Ep. 06: What To Do When You're Feeling Shock and Outrage

For those who are feeling overwhelmed with current events, I offer a perspective that has helped me. 

Transcript

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This podcast is gonna follow a different format than my other podcasts have, and it's going straight to the point. I want to really dive deep into the perspective that's really helping me right now as the world is doing what it's doing as ice agents are doing what they're doing, as fatal shootings happened, as these things keep popping up. That I know a lot of people are struggling to process I know a lot of us are feeling a lot of different things, shock and outrage and fear being. At the forefront. A lot of us are feeling like, what's the point? A lot of us are feeling so overwhelmed. A lot of us are feeling like I need to do something about this. A lot of us are feeling why is the world like this? And we can start going into a cycle where we're glued to our phones, glued to the latest news glued to see like who has what to say about what. And I want to remind us to take a breath, first and foremost, if you're someone who's glued to your phone right now and you're looking at the latest news as it's popping up because you wanna stay informed because you wanna know what's going on, I want to invite you to set the intention to only have limited time for the news. I don't want you to try to have limited time for the news. When we tell our mind to try something, we are basically saying it may or may not happen to ourselves. I want you to intend to have a set amount of time devoted to the news so that you aren't being pulled down by the sheer weight of what is happening. Because I'll tell you, I'll tell you. What happens to us when we feel anger, then we start getting in this cycle of, I am angry, that I feel angry. When we feel fear, we start getting into this cycle that I'm fearful, that I feel so much fear and why is this happening? And when we feel anger and fear, our amygdala starts popping off. Our prefrontal cortex, which is the part of our brain that is responsible for logic and reasoning and creativity, and the ability to think, clearly, that starts going offline and we become less capable of doing the things that we know we want to do. We become less capable of enacting any sort of change in our lives. We become less capable of creating the shifts that we want to see in the world. So let's look at an example. If your husband or your kid was going on a job interview and there was a lot riding on this interview, you knew that the future of your bills being paid was all in the hands of him getting this one job. How fearful do you want him when he's showing up for that job interview? How angry do you want him when he's showing up for that job interview? And you would tell me? Not at all. Because you know that when our body feels fear, when our body feels anger, we are not in our most logical and strategical state. We're not in the best position to convince the person who's sitting across from us during that job interview that we are the right candidate for that position. What you would want instead is you would want him calm, alert, strategic, so that he could present his best self. And I would say the exact same thing for you. When these world events are happening, the people who are creating the chaos and are driving the news reports that just sound so awful. They are counting on us feeling numb. They are counting on us feeling confused. They are counting on us feeling fearful, but we are actually able to be more impactful to the world when we are cool, calm, collected in a state of mind where our sympathetic nervous system isn't going off. Even if the world was coming to an end and you were in charge of making the last decision where the world depended on you making that right decision, I do not want you for. Feeling fearful or angry. I want you feeling as calm as possible. I want you feeling like you can absolutely handle it. I want you feeling like no matter what, you are in the position of being your most strategic and influential self. How do we get there? And I don't think the answer is so simple as just regulating our nervous system, regulating our nervous system, or trying to handle our emotions that only deals with things at the level of the symptoms. That's only like, well, I'm feeling all of these things and I'm just looking to manage it. I want to go deeper than that. I want to shift things from the very. Filter from which we're perceiving, the reality that we're looking out from. Because if you're constantly thinking the world is going to shit, everything is in trouble. The apocalypse is around the corner, all these things, because I know how our mind works, your mind will. Actively go out into the world to find evidence that those things are true. Because we do not like cognitive dissonance. We don't like believing one thing and then believing another thing at the same time. No, our mind will always work to prove that what we believe is true. So we have to shift the very filter from which we are observing these events from. Yes. Are some of these events horrible? Yes. Can we choose to look at these events and think, okay, that is horrible, and I'm still choosing to believe in the beauty of the world. That is horrible, and I still visualize the future world as something that is. Peaceful and loving, and I see us getting to the other side of this. Okay? That is horrible and I know that where my power lies is how I choose to process this information because you absolutely cannot change what lies out there. You cannot change how people are gonna behave. You cannot change world events. You cannot change leaders. You cannot change. The big things that you absolutely have no control over, where your power lies is in the perception of the things that are happening in this world. That is it. And as soon as you understand that on a cellular level, fuck man, you're 90% ahead of everyone else out there because you're no longer just reacting to the whims of every. Newspaper headline. You're no longer getting swayed here and there and up and down and oh my God, this is happening today. There's no power in the person who is constantly reacting to the news events around them. When you are so grounded in the fact that I know where my power lies, and that all lies in how I am choosing to view the world. That. That is how you find a sense of stability in a world where stuff is happening that you do not like. And I'm not saying that I like what is happening, absolutely not. But I know how to manage the perception through which I view these things from. I am not letting them take over my mind. I'm not letting them have access to my inner sense of security. They do not get to have that. That is the real revolution in what is happening today. You wanna start a revolution, start with how you're handling things internally. You wanna start a revolution. You are no help to anybody If you are constantly feeding into the fear and the anger loop, because your fear will feel fear because you're feeling fear. It's like this. Snowball effect. Oh, I'm feeling fear and I'm feeling fearful because I'm feeling fear. Oh, I'm feeling angry and I'm so fucking angry that I'm angry. I don't want that. I don't wanna feel that I'm, and you're pushing against. And then there's this internal struggle between, I'm feeling angry and I don't wanna feel angry. And there's this constant push pull, like, no, fuck that. Find how to. Like actually perceive the world through the best perception lens that you can absolutely grab a hold of right now, because I'm telling you, it is everything. The way that we view things is everything. And I'll give you an example. I live in a three bedroom house outside of Raleigh, North Carolina. I am not very close to a grocery store. I live 15 minutes from a grocery store. My house isn't very big. It's only 1800 square feet. I think for someone, this house would absolutely be like a slum house. That person might be like a multimillionaire, and they would think that this house is like just pure slum for somebody else. This very same house without changing any of it. They would think that this is a mansion. Maybe that person is currently sleeping in a tent right now. So for them, their perception of this house is, it's a mansion. Everything that happens to us is being filtered through our own perception, and then we create the story of what we perceive. So it's like, oh, this is happening now. I feel this way because of what this is happening. So, oh, I live in this shack of a house. Who, like, what did I do to deserve this? Maybe I failed at, you know, maybe I took that class in university. I never should have taken that class because I failed it. I never should have gone to that interview. I'm such a failure. I, why did I move to the city that I knew I shouldn't have moved to? And you start creating all of these stories because of how your mind perceives that you live in a shack. Or I live in a mansion, oh my God, I must have done so much. Right? And then there's the story of I'm so lucky. I am so blessed. I have running water. I have a beautiful backyard to walk around and put my bare feet in. You can always find a story based on how you perceive things to be. Now in the case of things that are absolutely horrific, I'm not saying that there is a positive perception of like, well, here's the best we can perceive someone being shot. What I am saying is that if you want to be influential to the world, if you want to actually create change, and I know that each of us is absolutely called to do our part. None of us is called to actually change the entire world and have the whole weight of it on our shoulders. By the way, if you feel the weight of it on your shoulders, I want to remind you, you are not in charge of changing the world. But each of us is being called to do our part and our ability to do our part, a hundred percent depends on our own ability to manage our perception through which we see the world. And if we think the world is going to hell, if we think that the apocalypse is around the corner because of what is happening, if we think that like we're just gonna descend into this. Place where we're not, we're no longer gonna have basic human rights. And we keep picturing that future over and over again on repeat in our head. Guess what? We are cutting our own legs off. We are cutting our own ability to actually create any sort of impactful shifts in this world right off, because you cannot be in that fearful, panicky, overwhelmed freeze state and also be strategic, influential, and create change. It's one or the other. You choose. You choose. You choose to look at these horrific events and you choose. I see that as horrific, and I choose to still believe in the future of humanity. I choose to still look at all the different ways that humans are still showing up with their kind hearts. Look for. The actual news of people showing up, and like this morning we had the monks who are on their walk across the nation for peace. We had them walk right by our neighborhood. Look for those stories of human perseverance, human love, human, the way humans are showing up for what we actually stand for. Look to those stories and fill those stories in your head instead, and you will see that you will start to shift the perception from how you're. Interpreting the world right now because there are a few people who are acting angrily, who are lashing out and they happen to be in power. Yes. And there are far more people, far more people who have love in their hearts, who are showing up with kindness, who believe in basic human decency. And we have to have to find our sense of rootedness. Through understanding that there is more of us who love humans and this goes hand in hand with Maryanne Williamson's quote that says, everything we do is either an act of love. Or a cry for love and the people who are enacting the most hurt in the world right now, they are doing it from a sense of I'm so deeply hurt on the inside. And we can have, we can start to see some basic level of compassion when we view them through that lens. Do we love what they are doing? No. Do we. Like agree with their philosophy? No. But at a very basic human level, we can at least start to cultivate some sort of sense of compassion for them because there is no way that they can be doing what they are doing if they weren't so deeply hurting inside. And they are just lashing out from their own sense of, I don't feel loved, I don't feel heard, I don't feel seen, I feel so out of control. And it, it's just this, these, these deep core wounds that they are acting out from. And when we look to understand them this way, then we can actually look to see, okay, why are they acting that way then? And from the lens of, I want to understand these people who are doing these horrific acts. That is the only way that you can actually work to persuade other people because when you are shoving your own knowledge and your own theories and your own, I know I'm right down people's throats, they are never gonna hear you. You are never gonna create change. You are never gonna get anyone to like have any sort of modicum of perspective shift with I'm right. You need to listen to me and you don't know anything. That if you're like in a, I'm right and you need to listen to me Headspace, that's all coming from your own ego. That's all your own shit of like, I need someone to hear me out. I need someone to look at me as the ha ha ha evolved human that I am. That's your bullshit you're bringing to the table. And I don't care. That's the fucking truth. When you start to see people from a compassionate lens of they must be doing this 'cause they're so deeply hurting on the inside. And let me see if I can open up some internal space to try to even try to understand their perspective. That paradoxically is the only way you can get anyone to change. The only way you can get anyone to change is to accept. The only way you can get someone to change is to start talking to them with an open heart, and that's why Martin Luther King said, hate cannot drive out. Hate you can't fight fire with fire. Only love can do that, and that is what he's speaking about because people can feel it on a very basic, energetic level when you are trying to clamp down and show them what's what with your ideas and your beliefs and your own viewpoint of how the world should be. The change that we're actually looking for comes from the ability to understand each other a little bit more. And yes, I understand that they're not looking to understand us, but we are the ones, we are the ones with the open heart that has to walk that path first because we cannot expect someone who's so fucking deeply twisted, hurting inside to be the one that all of a sudden has the capacity to understand other humans. We do it by showing first. You can't just talk about it like, this is how you need to understand me. You do it by showing how to understand another human being. This is the level that I'm at. Meet me here. Because if we stoop to their level, if we're fighting back with hate and vengeance and resentfulness, guess what? We're just creating more of in this world. More hate, more vengeance, more resentfulness. The only way to start to heal the world around us, our communities, the people we come in contact with, is to just be. Able to feel compassion for every human that we come across. Every single one. I don't care if you voted for Trump, I don't care if your ideas are different than mine. I still want to meet you in a compassionate, even toned conversation. I'm still gonna be like, you know, I live in North Carolina. There's always people cutting me off with a Trump sticker bumper sticker on the back of their car. If I react to that with, fuck you, you Trump supporter, guess what? That affects. That doesn't, that doesn't ever affect their life. They're not ever hearing me get angry at them. They're moving on with their life. That affects me and my ability to do what I feel called to do in this world, which is I feel so truly called in helping other people. And I cannot do that. I cannot help create the change that I wanna see if I'm so pissed off at every Trump supporter with the bumper sticker who's cutting me off in traffic. The only power we have is how we handle what is going on for us internally and how we show up and how we perceive. And it's not, it doesn't just. Happen at managing our emotions or regulating our nervous system. It goes much deeper than that. It goes at managing the filter through which we see the world That is the true core catalyst for change, and each one of us is being called to view the world through a more loving and compassionate lens. Each one of us. And that is the only way that we can create the change that we all wanna see. And we have to stop picturing the apocalyptic, horrific, violence filled world that we think is just around the corner. I don't care how much justification you have for it. I don't care if you're like, this is exactly what happened before every World War, or this is exactly what happened before the Nazis, or this is exactly what George Orwell wrote about in 1984. Fuck that. Like you're just like. Just fuck that. Because our own consciousness is so much more powerful than we have any capacity to understand. And every time we're interacting with any person that we come across on a day-to-day basis, our consciousness is interacting with them. And guess what? If we're carrying around in our consciousness that the apocalypse is right around the corner, we are impacting every single person we come into contact with. With that. Apocalyptic doom and gloom fucking energy, and they are perceiving it with every time we're just like, oh, the, you know, you're talking to your baristas, like, how are you doing? I don't know. The world's fucking like in shits. How are you doing? Just simply saying, the world is in shits. All of a sudden that barista's energy has dropped, has dropped. Maybe they were having a good day because they found out some good news. And then you're coming to them with the, the world is, is going to hell comment. They feel it immediately in their nervous system and now you've shifted their energy. Versus versus if you go to that same barista and you're like, Hey, I'm doing well, and you're looking for a true moment of connection, how are you doing? Thanks for my coffee this morning. Whatever it is that feels true and like loving in that moment, that small exchange that you can possibly have with your barista. That can change, that can create a ripple effect. You, you show that barista love, guess what? That barista then has more energy to show up for every single person behind you for the rest of the day. We are so, so. Much more influential than we think we are. We're already influencing everybody we come into contact with, whether we know it or not. And so we choose. We choose how we show up for them. We choose how we influence the world. We choose it through our own perception of the world. And right now I am asking, can you choose a more loving perception of the world for the sake of every human that you come into contact with? That is what I'm asking, and I know. I know you're capable of it. I can see it for us. I can see it For me, I can see it for you. I know that a more loving world exists and I continue to visualize the possibility of that world every day I choose it. I choose to visualize that world. I choose to see my children growing up in a loving world. I choose to see my daughter chasing her dreams and helping the world in a positive way. And she like doing all kinds of things. Like I choose that reality over and over and over again in my own mind, and that's what I have power over and I hope. I hope that that's what you choose to sending you so much love. Until the next episode I.