, right? But I had a negative cognition of I'm not good enough because I vividly remember I was probably out five, about five when my mom sat me, my she was holding my sister, and then my brother, um my older brother, was in the room and she came in and told us that, like sat us down and told us that her and my dad were getting divorced. And I loved my dad. And so I remember asking a lot of questions and trying to figure it out. But I do remember resolving in my mind, I'm just gonna be a really good girl. I'm just gonna mind all the time. And then he won't move. He won't leave. Because in my egocentric mind, I don't have the ability to see it as that not being a whole solution. So then what do I do? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:18

You're yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

Yeah. So I'm intentionally trying to do uh what is right and to mind him with the intent that I'm going to save this, and then he moves out. And so what happens then is I'm not good enough.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

You're still a bad girl that's ruined everything in your life.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

So then these synapses connect, and there's this idea about me that has changed my view of who I am in the world that to believe that I am not good enough. That's the truth about me. So then when I go into now, when you go into like it's about third grade, seven to eight-year-olds start to, now they're starting to see themselves based on how their peers receive them. You know? And so if I'm not getting included at recess, there's something wrong with that.

SPEAKER_02 32:05

That is a brutal. I mean, I don't know where where everybody grew up and went to junior high, but that was junior high was the worst. That was a brutal experience for about everybody.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Yes, yeah, totally. I mean, it takes uh belonging is such a huge thing in junior high age development, uh like 12-ish. But when I'm but it's like when I start to see myself, it's like it's, you know, I'm playing at recess in third grade and nobody wants to play with me. Oh, it's because I'm not good enough. I already know that.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

That's already framework that's working in my life.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

It's just more reinforcement of that.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Yes. And then I can't sit still in my seat because I have ADHD. My teacher tells me I have a dumb math brain, um, that I'm not good at learning, that I'm lazy. It's all because I'm not good enough. Like all of this is being reinforced over and over. I don't get asked to a dance, it's because I'm not good enough. My boyfriend breaks up with me, it's because I'm not good enough. All of these things over and over and over, confirming this idea as if it is true, except then with EMDR, we can go back and like even we don't even have to do EMDR in some cases. For me, it was like knowing what the root was, knowing that it was that moment.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Yeah. You could trace it all back to in some cases, one experience.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

That kind of laid the groundwork and then you just kept building on top of it.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

Yeah, and then and this is where the self-compassion comes in because immediately when I realize I have operated with this understanding of myself in relation to this world as I am not good enough for it, the my whole life. But all I really wish I could do is just go back and sit down with my little five-year-old self and cuddle her up in my lap and tell her it's okay. Like everything's gonna be okay. Because my now mind with my development understands why my parents got divorced. And it had nothing to do with me not being a good girl. Instead, my heart breaks for my little self trying to navigate this world, but thinking that she's not good enough.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

Okay, so so two things. So one is you're pretty much talking about that that's what parts is, right? So there's a part in you that is pretty much your five-year-old little girl self. Um and there's probably a 12-year-old girl's self, and 30-year-old and one from last week. I mean, who knows? I guess that's parts. You are made up of who you were when you had impactful experiences in your life. So that's the first thing. The second thing is is so you're say you're 40 years old, you're operating still on that programming, even though you know now that you're a nice person, you're a good person, et cetera. But you've got this program so deeply embedded in you from the last 20 years, but you don't realize that that's what's running the show.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Yeah. Exactly. And that is what is called the conditioned mind. Okay. Like Buddhism talks a lot about the conditioned mind. The Buddha would talk about that. Um, it's in like many, many practices. It's this idea that it's like your mind is conditioned to think this way. This is why meditation is so powerful. Because until you stop and think, wait, why do I think this way? Which really is a difficult thing to do before frontal lobe development happens fully at age 25. And some people will live the rest of their lives with these patterns of behavior. So there's there's absolutely patterns of behavior that I came up with to protect me, to kind of shield believing that I'm not good enough, not wanting anybody else to know it. So I put on a veil, I become somebody else. Um the it's the like the persona or the mask, right? Of I think it's Carl Jung, but it's like, uh, I'm gonna put on this idea of who I am. I'm gonna start doing my hair like this girl at school, you know, on a lower level and dressing like her and acting like her. And oh, now look, I got the reward of everybody's now wants to hang out with me. So obviously who I am is not okay. This is okay.

SPEAKER_02 36:19

Yeah, you were right about yourself not being good enough.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

Yes, that it's not good enough because now I get the reward of belonging. Um and so I think that that is it's like we're all running on um different beliefs and patterns. Now, when you introduce trauma in this scenario, it's just that much more. Because if you don't have an established sense of self that is feels relatively safe as a child, um, and then you go into peer exposure, you have no secure base-cause it gets worse. You're like that, it gets much worse. Yeah. And so the idea of all of this, if you think about it, we are all humans having these experiences that are really can be very difficult. Um that it's like, but some of them, it's like, you know, every once in a while, it's like I'll work with somebody and I'll be like, Do you remember the first time you felt that? Like we'll find something like I feel worthless or whatever. Uh there's this idea of that, or I will use like a CBT cognitive behavioral therapy skill of laddering, and I'll use that. And we get back, we start, you know, going, if this happens, then what? You know, what are the things you're trying to avoid? If I'm I'm happy, I hate being happy, I'm uncomfortable being happy. Why? If you're happy, then what?

SPEAKER_02 37:46

So you're just drilling down. You're you're finding the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause. You're trying to get back to what was that experience that made me think that I was the bad one.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

Yeah, because we could spend forever in therapy, like talk therapy often, it's like talk therapy definitely has benefits, but you could spend forever trimming a bush when you just need to uproot the dang thing if you could just find what the root is, and the root is is these negative cognitions. And so once you understand what it is and why you're reacting the way that you are on the, you know, top tier, it's like um, like I can't be happy. Why? Because the other shoe will drop. If the other shoe drops, then what? Yeah. It's like hopelessness and whatever else.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

And so Well, I think everybody at some Everybody has to ever at least once in a while think like, why do I do that?

SPEAKER_00 38:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:41

You know what I mean? Yeah, I think so. I'm like, ah, I don't like that I why why do I why am I that way?

SPEAKER_00 38:45

And if you don't, that might be a problem.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

You probably should.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Yeah. If you don't, if you think everybody else is the problem, that's probably the problem. Yeah. But I think that it's like it's it's so beneficial. But that's the thing is once once you start doing some of this work and understanding the conditioned mind, which helps with meditation. So going back to that, it's like when you sit and breathe, and all of a sudden, uh like an example of mine, like once um when I was trying to, when I was learning how to do it, how to just be the observer of my thoughts, I would go and do it in a sauna that was like insanely hot. Uh, I can't remember now how hot it was. It was like too hot. Um but I wouldn't take much to Yeah, it was like 195 or something like that. It was like it's like the hot, hot ones. It was the kind that like you walk in and all of a sudden your necklace and your earrings that are in are burning your skin.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

I haven't had that experience.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

Yeah, it was a lot. So anyway, I'm sitting there, and the reason why I would do that is because there is my body is saying, get out, get out. And I know that I'm safe and I'm okay. So I'm regulating myself in a high stress situation, right? So I'm practicing all that. Well, every once in a while I would be, I remember once sitting there, and I had a lot going on later that day. But this is like seven o'clock in the morning. Um, and I feel all of a sudden this tightening in my chest and this total feeling of panic. Like, oh my gosh, I have so much to do today. I can't be sitting here doing this. And it that thought pops into my head, and I feel the tightness in my chest, I feel the anxiety and the panic that I'm sitting here and there's so much to do. But because I'm in the process of learning how to observe the conditioned mind or the thoughts of produce, produce, produce, and fear, fear, fear, and all of that, it's like I just started, I was just breathing, I paid attention to the tightness in my chest, I had gratitude for the part of my mind that is always trying to keep me on track, and I let it go. And then, like a couple seconds later, like this the feeling went away. And then a couple of seconds later, I couldn't have even in that moment recalled the same thought that I just had that was making me want to ditch my plan.

SPEAKER_02 41:11

Well, that's because it was like 200 degrees. I know.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

And then I had to go back to survival. I know, and then I would go into the cold plunge right after that. It was good times, it was good practice.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

Yeah, I'm sure. But it does seem like uh one of the most effective ways to avoid things that you really would like to avoid in your life is just to stop the momentum.

SPEAKER_03 41:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

Like like you were saying, your thoughts are running away, and it's like, okay, put the brakes on for a minute. And so you have a second to realize that um that's not even real because that hasn't happened yet. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Well, yeah, I mean, because then that is also like, okay, well, like the conditioned mind, if you can start the moment you can start to learn that thoughts are just thoughts, right? They originate from a brain that is born and raised in fear, like the limbic system, the amygdala, it's constantly trying to uh think it doesn't belong and it's powerless and it doesn't have what it needs. It's like that's the brain that we grow up with.

SPEAKER_02 42:15

Well, and by the time you're 20, 25, that is so deeply ingrained that to change that, to change course, that's you there's a lot of undoing.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

But here's the beautiful thing in it though, is that that is so true, it is so ingrained, and we are all that way. So it must be necessary. It must be.

SPEAKER_03 42:36

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

To the greatest human development. It has to be because the idea of get it right uh from the point of a child, it's like you can be really good at being obedient because you don't want to be spanged or because you don't want to be in trouble. But that's just obey or or obey or pay, which we can cover and another time. It's like the stages of moral development.

SPEAKER_03 43:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:00

It's so fear-based. But it's like, but there's not you just know how to follow rule rules well to avoid punishment, but it it's not actual development. In the sense, I mean it's necessary, but it is not actual like um yeah. Like it's not, it's it's not actual like choosing and connection and building of integrity. There's no peace in it. You're just constantly trying to avoid, you know.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

So are we still on topic? What was the topic?

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Yeah. It's all, I mean, we're just going deep with conditioned mind.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

Whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 43:36

It is. Whatever we say, that's the topic. It's conditioned, the conditioned mind.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

Conditioned mind. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

So it's if you understand like the thousand veils, right? If I if I tell like I told you one, you know, um, I have so many more from so many other life experiences of ways that my mind made sense of a world that didn't. Make sense except that I was the problem. But we are all like that. So that's the whole point, is that it's like, well, if that's true for me, then that's true for you. Then that's true for everybody else. And sometimes it's like the idea that you should be able to have it figured out and be producing and whatever else. Yeah, I mean, ultimately it's the idea of perfection as flawlessness is not it. And a lot of times people get that idea because, you know, often like when I say that, people will quote back to me, well, what about the scripture when Jesus said, be therefore perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect? Well, I'm also a word geek, and I love to go back and like find it's like, what's the most original, untouched manuscript of spiritual teachings, and then try to find the original word, what was meant. So the word that Jesus said was teleos. And if you look at the Greek dictionary from the time, what that means is to be whole. Right? And so now if you think of wholeness is, I guess in my own experience, the way that I would define it is the more and more I peel back these layers, I become more whole. The peeling back of the veils, the veils are not a hindrance to it. They are the obstacle is the doorway. I think I just read that in uh oh, I have it actually here. Um grab that meditations book right there.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

Okay, everybody guess who wrote the book called Meditations? I'll bet. 50% of you probably go know what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

This is a very popular book. It's uh by Marcus Aurelius, which this is a fantastic book.

SPEAKER_02 45:57

Um So Marcus Aurelius, this was written when? This is like Roman Emperor guy?

SPEAKER_00 46:02

Yeah, and he wrote he wrote 12 books to himself. This this one uh um like put together by James Harris is uh uh the best. So, but it's he like wrote 12 books to himself to remind himself to be a good and whole person. Um but one of the things that he said, I'm like, okay, let's see if I can find it uh he says, now it is true that they um no, okay, so he's talking about um uh struggling with things and like obstacles and or impediments is what he calls them. Now it may be true that they may impede my action, but they are not impediments which affect my disposition. So he's saying you still have the ability to choose who you are going to be, right? Yeah. And he said, which is the power of acting unconditionally, as the mind converts every hindrance into an aid. The hindrance is made a furtherance to an act, and that, which is an obstacle to the way, becomes the way. So that to me is like, okay, well, in all of this, it's like the veils that cover the soul are not a hindrance. They are the way because the peeling back of them, the learning how to heal them, is how to have grace for yourself, how to, it's like resilience. We become a better version of ourselves. But also, it's like when I'm sitting with somebody, I can sit with somebody who's gone through some really hard stuff because I've been through hard stuff. Now, it doesn't mean that we experience the same thing because it's just not even possible. Somebody could have lost, like you and I lost the same son, right? But it's like in the exact same way. But our filter or everything that we perceived about that loss is different. Nobody can say, I know exactly how you feel, because we don't.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

Sure they do. They say that all the time.

SPEAKER_00 48:12

They do say it all the time.

SPEAKER_02 48:13

They just don't know that they don't mean it, I guess. Yes, I know actually, no one knows exactly what anybody thinks.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

Yeah, and and if you understand that, then it's like that's the the marvel of the human brain is that our brains have evolved and adapted the ability to, when I see you feel sad, my brain will turn on mirror neurons that will bring to me the exact same emotion with a memory of a feeling that I had that is close to it, so that I can be with you in what is hard. Not, oh shoot, I'm sorry, that's sad. You know, it's different.

SPEAKER_02 48:51

Okay, so so the actual hard things are the source of your compassion.

SPEAKER_00 48:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 49:00

Because it brings up that thought of something that you went through that was hard that had the evoked the same emotion. Yeah. And now you have compassion, but if life was just cake, you would not be a compassionate person, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 49:12

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:13

I mean it's you have a lower capacity anyway.

SPEAKER_00 49:15

Yeah, a lower capacity to feel with people. It's a hard thing to do, actually, empathy, because you have to be willing to sit with what has been hard for you in your own life. And sometimes that brings up, I mean, there's been a million times in session, and because I do parts work, it's like my clients will sometimes see me do this.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

This is over there petting her arm, like, it's okay, don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

Yeah, I just okay, like in a session once there I had a husband and wife, and the husband, it's when he feels powerless, he gets big and loud real fast, right? And so, and and that happens a lot. That's it, I mean, this could be one of any number of people that I work with, but it's like they will get really big really fast and really loud. And that was something that was difficult for me growing up, is when my stepdad would yell.

SPEAKER_02 50:09

Oh, yeah, we had to run in with this, didn't we? Me and you.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

Yeah. Yours, okay, yours is different. But like what I would do in that session is just like I feel myself tense up and fearful, like I was that little kid. And I'm like, hey girl, I got you. We're all right. You know, it's okay. Regulating my own nervous system so that I can be present for the part that was five years old.

SPEAKER_02 50:34

So you're like, it's okay, girl, we're good.

SPEAKER_00 50:36

So that I can be present and know how to help them moving forward, right? With you, the example with you is like Ryan has never yelled at me in 29 years, which is a miracle because I'm a lot, but you're a lot of fun. I am oh yes. Wow, yeah. Yes. No, but I think one of the things about Ryan is like Ryan, um, I'm a verbal processor. He's an internalizer. So he just needs to sit with it and think about it. When he's upset, he just needs to go quiet. And that's the way he processes. Yeah. That's called ruminating.

SPEAKER_02 51:12

Yeah, I know all about it.

SPEAKER_00 51:13

Yes, yes. No, but he he would get quiet. And when we were first married, I would be like, Are you okay? And then I'd be like, What can I do for you? Hey, I'll do this for you. I'll blah, blah, blah. And then I think once we kind of figured it out, I was like, oh, okay. And this is a whole thing we can talk about triggers and how to deal with them, right? Because that triggers has become a hot topic, but it's really a stimulus that is causing a part of me to panic.

SPEAKER_02 51:41

Yeah, this was like 20 years into our marriage when when you're like, oh, you're not actually mad. I just think there's a problem because in the past, I've had experiences with people where when they're really quiet, it's because there's a problem. So thinking there's a problem. And I'm like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:58

There's no problem. The calm before this, not even calm. It's the quiet before the storm was real, right? And so my nervous system would go into panic that you were mad at me. And so I would start fawning, which is like fight, flight, freeze, fawn is a real thing. And so I would try to make you feel better. And then you said to me, Hey, I'm not mad at you. I'm just processing, you know, just and so, you know, I mean, that's just relationships from whatever.

SPEAKER_02 52:26

20 years never occurred to me that that's why you reacted like that when I was quiet. It just never occurred to me that it was based on a previous experience, you know? It's just so it's like you don't know what you don't know. And that's where asking the question, why do I do this? Why do I think this way? Where does that come from? I mean, that can be the beginning of a lot of maybe hard work, but a lot of good things. Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

And I would say when you say hard work, that it's like, I mean, it's a lot of work, right? And sometimes I think that what is hard is actually to feel your feelings. Um, but it doesn't mean that they're new. Like I'll say that all the time. They're not new feelings, they're stuck. You are living with them in your body. You were not creating this pain. This pain has lived inside your body. There's plenty of people. I mean, uh Bessel Vanderkoek, um, the The Body Keeps the Score, um, Buried Feelings Never Die. There's all these different things, energy healers that are out there trying to help you find those. But I mean, it's very, very true, you know. I mean, I had a thyroid disorder, um, and I was doing a whole bunch of like trauma work, and it was not supposed to be cured, but I just was like, I'm healing my body. And and it's an extreme thing, but to me, it's like you do the physical stuff and you do the emotional work because we are both physical and the spirit, right? And so in doing that, and now it like it's just I went and got my blood testing done, and it's like, I don't know where this went.

SPEAKER_02 54:03

Yeah, I think I think the body pays the price for the emotional trauma.

SPEAKER_00 54:06

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So it's not new. It's just not fun, though. It's not fun.

SPEAKER_02 54:12

This is the problem. This is why people hold on to stuff, because it is not fun to di, you know, I mean, like crying. You know, we lost a son, and not until what, 25 years later, through some therapy and things, I finally just balled my face off. I mean, not that I hadn't before, but it's just why did I not get that out sooner? It's not fun. I hate it. You know what I mean? So I don't I avoid it. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

And I think that um, you know, it's like uh I think it's in Untethered Soul. Sorry, I'm looking for the author. Michael something.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

This could be a long podcast. There's a lot of books over there if she keeps looking at it.

SPEAKER_00 54:58

The Untethered Soul. I usually remember their names, but anyway, there was one part in that book that really stood out when he was talking about, you know, like emotion is energy and motion. It's meant to be temporary. So think about if you were to I don't remember if this is a concept in that book.

SPEAKER_02 55:14

So it's like a storm, it rolls through and just causes havoc and then it'll it's gone.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

Okay, one like you could s like when you stub your toe, I swear to you, that's a pain you can die from.

unknown 55:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:28

I agree with it.

SPEAKER_00 55:29

You stub it and it's like, oh my gosh, it's like the worst. But there's something in us that knows that it will pass, that it's intense and it will pass. And so we allow it to be there and then it passes. But we don't do the same thing with emotions. Emotions are like what he said in Untethered Soul is that it's like our heart should remain open. But instead, when there is an emotion that we don't like, we grab it and close around it. Eckhart totally talks about it in a way that is like um, that it's like we wrap it in resistance. Well, if the only way to actually ever deal with anything is to accept that it is a reality. But the root of suffering is non-acceptance of reality, to resist what is.

SPEAKER_02 56:18

You're fighting the river and it's not gonna stop.

SPEAKER_00 56:22

Yeah. So so all emotion is meant to pass through. So there have been some really difficult things uh emotionally for me in the last little bit that you know. And it was like uh just the emotional overwhelm was so high. It's so tempting to get angry, right? And anger is an emotion as well, but I know anger to be an avoidant emotion in that situation. So it would be easy to be angry, it would be easy to, or um to just like, okay, well, you know, that's enough. I'm not gonna think about it, whatever, and just get busy doing things. But I also know that if I can be with the emotion, then it goes fast. So Dr. Skinner used to talk to us all the time about buffaloing up. So a cow, when you're out on the prairie, when a storm is coming, a cow will turn its back to the storm and walk away from it. It wants to avoid it. But it stays in the storm longer, it suffers longer because of it. A buffalo will instinctually turn toward the storm and go headfirst into it, pass straight through it. Because it goes faster, they can move through it quicker, but it's like if we can understand that, it's like the emotion lived in my body. It was the real fear of something that I never wanted to be, but it happened. And once it did, uh, it was, I mean, two days probably of hell.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

Yeah, yeah, that was that was rough.

SPEAKER_00 58:05

Yeah, and so it was like, but then when I got to the other side, I started to get perspective. I started to have grace and compassion for everybody involved and going, now what do we need to do?

SPEAKER_03 58:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:19

Because ultimately, you know, I love, you know, I love the people who were involved in this situation, and I just, I desperately want to have a whole relationship. But also part of that was me getting more honest, you know, and exposing things that ended up hurting in the end anyway. That's a lot.

SPEAKER_02 58:42

But that stuff just seems like for for a typical guy.

SPEAKER_00 58:49

You're not typical.

SPEAKER_02 58:50

They don't have dynam.

SPEAKER_00 58:52

I'm just no guy's typical.

SPEAKER_02 58:54

There is no typical guy, I guess. But um for a guy, it's like typically their thought process might be I don't have time for that. I got things to do. This is this this is gonna have to wait. Or maybe they're they don't value the relationships as much. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 59:14

So it just seems like there's less less guys digging into themselves like that than not to draw a line, but it's well I think I think that then this brings the other point that I wanted to bring up, which is Carl Jung's um like stages of life. So there's like the first half of life, you are working on building an identity and a purpose, and it's all about accomplishments. But there is a natural part that happens around midlife, and I think it's happening earlier and earlier because as humans, we are evolving uh into multi-sensory beings, meaning it's not just what I can touch, taste, smell, whatever. We're developing intuition more prominently and stuff like that. And so and so it's like yeah, I think that you know, uh I totally just lost my thought. Hold on.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:12

Well, that's good because I've been waiting for a good window to to make a stage slide. Yes. Just just uh uh side note, I'm pretty sure there are no buffalo in America. Everything in America is a bison, sorry. Not 100% sure on that. I think you uh you gotta picture a water buffalo. Sorry. That's buffalo. Sorry. Bison. You got a bison up. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:34

So we shouldn't be buffaloing up at all.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:36

That probably didn't help you remember what you're doing. Yeah, no, it did. It did. Okay, perfect.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:41

Okay, so second stage of life is more, it's like that's the evolution. But it usually, you know, midlife or whatever. There's a time in everybody's lives, hopefully, where they come to a point where they start thinking about uh they're more interested in connections.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:58

Um, and like what matters starts to change, you know. Um Richard Rohr has a fantastic book that it's like I deal with like faith crisis, I'll call it, but to me, I love it because it is more conscious choosing of where you are at spiritually. And so I love like helping people like it, it's like expand, right? It doesn't mean that you have to leave everything that you've ever believed in, and it might mean that. But I think I really love the process of like expansion. What do I want to believe? And um on a spiritual level, which is different than religion a lot as well. But I think, and or could be similar, but I think that it's like the second stage of life is where we are starting to think about who we are in the world, what actually matters. So Richard Rohr's book, um, he talks a lot about this, is called Falling Upward. And it's so good about transitioning in life, getting to a point where, you know, as we live life and we go through difficult circumstances, often people can experience like um, I remember my my friend Linda that died from brain cancer. Um, she knew she was gonna, or not brain, sorry, lung, but it had gotten in her brain, and she knew that she was going to die. And I asked her how she was doing with it. And she said, There are days that I'm so mad, you know, and I just sit and cry. She goes, but for the most part, she goes, Amy, we're all dying. Just there's some of us who are lucky enough to know when. And so life changes, and so you start really thinking what matters, and she would say all the time, the only thing that matters is love. That's it. Love your people.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:50

Yeah, I'm sure you get you know your you know what what your day is.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:54

And that starts to become more apparent. Yeah. It's interesting because you talk about the the midlife crisis, and it has this uh this baggage that comes with it, I think. But okay, I'm 50, what, 52? Am I 52?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:08

Don't ask me. I had you so tricked one year. 50.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:13

Oh cute. Who knows? I'm somewhere in the low 50s. 52. It's got to be 52. All right, so okay. So I bought a dirt bike. When did I buy a dirt bike?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:26

Like two years ago. A year or two years ago.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:28

Three or four or three years ago or something like that. Okay. Is that a midlife crisis type thing? Um it's not a red sports car, et cetera. But here's the here's why I did.

unknown 1:03:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

No, you bought me the orange sports car. Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:40

I bought you the orange sports car.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:42

So so for me, I I think about it like this. Okay, for uh I for 20 years, I was a kid, I was a teenager, I got married, um, I had kids. Uh my job was to work and provide for family, and that sometimes can severely limit the hobbies and the things that you can do and spend money on. And then I'm 45, I'm 50, and the kids are old enough. I'm not we're not really raising kids anymore. One of them's still at home, but so guess what? Life changed. My my work, a lot of men, especially, I think, tend to identify with their work. You know, they are whatever their job is a lot of the time. And that's because that's what they spend most of their time doing. But okay, after you know, 45-50, it's like, guess what? I don't care about my job. I mean, this stuff is just not important anymore. And I would rather do something different. And if it makes half as much money as long as you're picking up the tab, Amy, then I'm gonna do that if it makes me more fulfilled, et cetera. So so the fact is the stage of life, what my roles are and what my jobs are and my responsibilities and identities are all changing right about that time of life. So it's not a midlife crisis. I think it's a midlife realization of like, I'm in a different place now than I was. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:14

Well, I think crisis is an interesting term because it's like midlife crisis is actually one of the stages of development. And I think um it gets a bad rap because it's always sports sports cars and affairs or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:28

Um Well, you can't take your kids anywhere in a in a two-seat sports car. Yeah. I can't go ride the motorcycle with the family. It's not a family activity. I mean, th there's legitimate reasons why people don't do some of this stuff until they're older and the kids are gone.

unknown 1:05:41

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:41

Yeah, and I think that it's like it's difficult to put it into words because it's not it's difficult to put like a feeling or a sensation into a concept. Um, but I think that it's like uh crisis can feel like a crisis because it's like All of a sudden you have this shocking moment of awareness of where you always thought you would be versus where you want to be.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:07

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:07

And what is the difference between them?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:10

Yeah, you hit 50 and all of a sudden it's like, wait a minute, this is like more than half over.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:14

Yeah, yeah. Where instead I think that you and I really in the last little bit have come into, I remember, you know, when I was about 42 going, oh my gosh, I get to live the rest of my life as this version, you know, of myself. And I think because I just have been working through a lot of stuff for a long time, but I just was, you know, it's like I am entirely flawed, but I know, like I'm like, but I'm working on it, you know, I'm good. Progress and learning. And it's like, I don't know, now I'm like, I cannot believe I'm 49. It's like if I get to live another 40 plus years, it's like, what do I want to do? And it's exciting. Yeah, it is. It's like this again, but it's like, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:05

Well, yeah. So so for me, it was, I mean, in the last couple of years, I've really some of the things that my whole life have been like, I really want to do this, I really want to do this, this is something I gotta do. Um, you know, the last couple of years, I'm like, eh, that's not so important anymore. It's kind of dropped off of, you know what I mean? It'd still be great to do it, but it's like, you know what? That's it's not priorities change.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:28

Because your viewpoint changes. Yeah. And I think that's the whole thing about life. It's like if you're if you're 50 and and and you're wondering why you are the way you are sometimes, it's that where did that start? Like you were saying, it's like maybe it's time to drill down a little bit and figure out if there's things you want to change.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:47

If it's like But it's it's the coolest thing because a moment of crisis feels it can feel like a crisis, right? It's like faith crisis often gets lumped into that.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:57

Because what you know is thrown up in the air and it's in question and you're and you're looking at different places.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:01

Well, and I think especially especially with faith crisis, it's like it's like when you have a moment of awareness where all of a sudden you're like, oh my gosh. Like I'm afraid of whatever, you know, hell, whatever, you know, whatever it is that you've been taught to fear. And then it's like, what if I don't have this anymore? What if I don't believe the same, or whatever? Because then you have to face all the things that you were afraid of that this was a solution for. And that can be more a uh, it can feel like crisis, but it is actually uh, I think so incredibly freeing in the sense that you're so consciously aware you're deciding for yourself. It's the same thing with midlife. It's like, you know, maybe when you're a kid and you're setting your goals and what do you want to do when you go to college? You're thinking that when you're a junior in high school, senior in high school, you're trying to figure that stuff out. When your frontal lobe isn't even developed, you're going to college, you're doing all these things, and then maybe there comes a point in your life where you stop and go, wait a minute, I'm halfway done. Have I like what's my focus? Is this really what I want? And but that's such a good point because it's uh like um Richard Roard said Richard Roar says, you are brought to that point by the grace of God because it's it's a true wake-up point, a point of choosing. Now what do you want to do with the rest of it?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:33

Aaron Ross Powell Well, and it's probably seems scary because you've you've fully embraced whatever you had for the last thirty years, even unwittingly.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:43

You know what I mean? That's that's your normal, that's what you know. And now you're wondering if that's what the future is.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:49

Aaron Powell Well, and I think the radical thing in all of it is that we then, you know, become we have a new little grandson, and it is like And now absolutely nothing matters. Nothing matters.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:04

Nothing matters except. Life is just gravy from here on out.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:09

Yeah. I mean, you I can, you know, it's like usually it's like I got two hours I need to produce and do all this stuff, but when Jack is over, it's like literally I could lay there and watch him make facial expressions as a newborn for like two hours and it's not enough time. I don't want to do anything else. And somehow at the end of it, I end up just wanting to be a better version of myself too, you know, which I think is a lot of like how meditation is, because truly it's just presence. You just, you know, it's just presence.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:42

So going on, so meditation. You did a meditation uh two two days before this was released, that was posted. Um I think a lot of people maybe I should just speak for me instead of speaking for everybody else. Yeah. I hear meditation and I don't know what that looks like. I mean, I you know. So what is meditation at its core and why is it something everybody can do?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:09

So I think I'm not saying I know the answer to this.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:12

Right. No, no, no, no, I know. I think that with meditation, it's like it's very there's a lot of different definitions. And there's people who are like hardcore, no, this is it.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:22

Aaron Powell So there's eight billion people-ish on the earth, I guess. So there's probably eight billion-ish different ways to meditate.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:28

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah. There's like, you know, in the last meditation that I just did on Monday at the end, gave like a guided like thought, right? And you can listen to a guided one. I mean, I think I'll probably do the wise person one coming up as a guided meditation, which is awesome and impactful, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:48

But I think that one of the things with um meditation is that it it really is at its core the benefit of it's one, just focusing on being so present, right? You're just only focusing on the breath. And if you think of it as it's like it's a rest stop for your brain. There's nothing to do. You the thoughts are coming and going.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:13

Are you trying to not have any thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:16

Well, in the Buddhist world, they would say you're not trying to do anything. You're just being. That's one of the things I love in in Buddhism is that it's like, you know, like I've I've shared in the first one that it's like a John Nate, when I was really going through something and I was like, I'm struggling because I don't have negative feelings. You know, I I had, I had like, I just don't have negative feelings toward people, you know, currently. And I had worked really hard on that. But then there was this situation that was causing a lot of difficulty, and it was really hard not to have anger, and I couldn't find compassion for this person. And so I asked a John Nate, uh Ajahn means uh teacher, and he's a Buddhist monk, Watlao Budaram in um West Valley. He was on the walk for peace, and he's an excellent, amazing soul.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:11

There's lots of Ajahns.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:12

There's a lot of Ajahns, yes. But um, but a John Nate, I had asked him, what do I do? Because I can't, I can't feel compassion, you know. And so he told me I needed to, he was like, you have to stop, sit, take time by yourself, and breathe. Because you are at your core, like the energy of who you are is peace. That's true for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:37

Was it like practice the virtue of selfishness?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:42

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:42

He said, he said, you need to, you need to be selfish. And he taught selfishness as a virtue because it is like to take time aside. If you want to be able to help anybody, you need to know peace in your mind. And uh and it was so helpful. So then I go and sit, and he said, Don't try to feel compassion, don't try to feel peace, because then you'll miss it. If you're trying to do something, it becomes performative, it's not real. But you are that, so just trust that in the process, and it and it's totally true.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:17

So is it kind of like okay, so I guess if I'm thinking of a definition of if somebody out there is like, I would like to try meditation, maybe, but they have no idea what it is. Okay, so in my mind, there's a couple things. Um turn off outside distractions, whether that's go in a room by yourself or turn off the TV, or whether that's go into your head and shut off your hearing, I don't know, you know, whatever it is, but center in yourself and then don't have any thoughts on purpose. Don't generate thoughts intentionally. But thoughts are gonna come because that's the way your brain works, and just don't focus on any of them, let them run through, come in one side and out the other, and just be open to I don't even know. Feeling anything.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:15

Yeah. Well, it's it's just sit down and shut up for 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:18

That's pretty much what it is, I think.

unknown 1:15:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:21

Uh it is it is just to focus on breathing. That's it. Okay, that's good. Just your breath, it's the only thing. It's the thing that you're doing all day, every day. We're just unaware. But when you focus on it, it brings you to the present moment.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:36

So how do you focus on it? Are you counting? Are you is that just a big thing? No, it just depends.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:40

It's like um the Buddha had a this is my in-breath, this is my out breath. It's like you can start with that. Um a John Nate has taught like slow, slow breath in, yeah, slow breath out, or uh short, and then long breath in, long breath out. Um, just to bring that way. And then as I've shared in the meditation as well, it's like Ajahn Vilasek then taught me: well, it's like your brain has been allowed to wander forever. You know, it's it's never needed to be tamed before. So it's a wild animal, but you want that wild animal to stay with you. So you, it's just just sit, focus on your breath. Your mind is going to wander. That's okay. As soon as you recognize that your mind is wandered, you're back to the present moment. Then once you come back to the present moment, then you take, you can visualize. I visualize myself going, I don't know why mine's a cow. It is a cow. I would like it to be a unicorn or a whale or something, but it just is a cow. So from the time on the ranch in Jerome. But I wander out, I visualize myself going to get her, bringing her back. She sits down, I give her a treat and a pet and sit down. I want to train her to want to be with me.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:01

The cow.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:03

But it's just your thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:05

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:05

So it's just a way of visualizing and bringing it back, but without judgment, because oftentimes when I'm talking to people about meditation, I'll say, you know, do you meditate? Oh no, I can't do it. You know, it's like, no. And and often I think people believe that meditation is that you are supposed to make your brain go quiet. But under threat of torture, you couldn't do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:28

You know, it's like it, that's just not the way our brain works. But the miracle of meditation is learning to see that you are not your thoughts. Your thoughts are happening. That's your conditioned mind. It's the voices of the mean teachers, the voices of maybe if your parents were mean, it's their voices replaying over and over in your mind, trying to keep you safe, or thoughts of inadequacy, all the things that I've got to do this, I've got to make sure I'm doing this. But it's like just to observe them and let them go. Then how that helps you in real time when you do that in practice. So um Mahadam Famasan was in the monk that was in the walk for peace that was hit by a car. And he talked about how he wanted to go on the walk for peace. Maybe we should do an interview with him sometime if we can.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:25

But so if you all don't know what the walk for peace is, there were uh you I'm sure you've heard about it. It was what, last year or something?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:30

Yeah, starting in October, Buddhist monks uh walked um 2,300 miles. They walk when across the U.S.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:39

Yeah in the winter from Texas to From Fort Worth and to Washington, D.C.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:44

It took them October to February.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:46

And one of them got hit by a they got hit by a car, a couple of them lost his legs. So that's who she's talking about.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:51

So Maharam, he he gave this Dhamma talk. Uh I went to the B Sacks celebration. It's the celebration of the life and teachings and death of Buddha in Fort Worth in April. And he was teaching a a talk on the teachings of the Buddha, but he was talking about using meditation through pain. And so he wanted to go on the walk. Essentially, he wanted to be able to go on the walk for peace, but everybody was like, it's so hard. It's like, I mean, if you can imagine, if I walked 30 miles in one day, and then the next day I got up and walked 30 miles again, there's no way the third day is happening. There's probably no way that the second day happened. But they did that every day for like uh over a hundred days. Yeah. And and so he started training for it, walking on hot asphalt, doing different things to try to train for it. And some of the monks walked barefoot for all of it. They when they had to put on um boots and stuff when it was super below freezing. But anyway, but he talks about how he would meditate through the pain, override the sensation of the pain with his mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:04

So the body road without a leg or having a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:07

Yes, but before that he was practicing it.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:09

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:10

To prepare for the walk. So then when he said that when he was hit, um, when I like what he said, it's like Bhante Panyakara came over and said, Are you breathing? And he said, Uh, yes, Ajahn, I am breathing. And just calm, but he told us he was in so much pain. But he was just breathing through it. Um and so, but he said that he was able to do that in a real moment of crisis because he had practiced it before.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:38

Yeah, so this is a point that kind of hit me in one of our classes. It's like, okay, if you've never meditated before or you've tried it and you're like, yeah, I suck at it. Well, guess what? The first time anybody does anything, they suck at it. You know what I mean? The fifth time most people do stuff, they suck at it. I mean, it it's just practice, right? The only way So that's interesting that he had done all of that, and then guess what? He gets to use it to sit on the side of the road with his legs. Well, and then in he has the meditation practice too.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:08

And then in the hospital, and now he even, you know, he talks all the time online about it as well, that it's just like he has a lot of pain learning to walk with a prosthetic leg, but he's constantly using it. And so how does that work for us? Well, it works for us in the sense that it's like I want to be a more patient mom. But when I'm in a moment and my kid, yeah, and but when my when my child child is reacting in a certain way or doing something, then I feel like reaction. And I'll I'll teach like skills for handling triggers like that and learning how to slow down our thinking. But but it's like the way that he does that is like to recognize you recognize that it's a conditioned thought that's coming up, saying that what they are doing is wrong because of, or what they are doing is making you feel inadequate, I can't control this, or whatever else. And so we react. And so the reason why it's so beneficial is because with meditation, if you can learn how to recognize the difference between you and the thoughts you are having, you get to start choosing which thoughts you're gonna react to or respond to. Where um usually we're so driven by our thoughts.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:28

You know, so it's like I was saying at the beginning, it's something you just gotta stop the momentum, put the brakes on, and check in and see what's happening.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:36

Yeah. I'm hoping that over, you know, over the time of the podcast, it's like teaching some of the different skills because I'm, you know, it's like I can learn things, but also so much of this was not something that I learned at all growing up and and or in my life. And so it's like, how do I turn this into a practical skill that I can actually teach somebody to do that is, you know, realistic to do?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:02

A lot of good like the the classes that you've done, you have, I mean, it was what, every it's eight Thursdays, eight, eight nights in a row, two hours each night. And there's so many skills that it's hard, you can't can't pack them all in there. Just little things that you can do, practices or methods for you to figure things out. Yeah, it's great.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:23

With like helping with relationships and whatever else. So we'll just we'll put them all in here and then some. So so it'll be good. But so ultimately the topic of this week is is just like the very first intro to the conditioned mind, which we can go deeper on later and we will over time because it's so important to understand, but it's okay that this is enough to just kind of wrap your mind around. I have a conditioned mind. This conditioned mind, so maybe it helps to know that it's like um, like our core fears as humans is um I don't belong, I don't have what I need, and I'm powerless. Yeah. You know, you can trace every stressor back to one of the three of those things. Or they can I uh don't belong, I don't have what I need, and I'm powerless.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:18

And so oftentimes when we're in relationship, when we're like married or whatever, we want to control the situation. Control is an illusion, let that go. But we'll work on that because that one's a hard one. But it is that it's that fearful mind that if I can control it, then I can know what to expect.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:37

You know, and and then I'm safe. And it all goes back to, and then I'm safe. So it's an attachment to safety, where truly no, like you can think of a million different situations where everybody did the right thing and something bad happened.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:52

Right? So, um, but it's ultimately like the beginning places to just know, like our limbic system connected to our nervous system, our polyvagal nerve that runs straight down. So probably if you experience anxiety or um fear when you're stressed out, you probably feel it throat, like to me, sometimes it feels like in my throat, but it's like chest is like anxiety or stomach, whatever. It's your polyvagal nerve, which is connected to your nervous system, your limbic system that tells you you are um under threat.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:28

And so if you can learn how to recognize the conditioned mind versus your truest nature and live, keep striving toward the truest nature, then in time, fear, you really lose fear. You know, because it's like I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:49

Well, because you you're not worried you made the wrong choice anymore. You're not worried that you believed the the the other guy in your head that's trying to convince you to do stuff you shouldn't do. You believed you chose the one you know is true and in and part of your integrity, and so you have less fear about that choice, probably.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:07

Aaron Powell Yeah, I have no fear that I've made the wrong choice because I've made the wrong choice uh a bajillion times in my lifetime, but I learned from it every time. We learn more by getting it wrong than by getting it right. Failure is necessary. It makes me think of um oh, if you haven't watched was it Fearless.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:29

Um I don't remember. I think about the drummer.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:32

The one with um Chris Hemsworth.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:35

Yeah, I don't remember.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:37

Season two, season one, I think it was excellent. I'm super bummed that it was cut short. But uh season two, I think it was episode one, he's trying to learn how to play the drums, which inspired me to want to learn how to play the drums because the neuroscientist. Anyway, go on. So, which the neuroscientist was talking about to him like if you want to strengthen your brain, learn how to do a new skill, music instruments are awesome. He said, I've always wanted to play the drums, and she's like, the drums are actually excellent because your hands are doing two different things and your feet are doing two different things. And the thing about the drums is I was learning it as well, is that it's like it requires you to think to get the rhythm, but then at a certain point, your thinking gets in the way. So you have to let go and just let your muscles do it. Because if every time I start thinking, then I'm tripping up, right? And so, but in the process of learning, it's frustrating and it's overwhelming, and you're failing a million times, but the failure is necessary to the process of learning because the feeling of failure and discouragement is actually your brain trying to create neuropathways that are your brain knowing how to do something, you know, and developing the skill. So all of this is to say that it's like that there's nothing wrong with. There's nothing wrong.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:01

And if there is, everybody's got it. Whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:05

I think one of the things that I love so much, The Seed of the Soul, is an excellent book by Gary Zukov. I love the way that he talks about it. Peter Crohn is incredible at teaching this and shows in real time in his podcast. But it's like the idea, like they will say often, that it's like, why do we all experience such a range of problems, right? And so whether you believe in the sense of a soul or life after this one or life before this one, or intelligence outside this body, or not, there is a reality that we all are very, very different and face different struggles. And those struggles either keep us stuck or we grow. You know, post-traumatic growth is so real. So it's like, okay, so then the way that Peter Crohn talks about it is that anytime you're facing something really, really difficult, you don't have what you need, you don't have the love and support you wanted. It's like, okay, well, your soul would have chosen these experiences in order for you to learn and grow, which is a hard concept to get. And I don't really want to get into it super much because it's it's a difficult one to kind of work through, except that if there is an idea that the experiences that I'm having, like Eckhart totally says, uh, the experiences that you are having are meant for your growth. It's like, well, how do I know the experiences that I'm having are the ones that are meant for my growth? Because they're the ones you're having.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:35

You know, and it's like, okay, well, because I think ultimately, whether we choose it, whether we don't, whether whatever it is, it's that there are many of us who know that we became a different version of ourselves through the most difficult things that we've experienced in our lives. I would say losing Dawson for us was a big one. Um, and there's so many more that we could list with that. But it's the the biggest struggles of our lives are the things that have led to uh us developing more compassion, more love, more purpose. Yeah, you know, more desire to make this be about something other than the job that we have or the stuff we have or whatever, you know, like living with more fulfillment. So this one is all about just understanding that it is like our truest nature, who we are, is peace. And that can feel like it's covered by a thousand veils. And what those veils are is just the conditioned mind. But the conditioned mind feels like it is something that went wrong in the plan, but it didn't. Because those veils and the conditioned mind and all of those, the obstacles are the way. Because as we heal those things and and pull them back, we become more whole. I don't think you start whole necessarily, you know, without any of those things. It's just how do you do human life without ever even experiencing?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:05

Yeah, it's like the hard things are the they're the tools, they're the hammer and they're the chisel that you create what you want out of yourself with, I guess. And without those, it's really hard to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:17

But yeah, it's the analogy that is like similar to a caterpillar. The caterpillar was never meant to be a caterpillar for all of its life. But the point of suffering that it gets to, where it finally goes into a cocoon, it feels all is lost. I mean, it doesn't f feel that probably, but essentially it's suffering. And uh and then it goes into a cocoon never knowing that it was always meant to be a butterfly.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:45

That's the problem. Nobody told the caterpillar what the plan was. That's what frustrates me about life sometimes. It's like that I'm fine with the plan. I just I need to know what the plan is. What is the plan?

SPEAKER_00 1:31:57

Yeah, but that's the thing is I don't think that the that the caterpillar hut the the concept of a butterfly.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:03

Yeah. Or even you'd be like, what are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:06

Yeah. It's like it's just what I said earlier that it's like if somebody told me when I was 34 that in 15 years I needed to be at this point, I wouldn't have started.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:17

But instead, it's just putting my head down, as Patty told me. Put your head down and do the next thing. And there's something that will come into my mind that just lights me up that I feel like I need to go, I need to follow it, and it scares the crap out of me, and I just do it anyway.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:35

And that's what, you know, being here, and it's exciting to know that it's like, it's it's not that I'm at any kind of place where it's like some finishing point and whatever. It's that the most exciting thing in all of it is to know, oh my gosh, what's ahead? Because I know the skills, you know, or I'm working at them all the time. And sometimes I'm better at it than others. But it's like, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:00

Well, and you love doing this. You come home from work nine days out of ten. I love my job.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:05

I can't believe I get to do this. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:08

And then and then I need to go into a room and be very quiet and let my brain sink to the center of my head. It's a lot of energy sometimes. But so I think that the thing that I would leave this one with with the conditioned mind is just have grace and compassion.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:24

It's like for yourself, and for other people before yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:28

To know that it's like this life was never about becoming anything. This is Paulo Coelho. Your life is never about becoming something, it is about unbecoming everything that you are not. Because what you are is wholeness, is absolute. It's it depends on, you know, what people's spiritual perspective. In the East, um, in a lot of ways, there's the belief that we are all fragments of the divine, it's experiencing itself in this form for a while, right? And and and we bow to each other in recognition of the um divine mystery that is in the other person. You reflect the divine in a way that I don't know yet, because only you can reflect it. And I love that. I think that's so beautiful. Then there is also more in the West that it's like we are all children of God, right? Or um creations of God. And so in that sense, we are all uh, you know, I had a guy tell me once that it's like um when we were talking, a friend, I he said, um, he was like, what if if that's true then, what if that means that we are 100%, if we're children, doesn't that mean that we are the 100% DNA? The DNA, the DNA of God, and and being in these bodies and having these experiences is really just experiencing, like the divine experiencing itself in an opposite form, and in in a way which in philosophy there's um the theory of how does anything that is infinite expand? How does anything that is infinitely um free become more free? Yeah it has to experience itself in the opposite form and be so convinced that in the opposite form that's the reality, that once you snap those veils back, you snap into really just like you know, waking up to, oh my gosh, like this is who I am.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:39

Okay, so so here's here's the last the last bit then. So you you do a little exercise, and I'm gonna do it this time.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:47

Abbreviate it. So think of a of a newborn baby, fresh infant, newborn baby. Does that baby have any worth or value at all? And if it does, is there anything that baby could do that would remove that worth and value? Where that baby would lose it? And if there's not, then what happened to your worth and value? Because you were that baby. Every single one of us was that baby. So the point is, whatever you got going, whatever is ahead, whatever was behind, you have infinite unalterable value and worth. Every single person does.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:44

So we can be disappointing, we can be harmful, we can be hurtful.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:50

But that does not affect our worth ever. I mean, any parent who looks at their child every single time I've ever asked, it's like when you looked at your baby. Did they have worth and value? Yes. Could they ever lose it? I've asked kids this about their parents. Do they have worth and value? Oh, yes. Could they ever lose it? No.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:12

But we don't believe it for ourselves, and that's where we have to do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:14

Yeah, it's the grace and compassion for ourselves. Behind those 10,000 veils you're talking about is you. 10,000. Is that what you said? Good gracious. What did you say? I thought you were talking about the job. Just a thousand, babe.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:24

Oh, just a thousand.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:26

Oh, all right. Well, that's easy.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:28

I guess it depends on the childhood you lived. I don't know. I don't know. No, I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:32

But behind however many veils you have, that's that's you. You're in there, you're worth and your value.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:37

It's and that nothing's going wrong. It has gone wrong. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:41

You just have a huge toolbox. Tools to fix your life.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:45

It's like nothing has to fix yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:46

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:47

Nothing is going wrong. It has gone wrong. It has gone hard. But that instead of seeing things as unfair and unjust, well, if these are if these obstacles are the way, then they're not unfair or unjust. They're sacred. They're meant for you. They are the exact thing that you need. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:07

And that doesn't mean they're fun sometimes. They're not fun at all.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:10

They're the worst. It can be very, very difficult. And I'm saying this, I just want to I just want to clarify. I'm saying this as a person who has experienced abuse, who has experienced trauma. I'm also saying this as a trauma therapist who have worked with people with insanely shocking histories, you know, just devastatingly difficult. But even when they start to get this, it's like what comes out is just I mean, those people are meant to change the whole world. You know.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:43

But it's like we we all are it's just when you make a decision from your integrity of who you are, it's right the second you make it. Doesn't matter what comes of that decision.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:59

So yeah, I guess that I guess that's the goal.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:03

That is that is Richard Schwartz um IFS at a training thing that I was at where he was teaching that he's the creator of IFS. He was talking to a room full of people that were like, okay, but if my client says this, then what do I say? They wanted a script because it's really scary when you're dealing with it. But he just was kind of confused by all of us, kept asking, and then and then he just said, When you are connected to your truest self, your true nature, meditation connects you there. You start to begin to taste it there. When you are connected to your truest self, that part of you, that self, always, always knows what to do next.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:43

And and if you think of times when you've made a very difficult decision, but you knew it was the right thing to do, it's totally true. Like then you have this courage.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:52

I think that's where the peace comes from because you already you know you made the right decision.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:57

You you have peace with the decision regardless of what happens next.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:01

Yes, I think in This Morning My Meditation uh comes from the Tao Te Ching, and it was like one of the things that said in it. Um, this book that I do use. Um If we hold on to our true nature, all external and internal strife falls away. Peace descends on our own life, or on our life, like a gentle rain from heaven, joy flows from the earth like a mighty river. It may be only for a brief moment, but we sometimes glimpse that inexpressible assurance that all is well. Our conditioned mind quickly steps in to remind us that no, all is not well. And then it trots out many examples proving its point. But the memory of assurance remains in the center of who we truly are. We remember it when life's chaos chaos closes it, and we be and sorry, and it becomes a place to plant our feet. So it's like essentially what Sat's saying is that any moment that we have them, we have a glimpse of everything's gonna be okay. Our conditioned mind wants to jump back in and go, no, it's not.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:18

Let me give you all the examples of all of the horrible things that could happen to us. And what if this happens, and what if this happens? Because our conditioned mind believes that its job is to keep us safe, and the safest we are is when we are an absolute fear, panic, and anxiety. Right? Because it's convinced of that. But our truest nature knows that that's not where we are safest. Where we are safest is is when we trust the process, when we, you know, connect with ourselves. And so that's that's meditation and breathing in it, or and breathing in. It's like I always will say that it's like it's hard because once you feel it, you want it to be there all the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:59

But think of it like dots. It's little dots. You felt it here, and then you felt it here, and then you felt it here. And now we just want to, with meditation and doing different skills, we want to pick it up so that it's more. So it's like now it's here, here, here, here, here, until it becomes so frequent that those dots become a line. But that's a works process. So give up the idea. This is why I love like the Buddhist idea of multiple lives. I mean, not just the Buddhist, but it's um like in Hindus and whatever, it's like you won't, you're not gonna be finished in this shot.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:36

You're not gonna get it on this shot.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:37

Yeah, it's like just just keep going. And to me, I think sometimes when I think in that way, it's just like it's so freeing. There's no fear anymore. There's no need to produce something, it's just to be. And really, when I just be, I'm actually really way more conscious of how I treat people, how I think about people.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:03

Yeah, when there's no deadline on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:05

The deadline is now choose your integrity right now, all the time, and you'll have peace.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:11

Yeah. Yeah. We'll we'll do um uh an episode coming up pretty soon, probably where we do where I teach growing the skill of intuition, because I think that that's a big one is back learning to your own voice. So you're so the your key takeaway, just you're not trying to become anything. You're trying to unbecome all the things that you are not, but all of those veils, all of the struggles, all of the negative ways you think about yourself, all of those things are the way. They are not they're the tools. They are not in the way. They are what is necessary.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:50

Great. Anything I be uh you want people to know before we go? So this will be every week, right? Yeah. Uh what about uh Friday? It is the plan to do uh Facebook Live or something, or is that Yeah. That's as far as we got. So we'll uh so where where can um people I mean, if you've got comments, thoughts, whatever, we'd love to hear them. Where can people go to like I think the best I have like no social media, I don't know any of the stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:19

So I think probably the best. There's um so my website is finding greater peace.com, but I think if you go to um finding greater or like at finding greater peace on Instagram, um you can send me messages there.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:36

That's your main Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:37

Yeah, that's the main Instagram, and then I'm in the process of trying to build all the other things. But Instagram or at Finding Greater Peace Instagram. Yeah, or uh Amy Lindstrom on um, I think it's just Amy Lindstrom on Facebook. We'll we'll put links to that's a great idea.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:59

Links?

SPEAKER_00 1:45:00

We'll put links in the description to uh my Facebook and whatever else. But we'd love you know, feedback and you know, how's the sound, whatever. We're just working on trying to figure out how to make all this work, but we're uh just excited about it. It will be fun to watch it grow.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:20

Yeah, thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:22

Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:23

Appreciate your time and uh all of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:27

And may you be well, happy, and peaceful.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:29

There you go. Get you some peace, and then get you some greater peace. Thanks, everybody. Goodbye.