(GENTLE MUSIC)
- [Narrator] The great
teachers of history
all taught "know thyself."
They promise, when we
understand who we really are,
we gain wisdom.
And with wisdom,
we live in peace.
Looking at everything that's
happening in the world,
the whole
self-awareness and peace
thing could do with some work.
But I can vouch living
in peace is hard.
But I have found through
trying to be less
confused and anxious, that
humanity has discovered
some awesome things about
who that have helped me feel
more grounded, less confused.
But I'm still on
my journey, which
is why I'm here in
the Cairngorms, some
of the fiercest nature
that the UK has to offer,
to see what being in nature
can teach us about, our nature.
And so I invite you to
join me for the adventure.
We're going to see, what are
these great teachings that
can help us live with wisdom?
And can we not just
rely on other people?
What can we learn
about ourselves
through our own intuition?
And can the mountain teach us
anything about living in peace?
For once, let's explore
that age-old clich
of a question, who am I?
(EXHILARATING MUSIC)
When you're in the city,
what animals do you see?
Pigeons, seagulls,
everyone's pets.
It's easy to take the
mysteriousness of a poodle
for granted.
But when I'm here, in
the Scottish winter,
my toes are freezing off.
And I'm seeing these
animals survive.
I'm struck by the
extraordinary miracle we
find ourselves involved with.
It's another species of living,
being here on planet Earth.
And it's having an
experience, seeming emotions
like fear and care for
family and seeking warmth.
It might be a bit of
an unconventional place
to start our journey, trying
to understand ourselves
by looking at animals.
If they can feel
things, what does that
teach us about our feelings,
who we are, where we come from?
What does that life
teach us about this life?
(ENERGETIC MUSIC)
Maybe not a lot.
I mean, we are different
from the animals.
I want us to get back up
the mountain eventually.
But first, there's a few
things that would be good
for us to understand,
like, how do
you understand yourself today?
Because our societies
have inherited
some ideas that see the animals
very differently from us,
indeed, with huge implications
for how we feel about ourselves
and our place in the universe.
For Descartes, one of
the founding thinkers
of modern science
and philosophy,
he believed that animals
had no mind at all.
They were automata,
unconscious machines.
He justified gruesome
experiments on live animals,
arguing the cries
of apparent agony
were no more than
automatic responses.
Descartes believed
only humans had mind.
Or for him, it was
a spiritual thing.
Only man had the spirit
given by God that existed
independently from the body.
It was these transcendent
minds or spirits that Descartes
believed gave humans the unique
capacity of self-awareness
and intelligence
so that you could
say probably the most famous
line in Western philosophy...
"I think, therefore I am."
These ideas created splits in
how we understand ourselves,
one between our minds and our
bodies, that we are our minds
or spirits in a body
separate from it,
and a second split between
the human and nature.
If it's only us that
have minds or spirits,
then it's only us that
are intelligent or sacred.
Our bodies, the animals, nature
then are not intelligent,
inferior, automatic.
Science, in the
subsequent years,
they got rid of the
spirits and the sacredness.
But they still kept this idea
that rational thinking minds
are the only intelligence in
the universe, which gave us
a feeling of
isolation, that we are
this blip of intelligence facing
an otherwise not intelligent,
automatic universe.
There are many forms of these
ideas in science and religions.
And we were promised,
when we understand
ourselves, we gain wisdom.
And we live in peace.
So I wonder, is this who we are?
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
So who are you?
Are you a mind or
spirit in a body?
Is there mind in nature?
Where does your
intelligence come from?
And can understanding any of
this help us live in peace?
So I'm going to do something a
little bit unusual for a film
and invite you to try some
stuff with me so you can see
what you can learn
about yourself
through your own experience.
So let's explore these ideas
that our thinking is the source
of our identity, and that makes
us different from the animals.
So if you'd like to join
me, I invite you to rub
your fingertips together.
It's basic, but we
can get deep with it.
So just being present with the
sensations happening right now,
maybe friction, heat, moisture.
And that's an experience
not of thoughts with words,
but a direct sensation, right?
And now, if you think about
somebody that you love,
maybe family,
friends, pets, and you
think about the
experience of love,
that experience is not a
voice in your head saying,
love, love, love, love, love.
You know, it's an emotion.
It's a feeling.
And so simply by paying
attention to our own
experience, we
found that "I think,
therefore I am" can only be part
of the story of who we are.
"I feel, therefore I am" is an
essential part of being human.
And yes, this is simple.
But for me, reconnecting with
this fact was life changing.
When I finished
education, I descended
into confusion and
anxiety, not sure
what I was doing with my life.
Searching for peace, I
journeyed to China, hoping kung
fu might make me stronger.
I tried to get into
a kung fu monastery,
failed, tried to find
a kung fu school.
But by accident, the locals
took me to a tai chi school.
Tai chi?
I thought that's
for older people.
But I tried it and
fell in love with it.
Tai chi is a moving
meditation, like yoga.
And practicing it, I experience
what we're talking about.
I'm not just my thoughts, and
I can hang out in my feelings
and sensations where
there's no words telling
me I'm confused and lost.
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
(WATER RIPPLING)
On our journey
towards peace, it's
helpful to know that we're
not just our thoughts.
So we don't always
have to be thinking.
And you don't have to try
tai chi to learn this.
We found this through
observing our own experiences,
that sensations are an option.
So let's see if we can take
a second look at the animals
and see what observation
can teach us about them.
(GENTLE MUSIC)
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
If we spend time with
animals, we see they're
not automatic machines.
Instead, they are very much
conscious, here, and aware.
And they are
creative, responding
to life intelligently.
Science since Descartes' time
has found that animals are made
up of the same sort of stuff.
80% of the genes that we
have in our DNA squirrels
have as well.
And a quick shout out to
the plants, even celery...
50% of the genes that we
have celery has as well.
Very few people take
Descartes's extreme views,
but have we recognized both
in how we understand ourselves
and collectively the
extent to which we share
our experiences, our
emotions, our intelligence
with the rest of life?
(WOMAN VOCALIZING)
So we're at the start of
understanding ourselves.
We have an experiential sense
of self, which we could call
the senser, a complex array
of emotions and sensations
that give us this
feeling of being.
And the animals have it, too.
But still, despite
these similarities,
it wasn't unreasonable of
Descartes to see us humans
as fundamentally different.
I mean, the squirrels
can't give lifts
to friends in campervans.
Surely, it is our thinking, our
reasoning that does distinguish
us from the rest of nature.
So yeah, we got to
understand, where
does our ability to remember
our email passwords come from?
Where does that voice in our
heads fit into who we are?
(PEACEFUL MUSIC)
I want to show you something
close to the mountain,
an ancient burial ground
that can help us understand
the origins of the human mind.
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
This is a burial ground
made in the Bronze Age,
and it's clear the
people that made
it here 4,000 years
ago had brains
capable of complex thinking.
They could create
stories that motivated
the community to come together
to create this structure.
Now, here's where things
get quite mind-boggling.
We found evidence
to say that it's
not just our species that had
minds capable of storytelling.
This is a human skull.
This skull looks human.
But then the eyebrows
are really far forward,
and the whole thing is
shaped like a rugby ball.
This is not a skull of a h*m*
sapien, but a h*m* neanderthal.
It's easy to forget
that there have
been over 20 species of human
that have lived on our planet.
What were these humans like?
The Neanderthals
lived in community.
They made their own clothes
out of animal hides.
They made tools
to help them hunt,
and they wore feathers
for decoration.
And some of the
skeletons we found
had been laid in dug pits,
with the person's hands
placed supporting their heads as
if they were resting, asleep.
The sites we found
did not just have
one skeleton, but many bodies,
people of different ages...
Children, parents, grandparents,
some bodies surrounded by antler
horns and rhinoceros skulls.
The Neanderthals
buried their dead
with care and in community.
Why?
What the burials
we found tell us
about what minds the
Neanderthals had and so
where our minds might
come from isn't clear cut.
You don't actually need complex
ideas about life after death
to motivate ritual behavior.
Take elephants, for example.
When one of their
troop passes away,
will come back to the
body for many days
after the death, each member
spending time in silence,
touching the body, showing
their complex emotional life,
experiencing what we
would likely call grief.
The Neanderthals, too, when
their loved ones passed away,
would have felt
intense emotions,
heartache, rolling
tension in the stomach.
And maybe it was
these emotions alone
that motivated them to bury
their loved ones with care.
We didn't need to
have ideas about what
might happen after death,
so we need more evidence.
And in 2013,
archaeologists in France
discovered something
that shocked the world.
350 meters deep
into a cave, they
found hundreds of
stalactites and stalagmites
had been broken
off the cave walls
and deliberately placed
into large circles.
And they found the
remains of fires that
had once been lit within them.
The structure was so complex,
the archaeologists assumed it
must have been made
by h*m* sapiens,
but when they dated the
find, they found it to be
an astonishing
174,000 years old,
long before h*m* sapiens had
reached Europe, implying its
makers were the Neanderthals.
(LIGHT MUSIC)
What they found in that cave in
France had no obvious purpose.
It must have taken
many hours to make.
They had fires around it.
The whole cave would have
been choking with smoke.
It seems to me very
likely that there
was a story motivating it,
that that structure meant
something to the Neanderthals.
And even if that story was
just made with basic language
or images of rising in the
minds of the Neanderthals,
that would mean that "I
think, therefore I am" is
not just for us h*m* sapiens.
Descartes believed our
thinking minds made
us superior to the
rest of nature,
but we found evidence that the
Neanderthals felt and thought
in ways surprisingly
similar to us,
and we found the animals
experience rich emotions
and navigate their
lives creatively.
We haven't found any splits
between humanity and nature
or between our minds and bodies.
So us asking, Where does
our intelligence come from?
Has led us to a bigger
and deeper question.
How is it that our planet
is bursting with beings that
are conscious,
having experiences
and so are able to
solve the challenges
they face intelligently?
What consciousness is or how
conscious life began on planet
Earth is a great mystery.
Planet Earth was once
just rocks and water.
But what we can see
from the fossil record
is that life on Earth began
billions of years ago,
and through evolution,
became more and more complex.
Eventually, animals evolved.
(WATER SPRAYING)
And they began to experience
emotions, such as fear.
And these emotions became
more and more complex,
like care for family
or the desire to play.
And eventually,
for some animals,
thoughts and basic language
began to arise in their minds,
giving them the
ability to interpret
and tell stories about what
they were experiencing.
And for one animal,
as h*m* sapiens,
we developed highly
advanced language,
which led to an
expl*si*n of human power
and lots of questions.
Every human culture
has some form
of spirituality or
religion, stories to help
satisfy our natural curiosity.
We want to understand who we
are and what we are a part of.
(SOFT MUSIC)
Given the infinite mystery we
find ourselves involved with,
any understanding of ourselves
needs to be made with humility.
As the Bible says, with
humility comes wisdom.
But we found we can,
through observation,
determine some of
the principles that
shape us and the universe.
Science, at its core, is
this process of observation,
making predictions
about the world,
collecting evidence, seeing
what the evidence tells us.
Science doesn't have to
feel cold and mechanical.
In fact, it's led us to an
understanding that many wisdom
traditions shared,
something that's
truly inclusive and
universal, that all of us,
no matter our religion,
nationality, gender,
or even our species, we all come
from the same mysterious source.
One of the great barriers to us
finding peace is disconnection.
And so if you have
thoughts telling you
that you're separate
from the world
or there's nothing inspiring
about you, shift your focus
and reconnect with
what you are a part of.
You are made from the
same energy that created
the many humans, the
plants, the animals,
and our precious, beautiful
home, planet Earth.
So who are you?
You are embodied awareness, mind
and body, coming from the
same mysterious source.
And we found you have two
main ways of experiencing
and understanding yourself.
The first, we called the
senser, the complex array
of emotions and sensations that
give us this feeling of being.
And then there's what we could
call the storyteller, that
which watches what you
experience, and using thoughts,
narrates and
interprets and creates
stories about who you are.
To really understand how
the storyteller works
can be life changing.
(LIGHT MUSIC)
So to demonstrate
how this works,
I'm going to look a
wee bit silly for you.
(CHUCKLES) So each
ball is a thought.
Like, my name is George.
I grew up in England.
My love language
is vegan brownies.
I know all the words
to the "Tarzan"
soundtrack off by heart.
And see, the story
of who we are we
construct from thoughts
that pop into our heads
that we identify with.
Would you like to
meet your storyteller?
What's your favorite
thing to do?
What was that
thought you just had?
There you go.
There's one of yours.
And if we really
understand this,
it leads to something tragic
that we can only laugh at.
But there's nothing
intrinsically George about me.
If I was born in
another country,
I'd have different thoughts.
I'd have a different story.
And in the various times of my
life where I have felt not good
enough, it's not like "not
good enough" is a physical
quality of the universe.
No, that feeling came
from judgmental thoughts
that popped into my head
that I identified with.
So isn't it astonishing,
the amount of pain
that we create in our lives
from the stories that are only
true to the extent
that we identify
with and believe the thoughts
that pop into our heads?
(STIRRING MUSIC)
I remember first reading
classic spiritual books,
like the "Power of Now,"
and finding Taosim,
the philosophy in
the mountain where
I was studying that I've since
dedicated a lot of my life to.
I remember these
insight moments.
Whoa!
I'm not just my thoughts,
and not every thought
I have needs to be true.
Instead of fighting my thinking,
I began to just pause
and to be curious,
noticing these stories, which
created a space within for me
to be able to
choose my response.
And a beautiful way that we can
bring the practice of the pause
into our everyday is
with a mindful breath.
I do this throughout the day.
And if you'd like to
join me, why don't
we take a breath together?
Breathing in together,
(BREATHES DEEPLY)
softening the face,
and breathing out,
letting any tension go.
Let's try one more of those...
Breathing in.
Can you soften even more?
And breathing out,
letting any tension go.
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
If we notice painful thinking
or stories, just pause.
Bring some curiosity to it.
Open some space within.
That space is our freedom.
(BIRDS CHIRPING,
WATER RIPPLING)
We were promised by the great
teachers, when we understand
ourselves, we gain wisdom.
And we live in peace.
And indeed, we found we're
not just our thoughts.
Not every thought
that we have is true.
We found the practice of the
pause, all important steps
on the journey towards peace.
But inevitably, even if
we have insight today,
maybe tomorrow, we'll be back
covered in takeaway grease,
scrolling on TikTok, wondering,
how did I get here again?
So just knowing who
we are isn't enough.
(SOOTHING MUSIC)
So got my ice ax,
crampons in the bag.
I'm cold, and we haven't
even started yet.
It's time for us to climb
back up the mountain.
Can the perspective it gives
us help us understand how
to transform what we've
learned into wisdom
that can actually help us?
Where is this peace
we've been promised?
We found that we create our own
stories through the thoughts
that we identify with.
Why is it then, if we do
create our own stories,
we tell such rubbish,
negative stories?
Why is inner peace so hard?
So if I draw a line
in the sandy rocks,
it's not going to stay
around for very long.
If I scoop something
a bit deeper,
that could be around
for a bit longer.
Give water enough
time, and it can carve
canyons out of sheer rock.
Our brains work like this.
You know about neural pathways.
The more you repeat
certain behaviors,
the more that neural
pathway is strengthened.
And this is essential.
It gives us our habitual
ways of thinking and being.
Take the habit of
worry, for example.
It's a good idea
for safety for us
to sometimes worry about what
might go wrong in the future.
The challenge comes with
what we do with these habits.
So for me, my time of
crisis, a new character
began to dominate my
storytelling headspace I
personified as a little evil
wizard called the Underminer,
and the Underminer
channeled everything
that was happening in my
life through the habit
of worry and negativity.
So the fact that I was single
and didn't have many friends,
my Underminer would tell
me I was flawed goods.
And when I started
getting anxious,
my Underminer would tell me
I was weak for being anxious.
More and more of my life
flowed into Underminer Valley
until I lost all hope that
I could feel better again.
(OMINOUS MUSIC)
Rule number one of
getting out of the hole...
Stop digging.
How do we normally
react to pain?
I was beating myself up.
Maybe we numb ourselves
out or try and run
away from ourselves, but all
this does is just multiplies
the pain that we're feeling.
Wisdom traditions
around the world
all talk about the power
of love and compassion.
For us to be hurting in
this often chaotic world
doesn't make us weak or flawed.
It's OK to not be OK.
With compassion can we
extend love and kindness
to our whole selves, even the
bits that we might not want.
We can be with pain
instead of lost in it.
(STIRRING MUSIC)
The acceptance of where we
are is crucial on the journey
towards peace.
But we don't have to be stuck
in Underminer Valley forever.
There are more empowering
ways of responding
to the challenges of life.
We just need to find them.
The word "wisdom" derives
from the root "to see."
It's no coincidence, then,
that mountains around the world
have been spiritual places.
With perspective,
we see that we can
choose how to respond to life.
Look, there's Underminer Valley.
It still has its place.
There's Play Valley.
There's Creativity Creek.
Wisdom is when we
channel what happens
in our lives towards
the responses that serve
harmony, that serve peace.
And anyway, we're all unique.
So your place of perspective
will be different to mine,
and the stories
that empower you,
you need to discover
for yourself.
But be empowered
that with patience,
persistence, and kindness,
change, big or small,
is possible.
(STIRRING MUSIC)
Even if you think you've found
who you are, found a story that
feels good, when
the world changes,
and your old patterns
start rumbling in,
how do you respond?
Left it quite late
with the filming,
and the weather's turning.
It's getting cold and still
got quite a way to go before we
get to safety and warmth.
(BREATHES RAPIDLY)
(WIND BLOWING)
Getting cold.
We'll be all right.
We'll get through.
Change can be scary, which
is why we crave certainty,
certainty about how
the world works,
certainty about who we are.
So we think we've got
everything under control.
But the only constant is change.
The weather on the mountain
is constantly changing.
You're constantly changing.
I'm constantly changing.
Can we trust the intelligence
of the life force
that animates us, an
intelligence that has produced
the astonishing
resilience that is you,
that has produced the
breathtaking beauty
of the planet, all
done without words?
Finding yourself is great.
A human being needs a story.
We have roles to play
as parents, children,
employees, students, citizens.
But know that the
searching will never end.
Can you also develop the
subtle art of losing yourself,
to surrender to the
ever-changing flow,
to not need a story, to embrace
the mystery of your being,
and so rest?
(SOOTHING MUSIC)
On our journey towards
understanding ourselves
and living in peace,
we found that we create
the stories of who we
are from the thoughts
that pop into our heads.
And so we have the freedom to
choose a story that empowers.
But we and the world are
always changing and too complex
to fully capture with words.
Thankfully, we don't
always need to be thinking.
We can hang out
in our sensations
and so lose ourselves.
And one of the most reliable
ways I've found to lose myself
is being in nature.
When I feel stuck
in self-criticism
and painful stories, if I can
get out and walk in landscapes
bigger than myself, I'm
reminded of the great tapestry
of life that I am a part of.
And George and all my stories
feel less and less important.
As my mind softens, I find
moments of no thought.
George disappears,
and what remains
is a simple presence,
ease, and connection.
Mountains have been great
teachers in my life.
And so if you can get out
and have some adventures,
go for it.
But I know you may not
have access to mountains
or fancy kit like this.
What we've learned can
only truly be impactful
if it helps us back
in the mystifying
mountains of modern living.
It's time for me to go
home, back to the city.
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
(TRAIN ENGINE ROARING)
The intelligence of the universe
has achieved some
pretty awesome stuff.
It's easy to forget that
all of our technology
is still nature
expressing itself.
There's much to
celebrate about humanity.
But at the same time,
our modern world
brings with it big challenges.
I've been back in the
city for a few months now,
and the challenging
bit is living
with wisdom, living in peace.
And if that resonates with
you, we're not alone with that.
To struggle is to be human,
which is why the wisdom
traditions have always
offered practices,
practices to help us
stay in connection
with our wiser selves.
And I want to share
with you a practice
that has been really
helpful for me,
but first, a ghost story.
Woo, ha, ha.
No, not really.
If we imagine that our
consciousness is like a light,
our awareness illuminates
that which it focuses on.
And we've been shining
the light of our awareness
in the world and ourselves.
But it's hard to live
what we've been learning
because, for some
reason, the default
setting of human
consciousness is this.
We're flitting between
cravings and distractions
the whole time, which means
that we stay unconscious.
And it's only if we can learn
to steady our awareness,
to rest, that we see
ourselves clearly
and so see our potential
for wisdom and for peace.
(SOFT MUSIC)
And this brings
us to meditation.
"Meditation" is a big word,
but it's about presence.
If your awareness is on what
you're doing as opposed to lost
in thought, that's meditation.
Meditation as a
practice is training
our awareness to rest, to find
that presence more easily.
Meditation has been discovered
all around the world
over history.
It's helped me so much.
And I thought maybe we
could try some together
so you can experience for
yourself how you don't always
have to be caught in thought,
how you can lose yourself,
how you can rest, how
to stay in connection
with your wisdom to help you
live in peace in your everyday.
So would you like to
join me for a meditation?
If you would, then you
can be sitting in any way
you'd like to.
And an invitation... and this
is only an option, and taking
as long as you want with it...
Is for you to close
your eyes and to see
if you can find your breath.
Where is your breath right now?
Maybe coming in and out
through your nostrils,
maybe out of your mouth.
And can you slow
your breath down?
Slow your breath down,
softening the face.
If there's any tension in
your forehead or your eyes,
allow them to unwind.
If there's any tension in
your cheeks or your jaw,
allow them to sink.
The sensation of your breath
is part of your sensor.
That feeling of being.
You're not just your
thoughts, and so you
can rest in your sensations.
And so can you
kindly be watching
your breath coming in and out?
And you may also
notice thinking.
That's your
storyteller in action.
And thinking, like the
sensation of your breath,
is an experience arising
in your awareness.
You're not just your thoughts.
Not every thought
that you have is true.
You are the embodied
awareness that watches it all.
And so you have the freedom,
when you notice thinking,
to just let it go, to
bring your awareness back
to the breath.
Meditation is not about
having a quiet mind.
Instead, it is the
process of returning.
We get lost in thought
and we come back.
And how gently
can you come back?
Can you come back
without judgment?
Can you rest with the breath?
If we use meditation
to improve ourselves,
then we're back in
thinking and stories.
And they were precisely the
things that got us confused.
So can you hold this openness,
this space for its own sake,
with no expectations
of magic fixes
or future rewards,
nothing to do,
nowhere to go, no one to be?
Can you lose yourself?
Can you rest?
Can you rest?
And gently beginning
to come back,
bringing some movement
into your shoulders,
some shoulder rolls and then
taking it as long as you want,
beginning to come back,
and opening your eyes.
It's a real privilege to
be practicing with you.
And for me, doing a
daily meditation practice
has been training my awareness
to find that kindness,
to find that
spaciousness more easily.
(PEACEFUL MUSIC)
(BIRD SQUAWKS)
(GULLS CRYING)
(WATER RIPPLING)
(BIRDS
(SQUAWKING) (SLURPS)
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
Imagine how different
your life would
be if you could bring
that space and kindness
into your everyday.
In an argument, instead of
being stuck in the valleys
of reactivity, blame, what
would happen if you remembered
to pause, take a breath, to
find your inner mountain view,
and to look with kind
curiosity, what feelings
and stories are you in?
What might be happening for
the person in front of you?
Or take something as mundane
as your daily commute.
If you apply the
practice of the pause,
find your inner
mountain view, you
may begin to notice that
nature, even in the city,
makes its living.
And you reconnect with
what you are a part of
and yet we so easily forget.
So with practice, it
is possible for us
to feel resilient, even joyful.
But we still are
missing something.
Because even if we
become master meditators
and discover our inner
chill, if our loved ones are
struggling, or our
country is at w*r,
or we're facing
climate disasters,
it's going to be hard
for us to live in peace.
And that's because true peace is
not just peace with ourselves.
It's peace in our
relationships, communities,
countries, the planet.
We've been exploring this idea.
When we understand
ourselves, we gain wisdom,
and we live in peace.
And if that means
true peace, this
leads us to a big question.
Could it be that understanding
who we really are
can not only transform our
lives, but change the world?
(ANNOUNCEMENT OVER INTERCOM)
- [Speaker 1] Welcome aboard
this Great Western Railway
service to London, Paddington.
(TRAIN RUMBLING)
- [Narrator] In the same way
that we create our own story,
all the economic and political
systems that shape our world,
they, too, are built upon
stories, assumptions,
narratives about what
it means to be human
and what we're here to do.
And ultimately,
those stories are
agreed upon and given power by
people, people like you and me.
You can imagine how different
our world could be if you
and I and more of us, while
acknowledging all the struggle
and trauma, we nonetheless
believed in our own capacity,
and so the human
capacity for healing,
for forgiveness,
for cooperation.
And if more of us lose
ourselves and reconnect
with the great mystery
that we are a part of
and so find a sense of our
own sacredness, our value that
comes from our being, not
what we do, then no longer
do we exhaust our energy
chasing happiness that is
always outside of ourselves.
Instead, we find a contentment
and richness in simplicity.
So understanding
yourself matters
because not only do
you create resilience
and peace in yourself.
You inspire the people
around you that change
is possible for them too.
And if there's enough of us,
we can reach a tipping point
where our collective
stories, and so
the systems that shape our
world, begin to transform, too.
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
As I've learned
more about myself,
that I am an aperture
through which the universe is
experiencing itself, on this
stunning planet, the only place
we know to support life in the
whole universe, where before, I
felt anxiety, I now feel a
love, a love for humanity,
a love for the Earth.
And this love makes
me want to be part
of the movement that seeks
to protect and celebrate
the flourishing of life.
And for you, as you
learn more about yourself
and your connection,
if you feel called to,
how could you dedicate
more of your energy
to the movement, the movement
that believes in our potential
for balance and for peace?
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
And for the times where we may
feel like peace for ourselves
and the planet is just
some naive pipe dream,
can we give ourselves permission
for better, not perfection?
A journey of 1,000 miles
starts with a single step.
So all we can do
is keep stepping
and to support each
other on the journey.
So keep stepping, my friend.
Keep practicing.
Keep finding yourself
and losing yourself.
What story are we
going to write?
(EMPOWERING MUSIC)
Welcome to our World! Where we serve you cookies to ensure you get the best viewing experience on our site.
Did you know that you can remove censorship board-wide, use our advanced search functions, be notified when new content is posted, join our memberships, set episodes to show in any order you want & more if you are logged into your account?
Register or sign in here: ucp.php?mode=register
Did you know that you can remove censorship board-wide, use our advanced search functions, be notified when new content is posted, join our memberships, set episodes to show in any order you want & more if you are logged into your account?
Register or sign in here: ucp.php?mode=register