So today we're talking about releasing shame and guilt.
And this comes out of,
In a number of our talks,
We've talked about David Hawkins' levels of consciousness.
And David Hawkins was a really interesting man who,
Using muscle testing,
Would test to see what level of consciousness were you generally vibrating at.
And it was really interesting.
I got to hear him speak one year.
And he was one of those,
I've told you guys before how much I love the mystics who don't care about any of the world's rules.
They're the ones that,
If they're upset,
They'll go running down the street naked,
Screaming,
And then just have the most beautiful Buddha-like nature.
There's such a draw for me to be like,
I don't know,
I guess maybe there was my Freudian slip to be like that.
And David Hawkins was like that,
At least the time I saw him speak.
He just had this,
Here's the truth,
Solve it.
If you don't like it,
Feel free to leave.
He was just so,
But really nice,
Like nothing wrong.
Just anyway,
I love David Hawkins.
And so he wrote this book called Power versus Force.
And he talked about the difference between living a life where you are empowered versus a life where you feel like you have to force everything or whether people are forcing themselves on you.
And he created this chart of all the different emotional levels where in one instance,
Life is about force,
And in another instance,
Life is about power and how incredibly different these are.
So today's talk is actually,
And I've mentioned David Hawkins a lot because his philosophy has been formative for how I see the world.
You know,
It must have been 20 years ago I saw him speak because I found him shortly after my mom died,
Which was 27 years ago.
And my dad and my sisters and I went to hear Wayne Dyer speak because he had been a real lifeline for us when my mom was sick because he was one of the first people really talking about mind,
Body,
Spirit and the effects of our emotions on our lives.
And,
You know,
Your erroneous zones,
One of his big first books about the things within us that actually send us sideways.
And it was at a talk that he was giving in Toronto that he talked about David Hawkins,
And he had actually brought David Hawkins' work to Louise Hay so that it would be published because he was so blown away by his work.
And then it was only a few months later that David Hawkins came to Toronto and spoke.
So this is probably,
Yeah,
20,
26 years ago or so I would have seen him.
So he was very formative for me because I would have been about 26 at the time.
Sometimes math and age is a little shocking.
So,
Yeah,
So I speak a lot about David Hawkins because he's just so important.
So in previous talks I've shown you guys this chart,
And this chart is called Levels of Consciousness,
And you can find it if you just Google this,
Levels of Consciousness,
David Hawkins,
You'll see this list.
And the bottom,
The red,
The orange,
The yellow,
Shame,
Guilt,
Apathy,
Grief,
Fear,
Desire,
Anger,
Pride,
These are all,
When we are resonating in these areas,
We are living a life of force.
Everything is hard.
Everything we do is difficult.
Every choice we make lights other fires that then we have to go and put out,
And we have to get rid of the effects of all of those things.
Every choice we make causes five other problems.
And as much as anger or desire or pride or all these kind of things feel kind of strong,
Like they definitely feel stronger than shame and guilt that we're going to talk about today,
They actually,
Because they are,
The strength of it is being imposed from outside,
We are always in battle mode.
So we are always living in this state of force,
Needed force,
Just to survive,
Just to hold our own,
Just to hold our sense of self.
And then we hit courage.
And as soon as we come to courage,
Everything changes.
We start to actually have faith in our choices and we start to build.
We start to every,
Now every choice we make,
Every choice we make,
Every choice we make has five positive effects.
And it starts to build and our life starts to edify.
And actually every choice builds and expands in positive ways.
So then above that,
We come to neutrality,
Willingness,
Acceptance,
Reason,
Love,
Joy,
Peace,
Enlightenment.
So shame and guilt are the lowest levels on his chart.
And this isn't a judgment thing.
This isn't like a,
Wow,
If I'm resonating in shame most of the day,
I am a lesser person or something.
We don't know why we come in.
We don't know what karma we're working with.
We don't know what mountains we came here to climb.
We don't know.
It's all a mystery.
It's almost important to look at ourselves with real love,
That wherever we're at is perfect.
You know,
If we're living a life of guilt right now,
Then it's interesting to look at.
You know,
It's the agape is the word,
It's the foundation of love.
And the foundation,
The words in Greek would be that it's God's love for us.
We're seeing ourselves through God's eyes,
However you understand that.
So imagine if you're in a space right now where shame and guilt are huge players in your consciousness.
To really rise up,
Like to really take that bird's eye view,
That to see your life from 50,
000 feet.
And see the whole picture,
Because if we reject it,
If we look at it,
If we're actually truly,
Shame is driving us or guilt is driving us and we don't admit it.
Because we don't want to be that person.
I want to be neutrality girl.
I want to be living in pure love all the time.
That's what I want to be.
And I'm just going to,
It doesn't work like that because then we're not,
We're actually not letting our soul do what we came here to do.
Who knows what we're here to learn.
So when I talk about these lower levels of consciousness,
We don't want to think of it as a,
Like a less worthiness or anything like that.
It just means that if you're resonating in shame right now,
It's a very difficult time.
It's heavy.
It gets so heavy.
Guilt is a little bit lighter because it's a little,
Shame is completely oppressive.
Like it's just,
I just can't do anything.
There's no point.
I'm not worthy.
I don't deserve anything.
It's very hard.
And that's why the levels,
We don't want to look at it like a weird judgment or something.
It's a looking at someone and saying,
Wow.
Right.
You wouldn't look at someone who's got six kids and they're exhausted.
And you say,
Wow,
What's wrong with you?
As I live in my apartment by myself with no dependents.
Some people have heavier loads than others at different times of their lives.
Right.
There's been times in my life I've had six kids living in my house.
So it's just,
It's really interesting to really even this entire talk,
To really look at ourselves with love and really honoring,
Honoring wherever we are right now,
Because then at least we can look at it.
We can hold ourselves in it and heal and move beyond it.
So why do I want to talk about this?
This is always my first question when I ponder our talks.
And one of the big reasons is because shame and guilt stop us from actually living.
They stop us from living our soul's path.
They stop us from actually believing that we deserve goodness,
That we deserve nourishment.
It's almost like we die inside and then we just put in time until we die for real,
Because we just can't get past it.
And that's not why we're here.
Right.
We're not,
We're not here to just be dead inside.
So no matter what,
Where the shame and guilt came from,
It's worth looking at because we weren't born to be dead.
Right.
We didn't incarnate here on the planet to just walk around like a zombie for any reason.
So with both of these ideas,
With both of these emotional states,
I want to talk about the healthy aspects of shame and the unhealthy aspects and the healthy aspects of guilt and the unhealthy aspects of guilt.
Because these aren't completely wrong emotions.
So for example,
Actually,
I want to tell you a story that David Hawkins tells in his book.
And I'm going to tell this incorrectly because it's been 20 some odd years since I read the story specifically.
But it stuck in my mind.
And so he tells us how do these,
How do these levels of consciousness play out in our world and what does he mean by resonating at one of these levels of consciousness?
So he tells a story about two guys walking down the street,
And they see a homeless person.
So let's say one of the guys is resonating at shame.
And again,
When I say resonating,
Imagine there's a line.
And that maybe sometimes you go higher.
And sometimes you go lower,
But you sort of oscillate around this general space.
So it isn't that we're always there.
But when in doubt,
We tend to land there and we oscillate around it.
And as we embrace what's going on as we learn about our consciousness as we are able to see what's really happening in our life or our soul's path,
Bit by bit,
That level will rise a little bit.
And then we still oscillate.
But we were landing in a different center place.
So even if we one day if we really heal a lot of our shame stuff.
It may be that we might still dip into it sometimes even as we've healed.
And it's okay.
But then as we continue to heal and we go up and up and up,
Shame never comes in again.
So these two guys are walking down the street.
And the guy,
Let's say that our one friend is resonating at shame.
And again,
This isn't a judgment thing.
Maybe he's had just the most horrific life and maybe many lifetimes.
And this is where he's at.
So he looks at the homeless person and says,
Oh,
My God,
Like,
He must be so embarrassed.
I can't imagine what it must feel like to have people like staring at you all the time and thinking you're a loser and thinking like,
Oh,
My God,
Like this must be so embarrassing for him.
I don't know how he survives or wakes up.
And,
You know,
He looks at himself in the mirror.
It must be so awful.
So then imagine the man doesn't resonate at shame,
But he resonates at guilt.
The two men are walking down the street and he looks at the homeless person and he says,
I wonder what he did to deserve that.
I'll bet he screwed up big time,
But he's regretting what he did.
Wow.
Right.
He must have really messed up.
The next level is I think it's apathy.
And apathy,
The guy walks by and he looks at the homeless person,
He goes,
Whatever,
We've all got our issues,
Right?
Maybe it's anger.
If he's resonating at anger,
He walks by and he goes,
Just this guy,
Like just he's a lecherous,
He's just sitting here begging,
Thinking I'm going to give him my hard earned money.
What the hell is wrong with him?
He's just a parasite in society.
Maybe he's resonating at grief.
And the person thinks,
Wow,
I wonder what he lost.
What happened that tipped him over the edge that he's so breaking inside?
You know,
Maybe he's resonating at pride.
And he looks at this guy and he says,
Actually,
What I'm going to say sounds more like shame.
But pride's just like,
It's disgusting,
Disgusting these people.
I don't know what they're thinking.
Now,
Let's imagine that this guy is resonating at courage.
And he walks down the street and he sees the homeless person and he looks at the person and he says,
He'll find his way.
And he'll catch a break and he'll make a different choice and something new will happen for him.
I'm pretty sure of it.
Maybe he jumps up into neutrality and he's walking along and he sees the homeless person and he just looks and his friend says,
Look,
A homeless person.
And the man says,
Yeah.
And it's no more interesting than all the business people walking by.
There's no judgment one way or the other.
Maybe the person resonates in love.
And they see that person sitting on the street and all they see is someone who they love.
Like,
It's the same situation and that's why these levels of consciousness are so interesting because every single person could watch the same experience.
And it tells us so much about where we're at,
How we interpret what's going on.
So let's look at shame.
What is healthy shame?
Healthy shame means you have a conscience.
It means that you are connected to your soul.
It's that moment when you say something and we are none of us are above this.
Like to be really clear,
At least in my experience,
I've never met anyone that's above it,
Including me.
You know that moment when you say something and it's out of your mouth before you mean it and you go,
Oh,
God,
Like,
Oh,
That's shame.
That means you care.
That means you wish you hadn't said it.
That was not in line with my soul.
I did not want to say that out loud.
I did not want to hurt that person.
Damn it.
I can't believe I said it out loud.
That's shame.
That's that sick feeling that happens when we do something and it's not in alignment with our soul.
This has nothing to do with anyone else.
This we screw up.
We get tired.
We get caught up in our minds.
We get into vicious cycles and then sometimes we act on them.
And then as soon as it happens,
There's this deep thing that goes into the pit of our stomach and we go,
Oh.
And it's just it's just like you're stuck there,
Like you can't get rid of this horrible feeling in your stomach.
This is healthy shame.
This means you have a conscience.
This means you're human.
A person without shame.
I don't want to hang out with them.
I want someone who knows when something went amok and they go,
Oh,
I'm so sorry.
This is so my stuff.
I am so sorry.
Oh,
It is that thing that initiates something new.
It's a huge sign that we're off our path.
If we find ourselves doing things that are so against our very soul and I don't mean ideas.
That's a whole other thing we're going to talk about in a minute.
I mean that.
If you close your eyes and you connect in with your soul,
Who you are right in here in your heart chakra.
And what you just did went against that.
That is healthy shame.
And that's the shame that puts us back on our own track,
On our own personal journey.
You know,
And it can be a moment in relationships when you say something that you know is mean.
And afterwards you go.
You genuinely didn't mean it.
Or you say something to your children or maybe even it's work.
Maybe we kind of sold our soul for something.
Maybe we're doing something,
But I just need the money.
Or maybe who knows.
But it's that feeling inside that says,
This isn't right.
This isn't what I do.
This is very healthy.
And it's when we allow ourselves to feel that shame.
Because again,
It's just a non alignment with our soul.
That's all.
And we don't have to beat ourselves up about it.
You know,
It could be sleeping with someone.
And I don't mean from some weird church shame.
I mean our own soul afterwards going,
Why did I do that?
That didn't feel right at all.
It's not a and now you're a lousy,
You know,
Whatever.
It's just a it's a note to self.
And if it's strong enough and if we feel the emotion enough.
We'll hear it.
We'll hear our soul saying.
That's not us.
We may have adopted what someone else is doing or a friend is doing,
Or we're maybe trying to make our boss happy,
Or maybe we're trying to make our partner happy,
Or our parents or our in-laws or our neighbours or our children or whatever.
That's not in line with me.
This is so powerful.
And the more it hurts,
The more likely we are to change direction.
This is incredibly powerful.
I love Abraham Hicks.
Esther Hicks channels this.
I don't know,
A group of beings called Abraham.
And they always speak of how we learn through the contrast of life.
All those things that come into our life that we go,
What?
That teaches us something about us because we know that we're not that.
This is shame.
It's one of our greatest teachers.
It's so,
So important.
And it's a very natural,
Wonderful aspect of being human.
And so the action realized that every single thing that is built into us to help us on our soul's path.
There is always action that we can take because we've experienced it.
So if we feel shame,
If there's a moment where we go,
Oh,
You know,
That sick feeling,
Then we ask,
We pray,
We meditate,
We journal and we say,
I never want to do that again.
All right.
I learned.
I got it.
I got the message.
Thanks.
I'm never doing that again.
This is hugely important.
I think I told you guys once,
I remember when my mom was dying.
My mom had breast cancer and bone cancer.
And at that time,
I thought I was so smart.
Like I was a university student.
I was studying mathematics.
I had been told my whole life that,
Oh,
She's so smart.
Blah,
Blah,
Blah.
And I was studying every major religion on the planet.
I loved spirituality,
Religion,
All these kind of things.
I was studying at school.
I studied privately.
I really thought I knew stuff.
I really thought I knew stuff.
I remember sitting with my mom and I was about 22,
Maybe 23.
And I was sitting in the hospital with her and she was terrified of dying.
She was the most wonderful woman.
Like,
I mean,
This woman was just an angel on the planet.
And yet she was plagued with fear that because she didn't take us to church every Sunday,
That she was going to go to hell.
And she was tortured by it.
You know,
It's so what did I say?
And in what did I want?
I just wanted to say something.
I mean,
It's hard to talk to someone you love who's dying.
Right.
Anyway,
I let my intellectual self into the room.
My my my part of me that maybe wasn't connected to my heart yet.
I don't know.
But I let my brain into the room and I said,
Don't you worry,
Mom.
You're not going to hell.
It'll all be fine.
I'd read about near death experiences.
I'd read about all this and the bright light and all that.
I knew that she was fine.
And my mom,
Who couldn't swear if she was angry,
Like this woman was the kindest person.
Looked at me,
Glared at me and said.
How do you know?
I'd never seen her do.
And I just that was that feeling that.
And I never spoke about it again.
To talk about what happens after death or anything.
I don't talk about it because it changed me in that moment.
And this is the power of shame that if we feel it deeply enough,
We will change course and get back on our own soul's path.
I didn't want to be an annoying intellectual that thought she knew everything.
You know,
That wasn't I didn't want to be that person.
Where does unhealthy shame come from?
Others.
Unhealthy shame is 100 percent a controlling mechanism by others.
It's someone telling you that according to their.
Rules.
You have done something wrong.
According to the beliefs that they hold,
You are unworthy.
You are not worth their time.
According to their rules.
It's a 100 percent control.
This is really important because when shame comes from outside.
It means that there is nothing you can do to change it.
You are stuck.
You are stuck in an unworthy loop.
And there's nothing you can do because guess what?
If they want to keep shaming you,
They're just going to keep changing the rules.
Then they're going to shame you for something else.
Then they're going to shame you for something else.
This is not shame.
It's just a control mechanism.
And the problem is,
Is it preys upon your genuine conscience?
It preys upon the fact that you do care and you do respect people.
Well,
Maybe they're right.
And what is it?
What happens?
They get into your mind and then you circle in a vicious loop that never ends as you try to solve it.
As you try to do something different to make them happy.
And you can't because it has nothing to do with you.
It's all about them.
Whoever they are.
Partners,
Parents,
Society,
Children,
Neighbors,
Who knows?
The church,
Whoever it is.
It has nothing to do with you.
This is the shame that David Hawkins is talking about.
Because you end up staying there.
You end up staying there because you can't get out because it's imposed from outside.
And then you live there.
Right?
You basically just become the slave of this other person who now gets to decide how much air you breathe.
Like this is not okay.
And that's what David Hawkins is talking about.
So if that's the shame that we feel,
Then the action is to look at what we're comparing ourselves to.
According to who is this shameful?
This is the question.
That's the journey.
And then you think,
Wow,
Is it according to my parents?
Is it according to my church?
Is it according to my friends?
Is it according to my siblings?
Is it according to my partner?
Who is it that's using shame against me?
And it can be very subtle,
Right?
People who are accustomed to using shame against people,
They know all they have to do is look at you and you do something and they go.
Yeah,
I figured you'd do that.
It doesn't take much.
If you're accustomed to having shame used on you,
Even sometimes parents will use it to control their children.
Because maybe a child did something wrong and the parent doesn't know how to stop them.
So they'll use shame to control them,
To make them stop.
And maybe it's with good intention.
Right?
Maybe they just don't want them hanging out with that crowd.
Maybe they don't want whatever.
But if you're accustomed to having shame used on you,
Then it will also be used in relationship and your partner will be able to shame you and your boss will be able to shame you and your colleagues will be able to shame you.
But hear that?
They shame you.
This is all control.
This is very,
Very different than the natural,
Healthy conscience that asks,
What is in line with my truth?
And the key to always know is,
Is there action that I can take that will change this?
Or is this completely out of my control where it's coming from?
And then we just know that it's about,
It's about someone else.
It's about other.
And it's a huge discernment.
I remember,
Which I think it was the Paul,
One of Paul Coelho's books.
I don't know if it was the Alchemist or the one about the river.
But I remember when he first talked about the difference between self and other.
And again,
Very formative in my life to really be clear what is self and what is other.
You know,
That even to know that your partner,
Your,
Your most intimate loved one,
Your is your most intimate other.
I'm sure he called them that your most intimate other.
And this is fascinating because as humans,
We do mirror ourselves in others.
Right.
And so our partner is our most intimate other.
Our family might be our most intimate others.
Our friend group might be our most intimate others.
So in this oppression,
In this ability to oppress others,
It's often our most intimate others we have to look to.
What are their beliefs?
And once we know it's weird,
It's almost like magic once you see it and you see it,
You go,
Oh,
This is your stuff.
It has no power.
Has no power at all.
The shame is just gone.
It just you don't even have to work on it.
You have to be able to heal it.
It's just gone.
Healing shame is only when others have imposed it upon us and we've set parts of ourselves aside because someone else thought we were shameful.
And all we need to do is release their grip,
Release whatever is holding us.
And then that part of us that we had to send away just comes back and we get to move on on our journey.
I'm not saying this is an easy path because if we've been controlled by others through shame for decades,
It's no small thing to pull the pin on that.
But really worthy and to really understand.
It is not our problem.
So let's move on to guilt.
What is healthy guilt?
Healthy guilt,
It's linked to the shame piece,
Right?
You know,
You did something wrong.
And you genuinely feel awful about it.
So this is the big difference between in our world,
An apology and true repentance.
You could be in a,
Okay,
I'll talk about me.
If I'm in a relationship and someone wrongs me.
You know,
It happens.
I've wronged others too.
If someone wrongs me and it's one of those irreconcilable things where you're like,
You know,
When someone does something and you learn something about that person because they did it and you go,
Whoa.
Like,
Oh no.
It's just one of those moments,
You know,
And you back away.
And they're like,
I'm sorry,
I'm sorry,
I'm sorry,
I'm sorry.
And you're like,
No,
There's there's more going on here.
This isn't just a I'm sorry I did that or I'm sorry I got caught or I'm sorry.
I'm sorry you're upset about this.
I'm sorry you feel you've been hurt.
Really lovely apologies.
None of that works.
Right.
That's not actually guilt.
That's not guilt at all.
That's just disappointment that they got caught.
But then,
What if,
I don't know,
They have an aha moment.
They go for help.
They go for counseling.
They do something.
And they come back to you and they say,
Oh,
My God,
I'm so sorry.
I get it.
I understand.
I never saw it before.
I didn't know.
I'm so,
So sorry.
When someone comes in full repentance.
The whole thing disappears.
Like it's a completely different thing.
And this is the power of guilt.
If we realize we've done something wrong.
And we actually repent like this almost like shame often has to do with us.
Guilt has often to do with what we've done to others.
And when we truly look at this and say.
I'm going to make this up to you.
I don't care if it takes the rest of my life,
But I'm going to make this up to you.
That's different.
In Alcoholics Anonymous,
One of the steps is making amends.
And again,
This all begins with this agape love,
Like seeing ourselves as the addict.
Through the eyes of God.
So we at least have and I apologize if that's not your language,
But just replace it with whatever feels good.
But to see your eyes through your see yourself through the eyes of the universe.
As you you are part of this world.
And here are the things that have happened.
And you realize,
Wow,
I really wronged these people.
And I need to make amends.
When that is done in full heart,
True repentance.
Life really heals.
And it's so important like this is an important thing.
Because the truth is sometimes we make mistakes.
You know,
We're all just bumbling around trying to figure things out.
Sometimes we're afraid.
Sometimes we act out of anger and pride and all these things.
You know,
Sometimes we are living in those lower.
Well,
Most people are most people are living in those lower emotions.
And when we live in those lower emotions,
If we are just caught in shame and guilt and anger and pride and apathy.
We're going to make mistakes.
We're going to hurt people.
But if we actually feel that guilt and we say.
Oh,
That was so wrong,
Like so wrong.
And we go to that other person and say,
I'm really,
Really sorry.
That is a matter if you forgive me,
I just I need you to know that I get it.
This creates a bond between people.
Like this is literally my most vulnerable self,
Hopefully connecting with your most vulnerable self because I really care.
You know,
This is really powerful.
This is important.
An important emotion for a human to have.
To be able to say that.
Really,
Really important.
So again,
Where does unhealthy guilt come from?
The outside.
Other.
Right in the Christian faith.
We're sinful from birth.
All we have to do is think something.
And we've already sinned.
And don't get me wrong,
There's lots about the Christian faith that I love.
There's lots of beautiful teachings.
But on the earthly plane,
What they did with the teachings of Jesus.
It's,
In my opinion.
All about control.
You know,
None of it was what Jesus taught.
And yet,
How do we how do we control the people?
Guilt.
Shame.
Here are the things and again,
What do we see here?
There is no action you can take to fix this.
You're stuck in guilt.
There is nothing you can do because in the eyes of God,
You are a sinner.
If you even have a lustful thought,
You may as well have had sex with her.
It's crazy talk.
We don't even begin to understand how the mind works.
There are people who believe or however you want to say it.
That we are like radio towers picking up on the consciousness on a million levels.
The thoughts that come through our mind may not even be yours.
Right?
I mean,
Sometimes I walk along and thoughts come into my mind and I'm like,
Whoa,
Where'd that come from?
Or maybe it was from a different lifetime.
Or maybe,
Who knows?
The idea that I had a thought and therefore I'm rotten.
Well,
That doesn't even make any sense.
Because it's not true.
All guilt imposed from the outside in isn't real.
It's all fabricated.
It's just a control game.
And this again,
It's so important to discern between self and other.
As soon as we know personally,
I feel horrible about this.
We do maybe have to look at our trainings.
Right?
Am I feeling bad because my family training was this?
Do you know like is it a book inside my head that was put there by someone else?
Or is it real?
You know,
Is it actually genuine guilt?
It's very,
Very important to discern the book of rules by other versus my own personal life's path.
And it's and again,
It's so interesting to look at both of these examples of shame and guilt.
Because when it's imposed by other,
There is nothing you can do.
You are stuck in this level of consciousness.
One interesting thing that David Hawkins said was that,
So these levels,
So for example,
You'll see how there's a number.
Shame is 20,
Guilt is 30,
Apathy is,
I don't know,
My glasses on,
50.
It keeps going up.
These numbers aren't linear.
20 isn't 10 more than 10.
It's not double.
They call it a logarithmic scale.
So if imagine instead,
It's shame is 10 to the exponent 10.
So it's 10 times 10 times 10 times 10,
Like 10 times.
Shame,
Guilt is 10 to the 20th.
So it's 10 times 10,
So it's one and 20 zeros.
10 to the 50 is one with 50 zeros.
So this scale goes like this,
Like to rise from shame to guilt or to get to courage.
10 with 200 zeros.
This is a huge soul's journey.
And David Hawkins at the time,
20 some odd years ago,
I mean,
I don't know,
The book must have come out 25 years ago or so,
According to my personal timeline anyway.
He said he goes,
The chance of someone shifting from shame to guilt or to rise up is very small.
But I believe in 2021,
Everything's faster.
I believe that we are more capable today of discerning between self and other.
I believe it's easier to connect within.
Just even think of how much more on a very physical level we've all meditated in the last 25 years.
How much more aware we are,
How many different teachings there are that help us really hear inside and look around us and go,
Wow,
This isn't about me at all.
Like today,
We effortlessly say things like,
Wow,
I'm really projecting onto that person.
Or that person seems to be a narcissist.
Interesting.
Like these are words we never used 25 years ago.
So I believe that the ability to discern within is so much stronger today.
Like we can take an elevator now if we're honest and we really embrace it and we learn all the bits,
You know,
And we look at it.
So the one thing I want to talk about guilt,
Though,
Is sometimes we have regrets.
Sometimes we have regrets that we don't know what to do with.
Right,
Those things that I wish I never said or I wish I had done and maybe the person has passed.
Maybe we can't change it now.
And this is interesting because regrets feel like they're like almost a mixture of shame and guilt because we genuinely feel them.
But we don't know what to do because for whatever reason,
We cannot make amends.
We can't apologize.
And for me,
And I can only speak for me personally.
Ideally,
It's finding what works for you to resolve this.
So what I share is only how I see it and what resonates for me and how it's helped me in times of great regret.
But for me,
It's like.
It's even when you have that pit in the bottom of your stomach of shame and you think,
What do I do?
So these are just these are just the words I use,
So feel free to just replace them.
But I do pray.
I do sit in meditation.
And I ask for guidance.
And I say,
I don't know what to do with this.
I want to fix it.
I don't want that person to feel badly.
I feel sick that I might have hurt them.
What do I do?
And oftentimes there is an action that comes.
Sometimes it's just even saying that to the universe to understand how powerful it is to simply say it.
And sometimes we can truly do something in the world to make amends.
You know,
Maybe it's paying it forward.
Maybe I can't help that person and I can't.
But I can go out and I can really help in the world.
And I don't mean I'm just going to go do this because I feel guilty.
That's not it.
We use it and we say,
All right,
Why did this come into my life?
Like I genuinely believe that everything happens for a reason.
So if I am plagued with guilt and regret,
Then I have to ask myself,
Why has that come across my soul's path?
What is it about that that I can build on and maybe do something different in life?
Maybe choose to do something that I love to do that would benefit others.
So there's always that action question.
Very,
Very important because these can be very powerful human and human foundations to really understand our own soul.
But it's never about what others think.
And that's all we really have to know.
I'm going to put my glasses on and look at any questions you might have.
I've lived under the cloak of unhealthy shame for decades because I'm gay.
I have not been able to move out from under it.
It's such a tough one.
The gay thing is so interesting because it's so completely imposed upon by others.
And it's such nonsense.
Right.
Like it's absolute nonsense.
It's like my favorite.
One of my favorite scenes in Harry Potter is when they have to fight a I think they call it a Bogart or something.
And it's this spirit that will appear as your greatest fear.
And so Professor whatever the cool one who turns into the werewolf,
He he has a Bogart in the closet and he stands in front of the closet.
And as soon as the door opens,
The person's greatest fear will appear.
And what is the spell to get rid of it?
Ridiculoso.
Ridiculoso.
Like the idea that people have been shamed for who they love or who they're attracted to is pure nonsense.
Ridiculoso.
It's such nonsense you can barely stand it.
And it's not even the world over.
It's not even like all all cultures believed this.
It was just some very specific religions,
Religious people who used it to control others.
It's such sheer nonsense.
And there's almost this thing that we have to come to sometimes for all of us that just sort of look at things and go,
Wow,
I see you.
I see you.
I see that you're nonsense.
And to me,
Like the idea this whole thing about anything,
Especially especially in the LGBTQ community,
Like anything to do with trans or orientation,
All that.
It's just the idea that anyone can look in on anyone else's life.
I don't know.
I understand.
Don't get me wrong.
I'm not minimizing the shame.
I'm not minimizing the hell.
I don't I don't.
I'm not minimizing at all.
But in the land of getting out of it,
There's something about just looking at them and saying,
That's ridiculous.
Grow up.
In real sobriety.
Strange that those closest to me feel like I'm wasting my time with New Age stuff.
I don't need approval,
But I get dirty.
You know,
What's really funny is one time I used to teach yoga teacher trainings all the time.
I'm beginning again,
But I used to teach these teacher trainings and I used to have a friend of mine who is this hardcore yogi.
And she used to fly up from California and teach a weekend in one year.
She asked everyone to do this series of mantras that we had to chant every single day.
And she says you and she went around and made every person promise that they were going to chant these mantras every single day.
And I ended up staying at a friend of mine's place who's a complete like she's a total atheist,
Like nothing against atheists.
But the idea of chanting mantras and stuff like she's like she's real.
She's a really old friend.
She's awesome.
And but she's just so not into any of this,
Anything New Agey,
Yoga,
Meditation,
Spirituality,
Like nothing.
We're like nothing alike in that way.
So I get to her place and it was this great journey of me sitting there in the morning wanting to get up and do this chanting.
And she lives in a log cabin in the woods in northern Ontario.
It's all open concept.
If I chanted in there and it was wintertime,
I couldn't go outside.
It was too cold.
I had to chant in this big open air log cabin and the journey inside my heart to find the courage to do this in front of her and her husband.
Anyway,
So I finally just did it and I sat.
I was on the lowest level and I just sat there and I did the chanting.
It was like 20 minutes or something and I just trusted that I was supposed to be doing it.
And then I kind of like climbed the stairs up,
You know,
Hoping that maybe they were sleeping the whole time.
Anyway,
She came down and she just looked at me.
She's like,
Well,
That was different.
I said,
Yeah.
And she says,
It's kind of nice.
So funny.
You just never know.
One time,
One time.
So I used to own a train station in town here.
I bought an old train station and renovated into a wellness center.
If you Google,
If you go on YouTube and you look for East Street Station,
Goderich,
You'll see my train station.
It's a video that the town made trying to draw people into the town.
Anyway,
There were two train stations in town and a friend of mine from another town came in for something else.
And he was down at the other train station.
The mayor was there and he was this old guy.
And he says to the mayor,
He says,
My friend bought a train station here and she renovated it.
Is this the one?
And the mayor says to him,
No,
No,
No.
That's the one at the other end of town.
She fixed it up.
It's very nice.
That's where all the weird stuff is in town.
So,
You know what I'm saying?
Sometimes being a bit weird is it's OK.
Weird is awesome.
Yeah.
My weirdness.
Thanks.
I know,
Right?
Like weird is awesome.
Awesome.
Maybe we still haven't really gotten over the me versus us.
Like we had a hard time accepting others.
Remember a long time ago,
Deepak Chopra talked about how the stage of evolution and how all the stages of evolution existed right now inside of us.
That maybe deep inside,
There's still a part of us that is like clannish or neanderthal,
Like that.
If you're different than me,
I have to kill you because you're not one of us.
So I have to kill you.
Like there's this weird whispering inside.
Right.
That says tribal like that.
You're different.
You're different color.
You sound funny.
I have to kill you.
Right.
It's it's you know what I mean?
Like it's almost like it whispers and it's louder in some people than others because it doesn't make any sense.
So thank you guys so much for being here.
We'll see you guys later.
