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#45 - A Mini Solo Episode: How to Move Forward When Fear Feels Real · Being Different Together

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Being Different Together, the podcast for people who want to make the world a better place, but no, they can't do it alone.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Kelly Brady, acupuncturist, psychotherapist, and certified dialogue therapist.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Nissa Hanger, massage therapist, aromatherapist, coach, and real dialogue specialist.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Together we'll explore how conversations can improve relationships, make work more joyful, and spark healing for ourselves and our communities.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, we don't shy away from the hard conversations.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, we welcome them.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't about being right.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's about being different together.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Hello.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Dear friends.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is episode number forty-six of being different together.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: And this is uh Kelly Brady, and I am here this morning in a solo episode because sweet Nissa had to go to the office to see a client, and our schedules have been totally fucked by what we have now called this year of living disappointedly through our through our construction project, the edition.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so we're working with some some scheduling constraints, and um I'm gonna record this episode today, and I was thinking, and I was just kind of lingering in bed this morning, contemplating this solo episode.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, I've been thinking about it and did a little research, and um what I wanted to do was I wanted to tell you a story that I really love, that is a story that I actually read for the first time many, many years ago, and then it was resurrected by um a psychotherapist who uses it as a teaching tale, and I was told it by him, and I loved his version of it.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a story that I've worked with for a long time.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the things that I love about story is that it it bypasses the part of my mind um that tends to call things bullshit and not pay attention.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: So there's something for me about listening to a story um and having a narrative that I don't know, it just like brings me outside of the smallness of my own human experience, right?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's like if I can hear a story and go, oh, well, this is a story and it's been told for this long and it's this many thousands of years old, then I'm not the only one who is, you know, kind of working with whatever this issue is.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so, let's see, many years ago, I just want you to, you know, go into go into the way back machine with me.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's maybe the early 1990s, and I am into my exploration of metaphysical bookstores, all things metaphysical, and what I'm coming to know now is more of um sort of like the East Asian uh philosophies of uh of Buddhism, particularly, and Taoism.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I'm getting more and more interested in those things during that time.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to all these stores, you know, finding books.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so, lo and behold, I'm at a metaphysical bookstore down by the University of South Florida, and um I find a book on the shelf, and it's by someone, and his name is T.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Lobsang Rampa.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what is this?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: What is this book?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm taken by the cover of it.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: The book is called The Third Eye by T.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Lobsang Rampa.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now I had just discovered what the third eye is, and so I'm fascinated.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's an energy center in the body located behind the center of the two eyebrows that is kind of the center of where we vision things in this life with our third eye.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm fascinated and I'm intrigued, and and I buy the book just based on the cover.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: I bring it home and I start to read it, and what I learn is that Tilop Sang Rampa is actually a British guy who believes somehow in my memory he's a British dentist.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know if that's actually true because I went back and did a little research about it, and it seems like maybe he was a British plumber.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: But plumber, dentist, you know.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: So memory, it's a funny thing.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Tilab Sangranpa is this British, let's say, gentleman who has kind of an experience where he thinks that he becomes taken over, that there's a spirit of a Tibetan yogi that's living, that has the soul of this Tibetan yogi has transmigrated into Tilab Sangranpa and then uh gives him or reveals to him um spiritual information.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: What's interesting about that is that there's nothing vaguely Tibetan Buddhist about that.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like the the idea that that a that a yogi soul has transmigrated into yours and then reveals things to you is the opposite of Tibetan Buddhism, which is really based on Buddhism Buddhism is very scientific.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's based on your own experience.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's based on on, as a practitioner, it's based on you sitting down and doing the things or trying the things that that Shakyamuni Buddha 200, 2,000 years ago said, hey, this is the way I achieve this realization.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to have the same kind of realization, do these, try these things.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: But do it yourself.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Don't just believe it because I told you.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the idea that we would just believe it because this yogi revealed it to him is wow, well, it's a little suspicious to me.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: But regardless, I'm very taken by it when I'm 19 years old, right?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, because I think I have this really emergent interest um in the information that was coming over from Tibet at that time and also um from the from the from the new from the east.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, now with the inner state, with the inner state, with the internet, we're we're just there's a deluge of this information, right?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's more than we could ever imagine.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: But at this point, this was sort of the beginnings of uh me being fascinated by and learning about and really wanting to practice, I think, these traditions.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: So in the book The Third Eye, it recounts his memory of himself as a Tibetan yogi who is found when he's a small child and brought to a monastery.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the first time that I've heard about any of these things when I'm 19, by the way, that um that souls, you know, that not even souls, that there is this kind of rebirth model that you could practice in multiple births across multiple lifetimes, um, that actually your rebirth is something that perhaps you you have some control over where you're gonna be reborn.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was all very fascinating to me.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Within this book, this little yogi goes through his initiatory experiences, and there are within the book embedded a number of really beautiful teaching tales.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: And although most of the book is just total bullshit about Tibetan Buddhism, the history is really wrong.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: The history is incredibly wrong.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's some beautiful stories, and so um there's like a little bit of a sort of just take it for what it's worth, right?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um I want to tell you the story.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: The name of the story is The Room of a Thousand Demons.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And and I and I read it in the book, and then a couple years later I'm training with this therapist named Bill O'Hamlin, and he tells the story.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really a story that's about fear and enlightenment, which um has been on my mind going through this process of breaking apart part of our home and um adding on to it and moving into the next phase really of our life where we're going to be living this multi-generational um life now in our house.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: And um that's a diff that's different than what we've been doing, and and um I have a sense that it's kind of a pioneer move for us to do it.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um yeah, uh and I've had some anxieties and some fears around it, and so I've been working with that, been working with myself around that.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: So the Room of a Thousand Demons, the story goes like this every hundred years there will be a ceremony in which Buddhist students can undergo an experience that will help them to attain enlightenment.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so all the students in the monastery would line up in their white robes.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: This is how you know, by the way, that it's not accurate, because the robes wouldn't have been white.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um the llamas and the Tibetans, the priests, the Dalai Lama is there again.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, probably not the case, but they're all there.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I the way that I imagine it is you know, monks in these beautiful uh maroon and saffron robes, and they have the tall saffron hats on, and they have the long horns, you know, and they're clanging the cymbals clang, clang, clang.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um the students are lined up in their ceremonial robes and they're waiting, and they hear the Dalai Lama who begins the ceremony by saying something to this effect.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this is the ceremony of the room of a thousand demons.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the thing about this room is that a thousand demons are in it.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now, it's a ceremony for enlightenment, and it happens only once every hundred years.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: So if you decide that you don't want to do it this time, it's okay.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe you can get reborn again as a human and you can try it again in the next life.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but to help you make the decision, we'll we're gonna tell you what the ceremony involves.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, in order to enter the room of a thousand demons, you you just open the door and walk in.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the room of a thousand demons is not very big.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh once you enter, the door closes behind you.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: And there's no doorknob on the inside of the door.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: In order to get out of the room of a thousand demons, you have to walk all the way through the room.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Find the door on the other side, open it, the door is unlocked, and come out.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then you'll be enlightened.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: The Dalai Lama goes on to say that the room is called the Room of a Thousand Demons because there are a thousand demons in there.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, these are very special demons, and these demons have the ability to take the form of your worst fears.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: So as soon as you walk into the room, those demons show you if you have a fear of heights, you walk into the room and it's going to appear like you're standing on a narrow ledge of a tall building.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: If um, if you have a fear of spiders, you'll be surrounded by the most terrifying eight-legged creatures imaginable.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I'm not a big fan of wasps.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Not the people, but the bugs, you know, the ones here in Florida, they're like the mud dopper ones that have all that stuff hanging down from them.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: They're very scary to me.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so whatever your fears are, the demons take those images from your mind.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: The demons take those images from your mind, and they seem to make them real.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, they'll be so compellingly real that it'll be difficult for you to remember that they're not.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: So then the Dalai Lama goes on to say, we can't come in and rescue you.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's part of the rules.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: If you decide that you're going to go into the room of a thousand demons, you must leave it on your own.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and he says that some people never leave.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: They go into the room of a thousand demons and become paralyzed with fright.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they stay trapped in the room until they die.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want to take the risk of entering the room, that's fine.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't, and you want to go home, that's fine.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to enter the room.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: You can wait until you're incarnated again and come back and try it again.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this is the most important part of the story.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: The Dalai Lama says, if you want to enter the room, we have two hints for you.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: There are two things you must remember.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as you enter the room of a thousand demons, remember that they what they show you isn't real.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Remember what the demons show you isn't real.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's all from your own mind.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's an illusion.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, most of the people who went into the room before you couldn't remember that.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And this idea is very difficult to keep in mind.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: The second hint has been more helpful to the people who make it out to the other side and then become enlightened.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh by the way, here, I think enlightenment really sort of refers to, in this instance, moving beyond.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Moving beyond where you are right now.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Just keep it that simple.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: So once you go into the room, no matter what you see, no matter what you feel, no matter what you hear, no matter what you think, if you simply keep your feet moving, you will eventually get to the other side, find the door, and come out.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: So what this reminds me of is uh many, many years later, as I've been sitting with this story now for almost 40 years, um I think of in finding Nemo, I think of Dory.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we do.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: We swim.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a very powerful story, and it's one that I've been working with my whole life when I get scared, which is that I really try and remember that most of what my mind is telling me is real and scary, is probably actually not so real and not so scary.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and even if it feels very real and very scary in the moment, if I keep my own feet moving, I will move through whatever it is that is presenting in the moment, and I will necessarily be available then to do whatever is the next relevant thing.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is this is where that slogan that I really love comes in.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: In Zen, we talk about so Tibetan Buddhism is is is uh has a very different approach to working with the mind than Zen Buddhism does.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: I like them both for different reasons.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Zen is much more focused on immediacy, experiential immediacy, uh being in the present moment in a very uh simple, profound, clear, and direct way.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's not a big emphasis on um using visualization or imagination.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: The Tibetan tradition is a lot more innate.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I imagine part of that is that the Tibetan steps are so spare that um wow, their their imaginations and what they were working with with their mind became just it looks like so full of beautiful detail.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, incredible.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: But in Zen, there's this saying that when you when you come to the to the next place, how do you know what to do?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: And in my lineage, the the mantra, or the it's not a mantra, the the motto is to just do the next relevant thing.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: How do you know how to get through the room of a thousand demons?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: You do the next relevant thing, whatever that is.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: So if I wake up in the morning, the next relevant thing to do for me is probably to pee, right?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And brush my teeth, and then after that, it's to make my bed.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: The next relevant thing to do is to make my bed.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because then when I come home in the evening, someone will have made my bed.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what makes it relevant.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so to keep that kind of simplicity while holding the view simultaneously that what I'm creating in my life is being created by my own mind.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: That my life isn't so much what's happening to me on the outside, although, of course, that does impact me.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: That my life is made by what's happening and what isn't the state of my mind.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so, dear listeners, I leave you with that story: The Room of a Thousand Demons slash how to get through a year of having your house totally destroyed by contractors from Florida, all in good spirit to create something really beautiful.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Destruction and creation all at once.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a cool metaphor.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I appreciate you for coming and listening to me babble on this morning from the kitchen table.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: I really miss Nissa being here to to play off my nervous system.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and in the meantime, I hope you go out and enjoy your life being different together.