118 Release, Clarity, Teachers, Rehab, Forgiveness - Q & A

59:48

59:48

118 Release, Clarity, Teachers, Rehab, Forgiveness - Q & A

by William Cooper, M.Th., Licensed Professional Counselor

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4.8

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talks

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Meditation

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Everyone

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This recording of a live Q & A has been edited for clarity, length, and helpfulness. Great Q & A! We discussed Awakening, How to Release into Clarity, Addiction, Forgiveness, What is Source, Who and where are some good Teachers and Realized Beings, Living with and loving Narcissistic family members, etc. These podcasts are a compilation of what I have found to be the most helpful over the last 50 years on my path of awakening. They are most powerful when listened to in sequence from podcast one forward because each is built on the last. Though they, also, all stand on their own. Since we are each a bit different, if anything does not resonate, please disregard it and follow your heart. Let's support you. Though I am a psychotherapist these podcasts are offered to be spiritually helpful. They are not psychotherapy. Please reach out to a psychotherapist if ever needed.

Meet your Teacher

William Cooper, M.Th., Licensed Professional Counselor

Tallahassee, FL, USA

Meet your Teacher

William Cooper, M.Th., Licensed Professional Counselor

Tallahassee, FL, USA

Transcript

Welcome, Everybody. I'm William Cooper, And this is the live podcast, Awakening Together, Relaxing into Happiness. How are you all doing this week? It's good to see you. In these podcasts, It's a chance for you to ask whatever you want about your practice. I have quite a number of podcasts, I think about 117 now, And maybe you've listened to some of those. They're designed to shed light on some things that can come up in your path and are hopefully helpful. Maybe you haven't heard those podcasts, But either way, This is a time for you to ask questions, Any question that you have about your practice. We like to talk a lot about awakening or meditation or things that you're going through. Hi, Jennifer. Hey, Everybody. So if you have a question, Just type it into the box and I'd be glad to start the discussion in that direction and we see where we end up. While you're thinking about your questions, I'll talk a little bit about some things that maybe you've experienced. In the podcast, We often talk about how to let things go. We talk about meditation and living from your center and letting everything else go. Your center is a beautiful, Radiant light, Deep peace, Deep love, Deep wellbeing, Joy. That's who you are always. But sometimes we don't feel that because our thoughts were formed in a different time and a different way. And we get involved in them and our emotions and they cloud us up. That's the human experience. We experience it probably every day. The trick is, Or in my estimation, One of the main purposes of life is to get so you're in touch with yourself, That peace, That wellbeing, And not leave that. You don't leave yourself. So regardless of what comes up or what's going on around yourself, You can rest in your peace. In other podcasts, I've described the qualities of all of our beings as quite visceral. It's a direct experience. It can be quite explosive or it can be quite quiet. One thing's for sure is your being has no tension in it. It has no distress. So it's very helpful to find you because I know that for so many years in my practice and probably for most of us, It's hard to rest in ourself and not leave. It's hard sometimes to even find ourself, This peace that we are. It's hard to find it. Because the way I grew up in my culture and many of your cultures, Probably every culture, We're taught to live through our minds and our emotions. And so we look through our minds and our emotions and that colors our experience and it draws us away from our center, Our center of peace and wellbeing. So when you sit still, And I'm going to describe a bit of meditation now. When you sit still and you watch your thoughts and you watch your emotions, That which is watching is very peaceful, Maybe very silent. Sometimes we don't even see it because it's so silent, But it's that which is watching. It's very important to know our center because it's hard to let things go if you don't have a place to stand, If you don't stand in yourself, That's what I've found. So meditation is very helpful to let the dust settle. And then when things come up, As you are aware of them, They expend their energy, Discharge, And that can be very painful because usually the things that do come up have been pushed down because they are painful. And also because they are painful, It stimulates a lot of thinking that's looking for solutions. So if in meditation, You're feeling pain, Distraction, Anxiety, Boredom, Lots of thinking, Replacing mind, That's releasing all of these emotional discords. That's a good thing. That's what you want. You want to remain in your center and let all that unwind. Now what I find even more interesting, As all of that unwinds and you sit in your center, You get to know yourself more and more and more. And you return. After a while, You just stay in your center because it's who you are. You don't leave. The interesting part is, And I'll refer to myself, When I was growing up, It was difficult, Just like for pretty much, I guess, Everybody. And I often felt overwhelmed and stressed. I felt there was too much for me to handle. My environment was just too difficult. So I would get very anxious and also I would feel a lot of despair because it was too much. I didn't know how to handle it. That was a foundation for my personality, Despair and anxiety. That's what I felt when I woke up. And then I learned to kind of push it under and build a personality to achieve the good things that I wanted in my life and to stay safe and all the other things that I found beneficial. I worked on those things and I got good at them. But underneath it was always this quiet despair, Quiet anxiety. And as I meditated and a lot of the things that I had built up started to unwind and dissolve a lot of other tensions, A lot of other anxieties, Just that normally happens when you meditate consistently. Eventually, I came to what was underneath it all, Despair and anxiety. It was anxiety and despair up on the upper levels too, But I mean way down. After all this other stuff was discharged, Or pretty much discharged, I came into the despair. Now, That was an organizing principle, This despair. It actually held information. It organized information because that was my ground level, Mental, Emotional ground level organizing principle, You might say. So I found it interesting because what do you do with that? If when you wake up in the morning, You just feel despair or anxiety, What about that? Well, Just as you probably have already experienced or have touched on, You treat it the same way as you would an emotion that you come across in your meditation or thoughts and you're aware of it. It starts to expend its energy and really it's just a whole clump of thoughts and emotions. It expends its energy, It twists and moves around. Then it can breathe in the peace that you are, And this is the value of staying in your center. If you're not staying in your center, It can't really breathe in the peace that you are because you're not coming from there. You're not coming from who you are. So that's the important part of being in touch with who you are. That's the importance of meditation. You learn, It can breathe in who you are and it can begin to relax and release and let go. And then I had a choice because when you do something every day of your life, It becomes a habit. And when you look at life through those lenses, At some point you just take the lenses off. You let them go and you stay in peace. It sounds kind of rudimentary, Simple, But when you're in the thick of it, It's kind of overwhelming because in the thick of it, It would be like I was wearing these sunglasses. Everything around me looks green and I think it's green. Everything looks despair or anxiety and I think it is. I really think it is. All of the evidence, All the facts, They're all piled up and it seems overwhelming. Often I don't think to take off the lenses, But as I meditate and I learn that's not who I am, It becomes easier and easier to see the difference and go, Wait a second. There's tension, There's stress here. That's not who I am. And it's easier to see through that habit and let it go. Not only let it go, This lens is made of tension, It's made of emotion, It's made of thoughts. You let them breathe, Breathe in relaxation and peace and they dissolve and poof, They're not there anymore. So it's layer upon layer, But way down deep. Sometimes there are these organizing tensions or layers and meditation is good. Every spiritual practice is good, But when you sit still, You can see these things. Okay, Just the thought for the day. Let's see what, I think you all have left me some questions, So I want to start. So let's start with Sarah since you asked your question first. Sarah says, Currently in rehab, What can I do to help myself so I do not relapse? Well, That's a really good question, Sarah. And of course, I'm not, Even though I am a psychotherapist, Actually, I'm not going to give psychological advice because this is more of a spiritual podcast, But I can say some things that might be helpful and I'm glad that you're in rehab and I'm sure you're getting a lot of good focus and awareness. My guru used to tell us that awareness is curative and I found that it is. That sitting still in meditation brings a lot of awareness, A lot of pain comes up. I'll tell you my opinion about addictions, How I think they work, And it's very rudimentary because again, This is a podcast, But it ties into meditation and spiritual practice. And I've talked about it in past podcasts. So one thing you could do, If you haven't listened to these podcasts, You might go back to number one and at your leisure, Start listening to them one, Two, Three, Do them in order. And I think more will happen by listening and sort of seeing what makes sense for you out of those podcasts than anything I can say now. However, What happens for all of us? I'll talk about that. Every human being is addicted. They're addicted to thoughts and emotions and pleasure and all sorts of things. Some are also addicted to alcohol and drugs and other things too. But we're addicted to something. And the reason why we're addicted is because we're worn out with our suffering, With our pain, And we haven't found our center and let everything else go. Because that's joyful and that's peace and it feels good. So we're stuck in the suffering because we're somewhere halfway. We're working, But we're not all the way there. We're working for clarity, But we're not all the way there. So because we're not there, We're in pain. We feel anxious. Even if we feel pretty good, There's maybe a level of discontent going on. And during those times of discontent, We look for quote unquote pleasure. We don't look for joy or bliss because that's the nature of our being or peace. We're not looking for that because we haven't fully found it. Because we haven't fully found it, We reach out for pleasure, Things that taste good, Good experiences, Things in the material world, Alcohol, Drugs, Ice cream, Thoughts, Emotions, Get lost in daydreams and think and feeling my feelings all the time, Getting lost in my feelings, Getting consumed. Like I gave you that example, Consumed in despair and fear or whatever your thing is. That can be an addiction because we're jumping into it. We're being consumed by it rather than sitting still and feeling the suffering coming out. Why don't we do that? Because it hurts. Feeling suffering hurts. So we repress it because it hurts. So the best thing you can do, All of us can do, Let me put it that way, Is sit still and feel, Let some of our inner pain release. In these podcasts early on, Because it's so important, If you listen to the first probably seven podcasts, We talk about some of the basic mechanics of the mind and emotions and how to do a meditation to release the suffering. The suffering is the foundation for addiction. Addiction is what we do to get away from suffering if we're not finding a permanent solution, Which is finding the joy inside. If we don't find the joy inside, We try to find joy and not really joy, But pleasure in material things. So one thing is I would listen to the first at least seven of these podcasts. I would listen to all of them. They'll help. I would, Of course, Take advantage of where you are in rehab. I would meditate. I would meditate every day and perhaps you already do. But if you don't, When people first start, Because it releases so much, It can be painful. So you just meditate an amount that you can handle. Because if you meditate and it's too painful, That's called in psychological terms, Adversive reinforcement and it will always extinguish the behavior. You won't want to meditate anymore is what that is in plain language. You will for a while, But it will always extinguish it. And then one day you'll go, You know, I don't really feel like meditating. So what you want to do is just meditate up to that line, Maybe slightly over whatever you can handle and feel good and then stop and then attempt to stretch it out day by day by day. Like start with five minutes or four minutes and then go to six minutes and seven minutes. Whoop, That's too much. Go back to five minutes, Things like that. So another thing in addiction so that you don't relapse, And I'm sure they've told you this, But when you get lost in pleasure, All of us, Whether it's eating ice cream or potato chips, Remember that old potato chip saying, Lay's potato chip, I bet you just can't eat one. I bet you just can't eat one. What does within addiction say to potato chips? If you eat one, You're likely to have another and then another. Has anybody here ever opened a bag of cookies and you know, Eat half the bag or ice cream and eat like half the gallon of ice cream? Or if it's a pint, Forget about it, It's gone. Because that's how addictions work. We all do it. It's the human experience. So if it's with alcohol or drugs, Of course, Don't have the first drink if it's a problem for you. All of our nervous systems are quite different and some are more sensitive than others. So those are some, I would work on your emotional stuff. We all need to do that. These are things that all of us, Every single person here can do and might need to do. We're all our own personal judge of that. I did work in a rehab center once when I first started my career as a psychotherapist and this was back in 1983 or it was 82, Something like that. And I worked in a locked psychiatric slash alcohol and drug rehab center. And I'll tell you this, There was a lot of practical advice, Very practical. And I would heed that advice. It's a starting point. It may not be a finishing point, But it's a starting point to protect you and to keep you safe. My friend Bob, Who's a very awakened man, Would always say to people, He'd say, Sometimes your very first step is to get out of the pounding surf. Don't worry about all the exotic or intricate things. Do not worry about all the deep things that you will get to in your spiritual practice and pursuit. Right now, Just get out of the pounding surf. Keep yourself safe. Take a breath. Feel good for a moment. Just relax, Take it in, Connect, Touch a tree, Walk barefooted, Talk to a friend. These are very settling and the core of them is awakening because when you touch a tree, That piece that you feel is the piece of awakening. It is the piece of your being. So these are just beginning steps. This is a podcast, So do not take it all too seriously, But if anything resonates and it works for you, I invite you to consider it. Okay, Sarah, I know you'll do great. Thanks for asking that question. And it's wonderful that you're here with us today. I've got some questions, But I'll say hi to everybody that said I, Monica, Blossom, Everybody. Melody, Melody says, Hi, William, Thank you for your podcast. I have really been enjoying it. Grateful for your advice. What is the best way to approach when you are open, But others you want to love aren't? How do we manage ourselves when all we want to do is love people who need love? Oh, Wow, Melody, That's a big question, Too, Like Sarah's question, Different, But big. The first thing I would say, See if this resonates with you, But the first thing you can do, What we all have to do is to love ourselves, To sit with ourselves, Regardless of the other person. We need to sit still, Do our spiritual practice. And as we rest deeply in our center, All the love we want and need is there. That is going to go to the other people. We are going to flow. That love is going to flow to other people, Whether they're open or not. Sometimes people need to be closed. That's where they are in life. That's what they have to do. It's too dangerous. They don't, They're not up to it yet. However, You know, It's like rain on a dry desert soil. There are cracks and it's dry, But your love is going to nourish that soil too. So love isn't pushy. As you know, I'm telling you what, You know, It's not pushy, It's accepting. And it also takes care of you too. So you have your boundaries, You love yourself, You give yourself what you need. And at some point, As you nourish this other person, If it's working well for both of you, Great. But at some point, If it's not, And they don't start to blossom and bloom and give you, If it's not reciprocated and that somehow does become a problem for you, Then you take care of yourself. You love yourself. Do what you need as well. You're a person too. So you can love people, But as Jesus said, You start with yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself. You start with yourself. That's a lot of patience, Loving somebody else that's not ready for love. That's the best I've got with that. Maybe somebody else has, But as an idea. But I think you just have to stay with yourself and let that love go to the other person too. You can circle back around and ask me in a different way if that's helpful, If I haven't covered it or there's more to talk about. Nancy, Hi William, Enjoying and learning much from your podcast on number 33. Oh, Great. Thank you, Nancy. You've just gone through the ones on post-traumatic stress disorder. And really, I think those end at 30 and really in that we're talking about parts of us that cramp up, That just don't release. We've been meditating for 20 years and still there's this pain, Still there are these problems. Why is it not releasing? Well, Like a muscle cramp, Maybe meditation isn't the best tool for a muscle cramp. Well, Sometimes the brain cramps up and it just needs another way to loosen up that is part of meditation and related where we take baby steps. We are in touch with this painful part that's not releasing. We embody it. I am hurting, I am hurting, I am. And we go very slowly, Very slowly, Not just a little bit. We don't want to overwhelm ourselves if we're getting in touch with something big. And then let it touch something good and receive it, Like touch a tree or touch the qualities of our own being. But whatever actually works, Touch a wall and feel how peaceful the wall is. And let that hurting part receive, Let it begin to drink in the well-being so that just like a tension, When you get a massage, It drinks in relaxation, It releases, Relaxes and let's go. So do these stuck emotions and thoughts can start to do that. So it really, On some level, Works not only with PTSD, But really the whole spectrum of thoughts and emotions that seem to be stuck at times. So I'm springboarding off of what you said, Nancy, But a lot of people like that PTSD and I know you're past that one now. You're on number 33. So good job. I like when people find it helpful to go through these in sequence because each podcast, Although stands on its own, It is built on the one before as well. So they can be really powerful and sort of build a platform if you listen from one forward. Great job, Nancy, Thanks. And we talk about how to meditate early on and things like that, Too, In these podcasts. Amanda, One of the meditation vocabulary words that is confusing me lately is source, Okay? People refer to source like entity, An affirmation I was given, God is my source. I find myself thinking source of what? Any thoughts on that word? Yes. I'll tell you what it means to me. I'm sure whoever, Every, There's probably a hundred different ways that people will describe that word depending on what, Where they're coming from. For me, There is only one. This is a direct experience of mine. I experience everything as one. So it's not a philosophy. It could be a philosophy and is a philosophy, But it's beyond that for me. Everything is one. And when I experienced myself, I experienced myself like a rainbow on the far end of the rainbow. It's out of this creation. It's nothingness. It doesn't exist. You can't know it through your five senses, Only through your intuition can you know your deepest self. That infinite, That nothing, Because it's not in creation, Something that hasn't been created by definition does not exist. That's all people mean when they say it doesn't exist. You don't exist. Your being doesn't exist because we don't have the vocabulary. We do exist even beyond existence, But there aren't words. We don't have the vocabulary. It doesn't work in creation to talk about it. It just doesn't work. But when, I'll just call it nothing. It's a very full nothing, But let's just call it nothing. When nothing comes into creation, It's pure light. Now that does exist and I can experience myself as pure light and you can too. Maybe at times you feel light inside of you. As that slows down, There's sounds, These deep sounds like in meditation, Like the Tibetan monks mimic these sounds. It's the sound of creation and it's the sound of your being. And then as that slows down, It turns into bliss and joy and well-being and that congeals down into atoms and molecules and dogs, Cats and everything else. So there's only one substance and that is source. It ultimately is nothing. It's beyond creation and it comes into creation and it forms everything. I was just listening to a physicist talking about string theory and coincidentally he says string theory says that everything's made of one substance, Just one thing. It takes different shapes. Well, That's what I'm saying too. That's what I see. That's what I feel. That's what a lot of you see and feel. As we get clearer and clearer, That's what it is. So source is just this one. It's just this one thing. So you could call it God. You don't have to. It's just the one thing. But people like that, God. They like all sorts of words. But it's still this one thing as I've described it to me. So I'll leave other people to describe it in other ways, But God is my source. That phrase, I don't know, That's coming from a different angle. You could say the infinite nourishes me. I think that's what they're meaning, Something like that. I think it goes well beyond that as I've just described, But there are many levels of reality and different levels have different terminologies that do nourish us and do help us. So I'm good with God as my source. Some part of us needs to take, It feels good to take in infinite being, Which we could call God. But God still flows from this infinite one. I mean, It's all one. I mean, I don't know this word God. I do know it, But it's beyond all that. I hope that helps. By the way, When I say nothing, It's beyond everything. Well, Creation and everything outside of creation, It's all one. Creation is like the 3D, There are two sides of one coin. Creation is the side that you can see, Feel, Touch, Taste, But it flows from nothing. And they strobe in and out a million times a second. I can see them. It's like, Maybe you can too. You see all these flickers, Like black, White, Black, White, Black, White, Except it's black, All of existence, Black, All of existence, Like in and out, In and out, In and out, Like a strobe light, Really fast. They're all the same thing. So everything in creation is this, Everything is the same as nothing. It's just inside out. I hope that makes some sort of sense. Sarah says, Thank you about her question that we talked about earlier. Thank you, Sarah. Melody goes on to say, Thank you for your response, William. My second question is, How do we continue to forgive and love in the midst of many unhealed others, Some of whom may be family members who have narcissistic traits or filled with darkness, Despair, And anger? Wow, That's a good question, Melody. I think a lot of us have experienced some version of that, Unfortunately. Sounds like you really have, Unfortunately. Here's the thing, I did a podcast, I hope you will listen to it if you haven't, On forgiveness, Where I go into it a little bit more deeply. In my podcast, I attempt to put the subject in the title, So it might be something about forgiveness in the title, But I might listen to that, And it's probably early on, Probably in the first 40 of them, I guess, Somewhere in there. I would guess, I don't know where, But somewhere in there. That will be very helpful, And I might even have a, I think I have a meditation on forgiveness. But right now, Let's talk about that. We're back to, Like all of us, You have to take care of yourself first. You meditate, Take care of yourself, And you may find all sorts of feelings coming up. You want to let them come up, Even if they're quote-unquote not wholesome or happy thoughts. Those are usually the ones that we repress, And I don't know about you, Melody, I'll just talk about me. But those are ones that I, Earlier on, Especially wasn't happy with, So I pushed them away, And then focused on, I'm going to forgive, I'm not going to be angry, I'll forgive. But I was angry, And I pushed it under, Or I was upset, Or I was hurt. When you meditate, Slowly, Slowly, At the right time and place, You can't force it, But they come up. They find their way out, And I would follow what we've talked about, Of how to release them. You do some of the things we just talked about earlier on this podcast, Or go through the other podcasts that I've done, The early ones, And release them, Begin to release them. The reason I say that, And find the source of your being, Find that. You have to sit still, I'm not saying you haven't already, I'm just saying, If you haven't, Find it, And if you have, Deepen there. You don't want to budge from there. And Jesus, The big one on forgiveness, That's his claim to fame, Forgiving. He didn't leave his center, Did he? That's what he's known for. Other gurus have other things that they really focus on, But he focused on forgiveness. That was his main thing. He did not leave his center. So it's hard to forgive when you're not in your center, First of all, Because that person is doing negative things usually, Especially if they're continuing to do negative things. So you need boundaries. Often when you grow up in a family of a narcissist, They don't want you to have boundaries. They just want you to serve them. And we talked a little bit about that in the last podcast. So you don't have boundaries. So it's good to learn to have good boundaries. The perspective that they're doing the best they can is a helpful one. It just may be that they are a sick person. And I don't mean that in a pejorative way. I mean, We're all a little sick. By that, I mean really separated from ourselves. Short of awakening, Awakening should be that that is our normal state. Being awake, Being whole and healthy, Resting in peace. That is who we are. To the degree we don't feel that all the time, Then there's some kind of discord. That's what we're all here working on. Sometimes people are even further out on a limb than you and me. You be as helpful as you can, But protect yourself. They might not be good for you. Doesn't mean that you have to leave them or anything like that. You can stay in relationship to them, But they may actually be doing harmful things. And when you do forgive them, That's for you. It's to let things go so that you don't stew over it. You don't need to hurt yourself because they did a bad thing. Anger hurts me. When I'm angry, It hurts me. Hurt hurts me. Abandonment hurts me. So I let that go. That's why I meditate. That's why I do my spiritual practice. I'm sure you do too, Melody, But I let it go. I forgive them, But it doesn't mean I condone what they're doing. I don't want to get that confused. Forgiveness does not mean I'm agreeing with what they're doing. And sometimes you have to be wise if it's a little bit of dangerous emotionally or physically to say your peace. You're doing the wrong thing. And then it makes life hell for three weeks. Maybe you got to take care of yourself and get out of the pounding surf. I don't know your personal circumstances, But I'm just saying there are many features to forgiveness. And the fundamental feature is love yourself. Take care of yourself. And as you take care of yourself, You can flow from that love. And that love can flow to the other person who may not be open to love. They may not be open to it, But one time in my life earlier, I was especially not open to love. It was hard for me to receive love, Extra hard. And when people love me, Maybe because of my ego or whatever, I didn't let it show. But it did get in there and it started to change me. So take care of yourself. Don't feel that your love is not effective. It is effective, Even if that person doesn't respond. But that's a hard one. So just keep doing a good job. Keep meditating. Keep doing your practice. And such a great question. Thank you for sharing that with us, Melody. Amanda, I like that. The infinite nourishes me, Makes more sense to me. It feels better. And Amanda had just asked about the meaning of the source, I believe. So thank you, Amanda. And Jennifer also says thank you. Yes, Back to Amanda. The infinite does nourish. It is you. I mean, That's my experience. I don't want to put that on somebody else. But from my perspective, It is us. And we nourish ourselves. I mean, It's everything in the universe is ours. And ours is everything. So it's all one. So great. I'm glad that that was a good, That helped Amanda. Melody, Thank you so much, William. Very grateful. Your podcasts are very informative and nourishing to the soul. Namaste. Thank you, William. Thank you, Melody. Thank you. And thanks again for sharing with us. Really, I think that's all of our lives. I think we're all in the exact same boat. It just looks a little different sometimes. What Sarah shared with us, We all have addictions. Amanda and Source, We're all nourished by Source. And I started off this podcast saying you have to know your Source to be able to let go of the other stuff. If I'm grounded in my mind and my emotions, How do I let go of my mind and my emotions? I can't really do it because that's where my center of gravity is. It's like letting myself go. That's what it feels like. I can't do it. But when my center of gravity is actually who I really am in my being, Then this collection of thoughts and feelings, Emotions that I'm experiencing, I can let them go. I can let them breathe because I see that I'm the one that they're breathing in. I can let them go because they're not me. And I see that clearly. To see is to be free. Awareness is curative. You all are asking me such good questions. Somebody asked me, It was Char, I think, Asked, You know, I'm having some deep awakening experiences and I don't want to get lost in too many books and things and off the subject, You know, Going down all these different rabbit holes and different opinions, But I would like a good teacher, Somebody that maybe I could interact with. Yeah, Char, There you are. And I said, You know, You can go back just a little ways. And I, I name in one of the podcasts, A lot of teachers. And then I got to thinking about it. And in that podcast that I was referring to, Still don't remember the number, But it should be in the title. It's more about these awakened beings that I felt that it's a value to be around them because you can feel this explosion of energy that we typically don't feel in our culture. This radiance that people must have felt around Jesus or other awakened beings. It's so blinding and powerful that some people can't get up off the floor. It's the power of being. Why do I find that important? Because it's all of us. And often we sell ourselves short and we don't really realize how powerful our being is. But if we can feel it in somebody else, Then some part of us can go, Whoa, Oh, This is real. If I'm feeling it coming through them, This light, This powerful joy that's changing my life just by feeling it. If they're emanating this, What do I need to do to be more in touch with my light? So it can be very encouraging. Now these beings don't always have good teachings, I found, Unfortunately. You think they would, But they don't always. They just are very good at radiating light and love and well-being. As I said, I talk about these kind of things in that podcast and some others around in that area. So they're not really generally good teachers necessarily. They might be, But so I thought of some teachers that I like and Char, I'll pass those on to you. You can just search them and you'll find information about them. One teacher that I found exquisite and very precise and just very beautiful heart, He's a French man named Francis Lucille, His last name L-U-C-I-L-L-E. Now most of these teachers have zoom meetings and they'll have a group of people and you can talk to them or just listen in. So you don't have to be there. He lives in California, Temecula, California near San Diego, And he has meetings there and he also has retreats all over. But I found him very beautiful of heart and spirit. Another one that, And I've known these from way back, Back when they, Before they were well known, When I was looking. And another one that I liked a lot, His name is Adyashanti, A-D-Y-A-S-H-A-N-T-I, Google him. And I was just curious, So I searched and indeed he has a meeting every two weeks that you can do by zoom and there's a small charge for it. I think it's, If you just went to one meeting, It's $15. If you do two meetings, It's $25, Not huge. And Blossom says Adyashanti is amazing. She writes in, Yes. And another is Muji, M-O-O-J-I. He's in Portugal. He's originally from the Caribbean and he's good to listen to. He's got his own different angle on things and it's good. I would listen, None of these teachers are going to be perfect by the way, No human is going to be perfect. So take everything with a grain of salt, But if it resonates with your heart, You'll feel it. So try different ones out. There's another one that is somewhere between one of these radiant beings that just knock you over and a teacher. He's actually also a good teacher and his name is Shiva Rudra Bali Yogi and easier if you just search S-R-B-Y, Just type in S-R-B-Y and you'll get a number of things. And about the fourth one down, You'll see an Indian looking guy and it will say Shiva Rudra Bali Yogi. That's him. And he also does Zoom meetings. Very good. And his are free. A lot of them are free. We talked the time that you asked that question, Char, We also talked about Michael Singer. You can Google him and he's in Florida and he meets usually about once a week. He has a, It's like a church service, But it's in a, He built a temple and it's in that and it's a little of everything. It's just awakening. It's a service of awakening. It's called the Temple of the Universe, But it's really good. Jennifer and I have been and we listened to him and I like him. I think these podcasts right here are very balanced and they'll give you a center as I mentioned to Char last time. So these are very good and coming in to the live session and just asking questions or listening can be helpful too. So those are some good, That's a good start. You'll find something good in that group. Your podcasts have been great for opening my curiosity, Humble gratitude. Thank you. Yes. And that's the good thing with a live teacher. You can pursue these things very deeply. And my podcasts are good for getting you centered and giving you a perspective. And then you take it from there. Listen to your heart and go. And so a live teacher is really good for that. Jennifer asks, How do you work through big life decisions that are positive, Even natural and intimidating? How do you silence yourself in stillness and meditate? Well, That's a very good question, Jennifer. Well, This is also a place where I think everybody is, Jennifer, Myself included. You don't really silence yourself. That's took me a long time to learn that you don't silence yourself. You just sit still and it will be anything but silence inside. It will not be silence and you will not be silent. It will be like a spinning rubber band, Spinning and releasing energy. And you just do it every day, Every day, Every day. And it'll keep releasing energy, Keep releasing until it's ready to take a breath and breathe in some well-being. It might express what it needs. I'm hurt. I need something. Maybe it breathes in love. Maybe it breathes. This is the foundation of our thoughts, Hurt, Fear, Or anger generally is about 95 percent of those thoughts. So after it releases energy for who knows how long, It then will breathe in wellness. It'll take in some drops and it'll start to relax. And when it relaxes, It will dissolve, Release and let go. And at that point, You'll feel more stillness. The thing is there's generally, It's like if you haven't cleaned a room in your house for 40 years and you keep throwing all your junk in there, That's what we do inside of ourselves when we go through life and we repress things, We throw all the old stuff in there. So when one of these things releases and dissolves, The often the problem is, Is there's 800 more. So all of those are emoting energy. And that's why sometimes it's hard to feel silence or experience silence. It's not that you're not more silence. Every time you do it, You are more silent, But there's still more stuff to dissolve. So to get a break sometimes and bypass that, But there's no getting away from all the baggage that's inside. If you want that room to be clean, You just have to keep at it every day. And we talk about that also in the earlier podcasts, But sometimes that's too much and you just have to get out of the pounding surf. So the best way in addition to doing your meditation is get out in nature, Take a walk. Sometimes exercise can burn off a bunch of this energy. It doesn't get rid of it. It just burns it off the troubling parts. It knocks the top off so that we feel better. Now the next day we don't feel so good because those other 800 are still in there. So that's why we keep meditating and then at the same time, Do other things to help us feel better today, Which touch a tree, Walk in nature, Exercise. Yoga is so profound because a lot of our emotions and thoughts are stored in our muscles. And as we stretch and as we tense and relax, Tense and relax, It releases a whole bunch of that energy. So we get more peace and then we feel our silence. And from our silence, Then you're right. We can see and work through big life decisions. So what I do, Because I've been meditating for a long time, Is I sit still, I feel these great depths of whatever is still left unresolved. I let it unwind. I keep feeling it. I keep feeling it. I keep feeling it. I might feel it all day long, Maybe for days. My body will go in spasms and it feels like I'm having muscle cramps because it's releasing this deep stuff. And then suddenly it releases and relaxes and lets go. And then I can see more clearly and I can just get my answers. They just come to me intuitively. However, You don't have to clean all 800 things in the room to get clear answers. Sometimes there's an opening just because you've done enough. Maybe there's still 796 left, But there's a little space in there that shines through. Your answer can come through that little space. Or when you're walking through nature, It can come through that little space. Even if you still have the other 800 things that have not released yet. Deep prayer and just ask, Hey, What's the answer? Sometimes that comes through. We each have our ways. As Jesus said, Seek and you will find. So you have your ways that you seek. And if you follow them, You will find. Jennifer says, Thank you, William, And all terrific questions. Very helpful. Thank you, Everybody. Thanks for your questions. And Blossom says, I heard from another teacher on Insight Timers. We can't control our thoughts. Thoughts happen. Example he gave. We can't tell ourselves at 8 a. M. I want to think this at 8. 07. I want to think this. Thoughts happen naturally. They do. They happen naturally. That's a big subject, Blossom. Because behind that subject is the question, Can we control anything? Not just thoughts, Anything. And behind that question is, If we are one, Surely the one is controlling everything. So then maybe, So we are controlling everything. Maybe it depends on which level of reality, Which lens, Which pair of sunglasses we're looking through at the time we ask the question. Or are we looking through sunglasses at all? Maybe it's just clear being. And being is all, And being takes care of itself. Being is you. Being is me. Okay. Thanks, Everybody. Thanks for these great questions and thoughts. Y'all take care. I look forward to talking to you next time. Bye.