The Rich Roll Podcast - Guru Singh On Positivity — Why Receptivity Is The Better Path

Episode Date: April 12, 2019

Welcome to yet another edition Guru Corner featuring Guru Singh, my favorite teacher on all things mystic and metaphysical. Fusing Eastern mysticism with Western pragmatism, Guru Singh is a celebrated third-generation Sikh yogi and master spiritual teacher who has been studying and teaching Kundalini Yoga for more than 40 years. He is the author of several books, a powerful lecturer and behind-the-scenes guide to many a luminary, including Fortune 500 CEOs, athletes, and artists. A peer of rock legends like Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead, Guru Singh is also an accomplished musician who began his recording career on Warner Bros’ Reprise label in the 1960's. When he isn’t laying down tracks with people like Seal, he’s bringing down the house on the daily at Yoga West, his Los Angeles home base. Today we spin the wheel on positivity. Not your typical disquisition on the benefits of adopting a positive mental attitude, we take a more nuanced approach to self-awareness. Focusing on receptivity over repression, it's a call to embrace the power of both negativity and positivity as important forces to be experienced without getting lost in either extreme. And we discuss how to break free from the entrenched, looping stories we tell ourselves about ourselves that don't serve the lives we aspire to lead. Note: If you missed my previous conversations with Guru Singh, start with episode 267 and then enjoy episodes 332,368, 393, 400 and 418. Final Note: You can watch our conversation on YouTube at bit.ly/gurucorner434b and the show is also now available on Spotify. I love this beautiful being. It's my privilege to once agains share his wisdom with you today. So let the master class resume. Peace + Plants, Rich

Imagine going into a situation that we don't just go, oh, I got to be positive. That we maybe go, I got to be receptive. I have to find out, is the negativity that I'm feeling in that moment going to be a stimulant so that I can make change and make a change that I really want, an outcome that I really want? And is positivity in that moment going to mask the true appearance so that I'm not able to actually engage change? Sometimes what appears to be negative is the most positive thing you can do.

What appears to be safe is sometimes the most dangerous thing you can be doing for your life. That's Guru Singh, and this is another Guru Corner edition of the Rich Roll Podcast. Greetings, good dwellers of planet Earth. My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. This is my podcast. Welcome. And today we have another awesome, amazing edition of Guru Corner with, you know who it's with, right?

My favorite wizard of the mystical forces and spiritual arts, the master of mindfulness, kundalini yoga, and basically just general holistic awesomeness, Guru Singh. Of course, right? Most of you are familiar with this man and his work. So I'm going to dispense with the long introduction, but check him out on our many previous conversations. I think he has appeared on, I don't know, five or six episodes, 267, 332, 368, episode 400, episode 418. And for those that are new, I'll just say that Guru Singh is a celebrated master spiritual teacher. He's an author, a musician, father, and somebody who has been teaching and studying and mastering kundalini yoga for the past 40 years. And the focus of today's conversation is positivity.

What does that word mean? It's a word that's thrown around all the time, but what are we really talking about? When is it beneficial to be positive? And when is it just simply being delusional? Well, this is the rabbit hole that we're gonna dive down today, and that's coming up in a couple of few. But first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time.

It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment, an experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to

your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey.

When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment, an experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has

been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself,

I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, so guru corner, guru sink, positivity, negativity, the tension between the two, the duality, is one better than the other in every situation, when can a negative situation be used to fuel

a positive change? And what are the benefits of just remaining neutral throughout? We discuss the importance of self-governance through enhanced awareness and the benefits of looking at things like positivity and negativity, not through the prism of our inherent judgments and values, but just as forces that simply are. This is a beautiful conversation with a beautiful man, one of my favorite humans. And it's an exchange I think is very much needed right now. So without further ado, this is me and Guru Singh.

There's a lot of negativity out there, Guru Singh. Yay. How are we going to stay positive through all this craziness? Yeah. There is no answer to that. Should we just, are we done? The podcast is over? That's it, man. The podcast is over. We're in deep, deep trouble here. I would say that every moment is an opportunity.

And as long as you're doing more than 50 percent of them in the positive you're contributing to the solution first of all why is it important to be positive do we need to be positive what is the power of positivity there's a lot of you know self-help shenanigans around the power of positivity the what is the what's the truth Are you talking about the woo-woo section of the bookstore? Yeah, there's a lot of that, but it's like, just stay positive, and that'll solve all your problems. False positives are not a good idea. No.

The discerning mind, which can be negative, is very important. I would really want to have some negativity towards the idea that I might be able to cross the yellow line and pass the truck when there's too close of an oncoming car, right? The negative mind keeps you safe. Your positive mental attitude is not going to help you out? No. I can do this is the last thing he said. So there's times for positivity and there's times for negativity.

I just believe that there's also an opportunity to be positive in negative times when, you know, everything is collapsing. Everything is being, speaking of gravity blanket, everything is being controlled by gravity which is that negative force it's just a natural force negativity it's not a thing that's bad and positively is not necessarily a thing that's good but to be able to be levitative as opposed to gravitative, right? As opposed to always having to go down with that flow, being able to be exuberant is really important in particular times to balance things out. Otherwise it gets pretty grim. Well, there's sort of performative positivity,

like looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, you know, I can do it versus truly inhabiting a positive attitude, like in its most full expression, like really owning positivity, like being positive and speaking positive words are two different things. What did you call it? You called it? Performative positivity. Wow. What a great expression. I mean, I'm sure you have to do that oftentimes when you're running, when you're bicycling, when you're swimming. Yeah, talking yourself into something. To do that all the time would be a real false positive. To do that some of the time is a real advantage. And to be able to have that tool that when you need it, you can use it,

is something that is very important. How did you develop that tool so that when you really had to talk your way through a place at whatever, 14 miles or 20 miles or whatever it is, how did you develop that tool so it could kick in? Well, I think it's a combination of two things. There's a little bit of fake it till you make it, which I have issues with that philosophy in general. In general, but in partial, I can go with it. It's helpful at times. I don't think it's a good idea to walk around faking it till you make it with everything. I don't think that's a great life philosophy, but it comes in handy from time to time. And that's something that I learned in recovery.

They say it in the rooms all the time, like fake it till you make it. Like if you, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous is a spiritual program, but a lot of people come in with a ton of baggage around God and spirituality and religion, et cetera. And they have a hard time accepting the spiritual component of that

particular program. And so what is said is fake it till you make it. Like just, okay, so you don't put, that's fine. Just, you know, pretend until you can kind of get on board. And I think that works for certain things and in other areas of life. But like I said, it's not great all the time. So I think for me, there's a little bit of that in the training and the racing. Like if you think you can't do it, just what would somebody who is capable of doing that tell themselves and what would they do

and trying to mimic that? I think it's a powerful tool. But I think the more powerful tool and what gets me through those particular moments that you're referring to is experience. the moment and hang on to what I did in that moment or just the pure memory of that is enough fuel to tell me, oh, I've done this before. I've been here before. I got through it before. I know I can get through it this time. That's the antithesis of fake it till you make it because I've actually done it in the past and I can leverage that memory and that visceral experience in my consciousness to fuel whatever I'm in the midst of in that moment. I just captured a great metaphor when you were

talking from what you were saying. You know, when you're running a car, let's just say that we're not all electric cars. And when you're starting a car, you use the battery, which you only use for a few moments, and then you're not using the battery. And then you use the starter motor, which engages. And once the engine is turning over, then you're not using that. And so these battery starter motors could almost be parallel to that fake it and you'll make it until you get something really happening and the really happening is sometimes the memory of a previous happening in my life the

idea of being positive in the negative I've been fortunate enough to know that there was reasons for both, right? So being negative, it's a fuel. Being positive, it's a fuel. Being positive in a negative situation is almost like a match striking against an abrasive surface. It can ignite something. And so the idea of these opposites play out. Sometimes when you're in a negative situation, it's time to dive even deeper. You mean into the negativity? Into the negativity.

Yeah, I think what happens is sometimes positivity gets conflated with denial. So what I mean by that is- Good point. You could be 100 pounds overweight and you're looking at yourself in the mirror and you're like, don't worry, it's okay. You look great. It's like, no, you don't look great. You're 100 pounds overweight.

Maybe negativity is the wrong word, but how about just honesty? How about snapping that denial and just being truthful with yourself? Like, no, I'm overweight. I need to address this. It doesn't feel good to be this overweight. This is a negative physical state for me and it feels negative in my body. Then you can leverage that negativity as fuel, as you mentioned, to catalyze change. But if you're just walking around with a blind, positive attitude about everything, then you're missing signals to make changes in your life that could make your life better. What is it they call Pollyanna? Pollyanna. Yeah, that's exactly what it is,

being Pollyanna. So that's positivity in Pollyanna, positivity in denial, these are different things. I'm really touched by the word denial. And I also would think that if we wanted to realize that some positivity is a state of like, what did you call it again? You called it a performative. Yeah. Sometimes positivity is pure denial. Imagine that we don't think of negative as bad and we don't think of positive as good.

We just think of them as like hot and cold water on a shower. You walk into a hotel. There's a reason why the thing, when it turns on in the hotel shower, starts out cold, is so that nobody burns themselves. Anybody can get cold water. Won't cause permanent damage, but the hot water could. And so imagine going into a situation that we don't just go, oh, I got to be positive. That we maybe go, I got to be receptive.

I have to find out, is the negativity of being 100 pounds overweight, right? Is the negativity that I'm feeling in that moment going to be a stimulant so that I can make change and make positive change, so that I can make change and make a change that I really want, an outcome that I really want? And is positivity in that moment going to mask the true appearance so that I'm not able to actually engage change? Right. The idea that positivity and negativity are opposite charges, right? To allow yourself to feel that negative influx of emotion that comes with breaking the denial that you're a hundred pounds overweight is good as long as it catalyzes

that opposite. Spoken by two people that are definitely not overweight. Not anymore. If it can catalyze that opposite positive charge to say, okay, I have this problem. I'm going to own it without any denial. I'm going to be honest about where I'm at right now, but I can solve this. Think about it. We run our entire world on negativity. Electrons are negatively charged. So meaning like all electronics? Yes, all electronics are negatives.

And that means not bad, right? There's a lot of advantage in gravity, the gravity of a situation. There's a lot of advantage in gravity. There's also advantage in levity. And I think really knowing when positive and when negative is going to be of greater value in a moment is a good thing to aspire to. Yeah. In the same way that using your, like sort of extending on your analogy of the starter, the battery and the starter engine, negativity could then set in motion a chain of events that leads you to a perspective of defeat and victimhood right which would be the the gasoline engine churning on the charge created by the negative impulse yeah or the

negative impulse could could create a positive chain of actions that set you in a different direction so they all have their place really Really good. Yeah. In sequence. But the engine, the gasoline engine, to use the analogy, that you want to be churning on is the positive one. And what if you look in the mirror and you say, man, I look like shit. I look horrible. And letting that be a stimulant, which is the And letting that be a stimulant, which is the starter engine, stimulant to starting up the main engine. Trying to stay away from the word gasoline, carbon-free.

You know, the gasoline engine, which is the plan that you're going to do, that you're going to run this far, you're going to eat this way, you're going to do this stuff, and eventually you're going to drop that excess weight. So you have to hit the negative in order to get into the positive. And then you have to use the positive to get you through all of the negatives that are going to be attacking you as you're striving to not eat so much, you feeling hungry, that's a negative feeling. Or to weather all the setbacks and the obstacles that are going to get thrown in your path on the trajectory towards achieving that goal. So it's really about navigation, huh? Being positive in a negative world, it's really about navigating the negativity and knowing when to use which. Well, it's easy to say, okay, this is how you should be.

This is how you should react. This is how you should be. This is how you should react. This is how you should look at something. This is the disposition that you should inhabit on your goal towards losing 100 pounds or whatever it is. But that's very different than the doing of it. And in the doing of it, you're going to have to get really negative at some times and you're going to have to get really positive.

But being able to know how to switch back and forth. So this is what I'm getting at. Like, how do you do that? If you're somebody who has been in a victim pattern or somebody who has a negative disposition or looks at, you know, the world like the glasses, you know. Got a hole in it. Which one is it? Half empty. Half full? Got a hole in it like my glass did earlier.

Yeah, exactly. As a crack in the glass. If those are the lenses through which you perceive your reality, how does one shift that? Gently. gently because usually those kinds of deep seated perspectives are genetic they come from what happened in your parents life what happened in your grandparents life what happened in your great-grandparents life epigenetic epigenetically it's in your great-grandparents' life. Epigenetic. Epigenetically, it's in your DNA. And I mean, I know that I had a sort of a knee-jerk response

to certain things that would occur that for decades I was dealing without actually diving in, you know, dealing with rather than diving into. And this was controlling my world, not at a macro level, but, you know, on a micro level of what I was experiencing when I was working in the world that we all live in. And then I got to, in my meditation, I got to a place where I said, you know what? I actually start to see the pattern. Let me actually work on that a little bit every day.

And that's why I say gently. Let me work on it a little bit every day, a little bit like a game of pickup sticks, a game of cosmic pickup sticks. Let me move a stick every day so that the whole thing doesn't collapse. And then let me move another stick the next day. And I had to work my way through this really deep seated, which is often nonverbal, even non-visual, non-auditory. It's just this sensation that you have of being of a particular modality. I'm sure you felt it throughout your life as well. Yeah, of course. I mean, I've had a historic kind of tendency to catastrophize. You too? Of course.

Get footer there, man. This is the worst thing that could ever happen to me. I love the word catastrophize. So the way that I've tried to claw my way out of that preset is two different things. First of all, it comes with experience. Like some of the things that have happened to me in my life that I thought were the absolute worst possible things that could ever happen to me have turned out to be the best things. Teachers. So I've learned the hard way to not prejudge situations and circumstances because we lack the necessary evidence to make that judgment. We don't know whether something is good or bad.

Evidence. Especially when we're in the midst of it occurring. We're not qualified to make that judgment. In the midst. It just is. In the midst. Right. Yeah.

It just is. It's Sanskrit, translated from the Sanskrit. It's called viewing the what is. Very simple. What is the Sanskrit word? The Sanskrit word is pratyahara. And it's just basically viewing, being so much in your calm that you're just viewing the what is without any attitude. Right.

So the practice is, can you be neutral? We're not even talking about being positive or negative. If your preset is to catastrophize or to perceive a certain situation when it arises as a bad thing, as a negative thing, let's start with just trying to be neutral. Can we not judge it? It's harder than it sounds. Well, look at the, yes, it is. Look at the expressions that have governed life. Don't get your hopes up. You don't want to be disappointed, right? And being full of yourself was considered to be a bad thing. Even the word ego, you're in your ego, right?

And even spirituality has made this ego thing just like taboo. But think about it. Anybody who has ever achieved anything positive in their life has had to be a bit full of themselves, has had to be somewhat self-centered, has had to be in their ego. Think of it as you're in the psychological form of Carl Jung and your ego is basically the glue that holds your being in your body, your conscious, spiritual, soul body, whatever you want to refer to it're losing that, it's when you are depressed, right? So thinking along the lines of the negative is going to be a teacher and the positive is going to be an opportunity, being able to work with both. It's a little bit like that car metaphor we've been using, jumping into a car that's got a great battery, a great engine, a great accelerator, and no brakes. But on the tip of the ego, sort of celebrating the good aspects of the ego, the countervailing measure against that always has to be humility. Yeah. Because the

ego unchecked will take you down every single time. Yeah. Well, I would say this. I would say that you're absolutely correct, but learn how to go down gracefully. Because if you are afraid of using your ego, and I'm not saying that this is what in any way, shape, or form that you were indicating, but it is what is out there in the world. And it's definitely what's out there in the world, more so on paths of consciousness. And so on paths of consciousness, everyone is afraid of being in your ego. And I say err on the side of being too much in your ego rather than error on the side of being too little of your ego. And then find yourself not having humility and get trashed, blow it, and then learn from that. And that's what is ultimately, even if it's negative, is ultimately super positive in the negativity of this world.

It's like a plant-based diet in a carnivorous environment, right? It's like a carbon clean attitude in a very carbon dioxide filled atmosphere, I would say that we should encourage people to err on the side of being in their ego more than not. That's a very counterintuitive perspective. Oh, I'm glad. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that I would have expected you to come from that view. you to come from that view? I come from that view because I've seen too many people in the false positive, which was what you were talking about earlier. Am I doing the right thing? Am I being the right way? And I want to blow off the shell so that I can fully expose myself being positive in the negative. And I think that that requires ego. I don't think that you could be the elite athlete that you are if your ego wasn't stimulated positively?

Yeah, I would grant you that. But I think there's a difference between somebody who moves forward in the world with a deep, profound sense of their personal self-worth, somebody who's coming from a perspective of, I have something to say. My perspective is valid. I believe in myself and I'm here to stake my claim versus somebody whose ego is being fueled by insecurity and lack and fear, who's saying, all these people are doing all these things. So I'm going to make a big brash show of everything to convince everybody that, you know, I should be here,

but deep down, I know that I probably shouldn't. Well, I just thought of a great expression. So ego is what I'm talking about. E-stop is what you're describing, you know, the brash, you know, E-stop is what you're describing, you know, the brash, you know, not humble person is an E-stop. We need to have that. That's a negative. Ego is positive. And like you said, you didn't expect that. But I would say err on the side of making too much and then learn how to dial it back. Because then you're actually riding on the point of the wave, on that point of the crest, so that your effort is a bit effortless.

You gain momentum, all of those important physics expressions of how to ride the wave of time. I get that. I think on the path there, we have to still overcome whatever negative presets we have. So back on that subject of catastrophizing. I love that. The other technique that I would use, that I still use, is to play it out. So if your perspective is, oh my God, this thing happened. It's the worst thing ever.

I can't believe it. It's terrible. My life is over. To just go, all right, well, this happened. So then that means that this next thing is going to happen. And then this next thing is going to happen. So you're playing it out. Yeah.

And then you're like, okay. In your mind. Right. Like, oh, my car broke down on the way to the most important interview I've ever had. This is terrible. I'm not going to get the job. Then nobody's going to hire me. And I'm not going to be able to pay my rent. I'm going to be homeless and I'm going to starve and I'm going to die. But it feels that real. That is catastrophizing.

So to then break that down into its pieces and say, all right, my car broke down. So what happens if, okay, so I'm going to be late for the interview. Worst case scenario is I don't get hired for this job. Like, well, maybe I'm not supposed to get hired for that. Maybe that's because there's a better job. Like, let's live in the reality of, okay, now you've just lost this job opportunity. How does that feel? Well, I'm still breathing.

I'm still here. That's beautiful. It's not great, but to live in all of those eventual potential realities is helpful to me to then say, no matter what transpires, I'm not going to die. I will be okay. developing a more neutral and ultimately a more positive perspective that will provide you with the strength to crawl out of the catastrophizing hellhole. Catastrophizing has got to be a word that we use a lot of from here on forward. I've been using it for a long time. Have you? Yeah. Well, you know, a great teacher, Yogi Bhajan, once said,

make up words. Every word was made up at some point. That's true. We sort of think that all words just existed preordained. That's crazy. So the idea that you have this neutrality, the positive and the negative, is also a part of the actual makeup of the human brain. We've got negative mind, which is the part of the brain that is going to look for the pitfalls and the danger points and all of that. We've got the positive mind that is going to project,

I can do this or whatever it is in any moment. And then we've got the one that sits in between that is neither negative or positive. It's the neutral mind. And because the world is so, you know, sort of fixated on surviving and we have this idea of the enemy and that which is dangerous or, you know, so many industries are just governed by this idea that the way we use

our brain has very much gotten into the negative side of that trilogy. Well, because it's being stoked by fear. It's being stoked by fear. And so the nature of infinity is that infinity can't be measured, there is no location, and it can't be multiplied or divided. It's very much like the zero. And in infinity, every moment and every point in space is infinite. So what that means is that in every moment, in every place that you are, there is an infinite amount of opportunity. But what happens is that negativity, as you say, stoked by fear,

is governing the way in which our brain is relating. And epigenetically, we are being programmed. We're being programmed in school. We're being programmed. Look at this. We go to school and we are told we have to hide our work. We can't collaborate with anybody on a big test. Then we go out into the workplace and it's all about collaboration. So we haven't really been trained in school as to what we're going to be using going forward. And I have a diagram for this. All right. The PowerPoint. The PowerPoint. It's coming out.

And here. So. For those listening, he just pulled out a placard with like magic marker arrows on it. Yeah. And one is really big and that's the all-inclusive position, which includes the red arrow, which are all the danger points that we really want to keep our eye on, the negative mind. And all the blue are all the positive points that exist. Like you were saying, I'm still breathing. Your car broke down. I'm still breathing. I won't get this job, but maybe I'll get a better job, right? And so what happens is that the sympathetic nervous

system goes, oh man, this is the worst thing. We catastrophize with it. The parasympathetic nervous system goes, okay, that's real. It doesn't ignore that, but it also realizes that there's a lot around that that are opportunities. And so being positive and the negative is sometimes just an opportunity of being able to do a breathing exercise that kicks in that parasympathetic nervous system. To override the fear impulse, the negative impulse. Yeah. Catastrophizing. You say that that was a part of your world? Yeah. It's like hardwired into me. Wow. I had an interesting thing hardwired into me, and that was that that when something was going to be really great, uh-oh, what's the downside? And I suppose they're kind of similar because, and I had to really work to embrace that.

Yeah. Or like, when's the other shoe going to drop? Exact expression. Like, as soon as things are going well, well, it's just a matter of time before it's all going to fall apart. Isn't that it? These horrible expressions that people were trained with. And I know where these- So what did you do to overcome that?

Because I think that's pretty common. I sat with my victim, right? Because that's what it is, right? When things are really great, something is going to happen. And, you know, what is it? Wait for the other shoe to drop. And I had to sit. What I did was I sat with who that was. And then I found out where that was in the past of my family tree. And I found that this was not something that was an experience of my lifetime.

This was something that was an experience not only of my parent, but my grandparent's lifetime. And I'm sure that it went back farther than that. And so, you know, a lot of these things that govern us, like the microbes, right, the microbiome, not only is that microbiome governing our ways in which we express and feel and think and talk, but also those experiences outside of time, those experiences from our genetic past, are governing how we view. So you and your

catastrophizing and me and my other shoe is going to drop. We had to walk through, you know, those years where that was our governing, you know, attitude. And it carried us through certain times that gave us the opportunity to learn some lessons. Yeah. And these things are very, I mean, I'm asking you because they're very difficult to even confront, let alone overcome. So whether you're somebody who's a constant victim, the world is against you, whether you catastrophize, whether you have imposter syndrome, that's another thing that I have

to wage war with. That's another thing that I have to wage war with. That's the fraud factor. Yeah, the idea that they're going to find out. They're going to come in here at Guru Singh and they're going to take these microphones away. Do you know that anyone who is being positive to override is feeling that? And it was really good for all of your listeners

to realize that you too have that sensation when you're being, because a lot of people could look at you, just like you said, a lot of people could look at me and say, well, Guru Singh, of course, he's born that way, but not really. Oh, I mean, this is something I deal with all the time.

When I was a lawyer, like who does he think he is being a lawyer? Then when I become this athlete, well, who does this, who does this lawyer think he can do this athlete thing? Now he's going to be a podcaster. Come on. Like this, this, this is never going to work. So important. Who does he think he is? So important for people to hear this because neither you nor I nor anyone else that has made any kind of a brand for themselves got there without a lot of need to be positive in the negative or to use the negative to be able to gain momentum like the starter engine and the battery, to gain momentum to get the whole thing rolling. One of the other tools that I use, I think we might have talked about this before,

but in addition to maintaining neutrality and then also walking through all the steps and feeling what it would feel like in a worst-case scenario, a third tactic that I found very helpful is to understand that we're all living in this story that we've constructed about who we are. And that story is based on isolated incidents that we've selected for some reason in our mind and then strung together to create a narrative that coheres around a principle. Like, things never work out for me. See, this happened, and then when I was 12, and then when I was 17, this happened, and then when I was 21, I got left at the altar. Whatever it is that

informs that story then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But to understand that that story is fundamentally untrue, yes, these certain things happen to you. They happen to you amongst the untold trillions of things that have happened to you over the course of your life. You just made a decision to, you decided that these were important, but you can just as easily make a decision that other things can hold that level of significance and hang your hat on them to forge a new story about what should or could happen when you're in a particular scenario. I see what you're saying is, what do you choose to hardwire in? Right. Because our memory- First of all, do we have a choice?

We do have a choice. And our memory is obviously selective based on our emotional attitude and an overriding agenda. And some of it is unconscious, like if a trauma occurs, it's going to anchor itself. It's going to anchor and be hardwired in but the bottom piece that i work with in both in myself and in in advising others is pick a time every day in which you're going to actually dedicate some of your life to rewiring some of the hard wiring because it is that hard wiring that's

either epigenetically involved or if you've suffered a trauma in this lifetime it's there and that is what you are basing memory off of because the memory is constantly relating back to those key points and saying is this an additional component that's like this? And if so, I need to remember this. Because the brain will always be going along with viewing through the lens of what's hardwired in that's forming that lens. And so being able to not be a false positive, but being able to be positive in this world. I mean, Julie and her friend Tamara were, you know, on me one time when we were at a gathering at your house. And, you know, I had just come in from, you know, being out there in the world and experienced all of these things. And of course, I'm not, you know, blind to what's going on in

media and news. And, you know, and I was thinking, you know, well, the race is really on. And I was using that negativity to be very stimulating. And your wife and her good friend were looking at me and they were like working me over, you know, at this gathering saying, no, come on, man, back to your positive self. And it was really beautiful because what I saw later was, all right, they saw me in very rough water and they threw me a life ring. And they said, grab onto this because you're in some really rough water now. And you want to have this as an extra security. And I really loved that.

And that was being positive in a negative where I knew I had to dive in and experience the negative because if I didn't experience it, I wouldn't know what it was. I wouldn't know how it was affecting people. The key is not getting lost in it though, right? And that requires a certain level of awareness. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, all you have to do is go on Twitter and just scroll and the level of negativity is unbelievable. The level of childishness.

Yeah. There's a lot of that. Yeah. So, the point I'm trying to make is there's a lot of people, like you have to have a little bit of awareness to go, okay, I'm being negative. I got to pull back or I want to experience this negative impulse so that I can use it as recall to fuel my positive disposition moving forward or whatever it is. But without that awareness, you're just going to be lost. And I think there's a lot of people who are lost in their negative thought patterns, their victim consciousness, whatever it is. And they're not even consciously aware that that's how they're proceeding through life. Like if you sat them down and said, look, on 30 occasions today, you said, you know, it never works out. Some version of like, it never works out for me. I think most people who kind of fit that mold would be surprised to hear that. Because they're running on this loop that is triggered in an unconscious way.

Because it's so deeply embedded in who they are. So for that personality type, how does one begin the process of deconstructing that? How does that get you? Where does that take you? These are the kinds of questions that a mirror needs to reflect. that a mirror needs to reflect. A partner, a friend, and then ask of the world around it, call me too, call me out too.

You know, how does that protect you? How does that attitude protect you? How does that statement work for you? Those are not attack phrases. Those aren't even rhetorical questions. In fact, they're actually honest questions. And when you come up with an answer to those things and you go, well, it does this and it makes me, and then go a little deeper. Well, and where does that go? And I find that if what my wife and I do with each other is that we won't say, hey man, you're being this way right now.

We'll just say, hmm, how's that doing? Is that something that you're consciously choosing? And we start to key each other. And so I would advise people that are listening or watching that you need to have a buddy system. You also need to have a buddy system within yourself. You talked about, either on this or a previous podcast, about your experience of seven years with The Artist's Way.

Yeah, or just doing inventory. Doing inventory, doing morning pages, doing a journaling practice and finding out how does that work for you. Either have someone call you on it or call yourself on it. Because I find that if I get trapped in an unconscious pattern,

I can go on for a very long time. And if that pattern is helpful, constructive, productive, it's a good thing. Yeah. It requires rigorous honesty. Rigorous honesty from within yourself and honesty on behalf of the buddy, if you're in the buddy system, to give you the uncomfortable feedback. Got to be fearless. A lot of people don't like that. Fearless. But you've got to get comfortable with that level of honesty if you want to graduate out of that. What you got to get comfortable also with is the level of reaction to your honesty. And then you'll get more aware of how to deliver the honesty, because honesty delivers. If you're the buddy, you mean.

Yeah. Or even if you're your own buddy. How do you tell yourself that there he is, you did it again? How do you tell yourself that you just did it for the umpteenth time, and you knew you were going to do it, and you knew you were doing it, and you knew you did it for the umpteenth time and you knew you were going to do it and you knew you were doing it and you knew you did it and blah, blah. You got to be your friend. You got to be able to be gentle in your corrections. Yeah. I think what happens in real life is that people who have a negative disposition or play the victim card, generally aren't on the receiving end of a lot of honest feedback. If they are, they push that person away. And most people just won't say anything.

They'll just kind of slowly move backwards until that person becomes very isolated and alone. And this is... Because no one wants to be around that person. You used a good word, honesty, because this is a form of dishonesty, isn't it? What is? To move back and not to say anything, not to be that mirror. I suppose. I think people just, they get uncomfortable and they're just like, well, I just don't, you know, for some people it's setting a healthy boundary. Like, I just don't, I don't want people like that in my orbit. So I'm moving in another direction.

It's not malicious. It's discretionary. Dishonest too. Yeah, I guess. Well, do you have it, is it incumbent upon you to tell that person they're being a certain way? That feels like a transgression as well. Yeah, that is sort of modern interpretation. I think it's the way in which it's done and the point at which it's done.

And the kind of relationship that you have with that person. And the kind of relationship that you have with that person. But I even think that there's ways of stepping into, and I'm not saying dishonesty in a neutral way that isn't going to be conflicting with the sanctity or the appropriateness of a situation. I think you have to be able to be very conscious, very intuitive as to how that plays out and also be able to have a, you know, step three and four after you've taken step one and it didn't go so well, you know, be able to have an apology in place so that if you've stepped on a toe too harshly, that you can, you know, move to the apology as your step two. But I'm, and then I think what will end up happening is that you will, like the birds of a feather that flock together, I think that you will end up attracting those who want to know

and be moved away from those who want to hide. And I don't say hide, meaning that they're wrong or bad. I just mean that they don't want to have that much information in that moment. I think the crucial thing with somebody who's trying to grow or overcome these kinds of habits is that you have to be open and willing to receive information about your behavior that could be perceived as critical that could be perceived as critical in a way where you understand it's not personal. Do you realize that we've just turned the title around?

What? Because we started out by positive and the negativity, right? But now what we're talking about is how to successfully be negative in the positivity. That's beautiful. I love it because it is, you know, we're revolving positives and negatives around a neutral center. And sometimes it's appropriate to be positive, sometimes negative, and sometimes neutral. I mean, you've raised children. You've raised beautiful, creative. I've taken long drives with them. I know who they are. I've met them. I've heard them, you know, in their creative moments. And I've done the same. positive, and you have to be positive in the negative. And then there's other times when you have to be completely neutral, which is kind of what you and I were working over, you know, maybe three minutes, five minutes ago. Is it, what about that neutrality? You know, you said,

when you said, I never expected that to come out of you, you know, yeah, there is that that needs to come out of each one of us and then there are those times when would you say transgressing then there are those times when you really have to be that neutral person that you will see that right now there is no way in hell that any statement from me is going to have any beneficial effect. I'm trying to understand that. Explain that to me a little bit more. Well, when you're raising children, there's a time for positive and there's a time for negative. And then there's also those times, particularly when they're in their adolescent stage, when neutrality is a little better way of moving the game forward?

Right, I get that. To me, it feels more like non-reactivity. Like I try to, I think having neutrality in how you deliver a message, whether that message is inherently negative or positive is important. So I think neutrality is kind of the overriding, overarching theme with which one should aspire to communicate in terms of providing feedback on somebody else's behavior.

You think? In an appropriate- You think? Yeah. Really? You've got to detach your own emotional baggage from that. I love it. Otherwise, you're projecting your own bullshit

on somebody else. You're right. Which is you're projecting your own bullshit on somebody else. You're right. Which is what we're all doing all the time anyway. What is it that the yogis said? I don't know. What did the yogis say? The only sound of truth. Many things.

The only sound of truth is the sound of your inhale. If you add anything to the exhale, it's your opinion. Oh, that's beautiful. I like that. I'd never heard that before. Yeah. Who said that specifically? Oh, goes back so far.

Unknown yogi. Goes back so far, it's unknown, you know. But that was what they would say, that the sound of your inhale is shh. And that's why they said sat is the sound of that truth, that nourishing inhale. And then everything after that is an opinion. Yeah, right. And what are we even talking about here? There you go.

But hey, you can't go to that state of neutrality. You would just sit and do nothing, which is what the Buddha had to do. It's what Jesus had to do. It's what Jesus had to do. It's what Krishna had to do for those lengths of time. It's what the yogis did in the caves where they would sit. It's what the deep meditation is, is to sit in the total neutrality, sit in the total darkness, sit in the total encapsulation

in order to come up with that innovation i was talking to a close family member and this person was saying that he was borderline despondent, like having a really hard time, like just swimming and drowning in negativity. And I said, well, what are you doing? Like, how do you spend your time? He's like, well, I watch tons of news. Like, basically, this person was saying politics is what has him completely bent out of shape. And I'm like, well, why do you, you don't have to watch the news. You don't have to be subsumed by the daily discourse and drama.

Good word. But this person felt like they couldn't hit the off switch on that. I think it gets more complicated because despite the awareness that this person has that this consumption of this kind of content leads to this kind of negative disposition, the inability to hit that switch and course correct is in part fueled by the fact that there's something about that negative influx of information or drama or whatever it is that on some level is doing something for that person. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it.

So there's something that's working for them in the same way that drugs and alcohol work for an alcoholic or an addict. It's not a great thing to do, but there's something about it that's functioning for them. And I think in order to really deconstruct this, you have to acknowledge that and get to the bottom of what it is that that is serving

in order to figure a way out that's healthier. What it serves in part at times, not to create a gross generality, is safety. If I know what's happening in that world, I mean, when did politics become the obsession, right? It evolved over time. It's now a competitive sport, this team and this team, right?

Who got the win today? But it goes way back. It's attached to our physical body and our need to survive, calamity. If we know where all the danger points are, and the news will definitely feed that, because the news is, for the news will definitely feed that, because the news is, for the most part, bad news, or at least there is some bad in the news. I will know the danger points in my world, and I will then, because I got my eye on those danger points, don't take your eye

off the ball. And if the ball is the danger points and I've got my eye on it continuously, then I am safe. And that is what that obsession does for people. People feel that if they keep their eye on that ball, they will be safe. And that's why we've created these opportunities for these charlatans, these hucksters, to rise to the top of all of these positions globally. Because that was a ripe, fertile field for them to become the most demonstrative.

There's a reason why the word demonstrative and demon have the same root. Yeah. I mean, there's definitely something to that. I think it's also informed by our deep desire to belong to a certain tribe. So this sport of politics plays into that base drive and then paying attention to it allows us to shore up our membership in whatever respective camp we are allegiant to. Yeah. Good word, tribe,

because it is a very primitive function in the human psyche and the psycho-emotional apparatus being tribal, being very, very, it's a tribal activity that I am consciously choosing to engage in, or is this a tribal activity that I have been swept into? into. So to be positive, to be levitational in the gravity of a situation is important so that you get some distance and you can see before the fact what is happening in fact. Yeah. What's the solution? Solution in my estimation is to take time out, time out every day. in my estimation is to take time out, time out every day. You could take time out while you're preparing your food. You could take time out when you're relating to your children. You could take time out on a morning walk or a, I wouldn't take time out on a drive because you better be paying attention to the road. But you can take time out in so many different ways. I take time out in deep meditation, deep, deep meditation, going into a dream time where I'm not even aware of my physical surroundings at least two or three times each week. I have to

get into that state for an extended period of time. When I say an extended period of time, I mean at least 30 minutes, an hour. And what is the experience when you come out of one of those sessions? Fresh, refreshed, reboot. It's kind of like turning off your computer or turning off your phone because things were jamming up

and then all of a sudden it's kind of like new again. And that's what happens when I come out of it. I don't, and this is good because I'm glad you brought into the title and that neutral position. And then what did you say? Non-reactive. Because when I come out of that, I may not be neutral, but I'm definitely non-reactive. Yeah. And that becomes like a superpower. Definitely non-reactive. Yeah. And that becomes like a superpower.

Superpower. Isn't that interesting too? In today's world, probably the most profitable media company right now is Marvel. And all they're doing is making things about these super realistic, sometimes very unrealistic. Not always that realistic. Yeah, just these people with superpowers. Because coming out with a fresh view of what's going on in this world is being positive in the negativity,

being refreshed in the negativity, not denying the negativity, but being able to at least be able to survive the negativity long enough to identify what the negativity is, and then going into your creative factors, coming up with a solution. That's wrong, and you fail, and you you forgive yourself and you come back, come up with another solution that may or may not be right. And you have to keep trial and error until you come up with a pathway through to navigate. So I would say that was perhaps one of the most important reasons why I try to maintain positivity in the negative is to be able to navigate. Yeah. And I think with that, developing that acumen to be non-reactive, that superpower,

the more finally you can hone that over time as your practice matures, it's that non-reactivity that gives you that space to objectively assess not just your environment and the stimuli that's coming at you, but also your own behavior. So that you are more apt and able to catch yourself falling prey to one of those negative looping behaviors or actions or phrases that come out of your mouth, to have the awareness and say, oh, I did it again. Look, I just did it, as opposed to being on autopilot where you're doing it and you don't even know that you're doing it. Yeah. As you were telling that, I was just thinking about some scenarios in my world where I would repeat patterns, right? We all do. And know that I was going to get into that same hole.

So at one point in time, there was this pattern that when I'm in a meeting that has more than three or four people in it, it's like a board meeting or a group meeting or an organizational meeting. And I just see the whole thing going stupid. And I'm thinking, look, I can't be the only smart person in the world, in the room right now, but what I see is really ridiculous. And I would come out with what I thought was a solution to the ridiculousness, and then the whole room would turn on me. And I would go, okay, I did it again you know and I kept and I kept working this for year after year

decade after because you know we've been through a few meetings right at this age and finally I just said you know what this is an unsolvable riddle so I'm'm just going to go for it. And so the last meeting that I used this technique in, I used it to the nth degree. I said, I really came to the point where I just turned to the whole room and said, are we really going to be this ridiculously stupid and go down this path. And I was raising my voice and I was standing up and sitting down. We were all sitting around a big circular table. And afterwards, people just sort of like, what the just happened? And I thought, this is good. I no longer have to be in these rooms. I graduated. So then you're out? They're like, I am out. If I find myself in a situation in which I am reacting,

and no matter what I've done over years and years, I'm still not improving on that. I say, Guru Singh, you better listen to what's here because you have this perspective that you think that that activity or that attitude is wrong. You've never been able to change it. And so now let's go on the opposite direction and what I found was I am now where I'm supposed to be and I'm no longer finding myself in those rooms I'm in rooms I'm in groups I'm in people I'm with people but for some reason I was holding myself in those kinds of settings that would just totally aggravate me until I realized I didn't have to put up with them. I didn't have to go nice with them. I didn't have to be that tolerant voice

with them. I just had to blow myself up in the middle of them so that I would never get back into the middle. Well, that's would never get back into the middle. Well, that's one way of going about it, I guess. I mean, what's the takeaway from that? If your body is telling you, if your gut is telling you that the negativity that you're feeling and the positivity that you're trying to display in the midst of that negativity isn't working and hasn't been working, then you need to go with your gut. And you need to not necessarily like in an abrupt way

and telling everybody that they're totally messed up way. But in a gentle way, you need to start moving yourself out of the orbits that you're currently in and give yourself, if it's a work setting, give yourself some runway. If it's a social setting, give yourself some runway and allow yourself to gently work your way out of those situations in which you feel like being a positive force in a negative situation is never appreciated. I like that. It sounds like you just blew the whole thing up, though. I did.

And then you're like, no, I never have to go back there again. No, no, I didn't blow it up. You blew up your place in the... I blew its receptivity to me being a part of it. And I had to do that not because they were unable. I had to do it because I had been unable for all those decades to step out of that. I'm not talking about a specific setting, but to be able to step out of that kind of setting and not subject myself to it. I mean, people all the time are saying,

you know, well, I should put up with it. I should be neutral, right? I should be even, I should be non-reactive. I should just not cause waves. No, at some point in time, the most positive thing you can do is to be super negative. What I get out of that is the negativity, the frustration, the depression,

whatever kind of negative impulse-related emotions arise, often come from situations in which we feel powerless, right? So we can rage against politics or your sports team that never wins or whatever it is. Something that we fundamentally can't control or direct, right? Is a source of pain and frustration and all of these emotions that I just said. And a way forward is to try to release your attachment to those things to fundamentally understand that you don't have control over them. It's kind of a relief if you can connect with that.

And instead, focus on the things that you can control. You can control whether you're going to be a member of that meeting, that board or whatever it is, and you have control over whether you attend or not. You don't have control over the group consensus. You can attempt to influence it, which you did many times. It caused you consternation and frustration until you like have these outbursts. So the thing you can control is your involvement, right? So the thing you can control is your involvement, right? Similarly, we can't control politics. We can control how much politics we consume,

to use that example. It's one of a million examples, right? We can control how we move our body, what we put in our mouths. We can control our various behaviors. We can't control other people, scenarios, situations. There's actually very little that we can control. But the more energy we place and invest in those few things that we can control, I think is a positive path forward to cultivating the positive mental

attitude that we all seek to embody. So every time we eat, putting the right food in our body. Yeah, we have a choice. Are we going to put high vibration food into our body or are we going to eat junk food that we know is going to make us depressed? And every time that we have a moment that we could exercise or slouch, we have a choice. It doesn't mean that you have to exercise every moment that you have

a free moment. And it doesn't mean that you can't eat a bit of junk that really tastes good every once in a while, not to be fanatic, but you've got to have a majority of your time consuming, whether it's eating or listening or seeing positivities otherwise you're going to be just another contributor and the negative would result that in the situation of stimuli coming at you you have a choice to react impulsively or to respond mindfully it's like don't be don't have your mouth open in a food fight. Make choices. Easier said than done.

Easier said than done. But the idea that, and one of the things that I would like to get across to the listeners and viewers, is that sometimes what appears to be negative is the most positive thing you can do. What appears to be safe is sometimes the most dangerous thing you can be doing for your life. And how do you develop awareness over what is the correct move? What we were just talking about are some of the fundamental small moves, the small initial moves. Eat right, sleep right, exercise right. Sleep right is really important. Trying to bait you with it. We're not going to go down the gravity blanket rabbit hole again.

I love it. I do love it. I was trying to bait you. And there we go. But eat right, sleep right, exercise right. And then start to monitor, start to discipline your think right, your speak right. And every once in a while, just blow it all up and see if it comes back together in a natural. I don't mean literally, but just rock your boat. Every once in a while, rock your boat. Don't be all held together and get creative. I think that's a good place to end it. Rock your boat.

Rock your boat. Is that the name of the song you're going to play for us right now? Oh, hey. You're going to take us out again, right? I'm going to take you down another path right on brother and um this one is um in the this one is the is is the bit of the neutrality. And the word confidence means confidence. Fidence means faith. To be confident that the infinite will take care of it. We're so fortunate to be confident.

That the infinite will take care of it. We're so fortunate. God is the boatman. God is the boatman God is the boatman And by that grace We're gonna cross this ocean Learn our lessons From the sun You know it shines down equally on

every wall where the sun doesn't shine we learn from the rain falls down equally on everyone the same

so be confident that the infinite will take care of it. We're so fortunate. Much love, my brother. Much, much love. Bless you. Let's do it again next time. Do it again soon.

All right. Peace. Plants. Namaste. Sat Naam. Let me count the ways I love me my guru sing. Always great spending time with that human being. Hope you guys enjoyed it too. Please hit him up on all the socials. Let him know what you thought of today's

conversation. He is at Guru Singh Yogi on Instagram and at Guru Singh on Twitter. And for more information on his universe, go to gurusingh.com. If you're listening to this podcast on the date that it was released, April 11th, 2019, then you still have two days to take advantage of our big discount on our annual membership to the Plant Power Meal Planner. $20 off when you use the code POWER20 at checkout. And I implore everybody to learn more about this platform. We worked really hard on it. And it basically answers a very simple question. How do you make healthy, nutritious, delicious eating affordable, accessible, and always at arm's reach?

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It's that one-on-one interaction, the recommendation from a trusted friend that really, I think, creates that grassroots awareness. You can share the show on your favorite social media platform. Make sure to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on YouTube, on Spotify. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts. That's very helpful. And you can support us on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate. Singh for providing beautiful music, Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, and much more. Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for videoing the show and editing it for YouTube. Jessica Miranda for beautiful graphics. DK, David Kahn for advertiser relationships and theme music, as always, by Analema. Thank you for your attention, your love. I do not take it for granted. And I will see you back here next week with Mark Gainey and Michael Horvath, the co-founders of one of my favorite social media platforms, Strava.

It's a great conversation. Until then, peace, plants, and positivity, or maybe neutrality. Thank you.