Who Do You Think You Are?

“Don’t just put in your time. That is not enough. You have to make great effort.”

When the shine wears off the habits we’re trying to form, when we begin to merely show up rather than put in the hard work of consistent, effortful focus, we lose hold of the very skill we’re trying to develop. Trusting the process implies patience and that you’re aware you’re taking a long-view approach. But it also implies that you take very seriously the small micro-task in front of you. Do each step of the journey with your whole attention. While sometimes it is enough to just to “show up,” it’s a good reminder that on the path of personal transformation, you have to work at it.

This episode was brought to you by Big Self School. If you have been a part of the growing community from around the globe (30 countries by last count) that are following these daily meditations and ideas, we love your presence and are so glad you are listening. I hope that the process is making a difference in your life. If you would be so kind as to help our online visibility by giving us a review on Apple iTunes we would be deeply grateful. We’re starting this podcast from scratch and are bringing content and value to our listeners every single day without exception. Your support in even this one small way would make a big difference. Thank you!

“Normally a job, fortune, or reputation has to be lost, a death has to be suffered, a house has to be flooded, or a disease has to be endured.”

Rohr is pointing out a clear pattern that one of the primary ways we are ushered into the second half of life, of falling upward, is to experience failure or setback. It’s a part of life, and it is good to be reminded that these experiences will happen. What we do with them is the real story. Another way of stating it, “Before the truth sets you free, it tends to make you miserable.”

This episode was brought to you by Big Self School. If you have been a part of the growing community from around the globe (30 countries by last count) that are following these daily meditations and ideas, we love your presence and are so glad you are listening. I hope that the process is making a difference in your life. If you would be so kind as to help our online visibility by giving us a review on Apple iTunes we would be deeply grateful. We’re starting this podcast from scratch and are bringing content and value to our listeners every single day without exception. Your support in even this one small way would make a big difference. Thank you!

“I don’t think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.”

The quote speaks for itself, but the book it comes from is an allegory for the breakdown of society, which is fueled in large part to our failure to “see” each other. The year 2020 has seen a global pandemic, and calls for increased attention to the issues of systemic racism. In large measure, we are called to perform radical empathy. Many refuse because it is too hard, uncomfortable, or threatening to their power. They remain blind.

This episode was brought to you by Big Self School. If you have been a part of the growing community from around the globe (30 countries by last count) that are following these daily meditations and ideas, we love your presence and are so glad you are listening. I hope that the process is making a difference in your life. If you would be so kind as to help our online visibility by giving us a review on Apple iTunes we would be deeply grateful. We’re starting this podcast from scratch and are bringing content and value to our listeners every single day without exception. Your support in even this one small way would make a big difference. Thank you!

“Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.”

Our meditation focus is often on the self, and that is no doubt where the work begins. But a huge follow-up step is naturally how we engage and work with others. We all want to succeed and we can’t do it without others. In fact, we spend so much of our time working with others to accomplish our very own goals, it’s important that we are able to work well with others on teams. Most of us want to collaborate. We are ready to share our ideas and work with others, and most of us don’t want conflict. This quote focuses on the power of a good team — but perhaps more importantly, that it is rare. As Henry Ford once said, “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”

This episode was brought to you by Big Self School. If you have been a part of the growing community from around the globe (30 countries by last count) that are following these daily meditations and ideas, we love your presence and are so glad you are listening. I hope that the process is making a difference in your life. If you would be so kind as to help our online visibility by giving us a review on Apple iTunes we would be deeply grateful. We’re starting this podcast from scratch and are bringing content and value to our listeners every single day without exception. Your support in even this one small way would make a big difference. Thank you!

“The Enneagram is a tool that awakens our compassion for people just as they are, not the people we wish they would become so our lives would become easier.”

Knowing my Enneagram number has deepened my self-awareness, and given me practical and specific tools for growth. It has also helped me better understand people who are wired entirely differently than me. The idea here is to also realize that for as much as we don’t like it when people have agendas for us, neither should have agendas for other people. Easier said than done of course, especially when it comes to our children, with greater understanding comes greater compassion for self and others.

This episode was brought to you by Big Self School. If you have been a part of the growing community from around the globe (30 countries by last count) that are following these daily meditations and ideas, we love your presence and are so glad you are listening. I hope that the process is making a difference in your life. If you would be so kind as to help our online visibility by giving us a review on Apple iTunes we would be deeply grateful. We’re starting this podcast from scratch and are bringing content and value to our listeners every single day without exception. Your support in even this one small way would make a big difference. Thank you!

“In the morning he would sit down to work, finish his allotted task, then take the little lamp from the hook, put it on the table, get his book from the shelf, open it, and sit down to read. And the more he read, the more he understood, and the brighter and happier it grew in his heart.”

There is a quiet simplicity in the life of the cobbler. He would perform his duties, and then he would read. There is no ostentation, no needing to share what he read, just the reading and the growing understanding or enlightening. As Joseph Campbell said, “Sit in a room and read — and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.”

This episode was brought to you by Big Self School. If you have been a part of the growing community from around the globe (30 countries by last count) that are following these daily meditations and ideas, we love your presence and are so glad you are listening. I hope that the process is making a difference in your life. If you would be so kind as to help our online visibility by giving us a review on Apple iTunes we would be deeply grateful. We’re starting this podcast from scratch and are bringing content and value to our listeners every single day without exception. Your support in even this one small way would make a big difference. Thank you!

“Care of the soul is a fundamentally different way of regarding daily life and the quest for happiness.”

Recognizing the soul within us helps us connect the spiritual with the material, the ineffable with concrete striving for the bottom line, it helps us examine our motives, and find joy in the ordinariness of our moments. Care means cultivating. Moore sees the soul as a bridge between ourselves. The care the soul needs begins deep curiosity about the ways our psyche reveals itself in ourselves in others.

This episode was brought to you by Big Self School. If you have been a part of the growing community from around the globe (30 countries by last count) that are following these daily meditations and ideas, we love your presence and are so glad you are listening. I hope that the process is making a difference in your life. If you would be so kind as to help our online visibility by giving us a review on Apple iTunes we would be deeply grateful. We’re starting this podcast from scratch and are bringing content and value to our listeners every single day without exception. Your support in even this one small way would make a big difference. Thank you!

"The most apparent thing that I noticed was how most of the people in this study derive their sense of identity and well-being from their immediate surroundings rather than from within themselves, and that’s why they broke down — just couldn’t stand the pressure — they had nothing within them to hold up against all of this.”

This study revealed that the real source of resilience and strength comes from within.

This episode was brought to you by Big Self School. If you have been a part of the growing community from around the globe (30 countries by last count) that are following these daily meditations and ideas, we love your presence and are so glad you are listening. I hope that the process is making a difference in your life. If you would be so kind as to help our online visibility by giving us a review on Apple iTunes we would be deeply grateful. We’re starting this podcast from scratch and are bringing content and value to our listeners every single day without exception. Your support in even this one small way would make a big difference. Thank you!

“With lovingkindness for myself I allow all the feelings of the irrational, perplexing, agonizing relationship to wash over me. Suddenly, I see it clearly: my whining, my sense that I’m trapped by this relationship, my seeming powerlessness over the irrationality of the Other are reenactments. And with that observation I’m suddenly free from the burden, the trap of trying to make the irrational rational. Not only is it completely irrational to argue with the Irrational Other, it’s irrational to try to alter them so that they make sense to me.”

We all have an “Irrationational Other” in our lives. We have a choice to make when it comes to how we experience that person. We can remain stuck and let that person continue to provoke us or keep us locked up, or with love and self-understanding, we can wake up to the repetition, we can move past the pain or fear or shame and take a step on the path to awakening.

This episode was brought to you by Big Self School. If you have been a part of the growing community from around the globe (30 countries by last count) that are following these daily meditations and ideas, we love your presence and are so glad you are listening. I hope that the process is making a difference in your life. If you would be so kind as to help our online visibility by giving us a review on Apple iTunes we would be deeply grateful. We’re starting this podcast from scratch and are bringing content and value to our listeners every single day without exception. Your support in even this one small way would make a big difference. Thank you!

“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency.”

We explore hope as optimism, as necessity, as beacon shining a light forward. One thing it should not function as is an “opiate for the masses.” Hope, like love and faith, is not a passive condition. I love the idea of how it can be a call to action in a time that should be viewed as an emergency. It asks us to look at situations with urgency rather than bland acceptance and resignation.

This episode was brought to you by Big Self School. If you have been a part of the growing community from around the globe (30 countries by last count) that are following these daily meditations and ideas, we love your presence and are so glad you are listening. I hope that the process is making a difference in your life. If you would be so kind as to help our online visibility by giving us a review on Apple iTunes we would be deeply grateful. We’re starting this podcast from scratch and are bringing content and value to our listeners every single day without exception. Your support in even this one small way would make a big difference. Thank you!