Lessons

Lesson Info

What are We Dealing with In Life

So let's take a look at what we're actually dealing with here, in our existence. I want you to stop everything you're currently doing, which might be, you know, pondering, wondering, thinking. If you're texting your mom right now you should probably stop doing that. Stop picking your nose right now too, or whatever the heck you're doing. See if you can set aside your internal dialog. Let everything just be, where it is right now. Whether you're here or you're watching online, I want you to take this moment to breathe, get present to your life. Just be with me for a moment. Get present to your surroundings, wherever you are, in your environment. Notice any discomfort, thoughts; maybe what you think you should be doing or shouldn't be doing. Catch that endless whirring of noise in your head; let it just be where it is. And take a moment, start to imagine the people in your life, who you share this life with, your parents ... Siblings ... Friends ... Workmates ... Your loved ones ... Thin...

k of your job or your business, your home ... Your finances. Your health. Think of all of those reasons and excuses and justifications, and explanations for the life that you've currently got. Get present to all of that, all that you're dealing with, all that you're succeeding with, all that you're failing with, just the whole morass of your existence. Lay it all out in front of yourself. Start to ask yourself, what is it that's not going my way, really? What is it that's going on in my life, that I want it to be different, or changed? Where am I frustrated? Where am I not free to be who I want to be? Where have I tried and tried, and it's still not working? Who can give me an example of somewhere, an area of your life, just a one or two word answer to this question, where you experienced that, like when I'm saying this to you, you're like, "Oh yeah, that area of my life, "that's what it's like for me." Who can give me one of those? All the way at the back here, yes. Family relationships. In your family relationships. Finances. You guys are in your finances, same to you Deborah, your finances. Shirley? Business. Your business. Marshall? My business. Your business. Karen? My wellness. My wellness, my wellbeing. Health. Your health; yep, very good. What else we got, does somebody else have ... I was also going to say ... You were going say your health too. But everybody can have an area like that in mind, but you can really see that weight that you tolerate, and make okay, and put up with, and in some cases it's not like you haven't tried. Like, you've tried. Start letting all those things in. All of those things that are not going the way that you thought they would, or maybe even that they should be going that way and they're not. Maybe your love life is stuck somewhere between awful and nonexistent. Maybe you're still living paycheck to paycheck. Maybe you've added another notch or two to your belt in the last few months; you're not the shape you want to be. Take it all in, everything. Your career, your relationships, your health, your family, your hobbies, everything that's not going the way that you think it should go. Now remember, you have to be really straight with yourself here, and that's the same with everybody online. It's really easy online to watch this like this is Maury Povich or something. You've got to really set yourself, whether you're watching this on your phone, or your laptop or your tablet or something, and really look at your own real life, what's actually going on in it. I mean, most of us can just, you know, wistfully explain our problems away, but we're not straightforward about them. We satisfy ourselves with some kind of flippant examination, or we indulge ourselves in the drama of it all, without taking a really long, hard look at ourselves and what we are actually dealing with in our day-to-day life. We think stuff like, "Well, my job sucks because "you know, I didn't go to college "and I can't get a better job. "I'm not qualified." So you stay stuck. "I can't lose weight! "Everybody in my family's like this!" So you stay stuck. "I spend too much time watching TV, "because my job's too tiring! "Exhausted!" You explain, you justify, you overcome, all the while drifting along in the automatic slurry of your thoughts and behaviors. Get specific with yourself; what are you really overcoming? In denial about, lying to yourself about? Pretending or avoiding in your own life. Set aside all your reasons and excuses and give it to yourself, like really, like raw, straight, uncut, the real version. There's a passage in Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, which is a mouthful for anybody but particularly with a Scottish accent. (audience laughs) "Above all, don't lie to yourself. "The man who lies to himself," or the woman ... (audience laughs) Some of you are like, "Oh thank gosh, it was my husband!" (laughter intensifies) "All along, I know it was him." "The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie "comes to a point that he cannot "distinguish the truth within him, or around him, "and so loses all respect for himself and others. "And having no respect, he ceases to love." Being straight with yourself might be a little uncomfortable ... Correction; it most likely will be uncomfortable, perhaps a lot. And that's because it's something we don't normally do. We actually spend our lives skirting around, or just outright denying, the issues that you have in your life. And you'll notice the things I'm talking about, you guys. You can readily explain those places in life where you're stuck, but your explanations are making no difference! Again, you know, of course I'm angry. I'm short! (laughter) It's what we do! (audience laughs) We spend year after year after year just overcoming them, stuck in a swirl that keeps us trapped. We can't move forward, squeezed into the life that, "I never really wanted this; how did I end up here?" I mean look, if you hang around a bunch of first or second graders, none of them are saying, "And then when I'm 50, "and I get married for the second time ..." (laughter) None of them are doing that! None of them! They're all like, "I want to be an astronaut! "And the president, and I might just scuba dive at weekends, "in Antigua!" (audience laughs) You're like, "I'd like to get another two bucks an hour." That's where you end up! So, as you start to identify what you're struggling with, I also want you to start to think about, how do these things impact you. Mentally, emotionally, physiologically. Like, what's it like for you to live with all this? What do these problems feel like to you? And this is where I invite you to let in, what's it really like for you to live with this stuff, bearing down on you. So who can get past their okay-ness enough to tell me what it's like for you, and you can just do this from your chair again. What's it like for you, when you look at it in this context, from in this morning's conversation, what it's like for you to live with this, like really? Who can give me a short answer from your seat, Dave? I'm doing less and I'm more tired. I'm doing less, I'm more tired. So your experience of all this is tiring? Yeah. Would it be fair to say "worn down"? I just feel lazy and uncaring, and, yeah. Yeah; okay, I get that. Right there. Depression. You're depressed, got that. [Woman with curly hair] Frustrated, hard to even know where to start. Yeah, I'm frustrated, and then when you said, like, "Where do I start," does that like kind of-- To change it, to get where I want to be, that I haven't done. Alright, so that sounds like resignation. Sure. How many of you would say you've got a little bit of resignation going on about those areas of your life, like, "Pfft, what's the point," you know? (audience laughs) Really; Taylor? Unfulfilled, like all the work that I've done hasn't really made that big of a difference? Very good, so, "All the work that I've done "hasn't really made that big of a difference," so my experience of all of this is that I'm unfulfilled. I get that; Deborah? Depressive worry, like I'm just squeezed all the time, never enough, have to be more. Yeah, and then so, your experience is that you've got this kind of oppressive worry, like you're squeezed, and it's never enough. And then how do you overcome that; do you work harder at it? I work harder until I'm exhausted and fall down. Alright, got it. Alright who else have we got? Can we hand a microphone; Jessica you go first. Overwhelmed. So you're experience of all this, overwhelmed. Now, can I offer you something about that overwhelm? Yes. Right, do you see that it's right here, right now, just when you said that? Yes (laughing). Right, like you're on thin ice. I want you to consider that thin ice of yours, that's how you do your day. Every day. Right; now, living life like that, leaves you with the experience of what? Despair. Despair? I really get that; I really get that. That makes a lot of sense; I got that. Alright, well this is the course for you for sure. Anger. Anger, so you experience anger in your life, right. How many of you would say you experience that, like you're angry about it? I'm Scottish; I totally get that whole anger thing. (audience laughs) We do that, it's like ... Anyway, you have to be angry to wear a kilt. (crowd chuckles) A little bit of fury does you a world of good when you have to venture out in public in that thing. Merrily? I'm at the "enough" point, the tipping point ... So you feel like you're at the tipping point ... The bucket's heavy, too heavy to carry by myself anymore, I've got to do something different. Right, I've got to do something different. But determined. So pressed, but now you're feeling like you're determined, now it's got to change. Alright, that's very good. Alright one more person, what's it like? Right behind you there. Beyond resignation but, to completely apathetic. Yeah! Right, you're just apathetic about it now. Which leaves you with this kind of, like a space of powerlessness, like, you can't do anything with it. And one of the things that I say to people when I do this kind of work is, I'll say you're a miracle. And it sounds a little like, you know, like I'm turning water into wine or something; I don't mean a miracle in a biblical sense. I mean, there was once upon a time in your life when you were just pure potential. In its purest form; pure potential. And yet somehow, we end up here. And even with all of this that we've ended up with, again, somehow, you're still getting life done, right? Even with my money worries, I'm still alive! Like, you know, I'm concerned for paying the cable bill, and yet we still have cable (crowd chuckles). I'm concerned for groceries or the power bill, but the power's on. Like, I managed to kind of eke it out with what I apparently have.