Listener question: If I am not supposed to feel the fear and do it anyway the countless times that I feel my entire torso contracted with fear every day, what am I supposed to do instead so I can still move through the world?  If I stopped and just stayed with the fear every single time it arose until it naturally passed and “what’s not true falls away,” as you say, I might do little else throughout the day. 

Listener question: is there a difference between non-duality and 3Ps?

Listener question: Ever since I’ve become more aware I seem to have no mates and especially with my boss as we were mates before she became my boss now I just cannot stand being around her it’s like my body just wants to run the other way even though I know it’s me and can never be her .But is it just ok to let her go and have no friendship I do try to stay so present around her but it’s not happening I have to walk away out of meetings go and breathe. I mean I never tell her this I just feel so unkind to her and I’m not enlightened enough but what I’m trying to say is - can it ever be just we don’t like each other fair enough or do I always have to be around that pain? And this is not just happening with her lots of people even people I love so much.

Listener question: I have a question about trauma which i’m sure you’ve been asked many times before but it’s one that keeps coming up in the work that i do so would welcome your thoughts. 

If someone has suffered with trauma in early life, be it physical or sexual abuse or emotional neglect, is there a need to “heal the trauma” ?  

John Welwood who coined the phrase “ Spiritual Bypassing “  said that you need to do the work, whereas more radical non dual teachers like Tony Parsons would say not because there is no self there only what’s arising.  

To talk to a client who has suffered from childhood abuse from a non dual perspective, even when they have some insight, is challenging.   

How to you approach early childhood trauma from a non dual perspective ?  

Listener question: My partner is going through a very brutal process at work at the moment. and the way he deals with stress is to have short bursts of rage. Because of my history that frightens me. But I feel his pain as it was my own because he is the love of my life. I can see where crazy thinking and the self takes over, but I’m still entangled in this painful process. I see there is a lot of story around endings and abandonment and at the same time I see strength in my system emerging. I’m very well aware that trauma is not my identity, I feel deep love for my family who suffered so much in their time. But it’s echoes are still around. I suppose the question is again about bridges, where is the crossroads between suffering and seeing reality? I often feel I “miss the boat“.

Exploring how the mind can never know anything about where it is coming from. But the response to our actions is revelatory. 

Listener request: please say more about the concept of RICH with time, money, energy and connection. 

Listener question: Is it necessary to identify or pin down the individual ‘beliefs’ we hold about the self? Nowadays when I feel fear or unease I know that it is because I’m believing something that isn’t true but I find it increasingly hard to pinpoint what it is. In the beginning of my journey here I could pinpoint exactly what the belief was but now I find I notice the feelings and sensations but there is no obvious ‘shouty’ belief to be found. 

I feel like it doesn’t really matter because whatever it is, it can never be true anyway. It’s as if I’m sometimes looking for something that I can’t find but if I did find it I’d realise it’s not true!

Listener question: Discipline has been a painful story in my life, the word makes me feel slightly nauseous. I’m ready now to look at it more closely. Discipline was always something coming from outwards, imposed rules and forces. It was expected to work really hard and seemed there was no Space and time to just be myself. I was forced to do shit I didn’t like, ie ballet class or wearing clothes I didn’t like. 

It was a story of emotional and physical punishment and „as long you live under my roof you do as you told. Even if it was futile I couldn’t help but rebel against that. The rebel became part of my identity in my teens and twenties. The earlier memory seems like there was no room for sensitivity, creativity, playfulness, innocence or just being a child. 

So nowadays it seems a struggle to develop a healthy relationship to being disciplined with the things I like to do or achieve, ie. to commit to consistency. There is something to be seen. 

Exploring how the realisation that the problems of imagination cannot be solved shifts the whole experience of being into the intelligence of now.