The END of SUFFERING
Season 1 • EP 10 • April 30, 2024
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With Co-Hosts davidji & Elizabeth Winkler
The END of SUFFERING
Let’s heal together! Have you ever felt the sting of words spoken without thought, or been on the receiving end of a careless comment? Elizabeth Winkler and davidji, open up about these all-too-human moments on our latest podcast, revealing a poignant incident that led to a profound personal revelation. Through our conversation, we explore the traps of JEDI—Justify, Explain, Defend, Insist—and the necessity of impeccable speech for personal growth and the well-being of others.
Sometimes the hardest confrontations are with ourselves, and that’s where healing begins. We take you on an inward journey of self-forgiveness and repentance, reflecting on the powerful impact of a sincere apology and the ancient faith traditions that teach us the importance of remorse & reconciliation. Elizabeth and I share intensely personal stories about facing our own shortcomings and how the act of embracing our transgressions can lead to a cathartic release and self-liberation—lessons that resonate with anyone seeking to mend their own internal wounds.
Then there’s the transformative power of a morning meditation routine—before the day’s chaos ensues. We discuss how this practice serves as an alchemical process to transform overwhelming emotions into growth and understanding. The episode culminates in an exploration of the delicate dance between our shadow and light, and how embracing both can catalyze profound personal transformation. Join us for a journey that promises to move you from heartache to healing, and from darkness to an enlightened new beginning.
Big shoutout to the amazing Jamar Rogers for creating such powerful music and lyrics for the official song of The Shadow & The Light Podcast! Deep gratitude~
Elizabeth Winkler: 0:19
Welcome to the Shadow and the Light podcast with internationally renowned meditation teacher, davidji.
davidji: 0:25
And heart healer and psychotherapist Elizabeth Winkler, as we guide you through our unique fusion of ancient wisdom and modern psychology.
Elizabeth Winkler: 0:35
Get ready to awaken your true essence, heal your wounds and transform your shadow into hey davidji.
Elizabeth Winkler: 1:06
Hey, davidji.
davidji: 1:08
Oh, hello there. This is davidji with the Shadow and the Light podcast. I’m here with my co-host, elizabeth Winkler, the transformational alchemist, and I just had such an amazingly powerful breakthrough. I was suffering. I was in so much internal, heart-constricted, anxiety-filled suffering and went through this journey to I’m on the other side of it now, and so that’s why we’ve named this episode the End of Suffering, because I went through a process that was so cathartic and so powerful, and I want to share it with you. What do you think about that? I?
Elizabeth Winkler: 1:48
want to hear.
davidji: 1:48
Yeah, tell me, yeah, please guide me through. You are the therapist to the cosmos, and so I have always considered you have the best insights and questions. But let me just share this thing, so I have an interaction with someone.
Elizabeth Winkler: 2:05
Nothing.
davidji: 2:06
Why are you grimacing?
Elizabeth Winkler: 2:08
Is she going to be?
davidji: 2:09
listening. I think she’s going to come to my house for dinner soon. Yeah, I’m on the other side of it now. This specifically happened with a really really close friend of mine’s friend so it’s not someone that I really knew well, but they were close friend of my close friend Found myself speaking very, very casually and comfortably in their presence, because I was with my really close friend, who I always speak casually and comfortably with, but I didn’t know that this other person I wasn’t even thinking about the fact that my words could hurt, harm or trigger anything inside of her.
davidji: 2:53
That’s the incredible thing I’m thinking to myself. Yeah, I’m being pretty impeccable with my word. I’m not saying anything that’s behind somebody’s back or anything like that. But there were a couple of words that I said that perhaps could be triggering to someone who’s hypersensitive or someone who has a deep wound or someone who’s experienced a certain amount of early childhood abuse. And so there was a disconnect between the comfort that I had speaking to my friend, who sort of gets me and knows me and understands me and isn’t as scrutinizing if I stray a little bit, and then this other person who was sort of the third wheel but I was treating them in that moment, so clearly a high potential for me to not be impeccable with my word. But I wasn’t thinking about it. And I was thinking, oh, when I say something and I’m in the company of a friend that they think could be hurtful or could be phrased better, they tell me, they call me on my stuff. I’ve had so many great opportunities where someone has said could you be a little more articulate with that, is there another word that you could use to explain that? And I never view those as judgments. I view those as wow, someone’s really trying to help me here to become a better expression of myself. But this person in that moment didn’t say anything, and yet they were hurt by something that I said. And so this was pretty dicey.
davidji: 4:22
And it wasn’t until a couple of weeks later my friend reaches out to me and says I just want to let you know you were talking about this one thing and it really zapped Doris, it really zapped her, and I was like what do you mean? She said she took it almost as a personal attack and I was like, oh, I was speaking so generically at the time, why would she take it personally? And my friend said well, you know she’s very sensitive and instantly, like inside of me, I started feeling I had been feeling so great for all this time and then suddenly, inside of me, I was just, I was not. I could barely breathe, my throat started to close up, I started to feel a weight on my chest and I suddenly realized, oh, I have, I have transgressed here, but it ate at me.
davidji: 5:12
It continued to eat at me and I didn’t have a solution. And I wanted to go back to Doris and say Doris, don’t you understand? I wasn’t talking to you or about you, or I was telling a whole different kind of story and you were just a listener in that process. I wanted to explain every single aspect and I found myself in Jedi state.
Elizabeth Winkler: 5:31
Elizabeth has created this acronym, jedi, which means Justify, explain Defend and you added the I I added the.
davidji: 5:40
I Insist, insist. That’s how we become JEDIs Certainly by realizing I don’t need to do any of those things. But in that moment I was a Jedi master. I was trying to justify. Well, I was having a casual conversation, you were just a bystander in that. I was trying to explain, I didn’t actually say this thing that she said. I said I said this thing, I was trying to defend. Well, I was, you know, coming from my point of view, and I still think to this day I can absolutely guarantee that I’m correct in that. And then the final I was insisting, I was insisting.
davidji: 6:17
But all this was internally. You know, I wasn’t with Doris. I wasn’t having any conversation. She’s not my scroll, she’s not my phone. I don’t having any conversation. She’s not my scroll, she’s not my phone. I don’t even follow her on Instagram. I don’t even know who she is. She’s just a friend, a trusted friend of a dear friend, and you know this dear friend, elizabeth.
davidji: 6:35
So this was so powerful and I twisted for days. I felt the weight of my words landing on Doris for two days and I was suffering. I was in agony. I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep I’m not exaggerating here. I did not sleep. I went a whole night looking up words and maybe you know how to be more impeccable and doesn’t she understand? And how can I explain it better? How can I get her to see my point of view? Like there’s a whole bunch of stuff like that pouring into me. I think I had like three sips of water, lost five pounds. There was so much. That was just. I was suffering. I was truly suffering. People were calling me. I wasn’t answering my phone, everything was going to voicemail. I wasn’t returning emails, I wasn’t returning texts, I wasn’t posting on social media. I was in just a land of pain that I had created and this person was receiving it in a way that I couldn’t even think of when we have a reaction that is bigger than the actual experience.
Elizabeth Winkler: 7:39
There’s a couple ways of talking about this. When it’s hysterical, it’s historical.
davidji: 7:44
Oh, wait, wait, wait, stop. This is so important. I know this is so important because, first of all, I was very relaxed when I committed the sin, whatever it was, and then I was in such suffering.
Elizabeth Winkler: 7:59
Right. So when it’s hysterical, it’s historical, when it’s bigger, the bigger the reaction, the deeper the material is, the deeper the wound. So I’m sitting here listening and I’m like what’s really going on Because, yes, part of it belongs to the situation, but truly, there’s an original wound here, which you may not know what it is, and that’s okay. When we do the alchemy work of working with that constriction in the throat or wherever it may be, that will allow you to open up that original wound, which may have some very deep pains that are revealed.
davidji: 8:37
That can also be our first response as a form of denial slash rationalization. Oh well, come on. What I said was so innocent. How intensely could this be?
Elizabeth Winkler: 8:48
It woke up something deeper in you. It triggered an older energy that is connected to this, but possibly quite different, of not being understood, not being heard, not being seen, not being heard, not being seen. How many here listening can relate to those things? Hmm, I think all of us, many of us, all of us feel not seen, not understood, not heard, like when we were kids we weren’t understood, heard or whatever. We all have these wounds. These all are wounds of not enoughness that are the birth of the ego and we justify, explain, defend and insist whenever that gets attacked we feel. But if we can allow ourselves to move through the process of resisting and to allow ourselves to let go of justify, explain, defend and insist, we can actually access the healing of the wound, of the original wound, which may have 100 files from over the years in it, and that is possible. But it’s only possible when it’s activated, yeah yeah, because then it’s really alive in you.
davidji: 10:06
Most of us run from that, and let me tell you how this then unfolded for me. Then I’m walking peaches two mornings later and something pops up on my phone Sell Rosh Hashanah, buy Yom Kippur, which is one of those memes from the stock market. Apparently, back in the day, if you would just sell your positions on Rosh Hashanah, the new year, the Jewish new year and 10 days later buy all them back, you would have sold high and bought low. And then I started reading how long has this been going on? How long have people been making investment decisions based on sell Rosh Hashanah, buy Yom Kippur? And then, as I continue to scroll, peaches and I are walking, we’re on like mile two and I’m scrolling and then it says those 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the 10 days of penitence. These are the 10 days to be as remorseful as you possibly can be, because maybe the other 355 days out of the year you haven’t been particularly repentant, you haven’t been particularly apologetic. And I said to myself if I can’t be remorseful, at least during the 10 specific days and I’m not religious, and it certainly popped up on my phone for a reason.
davidji: 11:22
On that day I said if I can’t be repentant during the 10 days of penitence. Then I wrote you back to Rabbi Hillel If I’m not for myself, who is for me? If I’m only for myself, who am I? And if not now? When? And I suddenly said, come on, peaches turned around, raced home and began to write my full-throated, full-hearted, defenseless apology with no explanation, no excuse, making no whatever. What was I trying to do? Suddenly, as I was writing this out again, this is different from just journaling, because I was truly having an oponopono moment to this person. They had not yet received my email as I pulled away my Jedi, as I totally released my need to explain and give broader context, because I believe so much is context. But how long do I want to keep trying to convince someone that there was context if they’re not listening to that at all?
davidji: 12:26
The resistance that I felt this other person was exhibiting to my process was actually the resistance that I was holding in my heart as I continue to write. It’s a mea culpa. It’s taken the full hit with no excuses. What am I afraid of? Afraid of opening my heart so completely and being so vulnerable In that moment that I hit.
davidji: 12:48
Send it wasn’t in the writing of it, but when I hit. Send the sound when you’re sending an email and it goes. That was the sound of resistance leaving my heart and the suffering being over, and it was transformational for me, my need to be on the right side, which I felt Like if you only got where I was coming from, you would agree with me. We have 8 billion people Not everyone’s in our head, no one’s in our head and so will that person ever truly understand what was in my heart? No, but they understood that I said to them I left Amma behind Toxic residue instead of Ojas, sweet vital nectar and no matter what, 100% responsible for every word that leaves my mouth, even if my intentions are pure and good and noble, if the execution doesn’t quite get there and you’re not on the same page with me, if you misunderstand me, that’s my responsibility. I must own you misunderstanding me, and that was my breakthrough.
Elizabeth Winkler: 13:53
Amazing, I love it. Forgiveness, self-forgiveness too.
davidji: 13:58
Yeah, and here was the coolest thing. I had no expectation that she would reply immediately and I didn’t say can you forgive me, I just asked. I hope you receive the email. So I believe that even if a person is not actually in this physical plane with us, if they’ve gone to another realm, if they’ve died, if they’ve passed on, we can go through that exact same process, with perhaps conversations that never were said, whether we believe that the person’s actually listening in another realm or whether we believe, oh, I missed my opportunity because they’ve left this earth plane.
davidji: 14:37
The release of this process was in me, fully opening my heart, and while I was writing this, there wasn’t even a line where I was trying to defend and then deleted it. I wasn’t going to go there, I wasn’t going to go there, I wasn’t going to go there. It was probably one of the most enlightening things that I’ve ever written, and the more Queens version of me would have said, oh, don’t be so weak, don’t be such a loser, don’t buy into this person’s mindset, and I felt it was just beautiful to do that and it really didn’t have anything to do with the other person. I don’t want to say that Maybe that other person’s listening right now, but this really had to do with me and in that moment I thought of you, elizabeth, because I became the Jedi warrior, in that moment, brandishing my lightsaber and having no need to even use it, because my heart was so exposed and so open.
Elizabeth Winkler: 15:34
You say it has nothing to do with the other person. You could say that and you could say it has everything to do with them, because, tatvamasi, we are all reflections.
davidji: 15:42
How does?
Elizabeth Winkler: 15:43
that live in me, tatvamasi, which means I am that or you are that, and that mantra I like to use it with judgment when we’re judging or defending or resisting. What you resist persists, and people that challenge us. If we are willing to drop our ego, which is what you got to, we can access that connection point of how that lives in me and move to a deeper level of the heart. Very hard for people, though, very hard for everyone.
davidji: 16:16
48 hours of twisting and struggling and suffering preceded this. Not saying it’s easy, but here’s the internal conversation I was having. I want to stop suffering. Please, let me stop suffering. And I don’t know when I said please. Perhaps I was speaking to God. And then God delivered a Jewish New Year Sel Rosh Hashanah message for me. But had I not continued to read that, I wouldn’t have gotten to the reality of the 10 days of penitence which, who knows who, follows that.
davidji: 16:50
Most people celebrate Rosh Hashanah because it’s New Year and it’s a gratitude day, a taking stock day. And then on Yom Kippur, which is 10 days later, you fast, you cleanse, you apologize to all the sins you’ve done, to yourself, to others, to God, to whatever. Not a lot of attention these days put on those 10 days to whatever. Not a lot of attention these days Put on those 10 days penitence. But those are 10 official days of remorse and repentance, which is so critical. And most people you either go into confessional if you’re Catholic, if you’re Jewish, you’re like waiting for that day when you’re fasting to say, look, I really fasted If you’re Islamic. That’s happening a lot of times over the course of the year we think of Ramadan, but there’s a whole bunch of different Eids where fasting takes place to remind us to get closer to our most divine self, to get closer to God.
Elizabeth Winkler: 17:45
Own your impact is what this is really coming back to, right? Yes, yes, is what this is really coming back to, right? Yes, yes, I actually listened to a streaming on Rosh Hashanah and the rabbi was saying that in the Jewish tradition, it’s about self-responsibility. This is a time of taking responsibility for yourself and the impact that you have had. I also think you were talking about forgiveness and how we can do this with people who are no longer with us. I do this as a process with people quite often. I work a lot with people in divorce.
Elizabeth Winkler: 18:23
I’ve used this myself in challenging situations and it’s a meditation I’ve created for myself or I’ve offered to others, which, if there is someone that you are struggling with or they’re struggling with you, as was your situation I guess it was both you can envision them. Get into a meditative state, relax, meditate maybe listen to one of davidji or my meditations on Insight Timer if you want, but you need to be relaxed, because if you’re not in a relaxed state, really nothing can happen. Maybe that was part of your 48 hour process is that you eventually were able to relax, to get present, because when we are in resistance, we’re in our head, we’re in fear, we’re in scarcity, so we always need to be able to let go and get into presence, which is a relaxing back down into the total self. So that’s just always true and for this process, you can imagine the person who you’re challenged by, visualize them in front of you and communicate to them and allow them to communicate back. This is a really powerful process. You’re needing someone to apologize. Let’s say, someone attacked you and they’re never going to apologize because they’re in a righteous place. You’re not going to have this back and forth like you did davidji. You can visualize them and imagine them giving you that apology that you needed or whatever it was you needed, and then have an interactive process with them in your mind’s eye. I have done this myself and I didn’t start teaching it until I had actually gone through quite a challenging process and did that and it totally felt like this thread inside of me or not rather, this knot inside of me untied and was released and I was able to be around that person immediately who I was very challenged by because we had a big explosion.
Elizabeth Winkler: 20:22
Anyway, this works. Why does it work? We know that the body doesn’t know the difference between an imagined thing and a reality. Body doesn’t know the difference between an imagined thing and a reality, and so we can use our imagination to help us untie these knots by doing this self-forgiveness or forgiveness type practice. My mantra wears love and forgiveness as an offering to yourself, to others. Just simply repeating that helps you connect to that deeper level within. That’s natural. You just have to activate it. Anyone who’s here who needs a little more love and forgiveness and I think we all do I offer that as a practice.
davidji: 20:59
I think this is so important. You all know that Elizabeth and I have daily meditation practice and a lot of people ask me all the time how are you so calm? And I am most of the time, and Elizabeth, lot of people ask me all the time how are you so calm? And I am most of the time, and Elizabeth is most of the time, but even she had a moment where there could be a blow up. We experience these types of things and it’s so critical and it’s so important that we recognize that even if you meditate consistently now I’m talking about consistently I have meditated what? For every single day, at least once, virtually consistently twice. I miss about 10 days a year for that second meditation of the day, but for 20 years. I’m right now in my 20th year of consistent daily meditation and I’m meditating typically RPM, upon rising and in the afternoon. Those are the bookends that I have so consistently. What is RPM?
Elizabeth Winkler: 21:54
for those that don’t know.
davidji: 21:55
Oh rise, pee meditate.
Elizabeth Winkler: 21:57
Okay, I’m just going to say a little bit about that, if I can. It’s rise, pee, meditate, meaning if you need to pee, no, pee. We don’t want you to be distracted by that. Need to go, but don’t go brush your teeth, okay, because what will happen is you go to the bathroom. You’re like, oh, I’ll just brush my teeth. Guess what happens? Mind turns on oh, I’ve got to do that, I’ve got to do that, I’ve got to do that, okay, okay. Oh, I’ll meditate later. Guess what? You don’t meditate. So, no brushing the teeth, no taking the dog out, no feeding the cat, none of those things not dealing with anything.
davidji: 22:32
This is why have your pods by your bed if you have someone in bed with you, and just put them in if you have to pee, okay, nothing else. Love that, because we want to attach meditation to the very front of our morning ablution ritual train, but we want to meditate when there’s still a little sleep in our eyes. We don’t want to create an environment where it’s harder to meditate because now my mind is active and all that cortisol is rushing in because I did brush my teeth and I did put the coffee timer up or I did start boiling the tea or doing whatever. So, yes, thank you. Brilliant Bottom line. We’re meditating every single day and we’re meditating thousands and thousands of times over the past several years.
Elizabeth Winkler: 23:07
Thousands.
davidji: 23:08
But we are still flawed and mortal and human. We still stumble, ideally, get back up, misstep, misspeak. We still do that stuff as the human condition. But I believe that because we are so consistently spending time in stillness and silence as a morning practice and as an afternoon practice as well, there are less of these crisis moments, there are less of these snowballs of stress or overwhelm heading at us. Now, like I said, I was frozen for 48 hours, a solid 48 hours, and I meditated during those 48 hours. Nothing solved this. I had a glass of alcohol did not solve it. I streamed six hours of Britbox Police procedurals Did not solve it. I watched a few episodes of Winning Time Did not solve it. Tried to sleep. Couldn’t Petting peaches. Felt like I was going through the motions.
Elizabeth Winkler: 24:06
But I want to just say because you just named a bunch of things that people may look at as escape watching a show, having a drink, whatever you also were looking at it and talking about it in those 48 hours. I know that for a fact because I spoke to you, so I just want to enter that in that you weren’t just avoiding and running away for 48 hours, you were actually looking at it.
davidji: 24:29
Yeah.
Elizabeth Winkler: 24:30
So it’s not like you just looked at it 48 hours. I think that it’s all part of it. Yeah, I think that sometimes it consumed me.
davidji: 24:38
If you were interacting with me, you were interacting with it Because I was talking about it and, yes, our speaking. Of course, that was something that I wanted to share with you. Yes, don’t hold this stuff in. And again, if you don’t have anyone that you can truly connect to in an intimate way or confide in, then maybe it’s your cat or your dog or your lizard or your parrot, and if you don’t have any of them, maybe it’s closing your eyes and having a conversation with an archetype or someone you do trust. And clearly, if you have a therapist, these are brilliant opportunities to discuss these with your therapist. Anyway, it was really important for me to share with you the process that I went through, because if you had asked me at the beginning of my torturous journey of suffering, I would have said it feels like this feeling will last forever. Said it feels like this feeling will last forever, but it feels like I will feel this true knife in my heart and a weight on my chest and a constriction in my throat.
Elizabeth Winkler: 25:40
And all of those activations are invitations for you to be more free. Yeah.
davidji: 25:45
A constriction.
Elizabeth Winkler: 25:46
a sensation is an alive energy. You talked about being frozen. The sensation is an alive energy. You talked about being frozen, so I often talk about the samskaras, or the old wounds that we haven’t fully processed.
davidji: 25:58
Are the memories. They’re the etchings of the past.
Elizabeth Winkler: 26:01
Yeah, they’re our wounds, no-transcript. And our awareness or our attention is like the sun. So sometimes other people experiences activate these frozen, hibernating energies or flowers. And what we can do, david, you mentioned if you don’t have someone to talk to. Even if you do, I would really recommend this because this is the alchemy you pause and you close your eyes and bring your awareness, that sunlight, down to where? That energy, that constriction, that suffering, where is it Not, why? Where and what are you noticing? And just bring your attention, maybe even place your hand there, just notice. And what this does is we begin to notice it, allow it, begin to ask ourselves can I accept that this is here? This energy, that frozen flower starts to reveal itself out of the glacier, still frozen, but with the sunlight of your awareness, it starts to melt, those petals become more available. I accept, I accept, I accept, and as you continue to accept and allow the breath, your awareness, to just shine its light here, you can move into a trust that this flower knows what to do. I trust, are you willing to trust, just handing it over, letting go of fear and letting the flower take the wheel, and what happens as the sunlight of awareness is resting on that.
Elizabeth Winkler: 27:45
The flower knows what to do. It opens, the petals open and all the petals will fall. The petals will fall, it is open, it is released and becomes soil. Its expansion now is removed and that’s samskara, because samskaras actually really do feel like a flowering when they open. Now, sometimes, when they open, you will have memories come forward. You will have feelings of pain. Whatever was stored. A samskara is an old wound, could be like an image of you when you were little, or a memory of your family, or just pain or rage. That can happen when these puddles open and that’s when we’re dealing with some traumas and things like that.
Elizabeth Winkler: 28:28
And you can do this with the help of a guide. So do it at the level that you are able at this moment. If you want, and always, you can take a break. Always you can pause and open your eyes and resource into a place in your body that’s still, that’s peaceful, maybe your toe, maybe your hand and then come back and just breathe. All we’re doing is I accept that this is here, I trust, and then that flower, eventually, all the petals will fall, the expansion is complete and guess what’s left? Empty, open space, and what is that? That is our natural state, that is peace. That was the hate process, basically my method for alchemy. What are you holding on to? Is the H, the A is? Can you accept this? T can you trust? Are you willing to trust? And E are you willing to allow it to expand? I’ve never talked about it with the flower in relationship to the hate, but I like that because the flower knows what to do and hate stands for.
Elizabeth Winkler: 29:28
What are you holding on to? Is the H? The A is am I willing to accept that this is here, that this energy is alive in here? And the T is am I willing to trust that the energy knows what to do the flower does? When we trust, we let go of fear. And the E is do I give permission for the energy to expand however it would like, inside or outside of my body?
davidji: 29:50
Yeah, I love that hate process and it takes time to keep reminding yourself of those components of the process. But if you start to do it and I recommend you write it down write it down on an index card and then just guide yourself through that process. Elizabeth has so many recordings on this and so many teachings of this hate process, but it’s one of the most healing and powerful steps that any of us can take. So this is the end of suffering. I had to suffer to get to this point so I could share with you. So hopefully, if you’re suffering right now, this will be an opportunity for you. The second you start explaining, you’re hitting resistance. The second you start trying to convince someone to see things as you see them, you’re hitting resistance. The second you start trying to convince someone to see things as you see them, you’re hitting resistance. This is your own resistance. This has nothing to do with their resistance.
davidji: 30:42
At a certain point, I stopped caring whether this person was going to forgive me or what they were even thinking about. I just went to the core. Words left my lips. I’m 100% responsible for how they’re interpreted. Now you might be saying no, it’s up to them. Listen. If you say nothing, you can’t be misheard. If you say nothing, you can’t be misinterpreted. But once those words leave your lips, you have a responsibility to make sure that the person gets it. And we know I think Elizabeth and I both have these stats Only 7% of what we say is truly remembered and, elizabeth, you have an 80% stat out there- 80% of our language is nonverbal If you’re not in front of the person.
Elizabeth Winkler: 31:30
Think about text messages, think about emails.
davidji: 31:32
We’re all projecting Calls where people aren’t on, the camera’s not on.
Elizabeth Winkler: 31:38
Yeah. So it’s so important to be able to read someone’s face and gesturing. That’s 80% of our language. Crazy, yeah. So with the amount of texting that we are taking in as the word, there’s so much that we need to remember as far as really being able to hear someone and understand. But again, what you were saying, how can someone really understand who I am? Nobody can. I can’t even understand who I am. I’m in constant reflection and inquiry of who I am. We all are.
Elizabeth Winkler: 32:12
If you’re working on yourself which I imagine if you’re listening to this, you like that, because people who look at the shadow typically do. There’s this sign I have in my office. It says I’m pretty sure I have no idea, and it’s a way of being in beginner’s mind. It’s a way of letting go of the mind that needs to know, it needs to know, it needs to be right, it needs to judge. We don’t know. There’s so much we don’t know, and so I apply that not only to life but also to ourselves. If we’re really living in presence, that becomes the place that you live. I’m pretty sure I have no idea who I am, because I am a river and I’m changing in each moment, so I’m getting to know who I am in each moment, and I’m getting to know who you are in each moment.
davidji: 32:53
And how in the world can I even see the same words, the same way as you, when we didn’t grow up in the same town?
davidji: 33:01
But even if you did, even if we did, we didn’t grow up in the same body. We didn’t grow up with the same experience. I don’t really know how you feel about jelly versus how I feel about jelly versus jam, versus strawberry preserves versus marmalade Anything from the slightest, teeniest things. I don’t know how you feel about snow. What does it mean in your heart? So we don’t even know some of these like foundational childhood breakfast or weather things. Just imagine the entire fabric of our lives that has no overlap. You taste the same thing when you drink orange juice and I drink orange juice, but I couldn’t even explain to you what that is.
Elizabeth Winkler: 33:46
But if you look at like families as a therapist I’m a therapist everyone growing up in the same family they’re not having they’re not having the same experience of their parents or each other. I have siblings, you have a sibling. You’re not having the same experience. Everyone’s having their own unique experience, and so when we can really take that in instead of judge, if I feel like you’re meaning something that’s really from my lens, not yours, I need to ask you a question. Hey, when I hear you say that, this is what I make up in my mind, my mind is making up that you don’t like me or that you’re judging me. Is that true? Help me understand.
Elizabeth Winkler: 34:25
This goes back to my cartoon that I saw so many years ago. There’s a six in front of me and there’s a nine in front of you. Right, we can argue all day. It’s a six, it’s a nine. We’re both right. No one’s wrong. It’s a different perspective. I can keep arguing six and you can keep arguing nine. Or I can say help me see your nine, help me understand. And I think that’s where we can come together.
davidji: 34:48
So this is the end of suffering. Thank you for joining us on the Shadow and the Light podcast. This is davidji and I’m here with Elizabeth Winkler. We invite you to share this podcast, to check it out on all its various platforms and to talk about it.
Music: 35:05
Post it Because we are the Shadow in the dark. They will lead the way To the hidden pathways of the heart and that secret place. That is where I find my start. The light Is here to remove all my fears and to bring new signs. The light In the dark that will go to the deep to take me to new heights. The shadow and the light. There’s hope out in the rock bottom. You hold it as your own limit, but don’t rush past this moment. The darkness can become a friend. Love will come by your side and you’ll shine brighter than a million suns A million suns. You went through hell, but now you’re in Delight. It is here to remove all your fears and bring new sight. Delight. It is here to remove all your fears and to bring new sight. The light, it is now, that will go to the deep to take you to new heights. The shadow and the light has come because it loves us. The light has come because it loves us. The light has come to set us free. The light has come to set us free. The light has come to set us free. The shadow comes because it loves us. The shadow comes because it loves us. The shadow comes to set us free. The light is here to remove all our fears and to bring new life. The light is here to remove all our fears and to bring new life. The shadow and the light.