Latest / Unlocking The Paradigm Portal / The Ghosts In The Loop

Transcript

The Ghosts In The Loop · Unlocking The Paradigm Portal

• 0:00
  Hello everybody, welcome back to unlocking the Paradigm portal.
• 0:03
  My name is Sarah. So I've been seeing a pattern
• 0:06
  coming up in conversations in the last two weeks and it is,
• 0:10
  I'm calling it the Ghosts of Christmas Past and getting
• 0:14
  caught in the loop. I keep watching people almost
• 0:18
  get free from the old stories, and I mean that literally.
• 0:21
  I'm sitting across from someone and I can see it happening in
• 0:24
  real time, like they have been digging in, they've been doing
• 0:28
  the work, they've been developing intense
• 0:31
  self-awareness. Whether this is work or just in
• 0:33
  my personal life. The old stories start losing
• 0:37
  their grip and they're right there.
• 0:39
  They're right on the edge of the threshold.
• 0:41
  That light is shining. They see it, they know it, and
• 0:45
  then it's like something shifts and all the sudden the doors
• 0:50
  snap shut and they're back in the darkness and it's the
• 0:53
  blinders coming back on. And the wildest part as I'm
• 0:56
  watching this is that they really don't know.
• 1:00
  They've no idea it just happened because on the inside nothing
• 1:04
  changed. But from where I'm sitting, I
• 1:07
  just watched someone touch the edge of freedom and flinch back
• 1:10
  into the dark without a single conscious thought.
• 1:14
  And it has happened enough times in the last few weeks that I
• 1:17
  need to talk about it. Because if you're someone who
• 1:19
  keeps doing the work and you can't figure out why you're
• 1:22
  still stuck, this might be why. It has nothing to do with not
• 1:27
  trying. It has showing me that there is
• 1:30
  a program operating under the system that you don't even
• 1:35
  realize is happening. So let me tell you what it looks
• 1:39
  like from where I sit. Because you can't see it while
• 1:41
  you're in it. And that's the whole problem,
• 1:44
  because these are all people. Like the conversations I've been
• 1:46
  having are all people that I know well.
• 1:49
  And I have seen them digging in into the muck, pulling up the
• 1:54
  old stuff, bringing it up to the light, looking at it, seeing
• 1:58
  their part in things, seeing how they've told the story, their
• 2:01
  perceptions, everything. It's amazing, It's beautiful,
• 2:05
  it's difficult, and it is honestly the biggest honor, one
• 2:10
  of the biggest honors in my life to get to witness this happening
• 2:14
  and get to be a part of it because it's incredible.
• 2:17
  And I feel that forward momentum that they have, and I see the
• 2:21
  lightness that comes around them, like literal lightness.
• 2:25
  People stand taller as they keep peeling back all these layers
• 2:29
  and that wasn't there before. And they start saying things
• 2:33
  that they've never said out loud and they start asking questions
• 2:37
  that they've been afraid to ask. And it's like the walls that
• 2:40
  they've surround themselves with start to thin.
• 2:43
  They haven't dropped yet, but they're thinning, which means
• 2:46
  something is trying to come through.
• 2:49
  But then what eyewitness sitting across from them is mid
• 2:55
  sentence, like as soon as the old story is challenged.
• 2:59
  And I don't mean it's not like these people aren't used to
• 3:02
  having the stories challenged, but at a visceral level, at a
• 3:06
  somatic level, as soon as it's challenged, it's like I watch
• 3:12
  what looks to me almost like in their eyes, the blinders just
• 3:16
  shift right back down and over and then boom, they're right
• 3:20
  back in the old story. It's like going from a place of
• 3:24
  genuine empowerment and losing some of the fear of making
• 3:29
  changes and moving forward falling.
• 3:32
  Then they end up falling right back into almost a victimhood
• 3:36
  mentality and all the old stories start taking over again.
• 3:41
  And it is really frustrating to watch and challenging to watch,
• 3:48
  partly because I've been there, I know it, and I want to be
• 3:52
  like, Oh my God, the water's so much warmer over here, Just let
• 3:56
  it all go. But I also am realizing it's so
• 3:59
  autopilot that they really genuinely don't see it happening
• 4:04
  or feel it happening. And if I say something in that
• 4:08
  moment after the blinders have come back, if I hold up the
• 4:13
  mirror and say, hey, did you notice what just happened?
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  Once the blinders are right back, they look at me like I'm
• 4:19
  speaking another language. Because again, from the inside,
• 4:22
  nothing changed. The tape just looped all over
• 4:24
  again. And they didn't make a conscious
• 4:26
  choice. They didn't decide to go back.
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  It's not a moment of weakness or dramatic backslide.
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  The blinders just came back online silently and
• 4:36
  automatically. You know, like when the
• 4:39
  screensaver kicks in, when you stop touching the keyboard.
• 4:41
  It's literally like that, and it feels like watching someone walk
• 4:46
  toward the light, and I mean genuinely walking toward it,
• 4:49
  like doing the hard things and moving even at a slow pace,
• 4:53
  sometimes at a rapid pace. And then at some invisible line,
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  it's like something reaches up, grabs their ankle and pulls them
• 5:01
  back, but they don't feel the hand and they don't see it.
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  They just find themselves back in the dark and they think that
• 5:09
  they were there the whole time. It's like a glitch in the
• 5:11
  matrix. And I've watched this happen
• 5:14
  with people leaving relationships that are clearly
• 5:17
  over. And I've seen it with people on
• 5:21
  the edge of a career change that they've been circling for years
• 5:24
  but have been hesitant. And like people who are finally,
• 5:29
  finally putting themselves 1st and then suddenly they're back
• 5:33
  into managing everyone else's feelings and they can't tell you
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  when it happened because they didn't feel it happened.
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  It just kind of happened. It's literally, excuse me, like
• 5:43
  a tape caught in a glitch, skipping back to the same 3
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  seconds over and over and over. And this is what I mean by the
• 5:51
  ghost. It's not a haunting.
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  You can see It's a haunting that operates below sight, below
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  awareness, and below choice. And the way I've been seeing it
• 6:01
  is it's like residue of the old story that's still running the
• 6:04
  machinery while the news story is trying to like boot up.
• 6:08
  And I find this interesting that this is all coming up as I'm
• 6:11
  doing, I run a live hero's journey Zoom session.
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  It's free. By the way.
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  There's links in the, in the description if anybody wants to
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  join. And I just did it tonight,
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  actually it's 11:00 at night. I did it at 8:00 tonight.
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  And we're doing crossing the threshold.
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  And that is literally the point of like, am I going to make the
• 6:30
  change? And you can go back to the
• 6:33
  refusal of the call and be like, Nope, not today.
• 6:36
  And run back. And that's OK because maybe
• 6:38
  you're not ready. But then there's also moving
• 6:41
  forward. And it's literally like watching
• 6:43
  the refusal of the call over and over.
• 6:44
  So it's perfect timing that it came up tonight.
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  I don't believe in coincidences. So it's crazy to sit and watch
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  it happening. And I realized how much people
• 6:58
  are not seeing it. And why can't they see it,
• 7:01
  right? They're not stupid.
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  They're not in denial. It's, I mean, not the way that
• 7:06
  people usually mean when they say denial.
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  Like these people have done more self examination than frankly
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  most people have done in a lifetime.
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  So how is something this big operating without their
• 7:18
  knowledge? So here's what I've come to
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  understand from watching this happen again and again.
• 7:24
  So the old pattern doesn't feel like a pattern from the inside.
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  It just feels like reality. Like using that hero's journey
• 7:31
  reference. It's the ordinary life and it
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  feels like just the way things are.
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  That's what makes it invisible. It's freaking tricky.
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  You're not choosing the old story, you're just in it.
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  Like the way a fish doesn't know that it's in water.
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  It's not a decision, it's an environment.
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  And then the new thing, whether it's a breakthrough or an
• 7:51
  opening or like a lot of times it's this new version that's
• 7:55
  starting to emerge that actually takes effort to stay in because
• 8:01
  it's unfamiliar. And it requires you to hold a
• 8:05
  shape that your body hasn't memorized yet.
• 8:07
  It's so new you it hasn't become your second skin yet.
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  And the second you stop actively holding it, like the second that
• 8:16
  you get tired or stressed or triggered or distracted, your
• 8:20
  system defaults back to that old shape.
• 8:24
  And it has nothing to do with the old shape being better.
• 8:27
  It's just been installed longer. So just think about that.
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  It's not that it's good or better.
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  It's just been there longer. It's been running longer under
• 8:37
  the surface. So think about it like this.
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  You know when you're driving a route that you've driven 1000
• 8:43
  times and you're on the phone and you're thinking about
• 8:47
  something, or you're listening to like an audio book or a
• 8:50
  podcast or whatever, you're kind of on autopilot and suddenly
• 8:54
  you're in your old neighborhood and it's not because you meant
• 8:57
  to go there. Your hands knew the turns and
• 9:00
  your body drove the old route while your mind was still
• 9:03
  somewhere else. I actually, I moved about six
• 9:06
  months ago and I multiple times found myself autopilot after a
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  long day driving all the way back across town before I went,
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  Oh my God, I don't live over here anymore.
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  Holy crap, that's exactly what it's like.
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  That's what happens, except it's not driving.
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  It's not a driving route. It's like your whole life.
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  So your body knows the turns of the old story so well that the
• 9:31
  second your conscious attention drifts, you end up back there
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  and you don't notice it because you never decided to go.
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  Your autopilot took you. And here's the part that really
• 9:40
  gets me. The people I see in this, these
• 9:44
  are not people who are avoiding growth.
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  These are people who want it desperately.
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  They are doing everything right. They are working their asses
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  off. And the ghost is not operating
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  because they're doing something wrong.
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  It's operating because the old program hasn't been uninstalled,
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  it's just been overridden. But overridden is not the same
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  as gone. It's still hanging out in your
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  computer. So the second that the override
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  slips, the old program boots right back up and you don't get
• 10:15
  a notification about it. So here's the part I think about
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  the most, and it's the part that I keep bringing to people when I
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  see this happening. Because the way that I
• 10:26
  communicate with people again, whether it's work or personal
• 10:29
  life, like there's no crossover. How I am with you guys is how I
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  am with my kids. It's how I am with my friends,
• 10:35
  my family, my clients, everybody.
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  I worked really hard to get to that point.
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  So what you see is what you get. So when I see this happening, I
• 10:43
  do point it out in real time. And that's where I see like the
• 10:47
  glitch in their matrix. But the thing that I think I
• 10:53
  just keep coming back to is that the ghost is not random and it's
• 10:57
  not a malfunction. It's a protection system that is
• 11:00
  still doing the job it was hired to do long after the threat is
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  over. And at some point, maybe years
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  ago, maybe decades ago, I don't know.
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  It depends on the person, but they learned that staying small
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  was safer or that managing other people's feelings was how you
• 11:17
  kept the peace. Like think of all The Walking on
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  egg shell stuff. You learned at some point that
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  that was what you needed to do. The go along to get along
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  phrase. I hate that phrase so much.
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  But there's also a component. I realized that wanting too much
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  is dangerous. And a lot of times I see people
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  that feel like if they bring their full version of
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  themselves, it's just going to be too much for everyone around
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  them. And so people adapt like so
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  brilliantly. It's so incredible.
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  And we call it coping mechanisms and we kind of talk about those
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  like they're a negative thing, but it's literally survival
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  strategies. Like people pleasing is a
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  survival strategy. There was a reason for it.
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  There's a purpose to it, and it's part of the outdated
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  operating system. Like you're a grown ass adult.
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  If people are upset with you, that's on them.
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  And you can say that and you can logic your way through it and
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  you can know it. But that's still the old system
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  that comes up and is running. Because at some point you built
• 12:23
  a version of yourself that could survive all of those other
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  conditions. And that version really worked
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  and it got you through. But the problem is the
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  conditions have changed. You have changed.
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  You grew, you did the work. And that threat that created all
• 12:40
  of that operating system is gone.
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  But the protection system did not get the memo and it's still
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  running. And every time you start to
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  outgrow that old shape, like every time you get close to
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  showing up. I don't know why I'm thinking of
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  this right now. I was thinking like the king
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  size version of a candy bar instead of like the Halloween
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  candy versions. You know, the little tiny ones.
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  Every time you get close to being your own king size.
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  Snickers, it's my favorite one, by the way, the protection
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  system, it it like kicks in to pull you back into the shape
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  that it knows how to defend. It's a lot easier to defend a
• 13:16
  smaller version, right? And it's not because you don't
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  or like you. It's not because you need the
• 13:23
  protection anymore per SE, but the system doesn't know that.
• 13:28
  And now obviously an exemption to this is if you are in a toxic
• 13:32
  situation, if there is an actual threat, I don't mean you know
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  stuff from the past that's rearing its head.
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  If, if you're actually in a bad situation, I'm I should start
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  putting some support suggestions on there because that is not
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  what I'm talking about here. I'm talking the old stories that
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  are now outdated that have come up.
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  So if you don't, if the system doesn't need that protection
• 14:00
  anymore, it just kicks in and the system doesn't realize that
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  it doesn't need the protection. So it doesn't really smoothly
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  and silently. And I'm sorry, I'm stumbling
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  over my words. I'm trying to piece my thoughts
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  together as I'm running with all of this.
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  But that old system is operating so smoothly that you don't feel
• 14:19
  the pull, and you just kind of wake up in the old story and you
• 14:22
  wonder why you can't seem to stay in the new one.
• 14:24
  You might even start to beat yourself up for it if you have
• 14:26
  that, like, moment of recognition.
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  So I had someone say this to me last week after I pointed out
• 14:33
  that she just spent 20 minutes back inside a dynamic that she
• 14:37
  told me a couple of weeks ago that she was done with.
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  And what she said to me was pretty astounding.
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  She said I didn't even feel myself go back.
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  It's like I blinked and I was there and she didn't realize it
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  until I was like, hey, what are we doing here?
• 14:53
  You already moved through that, but you just went back.
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  Did you notice? And then we ended up going into
• 14:58
  some somatic work to be like, OK, let's get into what did you
• 15:01
  feel in your body? Like, what pulled you back so
• 15:03
  that you can start to recognize when those glitches happen?
• 15:07
  But I love that she was able to recognize it and put it to words
• 15:10
  because that was exactly right. She didn't feel it because she
• 15:14
  wasn't supposed to feel it. Like that's the whole point of
• 15:16
  the ghost. It's trying to get you back
• 15:19
  without you noticing. And that's what it's good at and
• 15:23
  that's what it's built for. So if you can't see from the
• 15:26
  inside, if like the whole design of the ghost is to operate below
• 15:30
  your level of conscious awareness, what do you do?
• 15:33
  And I'm not going to give you a checklist because frankly, if a
• 15:37
  checklist could fix everything, like every self aware person on
• 15:40
  earth would be free by now. But here's what I actually, what
• 15:45
  I've actually seen shift in myself and in the people that I
• 15:50
  work with. First, you need a mirror, And I
• 15:53
  don't mean a metaphorical one, although those are helpful too.
• 15:57
  I mean, you need someone who can see you from the outside and say
• 16:01
  gently but clearly, hey, you just went back like an
• 16:05
  accountability buddy because you, it's really, I don't think
• 16:09
  you can catch it on your own, at least not at first.
• 16:11
  Like once you develop the awareness, you can start to
• 16:14
  catch it. And it's not a weakness.
• 16:16
  That's like the nature of a blind spot.
• 16:18
  It's blind. You need someone who loves you
• 16:21
  enough to say the thing and someone you trust enough to hear
• 16:24
  it, whether it's a practitioner, a friend, a partner, I don't
• 16:27
  know who, somebody, someone who has permission to hold up the
• 16:31
  mirror and you got to give them permission.
• 16:33
  So the second thing is that once it's been named and once someone
• 16:37
  shows you, the moment that you went back, you're going to start
• 16:40
  to recognize the edges of it. Not the center, because the
• 16:44
  center's still invisible, but the edges have a texture.
• 16:47
  But you don't realize it until it's pointed out to you.
• 16:50
  And the edges have a feeling in the body right before the
• 16:53
  blinder snap on. It might be a shift in your
• 16:56
  voice. It might be this feeling of like
• 16:58
  heaviness or flatness that wasn't there a minute ago.
• 17:01
  And it's super subtle, but you start to learn what the ghost
• 17:05
  feels like just before it takes over.
• 17:06
  And eventually, not immediately, but eventually you catch it in
• 17:11
  the act and catch it in the. Catching it in the act is the
• 17:15
  beginning of it losing its grip and the big one.
• 17:19
  You have to build a body that recognizes the new shape as
• 17:23
  home, not just a mind that understands the new story.
• 17:26
  I see this all the time. People can understand it in
• 17:28
  their mind, but they haven't connected it to their to their
• 17:31
  body. So you need to develop a body
• 17:35
  that has lived in the new shape long enough that it stops
• 17:38
  defaulting to the old one. That's not an insight project.
• 17:42
  That's a practice that is conscious and intentional and
• 17:45
  repetition repetitious. So it's making the choice to
• 17:51
  choose the new shape again and again and again until that
• 17:54
  autopilot programming learns the new route.
• 17:57
  So you don't out think a ghost. You can't.
• 17:59
  It's operating in. It's not operating in the
• 18:02
  thinking layer. It's operating in the body.
• 18:05
  You outgrow it, you build a life or in your body and a nervous
• 18:09
  system that no longer fits inside the old story.
• 18:11
  And then one day, not when you're smarter or you finally
• 18:14
  figured it out, but one day the ghost reaches for you and
• 18:17
  there's nothing to grab because you're not there anymore.
• 18:20
  And it's not because you ran. It's because you grew.
• 18:24
  So if anything in this episode made you feel seen in a way
• 18:28
  that's a little uncomfortable, good.
• 18:31
  That's the mirror doing its job. And that's my job is to hold up
• 18:34
  the mirror for myself, for others.
• 18:36
  Because you're not broken, you're not failing.
• 18:40
  You're running a program that doesn't know it's been retired.
• 18:44
  Oh my God, this is making me think of Office Space and the
• 18:48
  guy that they keep trying to fire and then they end up moving
• 18:50
  him into like the, the, I don't know, like the water closet or
• 18:55
  something like down in the basement.
• 18:57
  You know the guy I'm talking about, they keep trying to get
• 18:59
  rid of him and he's just like not getting the hint.
• 19:03
  But now you know, it's there. And that is everything.
• 19:07
  That's like the beginning of everything.
• 19:10
  So stop feeding the ghost and start building the life that
• 19:14
  makes it irrelevant. So that's all for now, sorry I
• 19:19
  stumbled over this one. However, it just hit me
• 19:23
  suddenly, which is why I'm recording at 11 at night when I
• 19:25
  should probably be asleep. But it feels pertinent because
• 19:29
  it's been so repetitive in so many conversations.
• 19:33
  And I know if it's coming up that much and I know I've seen
• 19:37
  it in myself before, it's going to apply to somebody else.
• 19:40
  So I will be back. I don't know, in a few days to
• 19:44
  do the refusal of the call for the hero's journey, I'm going to
• 19:48
  put some links up because I do a somatic breath work class on
• 19:51
  Zoom. It's 25 bucks, it runs an hour,
• 19:54
  and it's a guided meditation, cameras off, mics off.
• 19:58
  And I do it at 9:00 PM every other Sunday, Eastern Time, by
• 20:02
  the way, every other Sunday night for the summer and
• 20:05
  probably permanently because it's been pretty awesome.
• 20:08
  And I help you just recognize what's going on in your body,
• 20:12
  what sensations you're feeling, and bring some softness.
• 20:15
  Soothing to yourself so that you can just drift off and you don't
• 20:19
  have to do anything. You just put headphones on and
• 20:21
  then I turn it off when we're all done and you can just go
• 20:23
  right to sleep. But the important thing is to
• 20:25
  develop that awareness of what you're feeling in your body so
• 20:29
  that you can start shifting that programming.
• 20:32
  All right, I'm going to bed and have a beautiful week.
• 20:37
  I may pop on and put some more of these randomly if things come
• 20:40
  up. I've missed doing them.
• 20:43
  So do all the things if you feel like it, like share, subscribe,
• 20:46
  hype, I don't know, leave me some comments.
• 20:48
  I want to hear what you're going through because we're all in it
• 20:51
  together and I am in it with you.
• 20:53
  I am still up to my eyeballs and things as they come up.
• 20:57
  It just gets easier to recognize and work with.
• 21:01
  So have a great week, I will be back another time.