So,
Hello.
So,
I just want to drop in really,
Final session of the A Mindful Life series of stories.
Not with a story really,
Just with a few words of parting.
And to share a teaching with you,
Which I came across a while ago.
So,
Let's start there.
So,
Imagine you go shopping into a large grocery store,
Or what we call a supermarket here in the UK.
And there's a large car park,
A large parking lot,
Hundreds of cars there.
And you go in and you get your little treats,
And you get all your weekly shopping,
Your little olives and maybe your pastries and all your nice things,
Which we do.
And you come out and instead of going straight to your own car or your own automobile,
You go around the car park,
Randomly trying every car,
Trying to open every car,
Just randomly.
There's hundreds of them,
And you go around every one of them.
Now,
Can you imagine how long that would take,
The inefficiency,
But also how much trouble would you get in?
You know,
Some people are going to phone the police.
What on earth is this person doing,
Trying all these cars?
Now,
When you come out of the grocery store,
What would you normally do?
Well,
You'd go to the one car that is useful to you,
The one you arrived in,
The one that you have the keys for,
The one that will take you home.
Now,
Why am I saying this?
Why am I talking about going into a parking lot and trying all the automobiles?
Sounds a bit ridiculous.
Well,
When it comes to our car in the car park,
We do select the one car that's useful to us.
We do that,
Ordinarily anyway.
But with our thoughts,
We don't.
It's like we try every thought on for size.
We get involved in every thought,
Just about every thought,
I'd say 90-95%.
We get involved in them.
We try them out.
Another metaphor is like we're standing at the bus stop or on the platform of the train station,
And we jump on every bus that comes along.
We hop on every train that enters the station.
We don't look at the number or the destination.
We just hop on.
Can you imagine?
That's what we do with thoughts.
We are not interested in the destination,
In the content of the thought.
We just get on there.
We just get in there and get involved,
And we reap the consequences.
So,
If the thoughts are anxious thoughts,
Anxious content,
After a few moments you will start to feel anxious,
Because the emotions follow the thoughts.
So,
The thought you believe is the experience you will get.
So,
If it's an anxious thought you're believing,
What follows,
Like the cart follows the horse,
Is the emotion.
The emotion follows the thoughts,
The belief thoughts.
So,
Then the whole thing,
The whole story feels real.
The stories in our head are the stories we mostly listen to.
I've been sharing stories with you from one of my books,
Which when looked at and when digested can be helpful to us,
Or just amusing,
Or just nice to listen to.
But the stories we have in our heads can make us very unhappy,
Anxious,
Ill at ease,
Feeling sad,
Lonely,
Scared,
Because these thoughts are taking us on rides,
Emotional rides.
So,
My suggestion is to start,
And some of you have started,
I know that some of you attend to my other live sessions,
Listen to the other courses,
Are beginning to get a taste of presence.
Presence is that in which the stories actually appear,
But we tend,
In a certain sort of way,
It's not exactly how it is,
But we tend to leave presence and enter into this imaginary world,
Of these egoic stories of tragedy,
Of comedy,
Of fantasy,
Whatever.
What I'm suggesting,
If you want peace in your life,
You have to start to decline the invitations of mind,
Because these stories are invitations to enter into its world.
Because mind is interested in one thing,
Egoic mind,
I'm not talking about practical mind,
And creative mind,
But the self-centred egoic mind is interested in only one thing,
And that's its own survival,
And survives on only one thing,
Your attention,
Your energy.
It's an energy vampire.
So,
Sit down each day for five minutes,
Ten minutes,
And just have the intention of,
I'm going to do my best to observe the thoughts.
You will still get lost in them,
The moment you notice that,
Come out.
Take the attention back from the story,
From the thoughts,
From trying all those cars,
Those automobiles,
Back here,
To presence.
You are not a story,
Your life is not a story.
There are some stories,
Like hopefully the ones I've shared with you,
Can be really helpful,
And beautiful,
And humorous,
And thought-provoking,
Because they're not self-centred,
They're not egoic-centred,
They're not referring to,
Oh poor me,
This is going to happen to me,
This may happen,
That may happen.
They're dropping in,
Hopefully,
Little pearls of wisdom,
That have been around for centuries.
And just to,
I'm just going to share this with you,
It's just something I've come across about stories,
The positive stories,
Not the egoic stories.
One of the most remarkable findings from the neuroscience of storytelling,
Is that when we listen to a story,
Our brain activity synchronises with that of the storyteller.
This phenomenon,
Known as neural coupling,
Allows us to experience the story as if we were living it ourselves.
Lovely.
So I think that's all I wanted to share guys,
It's just a thank you for listening,
Thank you for taking time out to,
And hopefully enjoy the stories.
Remember there are other courses I have,
If you're interested.
Falling in love with presents,
Being the most popular one.
So,
Well,
That's it.
Thank you,
Bye-bye.
