Welcome, everyone. I think we should do a chicken. Let's just hear what you're coming in with. That can be a question or a feelings, always good to practice. suddenly having to check in with what you're actually feeling. I really like throwing you all into that conundrum. So let's just hear from you. And then I'll tell you what we're going to do today. Who would like to go first?
See, so I am a little sad, and
have a whole lot of thoughts. I just found out that my ex husband is proposing. Wow.
Wow. So that's me. You just found out this minute this last time?
No, I just found out Ryan just walked out the door. He came over to eat lunch and hang out and tell me Wow, add some time to process before we go on our vacation? Because he didn't want me to find out any other way or any he didn't want to hold on to the knowledge.
Or at least he's not proposing to you. You dodged a bullet. Just saying.
None is perfect. See? I just needed that. I needed that reframe. Yep. Yeah.
Yeah. better. Better than you can just say Yeah. Yes. Your shot of them, you know, and yeah,
yep. It's good thing we know him. You know you? Yeah, yeah. It's just Yeah, yeah. Good job, Jeff.
two things are swirling for me. One is I just wanted to re emphasize Louise's message last week about this book, which I, that's enough, I'm almost done. I'm almost done reading it, but I'll never be done. I'm so surprised how helpful it like how practical and profound it is on even in relation to my work in sustainability. But I can also see how it relates to many friends and peers who are in other lines of work. So thank you very much for the recommendation. And then I feel like it's aligning with a state I'm in I was trying to think of the feeling word and I was consulting the list and it's not on it. So maybe, but I'm feeling very patient, or like, I'm in a kind of a cocoon between. I'm in a phase change, and I can feel lots of things happening. And I'm restless, and excited, but also having to just come back, come back like every literally every five minutes, sometimes more, I'm having to just remind myself of the journey and come back and be patient, patient, patient, patient patient. So that's, and it's a good feeling. But an awareness that like I'm going to start to rip through the edges of that cocoon shortly. Wow.
Thanks for rain. These are some hard acts to follow. Don't be intimidated. Who wants to go next?
I'm feeling sort of a bit of peacefulness of just realizing when things happen. I sort of know where things are. Like with another community, a practice that has created a interruption and now there's sort of If this space of structured unknowing, so it's good to know, within a group setting of where things are, and then that isn't chaos or that it's just this time of Unknowing. And the other thing is synchronicity, I noticed that between communities of practice and things I'm involved with, or things that I get in my email, that they seem to be reinforcing each other. And it's, I've noticed that before that, if there's a strong intention about something that things just start moving into my path related to that. But the trick is to take the time for that awareness and not just let it pass by.
Thank you, Mary. Tim, oh, Karen. I'm happy to jump in Tim's, holding back. And I'm feeling really gratified and satisfied. And I wonder whether satisfies the is the actual feeling or the interpretation of it. But anyway, else, I'll just leave it at satisfied because I got tested last night, late at night with my partner, who said something that was a triggering event. And I let I just watched that process of me going through the phases of my normal reaction, and then choosing being in the unknowing and choosing a pathway that was not the, you know, the unusual pathway that I follow, and it all worked out well. So I put it to the test. So testimonial, this shit works. Really, really satisfying.
Thank you, Karen.
I love that testimonial.
Right? I have to ask you for one this shit works.
Tim,
I feel moved and moving. And reflective.
Cool.
Jeff, you want to do a quick chicken, see where you're at? Yeah.
I'm, I'm interested in what we're talking about today. Making progress on the third module, you know, as as with module two, what we what we choose to say in Module Two, we had to go back and slightly adjust what we say in module one. And this one, two, we just, um, there's some concepts in it that are, you know, taking me some time to distill into their simplest form. And that's exciting. Just to get to know the material better, and to distill it down to its simplest form is also good work for me to do. So I'm excited about that. Also have this you know, we got other other things launching in in Magento, with the new website coming soon, and a side project where we're actually learning how to sell our artwork on the new marketplace. And that's pretty exciting stuff, too. So it's all connected with magenta and the school but it's all yeah, it's all good. So that's me, I feel I feel excited about what we're doing here today. Cool.
Awesome. Thank you, everyone, for your powerful chickens. So I want to keep going with this theme about thinking feeling and willing it really is what we're diving into in Module Three in great depth. And, but I don't see why we we can't go there now. In our in in this way. And And really continue to explore what is basically bottomless pits of knowledge contained in these three simple ideas. So I do want to continue to focus on the will, because it is the hardest to access. And so what we're going to do is a bit of journaling, and then conversation and then journaling and conversation is a kind of a, a way of doing this because, yeah, I want to, I want to tie with a bit more detail, this concept of the will, that we're bringing to your personal experience more, so that you can start to really have an experiential, growing understanding of what we're talking about when the world is composed, versus the will when it's free. So what we'll do is we're going to start with doing some journaling, and I've got a question here. So do you all have, do you all have a journal and something to write with? Everybody has that, it's very good. So um, what I want you to do is just think about areas in your current life, not your past, your current life, where you still feel tied up, weekend, or you experience compulsion or even addiction in your will. So getting things done not getting things done, the choices of action that you can make, or tend to make those kinds of things. So yeah, see if you can see if you can keep this in your present life and how that plays out in your present life. However, we're going to give you a good five minutes. So if you want to go back into your past and think about the the kind of evolution of your relationship to your will, I think that's okay, too. And so let me just tell you a little personal story. Because it very much relates to how I think about my will and my current present reality. So when I was, you know, just learning how to be an adult, I could hardly organize myself out of a paper bag, I was pretty hopeless, when it came to activating my will, the only area that I could do it successfully was around playing the violin. But even then, it was a struggle. And it took me, you know, 20 years of raising kids, and washing the dishes at the same time to really get into my will and take it on and transform it into the powerhouse that I am today. I'm not that much of a powerhouse, but I'm more of a powerhouse than I was. And it has been a particular study of mine. Because there is there are relationships to the practice of being a musician. So I had a unique insight into the activation of the will and the penetration of the mind into the body with playing the violin and singing and things like that. So that's the instruction. Think about the ways in which you're in what is your relationship, where are you still compelled in your will and in what ways? Okay, so that's it. I'm going to set a timer for five minutes. And if you have any questions, speak up. Otherwise, we'll just do this in silence.
It's about time.
Sorry, I missed that. Yeah. Now we're just journaling. you've walked into a journaling moment.
What's the prompt?
Hey, Sue. So in the chat, there's a prompt there. And we've got another three and a half minutes if you just quietly journal about your will. Where are you still feel weak or otherwise unfree? What can post in your will in your daily life,
your current life?
got about 15 seconds left, so just wrap it up.
Alright, everybody, mostly complete. Okay, so what I'd like to do is just to hear from you all about how you see and the ways that you are compelled not compulsive compulsive is not a real word. You can tell the right word. So share if you're comfortable doing so but would love to hear the range of ways in which you experience these things. So who would like to share
mind going.
So what comes up for me first and most clearly is that my compulsion or where my compulsion is toward silence and distracting or numbing all the typical enneagram nine spiritual slot. That's what that's what a in Morgan Crone calls it spiritual slot. It's really easy for me to slide into that place of inaction. And therefore, where I am most restrained is in my will to use my voice for speaking. or writing. Writing, it takes great daily effort for me to peel back the layers to speak from that core of myself and to live in that place.
Highly satisfactory. And I like living from that place. But that is where I continue to have to work.
Wow. Thank you for sharing this awesome. Can we have some other pictures? Can anyone build on that? soon?
I'll share. I ran into a habit loop this week that I haven't exercised in a long time and found it really tight and hard to crawl out of. I was left out of my easthampton my breisgau reference group gathering because I'm not vaccinated. And they've decided not to have it now. But I spent three days fighting Shane, which is a childhood thing. Because somebody was mad at me. Somebody I really loved was mad at me, I thought, turns out she wasn't. But I didn't know that. And I had the desire to step out of the habit loop and out of that feeling. In my head, I knew knew that it was boundless. But man, I had the chance to exercise my will to it was like physical exercise over and over and over and over stepping out of the habit loop. And so I felt like weakness in my muscles. It felt just like that, that I couldn't get my world to function. Like the muscle it should be. And I acted out of love and it all worked out beautifully. But you know, I had three days of practice.
Wow. Awesome. See? Who's next? You'd like to go next.
Tim, I'm feeling you.
I can bring what I journaled about was
feeling compelled to try Yeah. The trigger is believing my someone I love is suffering through misunderstanding. And just watching them suffer and what I believe to be a loop They've created and learning. Yeah. So the where I struggle is to let them do that. And to really just hold them in process and not try and fix it and not try and even subtly guide them out. But you know, I recognize all the different strategies I used to be the fixer, from my youth. And sometimes it's really hard to not just be like, Hey, you know, please just try this perspective. And act of inaction. Yeah. So I recognize that they still have a fair bit of work there to do. Well, you successful? Yeah, a couple of different times. But I had to having have vast non success in order to try and wake me up to wait, there's, there's a lot of room here for him. Pretty.
Cool. Thank you turn.
The rain? I feel you.
Sure, yeah. Although I'm feeling blurry. Because the first kind of string of areas in my current life where I still feel tied up, I realized that the tie up is more like, I'm struggling to discern. And I can see the habit, I can see the loop. And then I, I'm noticing the unknowing stage, and so trusting where I'm putting my foot next, or just saying, I don't need to know where I put my foot next. Or it doesn't matter where I put my foot next. So I can see that in a whole bunch of things, like from my relationships to my running to my work. And so I was kind of swirling around a little like, Am I tied up there? Is that actually breaking, that's me breaking out of it. I'm not too sure. But then, then I like as I was going through the kind of bits and bobs of my life, I realized that there's one place that is undoubtedly, still, my will is not free, which is a I have this inner loop dialogue with myself about what I'm not getting done. And it isn't just like, Oh, I'm busy, I need to do these other things. There's a few they fall into categories. I'm not getting back to people, whom I love and care about. So my friends, my family, and my whatever. And there's a lot of blur in my life between work colleagues and friends and like how everybody fits in my life. And there's an infinite number of them. And so I'm never getting back to them enough. I'm never there. I haven't done this. I haven't said that. I haven't knit them socks, I I didn't even realize it was their 50th birthday. I just thought it was their birthday. You know, over and over. I'm letting these people down. And I'm, you know, every day I try to read write, spin, knit, run and meditate. And every day of those six things, I probably do three, but I pretty much never do all six. And if I do all six, I didn't do any of the other. I certainly didn't get back to my friends or family or get my work done. So I just have this like, loop of disappointing the world around me and repeating and then coming back to wait but I think I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. And it's okay if I put my foot there and like, like a hamster wheel
will bring over. That's a great image the hamster wheel.
I have a New Yorker cartoon on my fridge. I don't know if you guys know it the one hamster running in the wheel and the other in the wheel beside but he's decided to sit down and the wheel stopped. And so it's one hamster just sitting there and the other one running. And the just sitting there guy caption is I had an epiphany.
Let's see if I can find the lucky. Thank you Ray, great image.
Anybody else want to you don't have to share if you don't want to. But if you do that this all helps give us peace. pictures of the different ways, and helps us learn more about our own ways.
Yeah, I don't mind sharing, and I think it's been helpful hearing everyone's sharing on this. Um, and Lorraine, remember you do do you brush your teeth? So you are achieving every single day? Right? So,
yeah, that you're the you're the queen.
So I think the loop that keeps coming up for me is this continual questioning of insecurity. And, you know, I can relate to, to the shame, the shame around that, like, you know, being in context where I'm feeling out of my depth, you know, because there's a certain intellectual quality in certain discussion areas, which I'm not as well versed, obviously, as the people that are sharing it. And so I'm feeling insecure. And then I have a loop in my mind around Well, you know, who do you think you are, and imposter syndrome? And all of those things come up? Because in a context where I'm not, like, it has been a again, it's, it's just like suicide, you know, it's going over and over in my mind, or was the rain like, you know, thinking that I'm stupid or something like that, even though, if I rationalized it, I have so many people say I'm whip smart. And like, it's not the, you know, at those moments, I don't see, okay, these are the areas where you can speak, really informed in these circles in these in these contexts or content of conversation. I'm really well informed, and knowledgeable and intelligent. But, you know, for some reason, when I'm out of my depth, I just suddenly load on a big lot of negativity. And that, and again, it stems from the childhood. You know, insecurities of not being enough. So, yeah.
So it's like your will is engaged in self deprecation. That's how that's how you're applying. That's where the will comes into the picture.
Yeah, yeah. Option two. Yeah. Yeah, to basically negate what, who I am and what I'm doing, and find fault in that. Because that's just the comfortable state of being to. Yeah, to just be hating on myself. So it was what I witnessed with my parents, parents situation and the way my father treated me in the way my father treated my mother and the way my mother is as an insecure person. So it was just, you know, that was the framing. And so now I just do I don't think I'm in control of that.
Yeah. The will is in our thinking, and beliefs. Yeah. Cool. Thank you, Karen. Mary, did you want to?
Yeah, um, I think I've been pretty compulsive in the last month with gardening. going about four or five times a week to a nursery where either soil or whatever. And I think it's the short term growth of seeing the growth and beauty and wanting more. It's also part of developing spaces. So it isn't completely bonkers. But it was strange to sort of be sort of working. So with such intent for a long time, and sort of coming out of COVID friends or reaching out and I felt hesitant. I like the cocoon space of COVID, actually. And so I'm working on actually finding that place within myself where I want to see people. I want to have those relationships in my life. I tend to respond to people, more of people wanting to get together. But
I'm
not feeling that I want to initiate or have a side, sort of in a place of curiosity and working on that within myself. And also, I think the short term gardening sort of thing, not spending concentrated time on my long term growth and doing that work in a really concentrated way.
So you didn't, because you were so intent on the gardening? Is that what you said?
Well, generally, I think what I'm trying to Yeah, there's the gardening. But also, apart from that, is reading, like the wisdom of trauma series, the nature summit of responding to things that are coming up that seem interesting and related to things I'm thinking about and not initiating within myself time to work on things that would be productive for myself.
And
you, do you see a compulsive tendency in there, or a kind of a willful avoidance or anything like that.
I'm not a willful avoidance, I don't think
maybe choosing comfort over
things being a little more chaotic, but doing what I need to do. Cool.
Thank you, Mary. Thank you, everyone. I have another journaling exercise that I want us to do. And I'm realizing that we may not have a lot enough time for plenary, but we'll just see how we go. So now I want you to imagine what might it feel like to experience more freedom than your will? And you could use the examples that you shared? Or if that's, if that's sort of too hard to do. Imagine some other scenario where your will is freed from compulsion or confusion, or, or otherwise lack of presence, which I think for me, my hamster wheel feels like I'm not present, but I'm working extremely hard, but I'm not present and so I don't get anywhere. So what would that feel like? What would that look like? If you were free from desire from the need to want to do it? You could just do it because you're free. So can we just write about that for three minutes. Done starting now.
program another 15 seconds, finish up your sentence.
All right.
So I'm very interested to hear what came up for you with that question. And if you've ever thought about that before
Sue, I had never thought about that. Yes, imagining it, I felt freer. Hmm, it was such a wonderful feeling. And I've just come from the gym where I'm giving my will a workout, because I'm starting to do exercises that I haven't been able to do in two years. And having just to persist, and practice in and push myself. And that metaphor is really useful for me. But it was amazing, just the imagining of what it would be like to have my world stronger. And and to taste that freedom to be present all the time. And I said 100% free from Acts. Is that possible?
Yeah. Great question. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Sue. Awesome.
Anybody else have some? Yeah.
I had a very different reaction. And in fact, Sue when you said you felt freer. I thought you I heard the word fear. That's my own lens. Because when I went there, my immediate thought was
guilt
not allowed. It is this is not an option to be free of this compulsion. It is not okay. Stop, like it was a an emergency response. And I was like, I was like, Okay, we'll try again, because this is the exercise we've been given, like, do the assignment. So I was like, Okay, I'm going to do the assignment. I'm going to go into my imagination and imagine what it's like. And then I did, I could like, recognize the emergency response for what it was and then I had a feeling of kind of giddiness or lightness, and a really expansive feeling like I just felt like, wow, anything is possible in the world got really big and fast on its heels. I came right back to No, and in fact, I, I felt and this isn't a cry for help, like I'm totally fine, but I felt like this is what it will be like when I die. And it reminded me of when I've thought about killing myself, which I'm not suicidal, whatever. But the feeling was very similar. Like, I might as well just kill myself. That's so I can I'm aware like I can see the phenomenology of this this is I then was like my heart is racing. I'm having a panic response. I need to come back to this. Wow. Yeah. Damn. So some work to do there and I appreciate the exercise.
Yeah, the feeling of annihilation, if you go there. Yeah, is that
and just be clear that going there is no longer feeling like I didn't know it was my friend's 50th birthday. That would be free of no longer feeling like, Well, yeah, I brush my teeth every day, but I might actually have a cavity and I haven't found a dentist because I moved and I haven't been to the dentist in seven years. That's equated with when I am free of that. It's death. Like I can, I can see the absurdity I get that the joke is on me. Yeah. Thank you for the question.
Yeah, good observation. Yeah, powerful. Yeah. That's the will the
the power of the will is astonishing, isn't it? Yeah. I wouldn't mind following on for that, because I feel like I had the actual opposite to your experience, Lorraine, where it was an enormous lifting up, it was just a relief. Because I could visualize the feeling of just not having heard of that author canceling my words together right now it works. And just feeling okay with that admission. And not attaching any judgment on myself. But just you know, and I love that when people when I mentioned things and people that haven't heard of it. Well, I'm not sitting there going, Oh, my God, they haven't read that reanalyze law. My God who does it? You know, like, you know, it's it's so yeah, it was a huge relief. And knowing that, yeah, my sickness success isn't pegged on whether I can, you know, go power for power, or bachelor bat with someone who is, you know, I'm going, you know, having an intellectual you know, show off session or whatever. Yeah, it was it was and I really love Sue's 100%. Free from AIX. Yeah. So it was a really good feeling to to give myself a risk from that.
Cool, thank you, Karen. Anyone else
I felt the images were just clearing everything, putting everything where it needed to go. That's the start of beginning something just like a clean slate. And then there's also the feeling of someone in a session a few days ago talked about bumping in the dark or sort of almost seeing but this feeling of bumping around in the dark. And that image came up in a positive way of, of sort of when you're in the dark. For a long enough time and moving you get really comfortable with it and more at ease. So it was both of those feelings of clear space and being able to move in the dark.
Nice images. Thank you, Mary.
Anyone else?
Sure. What I noticed is that I didn't let myself go into feeling right away. I journaled about meaning what would it mean? If I were to create space differently? You know, what would it mean for them and for me if I was able to not need to be understood or not see what not see my own way out of the public. They seem to be in as the right way. And that deeper and deeper to this, like, all of all of the meanings lead to the feeling of more vastness from which to love them.
Once I recognized I wasn't doing the feeling part, I was like, Oh, wait, what is all of these things point is a feeling.
You don't want to feel like
yeah, they're not compelled means, like, I, you know, I'm not on the surface of the ocean, I'm, I'm in the depths of it. And like that, that that vastness is a much more loving place.
So the feeling of not having to
share love for them and to let them feel loved and, and to help them with through their suffering. And, like, none of my surface efforts are actually what they're needing. What they're needing, probably is to be reminded that they're the vastness also
that, do you mean, to not feel compelled to fix them?
Yeah, or the, I think, I don't feel like the fixing of them is the piece as much as like feeling like I need where it gets trapped. And the compulsion is I'm trying to share something and then it doesn't come across. And then I feel the compulsion arise to make sure to be understood. And that because it's like the force behind it is like, if I could be understood, then there's then there's less pain for that. And that justifies my need to be understood. Which isn't, which I don't have in other things. That that trap of feeling like I'm being helpful or feeling like I need to be helpful through my actions instead of through my presence.
Nice differentiation there that you made. Because I thought fixing but what you meant was to be heard or to be properly understood and not to be misunderstood. Yeah. Yeah. Good differentiator. Good catch. Yeah. Betty, you have not shared
today, lightness lightness being undammed. Freedom from resistance. And I probably have a lot more time. Yeah. Yeah, I would have to spend so much time trying to dig out from under the layers.
So,
so you felt layers?
No, I yeah. I've been hidden under layers for
decades.
Right.
So what I understand what you say is that you experienced the layers that you would you have to dig through in order to have this experience of expansion and freedom from that compulsion. Like, it was hard for you to access because you you hit those layers.
Yeah. Well, the compulsion is to stay layered. Right. So if I did had freedom from the compulsion, then I wouldn't have to do the work to dig out from under the layers every day.
Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Wow. Well, I think there's some powerful shit right there throughout this call. Excuse My French. Um, so we are three minutes before the top of the hour. And what I would like next to do if it's okay is to do a bit of a checkout and to hear we may have to go over time a little bit for this. I hope that's okay. But I would like to hear what was that experience like for you to to just have a bit of time and it was literally eight minutes that you guys spent reflecting on this, the subtle effects of will in your life and how you're you're using your will was only eight minutes that you spent reflecting. So what was this like for you? That's the checkout question.
Sue, it makes me want to practice it more. So I will practice in at least another eight minutes and maybe longer. This afternoon. It was it was a it was quite a awakening.
Time last bit, that's for sure. Great questions, Lisa. Awesome.
What do you say bet?
Great questions. So
yeah, I felt it's a powerful exercise of visioning. Because so much happens because we actually visualize it. So recognizing, and then visualizing the change. You know, that's what the current present situation is. That's what the future projected scenario. So I think I think it's powerful. Good point.
I think it was so attractive, that was motivating. In terms of exercising my wealth. Awesome. That's what I want to hear. Yeah. Awesome.
Yeah, I'd say humbling. And centering.
Yeah, and I would say humbling, and very humble. Very, very humbling. And, like, I just got a really clear assignment that I, like, I missed a couple of years in school, and I've just been sent back. And,
and I'm glad.
I've got to go, everybody. Bye.
Thank you. I think that was everyone. Yeah. All right. Yeah, good work, people. That's awesome. We should do more of this kind of exercise. Just to give you the eight minutes that you need to just get present and focus on on these important questions. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming.
And the questions always to
us. So welcome, and reach up. Please, if you need help with processing this, and we're here.
All right. Thank you. Thanks for the sharing. Thank you.
