September 27, 2024 • 16 mins
Welcome back to a new episode! Today, we dive deep into finding true happiness even during the toughest times. Inspired by a morning meditation, we explore how to shift our focus from worries to a state of inner peace and joy. Despite life's challenges, the key lies in controlling our ego and choosing happiness, peace, and bliss right now.
Through personal stories and reflective insights, we discuss the human tendency to worry and how it often robs us of present happiness. We also touch on the concept of feeling joy amidst complex emotions and how embracing discomfort can lead to profound inner freedom.
Join us as we uncover the steps to reclaiming control over our emotions, cultivating self-love, and finding our natural state of joy. Whether you're facing physical or emotional pain, this episode offers practical advice on choosing happiness in any situation.
Don't miss the link in the show notes for a free 45-minute discovery call, where we can explore how to start your journey toward lasting peace and bliss. Share your thoughts with me via email or Instagram, and let's continue this transformative conversation together. Sending you so much love, until next episode!
Your free 45 minutes discovery call
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to a new episode. I am loving showing up here and sharing more
insights and ideas here with Theo on this platform.
Today's episode is inspired by my morning meditation and it's about being able
to feel truly happy in the midst of your hardest times.
Today I woke up and started with my morning meditation.
(00:21):
In this morning meditation I wanted to start focusing on my our worries.
And in that moment, God reminded me that I can worry about things all I want,
but also showed me to look around.
And as I did, I realized that I am deeply happy, even though I would say I have
(00:43):
things in my life I can choose to worry or stress about.
I realized that these things did not control me anymore.
The last couple of years I have spent becoming completely free on the inside.
And I noticed as I was looking around that the effects of my practices of the
last couple of years have been paying off.
(01:04):
One of the things that are typical for us human beings is that we worry about things.
We spend most of our days living in the future or the past.
Very rarely do we actually spend a moment in the current present moment.
One of the things we have to thank for that is our ego, always on the lookout
(01:26):
for potential threats and always making sure that we are still safe.
So in my humble opinion, one of the things we have to learn in this life is
to get control back over our egos.
Instead of letting our egos just run around and control us, making us focus
on the things that are really not beneficial to focus on.
(01:50):
If we take the example of having a complex situation in our lives that seem
to stand in the way of our deepest happiness, I want to invite you to look at that differently.
Is it really true that the situation is standing in the way of you experiencing
true and deep happiness?
Or is you worrying about it so much standing in the way of your deepest and the truest happiness.
(02:14):
Think about it. That situation that you're so focused on is there either way.
What do you think the worry about this situation will add to this situation?
So is it that situation that prevents you from feeling happy?
Or is it your thoughts about the situation that are preventing you from feeling happy?
(02:35):
One of the things we all want to feel in this life is happy,
peaceful, and blissful.
And I want to go even as far as to say that every single thing that we do is
nothing more than an attempt to feel one of these things.
Every desire we have is there to eventually get us to one of these feelings.
(02:57):
So what if we turn that around? grounds. What if we actually choose to feel
happy, peaceful, and blissful right now, in the midst of whatever is going on in your life?
Just pause for a minute. Breathe.
And go within. Whenever a thought of one of your worries is presenting itself,
(03:19):
take a step back from that thought and observe it more as a distant thought
than a thought that needs your direct participation.
The thought might present itself as something that needs to be focused on right
now, or otherwise you might die.
But if you've taken that step back and look at it again, you'll see that that
(03:42):
is not actually the case.
Even with this situation present, you won't actually die if you don't fix that situation right now.
At least, not right now. Eventually, we'll all die, of course,
some of us sooner than others.
But one of the beautiful gifts of this life is death.
We all will eventually die, and we'll never truly know when.
(04:06):
With some exceptions of course.
So why not make the current moment a more pleasurable moment and why not choose
happiness, peace and bliss in this current moment right where you're at now.
I promise you, you will get more out of that than staying stuck in worries.
(04:27):
Now of course as human beings we actually do get a lot out of worrying and staying
stuck in all these complex feelings.
And I talk a lot about this in my past podcast episodes.
For example, we might attach to feeling like the victim. We might attach to feeling sad and down.
We might attach to identifying who we are to our struggles.
(04:52):
We might enjoy the cocktail of feel-good hormones that get released when we suffer.
Or we might be so familiar in suffering that we don't even know how to start
to feel safe in thriving and in joy and happiness.
And this can be because of multiple things.
I want to invite you to deeply look at your own life right now.
(05:12):
What is standing in the way of you choosing to feel happiness,
joy and bliss right now? now.
What is standing in the way of you choosing that right now?
You might think the pain you're experiencing right now is standing in the way,
whether it's physical or emotional.
You might think that your health is in the way of you experiencing joy and ease,
(05:35):
whether it's physical or emotional.
You might think that your sadness, tiredness, stress, cringe situation,
anxiety, or depression is standing in your way of experiencing any of this.
And to you, I ask, what would happen if right now you choose to feel happiness,
(05:56):
joy, ease, and bliss, regardless of what other things are present in your life?
What would happen if you take back the control and simply decide that whatever
is going on, you'll choose happiness, bliss, and ease, or at least choose to
go back to it time and time again.
(06:17):
It all starts with deciding. It all starts with choosing. That is step number one.
And then choosing it over and over again.
And yes, this takes some real self-reflective work.
For example, if you started to identify with your suffering,
feeling safe and comfortable in your suffering,
(06:37):
not even knowing what to do if your most desired life would show up right now,
if your most desired life will start knocking on your door tomorrow,
and I promise you, it already has been knocking,
you might get so uncomfortable there that you will push all those things that
showed up, all those things you desired,
(06:59):
out of your life again.
Fearing deeply if you're even worthy
not knowing who you are and what
to attach to if that most desired life
would all of a sudden be your life most people won't
notice won't even recognize this it takes deep self-reflective skills and deep
(07:20):
self-reflective skills take a lot of self-love self-forgiveness self-compassion
and the ability to sit in discomfort without trying to run away from it.
When I sat with Ayahuasca in a sacred plant ceremony in Peru years ago.
She brought me to this super beautiful place filled with so much light and high
(07:42):
vibrations that it scared me.
My body couldn't handle the high vibration of that light.
I begged Mama Ayahuasca to bring me back.
She told me, okay, but I would then bring you back to your suffering.
And in that moment, I told her, at least I know how to handle that.
(08:03):
Start showing me the light slowly, bit by bit. I can't handle this.
After ceremony, I remember thinking back on the absurdity of that situation.
I remember that I actually preferred to go back to suffering because I simply
did not know how to handle so much light.
I knew the suffering. suffering I knew what
(08:25):
to do with that suffering not with that
amount of light that was completely new and
that was exactly where I started with
simply acknowledging that if all of the suffering I was experiencing back then
would all of a sudden be taken away from me I wouldn't even know what to do
(08:46):
or who to be now at that time I've already done a lot of self-love work and was deep in shadow work.
So for me, it was easy to start with self-compassion for the realization that
I simply wasn't ready for that amount of light in my life.
It was safe for me to acknowledge that to myself.
So with that acknowledgement, I started to get myself ready.
(09:08):
I asked myself, what do I need to do in order to be able to allow that much light in my life?
Now, this answer will be different for everyone.
For me, it was to learn to let go of control, to learn to trust and come back
to my center time and time again.
(09:29):
What I'm going to say now might be confusing for some, but I'll try and explain it in the best way I can.
We can feel joy, happiness, ease, and bliss in the midst of other complex feelings.
We can feel bliss and ease while at the same time feeling deeply sad.
We can even feel happiness while at the same time feeling deeply sad.
(09:54):
Now, why is that? As you might know by now, Now, I'm a deep believer of allowing
your emotions to be there and to be fully expressed.
In fact, my last episode, episode 10, I think it was, was about this topic.
But that doesn't mean that you let these emotions completely control you and take you over.
(10:16):
Actually, it's the complete opposite.
I will claim, and I have in my last episode as well, we will only know true happiness,
bliss and peace if we are courageous enough to feel all of our emotions,
not just the ones we feel more comfortable with.
It is only when we are okay with feeling uncomfortable that we will be able
(10:40):
to fully express the full range of deep happiness and peace.
To me, that's how you take control back over your emotions. You don't let them run around with you.
You actually address them and see what it is what they want from you.
To take a step back, investigate your emotions from a calm space and see what
(11:02):
parts of your emotions need some action and attention and what part of your
emotions need to be rationalized.
For example, fear.
Often we have irrational fears that if we don't address and investigate will control us completely.
But more on that in the previous episode that I go into depth about this topic.
(11:25):
What if in the middle of your pain, you find your center and find peace right there?
What if whatever is going on around you, you just let rage around you,
but you choose to focus on that happiness, peace, and bliss right there in your center?
(11:46):
Of course, that doesn't mean that those other things that are going on around
you need to be neglected.
No, exactly the opposite. What I'm claiming here is that you can actually do
more while you feel that happiness, peace, and bliss in the midst of that chaos.
It isn't what I have, where I'm at, or what's going on in my life that determines
(12:09):
whether I'm feeling happy or not.
It is that I'm always able to return to my center and see the truth there.
I have everything I could ever need right here, right now.
And I can choose to feel peace, bliss, and joy right here and right now.
(12:31):
I don't need anything around me in order to feel these things.
In fact, the moment that I do, it is not actual happiness, peace,
and joy, because they are attached to things, to outcome. come.
So it will be fleeting and connected to fear.
For if that thing leaves your life, so does happiness and peace.
(12:54):
Now, one thing is guaranteed in this life, and that is change.
Nothing is permanent. We're supposed to experience sadness, fear,
or whatever other emotion that is bringing you discomfort.
We are not supposed to avoid feeling these things.
But even in the midst of these things, if or when we're able to feel happiness, joy,
(13:17):
and peace, regardless of what's going on in our life, that's when we found true
freedom and true happiness and true peace.
Happiness and peace connected to outcome is not the true and deepest feeling of happiness and peace.
It's a shallow gratification of a need. And since we're wired that way,
(13:41):
that shallow gratification to a need,
that shallow feeling of happiness and peace would always want more in order to be able to be felt.
Because once you have that thing you craved, whether that's getting your health
back, emotional or physical, resolving that complex situation that you're in,
(14:02):
receiving that thing you've so desperately wanted,
I guarantee you that emotion will be short-lived.
It will be experienced, but only for a short moment in time.
For that chemical that you've been chasing with that feeling of happiness will
only be felt for 90 seconds.
That is it. So that feeling of true and deep happiness, joy and peace is more
(14:27):
a state than it is a feeling.
Learning to be happy and peaceful while not being okay is a practice.
And once you're able to, you'll see it is the biggest gift you've ever given yourself.
You'll see that you will be able to serve the waves instead of being swallowed by them.
While still enjoying life. But I do warn you.
(14:52):
Once you commit to this, once you're on this journey, you'll have to first make
a deep dive into yourself,
into your own being, and look at the barriers you put up to be able to feel
this deep state of joy, happiness, and peace.
Because it's my deep belief that it's our natural state.
We just put up barriers to connect to this feeling.
(15:15):
Whether it's dissociating from your body, not knowing
who you are outside of suffering or fearing stepping
into joy and ease because it's so deeply unfamiliar that
is where to start to start finding the barriers you put up to experience our
natural state now if you feel like you want to start somewhere i am going to
(15:37):
post a link in the show notes where you can sign up for a free 45 minute discovery
call with me i still have a
few places in my itinerary left for this month.
So check it out and we can see where it is that you would need to start in order to get to this space.
I would love to hear your insights and thoughts about this episode.
(15:58):
You can share it with me by sending me an email or DMing me on Instagram.
All of the links are posted in the show notes and I'm sending you so much love and until next episode.
Welcome back to a new episode. I am loving showing up here and sharing more
insights and ideas here with Theo on this platform.
Today's episode is inspired by my morning meditation and it's about being able
to feel truly happy in the midst of your hardest times.
Today I woke up and started with my morning meditation.
(00:21):
In this morning meditation I wanted to start focusing on my our worries.
And in that moment, God reminded me that I can worry about things all I want,
but also showed me to look around.
And as I did, I realized that I am deeply happy, even though I would say I have
(00:43):
things in my life I can choose to worry or stress about.
I realized that these things did not control me anymore.
The last couple of years I have spent becoming completely free on the inside.
And I noticed as I was looking around that the effects of my practices of the
last couple of years have been paying off.
(01:04):
One of the things that are typical for us human beings is that we worry about things.
We spend most of our days living in the future or the past.
Very rarely do we actually spend a moment in the current present moment.
One of the things we have to thank for that is our ego, always on the lookout
(01:26):
for potential threats and always making sure that we are still safe.
So in my humble opinion, one of the things we have to learn in this life is
to get control back over our egos.
Instead of letting our egos just run around and control us, making us focus
on the things that are really not beneficial to focus on.
(01:50):
If we take the example of having a complex situation in our lives that seem
to stand in the way of our deepest happiness, I want to invite you to look at that differently.
Is it really true that the situation is standing in the way of you experiencing
true and deep happiness?
Or is you worrying about it so much standing in the way of your deepest and the truest happiness.
(02:14):
Think about it. That situation that you're so focused on is there either way.
What do you think the worry about this situation will add to this situation?
So is it that situation that prevents you from feeling happy?
Or is it your thoughts about the situation that are preventing you from feeling happy?
(02:35):
One of the things we all want to feel in this life is happy,
peaceful, and blissful.
And I want to go even as far as to say that every single thing that we do is
nothing more than an attempt to feel one of these things.
Every desire we have is there to eventually get us to one of these feelings.
(02:57):
So what if we turn that around? grounds. What if we actually choose to feel
happy, peaceful, and blissful right now, in the midst of whatever is going on in your life?
Just pause for a minute. Breathe.
And go within. Whenever a thought of one of your worries is presenting itself,
(03:19):
take a step back from that thought and observe it more as a distant thought
than a thought that needs your direct participation.
The thought might present itself as something that needs to be focused on right
now, or otherwise you might die.
But if you've taken that step back and look at it again, you'll see that that
(03:42):
is not actually the case.
Even with this situation present, you won't actually die if you don't fix that situation right now.
At least, not right now. Eventually, we'll all die, of course,
some of us sooner than others.
But one of the beautiful gifts of this life is death.
We all will eventually die, and we'll never truly know when.
(04:06):
With some exceptions of course.
So why not make the current moment a more pleasurable moment and why not choose
happiness, peace and bliss in this current moment right where you're at now.
I promise you, you will get more out of that than staying stuck in worries.
(04:27):
Now of course as human beings we actually do get a lot out of worrying and staying
stuck in all these complex feelings.
And I talk a lot about this in my past podcast episodes.
For example, we might attach to feeling like the victim. We might attach to feeling sad and down.
We might attach to identifying who we are to our struggles.
(04:52):
We might enjoy the cocktail of feel-good hormones that get released when we suffer.
Or we might be so familiar in suffering that we don't even know how to start
to feel safe in thriving and in joy and happiness.
And this can be because of multiple things.
I want to invite you to deeply look at your own life right now.
(05:12):
What is standing in the way of you choosing to feel happiness,
joy and bliss right now? now.
What is standing in the way of you choosing that right now?
You might think the pain you're experiencing right now is standing in the way,
whether it's physical or emotional.
You might think that your health is in the way of you experiencing joy and ease,
(05:35):
whether it's physical or emotional.
You might think that your sadness, tiredness, stress, cringe situation,
anxiety, or depression is standing in your way of experiencing any of this.
And to you, I ask, what would happen if right now you choose to feel happiness,
(05:56):
joy, ease, and bliss, regardless of what other things are present in your life?
What would happen if you take back the control and simply decide that whatever
is going on, you'll choose happiness, bliss, and ease, or at least choose to
go back to it time and time again.
(06:17):
It all starts with deciding. It all starts with choosing. That is step number one.
And then choosing it over and over again.
And yes, this takes some real self-reflective work.
For example, if you started to identify with your suffering,
feeling safe and comfortable in your suffering,
(06:37):
not even knowing what to do if your most desired life would show up right now,
if your most desired life will start knocking on your door tomorrow,
and I promise you, it already has been knocking,
you might get so uncomfortable there that you will push all those things that
showed up, all those things you desired,
(06:59):
out of your life again.
Fearing deeply if you're even worthy
not knowing who you are and what
to attach to if that most desired life
would all of a sudden be your life most people won't
notice won't even recognize this it takes deep self-reflective skills and deep
(07:20):
self-reflective skills take a lot of self-love self-forgiveness self-compassion
and the ability to sit in discomfort without trying to run away from it.
When I sat with Ayahuasca in a sacred plant ceremony in Peru years ago.
She brought me to this super beautiful place filled with so much light and high
(07:42):
vibrations that it scared me.
My body couldn't handle the high vibration of that light.
I begged Mama Ayahuasca to bring me back.
She told me, okay, but I would then bring you back to your suffering.
And in that moment, I told her, at least I know how to handle that.
(08:03):
Start showing me the light slowly, bit by bit. I can't handle this.
After ceremony, I remember thinking back on the absurdity of that situation.
I remember that I actually preferred to go back to suffering because I simply
did not know how to handle so much light.
I knew the suffering. suffering I knew what
(08:25):
to do with that suffering not with that
amount of light that was completely new and
that was exactly where I started with
simply acknowledging that if all of the suffering I was experiencing back then
would all of a sudden be taken away from me I wouldn't even know what to do
(08:46):
or who to be now at that time I've already done a lot of self-love work and was deep in shadow work.
So for me, it was easy to start with self-compassion for the realization that
I simply wasn't ready for that amount of light in my life.
It was safe for me to acknowledge that to myself.
So with that acknowledgement, I started to get myself ready.
(09:08):
I asked myself, what do I need to do in order to be able to allow that much light in my life?
Now, this answer will be different for everyone.
For me, it was to learn to let go of control, to learn to trust and come back
to my center time and time again.
(09:29):
What I'm going to say now might be confusing for some, but I'll try and explain it in the best way I can.
We can feel joy, happiness, ease, and bliss in the midst of other complex feelings.
We can feel bliss and ease while at the same time feeling deeply sad.
We can even feel happiness while at the same time feeling deeply sad.
(09:54):
Now, why is that? As you might know by now, Now, I'm a deep believer of allowing
your emotions to be there and to be fully expressed.
In fact, my last episode, episode 10, I think it was, was about this topic.
But that doesn't mean that you let these emotions completely control you and take you over.
(10:16):
Actually, it's the complete opposite.
I will claim, and I have in my last episode as well, we will only know true happiness,
bliss and peace if we are courageous enough to feel all of our emotions,
not just the ones we feel more comfortable with.
It is only when we are okay with feeling uncomfortable that we will be able
(10:40):
to fully express the full range of deep happiness and peace.
To me, that's how you take control back over your emotions. You don't let them run around with you.
You actually address them and see what it is what they want from you.
To take a step back, investigate your emotions from a calm space and see what
(11:02):
parts of your emotions need some action and attention and what part of your
emotions need to be rationalized.
For example, fear.
Often we have irrational fears that if we don't address and investigate will control us completely.
But more on that in the previous episode that I go into depth about this topic.
(11:25):
What if in the middle of your pain, you find your center and find peace right there?
What if whatever is going on around you, you just let rage around you,
but you choose to focus on that happiness, peace, and bliss right there in your center?
(11:46):
Of course, that doesn't mean that those other things that are going on around
you need to be neglected.
No, exactly the opposite. What I'm claiming here is that you can actually do
more while you feel that happiness, peace, and bliss in the midst of that chaos.
It isn't what I have, where I'm at, or what's going on in my life that determines
(12:09):
whether I'm feeling happy or not.
It is that I'm always able to return to my center and see the truth there.
I have everything I could ever need right here, right now.
And I can choose to feel peace, bliss, and joy right here and right now.
(12:31):
I don't need anything around me in order to feel these things.
In fact, the moment that I do, it is not actual happiness, peace,
and joy, because they are attached to things, to outcome. come.
So it will be fleeting and connected to fear.
For if that thing leaves your life, so does happiness and peace.
(12:54):
Now, one thing is guaranteed in this life, and that is change.
Nothing is permanent. We're supposed to experience sadness, fear,
or whatever other emotion that is bringing you discomfort.
We are not supposed to avoid feeling these things.
But even in the midst of these things, if or when we're able to feel happiness, joy,
(13:17):
and peace, regardless of what's going on in our life, that's when we found true
freedom and true happiness and true peace.
Happiness and peace connected to outcome is not the true and deepest feeling of happiness and peace.
It's a shallow gratification of a need. And since we're wired that way,
(13:41):
that shallow gratification to a need,
that shallow feeling of happiness and peace would always want more in order to be able to be felt.
Because once you have that thing you craved, whether that's getting your health
back, emotional or physical, resolving that complex situation that you're in,
(14:02):
receiving that thing you've so desperately wanted,
I guarantee you that emotion will be short-lived.
It will be experienced, but only for a short moment in time.
For that chemical that you've been chasing with that feeling of happiness will
only be felt for 90 seconds.
That is it. So that feeling of true and deep happiness, joy and peace is more
(14:27):
a state than it is a feeling.
Learning to be happy and peaceful while not being okay is a practice.
And once you're able to, you'll see it is the biggest gift you've ever given yourself.
You'll see that you will be able to serve the waves instead of being swallowed by them.
While still enjoying life. But I do warn you.
(14:52):
Once you commit to this, once you're on this journey, you'll have to first make
a deep dive into yourself,
into your own being, and look at the barriers you put up to be able to feel
this deep state of joy, happiness, and peace.
Because it's my deep belief that it's our natural state.
We just put up barriers to connect to this feeling.
(15:15):
Whether it's dissociating from your body, not knowing
who you are outside of suffering or fearing stepping
into joy and ease because it's so deeply unfamiliar that
is where to start to start finding the barriers you put up to experience our
natural state now if you feel like you want to start somewhere i am going to
(15:37):
post a link in the show notes where you can sign up for a free 45 minute discovery
call with me i still have a
few places in my itinerary left for this month.
So check it out and we can see where it is that you would need to start in order to get to this space.
I would love to hear your insights and thoughts about this episode.
(15:58):
You can share it with me by sending me an email or DMing me on Instagram.
All of the links are posted in the show notes and I'm sending you so much love and until next episode.
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