Live With Don McAvinchey & Dayana Pereira- 10/5/23

That's okay.

Well,

Welcome everybody.

Welcome to this live session with Don and me and Violet pulling all the knobs behind the scenes so we can make this happen.

And as you can see,

We are,

We are troubleshooting the technology because Don is not here,

But he was here a minute ago and he's in Sri Lanka right now.

He's doing a beautiful labor of love,

Work of love in this Gandhi.

I call it embodiment.

He called it persona.

It doesn't matter.

It's,

It is what it is.

It's Gandhi's spirit moving through Don's body as he walks and talks and meets people in different parts of the world.

And in this case in Sri Lanka,

And I'm,

I'm connecting his experience.

And I was asking him to share,

How does that relate to surrendering to life?

And we have a lot of beautiful insights to share with you about that book today.

Michael Singer's book,

Surrendering,

The Surrender Experiment.

And as we were discussing that during a call earlier this week,

We're thinking,

What do we know about surrendering to life?

And as I'm preparing for this call,

After that conversation,

I'm thinking,

You're doing it right now.

You're doing it with that walk in,

In,

In those rows.

So I want to hear more about that.

Oh,

That's why you jumped out.

Look at you.

I got you.

Look at that.

Blessings.

I love that.

The echo of spirit.

Yes.

Okay.

I,

I gave you,

I gave them a brief introduction,

Just a snippet about how we came about to this topic based on this book that we're going to share more about.

And also that in my preparation,

Heart,

Mind,

Spirit,

All of it prepares for these conversations in aligning with it without scripting it.

And as I'm aligning with this topic,

I'm thinking,

Wait,

What more an example of surrendering to life than what you're doing right now?

So in that context,

I was wondering if you want to share how does this come about for how long and what does it mean to you?

And what is the response?

So how did life call you to surrender and in this beautiful way?

And what is the response that you're receiving from life?

Yeah,

I,

Uh,

I organized a celebration of the hundredth anniversary of Gandhi's movement,

The beginning of Gandhi's movement,

Movement Satyagraha in 2006.

The actual date of the beginning of Satyagraha was 9,

11,

1906.

So that's sort of interesting that it was September 11th.

Um,

So people around the world were celebrating the hundredth anniversary and I organized a showing of the movie Gandhi at the Unitarian church in Santa Fe,

New Mexico,

Where I was living.

And it went really well.

Um,

We had just invaded Iraq.

So that was pretty prescient and people's,

They asked me to come back and do another one.

So I did,

And that went really well also.

And then the funny thing that has set this all in motion happened.

They said,

Would you come back and do a Sunday service?

And I said,

Sure.

How about if I come back since Mr.

Gandhi and I share the same hairstylist,

I'll come back as him.

And it was a joke.

I had no intention of doing it,

But I had three months to think about what I wanted to do.

And I said,

Why not?

Why not do like a,

You're calling it an embodiment.

Why not do a portrayal of Gandhi?

And I asked my friend,

Doug Stewart,

Who was a playwright in Santa Fe at the time to help me out with it.

So we did a script interview kind of thing and for about 15 minutes.

And then we opened it up to the audience.

We had about 15 minutes left and 45 minutes later,

They had to kick us out because people just kept asking questions of Gandhi about their family and their kids and what about president Bush and I just stayed in the character of it and it was an incredibly moving experience.

So that has now turned into counting these talks that I've given here.

126 presentations of Gandhi's philosophy dressed like this in the United States and six trips to India and now one trip.

In terms of your question,

Second question about surrender.

You know,

There's a part,

I'm from the Midwest,

Kind of straight shooting,

Shooting kind of people.

You know,

We sort of straight up,

You know,

So this is totally bizarre to do this.

And I have to just keep surrendering into it every time.

And people's response to me here in Sri Lanka,

I've had so many people come up to me and say that this was the most powerful,

Important thing they've ever experienced in their life.

And I'm,

I'm just standing up talking about Gandhi's philosophy.

I'm not even trying to like portray him here.

I'm dressing like this and then talking about it.

And I never expected that reason ever.

So that's blowing my mind.

But it also,

The last part also.

We lost him for a little bit.

I can imagine the connection between here and Sri Lanka,

Plus the time difference being part of this.

But wow.

Huh?

I take your comment.

Oh,

Definitely has shifted me.

Sorry.

You got frozen for a minute.

I don't know if we,

If we lost some of what you were saying.

I just heard shifted me.

Definitely has shifted me.

Shifted me for sure.

In what way?

Uh,

Well,

My youngest daughter was around when this was happening.

The other three kids of mine had,

Had left home.

And a few years after she said,

Boy,

I'm really glad Mr.

Gandhi came,

Came along.

I said,

Why is that?

Um,

She said,

Cause you're not so angry anymore.

And I said,

Angry?

What are you talking about?

Me?

Angry?

She goes,

Oh my God,

Dad.

You know,

Like a 16 year old would do.

Um,

Yeah,

It's really moved things very,

It's in some ways it feels very purposefully.

And I said this in a talk I gave in front of the Indian ambassador and the Vietnamese ambassador three nights ago,

A bunch of other people,

Um,

That one of Gandhi's tenants,

I think of his philosophy is to evolve as a person toward Ahimsa and Ahimsa meaning not just nonviolence,

But this beautiful divine love that have within us.

And acknowledging that same divine love in somebody else and having that,

The journey to evolve into that,

Through that surrender,

Learn this thing all day long.

And I'm taking it off now,

But I just wanted to show you all what it looks like.

Ooh,

Thank you so much.

What a beautiful,

What a beautiful description of surrendering and the gift of Ahimsa that is what I was hoping that you would say that you receive from life back,

Right?

I think in my own experience,

And I can share details if you want to,

But I think as a nut,

In a nutshell,

What I can say is that the gift of surrendering is that sense of divine love ignited within it's,

It's,

It's a certainty that we're not your,

You know,

Physical matter.

It's a certain that we're not separate.

It's almost like,

See,

Told you,

Right?

But just,

You feel that from life,

Right?

When you trust,

When you surrender.

So let's break it down a little bit.

Like,

I'll say you for sharing and of course,

Everyone feel free to share in the chat,

Your own experience of this,

Your questions for us,

For that,

For Dan,

For me,

For how would Gandhi see it?

We have the chance to ask Gandhi too.

What,

What is truly to render?

Like,

What does surrender mean?

And feel free to share from what you know to be true from Michael Singer's books,

Since you brought this to the,

To the conversation.

What is surrender?

Because surrender can be misunderstood by people.

Surrender can also mean I give up,

Like in war,

Right?

So what is surrender?

I'm going to pull a therapist trick in 10 seconds and turn it back on you,

But I'll just say real quickly for me,

The first step is about accepting that energetic,

That divine love,

That sense of being,

Being present,

Following that in our words and our thoughts or actions.

And the harder step to me is to accept when difficult things happen and surrender into those and say,

This is an opportunity for me to let go and let go and let go.

And that was the big takeaway from Michael Singer's book that I got.

He's literally spent his whole adult life accepting when someone comes and gives him something,

Like offers an opportunity.

He says,

Yes,

Even though there's a part of his mind going,

There's no frigging way I can pull that off.

There's just no way.

And then he says yes to it and somehow pulls it off.

And then when things go really badly,

Which happened throughout his life and talks about it in his book,

To say,

I'm going to let go into this,

I'm just going to let go,

Have it be a vehicle for my burning away part of self would restrict instead of expand.

So to me,

Those are the two big pieces of it,

Especially from his book,

But also that I've been,

I've been with.

So back to you,

Diane,

What's your thought about it?

Summarize those two for me again,

The two pieces.

Yeah,

The first first piece is about accepting what is,

Accepting what's happening and practicing letting go,

Just not trying to control things,

Not trying to to literally saying yes to opportunities when they come up.

The second piece is when what we normally think of as bad things,

When bad things happen,

To as much as possible release and let go into the bad thing and see it as a vehicle for burning away our restrictions to letting go.

Interesting.

So as it's in itself,

The mechanism of surrendering works on you to allow you to surrender even more deeply.

Right.

And to change,

Because if you surrender more deeply into the bad thing,

The so-called bad thing,

You really,

I mean,

You really have to let go of who you think you are.

Tell me more.

That's a big thing to do.

What do you mean by letting go of who you think you are in that context?

When we when we have these bad experiences in life,

Really challenging,

Difficult experiences,

Usually what we do is we kind of go like this.

We defend ourselves in some way.

They're like this or like this or something,

Just kind of naturally defend.

And if you don't defend and bad things are coming at you and you just accept it,

You don't resist it,

Then that tendency to protect yourself can shed away,

Which means your sense of who you are as a person can shed away.

And what he talks about in the book,

And I've certainly seen this in my life,

We start to experience this deeper,

Richer,

Thicker sense of who we actually are instead of all the roles and the constructs and the ways that we try to portray ourselves in the world,

That stuff can disappear when we get,

When the burning,

Because it literally gets burned away.

And then you're left with just me,

Self.

And some people report,

Like my spiritual counselor reports,

He doesn't even think of himself as Jonathan.

He just thinks of himself as this being that's in existence who some people call Jonathan,

Which is intriguing to me.

Yeah,

Yeah.

So,

So what is self?

Yeah,

There's a big question.

Right?

Well,

Let's follow the rabbit hole.

I'll answer.

I'm not trying to evade the question,

But I'm looking at these two pieces,

Acceptance and letting go and noticing that allowing you to accept and let go,

Peels off the layers,

Burns out the layers of this constructed identity that is not self.

So as you peel and burn off the layers,

You get to more and more of self.

Okay,

So what is self?

Yeah,

Yes.

Right?

If we knew we couldn't,

If we could understand the absolute,

It wouldn't be the absolute,

Right?

So that's,

There's no,

There's no answer to that.

But we know we felt it.

We've had a glimpse.

And for me,

When you ask me about surrender,

The first thing that came to mind is acceptance,

By the way.

Like what,

What is surrender mean to me?

Means,

Means saying yes,

Means acceptance.

Um,

And it's nuanced at the same time,

Because sometimes I have to accept that I don't have right now enough attention span to say,

Let's do this project together.

While I would like to say yes.

So it's a yes of a no,

You see what I mean?

Offered all the time opportunity to collaborate.

And,

And I have to say sometimes not right now,

But I'm surrendering to my knowing to,

To the yes,

To myself.

And the one thing that I'm building right now,

I decided a while ago to build one thing at a time consistently.

Right.

And in the essentialism kind of way.

So it's an acceptance,

But it's not,

I'm going to say yes,

Absolutely.

To everything that comes my way.

I'm going to say yes to me checking in with myself.

Is this for my highest good in this moment?

Is this,

Um,

Person,

This project,

This food,

This drink,

This media,

This thoughts,

This feeling on and on.

And so acceptance.

And in that sense,

Yes,

You have to accept more than what you say.

Yes.

To specifically also acceptance to what is presented to you.

And it looks sometimes like bad thing.

I don't think there's bad things.

I know that they are obstacles sometimes in a perceived path forward,

But those obstacles are the way of knowing the truth.

So there's a big juicy lesson in each obstacle.

So if you wouldn't accept those being resistance to that is the opposite of surrender is retreating into control of,

Oh,

This,

This is not good for me now.

So I'm not going to take that in.

I'm not going to accept that it's happening,

But I don't want to see it.

So I'm going to perceive it as an enemy and I'm going to resist and I'm going to push back.

So for me,

Surrender also feels like being in the ocean,

Feeling part of the though I know I'm me,

This is my body in the ocean and being able to be more than one thing in that ocean,

Being able to float,

Being able to swim,

Being able to,

You know,

Pirouette,

Being able to be still being able to simply feel part of it.

So it's a merging with,

For me,

Surrendering is a merging with what is merging,

Like,

Uh,

Uniting,

Connecting,

Allowing.

So coming back to your question,

When you think of the self,

Is it the self that's merging or something else that's merging?

Then when,

When the merging happens,

I dissolve this separate body into the greater self.

That's what it feels to me,

Right?

Much like the ocean,

Right?

If you,

If you go into the ocean and at the beginning it's cold and you don't know if you want to step in and it's like,

Oh,

Maybe not today,

Right?

As you step in and you see,

Oh,

It's not that cold.

And actually if I'm under it,

It's less cold than if I'm,

You know,

Some,

Depending on the weather,

I guess.

But usually at least in this part of the East,

You get under the water and it's way nicer and you feel that sense of participation with it and flow with it and merging with it to a point that you might forget where does your body end and the ocean begin,

Right?

So I think that's a pretty good metaphor for me,

At least our image of self.

Could we say that self is that greatest ocean that could unify us all and everything that is right.

And then we have this perception from our own eyes,

Our own perspective.

Um,

I feel like a woman,

I'm a mother of two,

You know,

My identity,

Like smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller,

That's not what it feels all the time,

Many times,

Especially when we achieve these beautiful states in meditation,

Um,

Out in nature,

Like orgasmic states,

Right?

Beyond our self states,

You feel part of something bigger.

And if you could encapsulate it and say,

This is what it is,

It wouldn't be it because it would be too small.

That's the problem with those three letter words.

They're just too small.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's getting warm here.

I'm going to turn on my AC.

Okay.

Do you have any questions about this?

I see where a lot of soul souls in this live session right now.

And do you have questions for Don for me?

Yes,

I agree with you,

Marcy.

Yeah.

And it has the ability to take away a lot of the weight that we feel when we're,

When we are in gravity,

Yeah.

That feel that buoyant,

That,

Um,

Expanded.

Marcy was saying that ocean is so freeing that it's like flying in the water.

Yeah.

Um,

So let's,

Let's break it down a little bit more.

And perhaps you can name,

Uh,

One experience of surrender that you've had surrendering to life besides,

Besides,

Uh,

Gandhi coming into your life.

And then let's,

I can share one,

Two,

If you want to.

And then I propose we kind of break it down a little more.

So we have the example and then we break it down.

So how can we do it?

Like,

Not to say this is the only way,

Or this is a prescription for surrender,

But simply like trying to understand it a little more as the practice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

The first time around when we did our other live event,

I,

Um,

Talked a little bit about that sense,

Uh,

The infinite coming into my therapy practice that as a narrative therapist,

I discovered,

I discovered that we have an infinite capacity to tell stories about our life,

Our life.

And that those stories carry a lot,

A lot of meaning and switching words changes the meaning.

Like if you say I'm really,

Really,

Really angry,

It's different than sometimes I get frustrated.

It sort of is the same thing,

But it's different.

And all of a sudden now you have two kind of schisms about the experience.

And if you add another one,

Now you've got three.

If you say I'm pissed off or I feel like I'm knocking my head against the wall or whatever,

You'd like to use things like that.

So all of a sudden you can start to experience the infinite.

If we,

If we listen to our stories,

That's what's happened for me is to listen to my own and realize I could slide in different words for what I just said,

I could,

I could choose different words for what I just said.

I could pick different words for what I just said.

So there's three different ways to say that,

Right?

And,

And that kind of choice is infinite.

I started experiencing what I think of as that sense of the field,

That sense of the universe,

Spirit,

Those through all things coming into my therapy session,

It came out of that sense,

Infinity in our choices of words.

And I was doing a lot of teaching and supervise,

Live supervision of graduate students back.

They sometimes couldn't believe what happened in the room with these families that were working the air.

You could like feel the air be more and more solid,

Palpable.

So for me,

Part of what happens is this whole storytelling thing and just taking a breath and allowing that sense of presence,

That sense of the infinite to kind of fill up this unit called Don and expand outwards.

How about for you?

I love that.

I think I missed a teeny bit because my internet was freezing,

But yes,

I love that sense of the infinite seems sometimes I something that we can't really manipulate.

Right.

It is in,

And you're saying that we could have an experience of the infinite by the way we choose to perceive and to name things and to think about it.

So it's again,

Coming back to our disabilities and our potential to live this life.

How many ways do we have to live this life?

And we can live the life in a tiny box with set beliefs and one way to do everything,

Or just like you're saying,

Right.

Experiencing the infinite.

It's in your own mind,

That capacity in your own heart.

We come with that built in is that we don't know really how to do that.

Uh,

When we are born,

Maybe we know,

And then we forget.

I think it's no much more about this than,

Than we tend to forget.

And then we unlearn and then we remember or relearn.

Uh,

For me,

I have two examples of this,

Um,

One,

And I'm going to just name it because I want to go deeply into the other one,

Because I think it could be more.

Relatable the first and most vivid,

Uh,

Recent example,

Let's say in the last 15 years,

Uh,

Of surrender was when I gave birth both times.

And I had the gift of being able to give birth at home and one of those times in the water.

So it continued to be more and more rich and in depth the second time around and,

Uh,

All of that.

I think it's for,

For people that can experience that is one of the most transcendental experiences of surrender,

Uh,

That don't involve psychedelics or any substance,

Right?

Like,

Or you create that substance of surrender within yourself,

Much like a mystical experience.

And then I think most recently and something maybe more practical or easier for people to relate has been this experience of living in love and creating a community that I,

That we have named living in love and how that is unfolding.

And it's still a work in progress.

It's going to be unfolding for a long time.

I think I feel,

And,

Uh,

It's,

It's,

Um,

Related to this.

How do we do this,

Right?

How do we surrender?

Because it's an opportunity to see,

Feel,

Perceive the energetic fields that you're talking about.

Having some sort of life of its own and wanting to,

Um,

Give you an experience of itself.

Let's see if that makes sense.

Right.

It's like,

We talk about life happening through us.

Okay.

That's what I'm experiencing with this living in love community,

This living in love content that we are creating online program,

Meditations,

Shares,

Live events,

All that.

Yes.

It's something that I know about,

But more than anything,

It feels that is life moving through us,

Bringing us together,

Allowing us to experience its power,

The power of living,

The power of being in community,

The power of love,

Or all of that put into one place and time,

And also to surrender to the unknown.

For me,

It feels like I surrender my need to know what this is going to look like,

What am I going to say when I'm doing live sessions and these talks that a lot of people in this live are part of,

Uh,

Who's going to be here and how is it going to all turn out and shape an experience of the unknown day after day after day after day,

And it's,

Um,

It's incredible.

I,

It's amazing.

I never in my life experienced anything like this.

Absolute trust,

Trust in being guided,

Trust in being authentic to the bone as a,

As a way of being and trusting that that works and that,

That has resonance and power and people will feel it and,

And it's healing.

That's my most recent,

And I think most powerful experience of surrender that I can share.

And I've been on your live call,

Your live event.

It seems really clear.

You,

And this struck me the very first time.

And for me,

How we've ended up doing two of these live events together.

It seemed really clear to me.

I see that.

Yes.

I,

I couldn't tell if it's me or him.

He'll come back.

He's the,

The signal.

I hope he doesn't lose his train of thought and he can continue saying the same thing.

Cause I'm curious now.

Am I coming in,

Uh,

In one stream or am I frozen too?

Okay,

Good.

Cause my message says that I'm,

My internet,

Uh,

Internet is unstable.

Oh,

He left.

Don,

Please come back.

Those of you that are in the chat piece,

Uh,

If I can,

If I can ask you a question,

Would you share in the chat?

If you have had an experience,

Uh,

Of surrendering to life,

You don't have to share unless you want to,

But can you say yes,

Can you say no?

Can you say,

Yeah,

I know what you guys are talking about,

Or is this so remotely out of your experience?

That is completely new.

If you can type,

Or maybe you call it something else.

Maybe you don't call it surrender.

You call it something else.

Okay.

Yes.

Terry Terry's.

I'll talk about that.

Yes,

Absolutely.

I want to give,

Uh,

Dan an opportunity to come back and share,

Uh,

You know,

Continue his train of thought,

But I definitely come back to this.

Cecilia says,

Yes.

Jane says,

Yes,

Totally.

Who else,

Who else has had an experience of surrendering?

And as we become present to that and,

And acknowledge,

Like maybe it's 2% of us,

Maybe it's most of us here in this call.

Um,

I would love to begin to wonder,

Inquire about how do we do that?

How do we do that?

Is it something that we want to do more often?

Cause the sensations that I'm getting physical sensations and very real responses from life as I surrender more and more into this living in love process,

Let's call it process everything,

Right?

Everything together,

The community,

The content,

Everything that wants to emerge.

I,

It feels very easy though.

It's challenging to do,

But it feels,

It feels like it's coming easy.

I feel synchronicity.

I feel flow.

I feel beauty.

And I'm thinking I want more of this in my life.

How can I take what I'm learning from this experience of surrendering and apply it to other areas where I might feel more in resistance,

More swimming against the ocean's current.

And so how do I do it?

How can I create this feeling of flow and surrendering and acceptance and saying yes,

And letting go and being taken,

Letting life flow through us,

Talking about in every area.

Don,

You're back.

Do you remember what you were saying?

Welcome back.

Thank you.

What were you saying?

You asked me if I remember what I was saying,

But yeah,

Cause you,

You kept us all on our toes.

Oh,

Um,

I said,

I think that what you look to me,

Whoops,

Sorry.

How's that?

Is that better?

Okay.

As I was watching your live events,

The first one I went to the second one I went to and I went,

Oh man,

She is aligning herself with the perfect self expression of love that was,

That was my experience of you doing your life and surrendering to that over and over throughout the hour,

Just back to it,

Back to it,

Back to it.

Um,

And I'm,

I don't know if that's how you would describe it,

But that's how I experienced that.

It was like a,

Um,

GPS system.

I just kept saying,

No,

No,

Let me read this.

Well,

Let me do a guided meditation.

Oh,

Look at that comment from Jane.

Thank you,

Jane.

Love you so much for that,

Honey.

And calling people sweetheart and stuff like that.

It was just so,

So precious.

It was just so,

Um,

Uh,

There's a,

There's many forms of surrendering to love.

I think it doesn't always have to be precious.

I mean,

I suppose surrendering to love could even be like,

I had,

I had one spiritual teacher say,

Yeah,

You can give,

Give the gift of death to a creature.

That could be surrendering to love,

Right?

But anyway,

That was my experience of you and your life.

Thank you for sharing that.

Yeah.

That's what it feels like.

It's like this old blowing force that is present there.

And I,

Again,

I have to only surrender to it.

That's all that is asked for me to do is not shut down the faucet,

But just open it.

Let it,

Let it,

Let it be what it wants to be.

Right.

And,

Um,

I agree with you that love,

Especially what would love do in this situation is a powerful question because sometimes love would say,

No,

Love would be firm,

Uh,

Cross,

Uh,

Set a boundary or,

You know,

Bring in death.

Yeah.

So that's,

That's another rich topic.

Conversation is,

Well,

We think loving kindness is being nice and it's not,

Not necessarily always.

Uh,

There were a couple,

Um,

Very cool things coming in the chat when you were gone,

I was asking people to share if they have had an experience of surrendering much like what we're sharing.

And I see a bunch of yeses in the chat and very cool sharing some physical health issues beyond my control says Ronnie.

My path was accepting surrender,

Accept,

Surrender,

Trust,

Freedom says Jane.

I love that.

Accept,

Surrender,

Trust,

Freedom.

Yep.

Uh,

Sharon says,

Yes,

I became like a leaf floating on a rough sea,

Allowing it to take me to a safe Haven.

Hmm.

Beautiful,

Beautiful.

And so,

So true love Sharon.

I agree.

It's similar to my experience too.

Uh,

Allowing to be held by life,

Learning self-love and have stopped self-criticism.

Is that a form of surrender learning to be okay with myself?

What do you think,

Dan?

Is,

Is learning self-love and stopping self-criticism learning to be okay with myself,

A form of surrender asks Renee.

I think it is.

Yeah.

It's a big,

Big form of surrender.

I think because self-criticism,

Well,

There are lots of ways to look at it,

But one way to look at it is that it's this kind of,

Um,

It's this kind of being encapsulated by our larger cultures view of what's normal,

What's ideal as a human being that all the models and the actors and actresses,

Athletes,

You know,

People that we admire look like,

Or talk like,

Or whatever.

And if you're not perfectly aligned with that,

Then you're less than as a human being to me,

That self-critical voice is just a,

It's like the front lines of that cultural,

Culturally disseminated gaze,

Always keeping us in line.

That makes sense.

So it's like this racket that's just gone out of control and has nothing to do with who we are as people.

It's just this thing that's spinning away there.

So to surrender to our own self-love,

Our own radical self-acceptance,

That's a huge act of surrender.

What do you think though?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're talking about acceptance.

So in this case is self-acceptance and letting go of those imposed parameters of what is appropriate or what is desirable or what should I look like?

What should I say?

And before you know it,

That path,

Um,

Sticking to that instead of letting go of that and sticking to that becomes,

Um,

Perhaps like the worst hamster wheel that I know of because you become this trapped in this race with no one,

You know,

Like it's just you in your head,

But really like you're never going to win.

And,

Uh,

And also goes further and further away from your authentic self possibility,

Right?

Because you're,

You're suddenly becoming a people pleaser,

Uh,

Chasing something that is not what you truly want and,

And,

Um,

Losing the opportunity to ask yourself.

So what do I like?

What do I feel like,

Uh,

Doing and saying and living so further and further and further away from that authentic core.

And look,

When you look,

When you read any scriptures,

Any,

Uh,

Masters and listen to anyone that you say,

Wow,

I see a lot of truth here.

And,

And sooner or later,

They all say.

Authenticity of yourself is all that is required.

The surrendering to yourself is all that is required.

Yeah,

Exactly.

So Renee,

I think that's the deepest form of,

Um,

Surrender to yourself,

Love or whatever you find when you look within and self-criticism,

If it's constructive,

Helping you overcome habits that are not in alignment with your values,

With your virtues,

With who you truly are and want to become sure it's helpful,

But where is that criticism coming from?

Whose voice are you listening to?

It's your own voice of your higher self that tells you,

Hey,

Honey,

Come here.

There's more growth for you available.

Come on,

Let's step into that fear or is the voice of that here or a caregiver that says you're not enough.

Yeah,

No,

I liked that a lot.

I'm glad you have a voice that says,

Honey,

Come here.

I think that's cool.

That's your other voice.

Yeah.

My higher self.

I used to think my higher self was my angelic,

Like super sweet,

Evolved part of me,

Actually my higher self is this like yucky,

Like very,

Uh,

You know,

Just dirty and muddy and messy,

Uh,

Courageous part of me that says,

Hun,

Come over,

Come here,

You haven't seen,

No,

It's scary as crap.

I don't want to do that.

It's so scary.

It's like,

No,

No,

There's more.

There's more.

Come back,

Come back.

But it's a super voice.

It's not telling me do this.

It's more like enticing me.

It's,

You know,

Inviting me,

Incentivizing me with,

You're going to see a bigger mess,

But that's back to Therese's question,

By the way,

Because this is connected,

Um,

Therese was asking,

Could you speak about obstacle as a way of knowing the truth for us?

So,

You know,

The obstacle is the way it's a well-known saying.

I think it's from the Greeks.

I forget.

I've heard it before.

It's not mine.

And there's actually an amazing book by one of my favorite authors,

Ryan holiday,

That's called the obstacle is the way,

And what is that stoicism?

Exactly.

So what does that mean that the obstacle is the way?

So imagine that you're walking on a path and that there's in your path and it's quite narrow path is not huge.

It's like his path for,

You know,

You and maybe somebody else's body.

So it's kind of small and there's a huge boulder in your path,

Like a gigantic rock,

And he seems to be covering the path.

And you look at this boulder and it looks like an obstacle.

It looks like it's in your way.

And sometimes we are the boulder by the way,

In your own,

In our own path,

Right?

We are,

We get in our own way,

But imagine that you sit there and you look at it and you're pondering,

What is this thing?

And if you see it as an obstacle and you believe that it's covering your way and stopping you from moving,

You might just as well sit there and cry because this thing fell off the sky or you just found it.

And it's in your way and look at what is happening to me.

And now what?

And I can't get out of here and I'm trapped.

It's an obstacle perceived as an obstacle stop.

Now,

If you think again,

And if you were yesterday in my live event,

I was talking about how many ways do you know of peeling a banana,

Right?

How many ways do you know of tying your shoes,

Brushing your teeth,

Saying,

I love you,

Saying,

I'm sorry,

Looking at life,

Right?

More than one way is possible.

That's the,

The nutshell of that.

And if you look at the boulder in more than one way,

If you look at the obstacle in more than one way,

You may say,

Oh,

Wow,

This is an opportunity to climb.

You climb the boulder,

Go to the other side.

You can say,

Look,

I have a big drill and I'm going to make a hole through this boulder,

Right?

You can,

Um,

You can scream and maybe there's somebody on the top that can pull you a rope or,

You know,

Help you up.

You can go around it and you realize it wasn't that big anyway,

And we can go on and on.

It's a fantasy.

It's a story to help you see a point here.

It's a parable of in the end is in your perception,

If it's an obstacle or if it's an opportunity,

And the only thing that can help you,

Um,

Stop you from finding the truth is your own perception.

That is an obstacle.

Examples of this many hardships that have lessons built in many doors that close and the other open many relationships that end because somebody better for you was just waiting to be found and so on and so forth.

That perceived obstacles,

Uh,

Become what you want them to be if you have a fixed mindset about what they are.

So that's my take on that.

Um,

Obstacles as a way of knowing the truth and knowing that it's infinite,

Infinite layers of this truth of yours,

Because it's your truth and you keep growing and evolving.

So your truth might as well keep growing and evolving with you.

You will encounter many opportunities of this along your life.

Back to the roots of how many times have you perceived something as an obstacle?

And you said,

Okay,

Done,

Can't do this.

And you,

Even if you didn't cry as a victim,

You just said,

Well,

This is the end.

And how many times the obstacle turned out into a great chance to,

To find out more about who you are and what's here to be lived and experienced.

Risa says,

See it as an opportunity.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's,

Let's take a very,

Very,

Um,

Practical example of this.

Let's say,

Let's say I'm a very shy person and we're having this live session right now.

And,

Uh,

Don is the extrovert and he's the one chatting,

Chatting away and Don's,

Uh,

Internet keeps popping out off and on and off and on.

And if I perceive that as an obstacle,

I'm a shy person and,

Oh my God,

He's gone.

So now I'm terrified and I don't know what to say.

It's,

It's horrible.

It's a bad experience for me.

It's probably going to be horrible for you listening.

It's going to be uncomfortable for everyone.

And then he's going to feel guilty.

And then we're going to talk about it at the end and say,

God,

Your connection was so bad.

What the hell?

This was horrible.

I don't want to do this again.

If I decide to see this as an opportunity for me to hold space and step out of my comfort zone and perhaps say a few words,

The same exact reality became a possibility for growth.

We can find thousands of examples like that,

But what is the difference?

Do you beat yourself against the obstacle or do you step out,

Create space and choose to see it from a different perspective?

Yeah.

It's kind of a discipline,

Right?

Like to be able to step back enough from that reactive mode and say,

Wait,

Wait,

Wait,

Maybe this boulder actually can talk.

Maybe I could ask it a question.

Maybe these feelings I'm having are just electrons coursing through my neural net,

But they actually don't mean anything,

Just impulses,

You know,

Impulses.

And I can be present instead in this moment and not let those impulses,

Not let the fear,

Not let the frustration,

The kind of habitual ways that this unit,

This physical unit operates,

Not let that run thing.

Yeah,

I had,

I had just a small experience of that just 45 minutes before we got on this call where we were taking my friend from India back to his place and Colombo is a big city and you don't drive much over 30 miles an hour.

And we had to go all the way to the other side of the downtown central business district area.

And I was watching the clock and I was sitting in the back of the seat,

Watching the clock and I'm just going,

It's really possible.

I'm not going to make it on this call.

That's like really possible.

This could take 45 minutes to go from here to my hotel,

Which is maybe two and a half miles,

But it could take that long.

And I would like lean forward,

Like,

Like,

Yeah,

But I just stopped and I went,

How much of this can you control it?

Uh,

Zero.

I said,

All right,

Then sit back and relax.

Because there's nothing you can do about it.

And I got here 30 minutes before it was going to stop.

Wow.

Now,

I don't know if that had anything to do with me relaxing,

But it sure did make that last chunk after we dropped my friend off and then coming back across the city.

There are little moments that came up,

But we passed this,

This big roundabout that's here.

We passed the,

This really interesting project that China has done.

China has leased 6,

000 acres directly offshore and pumped billions and billions of tons of sand from the sea bottom into the 6,

000 acres,

And they've made a city.

Wow.

That's as big as Colombo itself.

And when it gets,

When they're done with it,

It's going to have skyscrapers and restaurants,

Daycare centers,

And schools.

It's like building a colony on Mars.

It's weird.

Anyway,

We passed that.

And I went,

Okay,

So that's there.

How much longer do we have?

And I started going like that.

And I went,

Yeah,

Well,

It's a very small example of this surrender thing.

Perfect example.

For one,

The one thing that you can control is the quality of your experience.

So you could suffer throughout the ride back or say,

Well,

You could get out and walk,

The same with Boulder example,

Right?

You can frustrate it and get to your hotel,

Sweaty and angry and wow.

Right.

And,

And lose half an hour of your life suffering or get out and walk and be proactive about instead of complaining or enjoy the ride and the quality of your experience literally changes.

But one more thing came to mind as you're sharing,

Even if the obstacle is a simple opportunity to pause and self-reflect,

I'll take it.

Because so many times we just go,

Go,

Go,

Go,

Go blinders on,

Go,

Go.

But I said,

I was going to be there on time.

Right.

So,

Um,

Somebody,

Michelle,

I don't know if you're here today.

Fan.

She was saying yesterday or a couple of days ago,

Since we started,

Since she started this work,

This self-inquiry work,

Self-love work.

Um,

And since she started joining our live events and hear me talk about this often,

It changed the way she,

She perceives a red light on her way to work.

And it used to be like,

Oh,

Cause I want to be there sooner.

Yeah.

And that's recently,

I just found myself pausing to look around me and take in the landscape and breathe and be grateful for this day.

So that's the obstacle,

Right?

The red light is the obstacle and it's an opportunity to breathe and take in your surroundings or be grateful that you woke up,

That you're breathing,

That you can see,

That you can smell your work,

A work that you love gratitude.

And it's not that hard.

What is hard is the practice of pausing and self-reflecting because we're so used to running on automatic of what things mean.

And it's so much less intuitive to question.

Is this true?

Is this really an obstacle?

Is this really a problem?

Can I make the best out of this?

What if it was easy?

What if it was an opportunity to see something that I haven't seen yet?

Um,

Anyway,

That's,

That was my,

My rant on that because I feel like,

Uh,

A lot of times we want things to look a certain way and we want only green lights and yes,

Green lights feel amazing.

If you've ever driven through a road where you get just green lights on your path,

Right?

Wow.

What a great feeling.

But the truth is not sure I can guarantee that it's going to be some red lights.

Yeah.

When I lived in Ann Arbor,

I had two gremlins that lived on top of the hood of my car and they're my parking gremlins.

And when I would go downtown,

Which was a tough place to find a parking spot downtown Ann Arbor,

Michigan,

Because of the colleges there,

It's busy.

I'd say,

Okay,

Gremlins,

I need a parking spot.

And by the way,

I need a parking spot that already has time on it.

Cause I don't have any quarters in my pocket.

And so often those gremlins would find me a little spot and it turned the whole thing that search for a parking spot.

It turned it into this wonderful kind of mystical game with these two little creatures that would be scurrying around the sidewalks in my imagination.

It was,

And the kids would,

My kids were little then,

My oldest too.

And they'd get into it too.

And they'd be looking,

Looking.

Where are they?

Yeah.

So much.

I think I see one over there.

Dad,

Dad.

Look.

I love that.

Yes.

Yes,

Yes.

It's a whole different way to live.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um,

Also somebody,

Cecilia is saying something really sweet in the chat.

It was so foreign to me to surrender,

To rest when I sprained my ankle.

That's a great example sometimes of surrendering.

Um,

I am a go,

Go,

Go person.

It was so freeing.

When I stopped worrying about going back to work and to accept,

I found the gap,

The space of stillness.

What a great gift that is to be able to accept what is happening.

Let go of your need to control it to be any different than what it is.

And,

And,

Uh,

So sweet what you get for that work exchange,

Right?

She's calling,

You're calling it Cecilia,

Uh,

The space of stillness.

Yes.

So beautiful.

And then Cecilia down lower,

The last comment says I see more dragonflies and butterflies when I'm driving and not in a hurry,

Uh,

That's,

That's exactly right.

Right.

That's what happened.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A hundred percent.

We give ourselves the time to notice things,

You know,

Like,

Like you were saying,

Diana was at red lights.

If you stop at a red light and you kind of notice what you're doing.

Like my Tai Chi instructor used to say,

What are you doing?

Like,

Like that,

Like what I was trying to do the Tai Chi form.

And I never knew how to answer that question.

And if we,

We kind of ask ourselves that like,

Okay,

What am I doing?

And then that example that I gave about riding back to my hotel here today,

What I'm doing,

If that pattern is taken over,

The old pattern is what you said.

I'm losing 30 minutes of my life into misery.

And here's a tricky edge to it.

I'm almost volunteering for that misery.

Yeah.

Pretty close to volunteering,

Right?

Do we have choice about that?

Yeah,

We have lots of choice about it.

And we can choose not to raise our hand for that party.

You know,

We can,

We can do something different.

Like,

Like Cecilia is saying about slowing down and then suddenly monarch butterfly fly by your window.

There's a wonderful beige floor moment.

Exactly.

Yes.

It's so,

So true.

So true.

And slowing down is necessary to feel the smoothness,

To feel them.

I want to say the different qualities to expand your senses to how things truly are,

When fast is only one way,

Hurrying is even worse than fast because you're,

You're so sloppy when you're hurrying your,

Your,

Your,

Your body,

Mind alignment.

And I know that from my felt-increased training,

But in order to make something fast,

Really fast,

And this is not news,

This is military training and probably back from,

From the Samurais and who knows,

You know,

The first warriors that slow is smooth and smooth is fast,

So smooth is faster than sloppy hurrying.

So if you want to master something,

And I learned this in the martial arts and I learned it in fitness training,

You want to master a movement,

Let's say a sports movement or a martial arts movement,

Slow it down so much that you can see all the different components of it,

Like a slow motion movie and do it slower and slower.

And you really increase your sensitivity.

We do that in felt-increased a lot.

You,

Your senses become way more attuned to really all the different bits,

Much like if you're driving on a country road,

You see the birds on the leaves.

But if you're 70 miles an hour on the highway,

You don't even see trees.

It's like,

Guys,

Can we slow down enough,

Our experience and coming back to how to surrender,

Because I would love us to explore that before we go.

I think part of it is slowing down.

Part of it is pausing and self-reflecting.

So when you are just on a mission,

Blinders on,

Pushing and,

You know,

Trying to do,

Do,

Do,

You don't have an opportunity to self-reflect and say,

Is this,

Do I want to say yes to this?

Is this for me right now?

You say yes by default or no by default.

You might be the pleaser,

The doer,

The patching holes along the way,

Or you might be retreat,

Retreat,

Retreat,

Resist,

Resist,

Resist.

So what else?

And,

And hi Claudia,

By the way.

Hi,

Good to see you,

Honey.

Um,

Have that conversation with everything.

You're right with yourself and with everything around you.

So slowing down is helpful to have that conversation,

The surrendering conversation,

Self-reflection,

Self-inquiry.

What else is helpful to learn to surrender?

I,

I think the very hardest thing about this is to remember.

I think it's so hard at first to remember to do something different and not let the old patterns do their hamster wheel thing.

And for me,

What that's become has become remembering like I did in the car coming here tonight,

That I have choice,

That I actually am not bound to keep doing the same miserable thing over and over and I don't have to do that.

And when I can remember that,

Then the choices are infinite instead of I have one choice and that's misery.

So for me,

That's a big piece of it.

Like how do I keep programming myself and mindfulness,

Meditation,

Writing helps me to remember.

But for quite a few decades now,

That's been kind of my chief tactic is somehow to instill remembering into daily awareness.

Remember your freedom.

Remember your freedom.

Remember that you can't choose.

Yes.

You're not a prisoner.

I love that.

Yeah.

And it circles us back,

I think,

To that conversation where we were having earlier about self,

Because if you're remembering your freedom,

Part of that freedom is who am I?

Am I this miserable person who gets all frustrated and anxious,

Scared and resentful and all that,

You know,

The last 20 minutes with my friends in the car because I didn't take care of myself and make us leave early and they didn't take care of me and make us leave earlier and blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

You know,

That whole story.

Who to blame.

And who to blame.

I got to blame somebody.

And I need to feel bad about this for the next three hours.

That's right.

That's right.

Is that who I am?

Because because part of this is about our identity.

It's this idea of surrendering is about identity.

It's about like,

Who am I as a person?

Am I that stressed out,

Miserable,

Resentful person?

Is that who I am?

Or am I somebody else?

Am I someone else besides that?

And if I'm someone else besides that,

Who is that,

First of all?

And how do I stay with it?

How do I keep evolving that?

And again,

Michael Singer's book,

I think,

Is a really great testament to a journey,

His journey of how to do that.

Love that.

You reminded me of Joe Dispenza when he says your personality creates your personal reality.

And so let's go back.

What's your personality?

Well,

It's a set of attitudes,

Isn't it?

If you stay in an attitude for way too long,

It becomes your personality.

Right.

Let's say you're that grumpy guy blaming and feeling bad.

Well,

Do it 30 days in a row.

And it's a pretty good habit.

Do it for a year.

That's your personality.

I mean,

How do you get out of that loop?

And OK,

So what's an attitude?

Well,

It becomes it starts as a mood,

Doesn't it?

Like,

Oh,

I'm moody today.

I'm not feeling good today.

I'm cranky today.

OK,

Can I get out of that loop?

Can I get out of that mood,

That funk,

That feeling?

So go back,

Back,

Back.

Deconstruct your personality and see that it's a it's a cumulative series of experiences and behaviors and moods and thoughts and feelings that you allowed to brew in yourself and and self-define who you are.

But if I get to pause and self-reflect and say,

Wait a minute,

Am I that?

Is that who I am?

Is that who I want to be?

So you kind of disrupt that habitual self that wants to stay small and wants to stay worried and wants to stay anxious and wants to.

So that will shift eventually your mood,

Your attitude,

Your personality.

And perhaps the biggest takeaway there to remember that to remember that you can do that is accept your power,

Accept that is indescribable,

Beautiful expressions of source in life.

And I do not accept to be encapsulated in a title,

In a frame,

In a box,

In a description,

Because I am evolving with life every single day.

Yes,

I have traits.

Yes,

I have moods and funks and ups and downs.

But really,

I'm not that.

No way.

No way,

Man.

No way.

So how to surrender.

Let's remember that.

And then my other piece that I wanted to add to your remembering because that's so good and foundational.

And then after that,

I would say,

Remember it,

Exercise your choice,

Do it like Claudia was saying,

Right?

You are your choices and then give yourself a little bit positive reinforcement of how does it feel?

Like ask yourself,

How does it feel when I remember this?

When I take a leap to accept,

To let go,

To see the obstacle as a way to grow.

And how does that feel?

I don't know.

It feels good.

Good job,

Good job,

Right?

Because then your brain will catch up to it and will help you remember more often.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Because we're biased for negative memory,

We're biased for self-criticism,

Biased for see what's missing and all that.

Remember the negative experiences,

The mistakes and failures more than all the wins.

We have to work a little bit harder at remembering how great it felt to to surrender.

Yeah.

And by the way,

While you're looking back and remembering,

You will catch yourself,

Huh,

That maybe next time I wouldn't do it that way.

So you learn a lesson and keep track of what didn't work,

Right?

I love that.

And just watching the clock here.

And I wondered,

I had a thought,

I wondered if you'd be willing to take us through a brief meditation before we go on that guided journey about surrender.

Sure,

That would be lovely.

Let's do it.

You wouldn't mind surrendering to that?

Not at all.

That would be a pleasure.

OK,

Good.

So I have my little bell and I always like to have feet on the ground.

Thank you for the invitation to surrender to this moment together.

And thank you for bringing us into this topic together,

All of us here.

We are right now a hundred and four lovely souls.

Yay.

So find your feet and your seat if you want to sit on the ground or in a chair,

Lie down even,

But find your ground and see about settling in into your body.

And you can place your hands in whatever position you like.

And let us be present to this moment of connection to the ground,

To each other,

To our heart,

Our beating heart.

And let us have a first and small experience of surrendering to our own breath,

The flow of your breath in and out,

The rhythm of your life force traveling in and out of your body,

Exchanging with everything around you,

Perhaps syncing us up,

Breathing together.

And if your breath would be visible,

Would be traveling through your body now,

So see about imagining that current of light,

Flowing breath in and out.

And if your breath had a color or a temperature,

What would it feel like?

Gliding through your every organ,

Cell,

Joint,

Muscle,

Tendon,

Filling you with life and on its way out,

Merging with everything that it is around you right now.

So picture your breath,

How much can you take in,

How much can you let go as you breathe into your belly and through your whole body,

Imagining that we can use our breath to remember,

Breathing out,

Breathing in,

I remember,

Breathing out,

I surrender,

And see if as you keep this rhythm of your breath flowing in and out of your body,

Perhaps with temperature,

Color,

Sensation,

As you remember that you can surrender,

Perhaps an image comes from your life or a memory or an intention to surrender to a specific situation and use your breath and the power of this shared practice here in community to help you connect your intent to surrender with the knowing that you can do it and make it easier to do while we are holding space for one another in this shared practice.

Breathing in,

I remember,

Breathing out,

Together,

If you want to join me,

We can sing three,

Four,

Five ohms together and use the power of sound to be an expression of your breath.

As we breathe in,

We remember,

As we breathe out,

We sound and surrender.

Taking with us practice,

Remembering this feeling,

This intention,

Remembering our freedom,

So much gratitude for all of us present.

And thank you for being here.

Thank you,

Don.

Thank you,

Violet.

Thank you,

Everyone.

So much.

Thank you,

Everyone,

For coming.

It's been special to do this second one,

Just like it was special,

The first one.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh,

I love our conversations.

I love how free and fluid they are.

We never know exactly what's going to happen and come back to this place of home,

Love,

Connection.

I want to thank everybody that is present.

I want to thank the Insight team for facilitating these live sessions.

And you can donate to Violet for her time and her efforts in bringing us together.

That would be amazing.

You can follow her page,

Please do.

Thank you,

Cecilia.

Is there anything else anyone has in their hearts that wants to share?

Don,

Anything you want to share?

Three days ago,

I had an experience that when I got back in the car with my host,

Sri Lankan host,

I couldn't stop crying from the experience.

And it was a huge experience of surrendering to being with a group of girls in a children's home,

16 or 17 girls from the age of four years old up to 16 years old,

Who are living in this home because their families have abandoned them or abused them or neglected them.

And this program that's hosting me here started four homes like this.

And these girls,

The sweetest things.

Oh my,

And I wrote a poem about it.

It was just really lovely for me.

Like there,

There was these moments looking in their eyes,

Knowing that they,

They weren't there having a camping vacation.

They were living because life had dealt them a really bad hand of some sort.

And I could see that suffering in their eyes and I could see their curiosity about this guy who's talking to them and asking them questions about love and about their friends.

And who do they,

Who do they really love here in this group a whole lot and needs love?

And can you reach over and touch them and hold their hand and stuff like that?

You know,

It was just the loveliest experience.

And instead of like in the distant past,

When that suffering was right there,

I would have shied away from now.

I just sat with it and I just looked him right in the eyes and it was phenomenal.

So I wanted to share that.

I don't mean to pick up a whole nother subject before we're ending,

But there was just something about that that struck me so deeply.

I know.

I'm thinking you share now,

Right?

I know,

I know,

I know,

You can go to my Facebook page,

Don McAvinchie,

And read the poem if you want to see some of the pictures of the girls.

Oh,

Really,

Really sweet.

I love it.

I haven't seen it,

But Violet says,

Don,

The pictures you shared in the poem are beautiful.

Look at them.

And I'm kidding.

Of course,

You can share whenever you want.

I just think it's so funny because I'm looking at the time like,

But you wanted to go,

Don.

I know,

I know.

It was so juicy,

Like 10,

20,

Half an hour ago.

But did the meditation bring that up in you or what?

Like,

How did you?

Yeah,

Remember and surrender.

That was beautiful how you did that.

In breath,

Remember,

Out breath,

Surrender.

And it just reminded me of that moment where I just surrendered into being a witness,

You know,

And I didn't have to make it better.

You know,

I didn't have that kind of job.

I just watched,

I watched the friendship and the caring of these little girls.

And one of the,

You know,

One of them,

She was like,

I don't know,

12 years old or something.

And this,

You know,

This high.

And,

And I said,

Do I get a tour?

And they looked around and said,

Who's going to,

Who's going to be the leader?

She went,

And she was this little,

This little person,

You know,

This little person.

I just absolutely fell in love with her.

I could easily make her my fourth daughter,

You know,

Like that.

Anyway,

It was just,

It was a big experience.

And this whole surrender thing brought it back up again,

Especially the way you did the meditation.

That was,

It was very lovely.

Thank you for that.

You're welcome.

You're welcome.

I,

I,

I can't,

I can't claim any credit for that.

Yeah.

It's done through me.

I swear to God,

I don't know how it happened,

But thank you for bringing it up and for sharing that memory,

Because now we can all hold a very precious,

Real and recent gift of surrender.

And I think that's the,

The potential that we,

We can expect and we can receive and be grateful for.

So I would love to hear from our community and thank you so much,

Everybody that donated.

I can see so many donations there is,

And,

Uh,

Lindsay,

I want to acknowledge people like giving,

Uh,

Jim,

Cecilia.

Thank you so much to support,

Uh,

For supporting Violet for her time and expertise.

And I would love to hear from you guys.

We're going to be back tomorrow,

Live 12 PM Eastern.

And,

And if you want to stay with this today and tomorrow,

I'll ask you how,

How was your day?

24 hours later,

Pretty much your experience of surrendering,

Remember,

Surrender and see what gift did you receive?

And remember,

It could be something tiny.

Sometimes it's just surrendering to the next breath instead of holding it,

Holding my breath,

Embracing through impact.

Let me just breathe out and sing my little song just because I can,

Because I realized I have a voice and it's okay.

So I would love to hear from you guys.

What's your plan like tomorrow then?

What are,

How long are you in Sri Lanka for?

Uh,

Till the 10th.

Okay.

Um,

This is starting at 12 o'clock your time,

Right?

Yes.

So I could potentially join you on the regular sort of inside road.

Great.

I'm free tomorrow night.

So I'll see if I can pull that off.

That would be great.

Yeah.

And we'll learn how to do these,

Um,

Live events so we can help you Violet learn the technology.

So we keep this going.

Are you on for another one?

Do you want to do another do well?

I would happily surrender to that.

Um,

Can we do a quick survey like we did last time?

Oh,

I think no one liked it.

So if we ask,

We may get a bunch of no's.

I'd rather not ask.

Yeah.

What do you guys think?

Yeah.

Could you give us some yeses?

And if,

Uh,

If you think Diana and I should do another one,

I don't know that we have anything to talk about done.

Yeah.

It seems like we run short a lot.

Yes.

Okay.

I see some yeses.

Nice.

See,

I don't need any validation from outside,

But if you need validation,

There you have it.

Yeah.

I don't need validation.

I just like,

I like buy-in.

I'm kidding you.

I'm kidding you.

Oh my God.

Oh,

Well,

This is amazing.

So,

So what do we talk about next time?

Let's just leave them with the,

What are we talking about?

So everybody keeps an eye on Violet's page.

And then,

Um,

What can we talk about that we know if we can change our minds,

But I,

What would you like to talk about just off the cuff here?

What would you like to talk about?

I would love to,

I really would like to talk about connection.

Um,

I would love to talk about intimacy.

I would love,

Because I think sometimes we,

We separate spirituality from business,

From love and relationships,

And it seems like there are different worlds and I don't think they are in my life.

They're not,

And I'm doing more and more inner work to merge with everything and within myself.

So I'm all about putting all these parts together.

And I think one piece that is rarely explored is,

Um,

Business and spirituality,

Those things that I'm,

I'm wondering myself,

Like,

How can we be conscious and make loads of money?

Like is money and spirituality a no-no?

Uh,

And I know it's not,

But I think it'd be fun to see from your perspective and mine and your experience and mine,

And maybe bring a,

An outsider's perspective.

Like we brought the,

The surrender experiment and the other one would be,

Um,

Uh,

That,

That dynamic between,

Uh,

Love and intimacy and connection in spirituality.

And I have my thoughts around that.

It would love to see what do you think?

And what,

What is,

Maybe you guys can also volunteer.

We have some topics from last session that I don't have offhand,

But people wanted to talk about grief.

They wanted to talk about some other things that are really good to have handy.

So maybe more than,

Maybe we have a series of live conversations in the making because we want to,

We want to save them for a podcast.

So it's all one in the same.

Well,

The first one you said was love and connection and intimacy.

And then you threw in spirituality.

That was the first thing.

Well,

How do they merge,

Right?

Is it possible to have spirituality in your loving relationship with a partner or is it separate?

So I see this a lot,

Like,

Oh,

My partner is not spiritual,

Spiritually oriented,

But am I,

And is that a deal breaker?

How do we merge things?

Um,

There's many questions along those lines is,

Is connection with another human,

Both,

Um,

Loving connection and intimate connection and sexual connection.

Is that a doorway into deeper spiritually?

I think it is.

Yeah.

I would love to talk about that.

So that's one topic for sure,

But it's,

It's the combination,

Right?

Between both love,

Love.

Yeah.

And spirituality.

Could we put an edge to it?

Sure.

Can we talk about in the what?

Three conversations,

Four conversations you and I have had,

How our connection feels along these lines.

Okay,

Sure.

You know what I mean?

Yeah,

Sure.

I'm game to talk about anything.

Yes.

Because it's a little hard even for me to even explain in the short amount of time we spent together,

You and me,

How we end up having these kinds of conversations like we've had.

It's almost mysterious.

Yeah.

I kind of hinted after the last live event that we have done this before,

But that brings us into a whole other topic that I don't know we want to open up right now.

But yes,

It's true.

There's a familiarity.

There's a level of acceptance and openness that I think is very,

Very interesting.

So yes.

Yeah.

Let's do that.

Okay.

All right.

So we don't have a date yet,

But you will hear from us with a date for a follow-up on these topics.

And thank you everyone so much for being part of this authentic,

Shared,

Heart open conversation between Don and I.

Thanks everybody.

And so much love to all of you.

It's really a pleasure.

And you know,

The only reason we get to do this because people like you show up.

And for me,

It's something that I absolutely love to do.

So I assume that's kind of true for Diana.

And that means you're supporting the two of us doing what we really,

Really love to do,

And that's a blessing,

I think.

So thank you for that.

Yes.

Ditto.

A hundred percent.

Thank you so much,

Everyone.

Sending love to y'all and see you next time.

Thank you.

Thank you,

Violet.

See you,

Don.

Violet,

See ya.

Bye.