For some people, not me, but the judge could have walked in there and say you’re such an idiot. You can’t do anything, right? You’re such a loser. How did you miss it? How did you forget? How did you whatever. I know that’s not going to happen. I am way, way too nice to myself. I have had a hard life and there is no way I am going to beat myself up like zero chance that I will allow the calculator, which might have gotten info from, who knows what prompts from what you know, history to do that to me. Given how much I love myself deeply, how much I’ve been through and there’s no way I will allow that in my world whatsoever. So there’s no way I would beat myself up about it. I’m tired of suffering basically and how I will no longer participate in my own suffering. So that’s a very big one to realize that you aren’t participating in your own suffering. And if you realize that that beating yourself up is actually participating in your own suffering and that you don’t want to suffer anymore, you might do something about it.
The to screen podcast is owned and made possible by ethical marketing service. If your business is struggling with Google or Facebook ads, maybe you’re frustrated figuring it out or there’s a performance issue. Ethical marketing service has worked on hundreds of accounts and we can help in this area if you would like to find out if we can help. It’s a free no salesy consultation call and the link is in the description. enjoy the episode. Thomas Green here with ethical marketing service on the episode. Today, we have Sandy Stream. Sandy, welcome. Thanks, Thomas. Happy to be here. I’m very happy to have you. Would you like to take a moment and tell the audience a bit about yourself and what you do? Uh Well, if I would start with the typical introductions, I would say I have a law degree from mcgill blah, blah blah and those kind of things, but it’s really not. Uh what I feel is important about me. So I’ll mention that uh which is that I just spent the past few years really struggling deeply internally. And um then, you know, through many aspects which we could talk about, I guess arrived uh to uh find a way to live basically in peace all the time, regardless of what’s going on around me.
I wouldn’t say it’s perfect all the time, how I feel inside, but definitely quite good and it seems quite unusual. So I now try to, you know, share the pieces of my puzzle, the ones that ended up working for me uh with others uh through my book, The Courage Circle. And I also facilitate Courage Circles in Montreal and online. Um Just to talk about uh important topics that we don’t learn in school. We don’t learn in our families. Uh We don’t learn at work. And so I guess I’m trying to just make these kind of things, uh regular discussions. Um So I guess that’s an intro. Thank you very much for the introduction. Um I have your book so I’m gonna hold it up to the video. Uh The Courage Circle. Um It’s a, it’s right up my alley because it’s kind of philosophical. So it’s, it’s the stuff that I, I love to read about. Um Why did you write it? And how was it to write? Uh What I did do was not write it.
I was actually looking for the pieces of my puzzle. So how do I feel? OK. I was not feeling well in my relation during COVID. Uh all the details I don’t think really matter. It’s just we all have common uh difficulties that arise and I don’t know what brought me to do that. But I literally painted a circle in my living room on the floor. I had just started doing some meditation and I painted a circle and I decided this is where I’m going to spend a lot of time to figure out uh how to live basically. Like, what do I do? How do I live this life that I find myself in, uh pretty miserably right now. And uh maybe it was a little bit my, maybe uh legal mind or my ability to put complex information together. But I would just kind of compile sections like many sections because, and the solution was not, OK, meditate 10 minutes a day. You’re gonna feel, well, it’s just not that absolutely not the, the answer, it was just a million pieces that I had to put together for myself. So I would just, you know, for sure I would research inside which you could call meditation and I would research outside watching, reading whatever I would cry.
I would freak out. I would do anything and everything and, and take notes and try to uh organize, I guess the information of what uh felt, right? And so from that ended up being this book, The Courage Circle, which I guess uh if you’ve read it, no, you know, it’s a compilation of like so many pieces um that are my pieces, but I, I believe they’re probably uh similar pieces to others because we’re all human beings. So, yeah, I 100% agree. And um it, it kind of um it makes more sense to me now in the sense that um you said that they’re like jigsaw pieces that you put together um in terms of like the format of the book and everything. Um You did mention how it would be, let’s say beneficial to others as well, which I 100% agree with. Um, the, the question is around, um kind of like the before and after. So, um, before when you were trying to figure out um what your life should look like for lack of a better term.
Um What would you say was the problem there in terms of looking back on it now and um trying to give it a label so that other people can um figure out whether they’re in that same place. Um Oh my God, so many pieces. Let’s see what comes to mind right now. I guess I would call it that I was not uh educated uh correctly in terms of how to live. So what I mean by that, OK, I’ll try to think of pieces off the top of my mind. So for example, we’re taught to, you know, be nice and kind to others all the time. So we’re constantly externally focused on doing nice things to supposedly make us a nice person. So if I do 100 nice things, I’m now OK, a little bit better person. And if I do 90 I’m not. So we’re kind of obsessively trying to be nice and kind to everybody around us just to get some kind of points um and uh value and uh approval and all those millions of things. So I think that’s completely an incorrect.
Uh, it’s just not true. I think that the truth, at least in my experience is that we are actually innately already good and it’s not something I could tell someone or teach someone, but they need to go and see inside in a deep way and see if it’s true. And if you find that to be true, then you might not be so compelled to try to, uh, you know, I have to do 100 things to prove. I’m ok. Instead I already know I am. And now what do I want to do? So that’s a completely different way of living. You know, that’s one that comes to my mind. Uh The other I think was huge was um you know, the complete demonization of people’s emotions is uh a false. Um It’s just not true that they are bad or wrong or weak or all the other words that are used uh for emotions and in my view, they are your guiding system. So it’s almost the opposite. So if we feel sad, for example, instead of dismissing it, avoiding it or what we usually get from the other person is something like that or something’s wrong with you or, you know, we get all these weird messages so to not get those messages or to put a stop to that and uh start to look at our emotions as our guide instead like, oh I’m sad.
So maybe I, I need to, you know, meet more people. Or maybe my relationships are not fulfilling me or maybe I’m lonely or, you know, or if we’re, uh, angry instead of saying, oh, I shouldn’t feel angry. It’s not right to feel angry. They did their best. It’s not allowed or all the millions of things that we would stop our feelings. Um, we might actually look for the truth. The truth is why do I feel angry? Actually? You know, what’s the truth? You know, have my boundaries been broken? Um Did I feel this? Did I? And I’m not talking about doing anything to anyone with your anger or lashing out or doing anything? We’re talking about just feeling and that uh the, the feeling has been demonized, uh you know, for men and women, I mean, it’s incredible. Uh I think, you know, the newer generation, some uh people are having an easier time starting to feel, especially men like in my circle uh that I facilitate. It’s made up of men and women and every gender, every age, every profession, every, like there’s no rules about who comes.
And it’s incredible what happens when there is permission to just express, I’ll call it the truth. I won’t say express your emotions, I’ll say express the truth, which is what you are feeling. The truth is, I feel whatever that’s true and to not uh have people negate that or ignore that or put that down or dismiss that and just be able to say, oh, really? You’re feeling that ok, pause and then you want to talk more about, like, it’s, it’s true. And so we don’t live in reality, we’re like, living somewhere else. I think a lot of the time in the head instead of living in the truth. And so, so that’s another one. I don’t know how many you want me to keep doing. Probably many will come to mind because it’s so many pieces that, um, I don’t know, you picked up on, um, you picked up on one which I was gonna mention to you. And I think the context was around pain and how, um if people, I think the example perhaps was the lady who fell off her bike and was too um concerned with the fact that she’d maybe embarrassed herself or something and she was in pain, but she didn’t want to acknowledge the pain.
She just wanted to get away from it instead of recognizing that both um physically, perhaps in that, in that context. And then also mentally from an embarrassment perspective, she was feeling, feeling some pain and rather than acknowledge it and recognize it being there, sort of suppressing it. And I think the quote in the book, if I’m not mistaken is um, the pain will persist. If it’s not something along the lines of it, it will continue to persist un until it’s dealt with. So, was that kind of where you were going with that as well. Yeah. Absolutely. So, for me, what ended up happening is that my obsession was, I’m gonna find the truth. Not what’s nice, not what’s fun, not what feels good, just what’s true. Right. And so if we focus on what’s true instead of those other things, um, I think, I don’t know, I don’t want to speak for others but we certainly might find the truth being that we have a lot of pain inside that we have not looked at or felt. And it’s scary to go there because sometimes it’s pretty deep stuff and very painful and we might, you know, be afraid to feel it or we don’t have support for it and whatever.
But, uh what I have found is if we go towards it because it’s there anyway, it’s fine. You can go drinking with your buddies, you can go do whatever, but it’s still there, you can go get a job, it’s still there. Like there, it’s not going away really until it’s looked at. But once we, uh look at it and experience it and feel it. Actually, it, it processes, it processes literally like everything else and there’s a release in the body that brings us back to, uh you know, a feeling of uh you know, uh equilibrium because something is not like being forcibly contained somewhere. And so going towards pain uh is something I’d recommend. Maybe you need support for it, maybe whatever but to process what’s actually there. And I, and my feeling I can’t speak for others again, is that one of our deepest pains? Uh, you know, and not just mine, but in general is that we don’t get loved unconditionally. We might use those words, we might think. Yes, our parents love us or whatever.
But it doesn’t seem to me that it’s unconditional. So, what does that mean? That means, uh, most people, if I’m not wrong, I don’t want to speak for others. But people can ask themselves, they don’t, they don’t typically love their Children no matter what means. I love you. Even if your grades are not ok. I love you. Even if you don’t do the career, I think you should do. I love you even if you don’t follow whatever path I think you should do. Uh I love you if you even do the most horrible behavior. Now, loving someone, of course, I want to make clear, doesn’t mean you could do the whole, you know, the behavior to me. I might actually never talk to you. Put strict boundaries. You can’t even live here. We have no relationship right now, but I still love you. We can love someone even with complete strict boundaries means I love you no matter what. But you know, this behavior is not ok with me right now. So, so we don’t get that kind of love instead. What we typically experience is I love you if I love you because you behaved so well, I love you because you got good grades. I, I love you because you performed so well in this, you achieved this whatever.
So then we now uh you know, start to live our life thinking that, you know, we need to do all these things to have love or to, to be uh have some kind of points to be good enough or, you know, we’re entering into that whole point system as I like to call it. Meaning I need to try to accumulate points in my life. If I get a career, I get this many points. If I do these behaviors, I’m get points, you know, to try to get some kind of points. And instead, if we had received love unconditionally, we might feel, which I think is the truth is I don’t have to do anything. I could just sit on the floor and do nothing and I’m fine internally. There’s nothing wrong with my inside because I’m not running around doing anything now. It doesn’t mean I won’t do anything. It just means I’m not gonna do anything for the points. I might actually end up doing a ton but not for those points. There’s nothing to do for the points. So that’s a really uh hard one that we’re taught.
And in my view, if we do enter deeply within, with, through meditation or whatever, or journal or crying or therapist, whatever works for different people and realize that we can actually feel this unconditional love for ourselves, not from someone else but for ourselves. Um, that just, you know, leads to it, you know, that truth about what is true about each person. So I think it’s unrealistic in our world to think you’re gonna find whether it’s partner, parent child or whatever, who’s going to love you unconditionally. I think it’s unrealistic right now because it wouldn’t be possible to love someone unconditionally if you don’t love yourself unconditionally. Like how is it possible? Yeah, I love you. Thomas unconditionally but myself, I kind of don’t. Right. And how many people walk around our world loving themselves. Unconditional, no matter what, no matter any mistakes, no matter any behaviors mess up like no matter what, no matter what you’re going through.
It’s a rare thing. So we’re not taught these things. So how would we know we get no feedback from it as far as I see. Yeah, it reminds me of an example. I can’t quite remember who it was. I think it was like a documentary of a hyper achiever or something like that. And uh his mum passed away and uh he essentially had the thought or said the words that well, why am I doing this then? Because everything he was doing was geared around essentially appro getting the parents’ approval and then just wondered, you know, now that that’s now that that person is gone, then you know, what do I do now type thing, which is, uh, and to go like a whole lifetime and not really put those two and put those two together is kind of sad, but I, I am interested in, you said correct me if I’m wrong, I think you said that you’re a bit more at peace now. Um, I’m interested to know what your life looks like on a, at a practical level now that you’ve sort of done that hard work of, you know, going through these thoughts and, and doing that inner work, how, how’s things change for you?
Well, I mean, the practical, well, one big thing is, you know, my boundaries are very strict actually. So I like to talk about our soft side and we have a soft side. We have a stronger side. So our soft is like if you think of posture, I do think it’s in the body but not like posture. I’m going to try to do posture. It’s just your, your energy or your feeling internally. Um You know, that we have a soft side, which is our kindness mostly starting with kindness to the self, not to others that would come naturally afterwards. And then we have our strong side, which is like your spine. So you’re, you’re kind of balanced, you know, your front and your back. Some people call this masculine feminine energy. It doesn’t matter, it’s not about genders whatsoever. So what’s definitely changed one big thing, but many have changed is that I’m able to set boundaries on behaviors that I don’t find. Ok for me, right, boundaries could change. They’re all different for different people. So I don’t hesitate to do that and I risk almost anything and everything to ensure those because for me they are, um, my body’s clear indication of what I need to do.
And so I do it and it’s a very, very difficult thing for most people to do. It takes courage because sometimes relationship might, you know, other people might not be happy about it or they might get angry or if relationships will shift, break or redirect themselves, like a lot of things can happen. So that’s a really tough one. But for me, I don’t hesitate. So they’re fast, right? I don’t spend 10 years thinking about them anymore or trying to fix other people or whatever. I just do what I have to do. So that’s huge. I’m able to validate my own feelings. So I don’t actually spend uh a ton of energy, which I used to spend a ton of energy trying to seek basic, the most basic validation of my feelings, which I don’t think occurs very well in general. Um I don’t feel the need to get approval from anybody because I already feel it internally. So I, so nothing in my life will be done for that purpose.
So if you can imagine it looks very different if we don’t have uh those things happening. Uh And a big one I think um which I share in my circle. So I facilitate circles like I send uh twice a week where we just discuss these topics. So it’s not even me, you know, I’ll share my piece. But everybody because they’re all open and honest, the way I set it up, I can mention if we have time how I do that, But everybody is sharing their wisdom. We are all learning like from each other. It’s not me, you know, the conductor and the whatever in the circles. It’s just that the space that allows for it. Um But another big one that we talked about recently, which I think is very rare uh to experience is uh when we talk about belonging also, it’s a really big one for people that are needing uh just like all those other things seeking belonging from groups and from uh community and from family. And I totally get that and it’s a wonderful feeling uh to have, but often a lot of this belonging is mixed up with a ton of conditions.
So it’s like you belong, if you know, whether it’s in your family or in whatever group you found yourself in or nationality or religions or whatever else, like if you do and if you don’t do this, you’re out. So for me, it’s not so, you know, uh satisfying in the end anyways. But what happened with me was uh I did so many deep meditations on grounding. And I really recommend people do a lot of grounding meditations where you really start to feel how your energy connects with our earth. And the reason for that is that what happened for me? Anyways is I really started to feel like I belong here, literally not like theoretically and not um as a topic of like intellectual but physically, like I physically belong on this earth. Because the main reason I feel that is because I’m here, like, for no other reason if I’m here, that means I belong here. It’s almost uh the question is almost as ridiculous as saying like, does a lion belong on earth?
Let’s think about that. Do they belong? Well, the, well, they’re here. So they’re here. Do you know what I mean? So arriving at this uh a deep sense of belonging in general, uh allows me to go around anywhere and everywhere, feeling like I belong here. Like it doesn’t really matter what if other people feel I belong or not again, just like all those other things that we can uh know deeply internally and not look for it from others because they, I think they just give the wrong information anyway. So that’s another, you know, big one that uh you know, we’ve talked about in our circle. But if you’re asking practically speaking, so I do do some meditation, I try to exercise. I try to have healthy relations. I have some little contract work that I still do. I facilitate circles. I, I meet friends. I, you know, I still have problems that happen here and there. But uh it’s almost like the speed is instead of taking 20 years for each thing, it’s just faster uh is the bigger difference.
So forgiveness, for example, I think it took me years to, you know, forgive in certain things uh that occurred and now that I understand deeply what forgiveness is and how it comes from me and all these things that, you know, I wrote about now when something occurs, whether it’s me that did it because I still make mistakes obviously or somebody else, the forgiveness is like instant. So we don’t, I’m not spending five years to try to forgive something and it’s, it’s like a way of uh being really right when you Yeah. So it’s like almost processing time is fast processing it. It certainly sounds um preferable. Uh When I, when I first um started to read the book, I thought it’s exactly the type of book that I need. But um the internal judge which I think is something that you talk about. Uh it is, I’m not very good at this type of thing. Um I don’t know, maybe you felt the same when you were writing it.
But um the one of the things which I, I think probably um immediately resonated with me was the calculator. So would you be able to share what the calculator is with people? Uh Yeah. The way I, I don’t know, I perceive this whole thing is that we can imagine we have our head and we have our body and so the head, you could see it as a calculator or why not? We’ll call it chat G BT, right? And we can ask it questions and get answers. So imagine our head is Chat G BT and then our body is our heart, our guts, our feeling, our everything else. And for, you know, we it would take too long to discuss how and why I think this came about. But I call it that we’ve been decorated. We’ve been cut off from the body in our life and we are constantly living thinking that we are these thoughts but they’re just Chat G BT trying to calculate different things. Let’s say it’s programmed to calculate.
How can I get people to like me? And now we’re looking at the answer, how do I get people to like me? And we’re doing all that kind of things or why don’t you make less mistakes or you’re such a loser if you don’t do this, right? It’s been in the program, but it’s not the truth, right? Because the Chat G BT, you can only get answers from the, you know, the prompts that have been put in and prompts are there, right? So how do we get away from that. If you start saying how do I get away from chat G BT? And you’re still in there, then you’re still doing calculating right? Or how do I still, you’re still doing calculating? So the solution I feel is to feel and which means to start feeling, not thinking, feeling. And it’s hard because a lot of people have been, it’s like that connection to be able to see. What do I feel? It’s not even working. Uh like people in the group have even told me like, I don’t even know what I feel like I have no clue what I feel like because, you know, as a child, no one has labeled it.
Like when you get upset, you didn’t have a parent saying, oh you seem upset or you seem frustrated or you seem, you know, to start labeling the basic emotions or something. So they don’t even know what they feel. So that’s already a huge thing to start to be able to sit down and ask yourself not, what do I think? But what am I feeling in my body? Oh, I feel tense. I feel scared. I feel whatever nervous like to start seeing the body instead of looking at the thoughts. So that’s a really huge one. And it might even be, some might say it’s almost a coping mechanism to go there instead of feeling. Because if you start feeling well, you’re gonna start feeling the pain too right. Eventually. So going on that road of feeling will, we’ll get you there. So that’s the explanation of the, the calculator. What do you, so when you’re saying you’re having, uh you know, you’re dealing still with that judge part. Do you wanna share what you mean by that stuff more or?
Um it reminds me of um there’s a, there’s a phrase I can’t quite remember who said it, but it, it’s human beings are walking calculations. So as they go through life, they, they take actions, they get feedback and based on the feedback, that’s how they act. So rather than doing what they wanna do, they are essentially kind of like actors. I’m acting the way that’s expected of me in this particular environment. Yeah. And um yeah, I’m, I’m guilty of it. Definitely. If, if uh if I were to use that term, maybe, maybe not quite so harsh if I was being kind to myself. But um I guess that’s, that’s what I, what I would have to answer that question. Yeah. And it’s understandable, right? Because it hurts to have people. Um You know, how many times in your life, if, for example, you say, you know, I really feel like trying to play music or something, how many people would be like? Oh really? Yeah, that’s cool. That’s a really, that’s a good prompt for me because in your book, um you talk about um singing, singing is the example.
And uh if, if you will allow me to quote, um, the, it’s, uh, stop trying to sound good, stop trying to improve, stop trying to impress anyone. Stop comparing your voice to others and stop faking your voice. And I can safely say that although I have not sung a lot, don’t get me wrong. I’m not like a professional singer or something. I don’t think I’ve sung in a way where I have met that criteria. And it’s an example of what we just talked about. But so you do sing, you’re saying in front of others or it’s always got these constraints on that. Uh you know, you’re trying to be in a way that’s acceptable, right? So that could be a beautiful experiment for you, right? To uh try to sing naturally and it’s a huge thing even in terms of the body. Like for me also, I find it’s very important like the body knows what to do. We just have to like let it, we don’t need to do anything.
We have to kind of stop controlling, just stop controlling, it’s natural, right? You stop like putting grips everywhere. And so even in body movements, people will have a hard time kind of just move like put music and just move without a rule without like that same, you know, list that you said, can you just move the body same as share your voice or do anything? It’s an amazing experiment for you. If you’d like to try to see how it feels to just sing. Well, I will not do it right now. Uh, because it might end up in the outtake. Well, but, um, you know, that, who knows what’s on your path of that? Because, you know, that’s part of starting to feel right. If you hear music and you sing, you’re feeling, if you hear music and you think how should I sing? You’re not feeling. So, it’s a beautiful way to start to feel, uh, through music. So, for me, that’s been a huge part of me feeling, yeah, listen or move to music or sing to music.
It doesn’t matter. Yeah. Have heard singing be almost therapeutic to people if they, if they’re doing it in a, um, I don’t know, in an authentic way, I suppose you might say, is there a reason why, um, you went with courage? Um, yeah, I was reading this book. It’s called Power versus Force, which I find is interesting. I don’t understand all of it and it’s a lot about kind of muscle test and kinesiology type things. But I, I’m a fast reader. So it’s among the books I kind of skim read through and he had very interesting, uh, descriptions of the difference of power versus force also. Um, so I was really interested in that and he’s, he, he kind of, I don’t want to quote his book incorrectly, but he kind of says that there’s a certain vibration to different levels, but not comparing like things are better or worse. But, you know, for moving from like, you know, shame and guilt and all these type of things towards, you know, love and this and all these other things. And one of the, the flips, if I’m not mistaken from how we were saying that the thing that turns things around is uh, courage.
And so I started really being, uh trying to pay attention to like what is courage and how to exercise my courage realizing that it is, it’s almost like a, a switch. It’s a flip that will occur and it’s, it’s a required thing to do in order to uh I don’t like to call it going to a next level or cheap because that’s contrary to everything. But following yourself versus following what you think you have to or have been told to do or anything else, it takes a ton of courage uh to do that because you’ll often need to do it without and knowing what’s going to happen and just trusting that that is the right way to move because your body is telling you to so fear or not, your body is saying go or, you know, and you’re listening. That takes a ton of courage. Yeah. Thank you for that. Um And you mentioned your uh your circles that you, you organize. Um Have you gotten any, what’s the some, maybe some favorite feedback that you’ve gotten in terms of uh people who have, should we say um digested what’s in the book and implemented it into their lives.
Uh I mean, the whole thing is actually magical. I, I don’t know how to describe it. I’ve never been in, in a space like that in my whole life. You literally have 10 to 15 people every time different people, there’s no restrictions about it who are opening up emotionally, who are sharing, you know what they’ve experienced, they’re sharing how they’ve grown their strength, they’re encouraging each other, they’re listening to each other. And what happens for that in that for everybody is like, it’s unbelievable actually. And so uh feedback, I don’t know, I mean, everybody is seems to be uh walking on their path more uh confidently and more um accountable and more relaxed and more connected and just kind of what you dream, human beings can do together. It really is like what we think is not po like, we kind of know it’s possible but we never experience it. But um it’s possible like we literally sit every single week, every culture, every race, every gender, every age, every profession and talk respectfully Encouragingly kindly about these kind of a deep topic.
So if everyone in the room, like so if we did one last week, it was about avoiding conflict and each person is sharing so many have similar like experiences. Yes. As a kid, I was avoiding conflict because if I said, anything, this would happen, whatever and they realize now this and whatever. And then I realized the other one says, yeah, but if I avoid the conflict, it gets actually worse. And now I, I’m now not able and the other one said, yeah, but I learned to set boundaries, then I could handle conflict. And so as a collective group, the information that’s shared for each person to now leave and deal with conflict in a different way. I don’t know the result of that really. But I can imagine conflict is an interesting one because um I especially in, in the UK anyway, I’m, I’m not sure what it’s like for you, but I, I think for the most part, people try and avoid conflict as much as they can. Um And some problems get worse as a result of avoiding conflict. But I think a lot of, a lot of instances people get away with not having to face it because they just avoid it.
Um If you were to follow the principles of the book around conflict, especially in a world where perhaps not everyone has read it. Um or who is implementing some of these principles, what would it look like? Uh Well, for me, the first thing to look at is your inner conflict. So forget about the outside conflict. The inner conflict is really the the problem that’s occurring. So uh I can give one example. So I was once in a, in a family setting, someone was behaving in a certain way that I didn’t find. Ok, so typical. Right. I think we’ve all had this experience in our life. And so I set some boundaries at that one event, you know, starting to learn to do that and I said something and whatever, it created a whole kind of chaos and the whole family event was no longer pleasant and the whole thing was messed up and I was crying and then I called my friend the next morning needing support or whatever. And so what looks to me like outer conflict, what I realize the next morning is, oh, but I feel better.
Actually, I actually feel an inner, more inner peace about this issue because I spoke for what I felt was OK or not OK for me or whatever else, right? I didn’t do anything to anyone horrible. I just set a boundary. And so it looked like outer chaos but inner peace. So that really made me distinguish between the two first of all in my mind and realizing how often we walk around in our lives with inner chaos because we might say for example, yes to other people. But we really wanna say no, right. Let’s say we’re a simple thing. I’m exhausted. I I don’t wanna come to the dinner. It’s not good for me. So instead of saying no to them, we say yes to them. And then we say no to ourselves, right? So saying yes to someone else means you said no to yourself. So you have created inner conflict maybe on a constant basis. And for me, what’s the most important is to create inner harmony.
And if you have inner harmony, I believe it translates to the outside, what happens on the inside will happen on the outside as many people as say. And so the first thing about conflict is that I don’t believe we should focus too much on outer. So I don’t think, you know, resolving the war of whether it’s Ukraine Russia or anything else, we resolve that we don’t have peace in the world. There is no peace happening in the world that way, even if you fix this war or that war, it’s not going to happen the way to, in my view and other people’s view also to arrive at peace is for each person to be in peace. And how do we get there? Well, doing this kind of stuff and talking about it and sharing it with others and each person setting healthy boundaries and, you know, against certain behaviors that are around them and their little world and whatever else. I think that’s the way and other people say that’s the way to go about it. So now if you’re time asking like, how do I deal now with, it’s not really outer conflict, but let’s say something happens with another person that’s not ok with me now I have to express this ideally in a good way and whatever and I have to try to listen and I have to also set boundaries if the behaviors are not.
Ok. And, but that’s all for my inner piece. Right. I’m not really concerned with, you know, I like the relationships to work, but that’s not all in my control. Like I can’t control if a relationship works or not because I can do my part. But sometimes other people are not ready and they don’t want. And that also that took me years of wasted time. I don’t waste my time on that also anymore. If ok, here, look, if you just do this, you know, check out this, I think you have this, you know, talk to a therapist about that or let’s do and you can spend endless amount of time trying to what you think is helping another person see the light. But for me, how I see it now is actually you’re trying to control their life. They don’t want to see this. They’re not ready to do this, they’re not willing. It’s not your problem. It’s your problem is you, your problem is arriving at your peace and being, you know, AAA good player in this world, that’s your job. It’s not your job to jump into other people’s lives and tell them what to do or how to heal themselves or anything else.
And so that’s been a hard, very hard one for me to do not to try to impose what I think is the way to go for another person to heal themselves or do something or, you know? So that’s your question. Yeah. Just focus on your inner conflicts first and maybe we could talk. I mean, that’s the main, I think the main source of everything, the great point because, uh, for those people who think that they’re avoiding conflict by not dealing with the problem. Yeah, they’re not essentially is what you’re saying. Yeah. Internally. Yeah, it’s a really good, really good point. Um Did you just out of interest, did you have any um expectations or goals around the book before? Um it was produced or sold? Um Well, I mean, I’ve written other books uh before like projects I call them that I did whatever, but I never really cared to uh share them so much and I’m really not marketing type or like zero.
But this one, I felt just very strongly compelled that I should try to at least get it out there and whatever. So it took me huge courage by the way to do a podcast that was like completely out of my now, I’m relaxed about it but starting it was like, oh my God, like very hard and even starting the circles was hugely difficult. Uh everything was actually hard to start uh to do, but I do feel uh still very strongly compelled. It’s not necessarily just the book. But, uh this content, I think it’s not my content. Obviously, it’s like maybe I compiled it in a certain way, but it’s not mine. If it’s stuff that’s true, then it’s everybody’s truth. Kind of maybe I kind of wrote it in a certain way or put it together, but it’s not really mine. But I do feel, uh very, very strongly internally compelled to try to uh share this stuff how I can. So I wrote the book, but I’m also doing those circles all free.
And I also started uh since the last wars just erupted. Uh you know, in the Middle East, I started a telegram channel just posting literally every single day I committed. That took me a huge courage too because I wasn’t comfortable doing that at all. But every single day I’m committed to posting a video on these topics where they go, how they go, who knows? But it’s not my business to figure out how they go. I’m just doing what I feel I should do. What’s the um the content of that that you, you tried to share? Uh Well, every day is different. So like yesterday, I actually felt I made a mistake on something. And so I was sharing how I process mistakes or what. So it’s the very kind of real or life what’s happening or could be some of the stuff we talked about. So every day is just a different uh topic, whatever it is a one minute, two minute thing. Uh And what comes from, it comes from it, I don’t know, mistakes are interesting because, um, that would be, you know, almost like judgment or expectations not being met.
So, um, would you be able to share what your approach is to mistakes? Um, well, so yesterday I’ll do like quick summary of the video I did yesterday, I guess if it’s ok, I made a mistake calling it a mistake if you want because I woke up and I realized I didn’t do the video of the day before and I really committed in myself. It has nothing to do with anyone else that I’m going to do a little video every single day since those wars began and whatever. And so I woke up kind of upset. I was like, oh no, I mean, I missed it. I knew at 9 p.m. I still hadn’t done the video. I was upset. And so I decided to do a video about that experience. So the first thing that came to my mind in that video was, well, if I had shared my upsetness about it, if I had said, oh my God, I’m so, you know, I’m so upset. I didn’t do the video. This is really important for me actually to do this. It’s something that I feel I must do if I had shared that likelihood with most people might have been dismissive. First of all, like, well, it’s not a big deal, it’s just a video and hardly anybody watches these anyway.
So like, what’s the big deal or, you know, that’s back to what I talked to you about demonizing or not validating emotions. But the truth is the truth is I was upset because it’s important to me. Right. That’s the truth. Not, it’s not a big deal. The truth is that I’m upset because it’s important to me to do these, right? So I gave the example in the video first, how this situation might have led to dismissiveness right away, which didn’t happen because I didn’t tell anyone and I validated myself right away saying, OK, I understand why you’re upset. These videos are kind of super important to you. Um whatever. So that occurred first then for some people, not me, but the judge could have walked in there and say you’re such an idiot. You can’t do anything, right? You’re such a loser. How did you miss it? How did you forget? How did you whatever and no, that’s not going to happen. I am way, way too nice to myself. I have had a hard life and there is no way I am going to beat myself up like zero chance that I will allow the calculator, which might have gotten info from who knows what prompts from what you know, history to do that to me.
Given how much I love myself deeply, how much I’ve been through and there’s no way I will allow that in my world whatsoever. So there’s no way I would beat myself up about it. Um And so, you know how someone might. Um So I was talking about that and how I decided at some point in my life that I, I’m tired of suffering basically and how I will no longer participate in my own suffering. So that’s a very big one to realize that you aren’t participating in your own suffering. And if you realize that that beating yourself up is actually participating in your own suffering and that you don’t want to suffer anymore. You might do something about it. Maybe you go get help, get therapy, maybe you read more books, maybe you learn to put boundaries on the thoughts or who knows what you do. But if you deeply in your heart decide I care about myself, I don’t want to suffer like it’s enough or you know, so I talked about that aspect and then I talked about it.
Um How quick I was to forgive myself instead of doing this, beating myself up and say, ok, well, you messed up even though it was important for you. But OK, fine, you made a mistake here. Fine. You know, like how quick I’m able to do that for myself. Uh And then finally I said, OK, let me just spend a moment thinking like, can I repair this situation and take responsibility? I don’t have to like there’s no punishment needed or zero punishment in my world towards myself, like no way. Um But is there something I feel I can do to whatever and of course, I found a simple solution. Ok, fine. I’ll just do two videos today. So I did two videos and that was how I processed that mistake. So I did a video about processing my mistake basically. So the videos are just, you know, I don’t know how they’re gonna come about and, and Hawaii and where they’re going and but it just definitely feels nice to do them and uh you know, I don’t know how many people watch or not and I definitely don’t fix my hair and it is, it comes how it comes is as authentic as it comes.
Some days. I say, oh my God. So you were really tired that day. But I don’t care, I’m not really doing it for uh anything then other than I feel I should. So it’s an internally driven, you know, when we start to be internally driven instead of externally driven, different things. Uh We do different things. Thank you for sharing the what I perceive as like uh a positive version of inner dialogue. I have um researched a lot about the inner critic and I, I feel like everyone knows what that inner critic sounds like, but not necessarily a healthy way to talk to yourself. So the next time I am, I’ve made a mistake. It’s very possible that I will re-watch that answer. So I appreciate it. I was just gonna say one thing that can help, uh I know with those critics is to really realize where they came from. So try to equate, ok, let’s say you hear you’re such a loser or something, right? Try to think like who talked to me like that in my life or who did that tone?
It’s more a tone of voice we need to think about than the actual words, right? And then we might actually need to process uh anger uh towards that person. And when I say process, I don’t mean doing anything to anybody whatsoever. You don’t even need to talk to somebody to process your anger. You can process your anger all by yourself in your own room by feeling it. You know, you can draw a picture of the experience, you can whatever and allow yourself to feel anger, which is something that people often repress because they think anger is aggression and it’s not anger is not aggression, anger is anger and aggression is aggression. And so we can process this anger and that might help us realize that that that voice is not really ours. It came from somewhere, it came from someone else, it’s not yours to do. And you can like kind of stand up to your own head and say no, stop it. I’m not listening to you. And at the same time hopefully with practices starting to feel our heart, more our self, more uh which will become more powerful and bigger in a way than this head.
So any heart centered meditation, heart chakra stuff, uh anything heart based just to bring the attention to the heart, to feel ourselves in that way will start. Hopefully for many to uh let you see the truth. The truth in my world is the truth is you are your heart, you are not your thoughts, you’re just kind of not been there for a while. So to start to feel yourself, you know, you’re deeper you. Well, I spoke to someone um who did a, I think a TED talk on this topic and um he said that there are actually neurons in the heart, meaning that um it isn’t just an organ which pumps blood around the body. It is, it is literally something which is connected to your brain. So, and that’s connected to who knows what else. Let’s, that would be another conversation. But our heart energy is actually how uh we truly connect with other human beings and maybe the whole energy of the world or whatever else.
So I heard a cute quote the other day. That was another video that I did a 22nd video just because I heard it, that someone was saying, you know what our world needs is heart to heart resuscitation. I thought it was the cutest sentence, you know. Well, there’s one thing, uh I would regret if I didn’t ask you about, um, because I feel like maybe I’m in this position right now and it is uh your thoughts on the comfort zone. So, um, would you be able be willing to share what those are? Uh Yeah, sure. So, um, for me, the comfort zone is not actually comfortable. It’s like misnamed wrongly named because the comfort zone is really just what you know. Right. So you can be in a terrible relationship, there could be abuse or all that, but you know, it, so you’re calling it comfort zone, but there’s just nothing comfortable about it whatsoever. It’s just that, you know, it, right, you know how it works and what people uh seem to be afraid of is what they don’t know, like what they cannot predict, right? And so what they’re really afraid of is the unknown.
So it’s not really comfort. Uncomfort, it’s more like, you know, and you don’t know, kind of zone and they’re afraid of that. And I think that’s unfortunate because that unknown zone is actually marvelous if you would be open to it in, in life. So the example that I gave, um but it, I kind of live that way all the time, but let’s say you go out. So like what sports do you do any sports to? I do uh jujitsu, you do jiu-jitsu, ok. So let’s say you do jiu jitsu and um you kind of sprain your ankle, uh, during training or something. Right. And that’s a pretty tough experience and not badly sprained. Let’s just say you kind of have a light sprain and now you spend, you know, so much time thinking that’s terrible because I really planned to do my black belt this way and I’ve been, you know, planning this whole thing about as if it’s all gonna work out in a certain way. Right. And now you’re really upset about it. But what if you know, you have this ankle sprain and who knows?
Maybe that ends up uh making you meet some physiotherapist that you learn, who knows what from? Like I had a concussion and then I met this amazing uh physio and we now are like such good friends and we relate in a million ways. This is for my concussion, right? So sometimes things happen and if we’re just so stuck and pissed off that they didn’t happen the way we wanted them to happen because we think that we can control life, we can’t control our feelings. We think we control life, which is completely false if we’re just open a little bit to. Ok. Well, what’s gonna ha what else is happening from this situation? This unknown is full of zillions and billions and trillions of possibilities. Not the one that didn’t happen that you think should have happened that now you’re so frustrated because it didn’t happen, but there’s another billion going on there. Right. And the example, you know, I gave in the, in the book, I guess if you read it was you go on the bike ride and then halfway through you get a flat tire.
So now you can spend, you know, four hours being frustrated about the flat tire because you didn’t get your perfect bike ride that you thought is gonna go perfectly because you think you can predict life somehow. you can plan and think, ok, 30% chance I’m gonna have this perfect bike ride. But 70% chance I’m not. That’s true. Right. Or whatever percent. I don’t know. I put at the top of my head. So now you get a flat tire, which means ok, well, we’re in the 70%. I, ok, now what maybe, uh, ok, let me go for a nice stroll or let me put my music on and start to sing in public because Thomas has been practicing singing in public. So he’s now gonna sing on the, on the roads and I’m gonna practice this courage of doing that and, or let me go to a coffee shop and maybe who knows what happens? Right. But if we’re stuck that oh no, it didn’t go the way I planned. There goes your day right. There goes the whole day. Every time something doesn’t go the way we think it’s supposed to go.
We think something is wrong. In fact, there’s another billion things that can happen. And so being open, uh, to other possibilities at every single moment. And then also when we’re not in a good situation to have to leap out a bit, there’s a leap of faith that happens to say, I’m leaving this whatever it is, relationship job. Who knows what? And I don’t know what’s there is very scary. But what’s I’m saying? Comforting is you don’t know anyways, even if you stayed in it, you don’t know, you don’t know, you’re gonna get cancer because you’re staying in a miserable job. You don’t know what, like you don’t know anyways, you don’t think, you know, you really don’t know. So might as well leap out into that unknown and see what happens. And for me, it’s a better guide instead of trying to plan and think I can control everything in life and then get shocked every time it’s not going and just keep following that chat G BT calculator plan or predictor.
That’s one way to live your life, right? The other way to live your life is to learn to live in the body and then follow the moment because you’re feeling right because you feel yourself, you feel what you should do, you feel bad you feel and now you’re following these and then you act based on now feeling right, what you should be doing and letting go of what happens happens. So I felt ok, I’m gonna do this podcast with you. We do it and what happens happens. We don’t know who’s listening, who’s gonna do what from it? Who’s gonna like whatever? Right? We don’t know, we don’t know what’s gonna come from. I don’t even know what you’re gonna say in three seconds. Well, I was going to highlight a point that you made which I found particularly beneficial. Uh, and that is the labeling of the comfort zone, um, as the known and the unknown And also the point you made about the fact that the comfort zone, although it sounds as though it’s comfortable, actually, people want to get out of it because it’s not comfortable.
So it’s uh it’s actually poorly labeled, as you said. And I never thought about that. So I just thought I’d mention that. Yeah, it’s just scary and the courage is needed to, you know, it’s uh this, the courage has to go with this, this scared feeling. Is there anything I should have asked you about today? No, you ask whatever you feel to ask. No. All right. Well, for people who are interested in buying the book or following you, where do they go? Uh Well, I have just not just, but I have a website called The Courage Circle and that’s where I put the links for the meetings, uh the link for the book and now the link for this new telegram, which I’m posting every single day. Um That’s my only social media really. So, all right. Well, Um I know that you’re not invested in other people’s opinions or thoughts or anything in that way. But I think you should be very proud of what you’ve created because, uh, you produce something great. Um Thanks. I do appreciate positive things though, don’t think, even though I don’t need it to make my day.
Ok. I totally appreciate, you know, kindness or encouragement or support like I need that. I’m a human being, so I, I totally appreciate what you said. I thank you actually means a lot to me. Yeah, that’s good. Um Congratulations and uh Sandy, thanks for being a great guest today. Thank you, Thomas for being you.
