What Would You Do If You Were Not Afraid 2/3 (Live Rec.)

Hello my friends,

And welcome to this day number 264 out of 365 days.

Discipline is everything.

Self-discipline is everything.

I'm just over and over again noticing how important and how important and how important working with self-discipline is.

So thank you so much for being so self-disciplined and being here over and over and over again.

It's a lot of days that we've been meditating,

It's a lot of days that we've been challenging ourselves on different areas and topics and reflections.

It's an ongoing thing.

And what I love about this process is how it's like watching grass grow,

Is to notice how things change in a very subtle way.

But then suddenly when things really start,

Let me share a story from yesterday because I love stories from yesterday or today because it means that there's something going on.

So I was in a good mood,

I was whistling going into the supermarket and just doing my thing going to the,

I wanted to buy some lunch for later.

And suddenly there's this man,

He starts to whistle as well,

But in the kind of,

You know,

In the schoolyard when we were kids and other kids tried to make fun of you.

And I was like,

That's strange.

It was older than I am,

Maybe by five or eight years.

And he was standing there with his cart.

And then I just noticed the contraction inside of me.

But immediately when I noticed the contraction,

I also noticed the breathing.

So there was the alertness and there was the calmness at the same time.

So what meditation does for us is that it helps us to,

In the moment,

To be very conscious about what's going on so we can make conscious decisions.

Because the activation in my system was to go into alertness and potentially into an argument and potentially into something worse.

I've grown up in a very hard neighborhood,

So I know how to protect myself.

That's the alertness in my body.

I don't want to go there.

It's just a reactivation of something from the past,

Below the line.

So I grabbed my stuff.

And then when I was closing the door to these goods,

This man,

He takes his cart.

He doesn't do it hard.

He bumps into me.

And I'm looking at him like.

.

.

It was a mix of emotions because one thing was like,

What are you doing?

The other thing is,

Should I push the cart back?

So again,

These mix of emotions.

Again,

Noticing my in-breath and noticing my out-breath.

My shoulders relaxed,

My eyes relaxed.

And I just looked at him.

And then I just turned away.

I noticed by then that my nervous system was activated,

A lot of values were activated.

I was activated into pride,

Resentment,

Joy,

Because I was able to just be there without doing anything.

I was able to be in this arousal and still be empathic.

So I just continued.

And he started mumbling things.

I could hear it was aggressive in his voice.

And that activated something even deeper inside of me.

And then I just wanted to be curious because there was obviously something going on inside of him.

So when people do stuff like that,

It's because something is happening inside of them.

So he continued and I was just curious with this aggression that I was feeling inside.

So I thought,

Let me just go around one more time and just walk past him.

And when I passed,

As I passed by him,

I could see that he was in pain.

There was something inside of him.

Because this time he was saying something like,

And the smell of you is so terrible.

Something like that.

And I was just noticing my breathing,

Noticing my heart,

Noticing what was going on inside of me.

Again,

I'm sharing this with you because meditation is everywhere.

So anytime we experience these situations,

Let's practice.

Let's make it into meditation.

So I went to the cashier and I was sensing that there was something,

The arousal was pretty high inside of me.

You know,

It's been a very long time since I've experienced another adult be like that.

So I took another round and just went back.

And this time he,

It was very strange because he started talking out loud as if talking so other people were supposed to hear him.

That why I was bothering him,

What I was,

Why was I,

You know,

He didn't know me.

Why was I bothering him?

And I was just looking at him.

And it felt like minutes,

But it was only seconds,

Right?

The calm breathing,

The relaxed eyes,

Relaxed shoulders,

Straight,

Strong,

Proud back,

Open,

Soft,

Vulnerable front,

Everything that we practice.

My mind was very clear.

My heart was very clear.

And the only thing I said to him was,

Peace be with you.

And I really meant it.

I hope that you will find peace.

I did not go into an argument.

I did not,

You know,

I went out slowly,

Went outside,

Took my time outside,

Right?

So whatever we practice is so important that we also practice it out there,

You know?

Does this make sense?

I guess it does,

Right?

So holding back on whatever you feel inside is,

Of course,

A very good idea if it leads to some unfortunate situations.

But do not make yourself smaller in these situations.

Really let these emotions,

You know,

Fill out your body and be conscious about what's going on.

Be conscious about what's the past,

What's the present,

What kind of character do you want to build in the future?

Going back to self-discipline.

Self-discipline is what we do here,

It's the repetition of things that we have done so many times before that we can almost like,

Oh,

Really?

Again?

Yeah,

Again,

Really.

Because it's the practice of these repetitions that makes these muscles so strong.

It's what,

When we really need it,

Enables us to hold on to these values,

To these,

You know,

Empathy,

To the breathing into your heart and breathing out into the other person's heart.

So let's use some time now,

Just two minutes in silence,

Noticing your in and your out breath.

And do that in order to prepare for the same question as yesterday.

The same question as yesterday,

Which is,

What would you do if you were not afraid?

I've been asking myself that question all day yesterday.

And I do not consider myself as a person that's afraid.

I do not,

I consider myself as a person that is very brave.

But sometimes the story that we tell ourselves are not completely true.

Because I noticed several times when I was actually noticing that there was a layer of me that was afraid.

So two minutes,

Just closing your eyes.

And by the moment,

In the split second that you close your eyes,

Just notice the in-breath.

Filling up the lungs from the bottom to the top.

Feeling the tummy rise and then the chest rise,

All the way up to the top of your lungs.

And then gently,

Softly releasing.

And as you release the out-breath,

You release your eyes as well.

Relax your eyes,

Your shoulders.

Once again,

Deep in-breath,

And then just a couple of minutes in silence.

So just really noticing everything.

Just as if you were in a metro and your thoughts were the voices of other people talking.

Not really going into the conversation that they're having,

But just noticing that there's a chatter.

Noticing the temperature in your body or the emotions.

Noticing the smells or other senses.

Just noticing without adding any labels to it,

No stories to it.

Just experiencing this slow breathing in and out.

And especially in the out-breath,

Relax those eyes of yours.

Relax those shoulders of yours,

The neck.

Letting go of any tensions or thoughts,

Worrying thoughts,

Or anything that is not necessary.

And my mind just reminded me of this Indian guru asking the question,

Is there something you can do about it?

Yes or no?

Yes.

Then why worry about it?

Is there something you can do about it?

No.

Then why worry about it?

We're so accustomed to worry about things and we tend to forget that only 2% of all worrying thoughts throughout our whole life become true.

And these 2%,

When they do become true,

Are best to be handled rationally,

Not emotionally.

But it's difficult,

Right?

To start with.

And then we can practice just noticing.

And when we become better at not adding stories to what we experience,

But be in the present,

Be in the now.

When we become better at making conscious decisions based on the now experience.

I could easily have projected my father onto this man yesterday and become the aggressor myself.

I was bigger,

I was younger,

I was stronger.

But I chose to remain equal.

So just noticing is such an important skill to develop.

The self-discipline is such an important skill to develop.

It enables the empathy towards ourselves and others.

To be healthy towards ourselves and others.

So slowly moving to an end,

Let's ask ourselves this question once again.

What would I do today if I was not afraid?

And in the now,

I know that a lot of you guys are going to sleep in just a bit,

But when you wake up tomorrow,

What will I do today?

What will I do right now if I was to fear less?

And be curious with this fear because there's so much gold there to be found.

I went out sailing for the first time yesterday.

I was at this sailing club that I've been a member of for two years and there's these Wednesday races and I wasn't even aware that it was the last one and that it was actually the day where they used to race.

And I found myself in very good conditions to meditate,

Consciously open eyes with everybody else because I was just being as calm and as centered and just being as much me as possible while everybody else were chatting and drinking and whatever and me just being there in silence and just smiling and nodding.

And just really making it into a very good meditation.

And then eventually I thought that they would ask,

Is there anybody who needs somebody to go out sailing with?

But nobody did.

So when they all got up and started going out,

I just tagged along and I asked these two men if they had any room and I had the most wonderful experience.

So whenever you are in new situations,

Ask yourself that question.

What would I do if I was not afraid right now?

Thank you so much for being here once again,

Guys.

Thank you,

Mary.

And happy that it makes sense.

Sometimes things make good sense in my head.

It's always nice to hear whether things make good sense in your head as well.

Thank you for being here,

Linda.

Wonderful.

So going towards Brave for Linda.

Thank you as well,

Caroline.

Thank you,

Rhi.

Thank you,

Kelsey.

Writing Curious Not Furious and Caroline also writing,

I've been fighting my snap reactions and aiding my partner to also try to reroute this.

Let's talk about that tomorrow,

Caroline.

If you aren't tomorrow,

Please could you copy paste this for tomorrow?

I will try to remember,

But help me out if you are there.

Let's use that as some.

.

.

It's a very important thing or else we will be stuck in the past and nobody wants that.

So tomorrow is same time.

Same time tomorrow still.

Just had to remember what date is.

Yeah,

I love that too,

Little Star.

Curious Not Furious.

So I do you say is that I am afraid of doing every day.

I'm not quite sure,

Lisa Nada,

But let's take it tomorrow.

I need to catch a train in just a bit.

So thank you so much,

Everybody,

For being here.

See you back.

And if you are new,

Just click that follow teacher and you'll get notifications on the next sessions.

Bye,

Guys.

Namaste.

And thank you so much,

B.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.