Speaker 1: 0:05

Hey everybody, thanks for joining me for part 3 of this 3-part series on how we can live our journeys. In the first two episodes, we looked at the ways that we let other people's journeys impact and often distract us from living our own journey. But today I want to talk about the ways that we avoid or misconstrue, and sometimes even fight against our journeys and how, maybe, just maybe, we can learn to recognize, to understand and actually partner with the journey process. So, first off, how do we know if we're on a journey? The answer is you are.

Speaker 1: 0:42

Next question but seriously, you are on a journey and in fact, you are probably in multiple journeys at any given time. In one journey, you are just noticing that sense of unhappiness or discontent. In another, there's a call that you haven't responded to yet Temptations fill your life for another journey. Well, in yet another, there's an abyss happening, there's something that you need to let go of. These journeys are so pervasive and we actually tend to lump them together to describe how we're doing in our lives, but ultimately, these really are separate journeys and it behooves us yes, I did just say behooves to take the time to notice each journey. Why? Because they each have different lessons. They each have different helpers and mentors, they have different things we need to let go of, etc. So one way we can untangle each of these is to consider the different parts of your life and maybe tease out a little bit where you are in the process. For each of those, I'm going to suggest a list of possible topics, but please know that your life will have its own unique topics that will make sense for you.

Speaker 1: 1:45

One topic that we can look at is health and physical wellness. Now, this is a constant journey, because not only are our bodies changing and aging, but external circumstances can impact us in different ways at different times. We can look at our mental health as another topic. Our modern world provides plenty of opportunities to develop a deep relationship with what's going on with our brains, if we let it. We can look at our emotional well-being. We all have emotions. We don't all know how to understand and respond to them, but we all have them and they can be a very important part of our journeys. We can look at our finances. For some people, this may not be an issue, but for many, it is and is a way that we can look at our journeys. We can look at our family relationships, which are always complex and sometimes difficult. We can look at our education and our career and our hobbies, and I think this includes not just what we're studying or doing in those fields, but the actual environments that we find ourselves in. Now, obviously, there's more possible topics, but hopefully you get the idea. Once you identify the categories that are relevant to you, you can start asking yourself questions.

Speaker 1: 2:52

I like to start with what is my current level of satisfaction in this area, and I use the word satisfaction pretty deliberately, because it allows for things to still be difficult and for you to be okay at the same time. That's why you don't use happiness, just because I think it's complicated and it suggests certain things. But feel free to use what works for you, and that includes how you want to measure that. You can use a scale from zero to 10, or you can find something else that works for you. Next, I like to look at the emotions that I'm experiencing in that area of my life, and this is actually really helpful in establishing where we are in the process, which we'll talk about a little bit later in this episode. So be as detailed as you need to be If you feel like you don't have a great vocabulary around emotions, I recommend looking online for what's called an emotion wheel. These are really great tools and we'll be talking about emotions in later episodes, but they can be very useful in helping you find the right words to describe how you're feeling.

Speaker 1: 3:50

Then I move from emotions to thoughts. What thoughts am I having about this topic? Looking at my thoughts actually gives me a sense of whether I'm in a positive or a negative headspace. It lets me look at the beliefs I have around that topic so that I can do something about them. Next, I look at what thoughts I'm experiencing in that area of my life. So, as I look at my thoughts, it gives me a sense of whether I'm in a positive or negative space, but it also allows me to assess my beliefs around that particular topic. And then, finally, I look at what actions I'm avoiding in this area of my life. Now, of course, we can look at the actions that we are taking, and that can be helpful as well, but I think if I look at the actions that I'm avoiding, it can help me identify any areas for growth or change or improvement.

Speaker 1: 4:35

And again, those are the questions. That kind of work for me, but feel free to play with or to bring in new questions or whatever works best for you. So, as a teacher, I would encourage you to pause this and go do a full life assessment right this minute, but it can take some time depending on how detailed you're going to be. So if you can't do it right now, just commit to yourself that you will Put it on your calendar, print off a list, open a document on your computer whatever works best for you. But your life and your journeys are worth looking at, and taking the time really matters. Okay, so you've taken the time to look at your journeys. Hopefully, the next question we want to look at is where am I for this journey?

Speaker 1: 5:16

In the journey process and this is a great question with a relatively straightforward answer the easiest indicator of where you are at any given time is actually your emotions. Like I mentioned before, each part of the journey has these different emotions that we tend to experience with them. So taking the time to identify how you're feeling isn't just nice, it's pretty functional. I'm going to put in here a relatively simple way to assess using those emotions, but please know that emotions are complex. Getting it exactly right isn't the point, though, understanding the overall sense of the different phases will get you close enough to do what we need to do. So as I go through these, I invite you to look at your list and see if it brings anything up.

Speaker 1: 5:56

Starting with the very beginning, as the journey is preparing to start, we feel emotions related to a sense of something not being right, something needing to change. Things like that. We can experience feelings of boredom or anxiety, listlessness. My personal favorite is En-Wii, because it's fun to say and I love postmodern En-Wii. For any of you that are fans of Brack, the call brings with it almost a pull. How we respond to that pull really dictates the emotions. So in this case we can feel excited about what's ahead and we could experience anticipation or curiosity, maybe a sense of adventure. Or, on the other hand, that pull might feel scary and we can feel resistance and aversion. But regardless, there's kind of this sense of here and there with a call and we can kind of feel the tension between the two.

Speaker 1: 6:55

Trials and temptations bring a whole lot of frustration, a lot of feelings of inadequacy, because you're literally being faced with what you don't know and the gap where you are to where you want to be can feel really big and it can be very exhausting as well, both physically and mentally. Physically, because maybe you're having to build up stamina or strength. Mentally, because you're having to think and learn and that's actually really taxing on our brains. So exhaustion can come here as well. We might feel overwhelmed with everything there is to do and to learn, and to try to become so overwhelmed can be common here too. When we look at the abyss that tends to bring feelings of being stuck, feelings of hopelessness, feelings of I've tried everything and nothing is working. Kind of as the name implies, it can feel like a deep, dark pit. There's often this heaviness, almost like a weight, that comes with an abyss where we feel like we're walking around with a burden that we can't seem to find relief from.

Speaker 1: 7:54

The unique task is so different from the rest of the phases that we may not actually notice it at all. In this space we are fully capable, we are doing the things, we're succeeding, we're making a difference. It can feel like we're in a groove, like things are running smoothly, like flow. We can handle what's happening. Things come up, we have solutions, people need something, we have the answer. So different from the rest of the phases.

Speaker 1: 8:19

The return in real life can have a little friction or a lot. If we're physically returning from being away somewhere, especially if we've been away for a long time, things can feel hard, but it's more of even a sense of things being harder because before we may not have had to work so hard to connect with the people who are in our lives and now we do. It can also be disorienting. We may not feel like we know where we fit, what we should do, and that disorientation can be a little frustrating. If we didn't physically go anywhere, we may feel the same friction and disorientation, although they may be lesser. Really, it all depends on the type of return that we're looking at, and there's more information on that in the book.

Speaker 1: 9:05

Okay, so with that overview of how our emotions can indicate where we are, what does any of us have to do with the topic of this episode, which is living our journeys? Taking the time to figure out where we are in the process gives us some crucial information. But if we don't take the time to figure out where we are, we often just kind of remain stuck spinning in the same area, wondering why things aren't happening for us and before we knew this pattern of journeys. In the process, we could claim ignorance. However, now that you know, if we don't take the time to figure out where we are, that's kind of on us, and we're making the process harder for ourselves. If we do take the time, though, to figure out where we are, we have some really powerful information, and that information is if we know where we are, we know what to do.

Speaker 1: 9:58

Each section, each phase has certain actions that correspond to them, just like emotions that we tend to feel. If we're in the call phase, we need to accept the call and step over the threshold. That might be scary, but that's what we need to do. In the trials and temptations phase, we need to be learning and trying and willing to fail and try again. We need to be leaning on our helpers and our mentors when that's appropriate, but we also need to be learning to stand on our own two feet when we're capable.

Speaker 1: 10:29

If we're in the abyss, we need to figure out what we're holding onto that it's time to let go of. We look at our beliefs and our thoughts and our habits and we question whether or not they're still serving us. If we're at the unique task, we just do the task. That one's simple. If we're in the return, we try to see which type of return it is and do the things that correspond with that type. We also, in the return, look to see where our gifts might be helpful for others in their journeys, and always, always, we recognize that the cycle is going to continue and that's really the gist of it. That's how it works, but so often we find ourselves raging against what is. This is the pattern, my friends. This is what has to happen for us to become or to return to whichever version of that makes the most sense for you, this best version of ourselves.

Speaker 1: 11:24

Now being angry because it doesn't seem fair, which is another podcast for another day, only adds misery to what is already difficult. Waiting to answer calls because we're afraid just leads to those calls getting louder and louder, maybe even turning from invitations into mandates. Giving into the temptation to quit and give up when things are hard, especially when we're in the trials, just means you're going to end up back here again. Refusing to make the required sacrifice in the abyss, just means we're going to be faced with that same decision in the future, our attitudes around. The reality of this pattern in our lives is going to dictate the experience that we have.

Speaker 1: 12:03

And I'm not suggesting that things aren't hard in the journey process. Of course they are. We cannot escape it, regardless of what advertising would have us believe. We are never going to get to the point where there's no more sorrow or grief or difficulty in the world, just happiness forever. Buying into that lie leaves us feeling broken and frustrated that we aren't experiencing that yet. But we don't have to pile suffering on top of our pain. You've probably heard the phrase pain is inevitable but suffering is optional, and it's just as true with journeys. We have to have these experiences, but we can choose how we experience them.

Speaker 1: 12:43

I remember very vividly the beginning of my journey towards learning how to teach journeys in this way. I had been given the opportunity to have a space in the therapeutic calendar at the residential treatment facility that I was working at and I had my first group. I started teaching the process that first day. It was great. We covered the whole thing, the women were really engaged, there was a lot of really good sharing and it was how I had taught it when I would teach it in the schools before. But then I realized that there was going to be a next week and a next week and a next week. And all of a sudden I realized that I had to figure out how to teach this in a way that was so different from the way that I had taught it before. All of a sudden, I had to allow for multiple sessions, but then I had to make sure that each session was also connected to the bigger picture, and that was because of the transitory nature of the facility. I never knew who was going to be there, who would have left, who was new. I couldn't teach the full thing every time, but I had to balance that with making each week fit into the bigger picture.

Speaker 1: 13:51

And what was interesting is I could see it so clearly. I could see that I was in the trials and temptations section. I knew it. I knew what I needed to learn. I knew I was going to have to try things out that weren't going to work in order to find out what did. I knew all these things, I could see them, and I was actually able at the time to accept that.

Speaker 1: 14:14

So what did it do for me? Well, when I wanted to quit, I knew I didn't need to. It was just a temptation to quit. And when things were hard and I tried stuff that didn't work, I didn't make it mean that I was broken or was never going to succeed. I knew I just needed to keep trying. And was the process hard? Of course it was. Nobody loves to fail, especially perfectionists like me, but my vision in that failure, because of what I knew about journeys, made it mean something completely different than it would have otherwise. I was experiencing the steps, but at the same time I could also see them. It's like I was in it and out of it at the same time. So I could see the thinking pitfalls and I could avoid them. And, week after week and month after month, it all started to come together in this really incredible understanding. That was just the beginning of another larger journey, but my experience of it was so different than when I fight the process, when I get mad about it, when I rage against it.

Speaker 1: 15:16

In fact, I also remember a day when I hit my abyss with this journey. I was feeling pretty hopeless about it. This was a few months in. I felt like I wasn't making a difference. I felt like my time and the patient's time was being wasted, because I felt like what I was sharing didn't have any value.

Speaker 1: 15:33

I was sitting at a table in my son's elementary school lunch room. He was finishing a test. There were a lot of people in there so it was relatively loud so I could talk out loud to myself, which I like to do and I started to outline how I was feeling, how angry I was about it, how hopeless it felt, how I was ready to give up. And into my brain popped the phrase you know, that's the abyss, right. And I said to myself yeah, I know it's an abyss and I don't care, I'm done, it's over, this is hopeless, it's stupid, I'm out. And then I had the phrase yep, that's the abyss, all right. Pop into my head and oh, I was so mad. I was so mad.

Speaker 1: 16:16

I basically told the journey. I didn't care what it was saying, I was done and it couldn't stop me. And I had my own little temper tantrum sitting there at this elementary school lunch table. But in my heart I knew it wasn't true. I knew I was in an abyss. I could see it. And because I could see it, I knew that there was something that I wasn't seeing clearly and I knew then that I was going to stick with it, even if it was begrudgingly, because it was an abyss and there's really only one way out. And wouldn't you know it?

Speaker 1: 16:54

Even when I arrived to be grudgingly at class the next Saturday, I received a gift, and that gift may have been small in size, but it was huge. To me. It was just a small thank you note describing how what I had been teaching had made a difference in this woman's life, and she included with it a small statue of an angel holding up a candle. I'm actually looking at it right now on my shelf. I still have it there. It was my revelation. I was making a difference. It was worth it, but I was making a difference for the individual, not for the collective. It didn't matter how many people it touched which, of course, was my ego wanting to make some big, huge difference that was going to change the world. But that's what I was seeing incorrectly. What mattered was that it touched this person and that person and that person. That was what mattered, that was what I needed to see and that's what led me out of the abyss.

Speaker 1: 17:56

Now, this is not to say that I am always conscious of the steps and that I'm never mad about it, because, of course, that's not true. I am human. Sometimes I forget, sometimes I just let myself be angry about it. But I can tell you that there is a huge difference in my experience when I remember, when I take the time to partner with the journey instead of fighting it. So maybe, take some time to do the self-evaluation. Find out where you are, find out where you're fighting, where you are and see if you can figure out, based on where you are, what you need to do and maybe, just maybe, see what happens if you go with it. Find out where the journey wants to take you. Start to build that relationship with the journey itself. It has given you this path because it's what you need, what can happen if you live the journey. That's right here, right now, because, of course, life is a journey and it's time to start living like it. Thanks again for being here and we'll see you next time.