The Shoemaker's Children - A Spiritual Guide To Self-Care

Welcome to The Flow from Ohm School Live.

The Flow is a profound mix of wisdom and humor as student Lisa Berry asks spiritual teacher G.

P.

Walsh questions you would ask an elder,

A wise man,

Or a sage,

And receive direct,

Simple,

Comprehensive,

And deeply human lessons and teachings.

Step into these conversations with a master spiritual teacher and discover that you are way more than you think you are.

You are The Flow.

Hello,

Everyone.

We are here.

Happy Tuesday to everyone.

G.

P.

And I are here and very happy to be offering The Flow.

We are Ohm Schooling Live.

That's what we are doing.

The Flow is very pink today.

And I'm the neutral background.

Yes,

You are very neutral right now.

I'm the neutral background.

I'm almost a floating head.

I was going to say that you were more like when you go to the jewelry stores and the jeweler is showcasing the gem,

The pink stone on the black velvet.

That's right.

On the black velvet.

Yeah.

It's much nicer than the floating head.

Yes.

Well,

We are just having so much fun already.

Hello,

Everybody who's joined us and tuning in.

We are so happy to do this.

Today is a show after my own heart as a life coach and nutritionist.

But G.

P.

Did something sneaky.

So if anybody hopefully read the letter that he wrote,

If you didn't receive the letter to find out what today is,

Please get on our light letter list.

And you can just put your comment here below if you're not willing to make sure that you get there or go to the website,

Gpwalsh.

Com and sign up.

But today is,

And I love the little picture that you chose there.

The shoemakers own children do not have shoes.

They're shoeless.

And it's all about self care,

But it's redefined self love,

Self care redefined right now,

Right here with G.

P.

Walsh and G.

P.

,

Everyone goes through this on different levels and different places.

I'm going to ask you how you redefined it.

But typically I think everybody would agree.

We think of self care as eating right,

Sleeping well,

Going to the gym,

Making money,

Time to meditate if they know what that quite is.

But it's so much deeper.

Could you kind of just touch on where you were sharing what self care really is?

Well,

All of those things you mentioned,

Your spa day and things like that,

Which I thoroughly love by the way,

You know,

I've got nothing against any of that.

And it's part of the picture,

Right?

But to really take care of oneself,

As always,

You have to know yourself.

You have to know your own limits and your own boundaries.

You have to know what is truly satisfying to you and what isn't.

And also kind of develop a life that is compatible with yourself with the best you.

Eating right isn't a chore.

You know,

If you were raised on junk food and,

You know,

Bad food,

Like I was,

It takes a while to get used to real good,

Real food,

Real nutritious food and like.

But once you do,

The difference is like night and day.

It's not like it's a challenge,

Right?

I don't eat meat.

And people say,

Oh,

Man,

Don't you miss the hamburger?

I go,

No,

Not in the slightest,

Right?

Matter of fact,

They kind of,

They're not,

It's not at all,

Not at all appetizing to me.

Good,

Good food is appetizing.

And same thing with exercising.

It feels so good that you want to just keep,

Keep doing it.

So these really have to become habitual ways in which we,

In which we take care of ourselves.

And as I pointed on the letter,

That the thing about doing things that really nurture your body and your soul is that it's,

It's,

It actually is effective,

Right?

You know,

You have a good workout,

Or you take a walk,

Or you take,

You know,

A hot bath or get a massage or something like that.

You feel it,

Your body feels it,

There's an immediate feedback.

The same thing,

If you do something for your soul,

If you really do spend some time meditating or contemplating,

Doing self-inquiry,

Listening,

Listening to a show like this,

Or something or something similar,

Is nourishing your soul.

Because your soul is craving depth.

It's craving,

It's craving authenticity,

Right?

That's the part of us that,

That,

You know,

Knows when things are superficial,

That,

That,

That knows when something is just an argument and just an opinion and also can recognize when something is true.

And what's true satisfies the soul.

Nothing else does.

And that's genuinely satisfying.

But the ego is insatiable.

It can never be satisfied.

So if you're doing something,

And it's,

It's only for the ego,

It's only to make yourself feel good temporarily,

Right,

Or to do something as you think you should,

Right?

There won't be that same level of satisfaction.

And if there is,

It'll be very short lived,

Right?

It's more like the hit of an addiction than it is genuinely satisfying,

Bringing about contentment.

And so self-care needs to focus away from the ego and on and truly on the self.

And you know,

There's all sorts of different kinds of stresses we go through.

And when I think of self-care,

I think of removing yourself from the circumstances of stress.

Because your body doesn't relax as long as it's in a stress mode.

And sometimes the stress can be a sudden thing,

Like you're startled or something,

A car cuts you off or something,

And there's a little bit of shock.

That kind of stress comes and goes,

Your body immediately recovers from it.

Then there's other kinds of stress that are more sustained,

The job you don't like,

The relationship that's in trouble.

Those are the things that kind of settle in a low grade of stress and really set your energy.

And without really confronting those directly,

You're never ever going to achieve that level of contentment and peace that you're looking for.

And then there's another level of stress that is old traumas.

It's actually in the system and you're not even conscious of it.

It's operating on a level that you're not aware of it.

Being startled or circumstances at work or at home or something like that,

You know about them,

They're conscious.

And then it becomes a matter of whether or not you can find the strength to act on them.

Now you're confronting yourself.

Can I make a change?

Can I have that difficult conversation?

Can I draw a boundary here?

Oh my God,

I'm going to lose my job,

I'm going to lose my spouse or whatever.

Can you draw that boundary?

When you learn how to do that,

Stress goes down,

Self-care goes up.

And if you don't do that,

It doesn't matter how many massages you get.

I guess exactly.

It won't.

But the big ones,

The big ones are the ones we're not conscious of.

We don't feel them.

It's a level of stress where the body is in a defensive posture.

And it's stuck in a defensive posture and it has been for decades.

Only meditation and self-inquiry can get to those.

Nothing else can do it.

You almost made me think of it.

Yeah,

Now that everybody's going to feel naked when I say this,

But it's almost like we can see when we're experiencing another person's energy and attitude,

Posture,

If you will,

If they're coming from this hurt or angry or defensive place,

It's like now we kind of know that they've got some traumas running subconsciously and the program's just running and creating all this stress.

It's like if you didn't know,

I don't by the way,

But if you didn't know I had a toothache and I knew I had a toothache and I'm sitting here in pain with this toothache and I'm a little snappy or grumpy,

But you know,

It's because I have this and it's like pinching or pressing on a nerve or something and we're going to respond that way.

And it's draining,

Like you said,

And tiring.

So we can almost witness another's level of self-care by how they're coming across.

Is that?

Yes.

And it doesn't take a whole lot of sensitivity to even pick up on the unconscious stuff as well because the unconscious traumatic stress that is still in the system distorts the personality.

It warps you out of shape.

You're not yourself because all this energy is going into compensating for this pain that's there because that's what trauma is.

I mean trauma is simply the Greek word for wound.

Oh,

Is it?

It's a wound.

And oftentimes if the wound is really deep,

When it heals,

The scar that's left has no sensation you can't feel.

And that's a good way of visualizing what a trauma is like.

It's a part of you that you can't feel anymore,

Right?

Because the pain was so severe.

And so a complete regimen of self-care requires self-inquiry.

It requires a spa day,

It requires good food,

It requires nutritional advice,

You know,

Or sometimes physical therapy,

Right,

Whatever needs to take place.

But it also requires the re-establishment of the connection to your own soul.

Because you know,

I always use the example of the whale in the swimming pool.

It's not going to be comfortable there.

It won't know why,

Right,

But something's off,

Right?

Or the caged lion walking back and forth across the cage because he's used to walking 10 miles a day.

And so something's off,

Right?

And of course,

And it's a great metaphor because we're all in cages.

We're all in these little prison of the mind that has been created by beliefs and has been held in place by this stuck energy of which we're not conscious.

So becoming conscious is the best self-care you can do.

Oh,

That's the t-shirt actually.

There's the t-shirt.

That is so,

You know,

Wanting something to be different than it is,

As you shared with us,

I love it.

That's conflict,

That's suffering.

And self-care,

So once we know ourselves and we are doing all those things externally,

Internally,

We've got it all,

We're happening.

But the world still exists and we still are human beings.

And how can we continue to do that self-care,

That internal self-care where it's almost like we have to defend that we're self-caring about ourselves?

And because others can really throw some curveballs at you.

And we were talking about one I'll share with everybody here is that,

You know,

I really have some hardcore boundaries on my self-care.

And even to the face,

People will say,

Well,

I don't have the luxury of having the life that you have or something like this.

And I think,

Gosh,

It just took 20 minutes for myself to meditate.

That's all I come on.

But it's heaven forbid.

Because a lot of other people can really say,

Oh,

You're going to yoga again,

Or you're going to this again,

Or they're so selfish,

They have to have their quiet and their mantra music and all this stuff.

What do we do when it's our external,

Our families,

Our jobs,

Our people really push us and don't support us and don't allow us and we and then we get a little bit angry and very not happy about and it's easier to give it up.

Yeah,

Well,

We don't live in a world that is supportive of a healthy lifestyle.

And over the years that I've seen it,

Having been in a variety of businesses and big corporations and like,

There's just an ever increasing squeeze to get less people to do more.

And it's just pressure,

Pressure,

Pressure.

And it shows up all the time in employee dissatisfaction.

And a lot of people are in their jobs,

Not because they want to be there,

But because there aren't any other jobs around.

And these are the kind of,

So we have to recognize that you're on your own in terms of choosing for yourself how you're going to live.

But there's an enormous amount of support for you.

It just may not be in your own home.

It may not be your family.

It may not even be your friends.

But if you are committed truly to becoming conscious,

To taking care of yourself,

To living in harmony with your own nature and the nature of life,

You'll find new friends.

And you'll find new family because it has to,

Because those kinds of incompatibilities and they're not supportive because everybody knows in their heart,

That's the way you're supposed to be.

They should be doing it.

And because they're very attached to doing a particular way and not wanting to make that switch,

They don't want anybody to.

It's an indictment.

You're a reminder to them.

And they just don't,

They,

We've been,

We have been so demoralized.

We have been,

We've had all of our authority,

Our personal authority taken away from us from a very young age.

We're taught to defer.

First obviously you're young,

You're vulnerable.

You have to,

You have to defer to parents.

You can't stick the fork in the light socket.

They do have to stop you from doing that or running into the street.

So that has to happen.

But at some point you're supposed to be flying on your own.

The rules come off and you have more and more autonomy.

But we live in a culture that doesn't do that.

It substitutes then the school so that indoctrination continues.

The church,

Which is,

You know,

Which puts the harshest penalty on disobedience,

You can imagine.

And then experts,

You know,

People with a lot of letters after their name and people with celebrity and people with platforms and to the point where people feel,

They feel completely disempowered.

Right?

Now it's not real.

It's not true.

You haven't actually had your power taken away from you.

The power of the devil is to convince you he has power.

So you,

Your power gets used against you.

Right.

And so,

But we do live in a time and in a world that wants to keep it that way.

That wants you deferring to them.

Wants you obedient.

As John D Rockefeller,

Yeah,

The original Rockefeller said,

I do not want a nation of thinkers.

I want a nation of workers.

Yes.

Yes.

That is one of the stars of Think and Grow Ridge.

Yes.

Another one where,

You know,

It's so much when you're thinking about,

It's difficult to believe.

No,

My heart actually,

It's more,

It's not more difficult to believe.

My heart is more saddened to think that.

And I know even I am guilty of a few of these things because I think about how I grew up with a sick mother and I took care of her.

That was my thing.

And I,

But I also knew she's always,

She was housebound.

So I knew she was always at home and quite selfishly,

I kind of enjoyed her always being at home and I knew where she was and knew where to find her.

And you know,

I noticed in my choices of relationship that I secretly get really happy if my boyfriend's ever sick because I'm like,

Yes,

I get to take care of them and I get to get your sick baby back.

But the,

But that's,

I remember coming to terms with that on my own and I thought,

No,

You can't be happy about that.

So there's a self care even in our own witnessing of our imperfections and our,

We still need to love ourselves through those.

And I think Bernadette,

This is where your question is going to kind of roll into this answer here.

When we,

I was rather,

I'm always embarrassed.

I feel embarrassment when I realize that I'm doing something that's not coming from the best place and I get,

I'm ashamed,

Shameful.

I feel ashamed.

And then I think,

Well,

How can I love myself and offer myself self care where when I'm guilty,

Shameful,

Wounded,

Traumatized by my own very actions.

And so how does self care come in from a person who,

I love myself,

But meaning if we didn't,

If we don't feel love for ourselves,

We're numb,

We've been hiding,

We were so hurt.

How do we?

Step one,

You have to learn to feel.

Right.

Remember I said the wound,

When it heals over the scar doesn't have any feeling in it.

And so you can't feel that.

I have a scar on my leg,

Something I did when I was a little kid.

You know,

One of the many stupid things I did,

A gash in my leg and it healed over and there's no sensation there.

Still?

Yeah,

Still.

I did it 60 years ago.

And that's the way we have to learn to feel.

Right.

It's not about feeling good.

It's about being good at feeling.

Big difference.

Right.

And that's the reason we get numb,

The reason we get depressed,

The reason we cut these things off is because we don't want to feel the pain.

Right.

Right.

And the only way to recapture that territory,

Which is full of life and vitality and childlikeness is to go through the pain,

Is to find your way back through that.

The pain was real.

The pain was inflicted in childhood.

And the reason it's a trauma is because the pain was so extreme and you were so vulnerable,

You could not process it.

Oh.

Yeah.

Right.

And so it has to be put underground.

Because it was just too,

It would be too overwhelming for the child to process.

I mean,

Imagine feeling your life is in danger.

I mean,

It's a mortal threat.

And for a child,

It doesn't take a big thing to trigger that.

Right.

Yes.

Just,

You know,

Turning the other way and suddenly you don't see mommy and you're in the store.

Yes.

Right.

Because your entire life depends on them.

And so these things,

If there's no vehicle for that energy to be discharged,

If it's something,

You know,

It's like a chronic thing,

Right.

And your parents especially are the cause of it.

Right.

And the pain just can't be felt constantly like that.

And so the body does is it shoves that pain down in the corner and it covers it over with thoughts and beliefs and behaviors and the like to not feel it.

It's a wound,

It's a trauma,

It's a scar.

Right.

That is so well put.

And for the,

Sorry,

Yeah,

My brain just went to a million places there because I do remember,

And just to share this with people is when I was little,

When I was aware that my mother went to the hospital for the first time and I thought,

Oh wow,

She's going to die.

Like this is it.

And it happened many times over and over that I was like,

Oh,

We lost you there for a second GP.

Hold on here.

I'm still here.

You can still hear me.

It's a little software thing,

The camera goes on and off.

I just was talking about abandonment.

Thanks GP.

I just remember at the time going,

Well,

I can't just be worried about this constantly.

I'm not thinking this as a little child,

But you said you're so vulnerable when you're a child and you cannot process so that you scar,

You bury it.

And then eventually I just started not caring at all about any death.

I'm like,

Wow,

Whatever.

Somebody has got to die sometimes.

So here we go.

I can't do this anymore.

And so I think when it comes to that self care,

Like,

So when you say you have to come through the pain,

Come to feel it,

Like,

Does that mean,

Cause nobody likes this.

Does that mean you got to go and do that whole therapy where you revisit the trauma and tell the details and relive it?

Like,

Does that,

Was that for real?

No.

Okay.

Yay.

No,

No,

No.

No,

If it,

Yeah,

I did that,

You know,

Back in the eighties and nineties,

You know,

Rehab reactions and trauma release,

Which was as traumatic as the trauma itself.

I mean,

You just,

You lose this trauma,

You get a new one.

I mean,

You know,

Hey,

A fresh trauma.

Yeah.

Trauma,

Trauma exchange.

Yeah,

That's right.

But no,

You,

You,

You don't.

You have to learn to feel because,

Because that,

That,

That which is blocking the pain is also blocking the joy.

Right?

Because they're all,

It's all part of the same complex,

Right?

I mean,

It's all about feeling life is felt,

Right?

You're going to,

You're going to feel ecstasy.

You're also going to feel grief.

Right?

And of course,

If you want to have a full life,

You want to feel all of it.

You want to feel life as it is,

Right.

And you know,

Our modern idea,

You can have it all and everything can always be good.

You can just manifest everything you want.

It's just nonsense.

It's it's an attempt to imagine that you can have one side of life and not the other.

It's a very,

It's a veiled way of trying to keep from feeling.

And it sounds very good on the surface.

And it sounds very,

You know,

It sounds very believable to prosperity gospel.

Right?

But,

But you just,

But if you're looking at things that way,

You can,

You know,

You're suppressing anything that doesn't feel good.

Right?

Which means you're suppressing the capacity to feel at all.

So when I say you have to go back through the pain,

You don't have to re-experience it all.

Right?

Right.

And,

And if you're really honest in the way you approach it,

If it's a real inner reconciliation,

The what,

What you do need to feel will be doled out in doses that you can handle it.

But for the most part,

The,

The energy system does not need to recreate the actual intensity of the pain in order to discharge the traumatic energy that is the residue of it.

It doesn't need to do that.

Sometimes it doesn't even need to tell you what happened or anything about it.

Right?

Oh,

Yeah.

I mean,

This system is very,

Very smart.

You don't have to tell it what to do.

Right?

You just have to provide it space to do it.

And so that inner space of becoming safe for yourself to feel that's the ultimate self-care.

Oh,

I love that.

It's safe to,

Yes,

I can,

I almost hear that being a tapping thing,

You know,

It's safe for me to feel,

But you can't just,

And that was a question I was going to say,

Can you just say it in a so,

But before I went on that.

If I cut myself,

Actually,

I cut my foot this weekend,

Swimming in the lake and I didn't need to tell it how to heal.

You know,

I needed to not step on it,

Not open it up again and give it an environment to heal,

Let it do its thing.

It knows what to do.

Is it,

How do we create that safe environment?

And that's my original question then is,

Yes,

Can we just say,

It's safe for me to heal?

Oh,

Look,

It's safe.

Yeah,

I don't think so.

Yeah,

You can't,

It's not that simple because we've all been trained to resist that.

We have been trained into an antagonistic,

Conflicting relationship with ourselves,

Right?

So we've gotten extremely good at not feeling.

It's automatic,

It's reflex,

Right?

So it's not something you can consciously control.

You can't consciously begin the process of dismantling the whole structure that keeps it at bay,

Right?

That you can do that.

And that's where conscious and consciousness is the only thing that can do it.

You have to become conscious.

And when you become conscious,

You become conscious of everything.

You start being really sensitive to the feelings.

You can begin to discriminate and notice that you're avoiding something,

Right?

You can notice that a certain thought comes and a shiver goes in your,

In through your body and immediately you distract yourself,

Right?

And if you just slow the whole process down,

You can watch it happen,

Right?

When you're not conscious,

It happens so fast and so automatically that you don't even notice it.

It's not a distraction.

It's purely,

It is purely robotic,

Right?

Which is why consciousness is the key.

You have to start,

I just start with the yoga of allowing.

You simply allow yourself to feel what you're feeling when you feel it with no agenda other than to feel it,

Right?

And for a lot of people it's hard to do,

Which is why I've made recordings and things to help people to do it,

You know,

Because when there's a voice there that's guiding you,

It helps keep bringing you back because it doesn't want to,

You know,

The habit.

You've been trained when something comes up to immediately distract yourself and that just tells you,

Hey,

Let's go shopping.

Let's cruise.

Let's go to the,

Look at Amazon.

What's on?

Right?

That's what we do and that's what we want to do instead.

So actually holding yourself in a place without the self-help intention.

Yeah.

Right?

And this is key.

Okay.

I'm allowing this feeling now.

Is it gone yet?

Yes.

That's why I was so guilty of that when I was listening to your recordings.

I was like,

That's right.

I'm going to fix this.

Let's go listen to GP's courses.

And then the first thing you said was,

You are not here to fix anything.

I was like,

Oh,

Well I'm not listening.

Well forget it.

Forget that.

That's the goal here.

Self-care.

Right.

But that is it.

Because the intention to fix yourself is sensed in your nervous system as more of the same.

Right?

It was the fact that there was something wrong with you when you were a kid and your parents had to fix it that created the whole traumatic thing in the beginning.

And so when you have this intention to fix yourself,

Even with the best intention,

Right?

The best we motivated self-help stuff,

There's still the underlying assumption there's something wrong with you that's got to be fixed.

And that creates the,

And the nervous system is going,

Fuck it,

Enough.

Enough.

Leave me alone.

You already hit me.

Yeah.

And it is,

And the reason self-help is so ineffective is because the nervous system is already perfectly defended against it.

You know,

It lives through your parents.

It can live through anything.

Yeah,

I don't care what you do,

What affirmation you throw at it,

It can just go,

Yeah,

Whatever.

Question on that,

When you,

I love that,

Because I can imagine like your system saying,

I'm already doing what I'm supposed to do.

I'm protecting you with the best way I can.

And now you're saying to me,

I'm broken,

And I need to be fixed,

And it goes into that further defense mechanism.

We're talking self-care and self-help.

What about people who go to therapists,

Like marriage counseling?

Because you're walking to that appointment.

You're going in sitting in the waiting room knowing I'm going in to get fixed.

I'm broken.

Is that damaging then too?

Well,

No.

And it depends,

It really depends on the therapist.

And very fortunately,

I have several therapists as my students who are learning,

Who are doing it in a completely different way.

But yeah,

I mean,

Everybody comes to you,

If you're a healer of any kind or a therapist or a counselor or a nutritionist,

They come to you assuming they're broken and that you can help them fix.

And so it's okay to work within that paradigm.

I mean,

Oftentimes the first thing out of your mouth can't be,

Hey,

You're not broken.

That'll be $250,

Please.

But if you are aware that they're not broken,

And that's the energy you bring to them,

Their nervous system is going to detect that.

They're more safe than the resident of that body.

And it'll gravitate towards the safest place in the room.

So if the therapist is sitting there using their skills and their know-how to bring somebody to the point of seeing their own innate innocence and beauty,

And that they're not their conditioning,

That you simply mistook all these things for yourself,

Your traumas are not you.

They're a reactive pattern designed to protect you.

If that's understood by the one that's there,

It doesn't even really matter what technique you use.

It really doesn't.

They will all work.

Yes.

I love that you're using the word detect and detection and that it's silent.

It's not out there in the neon sign.

Your nervous system detects things at such quick and silent,

Quick and fast and quiet and all those words.

And so it would be the same in the opposite.

If I was sitting with the therapist who did not see me as perfect and saw me as broken and saw me as a money,

Saw me as to fix me or something like that,

I would detect that or because that's an interesting question,

Would I subconsciously detect that or would I fall prey and feel even more broken?

And I just want to share this because I was trained as a weight loss counselor when I was,

Oh my gosh,

I started in the field when I was 17 and we were trained on an intake form and even as a personal trainer,

Trained on what was called your health history or whatever,

But it wasn't.

So we can have a sales pitch so we can remind them how broken they are on a scale of one to 10.

How much do you even know about the gym and to use it or how well do you like?

They're bringing out and highlighting these things that are broken and that's designed to close a sale.

And so I'm just wondering,

Will our nervous system pick up or will it fall prey if we have too much trauma set in?

Well,

Yes,

The trauma leads to attitudes,

Beliefs,

And vulnerabilities,

Right?

Because if I can't see something,

I'm vulnerable to being manipulated by it.

And dishonest salesmen learn how to exploit that kind of thing.

And you can watch,

There's all sorts of techniques they teach people to do that.

And you're just mentioning there,

Stick the knife in and turn it and then offer them the solution.

That's a marketing strategy,

Right?

And it's not completely nefarious because the fact of the matter is people usually don't change until the pain becomes sufficient,

That staying where they are hurts more than the change that has to be made,

The discomfort of making that change.

And it oftentimes happens that way.

And so it's not that that idea is completely without some merit,

Right?

But it gets overused,

Right?

It's not like I'm selling you a program to make a million dollars on the internet,

Right?

I mean,

It's a bullshit thing right from the get go.

It's not like I'm trying to sell you something that's really going to make your life better,

Right?

So like a nutrition program,

Right?

Or something that is going to change that's going to make a shift in your approach to yourself and an approach to your life that is going to have long term positive return,

Right?

Yeah.

And it's a spiral up,

Right?

As opposed to the addictive spiral,

Which is simply keeps falling back onto itself and never goes anywhere.

Yeah.

Is self-care more growth or I don't want to say prevention,

Maintenance?

Is self-care more to maintain or to grow?

That's an interesting one because you can't really separate them,

Right?

Because growth is to simply affect life.

I mean,

Everything is growing.

If you don't grow,

You die,

Right?

I mean,

That's the way life works,

Basically.

You just need to maintain by growing,

Okay.

So I think of it as maintaining the garden,

Right?

You're maintaining the environment out of which growth takes place.

The inner environment is that of safety and the I is kind of self-care,

Which is self-appreciation and self-love.

And when that is in charge,

You know where the boundaries are.

You know when it's time to rest.

I eat when I'm hungry,

I sleep when I'm tired.

You can tune enough with your body that you respond to it,

Right?

You're not overriding it,

Which is what happens.

We get too much in the head and it tries to override the body.

And we don't listen.

And of course,

Eventually you will get sick,

Right?

It's inevitable.

Right.

So maintain the garden.

That's the maintenance is the internal environment that is honoring of life.

Out of that,

The most natural and permanent growth is going to happen.

Otherwise it fits and starts.

You're growing then out of what you are rather than trying to get something.

For most people,

The growth is an attempt to acquire something because it's coming from the feeling of lack.

It's coming from the feeling of not being enough,

That there's something out there I need to get.

So it has built into it the assumption I'm broken and my fix is out there somewhere.

Yes.

Oh,

That was so beautiful.

You grow out of what you are.

And that's where self-inquiry comes in because as we consciously become aware of who we are,

Then growth from that point,

That intention that we were just talking about.

Yeah,

That's absolutely it.

It grows out of what you are.

This is the great mystery of there's the essence of you,

Which is absolutely timeless and changeless.

And simultaneously there's this constant growth and evolution going on.

Yes.

I mean,

It's total mystery.

You can't wrap your head around it.

Yes.

Right.

It's complete and continuing at the same time.

Yes.

I can't even describe it.

I love that.

It's complete and continuing.

That's the CCs.

Yeah.

Oh,

I just wanted to,

I just check in and see what people are feeling around this.

I know Bernadette's having some aha,

Beautiful moments and we've all of our beautiful hellos.

And if there was a question on self-care or along this,

Lots of hellos from everybody.

Okay.

So I think that was the question that we did want to talk,

Like I want to get there.

Okay.

The things that would prevent us from self caring,

Right?

As we said,

It's the scar,

Not feeling.

Can we live,

This is a tough one to ask this question.

I want to talk about if we are blaming others,

If we are not taking responsibility,

If we are not,

I don't have enough money to join the gym or do this program.

My family doesn't eat this way.

Worthiness maybe even,

I'll never self care enough that I can heal.

Are we back to now doing the yoga of allowing almost?

Yeah.

Yeah,

Because even there's a catch right in what you said.

I don't have enough time to self care.

I'll never be able to self care enough to heal,

Right?

Oh my God.

I mean,

What a horrible thing.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

This healing isn't for me.

I mean,

It's such a subtle and horrible way of cutting you out of what in fact is your birthright.

It's your nature.

Healing simply means normal.

Healing means everything is in accord.

It is being and functioning as it was intended to do.

Trauma restricts the natural functioning.

It's like throwing a bunch of big rocks into a river or into a stream,

Right?

It blocks what it's doing and it could spill off over the side and make a bit of a mess,

Right?

You have to remove the rocks,

Right?

It's a way,

It's one of the ways in which the habit energy of the mind gets us to really abandon ourselves,

To accept less than we truly deserve as a human being.

And I don't mean in material possessions and all that.

I mean,

Simply a self-regard,

Right?

Having your own value,

The capacity to self-validate,

Right?

Which has been wounded in everybody.

That's what happens when we are deferred,

Right?

When a child is always criticized,

They just will criticize themselves.

But if the child is praised,

They don't become arrogant.

They become self-validating.

Yes.

Yeah.

Self-validating.

That's like the best self-care word.

So I love that,

Self-validating.

Making time to heal.

If your feelings are valid,

You listen to them.

Yes.

If they're not,

Then you don't,

Right?

And there'll be plenty of people that say,

You shouldn't feel that way.

How many times you heard that in your life?

I mean,

I shouldn't,

But I do.

I mean,

It's simply the fact.

I shouldn't.

How does that?

It's an absurd thing to even think,

Let alone say.

I mean,

What do you mean?

I should feel differently than I do,

But this is how I feel.

But it's amazing in working with people in EFT and in reconciliation techniques,

Just getting them to say,

It's okay.

You're feeling this,

Right?

Right.

I feel it.

Say,

You don't have to say,

It's okay for me to feel this.

Just say,

I am feeling it.

Oh,

You are feeling it,

Right?

Yeah,

I am feeling it.

Okay,

Good.

Right.

Because oftentimes people will say,

People will think I'm trying to get them to like the feeling,

Embrace your feeling,

Right?

No,

You don't have to like it.

You have to acknowledge it.

It's there and drop the idea that you shouldn't be feeling it because you are.

Yes.

I think a lot of people who've received a diagnosis,

Be it cancer,

Whatever it is,

That's the diagnosis.

And now they would say,

So am I supposed to just,

Or if they're 50 pounds overweight,

They're supposed to say,

Well,

I'm supposed to love my body or I'm supposed to love this body that has become ill,

Become a different size,

A different age,

All those things.

And I see what you're saying though,

You're not asking them to lie and go to a place where it's not safe.

But just- Yeah,

Lying is never safe.

Right.

Lying is never safe.

Lying is never safe.

No,

No.

But just the admission that this is what I'm feeling,

Right?

I don't like my body.

I don't like the way it looks.

I don't like what it's doing right now.

That's different than trying to cut yourself off from the feeling,

Right?

If there's a real regard for it,

Right?

When somebody gets a severe diagnosis of something,

It means that the self-denial,

The self-immolation has been going on for a long time.

It takes a long time for it to build up to the point where it takes the severe shape of some kind of major illness for most people.

There are exceptions to that.

And trauma is the cause of physical illness.

And this is not just me saying this or something I read in Yoga Magazine or something like that,

Right?

But this is documented stuff in prestigious medical journals,

The relationship between trauma and the inner conditions that then give rise or not to an illness.

That connection is absolute.

It is not even controversial,

Right?

It's ignored ideologically because of the emphasis on the reductionist approach and the like.

So these things are going to reflect themselves in your body.

Now if you're willing to be with that and inquire into that,

Right?

How did I get 50 pounds overweight?

And not just focus on the behavior.

Oh,

I got to stop eating chocolate.

I got to stop doing these things.

But instead go,

What am I feeling every time I'm reaching for that?

And when I eat it and there's this sense of relief,

What is that about?

And how long does that sense of relief last before the next thing comes up that I want?

And this now is an inquiry.

That's an inquiry,

Right?

You're no longer just trying to adjust behavior,

Right?

Which is what most of the techniques do.

Stop doing this and go to the gym.

Why is there a resistance to moving your body?

That's interesting.

And if that becomes interesting,

You notice you're automatically putting your attention on your feelings and you're doing so without the stigma.

So it isn't about the particular symptom that has manifested,

Whether it be 50 pounds overweight or anorexia,

Right?

The thing that becomes interesting is how did this distortion of nature happen?

It's completely unnatural for us to be like that.

So what's up?

What's going on?

And suddenly you can begin to feel this interconnection between the environment and the body.

You can begin to,

I know there have been times when I've gone,

Call it springtime,

Right?

You know,

It's kind of like a friend of mine has a program called WildFit,

Which is kind of like keto only better because he brings in seasons and different kinds of things.

So you go into spring and there's no sugar at all.

None.

Because,

You know,

If you looked at evolutionary in spring,

There was no fruit.

That was all fall,

Right?

And so there would be one period of time when you get a lot of sugar and you eat a ton of it,

Right?

Then you basically,

You know,

Almost starve for the winter.

And then spring comes and it's in its roots and its leaves and its berries and it's nothing sweet,

Right?

Or,

And meat,

Of course,

Right?

Nothing sweet.

So if you actually do that and go for several weeks without sugar,

Right?

And eat nothing but leafy greens and meat,

Right?

And not even a lot of meat because that wasn't,

That was only a small part of the primitive diet,

Right?

All of a sudden,

Everything tasted,

Your body functions differently.

Everything is different.

And I remember picking up a grapefruit and taking a bite of it.

My God,

This is sweet.

Yes.

Because I could taste the tiniest bit of sugar anywhere.

Yes.

Right?

Yes.

Because normally,

You know,

You put sugar in this,

Sugar in that.

Sugar is in absolutely everything,

Right?

I don't,

You know,

I'm very aware of that.

I don't eat anything with sugar.

But when I did and I started cutting that back,

I began to notice.

You get so used to your body being in a certain way that you don't realize that it's uncut.

You're uncomfortable until you stop,

Right?

You're beating your head against the wall.

Hey,

You stopped.

Wow,

That feels good.

The sudden realization.

But it's all what we've become accustomed to.

And if we're willing to look at ourselves,

And the fact that we're accustomed to it,

And oftentimes you need help doing that by somebody who knows what they're doing,

Then you it is an inquiry.

Because if you just try to use discipline or willpower to change your behavior,

It won't work.

Because you'll just feel deprived.

And if you feel deprived,

You can't sustain that forever.

Eventually,

It's going to break down,

You're going to eat the whole damn bag of cookies.

You're just,

That's what you're going to do.

If people ask for my,

They really want to change their diet.

I said,

Okay,

Here's what you do.

And I give them a recipe for a nutrition packed green smoothie.

Add some stevia or some apple juice if it's too sour for you.

But like 16 ounces of this a day,

Or more.

Start with that.

And it becomes easier on the other end to start letting things go,

Because your body's finally getting nourished.

So there's really very intelligent ways to approach this.

And there's all sorts of people who are knowledgeable about it.

But without that element of a willingness to have some introspection about it,

It's doomed to fail.

I'm thinking that self-care really starts with what you said,

The willingness to even look,

And then the awareness of what's going on,

Moving into the inquiry.

And I'll take this opportunity to show that as inner reconciliation course begins,

Like two weeks or so,

Three weeks maybe from now,

I'm trying to think of the date.

You're right.

In the beginning,

If you haven't done self-care,

It's so helpful to have somebody else guide you,

Or point the way at least,

Or be there as you go,

Okay,

I'm willing,

And I'm a little scared.

And that's okay,

Because it can be scary.

And to have other people and a teacher,

Especially you're leading this inner reconciliation.

I think inner reconciliation is self-care.

It's one of the best self-care because you are allowing all the different aspects of yourself.

Yeah,

That's what it is.

It's like the best spa day ever,

The soul spa day.

It's the soul spa day,

Yeah.

And it's just,

We'll just let people know,

For those who already signed up,

We're so excited to have you.

And those who are like,

Hey,

What's this inner reconciliation?

What is the first step,

Other than the homework or the pre-work that people are doing prior to the class?

But what is the first step in a reconciliation that's part of the self-care?

Well getting to know yourself,

Right?

And the first thing is to simply be willing to be with yourself.

I mean,

This is what it's,

Everything in our world right now is a distraction from feeling.

And it's because we have all been so thoroughly traumatized,

We don't want to feel.

And so it's understandable.

We don't want to be sticking,

Pouring salt into an open wound.

But unless you do,

It doesn't heal.

It just kind of gets covered over,

Putting a Band-Aid on it,

And it really needs stitches.

And because of these,

And I use the word trauma a lot because it's the psychological term,

You could also use the term soul fragmentation.

The wholeness of you has been broken into pieces.

So that there's,

So part of you is accessible to you,

You know,

Your persona,

A little bit shines through.

But most of it is just the ego,

Which is a false you,

Right?

And the real you,

All sorts of aspects of yourself that are not free to be expressed.

And this is what we're actually all yearning for.

When you're reaching for that cake,

You're actually reaching for access to your own soul.

Because that's what will satisfy you,

And only that.

When we are,

When we're young,

And we're diminished,

We're abused,

We're hurt in some way,

We're in an environment that is not loving and accepting or supportive.

Obviously,

Many,

Many aspects of you simply cannot be expressed.

And to express them is literally dangerous.

So what do you do?

Well,

You like,

Like,

Like the coyote chooses leg off to get out of the trap,

You cut huge swaths of yourself out.

And you stick them down somewhere and you,

You create layers of behavior,

Those are the scar,

That's the scar tissue,

Layers of behavior to keep that part of you hidden.

And then as time goes on,

You develop a whole identity based on the all of the behaviors that were simply there to try to keep you hidden,

And none of them are actually you.

And that's the,

That's the real problem with the the identification with the egoic mind is it's not you.

It's a false version of you that was created.

And of course,

It's not going to be satisfying,

Your soul is not going to be satisfied with it.

It wants access to the wholeness of it,

It wants access to its fullness.

And the good news is that the wholeness is still there.

It's buried,

It's not gone.

You can't kill you.

As hard as my parents tried,

And the church tried and institutions tried and the school tried,

You can't do it.

It can't actually do it.

And it can only happen from ourselves.

This is not somebody else can't take the fragments and put them back together for you if they apologize,

If they just did this differently,

Or you know,

Like,

It's,

It's helpful.

It feels good,

Too,

By the way.

But I think it's,

It has to be from you,

You have to see the wholeness and feel the wholeness.

Yes,

You're going to have to do for yourself what didn't get done for you,

And should have.

And of course,

We have people help you,

Teachers and the like,

A good relationship with somebody can,

You know,

A good conscious relationship can provide an environment in which that healing can take place.

So there's also there's,

There are,

There are things now available that weren't available when I was a kid.

I mean,

They weren't available,

There was none of this kind of stuff.

Even when I first had my spiritual experience,

There was nothing.

And now there's all sorts of resources available,

Right?

Just too many,

It's kind of a spiritual marketplace now,

Right?

It's a super market.

Sea market.

Spiritual,

Yeah,

Spiritual Costco,

Right?

Oh,

That's funny,

I'm thinking quantity,

Discounted.

So,

Somebody has to decide for themselves that I don't want to suffer anymore.

I want to be happy,

And then really be willing to look deeply into,

Well,

What's the cause of suffering?

Right?

Most people,

At least people who managed to find them their way to me as a teacher,

Have already been around the block enough times that they realized that everything they were promised as the great solution to their problem of their dissatisfaction or their suffering,

Turned out to be false.

It didn't work,

It didn't deliver.

And of course,

There's plenty of stuff now trying to get,

You know,

Oh,

This is what you need,

This is what you need,

This is what you need.

And none of them will do it,

Right?

You have to be artfully guided back to you.

You have to learn how to turn around and make the journey back in,

Because the answer isn't out there,

Right?

You're not out there,

You're in here.

If you're out there,

It's a piece of cake,

You're in the closet,

Go get you.

But you're not there,

Right?

At best,

There can be reflections of you,

Or images of you,

Or pictures of you,

But not you.

You're here.

And all of you is here.

And the nervous system has done such a good job of protecting you,

That it won't even let you have access.

Which is what inner reconciliation is all about.

It's winning the trust of the protective mechanism.

So you get access,

It lets you in.

Because you're trustworthy,

And now you become trustworthy,

You become safe.

Now you become safe,

You listen.

That actually answers Bernadette's question about GP,

Would you help me remove the veil?

You can still get into that.

That is an incredible course.

They're all incredible,

To be honest with you,

GP,

Because you're like the best pointer ever.

And you help guide people in point,

And then you make it really,

I want to say easy on it,

This is not the sales pitch,

But you do make it easy for people.

Because I think what you do is you remove that we have to go look elsewhere to find it.

And what you said there was so beautiful and so perfect.

And that's where I always say,

You always let me off the hook,

And you make it super easy because I don't have to go anywhere other than with myself and earn the trust.

I love that.

I have to earn my own trust to get access to my wholeness that's already there.

That is the most beautiful there.

And as we wrap up,

I know this is a time it's like,

Get to go find my hair.

Sorry,

Faith,

I ended up putting the wrong thing up there.

Yeah,

Wow.

Boy,

This really does go fast.

But let me just put up the promo.

Yeah,

Please go here,

Guys.

This is to sign up for the course.

There's a little bit of work to be done prior to the course,

But that's okay.

You do what you can and then you show up and you're going to be helped all the way through it regardless.

But yeah,

Go on over to gpwash.

Com with the IRN3F,

That's for Inner Reconciliation,

FFF,

Foundation for Reconciliating.

And I think,

Yeah,

It's extremely affordable.

Not only is that it's affordable,

But oh my gosh,

You know what?

It is the time you'll spend there with GP and on your own.

It snowballs in a way that,

Like I like that you said that you don't have to tell your body how to heal.

It knows how.

You just have to give it a safe environment to do it.

To give it the space.

Yes,

You have to give it the space.

This isn't self-fixing,

Right?

Right.

Because there's nothing wrong with you.

You're simply peeling away all the layers that got imposed on you that aren't natural to you.

The reason it works so effectively and so quickly and snowballs is because it's your nature.

It's not artificial,

Right?

You don't have to learn how to be you.

Right.

I love that.

It does snowball,

It's kind of like I grew cucumbers.

We grew cucumbers for the first time and they just grow so fast and you're like,

What?

Let me grow them.

They're just cucumbers.

They're everywhere.

Zucchinis even more.

I mean,

You pick them one day and there's five more the next day.

They just,

Good thing I like zucchini.

Is that true?

We pick them or we'll grow?

I got to pick mine.

Yeah.

Oh yeah,

They grow very fast.

Yeah.

Okay.

I didn't know if you,

Yeah,

Well that's,

I do that with my basil plant.

If you pick it properly,

It can just,

It will endlessly just continue and grow and grow.

See now we're talking nature here.

I love it.

That is self care though.

It's farmer G.

Thank you guys.

This,

Yes,

This one really,

Really did go super fast.

And hello to everybody.

I know we didn't go through the list there,

But we just,

We so appreciate you showing up and sharing with us questions and feelings and maybe GP,

If there are some questions that we didn't quite,

We can,

We'll scooch in there and add some comments.

Unless there is something you want to hit.

Well,

There was just one there.

How do we treat ourselves when we need something or have to do something we don't feel not to do it?

Do we listen to our body and rest or push ourselves?

You know,

There are times when we have no choice but to push ourselves.

You just have to make sure that it is really the circumstances that are doing it and it's not you artificially to avoid things.

And if it happens consistently,

Then you need to,

You need to be responsible for yourself and change your environment.

You have to get on an environment that is putting that kind of pressure on you consistently.

Not always easy to do.

And sometimes you can't just do it right away.

But all you have to do is realize that you must.

And if you realize that you have to,

The whole energy system will begin to revolve around that intention to find the way to make it happen.

Because believe me,

The whole energy system is on your side.

It wants to get out of that situation too.

So it's not like it's in opposition to you.

You're harmonizing.

Because if you're feeling not to do it,

Are you genuinely exhausted?

Is it just something you don't really want to do,

But have to for some reason?

Or is it something you feel obligated to do and you don't actually have to do it?

Because there's plenty of that.

And there's been plenty of times when I've had to go back to somebody say,

You know what,

I really can't do this.

We find a different way.

And very rarely does somebody really get all upset about it.

Most people want the same kind of respect shown to them.

So again,

Remember,

We can live our lives in such a way that we consistently get ourselves into positions that stress us out and do not allow us opportunity for self-care.

That is the aggregation of many decisions of self-denial.

So sometimes it can take a while to walk those back.

But might as well start now because the journey is not going to get any shorter.

It only gets shorter when you're headed in the right direction.

Right.

Oh,

You know what?

I don't know who asked that question.

That was a perfect,

Amazing question.

I love that question.

And I love that answer.

And I really like how you said their GP,

That sometimes it's a one-off.

Emergencies happen.

And then other times we do have to have that self-inquiry again to say,

Hmm,

This is a pattern.

This is now my life.

And obligation.

The fact that you brought up obligation,

When that question was asked,

I thought about all the clients who are moms of mine.

And even if they have adult children or not,

Then they are constantly still dropping their lives to assist others.

If it's once in a while or like something happens and yes,

But if you've created this life and your obligations,

Like are they obligations?

Yes you are obligated and you love your children,

But is there some enabling or some you distracting yourself from,

Oh no,

No,

No,

I got to do this because of this.

So that was awesome.

Yeah,

That's kind of a chronic thing that happens a lot to parents,

Right?

Because you get so much in the identity of that.

And when you are a parent,

You really do compromise an enormous amount of yourself.

You have to,

Right?

It does become about to be about the child.

But over time the child becomes more and more autonomous and needs to be more and more autonomous,

Which means you become more and more autonomous.

It's got to happen this way,

Right?

Not that you're trying to hold onto the kid and the like.

Every time that they get a little bit more independent,

You need to do the same.

It's that simple.

You know,

We were not meant to be with our kids forever.

By the time they're ready to go,

Believe me,

You're ready for them to go.

Oh,

That is beautiful.

Self-care for the parent.

And that's actually in our reconciliation as well,

Because as we deal with different identities and how to reconcile them,

Like not to say,

Hey,

You're not a parent anymore.

You can't do this.

But yeah,

You guys just got to go check out that page so you can find out.

But we'll be here next Tuesday.

We will indeed.

Yeah.

But thank you everybody who has been here and sharing this time with us.

And everybody's now saying their thank you.

So that was wonderful.

Thank you so much.

And thank you,

GP.

Thank you,

Lisa.

It's always,

It's always great.

It's fun.

It's fun.

We got pink fun today.

This is one of my two favorite times of the week.

This one and Sunday Satsang.

Yes,

Sunday Satsang.

Thank you everybody from YouTube who has joined us as well.

Well,

We shall see you on our next one.

Bye.

You've been listening to The Flow from Ohm School Live.

Join us each week as we dive deep into the flow of life and self-discovery.

To learn more,

Visit gpwalsh.

Com and download GP's free ebook,

Angels in the Basement.

This is your host,

Elisa Berry.

Thank you for joining us.

And remember,

You are not a thing.

You are the flow.