Dhru Purohit Show - #212: How to Stop Feeling Empty by Letting Go of Seeking

Episode Date: May 11, 2021

Welcome to The Big Idea of the Week! On today’s episode of The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru talks to us about how to stop feeling empty by letting go of seeking. In this episode we dive into: -What is seeking and where does it come from -The endless cycle of desire -Exploring vs. seeking  -Not waiting to “get” somewhere to be whole and complete Also mentioned in this episode: -Alan Watts - You Are Who You Are Seeking - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilhuf4FqC6g For more on Dhru Purohit, be sure to follow him on Instagram @dhrupurohit, on Facebook @dhruxpurohit, on Twitter @dhrupurohit, and on YouTube @dhrupurohit. You can also text Dhru at [phone].  Interested in joining Dhru’s Facebook Community? Submit your request to join here https://www.facebook.com/groups/2819627591487473/. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, everyone, Drew Brode here, host of this podcast. And today is another big idea episode of the week. These are my favorite episodes to do because on these big idea episodes, I get to present a thought, a distinction, or an idea that's radically changed my life for the better. Radically is a big word. I want to make sure that any big idea that I present genuinely change my life for the better. You know, might add something about these big idea episodes before we go into today's topic, which is how to stop feeling empty by letting go of seeking, which has made a huge difference in my life. The letting go of seeking and the catching myself when I'm in seeking mode. But let me just add one thing that I think is important for anybody who's a creator that's listening here today.

there's no original ideas in these episodes I present everything presented today or another big idea episodes is just a reminder it's a reminder of things you know if it resonates with you it's because you know it is truth deep down inside these reminders they're just remixed they're remixed through my unique voice in a way that might hopefully hit you at the right and place and leave you with a different perspective than what you came in with. So just felt like reading that off today. And I think it's important for creators. If you're a content creator, if you're an educator, if you're somebody that's putting out

content, remember, the world doesn't always, doesn't always need original ideas. The world needs reminders told from your unique perspective and start. in a way that it might hit someone at the right time and place and leave them with a different perspective. All right. Without all being said, let's jump into today's big idea, how to stop feeling empty by letting go of seeking. Emptiness is one of the biggest killers in the world.

Killers to the spirit. So much of our pursuit in life comes. from this feeling of being empty. And to talk about being empty, you can't talk about it without talking about seeking. And that's why I said, how to stop feeling empty by letting go of seeking. First of all, what do we mean by seeking?

What is seeking? Seeking is the simple idea and concept that it's the inner state, it's the inner state inside of us that we might find something or that we're looking for something outside of ourselves and that the expectation is that that next big thing we're looking for whether it be stuff in the relationship category a human being we're looking for financially certain amount of wealth or money or status, it could be in the wellness world.

For a lot of us listening in the wellness world, and maybe some folks that are suffering from particular chronic disease or some sort of challenge that they're going through right now, extra weight, whatever it might be. It might be that seeking for them is when I finally get that thing, when I finally get that thing, my life will be more complete. Or I'll finally be whole. that's what I mean by seeking it's the idea and the pursuit internally the turbulence internally

sometimes it's strong in some people sometimes it's light and others that i'm just waiting to get that next thing that will finally make me complete and whole so then i can start living that's what I mean by seeking there's a couple quotes that I want to share here that are on the topic of seeking that I'll expand upon a little bit so this was from Herman Hess the author of the book sadarta one of my favorite books of all time it's really a book about seeking and the book says from Herman Hess what could I say to you that would be a value except that that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking, you cannot find. What's the challenge with seeking?

What's the challenge with being in a state where I'm constantly looking for that thing that will finally completely, finally make me whole, finally make everything okay? Well, the first thing is when we're in seeking mode, and again, sometimes it's not always in the forefront of our mind, sometimes it's in the background of our minds that the actions in the pursuits that we're doing, we're in seeking mode. When someone's in seeking mode versus when someone's in exploring mode, which is the counter to seeking, it's a different energetic state. Let's talk about somebody who might be at a place in their life where they feel they have

excess weight on their body. Let's say that's their own perception. And they want to make progress and remove that. excess weight because maybe they feel they'll look better. Maybe they'll feel that their clothes will fit better. Maybe they have a particular goal or maybe they deem the excess weight and getting rid of it as a part of their process of getting overall healthy. Okay. Let's look at that goal through the lens of seeking versus exploring. When someone's in seeking mode and they're approaching a particular a topic like weight loss.

When we're in seeking mode, it changes completely the vibration of how we approach the topic. When we're in seeking mode, just imagine if you close your eyes and you're thinking of someone who's in seeking mode, they're constantly jumping around looking for that thing. It might be that they're buying a bunch of different books, hoping that that next book will be the answer to what they're looking for. They might hear an ad on a podcast and say, wow, that sounds interesting. Maybe this is the thing that can finally fix me. They might hear a podcast episode or a guest or someone and they think that that thing will finally give them the answer. Now, there's nothing wrong with exploring each one of those topics. And actually, from the outside, it could look like someone

who's seeking and someone who's exploring are going about the topic in the same way. But the person who's seeking and the person who are exploring, there's a fundamental difference. When somebody's exploring a topic like weight loss and says, well, this interview that I just heard on the Drew Proer podcast with Ben Bickman or Casey Means or this particular doctor, there's some really interesting things to say. It'd be curious to do some trial and error in my own life and see if blood sugar makes a difference in terms of excess weight and insulin in the body. Let me try this out.

Let me get educated. Let me try this out and explore it. Maybe it works for me. Maybe it doesn't. Somebody who's seeking is so strongly looking for an answer to fill that void that they end up trusting things sometimes automatically without having the trial and error approach. Or they might take on a particular thing that they might take on a particular thing that they they try. And when that thing doesn't make progress quickly enough, like a new diet or lifestyle

or a device that they want to try, they might take it on and explore it and they might practice it. And if they don't see immediate results, they're so frantically worried that this thing isn't going to work and complete them and make them whole that they end up giving up too early without trying it. or they try it, it doesn't work, and now they deem that they're a failure and they'll never make progress in this category. Seeking is a state of mind. It's a state of mind that we approach anything in our life with where we are desperate. There's a sense of desperation and that this thing has to work. We have to. We have to. make progress. And when we don't, that is the important part. When we don't make progress or we don't

feel like we're making progress, we feel that something doesn't work for us, we now, instead of saying, okay, I want to lose a little weight, I have a little extra weight that I want to lose, I tried this thing, it didn't work. Okay, let me keep on exploring. Somebody who's seeking says, I try this thing, I try to lose extra weight. I can't. Now, I am a failure. They're using the lack of progress in that particular area. Again, relationships, finances, health, wellness, whatever it might be, as an indication of how

they should feel about their overall sense of self. I'm a failure. I'm just going to give up. This is never going to work. When we seek, we are trying to fill a void. and the question becomes, where is that void coming from? There's this quote, I'm paraphrasing here. We did an interview with the Gabor Mate.

And he said, you know, when it comes to addiction, he works a lot with people. It's one of the world's experts in addiction. He says, everybody asks, why does this person have addiction? Why does this person have an addiction? He said, the question isn't why do they have an addiction? The question is, why the pain? Pain creates a void and then addiction fills that void. In a way, seeking, let's take any kind of addiction in life, seeking is the primary fuel of that addiction.

Now, there's certain addictions that are super frowned upon in society, drug addictions, alcohol addictions. And there's lesser known addictions. There's shopping addictions. There's addictions to seeking approval from other people. There's addiction to people pleasing. That's an addiction. You know, it's interesting on the topic of people pleasing.

There's a quote by Byron Katie that I want to read here on the topic of seeking. And Byron Katie says, I often say that if I had a prayer, it would be this. God, spare me from the desire. for love, approval, or appreciation. Amen. It doesn't mean that we don't want love, approval, or appreciation. That's not what Byron Katie's saying. She's saying, spare me from the desire. The desire that I need the love, approval, or appreciation of other people is the seeking.

We can enjoy love, approval, and appreciation. I don't know about you, but I enjoy those things. when I get love in my life, I enjoy that. But what would it look like if I'm constantly, if I would say, close your eyes and say, you know, take me, I'm somebody who's in a relationship. What would it look like if I was constantly seeking love, approval, and appreciation for my partner?

What would that look like? Versus, what would it look like if that was something that we were creating together? You're creating love. and appreciation. I don't know about approval, but we were creating love and appreciation versus the desire to seek it.

I can imagine if I'm looking from the outside and I can think of a couple and one person is seeking love from another person, seeking approval and appreciation, they're going to do a few things. They're not going to take risks in their life. And when we take risks in our life,

when we put ourselves out there and we try new stuff and we explore, we do something we have, haven't done before, that is sexy to our partner. But when we're seeking approval and love and appreciation from them, we may not take risk because we're worried. How will they react? We will be clingy. You know the term clingy? We will be so afraid of losing their love, approval, and appreciation that we will hold on to them. We'll smother them. That's not attractive. That's not exciting. These are two different states, inner states, that completely drive different behavior

externally. You know, the other challenge with seeking, another quote from the book Sadrtha by Herman Hess. This is from Sadrtha, the Buddha type figure in the book. When someone seeks, said Sadrata, then it easily happens that his eyes see only, the thing that he seeks. And he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing, because he always thinks only about the thing he's seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means having a goal, but finding means being free, being open, having no goal. Now, this book was written a while ago, and obviously our words change with every generation that comes in.

So I think if Herman Hess was around today and embodying this figure, Sadrtha, he would say there's nothing wrong with having a goal. I had a goal when my health journey first started off. I wanted to not have acne anymore. And that was a goal. Now, you might have a goal of something that you want to make happen in your life. I have a goal. I want to make some of the businesses that I'm running with my business partner

Dr. Hyman, I want to make them successful and I have different definitions of what success looks like. Now, sometimes people, their definition of success is only monetary. That's not what my only definition is. And they think that once they have that thing, everything else will be okay. Everything else will be okay and everything will work out in their life. And as anybody knows, which I'm sure if you're listening to this podcast, you have probably achieved some goals in your life. And as anybody knows, there's this old Chinese proverb and it says that there's two biggest teachers in life. One is not getting what you want. Sometimes we have a goal, we go for it, we don't get what we want. The other one is the bigger teacher is getting what you want and realizing

it wasn't what you were looking for. Sometimes we have goals in our life financially. We hit a particular level. We finally get there. We think it's going to change everything. and we still have some of the same challenges that we were doing with before. Not that the money doesn't make a difference. And obviously there's a ton of studies that are out there that at a certain threshold, money actually makes a significant difference. I think that number is like $70,000. If somebody's making under $70,000 here in North America,

they face a lot of hardships, especially a family making less than $70,000, that actually they were making $40,000 or $30,000. I think the poverty limit is like somewhere around, $20,000. So if you are making $20,000 a yes or less in yearly income as a family, you're going to be struggling. You're going to be struggling to put food on the table. You're going to be struggling for a lot of different things. And nobody can tell them that the goal of making more money isn't a fair pursuit. No, it would actually substantially make a few differences in their life. Now, there's this idea that wherever you go, there you are. And some of the

studies around lottery winners have found that most lottery winners, most means more than 50%, end up dead or dead broke after 10 years of them winning the lottery. So we know that money alone doesn't change the fundamental way that we see ourselves, the fundamental seeking and addictions that are there. and just because we get more money, that may not change the situation. Seeking is an energetic state that completely changes how we approach something. Why this is important is that we can still pursue goals in our life. We can still pursue the goals of being more fit.

I have the goal right now of putting on some more muscle mass. and I've been working out with my coaches at TB12 and following their program and eating a little bit more protein because I have this goal. Some of it's vanity related. Some of it is just being stronger in my body. Some of it is also just the practice of discipline. But I'm under no false illusions that when I make progress in that area or as I'm making progress, that all of a sudden, everything else is going to be okay. And yet sometimes we don't realize it, but our seeking, our seeking of the next book, next supplement, next thing has that energetic state that when we finally get it, we will be whole and complete.

Whole and complete comes from the inside. And actually, to take it a step further, we're already whole and complete. And I'm not talking about that in a spiritual kumbaya way that you're whole, you're complete. No, we're whole and complete. How do we know? Because we're here. We're here in this present moment. No matter what we've went through, no matter what we've gone through, no matter what

challenges we've faced, no matter how hard the last year was for you, no matter what chronic conditions you're going through, this is reality. You're here in this moment, whole and complete. Here you are. Now, you may not have some. of the things in your life that you want to have, you may be dealing with some things that you don't want to be dealing with. Okay, great. Those can be there, but still, you're whole and complete. When we step into that and we remind ourselves of that, we can pursue and explore

anything we want to explore without the energy of seeking. So we go from seeking to exploring. seeking, which is this frantic thing of running around, hoping that the next thing will complete me, to exploring. Hey, let's check this out. Let's be a scientist. Let's try experiments. Trial and error.

If it doesn't work, that's part of the process. Starting a business, be an explorer. Try it out. See what works. See what doesn't. And then when you get a goal, when you make a certain amount of money, when you bring something into your life,

when you attract a new partner, when you build a new relationship, when you buy a house or are able to, You can even get a car, whatever it might be. Any external thing, we see them at external things. We can enjoy them. We can appreciate them. We can be thankful for them.

We can even in the short term be a little bit motivated by doing that. There's nothing wrong with that at all. As long as there's the understanding that this thing is not going to fulfill and make me whole. It can add to my life and I can appreciate the thing. things that it's bringing, but it's not going to make me complete because the only thing that can make me complete is me. And by the way, I'm already whole and complete. This is the power of inner work and why we do so many episodes in this podcast and the topic of inner work is we are stepping back into the place of peeling away the layers of the onion. The layers of the

onion that have convinced us that we're not whole and complete. And by the way, there's a lot of layers that are there. Sometimes those layers are traumatic experiences in life. Sometimes those layers of belief systems that somebody programmed into our brain when we were younger and a kid, like we weren't good enough. And they were well-meaning and well-intentioned. Maybe they had those same belief systems. So we do the inner work to peel back the layers of the onion.

because when we peel those layers of the onion back and we reveal our true self, which is whole and complete, we end up taking away a lot of the desires, the desire of seeking. Why would we want to seek something? So what? You have a little bit of extra weight that's there. Okay. It's okay to want to go down a pathway where, let's say, for example, you don't want that weight.

No judgment. We have to let people have their goals. it's not my goal. I probably don't have a lot of weight to get rid of, first of all, but it's not my goal. That's okay if that is somebody's goal. And the question is, what do we make it mean? If we think that because we have some of this extra weight, we're not good enough, we're not beautiful, we're not X, Y, and Z, that belief is coming from pain. And that pain came from some sort of void in our life.

Maybe we were younger. I have a friend of mine, Anita, who does some coaching in this space. And she said a story one time of either it was her or one of her clients, one of their earliest memories, was being a young girl and thinking that their mom was so beautiful and watching her put makeup on. And then seeing their mom criticizing their body and saying, if I only lost a certain amount of weight, I'd finally look beautiful. So as a child, you see that, you explore that, you witness that, you start to internalize. Because you love your mom and she's saying that she needs to do this to get more love in her life.

You want to be loved too, so you start to become like her. So many of our pursuits in life come from just inheriting, inheriting the ideas of other people. and inner work, meditation, reflecting is the process of finding these hidden beliefs and especially the stories we told ourselves that created them. Why? Because when we let them go, we let go of the seeking. When the seeking is gone, now we can have fun.

We can explore anything we want to explore in life without the pressure that this thing has to complete us. this is the beauty of paying attention to this topic. We create so much more peace, joy, and love in our life when seeking is not our primary. Now, the last thing I want to say on this topic of seeking, seeking, you're going to seek. I catch myself sometimes seeking.

Just because you understand this concept doesn't mean that it's never going to be an issue. We catch ourselves. We say, okay, well, I caught myself. I'm glad I caught myself. and I'm going to practice letting go again. I'm going to practice resetting. I'm going to do whatever I need to do to let go of the seeking.

I hope this podcast has been helpful and that maybe you've caught a few places in your life where seeking might be the primary motivation, primary energy around what you're pursuing. It's okay. Don't beat yourself up. Catch it. Give it some love and move on.

This is Drew Perot with another big idea of the week episode. By the way, I put a link in the show notes. You can catch it. It's a video by Alan Watts. And if you're interested in the topic of seeking, it's a fun video to watch, the reminder that you are the thing that you've been seeking. Check it out.

I'll see you next week. Thank you.