Latest / Banish the Lies: Outsmart Your Inner Critic / 38: Hold the Dream, Let Go of the Attachment | Safire Rose on Letting Go, Acceptance & Possibility

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38: Hold the Dream, Let Go of the Attachment | Safire Rose on Letting Go, Acceptance & Possibility · Banish the Lies: Outsmart Your Inner Critic

• 0:00
  Tania: Welcome back to Banish the Lies.
• 0:02
  Tania: In this week's Monday moment, I shared the poem She Let Go by poet and author Safire Rose, a poem that has stayed with me for years and continues to move me every single time I read it.
• 0:15
  Tania: When I reached out to Sapphire to ask permission to share the poem on the podcast, she very graciously not only said yes, but also offered to join me for a conversation.
• 0:26
  Tania: And what unfolded was a really beautiful exploration of why we can hold on so tightly and what becomes possible when we finally loosen our grip.
• 0:40
  Tania: We talk about the stories that we tell ourselves, the tension between surrender and self-abandonment, and the surprising spaciousness that can open up when we stop holding on so tightly.
• 0:53
  Tania: Here's my conversation with Safire Rose.
• 0:56
  Tania: Welcome to Banish the Lies, the podcast where we outsmart that sneaky inner critic and get closer to the truth that sets us free.
• 1:08
  Tania: I'm Tania Cervoni, your host and fellow work in Progress here to share real stories and small shifts that help you reclaim what fear and doubt once stole.
• 1:19
  Tania: Let's jump in.
• 1:20
  Tania: I am really grateful to have you here.
• 1:29
  Tania: Welcome to Banish the Lies.
• 1:31
  Safire: Thank you.
• 1:31
  Safire: I'm so happy to be here.
• 1:33
  Tania: on a recent Monday Moment, I read your poem She Let Go, and for anyone listening who hasn't read the poem it's about releasing the things we hold onto, identities, expectations, control, and what becomes possible when we do.
• 1:50
  Tania: It's one of those poems that lands really deeply, and that's the reason why I wanted to share it with the Banish the Lies audience, and why I'm thrilled to have you here, and I would love to start there.
• 2:03
  Tania: I'm curious, when you wrote She Let Go, what was happening in your life?
• 2:08
  Safire: Yeah, that poem I wrote, probably around 2003, and it came through really quickly, and I wrote it down.
• 2:18
  Safire: I enjoy the poem because it feels very joyful.
• 2:23
  Safire: It was a joyful experience coming in.
• 2:27
  Safire: It's-- was joyful putting it on paper, and when I read it, I also feel a sense of joy and freedom.
• 2:34
  Safire: A few years before that, I had a transformational experience where I had shifted consciousness into more of an awakened consciousness, and I feel that that poem, "She Let Go," carries that energetic of the possibilities that each of us have in transforming our lives, and it could happen in any moment.
• 2:58
  Safire: And I feel that that poem carries that energy, and that's why people really resonate with it because it-- not only the words tell a story and is a sort of a teaching guide, but the energetic of the poem I think is very healing and uplifting.
• 3:16
  Tania: Mm, that explains why maybe every time I read it I cry.
• 3:20
  Tania: Because to me it's just like, it's like a huge exhale, and yeah, energetically it gives a permission space, and it got me really curious about this notion of letting go, and I'm curious if you have a perspective to share on why that can feel so- difficult, why we have this need to hold on to things.
• 3:50
  Safire: I feel that part of it is we don't know otherwise.
• 3:56
  Safire: We hold on to things because we don't know what it will require of us if we let go, and what will be required of us if we step into the unknown.
• 4:07
  Safire: And also, I think a part of it is just we're not aware that we're holding on.
• 4:11
  Safire: And sometimes it's not even that we're holding on to, um, like we might have a dream, but it's really the attachment to the dream that we're letting go of.
• 4:23
  Safire: And sometimes there's the sense that if I let go or let-- I'm letting go of the dream too.
• 4:30
  Safire: But what you're really doing is letting go of the attachment to the dream so that the dream can have its own life, because the dream might be bigger than your dream.
• 4:41
  Safire: So if you let go the, of your attachment to the dream and the story of how you think it's going to be and all the layer-layering we have, pictures and images, stories we have about the dream, then it really allows the dream to come through, which probably in, of spiritual reality is going to resonate more with us anyway.
• 5:10
  Tania: Yeah, that makes sense, and when you talk about attachment to the outcome, I guess that's why perhaps, um, like as I was thinking about it in my own life, the things that I hold onto, I wasn't thinking about it so much in the context of dreams, but maybe all the things that I want to drive and ensure they go a certain way, there's a feeling of unsafety.
• 5:36
  Tania: Is that actually a word?
• 5:37
  Tania: A, a feeling where it's just not safe to let go, and at the same time when I read that poem, there is a tremendous relief.
• 5:47
  Tania: So it's an interesting tension, the one who wants to hold on and control and direct and feel like she's in charge of the outcomes, and the one who's tired of carrying it all.
• 5:59
  Tania: I'm wondering if you hear that from people who encounter your poem, if that's sort of a common experience.
• 6:07
  Safire: Yeah.
• 6:07
  Safire: You know, I actually met someone.
• 6:09
  Safire: I was in a, like a group, um, sort of like a conference.
• 6:13
  Safire: It was like a workshop where you're working on your personal issues.
• 6:17
  Safire: And there was a woman in the, in the room that had read my poem.
• 6:21
  Safire: It turns out then we, you know, we kind of came together, but, um, I had never met her.
• 6:27
  Safire: She had never met me.
• 6:28
  Safire: And I think what the poem gives us is just the, one of the things it gives us is the breathing space to know that we could have a different outcome or life.
• 6:42
  Safire: She was going through a really difficult time and it really never occurred to her that she could let go of the difficulties of what she was in and have a different life.
• 6:55
  Safire: And so for her, the way she explained it was it gave her opportunities that she didn't know she had, you know, just another opportunity.
• 7:04
  Safire: I was, to your point, I was thinking, you know, about the part that drives us.
• 7:10
  Safire: I was thinking just the other day, I think this is a useful example.
• 7:14
  Safire: I was in Los Angeles, which is about an hour and a half from where I am.
• 7:19
  Safire: And I decided I would go to a botanical gardens after this appointment I had because it would be nurturing and I kind of like to give myself something fun to do after I have to do something that's required or challenging.
• 7:30
  Safire: So I looked on the map and I found this one that was pretty close by and it was at a university and it was going to require, you know, parking through the right parking lot, walking a distance to get to the botanical gardens, all of this.
• 7:44
  Safire: And I thought, and I didn't have a lot of time.
• 7:46
  Safire: So I thought, no.
• 7:47
  Safire: So I looked back on the map and then I found another one, which happened to be at another university, which wasn't that far away.
• 7:54
  Safire: So I went there, same thing.
• 7:56
  Safire: So then I thought, okay, I'm just going to, I'm going to let this go because it's really not working out.
• 8:01
  Safire: And so I was coming home.
• 8:02
  Safire: I got off the freeway.
• 8:04
  Safire: I'm going on this road that I'm not that familiar with.
• 8:06
  Safire: I went a different way just because it was, I ended up being closer to my home because of where I was.
• 8:11
  Safire: And what happened was I'm driving along in this road and all of a sudden I see this big sign for a botanical garden that I'd never even seen before.
• 8:21
  Tania: my.
• 8:22
  Safire: And I'm like, are you kidding me?
• 8:24
  Safire: And it was, it was so beautiful and majestic.
• 8:28
  Safire: And I thought, oh my gosh.
• 8:30
  Safire: And if I hadn't gone, you know, if I hadn't gone to the other ones, I wouldn't have been in the right part of the city to have gone that way home.
• 8:36
  Safire: But it was just, it was just the perfect letting go story, right?
• 8:40
  Safire: Because when I thought, okay, I just let the whole thing go.
• 8:42
  Safire: I just decided I wasn't going to do it.
• 8:43
  Safire: And then like magic, this beautiful, which was probably even more beautiful than the ones I was planning on going to, right?
• 8:50
  Safire: The planning, the driving, the trying to make it the way I wanted it to.
• 8:54
  Safire: So I think that's a good example.
• 8:56
  Tania: That is an excellent example, and there's so many layers to that example, so many things to unpack.
• 9:01
  Tania: What's interesting is I find that when I talk to people about letting go, or even when I've had people suggest to me, "Well, Tania, maybe you can just hand that over.
• 9:10
  Tania: Let that go," things come up.
• 9:12
  Tania: I feel like it's irresponsible And sometimes I feel like I'm not discerning between letting go and self-abandonment or, giving up.
• 9:26
  Tania: And I wonder if there's something about discerning between those two, because it sounds like when you made that decision to let it go, it wasn't like just anger and resignation or frustration.
• 9:37
  Tania: It was a different energy that allowed something bigger and better to come in.
• 9:41
  Tania: So I wonder if you have a commentary between that distinction between the energy of letting go versus, you know, giving up and waving the white flag that people associate with letting go sometimes, or at least I have.
• 9:56
  Safire: Yeah, I think for me sometimes instead of letting go of the thing that I'm in that feels may, that maybe feel difficult or, uh, burdensome in some way, uh, what's helpful to me is if I choose something that's bigger, and in the choosing of something more, I've let go of something less.
• 10:18
  Safire: And I think that works really well for me.
• 10:21
  Safire: So in that situation, instead of...
• 10:25
  Safire: Like, when you think of surrender, um, because u- I mean, ultimately I think we can all agree that we can't really-- we're not really the ones letting go, right?
• 10:35
  Safire: I mean, to a certain degree, like if I have a physical object, I can let it go out of my hand.
• 10:41
  Safire: That's, that's pretty obvious, right?
• 10:42
  Safire: But if it's a, an a...
• 10:44
  Safire: If it's something else that's more, like kind of an invisible kind of thing or not a tangible thing, we can be willing to let something go or let it be different or let it be bigger or let it be as it's supposed to be, which we may not know what that is.
• 11:03
  Safire: But ultimately, it, it's something that happens.
• 11:09
  Safire: It's sort of a magic to it, right?
• 11:11
  Safire: Like we can have the willingness, but there's like a magic that occurs That is a letting go, right?
• 11:17
  Safire: It lets go.
• 11:18
  Safire: And I think that's really important so that we don't think that we have complete control over letting go, which, I mean, you have to let go of the letting go, right, at some point.
• 11:29
  Safire: Um,
• 11:34
  Tania: Yeah.
• 11:35
  Safire: it's true though.
• 11:36
  Safire: And, Yeah, in the letting go of letting go, I think- some people who have read my poem, uh, have taken it to sort of the logical conclusion and have decided it means that, "Oh, what did she do?
• 11:48
  Safire: Did she die?" You know?
• 11:50
  Safire: And I think it's really important to know that we're letting go because we're constantly growing, right?
• 11:57
  Safire: And I think what we want to do is cultivate an acceptance towards life, because when we begin to accept things as they are, then there isn't as much friction to, um, letting go.
• 12:11
  Safire: If we're, if there's like accepting what is, then we can make another choice and choose something different.
• 12:17
  Safire: Like even with accepting of the condition of our dove that we were talking about just a few minutes ago, about our pet dove that we found at the bottom of the cage.
• 12:28
  Safire: Um, before we could really make a choice about it, we had to accept, okay, so this, our pet dove is at the bottom of the cage.
• 12:37
  Safire: There's something not quite right here.
• 12:39
  Safire: And instead of just doing like a bypass about what was occurring, there's, it requires a certain mindfulness and a certain presence to come to what is there.
• 12:49
  Safire: And then once you accept that, then you can make another, other choices about it.
• 12:54
  Safire: And I think sometimes we don't want to accept what's in front of us.
• 12:59
  Safire: We want it to be different, and we're constantly sometimes fighting with the things that are in our lives instead of accepting what is, which may not make us feel comfortable.
• 13:11
  Safire: It may not be what we want in the moment.
• 13:13
  Safire: But when we accept it or allow a spaciousness to occur around it, then other opportunities make themselves known, or we're informed what to do next, as in the case with our pet dove.
• 13:24
  Safire: And I think for me, the word acceptance is a little bit easier than surrender, 'cause with surrender sometimes there's a sense of I'm a victim of something.
• 13:35
  Safire: Though this acceptance, I feel sort of empowered, like, because acceptance is actually an action.
• 13:42
  Safire: It's an action that you're taking.
• 13:44
  Safire: I'm accepting this.
• 13:46
  Tania: I love that so much because I think, a lot of people who may be listening to this podcast and with myself as well, um, I've just lived a lifetime of Needing to fix, and in that fixing there is huge resistance.
• 14:03
  Tania: So whatever it is that I'm seeing, it's like, "Oh, no, can't let that go.
• 14:07
  Tania: I need to fix it.
• 14:08
  Tania: I need to get on it.
• 14:09
  Tania: I need to find a solution.
• 14:10
  Tania: I need to journal about it.
• 14:11
  Tania: I need to..." Like, all the things that you actually say in the poem, like she didn't journal about it.
• 14:15
  Tania: She didn't ask for...
• 14:16
  Tania: Like, I, when I read that poem, I'm either...
• 14:18
  Tania: Actually, I have it here on my screen, you know?
• 14:20
  Tania: Uh, she didn't ask other people about it.
• 14:22
  Tania: She didn't, you know?
• 14:23
  Tania: And I go between crying and laughing because I recognize that when there is something that I feel is not right, that resistance, it's a total lack of acceptance.
• 14:33
  Tania: Like, I'm gonna pull out my arsenal.
• 14:35
  Tania: I'm gonna ask all my friends what I should do.
• 14:37
  Tania: I'm gonna Google it.
• 14:38
  Tania: I'm gonna do this.
• 14:39
  Tania: I'm gonna...
• 14:39
  Tania: And it is exhausting, and and you made a comment earlier where you said, um, I didn't catch the exact words, but it's kinda like letting go of this one element while holding onto something bigger.
• 14:52
  Tania: So when you decided not to go to the botanical gardens that had all the, parking logistics and stuff, um, it's like you, you were still making a choice.
• 15:03
  Tania: It sounded like you were choosing peace instead of having to go through all that stress and whatever.
• 15:09
  Tania: Yeah.
• 15:09
  Tania: You
• 15:09
  Safire: Yes.
• 15:10
  Tania: you chose ease, you chose peace, and in that space, what shows up?
• 15:15
  Tania: A more beautiful botanical garden.
• 15:18
  Tania: I mean, like, who doesn't wanna live a little bit more magically like that where we can allow these things to come in?
• 15:25
  Tania: But when we hold so tight, and we judge, and we resist, then I feel like we're just operating alone in this very painful little silo, if that makes any sense.
• 15:38
  Safire: Yes.
• 15:39
  Safire: I think with acceptance, there is the, uh, spaciousness that allows us to connect with other dimensions of ourselves, which is kind of what you're reflecting.
• 15:50
  Safire: And what I've noticed when that happens is it's not like I just saw a botanical garden on my way home.
• 15:59
  Safire: It was like an amazing botanical garden on the way home, you
• 16:04
  Tania: sign.
• 16:05
  Safire: Yeah, like, it was like, it-- The sign was big, everything in it was like...
• 16:09
  Safire: It was magical.
• 16:10
  Safire: I don't know how to explain it.
• 16:11
  Safire: But it was, it was better than I could imagine, and I think that's the, the piece that we forget about.
• 16:17
  Safire: We think it's gonna be worse than we imagine, you know?
• 16:20
  Safire: We think it's gonna go wrong if we, if we take our hands off of it or, you know.
• 16:25
  Safire: And, I, I'll be the first to say that poem came through me for a reason, right?
• 16:32
  Safire: I'm assuming that if I was a letting-go expert, that poem probably would not have come to me,
• 16:37
  Tania: A letting go expert.
• 16:38
  Tania: I love that.
• 16:39
  Safire: Yeah.
• 16:39
  Safire: If I was a letting go...
• 16:41
  Tania: Yeah.
• 16:43
  Safire: I don't think that poem would've come to me because what would be the point, right?
• 16:46
  Safire: So the funny part about that poem is, it's a very popular poem.
• 16:51
  Safire: It's been all over the world and- when there's a connection that I've done the poem and people recognize it and they, you know, connect with me around it, it's always t- in my mind I'm thinking, "Okay, now what am I letting go of now?" You know, because I always feel like it's like a little guide in itself.
• 17:06
  Safire: A poem is a guide, right?
• 17:07
  Safire: So when someone Like, if someone wants me to read it or, you know, I'm always look Inside of myself I'm like going, "Okay, why is this happening right now?" You know?
• 17:15
  Safire: Um, so, so that I can keep practicing being a, a great student of letting go.
• 17:21
  Tania: Wow.
• 17:22
  Tania: So this is encouraging.
• 17:23
  Tania: For those of us who, are impatient, I think you're suggesting that this is a process.
• 17:28
  Tania: It's not one and done.
• 17:29
  Tania: It's not like you wrote the poem, you've transcended any, you know, needs to hold onto things.
• 17:36
  Tania: You're, you're There are many layers, and we don't get there in one day.
• 17:40
  Safire: Yes, and I think that's the beauty of letting go is that it is a practice, and that I think we do I do feel that we get better at it, because we find creative ways to let go that work for us.
• 17:51
  Safire: You know, so it becomes more, I think it becomes more individualized.
• 17:54
  Safire: Like the other day I was, I like to tell little analogies, you know, so I was
• 17:59
  Tania: stories, because I think for some people who have struggled, it's good to say, like, "What does letting go look like on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon
• 18:07
  Safire: that mean?
• 18:08
  Tania: What does it...
• 18:08
  Tania: Yeah, what does it mean?
• 18:09
  Tania: 'Cause people will be like, "Well, I don't know how to let go, and what's gonna happen if I let go?" And I think there's so much that we're fed that somehow there's a lot of, true to the title of this podcast, a lot of lies and a lot of stories we're told about what it means and what's gonna happen, and yeah.
• 18:24
  Tania: So please, if you have further examples.
• 18:27
  Safire: good point.
• 18:28
  Safire: Yeah.
• 18:28
  Safire: I think there, there are a lot of, uh, misunderstandings about what it means.
• 18:32
  Safire: Like, y- like you said, I have to surrender, in this, some kind of grand way when it may just be breathing in and breathing out.
• 18:40
  Safire: That might be the, the surrender, right?
• 18:43
  Safire: Um, but yeah, I was in the part of our home where there's a little window that looks out into the, the front yard, and I was just sitting on the couch in that room, and I noticed the mail carrier.
• 18:57
  Safire: They Apparently this area where we live, there's like a training ground for the mail carriers, so I was just told that, which just kind of adds a humorous ele- element to me.
• 19:06
  Safire: So, The mail carrier was coming across the lawn and like kind of like through our plants, then onto the sidewalk and coming and putting the mail in.
• 19:16
  Safire: And I thought, "Wow, that's I had some judgments about that.
• 19:21
  Safire: You know?
• 19:21
  Safire: Like, wow, I mean, that's really interesting.
• 19:23
  Safire: And so but what I decided So I was attached to this mail carrier doing it a certain way, right?
• 19:29
  Safire: I was judging that they should've done it this other way, so I was holding on.
• 19:32
  Safire: I was attached to that.
• 19:34
  Safire: And then I realized, you know what?
• 19:36
  Safire: But what I, I don't like that, but what I like better is that I liked that this person delivered my mail.
• 19:43
  Safire: And so I used that for a little bit.
• 19:46
  Safire: It was kind of helping me to be like, "Well, I don't like this, but what I do like about it, what I like better about it," and because that was a thing I liked more, I could let go of the lesser thing that I didn't like.
• 19:58
  Safire: So just like little things like that, we can come up with our own ways of finding a way to, to move into the bigger space.
• 20:05
  Safire: You know, like in that sense, I think it was a space of gratitude.
• 20:08
  Safire: Like, well, the mail carrier's delivering my mail.
• 20:11
  Safire: It may not be the way I would like them to deliver it, but isn't that wonderful that I get my mail in the...
• 20:16
  Safire: You know, it's-- And it's not like I'm not trying to be like spiritual bypass of not acknowledging my emotions or judgments around it.
• 20:24
  Safire: It's just making a different choice.
• 20:26
  Safire: Like I could stay in the grumblings of wanting it my way, or I could just move on in a way that suits me, you know?
• 20:37
  Tania: I love that you made that distinction that it's not spiritual bypass because I think sometimes we feel that, it negates sort of some, I don't know, sense of agency over how things should be and how, you know, standing up for our rights to have our, you know, our plants not trampled by the mail carrier or whatever.
• 20:55
  Tania: But, there's also something really beautiful in making an active choice of where you wanna place your focus 'cause that will dictate how you experience it and just shift your emotions and possibly the rest of your day and all the rest of it.
• 21:11
  Tania: So I love that example.
• 21:13
  Tania: That's really good.
• 21:15
  Safire: Yeah, it's, I think, where you wanna put your focus.
• 21:17
  Safire: Like if it was something where they were putting someone in danger or something like that, right, I might have made a different choice.
• 21:24
  Safire: Um, but yeah, I think sometimes the phrase...
• 21:30
  Safire: I've been looking at the phrase spiritual bypass because I think it's sometimes it's a misnomer because really what you're wanting not to bypass is your emotions, right?
• 21:41
  Safire: I think you wanna honor your feelings, but you don't wanna stay stuck in them, right?
• 21:45
  Safire: And so to me, it's an emotional bypass when I do that.
• 21:50
  Safire: But I still want to...
• 21:52
  Safire: Because we're multidimensional beings, right?
• 21:55
  Safire: There's, there's a spiritual and the human, right?
• 21:58
  Safire: I think it's okay to want them both, to want my human feelings and that, and also to know I have choices where I could choose gratitude over staying in a grumbling state.
• 22:11
  Safire: You know what I'm saying?
• 22:12
  Tania: Mm-hmm.
• 22:13
  Safire: But I think a, an important component of that is honoring my feelings, which spiritual bypass often means not honoring my feelings.
• 22:23
  Safire: But I think a better phrase is emotional bypass, when I emotionally bypass.
• 22:28
  Safire: Does that
• 22:29
  Tania: it...
• 22:29
  Tania: No, it's definitely a more accurate phrase.
• 22:31
  Tania: I think maybe, where spiritual bypass comes from, or at least from my own experience, it's kinda like, "Oh, if I'm a spiritual person, if I li- I'm in this spiritual identity, then I don't get angry about these things," you know?
• 22:43
  Tania: Right.
• 22:43
  Tania: It's like, "If I'm really spiritual, then I'm not gonna be mad that so and so said," you know, whatever.
• 22:48
  Tania: And speaking of stories we tell ourselves and such, given that we're here on Banish the Lies, I'll pivot slightly to, a lie that you said that you had struggled with.
• 23:00
  Tania: You had mentioned, actually I've got the exact wording here, that you had wrestled with the belief that you were a victim of life on the microscopic level.
• 23:12
  Tania: I'm curious if you could say a little bit more about that.
• 23:15
  Tania: What, does that look like in your life?
• 23:17
  Safire: Yeah.
• 23:17
  Safire: That's a great, i think it is a great realization for everybody, right?
• 23:21
  Safire: At some point in our lives, I think we have to recognize that we're not a victim to life, um, or circumstances.
• 23:29
  Safire: But yeah, for me, I think even on a daily basis, you know, if I find myself getting angry or perturbed about something in my life, it's often because I feel like I'm victimized.
• 23:41
  Safire: Like somehow it, it's something's happening to
• 23:44
  Tania: To me, yeah
• 23:46
  Safire: Uh, so there's something outside of myself that's happening to me.
• 23:49
  Safire: And it's not ignoring, the things that do occur in our lives, but I think it's recognizing that our reaction to the things in our lives is more important than what's actually happening in our lives.
• 24:02
  Safire: Because when we recognize we can change our reaction to what's happening in our lives, then we're no longer a victim to what's actually occurring.
• 24:11
  Safire: And I think in terms of growing as beings in this reality that we're in, this, this experience that we find ourselves in, I think that's an important thing to remember, that the way we grow is often by changing our reaction to something.
• 24:29
  Safire: Maybe we find that we're not angry, as angry as we might have been in that same situation.
• 24:36
  Safire: Like the volume of our anger might have-- might be more tempered because of the work we've done on ourselves.
• 24:41
  Safire: Or maybe the, the intensity of it is less, or maybe the frequency, like maybe- During a given day, I might have reacted as to a certain circumstance in my life maybe 10 times and been angry every time.
• 24:55
  Safire: But maybe now that I've taken the time to recognize reactions and decided to have a different approach, maybe now, maybe just five times out of the day I get angry.
• 25:05
  Safire: You know, and I think it is important to see letting go as the microscopic things that we change in our lives, because it really is those microscopic changes that will, uh, change the macroscopic, uh, canvas that we, we experience in our lives.
• 25:25
  Safire: It's just there's a direct relationship between the microscopic changes that we make internally and the macroscopic changes that we experience in the world.
• 25:34
  Safire: And you certainly, you or anybody else listening, does not have to take this as their, uh, understanding, but just try it out and notice, uh, if you change some way you react to the world and find it out and discover for yourself what happens in the external world when you do that.
• 25:54
  Safire: It's pretty powerful.
• 25:55
  Safire: And so I think to answer your question, that would be the kind of overall change I made in my life, is to notice how I'm reacting to something, and if I'm not happy with my reaction, to recognize that I am not a victim because I can change my reactions.
• 26:14
  Safire: I may not have control over what occurs in my life.
• 26:17
  Safire: Um, I may have some control and maybe some things I can do.
• 26:22
  Safire: But for the things that I don't have control over, I can always change my reaction to something, or I can work on changing my reaction to something.
• 26:31
  Safire: How do you feel about that?
• 26:32
  Safire: What's your experience about
• 26:34
  Tania: Yeah, I'm happy to share that.
• 26:35
  Tania: And before I, and I do, I'm just curious, um, as you look back since you've had this realization, are there just small examples that come to mind?
• 26:44
  Tania: Something that you would've maybe been more of a victim of your reaction previously But now you can see it differently?
• 26:51
  Tania: Is there anything that comes to mind as you think about how you've shifted?
• 26:56
  Safire: I don't know if this answers the question directly, but what I notice-- So I've been in a relationship for a long time with my partner and, I'm growing older and she's growing older, and what I notice is I just don't...
• 27:13
  Safire: I'm just not as interested in getting angry because I would rather cultivate a place in me that comes quicker, that's kinder.
• 27:26
  Safire: And when I do that, when I, uh, find a way to Maybe just keep my mouth closed or, uh, which isn't always
• 27:38
  Tania: laughing just 'cause I can relate to that.
• 27:42
  Safire: or to just, receive something with greater spaciousness.
• 27:47
  Safire: Whatever way I can do it, I'm noticing right now in my life that it is easier for me to listen either more graciously and with a greater spaciousness or to say something kind quicker or just to act in a kinder way.
• 28:05
  Safire: And I think that most of that is because I have found a way to be kinder to myself.
• 28:13
  Tania: Mm.
• 28:14
  Safire: right?
• 28:15
  Safire: Like the quick response to something, my emotional response might be anger, but maybe the spiritual response I would like to have or maybe the principled response I would like to have, uh, would be I would prefer acting with more graciousness or understanding or spaciousness and that's kind of a win-win for me and for them, right?
• 28:43
  Safire: And the more I am kinder to myself, uh, it just, it just, it does get reflected in my world.
• 28:50
  Safire: Is that a, is that an example that's useful?
• 28:53
  Tania: Yeah.
• 28:54
  Tania: Yeah, exactly.
• 28:55
  Tania: And I can relate.
• 28:56
  Tania: I recorded, an episode recently about how I completely lost my temper with my daughter, who caused me to be late.
• 29:05
  Tania: She was running late, I had to drive her to school, and I was feeling very much victimized.
• 29:10
  Tania: And interesting, this morning, deja vu.
• 29:14
  Tania: And that anger rose in me, and I think there is this story, that if I don't, put her in her place and explain what was wrong about it, that somehow I'm failing to protect myself, I'm failing to discipline her as a parent, like all of these stories.
• 29:32
  Tania: And this morning, I was able to ask a question what choice can I make that brings me closer to peace?
• 29:40
  Tania: And I let it go.
• 29:44
  Tania: You'd be proud of me.
• 29:45
  Tania: I could be in the poem.
• 29:46
  Tania: I let it go.
• 29:48
  Tania: I let it go, but I had to fight that story that says, "I'm letting her off the hook.
• 29:53
  Tania: She should know.
• 29:54
  Tania: I should be correcting her.
• 29:56
  Tania: How dare she?" Like, there was still that voice running, and then somehow I was able to go from my head to my heart, realizing that...
• 30:05
  Tania: It's so funny, because it's not like in that moment as we're rushing to get her to school any of that was going to help.
• 30:11
  Tania: I was still gonna have all my concerns and whatever, and so in that moment I was able to choose peace and have a different kind of conversation with her from that place, one that she was much more likely to hear.
• 30:25
  Tania: So I don't even know if I'm answering my own question at this point, but I am just noticing how, to your point, by choosing a different reaction, I was actually less victimized, if you will, by her, what I perceived as her inconsiderate behavior, which was outside of my control anyway.
• 30:43
  Tania: What was inside of my control is how I was going to engage with her and how that was gonna dictate how our day went, and I could still have the conversation later at a better time about, okay, how...
• 30:54
  Tania: You know, what can we do to not have this happen every single time?
• 30:58
  Tania: But in the meantime, I was able to protect my peace and also probably her from, you know.
• 31:05
  Tania: So I think that's kind of similar to what you're saying, if I'm not mistaken.
• 31:10
  Safire: Yeah, completely similar.
• 31:12
  Safire: I think that's a great, example too.
• 31:14
  Safire: I know maybe all of us struggle with that.
• 31:17
  Safire: I don't know.
• 31:18
  Safire: But I definitely have the time thing that comes up for me, the running late.
• 31:23
  Safire: I, don't like running late.
• 31:25
  Safire: Um, so it's a perfect example for me, and I think recently I had a, an awareness that I think someone said it to me, which was kind of helpful about, uh, you know, and maybe I'm gonna be late, you know?
• 31:40
  Safire: So there it goes, the acceptance part again.
• 31:44
  Safire: I don't like it.
• 31:46
  Safire: It's not a practice I want to cultivate.
• 31:50
  Safire: Um, and it's important to say how you're feeling, you know, and also recognize maybe today I'm gonna be late and, and make it somehow okay in yourself, which is kind of what you did inside of yourself.
• 32:04
  Safire: It sounds like a huge amount of difference occurred between the two scenarios that you mentioned.
• 32:12
  Tania: Yeah, it was a totally different experience.
• 32:14
  Tania: The, the first time I laid in on her and it was an over-the-top reaction, and a lot of that was, actually triggering an old wound, and I was reacting from that place, and so there's an element of acceptance, there's an element of taking responsibility, I think, for the narratives we're telling ourselves.
• 32:34
  Tania: And, I- Yes I wanna be clear that there are some really bad things that happen in the world.
• 32:38
  Tania: So I think it becomes a slippery slope when we say we're not a victim 'cause we can control our reaction.
• 32:44
  Tania: I mean, the, the truth is there's some really horrific things that can occur, and we don't want to under-appreciate how difficult those things are.
• 32:53
  Tania: But certainly in the day-to-day, including raising a teenager, there's a lot of opportunities to let go and to practice acceptance.
• 33:01
  Tania: So, I'm definitely in the, in the process of doing that on the daily, I would say.
• 33:07
  Tania: Yeah.
• 33:08
  Safire: I think you make a really good point because yes, there's, there's horrendous things that happen in the world, you know, and, and traumatic things that happen in the world.
• 33:18
  Safire: And it's not to say that those things didn't happen, like the trauma didn't occur or the causes of the trauma didn't occur.
• 33:27
  Safire: But it is a way of making a choice in our lives to keep choosing so that if it's a situation where, you know, if it's an actual situation where you were a victim by a perpetrator, uh, it's a way to empower yourself to get out of the, to get out of the situation, to know that you can make choices and to actively make different choices in your life.
• 33:53
  Safire: Not to deny the gravity or not to say that you should continue to interact with that person even, you know, because, because you can change a reaction.
• 34:04
  Safire: It's not like that.
• 34:06
  Safire: It's more a way of how can I empower myself in this moment?
• 34:11
  Safire: Um, and this is-- These are strategies that work at different stages of our lives, right?
• 34:17
  Safire: Depending on where we're at and the circumstances of our lives, and we're gonna make different choices about how to empower ourselves depending on where we are in our lives.
• 34:27
  Safire: I know I have made different choices, with traumatic events in my own life, you know, um, mainly because it's, it's important, I think, to, to do the work necessary to move through a traumatic experience that may, you may have in your life.
• 34:45
  Safire: And at some point you might have the ability to do other e- other kinds of work that will empower you further.
• 34:54
  Safire: You know, it's like a process, right?
• 34:55
  Safire: We keep evolving, we keep growing, we keep empowering ourselves.
• 34:58
  Safire: Yeah, I think that's a really important point to make.
• 35:02
  Tania: Yeah, and I think sometimes in the past I've gotten confused between Acceptance meaning that what happened to me was okay, and it doesn't make the other person's, if it's another person involved, it doesn't make that person's actions okay, but I can accept it as reality.
• 35:18
  Tania: This has occurred.
• 35:20
  Tania: And what I love about what you're saying in the empowerment, it's almost like choosing your reaction is forward-looking versus- Yes looking at the past and where we try to defend or fix or deal with somehow.
• 35:33
  Tania: There's something freeing about creating a new slate from a place of acceptance and what can I choose, you know, and how can I be empowered?
• 35:43
  Tania: So I really appreciate that in what you just said.
• 35:47
  Safire: Yeah, I think something you said is really important.
• 35:50
  Safire: It's-- so X can happen, and X could be a traumatic event.
• 35:55
  Tania: Mm-hmm.
• 35:56
  Safire: Mm-hmm.
• 35:56
  Safire: And but it, it's also the story we tell ourselves about X.
• 36:01
  Safire: That can change over time, and we can make new choices based on the story we tell ourselves about it.
• 36:09
  Safire: Um, and also, to your point that you just made, it's like forgiveness.
• 36:15
  Safire: We-- when we forgive someone, we're not condoning their behavior.
• 36:18
  Tania: Yes.
• 36:19
  Safire: We're, freeing ourselves.
• 36:21
  Safire: It's important to remember that.
• 36:22
  Safire: It's most forgiveness is self-forgiveness.
• 36:26
  Safire: You're, you're liberating yourself from the judgments that you have placed upon the other person so that you can move on in your life regardless of what they do.
• 36:35
  Safire: Uh, it's not condoning, um, or approving of the other person's behavior.
• 36:41
  Tania: Yeah, absolutely.
• 36:42
  Tania: That took me a long time- To
• 36:45
  Safire: a big one, huh?
• 36:46
  Tania: Yes.
• 36:47
  Tania: I rem- I remember the first time, like, you know, when you do work over your childhood, things that happened, whatever, and someone had first suggested to me, "Well, you know, can you forgive yourself for having harbored, those resentments?" I'm like, "Forgive myself?
• 37:06
  Tania: Wait, what?
• 37:07
  Tania: What did I do here?
• 37:08
  Tania: This isn't about me." I'm like, "Oh yeah, it is." Um, so it's a real 360 moment, the forgiveness thing, you know, the forgiveness of self and others and everything that's in between.
• 37:19
  Tania: So yeah, very good point.
• 37:22
  Tania: Very good point.
• 37:24
  Safire: When we, when we are caught in a story, also what I'm doing more is when I notice I'm in a story, is to try to, like you were saying, go to your heart and what am I feeling?
• 37:38
  Safire: Because oftentimes we're locked in our heads in a story because we don't wanna feel the sadness that may be coming up, uh, the anger that may be coming up, the disappointment that might be coming up.
• 37:51
  Safire: And so when we turn on the story switch, it's kind of a form of...
• 37:57
  Safire: it's just what the brain does, right?
• 37:59
  Safire: It creates stories, and sometimes we do that to take ourselves away from The emotional experience that we may be having that is uncomfortable.
• 38:10
  Safire: So one way of letting go is to let go of the story by coming back to your feelings.
• 38:19
  Safire: Like, what am I feeling?
• 38:20
  Safire: And allow yourself to be with those feelings and sit with those feelings, um, instead of just staying in the story, which can just spin you out, right?
• 38:32
  Tania: Yeah.
• 38:32
  Tania: It's interesting that we do that.
• 38:34
  Tania: Um, well even in the simple examples like being late with my daughter, I could just simply say, "Okay, we're running late," but it was stressing me out so much, then the stories drop in and then just kind of build.
• 38:47
  Tania: It's like, "Well, she has no respect.
• 38:49
  Tania: I didn't raise her proper..." Like, the stories go, bananas.
• 38:52
  Tania: And as you're saying that, that unwillingness or that, inability to sit with what was happening inside me, and then the, stories take me to my head, and then suddenly now I have a perpetrator.
• 39:05
  Tania: I have, somebody that I can channel my...
• 39:08
  Tania: I don't need to feel like maybe the the layers, the sadness of whatever was going on underneath, right?
• 39:13
  Tania: Now I have somebody that I can target.
• 39:15
  Tania: It's her fault.
• 39:16
  Tania: And it's, it's, it's very tricky.
• 39:19
  Tania: It's very tricky to find,
• 39:21
  Safire: Especially with intimate relationships like a mother-daughter relationship or your partner.
• 39:27
  Safire: I mean, the stories, they just go rampant, right?
• 39:30
  Safire: Because they're so close to you.
• 39:31
  Safire: Um, it, it just-- They seem to get triggered very quickly, I notice.
• 39:37
  Tania: Yeah, absolutely.
• 39:38
  Tania: Wow, okay, time is going.
• 39:40
  Tania: I would love to have a final transition here we've talked a lot about She Let Go, but you have a whole world of amazing poems, and I was reading your newest collection, from Rose Petals, and it's 108 poems.
• 39:55
  Tania: I started just reading one every morning.
• 39:59
  Tania: It's very centering.
• 40:01
  Tania: Like, I just love it, and, I wanted to choose one for you to read, and I'm not gonna lie, It was a difficult choice 'cause I had, my top five, but of all of those, there was one, number 33, I believe, on authenticity, and I'm wondering if you would be so kind to read that for
• 40:21
  Safire: Absolutely.
• 40:22
  Safire: Each of these poems is paired with a, rose, and so you can either meditate on the rose or just, listen to the words, if you happen to have this in your hands.
• 40:36
  Safire: Authenticity When we stop pretending to be something we are not, we release the tendency to abandon ourselves for something better.
• 40:47
  Safire: What could be better than stopping to discover the hidden potential within you?
• 40:53
  Safire: You don't have to run away anymore.
• 40:55
  Safire: Better to befriend your discomfort than travel halfway around the world to realize you are the storyteller of your life.
• 41:05
  Safire: Be a person, not a personality.
• 41:09
  Safire: Then the whole world becomes your home.
• 41:12
  Safire: You don't have to travel far to be who you are.
• 41:17
  Tania: yeah, we could have a whole podcast episode just on this poem, but there is one line that really stands out to me, that piece around be a person and not a personality.
• 41:33
  Tania: I wonder if you could say a little bit more about that particular line.
• 41:36
  Tania: What is the distinction, and how do we fall into that personality piece?
• 41:43
  Safire: I, I'm glad that resonates with you because when I heard that line, I really resonated with it.
• 41:50
  Safire: Well, for me, being a personality to me is, deferring to what the world, how the world sees me, or deferring how I think they see me, trying to be someone to please someone else or, do something to defer to someone else.
• 42:07
  Safire: Or particularly, particularly social media, you know, is so strong.
• 42:11
  Safire: Like, what, what are we really conveying?
• 42:14
  Safire: You know, is there like a shell of ourselves that we're trying to, um, convey about ourselves that's not really maybe our authentic self?
• 42:23
  Safire: So to me, when I say the difference between a person and a personality, for me, the distinction is a person is authentic, is true to themselves, and true to themselves in the moment, and there's a freedom in that.
• 42:40
  Safire: There's a letting go of the societal pressure to please others, to be a certain way in the world, wear, certain kind of clothes or look a certain way if you're, particularly if you're a woman.
• 42:51
  Safire: I think there's a lot of trappings that society puts on us that keeps us small.
• 42:59
  Safire: And I think when I think of a person, I just think, "Oh, I'm, I'm being myself.
• 43:05
  Safire: I'm being true to myself, and I'm expressing myself at the most authentic level that I can in this moment." So for me, that's the distinction.
• 43:12
  Safire: What-- How did it resonate with you?
• 43:15
  Tania: Yeah, that's...
• 43:15
  Tania: It's absolutely that, and that's one of the reasons why, I thought it was so perfect for this podcast because really when we talk about banishing the lies, it's less about forcefully banishing anything, and it's more like a homecoming, right?
• 43:33
  Tania: When you strip away the layers, the things that have limited you, the things that keep you small, the things that have you trying to be something that you're not in order to fit in, to belong, to look good, to be successful, all the different, I think you used the word trappings, and all these expectations that have very little to do with the core of who we are.
• 43:51
  Tania: Um, so again, this is another poem that was like a deep exhale i- in a different way than She Lets Go.
• 43:57
  Tania: But, yeah, very much that.
• 44:01
  Tania: And I think it's taken to getting to my 50s for me to give myself the permission to just be a person and not a personality, and I'm still, as I say in my podcast, a work in progress.
• 44:11
  Tania: It's a journey, but I'm feeling closer, and freer, and more comfortable with just- Letting the true Tanya reveal herself and so yeah, I just love everything about that poem, and I think it's, again, it's not about becoming someone new, it's returning to who you already are, but without all the layers that we've built to protect ourselves, I guess I would say.
• 44:38
  Safire: Yeah, I think, um, there's a freedom in that when we recognize that each of us really want to connect heart to heart with another, and in the virtual and AI world that we're becoming more and more a part of in some ways, it's important to connect in transparency with each other and to have those moments where we really let go of the outer shell or whatever, whatever we think we're doing that way and come back to ourselves and just connect with each other authentically.
• 45:13
  Safire: And I, I feel like we've done this today, and I so appreciate being here with you.
• 45:18
  Tania: I appreciate you too, and actually to that end, in this world of AI and virtual and sort of feeling more connected and more alone than ever in some ways, I think your work's just a, a beautiful invitation to come home to ourselves and to connect with our hearts.
• 45:33
  Tania: I know that reading Rose Petals does that for me.
• 45:36
  Tania: So obviously we'll share all the links to everything in the show notes, but is there anywhere in particular that you would like to direct people to if they want to learn more about you and your work in the world?
• 45:49
  Safire: Yeah, I think the best place is probably my website, which is safire-rose.
• 45:53
  Safire: Uh, so it's S-A-F-I-R-E dash rose.com.
• 45:59
  Safire: You can find more about me and my books.
• 46:03
  Tania: Fabulous.
• 46:04
  Tania: Well, thank you so much.
• 46:06
  Tania: It's been a joy and such a gift to have you, and I really appreciate it.
• 46:11
  Safire: Thanks for having me, Tania.
• 46:12
  Safire: I really appreciate
• 46:18
  Tania: Thanks for listening to Banish The Lies.
• 46:19
  Tania: If today's episode resonated with you, take a moment to let it settle in.
• 46:24
  Tania: And maybe share it with a friend who could use it too.
• 46:26
  Tania: Lies, lose their power when we're brave enough to challenge them.
• 46:30
  Tania: I'm Tania Cervoni, and until next time, be kind to yourself.
• 46:35
  Tania: And remember, you're not broken, you're not alone, and you don't have to stay stuck.