Living In Courage

39:43

39:43

Living In Courage

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talks

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What would life be like if we stepped forward into all that we did regardless of fear or our past? Imagine living in choice - from this centered, powerful place in relationships, work, and within our own inner journey. How do we stay centered in order to make the choices that are truly on our path?

Courage Fear Heart Mind Present Moment Healing Grounding Relationships Work Choices Courage And Inner Strength Neutral Mind Healing Trauma Centering Releasing Fear Of Judgment Spiritual Practices Stories Spirits

Meet your Teacher

Toronto, ON, Canada

Meet your Teacher

Toronto, ON, Canada

Transcript

So today we're doing a talk all about how to live in courage and this talk came as a request from the community here because we talk a lot about you know following your soul's path and living your true life and but what if we struggle to have the courage to take those steps. One of the big parts of this talk that we're going to talk about is actually the fears that get in the way and not because fear is so challenging but because I think we misunderstand fear that we think oh I have so much fear I don't have the courage to do this like they're two opposite things like I either have fear or I have courage but what if fear is totally normal what if fear isn't dysfunctional what if fear isn't just the byproduct of trauma or the byproduct of our family our education system or whatever what if fear is a healthy part of being human and then courage is just simply the ability within to continue walking forward even though there's fear. It's like in yoga we talk about that there's all the different bodies and three of the bodies are the three minds and this is the positive mind the negative mind and the neutral mind and the positive mind is everything that makes us want to do something. I want to learn Spanish, I'm going to take the dog for a walk, I'm going to take that new job, I'm going to leave that relationship, I'm going to have spaghetti for dinner, Whatever that's the positive mind and the negative mind is just simply the counterpart to that. It's not negative, It's not a bad thing, It's just the part that says are you sure this is a good idea? Are we going to be able to make rent if we leave that job? Are you sure this is the right thing? Have we had too many carbs this week? It's not negative, It's just a question, It's just the counterbalance of the choice that we want to do going forward and this is where fear is really healthy. Fear helps us to not make the same choice that maybe caused harm in the past. That's what fear is, It's a really healthy thing. The challenge is that sometimes fear becomes so highly developed, Our negative mind overpowers our positive mind and we don't do anything. That's when fear is a problem, When fear owns us and the positive mind stops even thinking of great ideas. It just becomes completely bullied. In the same way, The thing it can go opposite and this is where we don't have enough fear, Let's say you live in a family where all that matters is you just do it and you've got to be successful no matter what and you just you know you fish or cut bait and it's a dog eat dog world and it's a type a personality that's the only thing that matters and you've got to make a million dollars and so the positive mind is so super developed there's no checks. There's nothing that says yeah but what about your employees? Don't they matter? What about your relationship with your partner? Doesn't that matter? What about your health? Doesn't that matter? What about, What about, What about? So this is where there's not enough fear, There's not enough caution, There's not enough connection to reality to go whoa whoa let's get this back into balance. And then once the positive and negative mind are in balance then we just simply have a nice conversation with an inner friend. I think wow you know I really feel called to do this thing and my negative mind says huh that's really interesting have you considered this? Oh that's interesting no I haven't. Oh yeah okay let me let me do some research about that you know and then oh yeah that's and it just becomes this beautiful dialogue and in the end you come up with a decision or you realize you know what regardless of all those fears I feel really called to do this. Interesting all right you know it's just but you've really kind of thought it through. That's the dynamic. So this is where we really want to reframe the idea of even having fear because fear is fine. When something is not allowing us to do something that's actually something else. That's a wounding. That's not just fear. That's when I want to run a marathon and it's like oh I'm so afraid of this and I'm afraid of that I'm afraid I'm going to come last and I'm afraid I'm not going to do well and it's like is that really true or is the fact that you have a broken leg is that the truth? Oh I don't want to think about that. It's like no no you've got a broken leg. You need to heal the leg and so that's really interesting when we kind of separate out the fear from unresolved trauma because if we just focus on the fear we're like oh there's something wrong with me there's something wrong with me I'm so full of fear and I'm so impotent and I can't do anything that's not the problem. The problem is your body and your mind are responding to the fact that you have a broken leg and the time and the energy has to be spent healing that. That's the next part of the journey not this thing that we think we're supposed to do. So what's really interesting is this is the we're going to talk about meditation quite a bit because part of the question is how do we actually stay in the center to still make the decisions? How do we stay in the center to even have a positive and negative mind conversation that's healthy? Well this is this neutral mind, The witness mind. So I have all these ideas and I want to do this and I want to do this and I want to do this. My negative mind says yeah Katrina there's only so many hours in the day you know and then I get annoyed or pissed off right I'm like not enough hours in the day whatever. But then if I kind of take a deep breath then my neutral mind comes online. My neutral mind observes this and says hmm that's interesting and it starts to kind of observe okay so there's all these things you want to do here's some reality and here's some concerns and the neutral mind just sits there and almost holds space for everything just to sit in the same room. But you're not emotionally charged about it you're just observing it. This is one of the greatest reasons to do yoga and meditation and things like that is to develop that witness mind to develop that neutral mind because as soon as you have that you can make all the decisions you want and you'll have access to your satya, Your truth, Your courage. Esther Hicks channels a collective called Abraham and they always talk about that you'll make the best choices when you're on your high flying disc. But it's not about trying to get to the high flying disc you just simply find your center find your joy and you'll be on the high flying disc and then all the solutions will come. So if all we need to do is get to that neutral mind a solution will come. So when you look at the word courage, Courage comes from the old French word courage which means heart. But it doesn't mean our physical heart, It doesn't mean our heart, It means the seat of our emotions. It means the seat of our soul of who we are. So imagine that that courage is the connection to our innermost feelings. Courage is the connection to this heart chakra right here. There's actually many chakras many heart chakras in here and in a lot of like in Hindu ideas this is where Atman lives. This is our personal individual aspect of the infinite. This is who we are. We talk about that we are infinity incarnate. This is the center of it in the heart. This is what makes each one of us so incredibly unique. So courage comes from this. It comes from our connection to who we are. It's not some big strength thing. It's how connected are you to your truth, To your emotions, To your how often is your brain overriding your heart. Courage doesn't come from our brain. That's kind of like it reminds me of when people call alcohol liquid courage. They're getting courage from the alcohol. It's like this weird idea that you can get courage from your brain. You can't. All the courage does is sort of either bully the heart into doing something it doesn't want to do or it talks it out of something it doesn't want to do. But the heart is who we are and that's where courage comes from. Courage just comes from how deep the connection we have to ourselves. So imagine now we connect with ourself. We've done a lot of talks about satya, Satya, Truth. What is truth? My truth, My connection to the divine, My connection to my path, My connection to my chakras, Truth. And Gandhi would teach about satya graha which means to stand in one's truth. Well where does this truth come from? Where do I experience this truth? In my heart center. My truth, Not anyone else's truth. My truth, Whatever that is. That truth could be that I am meant to experience Wall Street in all of its glory. My truth might be that I am meant to live in a hammock in Hawaii eating mangoes and never make a single cent my whole life. There is no truth that applies to everyone. All that matters is what is your path and you stand in that and it's just the way it is. That is conviction. That's when someone can argue with you and you can tell they're blue in the face and you just look at them and you say, Who are you arguing with? This is just my truth. It has nothing to do with you. And that's when you stand in your conviction and you have a completely different experience in life because you start to realize that it really has nothing to do with anyone else. And so that leads us to our first, We're going to talk about the different fears that we think override our courage. And the first one is when you really look at what's one of the number one categories of fear that we have? Fear of other people. We're afraid of what they might think. We're afraid they don't love us or they're not attracted to us or they don't like us. We're afraid that they don't respect us. We're afraid that, Oh what if I do this thing and I fail and then these people are going to think this or what if I say no and then they're upset. And then we don't have the courage to have the conversation. We don't have the courage to say no. We don't have the courage to say yes because the fear of what that other person's going to think overrides us. Isn't that curious? Like when we really think about that, When we step back and we ask ourselves, Here we are all these souls on the planet, All these individual souls. It doesn't matter whether they're our parents or our children or our family or clan or it doesn't matter. Regardless, We're all just these DNA clusters with individual souls walking around trying to figure out what we're doing here. Everybody is. I don't care if you're the greatest guru. I don't care. Everybody has this question. What's my next step? I'm not sure. What's my truth? What's your truth? What's going on? Everybody. So we're all these little beings, You know, Walking around the earth like this. Why does what that person over there think of my path matter? And this is where we really have to deeply look into our past where maybe we were children and our parents sort of owned us and obviously they controlled everything we did. Or maybe we look at the education that we got that everything I did was marked and graded. So what someone else thought did matter because that determined whether or not I got into the university I wanted or I wanted to get to the next step or I wanted to join that club or whatever. And then the opinions of other people were allowed to grade us and judge us, Right? And we live in a world and a paradigm right now of incredible judgment that someone says something and another person's like, Well, That's stupid or well, Yeah, Wouldn't you think that? And somehow this touches us in some way. What in the world does that have to do with us? So it's really interesting to look at the fears of other people. And then we bring now courage. So courage is this connection to our heart, Our connection to our satya. And then there's this person's opinion over here. And we look at this person's opinion over here and then we look at our soul's journey, Our soul's path. Whether we believe in multiple lifetimes or a single lifetime, This soul has a journey. There's a reason that this DNA sequence exists. What does that have to do with this other person? Nothing. This is what matters. So we come back to courage over and over again and we go, Well, That's interesting that that's your opinion. Because of course, We are just something on their path. They're banging against us because they're trying to figure something out. They have nothing to do with us. They're just responding to us. It'd be like, Imagine an artist paints something. Maybe it's an abstract piece of art, Or maybe it's just a beautiful picture and it's hanging in a gallery. One person walks in and they look at the picture and they're like, Wow, That really, That really touches me. Like, Wow. And then they go, Wow. And then they go on. The next person walks up and they're like, What a horrible bunch of colors they used. Ew, I hate that blue. What were they thinking? Maybe it was just cheap and on sale. Next person goes by and they're like, There's no light in it. What's wrong with them? Why is it so dark? Next person comes up, They're like, I don't know what it is about this. It's so beautiful. This has nothing to do with the artist. It's just a hundred percent how this affects this person's journey. And it's the same with the opinions of other people. It's just their perception of what they're observing. A hundred different people would have different perceptions. It doesn't change our path. It doesn't change what we're doing. So then what does courage look like in the face of the fears of other people? And so you decide you're going to, You're going to move across country, Or you're going to move across the world and take this interesting job or something. And your family says, No, You can't do that. What are you thinking? And you just, You don't have to argue. We just stand like, What does courage look like? We sit in this heart center and we say, Yeah, That's just what feels right right now. Yeah, But what about this? And what about this? And how are we, You know, And you're like, It's just a path. It's just a choice for a time. That's it. Their response has nothing to do with our soul's path. So it's a very interesting thing to kind of separate these two things. And then someone might say, Wow, You're so courageous. And all it means is, Wow, You are so connected to your heart. You are so connected to your soul. How cool is that? And then there's the fear of personally failing. It's not always about other people. If I start a new business or I have a new idea or I want to run this class or I want to do something, I personally have a fear of failing. I personally don't, I want it to do well and I'm afraid that no one's going to show up and I'm afraid that maybe this was a bad idea and it was a waste of time. That's personal. Maybe we're afraid that we don't want to move across the world, But it feels like the right thing. But, Oh, Darn it, There's so many fears. It has nothing to do with anyone else. Maybe I'm afraid to join in with this person in a new relationship or I'm afraid to leave that relationship. This is all my own fear. But this is also good. This is healthy. Our personal fears about our own journey, That's our negative mind. That's our negative mind. We have negative fears about our own journey. That's our negative mind about our soul's path. Is this a good idea? Are we sure? It's okay. This is normal. If we had no fears at all, You'd kind of be like, Am I even paying attention? Do I even care? And the cool thing is, Is that when we do something new, There's going to be a certain level of discomfort. If we only ever do the same things over and over and over again, The tried and true, This is just what I'm going to do, We probably won't have fear. Because, Well, I do the same thing every day anyway and I've been doing the same thing for years. There's nothing to fear because we just do the same thing. That's why we keep doing the same thing. Because, Well, Maybe we don't have any ideas, But if we do have ideas and we just say, Oh, I don't have the courage to do it, The fears are kind of overcoming us. But I wanted to read to you a couple of my favorite quotes about this. So for example, St. Teresa of Avila, She once said, To reach something good, It is useful to have gone astray. So can you imagine that? That what is there to fear? Even if it seems from the outside that you've gone astray, What if you were supposed to discover these things? What if you were supposed to find these other things in order to add to your path? What if they add juice and depth and breadth to what you, What it is you want to do? So if we follow our heart, If we do the thing, Even if we kind of theoretically air quote, Make a mistake and it doesn't seem to be on path, Or even right now, Maybe you're living a life and you're like, I think I'm way off my journey here. What if you're not? What if you're on an important side trip where you are learning very interesting things, Very important things, Very important things about being human. And as you slowly make your way along the journey, That what you're experiencing right now is actually really, Really important. And another one of my favorites is by our friend Albert Einstein. He said, A person who never made a mistake, Never tried anything new. And this is a real truth, That if we try new things, You're always going to have fear. But it's not a negative thing. And then I have one more quote I want to share, And it's JK Rowling. And she said, Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, And began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. We are raised, We are not raised in a utopia. We are raised with a million ideas coming at us, Saying you should be this, And you should accomplish this, And you should do this, And you should do that. Well, What if every time we follow one of those leads, And it doesn't do well, All it's showing us is, Ah, This is inessential. This isn't part of my path. I'm not going to keep barking up that tree. I'm not going to keep doing this. I'm not going to keep putting energy that way. There must be another place that really makes me thrive. So then all of a sudden, The fears on our own path, They aren't fears that are meant to stop us. They're excitement. This is one of the challenges in our society, Because we live in a world of spectators. We were raised to be spectators. In school, You watched the kids play. You watched the kids who are really great athletes play sports, And you listened to the amazing musicians play, And you watched TV, And you watched professional sports, And you watched the concerts. We literally, What, Like 99% of us are just spectators? So then all of a sudden, We decide to go and do something, And something rises in us, Right? An agitation or an anxiety, And we interpret it as a fear. But what if it's just the normal anxiety of doing something new? It's the normal anxiety of getting out of our comfort zone and trying something different. I can guarantee that whether it's Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky or some incredible performer on stage, I'll bet they have the same vibration before the game, Before the concert. They just don't interpret it as fear. They interpret that bodily vibration as excitement, As adrenaline, And, Okay, I'm going to put all that into it, And I'm going to get up there, And I'm going to do the thing. It's just very interesting to reinterpret the excitement or the agitation that happens in the inside of us when we go to do something new. The other thing to think about in the land of fears that stop us is that sometimes we have a lot of fears from the past. We have trauma, We have experiences that didn't turn out the way we thought, And sometimes we have similar fears of the future. And that sounds funny, Right? That to put into the same bucket, Experiences in the past and experiences in the future that haven't happened yet. But what's interesting is when you consider the present moment, The goal of taking action, Having courage, All happens right here. We kind of say it to death, But it's so true that we can only make choices here. So when our minds are thinking about the past, Thinking about the future, All we're doing is telling stories. We're repeating stories, Whether they've happened yet or they happened in the past. So this is where we need to really think about what are the stories I'm telling? What are the stories I tell over and over again? When I meet someone new, What stories do I tell that define me as to where I am right now? And I'm not saying we shouldn't do it. I'm just saying to look at the stories, Because the stories we're telling are showing us our broken leg. They're showing us the places that there is a wound that is not healed yet. It isn't that we can't move forward out of fear of the past. We can't move forward because we were injured and that injury is still alive. And that's why we're talking about it. It's like a dog licking its wound, Licking its wound, Licking its wound. That's all we're doing. So it's a clue to say, Okay, I've literally told the same story to three different people this week. I need some help. I need some help. Maybe I need a counselor. Maybe I need to do some Kundalini yoga. Maybe I need to do a meditation. Maybe I need to listen to a great talk on Insight Timer about healing trauma, Or I need to do somatic work. I need to do something to heal this wound, Because this isn't a fear. It's a wound. And if I have a fear of the future, If I'm disasterizing and I'm creating a future story that hasn't even happened yet, Because we do the same thing. We tell stories in the future with the same vigor that we tell stories from the past. But if I do this, And then can you imagine then this is going to happen, This is going to happen, This is going to happen, This is going to happen. And we will tell that story over and over and over again. And it's almost like a mantra that we're almost, If we keep saying it, That's what's filling this current moment. And we can't make choices when all we're doing is replaying a future that hasn't even happened yet. And this is where it's really, Really important to be clear what's in the past, What's in the present, And what's in the future. And this isn't negating trauma or negating our history or negating the injuries or anything like that. But we need to heal the injuries. This is the important thing. In the Western world, We have this idea that any injury I've had, I've got to nurse that for the rest of my life. Well, There are a lot of other philosophies out there. There's a lot of different ways to look at the world that say, No, You actually can heal, And you can let it go. And that's a really big deal. I mean, If you've got massive physical injury to the body, And that's not going to change, And you're in a wheelchair or something, You know, That's, I'm not going to be silly about that. But our psyche can heal, Our choices can heal, Our healthy being can heal. This is really important. But when we're telling stories, If we are repeating stories from the past, We must be clear about what's now and what's then. So for example, Let's say you fell out of a boat in the ocean and you were drowning. That's terrifying. That's traumatic. That's awful. The whole thing, It's going to create all kinds of stuff inside. But you're saved. And five years later, You're sitting on the street, Downtown some city, You're not in the water anymore. And if that fear is still coming up, Still coming up, You have to kind of say, Why is this still coming up? And that's a weird example. But think about how that is in relationships. I was in an abusive relationship. But are you in one now? And it's really important to shift into the now. What's happening right now? And we have to get out of the habit of retelling the stories over and over and over again, Over and over and over again, Without taking the action to really get help. The other thing is to really look at this power of choice. I remember, Ironically, When I was in grade 13, I loved grade 13 English, It was the first time we got to write an essay, Like an opinion essay. I don't know whether we were reading King Lear, Or I don't know what we were reading. But I actually wrote an essay. The irony of this is hilarious. I actually wrote an essay saying that there was no such thing as freedom of choice. Based on whatever I was reading, Or my thoughts at the time, Or my perceptions on the universe, All of 18 years old, I believed, Or the premise of my essay was, That every choice we make is just simply based on our past experiences. So if we've had this many good experiences and less bad experiences, We're going to make a choice in favor of the good. But if we've had more bad experiences, We're going to make, We're probably not going to do it based on that. And that how human beings navigate through the world is simply a question of how the scales are balanced based on our past experiences. And I wrote this essay, I mean, It's just an opinion essay. And then I had to debate it with someone in the class. And the other guy said, No, I think you're wrong. And we began this debate, And he goes, No, There's, There's more to it. And that is an interesting question, In terms of our journey of courage. Do we believe that we are simply the summation of our past experiences, And the choices we make are only based on our past experiences? Or as a soul, Do I have a choice right now, Regardless of my past experiences? Can I make a choice in this moment, Regardless of how that balance, How that scale looks? And it's an important personal question to ask. Because then all of a sudden, If we have all the choice in the world, To make any decision we want right now, To follow our soul's path, To not follow it to do anything. That's courage. We just do it, No matter what, No matter what anyone thinks, No matter what the past thinks. It's funny that I just said that no matter what the past thinks, Like it's almost like an entity inside of us, Controlling us or something. Isn't that weird? So what do we do? How do we come into balance? How do we come into center? This is the entire spiritual journey. This is all the spiritual practices that are out there. What is a spiritual journey? Why do we do these protocols? Why do we do the yoga? Why do we meditate? So that we can follow our spirit's path, Our soul's journey, Our world's journey. I'm going to follow my soul's journey. I'm going to connect with my heart. I'm going to quiet the mind and I'm going to follow my soul's journey. So every spiritual practice must bring us back to that place. And so whatever that spiritual practice is for you, Whether it's yoga, Whether it's tantra, Whether it's meditation, Whether it's ecstatic dance, Whether it's after yoga, Whether it's riding a horse, Whatever it is that brings you back to center, That's our practice. And then we'll have all the courage in the world because all of our eggs are in this basket. And if you guys have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Why am I not able to speak? What's that about when you feel like you physically can't speak? I remember one time I was at a retreat and we were doing all these crazy meditations, Like Osho meditations, Jumping up and down and screaming and yelling and doing cool stuff. And at the end of the meditation, I remember standing, You know, We were supposed to kind of take any posture we wanted and I was standing there and I suddenly saw this silver shackle around my throat. And it's interesting because up until that time in my life, I couldn't wear turtlenecks or chokers or anything, Or if you touched my neck, I would really freak out. And it was really interesting. And I, In the meditative state, I went in and I grabbed it, Like there was like a seam in the choker, In the shackle right at my neck, And I grabbed it and I pulled it apart in this huge, Explosive inner experience. And I realized that it was like there was a shackle, Like I absolutely wasn't allowed to speak my truth. And then I went out into the back. It was that we were out in the woods and I sat down by this kind of sacred fire space. And I was talking to my mom, Actually, And my mom had passed maybe 20 years before that. And she came to me, Which I don't normally see things like that. So it was a very curious thing. And I was having this conversation with her while I was crying. And I was saying, You know, I'm so sorry that you didn't have the freedom to speak, That you didn't have the freedom to say your truth and live the life maybe that you wanted to live. And then all of a sudden, I had this vision of all of these women. And they were all these native women and they were standing there. And for whatever reason, I got quite angry with them. This was right before I started teaching Tantra. Because I had a lot of fears about teaching Tantra publicly. And I looked at them and I said, Stop putting your shit on me. Stop putting your fears in me. It's the year, Whatever it is, I want to be able to stand on your shoulders. I want to have the freedom to speak. I have the freedom to speak, But all of your fears are inside of me. And all the fears left. All the fears left. And I came home from the retreat. And I started speaking and I started sharing Tantra with the world. And I didn't care if people thought I was some sex maniac that had orgies on weekends. And I really didn't care. And I had no more fears of speaking. So it's a very interesting question when we wonder why I'm afraid to speak. There's a lot of options there. What do you mean by if we do the thing that makes us grounded, We will have all our eggs in the same basket? How does the grounding centering help us to move through fear? So if we imagine our heart center, This is the seat of our soul as the seat of who we truly are. And we do things that are in alignment with that. And this is us, You know, This is about joy, Right? This is love in the heart center. So when I dance, Because I love dancing, Or I cook because I love cooking, Or I travel because I love traveling. The more I do things that are in alignment with my truth, It's like, Yeah, Maybe eggs in the basket, Where it was a weird analogy, But it all becomes stronger and stronger. And the more connected I am to that, The easier it is to hear the next truth. And when I can really hear it, You just do it. Why would I not do the things on my path? But if I'm not doing anything, According to my truth, And I'm doing this over here, Because my mom wants me to do it, I'm doing this over here, Because society says I'm doing this over here, Because I don't know, Some teacher said I was a loser, And I'm going to prove them wrong. Everything's scattered. And then if I want to listen to my truth inside, It's almost like I have no weight in here. But the more I do that's in alignment with me, It's so easy to hear. Thank you so much for joining me, And I hope you have a wonderful day.