349. From Trauma to Triumph: Jon Labman’s Path to Happiness Solved

Happiness Solved with Sandee Sgarlata. In this episode, Sandee interviews Jon Labman. Jonathan Labman is a spiritual awakening professional with over 24 years of experience. Thousands of people break free from abuse, anxiety, and stress with Jon’s...
Happiness Solved with Sandee Sgarlata. In this episode, Sandee interviews Jon Labman. Jonathan Labman is a spiritual awakening professional with over 24 years of experience. Thousands of people break free from abuse, anxiety, and stress with Jon’s help to achieve spiritual liberation! Jon himself is a survivor of childhood abuse and life in religious cults, making him uniquely empathetic and helpful for those battling with the aftereffects of abuse. Jon shares these experiences and his expertise through his column "Simply Awake" and his book "Being Human and Waking Up". With a background in psychology, energy healing, and yoga, his mission is to help people master the basics of being human and achieve true liberation!
For more information on Holistic Life Mastery: https://holisticlifemastery.live/event-registration
Connect with Jon:
Free copy of his book, DM him on IG: https://www.instagram.com/jonlabman/
Connect with Sandee www.sandeesgarlata.com
Podcast: www.happinesssolved.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/coachsandeesgarlata
Twitter: www.twitter.com/sandeesgarlata
Instagram: www.instagram.com/coachsandeesgarlata
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Hey John, how's it going today?
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I'm so happy to have you on my show.
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How's everything going?
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Sandy, it's going really great and I want to thank you for having me and I want to just
say what a great privilege it is to be on a podcast with somebody who takes so much time
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to work with people and to teach people new things that they don't learn in school.
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And I want all your fans to give you five star ratings and, you know, post you and share
you with other people because that's a service that you're doing really from your heart.
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And I appreciate that.
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So that's where we're going to start.
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you.
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Bring in tears to my eyes.
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You know, it's so great that you said that and I'll just get on my soapbox for a minute.
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But yeah, I, you know, I do have some sponsors, which are new, newer sponsors.
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So this has been a totally self -funded podcast I've been doing for almost five years.
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And it costs roughly a thousand dollars a month to produce.
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I can believe it, yeah.
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And, you know, I've let me see here.
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I'm going to I'm going to go off camera for just a minute.
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You are going to be episode.
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Where are we?
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You're going to be episode three hundred and fifty.
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Aren't you the lucky man?
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Woohoo!
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Episode three fifty.
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This is it.
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That's wonderful.
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And so yeah, it really is a labor of love.
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And I started this show because number one, as humans, we learn from stories.
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Yes.
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And what better way to learn than from somebody else's experiences?
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Because when we recognize that somebody else went through something that was much more
challenging than we'd ever gone through, right?
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Then you're like, wow, you know, I got this.
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I can choose a different way, a different perspective, a different way to think about the
world and how I show up in it more importantly.
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Right?
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You know, because happiness is a choice and the choice is yours, folks.
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I say it every episode, the choice is yours.
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And, you know, we're not, have it on my board, my whiteboard.
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It says, you're not getting this day back.
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Ponder that for a minute, right?
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We, some of us, God willing, we will have tomorrow, but we don't know, right?
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There's no guarantees.
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And so we only have today.
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That's it.
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So, okay, enough about me, because this episode is about you, John.
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So for the audience, John Labman, don't forget your last name, John Labman is a spiritual
awakening professional with over 24 years of experience.
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Thousands of people break free from abuse, anxiety, and stress with John's help to achieve
spiritual liberation.
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I love that.
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I was looking at your website this morning and I'm like, liberation, because that's really
what it's about, right?
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When you choose a different...
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way of being, you're liberating yourself from your old ways that doesn't serve you, right?
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And I know you have a lot of experience about that.
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So we're going to talk about everything with you.
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know you have a background in psychology, energy, healing, and yoga.
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Love it.
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And your mission is to help people master the basics of being human and achieve true
liberation.
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So John, please share with the audience.
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your story because it's pretty interesting.
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And that's how you got where you are today, right?
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That's right.
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So I work now as a liberation therapist, and that means a combination of psychology and
spirituality.
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And how I got there was I grew up with sexual abuse in the home and with bullying at
school and with traditional middle class family and went to Jewish reformed synagogue and
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got bar mitzvahed and
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didn't have any belief in God, even got confirmed and still didn't have a belief in God.
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And I was suffering so much that I was really looking for answers.
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So the very first transformation was my twin sister comes home and says, hey, there's a
guy who's teaching biology.
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He's going to teach the New Testament at our friend's meeting house in town.
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I'm going to go.
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I'm like, sign me up.
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But that's the opposite of, well, not the opposite, but it's a stark contrast to Judaism.
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Yeah.
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Right, so I went and at the same time, almost at the same time, somebody came to our 10th
grade class, 750 kids, and showed a film about a school in Wales, the UK, international
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high school, kids from 50 countries in a hearst castle.
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And I was like, my gosh, I could get away from all this.
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horrible stuff that I've been living with at home and at school and be with kids in
another country.
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And I was like, I'm in, I'm going to try it.
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You know, I don't know why I had the courage at that moment.
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And your audience may have those moments where suddenly they feel like, I'm going to try
something absolutely crazy.
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Let's see if it works.
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And I got an acceptance letter April 1st, but then they said,
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We don't know about the scholarships and your family doesn't really qualify and we don't
think you're going to get a scholarship.
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My parents said, you're not going unless you get a scholarship.
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We can't afford this.
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So they had a postal strike and I waited a whole month and I prayed every day, God, if you
exist, prove it to me.
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I was so full of hubris and arrogance in those days.
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Prove it to me that you exist and get me into the school.
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And sure enough, I did get in.
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And so I converted to evangelical Protestantism at that point and became a very avid
Christian fundamentalist evangelical for a number of years.
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And because of more family problems, I ended up and internal problems.
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ended up going to first starting at Haverford College after my experience in Wales, and
then kind of having a nervous breakdown there and going to a Christian college.
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that was a denominational member of the Reformed Presbyterian Church.
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And that was the closest in alignment to my own belief at the time.
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So I went to that school and there I met people who had a Christian cooperative community
here in Eastern Pennsylvania.
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And they were like, you ought to come and spend a summer with us.
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And I said, sure, why not?
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My mom's just divorcing her second husband.
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I don't have anywhere else to live.
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I lived at college last year.
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What do I have to lose?
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So I go up there and the woman who's out of the church pays more attention to me in two
hours than anybody's ever paid in my entire life.
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And I don't know if anybody else in your audience has been love bombed, but I was pulled
right in.
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And I spent the summer there and I joined the church and right after I joined, there was a
schism in the church.
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The elder that I actually lived with that summer was excommunicated with his whole family.
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I ended up graduating college coming back to live in the church community as it devolved
into a brainwashing cult.
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my gosh.
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And from the brainwashing cult, you seven years of terror and fear.
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was just like my whole childhood and time in school all over again.
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Wales was a brief escape.
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And then suddenly I'm back in the thick of lots of trauma and lots of fright and terror.
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You couldn't do anything right.
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Even though we were all dedicated to Christ, we were living celibate lives in our early
20s.
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There came a point at which
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somebody tried to burn the church down.
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And then the woman who really ran the church, even though it was supposed to be run by the
elders who were her husband and son, she said, somebody here is hiding sin.
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That's why the church was burned down.
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You're all suspended from communion.
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And if you don't confess your secret sins to us before we rebuild the church with your
help, we're all laboring to rebuild.
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and working full -time jobs and paying 10 % of our pre -tax income to the church, right?
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If you don't do all of this that we say, and you enter this church again without
confessing your sin, you're twice doubly damned to hell.
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That was the language that was used at the time, right?
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You know, the Calvinists, they believe in total depravity.
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That's their first dogma.
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So, you know, I'm...
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Dedicating my life to Christ, but now I'm being told I'm a wicked sinful person So I try
to confess that I think that I'm gay to them In effect, I was they didn't believe me
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because I had no experience.
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I was a celibate I'd never had a sexual experience at all
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So, you know, the last six months there, I'm like, what do I do?
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I'm in a double bind.
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And your audience may be familiar with that.
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It looks like there are two choices only.
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And either one of them, if I stay and go back into the church, and they don't think I've
confessed my secrets in, I'm doubly damned to hell.
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If I leave, I'm going to hell and I'm going to die of AIDS.
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And that's what they told me.
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This is how scary it was.
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Was this in the eighties?
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This was in, yeah, in 1984, that last year was when I was pacing the floors, you know,
till three o 'clock in the morning in a house that I shared with four or five other guys,
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trying to figure out what in the world I was going to do because I had taken a lifetime
vows and I was serious.
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I was going to stay.
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And then suddenly one day I thought, I've got to get out of here.
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They're not going to let me go back into the church.
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I'm worse off if I go back.
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according to them it seems like, than if I leave.
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So I paced the floors for those months and finally one Saturday morning I just decided
I've got to get out of here.
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And I was terrified because they were all gone from the house for some reason, but I
packed up my stuff as quick as I could go, got in my car and just fled out of there.
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And fortunately I didn't see anybody.
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My heart was pounding through my chest.
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Within a day I was in a therapist's office.
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And that was the second big turnaround in my life.
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This therapist said, look, I can't help you with your religious issues.
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I don't know anything about heaven or hell, but you're going through a divorce.
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And then she said one thing to me that I'll never forget.
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Because I was feeling hopeless.
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I felt like I'm going to die.
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I'm going to end my own life because I'm going to go to hell any way you imagine it,
according to what I was taught and brainwashed into thinking.
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But there's something in me that
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was like, maybe that's not true.
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But that wasn't even conscious.
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And she said, hey, do you realize you wouldn't be coming to see me if you didn't have any
hope to have a better life?
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Absolutely changed my world.
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And she also started to ask, what did I think and what did I feel?
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I don't know if your audience has suffered the same emotional neglect that most of us have
growing up.
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Nobody asks us how we feel, what we think, what we want to do.
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They tell us what to think and feel.
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They tell us to conform to what they're doing or we rebel and that's not truthful either.
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And so in that brief session, one year session of therapy, I got the idea that there was
actually a person in here who could choose to accept being gay in 1984, even in the midst
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of the AIDS crisis.
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I could be a person who could accept, I could either reject the way I was made by God or I
could accept it.
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And if I rejected it, I would be miserable for the rest of my life.
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I knew that.
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If I accepted it, there was a chance, not a guarantee, but a chance that I could be happy.
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Happiness solved, right?
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It's a wonderful, wonderful title, Sandy.
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I love it, right?
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So you choose in that moment,
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You have to make an internal choice.
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Am I going to investigate myself?
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Am I going to find out who I am?
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Or am I going to believe what everybody's been telling me or the fact that they've been
ignoring me and I feel like a kind of empty shell?
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Am I going to believe that, what they've told me?
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Or am I going to believe what I find out for myself?
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And that also working with that wonderful woman, I don't think she's alive anymore.
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Her name is Pat McGrath.
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in Princeton, New Jersey.
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She was so great in what she did with me that I really wanted to do that once I met her.
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And I wasn't able to do that for long time because I had other goals.
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I wanted to go sing on Broadway and I had a very well -trained voice.
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I'd been trained for many years.
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And my voice coach who had Betty Buckley as a client said, yeah, you can sing, but you've
got to come and study the method acting and you've got to learn to dance.
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So I went to New York.
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And I learned about living in the present moment, which we hear a lot about in current
psychology and holistic thinking.
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But in 1985, you only heard about it in method acting.
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You know, really the Eastern traditions weren't here in a big way yet.
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And I didn't go through with my acting career.
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I discovered that I hated performing.
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I really loved the self -discovery process of acting because
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For your listeners too, discovering that you have feelings about everything, you have
opinions about everything, that's the beginning of freedom and happiness because I've got
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to know myself.
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before I can be happy.
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mean, if, right, if I don't have self -awareness, how can I be happy, right?
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So eventually I left acting and I was looking around for things to do and just was doing
administrative work, which is what I did out of college, because I took an English major
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instead of pre -seminary.
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And I learned to type.
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I was listening to your last podcast, the guy that learned to type, who was a CEO, right?
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I learned to type and so I had a job, right?
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And I ran one of the first word processing centers in an engineering company in 1981.
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And so I had work, but it wasn't work that I loved.
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It was just work to pay the bills.
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And sometime in 1988, I was living in Philadelphia for a little while.
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And my second voice teacher, who truth be told was also my boyfriend for a while, said,
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You've got to come back to New York and meet people who are teaching us how to live in the
present moment, not on the stage, but in real life.
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How do you feel present?
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How do you stay out of your head?
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Right?
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How do you enjoy the excitement that I enjoyed in those scene studies in acting school?
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It was the most exciting moment of my life to be on the stage, just feeling what I was
feeling and living like
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clearly full on in that moment.
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That was so happy for me.
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And so when he said that I came back to New York, I used to commute back and forth from
Philly to New York.
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Wednesday after work, I would go up, do a sitting, come back, go to bed at midnight, go to
work the next day.
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I was so enthralled with the fact that they were teaching me that I could escape all the
chatter in my mind, all the negative chatter in my case.
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And your listeners probably live with a lot of negative chatter.
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On and on and on.
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human, you know, if you're human, you've got the negative chatter up there.
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It's in our DNA.
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Yeah.
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And it's really dreadful.
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And until I learned to meditate, I went to a one month retreat, another turning point.
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Went to a one month retreat, I took a $4 ,000 unsecured loan in 1988.
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Two weeks paid vacation, two weeks unpaid, and went to Hawaii to learn to be present and
to meditate.
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And that was another one of those big turning points that was like,
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I actually, sure, the names of the people were Shaya and Ariel Kane, and they were
students of Paul Lowe, and Paul Lowe was one of the lieutenants of Sri Bhagavan Rajneesh,
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who's known as Osho.
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So there was a whole tantric thing going on, and they taught me to meditate.
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It was the first time in my life that I ever felt peaceful and quiet and content.
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the natural happiness that we all have in us as our basic human nature.
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Sat -Chit -Nanda in Sanskrit means truth, consciousness, love, bliss, freedom, peace.
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And that term is how the Hindu faith, how the yogis describe what our basic nature is,
that we already inside of us have happiness, contentment.
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It's already there and peace is already there.
237
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And I didn't know any of that until I went to Hawaii and had that turning point moment.
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And then I was like, okay, I've got to have more of this.
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And so eventually, you know, I became a licensed massage therapist.
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Why?
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Because those teachers, the Canes, did a combination of body work, breath work,
counseling, and meditation.
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And that became the new template for how I wanted to work holistically.
243
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And the fastest, quickest way to work with people was work with their bodies as a massage
therapist.
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It took a year of training and you got a license.
245
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And I actually worked with an insurance company.
246
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They paid me as well.
247
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And eventually I went to some graduate courses at NYU in psychology and counseling.
248
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But it wasn't the right course for me.
249
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It was rehabilitation counseling.
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So.
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At that point, I met my partner of 29 years now and he moved to New York.
252
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Thank you.
253
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And he went to long time.
254
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He wanted to be a massage therapist.
255
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So he went to massage school as well.
256
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And then together we studied energy healing because I was putting my hands on people and
getting pains in my body.
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It wasn't Reiki.
258
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I was just doing basic massage, but I was like, why am I feeling their pain in my body?
259
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So we went and studied energy healing for three years, Barbara Brennan's Hands of Light
taught by one of her teachers, not by her.
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But I felt it was disempowering to people.
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was still, you're going to heal your healers telling you what's wrong with you.
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And I wanted my clients and your audience, you folks, you want to be self -empowered.
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You don't want to be giving the power away to someone else like I did in the cult.
264
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You want to be self -empowered.
265
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So I...
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finished that course in 98.
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I went right to graduate school and got a degree in counseling psychology.
268
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And right away after that, I got a 500 hour certification in yoga.
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And, and I taught meditation because I herniated a disc during teacher training in yoga.
270
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And so I started to combine all those things way back in 2000.
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And then in 2001, I had my initial spiritual awakening, what's called Kensho in some
places.
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Where I understood this individual consciousness is God itself.
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It's again the yogi tradition that says in Sanskrit, am Atman Brahman.
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This individual consciousness is the divine consciousness.
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There's no difference.
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And your nature is love, contentment, freedom and peace.
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Not unhappiness, anxiety, frustration.
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overwhelm, burnout, and every other thing that we deal with nowadays as people on the
planet.
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And so what I've been doing since then is developing the integration.
280
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And at some point, I didn't know that I'd been sexually assaulted as a child in my own
home.
281
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At some point, that all surfaced after I was a therapist.
282
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And so I started training in trauma treatment.
283
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And I worked with Dr.
284
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Bessel van der Kolk and I worked with Dr.
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Bruce Perry, you know, in live classes with them and with their associates and got trauma
training.
286
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And I incorporated that for my own sake because I was a wreck for about a year and a half.
287
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I don't know if any of your audience has gone through that.
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Like, you totally get unglued.
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All I knew and my whole world turned upside down.
290
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you've been abused in your own home.
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You didn't even remember it.
292
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Right?
293
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So I've really incorporated all of this learning.
294
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into what I do with people now.
295
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And I've recently written a book called Being Human and Waking Up.
296
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And I offer a course called Being Human and Waking Up Experiments In.
297
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And I really work with people holistically.
298
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So I use all the background that I have.
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don't read people intuitively in the sense that I don't do energy healing like I used to.
300
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But I use all those skills and bring all that
301
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knowledge and experience to clients to teach them just basically how to be a human being
because nobody teaches us that most of our thoughts are false and false thoughts always
302
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generate negative emotion.
303
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It's your false thoughts that make you feel like you're crazy or nuts or overwhelmed.
304
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Nobody teaches us anything about how to check our thoughts.
305
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Nobody teaches us what our feelings even are, let alone how to discern where they come
from.
306
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is the feeling from something that really happened like, my grandma died and I'm sad?
307
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Or have I made up a story in my head about grandma dying and being sad like I did when I
was acting?
308
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The emotion feels the same, but if we act on an emotion from a false source that's just
made up in our heads, we create all kinds of suffering for ourselves and for others.
309
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And our happiness is totally eclipsed by that.
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Yeah.
311
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So what I try to do first is teach people, hey, start to question your thoughts and then
start to track your emotions.
312
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And part of the identification process is if you teach people to meditate, paradoxically,
they become more aware of thoughts during their regular waking life.
313
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Then they are otherwise.
314
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It's not that it's not what meditation is supposed to do, but it's a side benefit.
315
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And then if you, if you're in a good mood and you have your lunch and suddenly, nothing's
changed externally.
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And, know, again, your audience may have, and you may have felt this suddenly I've had
lunch and after lunch, I'm in a really funky mood.
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I'm really depressed.
318
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I'm blue.
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I'm anxious.
320
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And I say to people, well, what were you thinking about during lunch?
321
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So if nothing's changing in your environment.
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Something up here has triggered you into some kind of a bad mood.
323
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If you can figure out what it is and check and see if there's any truth to the origins of
it, you can go back to being happy and calm and engaged in your day.
324
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Yeah, I mean, you just have to ask that simple question, is it true?
325
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That's right.
326
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And I learned that from Byron Katie long after spiritual awakening.
327
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All this anxiety is still going on.
328
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How come I'm still anxious?
329
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All of these thoughts are making me anxious.
330
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Like, and they're not true and I'm suffering from something that's not true.
331
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What a waste of life.
332
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Right.
333
00:24:59,509 --> 00:25:03,621
So, so as you work with that, it's very, very simple.
334
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Right.
335
00:25:03,911 --> 00:25:06,642
I only teach basically four things.
336
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how to deal with your thoughts, your feelings, how to meditate, how to be mindful.
337
00:25:13,431 --> 00:25:24,686
Those four basic things can take anybody as far as they want to go, psychologically or all
the way to spiritual liberation, even into the condition called no self.
338
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Yeah, meditation is powerful.
339
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had my first experience with it in 2007.
340
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Wonderful.
341
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And I trained under Stephen Sadlier.
342
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He's located in Laguna Beach.
343
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He has a self -awareness institute.
344
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I think he's mostly retired now, but he still does trainings.
345
00:25:49,093 --> 00:25:53,274
But this was back in 2007 where I was on a conference call.
346
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And I got a headset and I plugged it into my phone and was on the phone.
347
00:26:02,602 --> 00:26:05,143
And it was so life -changing.
348
00:26:05,143 --> 00:26:12,898
And the following year, I attended a meditation retreat out in Palm Desert.
349
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It wasn't Joshua Tree, but it was around there.
350
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So was a similar yoga meditation facility, know, the whole thing, beautiful, know,
incredible.
351
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We had a day of silence.
352
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We sat meditation for close to five hours, I believe it was.
353
00:26:31,116 --> 00:26:37,311
And that day I will never forget because I was in the middle of writing my novel that I
won two book awards for.
354
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And I literally sat for hours.
355
00:26:41,234 --> 00:26:43,936
Just my fingers were just moving.
356
00:26:44,877 --> 00:26:49,201
And I don't even, I, my roommate who's we're still best friends.
357
00:26:49,201 --> 00:26:50,692
We took, we coached skatings together.
358
00:26:50,692 --> 00:26:57,608
We coached figure skating together and we're still, we're sisters to this day, but she was
my roommate.
359
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She was the one who introduced me to meditation.
360
00:27:00,622 --> 00:27:08,561
And I had been in some of her little meditation classes 10 years prior to that and I'm
like, I can't meditate.
361
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like, this is my mind, you know, because I'm just such a, I am like, my friends call me a
thoroughbred because I'm just like on, on, on, like nonstop.
362
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But I still meditate to this day.
363
00:27:21,842 --> 00:27:27,482
anytime during the day when I'm struggling with anything, I will stop and just close my
eyes.
364
00:27:27,482 --> 00:27:30,442
And once you learn how to meditate just for the audience,
365
00:27:30,955 --> 00:27:33,862
You were able to tap into that energy very quickly.
366
00:27:35,766 --> 00:27:41,288
And I've only done that form of meditation.
367
00:27:41,828 --> 00:27:42,668
They're all good.
368
00:27:42,668 --> 00:27:45,589
Like just pick one that works for you, right?
369
00:27:45,729 --> 00:27:47,330
There's a lot of different methods.
370
00:27:47,330 --> 00:28:00,003
But for me, what I tell people that ask about it, I'm like, you get into a state of being
where your mind, because you're focusing on the thalamus part of your brain.
371
00:28:00,003 --> 00:28:02,974
And when you're drawing in that
372
00:28:03,710 --> 00:28:09,595
source, universe, God, energy, whatever you want to call it, it starts to numb.
373
00:28:09,595 --> 00:28:18,182
And you get this high that is better than any substance you could take externally, right?
374
00:28:18,603 --> 00:28:22,326
It is a high like you will never experience.
375
00:28:22,326 --> 00:28:26,050
It is incredible how peaceful.
376
00:28:26,050 --> 00:28:26,637
Yeah.
377
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is your birthright.
378
00:28:27,937 --> 00:28:29,698
That's how we were meant to live.
379
00:28:29,698 --> 00:28:36,790
Like the deer that come walking through my yard, they're not always in a hyper alert, ooh,
got to do it mode.
380
00:28:36,790 --> 00:28:42,071
They're only in that mode when there's actual danger in the environment, right?
381
00:28:42,071 --> 00:28:52,834
So it's a wonderful practice and you become aware that your life really takes place in
your senses.
382
00:28:52,858 --> 00:28:56,340
Your contact with reality is in the sensory fields.
383
00:28:56,641 --> 00:28:59,983
This is always secondary to the senses.
384
00:28:59,983 --> 00:29:04,526
This is always reporting on the senses or reporting on other thoughts.
385
00:29:04,626 --> 00:29:09,169
It is removed from the reality that stabilizes us.
386
00:29:09,990 --> 00:29:22,238
So the more we return to present moment, you know, holding my cup with cold water in it,
feeling the metal, feeling the desk, feeling my weight on the chair,
387
00:29:23,974 --> 00:29:30,794
Automatically when you just do that for a few seconds, you're already relaxed at least one
or two percent.
388
00:29:30,814 --> 00:29:40,793
And if you sit and meditate then and get to close your eyes, you could be relaxed by 50 to
90 percent within about 10 or 20 minutes.
389
00:29:40,914 --> 00:29:50,174
And you know, when you do a whole, I've done, I don't know if you know Adyashanti, if
you've been in his retreats, it's a teacher up in Northern California who just retired.
390
00:29:50,406 --> 00:29:52,116
He retired, by the way, because of trauma.
391
00:29:52,116 --> 00:29:56,046
He admitted that he'd been through some physical trauma with a medical condition for 20
years.
392
00:29:56,046 --> 00:29:57,946
He'd never revealed to anyone.
393
00:29:57,986 --> 00:29:59,926
I thought was incredibly brave of him.
394
00:29:59,926 --> 00:30:02,446
he would take you into a retreat.
395
00:30:02,446 --> 00:30:06,586
You would be silent for six days, no talking to anyone, no writing.
396
00:30:06,586 --> 00:30:10,326
Well, no, you could write, but no phone calls, no nothing.
397
00:30:10,546 --> 00:30:15,306
And you would meditate 40 minute periods, six of them a day.
398
00:30:15,606 --> 00:30:18,238
And by the end of that, you're like,
399
00:30:18,260 --> 00:30:21,400
this is what it feels like to be a human being.
400
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:23,110
I want this.
401
00:30:23,330 --> 00:30:24,420
This is happiness.
402
00:30:24,420 --> 00:30:25,590
This is contentment.
403
00:30:25,590 --> 00:30:27,640
This is happiness solved.
404
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:28,530
Right.
405
00:30:28,530 --> 00:30:36,070
And so, you know, that's really what I do now is teach people how to get there.
406
00:30:36,070 --> 00:30:40,430
And it's not complicated and you don't need 20 ,000 self help books.
407
00:30:40,430 --> 00:30:44,190
The basic skills can be taught in a single book.
408
00:30:44,550 --> 00:30:46,936
And the basics of
409
00:30:46,936 --> 00:30:51,233
Spiritual awakening are all available to anybody who's interested.
410
00:30:51,233 --> 00:30:53,136
It's not rocket science.
411
00:30:53,136 --> 00:30:54,968
It's what you already are.
412
00:30:55,547 --> 00:31:02,418
right, but here's the thing that people don't recognize because so often I hear people
say, no, this is just how I am.
413
00:31:02,418 --> 00:31:04,709
It's never gonna change.
414
00:31:04,849 --> 00:31:07,270
And it's such a limiting belief, right?
415
00:31:07,270 --> 00:31:08,730
But what is liberation?
416
00:31:08,730 --> 00:31:11,131
It's freedom, it's potential.
417
00:31:11,191 --> 00:31:13,612
It's finding your purpose.
418
00:31:13,612 --> 00:31:20,673
It's jumping out of bed in the morning and being excited to create impact.
419
00:31:20,673 --> 00:31:22,834
Because when you step away from
420
00:31:23,326 --> 00:31:29,990
You become self -aware, you learn how to love yourself, and suddenly you want to serve
other people.
421
00:31:30,051 --> 00:31:32,672
And that's what this is about, right?
422
00:31:33,794 --> 00:31:37,496
As humans, we're supposed to be in communities.
423
00:31:37,516 --> 00:31:40,768
We need that connection with another human being.
424
00:31:41,242 --> 00:31:42,226
always.
425
00:31:42,910 --> 00:31:51,362
And I'm just saying, whether it's your girlfriends, your partners, any part of your life,
it doesn't matter.
426
00:31:51,362 --> 00:31:57,440
We need that human connection and we're here to serve other people.
427
00:31:57,584 --> 00:31:58,294
That's right.
428
00:31:58,294 --> 00:32:03,196
And you see how hungry people are for that connection if you do the kind of work that we
do.
429
00:32:03,296 --> 00:32:11,700
And if I take my eyes off of anybody for any reason during a session with them, they're
like looking for my eyes.
430
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:18,082
They want they are so starved for somebody to help them see who they are.
431
00:32:19,643 --> 00:32:22,884
And you know people it's possible.
432
00:32:22,884 --> 00:32:23,585
Right.
433
00:32:23,585 --> 00:32:27,296
You don't have to live an automatic life based on what you were taught.
434
00:32:27,546 --> 00:32:33,488
The culture is full of toxicity, but you can break out of that and become free from that.
435
00:32:33,488 --> 00:32:37,029
And it takes effort, but it's not complicated effort.
436
00:32:37,029 --> 00:32:38,019
It's simple effort.
437
00:32:38,019 --> 00:32:43,951
It's just, okay, I have to learn these skills and then I have to use them, period.
438
00:32:44,071 --> 00:32:53,413
Simple skills, dealing with my thoughts, dealing with my feelings, meditating, being
present, noticing when I'm resisting what's going on in the present moment.
439
00:32:54,274 --> 00:32:55,654
Can I relax?
440
00:32:57,636 --> 00:33:08,775
And all of that just we have the capacity in our bodies for an experience of infinity and
of eternity.
441
00:33:09,136 --> 00:33:13,169
There is no actual sense of felt time.
442
00:33:13,169 --> 00:33:16,301
There's no time sense in our experience.
443
00:33:16,301 --> 00:33:17,982
It's only in our minds.
444
00:33:18,603 --> 00:33:23,687
There's no sense of boundary between me and everything that is.
445
00:33:23,687 --> 00:33:27,350
I can walk out of the office and disappear into the sky, so to speak.
446
00:33:28,644 --> 00:33:32,918
because that's all just mental boundary that's set.
447
00:33:33,399 --> 00:33:45,171
So we have the capacity to feel infinity and eternity on a regular basis and our own
nature as love, bliss, freedom, peace and truthfulness, by the way, to truthfulness is a
448
00:33:45,171 --> 00:33:47,113
very important part of what we are.
449
00:33:47,113 --> 00:33:52,588
Our bodies do not respond well to lies not told to us, right?
450
00:33:52,750 --> 00:33:58,730
And they also say now that authenticity is now the highest frequency.
451
00:33:58,970 --> 00:34:06,810
It's always been said that love is the highest frequency of 528 Hertz, but now they're
saying that authenticity is even a higher frequency.
452
00:34:06,810 --> 00:34:11,630
And we can tell, that's how you can tell when somebody's bullshitting us, right?
453
00:34:11,630 --> 00:34:15,610
Like you're sliding and you're like, no, I don't think so.
454
00:34:15,610 --> 00:34:17,794
Cause they're not being authentic and you know.
455
00:34:17,837 --> 00:34:20,190
yeah, no, I don't think so, no.
456
00:34:20,190 --> 00:34:21,711
don't think so.
457
00:34:23,212 --> 00:34:28,014
Well, you know, John, I call myself a recovering Catholic.
458
00:34:29,415 --> 00:34:34,738
And I made the decision years ago that I'm spiritual, not religious.
459
00:34:35,278 --> 00:34:38,400
And however, there's a place for it.
460
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:44,803
And let me just say to the audience, whatever you believe, that's all that matters to you.
461
00:34:44,803 --> 00:34:45,164
Right?
462
00:34:45,164 --> 00:34:46,774
Like you need to have something you believe in.
463
00:34:46,774 --> 00:34:49,998
And if you believe in you practice religion, that's perfect.
464
00:34:49,998 --> 00:34:52,458
As long as it makes sense for you.
465
00:34:52,458 --> 00:34:54,698
For me, it just never made sense.
466
00:34:54,698 --> 00:35:01,878
However, I do believe that Buddha and Jesus were incredible humans that walked this earth.
467
00:35:02,318 --> 00:35:06,598
And Jesus said, you you can obtain heaven on earth.
468
00:35:07,438 --> 00:35:16,558
And I believe, I don't know the exact phrase, but it's probably been twisted around many,
many times over the past 2000 years.
469
00:35:17,098 --> 00:35:18,136
But, but, but.
470
00:35:18,136 --> 00:35:28,129
But the point is, is that through meditation and mindfulness and self -awareness and self
-love and spirituality, that's what it's about.
471
00:35:28,229 --> 00:35:34,370
Because we can learn to feel like this is heaven, right?
472
00:35:34,370 --> 00:35:37,472
My favorite saying, favorite quote is peace.
473
00:35:37,472 --> 00:35:40,993
It's not about being in the midst of noise, trouble or hard work.
474
00:35:40,993 --> 00:35:46,034
It's being in the midst of those things and still being calm in your heart.
475
00:35:46,690 --> 00:35:51,485
And it's such a challenge some days when there's so much external things going on.
476
00:35:53,294 --> 00:35:55,942
to just stay centered and in peace.
477
00:35:56,447 --> 00:35:57,239
It's not easy.
478
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:01,462
and for your audience, that's the practice of happiness, though.
479
00:36:01,543 --> 00:36:02,063
Right.
480
00:36:02,063 --> 00:36:14,753
How do you get back in touch with your basic contentment, your basic nature, love, bliss,
peace and truthfulness by just getting back to center and getting out of thoughts and
481
00:36:14,853 --> 00:36:20,628
realizing, wait, here, right here is all the peace and all the happiness I need.
482
00:36:20,628 --> 00:36:22,779
I don't need anything out here.
483
00:36:22,820 --> 00:36:23,841
I don't need to be rich.
484
00:36:23,841 --> 00:36:24,912
I don't need to be famous.
485
00:36:24,912 --> 00:36:25,766
I don't be.
486
00:36:25,766 --> 00:36:27,927
I don't need to be singing on Broadway.
487
00:36:28,749 --> 00:36:29,199
Right?
488
00:36:29,199 --> 00:36:30,860
I can be very, very happy.
489
00:36:30,860 --> 00:36:40,678
And being of service, the thing about being of service is that love is pouring out of us
all the time when we're of service.
490
00:36:40,959 --> 00:36:41,269
Right?
491
00:36:41,269 --> 00:36:46,223
Whether we feel it very strongly or not, that's the energy for service is love.
492
00:36:46,223 --> 00:36:55,152
And the more love we feel, the more obvious it is that we aren't wicked and born in sin
and unworthy and separated from God.
493
00:36:55,152 --> 00:36:58,205
But in fact, we are already one with the divine.
494
00:36:58,246 --> 00:37:00,168
And that love is the evidence of that.
495
00:37:00,168 --> 00:37:03,491
And the service is challenging, yes.
496
00:37:04,073 --> 00:37:07,056
It's not like we float through life with no challenges.
497
00:37:07,056 --> 00:37:11,360
There are challenges every day, all the time, just like everybody else has.
498
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:12,100
when you...
499
00:37:12,100 --> 00:37:17,616
every day, twice on Sundays, sometimes five times on Sundays actually, especially when
there's football on, right?
500
00:37:19,025 --> 00:37:20,296
Can I stand this again?
501
00:37:20,296 --> 00:37:20,586
Right?
502
00:37:20,586 --> 00:37:21,446
Yeah.
503
00:37:23,208 --> 00:37:23,488
Right.
504
00:37:23,488 --> 00:37:33,094
But you see, the practice is the same things always bring us back to who we are, to what
we actually really are.
505
00:37:33,575 --> 00:37:36,477
And it's all it's actually quite simple.
506
00:37:37,614 --> 00:37:39,734
It's not easy, but it's simple.
507
00:37:39,734 --> 00:37:43,378
it takes a kind of repetition.
508
00:37:43,378 --> 00:37:44,068
Yeah.
509
00:37:44,878 --> 00:37:46,092
just a practice.
510
00:37:46,148 --> 00:37:48,662
Yeah, the old joke, how do you get to Carnegie Hall?
511
00:37:48,662 --> 00:37:50,701
Practice, practice, practice.
512
00:37:50,870 --> 00:37:51,491
Right?
513
00:37:51,491 --> 00:37:52,491
Yeah.
514
00:37:52,491 --> 00:37:55,544
It's like anything where they're, you for me, I play tennis.
515
00:37:55,544 --> 00:38:01,157
I've got two matches this weekend, official, official, you know, USDA matches.
516
00:38:01,658 --> 00:38:04,420
And I got to practice, right?
517
00:38:04,420 --> 00:38:10,605
If I want to have a smithering chance of even coming close to winning, I have to practice.
518
00:38:11,466 --> 00:38:12,046
Yeah.
519
00:38:12,046 --> 00:38:13,928
And so it's no different.
520
00:38:13,928 --> 00:38:15,589
you know, happiness is a practice.
521
00:38:15,589 --> 00:38:17,570
Spirituality is a practice.
522
00:38:17,624 --> 00:38:22,850
Being a doctor is a practice, being a lawyer is a practice, being a therapist, we're all
practicing.
523
00:38:22,850 --> 00:38:25,623
It doesn't matter what it is we're doing, we're all practicing.
524
00:38:25,623 --> 00:38:32,332
And so I question all of my audience, when are you gonna start practicing your
mindfulness, right?
525
00:38:32,332 --> 00:38:33,974
Because it's all it is.
526
00:38:33,974 --> 00:38:35,535
It's just a practice.
527
00:38:35,696 --> 00:38:37,830
It's not complicated at all.
528
00:38:37,830 --> 00:38:45,910
No, mean, mean, the guys who go fishing and hunting and golfing, they're doing mindfulness
all the time if they're in silence.
529
00:38:45,910 --> 00:38:46,570
Right.
530
00:38:46,570 --> 00:38:47,680
It's natural.
531
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:49,030
It's already there.
532
00:38:49,030 --> 00:38:57,430
Women, the traditional women's activities, for instance, that we would have thought of in
1900, like sewing and knitting.
533
00:38:57,430 --> 00:38:59,990
And that's all mindfulness, too.
534
00:39:00,130 --> 00:39:01,011
Right.
535
00:39:01,011 --> 00:39:04,574
laundry and I love organizing a closet.
536
00:39:04,615 --> 00:39:09,349
because those things, like, here's just a golden nugget for the audience.
537
00:39:09,349 --> 00:39:19,410
Like, if you're feeling like your life is out of control and you've got so many things out
of control, stop and go organize your pantry or organize your closet and start
538
00:39:19,410 --> 00:39:20,331
decluttering.
539
00:39:20,331 --> 00:39:23,794
Because I'm telling you, that simple exercise.
540
00:39:25,248 --> 00:39:28,029
We'll put everything in perspective because you're controlling.
541
00:39:28,029 --> 00:39:29,709
It's something you have control over.
542
00:39:29,709 --> 00:39:36,702
And by doing something you have control over, you're able to work through everything else
and you just feel better at the end of the day.
543
00:39:36,702 --> 00:39:46,525
And then you've accomplished something and you're not like, it's just all positive and you
feel good and you're donating your old clothes to somebody who really needs them.
544
00:39:46,525 --> 00:39:50,106
you know, like, like there's so many great things out of that.
545
00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:50,840
It's true.
546
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:55,033
I do a periodic purge in my home every six months, more or less.
547
00:39:55,033 --> 00:39:58,776
We get rid of all the stuff that we haven't used in a couple of years.
548
00:39:59,036 --> 00:40:01,398
And it's really, it's also a relief.
549
00:40:01,398 --> 00:40:05,951
The Tibetan Buddhist say that everything that you own has to have a place in your mind.
550
00:40:05,951 --> 00:40:07,903
You have to know how to lay your hands on it.
551
00:40:07,903 --> 00:40:08,213
Right?
552
00:40:08,213 --> 00:40:10,404
So imagine all the burden of all that.
553
00:40:10,404 --> 00:40:10,654
Right?
554
00:40:10,654 --> 00:40:14,627
So it's another way to get happier is, all right, I don't have to worry about all this
stuff.
555
00:40:14,627 --> 00:40:16,028
Let me get rid of it.
556
00:40:16,028 --> 00:40:17,008
Okay.
557
00:40:18,318 --> 00:40:23,818
I actually have a bag in my closet, like a shopping bag that just sits there.
558
00:40:24,678 --> 00:40:33,918
And, you know, because I've, you know, I'm pushing 60, I've got clothes in there that I
had 20 years ago that I still wear occasionally and that's okay.
559
00:40:33,918 --> 00:40:40,058
But then there's some you're like, no, like you said, if you haven't worn it in a year or
two, ditch it.
560
00:40:40,058 --> 00:40:42,404
All right, we're really digressing now, John.
561
00:40:43,014 --> 00:40:45,974
But it's still happiness, it's still the theme.
562
00:40:46,854 --> 00:40:49,274
So, and that's about being present.
563
00:40:49,274 --> 00:40:58,814
When you're organizing the closet and you're feeling the clothes and you're making that
choice, I see it, I feel it, I touch it, I don't get any pleasure out of it.
564
00:40:58,814 --> 00:41:01,354
I haven't worn it in five years or 10.
565
00:41:01,474 --> 00:41:04,614
That's present moment activity, that's still okay.
566
00:41:04,614 --> 00:41:05,154
Right?
567
00:41:05,154 --> 00:41:08,214
So the whole life is spiritual.
568
00:41:08,774 --> 00:41:13,118
The word is even unnecessary at a point.
569
00:41:14,852 --> 00:41:18,377
You know, God is this, right?
570
00:41:18,377 --> 00:41:19,559
You, me, and everything else.
571
00:41:19,559 --> 00:41:23,434
So the whole of our life is already spiritual.
572
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:27,531
Thousand percent, thousand percent.
573
00:41:27,972 --> 00:41:31,154
So I love your book, Simply Awake.
574
00:41:31,855 --> 00:41:33,806
Or no, your column is Simply Awake.
575
00:41:33,806 --> 00:41:36,498
Your book is Being Human and Waking Up.
576
00:41:37,519 --> 00:41:40,421
I love that because that's what we're doing, right?
577
00:41:41,022 --> 00:41:47,620
We are human doers and we have to get back to human being.
578
00:41:47,620 --> 00:41:52,373
Yeah, can I be a human and then the doing follows naturally, right?
579
00:41:52,494 --> 00:41:56,076
If I don't know how to love myself, I can't love my neighbor.
580
00:41:57,278 --> 00:41:59,359
And so I have to learn how to be a human.
581
00:41:59,359 --> 00:42:01,401
I have to learn the basic skills of being human.
582
00:42:01,401 --> 00:42:04,904
That's actually what people want in both psychology and in spirituality.
583
00:42:04,904 --> 00:42:07,345
I want to be able to live a happy life.
584
00:42:08,207 --> 00:42:11,489
And so being human and waking up is about living a happy life.
585
00:42:11,489 --> 00:42:17,814
And because of your generosity and doing all these podcasts all these years without
sponsorship,
586
00:42:17,958 --> 00:42:23,538
I knew about that generosity of heart even though I didn't know the formalities.
587
00:42:23,618 --> 00:42:29,678
I want to give your listeners a copy of my book, a PDF of my book.
588
00:42:29,678 --> 00:42:36,158
They'd have to buy it on Amazon for $29 workbook form or $10 in Kindle form.
589
00:42:36,158 --> 00:42:45,488
And they can find that copy by just DMing me on Instagram at John Labman.
590
00:42:45,488 --> 00:42:46,500
That's at
591
00:42:46,500 --> 00:42:51,737
signed J -O -N -L -A -B -A -N with the word human being.
592
00:42:52,519 --> 00:43:00,930
And I will send them a copy of my book for free as a way of giving forward everything
that's been given to me and you.
593
00:43:01,862 --> 00:43:02,822
I it.
594
00:43:02,903 --> 00:43:03,943
love it.
595
00:43:04,785 --> 00:43:07,467
Yeah, so folks, definitely go on Instagram.
596
00:43:07,467 --> 00:43:10,700
John Labman is his handle on Instagram.
597
00:43:10,700 --> 00:43:16,235
Send him a direct message and he will email you a PDF version of his book.
598
00:43:16,235 --> 00:43:17,486
I think that's so generous.
599
00:43:17,486 --> 00:43:19,038
Thank you so much.
600
00:43:19,038 --> 00:43:20,779
This has been an amazing conversation.
601
00:43:20,779 --> 00:43:22,340
I could talk to you all day.
602
00:43:22,769 --> 00:43:23,673
Thank you.
603
00:43:23,673 --> 00:43:24,676
I've enjoyed it too.
604
00:43:24,676 --> 00:43:26,548
I can't believe it goes so fast.
605
00:43:26,548 --> 00:43:27,030
It does.
606
00:43:27,030 --> 00:43:28,315
It goes so, fast.
607
00:43:28,315 --> 00:43:33,002
Is there anything else that you want to share with the audience that you hadn't talked
about?
608
00:43:33,774 --> 00:43:46,344
I think that people who've been traumatized, seriously traumatized, and a lot of adverse
childhood experiences, they have to work unfortunately harder at this than others do.
609
00:43:47,086 --> 00:43:55,893
But I want to represent that group of people and say, we too can live happiness solved.
610
00:43:55,973 --> 00:44:01,924
We too can be happy people and live ordinary happy lives.
611
00:44:01,924 --> 00:44:08,156
And for a trauma survivor, an ordinary happy life is extraordinary because we never expect
that we'll have it.
612
00:44:08,256 --> 00:44:09,796
So I would say that too.
613
00:44:09,796 --> 00:44:21,640
And also just to thank you once again for your generosity and doing podcasts all this time
among the many things you do and to say to your audience again, support this wonderful
614
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:26,661
woman and her work, like her, give her the five star ratings and refer friends to her.
615
00:44:29,168 --> 00:44:33,313
And I will do the same when the podcast is released and send it to my small list.
616
00:44:34,026 --> 00:44:35,086
Awesome.
617
00:44:35,507 --> 00:44:37,348
I totally appreciate it.
618
00:44:37,649 --> 00:44:39,741
Thank you so much, John, for coming on.
619
00:44:39,741 --> 00:44:47,858
I love sharing stories like yours because we all, you know, there's always somebody that's
been through something worse than we have.
620
00:44:47,858 --> 00:44:53,763
Not to take away from anybody's pain because if it's the first time you've experienced
pain, it's pain.
621
00:44:53,763 --> 00:44:54,624
Pain is pain.
622
00:44:54,624 --> 00:44:55,885
comes in all shapes and sizes.
623
00:44:55,885 --> 00:44:57,185
It doesn't matter.
624
00:44:57,526 --> 00:45:02,570
So I always mention that, John, because I was one of those who, well,
625
00:45:02,732 --> 00:45:04,323
little bit of PTSD.
626
00:45:04,323 --> 00:45:15,099
Like I just totally minimized it because I didn't feel worthy enough to acknowledge that
my trauma was just as bad as other people's trauma.
627
00:45:15,099 --> 00:45:19,361
So I was like, you know, I just minimized it, you know, don't minimize your trauma.
628
00:45:19,361 --> 00:45:19,931
It's real.
629
00:45:19,931 --> 00:45:20,892
It's real.
630
00:45:20,892 --> 00:45:24,474
And it's their pain.
631
00:45:25,595 --> 00:45:26,835
Doesn't matter.
632
00:45:27,676 --> 00:45:28,636
Doesn't matter.
633
00:45:28,636 --> 00:45:29,836
Doesn't matter.
634
00:45:30,317 --> 00:45:32,448
First world, third world, second world.
635
00:45:32,449 --> 00:45:32,959
Doesn't matter.
636
00:45:32,959 --> 00:45:34,810
It's all paying.
637
00:45:34,830 --> 00:45:35,551
All right.
638
00:45:35,551 --> 00:45:36,721
So reach out to John.
639
00:45:36,721 --> 00:45:45,835
And if you do have any trauma, he would certainly be, I can't think of anybody more
qualified to work with.
640
00:45:45,835 --> 00:45:50,608
folks, you're, you know, reach out to John, he's the real deal.
641
00:45:50,608 --> 00:45:56,300
And he can definitely help you break through some of this and learn.
642
00:45:56,721 --> 00:45:58,121
Happyness solved.
643
00:46:00,106 --> 00:46:06,538
All right, John, thank you so much and thank you everyone for listening today and take
care everyone.