Ready to FACE your F.E.A.R.? DO THIS & transform your life!!!

Music: 0:00

I will not be afraid of the shadows in the dark. They will lead the way to the hidden pathways of the heart, To that secret place that is where I find my start.

Elizabeth Winkler: 0:17

Welcome to the Shadow and the Light podcast with internationally renowned meditation teacher davidji.

davidji: 0:24

And heart healer and psychotherapist Elizabeth Winkler, as we guide you through our unique fusion of ancient wisdom and modern psychology.

Elizabeth Winkler: 0:33

Get ready to awaken your true essence, heal your wounds and transform your shadow into in two Hi. davidji.

davidji: 1:06

Oh, hello there, Elizabeth. Yes, it’s time for another episode of the Shadow and the Light podcast, and today we’re exploring fear. We’re all familiar with that magnificent Marianne Williamson quote that has been attributed to Nelson Mandela only because he referenced it, and he probably has a few more followers than Marianne Williamson. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves who am I to be? Brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous. Actually, who are you not to be? And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same as we are liberated from our own fear, to do the same as we are liberated from our own fear. Our presence automatically liberates others. That is actually Marianne Williamson, attributed often to Nelson Mandela.

davidji: 2:16

And so the concept of fear, we all have it. It’s a natural emotion. It’s a natural human emotion. But it’s not even just humans Pretty much all animals.

davidji: 2:25

The concept of fight-flight is sparked by fear or desperation, fear of a mortal threat to who we are, and we’ve evolved over the years and we have emotional fight-flight Anytime someone challenges something we think we own. Think of all the things you think you own. You even think you own your house. Probably the bank does your car, probably the bank does your clothing other people are wearing the exact same clothes, your religion, the music you listen to, teams you root for. Suddenly we start to realize all these things we think we own. We are walking around protecting them. We even think we own the lane that our car drives in. We think we own the 20 feet in front of us and the 20 feet behind us. And if someone crosses over into my lane, my lane how dare they Think of all the lanes we have in the supermarket and in lines and lanes, if someone cuts in or transgresses, there’s a lot of ownership that we think we have.

davidji: 3:31

And so when we feel that we feel threatened and often we’ll respond with fear, which is a great impulse to have if you are actually being threatened but just because someone doesn’t like the music you like listening to, or someone doesn’t like your shoes, or because someone doesn’t vibe with something that’s so important to you, we start to draw those lines that separate us and so fear. Elizabeth has an amazing definition of fear and she has explored this with clients for many, many years and she has taught me so much just about this concept of fear, and I wonder, I often ask you know? They used to say like, what’s the biggest fear? It’s fear of public speaking. I read recently that the number one fear is fear of loud noises. And so when we suddenly we realized so many different possible fears out there and we’re going to help you today, we’re going to help you move through your fear, better understand your fear and perhaps channel your fear into strength, because in your vulnerability rests your strength.

Elizabeth Winkler: 4:44

Yes, in your vulnerability rests your strength. Yes, so fear. I define fear as a friend existing as resistance. So what we resist persists.

Elizabeth Winkler: 4:56

If we move with the fear that is natural in our mind, something happens and then your mind goes into reactivity, which is fear. You get scared in your heart. Actually, what happens is your body gets activated and we shut down at that level and we’re like no, I don’t want this to be happening. Run to my mind, ask my mind to fix it. And it is operating from a place of fear and if we stay in that place, we’re going to just be creating more of that. We’re going to be stuck in that place of fear and empowering our insecurity and feeling like I have to protect myself more. That’s empowering that belief system. What else can you do? Well, once you notice that you’re in fear, you’re in anxiety, you’re in stress, you’re in your head. Basically, you can use my mantra.

Elizabeth Winkler: 5:51

My definition of fear is fear is a friend existing as resistance. What does that mean? It means that it’s a hand reaching up from my heart, that the resistance is actually in my body. You know, you probably feel it. You feel energy in your body and it’s like a hand reaching out from your heart. It’s a friend knocking on your door saying, hey, come hang out with me, come hang out with me. And if you do, if you take an elevator from your head down to your heart and you accept that hand, you say yes.

Elizabeth Winkler: 6:20

A lot of the teachings are to say yes to surrender. This is how you do it. A lot of the teachings are to say yes to surrender. This is how you do it. You’re saying yes to that hand of fear, the friend existing as resistance. You’re saying yes to it. I will take that hand, I will breathe.

Elizabeth Winkler: 6:34

So this could be a short pause, practice, a pattern, interrupt in the fear response. So you pause, you take a breath, you take that hand, you move from your head to your heart because you know your head is only going to create more fear. It’s not going to take you into a positive place. I’m not going to take you into a new place. It’s only going to recycle the past. So if we want something new, we want to be creative and in presence, we need to pause, we need to interrupt that.

Elizabeth Winkler: 7:04

Use a mantra for the mind which is really hard to get out of. I usually say I’m fine with it, maybe, maybe not, or I love it, and then I can pause and come down into my body, put my hand on my heart, breathe with that and that kind of allows that energy to break apart, settle a little bit, and then you actually access the awareness that’s available in that moment and you’re more present and you’ll access a better response not a reaction, but I mean that’s just in the moment, sort of stuff. There’s so many ways to get into this, because I often talk about the Hoover Dam when I’m talking about fear.

davidji: 7:49

So the fact that the dam holds it back and can trickle it out, it helps it create electricity and it helps that water flow through in an orderly fashion.

Elizabeth Winkler: 8:12

Right. So we all have Hoover dams inside of our own hearts. It’s the walls of resistance that we have built our entire lives. You know, this started when we were very young and we all have wounds and those need to be addressed, and it creates this wall around your heart and it creates that blocks you. These are your blockages, and the work that I offer as a heart healing you know, therapist or whatever you want to call it is to take the hand of fear and allow yourself to get present with that, and then that wall starts to soften and shift, and this is how we transmute that wall. We turn.

Elizabeth Winkler: 8:58

It’s like we’re all turning away from the Hoover Dam. We don’t want to look at it, we don’t want to look at fear, but if we start to turn towards it from the Hoover Dam, we don’t want to look at it. We don’t want to look at fear, but if we start to turn towards it, it softens and then all of that energy starts to flow into you rather than going into your head and depleting you, and it feeds you and you start to have more energy. You transmute your fear into freedom and your pain into power, and so this is the choice that we have. We do have a choice. It takes awareness, it takes mantra. I think is critical using these mantras because if you don’t, you’re just going to get caught in your head.

davidji: 9:37

So powerful because we can apply any metaphor that we want, whether that is the Colorado River flowing into Lake Mead or whether that is just you flowing into this world on a consistent basis. One of the most important aspects that I want to stress about this is that I see fear as sort of like one of these exploring probes that we have. You know how, like we send all these lunar rovers out into space or telescopes out into the far reaches of the galaxy. That’s what fear does. Fear sends out a little probe into you because we’re not walking around navigating. Oh, I know exactly where my comfort zones are. Oh, I know exactly where my fear levels are. Oh, I know exactly where my triggers are. We don’t know it till it happens right. You don’t know what your triggers are until someone says something, and then you’re triggered, or until you see something and then you’re triggered. And it’s the same exact thing with fear. So fear can powerfully show us our limitations. It can show us the edges of our comfort zone, the starting edge of your comfort zone, and the other side, the most extreme side of your comfort zone. It’s always going to teach you a lesson. There’s always some type of lesson that fear is going to teach you perhaps about something that you need to overcome, not necessarily in this moment, but like oh didn’t know, I was so scared of that thing. I should probably do a little work on that. Oh, didn’t know that I was so shy about stepping into that room with people I do or don’t know. Maybe let me put a little more attention on there. So fear is not the end of the. That’s it. I suddenly fear and I shut down.

davidji: 11:21

Fear is the beginning of the inner conversation for you to truly. We’ve heard false evidence appearing real, because what actually is it, unless it is life-threatening? Walking into a room of scary people is not life-threatening. It may be discomforting, it may be a little scary, but not life-threatening. And so many of the things that we think are life-threatening aren’t Now. Then there’s that whole realm of trauma where we’ve already experienced something, and so, elizabeth, I would like your take on this, because I think this is such an important component. So there’s so many different schools of thought. It’s like don’t guide me into a land of prickliness. And other people are like no, we need to go there. It needs to be gentle, but we need to go there. How else are you going to learn and grow. And so what are the paths that we can walk, depending on which choice we happen to make in this moment? To go to the unknown, the uncertain, the discomfort zone?

Elizabeth Winkler: 12:27

Well, one thing I do. You know I deal with a lot of anxiety and anxiety is a form of fear. Right, I tell people to not call anxiety anxiety. First of all, our labels keep us more in fear. Okay, they keep us more in resistance. What is fear? It’s resistant. My acronym means resistance, that’s all it means. So reframing the word. So, instead of I’m anxious, I’m activated. I always say that to people. I’m activated because, okay, with anxiety as an example, most people who’ve had anxiety don’t want to ever have it again because maybe they’ve had a panic attack. But anytime they say, oh, I’m having anxiety, guess what happens? Just unconsciously, they’re going to resist that. What does the resistance to anxiety do? Create more anxiety, because what we resist persists. It adds more logs to that fire. So to help that, we’re going to say I’m activated. I can stay more present with activation than I can with anxiety if I have a history Stop stop.

davidji: 13:26

Okay, this is where we so important to like, put a stake into the ground and announce this to the world, because, again, so typical of Elizabeth Winkler drops the truth, bomb the mic drop line and then just keeps rolling along as if nothing’s happened. This is an important thing. Our whole society pick your culture our whole society, certainly in the West has this conversation about anxiety, anxiousness. Sometimes it feeds into stress. These are separate clubs that we’re all living in. Those are who are triggered and those are who are anxious and those who have anxiety attacks.

davidji: 13:59

And so Elizabeth Winkler has shifted the languaging from anxiety to activation. Now you may think wait, wait, wait, wait, wait Activation. Isn’t that even worse than being anxious? We’re having anxiety, of course no, but then. Or as Elizabeth would say and then because there are no buts. Elizabeth would say and then because there are no buts. So then we move to the next level, and this is the genius of Elizabeth Winkler, where she then says if it’s an activation, it’s an invitation. We should just end the podcast right now. But no, she’s going to guide us even deeper into this understanding.

Elizabeth Winkler: 14:45

When you use the word activation. We did an episode on equanimity. Right, equanimity is evenness of mind. It’s allowing things to come and go. So if I say, yeah, calm amidst the chaos is the episode on equanimity. If you want to go back to that from season one, the more that we can have equanimity, the more that we can handle our hearts. And this is all about can you handle your heart, which is why the mantra I can handle this is so powerful. But we have said, usually when fear arises, no, I can’t handle this, which takes us to the fearful mind Help me fix it.

Elizabeth Winkler: 15:26

When you’re in fix it mode, you’re in fear mode. Know that. If you’re already there, use a mantra, I’m fine with it. I love that this is happening. You’re not going to love it. That’s just to get you out of your head. Then come back into your body or whatever’s happening. Take a breath pattern, interrupt of some sort, and then you can be. You can pause. You can notice the activation, the weather within you. What is the weather? What are you noticing? What are you noticing in your body? That’s it. Noticing the weather, noticing your breath. That’s all you need to do. Notice your feet. Maybe you can notice the weather, maybe it’s too much. Notice your feet. Where are your feet? Bring your awareness to your hands. If you’re driving, bring your awareness to your hands on the steering wheel. Use your body as an anchor.

davidji: 16:21

These are such powerful anchors.

Elizabeth Winkler: 16:23

Fear takes us out of our anchoring right. It takes us into the tidal waves of the ocean and we can be at that deeper still. Point that anchor. This is what we are learning, and there are many ways and I’m sure people listening can come up with their own ways to find a way to anchor into presence and I encourage you to find those for yourself. When you work with fear like this, it truly does become your friend because it leads you to the place where you’re blocked. And then, when you work with that activation, guess what that becomes? It becomes energy. Energy for you. It’s no longer a blockage, it becomes an energy that feeds you, that lifts you up. This is why I say the wound is the way, because you can only access that if you go there.

Elizabeth Winkler: 17:13

Now, what we do is we tend to abandon our heart, abandon the Hoover Dam inside. Go into our head. Which. What does that do? It makes the Hoover Dam stronger. It’s more bricks, more bricks into the Hoover Dam, stronger Hoover Dam. Or go down into that heart, place your hand on your heart, pause, notice, settle and those bricks start to fall away. And then what do you access? Your inner light, your inner wisdom, and you learn more about yourself, you connect more with others and you’re more in the present moment, which is, I think, why we’re here. We’re here to live on purpose, in purpose, and that’s different for each one of us, but this is a way that we can come into contact with what that truly is for ourselves.

davidji: 18:01

So powerful, so powerful. You know the ancient teachings, the five kleshas, the pancha kleshas, which are the five obstacles, the five blockages, the five poisons. The Buddha referred to these and even before the time of the Buddha there were conversations about what are these blockages, and even His Holiness the Dalai Lama talked about these so often that there are these blockages, and even His Holiness the Dalai Lama talked about these so often that there are these destructive emotions, and so the concept of the kleshas. These are things that stand in the way of us feeling whole. And so the first one is ego. Egoism, obviously, thinking I’m this flesh casing, when in fact I’m pure, unbounded consciousness, I am the soul. Yet here I am with a voice box and a flesh casing on top of that, who will live and die. But that’s not me. I’m the soul. And so all the labels we place on ourselves oh, I’m a podcast host. Oh, I’m actually a podcast co-host. Oh, I’m a fan of this. Oh, I root for that. Oh, I do this thing. And so suddenly we start to get into all these labels and identities. Those are clashes, because, like you’re the loving, doting wife, and then, for some reason, that relationship ends, either through death or divorce or separation. Where are you Nothing. You’re the director of marketing for so many years at the company and then you get unceremoniously dismissed or something like that. What are you? Nothing? And so suddenly we realize we attach our identities to our relationships and to our jobs, to our locations, our positions, our possessions, all that stuff.

davidji: 19:46

The second klesha is mistaking the permanent for the impermanent. We think everything’s going to last forever and yet we live in an impermanent environment. Our meal has a beginning, a middle and it will end. This podcast has a beginning, middle and end. The day we wake up. Beginning, middle and end the seasons. We can go on and on with every single aspect of our life. Every single thing has an arc of impermanence, and yet we move through life. We’re all going to die. That alone should make us just hug each other so tightly. We would never let go. But we’re like I’ll talk to them tomorrow, I don’t need to send them that text. We phone stuff in, we take stuff for granted, and then these are blockages, blockages to our bliss, blockages to our wholeness.

davidji: 20:33

The third one is attachment All the stuff we’re attached to. If I’m holding on we did a whole episode on this if I’m holding on so tightly to something I have no room in my hand for anything else in there. To something I have no room in my hand for anything else in there. I’m squeezing too tight. I’m not open to any new experience.

davidji: 20:52

The fourth klesha is aversion. All the stuff we’re like oh no, I don’t do that. Oh no, not that politician. Oh no, I don’t put that side dish next to my main course. Oh no, I won’t live in a place. I’m an ocean person, not a mountain person. I’m a valley person, not a desert person. I’m a rain person, not a snow person. I’m a on and on and on, all the things we are averse to.

davidji: 21:18

And the fifth klesha it’s called abhinavesha, abhinavesha, fear of dying. And the ancient teachings tell us every single fear is actually fear of dying. It’s the one thing that connects us all. But all of us, since we have not yet died, are going to have this fear of that unknown. It’s the big unknown, it’s the biggest unknown we could ever have. And you may say, oh no, I’ve read books on people who die and come back. But they came back. Fear of death.

davidji: 21:47

If, ultimately, everything is fear of death, and so we could play it out, let’s say you’re afraid of making a presentation to your department of eight people and it’s like well, why, how could it be so scary? What are you really afraid of? Well, I’m going to get up there, I’m going to study, I’m going to practice it, and then suddenly they’re not going to really be interested and I’m going to be boring, or I’m going to stumble, I’m going to get nervous, and then I’m going to say the wrong things and I’m going to come off like a fool. And what are you really afraid of? Well, you know, then they’re going to tell their friends what a loser I was and how horrible I was. And then what’s going to happen regarding that? You know, maybe people start mocking me and making fun of me at the water cooler or in the cafeteria or as I move around, whatever.

davidji: 22:27

What are you really afraid of? Well, you know, once people start making fun of me, then I start going into stores in the neighborhood and I notice that people in the stores are pointing at me and giggling and laughing at me. Well, what are you really afraid of? Well, then I’ll have to stop going to those stores because they create too much anxiety for me or, as Elizabeth would say, too much activation for me and so I can’t be in those stores. I have to start doing everything through Uber and have everything delivered to my house. But then even Uber finds out who I am and they say I’m just not going to deliver stuff to you anymore.

davidji: 22:57

What are you really afraid of? Well, I’m afraid that, since everyone in my town knows me and I’m such a pariah because I failed at that one little presentation in front of eight people I have to move, and so I have to move out into the wilderness in a little cabin, all alone, without Wi-Fi and electricity or running water. I have to create all that myself. What are you really afraid of? Well, I’m afraid I’m going to live in this place out in the boonies, and then people won’t even know who I am. I’m just going to be alone and isolated. What are you really afraid of? I’m just going to be alone and isolated.

davidji: 23:27

What are you really afraid of? I’m afraid that I’m going to step out of the shower one day and slip and fall. What are you really afraid of? I’m afraid that I’m going to die alone. What are you really afraid of? I’m afraid I’m going to die. So, yes, your fear of presenting to those eight people in your department is actually a fear of death, but guess what? We all have that same exact fear. Everyone a fear of death, but guess what? We all have that same exact fear. Everyone’s got that one embedded. We may not have all the other ones, but that one is specific to all of us.

Elizabeth Winkler: 23:55

I want to say something about this. Okay, so my mother as I think listeners may know that, davidji, I both lost our mothers when we were 19. And after my mother died you know my father is still alive and I don’t know how long after. I said this to him, but I was clinging you know you’re talking about clinging and I was clinging to him and what I’m about to tell you might sound like he wasn’t being very compassionate, but it was one of the greatest gifts and I share this with clients from time to time, this story and I think it’s perfect here.

Elizabeth Winkler: 24:33

So I said to my dad at one point I said, dad, you know, I don’t know how I’ll ever go on without you. You know, I don’t want you to ever die. And he said to me and I will, I will die. And in that moment it was. So sounds like that might not be the nicest thing to say, but it was so comforting because it was true, because we all know this is the thing about the fear of death. We all know what our deepest truth that we all will die. And the sooner that we can be with that truth that death is certain, everything is uncertain, death is not, and the sooner that we can get in touch with that truth that death is certain, that actually makes it all fall away. When he said that to me, I trusted him because he could have been like oh no, I’m here. You know he could have done all of that, which is, like you know, papering over the truth.

davidji: 25:37

One would have been meant to comfort you.

Elizabeth Winkler: 25:40

Right.

davidji: 25:41

And delude you and lie to you, essentially Right A white lie.

Elizabeth Winkler: 25:44

Which is what we’re doing to ourselves all the time with our egoic stuff. We’re like, oh no. So him, being very honest and real with me, helped me be with the truth that, yes, my mother just died and my father may die, you know, who knows, when he’s still alive. Now, being with that truth helped me be more with the truth that we all will die, that I will die, that he will die, and that loss is a natural part of existence. And I actually want to offer some tools here for this, because I think this is one of the deepest teachings that we can talk about, because everything is about the fear of death, and I worked with a meditation teacher for a long time, stephanie Nash, who I love. At that time I was working with her, I was still very caught in the loss of my mother and she told me about this teaching of Shinzen Young’s of working with gone. So our brains are set up to notice the arising of things. So you were talking about how we have a fear of loud noises. That’s natural, okay, that’s natural. It’s the arising of sound, but we, our brains, are not noticing the going of things. So everything is impermanent. It rises and it goes. It comes, it goes like an arc. So we’re very imbalanced to notice what is arising and we’re not noticing what’s going, which makes us less available to the goings of life, to the death of things. So with this practice that Shenzhen created of noticing gone’s in our life, you can do it at any moment in time. Right now I’m speaking at the end of every word, that’s a gone. When you’re in traffic and you see a car pass by, when it’s out of your field of awareness, that’s a gone. So what you see, what you hear, what you feel, you feel activated by energy, you notice that arising. But what about noticing when it’s gone? So that’s a practice you can label gone. When you start to do this, you are strengthening the muscle on the other side that is natural of the arising and it brings what it brings more equanimity into our lives. So we can work with gone and when we work with gone, we bring that balance that the brain doesn’t have, because it notices the rising, because the tiger is coming, and that’s what the purpose of that was the amygdala right. So working with gone is one of the most powerful practice you can work with.

Elizabeth Winkler: 28:18

Just to go over, you can notice the gone of your breath. The breath comes in and it releases. You notice the end point, that’s a gone and you can notice that space at the end of the breath. So let’s just do that for a moment, so just closing your eyes if you can, and just noticing. You can put your hand on your belly or your chest and you’ll just notice that your belly moves out as you breathe in and then it collapses as you exhale. So just be with that rising and falling, the arising and falling of the breath, and then what I want you to try to do is just notice as it falls, label the end of that falling, that ending point, as a gone. So just noticing gone, just labeling the end of that breath gone, and you might see if you can notice there’s a little space, there’s a little still point at the end point, that gone space, and you can just notice how that feels, see if you can hang out there even as the breath continues to rise and fall. So this is something we can do Notice how that feels to be in that gone space. So something you can do in your life as a pattern interrupt, is notice your breath and come to that ending point, that gone space. That’s one way to work with it. I’ll go for a walk, I’ll go for a run, I’ll notice as things move out of my awareness, gone, gone.

Elizabeth Winkler: 30:14

I was working out of an office and there was all this construction outside. It was very irritating. We’re noticing the arising of the sound, right, but I started to notice the ending. Well, what is that pointing me to? It’s pointing you to peace In the breath. It was pointing you to space, emptiness, peace. If you notice the end of a sound of the chainsaw going and then it ends, you are noticing peace. So what does this do? It brings more peace. It also allows you to be more at peace with the ending of all. So working with God. Does that make sense?

davidji: 30:54

Yeah, yeah. It’s so deep and so relevant and so practical. There are so many tools that you have provided your clients with and that you’ve shared with our listeners over this year, and sometimes it’s hard. What’s happening? Which tool is this? What do I need to whatever? Which one do I use? How do I do that? So what’s the bridge between that moment where I suddenly am fearing and gone? What’s the bridge that can take me from? I’m not in my head at all. I’m just this crisis moment of hormones and chemicals. Is it taking a breath? What is the thing that can get me to the mantra? There needs to be like a mini bridge in there to Give me an example.

davidji: 31:41

I’m super activated and I know that I have tools, but in this moment fumbling around like fumbling for keys in my purse or keys in my pocket, I’m so amped up in that.

Elizabeth Winkler: 31:52

I would go to what are you noticing? What are you noticing? Because you’re probably in your head. You’re thinking, your attention is in thought, which is fear, which is creating more walls of Hoover Dam, right Again. What I was saying in the beginning is, instead of why, why is this happening? Where are you feeling this activation? Why is this happening? Where are you feeling this activation? What are you noticing? Putting your hand, a gentle hand, on your heart, saying yes to the heart, yes, pausing, however you can, using a mantra, I’m fine with it, I’m fine with the fact that I can’t find my keys. I’m going to pause and just notice what’s happening within Pause, notice, settle and then to go to gone. You could do the breath practice I just did or you could work with any gone, but the only gone I would work with in that moment would be going to the breath and to the end of the breath, because that’s going to take you to that peaceful space.

davidji: 32:46

That’s great. I would just like to reinforce that state that we are afraid of, like to reinforce that state that we are afraid of. Our emotion is real, but the state in our head that we are afraid of is a delusion. It’s imagination, and this goes back to when we talk about these modifications of the mind that potentially talks about, you know, memory, the past and imagination, the future. This is it. We’re future, pacing something that may not ever come to fruition, and we’re reaching into the future, feeling that pain, that anxiety, that agony, bringing it into the present moment and then actualizing it as if that were a normal thing.

davidji: 33:32

The heavily meditated mind does not go there. When they’ve done these scientific studies on what I call super meditators these are Buddhist monks who have been in studies with Dr Richard J Davidson at the University of Wisconsin in Madison when they’ve done these powerful tests on them about, are they ruminating on the past stuff and going down deep rabbit holes, or projecting into the future to find things that are painful? These super meditators have at least eight hours a day of meditation for at least three consecutive years. You do the math on that, that’s like 150,000 hours of meditation. Some of us will never even attain that in our entire lives and when they perform various studies.

davidji: 34:25

And I just want to share this one study with you. They got a whole bunch of non-meditators 50, 50 non-meditators, 50 super meditators in a room and they got this heated metal object and they wired up their pain centers of their brain and, one by one, they had these people come into a room and then the scientist applied the heated metal object to their flesh. Upon it touching their flesh, the pain center fired and they were like okay, now we know. They did this to the 50 non-meditators in all 50, 50 out of 50, their pain centers fired as the heated metal object touched their flesh. In scientific research we call that burning. I don’t know how they came up with that one, but it’s effective.

davidji: 35:11

Then they did this to the 50 super meditators right, we’re talking about eight hours a day, three years in a row, lots of meditation. They wired up their pain centers, applied the heated metal object In 50 out of 50, the pain centers fired. Then they brought them in one by one and they changed the scientific experiment in just this one way. They introduced these words In 10 seconds. I will apply the heated metal object when they did this to the 50 non-meditators and they said In 10 seconds I will apply the heated metal object. In that moment poof, their pain centers fired. They didn’t even move the heated metal object, they did not even move it towards their flesh, but just in saying that, they projected themselves 10 seconds forward, remembered what that pain felt like and talk about triggering.

Elizabeth Winkler: 36:03

Well, that’s what we’re always doing we’re going to our mind and projecting the past onto the present moment.

davidji: 36:09

Right, 50 out of 50. These super meditators, whose brains are living in the realm of gamma waves, which is they’re constantly feeling we are one, there’s a oneness, there’s a collective that they’re living through. We have gamma waves. We’ve all seen it. Ever been to a concert. You go to a concert, whether that’s Beyonce or U2. You go to that concert and we felt like that when we saw Ed Sheeran. Right, we were just like we are one. Everyone in the room is like our brother and our sister. We love everyone. Go to a sporting event rooting for your team and there’s lots of fans there. Everybody’s in gamma waves. The brains are flowing gamma waves. When they did the same exact experiment on the 50 super meditators and they wired up their brain, their pain centers, and they said in 10 seconds, I will apply the heated metal object. Nothing happened. They stayed present. They stayed fully present.

Elizabeth Winkler: 37:03

Yeah.

davidji: 37:04

They were not suddenly fearing. Uh-oh, in 10 seconds that guy’s going to burn me again.

Elizabeth Winkler: 37:09

It’s like maybe, maybe not.

davidji: 37:11

Right, exactly, exactly. And then they didn’t get burned, I know, and they were like, oh yeah, well, that was an interesting conversation that I just didn’t have with my brain. That’s why one of my definitions is false evidence appearing real, because maybe it’s not true, maybe this whole thing is just. I just conjured it up. I just conjured up a whole fear. Conversation began to live in it, drove myself wild over it, got wrapped up, went down a rabbit hole, swirled myself up. It became me. I had all these hormonal and chemical responses to it. I feel sick, I don’t feel like eating, I don’t feel like sleeping, I can’t even talk to anyone on the phone. I’m miserable in every single way. And I made the whole thing up.

Elizabeth Winkler: 37:56

A good question to ask yourself is is that actually happening now? Because I’ll talk to people and they’re like, oh yeah, this person, they you know they don’t like me, that they this say that you know they’re interpreting someone’s you know nonverbal. It’s like, well, did that actually happen? Do you know that to be true? Is it true? And they’re like well, no, no, they didn’t say that, but I have this past experience that’s telling me that right, and so we really need to question these things and use inquiry to get into the present moment and working with the gone. When you’re telling this experiment, I thought you were going to focus on the gone of the pain, the gone energy, instead of the arising, that they were focusing on the gone, which is the peace. I don’t know what sutra it’s from Gathe, gathe, paragathe.

davidji: 38:42

Parasamgathe bodhisvaha.

Elizabeth Winkler: 38:44

Which is gone, gone, gone beyond, gone, utterly beyond. It’s all about enlightenment and that gone is the way.

davidji: 38:54

Well, that is gathe, gat, gate. If you see it, it looks like the word gate, so if you just read it you would say gate, gate. This is actually a beautiful mantra for the goddess Tara. So Tara is known also as Tara means star, tara means planet, but Tara also means she who ferries, and in the Buddhist teachings we are here on this shore of suffering and Tara is the goddess who is going to ferry us from this shore of suffering that all of us are living in in different degrees, from fear. It’s from fear, oh, purely from fear, to trust, to this sure Trust Beyond the sure of trust, because it’s fear of trust.

Elizabeth Winkler: 39:38

So we’re going to you know why do you fear?

davidji: 39:41

Because you do not trust. So Tara is the goddess who’s going to ferry us from the sure of suffering, the sure of fear, to the sure beyond suffering. And that’s what this mantra is gate, gate. That beautiful understanding, that guess what? We’re about to move from this shore to the next shore. So, gate, gone, gate gone, paragate, gone to the shore, parasamgate, gone completely to the other shore, bodhi awakening Swaha, make it so. So, gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi swaha. What a beautiful mantra to sort of like.

davidji: 40:30

I know you got to practice it a couple of times, or at least write it down. We’ll put this in the show notes. We have show notes for all of our episodes that explain things. We’ll put this in the show notes. But gate, gate, paragate, parasam gate, boris waha is one of those things that the moment you start to get a little perspiration or just a little bit of sweat coming into you and you realize, I think I’m scared, I’m not sure. How about? Just remind yourself, even if you say it in English gone, gone, gone to the other shore, gone completely to the other shore, awakening, make it so.

Elizabeth Winkler: 41:05

And if you’re really having a hard time trusting because you know we always say it’s fear or trust those are two choices. That’s what we’re talking about Fear or trust. You can remember Tara. Trust Find someone that you really revere, who you feel you can trust. You could use the Buddha, jesus, some enlightened being that feels like someone you could let help you. I’ve done that in my own life. When you’re really dealing with something really truly activating that you feel like, okay, I don’t know that, I can handle this, you can turn it over to that.

davidji: 41:42

Yeah, here’s another one In case we haven’t given you enough little tools. If you jumble up the letters of trust, it spells strut, and so this is where you strut your trust. So you step into a scary place. Pick your archetype. Pick your sashaying archetype. Is it going to be someone who comes in with a swagger? Is it going to be some goddess? Is it going to be some relative of yours who always was bold? Whatever that looks like, this is where we can strut our trust.

Elizabeth Winkler: 42:22

Today’s takeaway.

davidji: 42:24

Today’s takeaway and, as you know, we always introduce a real-world action step that you can take from this episode and apply to your life and truly live, which is why we refer to it sometimes as living the light.

Elizabeth Winkler: 42:39

Okay. So living the light with this would be working with gone. Start to work with gone. We are so conditioned, naturally our brain notices arising. So start to work the muscle of gone so that we can have more equanimity. Start to notice the gons. A show ends or a song ends, a sound, something, you see, something, you hear, something, you feel, notice gone, gone. When this episode ends you can say gone. So, just using little things, notice little gons and then guess what happens. You start to build that within your brain and then, all of a sudden, you’ll start to notice that things that go won’t be as difficult for you and we’re working towards that fear of death that you were talking about.

davidji: 43:29

So I don’t want to be the bearer of sad news, but this episode.

Elizabeth Winkler: 43:34

It’s okay, it’s an opportunity to say gone.

davidji: 43:35

This episode is coming to an end here, and so I encourage you guess what? You can’t replay every moment in life, but you can replay this episode over and over and over, and I recommend that you do and share it with your friends. And so, on behalf of Elizabeth, this is davidji.

Music: 43:53

We are the Shadow and the Light podcast and gone the world and that secret place. That is where I find my start. The light is here to remove all my fears and to bring new sight. The light is the dawn that will go to the deep to take me to you. The light, the shadow and the light. There’s no fog and fog bottom. You hold it as you’re on the mend, but don’t rush past this moment.

Music: 44:46

Good 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 the light. It is here to remove all your fears and to bring new sight. The light, the light. It is our level of hope in the deep to take you to new heights. The shadow and the light has come because it loves us. The light has come to set us free. The shadow comes because it loves us. The shadow comes to set us free. 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 light Is that that will go to the deep To take us to new heights. The shadow and the light.