That's not me.
I am the awareness witnessing that.
I'm observing that.
I'm the noticer,
Like you say.
Great stuff.
I love that.
Yes,
And without wanting to mislead your listeners about this word simple,
This is basically all that spiritual awakening is and requires.
It requires noticing that I'm this awake presence and I'm observing such and such a thought coming up or such and such an emotion coming up.
I'm not those things.
I'm the awake presence.
Now I want to come back to where we were discussing earlier on about when we're touching,
We're really virtually there anyway as we're talking here about a way to respond to emotions.
And I explain in the book when a emotion arises,
This is the first thing to do that's very helpful.
Notice that or say even say to yourself,
Even verbalise I'm the awareness noticing a feeling of anger or frustration or whatever it might be.
And this immediately brings this space between who you are and something that you're noticing.
You're not the thing that you're noticing.
You're the observer of it.
And this helps to radically reduce the intensity of the emotion.
Then as I explained in the book,
Look to see what was the thought that triggered the emotion.
Let's go back to the initial thing I said somebody who said that phone me and it's an hour after they said they phoned me and they still haven't.
Now,
It's not the experience that the person hasn't phoned me yet.
It's causing me to feel frustration.
What's causing me to feel frustration is that a thought has popped up and I'm believing this thought that the fact that they haven't phoned me yet is bad.
They said they would,
They haven't yet and that's bad.
That's what triggers the annoyance or the frustration or the anger.
As somebody I was writing a similar example to once said to me,
Oh yes,
Like say I was cooking dinner and time slipped away and I hadn't even noticed that that person hadn't phoned me when they said they would.
An hour just went past.
I wouldn't be feeling frustrated or angry that they hadn't phoned me because the thought hasn't popped up in my mind.
They haven't phoned me and that's bad.
Even though the reality,
The fact is,
Yes,
It's an hour after they said they'd phoned and they haven't.
So it's not the fact,
It's never what we experience that troubles us.
What troubles us is that we have a thought and we believe a thought that what I've experienced shouldn't be that way.
It's bad,
It's wrong or it's not good enough,
It's insufficient or I'm not enough,
I'm not.
Anytime these thoughts about who I am and the world around me pop up and we believe the thought,
We suffer.
So the trick is then,
And this is a large part of what the book is about,
To give people this experience of discovery and also why I encourage people to read the book over and over again because it'll be like the onion with the layers and every time they read it and they experience this and also as I provide some tools toward the end of the book,
How they can have a kind of a little mechanism of reminding themselves easily throughout each day how to come back to cutting through any emotion and any thought that they're getting caught up in.
See that there's no way that they can know that that's true.
It brings them back into being okay with the present moment with what I'm experiencing.
A lot of people are recommending that we be in the here and now,
But that's mighty tough and certainly mighty tough to sustain if we're still having this background assumption that we grow into as human beings,
A very deeply held assumption that the thoughts that I experience are who I am and that they're true basically.
So then we can coach ourselves to be in the present moment,
But it's tough and it's hard to sustain it because there's still this background thing,
Another thought pops up and we suddenly identified with it.
But if we use this mechanism of questioning our thoughts,
And I show people how the reader how to go through a very simple process of realizing,
Wow,
There's no way I can know that thought that's just popped up is true.
I can't know what all the flow and effects and it's just as possible it could have some consequences that I might think of as as good and somebody else might see that same thing as in a very different way as being quite okay.
And after all,
I'm just noticing first of all,
It's only a thought it's not the reality I can't actually touch,
You know,
Here on my nose is the fact that it's bad that that no,
It's not physical anywhere.
And also,
That thought just popping up on the awareness that's noticing the thought.
So on all these various ways we discover,
Wow,
The thought just loses its hold over us.
It seemed to be what it is,
Nothing.
Imagination only.
What is left when when the emotion and the thought are seen to be nothing.
We're awake.
We're aware spiritual awakening in a few moments,
Not 500 lifetimes,
Not five decades.
Spiritual awakening is not something like flicking a switch.
But in this book,
I've given an explanation that I invite people to say,
Does this ring true for you?
And then a whole lot of experiences to help people to have this experience.
Wow,
Back to who I am.
Wow,
Back to who I am.
One of the things I emphasize early on in the book is spiritual awakening is nothing to do with fixing yourself.
And it's nothing to do with a lot of people.
Oh,
It's a huge one out.
And it's nothing to do with,
Oh,
One day I'll evolve into a higher consciousness.
No,
It's not about that.
It's spiritual development is a very common phrase.
Throw it out.
You don't need to develop anything to wake up spiritually.
And here's here's the obvious.
Why don't you need to develop anything to evolve spiritually?
Because you already are who you really are.
And all that's getting in the way of you being awake is that you're identified with the thought.
