April 23, 2025 • 30 mins
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An unexpected eight-day power outage following a devastating ice storm teaches us profound lessons about fear, adaptation, and the human tendency to interpret natural processes as chaotic attacks on our well-being. We explore how quickly our sense of collective interconnection dissolves when basic infrastructure fails, revealing our deep-seated fears of isolation and vulnerability.
• External events trigger emotions when we interpret them as personally meaningful or threatening
• The brain narrows focus during perceived crises, making it difficult to track routine tasks
• Bodies adapt remarkably quickly to changed circumstances, including temperature shifts
• What we perceive as "chaos" is simply nature following its natural processes
• True resilience comes from controlling our internal responses rather than external circumstances
• The Tao Te Ching wisdom: "To know yourself is insight. To control yourself is true power"
• Simple preparation and self-reliance create greater security than attempting to control external events
Visit our website www.somhypnosis.com and sign up for a free consultation, or send us an email at info@psalmhypnosis.com to learn more about our in-person and online hypnosis services available for clients around the world.
We hope this helps a little as you go through your day.
We would love to hear your feedback or questions.
We will respond to both in future episodes.
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Email us at
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
To know others is knowledge, to know yourself is
insight.
To control others is strength.
To control yourself is truepower.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
This is Coffee with Hilary and Les a podcast about
the mind.
Join us by the lake as we sipour coffee and talk about the
mind and how to change it.
Together we explore how tobreak free of the past and open
up a whole new future.
We're on the line.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
We're recording.
How does it feel?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
We're sort of laughing, because I was like
what's my intro again?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
It's really quite complicated and long.
Yeah, I know right.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
It's been a time, that's for sure.
Yes, a lot has been going on, alot Lunar eclipses.
Crazy people running amok, yep,everywhere People having
elections.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
We've had lots of elections, lots of distractions
from the external world isdrawing us out there.
Get our focus out there insteadof internal.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I think, though, it's a reminder to go internal right
.
It's a.
You get so messed up fromlooking at the external so much
that, um it, it draws youinternally yeah, it certainly.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
You know, speaking for myself, it creates.
It creates an awareness that Iam so externally focused that
I've lost touch internally and Ialmost yearn for quiet,
reflective time.
I mean, all this stuff going onneeds to be processed.
It's hard not to see everythingin the world as it relates to
(02:45):
yourself, right, everythingthat's going on means something
to me and about me.
Um, it has somehow.
I, I can find a way to interpretit and say this is gonna affect
me, right, and that that's thestuff that generates emotions.
Yeah, things that go on thathave no relationship to me, I
(03:13):
can easily ignore, and the stuffthat goes on and I think that
somehow it relates to megenerates emotions in me.
And I was trying to make a listwhen I thought about this.
You know, we're dealing withfear, isolation, the
unpredictability of others andof conditions like weather, the
(03:42):
comparison that we make toothers.
You know, know, driving downthe street, on our street, at
one end of the street, they'veall got lights on and their
furnaces are running andeverything is good, and on our
end of the street, nothing, andthen that creates, like so,
emotions jealousy and anger andfrustration and a sense of
(04:07):
confusion, and then a wonderingabout me, why me?
Why am I the one that doesn'thave power?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Yeah, for anyone listening, that's outside of the
core of the lakes and Barry, Idon't know where else did it hit
?
Nowhere, really, not too manyplaces.
I think we got hit the worst,but I don't know exactly what
did it hit?
Nowhere, really, not too manyplaces.
I think we got hit the worst,but I don't know exactly what
day it was on I'm going to saytwo weeks.
Actually, two weeks to todayago, we had about 48 hours of
(04:38):
ice fall on us and I rememberwaking up that first night or
second night or something, oncethe trees were just laid in with
ice, not really realizing whatwas going on outside, but
hearing trees breaking, falling,um, it was thunderous and
(05:02):
anyway, we lost our power thatevening before.
And it was out for what?
Eight days, eight days, I don'tknow.
(05:31):
The word decimated comes to mind, but I mean driving down the
road.
You would see just trees downall over the place from the ice
and lots of I don't know exactlywhat they're called.
I think they're called likeelectricity boom.
Trucks drove in.
I saw about I'm not even jokinglike between 20 and 50 of them
in the McDonald's parking lotJust two days ago and they drove
(05:59):
in from Atlantic Canada, quebecto help us out here, canada,
quebec to help us out here.
So, but yeah, so with all that,the emotions like what you're
talking about, I didn't realizehow deep the emotions were.
I you know.
Even it took after the thelights came on again for my
(06:21):
emotions to just let out.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I'm still, I think, processing it.
So today, you know, all myto-do list is cutting up I don't
know, a couple of dozen fallentree limbs, tree branches.
You know.
On the day after that that allhappened, we cut our way out,
(06:47):
took out the chainsaw and cutour way so we could go in and
out of the driveway, but it'sall been scattered around
waiting to be cleaned up.
The focus was on, you know,maintaining gasoline in the
generator and trying to figureout how to keep the house warm
enough yeah that, um thatnothing bad happened to it yeah
Speaker 1 (07:07):
choosing between warming the house and keeping
the fridge cold because we onlyhad so many lines off the
generator and I'm one of thosepeople that's like if there's,
if something in the fridge isnot cold for you know half an
hour, then it's, it's spoiled inmy mind anyway, yeah, it was a
(07:29):
lot and lots of emotion that wedidn't really realize that at
least for me, if I'm speakingfor myself that I didn't really
realize I was contending with orhad in me, you know it's.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
It's a an isolating thing.
You feel alone.
It's funny how one of thethings that makes us
subconsciously anyway for somepeople consciously but
subconsciously aware that we'reall connected is just the hydro
supply and one great big systemthat people will, you know, call
(08:09):
the grid, this great big systemthat we all rely on for so many
things.
And then, once the grid is goneum and there's no electricity
easily accessible, then it'ssort of every person for
themselves.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, it really was.
Really there was fights at gasstations, there was just crazy
things that I heard about peoplejust feeling isolated and like
I need to take care of myself.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
It's such a symbol and a demonstration physical
demonstration of how we functionas a collective, how people are
Sort of interconnected in thispassive, non-conscious way and
(09:07):
that when these connectionsstart to feel like they're
broken and we start to really,really fear and I think that's
the big thing is we start tofear that me as an individual, I
am at risk.
And it's not just, I am at risk.
And it's not just I'm physicallyat risk because really, you
(09:31):
know, I think there's a lot ofvalue.
One of the things, one of thethought patterns I would turn to
while we were going throughthis was we've only had hydro
for 100 years.
Human beings have been aroundfor thousands and thousands and
thousands of years.
We might have lost some of theobvious methods we use to care
for ourselves and become relianton electricity, but we're more
(09:57):
than capable of surviving thesekinds of things.
And it also wasn't even theworst of the winter, I mean it
was cold.
We had one night that wasreally really cold, cold.
I think our house went down tobelow 50 that night and and I
suppose that it wasn't easy whatwe went through, but it wasn't
(10:20):
as hard as it could have been nofor sure, and um and yeah, and
we, we did survive, people didsurvive, people were able to get
through.
Yeah, it reminds us howunprepared we are every time we
have a power outage.
I think I've got to figure outhow to wire that generator into
(10:41):
our, into our home system, sothat things like our, our pump
and our refrigerator are justautomatically taken care of.
And yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, I know, first world problems right.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
But still problems.
Well, it's just interesting tosee how we fall back into fear
and we fall back into isolationand we do a sort of a comparison
thing.
You know well, you have itbetter than me because you have
a generator.
You know our poor neighbor.
She just sat there in the cold,in the dark, by herself and and
(11:23):
essentially refused herdaughter, who lived in a place
where there was no power outage.
I'll just come and get you.
No, no, I can't go.
And yeah, I wanted to take a uma cord over to her, an extension
cord, so she could at leasthave a heater and make a coffee
(11:44):
and stuff.
No, no, I can't have the dooropen.
That's, that's just dangerous,yeah.
So yeah, it's funny how umfears multiply when, when
something like this happens,when you find yourself out of
your normal systems, out of yournormal way of being, and then a
(12:10):
whole bunch of ancillary fearskick in, and then you're
comparing yourself to others andthen frustration and anger
kicks in, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah.
So I think about I don't knowif it's something you can avoid
happening internally.
Obviously we can't control theexternal, what happens around us
exactly but I think about how,if it were to happen again
(12:46):
mentally, what I would do tofeel better.
The funny thing is, is I what Iwas storing, you know?
So I think more meditationwould be good.
(13:16):
You know, meditating or justsearching for emotions, maybe
internally, to to let go of well, yeah, like it is a truly a
learning opportunity right somesimple things.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
That that that I learned and I think that we can,
we can build on because there'sso much to be learned.
So I learned that my bodyadjusts.
So yeah, at first I was coldthe house.
We got our house prettysteadily at about 62 to 64
degrees.
We could run heaters and getthe house up to about low 60s
(13:59):
and at night it would alwaysdrop into the 50s because we
wouldn't run the generator atnight just because we couldn't
feed it gas and we just thoughtwell, we'll get through that.
So my body adjusts.
So after after more than a weekof sitting in the cold, I was
tired of feeling cold.
But it's amazing how just asweatshirt and wearing something
(14:25):
on your feet changes how coldyou feel and how easy it is to
adapt to cold.
And then, when the power cameback on, I felt hot.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yes, I remember that, Because now we were back to the
regular temperature in thehouse and it was like, oh, it's
so hot in here.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So I think the first thing is that your body will
adjust Right to the regulartemperature in the house, and it
was like, oh, it's so hot inhere, yeah.
So I think the first thing isis your body will adjust right.
Um, we found ways.
There are so many ways to fillyour time yeah right, we, we
have habits of, you know, maybesimply sitting scrolling on our
(15:01):
phone or watching TV, or, youknow, eating as a habit and to
become aware that this is, theseare the habits we've become
reliant on and they're they'recertainly not necessary.
Yeah, and we can change.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, our eating habits over that time period
were.
They weren't you know the best,but, um, you know it's.
It's interesting to me how we,how our brain, even though it
(15:42):
wasn't you know the worstdisaster in the, even though it
wasn't you know the worstdisaster in the world you know
it wasn't, it wasn't terriblebut still I found my brain was
just focusing on just a fewthings, Like it was just it's
like everything consolidated.
It's like everythingconsolidated and I was just
(16:03):
focused on staying warm, keepingmyself occupied.
Right, I cleared my schedulebecause there was no power and,
honestly, when I look back atthat time, it was a whole week
and I can't hardly remember it.
(16:23):
It's so weird and I rememberthinking I was putting stuff
down, like I would put somethingdown or have my slippers off
somewhere and I would forgetimmediately where I put the
thing.
And it was like my brain wasjust, my mind was just like okay
(16:43):
, no, you only have to, you onlyhave.
You know we're in, we're infight or flight mode or whatever
, and you're, you're, you'rejust focused on these few things
.
Obviously, I'm alive, Like I.
I wasn't like life or death,but it's like my brain went into
a way of just keeping things inorder so that I could get
(17:08):
through.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Yeah, I think it's really about how we perceive
circumstances and how weperceive ourselves within them
within them.
(17:31):
So if we see ourselves in thecircumstance that is endangering
us, we see ourselves as capableor incapable.
For me in hindsight I look atit and think it really wasn't
all that hard.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
It really wasn't all that difficult.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
It really wasn't all that difficult.
It was frustrating.
There were many aspects of ourlife that just had to continue
um as they were, but it was anincredible um distraction, I
think, uh, like a a constantidea in the back of your head
(18:01):
that you had to pay attention toThings that you wouldn't
normally pay attention to.
You put things in the fridgeand they are kept cold.
So now we have to pay attentionto what do we have that needs
to stay cold.
We live in a world with afurnace and we think, oh well,
we don't ever have to worryabout keeping the house warm and
keeping ourselves warm.
(18:21):
And now it's something we haveto constantly pay attention to
and we are constantly movingaround and plugging our phones
in and unplugging our phones andcharging our phones and
charging our computers, and itjust sort of happens naturally,
and now it's something we haveto pay attention to.
We have to deliberately makesure we keep things charged up.
(18:44):
Um, you know we have to.
We light candles for light andnow we have to pay attention to
those because there's thatbuilt-in fear that you're going
to burn your house down rightand and you've got this thing
that's now taking your attentionconstantly and all of that is
shifting inside you.
You know your base, your mostsimplistic fears of your
(19:16):
well-being, which, in hindsight,I got to say we were never at
risk.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
No.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
We were inconvenienced, we were
frustrated, we were jealous ofthe people down the street, yeah
, yeah, but we were never reallyat risk.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
I think too.
I thought about I don't knowall the terminology for it or
what it might be linked toexactly, but I think the idea of
looking out into the yard anddown, and into the neighbor's
yard, and down the street and intown, like just yesterday I was
(20:04):
driving through town and a hugetree, I don't know what kind of
tree, but it had fallen on ahouse and basically like went
through half of them.
So you know, perceiving thesethings is not generally normal
to us and for me, I had thisreaction internally of feeling
(20:34):
like my environment was suddenlyout of control.
Right, I was sad for the trees,I was sad for, uh, the
environment, I was uh, you know,I was, I was dealing with these
emotions that I, you know,basically hadn't really ever had
(21:00):
to deal with before.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
It's interesting you say that because, as you're
talking, I write down the wordchaos.
And there really, was a senseof chaos.
There was sort of a basevibration of chaos.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
And as I think about it, chaos, just interpretation.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah right, chaos is normal.
What?
What we really do as as beings,as we try to impose order on
that which is naturallyprocessed, naturally processing,
naturally following?
You know, nature has itsprocesses.
Yeah, you know nature.
(21:49):
Somehow we live in a part ofthe world where there's this
thing called freezing rain, andfreezing rain is just simply
that the air above the ground iswarm enough that it's creating
rain and the water doesn'tfreeze.
And the air down at the groundis warm enough that it's
creating rain and the waterdoesn't freeze and the air down
at the ground level is belowzero.
It's so cold that the the waterturns into ice the instant it
(22:12):
falls, and then that ice justgrows and grows, and grows, and
that's, that's not a very commonphenomenon in the world.
In fact, you know, there's a lotof places in the world that
can't even understand the ideaof freezing rain, but it's
simply coating everything in inliterally pounds and pounds and
(22:33):
pounds, tons and tons of ice,and then everything breaks.
You look at the trees and thenumber of tree tops that are
just snapped off, the number oftree limbs that are just broken
and lying down on the ground,the old trees that appear to
have been pruned.
(22:53):
All the branches are off them.
This is nature's way.
This is nature's way ofbuilding strength in the trees.
It's nature's way of clearingout and replenishing in so many
ways.
The volume of water when theice melts is unbelievable,
(23:17):
unbelievable.
Yeah, so everything was justsoaked for a long time, which,
of course has its impact on onum the flora
and the fauna.
Um, and this is just nature andthis is just natural and this
is just going to happen.
Um, and it's human beings thatimpose the idea that this is
(23:41):
chaotic, human beings thatinterpret these conditions as
somehow problematic and somehowdangerous, and it's human beings
and their infrastructure forall intents and purposes.
I mean, we've learned now, whenyou build new subdivisions, you
put all the hydro underground,but we still have all the
(24:04):
infrastructure of hydro that'sall above ground wires on poles,
running down roads that havetrees that have fallen down on
top of them, and it really isthat simple.
It's the systems that we'veimposed on a world and then
called the world's naturalprocesses chaotic.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Because it's just an interpretation.
It's not.
There is no chaos, there's justour expectations that aren't
met.
That results in us interpretingthis as chaotic.
Yeah Right, our.
It, I think, think, justamplifies it.
(24:46):
Um, it puts in a very, under avery bright light this natural
human tendency to want tocontrol that.
Our response to fear, um and Ithink this is huge and maybe
this is a good reframe ourresponse to fear is to reach out
(25:10):
to the world and change it andcontrol it, to lock it down, to
tie it up, to change its shape,to change its shape, when the
truth is we were never at risk.
(25:30):
Right, we were withoutelectricity.
It was inconvenient, it wasfrustrating, it was kind of cold
.
We could build a house, wecould control ourselves and
build a house that canaccommodate a power outage.
Right, make sure you have asource of heat within your house
that doesn't requireelectricity.
Make sure that you have meansof light, a supply of candles.
(25:55):
I went to Canadian Tower aboutthe last package of candles.
That's, that's the thing.
Right, you can have this stuffon hand.
We simply got a bucket, right,yeah, our pump wasn't working,
we didn't have water, but wejust walked down to the lake and
get a bucket and we could useour toilet then Just to have
these simple kinds of systems.
(26:15):
And I guess what I'm getting atin a long winded way is you're
safer when you have the abilityto control yourself than if you
try to control external forces,than if you try to control
external forces.
That's a virtual impossibility.
Nature is way bigger than me andit's going to do what it needs
to do in the long term foritself, and I just need to learn
(26:42):
how to control myself and havefor me the simplest of tools and
skills, and then something likethis is just a non-issue yeah,
yeah.
I mean, all of this is remindingme of part of the Tao Te Ching,
(27:08):
one of the oldest books in theworld and it's certainly one of
my favorite, and I can, couldn'tcount.
I mean, I'm talking hundreds,if not thousands, of times I've
read it because it's not verybig and you know it's uh, it's a
book of aphorisms and paradoxand it's beautiful and it causes
you to think.
But yeah, there's a paragraphin it, for some reason.
(27:33):
I think it might be section 64.
That's the number that's comingto me.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
But, anyway.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
to know others is knowledge, To know yourself is
insight.
To control others is strength.
To control yourself is truepower.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Hillary and Les offer both in-person and online
hypnosis services for clientsaround the world.
If that interests you, visitour website psalmhypnosiscom and
sign up for a free consultation, or send us an email at info at
psalmhypnosiscom and sign upfor a free consultation.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Or send us an email at info at psalmhypnosiscom
Story of the student who waswalking down the rocky road
saying it hurt his feet and toldthe master geez, we should just
cover the roads in leather.
And the master said or youcould cover your feet in leather
, and then it doesn't matterwhat the road is.
(28:40):
And I really think that there'sreal safety and real strength
in being focused not oncontrolling the external, but
strengthening and controllingthe internal.
And to see that so much of whatwe go through in terms of our
(29:04):
emotions is a function of howwe're interpreting something
that has nothing to do with us.
Nature was just doing whatnature does.
Nature wasn't doing it to me,but to see that I'm interpreting
it as if it's an attack on meand that's going to trigger fear
(29:26):
, that's going to trigger anger,that's going to trigger my lack
of ability to cope with what Icall chaos.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
And everybody's interpretation of chaos would be
different, absolutelySubjective.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
I wasn't really terribly concerned about the
temperature of our coffee cream.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I know, but that's chaos to me, oh dear.
So yeah, I think that was agood little topic for today to
get us back into the swing ofthings.
To know others is knowledge, to know yourself is
insight.
To control others is strength.
To control yourself is truepower.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
This is Coffee with Hilary and Les a podcast about
the mind.
Join us by the lake as we sipour coffee and talk about the
mind and how to change it.
Together we explore how tobreak free of the past and open
up a whole new future.
We're on the line.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
We're recording.
How does it feel?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
We're sort of laughing, because I was like
what's my intro again?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
It's really quite complicated and long.
Yeah, I know right.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
It's been a time, that's for sure.
Yes, a lot has been going on, alot Lunar eclipses.
Crazy people running amok, yep,everywhere People having
elections.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
We've had lots of elections, lots of distractions
from the external world isdrawing us out there.
Get our focus out there insteadof internal.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I think, though, it's a reminder to go internal right
.
It's a.
You get so messed up fromlooking at the external so much
that, um it, it draws youinternally yeah, it certainly.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
You know, speaking for myself, it creates.
It creates an awareness that Iam so externally focused that
I've lost touch internally and Ialmost yearn for quiet,
reflective time.
I mean, all this stuff going onneeds to be processed.
It's hard not to see everythingin the world as it relates to
(02:45):
yourself, right, everythingthat's going on means something
to me and about me.
Um, it has somehow.
I, I can find a way to interpretit and say this is gonna affect
me, right, and that that's thestuff that generates emotions.
Yeah, things that go on thathave no relationship to me, I
(03:13):
can easily ignore, and the stuffthat goes on and I think that
somehow it relates to megenerates emotions in me.
And I was trying to make a listwhen I thought about this.
You know, we're dealing withfear, isolation, the
unpredictability of others andof conditions like weather, the
(03:42):
comparison that we make toothers.
You know, know, driving downthe street, on our street, at
one end of the street, they'veall got lights on and their
furnaces are running andeverything is good, and on our
end of the street, nothing, andthen that creates, like so,
emotions jealousy and anger andfrustration and a sense of
(04:07):
confusion, and then a wonderingabout me, why me?
Why am I the one that doesn'thave power?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Yeah, for anyone listening, that's outside of the
core of the lakes and Barry, Idon't know where else did it hit
?
Nowhere, really, not too manyplaces.
I think we got hit the worst,but I don't know exactly what
did it hit?
Nowhere, really, not too manyplaces.
I think we got hit the worst,but I don't know exactly what
day it was on I'm going to saytwo weeks.
Actually, two weeks to todayago, we had about 48 hours of
(04:38):
ice fall on us and I rememberwaking up that first night or
second night or something, oncethe trees were just laid in with
ice, not really realizing whatwas going on outside, but
hearing trees breaking, falling,um, it was thunderous and
(05:02):
anyway, we lost our power thatevening before.
And it was out for what?
Eight days, eight days, I don'tknow.
(05:31):
The word decimated comes to mind, but I mean driving down the
road.
You would see just trees downall over the place from the ice
and lots of I don't know exactlywhat they're called.
I think they're called likeelectricity boom.
Trucks drove in.
I saw about I'm not even jokinglike between 20 and 50 of them
in the McDonald's parking lotJust two days ago and they drove
(05:59):
in from Atlantic Canada, quebecto help us out here, canada,
quebec to help us out here.
So, but yeah, so with all that,the emotions like what you're
talking about, I didn't realizehow deep the emotions were.
I you know.
Even it took after the thelights came on again for my
(06:21):
emotions to just let out.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I'm still, I think, processing it.
So today, you know, all myto-do list is cutting up I don't
know, a couple of dozen fallentree limbs, tree branches.
You know.
On the day after that that allhappened, we cut our way out,
(06:47):
took out the chainsaw and cutour way so we could go in and
out of the driveway, but it'sall been scattered around
waiting to be cleaned up.
The focus was on, you know,maintaining gasoline in the
generator and trying to figureout how to keep the house warm
enough yeah that, um thatnothing bad happened to it yeah
Speaker 1 (07:07):
choosing between warming the house and keeping
the fridge cold because we onlyhad so many lines off the
generator and I'm one of thosepeople that's like if there's,
if something in the fridge isnot cold for you know half an
hour, then it's, it's spoiled inmy mind anyway, yeah, it was a
(07:29):
lot and lots of emotion that wedidn't really realize that at
least for me, if I'm speakingfor myself that I didn't really
realize I was contending with orhad in me, you know it's.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
It's a an isolating thing.
You feel alone.
It's funny how one of thethings that makes us
subconsciously anyway for somepeople consciously but
subconsciously aware that we'reall connected is just the hydro
supply and one great big systemthat people will, you know, call
(08:09):
the grid, this great big systemthat we all rely on for so many
things.
And then, once the grid is goneum and there's no electricity
easily accessible, then it'ssort of every person for
themselves.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, it really was.
Really there was fights at gasstations, there was just crazy
things that I heard about peoplejust feeling isolated and like
I need to take care of myself.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
It's such a symbol and a demonstration physical
demonstration of how we functionas a collective, how people are
Sort of interconnected in thispassive, non-conscious way and
(09:07):
that when these connectionsstart to feel like they're
broken and we start to really,really fear and I think that's
the big thing is we start tofear that me as an individual, I
am at risk.
And it's not just, I am at risk.
And it's not just I'm physicallyat risk because really, you
(09:31):
know, I think there's a lot ofvalue.
One of the things, one of thethought patterns I would turn to
while we were going throughthis was we've only had hydro
for 100 years.
Human beings have been aroundfor thousands and thousands and
thousands of years.
We might have lost some of theobvious methods we use to care
for ourselves and become relianton electricity, but we're more
(09:57):
than capable of surviving thesekinds of things.
And it also wasn't even theworst of the winter, I mean it
was cold.
We had one night that wasreally really cold, cold.
I think our house went down tobelow 50 that night and and I
suppose that it wasn't easy whatwe went through, but it wasn't
(10:20):
as hard as it could have been nofor sure, and um and yeah, and
we, we did survive, people didsurvive, people were able to get
through.
Yeah, it reminds us howunprepared we are every time we
have a power outage.
I think I've got to figure outhow to wire that generator into
(10:41):
our, into our home system, sothat things like our, our pump
and our refrigerator are justautomatically taken care of.
And yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, I know, first world problems right.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
But still problems.
Well, it's just interesting tosee how we fall back into fear
and we fall back into isolationand we do a sort of a comparison
thing.
You know well, you have itbetter than me because you have
a generator.
You know our poor neighbor.
She just sat there in the cold,in the dark, by herself and and
(11:23):
essentially refused herdaughter, who lived in a place
where there was no power outage.
I'll just come and get you.
No, no, I can't go.
And yeah, I wanted to take a uma cord over to her, an extension
cord, so she could at leasthave a heater and make a coffee
(11:44):
and stuff.
No, no, I can't have the dooropen.
That's, that's just dangerous,yeah.
So yeah, it's funny how umfears multiply when, when
something like this happens,when you find yourself out of
your normal systems, out of yournormal way of being, and then a
(12:10):
whole bunch of ancillary fearskick in, and then you're
comparing yourself to others andthen frustration and anger
kicks in, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah.
So I think about I don't knowif it's something you can avoid
happening internally.
Obviously we can't control theexternal, what happens around us
exactly but I think about how,if it were to happen again
(12:46):
mentally, what I would do tofeel better.
The funny thing is, is I what Iwas storing, you know?
So I think more meditationwould be good.
(13:16):
You know, meditating or justsearching for emotions, maybe
internally, to to let go of well, yeah, like it is a truly a
learning opportunity right somesimple things.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
That that that I learned and I think that we can,
we can build on because there'sso much to be learned.
So I learned that my bodyadjusts.
So yeah, at first I was coldthe house.
We got our house prettysteadily at about 62 to 64
degrees.
We could run heaters and getthe house up to about low 60s
(13:59):
and at night it would alwaysdrop into the 50s because we
wouldn't run the generator atnight just because we couldn't
feed it gas and we just thoughtwell, we'll get through that.
So my body adjusts.
So after after more than a weekof sitting in the cold, I was
tired of feeling cold.
But it's amazing how just asweatshirt and wearing something
(14:25):
on your feet changes how coldyou feel and how easy it is to
adapt to cold.
And then, when the power cameback on, I felt hot.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yes, I remember that, Because now we were back to the
regular temperature in thehouse and it was like, oh, it's
so hot in here.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So I think the first thing is that your body will
adjust Right to the regulartemperature in the house, and it
was like, oh, it's so hot inhere, yeah.
So I think the first thing isis your body will adjust right.
Um, we found ways.
There are so many ways to fillyour time yeah right, we, we
have habits of, you know, maybesimply sitting scrolling on our
(15:01):
phone or watching TV, or, youknow, eating as a habit and to
become aware that this is, theseare the habits we've become
reliant on and they're they'recertainly not necessary.
Yeah, and we can change.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, our eating habits over that time period
were.
They weren't you know the best,but, um, you know it's.
It's interesting to me how we,how our brain, even though it
(15:42):
wasn't you know the worstdisaster in the, even though it
wasn't you know the worstdisaster in the world you know
it wasn't, it wasn't terriblebut still I found my brain was
just focusing on just a fewthings, Like it was just it's
like everything consolidated.
It's like everythingconsolidated and I was just
(16:03):
focused on staying warm, keepingmyself occupied.
Right, I cleared my schedulebecause there was no power and,
honestly, when I look back atthat time, it was a whole week
and I can't hardly remember it.
(16:23):
It's so weird and I rememberthinking I was putting stuff
down, like I would put somethingdown or have my slippers off
somewhere and I would forgetimmediately where I put the
thing.
And it was like my brain wasjust, my mind was just like okay
(16:43):
, no, you only have to, you onlyhave.
You know we're in, we're infight or flight mode or whatever
, and you're, you're, you'rejust focused on these few things
.
Obviously, I'm alive, Like I.
I wasn't like life or death,but it's like my brain went into
a way of just keeping things inorder so that I could get
(17:08):
through.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Yeah, I think it's really about how we perceive
circumstances and how weperceive ourselves within them
within them.
(17:31):
So if we see ourselves in thecircumstance that is endangering
us, we see ourselves as capableor incapable.
For me in hindsight I look atit and think it really wasn't
all that hard.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
It really wasn't all that difficult.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
It really wasn't all that difficult.
It was frustrating.
There were many aspects of ourlife that just had to continue
um as they were, but it was anincredible um distraction, I
think, uh, like a a constantidea in the back of your head
(18:01):
that you had to pay attention toThings that you wouldn't
normally pay attention to.
You put things in the fridgeand they are kept cold.
So now we have to pay attentionto what do we have that needs
to stay cold.
We live in a world with afurnace and we think, oh well,
we don't ever have to worryabout keeping the house warm and
keeping ourselves warm.
(18:21):
And now it's something we haveto constantly pay attention to
and we are constantly movingaround and plugging our phones
in and unplugging our phones andcharging our phones and
charging our computers, and itjust sort of happens naturally,
and now it's something we haveto pay attention to.
We have to deliberately makesure we keep things charged up.
(18:44):
Um, you know we have to.
We light candles for light andnow we have to pay attention to
those because there's thatbuilt-in fear that you're going
to burn your house down rightand and you've got this thing
that's now taking your attentionconstantly and all of that is
shifting inside you.
You know your base, your mostsimplistic fears of your
(19:16):
well-being, which, in hindsight,I got to say we were never at
risk.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
No.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
We were inconvenienced, we were
frustrated, we were jealous ofthe people down the street, yeah
, yeah, but we were never reallyat risk.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
I think too.
I thought about I don't knowall the terminology for it or
what it might be linked toexactly, but I think the idea of
looking out into the yard anddown, and into the neighbor's
yard, and down the street and intown, like just yesterday I was
(20:04):
driving through town and a hugetree, I don't know what kind of
tree, but it had fallen on ahouse and basically like went
through half of them.
So you know, perceiving thesethings is not generally normal
to us and for me, I had thisreaction internally of feeling
(20:34):
like my environment was suddenlyout of control.
Right, I was sad for the trees,I was sad for, uh, the
environment, I was uh, you know,I was, I was dealing with these
emotions that I, you know,basically hadn't really ever had
(21:00):
to deal with before.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
It's interesting you say that because, as you're
talking, I write down the wordchaos.
And there really, was a senseof chaos.
There was sort of a basevibration of chaos.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
And as I think about it, chaos, just interpretation.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah right, chaos is normal.
What?
What we really do as as beings,as we try to impose order on
that which is naturallyprocessed, naturally processing,
naturally following?
You know, nature has itsprocesses.
Yeah, you know nature.
(21:49):
Somehow we live in a part ofthe world where there's this
thing called freezing rain, andfreezing rain is just simply
that the air above the ground iswarm enough that it's creating
rain and the water doesn'tfreeze.
And the air down at the groundis warm enough that it's
creating rain and the waterdoesn't freeze and the air down
at the ground level is belowzero.
It's so cold that the the waterturns into ice the instant it
(22:12):
falls, and then that ice justgrows and grows, and grows, and
that's, that's not a very commonphenomenon in the world.
In fact, you know, there's a lotof places in the world that
can't even understand the ideaof freezing rain, but it's
simply coating everything in inliterally pounds and pounds and
(22:33):
pounds, tons and tons of ice,and then everything breaks.
You look at the trees and thenumber of tree tops that are
just snapped off, the number oftree limbs that are just broken
and lying down on the ground,the old trees that appear to
have been pruned.
(22:53):
All the branches are off them.
This is nature's way.
This is nature's way ofbuilding strength in the trees.
It's nature's way of clearingout and replenishing in so many
ways.
The volume of water when theice melts is unbelievable,
(23:17):
unbelievable.
Yeah, so everything was justsoaked for a long time, which,
of course has its impact on onum the flora
and the fauna.
Um, and this is just nature andthis is just natural and this
is just going to happen.
Um, and it's human beings thatimpose the idea that this is
(23:41):
chaotic, human beings thatinterpret these conditions as
somehow problematic and somehowdangerous, and it's human beings
and their infrastructure forall intents and purposes.
I mean, we've learned now, whenyou build new subdivisions, you
put all the hydro underground,but we still have all the
(24:04):
infrastructure of hydro that'sall above ground wires on poles,
running down roads that havetrees that have fallen down on
top of them, and it really isthat simple.
It's the systems that we'veimposed on a world and then
called the world's naturalprocesses chaotic.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Because it's just an interpretation.
It's not.
There is no chaos, there's justour expectations that aren't
met.
That results in us interpretingthis as chaotic.
Yeah Right, our.
It, I think, think, justamplifies it.
(24:46):
Um, it puts in a very, under avery bright light this natural
human tendency to want tocontrol that.
Our response to fear, um and Ithink this is huge and maybe
this is a good reframe ourresponse to fear is to reach out
(25:10):
to the world and change it andcontrol it, to lock it down, to
tie it up, to change its shape,to change its shape, when the
truth is we were never at risk.
(25:30):
Right, we were withoutelectricity.
It was inconvenient, it wasfrustrating, it was kind of cold
.
We could build a house, wecould control ourselves and
build a house that canaccommodate a power outage.
Right, make sure you have asource of heat within your house
that doesn't requireelectricity.
Make sure that you have meansof light, a supply of candles.
(25:55):
I went to Canadian Tower aboutthe last package of candles.
That's, that's the thing.
Right, you can have this stuffon hand.
We simply got a bucket, right,yeah, our pump wasn't working,
we didn't have water, but wejust walked down to the lake and
get a bucket and we could useour toilet then Just to have
these simple kinds of systems.
(26:15):
And I guess what I'm getting atin a long winded way is you're
safer when you have the abilityto control yourself than if you
try to control external forces,than if you try to control
external forces.
That's a virtual impossibility.
Nature is way bigger than me andit's going to do what it needs
to do in the long term foritself, and I just need to learn
(26:42):
how to control myself and havefor me the simplest of tools and
skills, and then something likethis is just a non-issue yeah,
yeah.
I mean, all of this is remindingme of part of the Tao Te Ching,
(27:08):
one of the oldest books in theworld and it's certainly one of
my favorite, and I can, couldn'tcount.
I mean, I'm talking hundreds,if not thousands, of times I've
read it because it's not verybig and you know it's uh, it's a
book of aphorisms and paradoxand it's beautiful and it causes
you to think.
But yeah, there's a paragraphin it, for some reason.
(27:33):
I think it might be section 64.
That's the number that's comingto me.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
But, anyway.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
to know others is knowledge, To know yourself is
insight.
To control others is strength.
To control yourself is truepower.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Hillary and Les offer both in-person and online
hypnosis services for clientsaround the world.
If that interests you, visitour website psalmhypnosiscom and
sign up for a free consultation, or send us an email at info at
psalmhypnosiscom and sign upfor a free consultation.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Or send us an email at info at psalmhypnosiscom
Story of the student who waswalking down the rocky road
saying it hurt his feet and toldthe master geez, we should just
cover the roads in leather.
And the master said or youcould cover your feet in leather
, and then it doesn't matterwhat the road is.
(28:40):
And I really think that there'sreal safety and real strength
in being focused not oncontrolling the external, but
strengthening and controllingthe internal.
And to see that so much of whatwe go through in terms of our
(29:04):
emotions is a function of howwe're interpreting something
that has nothing to do with us.
Nature was just doing whatnature does.
Nature wasn't doing it to me,but to see that I'm interpreting
it as if it's an attack on meand that's going to trigger fear
(29:26):
, that's going to trigger anger,that's going to trigger my lack
of ability to cope with what Icall chaos.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
And everybody's interpretation of chaos would be
different, absolutelySubjective.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
I wasn't really terribly concerned about the
temperature of our coffee cream.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I know, but that's chaos to me, oh dear.
So yeah, I think that was agood little topic for today to
get us back into the swing ofthings.
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