Heroes in Business - Andy Hahn, Fearless Living Managing Paradox Interview Ragini Michaels

Episode Date: July 12, 2022

Managing paradox. Interdependent polarities. Pursuing happiness versus being happy. Trauma and maturity. Yin yang. Changing our placement of attention. Self acceptance. From either or to both found in this episode of Guided Self Healing Fearless Living with Dr Andy Hahn. Lifecenteredtherapy.com 

Hi, this is Andy Hahn, and this is the 55th episode of Guided Self-Healing, Fearless Living. And today, we actually have our first interview, which, and I'm very honored to have my dear friend and colleague, Ragini Michaels, whose work, I can tell you, I respect so deeply. And we actually, in our second year training, whenever we want to say anything about maturity and what maturity really is, she's the first person we talk about, both from a personal and from a philosophical perspective. So I don't know if Ragini wants to say anything about who she is, because if you do Ragini, you can certainly tell us. And otherwise, we'll just go on. So if you'd like, if you do rock any you can certainly tell us and otherwise we'll just go on so if you'd

like if you'd like to say anything about who you are or how you came to be where you are today that would be great and if not you can just tell us why paradox management whichever you prefer wherever your heart is you tell us she you give me a lot of room to say anything. That's really nice. Well, thank you for your kind introduction. Well, I've had spaciousness, you know, like good. Well, Andy and I have known each other for a long time and I have a lot of respect for his work as well. And I come at my work through a background in neuro-linguistic programming and an equally long year of private practice using NLP as a way to help people change their behaviors, accompanied by an equally long excursion into the spiritual domain with meditation, contemplation, reflection, etc., all of which seemed to direct me

towards the discovery of something that answered my primary question, which was, why aren't I happy? And that has been a primary drive for me to understand why I wasn't happy. And in a nutshell, and I explained all this in one of my books and various other places I've spoken. But I discovered that my definition of happiness was the absence of unhappiness, period. It would be gone. There would be none of it there. And as soon as a little tiny bit of happiness, unhappiness came in, I was unhappy, of course. So the work really was driven by that desire to understand why I wasn't happy,

which led me to the question of who am I, which led me to Andy over here, Dr. Han, and his exploration of the essence process, which had a lot to do with identity, which was very helpful and did indeed play a role in the evolution of my own work around helping people understand why we're not happy and what we can do to be happy. So it culminated in a six-step process, which is available online and in my book and a relatively simple although complex process based on the psychology of mystics or an awakened psychology but the drive behind all of it was how do I be happy because isn't life supposed to be happy and many people told me no but then I thought well you know the constitution says you know be, you have a right to be happy. Dalving-Longer says happiness is what life is all about.

So I figured I was on the right track and kept going to create over the last 35, 40 years, a lot of work around what's come to be called paradox management, you know, paradox, contradictions, dilemmas, things like that, that plague our daily lives that we really don't actually have a way to manage very well. Because the primary way that I was working to be happy was to get rid of everything that made me unhappy, and only have happiness be perpetual, long lasting and never change. And unfortunately, that took me into a fact of life because my work was originally called facticity because it was based on two essential facts. One, everything changes.

So my core strategy of trying to get only happy and no unhappiness was shot, you know, shot to hell right there. It's like, wait a minute, if everything changes, I am in trouble, you know. And the second fact that I discovered was that everything in our world is actually sitting on a relationship between polar opposites. And I thought, well, if that's true, then I'm not going to be able to get rid of unhappiness, and I'm going to have to learn how to deal with that. And that became the impetus for the work that I have been doing for such a long time.

And, you know, I just want to share, I've shared this many times before, but one of the things that was so important to me was when I was in India, I was in an ashram study. There was a guru there, of course. And I was sitting on a wall outside the ashram and a beggar came by. And he was a typical beggar with his hands out asking for alms, you know, and tattered clothes, no teeth, nothing on his feet. And his eyes were just like, he was like shiny. It was almost like a light bulb was shining from inside of him outside. And I thought, man, how does he do that?

I would be just, in my opinion, in my mind at the time, it was a demeaning state of being. And yet he looks so happy. And I thought, man, I don't get it. And that's when I had this insight. It was just a huge insight that just like went bam to my whole life is that he was okay with being unhappy. Whatever it is that made me unhappy, this dude was actually okay with it. And that began the process that there obviously was a way to be happy, even when you were feeling unhappy or not getting what you wanted. So that's sort of the

impetus of what started the whole thing. Well, I can tell you where my attention went, which I actually am very curious about. Out of all the things you said, which many of them gave me goosebumps, but be that as it may, I was really struck by your statement about the Constitution, which of course isn't about the right to happiness, but about the pursuit of happiness. And what I'm really curious about is, how do you understand, I mean, like happiness in the idea of the polar opposite of whatever pursuing would be and the polar opposite of pursuing and how pursuing happiness and whatever its opposite is would be informed by your work. Suddenly it was like, because pursuing has this idea that, you know, you're not just happy, you're pursuing something. But polar opposites has the idea that even pursuing happiness must have some place in a world of pursuit and whatever the polar opposite of non-pursuit is. And suddenly it was like, I was really curious to know what your reflections were on that, if that makes any sense.

Sure, it makes sense. It's always fun to talk with you andy it always goes in interesting places um pursuit you can't say non-pursuit because that makes it a negation which the mind doesn't like so we'd have to start off with asking the good question which is what is the opposite of pursuing so our pursuit so if you're pursuing something it presupposes that you don't have it first of all that you want it and you don't have it. So there's a desire in there for something. So you could work. And this is always a question of finding out what works for the individual, because we're all so unique that polar opposites might differ in the language that we use person to person.

So let's just us be here, pursuit of something that you want that you don't have. So it could be, let's see, when you have something, you own it, the ownership of it, you experience it, it's yours, you have it, you already have it, It's yours. You have it. You already have it. Satisfaction, perhaps. Pursuit, satisfaction. You could say pursuit and acquisition. You could use that as your basic polarity. If you've acquired something, you're no longer in pursuit of it because you have it.

And that's an interesting thing to realize you can't desire something you have. But how does that work for you in your context, if we're thinking about you and your relationship with happiness, and this idea of pursuing it, and whatever we're going to say in this context would be your polar opposite. Can you talk a little bit, I know we weren't prepared for this, but it's just stunning to me, how it is that that kind of paradox around your subjective experience of happiness, whether it's pursuing or being or whatever, whatever words will be yours, obviously, because you get to choose your polar opposites. That's right. Always in the context of happiness, whatever that's going to be. But like, I just love to hear about it from your perspective in your own journey,

if that makes any sense. Sure. Well, I think for me, the thing that I said first, the fundamental fact that has to inform all of this is the fact of change or impermanence. Everything changes. So acquisition or pursuing something is going to change when you've acquired it. Okay. So if I'm in pursuit of happiness, when I've acquired whatever it is I'm in pursuit of, whether it's a relationship that makes me happy or money that makes me happy or a good haircut that makes me happy. I'm not kidding on that one. A good haircut that makes you happy, a pair of shoes that fit, money in the bank, a happy relationship. Every one of those things once acquired, I have found, dissipates. It changes because it's impermanent. That has been the crux of the whole issue is how

to manage that transition between having what I want and then it's gone due to impermanence, not due to me. It's just going to change. And what does it change into? Pursuit. I'm immediately after happiness again, because that's my context is happiness. So no matter whether I have it or I don't have it, happiness is the situation I'm trying to train my brain

to look at happiness as something that comes and goes, right? Because as soon as I lose, as soon as what I want starts to change into what I don't want, which is its absence, right? I normally get upset, right? It's like, oh my God, oh my God. So if I understand that this is a dynamic, that this is actually a creative dynamism that flows, that keeps me moving to greater and greater understandings of happiness, to greater depths of happiness, to strive for higher heights of happiness, you know, instead of thinking happiness is just this one straight line, like a good relationship, money in the bank so I can retire. I mean, weighing X number of pounds instead of 20 on top of that number. There's all these,

having a modern up-to-date car rather than one that's 20 years old. Once I have those things, I can become complacent, which is one of the downsides of being happy is that you can get, for me, I get complacent, I get overly comfortable, but that even that starts to change. But if I know that the downside of, as my happiness dissipates, I'm going to go into pursuit again, then I have to, I can ask myself, instead of going back for the same thing, I can ask myself, what's the next more exquisite, more tasty, more desirable, more beautiful, more harmonious expression of happiness that's waiting for me out there? Because I've already had A, B, C, D.

I want to know what G, F, H, I is, right? Assuming that there's an evolution, an evolutionary pull that continues driving me towards discovering the ultimate happiness, which of course, at this moment in my journey, would be to be centered and peaceful no matter what's happening, which is the name of my online training, perhaps. I can throw that in there. Centered and peaceful no matter what's happening. I like that. Centered no matter what. It doesn't mean that you stay centered, right?

You can't stay centered with no movement because life is movement. So it's how do you come back to your center amidst this constant flow of change between polar opposites? And I found that the key was understanding this flow that everybody talks about. We've been talking about it for years. We meditate. Sometimes it's called the zone business world, right? There's a pattern hidden inside that flow of change. And my work actually, as far as I'm concerned, identifies the pattern.

It's like when you watch the waters of a river flowing down the riverbank, I mean, through down the riverbed, the water doesn't say I'm only going to stay on the right side. And if you refuse to go to the left, the water goes back and forth. Okay. So there's wisdom in that. There's a practical wisdom that's all around us in the sense that life itself outside of our mind doesn't seem to have any problem with the comings and goings of things and the rhythm of life, whether it's the tides coming in and going out, you know, the shore doesn't get upset. We do, but the shore doesn't, you know, night and day, you know, they're in their own rhythm and they happen without any fight between day and night. In fact, they share each other, right? During the day you have shade. So night is still allowed to exist, but in a lesser expression and the same with night, you still have light is still allowed

via the stars and the moon. And there's no competition. There's no antagonism between the two. Whereas in my daily life, you know, I want to be connected. I don't want to feel separate. I want approval. I don't not want criticism. I want to be together. I don't want to be alone. For example, I want you to be my ally, not my enemy ever. I don't want you to dislike anything I say or whatever. I want to be accepted and never rejected. You know, these are polar opposites that plague every relationship that we have, whether it's a personal one or it's at work or a business. You know, I want to feel grateful. I don't want to be grieving over something, right? It's just there's, I want to be fulfilled.

Here's the back to happiness. I don't want to be longing. But once I understood the value of longing, of pursuit, that that's the drive that helps me evolve, that helps me grow, it helps me discover new hidden little corners of my being, my personality, my mind, my energy, my soul, or my spirit that frees it to come forth because I'm searching for it.

So our role in the evolution of ourselves is quite strong in that we have to be searching for something in order to find it. And once we find it, it grants us a gift, which in my experience, then leads me to another gift, which I also don't have. And I start longing for. So I don't know, that's a lot of words coming out of my mouth. So there you go, Andy. I thought your words were magnificent. And I will tell you my reflection on what you said. I'd love to hear your reflection on my reflection. A reflection on what you said is that man that you met in India who was radiating something,

that really what you were calling happiness at the time was for lack of a better word, acceptance and self-acceptance. Does that seem true to you because that's what i'm hearing but you can you can refine that if i get that wrong no i think that's totally right he was quite capable of accepting what was his experience what was in his what was on the road that he was journeying on um i'm recently exploring a lot of things around looking at how I've attached my worth and value to my external image, whether it's how I look or the kind of car I drive

or the kind of apartment I live in. And it's interesting to just challenge yourself to accepting what life brings your way moment to moment as what is, and not try to change it. Just be with it. And of course, you've got to have a little bit of practice on that, because you've got to have some place to go where you feel calm enough to accept it. So I think that takes you more, for me, into a more spiritual realm where you think you're part of something larger and there's some rhythm, there's some order. And that takes us to order and chaos. So another polarity. You're always going to end up, once you understand this dynamic and have sort of adopted it to play with it a little bit

you're going to find it plays out just about everywhere you know from one thing to its opposite and it goes back to impermanence and um some drive inside of us you want to call it life soul spirit whatever that wants to always acquire more i mean there's something in us that drives us from being a baby to a toddler to a kid that walks to an adolescent to a young adult to an adult and that happens without us doing anything you can't stop that, right? So there's another, what's been very helpful to me is to realize there's another force at play that I can only follow. I can only follow. And for me, pursuit is part of what following that is. It's pursuing something. I can pursue a car. I can pursue this pull that I feel inside of me that we all feel. We all know when something's right for us, there's a pull. And you

might doubt it. Your mind might come in and doubt it. But nevertheless, you have felt a pull to take you in a certain direction, whether it's to get married or buy a car or go to a meditation retreat, et cetera. Well, what I'm gathering from what you're saying is a couple of things, which is really interesting. And I'm actually, one of them is, I think, more interesting to you and I spiritually, but one of them is much more interesting to me psychologically. So I'll tell you the one that's interesting, I think, to both of us spiritually is this idea that there is an evolutionary process that goes on that is a natural evolutionary process that you could say the way I would describe it is going from egocentricity to

life centricity that's how I would describe it but I think we probably would have different words for the same thing but there is a sense of like if I could really if I could really pursue life or open to life in some way in every aspect of what life is and say I will open to that well that's a higher order of pursuit than perhaps pursuing um you know if I take a really horrendous example pursuing Jews to kill because I'm a Hitler youth and I get some kind of passionate joy out of killing them or something, right? But they're both pursuits, but there's a very different aspect of the pursuing. So what I gather is one aspect of what you're talking about is, for lack of a better word, a maturational process around the movement from something that is very

egoically oriented to something that is profoundly divine or life oriented. That's what I'm gathering you're saying, that there is some kind of evolution that seems to happen with that. And if you'd like to talk about that, I would love to hear about it because that's the spiritual thing. But what I'm psychologically interested in is we both know the Enneagram and we both know that you and i are both hard points um and we both know that we are similar hard points and your your statement about image and the craving to be a certain way i would love to know what your evolution has been like for yourself if you want to talk about that as you've gone through this when there was such a powerful compulsion around presenting yourself in a certain way what you've discovered on that journey in your

paradox management if you'd like to share and if you want to talk about something else that's fine that's fine i'm happy to talk about whatever you want me to talk about. But I think in terms of the Enneagram and the compulsion, and it is a compulsion, it's like an obsession, from which I had no distance at all. It was simply who I was. And if it wasn't fulfilled, if the image was not exactly right, it threw me into despair and deep unhappiness because it made me feel I was defective and unfit to participate in the world, which is oftentimes the case of personality issues, psychologically speaking. When I began to understand that, it was interesting intellectually, it was interesting intellectually, but the need to actually be able to embody such an idea that I was not that, that I was more than that, was the intriguing aspect of it. So that was where I can't really separate the spiritual aspect of it from the psychological aspect of it,

which is why I looked at the psychology of mystics or an awakened psychology is what I looked at and made my model from. Because how is it that these guys could be so calm in the presence of like that beggar, whose image was not one that I would ever want to have, right? To this day, I don't want that image. However, because of the evolution of understanding impermanence and understanding opposites and getting to the place where I could begin to have some distance from that, I could see I want that, but it's not me. I want that. It's like I look at my hand and I go, I want my hand. I don't want to lose my hand, but my hand is not the totality of who I am. And that's obvious, right? But in terms of my image thing, it was not obvious at all.

Until via meditation and contemplation and various other things, I was able to get just the tiniest bit of distance from it so that I could get above it and see it. Like, oh, I see that's an idea, right? That image is what makes me valuable, right? I have to prove my value. And because I could see it, I was no longer it. I had some distance from it. And that began the process of making my peace with its presence. I still have my personality. It still wants to look good. It still wants everything to be nice and not ugly. But it doesn't define who I am anymore because of that distance. And I say, and then I got the distance distance myself and there are many ways people get the

distance by understanding the value of change and impermanence and that there was a flow of opposites here many opposites were involved in image being beautiful being ugly being smart being stupid being getting acclaimed versus criticism. You know, there were all kinds of sets of polar opposites that were at play in holding up this thing of image. And when it wasn't held up with the one that I thought was good, then I got depressed and I wanted to get rid of the other. So the big learning was don't try to get rid of anything. No, no, no, no, no.

Unless you're traumatized, in which case Andy's work is perfect, right? Once you've got a little bit more balance, I think my work becomes more available to you. I think you have to do, heal the trauma aspects that Andy's work, your work deals with. And then one can actually start working with the paradox management

because you're a little bit clearer. You're not being pulled down by that traumatic impact on your brain and your body. So I don't know if that answers your question at all, Andy. Does that help? I'm just sharing. We're the only two here, and it answered it for me. I can't speak to anyone. I guess we have to hear what they have to say.

I mean, it was wonderful. Ultimately, though, it is your psychology that I am aiming to shift so that in permanence, because when you're young and growing up, the mind is not taught that change is relevant. And it's not taught that opposites are relevant. So you don't, the mind pays no attention to it. It puts it on a little shelf over here and says irrelevant to my happiness and survival. But what we're doing is we're changing the programming of the unconscious mind.

And at the same time laying down a new neural pathway in your brain that says both sets of both opposites are important. It's one whole thing. And that changes your strategy for living because now you're going to be willing to accept what is and relax with it as opposed to spending all of your life energy trying to get rid of the things you don't like, like feeling stupid or having distance in your connection, your relationship or feeling separate or feeling alone. Everybody has something they don't want. And most of our life energy, psychologically, emotionally, energetically, spiritually, really even is to say, take this away from me, please. I don't ever want to experience that. And that is not the road to happiness that i can tell you

well i would love to know a little bit more about your process when you said what it is even with your understanding of this that allowed for that spaciousness that you could begin to witness yourself even though you had that knowing what was it of that do you have a sense of what finally allowed you to say i am the one who's witnessing that that that is fundamentally who i am and i'm not the image. Do you have a sense more about that? Well, But like, it sounds like at some point or other, there was some kind of awareness or something, but I don't know. Well, I think awareness is incredibly important. I think the thing that,

because you have to be aware first that you're stuck or you're unhappy, and you have to be aware that you want more, first of all. But I think the thing that changed it for me was the awareness that where I put my attention made a big difference. If I took my attention and I put it on the problem, then the problem became more real to me. But if I took my attention and I put it on something that made me feel calm, a lot of people use a mantra, et cetera, et cetera, things like that, the problem starts to dissipate. What I discovered is that my attention, you know, your attention is, you know, put your attention, if I say,

put your attention on your toe right now, you know, you can put your attention there, right? So that's what I mean by attention, that thing that moves when you tell it to move. When I learned that it wasn't helpful to me to put my attention on trying to solve that problem about image, that I was going to feel beautiful and I was going to feel ugly. I was going to feel smart and I was going to feel stupid. I was going to have things that were new and things that were old. When I stopped putting my attention on getting rid of that problem, so to speak, that's what makes the difference, because then I can let it be there and it doesn't bother me because I'm not attending to it, right? It's like if you live next to the

freeway and you put your attention on the sound of the traffic all the time, you're going to be upset because you're never going to feel calm. But if you can take your attention off of the traffic on the freeway, and you put it back on something that makes you feel good, right, which is just presence, or being centered, finding your center spot, you know, that middle point between the two, you know, I know the Buddhists talk about the middle way all the time, but they don't pay any attention to the circumference, you don't have a middle without, you know, circle somewhere, right? You got to have that. And it's how we look at that, that makes the difference as far as I'm concerned. That was the difference is where do I put my

attention? First, I have to understand that there's impermanence and that there's a pattern between in this life flow that we call our lives. And then stop trying to get rid of it and make it different and put my attention someplace else. That's a value to me. It sounds like part of the attention is, in your example, that there's the noise there, but you don't have to put your attention on the noise. Right? noise there, but you don't have to put your attention on the noise, right? But part of it is

that when there's the noise, you feel reactive. Yes. So how does one choose whether to take one's attention off the noise and put it onto something else, like birds in the yard, versus taking their attention and putting it on the fact that they were having reactivity to the noise of the highway when when would you how do you differentiate those two which one makes me happy the birds are the freeway noise if i really want to be happy and i know that the freeway noise doesn't make me happy, but the birds do, then I have the power. And I think this is a big point, discovering I have the power to move my attention. We don't really think we have the power to move our attention, mostly because it is so already just

glued to what we're experiencing and we either like it or we don't like it. So I think that that's a very important piece, you know, to understanding there's a power that we have and there's attention has power. So wherever you put it, it changes your experience. So in my case, since I want to be happy, centered, and peaceful, no matter what, that's my goal. That's the name of my book, the name of my course, right? I don't care what's coming at me down the road. My goal is to be happy, centered, and peaceful, no matter what's there. So I can't do that if I haven't claimed some ability to take my attention and move it around. And that takes, unfortunately for us all to hear, practice. And this is why people meditate and do other things to get good.

This is why a basketball player stands on the basketball court and keeps shooting things to learn how to get it in. It's the same thing. You have to keep learning how to take your attention and move it away. I think awareness precedes this. You have to be aware of what we're talking about. But once you're aware that you're not your personality,

for example, or that it isn't gonna benefit you to constantly try to get rid of something that's gonna come back again and again and again, then you have to practice putting, taking your attention off of it and putting it elsewhere. Someplace that brings you happiness. And I found for me, that's acceptance of what is. That makes me happy.

If I can accept what is, there's a certain kind of peace and calm that comes with that. It's like, oh, here's what is. That's what I'm trying to understand, actually, for myself, too. So tell me about accepting what is as the noise of the highway so that it doesn't make me unhappy versus realizing it's making me unhappy. So I'm going to bring my attention away from it to the birds. They seem like different kinds of processes to me. One is saying I'm aware of the sounds of the highways, but I don't have to be reactive to it. One is

I'm aware that they're making me unhappy. So I'm going to bring my attention to something that makes me happy, i.e. the birds. And they seem like different processes. So can you tell us about that? They are because you're making a decision. The way you said it is I'm hearing the traffic on the freeway and I don't have to be reactive about it. That's your mind coming in and saying you have a choice. Okay. But if you're reactive, you're reactive.

If you say I don't have to be reactive, then you're probably already reactive or you're expecting reactivity. So the value is in accepting that, recognizing reactivity. And the minute you recognize it or feel it in your body, you are saying, oh, you're saying, I'm going to go to the place where reactivity doesn't live. I'm going to go to my, you know, wherever it is. In my case, it's my spiritual teacher, all right? I'm going to go there because reactivity doesn't live there.

It lives over here. And if I take my attention and I pull it from where I'm reactive, because I'm paying attention to my reactivity and I move my attention. The reactivity can't be as full of life as it was because I'm no longer giving it life. I mean, I think the thing I'm trying to say is your attention gives life to things. It brings things to life. It amplifies what's there. So if you don't, and again, I'm saying this is part of the process. If there's trauma there, then you can't get your attention off. Your work is what you want to be doing.

You want to be doing that work. So you're freeing up the energy, the ability to move your attention. You're ungluing it from that. And your work is so good at doing that. your attention you're ungluing it from that and your work is so good at doing that and then letting the person go to the next place where they can be with where more joy is more happiness more acceptance excuse me so i think that's the difference yeah no what you say makes sense. And I think for me also, the struggle has been both in terms of reactivity. Can I bring my attention and the object of my attention to my reactivity versus can I just say, you know, this is causing me reactivity.

So I don't have to bring my attention to that thing at all and I think that that for me has also been an ongoing you know um struggle I mean like if I take something simple if I have you know something in the cabinet that I like to eat I can notice my craving and try to sit with my craving and know the thing is in the cabinet, or I can get the thing out of the cabinet and put something in there that I wouldn't have so much craving for, which is the equivalent of the sounds of the noise in the highway, right? And they're, you know, and my inclination is to do the first one that you talked about, which is to say, like, let's move the chocolate out of there, which is my equivalent to the noise in the highway and put something in there that while I like it I don't say oh my goodness because you know craving

is you know our deal is heart points as opposed to aversion so to speak you know so it's like which do I pay attention to what's underlying my craving or getting the chocolate out of the cabinet so to speak and putting something in there that I like just as much that I don't have cravings for. And that has been a constant dialogue with me and the person I wrote this book with about which practice is a more useful practice, to be with the craving and leave the chocolate there,

so to speak, or the noise or whatever, or to just say like, let me bring my attention someplace else and stop feeding it with even my knowing that that thing is there. And it's, I find for me that that's been a constant edge trying to know which way I want to go with that. Well, I think for me, the challenge with that is to find something that is more pleasurable than the

chocolate. And that's where i would put my attention that i'm not going to get rid of the desire for the sweetness of life that ain't going anywhere but if i can find something that i find more fulfilling more tasty more sweet more pleasurable than chocolate then it's easier for me to shift my attention away from the chocolate i don't want to struggle with it that's the as soon as i start struggling it's easier for me to shift my attention away from the chocolate. I don't want to struggle with it. That's the, as soon as I start struggling, it's got me. If I start struggling with my craving, it had, it already has me because now I'm into, I don't want it to be there.

Right. So now I'm setting, I'm setting up what I like against what I dislike, which is the key issue that is the problem from my work's point of view. So find something that's better than chocolate. And of course, some people say, well, that's got to be sex or alcohol. And I guess what I'm ultimately saying is happiness. Somebody wrote a book on it. I really need to find out the person's author.

Happiness is an inside job. It has to be something that makes you happy from the inside, which is why you're ultimately going to end up with some kind of spiritual perspective that brings you so much pleasure that you're willing to, even the chocolate just loses its glow in a way, right? Then it's not an issue anymore. its glow in a way right and then then it's not an issue i think those i've come to the same conclusion myself um probably in a similar but probably not exactly the same way you use it the only way that i will ever conquer my craving for chocolate so to speak is that i have a longing for

what you might call divine or life or whatever we call it that is just more powerful than even my craving for chocolate you know that you know that's easy to say when there isn't my favorite chocolate just like staring me in the face when like out and like you know whatever i mean it's a I think, for all of us who are cravers, but certainly for me, you know, when it says, really, I have a lot of pseudo-aliveness for you sitting here, and moreover, I smell very good, and I'm out, and I'm not even unwrapping paper. Absolutely. It talks to you, too. It talks to me, too, that chocolate. It's like a little seductress, and it's saying, like saying like you know the reason i can get you is you

don't really feel fully alive inside anyway because if you did i couldn't seduce you or i would let you seduce me or whatever which is you know i think for those of us who are born towards shame around there's something wrong with me to begin with right which is like every human being practically yes but some of us have some of us our core fears are around you know there's something wrong with me whereas others of us you know it's more like uh uh you know unfulfillable or something you know they don't they have a slightly different flavor if i may well i think going back to the fact that everything is impermanent,

if we start paying attention to the fact that that idea does change and there are moments whenever we do feel okay, that that's a place to help people put their attention. I mean, I'm big on attention. I think it's important. We have a power that we are not taught very often to utilize. I think the pull to mind for people being mindful and meditating is good because you're working with exercising your attention a little bit, you know, bringing it back consciously, purposefully. impact in your daily life when you start to understand how you can use it to stay centered happy peaceful no matter what's coming away coming along i'm not saying it's easy but i am saying

that it's doable right in time with practice and the right attitude yeah well so teach us how is it going for you in all of this because i know you've had your own journey around all of this. How's it going? I had my own journey. It's my inner world is doing great. My outer world continues to fall apart, shift and change and have multiple failures and minimal successes. And it's very challenging, right?

I mean, people who are listening to this podcast may never have heard of me, may not know that I've written five books, may not be aware of me at all. And I have 35 years of effort put into it. The key for me is that it's OK now, right, that that's the case, that, you know, that's not happening. It's not disturbing my everyday sense of calm and happiness and joy to be alive. And that's cool. That's not to say that during the day, I don't lose it because of course my own work says you're going to lose it, right? It's going to go away. And so that I'm learning how to just be with that and understand that.

So I'm doing good. And my internal life is continuing to get better. My external life is full of all the challenges that everyone else has. And, you know, trying to stay alive, trying to make money, trying to do X, Y, and Z. Be happy. Have relationships. You know, not get too much overweight. That chocolate. That's a killer.

Anyway, that's my story. And I thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I know it's your first interviewee so we just kind of had a good chat i hope your viewers enjoy it i'm sure they will why don't you take one second ragini and just uh attune to whatever you would call the divine or guru or anything and just if there's anything more that feels important to share or anything more about our process or anything at all there may not be but it's an invitation not an obligation and if it isn't i think what i what i like to share when i talk with people about this work

is a quote from nirsanga data who was an indian mystic who died not too long ago. He was a little guy who ran a beady stand on the corner somewhere in India. He's been a little Indian cigarettes. Anyway, he was a well-known mystic. And this particular phrase is the one that really kind of brings the whole thing together that I have dedicated my life to learning how to live, which is love tells me I am everything. in my life to learning how to live, which is love tells me I am everything. Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Between these two, my life flows. I think that's so beautiful. So I'm happy to end with that. Thank you so much. Thank you, Andy. True pleasure. Okay. So my dear friends,

you can find Ragini and Michaels. I will tell you, anyone who does listen to this, even though she's becoming more comfortable with not being found, she would be equally comfortable with being found. And from a totally self-serving, lightened self-interest point of view,

my hope for you is you were able to find her because it will really be worth your while. So having said that, I wish you well. And I'm going to say, for the time being, goodbye. Goodbye. I'm going to end now. I've never done this before so I don't even know how to end this stupid thing you just have to stop recording yes but I don't see the recording button stop recording