January 13, 2025 • 43 mins
In this episode of the Practical Spirituality Podcast, Gareth and Kim dive into the often misunderstood concept of living in the present. They challenge the idea that being present requires detaching from, or ignoring, all thought of the past and future. Instead, they redefine being present as an active practice of connecting with the mind, body, emotions, and soul, rather than simply avoiding distraction.
The hosts explore how unresolved emotional wounds can disrupt peace in the present, shaping coping mechanisms that lead to daily unease. By reframing the mind as an ally, they encourage listeners to build a compassionate relationship with their thoughts, trace their roots, and ease anxiety about the future. By exploring within, we can foster self-acceptance and, over time, develop a more harmonious inner life.
They also bridge science and spirituality, highlighting the neurobiology of addiction and how it influences our experience of being in the present moment. This perspective shows how thoughts and emotions can become tools for growth rather than barriers to growth. With a focus on compassion, intentional practice, and supportive resources, Gareth and Kim offer practical guidance for transforming struggle into healing and fulfillment, paving the way for a more peaceful, balanced life.
Become a Community Member at https://community.garethmichael.com/ to join our community and get early access to new episodes, answers to your personal questions and so much more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome back to the Practical Spirituality Podcast.
We are so excited to have youon this journey with us, where
we explore all elements of mind,body, emotions and soul through
the lens of everyday life.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hello Kim.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hi, karis.
How are you?
I'm doing good.
Happy New Year.
Happy New Year to you, too.
What are we going to talk aboutthis week?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Well, I think it's a very familiar topic in the world
of spirituality self-help,self-exploration.
It is exploring what does itreally mean to live in the world
of spirituality, self-help,self-exploration.
It is exploring what does itreally mean to live in the
present.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
This is a great topic .
This is a great topic because Ithink people have no idea what
it means, because there's somany conflicting views out there
.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And this is why it's quite an intimidating topic for
us to talk about, and the reasonwhy I say that because this
could be a 10-hour podcast if wedive into this yes, it could be
you know, because I do thinkthere's so many different angles
to approach it with, and whenyou start actually exploring all
the different material outthere and how all these
different authors andindividuals talk about the
(01:21):
present moment and the uses ofthe present moment, it can be a
lot to wrap your head around anda lot to dive into.
So I think it would just be aninteresting conversation for us
to explore and you never knowthere might be well, I know
there will be many more episodesthat will come out of this
topic alone.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I'm sure there will be, because there's just so much
around it.
I mean we can simplify it, butthat's not what we want to do.
We want to really get in andhelp people.
Look at all the different wayspeople talk about living in the
present.
Look at the fears around whatthat actually means, how we
avoid it or sometimes how we useit as an excuse, like with so
(02:01):
many of these spiritual topics.
That's what I think gets veryinteresting, is it almost
becomes spiritual armor.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, without realizing it, a lot of people
use spirituality to run awayfrom their own reality.
And I think when it comes to thepresent moment or living in the
present moment, I often say tomy own clients well, it's hard
for you never not to be in thepresent moment.
So, whether you're trying to ornot, you're always in the
present moment with self and letit be in mind body, emotions
(02:29):
and all the differentcombinations of how they can
present themselves in thatmoment.
And even if you're thinkingabout the past, you're thinking
about the present, you'rethinking about the future.
Regardless of any of thosethings you're also thinking
about.
You're thinking about thosealso in the present and there's
a reason for why they're comingup present day, in that present
moment in time.
But if you look at a lot of theteachings out there, it can be
(02:51):
construed that to be in thepresent moment means absolute
silence and that's kind of theexpectation or where the bar is
set for a lot of people, that tobe in the present moment you
can't be in the past, you can'tbe in the future, you can't be
in thought, you can't be in yourbody and you can't be in
emotion.
That's quite a task.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Well, I call that death.
Like, honestly, there aremoments of peace that we have in
our lives, but to be in thatstate 24-7 is not very realistic
, is it?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
No, oh, the idea of eternal rest sounds great right
now, doesn't it?
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Well, I mean honestly , if you think about it, when
you look at some of thosedefinitions, it's like how are
you living if you are in thatspace?
You cannot possibly beexperiencing life at the same
time if you're pretty muchblocking all of life out yeah,
and it's not that we're tryingto be negative towards these
teachings.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I just think it sets an unrealistic expectation of
what's actually achievable andtherefore it's very easy to
become very hard on ourselves,as we're the problem when trying
to achieve that.
So once again, it's anoversimplification of the
importance of the present momentand what is actually designed
to offer you, or what the energyor your energy is trying to
(04:16):
bring up in that moment for youto try to understand about your
past, present, future or thedifferent departments within
oneself of mind, body, body,emotion, soul.
So I think when we learn thelanguage of the importance of
the present moment and what istrying to show any of us in our
individual paths, it can becomea very interesting conversation.
(04:36):
But if you oversimplify it, Ithink it can become quite toxic
in its own way.
It took me a long time, andeven in my introduction with
Michael, to actually be able toreally see that for what it was.
But it's only when I was ableto question and start developing
those answers and thatrelationship with myself, it
became quite clear of theimportance of the present moment
(04:58):
.
But in a lot of theunderstandings I also had to let
go of in order to develop thatrelationship with myself.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
And I think my experience with it is is because
the way that I learned aboutpresent moment, I was striving
so hard for that, which meantdenying everything that happened
prior or not allowing myself tofocus on anything that happened
prior to that, which wouldthrow a real spanner in the
(05:26):
works because of the complextrauma that I survived.
It was constantly being broughtback to the present which
constantly felt like I was beinga failure and because of
certain awarenesses I didn'thave in my own life, then I was
struggling to figure out how tobe here but also understand that
(05:46):
at the same time, which is Iknow what we want to dive more
into.
But that is one of theconflicting things that happens,
because if you don't even knowwhat being present means in the
present moment and you have amisunderstanding about that,
then it's just another tool toshame you when things are
(06:07):
brought to your attention,whether that be past or present
or future.
When it's brought to yourattention, you're like well, I
shouldn't be doing this, andyou'll hear a lot of those
should words come up.
And I know that that was my ownmisunderstanding, like you were
talking about.
I didn't have an understandingof it.
I'm not putting any teachingsdown, but there is that level of
(06:30):
you don't need to go there.
In some of the teachings youdon't need to go back to the
past, and it's like, well, Idon't want to go back there and
live there, but I need tounderstand it.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
But I think that's what's interesting, what what
you're saying, because you and Ioften talk about you can't
explore every part of your past,of everything you've ever been
through.
We'd never ask anyone to do thatbut what's very interesting
about being in the presentmoment?
The present moment isconstantly going to bring you
back to very specific pointswithin your past that it wants
you to understand today andright now, in this moment.
(07:03):
So being in the present momentwith elements of your past is
actually what helps unlockyourself present day and helps
open up your future.
But it is your energy that isguiding that in your mind, body
and emotions, with your past,present and future.
And that is the spiritualjourney, and I think that's
where we can get confusing aboutit, because when we're spending
(07:24):
that time pushing those thingsaway, we just make ourselves
actually have to work harder totry to get our attention in new,
creative ways.
So if we're not taught this,though, we can understand how
that can be so conflicting andso confusing for any person on
this journey, as it was for youand I.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Absolutely.
It was very conflicting andbecause of the type of coping
mechanisms I had picked up overthe years through the stuff that
had happened to me, I had areal avoidance of the present
moment because that representedreality and reality always
(08:02):
represented pain.
So for many years of my life Ispent it not wanting to be here
in the present and then when Istarted to work on myself some
of the different definitions Igot of it, it was like well,
that's almost too much, becauseI hated reality.
(08:23):
I certainly don't want to livein that present moment and
everything that that means aswell.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
But I think that's what's not taught in a lot of
the material that we talk about.
It's that the present moment isoften painful before it is
peaceful.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yes, because, as you said, a lot of us did not escape
childhood without some sort oftrauma, regardless of what we
want to call trauma in thisparticular episode.
But when we're sitting withourselves which a lot of us have
not been taught to do, don'tknow how to do, and we don't
have the skills or the tools tobe able to understand mind, body
, emotions and what thatpresents, expect anyone to be
(09:05):
able just to sit in the presentmoment and to be at peace.
I think is so unrealistic andunfair to be even to utter those
words, as if that should be theexpectation from the start.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I agree.
And the other thing that reallygave me such a hard time at the
beginning of my journey is whatI kept getting told when I was
trying to understand what itmeant to be in the present.
Oh, that's your mind.
Oh, that's your mind.
Disregard, that's just yourmind.
I'm like, well, okay, it mightbe my mind, but it's.
It has to be here for a reason.
(09:33):
I'm I'm trying to understandhow to be in this present that
you're talking about, but ifthis is continually showing up,
how do I you know?
What I was being taught was oh,just stop the mind.
But that's one of the greatestteachings I learned from you
along this journey was oh, yes,that is the mind, but it's
(09:55):
showing up for a reason.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
If I could help people understand when the
original events happened that wetried to avoid are showing up
in the present.
They're showing up because wenow have different coping skills
, we have different awarenessesthat now we can look at it
(10:27):
through a different lens andunderstand it, which is what's
going to prevent it fromcontinuing to show up and create
havoc in your life.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, because I think what we need to understand is
that the mind is not trying tomake your life increasingly
difficult.
It's not.
It's constantly searching foranswers upon the past events
that it's still trying tounderstand.
And if we're not able to feedit information to help process
these events and mind-bodyemotions, then how do we expect
(10:54):
it to quiet and down or to be atpeace when it is all stored in
our subconscious and consciousmind?
So, therefore, it's not goingto be at peace because actually
it loves us enough to want tokeep fighting for the answers
that we deserve.
But was any of us taught that?
No, it's actually trying toguide us and trying to support
us and trying to heal us, but ofcourse, a lot of us run that
(11:17):
negative bias as you often talkabout, and because we don't have
control over it, we feel it'sworking against us because it
tends to be so negative.
But then we never have talkedto ask why is it so negative?
Where is this coming from?
How could I begin to build arelationship with this part of
me?
Is it easy?
No, but it's not easy becausewe were never taught it's
possible to actually have a goodrelationship with this and
(11:39):
where to start, it's notimpossible.
But when no one around us wascapable of doing it, of course
it's going to seem impossible,but that's not our fault.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
It's not only going to seem impossible, but it feels
so damn uncomfortable and wedon't understand it.
Then, because so many peoplehave told us throughout our life
, or at least myself, how I wasfailing at this thing called
life, and these events keptshowing up and creating more
patterns because I didn't havethe understanding.
(12:11):
Now that creates that wholedifferent aspect which keeps
people from living in thepresent, is now I'm really
worried about the future and mygoal has to be live in the
future, figure it all out, havea plan so that, if I know every
little thing that's going tolive in the future, figure it
all out, have a plan so that ifI know every little thing that's
going to happen in the future,then I'm going to be safe from
all those terrible things thathappened in my past.
And we actually miss theopportunity to gain that
(12:34):
understanding, to let go of thatfear and all that worry that
gets created from trying toavoid the past.
And this is what drives mecrazy about some of the
teachings, because it's like,well, don't go back there and
don't go up there, but I'm abundle of all this stuff that
hasn't been resolved.
How am I supposed to be here ifI have all of this running
(12:55):
around.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, the teachings are don't do this, don't do that
.
So then I don't do this and Idon't do that, but yet I'm still
doing it wrong.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
And I'm still not present.
But I am present, but I'm not.
Am I at peace?
This doesn't feel like peace.
This feels like confusion andself-loathing.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yes, and I think that is one of the hardest things
for most people coming into this.
Hardest things for most peoplecoming into this because it's
just like with anything we learn.
Whether we are learning a newmodality, whether we're learning
we're reading a new spiritualbook and there's new concepts
and ideas in that we take it soliterally instead of having the
(13:38):
understanding that this is hereas a tool and it's something
that we can use to process.
It doesn't mean we're going tocut it all out or not do it.
It just means how about we takethis process and not use it to
avoid, but use it to experienceand gain a better understanding?
(13:58):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
It makes a lot of sense and I think this is why,
when you dive into people'sunderstandings of how to start
being in the present moment, thefirst thing you always hear is
starting to observe yourthoughts, and that can be
obviously a very daunting placeto start, because when you start
doing that, we often don't havecontrol of where our thoughts
take us, whether that be thepast, present, future, different
(14:23):
experiences from the past thatwe've gone through, and that
naturally brings up a lot ofemotions and a lot of questions.
So this is where, in myexperience of how I started to
build a better relationship withthe present moment was when my
as I mentioned earlier, I had myrelationship with Michael so a
lot of other authors and howthey talked about being in the
present moment.
(14:43):
It just didn't work for me.
It didn't work for how my mind,the relationship I had with my
mind, my emotions in my body.
I wanted it to work.
I tried my best to make thoseteachings work for me.
It just didn't stick and that'sokay and it took me a long time
that I am so happy for thoseauthors that their way worked
(15:05):
for them, and this is where youand I have talked about this
before.
Not everyone's version ofspirituality is going to work
for every single person on theplanet exactly.
You have to try multipledifferent teachings, you have to
figure out what works for youand what doesn't, and that
evolves so much that anyone'sgiven life.
Where it changed for me is thatwhen I met Michael, my mind was
(15:26):
jumping into the past, thefuture, the present mind, body,
emotions.
When I met Michael, it was thefirst time, sitting with his
energy in mind, that I was ableto ask any single question that
was coming to mind and to getimmediate, logical answers.
And through doing that time andtime again, through journaling
(15:47):
and sitting with myself, I foundthat my mind was starting to be
at peace because I was able toprocess what I didn't have the
opportunity to before because Ididn't have access to the
information.
And then, with that, then myemotions started to settle, then
my body started to settle, andthen my body started to settle
and then I was able toexperience peace in ways I never
had before.
But I had to start with my mind, then my emotions, then my body
(16:09):
, and that's how it worked forme.
Does that mean it's going towork for the next person?
Maybe, maybe not.
But that's where getting andfeeding the mind the information
that it didn't have access towas the first step in my ability
to find peace in the presentmoment.
But in that present moment Iwas for myself and how I was
(16:29):
built.
I had nothing but questionsappearing on an ongoing basis
because my mind didn'tunderstand so many things from
my past and had so many whyquestions.
And, if I look back, it was sounfair to me to expect me to be
at peace when so many of thosethings were unresolved and there
were so many whys.
Let's take a step back fromthis week's episode and share
(16:54):
with everyone what we've been upto behind the scenes.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
We're really excited to be able to finally offer the
Gareth Michael community to eachof you.
The community offers a range ofbenefits, including access to
our live events, weekly podcastepisodes, articles,
self-checking questions, as wellas a community of individuals
you can connect with andinteract with along the way.
It's designed to offer yousupport, guidance and a safe
(17:21):
space on a day-to-day basis.
We'd love to have you join ourglobal community of like-minded
individuals.
That website address, again, iswwwgarethmichaelcom.
Now let's get back to thatepisode, shall we?
So I think I was listening toyou and I go.
(17:41):
It's really funny our differentexperiences that bring us to
this, because, as many peoplehave heard me say on this
podcast before, my experience isa lot different.
I'm sure I have a Michael backthere somewhere, but not hearing
them very well, everything elsegets in the way.
(18:06):
But what used to happen for me?
As you know, I got told so manytimes by so many professionals
that I was a hopeless causebecause I didn't have this thing
they called affect regulation.
And I will never forget the dayI was sitting in a seminar, a
lecture, listening to thisgentleman talk about the
neurobiology of addiction, andhe gave that model of how the
mind codes information and whathappens when you get triggered
(18:29):
and what the mind's response tothat is.
And I remember feeling like youknow this big epiphany that I'd
been waiting for in all thespiritual development workshops
I've been to that didn't happen.
I'm sitting in this scienceclass basically about the
neurobiology of addiction, andthis man explains what happens
in the mind and I went whatReally Is.
(18:54):
That's what's happening, becausewhen I got that, when the mind
gets triggered into a past eventin that 0.007th of a
millisecond, and all thesethings happen in your body, you
are not in the present.
You are feeling the emotions.
Those emotions are there, thatyou're coming from that
emotional state when the eventreally originally happened.
(19:17):
It's not because you're doingit wrong, it's because these
emotions haven't been resolved.
And that is the mind's way ofsaying here is a new opportunity
to resolve something that youcouldn't resolve back then.
It was one you know I share itso many times because it was one
of the biggest epiphanies I hadand I was like whoever thought
(19:40):
science was going to give me theanswer of how to be with me.
Yep, I was like whoever thoughtscience was going to give me the
answer of how to be with me?
Yeah, because I'd beensearching for it in the
spirituality, but that was justcreating more conflict for me.
That was what my issue was.
I couldn't stop my mind, Icouldn't silence my mind.
I couldn't stay present, asthey were saying, and I didn't
(20:01):
understand why I couldn't staypresent.
Stay present, as they weresaying, and I didn't understand
why I couldn't stay present.
And when this person explainedthat, I went oh, that's why I
can't stay present.
That's what's happening.
It's not actually a bad thing.
It's something that, if I startto really pay attention to, I
can now understand the past in adifferent way.
It doesn't have to keephaunting me, for lack of a
(20:23):
better word.
It was still a logical,analytical experience that
helped me understand what beingpresent actually means.
And if I'm present when this ishappening to the best of my
ability, then I'm going to beable to process what it means
and the emotions that come withit at that time.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
But to me, those are micro spiritual awakenings in
their own way, because they'renew perspective and new
realizations about self thatweren't there before and it
really does change how youinteract with self and the
people around you, movingforward, but you're not being
asked to sacrifice anything.
Exactly Because, I think whenit comes to a lot of the modern
day spiritual teachings, it'slike you can't do this, you
(21:05):
can't do that, you can't thinkthat way and you can't allow the
mind and you can't allow theemotions in, right, whereas it's
kind of like that's not.
I didn't want to live underhaving to be under more control
of myself and then, if I losecontrol, and then I'm not
semi-spiritual and I'm not atpeace and I'm not.
I can't keep adding more rulesand regulations and control to
(21:26):
self than to expect to be atpeace.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
I know, and it was like in the early days when I
was taught just be the observer,just observe.
So this is why this gentleman,what he said, affected me so
much.
Because I go, well, I go alongand I'm observing, I'm observing
what's happening and the nextthing I know, all hell is broken
loose and I'm in a majorreaction and things are coming
(21:50):
out of my mouth that I don'tunderstand and I'm definitely no
longer the observer and thatused to make me feel like such a
failure.
Do you get what I'm saying?
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Exactly, I know exactly what you mean.
Mean, and I think this is likegoing back to one of those
famous statements that have beenaround for a very long time.
You hear people say realizingthat you know you're not your
thoughts, because it's like yesand no, because to me it's that
understanding where thesethoughts come from, why they're
being brought up in present day,the root of them, what they're
(22:23):
trying to teach you and show youyou are not that particular
thought.
It doesn't mean that thatthought is the absolute truth,
especially if it's sayingsomething mean or negative
towards self, but there's stilla part of it where we have to
take responsibility, for thatthought is there for a reason
and it's coming from a part ofus present day because it's
trying to show us somethingabout ourselves.
(22:43):
So to me saying realizing youare not your thoughts, once
again, to me it's way too muchof an oversimplification and
it's very, it's too easy forpeople just to push it away and
to completely avoid and miss thepoint of why those particular
(23:06):
thoughts are there.
And if you do that, there's nogrowth in avoiding it.
Exactly, exactly, and like.
You know how passionate I amabout this because I'm saying
anything that comes up withinnocent mind, body emotions in
our day to day lives in thepresent moment.
It's happening for a reason,and just because you don't
understand what that reason isdoes not mean you should
disregard it.
That reason is does not meanyou should disregard it,
especially when it's happeningwithin you.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yes, and disregard it or avoid it.
And this comes back to thatpoint of the topic the
importance of being present.
Okay, so when you start tobecome aware that this moment
that we're living in right now,regardless of what is showing up
, that is the PowerPoint.
So once I had the understandingof what the mind was doing and
(23:49):
I'm no longer fighting the mindif I'm present and go, oh, oh,
oh, okay, well, that's justhappened and here are the
emotions that are here.
When have I felt like thatbefore?
Now, in the adult self that Ihave in this moment, I can
review and understand whathappened in such a different way
(24:11):
, whereas if we're avoiding itand then we want to try and go
back and backtrack and do whatwe've been taught to do, which
is justify and rationalize mostof the things that have happened
to us, then we've missed theopportunity and it will come
again.
That's the beauty of how thisprocess works.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
It's never going to just be avoided.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
That is guaranteed, but we've missed that moment to
be able to understand ourselvesin a different way.
And that's what, if I couldoffer anything to people out
there.
That is the comfort of knowingwhen these things are being
triggered in your present moment.
It's not like you're beingpunished, it's not like you've
(24:52):
done it wrong, it's not all ofthe things that we've been
taught.
It's an opportunity, and if wecan grasp that opportunity in
that moment to have theunderstanding, it becomes an
extremely powerful moment.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, because I feel for most people, the present
moment is allowing us to be ableto question, to explore and to
grow, and in in the presentmoment that can happen through
our thoughts, through ouremotions, through our body,
through our past, through ourpresent, through our future.
If we're going into the presentmoment, which I talked about
earlier, you're never not in thepresent moment.
(25:29):
But if you're focusing in onthe present moment and you're
trying to control it, it'salways interesting of the lash
back the system our internalsystem is going to give to any
of us, because I often say to myown clients is that if we're
sitting in the present moment,that's actually where we should
give ourselves the opportunityto let go of control, to open up
(25:50):
our systems, to let it presentwhatever it it needs to present
to us, and then we take thatinformation, take responsibility
for it, meaning to go exploreand find the information of what
does that actually mean andwhat it's presenting in any of
those areas of our life.
So to me it's like it's our owninternal guide that we've been
(26:10):
taught to not to trust.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
And you just said a mouthful.
We've been taught not to trustit, and that is so true.
You just said a mouthful.
We've been taught not to trustit, and that is so true.
And even in some of thespiritual teachings we're still
taught not to trust it, and whatI hope that people are hearing
us say is learning how to trustwhat all of us is bringing to us
is where we're going to get thegreatest amount of growth, and
(26:37):
what that looks like for eachindividual person is completely
different.
It is never going to be thesame.
That is why it's so hard toteach in some way spirituality,
because it's different for everysingle person that is on the
planet, and there are differenttimes when people are ready to
understand things than say, whenI understood them or when you
(27:00):
understood them.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
There are people that would say, like you're much
younger and have deeperunderstandings than a lot of
people going through life.
So people would go oh, I wish Icould have got this at your age
.
Well, I wasn't meant to get itat your age.
Yeah, I had to have thoseexperiences to have the
understanding when it was timefor me to have the understanding
.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
But that's why it's divine design in its own right.
On this word, you and I arenever going to say that X is
right and Y is wrong Again, it'snever been that simple and it's
never going to be that simple,but this is why it has to go
back to self.
The part of the job that I lovethe most when working with my
clients is when they get to askmyself and Michael any questions
(27:45):
they want.
Meaning is that what's on yourmind, what's going on
emotionally, what's going onphysically?
What are the things that happenin life that you never had the
opportunity to ask before andjust to literally start
providing their subconscious andconscious mind with information
that they've never had theopportunity to actually to sit
with.
And you can see that when theirmind starts to actually get
(28:08):
access to some of thisinformation and you see it with
your clients as well, Kim itjust completely changes their
perspective of self.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Completely, completely.
And so what's interesting aboutthat statement is, you know, in
some of the modalities that Ihave learned, people talk about
this going back and retrievingthe memories and working through
the memories and changing thememories.
Technically, those terms couldbe considered right, but what it
really is about is, if it'sbrought up, like you were saying
(28:39):
, and you're able to question itand you're able to have that
better understanding, that initself changes how you perceived
it, how you're processing it.
The mind then doesn't have tocontinue to throw it in your
face in the same way, and so youstart to feel a whole lot more
(29:00):
peace, and that comes with thatunderstanding that you're
talking about our clients get.
When they can ask any of thosequestions, the mind goes, oh, oh
, oh, okay.
So I can't tell you how manyclients I've worked with that
have come in and said why doesthis keep happening to me?
You know I've worked on it somany times.
(29:23):
I'm like well, it's all aboutwhat we understand about it.
So let's have a look at it andsee what you need to understand
differently.
It doesn't mean that youhaven't gained something when
you looked at it in the past,because of course you have, but
you're in a different space now,you have more awarenesses now,
and so therefore, you're goingto have a different
(29:43):
understanding of the event whenit shows up again, and I think
that is one of the biggestbeauties, because it takes the
right and wrong out of it.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yep, and again, that ability just to ask as many why
questions, as is often a luxurythat none of us could afford
throughout life, becausethroughout life we're always
told who to be, how to act, howto respond, where to be.
So suddenly, when you have theopportunity to understand self,
as if you're talking to Google,a personalized Google but just
(30:16):
ask any question about yourselfthat you want the answer to a
personalized google, of just askany question about yourself
that you want the answer to, youcan understand that suddenly
your subconscious and consciousmind suddenly has the ability to
breathe and see.
This is what we've beensearching for for our entire
lives, of just being able toexplore self and then you can
see how the mind, with time,does settle, the emotions do
settle and you can see elementsof peace appear in many areas of
(30:39):
your life.
That wasn't possible before,for obvious reasons that we were
talking about, because it justwasn't possible, because there's
too many things gone unansweredright.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
So, then, living in the present takes on a
completely different landscape,because you're no longer in that
fight to avoid, fight to notfail, fight to not because
that's how I used to representit.
It would feel like life was afight and every day was a
battleground that I had to getthrough.
(31:09):
As you are present and you areable to question, you're able to
have these understandings,you're able to process those
emotions in the moment insteadof trying to do it in hindsight.
Then you have a completelydifferent understanding.
It doesn't feel so much likesuffering.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
No, because if we haven't taught from day one the
importance of suffering and thereality of it being present in
everyone's lives but here's allthe mental tools you'll need,
here's all the emotions and howto express them, here's
everything that's going tohappen physically, off you go
into the world, sufferingwouldn't be as big of a problem.
We would still experiencesuffering, like everyone does in
(31:48):
their own way, to their ownrespects.
But the fact that we all werenever taught that this is a
reality that we're all going togo through in life is why we
even fight it a hundred timesmore than we should, which makes
suffering much more difficult.
So it doesn't even have theseunderstandings.
As we remove sufferingcompletely, of course not, but
(32:09):
as we reduce suffering, andwhere we get lost, caught and
even snowed under by it, itreduces it incredibly.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I agree 100%.
And so there's another aspect Iwant to bring up that I want us
to kind of hash out, becauseit's been in my face a little
bit with my clients and with myfamily members, and that is when
the mind has latched on to that, trying to pre-predict the
future, because if I pre-predictit I have control.
If I have control then I'mgoing to be safe.
(32:40):
Now some people, as we justsaid, must go through that sort
of thing for a certain whileuntil they are ready to
understand it.
I get that, but if people couldunderstand that only using that
one aspect of ourself, that mindaspect, using that one aspect
(33:03):
of ourself, that mind aspect andagain I go back to this
teaching that I got so manyyears ago when I was studying
the neurobiology of addictionthe mind is preset for the
negative because it's a riskassessing machine, but it also
can only give you answers towhat's been inputted in.
The answers are not going tocome from the mind and that is
(33:25):
what the mind will continue tobring stuff up for you to
resolve and experience in adifferent way.
But the answer is not here inthe mind and that is why the
presence becomes so importantand that is why the presence
becomes so important, becausewhen you are sitting with all of
self the physical, the mental,the spiritual, the emotional and
(33:46):
then able to ask thosequestions that you were talking
about, we don't have topre-predict or be in control,
because it's all an illusionanyway.
Absolutely, and I think there'sso many people out there that
are suffering with this that aretold, especially when it comes
to living in the present, juststop trying to pre-predict the
(34:10):
future.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Just stop it.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
It's just like that.
Just say no to drug statement.
Just say no.
Just say no.
Do you know what I mean?
It's so frustrating and it isalso.
It becomes such a safetymechanism for so many people and
I think if they couldunderstand that being here and
(34:34):
understanding why that wholesystem got set up in the first
place is where they're going tostart to find the answers and
not have to live in that system.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yeah, but I think that's why the present moment,
especially when you're doingthis journey and you're aware of
that statement and what thatmight represent it is very
tricky to ask anyone to be inthe present moment because of
what it brings up in any of usand it will forever bring up
stuff in us as we go throughlife.
(35:04):
Why?
Because we're constantly hereto grow.
We're constantly exposed to newexperiences, new people, but
it's within the present momentthat we have the greatest
opportunity to grow withawareness, with our ability to
question, to grow with awareness, with our ability to question,
and that can be an exciting partof the journey when we have all
(35:26):
the tools and thoserealizations and the know-how
which is a huge part of it.
So I think that's why I wantedus to have this conversation,
because if you oversimplify it,it can actually make things a
lot more confusing, a lot harder, and we already have enough
that we're trying to understanda process from the past that
making it more complicatedpresent day.
It just never helped myself and, by the sounds of it, yourself
(35:47):
on your journey.
So I think it was important tohave the conversation to bring
into people's awarenesses of ourexperiences of this.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
And I think it's also important to bring that
awareness that even when youstarted learning how to live in
the present and I started tolearn how to live in the present
it wasn't something thathappened the first try, the
second try, the third try, thefourth try it was a practice and
it was about consciously makingthat choice, about consciously
(36:18):
making that choice and when themind or the motions or the
awareness took us somewhere elseto drop the shame, to drop all
of the expectation of where wewere supposed to be and go, okay
, so what just happened there?
What was you know?
To get really curious about whyit happened, because that you,
like you said, we're always inthe present.
(36:39):
Our awareness just might notalways be in the present, and
when we can bring our awarenessback and understand what's going
on, that's when it happensdifferently.
But if you've lived 20, 30, 40,50 years always not present,
then learning how to be here isgoing to take a little bit of
time and practice.
I think one of the importantthings here, gareth, is for
(37:04):
people to understand that whenit's an analogy, I use all the
time when we were small childrenand we were learning to walk
and to talk, when we got wordswrong, or when we stood up and
took a step and fell down, noone walked over and put their
foot on our back and went ohwell, you fucked up, you've got
to stay on the floor for therest of your life.
No one did that.
(37:25):
What happened was there was anencouragement.
That's so great that you had totry it.
So great, try it again.
And the more we try it again,the more we learn how to do
those physical activities likewalking or talking or reading a
book or riding a bike, any ofthose activities.
And I think when we talk aboutif we haven't been present to
(37:47):
what's been happening to usbecause, as you said, we're
always in the present we justmight not have been present to
where we were in our life andwhat was going on then let's
have that same sort ofcompassion and know it's going
to.
Then let's have that same sortof compassion and know it's
going to take that practice,know that it's going to be that.
Oh okay, where'd I go just then?
What was that about?
And being able to come back andhave an understanding of what
(38:11):
had shown up for you in thatmoment, instead of blaming and
shaming and feeling like afailure, and the more we have
that compassion and the morethat we're able to practice it,
then it doesn't become a task toachieve, it becomes a
relationship with self.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And I couldn't agree more.
But this is where taking awhole new approach on the
present moment is actually, Ithink, what's needed for a lot
of people, especially if you'vefound that doing it the other
way just hasn't been working oryou haven't been finding peace
within it.
If it has worked for you, I amso happy for you.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
But if a lot of people were, it's helped a
little, but not a lot, and maybeit's time for something new.
That's what I needed and that'swhat I ended up getting and
that's why I came into my lifeto win.
It did, and but this is where,instead of trying to focus on
the present moment of it, tryingto be silent, how about we
actually lean into the noise alittle bit?
What I mean by that is byleaning into what the present
(39:06):
moment is trying to tell us inmind, body, emotions, soul, and
by actually having a list ofquestions of okay, I'm noticing
this in the present moment.
Where does that come from?
I'm noticing this emotion.
Why is that present?
This thought is there.
That's random.
Why is that thought there?
And normally, when I startworking with someone, with
myself and Michael, I ask themto write 700.
(39:27):
Why questions?
Just the more questions thatthey can feed myself and Michael
.
I asked them to write 700.
Why questions?
Just the more questions thatthey can feed myself and Michael
?
The more answers we providethem.
You can see all the littleconnections starting of them
beginning to understand self,because it's not that they're
not capable of doing that, it'sjust I've never been given the
opportunity to do that.
As you were saying earlier,sometimes we need to lean into
(39:50):
the noise in order to find peaceand have the willingness to ask
why and to educate ourselvesand, as you and I have talked
about so often, getting morecurious about all of this, and
that's what a lot of us neverhad the opportunity to have from
a very young age.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
I just love the fact that when you're talking about
leaning into the noise, becausewe are so busy running away and
if we just lean in and getcurious, just kind of fall into
place in a different way- butthis is what hit me, it's my
noise.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
I'm not leaning into your noise or my neighbor's
noise.
This is going on within me, soif I'm not going to lean into it
, who am I going to expect isgoing to do that?
it's my journey, it's myresponsibility, it's my life,
it's my thoughts, it's myemotions, it's my body, it's my
spiritual journey.
It's never a cookie cutterapproach.
(40:43):
It doesn't work.
Every single person's journeyis so unique and this is why I
love working with my clients,because, for for every why?
Question they ask me, it's adifferent answer every single
time because everyone's life iscompletely unique and different.
But in saying that, I highlyrecommend leaning into the noise
and being willing to getcurious and ask why these
(41:05):
elements of yourself areappearing in your present moment
.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
And on top of that, the little disclaimer that we
always say if you have fear, ifyou're afraid that it's going to
be too loud, it's going to betoo overwhelming, it's going to
be too.
Finding someone that you trust,that is objective, that is
outside of your realm or circle,that has the ability to help
you gain that understanding in adifferent way, Because I know
(41:32):
for myself in the beginning if Ihad leaned into the noise on my
own, there would have been thefourth suicide attempt.
I needed that outside help andI'm just being honest for the
people out there becausesometimes one of the reasons
that we have some of thestrategies that we have is
because we are afraid, based onthe fact that we didn't, we
(41:56):
didn't understand it, couldn'thandle it the first time, and we
don't realize that we've grownand have different insights now
and having that objective personpresent help.
Just need to say that.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
I couldn't agree more .
I hope from this conversationwe've given people food for
thought on the present moment,because I just love the fact
that there is so many differentversions out there and I think
the more that it is discussedit'll help people understand
what works for them on theirjourneys.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Absolutely.
Couldn't agree more.
Thanks so much for listening.
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(42:49):
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Thanks again, and I hope youguys are having a lovely week.
Welcome back to the Practical Spirituality Podcast.
We are so excited to have youon this journey with us, where
we explore all elements of mind,body, emotions and soul through
the lens of everyday life.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hello Kim.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hi, karis.
How are you?
I'm doing good.
Happy New Year.
Happy New Year to you, too.
What are we going to talk aboutthis week?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Well, I think it's a very familiar topic in the world
of spirituality self-help,self-exploration.
It is exploring what does itreally mean to live in the world
of spirituality, self-help,self-exploration.
It is exploring what does itreally mean to live in the
present.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
This is a great topic .
This is a great topic because Ithink people have no idea what
it means, because there's somany conflicting views out there
.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And this is why it's quite an intimidating topic for
us to talk about, and the reasonwhy I say that because this
could be a 10-hour podcast if wedive into this yes, it could be
you know, because I do thinkthere's so many different angles
to approach it with, and whenyou start actually exploring all
the different material outthere and how all these
different authors andindividuals talk about the
(01:21):
present moment and the uses ofthe present moment, it can be a
lot to wrap your head around anda lot to dive into.
So I think it would just be aninteresting conversation for us
to explore and you never knowthere might be well, I know
there will be many more episodesthat will come out of this
topic alone.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I'm sure there will be, because there's just so much
around it.
I mean we can simplify it, butthat's not what we want to do.
We want to really get in andhelp people.
Look at all the different wayspeople talk about living in the
present.
Look at the fears around whatthat actually means, how we
avoid it or sometimes how we useit as an excuse, like with so
(02:01):
many of these spiritual topics.
That's what I think gets veryinteresting, is it almost
becomes spiritual armor.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, without realizing it, a lot of people
use spirituality to run awayfrom their own reality.
And I think when it comes to thepresent moment or living in the
present moment, I often say tomy own clients well, it's hard
for you never not to be in thepresent moment.
So, whether you're trying to ornot, you're always in the
present moment with self and letit be in mind body, emotions
(02:29):
and all the differentcombinations of how they can
present themselves in thatmoment.
And even if you're thinkingabout the past, you're thinking
about the present, you'rethinking about the future.
Regardless of any of thosethings you're also thinking
about.
You're thinking about thosealso in the present and there's
a reason for why they're comingup present day, in that present
moment in time.
But if you look at a lot of theteachings out there, it can be
(02:51):
construed that to be in thepresent moment means absolute
silence and that's kind of theexpectation or where the bar is
set for a lot of people, that tobe in the present moment you
can't be in the past, you can'tbe in the future, you can't be
in thought, you can't be in yourbody and you can't be in
emotion.
That's quite a task.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Well, I call that death.
Like, honestly, there aremoments of peace that we have in
our lives, but to be in thatstate 24-7 is not very realistic
, is it?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
No, oh, the idea of eternal rest sounds great right
now, doesn't it?
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Well, I mean honestly , if you think about it, when
you look at some of thosedefinitions, it's like how are
you living if you are in thatspace?
You cannot possibly beexperiencing life at the same
time if you're pretty muchblocking all of life out yeah,
and it's not that we're tryingto be negative towards these
teachings.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I just think it sets an unrealistic expectation of
what's actually achievable andtherefore it's very easy to
become very hard on ourselves,as we're the problem when trying
to achieve that.
So once again, it's anoversimplification of the
importance of the present momentand what is actually designed
to offer you, or what the energyor your energy is trying to
(04:16):
bring up in that moment for youto try to understand about your
past, present, future or thedifferent departments within
oneself of mind, body, body,emotion, soul.
So I think when we learn thelanguage of the importance of
the present moment and what istrying to show any of us in our
individual paths, it can becomea very interesting conversation.
(04:36):
But if you oversimplify it, Ithink it can become quite toxic
in its own way.
It took me a long time, andeven in my introduction with
Michael, to actually be able toreally see that for what it was.
But it's only when I was ableto question and start developing
those answers and thatrelationship with myself, it
became quite clear of theimportance of the present moment
(04:58):
.
But in a lot of theunderstandings I also had to let
go of in order to develop thatrelationship with myself.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
And I think my experience with it is is because
the way that I learned aboutpresent moment, I was striving
so hard for that, which meantdenying everything that happened
prior or not allowing myself tofocus on anything that happened
prior to that, which wouldthrow a real spanner in the
(05:26):
works because of the complextrauma that I survived.
It was constantly being broughtback to the present which
constantly felt like I was beinga failure and because of
certain awarenesses I didn'thave in my own life, then I was
struggling to figure out how tobe here but also understand that
(05:46):
at the same time, which is Iknow what we want to dive more
into.
But that is one of theconflicting things that happens,
because if you don't even knowwhat being present means in the
present moment and you have amisunderstanding about that,
then it's just another tool toshame you when things are
(06:07):
brought to your attention,whether that be past or present
or future.
When it's brought to yourattention, you're like well, I
shouldn't be doing this, andyou'll hear a lot of those
should words come up.
And I know that that was my ownmisunderstanding, like you were
talking about.
I didn't have an understandingof it.
I'm not putting any teachingsdown, but there is that level of
(06:30):
you don't need to go there.
In some of the teachings youdon't need to go back to the
past, and it's like, well, Idon't want to go back there and
live there, but I need tounderstand it.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
But I think that's what's interesting, what what
you're saying, because you and Ioften talk about you can't
explore every part of your past,of everything you've ever been
through.
We'd never ask anyone to do thatbut what's very interesting
about being in the presentmoment?
The present moment isconstantly going to bring you
back to very specific pointswithin your past that it wants
you to understand today andright now, in this moment.
(07:03):
So being in the present momentwith elements of your past is
actually what helps unlockyourself present day and helps
open up your future.
But it is your energy that isguiding that in your mind, body
and emotions, with your past,present and future.
And that is the spiritualjourney, and I think that's
where we can get confusing aboutit, because when we're spending
(07:24):
that time pushing those thingsaway, we just make ourselves
actually have to work harder totry to get our attention in new,
creative ways.
So if we're not taught this,though, we can understand how
that can be so conflicting andso confusing for any person on
this journey, as it was for youand I.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Absolutely.
It was very conflicting andbecause of the type of coping
mechanisms I had picked up overthe years through the stuff that
had happened to me, I had areal avoidance of the present
moment because that representedreality and reality always
(08:02):
represented pain.
So for many years of my life Ispent it not wanting to be here
in the present and then when Istarted to work on myself some
of the different definitions Igot of it, it was like well,
that's almost too much, becauseI hated reality.
(08:23):
I certainly don't want to livein that present moment and
everything that that means aswell.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
But I think that's what's not taught in a lot of
the material that we talk about.
It's that the present moment isoften painful before it is
peaceful.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yes, because, as you said, a lot of us did not escape
childhood without some sort oftrauma, regardless of what we
want to call trauma in thisparticular episode.
But when we're sitting withourselves which a lot of us have
not been taught to do, don'tknow how to do, and we don't
have the skills or the tools tobe able to understand mind, body
, emotions and what thatpresents, expect anyone to be
(09:05):
able just to sit in the presentmoment and to be at peace.
I think is so unrealistic andunfair to be even to utter those
words, as if that should be theexpectation from the start.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I agree.
And the other thing that reallygave me such a hard time at the
beginning of my journey is whatI kept getting told when I was
trying to understand what itmeant to be in the present.
Oh, that's your mind.
Oh, that's your mind.
Disregard, that's just yourmind.
I'm like, well, okay, it mightbe my mind, but it's.
It has to be here for a reason.
(09:33):
I'm I'm trying to understandhow to be in this present that
you're talking about, but ifthis is continually showing up,
how do I you know?
What I was being taught was oh,just stop the mind.
But that's one of the greatestteachings I learned from you
along this journey was oh, yes,that is the mind, but it's
(09:55):
showing up for a reason.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
If I could help people understand when the
original events happened that wetried to avoid are showing up
in the present.
They're showing up because wenow have different coping skills
, we have different awarenessesthat now we can look at it
(10:27):
through a different lens andunderstand it, which is what's
going to prevent it fromcontinuing to show up and create
havoc in your life.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, because I think what we need to understand is
that the mind is not trying tomake your life increasingly
difficult.
It's not.
It's constantly searching foranswers upon the past events
that it's still trying tounderstand.
And if we're not able to feedit information to help process
these events and mind-bodyemotions, then how do we expect
(10:54):
it to quiet and down or to be atpeace when it is all stored in
our subconscious and consciousmind?
So, therefore, it's not goingto be at peace because actually
it loves us enough to want tokeep fighting for the answers
that we deserve.
But was any of us taught that?
No, it's actually trying toguide us and trying to support
us and trying to heal us, but ofcourse, a lot of us run that
(11:17):
negative bias as you often talkabout, and because we don't have
control over it, we feel it'sworking against us because it
tends to be so negative.
But then we never have talkedto ask why is it so negative?
Where is this coming from?
How could I begin to build arelationship with this part of
me?
Is it easy?
No, but it's not easy becausewe were never taught it's
possible to actually have a goodrelationship with this and
(11:39):
where to start, it's notimpossible.
But when no one around us wascapable of doing it, of course
it's going to seem impossible,but that's not our fault.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
It's not only going to seem impossible, but it feels
so damn uncomfortable and wedon't understand it.
Then, because so many peoplehave told us throughout our life
, or at least myself, how I wasfailing at this thing called
life, and these events keptshowing up and creating more
patterns because I didn't havethe understanding.
(12:11):
Now that creates that wholedifferent aspect which keeps
people from living in thepresent, is now I'm really
worried about the future and mygoal has to be live in the
future, figure it all out, havea plan so that, if I know every
little thing that's going tolive in the future, figure it
all out, have a plan so that ifI know every little thing that's
going to happen in the future,then I'm going to be safe from
all those terrible things thathappened in my past.
And we actually miss theopportunity to gain that
(12:34):
understanding, to let go of thatfear and all that worry that
gets created from trying toavoid the past.
And this is what drives mecrazy about some of the
teachings, because it's like,well, don't go back there and
don't go up there, but I'm abundle of all this stuff that
hasn't been resolved.
How am I supposed to be here ifI have all of this running
(12:55):
around.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, the teachings are don't do this, don't do that
.
So then I don't do this and Idon't do that, but yet I'm still
doing it wrong.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
And I'm still not present.
But I am present, but I'm not.
Am I at peace?
This doesn't feel like peace.
This feels like confusion andself-loathing.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yes, and I think that is one of the hardest things
for most people coming into this.
Hardest things for most peoplecoming into this because it's
just like with anything we learn.
Whether we are learning a newmodality, whether we're learning
we're reading a new spiritualbook and there's new concepts
and ideas in that we take it soliterally instead of having the
(13:38):
understanding that this is hereas a tool and it's something
that we can use to process.
It doesn't mean we're going tocut it all out or not do it.
It just means how about we takethis process and not use it to
avoid, but use it to experienceand gain a better understanding?
(13:58):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
It makes a lot of sense and I think this is why,
when you dive into people'sunderstandings of how to start
being in the present moment, thefirst thing you always hear is
starting to observe yourthoughts, and that can be
obviously a very daunting placeto start, because when you start
doing that, we often don't havecontrol of where our thoughts
take us, whether that be thepast, present, future, different
(14:23):
experiences from the past thatwe've gone through, and that
naturally brings up a lot ofemotions and a lot of questions.
So this is where, in myexperience of how I started to
build a better relationship withthe present moment was when my
as I mentioned earlier, I had myrelationship with Michael so a
lot of other authors and howthey talked about being in the
present moment.
(14:43):
It just didn't work for me.
It didn't work for how my mind,the relationship I had with my
mind, my emotions in my body.
I wanted it to work.
I tried my best to make thoseteachings work for me.
It just didn't stick and that'sokay and it took me a long time
that I am so happy for thoseauthors that their way worked
(15:05):
for them, and this is where youand I have talked about this
before.
Not everyone's version ofspirituality is going to work
for every single person on theplanet exactly.
You have to try multipledifferent teachings, you have to
figure out what works for youand what doesn't, and that
evolves so much that anyone'sgiven life.
Where it changed for me is thatwhen I met Michael, my mind was
(15:26):
jumping into the past, thefuture, the present mind, body,
emotions.
When I met Michael, it was thefirst time, sitting with his
energy in mind, that I was ableto ask any single question that
was coming to mind and to getimmediate, logical answers.
And through doing that time andtime again, through journaling
(15:47):
and sitting with myself, I foundthat my mind was starting to be
at peace because I was able toprocess what I didn't have the
opportunity to before because Ididn't have access to the
information.
And then, with that, then myemotions started to settle, then
my body started to settle, andthen my body started to settle
and then I was able toexperience peace in ways I never
had before.
But I had to start with my mind, then my emotions, then my body
(16:09):
, and that's how it worked forme.
Does that mean it's going towork for the next person?
Maybe, maybe not.
But that's where getting andfeeding the mind the information
that it didn't have access towas the first step in my ability
to find peace in the presentmoment.
But in that present moment Iwas for myself and how I was
(16:29):
built.
I had nothing but questionsappearing on an ongoing basis
because my mind didn'tunderstand so many things from
my past and had so many whyquestions.
And, if I look back, it was sounfair to me to expect me to be
at peace when so many of thosethings were unresolved and there
were so many whys.
Let's take a step back fromthis week's episode and share
(16:54):
with everyone what we've been upto behind the scenes.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
We're really excited to be able to finally offer the
Gareth Michael community to eachof you.
The community offers a range ofbenefits, including access to
our live events, weekly podcastepisodes, articles,
self-checking questions, as wellas a community of individuals
you can connect with andinteract with along the way.
It's designed to offer yousupport, guidance and a safe
(17:21):
space on a day-to-day basis.
We'd love to have you join ourglobal community of like-minded
individuals.
That website address, again, iswwwgarethmichaelcom.
Now let's get back to thatepisode, shall we?
So I think I was listening toyou and I go.
(17:41):
It's really funny our differentexperiences that bring us to
this, because, as many peoplehave heard me say on this
podcast before, my experience isa lot different.
I'm sure I have a Michael backthere somewhere, but not hearing
them very well, everything elsegets in the way.
(18:06):
But what used to happen for me?
As you know, I got told so manytimes by so many professionals
that I was a hopeless causebecause I didn't have this thing
they called affect regulation.
And I will never forget the dayI was sitting in a seminar, a
lecture, listening to thisgentleman talk about the
neurobiology of addiction, andhe gave that model of how the
mind codes information and whathappens when you get triggered
(18:29):
and what the mind's response tothat is.
And I remember feeling like youknow this big epiphany that I'd
been waiting for in all thespiritual development workshops
I've been to that didn't happen.
I'm sitting in this scienceclass basically about the
neurobiology of addiction, andthis man explains what happens
in the mind and I went whatReally Is.
(18:54):
That's what's happening, becausewhen I got that, when the mind
gets triggered into a past eventin that 0.007th of a
millisecond, and all thesethings happen in your body, you
are not in the present.
You are feeling the emotions.
Those emotions are there, thatyou're coming from that
emotional state when the eventreally originally happened.
(19:17):
It's not because you're doingit wrong, it's because these
emotions haven't been resolved.
And that is the mind's way ofsaying here is a new opportunity
to resolve something that youcouldn't resolve back then.
It was one you know I share itso many times because it was one
of the biggest epiphanies I hadand I was like whoever thought
(19:40):
science was going to give me theanswer of how to be with me.
Yep, I was like whoever thoughtscience was going to give me the
answer of how to be with me?
Yeah, because I'd beensearching for it in the
spirituality, but that was justcreating more conflict for me.
That was what my issue was.
I couldn't stop my mind, Icouldn't silence my mind.
I couldn't stay present, asthey were saying, and I didn't
(20:01):
understand why I couldn't staypresent.
Stay present, as they weresaying, and I didn't understand
why I couldn't stay present.
And when this person explainedthat, I went oh, that's why I
can't stay present.
That's what's happening.
It's not actually a bad thing.
It's something that, if I startto really pay attention to, I
can now understand the past in adifferent way.
It doesn't have to keephaunting me, for lack of a
(20:23):
better word.
It was still a logical,analytical experience that
helped me understand what beingpresent actually means.
And if I'm present when this ishappening to the best of my
ability, then I'm going to beable to process what it means
and the emotions that come withit at that time.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
But to me, those are micro spiritual awakenings in
their own way, because they'renew perspective and new
realizations about self thatweren't there before and it
really does change how youinteract with self and the
people around you, movingforward, but you're not being
asked to sacrifice anything.
Exactly Because, I think whenit comes to a lot of the modern
day spiritual teachings, it'slike you can't do this, you
(21:05):
can't do that, you can't thinkthat way and you can't allow the
mind and you can't allow theemotions in, right, whereas it's
kind of like that's not.
I didn't want to live underhaving to be under more control
of myself and then, if I losecontrol, and then I'm not
semi-spiritual and I'm not atpeace and I'm not.
I can't keep adding more rulesand regulations and control to
(21:26):
self than to expect to be atpeace.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
I know, and it was like in the early days when I
was taught just be the observer,just observe.
So this is why this gentleman,what he said, affected me so
much.
Because I go, well, I go alongand I'm observing, I'm observing
what's happening and the nextthing I know, all hell is broken
loose and I'm in a majorreaction and things are coming
(21:50):
out of my mouth that I don'tunderstand and I'm definitely no
longer the observer and thatused to make me feel like such a
failure.
Do you get what I'm saying?
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Exactly, I know exactly what you mean.
Mean, and I think this is likegoing back to one of those
famous statements that have beenaround for a very long time.
You hear people say realizingthat you know you're not your
thoughts, because it's like yesand no, because to me it's that
understanding where thesethoughts come from, why they're
being brought up in present day,the root of them, what they're
(22:23):
trying to teach you and show youyou are not that particular
thought.
It doesn't mean that thatthought is the absolute truth,
especially if it's sayingsomething mean or negative
towards self, but there's stilla part of it where we have to
take responsibility, for thatthought is there for a reason
and it's coming from a part ofus present day because it's
trying to show us somethingabout ourselves.
(22:43):
So to me saying realizing youare not your thoughts, once
again, to me it's way too muchof an oversimplification and
it's very, it's too easy forpeople just to push it away and
to completely avoid and miss thepoint of why those particular
(23:06):
thoughts are there.
And if you do that, there's nogrowth in avoiding it.
Exactly, exactly, and like.
You know how passionate I amabout this because I'm saying
anything that comes up withinnocent mind, body emotions in
our day to day lives in thepresent moment.
It's happening for a reason,and just because you don't
understand what that reason isdoes not mean you should
disregard it.
That reason is does not meanyou should disregard it,
especially when it's happeningwithin you.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yes, and disregard it or avoid it.
And this comes back to thatpoint of the topic the
importance of being present.
Okay, so when you start tobecome aware that this moment
that we're living in right now,regardless of what is showing up
, that is the PowerPoint.
So once I had the understandingof what the mind was doing and
(23:49):
I'm no longer fighting the mindif I'm present and go, oh, oh,
oh, okay, well, that's justhappened and here are the
emotions that are here.
When have I felt like thatbefore?
Now, in the adult self that Ihave in this moment, I can
review and understand whathappened in such a different way
(24:11):
, whereas if we're avoiding itand then we want to try and go
back and backtrack and do whatwe've been taught to do, which
is justify and rationalize mostof the things that have happened
to us, then we've missed theopportunity and it will come
again.
That's the beauty of how thisprocess works.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
It's never going to just be avoided.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
That is guaranteed, but we've missed that moment to
be able to understand ourselvesin a different way.
And that's what, if I couldoffer anything to people out
there.
That is the comfort of knowingwhen these things are being
triggered in your present moment.
It's not like you're beingpunished, it's not like you've
(24:52):
done it wrong, it's not all ofthe things that we've been
taught.
It's an opportunity, and if wecan grasp that opportunity in
that moment to have theunderstanding, it becomes an
extremely powerful moment.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, because I feel for most people, the present
moment is allowing us to be ableto question, to explore and to
grow, and in in the presentmoment that can happen through
our thoughts, through ouremotions, through our body,
through our past, through ourpresent, through our future.
If we're going into the presentmoment, which I talked about
earlier, you're never not in thepresent moment.
(25:29):
But if you're focusing in onthe present moment and you're
trying to control it, it'salways interesting of the lash
back the system our internalsystem is going to give to any
of us, because I often say to myown clients is that if we're
sitting in the present moment,that's actually where we should
give ourselves the opportunityto let go of control, to open up
(25:50):
our systems, to let it presentwhatever it it needs to present
to us, and then we take thatinformation, take responsibility
for it, meaning to go exploreand find the information of what
does that actually mean andwhat it's presenting in any of
those areas of our life.
So to me it's like it's our owninternal guide that we've been
(26:10):
taught to not to trust.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
And you just said a mouthful.
We've been taught not to trustit, and that is so true.
You just said a mouthful.
We've been taught not to trustit, and that is so true.
And even in some of thespiritual teachings we're still
taught not to trust it, and whatI hope that people are hearing
us say is learning how to trustwhat all of us is bringing to us
is where we're going to get thegreatest amount of growth, and
(26:37):
what that looks like for eachindividual person is completely
different.
It is never going to be thesame.
That is why it's so hard toteach in some way spirituality,
because it's different for everysingle person that is on the
planet, and there are differenttimes when people are ready to
understand things than say, whenI understood them or when you
(27:00):
understood them.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
There are people that would say, like you're much
younger and have deeperunderstandings than a lot of
people going through life.
So people would go oh, I wish Icould have got this at your age
.
Well, I wasn't meant to get itat your age.
Yeah, I had to have thoseexperiences to have the
understanding when it was timefor me to have the understanding
.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
But that's why it's divine design in its own right.
On this word, you and I arenever going to say that X is
right and Y is wrong Again, it'snever been that simple and it's
never going to be that simple,but this is why it has to go
back to self.
The part of the job that I lovethe most when working with my
clients is when they get to askmyself and Michael any questions
(27:45):
they want.
Meaning is that what's on yourmind, what's going on
emotionally, what's going onphysically?
What are the things that happenin life that you never had the
opportunity to ask before andjust to literally start
providing their subconscious andconscious mind with information
that they've never had theopportunity to actually to sit
with.
And you can see that when theirmind starts to actually get
(28:08):
access to some of thisinformation and you see it with
your clients as well, Kim itjust completely changes their
perspective of self.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Completely, completely.
And so what's interesting aboutthat statement is, you know, in
some of the modalities that Ihave learned, people talk about
this going back and retrievingthe memories and working through
the memories and changing thememories.
Technically, those terms couldbe considered right, but what it
really is about is, if it'sbrought up, like you were saying
(28:39):
, and you're able to question itand you're able to have that
better understanding, that initself changes how you perceived
it, how you're processing it.
The mind then doesn't have tocontinue to throw it in your
face in the same way, and so youstart to feel a whole lot more
(29:00):
peace, and that comes with thatunderstanding that you're
talking about our clients get.
When they can ask any of thosequestions, the mind goes, oh, oh
, oh, okay.
So I can't tell you how manyclients I've worked with that
have come in and said why doesthis keep happening to me?
You know I've worked on it somany times.
(29:23):
I'm like well, it's all aboutwhat we understand about it.
So let's have a look at it andsee what you need to understand
differently.
It doesn't mean that youhaven't gained something when
you looked at it in the past,because of course you have, but
you're in a different space now,you have more awarenesses now,
and so therefore, you're goingto have a different
(29:43):
understanding of the event whenit shows up again, and I think
that is one of the biggestbeauties, because it takes the
right and wrong out of it.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yep, and again, that ability just to ask as many why
questions, as is often a luxurythat none of us could afford
throughout life, becausethroughout life we're always
told who to be, how to act, howto respond, where to be.
So suddenly, when you have theopportunity to understand self,
as if you're talking to Google,a personalized Google but just
(30:16):
ask any question about yourselfthat you want the answer to a
personalized google, of just askany question about yourself
that you want the answer to, youcan understand that suddenly
your subconscious and consciousmind suddenly has the ability to
breathe and see.
This is what we've beensearching for for our entire
lives, of just being able toexplore self and then you can
see how the mind, with time,does settle, the emotions do
settle and you can see elementsof peace appear in many areas of
(30:39):
your life.
That wasn't possible before,for obvious reasons that we were
talking about, because it justwasn't possible, because there's
too many things gone unansweredright.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
So, then, living in the present takes on a
completely different landscape,because you're no longer in that
fight to avoid, fight to notfail, fight to not because
that's how I used to representit.
It would feel like life was afight and every day was a
battleground that I had to getthrough.
(31:09):
As you are present and you areable to question, you're able to
have these understandings,you're able to process those
emotions in the moment insteadof trying to do it in hindsight.
Then you have a completelydifferent understanding.
It doesn't feel so much likesuffering.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
No, because if we haven't taught from day one the
importance of suffering and thereality of it being present in
everyone's lives but here's allthe mental tools you'll need,
here's all the emotions and howto express them, here's
everything that's going tohappen physically, off you go
into the world, sufferingwouldn't be as big of a problem.
We would still experiencesuffering, like everyone does in
(31:48):
their own way, to their ownrespects.
But the fact that we all werenever taught that this is a
reality that we're all going togo through in life is why we
even fight it a hundred timesmore than we should, which makes
suffering much more difficult.
So it doesn't even have theseunderstandings.
As we remove sufferingcompletely, of course not, but
(32:09):
as we reduce suffering, andwhere we get lost, caught and
even snowed under by it, itreduces it incredibly.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I agree 100%.
And so there's another aspect Iwant to bring up that I want us
to kind of hash out, becauseit's been in my face a little
bit with my clients and with myfamily members, and that is when
the mind has latched on to that, trying to pre-predict the
future, because if I pre-predictit I have control.
If I have control then I'mgoing to be safe.
(32:40):
Now some people, as we justsaid, must go through that sort
of thing for a certain whileuntil they are ready to
understand it.
I get that, but if people couldunderstand that only using that
one aspect of ourself, that mindaspect, using that one aspect
(33:03):
of ourself, that mind aspect andagain I go back to this
teaching that I got so manyyears ago when I was studying
the neurobiology of addictionthe mind is preset for the
negative because it's a riskassessing machine, but it also
can only give you answers towhat's been inputted in.
The answers are not going tocome from the mind and that is
(33:25):
what the mind will continue tobring stuff up for you to
resolve and experience in adifferent way.
But the answer is not here inthe mind and that is why the
presence becomes so importantand that is why the presence
becomes so important, becausewhen you are sitting with all of
self the physical, the mental,the spiritual, the emotional and
(33:46):
then able to ask thosequestions that you were talking
about, we don't have topre-predict or be in control,
because it's all an illusionanyway.
Absolutely, and I think there'sso many people out there that
are suffering with this that aretold, especially when it comes
to living in the present, juststop trying to pre-predict the
(34:10):
future.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Just stop it.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
It's just like that.
Just say no to drug statement.
Just say no.
Just say no.
Do you know what I mean?
It's so frustrating and it isalso.
It becomes such a safetymechanism for so many people and
I think if they couldunderstand that being here and
(34:34):
understanding why that wholesystem got set up in the first
place is where they're going tostart to find the answers and
not have to live in that system.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yeah, but I think that's why the present moment,
especially when you're doingthis journey and you're aware of
that statement and what thatmight represent it is very
tricky to ask anyone to be inthe present moment because of
what it brings up in any of usand it will forever bring up
stuff in us as we go throughlife.
(35:04):
Why?
Because we're constantly hereto grow.
We're constantly exposed to newexperiences, new people, but
it's within the present momentthat we have the greatest
opportunity to grow withawareness, with our ability to
question, to grow with awareness, with our ability to question,
and that can be an exciting partof the journey when we have all
(35:26):
the tools and thoserealizations and the know-how
which is a huge part of it.
So I think that's why I wantedus to have this conversation,
because if you oversimplify it,it can actually make things a
lot more confusing, a lot harder, and we already have enough
that we're trying to understanda process from the past that
making it more complicatedpresent day.
It just never helped myself and, by the sounds of it, yourself
(35:47):
on your journey.
So I think it was important tohave the conversation to bring
into people's awarenesses of ourexperiences of this.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
And I think it's also important to bring that
awareness that even when youstarted learning how to live in
the present and I started tolearn how to live in the present
it wasn't something thathappened the first try, the
second try, the third try, thefourth try it was a practice and
it was about consciously makingthat choice, about consciously
(36:18):
making that choice and when themind or the motions or the
awareness took us somewhere elseto drop the shame, to drop all
of the expectation of where wewere supposed to be and go, okay
, so what just happened there?
What was you know?
To get really curious about whyit happened, because that you,
like you said, we're always inthe present.
(36:39):
Our awareness just might notalways be in the present, and
when we can bring our awarenessback and understand what's going
on, that's when it happensdifferently.
But if you've lived 20, 30, 40,50 years always not present,
then learning how to be here isgoing to take a little bit of
time and practice.
I think one of the importantthings here, gareth, is for
(37:04):
people to understand that whenit's an analogy, I use all the
time when we were small childrenand we were learning to walk
and to talk, when we got wordswrong, or when we stood up and
took a step and fell down, noone walked over and put their
foot on our back and went ohwell, you fucked up, you've got
to stay on the floor for therest of your life.
No one did that.
(37:25):
What happened was there was anencouragement.
That's so great that you had totry it.
So great, try it again.
And the more we try it again,the more we learn how to do
those physical activities likewalking or talking or reading a
book or riding a bike, any ofthose activities.
And I think when we talk aboutif we haven't been present to
(37:47):
what's been happening to usbecause, as you said, we're
always in the present we justmight not have been present to
where we were in our life andwhat was going on then let's
have that same sort ofcompassion and know it's going
to.
Then let's have that same sortof compassion and know it's
going to take that practice,know that it's going to be that.
Oh okay, where'd I go just then?
What was that about?
And being able to come back andhave an understanding of what
(38:11):
had shown up for you in thatmoment, instead of blaming and
shaming and feeling like afailure, and the more we have
that compassion and the morethat we're able to practice it,
then it doesn't become a task toachieve, it becomes a
relationship with self.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And I couldn't agree more.
But this is where taking awhole new approach on the
present moment is actually, Ithink, what's needed for a lot
of people, especially if you'vefound that doing it the other
way just hasn't been working oryou haven't been finding peace
within it.
If it has worked for you, I amso happy for you.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
But if a lot of people were, it's helped a
little, but not a lot, and maybeit's time for something new.
That's what I needed and that'swhat I ended up getting and
that's why I came into my lifeto win.
It did, and but this is where,instead of trying to focus on
the present moment of it, tryingto be silent, how about we
actually lean into the noise alittle bit?
What I mean by that is byleaning into what the present
(39:06):
moment is trying to tell us inmind, body, emotions, soul, and
by actually having a list ofquestions of okay, I'm noticing
this in the present moment.
Where does that come from?
I'm noticing this emotion.
Why is that present?
This thought is there.
That's random.
Why is that thought there?
And normally, when I startworking with someone, with
myself and Michael, I ask themto write 700.
(39:27):
Why questions?
Just the more questions thatthey can feed myself and Michael
.
I asked them to write 700.
Why questions?
Just the more questions thatthey can feed myself and Michael
?
The more answers we providethem.
You can see all the littleconnections starting of them
beginning to understand self,because it's not that they're
not capable of doing that, it'sjust I've never been given the
opportunity to do that.
As you were saying earlier,sometimes we need to lean into
(39:50):
the noise in order to find peaceand have the willingness to ask
why and to educate ourselvesand, as you and I have talked
about so often, getting morecurious about all of this, and
that's what a lot of us neverhad the opportunity to have from
a very young age.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
I just love the fact that when you're talking about
leaning into the noise, becausewe are so busy running away and
if we just lean in and getcurious, just kind of fall into
place in a different way- butthis is what hit me, it's my
noise.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
I'm not leaning into your noise or my neighbor's
noise.
This is going on within me, soif I'm not going to lean into it
, who am I going to expect isgoing to do that?
it's my journey, it's myresponsibility, it's my life,
it's my thoughts, it's myemotions, it's my body, it's my
spiritual journey.
It's never a cookie cutterapproach.
(40:43):
It doesn't work.
Every single person's journeyis so unique and this is why I
love working with my clients,because, for for every why?
Question they ask me, it's adifferent answer every single
time because everyone's life iscompletely unique and different.
But in saying that, I highlyrecommend leaning into the noise
and being willing to getcurious and ask why these
(41:05):
elements of yourself areappearing in your present moment
.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
And on top of that, the little disclaimer that we
always say if you have fear, ifyou're afraid that it's going to
be too loud, it's going to betoo overwhelming, it's going to
be too.
Finding someone that you trust,that is objective, that is
outside of your realm or circle,that has the ability to help
you gain that understanding in adifferent way, Because I know
(41:32):
for myself in the beginning if Ihad leaned into the noise on my
own, there would have been thefourth suicide attempt.
I needed that outside help andI'm just being honest for the
people out there becausesometimes one of the reasons
that we have some of thestrategies that we have is
because we are afraid, based onthe fact that we didn't, we
(41:56):
didn't understand it, couldn'thandle it the first time, and we
don't realize that we've grownand have different insights now
and having that objective personpresent help.
Just need to say that.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
I couldn't agree more .
I hope from this conversationwe've given people food for
thought on the present moment,because I just love the fact
that there is so many differentversions out there and I think
the more that it is discussedit'll help people understand
what works for them on theirjourneys.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Absolutely.
Couldn't agree more.
Thanks so much for listening.
If you enjoyed this episode,then you might want to check out
our online community.
We built it to offer you thecomfort of having a supportive
community by your side, nomatter where life takes you.
Connect with like-mindedindividuals through our app.
(42:49):
Navigate each step of thejourney together with us by
joining our Gareth Michaelcommunity.
Here are a few of the thingsyou're going to get.
You'll get exclusive real-timeaccess to live recording and
events.
Advance access to each newepisode.
The opportunity to askquestions directly of Gareth and
I.
(43:09):
Input into what topics we coverin the show.
Access to exclusive content notavailable anywhere else.
To learn more about ourcommunity, please go to
wwwgarethmichaelcom.
Thanks again, and I hope youguys are having a lovely week.
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