Meghan's Questions About Mind Confusion And Patience

So I'm here with Megan and Megan's got some questions.

Um,

Hi.

Um,

I guess,

Yeah,

My question is,

How do you navigate this and,

Um,

Feel like you're,

You're moving forward when,

You know,

You have things that kind of knock you down or you're just bumbling around and you think you're doing things the right way and taking the right steps,

But you find out that you're just,

Um,

Reinforcing your ego or falling back into habits.

Um,

And then that like feeling sorry for yourself and that pity comes in.

And you're talking about how difficult it can be to walk the spiritual journey and how lost we can get sometimes.

And this is a really good question.

And even your upset at this moment is really good because this is what the journey is like.

Sometimes it's like it can seem really kind of difficult and hopeless and messy.

Emotionally.

So,

One of the things for,

I think it's probably all the people in the world,

But also for us Westerners where we've been trained to be so much in our heads and that's so emphasized in our culture that when we go to the spiritual journey,

Which requires actually getting to know your,

Your heart,

Which is where your connection to truth is.

It's,

Yeah,

The center part.

The heart includes the physical person,

But it also includes the connection to who you're really born to be,

Who you truly are.

So we Westerners were conditioned really to run from this.

So we're more,

We're too much in our heads.

So when we go to wake up,

What happens is the first,

First part of the journey,

We realize how lost in our heads we are.

That's Yeah.

And then we will often even sometimes make that worse by witnessing,

Trying to witness ourselves,

But we're witnessing from the ego rather than from the loving soul.

So the,

The ego will try to dislodge us from the journey by pretending to be the witness,

But it will be filling us with this is bad and this is good.

Whereas when we're truly witnessing from the soul,

There's kind of a loving neutrality.

It's like a mother with a loving mother with a little toddler.

She knows the child's just a toddler.

She's not expecting very much.

She's just witnessing and loving.

And as we witnessed from that perspective from this,

From our more our new neutral loving of our soul,

What is the ego will shrink as a byproduct if we're witnessing from our ego,

The ego will get bigger.

See?

Yeah.

So this is what happens and then sometimes the ego gets really big,

And then there's a big crash.

Finally,

You know,

Like a fall,

And the person's faced with how big their ego is and how much they're caught in their mind.

So,

For you,

And I think for lots of people when you notice that you're stuck in your mind,

Just start a mantra.

You know,

The East has had spiritual traditions,

Thousands and thousands of years,

They really know stuff that the West with our focus on the outer,

You know,

We're great at building bridges,

But we're not great about the spiritual journey about how to actually live it.

So the East,

They talk about mantras.

Say a mantra.

My mantra used to be self compassion.

I would just send compassion to this flawed fragment who was making such a mess of real life,

And I kept doing it,

And it's like as Ama,

My teacher,

The hugging scene says it's like pouring clear water into a glass of salty water,

You keep pouring love into yourself.

And just as the salt will get replaced,

The salty water will get replaced by the clear water,

Your ego actually gets replaced by your soul.

Okay.

But when,

You know,

When the when the ego is being dislodged,

It fights a lot,

And it will fuel your mind and,

You know,

Fuel your emotions with upset,

And just,

Again,

The mantra,

Do whatever you can to comfort yourself.

Yeah,

I mean,

You're even looking more comforted just hearing this.

Well,

That's exactly what happened,

You know,

Before we started recording.

Like my initial thought was like,

Oh,

We were,

You know,

You were doing so well.

Pramasuddha was telling you you were doing so well and then that slip off,

You know,

And then just thinking you did it wrong you did it wrong,

You did it wrong,

And it just took away all the good.

You know,

This is why really spiritual teachers have to be really careful with praise.

I mean,

What I try to do is just like,

It's like validating somebody that they're on the right track.

It's like a little kid if you're working with a little kid and they're trying to help you in the kitchen.

And,

But they're doing something that's mildly constructive you go Yeah,

Good.

Keep it up.

But you're not expecting them to be able to cook you dinner.

So remember,

It's like,

It's not that much expected it's just that you're getting on the right track.

I mean,

This is why you know it's actually quite dangerous to praise people because the ego grabs it.

So,

You have to be careful but then you know I don't want to be so,

So kind of just coughing with people so you know you're on the right track.

So,

That's what I was telling you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know Westerners,

We,

It's funny because we,

We feel bad about ourselves,

Often underneath,

But actually we're not humble and open to learn like a child a child,

Child has self confidence,

Beliefs in themselves,

But they're open to learn because they know they,

They don't know,

Right,

They're not.

There's a lot to learn.

So,

That's what works best is believing in yourself but being humble like open to learn.

Yeah,

And it's hard for us Westerners it was hard for me to like I opened your book last night before.

Oh yeah before the session last night and it opened to humility.

So,

The spiritual psychology book right.

Yeah,

Yeah,

That's on Amazon and there are 150 for anybody's interested there are 154 essays on your emotions and spiritual states and you can just choose a number and you'll get reflected back where you are.

Yeah,

The humility yeah very on point after this.

Yeah,

It's what you need to learn.

Yeah,

So it's good,

But it's good.

You are.

You're humble enough to do this training.

I mean that's something.

Yeah.

Sweetie.

Yeah.

Is there anything else that comes to mind or we complete either is okay.

I feel good about that.

I feel I,

The question about patience,

I mean,

It might be good for other folks.

We were talking about you were saying that it was hard to be patient with people.

Why is it so difficult to feel to have that patience with people and it's,

It's usually the people that are closest to me in my life that I have.

You know,

When I was talking about how we're conditioned to run away from our hearts right.

So,

The people closest to us are actually the most threatening for our egos.

Yeah.

So it's only if we do the deeper work of making friends with our own selves and being patient with our own selves and we can offer it to others.

Otherwise we're running an intolerance underneath and intolerance to ourselves and intolerance to others but it's really an intolerance to our own hearts to the love in our own hearts.

And I,

You know,

I don't know how far we're going to go in the West,

This way.

But I,

As I've said so often I feel it's up to us women you know to to really lead the thing back to the heart,

And it's the hardest of all I used to be so intolerant,

Oh my goodness.

Oh,

It took me.

Oh,

It's terrible.

And,

You know,

I,

It made me so physically uncomfortable and emotionally uncomfortable and all I could do was just pray and send compassion to myself and find creative outlets and get enough exercise and,

You know,

Just,

We're human beings and we're in a big growth curve at this time in the world.

I mean,

Really,

A really big growth jump.

And it's,

It's hard,

You know.

But even noticing that you're intolerant,

Or you know lack patience.

That's the first step to moving into more patience.

And the more you love and accept yourself,

The more patience you'll have with others.

It's sort of like a good mom.

She's really patient right?

No really,

Really.

And again,

It comes to that you know we need more of the feminine attributes coming in more and one of them is patience that is the realm of the patient of the female is patience like the patience waiting for pregnancy or for the baby to be born or the pregnancy or the patience with a with plants growing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good questions.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Just takes time.

Just steer that way.

Yeah.

You know,

Sometimes you know you might get a sleepless night,

Where you feel you feel the great sorrow at how impatient,

The lack of patience and the cost of it.

And that is will heal it,

That,

That is one of the most powerful things that a person can do is feel the sorrow of continuing this way feeling the cost of it.

Yeah,

And then I'll tell you that will stop,

That will heal your ego will shrink.

If you,

If you dare have an uncomfortable night like that.

Okay.

Bless your heart.