You know,
On the journey,
We could be doing spiritual practices for hours every day and still not making much progress if we miss the obvious.
What the obvious is,
Is that we're really,
Really valuable and it really matters how we feel.
And we have to learn to take care of our hearts.
We have to learn to take care of ourselves emotionally and spiritually.
You know,
I want to talk about,
Say,
Dealing with bullies.
You see,
If you've got bullies in your life and you're meditating like mad,
Maybe you just need to become more present in your life and speak up.
Now,
You know,
With bullies,
Sometimes with somebody who's really ignorant,
Sometimes we have to be very fierce and they just won't understand anything else.
But lots of times in this world,
Somebody might not even realize that they're kind of bullying us.
And all we need to do is pull back,
Get really clear about how we feel,
Come to a kind of an inner peace or neutrality about it before we speak so that we're really clear about what we really wish to communicate to this person.
And then just do it.
I'll tell you that's taking your power.
That can be more effective than hours and hours and hours of meditation.
If even in our practice,
We're kowtowing to a belief that we're not that much.
You see,
That's the problem.
If you don't think you're much,
Really,
You could meditate for 10 years before you maybe made the change,
Or you can just face it in your life.
So this can be scary,
You know,
It's a little bit like,
Oh,
Am I gonna,
You know,
Well,
I,
The ego might give us feelings that will die if we stand up to this person.
But you won't die,
You know,
Your ego will die.
So I want to give an example out of my own life,
Just for absolute clarity,
Because,
You know,
Sometimes these talks,
It can be challenging to,
You know,
Find the words for the truth.
But anyway,
So I live in a very small kind of apartment complex.
And there's a very nice building manager,
But he has been overly concerned about my track and me.
So he would,
You know,
Measure if so he thought if he thought it was my tire tracks,
He would measure how far it was from the gate.
And then tell me,
You know,
I had to be more careful.
And it was just like,
And he was trying to tell me that I should sell it and everything.
And maybe I will.
But it's just,
I don't know why this guy was getting so interested.
Anyway,
It was impacting me in the sense of every time I got in my truck,
I started feeling a little insecure,
And erotic about driving it.
So I realized that I was gonna have to,
You know,
Speak to him.
And,
You know,
I took a few days to go,
How am I going to do this?
Because I wanted to do it as you know,
Gracefully,
Elegantly,
And as compassionately as possible.
But I really wanted my freedom from this overhang of this heavy concern he had,
Which again,
Would be a reflection of what my intellect is doing to me.
But you see,
I can deal with it in real life.
And then that part of my ego will dissolve to see.
That's what makes it easier than meditation sometimes.
So anyway,
I spoke to this gentleman and I said,
I approached him with great neutrality.
And I said,
We just not talk about my truck.
And he said,
Sure.
So we haven't talked about my truck ever since.
I feel more spacious,
I'm sure he feels more spacious.
It's all good.
Now,
This is a very gentle example of what I'm talking about.
It's very non messy.
I think part of the reason it was so non messy was because I was so clear.
So when I spoke my very gentle words to him,
There was a huge energy behind it.
Neutral energy,
But a big energy.
And so he just went,
Okay.
Okay,
So just,
You know,
Especially for women,
You know,
About taking your power,
You can do it,
You can do it.
Okay,
Bless your dear,
Dear heart.
