EP25 – How to Become Comfortable Being Alone

Matthew J. Brownstein is back with a new solo episode talking about how to become comfortable being alone and embracing what it means to be alone. He discusses the value and benefit of being alone.

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Monday night conscious community class with me Matthew brown steam. Just a little bit about me and tonight’s topic, I didn’t make a PowerPoint. So we’re just gonna let the thoughts flow. I’m the founder of the Institute of interpersonal hypnotherapy, and also online monastery.com. So a lot of these teachings that occur relate also to what I call the ANA hot teachings and materials that come from my book. So more than just to hypnotherapy school, yet the theme for the hypnotherapy school which is Institute of interpersonal hypnotherapy, the theme for that school for this month is A Course in Miracles. I have an upcoming workshop this weekend on Saturday, it’s a one day kind of meditation retreat, where we’ll dive very deeply into A Course in Miracles talking about all the main concepts. And tonight we’ll dive into a few of those, as we talked about how to be comfortable being alone. This was actually a topic on a big list that my marketing team sent over. I said, choose some of these to talk about people seem to be interested in these topics. What are my qualifications are talking about being comfortable being alone? I love it. I love being alone. So if you’re not comfortable with being alone, you’re talking to someone who’s very proficient at being alone for long periods of time. But more than that, is A Course in Miracles teacher, there has to be a reason behind everything we do, right? There’s meaning and purpose, or there’s just things we’re making up. Right? So some context behind why the talk, being comfortable being alone could be so beautiful, based on A Course in Miracles teachings, is because in the course we have truth, and we have illusion, we have ego and we have spirit, when we’re caught up in illusion and ego, we tend to be misguided, right? When we come into this human experience, we are from the most most of us who survived birth, you know, there was somebody there, right? Do you come into the world and there are people joking as if like, there wasn’t somebody there. Anyway, I only meant that in the best way. So when someone’s born, and there’s gonna be other people there, all the other people that are around them as they grow up, tend to show them what the world is right? They teach you things, they explain things. Our life is so much centered around other people, and it can be terrifying to be alone. But there’s so much value and benefit to being alone. So being around others can be a good thing, right? And being alone can also be a good thing. I’m not an advocate only for alone, right? Sometimes with people sometimes we’re alone. But if you have a problem being alone, then you have a problem, because sometimes you’re going to be alone. This might make you terrified of losing your relationships. If you’re so afraid of being alone. It can make you quite codependent and clingy. Because you’re not okay with yourself. I’ve heard a wonderful quote, if you take in a Westerner and put that person into solitary confinement, they will come out insane, right? That’s like the worst punishment you within, you know, not cruel and unusual. But like the worst thing we can do with this somebody which is in this a cruel, unusual is say, go sit in a room by yourself. Right? So let’s not pretend that that can be extremely difficult. Okay, so they say if you put a Westerner into solitary confinement, he will come out insane. Excuse me. If you put an easterner into solitary confinement, he will come out and like

travel halls to do a lot of talking today. All right. So if you put an easterner in solitary confinement, he or she will come out and light and why spiritual discipline called sadhana has many different aspects to it things we can do to be able to really accelerate our spiritual growth considers silence and solitude to be a profound tool for spiritual growth. Excuse me, it can be much more than that as you start to explore it. But let me encourage you, if you’re new to this idea, or even if you realize the benefit of it, take more time. Just take a little bit more time alone. I don’t want this to make you antisocial and cause problems in your relationships. But wherever you’re at in life, that alone time can be incredibly precious. I had a spiritual teacher he was talking about needs he said you have no needs knees are not natural. You think you need a person you think you need this and this you have is who you truly are spirit. You have no needs. So if you think If you need another person is like, Well, how do you get over that? You know, how do you challenge yourself to deal with that? Go be alone, you force yourself to just spend time alone. When I heard that teaching, he was explaining that loneliness is a blockage in your system that if you’re capable of feeling lonely, or even the feeling of alone, to ever feel that you’re alone or lonely, that’s a block in your divine energy flow. And so the talk tonight will relate a lot to how you can utilize silence and solitude to burn away significant personal blockages, and one of the biggest ones being, I’m lonely, and therefore I’m sad because I’m lonely. And therefore I’m over eating because I’m lonely, right? So think about the root of so many negative behaviors. It’s because you’re terrified of being alone, right? I don’t know what to do. I’m not comfortable by myself, what’s the first thought the mind comes up with, find a way to get with other people. And not to say you shouldn’t do that not to say that’s unhealthy, right? People are very healthy. But we’re talking about utilizing silence and solitude, to burn through blockages that you can’t burn through when you’re with other people. When we’re with other people, we tend to burn through a lot of blockages, right? So to go into silence and solitude, and avoid people would be a mistake. But we’re saying one way or another. This talk tonight is about embracing what it means to be alone. So I’m taking that a step further to the monastic traditions, which honor the incredible value of solitude. Okay, so when I heard that teaching from this teacher of mine, I was like, Ah, I hate being alone. I’m like, in my early 20s, when I heard this teaching, so I’m going to go camping by myself, which seemed crazy to me at the time. And I’m just going to sit in my tent and do nothing, but just sit there. And I’m going to feel what that feels like. There was a couple in the tent, just down the way and you can tell they’re having fun, probably making love. And now I’m like, you know, single guy in college, sitting by myself, no one in the tent with me. And, you know, oh, poor me. And then I’m like, Oh, my God, the self pity, oh, my god, the loneliness and the sadness, then, you

know, the fear, like, what if there’s bears in the woods and by myself, and what if I am alone for the rest of my life, I saw why people go insane being alone, because all of your stuff starts percolating up. If you’re looking for a chance for incredibly powerful spiritual growth, go sit still by yourself for a long period of time. Right? It’s, it’s advanced spiritual practice. So I’m just saying do it a little bit here. And there. I lived at a Zen monastery. And sometimes, some of the monks don’t live in the monastery with their community, they got to a stage in their growth, where they just said, I need to be alone. Right? Like I was saying, when I started this, when we are born into families, and people are conditioning us. They’re teaching us all about life. And it’s not like we have to get more life lessons at a certain stage. It’s actually we realized, we have to unlearn all the insanity that we were taught, right, we were taught all about sickness and division, and war and famine, and we learned a lot of wacky ideas, right, and a lot of these ideas are human made. So at some point, when you pull away from all of it, you can extract yourself in the matrix, you just literally say, I’m going to spend a period of time alone. I’ve done this for weekends I’ve done I remember my first nine day retreat, my Zen teachers house where that was house sitting, and he’s taught me how to do a retreat, and for nine days, no food, or half of that time, I just sat there meditating, and then started finding so much value to number one, which we’ll talk about how to really get in touch with your stuff. But then even more important than that, in a sense, is what’s left when you’ve gotten through your stuff. So the same teaching now applies to when you’re in relationship or not. But let’s say for tonight, because we’re talking about how to be comfortable being alone. Just make yourself be alone. And I would encourage you for long periods of time, like set a timer and say for one hour, no TV, no cell phone, no computer, right? Just go if you can do it outside, go sit under a tree. Alright, what did Buddha do before he became enlightened? He sat under a tree right? In the Bible, what is the prescription to get to know God? Be still and know that I am God? And of course in miracles, it says you are still is God created you And that has a double meaning, you’re still is God created you, you are still exactly as you are created, your essence is still intact, you’re not broken, you’re whole and complete, your essence is perfectly whole and complete. In the world to view, there’s division, right? There’s labeling, there’s perceptual filters. And of course, in miracles, we work to shift through all of that. So a lot of therapy, whether it’s mental health therapy, or doctor, you know, Western medical type of therapy, it a lot of it is based on the diagnostic model, right? And it’s a model of using certain filters like, are you more visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or something like that as a filter?

Are you introvert or extrovert, right? We’re always trying to categorize people. You are so indoctrinated with that programming, you don’t even realize it. But when you go away by yourself, you let that stuff start purging and detoxifying. It’s just well, they said that I was not good enough, hmm. And then there it is, you can’t hide from it right, your false beliefs will come up, your negative emotions will come up, all of the inner demons come up when you force yourself to be alone. But eventually, you can start saying, What is my truth? What do I know to be real? Right? What is absolute certainty. So what happens when you just sit still, the silence becomes crushing. It’s like, literally, if you just force yourself to be in the present moment, you realize you’re not even capable of it. Just sitting alone, you realize your heart is really actually quite disturbed. You realize the heart which is filled with hurt and sadness, and grief and pain is fueling your head, all of your thinking, when you let yourself act on that, you never clean it up, right? So if this is said, and this right in case you’re listening to audio, and put into my heart if my heart feels sad, and my conscious mind says, Well, if I call this person that’ll make me feel better, and then who’s picking up the phone in a motion, and a thought, led to a behavior, and underneath that emotion is actually deeper thought. I’m alone, and no one loves me. And I’m sad. My mind figured out what to do to make my heart feel better. And then who’s picking up the phone or it works the different way? I feel like I’m unlovable, not good enough. Not attractive, ugly, not deserving of any thing. Whatever. Right? There’s a lot of personal lies that we hold inside. That causes negative emotion right now. I’m sad. I’m scared to be alone forever. What you also learn about when you look at this is a lot of people, maybe not you, but be willing to look at yourself. hate themselves. I’ve been doing hypnotherapy now, for over 25 years.

I have seen so many people who are deeply blocked and walled off. And when you try to get in there and say what’s going on there. It’s hard to get in not because they’re not willing to admit how much they hate their mom and dad, not because they won’t tell you that they’re afraid of this and that not because they’ll say that they’re scared and you can get most of that stuff. Alright, I’m sad. He hurt me. I hate him. The thing they don’t want to admit is I hate myself. Can you imagine telling someone who hates themselves, you must lock yourself in a room by yourself. That’s what they do to prisoners. But monks do the same thing. The advanced Yogi’s advanced mystics will go and sit alone because you have a chance to purify what’s in there, in the silence and solitude. Now again, there’s a whole set of teachings for how to do it with others. But this is the teaching of what do you do when you force yourself into the crucible of intense silence and solitude for any period of time, learn to meditate, learn to sit on a cushion, or recliner or you know, learn how to sit in meditation, when you just sit there so I’m encouraging meditation, you become aware that you’re just sitting there. There’s a book by I think is Pema children who wrote it called the wisdom of no escape like a Buddhist nun who’s like, just sit here we are, can’t really escape your body. You’re not letting yourself act out in any of this stuff. You’re just gonna force yourself to sit while you’re just sitting and breathing. You’re going to notice your heart is not okay. You’re going to notice your mind is trying to figure out what to do about your heart, which is not okay. The more you watch that process and don’t let yourself move, you can pull back from it a bit. So you can say you’ll start noticing hmm, there’s a disturbed person in my person, somewhere inside of me, whatever this me thing is what you’ll contemplate is your are alone, I, here’s my body, here’s my breathing, your mind will try to escape and get away. But here’s my body. Here’s my breathing. I’m just sitting here, oh my god, I hate myself, oh my god, I’m so afraid that nobody’s gonna love me in the future, I’m so afraid that your mind will make up all sorts of silliness. realize it’s detoxifying, in the very moment, because when you’re sitting there just observing your human self, you’ll learn that you’re in there as an observer, that you can observe your heart, you could observe your mind. And then you start saying, Well, who what is this thing? And why is it so disturbed? Why won’t it shut up? First of all, why won’t this thing Shut up? And why is this thing not okay? You start developing a relationship with your own heart and your own mind. What you want to understand is whatever’s detoxifying from there cannot hurt you. But the more you force the human being to sit still, and you don’t act out on your tendencies. So what is karma? tendencies, patterns, cause and effect, right? But the cause is this emotionally disturbed being most of the time when it’s karma. It is an emotionally not okay heart, fueled by the mind who says, Well, what are we going to do to make that feel better? And then you act out? When you act out and the pain in your heart, you are creating more karma? For instance, I hate him. Well, the mind says, Well, we could kill him, because that will get rid of the hate. Oh, okay. It says the murder, right? And then you act on it? Why does it create more karma?

I hope that’s obvious, right? Because you just killed someone. You did what your heart said to do. That’s what psychopaths are using diagnostic terms. But people who end up in prisons or mental hospitals quite often do, they do what their heart wants to do without the critical mind saying, and maybe we shouldn’t do that. But I’m using an extreme example, to say if you act out and what’s in your heart, you have done something most likely, which is karmic meeting, you’ve created a pattern for yourself, that you didn’t actually have to take that journey. So of course, in miracles causes, calls that a useless journey. So for instance, the heart feels bad, it’s all sad, because you feel like you’re unlovable and not good enough, and nobody wants to be with you. And you’re very sad, the mind decides that a box of doughnuts will make you feel better. So then Guess who’s getting in the car and driving to get donuts? When you eat those donuts, you’re suppressing your feelings, you’re putting all that negativity away, but you already acted allanon it. So now you have a negative behavior, which is not good for your body, right? And you’ve done nothing to actually get rid of the pain in your heart. So what do you do when you know these kinds of teachings and your heart is disturbed and you’re sitting there and your mind is talking about donuts? Don’t move, Josh, just keep sitting. When you force yourself with the wisdom of no escape more and more, just know I’m staying on the cushion. And you’ll notice all these tendencies, these temptations to try to do something to make you feel better. Learn to not move, when you just sit there and force yourself. And you just watch what’s happening, you will again, start observing a detoxification process. So for instance, you’re sad, you’re lonely, you feel not good enough. But you’re not doing anything your mind says to do to try to make that feel better. You’re just breathing in the moment and you’re watching their heart feels bad. It kind of starts cooking in there. It’s like you might cry, you be breathing into it. You want to relax your body. Keep breathing, and just feel your feelings. Just ride the waves of emotion as you’re just sitting there. Not letting your body move. It’s crazy. But really, it is the most sane thing to do. When you don’t know what to do do nothing. There is a force in our body that heals right? You cut your hand, you leave it alone, it heals itself, it is miraculous, this force of healing. The same force applies to your heart. If you leave it alone, it will heal you completely. But you have to be quite great to do this. How many people are willing to appear? It seems like a sacrifice Right? Like who is willing to sacrifice everything in the world? Right? So if you just sit still you’re saying no football, no beer. No, you know, no. boat parade, no going to the beach. I am sitting still in a dark room with my eyes closed, right or eyes open if you depending how you meditate, but either way, you’re forcing yourself to sit still and do nothing. So this is how to get comfortable being alone. You really take it to the extreme of sit there do nothing. It’s only extreme. For most people. For a monk. It is as natural as breathing later. Really, you’re just sitting there being with your feelings. It’s actually one of the most sane things to do, gives your body a chance to rest. It gives you a chance to heal. You stop spending money, you stop polluting the environment, you stop creating more karma. Now, I’m not saying you know, you shouldn’t neglect your family, but when you can carve time off for yourself, right? You sit there and you just sit, you keep watching and observing what starts to happen is your stuff comes up. But if you don’t touch it or do anything about it, it will loosen itself up the lifeforce energy itself that healing energy will start to transform that you don’t have to be responsible for it. You don’t have to cycle analyze it, you don’t even have to do hypnotherapy on it. In these teachings, you just sit there and breathe into it. Now, it’s to tell the virtues of hypnotherapy. I knew these teachings before I knew about hypnotherapy. So I was looking for a profession that could expedite the process of clearing those blocks. So what I’ve designed through interpersonal hypnotherapy is absolutely a technique that can clear those mental emotional blocks in your heart. Okay, so you can facilitate get facilitation and speed up this process. But you can’t get facilitation 24/7. But you can force yourself to sit alone in a room for a week. You know, get some food if you need to. But then try to sitting alone in a room for a week. And just don’t do and no TV, no phone, nothing just as long as you can carve out time you do it again, you start noticing your stuff is coming up your mind is talking your heart is book. You don’t need a lot of techniques. I mean, if you learn yoga, you’ll learn Tai Chi, there’s a lot of ways to do retreat. And if anybody wants to reach out to me about how do we do a retreat, I have resources on our online monastery.com And how to structure a retreat, you know, it’s like a day or two to three, four days. But literally you can go for months or years depending on your stage of growth, with using the intense spiritual discipline of silence and solitude. Okay, so again, try to eliminate all distractions, sit on a cushion, sit in a chair, whatever you do, just and if you’re not that disciplined, go for a walk by yourself. Just go sit in a lounge chair by yourself. You’re allowed to exercise your body and whatnot during retreat. But try to minimize distractions, maybe read a book, but you know, doing some journaling, it’s time to just be with yourself. And it’s not meant to seem like a sacrifice or some horrible thing. It’s only a horrible because you have to stop and look at this thing in you, which appears to be horrible. But when you just sit with it, it has an amazing chance to just heal itself.

Let me look in the chat pod. And then I’ll encourage you guys if you have any questions or anything you want to share, please feel free even though this tends to be more a lecture. future classes when I can make them classes. It’ll be the illuminated mind podcast, and it’ll be more interview. I think that’s just a format that YouTube tends to like better so probably go in that direction. But for those of you who like the teachings, thanks for being here. Okay. Hello, no names. What was the book you mentioned earlier regarding no escape. Are there other books you recommend on this type of subject? Yeah, Pema children, I’m almost sure yeah, it was Pema children, the wisdom of no escape. A good book and this is by Isaac Khaimah, also a Buddhist nun, a yy a I believe it Khe Ma, never actually researched who that person is. But I remember years ago reading this book called being nobody going nowhere say yes. Being nobody going nowhere. The Dao De Jing, essentially the Taoist Bible, so Dao De Jing spelled with a T T ao. So the Dao De Jing is like the Dallas Bible, and it really acknowledges the virtue of being alone. Chun Soo In the Book of Changes, the eaching is going to have a similar type of philosophy about the virtue of being a forest hermit forest monk, one of my favorite books and this is the cloud should know me by now. The cloud should know me by now, when I lived in California, I lived on the top of a mountain in the clouds basically, like there’s a lot of cloud cover where I was. And then now I live up in the Adirondack Park in the mountains and not as much cloud cover but still anima paraglider so the I love the title, the cloud should know me by now. I don’t It’s a compilation of a lot of different Chinese Buddhist monks, but really like the solitary guys who just live up in the mountains, and they just meditated. They might have a visitor once a month. Why would a well educated, intelligent, healthy adult who could really do anything they want out of life? Why would they go sit alone like that? that. So we’ve talked about, you’re gonna go through a process of me recommend other books, if you want to email me, there’s a lot more where that comes from. This is such a great topic for me. So I got lots of other resources. But what happens when your blockages are purifying over time. So you can do that alone. You can do that with others. You can do that in hypnotherapy. Either way, you got to clear the blocks in your heart. Silence is just one way silence and solitude just one great way to do that. Why silence by the way. Khalil Gibran wrote in the Prophet we speak, when we cease to be at peace with our thoughts. How often when you gotta call a friend, what do you got to do? You’re venting your stuff. Your two are co ms rating, you’re sharing and you’re difficult. And that’s okay. That’s what friends are for. I’m

not saying you shouldn’t have relationships. But how are you utilizing that relationship? In the way I’ve been talking, it’s often what’s called in A Course in Miracles a special relationship, where I’m needy, and you’re needy, and we’ll come together and be needy together. But hopefully, we won’t feel as needy because we’re together. When you’re alone, you’re forced to feel much more self reliant, right, you have to really tap into your strength. But when you’re alone, you have to look at your false beliefs. Oh, my God, I feel so weak. I won’t heal that and realize how strong you are. But it feels so powerless without this person. Good. He’ll then realize how powerful you are. But I felt so unlovable. If I’m by myself good, sit till you can feel how lovable you are. But I hate myself, I don’t want to be alone. Good. Sit there until you can love yourself. So I could go on and on about the shifts that keep occurring from these kind of what seemed like negatives to positives. But I’m not saying you should sit there and paint your inner world, all positive with creative visualization, you just want to get to where the Buddha got to, which is a state called Shinya or enlightened, where he was empty, empty of what empty, how all that stuff empty of a separate neurotic, self, empty of the ego, right? So A Course in Miracles is all about the shift out of ego back into spirit. But here’s the beautiful thing about Course in Miracles and in Buddhism, you know, in any teaching that points you directly to your true self, underneath all your stuff, which again, can be cleared. Underneath all of that is your perfect true self, which has been living a life. I’ll explain what I mean here is it might sound like bipolar, or like a dissociative identity disorder, but listen carefully underneath all of your neurotic ego and worries, your deeper self has been living its life, uninterrupted all the time. Now what I mean by that, your conscious mind has been monkey mind wackadoodle for most people, your emotions, your heart, not okay, right? All the hurt, sadness, fear, anger, grief, guilt, and all those negative beliefs humans hold, and all the subconscious suppression, creating anxiety and depression that can all be healed by somebody who’s willing to just sit still alone. So all of that gets to clear, clear, clear, all of that negative stuff is temporary. But again, we’re not trying to paint that picture positive. What happens when all the blocks clear is your true self, which was always there all the time will still be there. You won’t hate that self. I promise you, you will love that self. You’ll find your hurt scared inner child, when you’re sitting there alone, you will learn to comfort and heal that little boy or girl. And then you’ll learn to love how precious and adorable and wonderful your inner child is. You’ll sit there and you’ll hear your inner parents voice. Oh, you shouldn’t be alone. Look at you, you’re never gonna amount to anything and look at you never gotten married. You’re gonna notice your parents voice in there, saying all that stuff. Keep letting it go. Keep letting it go. You’re just watching them like clouds passing before you. I’m telling you, it’s an extremely hard practice, but the longer you can do it again, half hour morning, half hour evening or take a day on the weekend. Like again, whenever you can be alone. Practice sitting there doing nothing you will notice how many inner characters are in your head. Where are we so busy seeing other people but when you stop and be still you got a lot of voices in your head. None of those are your real self. Right so every time you hear your inner mom your inner died your inner spouse, your children’s voice that all these people live in our mind right? And they’re all centered around this one character called I or my my wife my kid my this my that when you sit you realize it’s all a fiction. The my the me myself my own is a mental fiction because when you’re clear and empty, that’s not there. Nobody has to say mind. There’s no more need for walls. There’s no more need for peace. excessiveness. So what’s left. And by the way, it’s not a sacrifice when you sit still and be alone, all you’re really doing and this is pure Course in Miracles, you’re sorting out the valuable from the Value Lists during the weekend workshop and of course in miracles, I’ll be taking you through the five major stages that occur for a teacher of God. And of course in miracles. As you’re going through those you start to understand the spirit is taking you through a sorting out process, simply stated, I seemed like I lost my significant other now I’m here alone. Was that even valuable? They okay, maybe for the time you got some growth out of it, you know, like, sure. But you have to start questioning what’s really valuable? What is real love?

What is real pleasure? Where’s real peace found? Where’s real joy found? We all know you have to seek the kingdom within you have to find the love and the joy within. That’s what happens when you sit and you make yourself be alone. You follow the deepest teaching, find God within. So what do you find when all those layers of pain and negativity clear? Again, not a self that you have to create? You’ve already been created according to A Course in Miracles, you are perfect creation of God.

You’re the part of God happening as you are a child of God. So what is that being? Pure Love, you are so infinitely lovable. You can’t even grasp it, you’re loved more than you could possibly imagine. You according to Rumi, you are more precious than Heaven and Earth, because those things will fade away. But you’re the eternal immortal self. That’s what these teachings show us. So is there a sacrifice to find out that you were immortal divine bliss? Is it a sacrifice to find out that infinite divine guidance is always there for you at every moment? Is it a sacrifice to tap into divine guidance that offers you abundance, prosperity, meaning and purpose? Let’s talk about that. When you’re lost in the ways of the world caught up in the matrix doing what they programmed you to do, right where hypnotists were hypnotherapy school. When that programming you like to put you to sleep or were programming you to wake up where unprogrammed you were helping you to unlearn the errors that were created that were developed, you know, throughout one’s life. Okay, so in the process of clearing out the process of freeing your heart, and your mind, from those old patterns, you start to discover something much more beautiful and valuable and worthwhile. So when you’re caught up in the ways of the world, you’re probably a lot of people are working a job making somebody else rich, you might be much more of a sheeple, like a sheep, people sheeple. In case you haven’t heard that one, you might be more of a sheep or than you realize a lot of us that want you know, because all they’re all people’s. If you don’t take time out of the matrix, you might be more caught up in it than you think. Right? It’s really all one big illusion, like it really is a big illusion. And if you don’t just stop and pull away from it ever, so often, you’re more cut up than you think. So if you don’t know what your mission is, and your purpose is and the reason you’re on this planet, then one of the best things to do take time in silence and solitude. Right. You might not be comfortable being alone, but it’s so important to realize you’re not the first one is walk the spiritual path. You know, who said I want to know who I am. I want to know my mission. I want to know my purpose. I want to know where it came from. I want to know where I’m going. Right? Those of us who ask the deeper questions tend to be more introverted anyway. And the journey inwards is where we get our answers. So everything I do in my life, corporate name, values, principles, goals, project’s objectives, student learning outcomes. I mean, everything we do as a state license school, which keeps growing and growing, is based on divinely inspired principles on mission and purpose that comes from higher power. So that’s the most practical thing you can do. Right? Don’t turn to your neurotic conscious mind to run your life. Don’t turn to your emotionally disturbed heart to run your life. Let all that get clear. So we say in hypnotherapy the only way to superconscious mind and there is such a thing. The only way to super conscious mind is through subconscious mind. So how are you going to find su let me give you some other synonyms for this superconscious mind over soul, Higher Self, Holy Spirit, divine mind if there’s any truth to something behind those words? Wouldn’t that be worth knowing? If someone created this Course of Miracles? If someone created you? Wouldn’t it be good to know who that is? If someone gave you purpose Wouldn’t it be good to be in touch with that someone? So what we do in intense silence and solitude, there’s not just meditation. For some people, they prefer the prayer and communion model in that. Because the truth is, you’re never alone. Even if your body isn’t with other bodies, we are all one. What you discover in the intense silence and solitude is there’s one love that permeates the whole universe. Because when you get totally clear, that’s what’s left. Again, it was running its own life, even with all your neuroticism going, God was still doing her thing. The Dow is still doing its thing, even though you are neurotic, right? So like I was saying, under the surface, your real life has been continuing on uninterrupted all of your love your mission, your joy, it’s all there. But it’s lying in potential because you haven’t let it blossom through you yet. So how do we really cook and burn away the dross of the false self and make way for like our real true self? One way to again, there’s many spiritual paths. But one major component of pretty much any spiritual path that I’ve looked at is that monks and nuns and deep spiritual practitioners spend time alone. And again, it can be really hard at first, but it’s important to remember many other people have walked this spiritual path before us if we just follow in their footsteps and we have faith right that what they said, right study people like Mayor Baba, Rama Krishna, Harmon Honza Yogananda study the teachings of Christ, beautiful teachings of from that are, of course, miracles and also the way of mastery. When you study any of this stuff, you realize, those who channeled or delivered this meant these materials, that you don’t have a problem being alone. What are they described as their inner experience, unconditional love, and light and joy and peace and wisdom, and communion. So it’s not just when I sit alone, there’s no one there. What happens when all your valves drop away, is I’ll just use the G word, but you can call it whatever you like. The presence of God is right here. Now in spirituality, you don’t have to actually seek God. God knows where you are, according to a Course of Miracles. God knows where you are.

Well, where whereas God, right here, couldn’t be any closer. So when your mind is done with all the ego stuff, you’ll you start what happens is in A Course of Miracles, you start surrendering your mind, all this stuff, but you didn’t know what to do with obviously. Why is your heart cell disturbed? Maybe you don’t know what to do with it. Why is your mind such a mess? It’s untrained. And it wasn’t given to a higher wiser power. When we surrender that to Holy Spirit. superconscious when we go through the pain, but we’re willing to give it to something higher, we discover that something higher is always there, that something higher is constantly trying to heal you if you would just leave it alone. Once you’re healed, once you’re clear, when there’s no more karma, no more blockages, no more pain, just trying to imagine what that’s like, if that’s new for you. What would it be like to just be supremely clear? You would actually hear the voice for God. And then you realize, oh, that’s why silence and solitude, zip the lip print. Because when you don’t let yourself talk, you realize, oh, my God, you’re talking all the time. You won’t shut up in there. You’re not listening. So why don’t we learn to do in meditation or deep prayer, we start listening him. So prayer, when you’re praying to that higher mind, it’s still you talking. revelation comes from God, this is A Course in Miracles comes from God to us, not from us to God, you don’t tell God how it is. I’m so alone, and nobody loves me, and I’m worthless, and I’m never gonna make enough money and gods like, oh, who are you talking to? And why are you saying such silliness? That’s what we do when we’re just talking. And if you put your hands like this, and keep doing it, it doesn’t matter. It’s still neurotic. The more you just let it go. You have a real mind in there, but it’s created by God. Right? What is the Bible say something like let the thoughts you think like the the thoughts of Christ Jesus, and so I’m going to be religious and you guys in A Course in Miracles, it says, I think the thoughts I think with God, are you thinking the thoughts you think with God? Those are valuable thoughts? Those are moneymakers. Those are the thoughts that bring you love and joy and harmony and goodness. So it’s a period of time to harmonize your human self to transform your ego really, once it’s really clear. You the prayer is more of a communion. It’s kind of fika I love you and spirits like yeah, I love you too. And it talks to you and it comforts you and it guide you and it’s much wiser and much smarter than you ever could imagine until you start interacting more with it. So, some people just call it the presence of God, I have no problem saying that, but a lot of people are, you know, one use other words, fine. Call it whatever you want. But are you listening to a mind that is seen? clear, logical, rational and consistent all the time? Or are you listening to a mind that is disturbed and chaotic and confused and makes mistakes and, you know, on and on, so once you see the difference between spirit and ego, A Course in Miracles is all about this earning the difference? Right? So is it spirit? Or is it? Is it ego? Or is it spirit? Is it fear? Or is it love, fear ruins our life? Love

that stuff, ego fear that creates psychosomatic illness. Love is the healing energy. In A Course of Miracles. It says the healed healer is far too evolved to be leave in illness. So is our model like I was saying earlier medicine or therapy? Is it just about diagnosis and illness? Or is our model of healing a movement towards ONENESS consciousness, a movement towards your true self? Right? That’s what hypnotherapy needs to be. That’s why we’re interpersonal hypnotherapy. It is about our relationship to other people. So in closing, then I’ll open up to any question or answer. After a lot of time of spiritual silence, spiritual discipline, silence and solitude. You know, honestly, this is not a one year path, this is 10 years. 20 years doesn’t mean you’re alone for all that time. But realize if you’re an advanced meditator, you’re gonna be doing that for decades. So as you mature in your practice over decades, at some point, you realize, Wow, no matter how alone I am, I’m not alone. Mines are joined, course miracles, mines are joined. And as long as there’s still one slave in this earth, you will never be free. This is where the bodhisattva vow of Buddhism comes in. If you are when because it’s inevitable, it’s just how quickly do you get there, when you get to your own personal wholeness, enlightenment, self realization, self actualization, there’s one major thing left the realization that all of your other brothers and sisters, the majority of them are not there. They’re really suffering, right? There is war, there is famine, there is sickness, there are people reading seven elevens. And you know, those people are miserable and hungry, and you know, it people shooting each other every day. Okay, so when you meditate alone, you’re not unaware of that. And you’re not pretending it doesn’t exist. Because in oneness, you’re intimately aware of that boy who just got shot. Right? So what do you feel in an open heart? When you hear about what’s happening out there? compassion, the love seeing the pain of your own self shooting each other, you feel compassion. So my experience of this is, like I mentioned being like an angel, you’re just sitting here came down from heaven, and you only know the ways of heaven, right? Where forgiveness isn’t ever unnecessary. And love is all there is. And then you’re like, why did you just shoot yourself? Why were you raping and murdering yourself? Why are your children God killing and hurting each other, you start to see the incredible insanity of the ego once you pull away from it, but if you’re kind of flirting in it, if you get desensitized to it becomes like the norm, you can watch movies of people killing each other video games, and now it’s just happening out there. Like seriously, and it’s kind of always been happening out there. But and of course, in miracles until that mess stops, the teachers of God are necessary that we need to be helpful we need to be of service. So this is where the intense silence and solitude leads to some type of service in the world. I’ve chosen to do that through hypnotherapy, through Anna hot meditation, through our Life Mastery Course, through Neuro Linguistic Programming, right? But that’s where the purpose and the meaning is. So if you’re wondering, what should I be when I grow up, and you know, what is my purpose, I guarantee you it has something to do with healing this major problem, which Holy Spirit or higher self is aware of, right and you have a part to play in cleaning that up. If you don’t know what that part is, then silence and solitude because no one else can tell you what it is right? Only that higher, wiser mind can tell you who you are. And of course in miracles you get confused. You think you can tell God who you are is if it’s up to you to make that up or to provide that answer. That’s insanity. Only that which created you can tell you what you are. But if you don’t take the time to listen to that voice, so practice in your silence and solitude. Can you get your mind totally quiet? That takes years of practice? This but more and more, you will hear that higher wiser mind, you just have to have trust and faith that there is a path towards that if you haven’t, you know, depending on where you’re at with that, but no matter where you’re at, if you’re listening to this, it probably means it’s a nice reminder to realize, of course in miracles says, I think you God for your guarantee of only happy outcomes. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. But the closer you get to the light, the more you see your shadow. So the real work is the shadow self work, what’s the best way to do it, sit alone by yourself, you will see your shadow. But honestly, I can give a whole nother hour talk about doing this with other people. Because while silence will clear a lot of blocks, being with others will clear the rest, right. So value both when you’re with others and they push your buttons. Awesome. Now you can go sit by yourself and burn through your blockages. When you’re sitting by yourself, you got a blockage come up, okay, maybe you can go talk to a friend, you’re realizing my priority, or to clear the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence that becomes your only job. And of course, in miracles enclosing here, your only job, your only responsibility is to accept the atonement for yourself, except the at one minute for yourself. And when you sit alone, you’re either saying I choose heaven, I choose love. I choose bliss, I choose light, I choose peace, where you’re having insane thoughts, choosing something else which makes you miserable. How do you know you’re not choosing the thoughts you think with God, if you’re not happy, if you’re not at peace, if you’re not feeling joy, and bliss and love, if you’re not just truly content from within something drop, you’re blocked, miracles are meant to naturally occur. If they’re not occurring, something has gone wrong. A miracle in this context is a shift from illusion to truth, from fear to love. It’s meant to be happening all the time. It’s only if we hold it all together. That that doesn’t occur. Forgiveness is to just let go, just keep letting it go. Keep letting it go. Eventually, your heart gets clearer. Your mind gets clearer. Your body gets healthier, you get wiser, you tend to get wealthier, and everything seems to be made better off. All right, great. So feel free to ask any questions or share anything, and then we’ll start we’ll wrap it up for the evening. And again, in the future, we’ll be going to the illuminate May and illuminated mind podcast model, where I’ll be happy to share these kinds of teachings but with other people who I’ll be interviewing as well. All right, how does this teaching overlap with the philosophy of Samadhi? Yeah, absolutely. So

well, they don’t really talk about Samadhi directly in A Course in Miracles. So let’s work through relate the two, when you move into samadhi let me define that term that really just means oneness, right? How would it what’s the best way to say what is Samadhi? The experience the non dual experience of absolute bliss consciousness. So Samadhi is your oneness with source, absolute bliss consciousness. So the yogi’s right Buddhists, you know, we can all use same terms there. We’re working to get into Samadhi. How do we do it? Sit on a meditation cushion. That’s called Asana. Step one, assume the position right? Get on a meditation cushion. If you can sit Lotus fine, you know, sit in a chair, but take time and sit still. Then what do we do in yogic practice? We start something called premium, regulating the control of the lifeforce energy or if people often know different forms of breath work, we’re learning to purify the energy meridians and premium and we’re learning to find the prana the Chi, the lifeforce, the healing energy, or it could be called the Rafa. Kodesh in Hebrew, the Holy Spirit, right. So your breath energy is Prana yawn or prana is the breath energy. Yawn means to control. But that’s a whole nother topic. That’s not a great English translation, but prana Yum, you’re working with your lifeforce energy, then in the practice of Samadhi, we have to do what’s called pratyahara we’re withdrawing our attention from the outside world inside. You can’t really do that, as a beginner. I am just gonna say maybe very advanced practitioners could do this while they’re dancing or doing other things. But for a beginner, the recommended thing is get on a meditation cushion sit still. And then pratyahara is to direct your attention away from your senses and inwards, but inwards to where then we go into samadhi, which is a practice of what’s called Darna beyond Samadhi when we get too complicated here for you in this one question, but one thing is I know I know the teachings is just a lot to explain. So when we do Samadhi practice, we withdrawn inside we do dharna concentration, the on deep meditation and then Samadhi is oneness. Okay, now if we’re doing that practice up into that space of pure consciousness We will transcend the heart and the mind. So you’ll find that higher conscious observer if you practice those teachings, but then you have to learn about your relationship to your heart and your mind. So once you find that higher observing consciousness, which is essentially the practice of deep samadhi, then you can look up into spirit, like what’s up in that consciousness, but you can sit in that space and look down at the human. And then the teachings are exactly the same. And these are yogic teachings essentially, which is how do we clear the sun scars are the karmic seeds in our hearts, and had is that clear mind? You know, I’m just saying heart and head, right. But really, in yoga, we have the chakra system. Those are only two of the chakras, but the teaching if you expand it says, We need to clear all the chakras. How do we do that? We let the kundalini shakti clear the blockages and the chakra system. That’s just another way of saying we forgive we let go we let God so in yogic practice, we talk about letting go of the Sun scars to let the prana purify, again, promise that healing, lifeforce energy. Let the primer, clear your blocks, and course miracles, we say just forgive, let go and let the Holy Spirit heal your heart and mind. So either way, you’re giving it to a higher power in Chinese medicine. All we do with acupuncture is put in a needle and get that energy to flow. But no Chinese medical doctor would claim to be the healer, where it is the one that gets the lifeforce energy moving again, I got into Chinese medicine, because I knew I needed to clear the blocks to love’s presence. Okay, so let me know if that helps. But yeah, if somebody has a very complex topic, if for anybody listening, if you want to go deeper into that, then we have a workshop already done, you can listen to his recordings called the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. To take you very deep into yoga practice. But again, this upcoming weekend, of course, miracles workshop. All right, hello, no names. But another question. How do you balance being an introvert and I don’t have that balance? I don’t know. What your How do you balance being an introvert and loving being alone, and then knowing you are here to teach and serve in a bigger way beautiful. My experience has been, I have a lot of family and a lot of friends and a lot of colleagues and a lot of staff. And yet, I just take time away from it. So what is a great spiritual teacher, Andrew Harvey, he was talking about Rumi in the stages that great masters get to and he said, they, they have a balance. But it’s not a balance of the ways of the world, Rumi knew he had a mighty purpose, this glorious mission, to infuse the world with divine love. Right. And then so he was with his students, Rumi had a lot of students, he had his teacher Shams, right, these great beings have relationships. The difference is, and I’ll speak for some miracles, again, they know what everything is for. So and of course, in miracles, it says you know what a telephone is, but you don’t know what it’s for. Right? So for instance, people who use the internet to cause hate crimes or whatever horrible things people are doing with the internet, it’s just a neutral tool, right? Like a knife, right, you can use to chop vegetables, or you can use it to do horrible things to other human beings. So st. who’s living at that place doesn’t really have balanced the way the world sees balance. It’s not necessarily a balance between your career and your wife and your kids. And your this is a balance of divine purpose. But then your relationships all become.

For us, the best were utilized for that. But you’re not like using people. It’s just God is coordinating relationships to help you to fulfill your purpose. And of course, in miracles, you realize there are no accidents every day has lessons that are already laid out for you, the people you’re going to meet did not happen by accident. So at the end of every day, when you interact with your humans, you interact with the other humans, and then go sit alone by yourself. And what I do is what I call the daily review show, right? And I did it this afternoon, I got some interesting interactions with other humans today. And then we’ll say oh, that was that was interesting. Alright, interesting day. Thank you God. And then I sit and I let whatever shit read the term and Sanskrit is Chit pretties all the waves of your mind and heart I so everybody has those. But the question is what you do with them. When you’re done interacting with the humans and you just take some time alone, let your energy just do its thing. Observe. Oh, I made me sad today. Good. Feel it until it clears. Don’t suppress it, be sure it gets empty by the end of the day. So personally, I could be wrong. And if there’s some shadowy part of me, I want to know, but generally I don’t feel like I’m carrying anything from the past anymore. I sit down at the end of the day, I feel whatever’s there. I forgive it. I release it. I let Go once I feel like I already got my lessons, I know what’s going on for that good. Done. Never think of it again. I’m not saying suppress it, I’m saying you are so complete with the day, tomorrow is a completely new day. And then you will interact with people again. And they will push your buttons and you will learn stuff and you will grow and you will collaborate and do whatever you do. And then when you have time again, Course in Miracles just says when you start the day started with God, when the end, the day ended with God, just sit still in the morning, sit still in the evening. And that might be as much as you get to do if you know you’re married, and you have kids and all that. But against somebody like me who I said I’m qualified to do this talk because I can go really extreme with being alone. But you know, maybe that’d be a year or two in my life, and then I’d be back into relationship again. So again, it’s kind of a balance of both. But I’m just going to encourage when you think about these higher states of spiritual functioning, it’s not a normal worldly balance. It’s, I’m drunk, and God, I’m listening to God who tells me what to do. And then I’m interacting with other people, because that’s in harmony with divine will. That’s how I see it anyway. How would you try to keep this understanding of the illusionary world, when we are surrounded by the density of illusions constantly, you can meditate and sit alone. But as soon as you step into work, you fall back into your welcome. The other question, you fall back into old patterns, that’s where spiritual practice comes in. So what happens when you say, All right, this is a matrix, this is an illusion, right? This whole thing about money, this is a made up illusion, we all just agreed upon that this paper nothingness, which is nothingness, there’s no gold standard, it’s just all a big illusion, okay? So you can’t, you don’t deny that that’s there is the wrong use of denial, according to a Course of Miracles, you can’t deny you have a body, you can’t deny there’s a world out there, okay. But when you take your time alone, which can be five minutes in the morning, five minutes in the evening, you’re dedicating that time to truth. Now just block out the day started and ended with that. As you start appreciating the value of that five minutes and five minutes, you’ll start expanding it because it’s more blissful, it feels good, you’re clearer, you’re have more peace, you have more insight about what to do, you’re more intuitive, you just became smarter, colors became brighter, your screen got clear, you lost weight, everything gets better, the more you just do that, you just start expanding the times. Now I did an hour, now I did an hour, it’ll start staying with you. I was in college learning. I didn’t learn most of this at college. But during this age I did. And I was working at a drugstore, which I never did much of that kind of thing, you know, actual jobs. But in college, I had this one little job. And I just remember sitting behind the counter late at night at this drugstore. And I’m like, this is all an illusion.

There’s none of this is real. So you start just walking around and it stays with you like, I just feel like I’m walking around observing this planet, but I’m not really I’m not from this planet. I’m the observer of the human experience. You just have to spend more time in meditation to develop the seat of the soul. Eventually, you’re so solid and who you are, as this observing consciousness, you’ll literally be driving the car. So practice sitting up here, like you’re looking through your third eye point like Don’t look at me now through these eyes. Look at me now through this day. And don’t look at my body just go zoop like an octave higher, and kind of start just peripherally looking at the aura, stop looking at detail stop judging, stop labeling, and the identity of relative and absolute Sutra of Zen Buddhism. It says if you do not see the way you do not see it, even as you walk on it, do not judge by any standards. And then it says I respectfully say to those who wish to be enlightened, do not waste your time by night or day. So that means you are training like a martial artist, like our a soldier getting ready for battle, like a spiritual warrior. You’re getting in the meditation, cushion morning and even carving out more and more time. And practice sitting up here looking through here realizing you’re a soul looking through eyeballs, right? Your Divine Consciousness, looking through eyeballs, you’re not a brain, right? So get used to the idea that I’m an observing consciousness. Now you’ll take that off the cushion, the great St. Ramakrishna, he said, The more time you give to God, the more of your responsibilities God takes away I hope because Spirit wants you to take this journey and to come home Spirit knows you’re unhappy out there. If you don’t go within you go without and going without means you’re in the value less meaningless world they know a lot of people don’t believe that. But that’s why A Course in Miracles came to us to tell you the lusion is valueless spirit, the real self, the thing you truly love and the people you truly love, you love their spirit you love spirit you love love. So the more you just take time in that, each day expand that, the other part actually becomes less because you’re expanding that I find I can do more of this part and make more money than if I’m busy there. When you’re in the, the what I’m saying here, you know, my fingers is meditation time, the more time you spend there, the more the right people come to you, you don’t go out to others, you find they come to you very rarely do I reach out to another human being, they just tend to show up, because they tend to be drawn to like to love to healing to careers, you know, like everything good, you can offer a person. So again, the more time you spend in the meditation chunks of your day, the more that part will seem like an illusion. The more time you spend in Samadhi here when you open your physical eyes. Wow. I’m like on this other planet in this dream. And it’s holographic. And it’s you know, it’s 3d and there’s people cool. But yeah, keep remembering. It is a dream. All right. I love this then teaching Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water, after enlightenment chop wood carry water? Yeah. It’s an extremely advanced state, though, to just chop wood and carry water. Anybody could say they do it, but they don’t do it. So while we meditate in Zen practice, we don’t actually call it meditation. It’s called sitting Zen. Then there’s walking then then there’s eating Zen. That’s the Zen answer to how do we take it off the cushion and integrate it into the illusion? Zen doesn’t tend to call it an illusion because you create these ideas in your mind truth and illusion. But when you’re just clear, it’s very clear that there’s the absolute and the relative, then we’ll be very comfortable calling it the absolute reality. And the relative plane, the relative plane is temporary and illusory. The absolute definitely, according to the Course of Miracles is eternal. So again, we start valuing that, but we find that gives us all the fuel we need to deal with the illusion really well.

Beautiful. All right, thank you, everybody. Appreciate you interacting with me. We’ll wrap it up unless I see any other questions. So yeah, look for new advertising promotion for the illuminated mind podcast. And hopefully, some awesome guests. If anybody’s watching this, and you think, Hey, I’d like to be a guest on the illuminated mind podcast. Then I reach out to us at Institute of hypnotherapy.com and I’d be happy to talk to you the next month we’re going to dedicate to spirituality, enlightenment and hypnotherapy and I’ll be working to bring in some guests to talk to you guys. Whoever’s gonna be listening about that. And then again, upcoming workshop this Saturday. Just check out the Institute of hypnotherapy that come if you miss it, you can watch it as recordings. But this Saturday Of Course in Miracles workshop. Alright, great. Thank you, everybody. Have a wonderful evening and hope to see you soon.