Episode 25: About progress

Is growth up to us?What if we’re made to grow?What if growth doesn’t need to be pushed or forced?Expanding by looking, wondering and sharingCool byproducts of exploring and expressingWhat if growth is a wider and wider lens of awareness?What if playing in the wonder is more than enough?Can we stop ourselves from growing?Tuning into inklings as a catalyst for growthA lesson from the flowers

What if decision making is naturally effortless?What if we notice rather than decide?What if not knowing yet can be totally satisfying?The unhelpful pressure of finding the “right” answerWhat if we just overcomplicate decisions that seem more important?Noticing where all our “doing” actually comes fromThe millions of things happening beyond our conscious choicesPlaying in the mystery of free willThe innocence of always doing what makes sense to us in the momentOur cool capacity to see more in any moment“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.” - Rumi

How much we think about our body and how little we need to Do bodies need managing and solutions? Is our body in our way?What if bodies are REALLY not separate from the intelligence of life?Pinning our body up against the wallPresence and listening with our body, without agendaRiding the possibility of Alzheimers or cancer down the road…The rabbit hole of thinking about our appearanceRethinking the positive body movementWhat if exercise is play?What if our body isn’t us and isn’t ours?“You are a ghost driving a meat-covered skeleton made of stardust. What do you have to be afraid of?” -Anonymous“Out beyond all ideas of wrongdoing and righting there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.”  -Rumi

Why Brianne wrote the book now, in the middle of her Mom’s journeyA look at the book’s titleThe first moment Brianne’s mom didn’t know who she wasWhat about the worst part of it, the painful parts?How has Brianne’s relationship with suffering changed?Why love doesn’t care how you feelWhat about Brianne’s forgetting and remembering?Deeper intimacy and connection in the face of so much lossBrianne turns her mom into a metaphor of what life isFinding a newer, deeper center of balancePalm trees and wind stormsWhat’s left when it all gets stripped away?Brianne’s hope for the book

What if feeling uncomfortable isn’t a bad thing?What if discomfort isn’t personal?Being comfortable with being uncomfortableListening without our shield of ideasWhat if discomfort is a side effect of life rearranging itself?Moving from coping to openingWhat if discomfort is an invitation, a doorway?Looking through discomfort rather than at itBeing in conversation with life instead of ourselvesWhat if discomfort is life’s way of asking, “Wanna talk about it?”

We are always in progressThe “It’s not fast enough” thoughtWhat if self sabotage isn’t a real thing?Grace with the unpredictable pace of lifeMarking progress as a tool in the gameRespect and appreciation for the unknownDoes life make it’s own progress?The dance of giving something our time and attentionSuffering from an overinflated sense of “I” Beating ourselves up with what we make upWhy does nothing require our worry?

A look at the words, “giving” and “up”Giving up as a strategy versus getting to the end of your ropeDoes life work on stuff when we don’t?Genuine giving up, without strings or agendasWhat about the saying, “Never give up!”?Dancing between making stuff happen and giving upWhat if the only thing we can really give up is a thought?How recognition of truth soothes our soulThe gift of awareness and noticingThe Perfume of Silence by Francis Lucille

Faith as an awareness of knowing Faith versus desperate hopingExploring faith through existential crisis and religionFaith in what’s behind and before “everything”What if faith is just a side effect?Why we can’t “do” faithFaith as sustenanceThe game of growing faithThe gift of having less and less faith in ourselvesLife moving us versus us moving lifeA fresh take on moving mountains

What isn’t spiritual? Why we go spiritually seekingStepping back into action after spiritual epiphanies The interplay of spiritual seeking and physical action Noticing we’re ready for a new adventureBeing pushed or being moved to step into new circlesGetting too caught up with ourselves and our own journeyPlaying full out in the world, knowing where we can restLooking from the mountaintop, playing in the valleyPutting our hands in the clay of life

Are funks really a problem?Being aware we’re lost in a funkCan life still make stuff happen, even in a funk?Grace to let ourselves be humanWhat if we’re not really checked out, we just think we are?Taking our hands off the wheelLife doesn’t need to be understood to be be fully livedThought is not reality, but our reality is made of thoughtGlimpsing reality beyond the world we walk around in in our headsA fresh look at our role in the art of lifeExisting is so weird and coolNetflix show that mentioned rainbows: Abstract - The Art of Design; Season 2, Episode 1 - Olafur Eliasson