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Why People Pleasing Makes You Tired · Spiritual Sense: Practical wisdom to quiet an overthinking mind and recharge your soul

• 0:00
  Speaker A: We live in a world where almost everyone feels quite stressed, stressed or anxious, depressed, the nervous system is out of whack, worrying about things, and there's so many things we could worry about, and it really causes terrible problems in our life. You've probably heard of fight, flight or freeze, but there's two other states that we can have related to the nervous system. And also, many people are feeling very tired. Constantly tired, constantly needing more sugar and caffeine and whatever else. So in this session, we're going to be getting into how do we calm the nervous system? How do we overcome tiredness and stress and actually deal with life so that we're not in this, being on edge, making a big deal about things, getting stressed out because there's so many blessings in our life as well as the challenges. So let's jump into it. Shireen, tell us all about this topic.
• 1:02
  Speaker B: Why am I telling you all about it?
• 1:04
  Speaker A: Because you came up with this idea. So we've got fight, flight, freeze.
• 1:08
  Speaker B: And in 1915, I think the first person to have come up with, I don't remember his name, he said that he's noticed that in both animals and humans that there's fight or flight, right? They either, you know, fight if they're faced with a threat, any threat, right? If you're faced with a threat, you are. You either fight it or you run away. But. And then a few decades later, the next one came, which is freeze. That is, you just make yourself invisible. Or like the deer in the headlights look, right?
• 1:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, the rabbits do that. Where I have loads of rabbits all over the place. They just, they just stop. Sometimes I'm driving down the road and they. They freeze in the middle of the room. Like, you've got to be joking, like, just so you have to slam the brakes on. So, yeah, they fight, flight or freeze.
• 2:12
  Speaker B: And so that's the freeze. And then there is another one in 2013, there's this psychotherapist came up with the fourth one called Fawn. And Fawn, it doesn't look like a stress response, but actually is a stress response. That is. And especially in children who grow up in very critical households or domineering parents or narcissistic parents, they have this response called Fawn, where they will do anything to please the parent, right? They'll like walk into the room in three seconds. They know they should keep quiet because the dad has an off mood or make a joke because the mom is depressed or, you know, constantly. People, please, because. And you're changing yourself according to whatever is happening in the room, including people pleasing. And that's what is called fawn. And they say fawn also has that effect on the nervous system. Right. Just like fight and flight. Fawn also has like, let's say fight or flight, right? So let's say you're having a threat and you are fighting it, then there is a nervous system response on it. Or if you're having a threat, you are running away from it. There's a nervous system response on it, the cortisol and everything else, right. The stress and the, all of that is going on. But with fawn also, even though it doesn't look like a nervous system response, there is a nervous system response. And people are finding out, researchers are finding out that most of the reason why people are tired these days is because of the fourth one is because they haven't really kind of assimilated and do that response even now. Like, you know, maybe in the beginning it was parents, but now it could be a spouse, it could be a boss, it could be anyone. They are doing the, you know, people pleasing. And what researchers say is that the thing you get complimented with, right. If you say, oh, you know, your teacher told you she's such a sweet girl or sweet boy and nothing never gets into trouble or all of that, it could actually be a nervous system response or fawn. And what happens is, so let's say you don't want to say yes and you keep saying yes, right? Let's take a very simple fawn response, is you don't want to say no, but you say yes because you don't want to say no. You say yes, but actually the yes is a no, but you don't really want to say no. So you say no. You say yes. So and let's say you do that five times a day in all your relationships, at work, at home, your spouse, at, you know, wherever. Right, wherever you say that. So that's five times a day for 20 years. And so when we are really tired, that's the tiredness you're feeling, which is not going to go away from sleeping or taking the right supplements or whatever else we are doing. It's not going to go away from that many times. We, you know, like four in the afternoon is like, why am I so tired? Is. It could be the fawn response.
• 6:00
  Speaker A: Too much people pleasing during the day is causing the afternoon crash. Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, that's, that is, that is a big issue. Oh, would you like to do this thing? Oh, I'd love to. Do this. There's. There's the private voice and the public voice, right? So the public voice says, oh, absolutely, yeah, no problem at all. The private voice says, absolutely, no, I definitely don't want to do that and I want nothing to do with it at all. And the conflict between these two voices is very draining because the private voice in our mind is having a problem with it and we're having to do things we don't like. And if you add that up again and again and again and again, that's extremely draining. That's very interesting.
• 6:47
  Speaker B: It's very draining. But one thing, right, we have to really shine a light on it. Why are you saying yes? All right. Sometimes it could be a sense of belonging. You want that sense of belonging, so you'll just go along with whatever everyone else wants. Or sometimes you feel if they think you are good, then you're worthy, you know, or, you know, like you want something, right? Like there's something going on with you and that something needs to be really clearly stated, even if you don't state it to anyone else to yourself. What. Why are you doing it?
• 7:30
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, I imagine if I think about my own self and when I've said yes to things I don't want to do, it's normally, I don't want to let someone down. I don't want to be seen as selfish and nasty. On a deeper level, I do care about things. Even if I don't want to do it. I still. I still, I don't want to do it, but I still also care. So I'm willing to do things anyway because it. A lot of the time it does come across like, I don't want to do this thing because I'd rather not. I'd rather do something else. And that's not socially acceptable in lot of situations. But having said that, people who are more forthright tend to. I imagine they don't have the. I don't know for sure because I. I'm. I'm somewhat of a people pleaser myself to some degree at least. I've tried to overcome really, Michael? To some degree.
• 8:36
  Speaker B: I'm trying to put a marble in
• 8:37
  Speaker A: my mouth right now to some degree of people, please. But I've. It's something that has caused enough stress that I tried to avoid doing it, but I still do it. I'm probably better than some people, I think. It's like I've actually attempted to create somewhat of a reputation that I'm slightly eccentric and do whatever I want because otherwise I would end up trapped in all kinds of situations that I would be very unhappy with. Actually, that's been something I've thought about over the years. So, yeah, this is a big topic. It's a big topic. And then I'm sure someone's going to come up with another F on the. There's, there's a. We're going to talk about another one now, but.
• 9:22
  Speaker B: Okay, there is another F. We are going to talk about another.
• 9:25
  Speaker A: But there's probably another bad one that someone's going to invent or rediscover.
• 9:29
  Speaker B: No, no, but let's talk about these four. And I want to talk about this one book this psycho psychology psychologist wrote called why Zebras don't have Ulcers. Because this is very important, right? If we are thinking I am a victim of my surroundings, a victim of my upbringing because I had narcissistic parents or parents who didn't care. And so this is what I did or victim of. This happened to me, that happened. And then that's where I had this trauma response or fight or flight or whatever, right? That is kind of really. You're telling yourself you don't have agency. And so this psychologist wrote this book called why Zebras don't have Ulcers. And I love the premise of the book. Great title. But the premise of the book is wonderful too. So he says that in the African savannah, they're zebras and they're lions. And let's say a lion is going after a zebra, right? Full force. And the zebra is running, running, running, running, running, running. So it's either in flight mode or. So even animals have it, right? It's either in flight mode or fight mode. And it knows it can't fight the lion, so it's running. And so eventually either it gets. It either escapes from the lion or the lion gets it in its meal. But let's say this zebra escapes from the lion, right? And so the zebra is escaping from the lion and the next day you see the zebra happily grazing away.
• 11:18
  Speaker A: All is well.
• 11:19
  Speaker B: Happily grazing away.
• 11:20
  Speaker A: Everything's great.
• 11:21
  Speaker B: All is well with the world, right? It's not waking up at three in the morning and thinking, what if the lion comes right now there's lions out
• 11:29
  Speaker A: there, there's lions everywhere. Oh my God. Yeah, that would just.
• 11:33
  Speaker B: Lions everywhere. That's not what it's thinking. Yeah, right. It's just happily doing what it's supposed to be doing. That's why it doesn't have ulcers. And that's why we have ulcers. So, yes, all these things are happening. And because first, okay, they could be major things that happened in your life that created trauma, but you have. There is incredible amount of research on how to get out of that trauma. And we'll get into that with the fifth response in a minute. But there's another research, right? Another research by this lady in Stanford, I think, anyway, she says that most of the nervous system stresses that we are taking on are not very big. The email that didn't go very well or the text message my husband sent me, or the fact that my neighbor didn't take their trash out. All of those things, right? They are not a lion is not coming for you. They are mundane life things that we make a big deal out of. And so we really need to understand, right, there is no line out there that we are unnecessarily stressing our nervous system on things that can actually be managed by making it into. In our tradition, we call it making it into a mustard seed, right? We don't need to make a mountain out of everything. We can just make it so tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny into a mustard seed. And I love this thing that Dadi Janki used to say. It says, make it tiny, tiny, any big problem, make it tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, and it becomes a small cotton ball in your hand and you say woof and it goes away. Right? That's what we need to do. Not create a big, you know, federal case around this. Oh, this happened to me and that happened to me. And then our whole conversation is about, this happened to me and that happened to me. Right? We are all competing for being the biggest victim in our lives.
• 13:58
  Speaker A: It's pretty shocking. It's pretty shocking, yeah. A lot of things.
• 14:01
  Speaker B: Am I being too? Well, I mean, am I being too.
• 14:04
  Speaker A: No. It all depends on perspective, doesn't it? It's the nervous system somehow gets stressed out about pretty much any. Oh, why? Why didn't I get a message from so and so? Or would what's. Because, I mean, I found when I actually talk to people about things that I think are a big deal, well, most of the time it's not a big deal. Sometimes it is. But even the things that we think are a problem turn out not to be a problem. I. I know someone who had a situation with a friend of his and hadn't spoke to her for. For, I don't know, a couple, a few years. This used to be a close friend, and he was saying, oh, I'm not sure I should send this message. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah. I Said, just press the. Just press the button. I mean, just send a message. Say, I'd like, I'm sorry about this thing I did. You want to talk about it? And he had a chat with her and everything was great. And now they're close friends again and it's all, well, right? But he. In his head, he almost didn't. He was thinking about this thing for months and months and was rewriting this email over and over and over again and he just needed to press a button. But I. This is going on all the time in so many different situations that it's. Oh, my God. But the problem is the nervous system thinks it's a big deal even though it isn't. So even though we might say to ourselves, this is ridiculous, we can still feel stressed out about it anyway, which is the whole problem.
• 15:33
  Speaker B: Right? Right. Somehow there seems to be an addiction to this. Right. This addiction to this feeling of, you know, oh, my life is a mess, or, you know, this, you know, rush of things that happen. Right. Like recently I was talking to someone and they was like, oh, it's. My life has been such a nightmare. My phone and then my insurance. And I'm thinking, okay, yes, it was a problem with your phone and yes, it was a problem with your insurance, but it's not as big a deal as you're making it out to be, right? There is a resolution and you're fine, and you have your phone and you're doing fine.
• 16:16
  Speaker A: Now.
• 16:18
  Speaker B: There was a small problem, but why do we need to make a mountain of everything? Because that, you know, humans have this capacity, right? The humans have this capacity. No other animal does. Humans have this capacity to think about the future and to worry about the past. The zebra doesn't have that. And it's a gift. We need to treat it as a gift. Because if you're thinking about the future means how can I make my future better? How can I do something now to really create a wonderful future? How can I. I feel learning from the past is just overrated and we don't need to think about it. But if any, every once in a while, if you think about it, wonderful, right? But instead of it being a gift, we are using that as a weapon against our nervous system. That's what's happening.
• 17:16
  Speaker A: We. It's being recreated in the now, isn't it? The whatever we focus on becomes real in this moment. And a lot of these things, I mean, I have a. A thing in the kitchen that I. I wrote in Hawaii years ago, and I just recreated this says it's easier to do it than to think about it. Because if I'm like, I need to do this thing, I need to worry about this, blah, blah, blah. Just. Just do the. Just take action now. Just get it done. Because thinking about it causes stress in my nervous system a lot of the time. You can just take action on something in a few minutes and it's taken care of. Because thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking. It's. It's causing lions, isn't it? And there's so much research about this. I think Jonathan Hyatt's book the Anxious Generation is basically saying that the younger generation, with all their phones, they're pretty much constantly anxious all the time.
• 18:19
  Speaker B: Everyone, angel, everyone. Whether they're 85 years or whether they're 18 years. I find the same situations going on all the time. They're really stressing out their nervous system. The nervous system is not designed to take that much stress.
• 18:37
  Speaker A: Yeah. It's almost like.
• 18:38
  Speaker B: It's like we, in our own hands, we are doing this to ourselves.
• 18:43
  Speaker A: Yeah. It must be, I think, the modern world, because I think in previous generations, far as I know, it wasn't, people had a simpler life and they knew if it actually was genuinely a threat.
• 18:56
  Speaker B: And I don't know if that's true, Michael.
• 18:58
  Speaker A: Consistently the same.
• 18:59
  Speaker B: I don't know if that's true. Right. Huh.
• 19:02
  Speaker A: Just consistently.
• 19:03
  Speaker B: It wasn't a simpler life. No, it wasn't a simpler life. Let's say I was growing up in India in the 1800s. Right. You weren't sure if I would survive childbirth. I wasn't sure if I walked out and a snake would bite me and I would die. I wasn't sure if I'd get some disease and die. And especially if you're a woman. I mean, of course we had a lot of servants, but let's say I was not born into a lot of servants thing. Then I'd have to dig, you know, get the water and then wash my clothes and wash my this, and then the whole day is gone. Just by living a life. Yeah, that's it.
• 19:45
  Speaker A: That's shocking.
• 19:46
  Speaker B: It's not a simpler life.
• 19:48
  Speaker A: No, no, that's not what I meant. What I meant was that today there are thousands of things that can trigger someone to be stressed that are not happening to them personally because of.
• 20:04
  Speaker B: Right. What I'm saying is they don't need to. We are bringing it on to ourselves.
• 20:09
  Speaker A: That's what I'm saying.
• 20:10
  Speaker B: Actually not a threat.
• 20:10
  Speaker A: Must be part of the reason that it's got more and More severe because like in my physical life right now, there are certain things I need to do which I. Which could potentially stress me out if I wanted them to. But then I could just go on the Internet and see thousand other things to stress me out on top of that, which will also affect my nervous system. So now I've got my own little problem that's this big, plus all the problem of the whole world delivered consistently. You know, possible war with this and this and this and what. So I think back in the day people had their own problem to deal with. They were dealing with themselves, but they didn't have all the problems of the entire planet sent to them on top of that to deal with.
• 20:59
  Speaker B: Right, Right.
• 21:00
  Speaker A: So I wonder if that's actually why. Like it's just layers and layers and layers of possible issues that are going into the nervous system.
• 21:08
  Speaker B: Right. Things that might never happen. So not only right, the zebra didn't have ulcers because first it, the next day, it's never sitting and worrying if the line is coming or not. But also we. Right. Every moment, even though there is no lion, there's no lion coming. Every moment is like, oh my God, the lion's coming, the lion's coming. I mean, how can a nervous system take that? No wonder everyone is so tired all the time.
• 21:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. And then people pleasing on top of it. Free running away and people.
• 21:42
  Speaker B: So many things are. Yeah, so many things are happening where, you know, it's really stressing out that nervous system. One of the. I feel this whole nervous system and regulation and reset. Right. Needs to be thought about very sensibly. Don't get into woe is me and I'm a victim and I need to do this. And I had trauma. I mean some people really had trauma, right. And some people just make up in their head. It could be a small thing, but you make it into a mountain. But even if it was a mountain, we have to learn to make it into a mustard seed and woof and let it go. That's what needs to happen. So there is a lot of research on the next part, which is base, which is in Brahma Kumaris we call it the power to face. Where we feel the power to face is like the most important thing ever. The power to tolerate and the power to face, I think are the most important things ever. Because for the nervous system, I really think even power to tolerate is very important. Right. Like this person who came and said, oh, my phone is this. And my Internet. Yeah, not phone, my phone is horrible. My insurance is Horrible. There's no tolerance anymore. Right. Like little. Little things really throw people off. But we won't get into that. We'll just get into the face. Right now research is showing that consistently time after time that you have to sit down and face whatever trauma you have gone through. You have to do it. And we have something called the paper tiger in that whatever threat we are envisioning is like a paper tiger from a distance. Right. It looks like a real tiger. And we are all scared and we all want to run away and we all want to do all of those things because we are looking at it from a distance and it looks very ferocious. But once you go closer, you realize that it's actually a paper tiger. But it's very, very important to go close and to face it.
• 24:22
  Speaker A: Yeah. It's not as bad as it seems. A lot of the time when you look at it directly. It's the. You know, we talked about this in another episode that the capacity to be here now with what is happiness is about being where you are in the moment. And any. Whether it's trauma or whether it's addictions or whatever it is, it's normally comes down to not liking our feelings. Because if this situation didn't provoke negative feelings, then we obviously wouldn't have a trauma response in the first place, would we? I mean, like, if that's the whole problem. The problem isn't the situation at all, actually. It's the response that we have to the situation. You know, so like, if one person gets an email and they're like, whatever, and the other person gets an email and they're like, oh, my God. So the. The difference obviously is their reaction. They're feeling about it. Right? So it's not the situation we're bothered about, it's how we feel as a result of it. So then really, we're not even dealing with the trauma itself. We're dealing with our feeling about the trauma. And being able to sit with our feelings, I feel, is possibly the most important skill in this whole thing.
• 25:48
  Speaker B: Because instead of running away, sitting out.
• 25:52
  Speaker A: Yeah. Facing them because it's. You can either fight it. Let's say something comes, we feel bad, we'll try and fight it off. Fight the other person off or fight off our feelings, that's not going to work. Or we could run away from it by scrolling and taking substances, eating food, whatever it is. That's not going to work either because it's only temporary. And then the freeze. I'm not going to do anything. I'm just Going to be stuck. That obviously is not solving anything. And then people pleasing that can take up a lot of work and a lot of energy. It makes us tired, but doesn't solve it. So then none of that's actually solving anything. But if we can just say, let me just sit with my feelings and face it and, and face. Or not just face the feeling, face the consequence. If I carry on with this story and this whole behavior, what's going to happen? Let's really see it clearly. If I don't do something about this, how is that going to wreck my life? How has it already wrecked my life? What needs to change? Like, what's really going on here? And oftentimes from my own experience, just sitting with things for like five minutes and letting go, letting go, letting go. Surrender it to God. Surrender it to God. You know, just be within. It goes away. It really does go away. But the, the instant response is run or fight or flight. You know, I think that's the big. The danger of cell phones really is as soon as we come across any negative feelings, we can distract ourselves with flight, instant distraction, which. But that's not really dealing with a situation at all. Then we end up with trauma response as a result of the content that we've consumed. So it's not, it's not solving it, but just to sit there and say, let me feel my feelings and let me face my feelings and let me face this situation. It's not actually that bad. A lot of the time, like it seems worse than it is and it fades away. The feeling. My personal experience is in within an hour at the longest it can go, but it can go a lot quicker than that, a little bit. It's just like, just be with it long enough. Because the feelings don't stay. These emotions, they don't stay there indefinitely. Otherwise we'd always be feeling the same thing we were when we were born, which clearly hasn't happened. So this moving and breathe, breathing into it, I feel is a big part of it. Breathing, breathing deeply, breathing slowly and just like let me feel what I'm feeling instead of running. I remember one time I was in, in the store and I was feeling terrible for some reason in Hawaii. I vividly remember this. And I was like, I don't like it, I don't like it. I don't know why I'm feeling bad. Rah, rah, rah, or whatever it was or something I was dealing with. And I remember just saying to myself, standing in the store, let me just stop resisting it. Let Me just feel my. Let me just face it directly. Let me just face this feeling and just be with what it is rather than running away from it. Can I just be with what is without trying to change anything? And I immediately felt better. I was like, actually, it's not that bad.
• 29:22
  Speaker B: That's really important. It's really important, right? And if you have that experience, then you will be more likely to face it next time.
• 29:30
  Speaker A: It's not even that bad.
• 29:31
  Speaker B: You have to start somewhere.
• 29:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's not that bad, right.
• 29:34
  Speaker B: It wasn't even that bad. Right? That's the paper tiger I was talking about. You go close and it's really not as bad as you're making it out to be. Another thing that I feel really helps me with the facing is I always tell myself I'm the hero of my own story. I'm not the victim. I have no intentions of taking on this victimhood, right? I'm the hero of my own story. And the he and whatever needs to happen, the next phase of what needs to happen will culminate in my victory. Because in any movie, right, the hero is always victorious. You ever see the victim victorious? Now the hero is victorious.
• 30:15
  Speaker A: And the hero has to have challenges.
• 30:17
  Speaker B: You want success.
• 30:17
  Speaker A: You, the hero has to have challenges all the time as well, right?
• 30:22
  Speaker B: And if you want success, then it's. You're victorious, right? You have to think of yourself as a hero. That really helps. And the other thing that really helps is knowing that if I take a step of courage, I will really get help. And there is a saying in the Brahma Kumaris where we say, if you take one step of courage, God will give you a thousand steps of help. And so facing for me is that one step of courage. Because I know I will receive the help. Because in my life I've seen how much help I received by taking that step of courage. If I own sit in my own victimhood, there's no courage coming along.
• 31:08
  Speaker A: Yeah. And it takes his action. So whether it's a feeling or a thought or doing something. And like I'll give example, the other day I got loads of packages and the kitchen was a mess and like there was stuff all over the place. Everything was a mess basically. And I got a package in the post that was plant the plants that I got, right? They sent me some plants and when I opened it up, all this soil went all over the floor and it was just like everything was a mess, right? And I was like, this is terrible, this situation, right? I mean, it's not that bad. But I was. I didn't. It's a mess. And I remember just saying to myself, just keep moving forward to just. Like, it's a simple thing, but it complies to anything. Like, just keep moving around the house, cleaning it up. So I was just like, I put this here, I screw this box out, put this thing here, put this thing here. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just keep doing it. Just keep moving, keep moving. That's taking steps, right? And then everything's clean. But. But it's like, don't. Just don't stop. Just don't stop. Because stopping and going, oh, my God, it's such a mess in the house. Oh, dear. Idea. That's not solving the problem at all. All I got to do is just keep moving my arms and hands around and legs around and just keep putting things in the right place. And. And then it's like, okay, great, everything's done. Everything is out into the trash. But that. That applies to. That kind of situation, applies to pretty much anything. Just keep. Some things take maybe months to fix. But that was something that took maybe half an hour or something. But that's the same thing, isn't it? Have the courage to just do the next thing, the next thing, next thing, next thing, next thing, next thing. And then gets resolved.
• 32:54
  Speaker B: Two things I always come back to is that I have a right to God's help, God's power. I have a right to God's power. And this situation is what is going to make me powerful. There is. That is what this situation has come for, to make me powerful. And, you know, and it's just whatever is the. It's just the next rung on the ladder of becoming the hero, right? Just the next rung on the ladder. Not to think like, oh, you know, this happened, that happened. And many times I feel that maybe not a lot of things are going on in our lives. And so we make a big deal out of little things. I don't know why the modern world has become so fixated on the minutia, such little, little things. People make such a big deal, right? I mean, I'm in the center and I hear people all the time making such big deals out of little things.
• 34:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's probably addiction to suffering and also death by a thousand cuts, though. Because it's loads and loads and loads of tedious things over large, long periods of time that. That start to drive us mad. Actually, on another level, you know, it's. Because there's. But it's true. It's. It when you take them as one off thing, one thing by itself, it's like, why is this a problem? Like, the other day I was trying to book some doing stuff on Facebook to book an event, and I really felt like I was put in a private hell because it's, because it wasn't working. I was like, okay, just press this button and it says, no, you can't do this. You have to download the app. And I'm like, all right, I'll download the app then. And then that doesn't work. And there's like 15 things. And I'm like, oh my God. It's very, very tedious. I personally, working in Facebook's business suite is my private hell because it's just complicated minutiae at the extreme level. And I eventually just gave up.
• 35:02
  Speaker B: And it's not the big deal, right? It's not big by us thinking that way. You are stressing your nervous system out.
• 35:09
  Speaker A: It's, it's true. I eventually I, I'm, I'm just, it's, it's like an absurd thing on one hand. And this is kind of. When you add all that up, you can see why people get stressed out when they're doing back to back versions.
• 35:26
  Speaker B: It's still not a lion coming in, eating.
• 35:28
  Speaker A: What is a line then in our life?
• 35:31
  Speaker B: Because obviously there's no a lion. You know, really a bad diagnosis, you know, ending of relationships, which we all face every once in a while. We are not facing them every day. You know, those are big things. Everything else is very small.
• 35:57
  Speaker A: They're all sort of, I mean, my personal experience of having ending in a relationship didn't seem in the moment that much different from dealing with tedious techie stuff. But it adds up over time. Like it depends how long it lasts for, you know, do you know? I mean, so I think there was.
• 36:24
  Speaker B: That's the belief you're bringing to that situation.
• 36:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's an interesting, It's a very deep thing because we're not dealing with like, I know people who've been in this war in the Middle east who I've talked to, and there's actual bombs that they can hear. And then they're like, oh, my neighbor's house over there was totally destroyed. You know, like you can imagine. And they can't sleep easily because they're not sure if they're going to get a bomb. I'm not that it's going to make any difference because they have to sleep anyway. But how do you, what do you think about that?
• 37:01
  Speaker B: They're not getting very good sleep. Right. See that lion is coming. Yeah, that's a really serious problem. Major health crisis. Lion is coming. Right. Lion is coming to get you. But everything else we have to learn to make it into a mustard seed because unnecessarily we are actually harming ourselves by thinking certain things.
• 37:34
  Speaker A: Yes. I mean I suppose even those situations when I suppose the nervous system, the fight or flight response is designed to protect our physical life, isn't it? That's what it's for. That if someone is chasing us with a big knife or something, we should have to figure out what to do about it. And it's a genuine situation. But most things, it's not that we're actually going to die physically. So there's a bit unrestricted.
• 38:06
  Speaker B: We are dying because we are waking up at three in the morning and thinking, oh, the lion is coming for really random things anyway. No one is dying right now. What I'm saying is we are very tired because of our beliefs around certain situations and we really need to make them into mustard seeds. Make them very small because they are very small. Why are they occupying such a big thing in your head?
• 38:34
  Speaker A: Yes, very. That's a very deep situation. Yeah. It comes down to fear of death, doesn't it? I think probably what's going on on some level some of these things are ridiculous, but other ones, they seem to be triggering fear of death. Otherwise why would the nervous system be getting stressed out at all?
• 38:53
  Speaker B: But it's a false fear. Yeah, it's a false alarm. 90 of the time you're stressing your nervous system out with a false alarm. Let's say someone stop doing that.
• 39:06
  Speaker A: Let's say someone loses their job. Right. That's gonna probably.
• 39:11
  Speaker B: Okay, that's a big. That's the line is coming because they don't have money. Got it.
• 39:15
  Speaker A: You know, they need.
• 39:16
  Speaker B: They're worried, they don't have money. They don't know what's going to happen, whether they'll have a roof over their head.
• 39:20
  Speaker A: Over their head.
• 39:21
  Speaker B: That's.
• 39:21
  Speaker A: And then they might.
• 39:22
  Speaker B: That's a big thing.
• 39:23
  Speaker A: Then they might not have food and then they might die. So that, that triggers fear of death, doesn't it? On some level. Right. But most things are not. Are not really. They're not going to lead. Most people who lose their job aren't going to die straight away, obviously. But. But if they don't get a new job and they haven't got any money, then it could cause all kinds of trouble. Yes, very interesting. I suppose it's Worth asking the question is this thing I'm worried about going to kill me. And of course, we're not going to die anyway because we're spiritual beings,
• 40:02
  Speaker B: right? And also there has to be this distance, right? One of the deepest practices I'm doing these days is a detached observer being a witness. Did I tell you about Shivakami? No. In another episode I will talk to you about Shivakami. But Shivakami is this still witness when Shiva is doing his Ananda Tandava, which is a very still witness. And I really feel very connected to that, that if we are able to watch as a witness, right? So, you know, we had Internet issues yesterday. We had to change our Internet. And then today we had to call someone to do this, all that, right? By any stretch of the imagination. It's not exactly pleasant because I had to hotspot all my classes yesterday, but I had to sit and watch it as a detached observer. I couldn't say, oh, woe is me. Look at the Internet. Because it is not a big deal. Ultimately, it's not a big deal. We don't need to make a mountain out of everything in our lives. So if we have 20 situations and we are making mountains out of 20 situations in our life in a day, imagine the stress that you are creating in your life. Just face it. Just remember, you can be a witness, you can be detached, you can be still and watch it, and you don't need to get involved in it.
• 41:41
  Speaker A: So there we have it. It's time to practice, practice, practice, and face, face, face. Just sitting with it. I mean, what, what helps me personally is just to take, take if I'm stressed out about something, just to stop, because it reinforces itself. Just to stop and breathe and do these various practices. Because carrying on the engagement of that particular behavior and that sort of thinking pattern does just makes it worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. So there needs to be a pause, perfect, stop, stop everything, and then come back if possible. Because it's much easier to deal with if there's continuous movement in the wrong direction. It just. It just propagates itself and gets more and more severe. And that's why, like I was talking about this thing with, with dealing with tedious techie stuff. I was trying to fix, fix, fix, fix, fix, fix, fix. And it was just getting worse and worse and worse. But then when I stopped, I was like, hang on a minute, I don't need to do this at all. This is ridiculous. Then, then it was gone. But trying to force it through just fighting. Fighting with it doesn't. Doesn't work. Well, well, well. So hopefully this has been helpful, and we're going to do more on the nervous system to help you relax and let go. And well done, everybody. Keep it up. Let us know how you feel.
• 43:14
  Speaker B: And pick a. Pick something, a number.
• 43:18
  Speaker A: You mean 45.
• 43:22
  Speaker B: Truth.
• 43:23
  Speaker A: 45.
• 43:24
  Speaker B: 45. Forgiveness. You connect. This is God's blessing for you. Forgiveness. You connect with your innermost self and find love for others. You realize refusing to forgive will only hurt you more than the other. You let go of grudges and forgive, forgive and forgive again, opening up a world of spiritual progress.
• 44:07
  Speaker A: That's very sweet. Yay. So have a wonderful, relaxed day. Remember you're safe and secure, and talk to you soon.