Latest / SECOND CLOCK™ / SEASON 6 | EXPERIENCES

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SEASON 6 | EXPERIENCES · SECOND CLOCK™

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  I've heard it said that people can change, but only if they
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  want to. So what would it take for you to
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  try it? Change the way you think, feel,
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  relate and experience situations.
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  For me, I wanted to find the truth and little by little I did
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  become different and old conditionings gone.
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  Then I set a new course. I refer to that as the second
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  clock. Join me, click, follow, like and
• 0:29
  subscribe and let's see where this leads.
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  I've been approaching life a little differently lately.
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  Well, maybe I should say that I've been approaching everything
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  a little differently lately, including experiences.
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  Recently I went to go see Eckhart Tolle speak, and when he
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  talked, nothing seemed really different than what I could find
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  in his books or on past interviews.
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  That was, of course, until he shared that he had had cancer.
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  This is something new that I didn't know.
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  He said that when he found out he had cancer, he was going to
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  get to experience what it was to experience having cancer and
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  everything that came with it, like being poked and prodded,
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  having doctors deliver difficult news, undergoing tests, having
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  treatment, a surgery, and then eventually experiencing what it
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  felt like to be told he was cancer free.
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  Now if you know Eckhart Tolle and his philosophy, you would
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  say that's very him. He went into experiencing cancer
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  with full acceptance of what is and embracing the now.
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  Now, when I left his talk, I can't say that I thought too
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  much about it. It wouldn't be until weeks later
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  that I found myself in an uncomfortable situation and
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  started thinking about him and how he had been told he had
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  cancer and how he was going to fully embrace what it was to
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  have cancer and everything that came with it.
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  He was choosing to embrace the experience.
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  And that's when I started to think about experiences
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  differently. All experiences, the good, the
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  bad, the painful, the disappointing, the exciting, the
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  sad, the pleasurable, the embarrassing, the shameful.
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  All of them. I started to see them as just
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  that, experiences. For some experiences we can
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  choose to have them, and for others we're dealt them.
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  But I thought, what if we treat them all the same?
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  What, if anything, that comes our way?
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  We welcome it, knowing that this is not going to be forever and
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  that if we can't change it, we might as well accept it now.
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  That doesn't mean we have to like it.
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  It just means we have to be OK with whatever it is, knowing
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  that if we could change it, we would.
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  But if we can't, then we might as well be in the moment.
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  Bring whatever sense of peace we can to whatever situation we're
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  in now. This is a novel concept for me
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  to accept experiences, all sorts of them.
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  In the past, I would tell you that I would shy away from any
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  experience, any experience that made me uncomfortable, which
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  there have been a lot. That's why I avoided dating
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  altogether. I was avoiding rejection, let
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  down heartache. I jumped into getting married
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  and bypassed a whole series of experiences that later I would
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  come to find that I missed out on that I would want to seek
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  out, and I did. When I went back to dating, I
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  think electing to go back to dating in my 40s, it taught me
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  to have fun with things, not take things so seriously.
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  And maybe that's because I've checked off some stuff out of
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  the life checklist, dated, been engaged, got married, had kids,
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  that there's less pressure on me to check things off.
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  But there's been other experiences too that I've
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  recently been seeking out, Ones that I never thought I would.
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  For example, I started taking dance class.
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  Now, I want to preface this. I can dance, but I'm not a
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  dancer by any means. I can't follow choreography.
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  Well. Partly I'll blame it on being
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  dyslexic, but I don't know if that's the real reason.
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  Maybe I'm just not coordinated or maybe I haven't done it
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  enough. I'm not really sure.
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  But I went to dance class at my local gym, which means that I'm
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  not in a sea of dancers. This is not a dance studio, but
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  when I first joined, I wanted to be good at it from the start.
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  I quickly learned that I was going to have to leave my ego at
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  the door because I can't follow choreography and follow my ego
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  at the same time. The two just don't go In Sync.
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  When I released the ego from the activity, I found that I was
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  having fun. I was enjoying myself in a way
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  that I usually don't. I think so many people are hard
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  on themselves. They want to be perfect right
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  from the start, but that's not something that you can easily
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  accomplish. And we all know that.
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  But we put pressure on ourselves in ways that are unrealistic.
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  And through dance class, I saw that.
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  Then I upped the ante and I went to improv class.
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  I said, OK, you get scared performing in front of people,
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  or so you've told yourself for so long.
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  Let's see if it's true. I can boldly say I wasn't good
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  at improv partly because I wasn't looking to deliver a
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  punchline like the other people in the class.
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  I just wanted to feel free, feel unencumbered, be present in the
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  moment. And for a brief while, I
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  accomplished that, and I set a new course.
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  I started taking ballet training technique class, partly because
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  I wanted to get better. Yes, this is the perfectionist
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  side of me. When I would go to my cardio bar
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  classes, I wanted to bring full technique there to all the moves
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  properly as opposed to clumsily. But when a new teacher took over
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  the class again, let me paint the picture.
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  We're at my local gym. This is not a ballet class in a
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  studio for ballet dancers. These are all people that just
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  go to the gym and just opt in for the class.
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  Now knowing that everyone in the class with the exception of the
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  dance teacher and maybe one or two other ballet dancers have no
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  formal training. So when the teacher asked us to
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  leave the bar and go to the floor to do a little ballet
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  dance routine, feel one of the students in the class getting
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  really unhappy energetically. They were emitting a lot of
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  frustration and eventually it bubbled up and she was voicing
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  her frustration. You can't expect us to do this
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  choreography. We are not ballet dancers, which
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  was obvious to everyone in the class.
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  But for whatever reason, she was putting so much pressure on
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  herself to perform. And I guess she didn't want to
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  be bad at something and she felt like she was being pressured
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  into being bad at something. Since she was standing right
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  next to me. I said, listen, I take dance
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  classes here and I'm really not good at it.
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  I can't follow choreography at all, but I can have fun and if I
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  do it wrong, that's OK because I'm not a dancer and no one
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  expects me to be a dancer. And I think the teacher just
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  wants us to have fun. I could feel her energy lesson
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  and her start to smile. The teacher reiterated that we
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  were there to have fun and just for a little while forget about
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  life and be childlike. I love that perspective.
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  And as we did this dance all sorts of wrong, I could see that
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  the woman was enjoying herself. Mission accomplished.
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  Now not all experiences are fun or embarrassing.
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  Some will test you, challenge you.
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  And for me, I had an experience when I was 10 or 11 with a
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  friend of mine from school where I got to see that I had good gut
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  instincts and survival instincts.
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  We were traveling home from school.
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  We went to an all girls school and we were wearing uniforms.
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  We were on the New York City public bus.
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  We were going from Lexington Ave. to 1st Ave.
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  We had a few stops left when I realized these girls were
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  staring at us, but not like intrigued, more like sizing us
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  up. I've never been sized up before
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  but I knew it and I felt it. I turned to my friend and I said
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  listen, at the next stop we're going to get off this bus and
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  we're going to run to the party store.
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  We're going to find a manager and hope these girls don't
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  follow us into the store, but I think those two girls are
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  planning on robbing us at the next stop.
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  My friend and I exited the bus and we took off running and so
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  do the girls. They started chasing us.
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  My instincts were right. We went into the party store, we
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  split up, one of us found a manager and when the girls
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  showed up they confronted them and they asked them to leave.
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  After my friend and I settled down and realized what had
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  almost happened, we waited a little while until we felt safe
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  and the coast was clear and we left.
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  We got back in the bus and we got home.
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  From that experience, I realized that I could trust my instincts
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  that even though something like that had never happened to me
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  before, when it did happen, I knew what to do now.
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  Not all experiences are going to be embarrassing or test us in
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  our survival instincts. Some are going to be ridiculous
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  and some were going to welcome even when we don't need to.
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  So I'll end with a story like that.
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  My ex took our kids to Cabo for a week during the summer and I
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  stayed home to feed the cat. When I woke up on my first
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  morning without anything lined up, I felt this sense of this is
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  what it feels like to truly be single.
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  There was nobody waiting for me to make them breakfast or manage
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  their social calendar. All I had to do was feed the
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  animals and take care of myself. So I started the day off with
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  taking my dog for a nice long walk.
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  On the way back, when I was opening my gate, I must have
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  scared the bird overhead because it got startled and dropped its
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  prey right in front of me. And what it dropped, you might
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  wonder. It was a rat.
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  Now some people might think that that was a bad omen.
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  I didn't see it that way. Instead I saw it as an
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  experience, something that I was going to choose to take care of
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  and I wasn't going to look for anybody else to help me.
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  Now for a brief second I thought could I call in somebody?
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  Because normally I would have called on my ex to take care of
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  it, but seeing that he was gone, I was going to have to extend
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  the search. And at that moment I said no.
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  You want to know what it feels like to be completely self
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  reliant. Here lies your opportunity.
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  Now all this might sound ridiculous, maybe so, but I
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  really did welcome this experience.
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  But I wasn't ready to take care of business right then and
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  there. I had to hatch a plan.
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  First I went back into my house and I thought, what am I going
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  to use to pick up this rat? Where am I going to put it when
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  I do pick it up? I rolled out the garbage cans.
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  They were empty. I just couldn't imagine taking a
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  rat and putting it at the bottom of the garbage can and then
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  piling garbage on top of it for the whole week.
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  Something about that seemed unkind.
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  I also ruled out the idea of picking it up with a plastic
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  bag. I thought that that might be too
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  much experience for this novice, so I thought about what had a
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  longer reach. I instantly thought of my pull
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  net. It has about a nine foot long
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  handle. But then I remembered that the
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  pull net's pretty thin. The last thing I want to do is
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  try to pick up a rat carcass and have it bust through this thin
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  net. Then I'd be stuck replacing this
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  net with rat carcass on it and still have to deal with the rat.
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  So I thought about something more sturdy and that's when I
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  came to a shovel. Now with this idea in mind, I
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  thought, OK, I'm going to give it a little bit more time
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  because maybe, just maybe, the bird that dropped its prey will
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  come back and collect it so he can finish what he started.
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  That was obviously wishful thinking.
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  The other thought I had was the more time I give it, the more I
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  can make sure it's really dead. Because the last thing I wanted
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  to do was try to pick up a rat and find out it was alive and
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  barely. So I went outside after an hour
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  or two to survey the situation, make sure there was still a
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  situation to survey and the rat was still there.
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  But what I also realized was the rats guts were outside of its
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  body and it was missing ahead. So that was my confirmation that
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  it was in fact dead. I then took the shovel out of
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  the garage, but I wasn't ready yet.
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  I put it against the door and went back inside.
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  When enough time had passed I took the shovel and I went over
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  to the rat. Now I have to say, I'm not a fan
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  of rats. I'm familiar with rats.
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  I grew up in New York City and there are tons of these greasy
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  rats scurrying up and down the New York City subway tracks.
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  But it doesn't make me like them anymore.
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  So I started to try to scoop this rat up.
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  I quickly realized that my approach wasn't working.
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  The rat was just kind of being pushed along.
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  I was going to have to approach scooping up this rat like
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  serving salad, which meant I needed another shovel.
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  Luckily for me, I had one. I went back in the garage, got
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  it, and with a shovel in either hand, I went back to my task,
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  scooping the rat up, using one shovel to push it on to the
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  other. When that was done, I set the
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  other shovel down. I then extended my arm and the
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  shovel as far away from me as possible.
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  I opened my gate. I crossed the street to a little
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  wooded area, set the rat down, and when I did, I realized I set
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  it on its back. For whatever reason, I felt like
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  it was too exposed that way and that I couldn't leave it like
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  that. So I went back over, scooped it
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  up, turn it on its side, said my farewells, and headed back to my
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  house. Washed the shovels, put them
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  away, and I felt a sense of success.
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  I'd done something that I never thought I would do, and more
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  importantly, I chose to do it. I recognized that I didn't need
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  to. But now I see experiences
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  differently. I see them as interesting,
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  something I can learn from, something I can grow from.
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  Maybe it's something I can laugh from.
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  Just another story to share, another experience to have under
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  my belt. And maybe life is just a series
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  of experiences strung together that makes us who we are.
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  Then I say, let's embrace them. Let's welcome every experience.
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  Let's have fun when we can, and for the things that are
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  difficult, things that we don't want to accept or experience,
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  just know that from them you'll grow.
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  And if you're lucky from all these experiences, you'll be
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  changed. Thanks for listening.
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  These episodes are unscripted. They're my free flowing thoughts
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  as I reflect back on past conversations, experiences, what
• 15:37
  I've learned would like to do better, and what's next.
• 15:41
  Join me on Thursdays for new episodes and catch up on past
• 15:44
  episodes. Click Follow, Like and subscribe
• 15:47
  and let's see where this leads.