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The Invitation: · Understanding Yourself: A Framework For Change

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Understanding Yourself.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Ben Lemmon.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is a collection of stories, ideas,
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: and conversations designed to help us better understand ourselves
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: and maybe experience life a little differently.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let's begin.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: The Invitation I'll see you next time.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Can understanding take us all the way?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it simply the invitation?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: That question didn't come from a book.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: It came from a season of my life when from the outside everything looked good.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I had a career I cared about.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: People I loved.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Money in the bank.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Health insurance.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: My dog even had health insurance.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: By almost every measure I was doing well.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And yet I remember constantly asking myself the same question.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why do I feel so empty?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back, I don't think I needed another explanation.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: I needed an experience.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Not just an experience that made me feel different for a few hours,
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: but one that changed the way I experienced ordinary life.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've spent seasons of my life trying to understand God.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: The older I get, the more I wonder if I was asking the wrong question.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to fully understand God might be like going home and trying to explain
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: the internet to my dogs.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: The truth is, I don't fully understand the internet either.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: I know enough to use it.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I know enough to benefit from it.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I know enough to have an experience with it.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow, that's been enough.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's true of many of the most important things in life.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Love, purpose, connection, forgiveness, faith, peace.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Some people call those spiritual experiences.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Others describe them in psychological terms.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I'm becoming less interested in what we call these experiences.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm much more interested in whether we're having them and whether we're continuing
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: to have new ones because not every experience changes us in the same way.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: If I handed you $5,000 today, your thoughts and feelings would change immediately.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: You'd probably feel excited, grateful, relieved.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: 12 months from now, probably not.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: The experience changed a moment.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't change your baseline.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now think about the day your first child was born,
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: or the day someone you loved died,
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: or the day you finally forgave someone,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: or the day you realized you didn't have to earn your worth anymore.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Those moments don't simply create a feeling, they create a new way of experiencing life.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Some experiences don't just change how we feel, they change what begins to feel normal.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: The experiences that matter most don't simply create an emotion.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: They create a new baseline from which we experience the rest of our lives.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: They change what we notice,
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: what we fear,
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: what we value,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: what we pursue, what we overlook, and what we offer the people around us.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's why the experiences that changed my life didn't make me try harder.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: They made different behaviors feel natural.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not because I suddenly became more disciplined,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: but because I was no longer experiencing life the same way.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I still believe understanding matters,
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: education matters, insight matters, but I no longer believe they're the destination.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think they're the invitation.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back,
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think the most meaningful seasons of my life came
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: because I finally understood something.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: They came because I finally experienced something.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then they came again because I stayed open to the next experience.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's the invitation.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not Until next time, keep asking better questions and keep understanding yourself.