0:34

Every day we're bombarded with messages

0:34

telling us to be more, to do more.

0:38

To strive for excellence, to push harder,

0:38

reach further, never settle.

0:43

But what if this relentless

0:43

pursuit of improvement

0:46

actually keeping us from true happiness?

0:49

The modern mantra tells us

0:49

that our value lies in our achievements

0:54

and our capacity to transform ourselves

0:54

into this ideal of perfection.

0:58

But today,

0:58

we're going to explore a different path.

1:01

One that challenges everything

1:01

you might believe about self-improvement.

1:05

Imagine for a moment

1:05

a world where you don't have to be

1:08

better than you were yesterday,

1:08

where the pressure to excel

1:11

is replaced by an invitation to exist

1:11

freely and fully.

1:15

What if I told you that embracing

1:15

who you are right now,

1:19

with all your imperfections,

1:19

is the key to contentment?

1:24

Philosophers have long debated

1:24

this notion of self and improvement,

1:29

but Pema Chadron is a revered

1:29

Buddhist nun,

1:31

and she offers a radical view

1:31

that improvement is actually

1:35

this subtle aggression

1:35

against every essence of our being.

1:39

So what does it mean to accept this view?

1:42

How does it change the way that you

1:42

see yourself and the pursuit of happiness?

1:47

Today we dive deep into Pema Children's

1:47

The wisdom of No Escape.

1:51

And we're going to explore

1:51

why stopping this endless quest

1:55

for improvement might actually be the most

1:55

transformative step that you can take.

2:01

How many times

2:01

have you caught yourself thinking

2:03

that once you achieve a certain goal,

2:03

you'll finally be happy?

2:07

So explore how flipping that

2:07

narrative completely around

2:12

is actually going to be the secret

2:12

to a fulfilled life.

2:15

Join me as we uncover the beauty

2:15

of being enough, just as we are.

2:20

And later, I'm

2:20

going to share some personal stories

2:23

about how I've applied this to my own

2:23

life, and it's worked great.

2:28

There's

2:28

this misconception of self improvement.

2:30

So let's look at some common traps.

2:33

Consider how societal pressures

2:33

and your personal ambitions leads you

2:36

to believe that you have to always

2:36

constantly improve to be worthy or happy.

2:42

It's like you're

2:42

the main character in a video game

2:46

and you have to keep leveling up.

2:48

But ask yourself,

2:48

who's controlling your character?

2:51

Are you controlling your character? Or are you living

2:54

someone else's story as someone else,

2:54

moving you around this game of life?

2:58

Look at Michael Phelps

2:58

and his battle with depression.

3:01

He was the most decorated

3:01

Olympian in history.

3:03

He'd won more medals than anyone,

3:05

but he still struggled with depression

3:05

and this sense of emptiness.

3:09

And he didn't feel like

3:09

he was a part of the world.

3:12

And it wasn't really

3:12

until he began his journey towards mental

3:15

health awareness that he felt at peace

3:15

in his life outside of the pool.

3:20

To put it simply,

3:20

part of starting is just loving yourself

3:23

for who you are,

3:23

what you build from that self.

3:27

Love is almost limitless Ask yourself,

3:30

are you chasing shadows of what you think

3:30

that you should become?

3:34

How could learning to appreciate

3:34

who you are and what you are?

3:37

How could that change your life?

3:39

Hit me up with your thoughts

3:39

in the comments so we can talk about it.

3:42

Pema Chadron is an important

3:42

figure in modern spiritual writing,

3:45

and she's a respected teacher of Tibetan

3:45

Buddhism,

3:48

and she's ordained within the Shambhala

3:48

Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

3:51

Her teachings have resonated

3:51

with millions of people around the world,

3:55

and really, it's in large part

3:55

because she's made Buddhist

3:59

concepts really accessible

3:59

and really simple,

4:02

because Buddhist teachings can often

4:02

get really complex, very detail oriented.

4:06

And she has a way of just making it

4:06

very simple and easy to understand.

4:10

Her focus is on themes of mindfulness,

4:10

compassion, and growth,

4:15

and a lot of her wisdom

4:15

comes from actual hands on experience.

4:20

At the Gambo Abbey, which is a Buddhist

4:20

abbey in Nova Scotia and Canada.

4:24

This is where she served

4:24

as, say, this is where.

4:39

This is where she is

4:39

served as the principal, teacher and guide

4:42

for many years after being a student

4:42

there for a very long time as well.

4:47

She outlines for us in the book

4:47

The Path of Loving Kindness,

4:51

and this path is presented

4:51

in a series of meditation

4:55

instructions that she developed

4:55

during her time at the Abbey.

4:58

These aren't simply spiritual guidelines,

4:58

but they're practical approaches

5:02

to embracing life's imperfections

5:02

and finding peace in the present moment.

5:08

And there's that ever present subject

5:08

of the present moment.

5:12

You see it all the time in spiritual circles. You see it all the time

5:14

in spiritual videos. You probably see it in a lot of books

5:16

you read about spirituality,

5:19

but she really artfully brings together

5:19

these concepts of meditation,

5:24

self-acceptance, self-love,

5:24

and loving kindness,

5:28

and living in the present moment,

5:28

along with the concept of mindfulness,

5:32

which kind of goes hand-in-hand

5:32

with living in the present moment.

5:35

And you kind of need to be able to dance

5:35

with the universe

5:39

to put this all together. And she does it, and she does it in this,

5:40

like, beautiful way that's simple

5:44

and easy to understand. This book isn't too long, and she says

5:45

mindfulness is loving all the details

5:50

of our lives, and awareness

5:50

is the natural thing that happens.

5:54

Life begins to open up

5:54

and you realize that you're always

5:57

standing at the center of the world.

6:00

And so think about that for a second.

6:04

You know, you realize that you're standing

6:04

in the center of the world.

6:07

You're the main character.

6:07

Nine this bad way.

6:09

You're the main character in the best way.

6:11

You get to to write your own story.

6:14

You get to be the person that directs

6:14

you and your own video game.

6:18

That's important.

6:26

So let's further explore

6:26

the beauty of imperfection.

6:29

We've already discussed

6:29

how children shows us that imperfection

6:33

is not a flaw to be corrected,

6:33

but a feature to be celebrated,

6:36

she says the point is not to try to change

6:36

ourselves.

6:40

Meditation practice

6:40

isn't about trying to throw ourselves away

6:43

and become something better. It's about befriending who we already are.

6:49

And on Mindfulness in present living,

6:49

she introduces us to methods to appreciate

6:53

life as it is, rather than always striving

6:53

for what could be.

6:57

So there's there's

6:57

all these things that we can do.

7:01

There's all these things

7:01

that are available to us.

7:03

The question is, what are we doing?

7:05

Like right now, today,

7:08

if we sort that out,

7:08

we start to grow in this incredible way.

7:12

She talks about mindfulness

7:12

and she says mindfulness is loving

7:16

all the details of our lives. And awareness

7:17

is the natural thing that happens.

7:21

And I'd really love for each of you

7:21

to really key on that word awareness

7:25

as part of how you live. Being aware changes things inside of you

7:27

in this deep way.

7:30

It puts you in receive mode

7:30

to what the universe has to offer.

7:34

And if you're in receive mode, you're going to be able to enjoy

7:35

what the universe sends you.

7:39

Look at how you embrace life's challenges.

7:41

She encourages embracing these inherent

7:41

challenges to life

7:45

and seeing them as these opportunities

7:45

to grow and learn about ourselves,

7:49

instead of an obstacle that we have

7:49

to overcome on our way to perfection.

7:53

And I always tell people

7:55

that chasing perfection in the real world

7:55

can be this fool's errand.

8:01

there might be this perfect thing

8:01

inside of you, that divine self

8:05

or the universe or nature, the Brahman

8:05

or God or Christ consciousness.

8:09

It has many names. So you can know that there's

8:11

this perfect thing inside of you,

8:15

but that chasing perfection in there,

8:15

in your day to day life, in this

8:18

real world is there's no point to it

8:18

because we're never going to get there.

8:22

We're never going to get to that perfect place here in this concrete reality

8:24

that we're sharing with each other.

8:27

So sometimes great is good enough,

8:27

sometimes good is good enough.

8:31

Children says our life's work is to use

8:31

what we've been given to wake up.

8:37

And that's what walking

8:37

the spiritual path is all about.

8:40

It's waking up. How do you think you can encourage

8:42

more awareness in your own life?

8:45

Let me know in the comments

8:45

and we'll have a conversation.

8:47

I'm going to tell you a little bit

8:47

about my own experience with acceptance.

8:50

But before I do,

8:50

I wanted to let you know the goal of this

8:53

channel is to help

8:53

people know their wholeness within.

8:57

And so sub, if you like what we're doing

8:57

and share this with someone

9:00

if you think it might help them. Let's talk about this

9:01

transformational journey.

9:03

I've tried to be things that I wasn't

9:06

growing up. I was this show guy

9:07

and I was kind of a bomb.

9:09

I missed a ton of school, and my ethos was that life's

9:11

too important to be taken seriously.

9:14

And I lived it. But then I joined the Army and I started

9:16

taking life way too seriously.

9:20

I was really good at my job

9:20

though, and I loved it.

9:23

And so it worked for me. After 15 years on and off and desert

9:25

combat zones,

9:29

I went home

9:29

and I didn't know who the hell I was.

9:31

I wanted to go back to being this calm

9:31

and show person that I had been

9:35

when I was a kid and when I was

9:35

in high school, but I couldn't get there.

9:39

Hey one, I had tons of healing to do

9:39

and I had to do that

9:43

to get to this, this place where

9:43

I could kind of take life less seriously

9:47

and it wasn't something

9:47

that I was ever able to get to.

9:51

It's like I was striving to be this

9:51

calm thing and I just couldn't do it.

9:55

And finally,

9:55

I figured out that if I could just accept

9:59

that there was this part of me

9:59

that was uptight and anxious, that

10:05

there was also this other part of me

10:05

that was kind of chill and laid back.

10:09

If I could accept those things

10:09

at the same time.

10:12

Suddenly I realized that these

10:12

two different parts of me could coexist.

10:17

And so take a second. Right now and tell yourself one thing

10:18

that you aren't accepting about yourself,

10:24

and ask yourself,

10:24

how would accepting that thing

10:27

and coming to terms with it

10:27

change your life?

10:30

How would it lead to more balance

10:30

in your life?

10:33

And more recently, about two and a half years ago, I realized

10:34

that I wasn't living my higher purpose.

10:38

And that's your dharma. That's my dharma.

10:40

The thing that is unique to you,

10:40

that you're meant to do in this world.

10:44

Each of us has a higher purpose

10:44

specific to them.

10:48

And when I woke up, I realized

10:48

that my dharma, my higher purpose.

10:53

Was to go help people help themselves

10:53

to find their wholeness within.

10:56

This changed my whole life. It led to this deep acceptance of who I am

10:58

and what I'm all about.

11:03

And I stopped fighting to do something

11:03

else with my life or be something else.

11:09

And that acceptance led to this

11:12

really, breakthrough in

11:17

my journey on the spiritual path.

11:20

One of the things that really helped me

11:20

get to this point was letting go.

11:23

It's about dealing with emotions

11:23

as they come up and children says,

11:28

when we think that we're holding

11:28

okay again,

11:32

Chadron says, when we think

11:32

that we are holding on to something

11:35

that we need, we are actually standing

11:35

in the way of our own well-being.

11:39

Letting go is the path to real freedom.

11:43

And if you think about it,

11:43

you probably realize

11:46

that we're attached to all this junk,

11:50

you know? What are you holding on to?

11:52

When when you let go, you're introduced

11:52

to this emotional resilience

11:57

and this freedom. Even if you think that you can't

11:58

let go of something or someone

12:02

because you love them so much and

12:02

you think that you're going to lose them,

12:07

consider if you ever had them. What if you let go

12:08

and they're still there?

12:12

What if, because you let go, suddenly

12:12

you find yourself

12:15

more connected with them

12:15

than you could ever have realized?

12:19

That's a spiritual relationship

12:19

and that's transcendent.

12:23

So if you let go of it all,

12:23

then you see who you really are.

12:27

You also see who

12:27

everyone else is around you.

12:29

And it's so much more than you can ever

12:29

imagine.

12:32

And I was a broken

12:32

as I ever could have been.

12:36

After years in combat.

12:38

But I want to tell you, my trauma

12:38

isn't better or worse than your trauma.

12:43

And we all have this swamp of sadness

12:43

that we have to navigate

12:47

and get through

12:47

and come out the other side.

12:49

And this is me telling you,

12:49

this is possible.

12:52

It's possible to get through that swamp. It's possible to come out the other side.

12:56

It's possible to let go, and that it could

13:01

even be a beautiful journey as you do it.

13:04

And what do you think

13:04

is the one single most important thing

13:09

that you might let go of in your life

13:09

for more peace, just consider that

13:14

and reflect on it and figure out

13:14

what's going on inside of you.

13:18

That's one of these

13:18

all important first steps.

13:21

We have discussions like this

13:21

every single day over at Keshav, our org.

13:25

It's the nonprofit spiritual community

13:25

that sponsors this channel.

13:28

Check out the link in the description

13:28

and become a member.

13:31

You can live in Non-Judgment. When we look at people,

13:33

we have a tendency to judge them.

13:36

We criticize people

13:36

for all kinds of things.

13:39

And if you make friends with yourself,

13:39

if you love yourself,

13:42

you end up making friends

13:42

with those people that you're judging.

13:46

And it's because a lot of times,

13:46

the things that we're judging in

13:51

others are actually things

13:51

that we are judging about ourselves.

13:54

And so if we can approach all of this

13:54

with a sense of honesty and gentleness

14:00

and good heartedness and combine

14:00

that with clarity

14:03

about ourself,

14:03

there's no obstacle to a better life.

14:08

And I can say from personal experience that living in Non-Judgment

14:09

is this massively freeing thing.

14:13

I'm telling you guys, if you can

14:13

go out there and stop judging yourself

14:17

and you can stop judging other people,

14:17

it really frees you from so much.

14:21

It's it's a big part of letting go,

14:21

just like, you know, talking

14:25

about letting go of all these this junk

14:25

in, in life, in these attachments.

14:29

non-judgment is part of that. Forgiveness is a part of that.

14:32

Forgiveness of yourself,

14:32

forgiveness of others.

14:35

So think about that as well. And how do you apply these teachings?

14:38

There's things that you can do. There's

14:39

practical things that you can go forward

14:41

and will help you move forward

14:41

with this kind of stuff.

14:44

Try some gratitude reflections. Start or end

14:46

your day with a gratitude exercise

14:49

where you write things down

14:49

or type it in your phone.

14:52

Maybe three things

14:52

that you're grateful for each day,

14:55

and then reflect on why these three things

14:55

bring you joy and peace.

15:00

Look at doing some mindful walking

15:00

as you walk.

15:03

Pay attention to the sensation

15:03

of your feet on the ground.

15:07

Observe the rhythm of your walk.

15:09

You know the feel of the hair

15:09

on your skin, the sounds around you.

15:13

Use this practice to cultivate presence

15:13

and your everyday activities.

15:18

I can tell you that mindfulness works

15:21

when you practice mindfulness

15:21

exercises like taking a mindful walk.

15:25

You're going to be mindful during that walk because you're intentional about it,

15:28

but then you're going to find

15:28

as you do that more often,

15:31

you're going to start to be more mindful

15:31

even when you're not planning it,

15:34

even though where you're not intentional about it, you're going to just be mindful

15:36

as you go through life.

15:39

That's very transcendent. It's a it's a very, empowering thing.

15:44

It makes you more present in the moment.

15:46

And you can try things like sitting,

15:46

in a basic meditation,

15:50

find a quiet space,

15:50

get in a comfortable position,

15:54

turn on something like inside timer,

15:54

which is an app on your phone.

15:57

It's free. You can bring up a guided meditation,

15:58

and it can guide you through it.

16:01

And when your mind wanders

16:01

as you're meditating,

16:03

because that'll happen

16:03

if you haven't meditated before,

16:06

and even people have meditated for a long time, sometimes struggle with their mind

16:07

wandering, that happens.

16:11

Just bring your focus back to the present,

16:11

back to the meditation,

16:14

and don't judge yourself about it. Just kind of be chill about it and

16:15

and take yourself back to the meditation

16:20

and try to stay committed to this

16:20

for a couple of weeks before you decide

16:24

how it's going to work for you. Don't you do it once or twice and say,

16:25

I can't do this.

16:28

Just try to stick with it. You can do the same thing

16:29

with breathing exercises.

16:31

there's breathing exercises

16:31

in an inside timer as well.

16:34

And there's long term benefits

16:34

to these practices.

16:36

You're going to have improved mental

16:36

health.

16:39

You're probably going to see, a significant reduction

16:40

in anxiety or depression.

16:43

Many people do. There's enhanced concentration and memory.

16:47

You're

16:47

just generally going to think more clearly

16:50

because your mind

16:50

isn't going to be so noisy,

16:53

and it's not going to be racing

16:53

all the time.

16:55

As you meditate more,

16:55

as you are more mindful

16:58

and you do these mindfulness walks

16:58

or you have these gratitude exercises,

17:02

suddenly everything starts

17:02

to fall into place and it cultivates

17:05

a sense of this overall holistic

17:05

well-being

17:09

within you, because you're kind of

17:09

getting to this point

17:12

where you're aligned in your mind, body,

17:12

and soul.

17:14

It's all kind of working together

17:14

like it's supposed to.

17:17

If you're looking for a gentle,

17:17

simple introduction

17:20

to Buddhism and meditation,

17:20

definitely check this book out.

17:23

Take a moment

17:23

to consider the constant drive

17:27

that you have for self-improvement,

17:27

and remember that the journey

17:30

to genuine contentment and inner peace

17:30

begins with accepting your true self.

17:36

So go out and love life.

17:39

Be who you were meant to be

17:39

and already are within you.

17:43

And now that you've explored

17:43

these transformative teachings with me

17:46

today, you might be wondering

17:46

what the next steps are

17:49

in your journey

17:49

and this path to spiritual awakening.

17:53

So continue the exploration

17:53

by clicking the video on the screen.

17:56

It'll help you out. And until next time,

17:57

I wish you peace on your journey.