Transcription
You see, we all know what reality is, but we can't describe it. Just as we all know how to beat our hearts and shape our bones, but cannot say how it is done. If you take such a tiny creature as a fruitly, it is aware of all sorts of weird little animals and objects and spores floating in the atmosphere which we don't even notice unless we've got a microscope around. And it criticizes them as being inferior animals. Whereas human beings are things that it doesn't comprehend. And we see these faroff objects floating in the heavens and we have only the vaguest idea of what they may be. That is to say that wherever you are and whoever you are and whatever you are, you're in the middle.
Your own organism keeps functioning without your apparently having anything to do with doing it. But that that process is continuous with is one process with all the behavior going on around you of other people of nature and of the entire universe. What is reality? Obviously, no one can say because it isn't words. [Music] It isn't material. That's just an idea. It isn't spiritual. That's also an idea, a symbol. Reality is this. [Music] That's to say, we confuse signs, words, numbers, symbols, and ideas with the real world. Most of us would have rather money than tangible wealth, and a great occasion is somehow spoiled for us unless photographed.
There is a point at which it becomes perfectly clear to you that you are not something struggling against everything else or being victimized by everything else. But that what is going on in so far as you can experience it is your own doing. Because here we are, you know, we think we make sense. I'm talking English to you and you understand the meaning of my words. But let's just drop this situation into another context. What is the meaning of your understanding what I'm saying? See, we're all sitting around here and uh you are listening to these signals and you are interpreting them into signals of your own. But look at the situation from above. What a crazy assembly. [Music]
Because what we're doing gathering here, making noises, is in essentially no different from what this tree is doing out here, spreading out its branches with all these little twigs and things sticking out. And my joke, what is it doing? Uh well you say if we look at it from a practical point of view uh those leaves have a purpose and they are to absorb moisture and sunlight and to sort of go down into the tree and help the sap to come up and uh then then the real object of this is that it grows some kind of flower or cone and that gets fertilized. their little seeds inside and they come out and fall in the ground and get blown about. Some get picked up by birds and distributed and they make other trees. You see, that's the thing. That's what it's all about. That's a very very important function. Now, actually, it's sheer nonsense is this tree is going to say, "Wow, isn't that great?" you know, let's uh spread this around and get everybody else going. Well, we're doing exactly the same thing. And the trouble with us as civilized people is we don't know it. We think we're being serious. and that we we you know we have tremendously important schemes going on and that uh it's desperately vital that for example the human race survive.
So just as we have a field of vision which is so wide so the present moment is not as the clock indicates a hairline that's the present moment is a field of experience which is not what we would call instantaneous much more than that. So that within the present moment we can hear intervals between tones and rhythms. So that we get the feel of a sequence going on. So when I talk about the eternal now, please don't confuse it with a split second. It's not the same kind of thing. The eternal now is roomy, lots in it, rich but frivolous. Consider the liies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin. Yet Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. Do not be anxious with tomorrow. You who are frivolous, of course. GK Chesterton said, "Angels fly because they take themselves lightly." See, there is a divine frivolity. The love that moves the sun and other stars is frivolity. And God therefore might be described as being sincere but not serious. [Music] So that playfulness is the very essence of the energy of the universe. That's what's happening. It's music. [Music]
But the classical music, whether it be of the West, of the Hindus, of the Chinese, has no other meaning than its own sound. To get in touch with reality, there is an art of meditation. Just let the vibrations in the air play with your ears. You must understand that in meditation we are concerned only with what is with reality. Nothing else. The past is a memory. the future and expectation. Neither past nor future actually exist. There is simply eternal now. So don't seek or expect a result from what you're doing. That wouldn't be true meditation. There's no hurry. Just now you're not going anywhere. Simply be here. [Music] Live in the world of sound. Let it play. That's all. In the world of pure sound, can you actually hear anyone who is listening? Can you hear any difference between all these sounds on the one hand and yourself on the other? The universe comes into being out of the one energy underlying all events. We are going behind words, names, numbers, beliefs and ideas to get back to the naked experience of reality itself. And at this level of awareness, we find no difference between the listener and the sound, the knower and the known, the subject and the object, or between the past, the present, and the future. So from this practice you learn to experience to realize that what happens to you and what you do are one in the same process. There is no real separation between one thing called you and another quite different thing called the universe. When you stop talking and naming, they're quite obviously one.
Hungarian Canadian physician and author Dr. Gabbor Mate is known for his expertise in addiction, stress, childhood development, and the mindbody connection. With multiple best-selling books, he's reshaped the way we look at emotional behavior and well-being. One of Gabbor's most profound quotes is trauma is not what happens to you. Trauma is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you. In this interview with Steven Bartlett, he takes us deeper into this message with his perception of gut feelings.
>> But the problem for many of us is that we get disconnected from our gut feelings very early in life. No baby is disconnected from the gut feelings. Something happens to make us disconnect.
>> What is a gut feeling from a physiological perspective? Because gut feeling is used as a word to describe you know an intuition or you know
>> well the real gut feelings really happen in the gut. In the western way of looking at it we tend to look upon the intellect and and and the intellectual brain as the only brain that we have but actually our brain is a far more complicated structure and our heart has a nervous system which is connected to the brain up here and there's a kind of knowing in the heart. Sometimes people say, "I knew in my heart." And they did. If they're connected, gut feelings are what all animals possess. It warns them of danger or when it's safe. And the gut is connected to the brain.
>> The the gut sends more connections to the brain than the brain sends to the gut. And the gut has more of the neurotransmitter serotonin in it than the brain does. So that the gut things are here to tell us about what is safe and what isn't. And when the brain in the gut and the brain in the heart and the brain in up here in this in the head are connected, then we're grounded and present and very alert and very aware of what's going on. But when childhood trauma interferes with those connections, which it does, then we start to just work from up here and we could think we can figure things just from up here. But actually, when you think about human beings, where did we evolve? evolved for millions of years out in nature. How long does any creature in nature survive if they don't pay attention to their gut feelings?
Throughout his work, Gabbor highlights elements like that of the gut feeling that we often overlook but can have physical implications. Being too nice can also have a physical impact on our bodies. When our mind doesn't have the strength to say no to people, our body does it for us. This can often result in physical illness. [Music]
There's two places to be very nice from. One is just genuine human compassion and concern for others. But you're still grounded in yourself. That's great. But a lot of people are very nice because they are afraid not to be because they weren't liked who they were. They weren't loved for who they were. Being nice was their way of getting the love and the attention they needed. Let me tell you a story. In a uh in 1870 there was a French neurologist called Jean Martan Shco who was the first one to describe multiple scerosis which is an inflammation of the nervous system very debilitating and Shark said in 1870 without any scientific research but just from his own observation that this was a stress-driven disease. Okay. Now since then there's been a lot of research to show how stress and trauma potentiate multiple scerosis. It's not even controversial. Not that any neurologist knows that. They don't get taught this stuff at medical school but the research is there. Niceness ALS amiotrophic lateral scerosis are known and written as motor neuron disease. There's been studies on ALS patients. They're extraordinarily nice. So um there was a from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, a major referral clinic, two neurologists published a paper at an international ALS or motor neuron congress. Why are ALS patients so nice? And what they described was that when people came to their office for diagnosis before they met the physician, they had underwent EDX electrodiagnostic testing of their nerves. And the technicians who' perform the test would write on the side of the test, this person can't have ALS. She's not nice enough. Or I'm afraid this person has ALS. They're too nice. And the physicians, the neurologist specialists said, despite the shortness of their contact with their patients and the obviously unscientific nature of their observations, invariably they turned out to be right. And then I called Dr. Wilgurn who did the study and I said what did the other the what did the other neurologist say when you presented this they said oh I said yeah we all noticed this we just can't explain it since then there's been a study where they've asked neurologists about their patients and the answer is all our ALS patients are extraordinarily nice now what the neurologists don't do is they don't make the connection that that niceness is a repression of healthy anger and that repression of healthy anger plays a role in the onset of that disease. So it's not a accidental connection. Again, niceness can come from genuine concern for others, but that's not accompanied by an ignoring of yourself. You also care for yourself. Then you can be as nice as you want, but you also know how to say no. And you also know how to set boundaries. You know how to and you know how to be angry if you need to be. But the niceness that comes from self-repression, that's the one that hurts. So my contention is, as I said earlier, when people don't know how to say no, the body will say no for them in the form of illness. And for and for a lot of people with serious illness, the illness is the wakeup call.
>> Yeah.
>> And they actually learn. And when they do, that can make a difference to the course of their illness sometimes. Not always, but I've seen examples of remarkable healing when people learn to say no and stop being people pleasers. It's very stressful to take on everybody else's issues and ignoring your own. It's very stressful. That stress is a physiological impact on the body.
>> Another external force that can cause unnecessary stress is social media. Gabbor says it's not necessary to get rid of social media entirely, but when we diminish our attachment to it, we stop looking to the outside world for meaning and validation. And you also suggest removing the things from your life that will stop you from seeing yourself like social media.
>> Well, because that can be a lot of
>> I can't remove social media from my life, but what I can remove is my attachment to it. For example, I don't have to look at the comments on all my talks on YouTube, who says what, who likes it, who doesn't like it. You know, I'm not on Facebook. I don't have a I have a professional Facebook page, but I don't administer it. Um, but people go on Facebook and who says what, who likes me, who doesn't like me, you know, they can wean themselves off that. So, we may not be able to stay off social media. um to write my books, thank God for the internet, but I don't have to be attached to it. So, it's it's it's it's using it but not letting it use you, which is very hard if I don't pay attention rigorous attention to what's going on inside. And if I keep looking to the outside to give me meaning and give me um validation, then I can lose myself. And that's what happened.
When we eliminate the external search for meaning, we are forced to look inward. Achieving this inner peace allows us to have compassion and empathy for not only ourselves but others as well. Of course, the people and things around us have the ability to provide temporary happiness. But true fulfillment comes from within and has a much more prosperous and long-lasting effect on our mental and physical health. Without inner peace, you're not going to be able to serve any of those goals properly
>> or if you worry, you do it at some risk to yourself. And so, um, running around serving others in the name of this so-called higher goal undermines your inner peace, then you're not on the right track. Inner peace is not a selfish goal. uh it's from a position of inner peace that we can speak compassionately and truthfully to others. We can um serve our other goals but you know echoi talks about our inner purpose and our external purpose and that's why there's the dis I believe
>> if I pardon the diagnosis but or the analysis but but that's why that disconnect that you mentioned
>> cuz the goals that you stated that were largely external.
>> Mhm.
>> And what are the internal goals?
>> Inner peace.
>> Very good.
>> Yeah.
>> Now, you have to put that into the mix because temporarily when your book shows up as number one on the bestsellers list or shows up at all, you feel some inner peace, but it's addictive. And uh there's a wonderful physician and researcher, Vince Fiti, um and he said, "It's hard to get enough of something that almost works." And uh so yeah, you can get that temporary inner peace, but look at the long-term consequences of the workholism. It's not inner peace. I can tell you that. You know, I can tell you after a long experience, doesn't matter even how successful you're out there. We started the conversation with this. It's never going to give you inner peace. Inner peace doesn't come from the outside. That's not a goal anybody ever handed to you. That's something that you have to come to yourself. But how can we actually achieve inner peace? An effective practice to use is meditation. And one of the most popular forms of meditation is through controlled breathing. If we slow our breathing and focus on our body for a few short moments a day, we can become conscious of this subconscious bodily function and use it as a gateway to inner peace. [Music]
To go back to the question of what people can do for themselves, they can learn to breathe. And Echarolei is a spiritual teacher. He says that rather than go to retreats and therapists just take a few conscious breaths several times a day. I mean, not that not to dismiss the other, but that's more important than anything else. And interestingly enough, the Buddha when he was teaching his monks, in fact, one of the Buddha's assistants, Ananda, asked him, um, "Oh, holy one, do you still meditate?" And he said, "Yes, and what kind of meditation do you practice?" Says, "Ananda, and uh Buddha says, observing the breath." So in Buddhist meditation, I'm I'm not here to advocate for any particular pathway and I'm not a practitioner of any religion but hey this this this is very wise man. Um he thought awareness of breath is the most important portal into into reality.
In this insightful discussion mate demonstrates the path we must take to achieve inner peace. First, we must look inward for fulfillment rather than outward. Second, we must understand that putting our own needs first gives us a larger capacity to help others. Finally, by utilizing certain methods such as meditation, we can gain access to the consciousness needed to reach self-awareness, emotional resilience, and inner peace.
You think a negative thought, you're going to go on a downward spiral. You think a positive thought, you'll attract wonderful things to you. Every thought we think and every word we speak is creating our future.
Louise Haye was a self-help author, professional speaker, and the founder of Hay House Publishing. She's written over two dozen books, including the number one bestseller, You Can Heal Your Life, where she empowered millions of individuals to transform their lives through positive affirmations and self-love. Considered one of the founders of the self-help genre, Louisa's teachings are centered around the idea that our thoughts create our reality. In this interview, she dives deeper into this concept.
Every thought we think and every word we speak is creating our future. It's as though our thoughts go out into the universe and are accepted and brought back to us as experience. Now, that is a very simple thing, but most people don't get it. They don't understand it. They've never heard it before, and they think it's ridiculous. But if you can really accept the fact that every time you think a thought and every time you speak a word, you are literally painting your future, making your dinner, uh, whatever you want to call it, you are creating. And you're creating your own life. And this is simple but it's not easy to accept. But once you accept it then you can start deliberately creating what you want in your life and you begin to be aware of what you don't want in your life and how you are contributing to it. See most of us just think think and we don't pay any attention to what we're thinking. We're just doing it. But that's something you need to train yourself to do. To begin to train yourself to be aware of what you're thinking. And and one of the ways to do that is to periodically say to yourself, "What am I thinking? Would I like this thought to create my life? Would I like to have the experience that this thought could bring to me?" Remember, I'd like to think the universe is listening to everything you say and everything you think and saying, "Okay, you can get that." So then it starts to bring you in and bring things into you.
And I know this sounds far-fetched, but it's amazing how it works. You if you do a good general positive statement for yourself, the universe will figure out how to manifest that, how to bring that about in your life. So things could happen that you wouldn't expect at all, but they will happen.
But how can we incorporate these positive thinking patterns into our lives? A common practice is using affirmations. Affirmations are positive statements used to challenge and overcome negative thoughts. The power of affirmations lies in their ability to influence the subconscious mind. When consistently repeated, they can help to create new, more beneficial thought patterns.
To begin with, you start by doing what we call doing affirmations. And that is making positive statements about your life that are positive and you do them deliberately. You might do them in the morning, you might do them at noon, you might do them at night, uh you might do them, you know, twice a day or or whatever. But you do this and you let this become a habit. And as you start to do them, things will begin to change. Maybe on a very small level. I call it getting the green lights in the parking places. I mean, they're not huge things in your life. It can be very nice when you get three green lights in a row and you're in a hurry. Doing an affirmation is either writing it down, writing it on the wall or the mirror, or using a a you know, just saying it. If you think of doing your positive affirmations is like planting a seed in the ground. It's not necessarily true at the moment, but it is something you want to have be true. So you put the seed in and you you you plant a seed and you expect it to grow or you maybe plant three seeds just in case. You expect them to grow and you don't wait 2 days and then dig in the earth and say, "What's happening? What's happening?" You expect that thing to grow because you know there's a law and a process and the seed will grow if it is in the right soil and it has the right amount of moisture. Making it really a habit and doing it every day. Uh doing something every morning when you wake up. That's a really good time. And another good time is when you go to sleep at night.
Those who have mastered the art of affirmations will be able to gracefully conquer these positive statements. But beginners may struggle with phrasing the right affirmation. In reality, it is quite simple. Louise explains it can be just one looking into the mirror and expressing self-love. I have a simple exercise I give everybody. And some people say, "Oh, that's so stupid. It's so silly." But I ask them to look in the mirror, especially first thing in the morning, and just look in their eyes and say their name and say, "I love you. I really, really love you." and start connecting with that inner child that's inside a little kid who's probably been pushed away for a long time. And when you do that, it's amazing how miracles seem to happen. So when you can learn to love who you are, and that's the way you were born, when you were a little tiny baby, and when I say you, I mean everybody listening to this.
Uh we all adored ourselves. We loved our bodies. We loved every part of ourselves. And then we started to listen to other people who told us we weren't good enough or we didn't do it right or no, no, no. And so we decided that maybe we weren't very good. And that's where we get all mixed up. But when we can get back to that point of just adoring this marvelous critter in here,
then life says, "Oh, they she's got it. She's got it. Let's give her goodies." You know, we are divine magnificent expressions of life and we have to know that and and experience it and rejoice in it.
Equally as important as engaging in the practice of self-love is expressing gratitude to the universe. Gratitude helps shift your focus from what's lacking to what's present. Fostering a more positive outlook on life. Here Louise explains that when you express your gratitude to the universe, the universe will give back more things to be thankful for.
It's very important to be appreciative of life and to express gratitude. The universe loves gratitude. The more grateful you are, the more things you have to be grateful about. And when I say things, I don't mean objects necessarily, but just you improve the quality of your life enormously. And it's it's like, you know, somebody gives you a present and you're or gives me a present and I say, "Oh my god, I hate that color and it doesn't fit." And you know, that person will never give me another present. But if you say, "Oh, it's wonderful and thank you. I really adore it. It's great." That person is probably going to want to buy you a present every time they see something they think you would like. And it's like that with the universe. The universe loves gratitude. I say thank you many many many times of the day often not to anyone else I just you know oh thank you that's so wonderful thank you and it's uh you know you find more and more things to be thankful about I was driving up today from uh San Diego and the wild flowers on the hillsides are just beautiful this year and I was thinking I was so glad that I had the opportunity to see them because if I stayed down there I wouldn't But this drive, which was, you know, not a drive I particularly wanted to make, but it was gorgeous.
Surely, there's many things to be thankful for in day-to-day life. But what do we do when we encounter problems that seem unbearable? When encountering this issue, Louise circles back to an affirmation that helps her through tough times.
When we have a problem, most of us go, "Oh, panic, panic, God, what are we going to do?" blah blah blah blah blah. But I have something that I try to get people to say. When the minute there's a problem, you stop and you go, "All is well. All is well. Everything's working out for my highest good. And out of this experience, only good will come and I am safe." And you do this. If it's a small thing, I say it two or three times. If it's a bigger issue, I babble it incessantly. But all is well. Everything is working out for my highest good. Out of this situation, only good will come and I am safe. Now, this gives this quiets your inner turmoil down long enough for the universe to find the solution to the so-called problem. See, when there's problems, we don't have to fix problems so much. We need to fix our thinking and our attitude about how we respond to them. And then you get less and less. And when and when the solution comes, you say thank you.
And thanks to the teachings of Louise Haye, we have the resources to hack our subconscious mind and fix our thinking. She's taught us to create our own reality through affirmations, self-love, and gratitude. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Louise's insights, proving that she was a truly wise person. Rest in peace, Louise Haye. A woman who has left a profound impact on the lives of millions.