Accepting The Unacceptable & Moving On (Live Talk 1/30)

But let's go ahead and get started.

Today,

Where we're discussing cultivating self-worth,

I did have a topic that's really on my mind that I hope makes sense for everyone because it's been really pertinent in my life in the last month,

Which is about learning to really examine our past and present based on what we are responsible for and what other people are responsible for.

To forgive ourselves and to have an accurate picture of everything that went on.

And the reason that this ties into cultivating self-worth is because what I have seen and experienced is that,

That's an oversimplification,

But when bad things happen or have happened or are happening,

We have a tendency to either say it's all the other person's fault,

Which we know is not true,

Or say it's all our fault and our responsibility,

Which we also know is not true.

But the reason we do this is because it gives us a sense of control.

So in the past month I've been grieving,

And most of you know this because most of you are regulars,

But I've been grieving my dog who was hit and killed right in front of me on a road here in Mexico.

And the number of times that my mind has cycled back to,

We were walking on a rural road and he wasn't on a leash,

And that I hadn't practiced cum as much as I'd like because we were here on the beach and it was dying together,

And all of these different things that I wanted to focus on what I did that influenced the situation.

And my mind would cycle back to say if I did anything differently,

If I did anything differently,

If I did anything differently.

And anyone who's had a traumatic situation happen,

Which is pretty much all of us,

I'm sure that this has happened to you.

That at some point you had it cycling,

Even if you didn't say it out loud,

Even if you didn't say it to someone else.

You had something where you were trying to figure out what you could have done differently.

It even showed up when my girlfriend called her mother,

And her mother at one point was like,

So if he was on a leash he would have been okay.

And Katerina was really,

Really hurt because it is true.

There was a possibility if we had always had our dog on a leash,

Even in situations that are supposed to be safe,

Then he would have been okay.

But there's a reason that we do this.

Sorry,

Realized the better camera was offline.

There's a reason that we do this,

And it gets in the way of being able to feel self-worth.

Because one,

We want to feel like we're in control.

We want to feel like we could have prevented the situation,

Or we could prevent that situation in the future.

It is better to believe,

Not better,

But it feels better to believe that there was something that I could have done to prevent this situation.

Because to accept that I cannot control my environment,

I cannot control everything,

I cannot control how people are going to respond,

How people are going to act,

And what everyone is going to do,

No matter how hard I try,

And no matter how hard I work,

Is scary.

And it's scary and uncomfortable.

And the second side of that is,

It keeps us from focusing on all of the actions of other people,

And how much ambiguity and uncertainty that they have,

And how it influenced the decision.

And so for instance,

I'm going to use this and then pertain it back to everyone before we start,

Truly start today,

Is I can focus on one side,

The other side,

Or I can truly understand the whole situation and accept my helplessness.

In my case,

I was walking my dog,

Without a leash,

In Mexico,

Which doesn't always have the best paying attention to animals.

They don't often see them the same way as in the United States.

And I was a little distracted in my head at that moment.

However,

Someone actively chose,

Because someone else had stopped seeing my dog,

To drive around,

Speed up,

Not slow down,

Hit my dog,

Hit my dog again,

And then keep driving.

And if I focus on that,

I get really,

Really,

Really angry at something that's outside my control.

That there's someone callous enough,

Who doesn't care enough,

Who could see me,

Who could see my dog,

And who wouldn't slow down for two seconds,

As two people are calling their dog out of the road,

And who would hit it,

Feel that they hit my dog,

And keep going.

That hurts.

That hurts really deeply.

And I could sit there and just get super,

Super angry.

But this is the difference.

There's nothing that I can do.

Even if I found that person,

And if I had found them in the moment,

I'm really glad that I didn't.

I probably would have been furious,

Angry in this,

But nothing was going to bring my dog back.

And I can't really change the whole world of people who are distracted,

Who don't care about animals,

Who aren't paying attention,

Who just don't care,

Or that depressed,

Or anxious,

Or hurt,

That hurt people hurt people.

And the reason I'm saying this is because my mind wants to cycle back to what I did wrong,

What I missed,

What I didn't know.

Because it does not want to think about the helplessness that there are thousands,

Millions of people out there who are going to do things that make me uncomfortable,

That have me feel unsafe,

That are going to take actions that I can't prepare against,

That are totally unpredictable.

And as a result,

We often choose in many specific examples in life to blame ourselves,

Because it gives us the illusion that if we figured it out,

Then we wouldn't have to experience something traumatic,

Or uncertain,

Or irregular happening to us,

Or happening to us again.

More commonly,

Happening to us again.

So it is better to destroy our self-worth and tell ourselves that we must be better than accept that we can't control the world.

And sometimes bad,

Oversimplification,

But bad things happen.

So that's what I'm hoping that everyone is up for today,

Is to explore two things.

In situations where we had something happen to us,

Where we felt really uncomfortable,

Or hurt,

Or lost,

Or traumatized,

Or grief,

We want to explore all sides of the situation by the framing of response ability.

Who had the ability to respond in a way that would have prevented the situation on all sides?

And two,

To come to an acceptance of the world as it is,

So that we don't have to make ourselves bad for experiencing the event,

Which is just a backhanded way of saying,

If I was good,

This wouldn't happen,

Rather than accepting this does happen,

Whatever this is.

And that's really scary,

And really uncomfortable,

And really hard to accept that these kinds of things happen in the world,

And they could happen again,

And that no matter how good I become,

They might just happen.

Does that make sense to everyone?

Because in its own way,

It's a very Buddhist exercise,

Where so many people.

.

.

I'll have one more contrast before we go into grounding the full talk with questions and meditation,

Is I see a lot of the New Age movement in the Western world,

Trying to convince people and themselves that if only I raise my vibration,

If only if I do this right,

If only if I manifest this perfectly,

If only if I set my boundaries,

If only I set my energy,

Then bad things won't happen.

But that's not necessarily how the world works.

A lot of things do get better,

But there's always going to be things outside of your direct control.

There's always going to be circumstances,

And often we only believe that by ignoring the bad things that are happening to many people,

And could happen to us.

And today is more of an exercise in Buddhist thinking,

Which the very core of Buddhism is birth,

Old age,

Sickness,

And death.

You're not getting out of those ones.

They're all going to happen.

Things are going to happen that are loss,

That is built into the experience,

And we want to be able to accept it as part of life,

Rather than needing to come up with the idea that if only we protect ourselves enough,

If only if we have enough money,

If only we marry the right person,

If only we do this,

Then it won't happen to us.

So if everybody's ready,

Let's go ahead.

Find a comfortable position.

Close your eyes.

Take a deep,

Deep breath.

Let it out with a sigh.

And give yourself a minute to check in with your body.

Your body is like your status dashboard of how you're doing.

Some common things you can check in on.

How's your breath?

Is it shallow or deep?

Is it fast or slow?

Is it through your chest or your stomach?

Is it a slow exhale or a fast exhale?

Because without needing to change it,

If you ever want to know how you are,

And not the stereotypical American,

Everything's great!

Check in with your breath.

Because your natural breath is a direct reflection of your state.

But you can also keep going.

How's your heartbeat?

You can put your hand somewhere where you can feel it.

Is it at a resting heart rate?

Or has it started to elevate?

You can also usually feel it's hard to describe,

But whether your blood vessels are constricted or dilated by whether you feel flushed and hot or cool and relaxed.

All of which are signs of whether your body is preparing itself to respond to danger or is in a state of rest and digest.

Keeping on going.

Check where your body is holding tension and where it's not holding tension.

Some common areas.

Your neck.

You don't have to do anything.

And if you're like me and have the tendency to want to roll your neck to do something to release that give yourself just five seconds to notice.

Same with your jaw.

Your shoulders.

Your back.

Your stomach.

Your chest.

Because we're not trying to do anything here.

And in fact if you have an overriding desire to do that might be the best sign that you are in fight or flight.

Because your body and mind are saying danger,

Danger,

Danger needs to be solved.

And with a narrow focus wherever you give your energy it's going to see it as is this the problem?

How do I make it go away?

But most of the time in most situations and places what we actually want to do is say I'm not really in danger.

And we do this by simply having awareness and letting go.

Not actively,

Not frantically,

Not pushing.

But as we become aware without taking action we send a signal to the body and mind I'm okay.

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

Here and now right in this moment.

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

And this is important.

And it's the reason why in all the work I do even though I don't directly teach meditation practice as a regular practice anymore we need it.

Because you cannot do the deep work from a state of fight or flight.

Your body won't let you.

It doesn't allow you to do a renovation of the home that is your body and mind while that home is under siege or under threat.

So you cannot do the work until you can consistently and regularly calm yourself down.

So I'm gonna ask you if you right now on your dashboard that you just scanned are not okay.

I understand.

And that is okay.

It is okay to not be okay.

But what I'm going to ask is for you to put both hands on your stomach and to start breathing deeply through your stomach and breathing out as slowly as you can until you feel a true sense of calm.

Tears may come.

Tension may release.

Emotions and thoughts may come up.

And that's okay.

That's the mind saying,

Are you sure we're ready to turn on,

Rest and digest?

What about these threats?

And you want to say,

I'm okay right now.

Right now I'm okay.

Until you're ready to do the work.

And if you need to do this for longer than we have here today,

That's okay.

Pause,

Mute me,

And keep going.

That's up to you.

But for those of you who do feel ready,

You can go ahead and wiggle your fingers and toes.

Give yourself permission to yawn or sigh.

Okay.

Go ahead and stretch.

And when you feel ready,

Go ahead and open your eyes.

Sorry,

That came at the right time,

But it just kicked me out and then back in and hopefully everyone can see me again.

But,

So now I'm getting into it.

And for those of you who missed the beginning,

What we are discussing today is being able,

In situations that hurt us,

To be very clear on what I was responsible for,

What they,

All parties,

Were literally responsible for,

Which is a lot better word than fault.

And to come to a state of acceptance about the world and that sometimes bad things happen.

And to accept that you may not be able to prevent them because there's many,

Many,

Many things outside of our control.

And so here's how I want us to think about it.

Another situation.

To give you as an example from my own life.

Before,

And it's one of the reasons I learned so much about relationships.

First trying to fix it,

Then trying to accept it,

Then trying to build a better one after leaving this one.

But I had a really,

Really bad five-year relationship with somebody.

Where I wanted her to change.

She just wanted me and didn't want what I wanted.

And things got worse and worse and worse.

And I got more and more resentful.

But I wouldn't leave.

And I got more and more angry and she got more and more afraid in tying together.

And each of us was not someone who I think we would be proud of.

And when I look back at that moment,

There was a long time in which I was scared of that person.

And I could look and judge myself as a person for being angry,

Being frustrated,

Being resentful,

Being critical,

Being nagging,

Being annoying.

And looking back,

There's a couple things that I would want to be able to look at.

Because people have a tendency,

They have a tendency to either say one person was bad or the other person was bad and make it good or bad.

But that's not really how it worked.

There was responsibility in most situations on both sides.

Not fault.

There's responsibility.

So I had the ability at any point in that relationship to say,

It looks like you don't want what I want.

In fact,

This is the thing that sticks.

About 50 times over 5 years,

I sat this ex-girlfriend down and said,

Hey,

I just want to be really clear.

This is the kind of life I want to live.

I totally understand if this isn't the life that you want to live.

But if you don't want to live this life then we're not going to be together.

I can give you a little bit of time to prepare to be able to do this but otherwise,

I'm gonna go.

And over and over and over again she insisted she wanted to live the life that I wanted and then did not take action towards that.

And my responsibility at that point was to leave.

Because I can be angry at her but I kept staying.

Instead,

I got angrier and angrier at her because I was like,

You said you wanted to do this,

You're not doing this.

You said this was going to take 2 weeks,

It's been 12 weeks.

You said you were going to do this,

You didn't.

Over and over and over and over again I had a personal responsibility to leave.

And in reverse she also as I got angrier and angrier and more frustrated and more frustrated and more resentful to the point where I felt like one of those bad couples in a TV show in which in front of our friends I'm making critical comments about look at what I have to put up with she didn't do this at any point she could have said look I don't really want to do this I wanted to be with you but I don't want what you want and I'm not going to put up with this behavior it's time for you to go or it's time for me to go I'm done.

We each allowed ourselves to experience that environment.

We each allowed ourselves to stay.

And each of us had a personal responsibility to be able to say no more no more this isn't mine this isn't ours I'm not okay with this this hurts you don't get to treat me that way and often this shows up where we want one or the other person to be wrong but that's not how it works we have a personal responsibility of what's mine and what's theirs I am totally responsible for my resentful and critical statements and she is totally responsible for allowing those to occur for not taking action for not owning that it isn't what she wanted for not owning that any of these different things that I'm responsible for not leaving and she's responsible for not leaving until I finally left and this is something important when each of us looks at this stuff if you have a situation and this ranges for those of you who missed it I talked about something much more beyond my control earlier where my dog was hit by a car a month ago and the things within my control were there he could have been on a leash I could have practiced cum more I could have looked both directions and expect that a Mexican was going to drive on the wrong side of the road passing somebody to hit my dog I could have been a little bit more meditated that day I was coming out of being sick and I'd just eaten pizza and I was feeling groggy I could have done things within my responsibility and so could the driver the driver could have done things very very differently because there is nothing that I could have done that overrides that the person who hit my dog saw my dog chose to go around traffic chose to speed and chose to hit him and chose to hit him with the back wheels and chose to drive away that was not my responsibility this was a 15 mile per hour dirt road with tons of bumps I could not have predicted that and what I want to share at the beginning that I want to share to more people here now is about recognizing that often we end up with low self-worth and low self-belief in ourselves because when we have an awful situation an awful experience an awful relationship an awful something out of the blue we want to believe that we had some control over it even when we didn't or even for the things we didn't have control over and that sneaky really really understandable desire is often the reason we start telling ourselves stories that lead to low self-worth there are people who are assaulted who tell themselves it's because that's what they were wearing that's one of the most common things online it's like what were they wearing both from others and the person who was assaulted and unfortunately the biggest the biggest reason that other people are saying it and the person is saying it is because we want to believe that if we do the right thing then this won't happen that we can prevent the bad thing happening or if it's happened to us we want to believe that it won't happen again when someone for instance my girlfriend told me a story of someone in her hometown whose toddler drowned in their pool and the first thing that happens when something like that happens is everyone wants to examine what went wrong did they not have a fence did they have a sliding door did they do this they're searching for something and everyone finds that so hurtful at first because it's like how are you blaming these people who just lost a child but what we're doing is we're searching for something they did wrong that we can do right so we don't have to feel afraid that it's going to happen to us we're searching for personal certainty that this won't be experienced or this won't be experienced again but the trick is we have no guarantees we have no guarantees in life and if we can come to accept we are only responsible for what we are responsible for others are responsible for what they are responsible for and I can't predict or control that then most of our anxiety disappears because it doesn't help it's like the phrase of no amount of worry has added an hour to anyone's life we end up having this illusion that maybe if we were better then people wouldn't get angry with us maybe if I act perfectly I won't receive judgment maybe if I read these 40 parenting books then my kids are going to turn out alright and I won't have any problems maybe when I hear about a friend who had a birth defect it's because they eat this and I don't eat this everything that we want that is an illusion of the idea that if I do everything right the uncomfortable scary things won't happen and if we spend all of our energy trying to do that then we also create a state in which we must be perfect and we are at fault for everything that happened to us rather than being able to say to ourselves hey I do have some responsibility if I'm in a relationship that's uncomfortable or barren or emotionally unavailable or full of resentment I have responsibility here and so does the other person and I'm afraid that they're going to act in x really uncomfortable way and that's outside my control that is not my responsibility that is not something that's within my control and I want to repeat the reason this topic is coming up for those of you who are new and expected it to be directly around cultivating self-trust or self-worth and self-trust is we undermine our self-worth when we expect ourselves to be able to prevent the bad things from happening when we over assume responsibility for what is not actually our responsibility when you come back from work and I say this with my girlfriend a lot the Swiss one when you come back from work and someone treated you poorly and you say well my project wasn't x or I didn't do x well or you know what I haven't been the best employee or this you're not any different than the stereotypical trying to get a battered woman out of a physically abusive relationship and you say but he beat you and she says well the dinner was cold any time that you take responsibility for someone else's actions in order to give you the illusion that you have control over others and that if only you take the right actions and do the right things and respond in the right way then you're going to destroy your self-worth in two ways one because you're putting up with poor behavior and two because you're going to convince yourself you deserve it and three you've created this awkward mental loop if I was doing it right it wouldn't happen therefore if someone is abusing me I deserved it and I'm still not good enough yet that loop destroys people that loop destroys people in all situations in all life if you take responsibility for something that's not yours not your responsibility then you will end up with low self-worth because everyone's poor reaction to you is your fault it also goes the other way but that's not what we're talking about today if you do not take responsibility for something that is your responsibility then you are playing the role of victim and giving away your own agency now if you go home from work and say while there was nothing I could do about it my boss is an A but what are you going to do then you're failing to recognize your responsibility and that's not true either we have to be able to look at all situations and say what was within my direct control and if somehow I have convinced myself that I was in control of the other person getting angry or getting frustrated or yelling at us or criticizing us or treating us poorly or not giving us something that is their decision and their decision alone then we're assuming responsibility to assume control and we've caught ourselves in the loop does that make sense to everyone I'm going to get through the questions and what people had in case I missed something but then we're going to do a bit of a practice on that with the time we have left sound good everyone?

Yeah karma yeah yeah for karma having a personal responsibility dilemma with family I mean I had something similar just last week I became disillusioned with an organization I didn't like how they were behaving after the fact but I had paid a significant amount of money to attend events I attended one I don't really want to attend the other but I know they have pretty draconian rules on cancelling or refunds and I can either lose a significant amount of money and cancel and walk away or go or try to talk with them but I know how they're going to respond and that's a personal responsibility dilemma I can sit there and blame myself for getting into the situation which is believing that I was somewhat in control or I could sit there and blame them when I had personal responsibility to get into the situation or I can accept both sides and say what am I going to do and this hurts and it's okay that it hurts yeah and Johnny I choose the wrong surgeon for a routine surgery I had a very poor surgery that has left me with long term health issues I either blame myself for going with that surgeon as he was not my first choice surgeon or get angry at the surgeon for his very low standards and both are true both are true because if I had a gut situation that said I don't really trust this surgeon and I chose to override that I had personal responsibility there's something in there that I chose that does not change that a surgeon someone with 14 years of experience at minimum did a really poor job that left me with complications both sides of that are there and when we focus on one we dissolve ourselves of responsibility and when we focus on just the other we're trying to give ourselves the illusion that it wouldn't happen again people are fooled at all times people go into environments I mean one of the things that I keep being sad to hear about is how many older people are getting scammed online because they're just not technologically available they trust and they hear their daughter's voice on the phone saying send me money and they do and they send their life statements and they're embarrassed about it and a scammer is just using an AI tool to sound like their daughter in trouble so these things happen and if we blame ourselves rather than saying someone actively came up with a really incredible strategy to abuse me and abuse myself in order to take my money and that wasn't my responsibility then we're going to end up with pretty low self worth and end up in a depression um and Amanda a repetitive tendency to keep going back to those who have hurt me um family,

Friends,

Lovers trying to work on this but very difficult to let go of this habit maybe used to accepting bare minimum or accepting whatever because I don't want to be alone well we're running out of time because of the meditation but I would love to put that into a class on its own of why do we accept less but that is something we're going to do in the time we do have for meditation is to say if I am doing this it is very likely that some part of me whether on the surface and I know it or really deep is blaming myself for their behavior saying if only I acted a little better I was a little kinder I was a little smarter I was a little more in shape I was a little more this I was a little more that then this wouldn't happen even though it's outside your control and often and this is me responding as well to what Trish said how do you break the loop we keep going back to people who hurt us because we're trying to prove the bind that we put ourselves in we're trying to prove that if I was better this wouldn't happen if I was better this wouldn't happen so I go back and try to be better and when it doesn't happen I blame myself rather than saying this wasn't my responsibility but that's the scary part it's the helplessness if it's not my response ability I'm this doesn't work as well in words as in writing so I'm going to piece it out the way I'm saying this word if it isn't something I have the ability to respond to my response ability then I'm not in control and I'm helpless I cannot control whether someone chooses to see that I'm scared see that I'm setting a boundary and choose to get angry to try to suppress my boundary I'm not in control of whether someone chooses to poke me in my sore spots and my painful spots in order to push me back into something that's comfortable for them I'm not in control of whether someone chooses to just not care,

Override,

Disrespect get angry hurt me or come out of nowhere and devastate my life and that hurts and that's scary but the more that we accept ironically our helplessness and remind ourselves what we are responsible for and what others are responsible for then the loop breaks but the reason we avoid it is because we don't want to feel helpless but that's why you need all three because very often and I really will have about ten minutes for meditation but then I'll give some examples as well you need to have all three because if you can't feel helpless you will not accept that it's not in your control and often we can't feel helpless because what we're doing is trying to prevent something that's already happened to us there's a post,

It's now behind a paywall that I've read many times that said the thing you're afraid of has already happened and that stuck with me the entire article is that if someone is like I'm doing all of this to prevent this the only reason you're doing that is because it already happened to you you might not think about it like that you might not remember it like that you might not be paying attention to it that way but nobody creates a huge life experience and huge life design to prevent something that hasn't happened to them why would they?

They're trying to prevent something that already happened but it doesn't work they just haven't accepted that it already happened it hurt,

It sucked it was outside of our control and there are some things we may be able to do now as an adult or may be able to do now with this knowledge or may be able to do now with these choices but we cannot control that that person acted in that way and people like them will act in those ways again in the future so it's accepting all three what responsibility do I have what was truly theirs and that that's outside of my control does that make sense to everyone?

Yeah and thank you April well I think I can go a little bit late because these are really good questions because Jude what about Jude just said what about that level of truth that we actually could have prevented the problem if we were more tuned in even though other people may also have been partly responsible I've been having trouble finding peace about my part in my mom's death staying in a loop about it trying to find a way through yeah I'm going to honor what you said and then repeat there's all of it if you take personal responsibility and say there are things I could have done differently and I will do them differently in the future and move on that's all we can do but if you are looping over and over and over again through it which I can tell you I really understand this month it has nothing to do with taking personal responsibility it's about going back in time and wishing you could have done something differently so that the event didn't happen that you haven't processed and experienced there was a phrase a couple days after my dog was killed and I said and it said you will stop blaming yourself when you realize it's not going to bring him back when we accept that it happened and that might be the biggest answer to what Trish said we accept that it happened we accept that we were helpless we accept that it was not within our control we accept that there are things that looking backwards with hindsight that we will do differently in the future but that it wasn't our choice it wasn't our responsibility and things happened and other people made the final decision or made the final actions or life made the final decision like death happens so we're accepting that but we don't shy away from each side we don't shy away from looking at the whole picture and say hey everyone had a role to play this wasn't just me but it happened it happens and it's not fun but if we go forward trying to say I mean there's literally a man online right now who kind of looks like a vampire who's trying to sell people that you can live forever we will be able to live forever soon he's not the first he won't be the last and people have been trying to do that since the beginning of humanity but we want to accept we want to accept that these things happen okay so let's go ahead because I want to make sure we have some time to sink into this before I'll have to leave for the day if everybody can find a comfortable position close your eyes take a deep deep breath let it out with a sigh and I invite all of you to do another check-in to see where you're at because I want to provide a reminder without judgment there is no way to process to feel to experience while your body is activated while you're flushed overwhelmed while you think there's a threat and pushing yourself to do it doesn't work it just escalates the fear so if you're already overwhelmed if you're already uncomfortable coming into this then you're already doing the work to the best you can you're approaching the topic whatever has been cycling around cycling through your head you're already there so the only thing you need to do is keep breathing and stay with the waves of emotion that are passing through you because you've already opened up the gates but if you are feeling calm which I'm defining as your breath is steady and slow with inhales and exhales you're not feeling constricted and flushed and your mind isn't overriding you every step of the way then I'm going to ask you to bring up a situation that you know you need to accept and see all sides of something where you've either been very very angry and blaming the other person without accepting responsibility or where you've been trying to take all of the responsibility in order to avoid the feeling of helplessness and when you have it the pain is going to show up and it's likely to feel the most intense somewhere in your body see if you can feel where that is whether it's in your chest your throat your crown your stomach somewhere where this emotion is arising and wherever it is take both hands and put them over that spot and breathing into that spot meaning bringing your awareness your focus and focusing on the movement of the breath into that location invite the feeling forward it doesn't matter what it is and most importantly if your mind is trying to categorize it or say oh that's just this it's trying to create a container around it rather than feel it so to the best of your ability simply sit with the emotion that arose see if you can feel what it feels like is it heavy or light is it frantic or dense is it cold because I can be fairly sure that if you are cycling back and forth in between blaming the other person and blaming yourself rather than feeling the whole story an acceptance of what is was and could be all over again this emotion this feeling this sensation is the reason that you're stuck and we want to release the fear of it because as overwhelming as it is it's a sensation it's an experience it's a feeling and it's not worth destroying our lives and creating mental ideas of ourselves as less than or others as evil simply to avoid this sensation and as you start to be inside this sensation losing the almost primal fear of it you can begin to examine the question what happened and what was mine what was theirs and what will continue to be true what was mine how did I influence this situation what was my responsibility did I stay did I accept did I settle did I allow did I override my intuition did I give in to my fear did I tell myself I don't have a choice what did I have responsibility for did I try to manipulate and control rather than accept surrender and take action what did I do and then what was very clearly not in my control in my responsibility did they try and hurt me did they lash out did they make choices that overrode me did they fail to care did they not ask for consent did they act in hurtful ways did they not listen or take care of themselves did they not take responsibility did they make choices what is very clearly not mine and as a result this already happened and I need to accept this but could it happen again there are obviously things I could do with tradeoffs and consequences of their own to limit this but could it happen again somebody died we're all gonna die if somebody overrode you they could do it again if somebody changed their mind and broke your heart that could happen again if somebody was callous and hurtful from their own pain that could happen again if there was an accident it could happen again there are some things that we can learn and do differently to limit our risk but in all the big things in life and especially the things we're truly avoiding the heartbreak the loss the hurt the abandonment the rejection the failure the criticism we can't truly prevent that it is more likely than not that maybe not the same situation but the same emotional experience will happen again and until we accept that we will be designing our lives in fear which as a wise man once told me if you are living in fear of something you never truly got away you're living and reliving it every time you try to avoid it every time you think about it every time you try to prevent it so in the very act of trying to escape you invite it close to make it part of your regular experience so today we want to accept that accept the possibility remember what is ours to control and what is not and then move on move on with our life and when you've been through a really traumatic moment you may ask yourself over and over but how can I move on and what we're really asking is how can I continue to live in a world where this is possible and the best answer is you already are but if you let it control you then you'll be living it all the time but if you accept that it is possible but turn your eyes towards the beauty the love the everything else that is also possible you don't let it control your life if this is something you need to sit with and it's really what you needed today feel free to pause or mute and do this as long as it feels helpful for you to accept and recognize that it already happened it hurt there are things we can do differently and things that we can't but if we keep living in it we're forcing ourselves to go through it over and over and over again so it's time to move on but if you're ready for today you can go ahead and wiggle your fingers and toes to give yourself the opportunity to yawn,

Sigh or stretch and when you feel ready go ahead and open your eyes thank you everyone for joining me today and thank you Shaki it really is a privilege to have all of you and to be here with all of you and to have you coming back and for those of you who are new I'd love a follow just to see you again because these are the moments these are the things that allow us to heal to feel to move on to accept to love again to not live in the past but to embrace the moment and there's a lot a lot of beauty in the world and I'm not here to tell you to avoid all of the classes and people that are positive in manifestation and focusing on all of those things they really help but they're not the things that truly hold us back it's the things that we could not accept that are possible that are possible again that are outside of our control that are helplessness and those hurt and they're scary and they're uncomfortable and I certainly had my wake up call this month but you don't help anybody by not accepting that the world is impermanent that accidents happen that mistakes happen that hurt happens it's all true and I'll put this up in case anyone feels called to leave a donation but all of these things are true all of these things happened and it still sticks with me that one article and I won't put it up because I can't find the exact link and it's behind a paywall anyway but I want everyone to sit with the idea if you're going about life trying to prevent something it's because it already happened to you and we haven't processed it or accepted it because we don't want to live in a world where that's possible and outside of our control but we're already living it we're already there we're already in that life it's already happening moment by moment and nobody gets served by refusing to accept that fact and finally I do this because of you and with you and even if I'm kind of narrowing down right now on relationships with ourselves and others and building healthier relationships as a topic or as a theme that still leaves lots of topics so if there's something you want to talk about something that you want to discuss something,

A question you haven't gotten answered you can always find me in these comments which I keep repeating to say so that I copy the comments so that I can catch good questions for future classes in the group I think it's David Longhini's circle and you can find it but overall thank you