532. Elizabeth Gilbert on creating a life you don't want to escape from | Se Regalan Dudas

the opinions and Views expressed by the guest on this podcast are their sole responsibility and do not necessarily reflect the personal opinion of Ley and

or Ash or those who collaborate with doas media Ash and I have two or three teachers and mentors that do not know us

personally but that they're our best friends my actual job is staying calm my part-time job is that I write

books if if I don't choose me I will end up lonely oh my God I'm going to say no to all these people and I'm going to be alone in an island and sounds so good to me so when everybody else is paying

attention to the drama I think it's a very good opportunity for you to pay attention to your own life somebody will invite me to something and I'll say no and they'll say why don't you why don't

you want to go and I'll say I find that I don't want [Music] to you can't argue with that TR true self-care is creating a life that you no

longer want to escape from so we were talking to terms about mentors and teachers and people that we love and I

was telling her that Ash and I have two or three teachers and mentors that do not know us personally but that they're our best

friends we've read their work we follow everything they do we listen to their stories because they have opened up new realities and they have expanded our way

of understanding the world and our imagination and that is a reason why we are so excited to have with us Liz gilber today because I don't know you've probably heard this a thousand times but

you have put into words things that we couldn't even imagine before and opened up a new way for us to exist so we are very thankful honestly to have you thank

you so much what a beautiful thing to say thank you I totally understand because I have so many best friend teachers who I've never met either exact

um so I it's it we all do and those relationships are real yes those relationships are real because the energy that is being communicated is real and the transformation is real so I

understand no and it feels real like I feel so accompanied by so many work of women and men that have teached me so many things so thank you you're welcome

for the teach um Liz we're definitely not going to talk politics

today but but we have felt despair hopelessness sadness

anger um hurt so many things and we wanted to know how you navigate moments where there's moments where we feel so hopeful and feel like we're moving

forward and everything seems like we're together holding each other's hands and then there's some moments that hit you in the face and shock you yeah and we wanted to know just how are you

navigating these times when it feels like we're taking a thousand steps back and we're dealing with so many things right now that's a small question to [Laughter]

begin um and thank you for sharing the pain I think of a few things um John Steinbeck

said the dark thing never goes away but it also never wins it never goes away but it also never

wins here's the interesting thing the light also never goes away but it also never wins he didn't say that part but I add

that I think our friends in the eastern part of the world understand this better right they understand that the darkness and the light are always together are always

happening at the same time and neither one of them ever wins completely this is the dance right um it doesn't me make it make it easier to be inside the darkness

but there is a feeling you can have like oh this is it now the darkness finally won right but it doesn't ever win and then there are moments where you think now the light finally won and you're

like it's going to be so good now you know and then the darkness comes back it appears to be the way of things it appears to be the way of things and I

think if you talk to people who are a really good suggestion is to talk to people who have been alive for a long time talk to people who are in their 70s and their 80s and their 90s and they

will say we have seen this right we have seen the darkness we have seen the light we have seen the cycle it comes it goes so so part of it I think for me is you

you you step very far back right and you just get the perspective of this is Perfectly Natural this is life on Earth this is what has always been happening

so that's part of it that seems to help and the other thing is you have to go in so you go back and you get the big perspective and then you go in and you get very quiet so the way that I took

care of myself this week was I didn't watch one minute of news I didn't look at one minute of social media on Election Day I didn't look at my phone I

turned my phone off for the entire day because I know enough to understand that if I'm watching the news or not watching the news at this point it makes no

difference to the outcome right the only thing that's going to happen is I'm going to get sick like and I and then I watched as my friends got sick and I watched as my family got sick and I

watched as they they fell into the river into the dark river you know um but I'm like I'm not going into the dark river um just because the dark river is passing me by I'm not

going into the dark river and I spent that day meditating praying doing yoga taking care of my dog writing emails that I needed to write catching up with

business because nobody else was paying attention to their life right nobody else was paying attention to their life everybody was paying attention to this drama right so when everybody else is

paying attention to the drama I think it's a very good opportunity for you to pay attention to your own life because that's the only thing I could do on Tuesday right so I have a commitment to

myself I've worked so hard to reach a place of Serenity I will not give my serenity to anybody because it's the only thing I have it's the only thing I

have and if I don't have my serenity I can't help anybody I can't see any options I can't do anything I'm just another person crying and it's understandable that so many

were people were crying but sometimes we need a few people who aren't like and in my in my prayers that morning I do this two-way prayer every

day where I ask what I call God what is my direction and and the message that I got was right this minute we could use a few people who aren't in Terror who

aren't panicked who aren't lost so can you just stay present a lot of what we're going to be talk talking about in the workshop this week is about presence

the ability to be here in this moment it's the only place where I can serve I can't serve from any place but right here calm and relaxed so that's my job

my job is to keep my nervous system stable no matter what no matter how good it looks no matter how bad it looks right the first half of my life all I did was move back and forth between

excitement and horrible excitement it's fantastic it's horrible it's fantastic it's horrible you know and now I'm like okay somebody needs to be in the middle somebody needs to be in the middle ready

to see where can I help and on Tuesday there was no place to help except for to be one person who was okay I love that that you

[Applause] said I recently took a course on regulating your nervous system hey all

right good idea and it was such a revelation being like Oh my God I am always at the highest and at the lowest

like how difficult is to stay present and stable in your nervous system it's a full-time job and it requires so much presence that like you said you have to

go quiet to be able to accomplish a little bit of it completely it's a it's my full-time job my actual job is

staying calm and it takes hours a day of practices that I do because I am not by Nature a calm person not at all so like

this is I mean I spend three or four hours a day on various practices that calm me down like this morning I did one hour of breath work before I even got out of bed because when I woke up I

could feel that my energy was very hype you know because I'm excited it's it's a good hype but it's still hype right and if I want to be helpful and present with

all of you it's better if I'm a little bit softer right so so that's my job my part-time job is that I write books my full-time job is that I try to

take care of my mental health my mental health is a full-time job and I'm not it's not a joke it really is it takes it takes years to

learn how to operate one of these things you know like it's like I am a soul that came to Earth for this experience in Earth school they dropped me into this

body they dropped my body into this family crazy family they dropped my family into this crazy culture and they're like go and

I'm like I don't know how to do this like I've never seen these people before I've never been in this country before I don't know how to walk I don't know how to eat I don't know how to learn I don't

know how to read everything about this is catching up like how how do we learn and then came the realization I don't know how to be calm because everybody

around me is always on fire because most people are on fire there's a line that I'll share with you from Ito calino one of my favorite writers an Italian writer

and he says when the world is Inferno when the world is on fire what do we do we find people and places and things

that are not on fire and then we help them grow wow right so can you become a person who's not on fire

it's a big in this moment in history it's not easy but we could use you like I think we could use you if if a few more people were not on fire I love that

it sounds so contradictory just listening to you right now that the thing that should be known to ourselves because it's us is

a thing we were not taught to connect with and it's now revolutionary to think

that going back it's such um revolutionary thing to do because all we were thought to do and to be was

everything for everyone everywhere and now listening to you is of course how are we taught so many things as women in school about the world about the working

situation and never how to feel our bodies how to feel our emotions how to know oneself how to love oneself how to say no how

to that you even are allowed to say no MM you know I don't think I ever saw my mother say no or her mother and I grew up with women who

were angry and exhausted angry and exhausted and they and they were good women so what in my culture and I'm going to guess in all of

your cultures unless you grew up in a very radical house the message that was given to you as a girl is that the way

that you can be good which is extremely important to be good it's more important than anything that's what I was taught to be a good person to be a good woman

is that you never ever say no right you never say no you are here to serve my grandmother grew up on a farm she was trained to take care of children animals

and Men honestly and and the land children animals men and the land that's what women were taught to take care of let me

reverse the order men yeah land L men children land animals I think that's the actual order right um never was there

don't you cannot have a problem you cannot have a need you cannot be exhausted and and let me make it very clear life was not easy for those men either or those children or those

animals you know like it was not an easy life for the men but the men always had a woman taking care of them no matter how poor the man was there was a woman who was just as poor taking care of the

man and doing all the work that she was doing and those were good women and they were angry and exhausted and when I got married for the first time because I was following the

directions of my culture so I got married at 24 my mother got married at 24 my sister got married at 24 it's what you did I got married she's like I got

married 24 um which was actually pretty old for for my family's culture but when when I got married at the age of 24 by the time I was

29 I was already angry and exhausted and I didn't even have children yet and I was like oh

[ __ ] it's happening it's happening to me I'm becoming I'm I'm resentful I'm tired I'm so angry

and I'm like how did I get into this and in my culture what happens when a married woman with a perfect life says that she is angry and depressed they give her

medication because obviously you have everything you have a house you have a husband everything is going well why would you be angry and depressed take some more pills how many more pills do we have to give you before you're happy

right the amount of pills they had to give me there aren't enough in the world for me to be happy and that marriage you know um but nobody ever questioned wait a

minute is there something wrong with this whole model right so the second half of my life has been very very different from what I was taught revolutionarily different I love that I

wanted to ask you how do you think we can build as we are living life in this specific moment in history where I think

some of us are going one side others are going and it just looks like the bridge is nowhere to be built right that's kind of how I feel even among some friends

I'm like wow my experience and your experience are so far what we believe in but at the same time I mean we're all in a human experience so 99% of the things

we all feel are the same so how would you suggest to navigate this building of a bridge because I don't want to be

resentful with what is going on with my own people that maybe think different than me and I was talking to a friend yesterday and he was like I think having

an open mind requires to include all of it and I wanted to include all of it so like how would you or how have you built that bridge in your own

life that's such a good question and such a difficult question because I think you said it perfectly that people are living in completely different realities yeah um they're they're

getting their news from completely different sources they've they're being taught completely different information they're living in different worlds um my

beloved friend Byron Katie says there's only one planet but there are 8 billion worlds every single person is living in

their own world that's the actual experience here and those worlds can be very very far apart curiosity I think is

a really big is a really big helpful thing to become very interested what's your world like you become a tourist in somebody else's world tell me more tell

me more about your world and Katie my friend she never gets resentful at other people's beliefs she just says I feel very

honored to be a visitor to your world um what is your world like well my world is very different than that um it takes an enormous soul to be able to do

that and I'm thinking about one of my most beloved friends who went full right I'm sorry I'm pointing left but like she started off so left that

she circled around and came back to the right like that's this weird thing that's happening in the states right now she's one of those yoga ladies who voted for Trump it's so [ __ ] weird you know

I'm a vegan and a yoga lady and somehow I think this guy is I'm like how did you get from over here to over here but everything in the universe is a circle

right and she went fully into conspiracy like dark conspiracy theories um deep buying guns going to Trump rallies and

this is a person who I know would die for me I know she would die for me and she and I have walked through fire together in our

lives she was with me when my partner rehea died I was on one side of rehea when she died my friend was on the other side holding her other hand we were eyes

locked while we watched this person died together like this is what we've experienced together I know the quality of her heart I know the goodness of her

heart I know the generosity of herself and the world that she's living in seems insane to me absolutely insane but the

but she's so sure of it she she is guilty of nothing but believing what she's thinking right the same way that I believe what I'm thinking so there came

a moment about four years ago where I just had to say to her listen here's the situation I'm not going with you on this journey that you're on like this journey

that you're on is so disturbing to me I actually can't keep my nervous system regulated when I see what you're doing when I see that you're buying guns and

going to Trump rallies I actually can't regulate myself it's not healthy for me to be around this and I love you there's never a butt it's always an end and I

love you and she said I'm so afraid I'm going to lose you because I've lost all my other friends and I was like yeah I wonder why and um I mean and this

is really interesting I learned a lot about this loving somebody who was a drug addict if you've ever loved somebody who's an addict or an alcoholic who's living in a world of addiction and

you try to convince them with your reason right you try to convince them with their logic that they should come back to a world of sobriety my friends actually got together and they had an

intervention for this person as if she was a drug addict to try to get her to come back away from Trum it just made her more stubborn right when you challenge people on their beliefs it

makes them dig in deeper right they just go Harder They just they don't come around to your world they go deeper into their own world so she said I'm so afraid I'm going to lose you as a friend

and she said remember they had this intervention for me which they invited to me to and I was like oh no I don't think that's going to go well um and I said how did the intervention go did it

change your thinking when 13 of the people who love you the most in the world who you trust the most in the world sat down and tried to change your mind did it work did it change your mind

at all and she said no and I said what do you want me to do right I said I only have one thing to tell you there are a

few people in the world who I know that my heart belongs to and you are one of them you are one of them and there's

nothing that can change that so that's what I have to give you you belong to my heart and I belong to your heart and I'm not going to involve myself in any of

this [ __ ] with you you know no thank you and you belong to my heart right this is the

combination of a boundary and infinite love right there's nothing you can do to lose my heart and I don't need to participate in this Insanity because my

number one job is to stay mentally well and in my world in my world what you're doing feels like insanity um and I don't know if that's a bridge but it's a bridge at a very I think when it gets

really crazy the bridge has to be at a very deep level at the level of the soul my soul knows your soul my heart knows your heart our beliefs are I I can't

change anybody I am loved deeply loved by a God who has given me control over practically

nothing that is how I genuinely feel about the world I have very little control and I have so much love so I'm just focusing on the love and not on the control I love that and I love that you

bring curiosity to the table too because Ashley just this morning was telling me that maybe the way to begin this journey is to be a little curious

and understand that everyone's experience comes from a context of what they're going through right and the more we separate ourselves and think that

person has nothing in common with me the bigger the Gap just continues to grow um I don't know it's just difficult to understand a reality that differs so

much from your experience it's impossible to understand but there is so much about this world that I do not understand yeah

and I know that when I go into the question why um so again oh I have to

say this if I say anything today or on Sunday that does not feel like truth to you throw it in the garbage please right this is my own experience everything

that I'm sharing is just from my own experience um even the language that I use when I use the word God if that is a word that is offensive to you that hurts you in any way throw it in the garbage I

don't care I'm not offended if you don't believe in God I also don't believe in the god you don't believe in right like we're good like I'm not it's good what I

call God is a more General word for the mystery right the great mystery and all of it is a mystery this whole thing is a mystery such a big mystery such an

interesting mystery but when I speak into that dark mystery and I ask questions that begin with the word why I

never hear an answer and so I have come to believe that the word why is not a spiritual question it's not a spiritually mature question it's a

spiritually immature question why why am I not getting what I want why is the world not the way it want why why why why why did this person die why did this person leave me why don't I succeed why

am I getting sick why is all of this happening I ask those questions and I just hear silence actually sometimes I hear none of your

business none of your business so what is my business all the other questions that don't begin with why right if I ask

questions into the universe like how I always get answers how do you want me to behave right now in the world I will get

direction how do you want me to see this situ ation I will get direction who is another excellent question who do you

want me to become now in this reality that's happening that I don't like who do you want me to be in this reality I will hear an answer who do you

want me to help who do you want me to serve who do you want me to listen to I will hear an answer why nothing what another good one

what do you want me to do next what what is the next right action where do you want me to go all of these questions you can ask

and if you get very deeply quiet you will hear answers but I think what happens to us is we get hypnotized by

why and we go into depression and despair and anxiety because of the why questions and then we can't hear anything except pain right so this is a

suggestion that I have drop the why surrender the why it's none of your business you will never know you will never know why

anything right but who should I be who should i serve where should I go now what should I do next these questions the answers are available in the moment

I guarantee it I promise Lee I I'm going to have to go back to what you said about not knowing a single woman that is not angry or

exhausted uh um how now that you are conscious of this how do you

then place your yes and your no and how do you prioritize things in your life cuz I feel like we are living in a burnout we are tired we want to be EV

like I said everything everywhere for everyone especially as women like work life and personal life and whoever here a mother and friends and we

also want to be successful in what we're doing and and we want to heal and we want to heal and we want to be good friends and we want to so I I was wondering now that you're aware of this

how do you then make decisions how do you say yes no with my body not my mind I let my body answer when I remember to when I remember to because it's a work

in progress and I don't always get it right but my body actually cannot lie it it actually can't um it it will

always tell me the truth always and it will immediately tell me the truth uh if I don't if my body doesn't like where I am or the people that I'm with I will

find out very quickly right I'll find out if somebody tells me something that isn't true I feel it in

my body right women especially how many times have you been walking down the street and all of a sudden you're like no this is not the street that I need to be walking down right now

right and it's like your entire body's like nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope and you don't even need to know what's ahead but your body's like don't go another step forward that's not safe

right there's something happening here that isn't safe I recently ended a relationship with a family member

and the explanation that I gave which is the deepest truth is my body does not register you as a safe

person how many of you are about to go spend the holidays with some people who your body knows are not safe and you do it because your mind and

your culture and your family have told you that you have to right so you just we've been TR it's like just forget don't even listen to that feeling you have to do it because it's Christmas you

have to do it because of this it's somebody's you have to right I'm questioning whether I have to I'm not sure that I have to right I'm not sure that I have to one of the things that

I've learned in sobriety a really big thing that's helped is that five years ago I I stopped doing anything that alters my

mind no alcohol no drugs no prescription drugs no I don't do anything that alters my mind or my body because I want to be able to feel because I want to be able

to feel the truth of the answer right and in that feeling I discovered I have choices one of the most Wise Women that

I know said to me you always have a choice you never think you do but you do you can stand up and walk away from any

situation in that moment you can hang up the phone at any moment in any anywhere any phone call I no longer feel safe hang up I'm getting up from this table I

no longer feel safe this conversation my body doesn't like this the way that I feel right now I'm leaving you are allowed to set a boundary without even explaining why the

boundaries that I have been setting lately are so radical it makes my head spin but my head needs to spin because my head is only doing one thing which is

trying to keep everybody pleased and my head thinks that if I can make everybody be happy with me then I will be safe but I have 50 years of experience to prove that that isn't true because I have

tried so hard to make everybody happy with me and there have been many times where I have not been safe especially from the people I'm trying the hardest

to keep happy right so it's a pause pause you have to stop you have to slow down ask for time one of the things I do is when I notice that I'm I call it

activated when I'm activated sometimes I'll say to somebody I can see that I'm activated right now my hands are shaking my my eyesight is

narrowing my breath is shallow my stomach hurts my legs are shaking so I'm in an activated state right now and I always put it on me I never blame them I always say I have experience enough to

know that when I feel like this I usually don't make good decisions so before we make a decision

let me go ground myself calm down meditate because I make my best decisions when I'm calm and right now I'm not and I don't know why I'm not but I'm not my body is saying no I find

another thing I love to say is I find that I don't want to somebody will invite me to something and I'll say no and they'll say why don't you why don't you want to go and

I'll say I find that I don't want to you can't argue with that I find I find that I don't I don't want to

I'm just as surprised as you you're also you you can't comp you can't compete with that answer my body says no you know my body says no oh my

God you guys I mean if we can have real talk the number of years that I gave my physical body to somebody to have so

that they could have sex with my body right because I wanted them to love me and I wanted them to see me and I wanted to feel connection and I never

thought to ask my body do you actually want to do this right it's interesting W I wanted

to I wanted to ask you um I'm at a point in my life where I realized that the limits that I have to put in my life um

are accompanied by this fear of like loneliness oh my God I'm gonna say no to all these people and then I'm going to be alone in an island and I sounds so good to

me so I wanted to ask alone on an island paradise go ahead no I wanted to ask you with age like most of the people that listen to us are around their 30s but

like what has age given you of like taking away this fear and like actually what have you learned with that has come with age of like saying staying true to

yourself and like releasing all these fears of like if I choose me I'm going to end alone no one's going to love me I'm never going to find a family like

what are the certainties that age has given you in that sense if I I'm going to turn it around

if I don't choose me I will end up lonely but only every single time if I don't choose me I will end up

lonely the lonliest I have ever been in my life was sleeping in a bed 6 Ines away from another human being who did

not and could not love me and I abandoned myself to try to force this person to love me and this

and the Deep loneliness God how many of you have been lonely inside of a marriage lonely inside of a family lonely inside of a job lonely it's like

that we have it's such a good guess our first idea for how to cure loneliness is to go be with somebody seems like a really good plan it's such a good guess it's such an innocent

guess but but actually the cure for Lo this is again me for me the cure for loneliness is Solitude that has been the cure for

loneliness for me to learn how to sit quietly with myself to find the part of myself that's in pain and to say darling what do you need what do you need to

become I have become for myself the partner that I always wanted somebody else to be also the mother that I always wanted also the father that I always wanted also the husband and the wife

that I always wanted and The Sibling that I always wanted and the boss that I always wanted right because I accept

responsibility for caretaking this one right something in the universe gave me this one to take care of and they

must have believed that I could do it they must have believed that I could take care of this one because they gave me this one and the only thing I've been trying to do for the first 50 years of

my life was find somebody else to take care of it right no you do you take care of it it's like take myself and like throw myself into somebody else's hands and

the way that that exchange always worked for me was it's so crazy when you think about it I will give you everything so that you will take care of

me I will give you everything so that you will take care of me do you see how crazy that is what if I just took care of me and then I get to

keep everything I get to keep everything my serenity my

money my resources my creativity my dreams right and then we can share space together but I'm not asking you to take

care of me and then I'm not going to be angry and exhausted when you don't why can't they take care of me they can't even [ __ ] take care of themselves literally in fact I end up taking care

of them right [Applause] every single person who I ever thought was going to take care of me I ended up

taking care of but only 100% of the time how many of you understand me right you are the man of my dreams you're going to save me you're going to rescue

me and then I'm how am I taking care of you who's got me nobody right so the emptiness that happens when I give myself

away is the deepest loneliness that I have ever felt in my entire life and I am not lonely because they're not taking care of me I'm lonely because I'm not taking care of me and every time I stop

taking care of myself I start getting lonely and every time I get lonely I want to drink I want to do drugs I want to disappear into fantasy I want to run

away from my life my favorite definition of self-care is that true self-care is creating a life that you no longer want to escape

from right that is true self-care and I'll tell you something else too it's a public service to take

care of yourself it's a public service because nobody is safe from me when I don't take care of myself the deepest damage that I have done to other people

in the world is because I did not know how to take care of myself and so I used them and I manipulated them and I seduced them and IED to control them to

take care of me and I hurt people by doing that right I used people for me an emotionally sober day is a day when I do

not use anybody to take care of my soul right then they're free I'm free everybody is safe I'm not hurting anybody because I don't want to hurt

people I don't want to use people like drugs I don't want to smoke people like crack or take people like a sedative because I can't regulate myself

right so nobody can abandon me in my world only I can abandon me people can come people can leave but if I take care of myself I will never have that deep sense of

Abandonment and I have been on my own single sober and celibate for almost six years now and this is the least lonely I have ever felt the least

lonely well yeah it's Rich inside of here it's like rich and deep and delicious and I get to keep it no and

it's it's amazing because you don't even have to say it like we feel like I look at you and it it I can sense it I don't know how to explain it but yeah well and

before we open the mics I just wanted to ask the last question and I feel like there is a deep

fear um in our generation and a younger generation to grow up and I don't blame us I think the system has installed this

fear so I wanted to hear uh what have been the biggest gifts for you as you grow up my beloved friend the teacher Martha

Beck said to me one day if you want to be free which means free from Fear because what other kind of freedom is there right like that's the only Freedom

that there is is Freedom From Fear so Freedom From Fear has nothing to do with what things look like on the outside um like it's it's you you are not afraid

that's Freedom everything else might look very good right you can have everything in the entire world I have met the people who have everything in the entire world and their medicine

cabinet is filled with drugs that they need to be able to survive the day right so if your aspiration is I'm going to be

free from Fear when I have this when I have the perfect marriage when I have the perfect relationship when I have the perfect body when I have the perfect house when I have the perfect job when I have the perfect money then I will be

free right it's such a good guess again it's such a good guess it's such an innocent guess but I have terrible news for you I have met those people right I have met those people and they're not

doing okay they're just anxious in a nicer house and listen if I have the choice of being anxious in a shitty house or a nice house I would rather be anxious in

a nice house but if you really give me the choice I'd rather just not be anxious right because that is freedom freedom freedom is freedom from anxiety

so here is what my friend taught me if you want to be free it's very simple you have to walk away from your family and you have to walk away from your culture

I know it's difficult medicine but it doesn't mean that you never see your family members again it doesn't mean that you never live inside of your culture but the rules that you were

taught about how to be safe were not true then and they aren't true now those

rules are not working for anybody they're not working for anybody right I have and I am the least least

likely person to be a revolutionary of any kind I am nobody wants to be loved more than me nobody wants approval more than me TR trust me like my mother said

to me I never met a child who hated to get in trouble more than you from my earliest childhood I was like tell me what the rules are so that I will be safe so that you will love me so that I

will be approved of and I will be perfect and I will follow those rules because I need your love I want your love I want your approval and I repeat that in every single romantic relationship that I enter into tell me

the rules what are the rules of your system who do you need me to be I look into people's eyes who do you need me to be so that you will love me and approve of me oh oh you need okay you need me to

do this okay I'll do this I'll do this I'll do this I'm also a cancerian any of you born in July you know what it's like it's like all we want to do is be loved all we want to do is give you know and

cry that's all we want to do so so what I'm telling you about walking away from family and walking away from culture I am the least likely person in

the world to do that because of how much I want to be loved but here's the situation that I have learned every single time in my life that I have tried

to follow the rules that my family gave me and that my culture gave me I have literally almost died I have gotten to

the point where I want to kill myself every time I have tried to be a good woman the way that my family and my culture taught me to be good I want to die I end up in doctor's offices I end

up in psychiatrist offices I end up on medications I end up on anti I end up with a bunch of diagnoses suddenly I have a diagnosis my body starts to fall apart my mind starts to fall apart and

everybody tells me that's normal because it's a day an age of great anxiety but my soul knows that's [ __ ] [ __ ] I did not come here to live my

life in anxiety I came here to have a very interesting Adventure in Earth School right I love that a very interesting

Adventure but in order to have it I have to walk away from my family and I have to walk away from my culture and it takes courage but it also takes a

decision that you don't want to die right and whatever is going to happen in the world is going to happen in the world I have no control over that

right but this one me and her we're going to have a very interesting Adventure that's why we came here for we came here for an adventure and we came

here to learn how to be free I love [Applause] that we're GNA open the mics at this

moment we have uh one over there and one over here for a couple of questions hola Gra thank you

sweetheart I have a master's degree in guilt but it doesn't come from God it comes from my culture and my family um and it comes

from it comes from the part of me how can I express this any part of me who feels

guilty for choosing a life of Freedom Serenity connection and creativity still doesn't understand

God right if I feel guilty for choosing creativity and serenity and connection and peace that part of me still doesn't understand God that part of me still

thinks of God as the the immature version of God which is the angry parent right the mature version of God is the

Liberator the great Liberator who wants all of us to be free and what would the original Creator want more than for all of us to be

creators right for all of because one thing it appears to be true about the universe no matter what else is true scientifically or from a religious

standpoint it looks like God loves creating sure looks like it because I mean look just look just look at all of

you like what incredible Creations every single one of you so different right and and the creations of Nature and the fact that in distant corners of the universe

there are these things called star nurseries where new planetary systems are being born creation is happening in the in the in the Christian story that I

was taught creation happened once or really for one week and then it was over but the but the apparent yeah and then they rested the apparent reality is that

it's happening it's happening it's happening and what I feel is that the god of my understanding wants me to be

creating and when I am feeling guilty I can't create I can't I just I'm only depressed and worried and when I'm depressed and worried I can't create when I'm ashamed

of myself I can't create there were years that I didn't write because I was so ashamed of myself for leaving my first marriage trust me if you saw that

marriage you would say you have nothing to be ashamed of for leaving that marriage but I had but I did I was because I had internalized those voices that I had

failed at something that my culture and my family told me were very important I couldn't create I couldn't write I couldn't make art I couldn't dream

because of the guilt so I think my job is to learn it's really helpful for me actually to say

this out loud my job is to learn how to help the one inside of me who still still doesn't understand how much God

loves her right so my job is to help her to see that that the god of my understanding wants her to be happy

joyous free and creative and also the god of my understanding is constantly telling me that I am not responsible for the lives of other people that they are

on their own journey and that it is not my responsibility their reactions to me are not my responsibility the way they think about me is none of my business and it's like a lot of times

God says to me that things are none of my business stay out of it that's none of your business you have your own path stay on your path if you want to help people become free and then show them

how like that's the highest service that I think I can offer at this point I hope that was a helpful answer thank you

Hi Li my name is areli Hart and I'm very grateful to meet you finally and I'm I just want to ask you a question I have a daughter who is a young adult and

sometimes it's difficult for me to connect with her you have a what a a a girl a daughter a daughter uhhuh and the question I have is if you could give me

a piece of advice to gave her to her um how to navigate the early career and personal growth what will be

I wouldn't and I suggest that you don't because even though I don't have

children I a lot of my friends do and one thing that I have noticed is that uh the last person in the world that a child is going to take advice from is

their mother am I wrong about that like after a certain age right especially a daughter um you the last person in the

world that she's going to listen to um sorry it's just true right and maybe that's actually so true

it's true right and my friend Byron Katie says that giving do you understand the word unsolicited unsolicited

advice yeah giving unsolicited advice is an act of violence giving unsolicited advice is an act of

violence also be very careful with solicited advice right that's a little less violent but it can be very violent because it's saying I need you to be

different so that I will be okay that's essentially what it is whenever I find myself wanting to give advice to somebody it's because I cannot handle the anxiety that I am feeling about the way they are living and the way they are

living it's not their fault no my anxiety is nobody's responsibility but mine right so the other thing I love that I heard um I think it's Berne Brown

said unsolicited advice giving is always driven by Panic on the part of the person giving the advice it comes from a place of panic within

you right you're not responsible for your daughter's journey and that has to be the hardest lesson in the entire world for a mother to learn but you're do I

believe that every single person came into this world with their own Souls Journey that they have to take and there are parts of it that they have to do alone certainly there have been parts of

my journey that you have to do alone how many of you who are mothers have more than one child when your child was born did they show up with the personality and it was

already who they were they showed up exactly who they are right like and your two children are totally different they were raised in the same house and you're

like this one is like this and this one is like this and I have no idea why right every single mother that I know says my child was born that way like the

personality the nature that they came out with they were born that way that's their soul right you're not responsible for that you're responsible for taking care

of them and giving them like taking them through their young years so that they can survive long enough to have the experience of their soul it's an incredibly sacred holy responsibility

that you have as a mother to take care of a child and to keep the Child Alive long enough that they can have their own experience but after a certain age you have to let them have their own experience and the only thing that I can

say to anybody who is a a mother or a father or a teacher of young people when they say what is the advice that I can give to help them your children and your students will never do what you say but

they can can't help imitating you right they can't help imitating you so if you want your daughter whatever it is that you want your daughter to be you

be that right put the focus on yourself and you become that so she can see right I honestly think that the reason I

became an artist and a Creator is because my mother is so creative and her creativity was wow I'm about to say something true her creativ was more important to her than her

children honestly at times and she would go into a room shut the door do her creativity and tell us to leave her alone and because I saw that I saw that creativity was something that you could

respect and so then I went into a room closed the door and told the world to leave me alone and I started to create she showed me that you could do that so you can't tell anybody anything but you can show them what it looks like if

they're interested they might ask you some questions how do did you get like that right but be very very careful of giving the advice just become free oh my

God what a thing it would be for a girl to grow up with a mother who is free how many of you had mothers who were free right oh you did cool I want to take

your seminar Li thank you so much I know everybody probably here but we had goosebumps the entire time we were listening to you thank you for just being you and sharing yourself cuz I

think that's how we learn from you um come to seral andas whenever you want this will be your home forever thank you so much so much thank you for the

hospitality thank you I love you thank you for [Laughter]

from the beginning here it

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