A Beautiful Thought

I welcome you to the final episode of A Beautiful Thought.

Looking around us, we might notice there are many strange inversions in the world. Things seem to be the exact opposite to what they’re supposed to be.

For example, once there were grand books telling stories that would appeal to the masses, and at once teach high spiritual ideas, such as the Mahabharata and its extract, the Bhagavad-Gita.

Now the popular stories we see seem to be mere backdrops to act as propaganda for powerful organizations such as BlackRock. The spiritual ideals are eliminated, the entertainment reduced, and the message they want to push is most prominent.

Another example is the concept of “mother”. In the tradition of yoga, once men would mentally refer to women as “Mother”, controlling their lust and attempting to see them as the Divine Feminine. Now in TikTok videos, young men leave comments calling attractive women “Mommy”, for quite another purpose.

We might say our innocence has been taken from us, or we might say that we willingly gave it up. But even in a world like this, our innocence can be regained. The solution can take time and effort, but it is simple.

By pursuing sexual continence, control of one’s own thoughts, and keeping God in mind, we can regain that innocence. Instead of moving deeper into the world, we move deeper into ourselves, into self-control, and into our own spirits.

The rewards are numerous, and perhaps they are even perfect.

If you’re a verbal thinker, you’re likely a highly linear thinker. That can mean it’s easy for you to get stuck in a thought pattern.

One thought leads you to the next, then to the next, and then it leads you back to the first thought. As our brains operate with state-based memory, we may find more and more things that bother us.

Unable to perceive the overview of our mental patterns, we might stay like that for days, or possibly years.

One solution is meditation. When we take the time to observe our thoughts, we do gain that overview.

Another method is journaling. By putting our thoughts on a page, we can begin to recognise the patterns and the structure, and we can more easily find a way out.

Often a memory will come to mind, and we get a glimpse of something we did. In that moment we might sense an incongruence.

We grasp for a sense of self, an idea that we had about who we were. That leads us to resist what actually happened. The inevitable result is suffering.

In fact, grasping and resisting are so closely related that we might say they are the same thing. To grasp for something we wish were true is to resist the reality.

In a single moment, we can let go of grasping, let go of resisting, allowing, embracing or even worshipping what we once were, and what we now are.

In Allen Carr’s Easy Way To Quit Smoking, he describes a situation where a recent former smoker has a thought: “I want a cigarette.” Carr informs us that, even though we might literally have the thought telling us we want a cigarette, that doesn’t mean we actually want a cigarette.

It’s similar with many fleeting desires that surge in our bellies and heads. We get the whim to go to the fridge and stare to see what there is to eat, even though we’re not particularly hungry. We feel a sexual urge, even though we do not wish to procreate. While that urge’s fulfillment may give us satisfaction for a moment, it is unlikely to grant us happiness.

On the contrary, a life spent chasing whims is commonly a depressed one, and a lonely one.

Many desires are like these urges - mere caprices. Though they present themselves as very important and urgent, they normally are very different from our souls’ dearest wishes. Finding those requires a lot more patience and looking within.

When we do have a whim like this, it presents us a chance to find out more about who we really are. Watching the thought and the desire within us, we might quickly find that, however much it demands, it is not in control.

Our breath is a bridge between our conscious and unconscious minds. At any moment, we can take control of it and start to influence those deeper parts of ourselves.

One classic technique is the Nadi Shoshana, or "channel cleansing" breath. The index finger and middle finger are placed on the forehead, as if either side of the third eye. Then the thumb and ring finger are used to alternate the nostrils.

By timing our breaths we can quickly settle our passions and our minds, calming them and allowing us to enjoy life a little more.

Matt Welsh is a musician from the United States, creating conscious music intended to bring awakening to the mind of the listener. Matt is known by his stage name “BLUVBU” (“Be love, be you”).

In this interview, Matt tells a story of teenage heartbreak, struggle and grief. Getting out of high school, he decided to break up with his sweetheart Sarah in order to pursue his passion, touring the east coast of the US as a drummer in the band Bright and Early. It was a hard decision for Matt, not wanting to leave his girlfriend behind, but also believing that it was important for him to go and experience the world.

When he finished touring, he went back home and eventually reunited with his girlfriend. He found that they’d both changed, both being more mature and more experienced - through good and bad.

Then Matt woke up one morning to a strange phone call from Sarah. He got in his vehicle and went to see her, as something seemed to be wrong. Tragically, that was the last time anyone heard from Sarah.

After that, Matt faced the difficult challenge of overcoming his grief, figuring out who he was and what he wanted to do with his life. By way of this tragedy, he decided to live life to the fullest and become something great.

Hear Matt’s story in this interview.

Many people receive their view of the world primarily through television and news sites, without putting into context what the media is telling them. They may even have personal experience seeing the media lie about some subject they know well - but they don’t hold that in mind when they see the news talk about any other subject.

In media there still exists this saying “If it bleeds, it leads.” The most shocking, most sensational stories go to the front page, and if the news isn’t sensational enough, they may well change the title to make it seem more alarming.

In this age, it’s not just the news who twists the truth this way. There are even scientific papers which present a very uncertain conclusion in the paper itself, and a very different version in the abstract to show to the public.

When something seems alarming, it’s very important to ask: Are they trying to make me afraid, and why?

In Swami Muktananda’s Play of Consciousness, he recounts the story of visiting his guru, Baba Nityananda. Muktananda observes Nityananda fulfilling his morning routine - spending an hour or more worshiping himself.

In another part of the book, Muktananda tells aspirants more directly to follow Nityananda’s example and worship themselves - turning their attention and praise within and basking in their own divine consciousness.

Perhaps it’s difficult to conceptualize exactly how to do it. Many people in modern culture are not familiar with what it means to worship.

Even so, the process is quite simple. If we imagine bowing to a great saint or to our god, we might start to feel a little twinge, a feeling of praise or glory. Then we can turn that feeling towards our own inner light.

When we grow as individuals, we might find ourselves making new classes of error that were previously unimaginable to us. For example, having gained new confidence in speaking with friends and strangers, we make a faux pas and we don’t know how to talk ourselves out of it.

We might feel shame or guilt, wonder how we could have said such a thing, or even think “This would have never happened when I was more of a quiet person.”

It’s true, it never would have happened to the old you - the old you didn’t have the power to make such a mistake, nor did they have the power to relate or inspire as you do now.

Here you stand on the brink between what was comfortable and what we might become; here we honor our errors.

In this age of information, when we’re curious about something it can be easy to pull out a smartphone and search for what we’d like to know. The ease of access to information means we don’t always have to stop to think any more.

There are many things that are valuable to figure out for ourselves, without the use of Google. We can engage our memory, our logic, and our creativity to fill those gaps in our knowledge. Whether we’re right or wrong, we have pumped juice into those forgotten parts of our brains, again awakening that potential.

For example, a beginner guitarist might wonder how to add a seventh note to a G chord. He could look it up, or he could stop and think about which notes are being played on which strings, and which fret he might finger to add that F note to form the seventh chord.

Then there are things which an Internet search won’t yield easy answers. For example, the feeling of a chord progression going from the first chord to the fourth, and back to the first. Nobody else can tell us exactly how that feels. We must feel it for ourselves, noticing with attention and purpose.

Amina Mara is a conscious dreamer of broad and profound experience, now having lucid dreams as often as 3 times a week - a frequency which is uncommon even among recognized dream practitioners. Amina is also the host of the Dream World Podcast where she interviews people about how their dreams affect their lives, among other subjects.

Years ago, Amina found herself in an unhealthy relationship, isolated from her family and unsure how to progress in her life. Through exploring her dreams she found a path to wisdom and greater freedom. By imagining vividly in her dreams she began to form a more fulfilling life, even receiving the inspiration to create her podcast.

In this interview with Amina Mara, you can hear how she developed her dreaming skills, how her passion enabled her to move past her fears, and the wide-ranging and exciting possibilities that are available to a skilled dreamer.

Going through our lives, we might be able to arrange things so we can have a series of good experiences, maintaining the outside world in a careful balance, so it seems like we are happy.

In some ways, this is dysfunctional, and in an extreme case, it is the attitude of a drug addict. They arrange things so they can get another fix, and feel satisfied. Soon after, they have another lack.

We might believe that our good experiences fulfill us, but perhaps we are merely avoiding dissatisfaction.

If we look deep inside, we might find we don’t really need to do things or receive things. All we need is our own support, being our own best friend.

If you live in Australia or the United States and tell people you’re travelling to Mexico, or Colombia, they might tell you that you’ll be lucky to return alive.

Even many Mexicans might tell you they’re scared to go to Michoacán or other beautiful places.

Normally these aren’t well-travelled people, but they have many concerns about where the danger lies. When you ask if they want to go too, they might say “I can’t.”

One day you might have said “I can’t,” but when you tried some small adventure, you found you could. Take a few small adventures, each one bigger than the last, and after some years you find yourself doing things that, just recently, you couldn’t have imagined.

The world is waiting for you.

Memories surge in our minds and we cringe, wondering why we had to do that thing which caused us so much shame. On one level, we identify strongly with the past version of ourselves who did it, and on another level, we strongly resist it - not wanting to believe that we ever had the capacity to do such a thing.

In On Becoming A Person, Carl Rogers describes in many ways how his patients would almost always reach a certain point in therapy, where they let go of many ideas and ideals about who they believed they were. They realized that their identities were more complex and fluid than any paragraph or summary. They were complete people, ongoing processes that were free of definition.

In that scenario where we are plagued by some cringey memory, we can make a choice to let go. We can let go of the resistance, embracing our past self as an aspect of us. We can let go of the identity, accepting that we are more than could ever be defined by one event.

In Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Quit Smoking, Carr and his students describe how quitting smoking can appear difficult - even being built up as a momentous task by anti-smoking campaigns. However, once one proceeds with correct understanding, the act and habit become as simple as remembering to park in a new parking space.

Many aspects of our lives are like this. We can struggle to give things up, laboring under false knowledge - and continuing to fight against it.

Or we can take up truth, and find simplicity.

Oksana Fajardo is a coach living in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, helping people leave unhealthy relationships and feel secure in themselves.

To get there, she had to leave a toxic relationship herself, realizing the nature of the relationship, studying various aspects of personal development, and applying them in her own life.

She discovered that she had an anxious attachment style, and her marriage was based on a kind of love addiction or addiction to fantasy - always trying to believe that the relationship was something more or different than it was.

Eventually she left the marriage, and around that time, the German government ordered citizens to go into lockdown. That meant she couldn’t see her friends, let alone make new friends, which again presented an ordeal, and opened a door for personal growth.

She started researching again, finding a lot of tools to overcome limiting beliefs and other aspects of herself. Finally, despite all of the uncertainty and misinformation, she decided to leave Germany and come to Mexico, where she found freedom.

The man in the hall said “Much of what I do is motivated by a desire to make up for the bad things I did in the past.” Many in the room stood up in the circle to show that they resonated strongly with what he’d said, that they too wanted to heal and let go of that part of themselves.

While we might not literally believe in a karmic scoreboard, it seems the thought can drive many of our actions. We want to offset our past mistakes with new deeds.

However, maybe we don’t need to do that. If we have reflected on the past, repented or decided to be a different person, now we are transformed.

That is more than enough.

In the Lakota tradition, they have this phrase “Wakan Tanka”, which is often translated as “Great Spirit”, meaning God or Divine Nature. However, some scholars suggest that a more literal translation is “Great Mystery”.

Many times we might face an existential crisis, some aspect of life or of ourselves which confounds us. We might even face the untimely death of a loved one. The Lakota will sometimes go to someone in such a state of grief to ask for their advice, as those people are as close to Divinity as a person can be on Earth.

When we do face those difficult questions, we might struggle with it, but perhaps we should embrace it. When we face those great confusions, we might be facing the Great Mystery.

When we were children, many of us couldn’t wait to grow up. We wanted to be independent, to be responsible for ourselves, to have the freedom that adulthood would afford us.

Now we may be grown, and we think about those carefree days of our youth, wondering what we had missed by spending our time wishing for the future. “We were happy and we didn’t even know it,” we say to ourselves.

The big lie is that one day things were or will be fundamentally different than they are now. We look to the past or the future for our salvation, thinking that is where happiness is to be found.

Perhaps we’re mistaken to look so often in this way. Perhaps these are the good old days.

In many parts of the world, people are charmed by images of the Buddha. They liked to put them on a mantlepiece or in their garden as ornaments, perhaps without thinking about the deeper meaning of these statues.

In Thailand, the image of the Buddha is so revered that it is illegal to use it as a decoration. The only appropriate place for such an image is a shrine for contemplation.

When we see the Buddha in a garden or on a shelf, we could berate the householder, or be shocked that the Buddha has been reduced in such a way. Or we could notice Him, and elevate Him in our minds, feeling grateful for the wisdom of Our Teachers, creating a shrine in that very moment, in that very place.

At certain dark times in our lives, we might begin to wonder if it’s worth going on. We might start to think about taking our own life, and even seriously considering it.

If we’re in that position, it can become apparent that we really have nothing left to lose. In that case, we could just take off, venturing into the world or into the wild like Alexander Supertramp.

The world is a vast, various, curious place with a lot of people to meet, jungles, deserts and highways to explore. If we’re close to giving up, we may as well find out for ourselves if there’s something out there for us.

So, why don’t you just go?

In Keith Johnstone’s book Impro, he describes a situation where there is a circle of actors improvising in verse. As the circle goes around to one of the actors, he comes up with some incredible rhyme that has the actors gasping and the audience in hysterics.

When the circle comes back around to that same actor, he might be feeling pressure - the pressure that he’s putting on himself to be the same person who just came up with that amazing rhyme a moment ago.

Putting pressure on oneself like that is rarely the right way to come up with something great. The first time, he was relaxed and willing to say the first thing that came into his head - willing to flow.

The only way that he has a chance to invent something as stunning again is to feel comfortable with inventing something ordinary - to be just another human, an ordinary guy.

We might feel fear about doing something, taking a risk in our careers, traveling to a new place, or taking a workshop that is outside our comfort zone.

These fears might make us uncomfortable. However, they are truly an expression of how much you care for yourself - wanting to keep yourself safe, healthy and protected.

The problem is, in this case, the way we express our desire for safety prevents our potential for growth.

How can you meet your needs in a way that truly serves you? How can you feel healthy, safe and full, even while taking risks and growing?

In the movie Concussion we can watch the story of Dr. Bennet Omalu, the physician who discovered that many football players in the USA were receiving a form of brain damage known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy. The repeated blows to the head and resulting concussions over many years lead to many problems with mental health in the players.

Many people attempt to prevent Dr. Omalu’s efforts, asking him to have some respect for the players’ bodies and families. However, Omalu had a higher ideal of respect - that pursuing the truth and perhaps preventing further injury was valuable.

We can see, in a Hollywood version of events, how the good doctor showed reverence for his patients, praying and asking for their help before he performed an autopsy. Dr. Omalu’s commitment to truth and completion presented him with many difficulties. Finally, his work was recognized as true.

How can the virtues of one person, fully embodied, make a difference in the world?

When we begin seated meditation, it’s possible that we see it as a chore. Perhaps we know that it is good for us, but it is hard to put ourselves on that cushion, and when the timer rings we get up as quickly as we can, having pushed our patience to the limit.

With a little discipline, we begin to enjoy the practice, seeing the changes it makes in our lives, or perhaps seeing the practice as an end in itself.

Soon we might see our seated meditation as something precious, deserving of a little ritual. Just as we dress carefully to enter a church or temple, just as the temple is a place dedicated to worship, we might set aside a place and robes for our meditation.

Meditation is an event; it is something special. When we treat it as something special, it may become more special still.

We have access to certain information, so we don’t always pause to think about the information we don’t have. Once we do pause to think about it, we can realize very quickly that there might be a lot we don’t know.

As Donald Rumsfeld said in his wisest and most-disparaged quote: “There are known knowns, things we know that we know; and there are known unknowns, things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns, things we do not know we don't know.”

Even in a mundane situation, such as someone being rude to us, we can ask ourselves “What might we not know?” Perhaps that person is normally very nice, but just having a really bad day or struggling with grief. Or perhaps that person is rude to everyone, and there’s absolutely nothing personal about it.

Don Miguel Ruíz reminds us in The Four Agreements, we should not make assumptions. Unfortunately, that is tricky and even impractical, because we’re not always aware of what we assume. A more practical tip comes from Difficult Conversations, in which the authors tell us to assume that there are things we do not know.

Every year since 2015, people have gone to Anarchapulco, finding ways to bring more freedom into their lives.

Kurt Robinson took the stage again in 2022, asking people to reflect on their lives. He asks, what might you learn from the past - when you were living on your edge, in those moments when you doubted if you could continue or if you could succeed, how you pulled through in one form or another, and how things were never quite as bad as they seemed.

He asks what you might learn from the future - imagining even the worst case scenario, facing your own death and wondering what it might mean, how you might put your life into context and die in peace.

Finally he asks, what is going on right now? What liberty can you gain from noticing the life that is unfolding before you, the life in your body, the light of your consciousness?

Join us for Kurt’s powerful presentation from Anarchapulco 2022 - “There Is Still Magic Within You”.

In our jobs, if we are working for an employer or working for ourselves, we might be tempted to cut corners. Nobody will notice, we tell ourselves. There we set the precedent of not giving our all, and slowly we reduce our integrity.

On the other hand, we can say to ourselves “The way I do one thing is the way I do everything,” and “My work speaks for me.” By noticing and improving even the small details, we speak to the world: “Precision matters; I will do my best even if nobody notices.”

In time, people surely will notice.

We can get caught up in our routines, facing our everyday lives - the same activities with the same attitudes.

We might have a fantasy, believing that one day things will be different. At the same time, we might be afraid to think about where this path is leading us, because we already have a concept of where it does lead.

Allowing ourselves to bring those questions clearly into consciousness, we can begin to see what landmarks lie along that path. If we are not taking care of our health, we can see that it might get worse. Likewise, if we are changing our thoughts and taking action in the area of health, we can see it might get better - even though the effects are not yet apparent.

Gently, we ask ourselves these questions, and we begin to see the future, and alter our destiny. Where is this belief leading me? How is this mode of being going to affect my future? What will happen if I choose to be something else?

Sometimes we might lose our temper, shouting or even just becoming passive aggressive with our friends. Sometimes it’s appropriate for them to draw a boundary and say, “Please don’t speak to me that way.” But many times it’s not necessary.

When our friends respond in a way that demonstrates absolute patience, that they see our good intentions purely, we will want to live up to their expectations of us.

Through their grace, we see ourselves better.

It’s well-known to criminologists that poor company can affect a person’s values and life situation. At first a person might find the concept of stealing abhorrent, but after spending a few months hanging out with people who find it normal, it is likely that person will also find it normal.

Likewise, if we surround ourselves with righteous people, people who are motivated, who meditate, who take care of their bodies and their diet, all of those habits and qualities are likely to enter into our minds and days.

Luis Fernando Mises is a consultant for many companies, teaching servant leadership, and is also a guide in the spiritual realm, leading sacred breathwork ceremonies and other types of ceremonies. Throughout his many years of experience he has learnt how to create an environment that is conducive to growth and revelation among his clients and students.

In this interview Kurt and Luis discuss the principles of leading a ceremony and how it relates to business, to intimate relationships, and every aspect of life.

Luis explains how our breath is a link to our unconscious processes, and how it is a powerful tool to activate our parasympathetic systems, bringing us into a state of deep relaxation, and even awakening emotions which might have been numbed for years.

On social media, you can find many videos that bring your emotions to the surface - footage of dogs caring for cats, a clip of a father seeing his daughter for the first time in years, cute ducks rescuing their ducklings and many other things.

In the comments, it’s normal to read people saying things like “I’m not crying - you’re crying!” or “Wow, is someone cutting onions?”

Perhaps these comments are just jokes, but perhaps they’re reflective of the cultures we live in. Rather than simply say they are moved, many people find a roundabout way of saying that they are affected emotionally.

Maybe we don’t need to be cool, to be detached from our emotions, or make excuses for them. Maybe those emotions are worth being honest about.

In the Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup, there is a famous scene where the president of Freedonia, played by Groucho Marx, talks himself into believing that the foreign ambassador is going to refuse to shake his hand. Naturally, when the ambassador walks in, Groucho slaps him in the face.

It’s an absurd scene, and it’s also very incisive. Many times we believe we know the intentions of others, and we behave accordingly.

This almost always has consequences in our relationships. If we believe someone is avoiding us on purpose, then we might start to act awkwardly around them, and soon enough they might start avoiding us, even if they weren’t previously.

We can never know others’ intentions perfectly, and so it makes sense to assume that there are things we do not know.

In the introduction to No Limit Hold ‘Em: Theory and Practice, poker theorist David Sklansky says that he held off from writing a book about NLHE for so long, because he would often see certain players win consistently, even though their style of play was not technical.

The biggest winners were often players who had a feel for the game, understanding their own emotions and the emotions of the other players, being in touch with the moment and knowing how to interpret their intuitions.

The game of poker may have changed over the years, however this principle rings true in many aspects of life. As hard as we try to follow the wisdom of our teachers, sometimes it might be justified to go against tradition. As hard as we try to follow our stated values, sometimes it is beneficial to defy them and discover some deeper value, some deeper wisdom.

In recent years we’ve seen a lot of chaos in the world, a lot of panic, fear and confusion.

Many people have lost friendships, because they realized with shock that their friends had very different values to them. Instead of valuing research, discernment, and companionship, they valued compliance.

Some people managed to maintain their calm and wish others health, even if they disagreed. Perhaps we can even go one step beyond, and have a good time - no matter how crazy the world gets.

Sara Zobek was working in logistics for an import company in Poland when she decided it was time to change her life, enroll in a course, become a life coach and make her way to Mexico.

In this episode, Sara tells us about how she made the decision, rejecting the ideals of prestige and stability that might have kept her working for a corporation, facing her own self-image and limiting beliefs, and traveling the world.

Socrates famously said “The only thing I know is that I know nothing.” Socrates noted that others labored under the illusion of knowledge, but they weren’t aware that it was an illusion. His awareness of his own illusion was what made him, reputedly, the wisest man in the world.

Many times during our lives we might get the feeling that we don’t know what is happening in our lives, that we’re not really who we try to be, that we’re just pretending we know how to be an adult.

We might be very uncomfortable with that idea. However, it surely beats the alternative of being certain in foolishness.

Sometimes manipulation and motivation can seem quite similar. What makes the difference is the circumstances and the intention.

For example, if your partner said they would go to the movies with you, but now they’re not in the mood, you might sing a song, dance with them, make them laugh. Now they want to go to the movies, and you have a great time.

In a different situation, a person might suspect that they’re about to hear a difficult subject come up in conversation. They put on your favorite song and cook you a good meal, and suddenly you don’t feel like talking about anything serious.

Using these tricks on people can be a good thing, or a bad thing, depending on how you use them.

According to a popular conspiracy theory, history has been recently erased, removing the memories of a worldwide civilization with advanced technology.

One of these technologies was the power of sound healing. Many cities and towns over the world have extensive tunnel systems beneath them, and in many cases the cathedral is the central point. The huge pipe organ in the cathedral would spread vibrations, perhaps sending music through water in the tunnels.

According to the theory, the church would use these vibrations to promote positive emotions throughout the cities, adjusting the song depending on the needs of the people.

Whether these stories are true or not, it’s clear that we do not have access to that technology. However, we do have the power of a much more extensive network, which is the Internet and social media. By using the tools of our era, we can send positive vibrations all over the world.

People often find themselves in tricky positions. If they haven’t ever made a heart-level decision to honor truth, if they haven’t carefully thought about the situation, or if they’re not fully aware in the moment, they will likely say something that is not true.

It’s not exactly a lie - in the strictest sense a lie is when you deliberately state an untruth. In that moment, the person is merely saying what is salient. They say the first thing that comes to mind without fully considering how it aligns with reality.

We can be disturbed when we start to notice how often people do this. However, the reality is that these kinds of misrepresentations are to be expected. It is much more common to say whatever is convenient than it is to clearly think about the situation.

We might get upset when there is a big untruth. However, perhaps it is more important to notice and be grateful when someone clearly and accurately states the facts.

Rich Simpson was living in Melbourne, Australia, working on some projects as a documentary filmmaker when the world started to change. The Victorian government started to introduce rules that restricted everyone’s lifestyle, eventually affecting Rich’s income.

The police and military presence started to become a lot more obvious, and police actions became less and less professional.

When Rich noticed how people were reacting without question - in fact, even becoming hostile to people with different opinions - he decided it might be time to leave.

He had to ask the Australian government for permission to leave Australia, and decided to fly to beautiful Puerto Vallarta, Mexico where he fully embraced his liberty.

Listen to the interview to find out how Rich escaped Australia, started making money online and found a new life in Mexico.

Content warning: strong language, drug references

When we feel the cold, we might try to escape it by thinking hot thoughts, imagining the sun in our faces or a warm blanket. Normally that leads us to disconnect more from the cold, and therefore leads us to more discomfort.

If instead we embrace the cold, we might notice that the thing we are running from is not so bad after all. The cold might not be our favorite state, but it is a sensation more or less like any other.

It is the same with our emotions. We do whatever we can to avoid feeling them. When we finally do, we find that they are not what we imagined; they are just another element of us.

If you tell your colleagues that you visited a friend in hospital on the weekend, they might have varied reactions.

One of your colleagues might say “Oh, that is depressing”.

Another colleague might say “That is so sweet that you were there to support your friend.”

We might say that both of these perspectives are equally as valid, but they’re not equally beneficial for us.

Which way would you prefer to see things?

It’s not easy to get on stage and speak or perform before a crowd of people. For many it is a greater fear than death.

When we do take the stage, or present our writing, artwork, songs, to others, we are taking the chance that it might be rejected. Many crowds will be sympathetic, but we may even receive ridicule.

Our audience may acknowledge our passion, our effort, our skill - or they may not. That is what makes it such a powerful statement - to ourselves, if nobody else. We are willing to put skin in the game, to put our passion on the line, to show what is within us.

It’s common for us to have expectations about what will happen in our lives, in our work, in our relationships. Our mind is busy trying to project what might happen, and then we have some emotional reaction to these stories about the future - perhaps feeling hope that they will happen, or despair that they won’t happen.

If these visions play out without us noticing them, they may well cause us suffering. Even if the actual events that pass are agreeable, we might not enjoy them, simply because we expected something different.

When we notice these stories fully, being present with them, allowing them to exist, we keep our minds from going off unrestrained. Our everyday life becomes a meditation - noticing the thoughts, and returning our focus to whatever task is at hand.

There is a famous story about Sylvester Stallone having to sell his dog for $25 in order to eat. When he finally makes a deal selling the script of Rocky for $35,000, he goes back to find the man who bought his dog. Stallone offers $100, then $500, then finally $15,000 and a part as an extra in Rocky.

The moral of the story is, when you are certain what you want, it’s important to adapt your strategy to align with that end.

In this episode, Kurt talks about the future of A Beautiful Thought, and how he might adapt his strategy in order to attain success.

Sometimes we might get a feeling - anxiety, worry, fear - and we’re unsure if it relates to an intuition, or if it’s just our emotions getting carried away. So how can we tell the difference between a gut feeling and a common worry?

In a sense, the worry is noise. We know that we can worry about things whether our worries are justified or not. The problem is how to get to what is below the worry.

So we can process our fears, our insecurities and anxieties, thanking them for being there, being present with them, or breathing through them. When we find ourselves in a place of peace, we can ask if there’s still a question, something a little more subtle at the bottoms of our bellies. That is how we will know.

We’ve heard the phrase “Trust the science” many times over the last couple of years. However, science is an ongoing process of inquiry. The only way it can work is if people don’t trust it, but instead subject it to reasonable scrutiny.

The greater modern myth is the concept that we don’t have the authority to learn for ourselves, to observe the world around us and form our own conclusions. If our personal observations are at odds with a peer-reviewed study, we should reject our own experience and trust a paper written by someone we have never met.

Science is more than double blind tests and peer-reviewed papers. In fact, the only way anyone can do science is by trusting their own observations and forming conclusions based on them.