Return To The Center Of Yourself GF Live 9-26-26

48:01

Return To The Center Of Yourself GF Live 9-26-26

Rated

5

Type

talks

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Everyone

Plays

23

Key Lesson: How do we know when we’ve lost our balance? We become aware of the loss because an invisible equilibrium already exists within us, as it does within all living things: a timeless centering force working, moment by moment, to restore balance amid the opposing forces through which life unfolds. Key Lesson : That person’s dismissive remark, the sudden appearance of some unwanted moment did not create that demand to rebalance our life. It exposed an imbalance within us we have yet to realize within us. Key Lesson: It’s not your job to restore balance…to what is likely no more than a familiar arrangement of dependencies.

Self Coaching Practice Habit Loop Awareness Balance Psychology Inner Peace Observation Self Restoration

Meet your Teacher

New Smyrna Beach, FL, USA

Meet your Teacher

New Smyrna Beach, FL, USA

Transcript

Collect yourself as best you know how. Our subject requires a certain amount of attention. Because we're going to look at. . . A behavior of ours that we are largely unaware of from a number of different angles. And if you're attentive, Really attentive, You may. . . Gain some insight into the nature of addiction and some other corresponding unconscious connections. That we make. In unwanted moments. Without knowing that we've done that. But let me get into the ideas. Again, Welcome everyone. I'm glad that you're here. Kate, Let's put up the talk title, Please. You can see it says, Return to the center of yourself. And rest in perfect balance. Return to the center of yourself. And rest in perfect balance. I need you to. . . Track as closely as you can what I describe related to similar experiences of yours so that we can all be on the same page as consistently as possible. Imagine someone speaks to you in a dismissive way. It doesn't take a lot. It can be a tone, Tilt of a head. And maybe they don't even notice that they have spoken to us in that way. But the instant that we hear or see experience someone like that, We can feel, Can we not, Something changing in us in a heartbeat, Quite literally in a heartbeat. The body tightens up. A particular picture of ourselves begins to form. Were without words, This feeling of a picture of being disrespected passes over us and we're drawn into that. Instantaneous storyline. Where for whatever reason it happens, Someone has decided to speak to us in terms that are troubling at the best. And in that moment, And other moments like it, Because it doesn't have to be somebody talking to us that way, It can be the way the world unfolds. An unwanted moment comes, There's some kind of threat, And you know the expression, It feels like the rug is pulled out from underneath you? And in a heartbeat, What, You're up in the air. And looking for some place to land that you must find for yourself in that moment so that you have a soft, Safe landing place. Everybody follow the first example. So what happens in these moments? Difficult conversation, Friend, Family, Stranger. Certain circumstance doesn't go the way we want it to go and all of a sudden we're in that tense place, Anxiety. What happens in those moments with people like that or situations? Do we not, And I'm asking you again, Do we not hear their words replaying through our mind? And do we not, As we listen to what is being replayed in our mind, Start to imagine what we should have said? Or perhaps if they're not with us and we're playing that conversation in our mind again, Maybe we're just thinking what we will say to them when we see them again. Is this not all going on? And underneath it, What's taking place. Our mind is racing. To ensure that when that happens again or when it is revisited, We will have some kind of a soft landing. We will have a place prepared in advance for ourselves where the pain has been mitigated because we have a new position, A new proposition, Maybe a new explanation that we give to ourselves a plan of some kind, And in that moment, Isn't that all kind of a way in which that feeling of the rug being pulled out, Now I have to restore, I have to recover this balance that I've lost. That's the key idea. All of this conversation with ourselves, These dark dialogues, Planning, Prepping, All a way in which to do what? To recover a sense of balance that felt like it was taken away from me in that moment the rug came out from underneath me. If we're all on the same page, I can keep going. Are we all on the same page? Let me ask a question that we, As a rule, Never ask ourselves. Because we're too busy caught up in trying to restore or rebalance reality so that we can be our so-called relaxed self. But a question that we never ask in these moments is what exactly is being restored When we make the new plan. Come up with the protective dialogue. Figure out a way in which to ensure that this doesn't happen. What is it that we are actually restoring. Because, I mean, Look, It just goes without saying that when that's going on, I'm restoring. What is it that's actually being restored? I mean, Have you, Have I been restored to that lost peace? Or have I just been returned to a familiar sense of self that depends on being treated in a certain way and doesn't know it depends on being treated in a certain way until it's not treated like that. Do you see it? So what's restored is an image, An idea of myself. Kind of Humpty Dumpty put back together again. Where if we can see that is the case, That means, And listen, This is an important pivotal point. Each time we recover, Our balance. By being engaged with what our reaction points to as having thrown us off balance. Each time we recover that balance, We're actually strengthening our dependence on the very thing that threw us off balance in the first place, Which was that some image or idea of ourself was challenged by a world that doesn't care that we came into the moment bearing that image and identified with it. A long sentence, But do you see what I've just said? Can you see that? This is the heart of our study. A certain psychological dependency on familiar reactions that promise, As they are unfolding and we are following what they point to as solution, That promise to make us feel whole again, Balanced again. And these reactions promise to restore this. Critical sense of balance. That we are so fearful of losing, How? By offering a thought of some kind of feeling? A revised plan of action? Something that that reaction and the sense of self involved in it promises will restore our sense of loss, Will bring us back into balance if we just are true to what it is telling us to do. Still following me? Because if you are, I'll ask Kate to bring up the first key lesson. Go ahead, Katie. How do we know when we've lost our balance? How do we know? We become aware of the loss. Because an invisible equilibrium already exists within us, As it does with all living things. A timeless centering force working moment to moment to restore balance amid the opposing forces through which and by which life unfolds. Now, That's kind of a mouthful, But I'll help you see it. Through my eyes and I hope you will see it as I see it because our experience should be in common. You look out, I look out, For instance, At a bay here in Florida. But maybe you look out at a field or a forest. Something where you are. Something natural, Ideally. And like, For instance, This morning there was a great gray heron. Probably less than 30 yards from me. Doing its It's a. It's Tai Chi. Movement through the water. As it walks in perfect stillness. Hunting? What may have been washed up because of a series of storms that we had up on the shore or that is now stranded in some kind of shallow water. So I look out, I see the bay, I see the heron. And I see all of this movement. I see the predator, I see the unwitting prey. They are in a certain dance in which the prey and the predator are in a perfect balance that is never not being reconciled by a greater nature. That is balancing that ecological niche, Even as that tiny niche exists within a larger niche of the mangrove that is always being rebalanced by the storm waters that refresh the roots and reconstitute the nourishment. So there's always this invisible set of opposing forces that are working to restore balance to creation, Even as creation itself produces these momentary imbalances. Are you able to see this with me, This circulation, This yin and yang movement? Where whether it's instantaneous in terms of the palm that throws off the old dead frond because the wind has taken it. Or it takes a month or five months or 10 years for the tree to reach that point where now it can be receptive to these winds that bring to it what it will, That allow the date flowers to become pollinated. Trying to show you a bigger picture. Tell me if I'm helping you see it, That there is this unending restoration and reconciliation of all of creation by a force that is at the center of all of these actions rebalancing, Rebalancing, Recreating over and over again life according to the larger will behind that revelation. Yes, Can we see it? And we don't have to look too far. I mean, The body. Has a natural work, Doesn't it? It's always restoring balance to itself. We may not see it as such, But that's what's going on. I go out and I perspire doing some work. What happens in order to restore the balance, The electrolytes, All the rest of that. I'm thirsty. So I drink water or whatever it is that I drink. I work hard at something. Maybe my mind, Maybe whatever it is, I grow tired. Well, The body, When the, When the body grows tired, The, The, The natural balancing act is to do what is to respond with some kind of rest. So here is this world that we are in and that is within us. But that we don't see. And critically connected to this idea is that still unseen in us, I don't know how many of us actually see what I've described. And I don't mean think about it. I mean, Actually participate in that constant process where you can see you are not separate because as the waters of the bay refresh themselves, So am I in one respect refreshed by those impressions. So that the life out there being rebalanced helps bring about a new balance and a new understanding, A new life in me. But what we don't see. Because we haven't the attention yet, Which is our topic for today and tomorrow, Is that we live in a psychological body. We are in a psychological body. A psychological body inhabits this physical organism. And this psychological body, Like all entities, Seeks equilibrium. It seeks equilibrium through choices and actions. Of its own making that we have almost no awareness of at all. We grow up in a family. That is already a certain form of a psychological body in its entirety. Where all of the relationships have been brought together and all of the lost attempts to equalize and bring peace into that. So my peace becomes the chocolate piece of cake. Your peace becomes the consoling words when someone has been cruel to you. So we grow up without knowing it, This psychological body being formed within us. And the psychological body has its own equilibrium. Each and every psychological body has an individual equilibrium. Of course, There are ways in which traditions and environment, Religious, All that, That helps form it. But the bottom line is, If you can see this with me, That this psychological body, Its equilibrium when it's disturbed, And each body has a different degree of being able to be disturbed, Doesn't it? Suddenly it has all of these choices and actions that it makes in order to do what? In order to rebalance itself when itself was already imbalanced. I'm stopping there for a moment. Can you see it with me? This is a major point. We have almost no awareness at all of the movement of the psychological body. Of its endless, Useless attempts to rebalance itself. By creating some new idea or image that then it can become identified with. And in the act of identifying with the new image plan or whatever the distraction is going to be, Oh, I'm going someplace, I'm going to do this, I'll be that, In this whole idea of becoming, It reconstitutes what it calls its balance and feels that relief. But the balance that it has reconstituted is the source of the conflict it will have in the next moment that challenges that image. Please, A lot of words again, But I'm trying to convey a very important idea. So we know some degree, To some extent, When we are in this state, We blame, We rush, We complain, We're afraid. But we don't ever see the reason behind these negative reactions. That the reason for the negative reaction is because in this psychological body, There is some kind of attachment or attachments whose very existence produce a dependency on that image for that balanced sense of self, Life comes along and strikes it. And suddenly now I have to do something to restore that sense of self. That is a kind of a projection, Of a nature that is fragmented at best. Still following me? Because if you are, And I hope you are, Then we can return to this opening idea where we suddenly feel thrown off balance. When I'm thrown off balance, I'm bringing in a new word. I look for what? A counterbalance. You say this, I'm off balance. I need a counterbalance. I expect this, It doesn't happen. I need a counterbalance. So that in this instance, What we're describing is that the counterbalance to what is this negative reaction. Due to this unseen attachment that's been threatened. The counterbalance is some usual thought, Some feeling, That as I collect that into myself or lay a plan based on that perception, Begins to do what? Begins to restore the equilibrium of that psychological body. Kate, Let's bring up the second key lesson, Please. Read along with me. That person's Dismissive remark. The sudden appearance of some unwanted moment. Did not create this demand to rebalance our life. We're sure the disturbance creates the demand to rebalance our life. The disturbance does not create the demand to rebalance our life. The disturbance exposes an imbalance within us that we have yet to realize is within us. Boy, Have you understood that? You could have no moment that wasn't a revelation. And an invitation to become an interior searching, Dwelling human being, Instead of someone looking again outside for something that will solve the suffering born of being, Having the rug pulled out from underneath your feet. Examples. We come to, We come to, I'm going to go see my brother. I'm going to go to a restaurant. I'm expecting a certain kind of food. We come into that moment expecting without knowing it. Hoping for something in that relationship, In that experience that will confirm what it is that I need confirmed in me through that relationship. So without knowing it, We go into relationships looking for security. We go into relationships looking to secure the sense of self that we hope will be confirmed through it. So I need to know, Do I? Am I what I imagined myself? When I look in your eyes? Will you confirm that? Because if you don't confirm that, I'm thrown for a loss. So until the desire of that image that I have of myself is threatened, Which happens all the time. I don't know that I'm leaning on some kind of psychological crutch. Do you think that you walk around on a psychological crutch? I'm explaining to you in part what it mean when it said that Christ came to heal the The crippled. And the lame. We live without knowing it, Walking on crutches. That we don't know are there until something knocks them out from underneath us. And that negative reaction, Instead of being, As we do now, Used to prove that, No, I'm upright, You're down. We can begin to see that that reaction is revealing a dependency that was already there. We can use those negative reactions to reveal a dependency that was there before the moment that revealed it. But now we have a new vantage point. Kate, Let's bring up the third key lesson, Please. I'm trusting that you're tracking with me. No disturbance causes that dreaded sense of having lost our psychological balance. It merely reveals an underlying state already out of alignment for having to come to rely on some unseen image for a sense of self-worth. When that image is threatened, The same unconscious nature just conjures up another image and calls its identification with that image, Calls that temporary relief a return to balance. This is how we balance ourselves. By letting what is already out of balance direct our attention onto what it needs to reestablish itself. And so without knowing it, We establish ourselves in another order of psychological body worse than the one before, Because now we are more dependent than we were before that moment. Are you following me? So that, And you must see this, In virtually every moment of a negative reaction, We do what? We find ourselves looking for whatever promises us relief from it. We know who's at fault. We know what has to change. And when we know who's at fault and we know what must change, Just in that resolution, I feel some relief. Well, Now I have tomorrow. Now I have another way in which to become a better human being who won't lose their balance, Who won't flip out. Who won't get caught up in another dark dialogue and dragged into some dungeon. And so it appears to us. When we have these reactions and out of them come this, A new image, A plan, Another revised idea. Someplace else to go where I can be someone else temporarily who is in trouble with my little life where I am? You fill in the blank. You have to see it. So as all of that's coming up, We become identified with it. The nature that creates the new image. Doesn't exist as a self without the image it depends on. And that becomes our next attachment. And by the way, Not just next attachment, But dependency upon it. And if you're following me, Attachment dependency sets up what? The cause of the very next reaction, Negative reaction we'll have when something pulls the rug out from underneath that sense of self. Examples again, Anxiety. Tells me That I am the one. To whom this situation is acting on and causing this fear that I feel. That's what anxiety tells me. Anxiety tells me, Look at this. Here's what's going on, Here's what. Oh, You need to do. What you need to do is think a little more about whatever it is that you are beginning to suspect or be suspicious of as the cause of the anxiety. So what happens? The thought, The mind brings up a thought, An image. Now it has something to look at anything other than just be aware of what it is doing to itself. And as that anxiety grows, The need for more thought to cushion the blow grows. And the more identified I become with these thoughts, With some authority that's going to rescue me, Something I have imagined will somehow lift me out of this terrible circumstance. All that really happens is that the pain doesn't disappear. The pattern is being strengthened. There's a momentary pleasure. But the pleasure is in the promise that if I just. Lend myself one more time to one more act of figuring out how to balance my life, Then I'll be better off than I am now. And I never am. Notice is so important. Here I am, I'm looking for assurance, Reassurance. UGH! Ma, What you need is a plan! Ah, Here's a plan. Thank you so much. And the plan says, Just take this action, Make these choices, And you'll be protected. And I go, Oh, That's great. I want to be balanced and protected. And then I'm identified with another plan. And I don't see in the moment that as that plan is hatched. So is born a new sense of self. An imagined possibility that becomes a present identity. And by the way, A new identity that does what? That depends on that idea, Controlling that condition again and again and again and again. And our spiritual work, If it really ever starts in earnest, Starts when we start to recognize, You know what? What I think is useful preparation for dealing with some pain that came out of the blue. Is just useless repetition. Thinking about him again, Wondering why about that, Revisiting the past, Here's this regret, Maybe I can fix it. Each new thought that drags you back into the content of that consciousness promises certainty when it hands you a condition that you can now become identified with. And for a few seconds, Maybe minutes, Maybe years, That you remain identified with it because it isn't challenged, You may feel some kind of relief, But always uncertainty returns because uncertainty is baked into the consciousness that seeks certainty through any form of image. Our attention goes to the next imagined future. Okay. I'm going somewhere. I'm going to do something later. This'll work out. And I'm asking you, If you're following me, What are we depending on in that moment? Look, I'm not. . . I don't want anything. I mean, I want nothing from you. Nothing. You have nothing to give. You just don't know that because you're always giving yourself what you think is valuable. To rescue you from feeling like a victim. I'm asking you, What is it that I'm actually depending on in that moment? When I'm imagining a new outcome. A favorable turn of events. What I'm actually depending on is another image, Another thought. That as I identify with it and the time when it will be fulfilled provides me the sense of freedom I think I just lost. So the mind creates a frightening picture, Reacts to its own picture, And then takes comfort in its response to that reaction, Because the reaction says, Get away from that. Don't get involved in that or get some more of this. And you won't feel the same way. So what we call protection. Is in fact the means by which this unconscious nature gives itself a fix. And keeps the fear alive. Difficulty begins each time some. . . Image of ourselves. Shaken by the reality demands. That reality match what that image we have says it should. And what we call peace in this life is when the image we have of life and of others matches the image that we are identified with so that we live in a copacetic life. And look at all the compromises that you make. What do you think enabling other men and women is in your life, Your own children? What do you think all that's about? It's about making deals so that this teetering, Delicate balance that we call family life. This constant uncertainty that runs through every conversation with friends and strangers alike. Just keep it steady. Just don't rock the boat. Why? Because when you rock the boat, I've got to go find some new ballast. I've got to add something to myself again. And what we fail to see, And the point of this talk, Is that thought cannot add ballast. It only enhances the identification we have with its images. So that thought can't complete the task of bringing about this balance of, Of bringing me into the center of life, Where the divine itself is always bringing forth a new conception, Rather the opposite. Every imagined answer begins and begets a new attachment and a new fear accordingly. So I've got to get going here. I made a quick list of ways in which we are adding ballast or somehow or other avoiding what we need to see in these moments. How many of you make excuses when you lose in quotes, You're cool, Lose your balance, Lose your direction. Do you understand what I'm asking? How many of you know that when that happens, There's always an excuse. I lose my temper. I have an excuse. You made me. I get full of fear and anxiety. I have an excuse. Everything's so uncertain. I'm in a perpetual rush. Because this nature believes if it can just move fast enough, Just get enough done, Then not only will we find everything that we need to right the ship, But when we get there, Then we too will be right where we belong and we can relax at last within this incredibly elusive balance that we've imagined will bring us this peace that we seek. About complaining. We complain. Do we not, When it seems that something either should have happened as imagined? Or it did not happen as imagined. So what is a complaint? It's a way that we repeat a certain grievance that we have with life. What's my grievance with life? It doesn't know that I've already established what a balanced life is and it's messing with me. So I actually have a grievance with the very movement of life that has come to help me discover there is a center where everything is perfectly balanced. But instead of the revelation of entering into that reality, That other order of being, Grievance proves to me that I know where and how life is unfair, And obviously tilted against me. So look at this complaints, Restabilize our shaky sense of self into something more firm and recognizable. The more we identify with what it tells us we need in order to be solid citizens. Last. Denial. Where does the mind go the moment that anything shows it? Shows you. That you are living from a nature that wherever it goes, It will run into again and again, Something that will pull the rug out from underneath it. The waiter didn't bring my wine as soon as I expected it. The food wasn't prepared the way it's supposed to be prepared. I didn't get done with the thing I'm supposed to get done. Oh, No. What are the consequences? He said this. I heard they did that. Oh, No. Oh, No. And when all of that's going on inside of us, What meets it is not the recognition that this disturbance is proving. Beyond the shadow of a doubt. That without seeing it, This psychological body is like. What was that character in The Hobbit? My pretty, My precious, Clinging to all of the things it has to have in place so that it can feel at peace with itself because it possesses what? Nothing except for what it imagines makes it real. So the denial is actually refusing the action of the divine. That has come in that moment by its grace to reveal inside of us what we have brought into the moment with us without knowing that we are identified with it. And the only hope we have is the realization of how painful it is to be attached and identified with any image of ourselves. By the way, None of which we made. The vast majority of the images and the proprietary machinery required to assemble these images was installed in us at an early age, Living around other human beings, Mom, Dad, Family, Friends, Our culture. All of which are so dependent on these images that we will lash out and individually kill or want to destroy anything that shatters or shakes it. So making excuses. Rushing, Complaining. All are this expression of some unconscious fully unseen negative reaction. Whose resistance The denial of is the refusal to see. What the moment has come to reveal. About it. Getting ready to make a transition here. Everybody's still traveling with me. And here's where it gets. Beautiful. And very difficult at the same time. Because if I actually understood anytime my mind is moving, To reconcile some psychological difficulty. It never says it's struggling with a psychological difficulty. It says it's struggling with a condition that has produced this difficulty. The condition doesn't. Produce the difficulty, It reveals an order of consciousness that is always in a difficult situation without knowing so, Because each time that difficult situation is revealed, It simply denies the fact that it is the result of the effect of an unconscious nature. And if I see that. Then how am I to regain? This piece that my balance. You have a difficult conversation with somebody, You know what you do, You relive it. You turn on the news, You look at your financial statement. You get a text from the doctor. You see some strange bump or feel a new pain? You fill in the blanks, It's yours to do, Not me to do for you. And instantaneously, I'm out of balance. Just like that. And instantaneously, My mind rushes to find the explanation for this sudden sense of being cast out of life, Losing whatever it is that I believe. And it never, It can't occur to that nature, Which is why. What is authentically true. Has been handed down. Yes, I suppose in books and teachings, But it is an oral tradition. Because the true solution to regaining our inner balance never, Ever begins with any known thought of action. Some of you, I'm quite confident, Believe that you always know what to do and will say so until the rubber meets the road. And the next thing you know, There's this smell of burning tires where you're trying to gain traction again. No balance is regained through thought. Rather, It's regained by learning to be attentive to that compulsion. That tension that we feel when it's looking for an immediate fix. That's what you're feeling. That's what the tension is. It's resistance to the condition revealing the attachment. And it's the fear that what I'm going to go after may not answer it all at the same time, But I have nothing else. So I need a fix. That's actually what it is. When you have a negative reaction and then go talking to yourself or trying to find a solution to it, That nature is looking for a fix and everything it gives to fix itself ensures it will continue as itself. And the solution. And yes, It is an addiction. The solution, If you've understood this, If you've understood what I said at the beginning. It's not your job to restore that balance. It's not your job to restore that balance. Oh, If only I were capable of saying what it is that I see. See that balance was never your balance to begin with. That balance. Well, I should be treated this way. Well, How did you come to that conclusion? Well, I saw my father be treated like that. I want the same treatment. That balance. What balance are you talking about? Nobody talks to her like they talk to me. I want to be more like her. So I'm going to study the habits of people that are always respected. I'm going to become respected. That's the balance, This tenuous grip that I have on something that's going to help me become as I need to be seen by others. That balance. Well, They have a good family life. Why is mine so bad? What do I have to do? Oh, I know. I'll give things I don't want to give. I'll do things I know I shouldn't do in order to exact and take from this relationship what I need in order to be someone who has the family they imagine they should be in. That balance. I live with an abusive person. Hell, I live with an abusive self. That balance, Well, I shouldn't be like that, Or they shouldn't be that way. What's the solution? Well, Find a new balance by changing them or by becoming a better person in a time to come. Fill in the blanks. That balance is not your balance. It belongs to a psychological body created over time, Over millennia. And yes, At a psychological level, We may and often do have responsibilities that we have to fulfill. For instance, My body, If it's in pain. It's out of balance. The pain isn't the problem. It's the indication of something that I'm doing, Eating, Thinking, Saying, That as I'm doing that is producing this, This disturbed sense of my body. So my responsibility isn't to find someone who's going to fix me. My responsibility is to see moment to moment, Where is it that I'm giving myself, Feeding myself, Thinking myself into this problem? Where the more I do what I think is going to make me feel better, The worse I get. And that is addiction to drugs, Substance, Food. Fill in the blanks, Definitively addiction, Where the more you give yourself, The worse you get because you are balancing an imbalanced body. There is a divine homeostasis. A divine balance. We're so far removed from it, We don't even know it exists. What exists for us is an imagined balance that becomes the source of our pain whenever what has constituted that sense of balance is shaken. But you go into nature. I described it at the start of this talk and you, You can see, Yes, There's this balance. Well, How can you say there's a balance, A tornado, A hurricane? Look what just happened. That great heron ate that lizard. Oh. Everything! Being. Reborn. Through the interaction. Of these active and passive forces that are brought together. Where a center that they come from, These forces, Where that center is ensuring that something new comes out of that relationship. So yes, Moments come. We feel isolated. We feel like we've got to protect ourselves. And there may be instances on a practical level, By and large, We know nothing of where we must take certain steps. But this talk and what I'm referring to says before you start taking what seeking the next fix. The next idea, The next thought, The next place I'm going to go, The next promise. Before I start seeking that, In order to do what? I know you don't know this. Ha ha ha! I feel incomplete. I'm out of balance. I don't know exactly what the balance is, But ah, That's what's needed. Now I'm identified. Now I'm rebalanced. Now I get to go and have that experience that proves absolutely useless in terms of bringing me this experience of living at the center of myself. So before you go through all that iteration, Even if it's just for a few seconds. Be as present as you can to the whole of that movement that's asking you, Actually pushing you. To find some kind of prescription. No matter what its name is, To provide the sense of balance and peace that's missing. Feel the tension in your body. Without trying to find a way to release it. Through what the mind says, Here's what's causing it. Go eat. Have that. You'll feel better. Hear words in your coming up. Before you speak them. Look at the nature of the voice that wants you to become its instrument. And you see the image behind all of this telling you, Look, Here's what you have to do. Go straighten that person out. Make another plan. Do something, Anything. And if you can begin just to pause and see any of that, You are already beginning to have enter into a different kind of relationship with life. Where you can, If you will, Stay with what you can actually observe without making an argument for or against anything that you see come up inside of you. Just stay with what you can see. Attend to what is actually moving, Not try to move away from it or improve it. And if some practical action is taken, You take it as best you can. But here's the main takeaway for this whole talk. Kate, Key lesson number four, Please. It's not your job to restore balance. To what is likely no more than a familiar arrangement of dependencies. What we call balance is a familiar arrangement of dependencies. It's not your job to restore balance. The real inner work is to attend to, Observe where and how in these moments you're being shown. I guess I'm attached to this image of myself as someone that should never be questioned. I never thought it before but I'm immediately resisting and negative that you even seem to be questioning my integrity. How dare you? We believe that proves we are the way we imagine ourselves instead of allowing it to prove to us that we're nothing like we imagine ourselves being, But rather we suffer from that identification. Life disturbs these arrangements and we rush to put them back. But in these disturbances, We're given a chance to see what we have been leaning on, These crutches. The reaction we use to recover our lost balance. We can see now preserves the attachment that disturbed us in the first place. So to see this movement. Takes no thought. It takes a willingness to recognize and realize as all this is going on. I'm being shown something that I mustn't deny. And if I remain with what I'm seeing, Instead of looking for a solution to restore this lost sense of peace, I have a chance to enter in to that center that is always bringing about this new birth, This rebalance. I'm bringing, I've actually run out of time. I'm going to explore more of this tomorrow. I hope you'll join me. And I can't encourage you enough to listen to and work with these ideas to whatever extent you're capable of doing so. So that bit by bit. And it is that way you're able to recognize, To see what it is that's going on in your life as it's going on. I trust you can do that. I'll hope that you do.