The One You Feed - Susan Piver

Episode Date: January 13, 2015

This week we talk to Susan PiverSusan Piver is a Buddhist teacher and the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including The Hard Questions and the award-winning How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life. Her latest book is entitled The Wisdom of a Broken Heart.Her eighth book, Start Here Now: A Guide to the Path and Practice of Meditation will be published this year.She is also the creator of the innovative Open Heart project, an online community to help deepen your meditation practice In This Interview Susan and I Discuss...The One You Feed parable.How everything is possible.Having an indestructible presence.The positive thinking police.How do you know when you have felt an emotion enough.Her strange friend, depression.The difference between feeling and wallowing.Depression is when nothing means anything, sadness is when everything has meaning.The difference between our feelings and our interpretation of that feeling.Feel the feeling and drop the storyline.Basic GoodnessWhether the Universe is a friendly place.Taking responsibility of our own experience.How the moment to moment commitment to watch our thoughts can cut delusion.How wisdom and compassion are inseparable. Dealing with fear.Not being afraid of ourselves or our feelings.A courageous person is not afraid of their feelings.Susan Piver LinksSusan Piver HomepageThe Open Heart ProjectSusan Piver on FacebookSusan Piver on TwitterSusan Piver Amazon Author Page Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:James ClearSrini PillayDan HarrisTodd Henry- author of Die EmptyRandy Scott HydeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a difference between what you feel and your interpretation of that feeling. Where we run into trouble is in this interpretation part. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.

Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. How they feed their good wolf. Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. This January, join me for our third annual January Jumpstart series. Starting January 1st, we'll have inspiring conversations to give you a hand in kickstarting your personal growth.

If you've been holding back or playing small, this is your all-access pass to step fully into the possibilities of the new year. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the show. Our guest this week is Susan Piver, a Buddhist teacher and the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including The Hard Questions and the award-winning How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life. Her most current book is The Wisdom of a Broken Heart, and her eighth book, Start Here Now, A Guide to the Path and Practice of Meditation, will be published this year. a guide to the path and practice of meditation, will be published this year. Susan is also the creator of the innovative Open Heart Project, an online community to help you deepen your

meditation practice. Here's the interview. Hi, Susan. Welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. We're glad to have you with us tonight. So our podcast is called The One You Feed, and it's based on the parable of two wolves where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. And he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And these two wolves are kind of always at battle with each other. So the grandson stops and thinks for a second. He looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means

to you in your life and in the work that you do. There's something so moving and striking every time. I haven't heard that a thousand times, but I've probably heard it a couple of times. And each time I do, it sort of gives me chills. There's something about the sequencing of the story and the clarity and possibility in the answer, the one you feed. It first gives one the notion that everything is possible, that there is nothing sort of predetermined that is

dark and foreboding. Although, of course, as we all know know you just have to look at the news there are countless dark and foreboding things happen every day but still in every moment you have the choice of what to nourish in your own consciousness and this doesn't mean you know i i sometimes get upset at what i call the positivity police right People that are always telling you you should think, you know, happy things and you'll have a happy life or positive things will lead to positivity. your world down to a thought monitoring moment to moment process of wondering if you thought the right thought or not and it's very claustrophobic but the parable that you're sharing speaks to sort of this moment of freedom and expansion that is i just will use the word hopeful again, powerful and every moment is a moment to make that choice. And because you made that choice, you know, to feed one particular wolf

in this moment does not mean you'll feed the same one in the next moment. So it also speaks to the need for a presence that is indestructible, that is constantly turned up to 11. And, you know, as a meditator and meditators, As a meditator and meditators, luckily we have been given some insight into how to turn that dial up. How to be more aware. I like what you said about the positivity police. You have a line, it was one of the things I was going to talk about. You say in one of your writings that when you spot something you don't like about yourself, the tendency is to turn up the negative self-talk.

I'm not suggesting you replace it with positive self-talk. I'm suggesting you drop self-talk as completely as possible and just relax. Yeah. I'm laughing because I really need to hear that myself today. Yeah. So thank you, me, for saying that. And then you kind of go on from there to say when you're in the grip of negative feelings, you know, try and stop talking to yourself about it and allow your awareness to drop away from your thoughts and into your body. And I think that's, I like that so much because I am, we've had enough different things on this show that listeners will know that I'm not a huge fan of the positive thinking movement either. I mean, I think there's a lot

of good in it, but I think there's also a lot of real challenges there. And so I really like what you said there. And I spend a lot of time, I've spent a lot more time recently really being more tuned into sort of what the self-talk that's going on in my head is. And it's certainly better when that can be turned off in a lot of cases. Yeah. I'm curious, if you don't mind me asking, what has your experience been with the positivity movement, for lack of a better phrase? What makes you feel that way? Well, I don't know that I haven't, like like i wasn't dragged into a room by 15 positive thinkers and and made to listen to norman vincent peel at a ear splitting volume for 15 hours but um the question that we ask on this show a lot is

what's the difference between positive thinking and denial like it's easy to i think go by what you need what you're feeling and what your emotions are and go right to self talk that's positive that tries to bypass all that. And then I also think that it's sort of what you said a minute ago, when you were talking about it being claustrophobic. I think that this idea that we attract things to ourselves, is there's there's some there's there's some grain of truth in that, but taken to its extremes, you end up thinking that anything bad that happens, you know, people attracted to themselves. So, you know, if I have cancer, did I attract that to myself? And oh, I just had a bad thought, did I make it worse? And I just think it, you know, I think claustrophobic

is a is a good word for it. I think that it's, I just think I'm, I'm, I'm always skeptical of anything that goes too far in any one direction. And so I guess that would be the, the better way to put it. Yeah, that makes sense. And it also sort of seems to indicate that who you are is so tiny, that a single thought can sway the course of your life and that your mind is so sort of foreign to you that you have to you know corral it in some domineering way and who who you are is just so much bigger than any single positive or negative thought and the the suggestion to relax is not necessarily to just blow it off or just feel like well it doesn't really matter or upsetting things don't actually upset me, or anything like that. Here, relax means allow, you know, to expand and include. Like you were saying a moment ago,

when negative self-talk arises, we're often counseled to just sort of squeeze it out, like just shut it off, or turn your back on it, or I don't know what, pretend it didn't happen, shut it off or turn your back on it or I don't know what, pretend it didn't happen, something like that. And this instruction is instead to widen your lens, as it were, put on a bigger lens or step back and see that thought as one of countless things that are happening within you right now. And, you know, the sort of famous metaphor in meditation circles, if there is such a thing, is to see your thoughts like clouds in the sky. And one by one, of course, they all pass by. There's no cloud that has remained in perpetuity. And who you are is the sky. perpetuity and who you are is the sky. And the sky has no preference. The sky can hold it all. And remembering that our mind is more like the sky than it is like any cloud system, no matter how powerful, is called relaxation. In a lot of your work, you do espouse the idea of allowing yourself to feel

your emotions. Go ahead and go into those emotions or at least allow them to be. And I've been asked a couple times by people recently, and I think it's an interesting question, which is when have you done that enough? When have you leaned in enough? Or when have you done that enough? When have you leaned in enough? Or when have you allowed yourself to feel those emotions enough? And when is it time to start trying to move towards perhaps a more positive space if you're wrestling with depression or sadness? How in your mind do you reconcile that?

Yeah, that's a good question and a personal question for me because I've struggled with depression all my life. It's like my companion, my strange friend that is always trying to tug on my sleeve. So it's an important question to me personally. And there's a difference between feeling and wallowing and yes sometimes we do need to kick our own selves in the butt and you know exploring and relaxing and all that is just a place to hide. But feeling has a sharp edge that depression lacks. And the key differentiation was made by Gloria Steinem when she was asked in an interview if she was depressed over the death of her husband. This was probably, I don't know, six or seven years ago or something. And she said,

I'm not depressed, I'm sad. And the interviewer asked the difference and she said I'm not not depressed I'm sad and the interviewer asked the difference and she said when you're depressed nothing has any meaning and when you're sad everything does so there's a kind of live aliveness that's not a word I know but there's a comfort and edginess in feeling, not always negative, not always positive, that isn't there in depression. And there's a difference, too, between what you feel and your interpretation of that feeling. So where we run into trouble is in this interpretation part. So most people don't get stuck in a feeling, and I'm not including depression as a feeling, it's more of an absence of feeling, I would say. You get stuck in the story, and Pema Chodron, the great American Buddhist nun and teacher in my lineage, Shambhala Buddhist lineage, says feel the feeling and drop the story.

And that is everything. That instruction is the alpha and the omega. It's everything. Certainly changed my life. Did it? So you've experimented with that? Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

And when you try to feel the feeling, where do you go? I think, you know, as you said, sort of into, you know, try and be present with what's happening in my body, or I try and just be present to what it feels like physically. And, and also, you know, emotionally, like try and locate what that pain is, if I can, if I can find it. Because I think, it's still trustworthy, but it's more complicated. But your feeling your feeling means staying with the sensation in your body. And then when it starts to pulse or intensify or dissolve, then you go with that. And, of course, there are some periods in our lives of great, great heartbreak. Someone dies or a relationship ends or something tragic happens,

and that felt sense in the body is omnipresent. But not really, because when you start to pay attention even to the worst heartbreak, there are moments when it's not there. And the pain intensifies when we try to force those moments to expand or try to stand on one pinky toe on that moment in the midst of this great sea of pain. But if you stay with how it ebbs and flows in your body, then you're on the journey. And no one can tell you where it on the journey and no one can tell you where it's going and no one can tell you how long it will take, but at least it is a trustworthy guide. Hey, y'all.

I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. And I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be. So a little bit of past, present and future, all in one idea, soothing something from the past.

And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity. It can be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really Know Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like... Why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer.

Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you. And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today.

How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening?

Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallyn, really. Yeah. No, really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called really no, really. And you can find it on the I heart radio app on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. You wrote a book called wisdom of a broken heart. Can you, um, I mean, you wrote an entire book about it,

and I'm going to ask you to say it in a sentence, which is not exactly fair, but what is the wisdom of a broken heart? You know, there are certain things, let's say two for sake of conversation, that you can't game, meaning you cannot make them be there when they're not there, and you cannot make them go away when they are.

And those two things are love and heartbreak. They're bigger than you and me. And like I say, if they're not there, you cannot make them be there, and if they're gone, you cannot make them come back. And so when we're faced, you know, not usually every day, but maybe there's one or two times in our lives when we're in a circumstance like that, then all of our conventional notions of who we are and how life goes and what works and what doesn't don't it don't work anymore they're not useful so you are forced into this kind of naked state where all you can do is look at things with a fresh and quite pained heart and so when you're shaken out of your perch like that, you see things you hadn't seen before. Your priorities realign mysteriously. Everyone's

priorities realign in the same way. So that love becomes the most important thing in your life. Love becomes the most important thing in your life. And you can feel whether it's there or not in one second. You can feel the contents of your own heart, whether you want to or not. And you can feel the presence of other people, too. too and this these capacities to hold love as the highest and feel whether love is there or not immediately and be able to feel into the experience of other people these are the gestures these are the gestures of a bodhisattva this is the activity of compassion. And though it doesn't feel good, it's compassion nonetheless, and it's a dark gateway. But it is a gateway, and most of us don't step through that

gate unless we have no choice. And for better or worse, we all seem to run into a circumstance where we don't have any choice. So it's a gateway to compassion. And that's the wisdom of a broken heart. Yeah, there are those moments where you have to be open. And I think that's when I said that that idea of dropping the storyline and feeling the feeling happened to me, you know, over something similar. And it was Pema Chodron's book, When Things Fall Apart, that was where I first encountered that particular piece of wisdom. And like I said, it was pretty revolutionary for me. God bless her. God bless her.

She has helped so many people. It's just astonishing how powerful and important her work has been in so many lives, including my own and yours. So thank you, Pema. lives, including my own and yours. So thank you, Pema. I'm sure she's listening. There's a line I use a lot. It comes from Viktor Frankl. And it's that idea that between stimulus and response, there is a space. However, I think you may have improved upon it a little bit. Well, what you talk about is that knowing how to create time, no matter how brief between what you It's not possible. stimulated in what I say or, but what I really like about what you said is I think that that a lot of times that distinction between what I've observed and felt and what I think about it is that's, that's the part for me that's so critical is before I suddenly land on my fixed interpretation. And that's the place where you make the choice of which wolf to feed. Yep. Exactly in that moment. So I appreciate you highlighting that.

And it's so interesting because we just imagine quite reasonably, because whoever told us otherwise, that you're either feeling something or thinking something. And feelings give rise to thoughts. And sure, on one level. But on another level, there is a gap. There is a gap. And it's, you know, when Buddhists talk about emptiness and space and no self and stuff like that, that tends to be very confusing to myself personally. I believe it has something to do with that gap. Yeah, that gap is important.

And I think that's, you know, I've said this on the show several times, but that's what meditation gives me, is it increases that gap just a little bit. Just enough that I can start to say, oh, wait a minute, what's, I, you know, I find myself going, do I have to think that? Is that really what I think? Is that, you know, is that the interpretation I really, you know, that I have to take? Because a lot of that stuff is so, so instantaneous, particularly if it's something that's been painful to us in the past, it's, it's almost, almost instantaneous, our landing on the interpretation. That is such a good indication of a good practice. That's of someone who is really practicing. I'm not saying that you're practicing 25 hours a day and who is, but that's a great thing that you just

said and truly a sign that your practice is going well. I think so. So one of the things that, and you and I touched on it just before the show a little bit, and, you know, we had one of our earliest guests on the show when we started was Lodro Rinsler, who I know you do a lot of work with. And we had a conversation on there, on that show, and it reminded me of today because we were talking about the concept of basic goodness. And I know that in the Shambhala lineage, that's a very big part of it, right? That we are all born with this basic underlying goodness, and then things get layered on top of that, which is sort of a slightly different approach than the more traditionally Western version, which says we're born into sort of original sin and things go from there.

What I always think is interesting, though, is when we come across something like what we were talking about earlier today, which is the shootings in France, I always find that that makes me question that concept of of basic goodness it makes me feel like you know what if we start out with with you know some degree of of these things inside us these bad things it seems easier to how we get to that than starting out good and going all the way over to that other extreme and i'm just interested in your thoughts on that. Yeah, it's the most horrible thing. It's been plaguing me all day, as well as everyone else in the world, I'm sure. You know, it's a hard one because you think, okay, basic goodness, oh, that sounds nice. Okay. What about Hitler? And what about the guy that killed all the kids

at Sandy Hook? And what about the Holocaust? And yes, what about those things? Because they are real. And they are horrible. And there is nothing good about it. And there is no mistaking that for, oh, I just had a bad day or you know it's just even if you point to all the socio-economic factors that lay the foundation for such horrific acts it still does not make it in any way bearable so i don't know is the answer but i wrote a long post no i guess long in the blogosphere now is like 1,200 words. So I wrote a post about this today because I can't find any compassion in my heart for the people who did that. I'll just tell you straight up. If they were in the room with me and I had a gun, I would not want to be in that situation. Because it's horrible. So I feel like what I can do and what a person could do is you don't have to not hate anyone.

You can hate anyone you want and you can have vast judgments of right doing and wrong doing. Go ahead. I'll probably agree with 90% of yours. And you can just feel outraged and depressed and enraged and so on. Nothing is off limits except one thing, and that is imagining that you are any different than that person because you're not. And what I mean by that is the seeds of that behavior are present, I believe, in us all. And if we lived the life that those people lived, we might have done what they did. I find that hard to imagine, but it's possible. And the danger comes not when I get outraged

and not when I fight and not when I condemn, but when I put anyone else in a less than human category, then it becomes quite a big problem. And as was in evidence today, people just took out guns and shot other people for some frigging cartoons. So that's the only line I can draw in the sand. And when it comes to basic goodness, in the face of things like this, I still stand by it. Not as a belief, but as an experience.

And what my mind always harkens back to is when those people who did this thing today came into the world, they were not born with automatic weapons in their hands. They were born reaching their arms out for the warm embrace of whoever was there. And that is how it is. That's the basic goodness. No one is born hating. Everyone is born expecting gentleness. Because that's how we're constructed. Everything else is a weird and very bad mistake.

That's the best I got. Yeah, I think it is a perplexing question. It's part of the reason I like the parable that we talk about, because it does point very clearly to, hey, that stuff is all there. I don't know that I personally, I don't think I buy into the original sin idea 100%, and I'm not sure that I 100% believe that basic goodness is our nature. I think I tend to feel more like it's all in there and how we live and what happens and the experiences we're given choose to a large extent what gets expressed. But it is a, I agree with that part that you say about not thinking that we're any different, because as soon as we start thinking that people are that's the only intelligent, that's the only thing an

intelligent person can say because I'm not, I don't want to say that people who say otherwise are stupid, but there's, everybody has to figure it out for themselves. Is there such a thing as basic goodness? Is there such a thing as original sin? Nobody can tell you. Nobody. You have to figure it out. So my experience is mine, but that doesn't let anyone, you know, no one should take my word for anything, nor should they take anyone else's word. Right. And I think to some degree it is, I get the concept of basic goodness and I think there's a free notion of that. I also think that whether it's original sin or basic goodness is almost an academic question because we all are faced with what is it that we are going to cultivate? What, you know, for to be pedantic, what wolf are we going to feed to some degree? Because we can, regardless of how we came into the world, we are, none of us are either all good or all bad. Certainly when you get to be our age, you've got a lot of both of that stuff layered in at this point. At least I do.

Well, I do too. Both of that stuff layered in at this point. At least I do. Well, I do too. And I want to take issue, I want to argue with one point, which is that it is an academic question. I think actually the experience of your life, and it sounds dramatic, but flows from your answer to that question. And even someone very smart named Albert Einstein, you know, presumed maybe the smartest guy ever. He said, he's my co-host, Chris.

Obviously. That's the first time I think I've ever said anything nice about him in like 55 episodes. So Chris, mark this. Well, Chris, what do you think about this? Albert Einstein said the most important question a person can ask is, is the universe a friendly place? I'm paraphrasing. I think it actually was the most important decision that a person could make is, do we live in a friendly or an unfriendly universe?

And, you know, that was Einstein. So he, I don't think, was saying, do you want to be in la-la land or not? I think he was saying everything, every gesture, every action, every motivation, every intention, and whatever comes before motivation and intention, which is a mysterious arising in the gap, comes from your decision on that point. Yeah, I have heard that phrase, or I've heard that, and I am in no position to probably argue with Einstein, except that he can no longer argue back. But yeah, I think that's, we can probably disagree on that one, because I think, you know, a lot of the evidence says that it's not terribly friendly sometimes out there, but I don't think that's cause for despair either. Hey, y'all.

I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. And I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart Series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back

into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be. So a little bit of past, present and future, all in one idea, soothing something from the past. And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity it could be something that you love all to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready listen to therapy for black girls starting on january 1st on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast another thing that you have said is and i really like this line you said that generally monumental realizations don't cut delusion but the moment-to-moment commitment to work with thoughts as they arise does. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Yeah, I live in Boston, Massachusetts, kind of right next to Cambridge, actually, in Somerville.

And it's a very heady place. A lot of heady people. And I'm not sure why I'm thinking of that particularly, but maybe it's just where I live, but there's a lot of attention paid to what you believe and your opinions, which everybody should have, and your opinions, which everybody should have, and your sort of mission statement, I guess,

about your life and reality and so on. And I just find that those kinds of things are traps. They're entrapments. And even if you have this great some things fall together in your mind in a really wonderful and powerful way that's fantastic but that i don't think is what actually creates real change or makes you more capable of love or a more creative person even i think it's when you take that realization into the world and watch your mind in a moment-to-moment, I don't mean in a policing way,

but in just a sort of friendly way, and are constantly making little corrections or decisions, like, oh, okay, that was a projection, let me take that back, or that was an opinion that, what is that opinion based on again? Oh, nothing? Okay, let me just set that down. Oh, I felt this, my strength, this like pull on my heartstrings when this person walked by me was that about them or was it about something that happened in me let me look at that so that kind of just checking in with your experience and living your experience and taking responsibility even i would say for your experience is a greater source of wisdom than coming to any kind of conclusion.

Yeah, I really like that line because I think that it really points to, I think there's a real tendency for all of us to want a silver bullet of some sort, right? Like if I could just, you know, I'll get this one realization, and then everything will be easy or fine. And I really like that you're sort of, you're pointing to the fact that it's a moment to moment commitment that goes on with the thoughts as they continue to come. And I think that it points to, for a lot of us, and I'm, I am guilty of this to a great degree, but it's not another realization that we need. It's not something that we haven't learned or haven't heard.

For a lot of us, it's are we practicing kind of what we know on a regular and consistent basis? Yeah, yeah, that makes sense to me. And, you know, wisdom is real and important and inseparable from compassion. Wisdom and compassion are the two sides of the same coin, and Buddhist thought and maybe other kinds of thought too. And not that they lead to it. They're inseparable.

Not that one helps the other. They're the same thing. they lead to it, they're inseparable, not that one helps the other. They're the same thing. And in our culture, we kind of separate them and think wisdom is something that has use on its own, and it does. It really does. But it doesn't make you happy or relieve the suffering of others particularly. So just a couple more things because we are getting near the end of our time. I wanted to ask you, you talk a lot about fear, and I was wondering if you could maybe give just a couple of short thoughts

on how to deal with fear that people could maybe take away from the show. Well, I think, and maybe it's just because today there's so many strong emotions swirling around, but I think that the only gesture of fearlessness that one needs to make is to not be afraid of themselves and to not be afraid of their own feelings and that's where courage courageous person is someone who's not afraid of themselves and it doesn't mean that you love everything about yourself or that you always think you do an awesome job at everything. It means that you're not afraid of your brilliance and you're not afraid of your confusion and you're not afraid of your doubt and boredom and depression. None of it. You're not afraid of your doubt and boredom and depression.

None of it. You're not afraid of your fear. And that doesn't mean you aren't afraid. It just means that you're not as scared of that, if that makes sense. And therefore, you can open your heart in even the most difficult of circumstance. And that's my definition of a warrior. Warrior. Someone who is willing to keep their heart open even when things become very, very difficult.

And, you know, without a contemplative practice or meditation practice to teach us how to do that, I think it's very hard, very hard for me anyway. So in that sense, a meditation practice is so much more. But it's also that is what you are practicing when you practice meditation. You're not practicing breathing. You already know how to do that. You're practicing remaining with your experience.

And so it itself is a gesture of courage. Yeah, I think that idea that whatever we're facing, we have the capacity to handle is such a, which is kind of everything you just said, that ability to know that whatever it is, I have the ability to deal with it. I can feel it. And it will not kill me. It's not, there's no feeling that has lasted forever. So tell us about the Open Heart Project, which is something that you have started on your website recently, and I think there's a lot of interesting things you're doing.

Can you share a little bit about what that is? Yes, thank you, because I love the Open Heart Project. It's a mailing list. It's free, and anyone who signs up for it gets a meditation instructional video from me every week on Monday with a 10-minute practice and short talk on something related to meditation. And by short, I mean usually it's under five minutes. And I started doing this because I would teach workshops or classes or whatever and say to people, if you want to

continue meditating, please find a meditation instructor. And 90% of the people would say, we don't have meditation instructors in Utah or Bolivia or wherever it is that that person lived. So I started thinking, well, I'll just send, I'll try to help. I'll send out some instruction and answer questions and so on. And now there's more than 12,000 people all over the world who practice together. And it's really become a very potent community of people who I find to be really smart, independent thinkers, who are not interested in the latest BS of how to be whatever, perfect, and are trying just their best to be human and live good, powerful, realized lives. And it's become my full-time occupation I'd say and a few months ago there were enough people that wanted to study more with me or go deeper in their practice

I started something within the open heart project called the open heart project sangha which is I think uh $27 a month, but it's a paid subscription where we work together more closely and really explore more deeply the practice and principles of meditation and also work more closely with each other as a community. So, it really sort of popped out of nowhere in my life. I mean, not nowhere. I knew what I did very intentionally, but I really did not anticipate that it would become this, but I'm really happy that it did. Yeah. I think it's such a great thing because that idea of needing a meditation teacher is, is so helpful and it is kind of hard to find, uh, experienced

meditation teachers, um, in a lot of parts of the country. And so it's, it's great that you're using that technology to, to allow, uh, more people to experience that. So, uh, listeners should definitely check it out. We'll have links to, uh, the open heart project, your website and all your stuff on a, on all of our show notes pages. Cool. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us this evening, Susan. I enjoyed it. I did too. It was really a delight to talk to you.

Thank you. Okay. We'll talk again soon. Take care. Bye. All right. Bye. you can learn more about Susan Piver and this podcast at one you feed.net slash Susan