This is speaking to me in a way I’m finding difficult to give language. It registers in a gentle but seismic way. Something you said reached down into my heart and pulled on the threads of an energy that’s been sleeping, waiting. Thank you.
“The collapse is not the catastrophe. It is not to be feared. It is the door to a better functioning world. But better measured not on human thriving terms alone. That is the shift. It is enormous. And it is uncomfortable.”
This is the section that grabbed hold of my shoulders, looked me square in the eyes, and told me clearly: it’s time. You asked me an important question in an email earlier this month, “What are you preparing for?”
All these years of work towards nervous system recalibration so that I could listen to my body came into sharp focus. The mind lies. The fear that holds me hostage is a construct. The body says yes to this path. I now understand what I have been preparing for. 🙏 Deep bow. Immense gratitude and love.
When you have existed between three and seven, almost your entire life, the resistance to slow down, or to attempt to reach zero is strong. The body has become addicted to the chemicals/peptides of fear, anxiety, stress. My favorite work on this is by the woman who discovered these peptides, who didn’t even get the credit, Candice Pert. The molecules of motion is a very interesting and profound work.
I would say, however, that, at least the way I read it in your essay, and I may have misunderstood you, is that zero stillness. The way I understand it is there is no stillness. There are levels of frequency, because we are always moving. In order to balance one must be able to move the body in different directions, even if it’s noticeable so even in zero there is a push and a pull. Both required in a beautiful little dance of agreement.
Indeed movement is why we are part of the Animal reign. Animated is what qualifies us.
Yet my point is not that stillness is our nature or that ignoring the push and pull is the ideal state of being. Yet push and pull from external source are different than the movements coming from the "stillness", from Wu Wei, from awareness of the push&pull of externalities and making a different choice, the choice to move from a different place. A different place than the one that created the mess we are in.
The same Gita I quoted, Krishna (Bob)says: "Even the wise are confused about what is action and what is inaction", "I am never without action","There is nothing in the three worlds that I need to do, nor anything unattained that I need to attain, and yet I continue to act."
So indeed we dance, we move, and stillness also exist, even if it does not stay still very long. Yet where we move from is different. And where we move from is what creates results more than the action itself.
I guess I don’t prescribe to this notion that if you move because you meditated and in that space they told you to move versus “external sources“ because I don’t see the difference between the two. I don’t see the difference between external and internal… I think that’s a separation a lot of people like to make. The inner world is a reflection of the outer world and vice versa.
As a line producer, I have many wild events happen on movie sets, from massive fires to violent accidents, etc., and one of my gifts was the ability to remain calm and resolve the problems as they were flying out my face. Perhaps I just have a natural gift staying calm in the chaos. It’s not to say that I don’t lose my shit, but I’m also really OK with embracing losing my shit sometimes if Farrell rage feel scream is exactly what my inner world needs.
For the record, I’ve never been really good at just sitting down and meditating. For me walking is a meditation, reading is a meditation, I stand up multiple times a day and just take three giant breaths in and out, that’s some meditation. Listening and being present with what language I’m using and how it’s impacting me physically is a meditation.
But then again, I’ve never been a really big fan of the Buddhist mentality, because I think at least the western version of it has turned emotions into bad things, and perpetuated this notion that the only way your spiritual is, if you can remain un reactionary to anything happening in your world. I have a really funny story about this in my book tipping sacred cows, where I talk about a Monk. I met on a plane.
What I find most important about what you’re saying, even though it feels a little complicated to comprehend from your essay, at least for me is that people should learn to be emotionally present and to regulate their emotions. Not control them, not push them away or ignore them, but to be able to listen to connect with to understand the why you’re feeling a certain way and to react in a way that feels honest for yourself.
Physiologically, an emotion which is a chemical response in your body, takes 90 seconds to process. In those 90 seconds, the practice needs to be checking in listening and having an inner conversation. Because most of the time our initial New York response to something is based on past trauma or trigger, and we tend to just immediately react, whereas if we take that 90 seconds, we can generally emotionally regulate and understand whether the emotion we’re feeling is relevant to the actual event or something we have made up. I hope that makes sense lol
I think we are circling around the same thing, just from two different person point of view, different personal experiences, may be slightly different vocabulary.
I have spend years helping poor people in war zone. Like you I know what chaos is. What I have gained from it is that it is hard for me to freak out, to be emotionally swayed. This does not mean I have no emotions, it just mean I can watch them and decide what to do with it without having to follow their imperatives. In this, we speak the same language.
Then I decided to try something different. I did meditate. Over 10.000h by now. I sat in monasteries, in silence, in darkness, fasting, in mountain caves, sometime for months at a time. And yes, I did find something that was not accessible to me before.
I learned a lot form eastern mysticism. Mostly Hinduism. Never got to like Buddhism so much. Buddhism is more convenient for Westerner because it does not ask certain hard questions about God. But what the west has done of buddhism, it has done with yoga and everything else. Modified it to serve its western purpose. In the end if I had to chose one I would pick Kashmiri Shivaism, but it is not very popular here.
Nevertheless these are just vehicles. And when you get to destination, you leave the vehicle behind. Most people are attached to the vehicle by the time they have put years into it.
So in a nutshell, yes, emotional maturity, is a key stepping stone. Yet I am also hinting at something bigger and beyond it. Something that comes from deep enquiry of knowing yourself beyond thoughts, beyond emotions... taping into an intelligence that is way bigger than just my body-mind localized intelligence.
And maybe I am not doing a great job at that... at telling the inefable.
I think it’s really important, at least my personal perspective is, that there is no separation between myself and “God“… As you know, I don’t call it God, I call it, Bob… Some people might call it source. Some people might call it the universe… Everybody has a name for it, and ironically shuns, and mocks the other person‘s name for it… But for whatever reason, I’ve just approached this life as the plan of experience. I’m here to have a human experience this is why I have emotions, a body… And I’ve always been horrified people that referred to their bodies as meat packets… As if they want to pretend there’s some sort of Star seed in this body is just a hindrance… This body is a gift… This body is an opportunity to play in this Dimension. Which is maybe why I take life very seriously and not too seriously at all. At some point this game of mine will be over and who knows what will happen next.
Maybe what I just wanted to say is get off your addiction to activation, cultivate a parasympathetic NS instead. Track your hormones, avoid cortisol and dopamine and you will enjoy a better life and the world will be a better place for it.
🤣
You might meet God int he process, but that not the point.
I disagree with avoiding dopamine and cortisol. To me, this is a kin to the notion that we can kill our ego. If humans didn’t need dopamine and cortisol, then we would not have it. The human body just like all the other magnificent creations here on this planet is in fact a perfect creation. Why on earth would I want to avoid things that give me pleasure or allow me to feel. No, the answer is not to avoid anything. The answer is to experience it openly, authentically, and with presence of mind.
PS – I’ve already met Bob… And he definitely doesn’t want me to avoid living fully.
I don't believe there is not separation between you and God. You are God. What people tend to forget is that everyone else is God too! And that should matter in the way we interact with them (Ugh, you say potus is also God? Yes, sorry but that is unescapable. 🤣).
And indeed that separation with the body is an inheritance of all these ascetic practices found in religion. You know, those who believe the world is an illusion (maya), that ego is bad etc. I do not subscribe to these ideas that there a superior part (God) and an inferior part (body).
I often joke saying when I met God it was upset with me and said "why are you trying to so hard to be me when I am trying to so hard to be you?".
The body is an incredible gift made to enjoy it (while it last)!
What if it’s not about avoiding dopamine and cortisol in favor of “good hormones”? I agree Betsy we absolutely have the physiologic makeup we have for a reason. ✨🎉 What if it’s about awareness of, then following body signals to move more smoothly through (the normal spectrum of) human states of being? I think we expend tremendous internal energy by resisting states we do not like (grief, confusion, anger), but to your point the human experience includes all that and a big of chips🤣.
What that resistance creates is fragmentation and unpredictability for the organism - the opposite of “trust”. Gabriel I think you clearly describe the dilemma for most humans, in having no reference for the “zero” on your scale, since chronic sympathetic activation is the norm. From survival mode, it’s impossible to imagine having a body in safety mode. Your questions are a great open door…
What does trust feel like? How would a human explore actual safety — not what we typically think safety is, external circumstances being “safe”.
This is speaking to me in a way I’m finding difficult to give language. It registers in a gentle but seismic way. Something you said reached down into my heart and pulled on the threads of an energy that’s been sleeping, waiting. Thank you.
“The collapse is not the catastrophe. It is not to be feared. It is the door to a better functioning world. But better measured not on human thriving terms alone. That is the shift. It is enormous. And it is uncomfortable.”
This is the section that grabbed hold of my shoulders, looked me square in the eyes, and told me clearly: it’s time. You asked me an important question in an email earlier this month, “What are you preparing for?”
All these years of work towards nervous system recalibration so that I could listen to my body came into sharp focus. The mind lies. The fear that holds me hostage is a construct. The body says yes to this path. I now understand what I have been preparing for. 🙏 Deep bow. Immense gratitude and love.
I could not hope for a more meaningful comment / feedback.
Much love to you on that journey.
When you have existed between three and seven, almost your entire life, the resistance to slow down, or to attempt to reach zero is strong. The body has become addicted to the chemicals/peptides of fear, anxiety, stress. My favorite work on this is by the woman who discovered these peptides, who didn’t even get the credit, Candice Pert. The molecules of motion is a very interesting and profound work.
I would say, however, that, at least the way I read it in your essay, and I may have misunderstood you, is that zero stillness. The way I understand it is there is no stillness. There are levels of frequency, because we are always moving. In order to balance one must be able to move the body in different directions, even if it’s noticeable so even in zero there is a push and a pull. Both required in a beautiful little dance of agreement.
Indeed movement is why we are part of the Animal reign. Animated is what qualifies us.
Yet my point is not that stillness is our nature or that ignoring the push and pull is the ideal state of being. Yet push and pull from external source are different than the movements coming from the "stillness", from Wu Wei, from awareness of the push&pull of externalities and making a different choice, the choice to move from a different place. A different place than the one that created the mess we are in.
The same Gita I quoted, Krishna (Bob)says: "Even the wise are confused about what is action and what is inaction", "I am never without action","There is nothing in the three worlds that I need to do, nor anything unattained that I need to attain, and yet I continue to act."
So indeed we dance, we move, and stillness also exist, even if it does not stay still very long. Yet where we move from is different. And where we move from is what creates results more than the action itself.
Thank you for allowing me to clarify this point.
Love
I guess I don’t prescribe to this notion that if you move because you meditated and in that space they told you to move versus “external sources“ because I don’t see the difference between the two. I don’t see the difference between external and internal… I think that’s a separation a lot of people like to make. The inner world is a reflection of the outer world and vice versa.
As a line producer, I have many wild events happen on movie sets, from massive fires to violent accidents, etc., and one of my gifts was the ability to remain calm and resolve the problems as they were flying out my face. Perhaps I just have a natural gift staying calm in the chaos. It’s not to say that I don’t lose my shit, but I’m also really OK with embracing losing my shit sometimes if Farrell rage feel scream is exactly what my inner world needs.
For the record, I’ve never been really good at just sitting down and meditating. For me walking is a meditation, reading is a meditation, I stand up multiple times a day and just take three giant breaths in and out, that’s some meditation. Listening and being present with what language I’m using and how it’s impacting me physically is a meditation.
But then again, I’ve never been a really big fan of the Buddhist mentality, because I think at least the western version of it has turned emotions into bad things, and perpetuated this notion that the only way your spiritual is, if you can remain un reactionary to anything happening in your world. I have a really funny story about this in my book tipping sacred cows, where I talk about a Monk. I met on a plane.
What I find most important about what you’re saying, even though it feels a little complicated to comprehend from your essay, at least for me is that people should learn to be emotionally present and to regulate their emotions. Not control them, not push them away or ignore them, but to be able to listen to connect with to understand the why you’re feeling a certain way and to react in a way that feels honest for yourself.
Physiologically, an emotion which is a chemical response in your body, takes 90 seconds to process. In those 90 seconds, the practice needs to be checking in listening and having an inner conversation. Because most of the time our initial New York response to something is based on past trauma or trigger, and we tend to just immediately react, whereas if we take that 90 seconds, we can generally emotionally regulate and understand whether the emotion we’re feeling is relevant to the actual event or something we have made up. I hope that makes sense lol
OMG Betsy, I love your contribution!
I think we are circling around the same thing, just from two different person point of view, different personal experiences, may be slightly different vocabulary.
I have spend years helping poor people in war zone. Like you I know what chaos is. What I have gained from it is that it is hard for me to freak out, to be emotionally swayed. This does not mean I have no emotions, it just mean I can watch them and decide what to do with it without having to follow their imperatives. In this, we speak the same language.
Then I decided to try something different. I did meditate. Over 10.000h by now. I sat in monasteries, in silence, in darkness, fasting, in mountain caves, sometime for months at a time. And yes, I did find something that was not accessible to me before.
I learned a lot form eastern mysticism. Mostly Hinduism. Never got to like Buddhism so much. Buddhism is more convenient for Westerner because it does not ask certain hard questions about God. But what the west has done of buddhism, it has done with yoga and everything else. Modified it to serve its western purpose. In the end if I had to chose one I would pick Kashmiri Shivaism, but it is not very popular here.
Nevertheless these are just vehicles. And when you get to destination, you leave the vehicle behind. Most people are attached to the vehicle by the time they have put years into it.
So in a nutshell, yes, emotional maturity, is a key stepping stone. Yet I am also hinting at something bigger and beyond it. Something that comes from deep enquiry of knowing yourself beyond thoughts, beyond emotions... taping into an intelligence that is way bigger than just my body-mind localized intelligence.
And maybe I am not doing a great job at that... at telling the inefable.
Love
I think it’s really important, at least my personal perspective is, that there is no separation between myself and “God“… As you know, I don’t call it God, I call it, Bob… Some people might call it source. Some people might call it the universe… Everybody has a name for it, and ironically shuns, and mocks the other person‘s name for it… But for whatever reason, I’ve just approached this life as the plan of experience. I’m here to have a human experience this is why I have emotions, a body… And I’ve always been horrified people that referred to their bodies as meat packets… As if they want to pretend there’s some sort of Star seed in this body is just a hindrance… This body is a gift… This body is an opportunity to play in this Dimension. Which is maybe why I take life very seriously and not too seriously at all. At some point this game of mine will be over and who knows what will happen next.
Maybe what I just wanted to say is get off your addiction to activation, cultivate a parasympathetic NS instead. Track your hormones, avoid cortisol and dopamine and you will enjoy a better life and the world will be a better place for it.
🤣
You might meet God int he process, but that not the point.
I disagree with avoiding dopamine and cortisol. To me, this is a kin to the notion that we can kill our ego. If humans didn’t need dopamine and cortisol, then we would not have it. The human body just like all the other magnificent creations here on this planet is in fact a perfect creation. Why on earth would I want to avoid things that give me pleasure or allow me to feel. No, the answer is not to avoid anything. The answer is to experience it openly, authentically, and with presence of mind.
PS – I’ve already met Bob… And he definitely doesn’t want me to avoid living fully.
Exactly.
I don't believe there is not separation between you and God. You are God. What people tend to forget is that everyone else is God too! And that should matter in the way we interact with them (Ugh, you say potus is also God? Yes, sorry but that is unescapable. 🤣).
And indeed that separation with the body is an inheritance of all these ascetic practices found in religion. You know, those who believe the world is an illusion (maya), that ego is bad etc. I do not subscribe to these ideas that there a superior part (God) and an inferior part (body).
I often joke saying when I met God it was upset with me and said "why are you trying to so hard to be me when I am trying to so hard to be you?".
The body is an incredible gift made to enjoy it (while it last)!
What if it’s not about avoiding dopamine and cortisol in favor of “good hormones”? I agree Betsy we absolutely have the physiologic makeup we have for a reason. ✨🎉 What if it’s about awareness of, then following body signals to move more smoothly through (the normal spectrum of) human states of being? I think we expend tremendous internal energy by resisting states we do not like (grief, confusion, anger), but to your point the human experience includes all that and a big of chips🤣.
What that resistance creates is fragmentation and unpredictability for the organism - the opposite of “trust”. Gabriel I think you clearly describe the dilemma for most humans, in having no reference for the “zero” on your scale, since chronic sympathetic activation is the norm. From survival mode, it’s impossible to imagine having a body in safety mode. Your questions are a great open door…
What does trust feel like? How would a human explore actual safety — not what we typically think safety is, external circumstances being “safe”.
Great stuff, thanks🤓🤩
Outstanding post Gabriel. Came at precisely the right time, and with the right headspace.
Thank You 100%.
All divine plans unfold in divine timing. I am happy this came as support to you.
Love
Great post Gabriel. Lots to reflect and chew on. Thanks for sharing.
Welcome!