On YouTube:
Transcript of the talk:
I want to talk about something I’m really passionate about. Building romance with bottle-nosed dolphins – no, actually – [pause for laughter] the topic is empathy and acceptance, and how it can free us in 12,582 ways. But I’m just going to focus on a couple of those ways that empathy and acceptance can free us.
Science has found that the deepest or beginning ways are within ourselves, where we accept ourselves. For example, there are methods – I don’t have time to go into all of those, but they’re pretty easy methods – for looking inside yourself. Anytime something happens, anytime a feeling arises like anger, fear, love, or whatever those feelings might be, we can look and see our needs – met or unmet needs – that are creating these feelings to give us signals that we’re having some kind of problem. Whether it’s a physical issue or physical pain, it’s like “Oh, I’ve got to deal with that. I’ve got a need for health, survival.” Or needs that manifest as feelings like boredom or excitement or anger – these are all just signals.
When we practice accepting that, looking at that, then we can build a certain amount of self-acceptance where we start trusting ourselves. When we trust ourselves, we start seeing the world more clearly. But backing up to acceptance: when we build that for ourselves, it reflects outward. I’m sure we’ve all heard this idea that when you have some criticism of somebody you’re pointing and judging, it comes from something within that we are unsatisfied with.
What I’m talking about is starting with those issues in a very concrete way. Again, there are methods that are step by step – it’s not like airy-fairy stuff. But back to acceptance and how this frees us: I think one of the ways this frees us is from objects, because we’re accepting. We learn to very quickly, and even automatically, accept our place in a situation. Buddha would say “desire” – we learn to let go of desire, and when it becomes automatic, we’re cool with everything.
Now, this doesn’t stop us from being defensive or saying no. Acceptance – this is, I think, a common thing – people think, “Oh, that means I’ve got to believe everything and say yes to everybody.” No, I think it actually helps you do the opposite. It helps you see through people and their motives because you’ve spent so much time working on inside and seeing through what’s there. Like, I have this – what’s causing that? And that inquiry builds the wisdom, the clarity. I’ve sort of become a lie detector, but I’ve been practicing this pretty intensely for like 18 years, so it’s not an instant thing.
My theory about that is if you spend more time in deeper conversations – let’s say somebody’s having some kind of issue and they’re a friend or whatever, you care about them, and so you’re like “Hey, what’s going on?” They’re like “Oh, this issue…” Now, I’m going to be hyperbolic here, but some super shallow responses might be “Let’s get drunk and forget about it” or “Here’s a reward” or “Why did you do that?” – these are the more shallow ways to deal with something and even ignore it. Versus if you spend all that time instead delving deeper like “Oh, that happened. Were you feeling really scared because you wanted more safety?” “No, actually I was feeling angry because I wanted more respect.” “Oh, cool.” See how we can really learn more about each other in such deeper ways?
So that’s freeing ourselves from bad relationships. I mean, when you start seeing through everybody, but also you start accepting yourself, you’re not going to be desperate for whatever comes along. There’s one other thing we can free ourselves from – we can free ourselves from ideas. And Janet, was it…? I was thinking about this – but not as you were speaking, because I was totally listening to you. Yeah, that’s… I’d like to stop there and take some questions.
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