Living Our Life With Courage

So today's talk is about living in courage.

This is based in the levels of consciousness that David Hawkins discusses in his book Power vs.

Force.

On my profile you'll find a pile of talks,

Past talks,

That are,

They begin with levels of consciousness,

Where I talk about many,

Many,

Many levels that we're going to look at.

So for some of you guys,

This will be review.

But who knows what's going to be said,

Because they're never the same talk.

I could talk about courage every day.

I think we'd have new conversations every time.

So this is called the map of consciousness.

This is from David Hawkins' book Power vs.

Force.

So what he did is he looked at all the different ways that people perceive the world.

It's almost like,

What is the primary filter we're using to see the world around us?

You can see at the bottom,

It goes from shame,

Guilt,

Apathy,

Grief,

Fear,

Desire,

Anger,

Pride,

Courage.

That's what we're going to talk about today.

Beyond courage,

It's neutrality,

Willingness,

Acceptance,

Reason,

Love,

Joy,

Peace,

Enlightenment.

And beside the name,

You can see a number.

Shame is 20.

Guilt is I think guilt is 30.

And this is a logarithmic scale.

So this is,

It's not just that 30 is 10 more than 20.

It's actually 10 to the 20,

10 to the 30.

So it's actually,

See these are numbers we can't even conceptualize,

But this is 10 more zeros.

So each level is logarithmically a higher frequency than the one before.

So in his book,

He talks about he gives an example of,

Imagine these two guys are walking down the street and they see a homeless person.

Let's say one of the guys is generally resonating in a space of shame.

And for whatever reason,

There's no judgment about,

Oh,

I don't want to be resonating in shame.

Who knows what our soul came into experience and how many interesting karmic bits we're working out and why we were born to the parents we were born to or the society or the church or the experiences we're having.

We don't know.

So let's say we're resonating at shame.

And what that means is we're sort of stuck there.

We actually,

He would use muscle testing to figure out where you're resonating,

What your general frequency was.

So if you're resonating at shame,

The friend looks at the homeless guy and says,

Wow,

He must have really screwed up.

He must be so embarrassed.

He must feel,

Because he's seeing this experience through his own filter of shame.

Let's say he's resonating in guilt.

Then he looks at the homeless guy and he says,

I wonder what he did.

But he feels bad about it.

I bet he sits there all day long just feeling bad about what he did.

Or maybe the person observing the homeless person is in a state of apathy.

And he looks at the homeless person and he goes,

Yeah,

What do I care?

Yeah,

Everyone's got problems,

Man.

Like,

Who cares?

Or maybe the person's in a state of grief,

Personally in a state of grief.

And realize that something like grief,

Grief is a very natural emotion when we lose someone or we lose something or we lose a job.

This is a very natural state in the same way that anger,

Shame,

Guilt,

These are all very natural things in their time.

It's when we get stuck there.

Or sometimes we're even taught systemically to stay there.

Like for example,

Shame.

Let's say something happened,

Like even say something like being sexually abused as a child.

There historically was a shaming of that person that they can't get out of.

It's not that the person chose to realize,

Wow,

That wasn't a great idea.

I'm not talking about sexual assault,

But that wasn't a great idea.

I'm going to make amends.

I'm going to change that.

Like there's a healthy reason to look within and go,

Okay,

You know what?

I've got to change this.

But when it's been systemically put on you or say guilt,

Whether it's church or family that says,

Oh,

Really?

You did that?

Yeah,

That's because you're a sinner or that's why you will never be worth anything because you shame the family or whatever.

It's put on from the outside world.

So,

You can't get past it.

So,

You stay in guilt.

You stay in this space because it's been set up that you're not allowed out.

So,

The book's called Power versus Force.

So,

If you imagine everything below courage,

There are forces from the outside pressing in,

Making us unable to move,

Unable to shift.

They're very reactionary positions.

So,

Let's keep moving on and we think,

Okay,

Well this guy that was walking along with our friend,

Let's say he's in a state of anger.

So,

A state of anger.

So,

What causes us to be in a state of anger?

Maybe there's a million things that happen that are unresolved.

Maybe we're really angry at our parents,

We're angry at our ex,

We're angry at the world and we can't resolve it for whatever reason.

That anger continues to fuel and then we find,

What happens,

We find more experiences and more experiences to make us angry and fuel that anger and we just,

The world just keeps showing how much our anger is justified,

Right?

So,

Now our angry friend sees the homeless person and says,

Ugh,

You know,

Just a parasite in society.

Ugh,

Is that what I work for?

To support these people?

This is the angry man,

You know,

Or the angry person.

Beyond anger,

Let's say there's desire.

Desire,

And it's interesting that desire is below courage.

Desire is when we are driven by what we want and then what's interesting is it's insatiable because again,

This is a forced position that we've been told,

We've been brainwashed,

We've been cultured almost to believe that you always have to have a bigger house,

You always have to have another car,

You always have to have a your partner always has to look a certain way and you always have to look a certain way and you always want the new place to go on holidays or whatever and you're driven by desire and even the threat of losing one of those things,

Now you're being controlled.

You know,

So desire will keep us in jobs that we hate because we want to live a certain kind of life.

So,

We are being controlled from the outside because desire is driving us.

So,

We're not in a position of power at all,

We are in a completely forced position.

So,

Then you imagine we jump up to pride.

Now,

Pride is just below courage.

Let's say this guy is walking along and he's in pride,

You know,

He feels good about himself.

Pride is pride is like the jumping point to courage because we now finally feel good about ourselves.

We actually,

Maybe we have body pride regardless of what our body looks like,

But we feel good.

We have some self-esteem,

I'm feeling good and maybe I'm proud of my accomplishments,

I'm proud of the house I own,

I'm proud of the children I have,

I'm proud of my position in society.

Awesome.

Like it's starting to feel like courage,

Like you can feel the difference between pride and shame.

You know,

Every time like that logarithmic frequency goes up and up and up.

So,

Pride is I think 190.

Where courage is 200.

So,

190 is almost infinitely higher than 20.

So,

In pride we're starting to feel strong,

Right?

But we're still controlled by other because pride is about what it looks like to other people.

That other people think I'm fit,

Other people like how my partner looks,

Other people think I'm successful because I have the right house and the right neighborhood and the right car and the right kids and the right job.

It's all about what others see.

So,

It's still a controlled space because we will make choices out of the fear of losing any of those things.

We will be afraid of aging.

We will be afraid of losing the job.

We will be afraid of,

You know,

All of a sudden,

You know,

One of your kids does something and suddenly you dive into shame but you pride is what brings you up and you're like,

Oh,

You know,

And all of a sudden you're making these choices and being cruel to your children and stuff because they're hurting your pride.

So,

It's actually it's so close to courage but we're still,

It still triggers fear.

It still triggers anger.

It still triggers all these lower areas and once we're diving in there,

We're in big trouble.

Courage is the watershed.

Courage,

Everything on this side slides down to shame and everything on this side of courage kind of,

I don't want to say slides down but it slides towards enlightenment.

Enlightenment is a thousand which he only calibrated people like Jesus or the Buddha or true enlightened people but everything above courage builds us,

Edifies us,

Expands us.

Everything above courage it creates new.

Everything below courage causes problems.

When we make a decision out of fear,

It's like it goes out and it sets four more fires and while we're putting those fires out,

We set more,

Four more fires and our whole life becomes about putting out fires because we made those,

We said those words in anger.

We did this thing out of fear.

We're staying in the job that we hate because we are stuck between desire and pride or whatever or we fear the rainy day when there's no money or whatever.

So,

We stay in the job that we hate and then what happens?

We come home,

We're depressed,

We're angry,

We distance ourselves from our partner,

Our kids,

Maybe we drink too much or we smoke drugs or we do whatever.

We do whatever we can to survive staying in this job we hate but it's all driven out of pride or fear or desire.

That's how it just causes all these little problems,

All these little fires.

So,

Our life becomes very difficult below courage whereas again if we make a choice in neutrality like neutrality is even hard to fathom if we're existing below courage right now.

It's like what do you mean neutral?

Like no judgment at all?

Yeah,

But I mean some people are wrong right?

I mean that's bad but we have to be encouraged first before we can even fathom neutrality.

It's not something if we're right now if we're existing in fear,

We can't fathom neutrality.

Imagine for example if you're living in fear the idea of being neutral,

Truly no judgment of anything that's going on in the world.

It feels like being a doormat because that's what it would be if you're in fear.

Oh,

So I'm just going to let everyone else run my life and everyone else gets to do whatever they want?

Like there's all these different dialogues in these lower areas because we can't fathom it.

So,

I read this book a long time ago.

It was first,

It first came out in 1995 and I discovered it actually at a Wayne Dyer seminar.

He loved David Hawkins and David Hawkins wasn't even published but somehow Wayne Dyer had found it and actually got Hay House to publish it.

So,

I read it and I liked it and it kind of had planted seeds inside of me but it wasn't until much later that it started to really make sense to me.

You know when things finally actually land in reality?

Like before that it's just yeah,

Gee I wonder where I'm resonating.

I wonder what my number is.

Like you kind of have that question it's just sort of a theory or a philosophy.

I was doing marriage counseling with a couple about 10 years ago and I was sitting with them and they've been working on stuff and you know they had trust issues and there was some anger stuff and there was some you know some issues.

So,

Of course if you imagine this they were kind of always diving into these you know acting out of anger,

Acting out of shame,

Acting out of apathy.

You know how often do we experience apathy in relationships,

Right?

It's called the cold shoulder.

And of course we use this to control others also but we're just like you know what I give up forget it and then your little soul disappears and you just continue on in the relationship like a shell.

You go through the motions maybe you're there for the kids,

Maybe you go through the sex,

You do whatever you've got to do but you've given up and one day perhaps you jump to anger and you experience anger and you start to move out of apathy but you know it's a really common thing.

So,

I was sitting with these guys and they'd been really making a lot of they've been making a lot of headway and then one day they just they were talking about how one of the person kind of just snapped at the other person and I said why did you do that?

And they kind of just looked at me and they were like I don't know I think I was just bored and I had this revelation or this realization in the moment and these words came into my mind and the words were what is it like living above the line?

And suddenly I saw this picture and I saw imagine like the red,

The yellow and the orange this is below the line and this is above the line.

Courage is the line.

And if you imagine a relationship and maybe the only relationships you've ever had in your whole life only have ever existed below the line and realize that emotional juice,

Right,

The stuff that makes us feel alive,

The mmm that gets our heart pounding and makes us care and makes us all that.

For most people we've only ever experienced it in the negative.

We've only ever experienced it in the red,

The orange and the yellow.

We've experienced being angry,

We've experienced being jealous,

We've experienced being shamed and then complaining to our friends or crying or doing these things or the pride and yeah and I feel all puffed up and big because I'm so proud or whatever.

We've only ever experienced that as the juice of life.

So all of a sudden if we resolved all of our issues and I said to you imagine what it would be like to live above the line and never choose anger and never choose guilt or pride what would life be like?

And for most of us we'd kind of be like well what would we do?

Like what would a romantic relationship look like when there were no fireworks?

Because this is what we considered fireworks,

We consider this is,

This means they care because they're jealous because they're angry because they like we've defined this as love,

We've defined this as connection because they stick it out no matter what and even if I'm in a bad mood or even if he's grumpy I'm always there and no matter what because they know that our relationship's bomb proof or whatever like we have all these ideas and we've woven it into the idea of love because deep down our soul knows we desire love and this is all we've ever seen.

It's all we ever saw in our parents,

It's all we've ever seen in our other friends relationships and we think this is what love is.

I have a course called Foundations for Tondric Intimacy,

I think it's been going since 2013 or something like that and one of the very first questions I ask couples or anyone if you do it as an individual but especially with couples there's sadhana,

There's sadhana is a spiritual practice that you do every day that helps expand your consciousness so it has to be something that's a little difficult,

It has to be a challenge that actually allows us to expand out of our comfort zone and actually have true spiritual growth.

So the first sadhana is that you have to be 100% kind to each other for one week and in the homework I would ask them do you think this is possible?

Do you think it's possible to be 100% kind?

And again kindness isn't being a doormat or doing what you're told or anything like that,

It's just being nice it's just being loving to another soul and I'd say over 50% of people said no that's dumb.

It was the most shocking thing I'd ever read.

I was like what?

And people said well that'd be boring right like where's the fun in that?

Where's the fireworks?

Where's the excitement?

Where's the makeup sex if we're not fighting?

Like it was so weird and I remember reading it going the first couple times I thought oh they just might must be a unique couple or something that that's what they are into and then as students kept taking it and taking it,

Taking it I thought okay hold on a minute this is a huge pattern this is not just individual couples this is a society thing and so then fast forward to I'm sitting in this well actually no the couple that I was counseling was before that and I'm sitting with this couple and I realized that they had no idea how to interact with each other above the line.

They didn't know what life would be like if we only did things that built us up.

So if you imagine this living above or below the line imagine your health and it could be anything you want.

It could be what you eat,

How much you exercise,

How much you sleep,

How much water you drink,

Habits,

Addictions,

Whatever it is you want.

But imagine your health.

Here's the line.

Everything above here is building.

Everything below here causes trouble.

So maybe your thing is if we're living below the line maybe we're too sedentary.

How many problems does that cause?

Right?

How many little fires does that create in our own being,

In our mental health and everything?

What if we eat too much?

How many little fires does that cause in all of our organs and our everything and our self-worth and you know what if I don't sleep enough?

How many little fires does that cause?

Right?

It's so interesting how easy this.

Now above you think so you start to get enough sleep or maybe you start to drink more water or you decide to cut out sugar or something that you know is a particular trigger or addiction for you.

And then all of a sudden positive things start growing.

You know three good sleeps in a row you can take on the world.

Right?

Being properly hydrated heals all kinds of crazy things.

Or maybe you actually have an issue with wheat or something and you stop eating wheat and suddenly your knees don't hurt anymore.

And then all of a sudden walking is easier and getting out of bed is easier.

Right?

We start to make choices above the line and our life starts to build.

Our health starts to build.

Our liver becomes stronger and healthier so it purifies the blood more.

And then we have healthier blood going to our brain and going to our fingers and going to everywhere and it starts to build and build.

Everything above the line builds.

Imagine even in our own life,

In our own soul's path when we make choices below this line.

When we repeat things that people said to us that were negative.

That were hurtful.

When we replay painful things from our past.

It just does this vicious cycle down,

Down,

Down,

Down.

Right?

But then what if we choose courage?

What if we come to this line and no matter every time something down here starts to circle we go,

Hold on a minute.

What would courage say?

Right now?

What would courage say?

Well,

I would probably be honest.

I would speak my truth.

I would quit my job.

I would take that job.

Right?

So what's really fascinating about this is no matter where we are and I mean we all struggle down here.

Right?

We all struggle below the line sometimes or all the time.

Right?

Depending on where we're at.

But what if the answer was always to reach for courage?

No matter where we were because what's really interesting about courage,

For example,

Let's say what you really need.

Let's say you've been really struggling with shame and guilt and don't get me wrong.

I don't think we're all just in one level.

I think we have like an interesting mix of all kinds of things.

So,

For example,

Let's say you're resonating at desire there.

We're actually oscillating up and down around this.

We're kind of,

You know,

We're dipping down here and maybe sometimes dipping up here.

We're dipping.

And the idea is to slowly release ourselves of those lower,

Heavier issues.

And I mean through true healing.

I don't mean bypassing them.

I mean really looking at the shame and saying,

Okay,

Hold on a minute.

Where does this come from?

Is it even real?

And really looking at it,

Realizing it's not real,

Realizing it's 100% come from outside of us and then setting it aside and saying,

No,

You don't get to do that anymore.

And all of a sudden your entire energy field shifts up a bit and the oscillation happens higher,

Right?

And you start to dip into neutrality.

You start to have little tastes of neutrality in certain aspects of your life.

But courage helps us climb that ladder.

So,

Imagine if you're in shame or apathy and what you really have is extreme anger inside.

A lot of people are filled with fury,

Buried fury,

Like absolute rage inside.

Over a million things that were never said,

Unfairness.

It's one of those things that for me,

I never like to admit if I'm angry.

I'm better today.

But historically,

And probably still today,

But historically I've really,

I had a lot of pride around not being angry.

It's like,

No,

I'm above that.

I shouldn't be getting angry about this and I know it's not you and I understand and I don't want to blame and you know,

All that stuff.

So what happened is whatever I was feeling,

The actual feelings inside were just getting pushed down and down and down.

And I swear if you compact enough unresolved feelings,

Enough feelings that you don't believe you deserve to have,

It's like they transform into fury.

Like they transform into rage.

And then one day,

They explode out.

But I don't even think it's always just repressed anger.

I think it's repressed all of it and it all just comes shooting out like a meteorite or something.

It just comes flying out with all of its,

You know,

Emotional friends with it.

But it's really healthy.

And a lot of times,

It's courage that we've dipped into to even be able to step into that anger.

So if you're angry,

It could be that you sat with it and maybe you're in a relationship and maybe you need to get mad to somehow move this relationship forward.

But you've never spoken against this person and you've never actually said your truth.

And you ask inside and you say,

Okay,

What would courage say?

Courage would tell the truth.

And you say the truth.

And maybe you get angry.

But courage was a part of it.

So it's interesting to me,

Even pride.

What if we're living in pride?

What if we're really wrapped up in what other people think?

It really matters to us that other people think I'm cool or interesting or successful or attractive or whatever it is we're attached to the opinions of other people.

But we don't want to live like that anymore.

We want to be able to do our own thing.

I don't want to have to think about what other people think.

It's very exhausting to have that extra dialogue inside.

It takes courage to jump out of that.

It takes courage to say,

You know what,

I'm going to do what I want to do and I'm not going to consider the opinions of others.

And I'm not saying not considering the feelings of people close to you or anything like that.

I'm saying the opinions of others.

I think we know what I mean.

Right?

When we're constantly playing to the field.

That takes courage.

It takes courage to jump out of that.

So then we start to taste courage.

What does that even feel like?

What does it feel like to feel courage?

Courage is a space where no matter what comes,

I'm willing to do it.

Whatever it is.

Is that what I need to do?

Okay.

That it's no longer,

It may be an obstacle,

But it's something that's there so that I will strengthen myself to overcome it.

It's not there to push me back.

It's not there to make me contract.

It's there because obviously this is what I'm meant to be doing.

And if that means speaking my truth to my boss,

To my partner,

To my parents,

To my kids,

To whoever,

Then that's what I need to do.

I need to speak that truth.

You know,

And whatever I have to do to get there,

I'm up for it.

This is the beginning of power.

Actual power.

And that changes everything.

We're no longer using force to control others,

To make ourselves feel good,

And we're no longer at the whim of the force of others.

We now stand in power.

And this is again something that's almost unheard of.

You know,

There are people when you think of like the great leaders.

I was at a philosophy chat one time in Toronto.

It was like some kind of meet up and it was a philosophy club.

And the question was,

If aliens came to Earth and they asked us to take them to their leader,

Who would you take them to?

And so people were like rhyming off politicians and this and that and everything and I'm kind of just looking at them and I said,

Well,

Unfortunately,

The ones I would take them to are dead,

But I would take them to thought leaders,

Spiritual leaders,

And I don't mean church leaders,

I mean Mandela and Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Or like,

These are leaders to me.

Why?

Because they have power.

Not power over,

Not force.

They have inner power.

They stand in their power and that's how they lead.

So this is 200.

The beginning of power.

And what's really cool about it is that no matter where we are on the spectrum,

No matter where we are oscillating in fear and shame and guilt and anger and struggle and all that,

It's all good.

We need to have our actual soul's journey.

I'm not saying bypass any of it,

But at any time if we reach up and we pull down some courage and we make a choice,

That's solid.

Every time we make a choice in courage,

No matter where we are,

We are moving forward.

We are no longer setting fires in our life.

So we could be literally in a place of shame.

Like really,

Really hurting.

And one day we get a sniff of courage and we're like,

You know what?

I'm standing up.

I'm going to go for that job.

I'm going to whatever.

I'm going to publish that book.

I'm going to do something.

And when we make a choice in courage our bank account goes up.

And you know I don't mean financial.

It goes up.

And there's no negative.

And what's really interesting is you know you think,

Oh yeah,

But people aren't going to be used to it and there's going to be all this fallout.

But the fallout from making choices in shame is greater.

Making a step forward in courage is a step forward.

There might be some fallout back here but it's less and it's moving in the right direction.

It's moving towards truth.

It's moving towards clarity.

And that changes everything.

Courage is also the level where we begin to exist as people.

So for some of you guys who are new,

When I was 29 in 1999,

I was sick with breast lumps and a guru appeared in my life,

A man appeared in my life to help me.

And at that point in my life I was married,

I had little kids,

We had a dairy farm.

And I just really,

My whole life was driven by being a good wife and being a good mom and being a good PTA member and a good daughter-in-law and a good everything.

I just,

My whole life was just being right for everybody else.

And what this teacher taught me was how depressed I actually was.

And how I was actually way beyond depressed.

I was actually in full out despair.

On the surface I was keeping the happy face,

Right?

I was still being the good mom and the good wife and doing everything I had to do.

But the more I ignored my truth and who I really was and what I really wanted to do with my life and all that kind of thing,

The more distance I felt from everyone around me,

Even though I was surrounded by people,

You know,

I was totally alone.

And this one moment happened,

I wrote a book called What If You Could Skip The Cancer?

And I tell this whole story in it.

And one of the stories I tell in there was I was lying in bed and Jim was trying to convince me that I was depressed and I wasn't having it.

I was like,

I'm not depressed,

I help everybody.

I can do everything.

Like I was superwoman,

Right?

I'd never say no to anyone.

And I'm like,

If I'm depressed,

I can show you some people because I'm not depressed.

I'll tell you that right now.

Like I would argue with him about this endlessly.

And then one night I went to bed and my husband was lying in bed snoring and I sat down at the edge of the bed and as I sat,

As my bum hit the bed this knowing came right down through my crown chakra and I knew that I was going to die that night.

I knew that I wasn't waking up and I wasn't upset about it.

It was just this knowing that we're done now.

So I laid down and then all of a sudden I realized I didn't want to die and I started crying and I cried and I cried and I cried and I prayed and I was like,

I don't want to die,

I don't want to die,

I don't want to die.

And then this voice came and said,

Then choose.

So then I argued with the voice.

I was like,

What do you mean choose?

That's stupid.

I can't,

It's not up to me.

I argued with the voice.

And then the voice said again,

It's up to you.

Just choose.

And I had to think about it and that was my turning point.

That was the moment when I realized how depressed I actually was.

That I had a husband,

A farm,

A home,

Two little children.

My kids were two and four years old.

In theory I had everything a person should want and when given the opportunity in the dark of the night to take a little slip out the back door,

I almost took it and that was the end of it for me.

I realized it was like,

Girl,

You are lying to yourself.

You are lying to yourself,

You're lying to everybody.

And then I read a book shortly after that,

Because of course it's fine to know that but it wasn't landing yet.

So then I read a book of Rollo May,

Who was a psychologist I think in the 70s,

60s and 70s and he talked about the I am moment.

The moment where you realize that you exist.

You as a soul.

The I am.

That I matter.

Not just whether my husband is happy,

Not whether my parents are happy,

Not whether what my kids want.

Me,

There's a soul inside of here that has a purpose and it's not just to make you happy or you happy or look a certain way for you or be somebody else's guilt monkey to make them feel better about themselves.

I'm not just a player in your chess game.

I have my own chess game.

I exist.

And what he would say was,

Any therapy done,

Any spiritual practice,

Anything we did,

If we have not had the I am moment,

It's all just sand flowing away.

There's no foundation.

It just disappears.

You can talk therapy,

You can do this,

You can do that,

You can do this,

You can do that,

But up until a certain point,

The only reason you're having therapy is to have the I am moment.

Nothing matters.

Nothing sticks.

It's only therapeutic to get you to the I am moment to realize that we actually exist and matter as individuals.

Once we have the I am moment,

Everything builds from there because we no longer want to control other people.

We no longer blame anyone else because we've suddenly,

It's like we've just been born and we're like,

Okay,

Hold on a minute.

I'm here for an experience now.

All right.

Bring it at me.

Let's do it.

Everything builds from that place.

It's like imagine you're meditating.

Imagine you're sitting in meditation and your entire meditation is rolling around under the line.

Don't get me wrong.

It happens.

Right?

And it's just rolling there and it's this and that and then we have to add to it because look at you.

You can't even meditate and you and your monkey mind and we just beat ourselves up.

Right?

All this stuff.

Right?

It just doesn't go anywhere.

And all of a sudden you have this sliver of a moment of stillness,

Of quiet,

Of some sense of who I am.

And then it's like you truly exhale and you start to feel something different.

You're like,

Oh,

Wait a minute.

What does this feel like?

Once we've had that experience,

We can start expanding.

We can start growing.

We can start to imagine things like neutrality and willingness and just love.

Not possessive love or anything like that.

Just love.

We can start to fathom it.

It's a whole different world.

It's funny like that.

So imagine now we come back to my first couple who didn't know what they would do.

So imagine instead we imagine they're a couple and they begin in courage.

So the first thing we do is we play around in courage.

We've got to swim around there for a while.

We don't just jump over it.

So we say,

So what could we do as a couple?

Well,

We could try,

Like,

I mean it could even be something like,

Well,

We could take this chick's weird tantric course.

Right?

It didn't exist back then.

But you know,

Or well,

There's this really cool book that I was reading about you know,

Relationships.

You know,

We could kind of look at it together.

Or,

Well,

Maybe we should take dance lessons.

Or maybe we should go,

What if we go hiking?

What if we do something?

Like we actually start to do things together.

And then all of a sudden they discover new things.

And then they discover more things.

And they discover more things.

Maybe they take a cooking class.

And then they start to cook for their friends.

And all of a sudden their social circle expands into other people who love to cook.

And now all of a sudden they're having interesting conversations with other people.

And they're totally merging with each other and building on each other and having these amazing symbiotic relationships.

And all of a sudden their entire relationship is about growth and joy and happiness.

Why would you ever get juice out of anger?

It seems kind of weird now when we could be doing cool things with each other.

And cool things with other people.

Or even with ourself.

We can kind of stay down here.

But then once we sort of play at courage for a while what does that feel like to play at courage with ourselves for a while?

We think,

Well,

You know what?

I can speak my mind.

So I speak my mind.

And the world changes.

Then I take that job because I'm really called to it.

And then I have a whole new circle of friends.

And my world changes.

And we keep making choices in courage.

And all of a sudden we're like,

Oh,

Is this what life is?

And then we get interesting cool feedback coming back at us saying,

Yeah,

This is cool and this is cool.

And then bit by bit once we actually feel like we're accomplishing and creating in the world,

Maybe then we could imagine neutrality.

It's like,

Oh,

So we could actually make any choice we want.

We could do anything we want.

Maybe there is no right or wrong.

Not for me or anyone else.

And then we can start to conceptualize these really beautiful edifying frequencies where happiness is easy.

Giving is easy because we're not being tethered,

Struggling with the lower levels.

Alright.

I'm going to put my glasses on.

And if you have any questions,

Please re-write them so I can answer anything you've got here.

So courage let's say it's a job situation.

And courage says,

You know what?

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to put my resume in.

I'm going to make it happen.

If we're resonating in desire,

Then we need this to happen.

If we're resonating in pride,

We need this to happen because it's connected to our ego.

In courage it says,

Well,

I'm willing to do it.

In neutrality,

We literally say,

Well,

I'm putting it in,

In courage,

And whatever happens is perfect.

If I get the job,

Then that's where I'm meant to be.

If I don't get the job,

Then that's where I'm not meant to be.

Or relationships.

Let's say even you're in a relationship where you need to speak your truth.

So you have the courage to speak your truth.

Neutrality is fine with whatever the end result is.

If we're in fear of losing the relationship,

We won't speak our truth.

If we have pride in the relationship,

Having to be together,

We won't speak our truth.

Courage says,

I speak my truth.

Neutrality says,

And whatever is right for both of us is perfect.

There's literally no judgment.

It's not,

Well,

I'm going to speak my truth so that our marriage is saved.

That's not neutrality because I have something that must happen.

Neutrality says,

I'm going to speak my truth because my truth,

It's not my truth about you,

By the way.

Like it's not,

Here's what I think about you.

It's just my truth that I desire,

I need,

Or I,

This is how I feel.

And then we trust that truth prevails.

And if for whatever reason that truth actually isn't in alignment with this other person's journey,

Then this is what will happen.

And we're still happy.

It's all good.

What if being courageous means deeply hurting the feelings of someone you love?

The challenge is,

Is that if we have to live a lie,

We're hurting them anyway.

And we're really hurting ourselves.

We develop resentment towards them.

That was one of the big things I realized when I was sick,

Was that when I finally realized I was depressed and I was angry and despairing,

Was I actually resented my own children.

I resented my husband.

I resented my family because I had to bury them who I was to keep them happy,

To not hurt them.

And I love these people more than anyone in my whole world.

And I'm like,

Whatever you're doing Katrina,

It's wrong.

Because you are resenting the people you love the most.

So it's a very interesting thing.

You know,

Even when I finally,

When I left my husband like 20 years later,

What really dawned on me,

I didn't leave an anger or anything.

It was just a realization that what I wanted in life,

My truth,

What I truly wanted in life,

Was really different than what he wanted in life.

And that we were kind of trying to drag each other up our own mountains.

And neither of us really wanting to go up that other mountain because for whatever reason our paths were no longer in sync.

So he would never feel good enough and I would always be frustrated and it would always be this thing.

And it was like,

Wow,

The loving,

The most loving thing I could do.

Like I remember I told my,

When I told my kids they were teenagers,

And I said,

Well,

I said,

You know your dad.

I said,

Your dad just,

He just wants to have his nice little house with a wife and nice warm fire and smoking his pipe.

Just enjoying his life.

Just totally chill.

And I just want to go dancing.

And they were like,

Yeah,

I totally get it.

You know,

But we had 20 great years.

And I think he's wonderful.

He's a wonderful,

Wonderful human.

Everyone I know is in the lower levels.

It's really hard watching.

Yeah,

It's a huge deal.

But what's really cool about it,

I think for me because we all,

We have all of them.

I mean,

I have lots of days where I'm like,

You know,

I can totally relate to all of it.

I saw,

I read this great quote a couple days ago by Leo Tolstoy.

And he wrote,

If you understand everything,

You can forgive everything.

And that's really interesting,

Right?

To really understand the power of the very fact that you understand everyone in your life who's struggling in the lower levels.

The very fact that we can empathize with them,

Not judge them or wish they were different,

But to truly say,

I totally get guilt.

I totally get anger.

I totally get apathy.

What a gift,

Right?

What an amazing gift to be able to just know that.

And you just hold that in your consciousness.

You don't have to change anything because the thing is,

We have to change in our own,

It's the I am moment.

Every person has to have their I am moment.

And then things start to shift.

So it's beautiful.

Even if we're surrounded by people who are struggling.

And you know,

That's another interesting thing he says in his book that the frequencies that we resonate at he said something like,

He has a whole pile of different math that he's playing with,

But he says one person resonating,

Say at 300,

Which is willingness,

Somewhere between willingness and neutrality.

One person resonating at 300 balances like 90,

000 people resonating below 200.

You know,

That idea that when we focus on,

Because we have this thing that we think we're supposed to fix everybody else.

You know,

Everybody else like come,

Come,

Come up my mountain.

And it's like,

No,

The more we rise inside ourselves,

We help.

We help the whole,

Not by directly helping them or sharing my light or something like that,

But just simply there's a frequency,

Like literally like you feel a different frequency,

Just like you hear a sound or you hear music.

It affects people,

Right?

So the more we can understand others,

You know,

The fuller we are.

Well,

Thank you guys so much for being here.

Thank you for your questions and your support of each other.

If you,

If you go to my profile here,

You'll see all kinds of,

All kinds of talks that go deeper into each one of these levels.

You know,

There's a whole talk about shame and guilt.

There's a whole talk about desire,

Pride,

Anger,

Reason,

Acceptance,

Willingness,

Neutrality.

They're all up here,

I'm pretty sure.

That was the goal,

Was to actually get to do a deep dive on every single level.

Best way to stop gaslighting from another level is to get to the level that you want to be.

And that's what I'm trying to do without allowing it to affect you.

Drives you and drives me insane.

I try but I can't function being around people like that.

Gaslighting is really interesting and it's such a common topic right now because I think our consciousness,

This alignment with truth is becoming more powerful.

We're very sensitive,

We're very aware of when something isn't true.

Whereas 50 years ago,

It's like people could tell us things.

Gaslighting is when someone manipulates you by telling you that your version of reality isn't real.

So they hurt you and you say that you really hurt and they're like,

What are you talking about?

I didn't even do anything.

Are you just triggered because your dad was like this?

Is that what that is?

And they turn it back on you and make it about you.

It actually comes from a movie where way,

Way back in the day and it was a movie called Gaslighting maybe?

Like this is an old movie like in the 40s or something.

And the movie,

The premise of it is,

Was that there was a couple I don't know whether it's like Audrey Hepburn or who it was.

It's like an old movie.

It was a couple and the woman was very wealthy and the man wanted the money and so what he did,

He was trying to,

Because he couldn't leave her but he wanted the money,

He wanted control.

So his goal was to get her into an insane asylum.

So this was the time when lights were on and he would turn down the gas lamps.

So what he would do is he would turn down the light just a little and she'd say,

It's getting darker in here?

It seems darker than it was yesterday.

He'd say,

No it looks the same to me.

She's like,

And of course she's trusting.

Gaslighting only works on trusting people who aren't assuming the other person is lying they're assuming that the person who's gaslighting them has a soul and a conscience who cares?

So anyway this goes on and on and he keeps turning the light down,

He keeps turning the light down,

He keeps turning the light down until she's like okay it's actually dark in here.

But if she's been doing all this self questioning,

Well it must be me and maybe why am I being so?

And he'd be like,

What do you think?

Do you think I'm lying to you?

Is that what you think?

Like what's wrong with you?

What did I ever do to hurt you?

Like they turn it 100% back on the person right?

And then eventually you know she does so much introspection trying to understand what's wrong with her and what's wrong with her eyes and what's wrong with you know obviously she's trying to destroy the marriage and blah blah blah and eventually she commits herself to an insane asylum or something like that.

But it's a huge thing and it's a really common thing that's coming out right now that has actually been around for a long time.

And it happens when anytime someone if you're hurt and someone says well there's no reason to be hurt.

It's like no but that doesn't change the fact that I'm hurt.

And that's where this I am really comes into play.

That I know this.

This is my truth.

Whether you like it or not.

Whether you believe it's an acceptable response.

That's not what I asked.

That doesn't matter.

Right?

All that matters is this is my truth.

And they can spin and spin and spin and spin and spin around you and try to do this and try to do this and what's really crazy is when you stop reacting in the way they believe you will.

They'll actually start amping up their behavior.

They'll keep amping it up.

At the beginning it's very subtle.

Very subtle to the point that you think maybe you really are crazy.

And then as soon as you stop playing as soon as you stand in your truth they become a bit more obvious.

And you stand in your truth they become a bit more obvious until they actually are aggressive.

Then they screw up and they can be seen.

You know.

My problem is that I'm having a hard time having courage to be vulnerable with how much I need help.

When I build up the courage and reach out no one believes me.

I'm not an obvious emotional mess in their eyes.

I seem to go back down to the levels from courage.

It is interesting to know that it really is a hundred percent our journey.

That even when we reach out we ask for help.

We sit and we say what do I need?

Do I need a counselor?

Do I need a trauma therapist?

What do I need?

And we go and seek that out.

You know we seek the help we really need.

I found that when I don't pay attention it's like a joke.

Laughs etc.

Then I stand up for myself and it's like they get what they want.

I'm upset that they zapped my energy.

You know what?

I'm not going to be able to do that.

You know what?

Some people are real professionals at it.

They've been doing it since they were a child and they're really good at it.

But you know what?

You really just have to look at them like a very wounded person.

And for whatever reason they've got to play games.

They can't be straight up.

And you just have to know that.

And they're going to have their own little version of this and how they got you and they did this and they did that.

And they're going to tell themselves stories and tell whoever that's.

But there's nothing we can do about that.

There's nothing we can do about what they do with it.

And that's okay.

People go away and they tell their stories.

They tell their conquers and their you know conquests.

That's what they have to do.

For whatever reason.

And we just sort of look at them and go okay.

Why would people do gaslighting?

I don't know.

For some reason they're cut off from their empathy.

They're cut off from their connection to other people.

They need to know they're in control.

They need to almost own the other person.

You know that they almost want to unconsciously control them to make themselves feel powerful.

It's very serious.

We're really becoming aware of this now.

Like I think it's been happening for centuries.

I think it's been happening you know it's been happening for a lot.

We've been taught to ignore our truth for a long long time.

So it's really easy to be confused about our truth.

Right?

Imagine all the talks we've done about burying our emotions.

And how hard it is to connect with our truth.

Because how do I feel fear?

How do I feel grief?

How do I feel this?

How do I how do I even know what my truth is?

Like this is the world we've been living in up until this point.

That we're so confused what our truth is because everyone else is telling us what our truth is.

So we're very easy to gaslight.

Because we're already questioning our truth.

So the closer we become in alignment with our own truth the less anyone can gaslight you.

It'd be like someone looking at me and saying you've got crazy purple hair.

I hate it.

I would just look at them and be like you don't have I don't have purple hair.

Like I don't take it personally because I don't have purple hair.

Right?

So gaslighting is his way and I'm done.

Oh awesome.

Yeah it's hard because once and you can't even tell someone who's gaslighting that they're gaslighting.

Whether they're narcissists.

That's what I was going to say.

Very often they are.

Yeah it's really becoming very obvious right now.

More obvious than it was even ten years ago.

We never even to call someone a narcissist ten years ago was a disorder.

Right?

Narcissistic personality disorder.

But today we're like no no it's way more common than that.

They're not necessarily evil or really difficult or anything but just whoa this is really really common and it's really subtle and it's really sneaky.

And my friend used to say that people like that were slippery as goose spit.

What if someone has truly delusional thoughts?

Is it okay to point it out?

It all depends on the moment.

Depends on the context I guess but you know can you imagine.

Yeah the word actually isn't spit but I'm not allowed to swear on here.

Laughter Laughter Laughter Laughter.

It almost came out.

Laughter Someone has truly delusional thoughts.

The thing is I mean there's a million things right?

I mean if someone believes that they can do this and this and you're like I think you're crazy.

You know that can be really negative.

If someone believes that they want to be with you but it's not possible then that's important for them to know.

Laughter.

Like if the delusional thoughts have to do with you then I oh I get it now.

I've slipped on plenty of that part right?

Laughter.

I don't know if I don't know if geese actually spit much as much as the other.

Laughter.

Laughter.

Gaslighting and spells.

My dad was such a gaslighter,

A narcissist,

A glutton for punishment.

I think that the most interesting thing in terms of karma being a glutton for punishment that kind of thing is just to simply know that for whatever reason this is showing up as contrast in your life.

It's showing up as something that you need to be able to look at from the other side.

Like you're observing this and by doing,

Being able to do that you really get to see you.

Like it's almost like the more people you have in your life that are gaslighters the more you realize wow I am being,

I am here to stand in my truth.

We're not here to be the victim of gaslighters.

We're here to stand in our truth regardless of the gaslighters.

They are who were put in our arena so that we would strengthen that muscle.

And if there's purpose,

There's always purpose in it.

And the thing is once you strengthen that you won't have a partner like that.

You just,

Just won't.

It's because you kind of see them a mile away.

The journey to partnership.

All right,

I'm going to let you guys go and again thank you guys so much for being here.

We'll see you guys later.