Day 35 Viral Wisdom - No exemptions

0:00 hello everyone I'm here few technical issues aside how are you drop me a line tell me how you're doing what you're struggling with where are you signing in from hello everyone I'm so happy to see you I see you I see you signing in hello

0:33 everyone welcome to my viral wisdom course I think it's day 35 it's all melting one into the other I'm just happy to be here and excited to share the space with you to be with you together you know yesterday I was just talking with a dear friend about how everybody I know experiences tremendous

1:03 pain as a therapist for so many years as a teacher for so many years I know that pain is democratic and everybody's life is painful there is no one who escapes pain so this one woman this is a Buddhist story this one woman went to the Buddha because her son was about to

1:33 die and no the son had already died and she wanted the Buddha to bring him back to life something like that so the Buddha and all his wisdom said I will bring your son back to life does the cam oh sorry yes how do I turn the camera around hold on there you go so this woman went to the book that are saying bring my son back

2:03 to life because my son has died and I cannot take this grief so the Buddha in all his wisdom said I will bring your son back to but I want you to go to get me a mustard seed some mustard seeds so the woman said sure but he said you can only get the mustard seeds from a house which has not experienced any death so off she went looking for the mustard seeds the

2:34 mustard seeds were easy to get but every time she knocked on the door looking for a house that had not yet experienced death she couldn't find anyone so she went to house after house after house looking for one house that could give her the mustard seeds you know mustard seeds are very common in India really easy to get but she couldn't find anyone that had not experienced death every house had experienced death it took her a long time to figure out oh the buddha

3:08 wants me to understand that there is no being no life no household no family that has not experienced tragedy not experience death and when she got it she came back to him and said I understand I haven't surrendered I thought this was only happening to me and I did not realize that every household experiences the terminology of life and death so the

3:39 point of this story and it's a very famous fable in Buddhism called the mustard seed but the point of it is that none of us can escape the turmoil of life every one of us in some way or the other will experience some big trauma some will experience it in their childhood somewhat experience it in their marriage somewhat experienced it in their job in their bodies in their disease it doesn't matter so if you are

4:12 sitting there feeling that you are experiencing some trauma experiencing some special kind of pain then you need understand that you are not alone because it's each person that feels that they are unique that they have been picked that they are a victim that they are especially unlucky but it's not true you know as a therapist I have only seen thousands of families and thousands of

4:44 people and each one has experienced equivocal trauma there is not one person who doesn't experience unequivocal trauma but each one thinks that they're the only one you see so because I have seen so many a plethora panoply of people over the decades I can tell you that everyone gets it so if you're sitting there alone feeling that you're really you know particularly in your own special unique pain no one has experienced your pain before nobody has

5:15 a child like yours nobody's in a marriage like yours this is not true yes yours is unique to you but it isn't special every human life experiences so many reverberations you know people look at me and they think oh she must be really whatever the projection of the day is and let me tell you that it's not true I experience turmoil I experience pain I experienced ostracism ridicule I mean look even here on the chat and

5:47 experienced judgment right it's all all universal life is universally traumatic it is by nature unpredictable right and because of its unpredictability there is no person who would not escape it right one of my friends had a relative who did not die 9/11 but was on on about you like about to board the plane but something happened and they did not die that day but they were supposed to well a year and a few months later they died

6:19 in a traffic accident so it doesn't matter we think we are lucky if we have a special favor with God you know a special hotline to the heavens that we will be exempt each one of us wants to be exempt but there are no exemptions here this is the thing there is no special where you get to be off what is called life because with life comes pain so this is just the way it is so there are

6:49 no exemptions there are no special favors you're unique but not special and until we can embrace that and until we can go you know Here I am sitting believing that I'm the only one going through this there is no one else who can understand me while you're right no one can understand you through your unique blood tissue blood vessels your unique intellect how can we we can't step inside your body the other day I told my

7:18 daughter that I understood her when she was upset with me and she checked me she said don't say you understand me you can never understand me I was like you're right I can't ever understand you completely but I can understand some sort of experience given my life experience so each one of us wants to be understood yet we have to understand no one can ever have that unique experience but ubiquitously universally we all know pain we all have been rejected by

7:47 somebody we have all known heart rate to some degree we have all lost something or someone valuable it could go in degrees so there is no one person who gets the special stake on pain neither is there is there a person who gets this special exemption you may think wow I've escaped being I must be a really amazing person I must have done great deeds in my past life oh I am so good and virtuous not true the universe doesn't

8:17 count how many favors you have done and how many things you've done in your life it doesn't work like it's not on debit credit you know tally you know people like to think it is religions like us to believe it is so we keep upping the credit but it's really not that thought out at the end of the day we are part of this inexplicable cause-and-effect you know what happens to the butterfly to the grasshopper to the snail to the

8:45 orangutan to you we don't know how you're going to be interacting with all these effects the human likes to believe in good and bad so if I have a lot of good I'll escape disease does it work like that you know that's how the masses are controlled to be good because if we're good we get a really special place in heaven okay great if it keeps you being good do it but the universe works on natural

9:11 laws or natural laws of cause and effect the universe doesn't see your death as a bad thing the universe doesn't understand you know poverty and wealth the universe doesn't care if your products use gave you an ankle twist you know it is what it is it's cause and effect and cause and effect there is no good and bad we the human mind have created good and bad for the universe everything technically is good because it just is so when we begin

9:37 to understand that pain is a in the needle off the tapestry of life which is the needle through which the tapestry of life is sewn right you can have bright colors but there will be pain and as long as we keep trying to avoid pain we will be in a big core mire when we are faced with it as opposed to the resilience that is needed when we are in it the resilience of acceptance of surrender it just wasn't meant to be it

10:09 wasn't a match this is not the time at another time I release control when we begin to have this approach to life which is really an approach of complete grace of understanding that even though this doesn't look good for me this doesn't look redemptive it looks sinister it looks evil it looks bad bad bad I don't want the cancer I don't want it that I don't want the loss even though it looks like that if we do not

10:41 develop or adapt to an understanding that this is really okay I can survive it I can do this this is for my good it's for my evolution if we don't see it like that and we keep resisting it then what happens is that our pain expands it multiplies it exponential eise's so we have only two choices to fight it and how we fight it through victimhood martyrdom thinking we are unlucky were the only

11:11 ones and therefore we get depressed we get unhappy and we become withdrawn and apathetic or we say to ourselves with the good comes the bad and I cannot separate the two I am NOT special I am unique but I am NOT special I am not exempt life does have loss part of life is lost part of life is dead and until I embrace that I will stay in apathy in misery and withdrawal and this doesn't

11:43 make it easy I'm not saying any of this is really I'm just saying this is the way it is so the next time you are in a great chaos in a great loss in a great upheaval or perhaps you are right now I want you to step back and understand every human is going to experience or has already experienced what you are experiencing you are not special so when you're feeling alone feeling particularly loved at a loss

12:12 particularly ashamed particularly feeling like a failure understand every human being has all will go through what you are going through see the problem is that we are so in our ego we don't share with anyone we don't want to share so we go through divorces we don't share we go through death we don't share we go through obesity diabetes cancer our children's failures our children's drugs drug overdoses and we don't share why because we're so afraid of judgment

12:42 we're so afraid of losing the status of perfection so we don't share with anyone and because we don't share we don't realize how ubiquitous failure loss grief betrayal rejection is if only we shared without guilt or shame then we would understand wow this happens this happens all the time this is not just happening to me but our ego of perfection you see our ego of not wanting to be weak in the eyes of the

13:15 other we don't share now I as a therapist I get the privilege I've seen that last rejection betrayal and death is ubiquitous so when the Buddha was living in his palace they tried to cook the story combs that they tried to they tried to cocoon him they tried to keep him in the in the swaddled in the blankets of the illusion of life that life was permanent that life was blissful that life was happy so one day

13:47 he happened to leave the palace and that's when he confronted old age death poverty and illness and his mouth was a gate so the story goes and he said to himself or his people what is this and they're like life and that was it as the story goes he left the palace what that means is he left his ego of certainty he left his ego of perfectionism he left his ego of the trappings of attachment and luxury and he went to

14:19 search for the nature of nature and the nature of reality he went to look for reality because he didn't want to be hidden from reality he went to face it and then he went on this journey on this quest and he became enlightened so the story goes it could just be all the story but the teachings are invaluable right the teachings are invaluable the teachings of how to reconcile this thing called life this thing called life isn't just beautiful

14:48 and the beauty you will always know comes from the formless things in life when do you feel the most blissful when you're connected to yourself that connection is formless it doesn't come from your shoes it doesn't come from your makeup it doesn't come from your clothes when else do you feel the most connected when you're looking at something spectacular in nature a sunset the ocean a fish a bird a flock of birds those moments in nature stupefying

15:19 because they're staggeringly astoundingly beautiful nature again Follis connection with your children connection with your partner connection with your heart these are the things that stop you in your tracks and leave breathless not the form always the formulas so life is filled with the formless but with this formless comes a lot of lack of form also write more lack of form and that lack of form creates

15:51 loss loss of health loss of beauty loss of youth loss of a loved one with that comes this so you cannot have one without the other and if we can embrace this that life is this that life is this inherent loss but also this inherent love it is in the realm of the formulas that life lies in not in this form then we will understand that loss and death is part of this

16:21 right and we will release we will release our attachment we will release our focus on wealth and status and money and things and we will understand that it is in this formless place that life exists and that includes loss loss is part of life and end it's just everywhere I see everywhere and I see that the clients that face their loss with acceptance without resistance

16:55 without creating a story that they are unlucky or that they are victims so that they are models those are the clients that rise from the loss they can use the loss to open their heart the reason that I love doing what I do is because with each story with each pain portal my heart becomes more and more empathic I see my heart becoming bigger because I'm practicing loss with my clients with

17:26 myself practicing loss losses everywhere you go even the Sun in an inner sense gets lost it goes it sets so so concept that the earth moves and we don't see the Sun anymore that's a loss every night is the loss of the Sun every morning is the loss of them every winter is the loss of the fall and the spring every fall right it's false meaning if there's death and then every

17:57 spring is the loss of the winter losses every single day of our lives every toddler is the loss of the infant every teenager is the loss of the child every adult is the loss of the teenager every middle-aged er is the loss of the loss is always happening you don't see it as much because you are willing to accept the next sometimes with final there we're not willing to accept it because we don't see the next but because we

18:30 don't see the next we think there is no next and because we don't see the next and it's not with us anymore the final death we think that is just the most tragic thing and it is on the farm level but if we could see that there is a next it's just unseen then maybe we'll have some solace there is always something unseen there is always something unseen

19:00 and and there's a quote I don't know who says it but they say that the capacity for us to see the unseen is dependent on the clarity of our heart the more clear our heart the more we will unsee we will be able to see the unseen and it is in the capacity to see the unseen that is wisdom you know so every time my daughter is upset with me and she judges me or not I always tell her what do you

19:27 not see here what is the story that you can't perceive here it is in the untold and the unseen where we can touch each other's hearts and we can have compassion and she says that's not Nima that's you I go and I can see that you cannot be beyond the scene I can see but I tried to teach her go to the unseen go to the untold touch upon the formlessness of the universe touch upon compassion empathy love understanding

20:00 non judgment touch the wounds of each other we are all wounded coming to each other in pain pain is everywhere let's touch on the pain and understand that if we can heal and help each other in the pain of it our entire world will heal but all of us are running away from it judging each other and judging ourselves and this is why the world will look the way it does because we're all running away from

20:23 being instead of leaving into pain and leaving into each other's pain and being there for each other what we're doing is the opposite because we cannot stand in pain is so scary for us that we are running away from pain you know how many times have you heard people experience death and say you know I couldn't even talk to my friend whose father died because I didn't know what to say or I couldn't even talk to my friend whose

20:48 partner died because I I want to give her space I don't know what to say why do we not know what to say there is nothing to say there is no strategy there is no technique all we need to do is hold each other in a whole space but we cannot do it we cannot do it with our children we cannot do it with ourselves and we are all running away from pain numbing ourselves and this is why the world looks the way it

21:13 does we're pretending as if no one isn't me we're pretending as if all this can be taken away if we just pray hard enough eat well enough drink a lot look good enough the pain will go away but the truth is the pain never goes away the pain is always willing to come back because this is life life is same so instead of running the next time you're in pain understand no person has not always experienced the same kind of pain

21:42 in their own unique way you're not special you are just like every other human you will live you will lose you will be joyful and you will die in a nutshell different configurations of it but it will happen longevity and old age is not guaranteed it is not an indication of a better life life is lived in the present moment so the next time you're in pain is that a running away wanting to numb it distract

22:13 or erase waiting for a better time instead lean into it and ask how can I grow from this this is all painful but how can I stay here how can I be here how can I just stay and and experience this as a new evolution let me allow myself to go through it you know and as we go through the tunnel instead of running away at the end of the tunnel is a completely new Vista a new country a new terrain

22:44 when we're so afraid to go through the tunnel and right now in this virus we are all to some degree or the other in a unknown tunnel and this unknown tunnel terrifies us but I assure you having them this only many hundreds of times with so many people if we keep moving forward in the tunnel sight unseen we will learn that we don't need to see we

23:15 will love that we don't need to have we will learn that we don't need to do and we will learn a new language the language of trust of surrender of living in the present moment of allowing pain to shed our attachments of allowing ourselves to let go and release all the excess and allow ourselves to enter a completely unknown territory the unknown is here it's not there it's already here we just have to wake up to it and as we

23:47 wake up to it we realize oh the unknown is always a part of mine I cannot control anything I cannot control the loss of pain loss of pay is part of life so I'm going to stop running away I'm going to stop avoiding and I'm going to say bring it on let me lean into it I along with my tribe can do this and there is a tribe you just have to find the right place the right tribe the right women the

24:13 right men to support you ask for help be vulnerable don't embrace perfectionism embrace its opposite imperfections vulnerability Here I am I'm a mess my life is a mess let's do this together so if humanity Rises brothers and sisters runs showing that in showing up for their pain allowing him rather than pretending to be perfect then we will realize that we are one we are solidified in pain we are together in

24:46 pain pain doesn't escape anybody death will not escape anybody there's death in every home so when when we understand that we stop living in morbid fear of it we allow we say when it's our time I will lead into it when I get into trouble or I feel pain I feel lost I understand it's now my turn I won't accept it with grace not with entitlement not with resentment that why did life do this to me I will enter this

25:15 with grace life gave me life will take away and then it'll give again and then it'll take away again this is the cycle of life like the seasons right now in the season of the living and tomorrow I'll being the season of the losing and then in the season of the grieving these are all seasons accept and embrace the season you're in headstrong have courageous it takes a lot of guts I recently had a huge cycle in my life

25:44 that terrified me I wanted to run away it was I wake and I go how far is Hawaii are there any planes in Hawaii but where to how to run I'm taking me with me if I could leave me behind I'd go but I have to go with me which means that to take my lessons with me which means them to take my regret with me my pain with me and I have to say okay how can I grow

26:08 what do I need to grow to one what do I need to do to develop to survive this and then I dug dug dug dug dug dug deeper you didn't know I was going through this because I didn't share not because I was trying to be perfect but you didn't know you were there sitting there thinking oh she survives she saw this I may be wise but I go through hell so I dug and I dug and I dug and I had

26:34 to find courage to go through this and the things that gave me courage was knowing hundreds of my have been through this the other thing that gave me courage is I have been through crap before I've been through all crap I can go through this crap it's another tunnel and together as a humanity we're all going through a tunnel right now but we all go through different ways but together we're all going through hell right now we're all

27:03 like what the hell is going on we're all experiencing some degree of PTSD depending on our load if we had 100 back but bad things happen to us this year this could be the straw that breaks our back but don't feel like you're worse for doing that everyone is going to experience this tunnel in their own way depending on the genetic and epigenetic load but this is the way of life we always are going through something just

27:30 at different places faces forms and speeds so it is here you have the power let me tell me you have more power than you realize them I'm not just an empty motivator I know it from my own life each time I reached a dam and I said this I cannot survive I cannot survive this I don't know how to survive this I cannot somehow after a few days I dug deeper and I fell a few floors and I

27:56 became stronger and just again when I thought I couldn't go deeper but you could deep breath I said give me a few more days when time does wonders and then you go deeper and you realize wow we have unending resilience we just have to take your deep breath and go deeper and know that we have the power to do it we have the power and the more you have support of course the more power you have but even without support you within

28:22 you have this you just have to just as you think it's the end of the road like you can't you come to country like a child right take a deep breath and then just surrender and surrender is the way to go deeper so when the feels like a defeat but it isn't it's grace its acceptance its release I accept my pain I lean into my pain I accept that I'm not perfect my life stinks I accept I

28:47 accept right now it stinks and then one day just a glass and there is a stigma there is no escape we die mature the wisdom of no escape this is what my talk has been about today no escape no one is exempt no exemptions in life last is coming if it hasn't already so instead of running instead of hiding instead of avoiding rise up and go I can take you come I thank you because I know

29:17 that is my final frontier at the end I'm going to die so along the way let me live as alive as possible thank you everyone for listening if you want a community and if you are a woman you may want to join my community of women called luminous it's an intentional community which is what I think is missing today it's just $25 a month you can join and be part of his strong

29:48 sisterhood of women run by me and my two dear sisters Greta and Susie and together we offer you a model of sisterhood and then you can replicate that model in the community so join us it's open only for another two weeks and then it's going to close to the end of the year it's called numinous the link should be in different places or on my website and the courses I hope to see you there thank you everyone and I will

30:15 see you back when I see you back