Episode 7: The New Paradigm of Self-growth and Spirituality

[00:00:00] Erin: Welcome to the Grounded in Love podcast. This is a podcast taking you through conscious living and loving. We are your hosts, Erin and Garrett. We are now on episode seven. And today we're going to try to bring it all together a little bit. Why are we doing this? What does it mean to live spiritually here on earth and live our everyday lives? How are we integrating just getting out of our ego, all of those things? Lots of questions here.
[00:01:12] Garrett: Yeah. Spirituality and the intersection of that plus reality. It's what we're talking about today. So taking some of the concepts and principles we've talked about the last six episodes and trying to tie them together in a way. Of why, why believe in all this stuff and what's in it for me, I guess.
[00:01:39] Erin: Yeah. I mean, we believe in, that there's more than, than just this life and what does that mean? What does that mean to us now?
[00:01:54] Garrett: Yeah.
[00:01:55] Erin: Maybe nothing. I don't know.
So what is the end goal here? What are we trying to do here now?
[00:02:10] Garrett: I think that the end goal is not really anything. Which sounds kind of weird, but the end goal is not something that you can achieve.
In spirituality, all we can really do is say, how do I live in a more comfortable, happy way today? And that's really all there is to spirituality. There's not a future to it. It's now. As we talked about a lot, it all comes back to the now. It's not something that you can strive to get to and spirituality is really many religions.
It's every religion that's out there. And what we're talking about is not only encompassing those religions and their purpose and mantras, but also our own. I think that the difference between these concepts in religion usually has a hell and a heaven and they have good and bad and they have right and wrong and all those things.
And if you conform to the right way of living, then you get rewarded in the future. In the afterlife. And if you don't, then, then maybe you're punished in some way.
And we don't know about all of that directly. It's hard for me to believe that there is an energy out there that is going to judge you and then lock you up in hell for a long time.
That’s only my personal belief. However, I do think that there is karma and perhaps that is the biggest goal of the spiritual life is creating more actions that lead to better karma that lead to a more successful life today. Not only personally, but also for those around you, and a better life in the future.
[00:04:23] Erin: So if there is no good or bad with karma, how do you determine what's good or bad?
[00:04:36] Garrett: It’s tough to teach. I think Buddha struggled with this as well, because it's hard to teach humans how to live when you aren't talking about what's good and bad. So you kind of have to talk about good karma versus bad karma, but karma in itself means action.
It doesn't mean good action or bad action. It just means action. And to my knowledge that's what really matters is when you create a certain energy in the world, let's say it's a positive energy, which we can also call a good energy, then that good energy goes out into the world and it comes back to you as good energy.
When you have energy that we would call negative energy or bad energy, when you put that into the world, that comes back to you, either in this life or future lives. And we don't know exactly when those actions are going to come back to us. But that is the best way to describe good and bad karma.
In those ways, we have to describe them in a dualistic way because that's how we live and that's how we learn. But karma in itself really just means action and it's neutral.
[00:05:49] Erin: Okay. So what I want to talk about now is the idea of presence and being versus acting.
Garrett: The two are related. Being and acting go together. You are being and you're acting at the same time because everything you're doing is an action. Whether or not it's just taking a breath.
It's an action. It's the action of breathing. Presence allows action to flow as opposed to being hindered by non-presence or ego.
When we start to think about what we need to do or what we want, we start to prepare our mind for something. We start to expect something.
So when we stop doing that and instead we just enjoy whatever the current moment brings to us, then our actions can flow through that state of consciousness. And usually that state of consciousness is very peaceful and fun loving, etc.
[00:06:54] Erin: If we're talking again about the end goal, is to live in this peaceful, fun loving place, right?
[00:07:02] Garrett: Absolutely.
[00:07:03] Erin: So, we don't really need to worry about the why we're here, our purpose, that sort of thing.
I'm sure there are reasons to consider this. But all those big questions that we just really want to know, why are we here? Where are we from? What is going outside of this entire universe? All that we don’t know, and the only things that we can know, we don't really need that.
[00:07:36] Garrett: Yeah, I think that there are answers to some of those things and some people may be able to have direct knowledge of those things. But it's not really the question or the objective of what spirituality is. You don't live a more peaceful life by knowing your past lives. That doesn't mean anything to you.
It can help guide you by giving you some familiarity with where you've been. And of course, not everyone can know what their past lives are.
I think the important thing is to know none of that information is significant to changing yourself. Or to identifying your ego and separating yourself from your ego. None of those things matter.
[00:08:32] Erin: Yeah, I suppose that plenty of people that are in therapy and knowledgeable in general about their self-growth and learning about their mind have zero spirituality. Yeah, they're essentially going to get to the same place.
[00:08:51] Garrett: What will happen while you're in therapy, sometimes you learn, for example, how to communicate better.
So, maybe you can tell somebody your needs better than you could before. Because you felt too ashamed to explain your needs to that person. The issue is, when you do that, it might work for a while, and you tell the other person your needs. But as long as those needs are external to you, then it will always come back to a point of emptiness inside of you.
[00:09:27] Erin: Yeah, I suppose it would be the paradigm shift of the therapy would just need to be about the fact that you have everything within you and you don't need to have the external validations or external anything in order to be your best self.
[00:09:49] Garrett: There are many therapists out there that are more aware and are present in their sessions.
And they teach from a place of intuition. They listen and they respond via intuition and they know the principles of consciousness. Which are you are whole, completely whole. You're perfect, just as you are. Everything that you have at this moment, or you need, you have right now. You do not need anything else.
There are no limitations to you, and you have no lacks. They know this. So when they see somebody explaining their issues or they're listening to these issues, that's when they reflect the mirror that we've talked about before. Of hey, have you considered maybe this could come back to not feeling like you got enough attention as a child?
And they go from their gut as opposed to their thinking mind and their training and different courses of fixing people.
[00:10:52] Erin: So I guess I'm thinking, could this all be just named a new type of psychology? Could we just call it something else and not spirituality? It doesn't have to be linked.
It's just kind of new paradigm, a new mindset, a new way of thinking.
[00:11:11] Garrett: I think it can be. And I think that when you hear the word spirituality, it's kind of
[00:11:17] Erin: tainted
[00:11:17] Garrett: out there, tainted. And there's many people that are nefarious in the spiritual world that are doing things to achieve wealth or fame or other things that are not so great.
And there can be con artists in the spiritual world just like anything else. So, I think it is tainted to a degree. If we talked about it as conscious psychotherapy, it might be more applicable to a lot of people. The issue with that is the notion of conscious psychotherapy implies that there's a scientific element to this.
And the issue with what we're talking about is there's never going to be a time when our mind can figure out all our knowledge and all of our intuition. It is beyond our mind.
So, there will not be a time when science can completely confirm or deny any of the stuff that we're talking about. So, if we call it that, we'd have to also recognize that there are things that we cannot prove from a scientific perspective. But that doesn't mean that they're any less real than things that we can prove and this is the difference between Western medicine and Eastern medicine. They're two very different approaches.
[00:12:41] Erin: Yeah, that's a good analogy. Did you make up the conscious psychotherapy?
I like it. Maybe it's a thing already. Who knows?
[00:12:52] Garrett: It probably is.
[00:12:53] Erin: Right. I like it. So to me, the reason I would want to pursue what we've been talking about, which is basically trying to be more present, aware, and conscious.
I'm not really sure why people wouldn't want to, but when you really get down into the nitty gritty of it, it is challenging and you are giving up perhaps pleasures. So it's not necessarily the easiest road to take.
[00:13:25] Garrett: I think it's filled with discomfort. It really is. So why would you want to leave your comfortable way of living if you don't feel like you're suffering in that way?
The issue with most people is they know they're suffering. They may not admit it to themselves, but they know they're suffering, but they're comfortable with the suffering that they have.
[00:13:50] Erin: It's familiar.
[00:13:51] Garrett: It’s familiar. So for example, I've had one of the most life-changing things in my work career happen here recently.
And my mind was clean and was not filled with anxiety and fear and stress and the things that you would normally experience. But my body was filled with stress, anxiety, fear, and nervousness. And all the things that you would expect out of a big change.
So that's very uncomfortable when your body has a lot of tightness in it.
For me, it was my chest and my stomach. That's very uncomfortable to sit there for hours and experience that. Your mind wants to protect you from that feeling. So it will start spinning up thoughts and it will start spinning up preparations for how do I normally become less anxious?
It starts telling me what types of food that I want to eat. Maybe they're snacky or craving foods. Maybe I want to have a cup of coffee for some reason. But there's all these things your mind starts throwing out there to deal with this discomfort. And it's not fun. It's just not a fun place to be.
But that discomfort and that pain that you sit with and experience is the key to growth. And the Yoga Sutras say that very clearly. Pain is the relinquishing of this suffering.
[00:15:28] Erin: Okay. So if you were to sit there with the pain and you don't go along with your thoughts, if stories or thoughts are popping up to try to relieve that discomfort, you're ignoring it.
What happens next? The next time, maybe your mind doesn't make as many stories or what? How does that change anything?
[00:15:50] Garrett: So I wouldn't say that you're stopping your thoughts. More softening them. So you're sitting with them and just accepting them as they are.
You're just not giving them more fire. You're not giving them more fuel to the fire. So what happens next time? I haven't had another stressful work event happen, and I probably won't for a while, but in the other personal experiences of my life, maybe in our relationship, for example, then you quickly see things.
For example, when I get defensive, I see that much more quickly than I did six months ago. And that's important.
So I think that your ability to shed conscious light on any type of thing that's going on with your life happens faster when you are more conscious. Therefore, you live more presently, more often when you can shine this consciousness on your life more quickly.
[00:17:00] Erin: Okay. So I'm living this more conscious life. That means that I'm not going to be looking for those ways to comfort myself. Because I'm just sitting with it and allowing it. So I'm not going to go get the beer or whatever that's going to make me feel better. But then I'm not feeling better.
So how do you feel after you've sat with it, after you've softened those thoughts, how is that better than just finding some other outlet?
[00:17:31] Garrett: I think that when you talk about pleasures, remember that they are temporary. So they go away. And when they go away, you just want more pleasure.
And until you get that pleasure, you're craving for that pleasure. Which is an uncomfortable place.
[00:17:52] Erin: Mm hmm. And that pleasure, you could be looking for all different kinds of pleasures. Like, oh, well I finished the beer. So now I want some other kind of pleasure.
[00:17:59] Garrett: Now I'm going to go on Instagram and post that I just had a beer or something and see how many likes I can get.
[00:18:06] Erin: Yeah.
[00:18:06] Garrett: Or whatever it might be. They’re all various forms of seeking pleasure. The biggest issue with somebody that is looking to grow personally through a conscious way, or a spiritual way, or whatever that way may be, is that there's a transitional period.
And that transitional period is very tough. Because you must retrain your mind to let go of your pleasures. And to also let go of the ways you avoid painful experiences. And you replace that with consciousness. So essentially abstaining from things that you used to do. Not having those pleasures and avoiding those pains. While not have a payoff right away.
[00:18:55] Erin: Yeah. That's what I was getting at. You don't have a payoff.
[00:18:57] Garrett: You must replace all these things that you normally find very pleasurable and comforting. Where you get joy, happiness. Something that seems very dull in the moment, because you're not getting that, that hit, that drug hit, that dopamine hit, serotonin hit, whatever it is, you're not getting that.
So, it's a very tough time. But I think what people will appreciate the light at the end of the tunnel of all this is that once you do, you find that your life is more free and it's more joyous more often.
You don't have the same pressures that you had before; you don't have the same expectations of yourself and others that you had before. I think that makes a enormous difference to people because those things are not temporary.
You are working towards permanence. Those are permanent things you can have your whole life. With that comes love and compassion for yourself and others. It opens the door to such a more beautiful world than what most people are living in when they are just trying to seek things.
[00:20:14] Erin: If you were to add the spirituality element back into what you were just saying, you might say that you would be freer to feel your intuition and have life flow more through you. And it would be a lot less work because you're allowing things to just flow.
And if you're looking at this in a spiritual mindset, and you would believe that you have a soul, the soul is powerful and all knowing. And you allow that to come through.
Allowing knowledge and knowing of what is best for you to flow through you. So again, that's integrating spirituality back into the idea, but you really don't need both together.
[00:21:11] Garrett: I don't think you absolutely need to believe in the soul or different dimensions of consciousness or anything like that to live a better life today.
I think what will help people is faith. We have to mention putting your faith in some higher power and some higher energy than what we currently experience. And the reason why that's important is because when you're going through your life, there are going to be challenges and there's going to be things that come up in your life that you don't understand why that happened to you.
And it may be something that's very difficult for you to have dealt with in the past. But when you have faith, you believe that you're always exactly where you're at because this higher power, or God, is taking care of you perfectly. Because it's the way of the universe. You also have grace for things that have happened to you in the past.
So you're able to forgive the past, either yourself or others, and realize that God has put you in a place of absolute perfection. No matter how tough that may have been in your life.
Some people don't like the word God. Don't call it God. Call it whatever you call it. But having faith in the higher power reminds you that you're always exactly where you're supposed to be.
[00:22:49] Erin: It gives you good reason and understanding for things that maybe you didn't understand or are hard.
[00:22:59] Garrett: Exactly. And then when you couple that with a belief about karma, which is a spiritual belief as well, then you can have some compassion for all the stuff that happens in the world that is not very loving or very unifying.
Those things are dealt with from actions of the past and present. And again, energy is going out into the world and is coming back as whatever it comes back as. It's like a boomerang.
What would you say to somebody that wants to get into self-improvement, but really isn't sure about the spiritual part of things? What would you say to guide them on to what types of things they can do now to improve their life?
[00:23:50] Erin: Well, I would think about things that trigger them. I think the number one thing is when you get upset, what is it about?
Stop and ask, why are you upset? Where does it come from? What is this trigger and keep asking why?
Or maybe sit and spend a few moments and see if you can feel in your body. Where is it? What does it feel like? Just really take that time because we get triggered and upset pretty often.
And if we can just take that time and investigate it, then we're going to become more aware of it. Of what is this about? Look at your thoughts about it. What are the thoughts you're having? Notice that those thoughts are being made up. So that's a starting point, I think. What would you say?
[00:24:50] Garrett: I would say the same thing.
And then the next step is taking the personal responsibility for those thoughts. So the thoughts that you have are your thoughts. They came from you. However, you may have learned them from other people, either your parents or people that raised you or your friends growing up, wherever it could be.
But you have to take responsibility for the thought and also realize once again that you are so powerful. No one can make you feel anything. The only person who can make you feel something is you.
You cannot make someone else feel, and no one can make you feel.. When we have feelings, we have feelings because we have them ourselves. And those feelings come from somewhere within.
Sometimes, they can come from a very conscious place of gratitude, and love, and beauty. But often, they come from “we're not good enough”. We haven't accomplished enough things in our life to be successful. We are ugly compared to the rest of society.
These types of things create emotions in us from unconscious places. So, emotions in and of themselves are not bad. It's just, no one can make you have them, but you.
[00:26:24] Erin: I like the term radical responsibility. We have to take radical responsibility for everything about what we're feeling and when somebody “does something” to you…they're not doing it to you.
You're feeling a way about something they did and that's up to you on how you feel about that.
[00:26:47] Garrett: Absolutely. And it might create a visceral emotion because that's your pattern that you've always had. So somebody could cut you off on the freeway and you might instantly think that they're an asshole.
And you might have this building of anger and rage inside of you right away. And that's okay. The thoughts behind it are what matters the most. So when you have that visceral response, what is your mind telling you about anger?
In the freeway example, do you start saying everybody always cuts me off? Why does nobody respect the way that I'm driving? Why does this happen to me in my life?
All these other things in my life happen to me this way too. People don't treat me fairly and on and on and on about all the things that have nothing to do with you getting cut off on the freeway. What your mind is doing is trying to latch onto these distinct patterns that you've experienced in your life to make sense of the emotion that you're feeling.
Because the emotion wasn't good enough on its own. The mind has to attach things to it to make it more relevant to your life.
[00:28:01] Erin: I recently learned transcendental meditation and there's a concept of whatever happens in your body, there has to be an equal reaction in your mind and vice versa.
So whatever is going on in your mind, there's a reaction in your body. If you have an emotion going on in your body, your mind has to be activated to understand the emotion, or one thing happens, the other is a reaction.
[00:28:26] Garrett: I think people that enter this world have certain types of brains. They have an analytical mind or a more emotional or feelings-based mind. And I think that the analytical people, from what I've seen in the spiritual world, really want to understand everything there is to know about spirituality and different religions.
And they have to have this kind of checklist of they need to learn this and that. And I tended to be that way too when I got into all of this. Then you have the more feelings kind of emotional intelligence people that really just want to feel all the spirituality. They just want to feel the energy and they want to feel the grandness of everything that's out there in the universe.
And I think that to have the best chance of living peacefully for a long time, you have to have some kind of middle ground. There has to be a middle way between those two things.
There has to be a middle ground in continued learning. Of trying to be disciplined in some type of practice that you're doing. Whether it's yoga or Buddhism or Christianity or whatever it might be.
Some type of practice that you do regularly to remind you of the faith that you have, or remind you of the growth that you are embarking on. And then you also can't be so rationally based that you don't ever feel any of it and you just want to keep learning.
You have to do both. You have to learn and you have to feel and they need to be in balance.
Otherwise it, it basically just becomes another thing that you're trying to do. Like you're trying to accomplish spirituality.
[00:30:26] Erin: A lot of our life, we are trying to find the middle ground or what’s the easiest way to walk the middle ground. Finding the balance between everything.
[00:30:39] Garrett: Right. It doesn't mean never eating chocolate cake and it doesn't mean never drinking alcohol.
It means when you do something, fully commit to doing whatever you're doing, and then don't look back afterwards. Don't hate yourself for doing it.
Be intentional about the things that you're doing. Don't do them because you're uncomfortable and just need to feel comfortable. When you make a choice to do something, make sure there's intention behind it. And that's what the middle way really is.
It's not just doing whatever you want to do. And it's also not just doing nothing. There's a middle ground. I think that's really important.
[00:31:24] Erin: Okay. So that's what it seems to come down to. And the discussion of spirituality and just living our lives today, balance that too. There's no need to be into living everything like, crystals, spirituality. I mean, do what you want, of course.
But, in our conversation here, I think that's the end goal, which was the original question.
[00:31:53] Garrett: Absolutely balance the two. Just keep trying to see when things are bothering you, what you can learn from them. And then also don't put too much pressure on yourself to grow super-fast. There's no need to do that.
[00:32:09] Erin: No, because we also always say, just be.
[00:32:13] Garrett: Just be. All right. I think we'll wrap it up there.
[00:32:17] Erin: All right. Thank you for listening.
[00:32:19] Garrett: Thank you.