Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to The Choice to Grow. I'm Scott Schwenk. Through these dialogues, we'll explore fresh perspectives and discover practical tools for navigating a thriving life that adds value wherever we are.
Speaker: I'll introduce you to innovators and creators from across our world who embody what it means to cultivate growing as a way of life. Let's prepare together.
Speaker: Take a deep breath in.
Speaker: Hold the breath briefly as you soften your shoulders and soften the soles of your feet and palms of your hands. Then exhale like you're releasing tension and setting down a heavy burden from every cell.
Speaker: Ah. Now let's dive in.
Speaker: Welcome back everybody to The Choice to Grow. I couldn't be more excited actually, i was counting the sleeps, to this fresh, dialogue with my dear friend and sister, Elena Brower.
Speaker: And particularly we're honing in on the release that just happened at this recording of her new book, Hold Nothing. Hold Nothing. She has painted all the imagery herself.
Speaker: If you read none of the words and you could just really empty yourself and be with the imagery and hold the book, there are insights there there are insights there i've known elena for over two decades she's a mom which is a huge thing and those of you who are moms really understand to have raised a child who's sustainable on his own is a huge accomplishment and still be alive to to report on it so she's a mom she's a partner to a person she's been with for over 10 years
Speaker: and gone deep with and goes deep with every day. We'll get into that. She's definitely an artist. And if I was to pick a title for Alina that paints everything, it's the same one I would pick for myself, which is artist.
Speaker: It holds it all. It holds it all. It's a relationship to showing up in life. She's been a teacher. Some of you have taken her classes online or in person. And so, so, so, so much more. So Alina, welcome back to The Choice to Grow.
Speaker: Brother, thank you. Means the world that I've been invited back. Oh, yeah. And one of the reasons you're invited back, even if you didn't publish a new book or even paint a new painting, is because you know how to show up in dialogue, discovering together, to actually be in collaboration rather than just in an interview.
Speaker: It's the card I pulled today is collaboration. Okay. So there's a line I want to start us off with from the book from page 227 in the chapter, the present moment.
Speaker: And this is the thing that really holds the whole book for me. And it's the last line of page 227. Learning that I cannot define myself and awakening is continuous.
Speaker: There's nothing to hold on to. I'm going read that again and just kind of sip it in readers, like map it into your own world. Learning that I cannot define myself.
Speaker: And awakening is continuous. It's not a one-time event. there's And this realization, there's nothing to actually hold on to.
Speaker: And meeting and dealing with that moment to moment in myself is the work. Especially showing up in relationship to other human beings fully.
Speaker: even when I don't think I have it all together or there's some uncomfortable life moments, bank balances, body sensations. So what your thoughts? The context where I wrote that was when I first found Upaya Zen Center in 2020.
Speaker: um Recognition that it's only been five, six years for me in Zen. So I'm just deeply humble. of a baby here, but it meant so much to me to bear witness to what was happening from the beginning, even online.
Speaker: And I wrote this to lead into that line that you've just read. The ways in which Roshi Jo in Halifax kept highlighting the resilience required to keep opening, even when we feel like closing, giving up and turning away became a balm for me.
Speaker: Stay the course, she'd say, over and over, her medicine of steadiness. How serious her commitment is, I would think to myself. Each time I'm with her, an important aspect of her transmission is endurance.
Speaker: But opening to the softness within the rigor has become my practice. Finding both the tenderness and the strength in my own heart is a gift I continue to unwrap. Consciously allowing my heart to break open, enlighten each time I listen to the Dharma the teachings.
Speaker: I'm learning to let go of everything I hold to tightly. My confusion, my personality, my ideas about the future, my achievements, a lifetime of ignorance.
Speaker: Learning that I cannot define myself and awakening is continuous. There's nothing to hold on to. Yeah. Learning to open to the softness in the rigor.
Speaker: Yeah. The rigor. The rigor drew me in, dude. i was like, yes, I can do this. yeah ah Seven hours a day. Let's add another at the end of the day. Let's go.
Speaker: Let's go. I'm going to do this. I can everyone that I can. Yeah. The end. That's just more of the same. It's just perpetuating everything that I've learned that actually o it's of a little bit of benefit, but mostly of destructive result.
Speaker: Yeah. much Too much, too many, too much, too often, too hard, ah too much. There's no need for all that.
Speaker: So the softness within the rigor. I feel like possibly the that what might unfold in our conversation today, our dialogue, is an exploration of paradox, like in real life.
Speaker: Yeah, that's all Zen is. Right? Like,
Speaker: I... In the same timeframe as you, stepping into upaya just about, took a deeper step into Sri Vidya and a real committed practice with ah ah incredible unicorn of a teacher in Sangha.
Speaker: And as you know from the Sri Vidya practices you did, there's a lot of complexity. And some teachers, mine in particular, offers a buffet of practices, which is its own learning curve.
Speaker: Huge learning curve. Like we were in a session today as as an opening, as a group, informing and introducing ourselves. And she said, well, maybe we'll end here, but has anybody got something to say?
Speaker: And it just oh came right out of me.
Speaker: Is there anything from the group or from you, Parvati, to help us understand
Speaker: the balance of practice. When stuff's really up for me in particular, I didn't say this part, but when stuff's really up for me, like there's a crunchy something that's just like uncomfortable and it's up and it's up for days and I know I need to meet it.
Speaker: Some young feeling, some young pattern, some owie.
Speaker: I still work with that that contemplation or that request to the field. Like, okay, do I do more recitations? Do I sit longer? but do I lay down and take a shavasana?
Speaker: Do I take a bath? Do I go to the hot springs? Do i go out and literally, and I'm still burning off what other people think about me. There's a tree out in front of my house that I make all my offerings to after I've done ritual.
Speaker: yeah And I'll out and I hug it. um I know I need to, and I'm holding it in broad daylight, close, and I'm like, I still notice the discomfort.
Speaker: So beautiful.
Speaker: Practice does that though. first want to ask, what did your teacher say? she didn't she let she she opened it out to the group because we have some people who've been with her for decades in this particular what will likely be a multi-year program and so it was emergent dialogue and people shared and she just let it be because people really did touch on the keynotes and they weren't new there wasn't new information for me
Speaker: let go, listen to the inner voice, you know, these things we've heard and read for years, but it's a whole other matter. When there's an emotional intensity moving through the sinews and muscles, that's not shaking, not moving, and seems to be eclipsing the ability to get work done, yeah show up for meetings fully go, Whoa, how do I meet this?
Speaker: without backing down and without trying to um muscle through something and push it into a shape that my ego finds more palatable.
Speaker: It's just... Feeling into this and thinking about this teaching from Charlotte Joko Beck where she said, can I just recognize that the tension in my gut is just some contracting muscles and get grounded in the stillness.
Speaker: And she talks about, i don't i'm not gonna i'm going to paraphrase. She talks about how so often we just follow the whirling garbage in our minds.
Speaker: And that is not the practice. And then at the end of that passage, like it's in I think it's in Living Everyday Zen or Everyday Zen is the name of the book. And I think she says, please sit well.
Speaker: Wow, that's a world. Don't follow the garbage in your mind, basically, is what she's saying in those three words. Please sit well. And there is rigor.
Speaker: Don't follow the garbage in your mind. Yeah. And then there is this total softening, like I have to soften right now. Otherwise, i am just perpetuating, as I said, my my thirty s And even into my 40s, just kept going and just kept grabbing for more. And it just didn't work.
Speaker: want to touch on that. Because you name ages, you name different ages when you are writing or pulling from your journals, like what the age was. And having visited with you, taught at your studio, alongside of you throughout that period,
Speaker: And I wanna highlight this for everybody who's listening and participating. My experience of you, whether it was in the small room discussing Gurdjieff's work after a class and a small gathering or in the class was nothing less than a powerful transmission of awareness, astute care and attunement to the alignment of the room, each body,
Speaker: at the same time you were dealing with these inner demons, that both things were true at the same time. And that's what I wanna highlight and underline is that just because any of us is experiencing some aspect of ego that we're we're seeing in relief and it just doesn't work and it's destructive to ourselves and others does not erase the ways we're of benefit.
Speaker: I really appreciate that you've said that. I know that my behavior in the past has hurt some people. And I also know that I was always doing my best at every given moment. And
Speaker: the apologies that I've delivered numerous and heartfelt The apologies that I couldn't deliver because they wouldn't they weren't going to be received or weren't invited.
Speaker: um Also heartfelt and also numerous. This is what life is all about. And when you were just referencing the architecture of practice, when I'm sitting for many, many days in a row for those many hours, over the course of a week, 40-something hours,
Speaker: All of these missteps come rising into my consciousness like so many bubbles in a little glass of cider. You know?
Speaker: And I am getting better and better at seeing them and not judging myself. A tear will burst out of my eye. i will know that I did my best.
Speaker: I will know that I totally fucked up. and I will be able to let the bubble then drop.
Speaker: And I think that's what Joko was referencing when she said, you don't have to do that. You don't have to follow the garbage that's swirling in your mind. Sit well.
Speaker: Not everything is requiring an inquiry. No. To be resolved. Some things do benefit from an inquiry and there's no getting around learning to discern when to use the practice, whatever practice one has, and just let the energy of the practice alongside of me bearing witness to the sensation and feeling it fully is sufficient, no matter how many days that takes.
Speaker: And then when there's a time to bring in also skillful questions to myself. Yeah.
Speaker: that the cultivation, at least I just came out a week ago and the cultivation for me this time was like, how empty can I be? You know, and finding myself with like my eyes in little slits, feeling my body kind of swaying and then melting away.
Speaker: Really being surprised when the bell rang. Not like sort of, is it time? But, oh, wow, wow.
Speaker: That was shorter than I thought.
Speaker: Out of clarity question, and as person who's been sitting with Mahamudra and getting accustomed to open-eyed meditation, I don't recall. Are you sitting open-eyed? Open.
Speaker: Okay. yeah And for those who are listening who've never done open-eyed practice, The intention, at least the way I understand it through Mahamudra, and maybe it's similar with Zen, is that we are more quickly able to integrate these wider views of consciousness that are revealing themselves with our relative life, vertical and horizontal coming together.
Speaker: That's right. Yeah. One of my teachers, my main teacher, name is Manchinette Overly. She was giving a talk some maybe two months ago.
Speaker: in mid 2025 about Kano Doko, K-A-N-N-O-D-O-K-O. She found this teaching in Katagiri Roshi's book, Returning to Silence.
Speaker: And the way that she talked about it is sort of a call and response. And she was referencing the horizontal nature of practice where, okay, you can get the transmission vertically. i'm i'm If you're listening to us, I'm taking my hand.
Speaker: palm facing left and fingertips pointing up. And I'm just sort of traveling up the center line of my body, up past the top of my head and then back down to my heart couple times. That's the vertical nature of practice, you know, receiving, listening, maybe get some insight.
Speaker: Maybe you hear my mom's voice. Maybe if I'm lucky. Um, But Kenodoko, as she referenced it, and I'm going to rewatch the talk now, is call and response.
Speaker: How am I relating to the things in my life? Like you said, a really hard moment, some sort of tension in the body, the bank account, whatever it is, the writing that's due, the kid who's refusing to put the socks on,
Speaker: I remember those days well. And that relationality, how the practice feeds the feeds my capacity to relate to everything from a place of settledness and groundedness, that is very important.
Speaker: The open eyes, in actually in this practice, is what I know. It's just to practice kind of staying steady with the moment, in the moment, without losing contact.
Speaker: making direct contact with this life. Is that also referred to the view? view, have not heard. Okay.
Speaker: Or something ah akin to that. So in Muhammadra, we talk about the view. Like, are you looking at the situation from the view? Then there's more clarity, resourcefulness and whatnot. When I drop the view, I'm in my parts, fragmentation, crashing into an ego state from earlier life.
Speaker: Crashing. crashing a lot. um Yes, that is totally relatable. And that is basically all of the writing that I see from the teachers in the lineage ah in which I'm practicing would be meeting reality as it is, seeing reality as it is, greeting even reality as it is.
Speaker: Without coming from the subject subjective perspective you know righteous this should happen that shouldn't happen comparing that shouldn't happen things like that yeah
Speaker: it's an interesting thing because what i know to the degree that i know about roshi jones life and practice from reading her books She seems to be somebody who's been quite a social justice justice advocate.
Speaker: She is. So talk about seeing what's right, And you know applying what we're talking about, like verticality, the way I hold it is like um recognizing more and more of the nature of consciousness as empty and luminous and self-aware, enlightened awareness.
Speaker: But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm embodying it. I've actualized it into how I show up in a relationship or how I handle what I see in my community. If there's discord or real terrible behavior going on, and do I look away? Do I look towards it?
Speaker: what is yes everything is perfect and that is also a bypass of dealing with the granular moments of life when it is.
Speaker: Yeah it's well said well said her for me what lives in me through her teaching is a sense of dignity and integrity.
Speaker: She is the one who conferred upon me the precepts, the Buddhist precepts and living by those makes life a lot easier. Make it a lot harder, but the, the, like I said, the dignity and the integrity that her work and her comfort and her, um, teaching has lent to my world.
Speaker: is not to be underestimated and is still and will forever be aspirational for me.
Speaker: Very aspirational for me. So yeah, she's one of my teachers for sure. i had the very wonderful privilege of traveling with her to Japan last year and going on pilgrimage to several temples and towns and, um you know, becoming a person worthy of,
Speaker: of you know let's say let's not say worthy, let's say a awake enough to stand in that crew um is is a process for me.
Speaker: I still feel like i i don't know that I should be here, but I'm really working hard to be um awake enough to be in this work because it means so much to me and my life and my relationships have changed become so much more rich and and true because of this work.
Speaker: And I'm sure you could say the same about Mahamudra. Yeah, Mahamudra, Dzogchen, Sri Vidya, my Siddha Yoga background. like you know I think this touches on also being we're similar age, I'm 53 going on 54.
Speaker: ye And so we've lived similar kind of know social milieus, cultural storylines. There have been so many awakenings. But when I first walked into the Siddha Yoga Ashram, hitting I was 22 on an odd summer day, yeah knowing really what I was looking for in the Catskills.
Speaker: Oh, wow. I was working at a lake restaurant. I had graduated from the university. i was working at a lake restaurant on the Finger Lakes, Snug Harbor. don't even know if it's still there.
Speaker: It probably is. trip over to it was on Kukalake and I would trip over during the day on my days off to Ithaca where there was a and I would long to go to the Buddhist center but I never did because I knew there were monks there I've always had i have this deep imprint from previous I think previous lives of deep Buddhist practice even though in this lifetime that's not my predominant lineage and um I was aching for a guru I had read that winter, I had finally read Autobiography of a Yogi. I started having experiences, honestly.
Speaker: And I was asking around and it just came to me through two different people. you should check out Siddha Yoga. It's chinas very close to there, no?
Speaker: Close enough. Yeah, very, very close. I mean, South Falsburg was like probably... No, no, two hours drive, two plus from where I was staying on the lake.
Speaker: right Not a lot. And i had received a whole packet then in the mail from them you know like that had photos of the guru and writings. And like I just would pore over it, reread and reread and look at the... There was this like, it was clearly something was happening.
Speaker: And one day I was like, I don't know what to do next about all this. So I'm just going to drive there. And that's what I did. I got my little red Honda Civic. 22 years old. 22 years old.
Speaker: Wow. And drove to Atmaniti, where the the buildings where the the food hall was. And I'm going in and out of those sliding registration glass doors. kind of It doesn't look like what I think a temple going to look like. I've never been to an ashram. I'm just imagining it looks very different than an old Borscht Belt Catskills Hotel.
Speaker: Totally. Borscht Belt. And um'm this woman comes up to this lovely Australian woman, Maida, Maida Bell. And she says, you look lost. And I go, I am.
Speaker: i go, I'm looking for the ashram. She goes, you're in it. And I go, okay, so now what? Like, what happens here? Like, what do I do? I'm looking for enlightenment, I say to her.
Speaker: I literally say, like, I'm looking for enlightenment. And she tells me about this meditation intensive where there's a very powerful stream of initiatory grace that is a game changer for a lot of people.
Speaker: Like in my case, when I finally did it, the lights came on and never went off. But I thought, oh, I'll just take this intensive. I'll put it on a credit card because didn't any money. I'll put on credit card. I'll do this intensive. I'll be enlightened and then I'll go on about my life and it'll be fantastic. It'll be milk and honey everywhere I look.
Speaker: Amazing. I had a huge awakening that stuck.
Speaker: Now, the first two weeks, the state experience was profound. Like the stillness of mind, the sense of the identity being a fiction and kind of more transparent.
Speaker: Right. Until I got off the phone with my mother who had gotten, was just getting calls from the credit chasers. Like I was in debt.
Speaker: And that relationship so primary that her being upset And then I'm like, where'd this awakening go? Did I lose it? And so many times since then, I mean, I bet you could track this too in your own experience. Like there's been so many expanded awarenesses, but they become integrated and become normalized such that it may seem like something went away or got lost.
Speaker: That and there's no arriving at some final destination. There's just not.
Speaker: continually recognizing ignorances and confusions and offering him to the practice and letting the practice digest them and reveal more.
Speaker: And as you said, the identity is not a fixed entity.
Speaker: And, you know, as many mistakes as I've made, those are still not me anymore. Mm-hmm. And to keep remembering that and to keep being kind to myself, to keep knowing that at each stage I've done my best and I know when I screwed up, that too is a healing for not just me, but for anyone with whom I come into contact.
Speaker: that That empathy and humanity. I think that's one of the more important teachings that I've received. In my life.
Speaker: I'm gaining greater strength with this noticing, which is when those voices come up that are reflecting on where I made a mistake in the past or did some harm.
Speaker: Yeah. That. I kind of like the language of parts. Yeah. That, oh, wait a minute. If I can be resourceful, if I don't have to actually fuse with its perspective and I can get curious about the possibility that this voice is coming from a good place, even though it's expressing distortion, what is it trying to help me with?
Speaker: Oh, it's trying to protect me from doing further harm. And this is the only way it yet knows how to do it until I integrate this part. And it's gonna keep coming up until I acknowledge it and sit with it and get intimate with it.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: You know what else is pretty nice? How do you say Thomas Hubel's last name? Is that Hubel? I believe it's Hubel. I believe so. It might be Hubel. I'm not sure. You have to find out. I don't know how to pronounce an umlaut.
Speaker: you know. He and Dick Schwartz just wrote a book. Did they? Right on. Dick Schwartz, if for those of you who are listening, wrote a book called No Bad Parts. He's one of the more most current...
Speaker: ah vocal teachers of ah internal family systems, which recognizes that we have these parts of ourselves that have been walled off or fragmented that have different points of views. There's protector parts, there's all sorts of different parts, but I just wanted to leave that there so people know what we're talking about.
Speaker: And it's worth noting, it's called releasing our burdens. I think it's going to be good.
Speaker: I need a special hookup like in the matrix to just download these things. There's so many books I want to read and and be able to come from the wisdom of. Yes.
Speaker: Yes. What's your takeaway from the book so far? I haven't read it yet. I'm reading it over the next, I have a couple of flights coming up. So going to read it over the flights so that I can do a live with Thomas.
Speaker: We haven't met in person yet, but I'm really looking forward to sharing that work. I think it's very, very important. It has been for James and me. We got the so workbook, the IFS workbook many years ago and just reading it.
Speaker: Wow. Has helped me so much. yeah Just, just seem like there were parts, little tiny baby parts of pigtails and skinny legs and big, big feet and glasses.
Speaker: They're still around. James at times can look at me and go I see that little girl in there with the big feet, the big boats on her shoes, you know?
Speaker: Oh, and to just welcome those humans to love them. And it's such a leap, is it not, from when we're in the small room next to the big teaching room in the second Vira Yoga, talking about Gurdjieff and you read the line that's something to the effect of, I pretty much memorized it, in any given moment, there's a theater of selves within us. Each presenting is the one true self.
Speaker: Which I is speaking? Is it the true I? Verify the I's. The leap from that understanding or that way of oh, there's a whole bunch of false selves. Yes, but they might need to be met in intimacy and attunement and love, not just recognized as false.
Speaker: it It's a very beautiful, um
Speaker: sort of full circle moment when you bring me back into that room and to those teachings, they're still alive in me. And in fact, I'm about teach retreat with Colin Houdon of Living Tea, also a Fourth Way student.
Speaker: And so we have these very rich dialogues, Ravi Ravindra, Adam de Saltzman, and all the students of Gurdjieff and Ispensky. And all of that work lives in what I love about Zen,
Speaker: It's kind of that with fewer words. Yeah. And then you mingle in which they didn't really have as much access to, the current somatic and psychological compassionate understandings and weave that.
Speaker: Really weave the care and compassion.
Speaker: I'm curious, you know we talk about the different formative and and nourishing streams that you've been drinking from in your path. And one of them is has been Sri Vidya. I'm curious, I don't know how long you spent there, how deep you went, but like how that lives on in you, this Sri Vidya Tantra.
Speaker: Well...
Speaker: Probably for about 15 years. That was a big part of my life. Wow. Yeah. And for reasons. That's long to possibly get to Mahasodashi.
Speaker: Long enough, maybe. What I do know is that the Upanishads, teaching the Upanishads still lives in me, still live in me. the
Speaker: All the goddesses. Wow. The 10 goddesses. These are things that are universal, sort of same way that Zen says, just a finger pointing at the moon. It's not telling you what to do, but it's just pointing in the direction of all of those teachings. i have all of those notebooks from Douglas Brooks.
Speaker: Yeah. Sitting with him and wow, being at his feet first,
Speaker: taking in the fire hose of teaching of truth. of beauty, of reality, of his experience
Speaker: was very important in my formation. And for some, maybe me for sure, the relationality dimension of a tantric practice. like Like if we talk about first, second, third person relationship to the divine, you know, first person, I am that. Varyana Sargadatta Maharaj, Ramana Maharshi, Papaji, so on and so forth. I am that, I am, or Jesus, I and the Father are one.
Speaker: Yep. But then there's this other these these other two dimensions and we don't always you know look outside of the lane we're familiar with. like The opportunity to heal our relational patterns, our attachment patterns,
Speaker: that can happen through ah personal relationship with the divine, whether it's a particular deity, whether it's the Holy Spirit. And in a tradition like Zen, I don't know how much that is emphasized outside of the relationship with one's teacher.
Speaker: and using that as the possible place if that goes well. We saw how that went with Suzuki Roshi when he was a boy training that it was a very painful upbringing. There wasn't a lot of compassion and love in the obvious ways that heal parts.
Speaker: yeah A lot of rigor, a lot of pushing around, yeah lot of expectation and demand. yeah
Speaker: And then there's the softening and the rigor.
Speaker: yeah Yeah. And we could keep talking about this for days and endlessly forget to the end of it and never be done learning it, never be done owning our side of the street, never done becoming who we are But we're very fortunate in that we have a practice that has meaning and value for us.
Speaker: And that's everything.
Speaker: That's everything to wake up in the morning and know where you're going to your seat, to your ritual, whatever it is. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker: Not a lot can shake me now because of that practice. In particular, referring to the Zen meditation practice.
Speaker: Zazen. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Which is just Zen meditation, which by the way, is coming from and through India, through China, to Japan.
Speaker: I happened to pick up on a lineage that were originated in Japan in the 1200s, but that those teachings are from India, where we both started. Sri Vidya and other you know weaves.
Speaker: Well, the Mahamudra that I'm you know benefiting so much from that practice, that started It all comes back to India. you know Yes, do we had this the the the the historical Buddha, but then we have Padmasambhava bringing what he brought in his own unique way or guided to bring through Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, that's right that wove with the much older wisdom stream of bones.
Speaker: And so what I see in just saying that is like traditions that really are alive are also becoming. They're not frozen fixtures that we have to bend ourselves and pretzel ourselves to make it work.
Speaker: When we have teachers who are really connected to their body and their breath and their moment and their relationships, the teachings move to adapt to the time, place and circumstance and can bring in fresh insights, whether it's psychological or somatic and so on.
Speaker: And that we can do that. Like I don't have to just repeat Om Namah Shivaya and expect that's gonna do everything. For somebody it might,
Speaker: but maybe I need to learn how to make better choices of what I eat. that gives me greater clarity of mind. Tell me more about that.
Speaker: Like, there are all these feedback loops in a life, all day long, feedback loops. Like, somebody's facial expression and breath who I'm talking to is a feedback loop.
Speaker: Not about my goodness or badness or rightness or wrongness, but like, maybe it's letting me know my energy was a little too intense and I can soften inside of the rigor. Or like I said, maybe it's as simple as, gosh, I'm paying attention to my breath in my seat when I'm in formal practice and I'm noticing I have a tendency to not fully inhale.
Speaker: Oh, let me be curious. I wonder if I'm doing that somewhere else in my life. And I go to the gym and I notice when I add a certain amount of weight, I'm holding my breath.
Speaker: oh And then I notice when I'm talking to somebody who I'm really not sure if they like me, I'm holding my, a I'm holding my breath.
Speaker: Like life is offering all these reflections.
Speaker: But if I think i my practice has to look one particular way, right I'm missing the grace, I'm missing the help.
Speaker: yeah Things have looked very different lately. I just had, after that long session at Upaya recently for Sashin,
Speaker: um
Speaker: we then completed two-year chaplaincy training just is coming to an end now. And we did our last virtual core, which means five days online, long days.
Speaker: Yeah. With some breaks and, you know, so my practice looked very different. I had to practice a different part of the house and in front of a screen that was open, you know, like i find it, I sort of can um be amenable to different circumstances. I'm going to be on the road for the next two weeks and then another two weeks.
Speaker: And then another two weeks. Jimmy might be getting surgery, so I'm going to be on the road for four weeks just tending to him. Looks like we might actually stay with Tony, Jonah's dad in New York, which will be so much fun.
Speaker: Let's go move in with my ex and it's going to be awesome. Modern family. I'm actually really excited to be all together. that These two boys love each other.
Speaker: um James and Tony really love. like the brothers, they never got. And yeah, so adapting so the changing tide and finding your practice wherever you are, that's a big part of what I do, what I have to do.
Speaker: When you're freshly coming out of, you you are freshly coming out of an incredible state of consciousness from that much practice, right? Was this a month or a week this time? this was just a week.
Speaker: Just just people it's like, can I just get through an hour of sitting? But you're coming from this. And I know this firsthand, there's a state experience that's quite beautiful and refined, where I don't even want to speak.
Speaker: And there's like this learning about how to transition and not resist the moments of physical reality with humans and bills and plumbing and airplanes.
Speaker: what's What are you noticing about your capacity for
Speaker: meeting with what is and in in the face of having come from such an exalted place where like, gosh, this feels great. I could stay here forever kind of thing. I really come back and I really appreciate my life
Speaker: like deeply. I appreciate the the the way my partner shows up, the way i can show up for him. we just have such a nice time, particularly when we've been a apart because we come back together and we have like deep ah appreciation, care, you know, we go from just minding ourselves to minding each other.
Speaker: and it's such a gift to have somebody I know what a gift it is and we don't take it lightly. You learn how to do repair. Yeah, we learn how to do repair. we also learn how to make a lot of space. Yeah.
Speaker: A great deal. you say more about making a lot of space? Like... When you're up to that, when you're aware, like you're making more space for Jimmy and yourself or whatever's the right, like what are some of the kind of the finer details you can notice and report on of making space and simplifying making space?
Speaker: During the work days, because we both work at home, this is sort of logistical, and then we'll get into the more, um I guess, soulful. But logistically, we don't we don't communicate during the day. And I'm in the living room, and he's in his office, which is just a spare bedroom, tiny spare bedroom.
Speaker: And he and i just give each other all the space in the world. He knows my schedule. I know his. We sort of share them, particularly in busy days like this one.
Speaker: And we usually can figure out a time to come together like sometime in the afternoon and quick whip up a lunch and sit outside for a moment together or go for a walk in the middle of the day together, walk down to the mailbox.
Speaker: um that really changes the flavor of things here because we're both so appreciative of each other and so um happy to be coming back together when we do.
Speaker: And then on the other side, like just really respect him. And I do feel that some of the, no offense is meant here, I do feel that some of the polarity has been lost.
Speaker: It's best I can really explain it. So i like I like bringing the polarity back and it could just be my age, born in 1970. What do you mean by polarity?
Speaker: Meaning the sort of masculine feminine polarity. How's that for, what does that look like for you in your life? I spent so many years working so hard and kind of doing what I was under the impression I needed to do to sustain my life without being married.
Speaker: I got divorced when John was three.
Speaker: we we put money away month over month because I was earning like crazy. i was just out there hustling, doing so much like three different businesses.
Speaker: And i know how lucky I am. I am fully aware of the privilege that I have as a white person. And I also suffered and struggled ah fair amount being a woman.
Speaker: And just before you got involved with essential oils and doTERRA or after you were talking? During. During, during, during. Okay. Because I think a lot of people, unless they know you or have heard you talk about it in other places, only see, oh, she got gobs of money.
Speaker: And not seeing what the day-to-day interior experience of managing your life was actually like. And also so the fact that I didn't come from it, I didn't have it.
Speaker: I had to make it. I had to like deal. Yeah, exactly. That's a real thing. That was real. and We're not a trustafarian. No, no. I don't know that I would have wanted to be either.
Speaker: But to have to earn it, I had to really kind of go to a very masculine place, which is what I mean. When I got with James, And i sort of conquered all of that. was like, oh, I want to be wearing dresses and being a lady.
Speaker: I realized that that may offend and I'm sorry if it does. And I wish it didn't. I imagine it only offends without the understanding of what, listening for what you might mean and that you're not telling anybody they have to change their clothes.
Speaker: But you're talking, and maybe it's easier to see it in your paintings, you're talking about, you're painting these brushstrokes of like, of how energy feels more than the exteriors of items of clothing and all like that.
Speaker: Totally. So it's ah definitely a touchy subject for me. I will speak only for myself. I really love coming to my relationship. It's heterosexual, it's white, cis, all the things that point to privilege.
Speaker: I get it. I know it. I'm thankful and also very respectful and aware.
Speaker: And
Speaker: feels good to me too. really respect my man, to ask for his opinion, to trust it, and then, you know, to tell him to fuck off if I don't agree, fine.
Speaker: And to continue on in a way that is, you know, I'm joking when I say fuck off, I wouldn't say that to him in all seriousness. yeah ah Just that we really respect each other and we respect that, that polarity between us.
Speaker: He's, There's two things I hear really deeply in what you're talking about, right? Like it's one thing when you're just sharing your direct experience, but out here or as two teachers who are meeting in dialogue and dialoguing,
Speaker: what I'm most touched by
Speaker: is the recognition and and what it takes to recognize and care about the unique individual self that has a body that is female in this life and operates differently than male body.
Speaker: It just does. ye And it's not better or worse or good or bad. And there's something about an integrity
Speaker: and a gracefulness about coming into harmony with the physical reality of what body I have. Now, my case is, i the second thing I'm touched by is in this body, this body likes men.
Speaker: yeah It just does. And I tested it out, not intentionally, but by going to Europe and these beautiful, very expensive co-ed spas that I didn't expect to be everybody naked together.
Speaker: Dear Lucy, I've never heard this story before. And I'm looking around twice and I'm like, never seen so many naked women in my entire life by far. yeah And I'm really clear that if I ever wondered so far, still very gay.
Speaker: Yep, still gay. Still gay. like Like this body likes men. And I'm very tenderized. Like my chest feels it when you were talking about putting on the dress. and It's not for me about dresses. It's a different expression of feminine masculinity. It's not female male for me, but there's a desire to so be soft in the presence of another man's strength, who's my partner.
Speaker: And to not have to have that... only be in my body, only about rigor. ye To be able to be the softness, to be the water crashing against the mountain,
Speaker: the soil that the flower is emerging from, and to have somebody who's capable of that and to be able to take turns from time to time and have that be ah flow.
Speaker: And what a gift that is to have that kind of trust and intimacy with somebody else in this lifetime. Had no idea how defended I have been against having what I want.
Speaker: It's a longer, it's a whole nother podcast. Ain't it? But we come back to hold nothing, this incredibly beautiful book, the line on the front, an invitation to let go and come home to yourself.
Speaker: And that's a lifetime of practice right there. Letting go. What's the difference between letting go and checking out? Coming home to yourself. What is myself?
Speaker: So interesting, isn't it? That's the evolving, what we were speaking about earlier, no fixed identity.
Speaker: When I think about myself, I think about the undercurrent at the ocean floor, not any of the external appearances, much as I love them.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we can zoom that into the direction of like humanity at this time on this planet. I, from time to time, have fed these beautiful images from the Webb telescope of deep space.
Speaker: And I just, and I was like this when I was a kid, I remember my dad, you know, there's a lot he didn't do well. But there's a few things that are still with me and that really make the biggest difference, like having me look at his telescope when I was little.
Speaker: taking me backpacking in the middle of nowhere for days on end and where I really found God in the forest and didn't know that, didn't name it. But looking out the telescope or looking at these images and I go, wow, I just stare and I just didn't wonder and go, the ideas of humanity or election cycles or political is a pinprick.
Speaker: of what's actually happening with the physical living planet, let alone in the Milky Way, let alone in universes upon universes and dimensions moving in and kaleidoscoping with other dimensions, am I available to that as I'm as i'm wondering what I wanna do with the next period of my life? Am I available to the vastness yeah and the possibility?
Speaker: That availability is why we practice. It's really nicely said, Scott. stay Is there anything you didn't say in the book that you now realize, oh man, I wish I put that in there.
Speaker: Oh my God, so many things. This is already two years ago. Oh, gosh, I forget about publishing cycles, like how long they are. have scads already of and pieces of memoir um bits. There's an author called Abigail Thomas that I really love who wrote a book called Safekeeping that's sort of like what I want to do next with just these little tiny snapshots.
Speaker: Like sutras kind of, like or like haiku? um No, no, no, no. Like descriptions of moments that were very impactful or um made an impression.
Speaker: Yeah, so now I have lists of those that have yet to have a home, but they will. For some reason, I'm thinking of the book you and I both read a similar timing around the beginning of quarantine, The Overstory.
Speaker: What a book, Richard Powers. He's definitely one of my like rabbis in this world. like the view, like like the the the for me, the fundamental shift in that book is like, well, i can I can tell you about snippets of my life from particular vantage points of my my personal sense of self, right? Right.
Speaker: What is it if I go back to those same moments and tell the story from the tree's point of view? Yeah. From my childhood best friend's point of view.
Speaker: Right. And I'll give an example. I was a few weeks ago in Montana with a small group of people. We co-created an emergent retreat together. Got a couple of Airbnbs around this beautiful lake.
Speaker: snow dusting the mountains at the edge of the lake. Is there anything better? No, no. I mean, a few things, but. I mean, a few things, you know, like I could have been getting laid well during that time too. So there's that.
Speaker: And I, you know, could have remembered to bring some really good dark chocolate, but setting those things aside. The best. You know, dark chocolate does nothing to my glucose monitor at all.
Speaker: I can totally eat it. Okay, I'm happy to hear that because when I wrote to you about my our favorite company going out of business, you're like, I'm not currently eating chocolate. I'm going to buy it for friends. I'm drinking cacao twice a day. Oh, for sure.
Speaker: i couldn't i couldn't find one without sugar. no I found one. Oh, I've got one. I'll send it to you. It's out of it's out of it's called Pachamana. They were sourced from free ah free trade from Peru.
Speaker: I've really explored them and they're out of Oregon and I like their values and it's affordable. And there's no, it's just the cacao. It's granulated, but it's not powder. So it melts very, very quickly.
Speaker: And I buy a five pound bag at a time. That tells you a lot about my life. So we're in Montana, where I did bring cacao and serve it to some people. I don't know anything about cacao ceremonies. I just make it make it tasty and give it to people.
Speaker: There was a moment This is a group of really advanced practitioners with really great growing up states and flaws to grow through. And there was something I was being called out on that was not new to me in my life, but it was really coming into relief.
Speaker: I didn't realize the degree to which out of my Tigger-like excitement, if you know Winnie the Pooh, would step on other people's words. They maybe hadn't started speaking yet,
Speaker: And three different people who I care about brought it to my attention. But the way the first person did it, the way i heard it, it was so triggering for me. I felt so bad, wrong, and not included, which was how I felt as a kid most of the time.
Speaker: And this was late at night. And the fellow who was bringing it to my attention, he goes, I'm just going to tell it to you. And then i don't want to talk about it further. You can sleep on it. If you want to talk about it tomorrow, we can.
Speaker: That just set me off. I felt like gas on the fire. Because that's what my mom would do. She would tell me something from what was going on from her emotional state kind of give a read.
Speaker: Sometimes it was useful and accurate. Sometimes it was just her outburst and then refused to talk about it further. And then I'm left in my bedroom trying to like sort through and maybe sleep.
Speaker: So this comes up and I'm honest about it and I'm not yelling. I'm just like, here's what's coming up. This is what it's reminding me of and not really sure how to be with this because I care about you all. And I care about really taking in these reflections.
Speaker: So the conversation kind of comes to a ah completion in some way. I don't remember exactly how, but I stand up and one guy who's brilliant shadow worker, Kim Bartek, comes he just hugs me, just holds me.
Speaker: Really good at just being with, like really, really good at just being with. And then coming up behind me is my friend Forrest, who's like a lot taller than me and big.
Speaker: into the hug. And then the first guy, Tucker, who is the one that sent it, comes up and holds me on the other side. And I'm noticing, I'm just like, time slowed down so much.
Speaker: And I'm noticing they really care and they're showing up. And I'm noticing some tension about receiving it
Speaker: And I don't know how this happened. I think it was really grace and willingness. Suddenly I found myself looking out of their eyes and hearts all at once at me from their perspective.
Speaker: Not my perspective of their perspective, not my perspective, their perspective. And all I felt was their pure love and care.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: And something fundamentally opens like, holy smokes, how many other people throughout my life have loved me and cared and I just couldn't, wouldn't let it in and would draw them into long processing conversations if I could have just looked out their heart.
Speaker: Just taking that in
Speaker: Sometimes that's all that's needed. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: And I think that's also what we've been practicing for.
Speaker: Just to let it all be.
Speaker: not trying to if i build a house sorry go ahead i was just saying not trying to change anything just to let everybody be exactly who they are like yeah can't do anything about that and get a sense of who they are from their perspective that's right also yes
Speaker: like it's fascinating you know i challenge the you listeners Who in your life that you know cares about you? Could you just get curious?
Speaker: There's no right way to do it. And just imagine inhabiting their heart, feeling love for you and what it's like for them when they know you get it and let it in. It's funny. I do that with James.
Speaker: He's so loving to me and so spacious and so giving. And I often think when I'm having a really hard time, like what does he, what's what's that like to love me from his perspective? And I do i do learn a lot energetically thinking about that, considering that, feeling that.
Speaker: And then I extrapolate it out sometimes since that experience, like, whether I do it through deity like Tripura Sundari, what's Tripura Sundari's perspective on me or what's source's perspective on me?
Speaker: You know, like if enlightened awareness is already everywhere. Yes. How is that different than letting in love from others?
Speaker: Yeah. And letting it be simple. Yeah.
Speaker: So one of the things I respect most about you as a teacher and the way you put offers out is the simplicity, the there's no over explaining something.
Speaker: There's no pressure to buy something
Speaker: or think something.
Speaker: Did Hold Nothing present itself right away as the title? No, it came over time. I've shared this before, but there was a moment in Japan with a dear friend, ah teacher and friend who recited this Chan Sutra, welcome nothing, refuse nothing, reflect everything, hold nothing.
Speaker: And I was like, hmm. Writing that down, wrote it down in my notes. Like six months later, I was away on a trip with a dear friend who we were just sort of sitting and being very creative, let's say. and She was saying, you know, Elena, I can, here's what I see for you for the coming months.
Speaker: You holding nothing.
Speaker: Just stop. And it's what every good teacher has ever said to me. Yeah. And I tracked that.
Speaker: was like, oh, that's a really good title. I want to change my sub stack to that. So I did. And I want to change. I'm going to propose it to the book to my editor.
Speaker: And it came down to like five or six different titles when we were titling it about a year ago, little over a year ago. And told nothing was the winner. very appropriately, you know, like, well, poof, nothing to hold.
Speaker: Now where to go.
Speaker: Yeah. Talk about making room for infinite creativity. like As an artist, I wonder how how you've noticed, how you're noticing making room for new ways of working with the materials and expressing an unfamiliar patterns or plays of light and shadow.
Speaker: It could be very easy to get caught in a particular genre or loop, especially if it's making money or getting a lot of accolades.
Speaker: Yeah. And all that is, you know, still very tempting and and it parts of it are important because I'm supporting myself. James and I are, you know, separate entities that feels very good to me personally and safe.
Speaker: So, yeah, I don't think I'll ever stop working, but I do think I will work less. Does it feel like work still?
Speaker: Barely. Yeah. You know, being on a lot of podcasts over the course of a day, because this is the moment to share this project.
Speaker: Yeah. That's a lot. My throat little sore. little tired. You know, I'm not used to this much like output, but it feels very true.
Speaker: to be sharing the work, particularly with the likes of you and the other folks who've taken time so fashion questions that really speak to the material.
Speaker: So I'm super into it, although tired and a little sore from It's fun to collaborate with you. I think that's part of what motivates you know myself and probably Tracy and all the others. like It's like...
Speaker: You, in my experience, are really, I've said this in the last podcast, I think, you have this knack for creating intimacy very quickly with people.
Speaker: Or at least what we experience is intimacy very quickly. You know, like feel like, wow, this person, this Elena person is actually really paying attention and not grasping.
Speaker: She's you' so here.
Speaker: that I can see how many people could commodify that without realizing it and grasp
Speaker: for more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more without digesting what's been, what's here now, what's being offered, what's available.
Speaker: It's interesting to feel That, as I said, just then tendency to want to amass, get, grow, and to work my way out of that.
Speaker: out of Out of being the the one that people want to receive from? No, no. Out of the tendency to want to keep going. Add another appointment to the schedule just because I was asked, you know, to just be a little discerning.
Speaker: and say, thank you. And I just got to the, to the limit of what's possible. Let's unpack that just a little bit more. Maybe this will be the kind of the last brushstroke of this conversation.
Speaker: but i feel it's, it's really important to me. It's something I've been noodling on for years is in relating with other humans,
Speaker: We could talk about the obvious low hanging fruit of you know being clear about your boundaries and stuff like that. I have a friend, for example, who is a powerful teacher, new to being friends with each other, really loves the crap out of me and recently um sent a message, hey, can we connect tomorrow? What time do you have And i wrote back and then I heard nothing for three weeks.
Speaker: o And so today before this, i was like, I'm and just going to send a little voice now just to check in and say, hey, you know when you reach out, could you follow up? And this person really generously said, you know you're actually in my thoughts all the time and and always sending you love and energy. I'm not sure that it's recognized or noticed.
Speaker: And so when we actually speak, there's something I will say like, man, I so appreciate you reflecting that. And at this stage in my life, Concrete reach outs really are important and make a difference.
Speaker: Actual time that we're spending together. That's right. And so I want to hear what you've learned and what you might unpack around holding nothing and yet being attuned in our relationships to what actually helps that relational space to thrive without people pleasing, without withholding.
Speaker: You know, every relationship that we have, we've designed to some degree, the way that it is, the way that we show up. We've even taught the other person how to treat us.
Speaker: And to know that is to consistently be refining what we're designing, I think. For he and I, have a lot of awareness of the other one and how we take care of each other.
Speaker: And when he feels that I am not doing a good job as a partner, he will just tell me. he He will use nonviolent communication to ask me for what he wants and tell me his experience or his feeling around what he's observing in this moment. It's always very helpful because he's not accusing me anymore. He's just saying, hey, when I saw you do that, I felt this way.
Speaker: My needs for this and this were not met. And I'm making a request that if you could do it that way next time or whatever the case, it's like, yeah, I can totally do that.
Speaker: You end up getting, instead of some sort of accusation, you get an invitation. i love nonviolent communication because of that. It's actually, there's actually a section in the book about it.
Speaker: It's an invitation to relax into somebody else's experience as we've already been talking about and to see what you can do to help make their life a little more um pleasing and easeful and i love that like give me a task give me that assignment i will do it every time and it's taken us a couple of years but we are learning how to communicate that way
Speaker: I imagine also there's a learning curve around being a public person who can drop in with people in such a way they feel seen and heard more than maybe ever in their life at the end of a program or ah a retreat or something and setting reasonable expectations because maybe they think, oh, this is going to be my new best friend.
Speaker: Yeah. It's important to realize that friendships, really good friendships, require and ask for a lot if they're going to be upheld in the way that you want.
Speaker: Let's say, let me speak for myself, the way that I want. And I put a lot of time into my friendships, the ones that I keep close.
Speaker: This feels like a really natural place to put a bookmark in together till our next conversation.
Speaker: anything that's present for you to say or ask or?
Speaker: Let's just open the book and see where I open to. yeah Love that. The love surrounding you. ah This is a beautiful section. It's about my friend, Brian Francis. He's also known as White Bear.
Speaker: And he is part of the Mi'kmaq Nation from New Brunswick and Northeastern Canada. He is a writer and an artist, and he has taught me so much about the divisiveness and the dehumanization of his people.
Speaker: The schools, those terrible boarding schools that his ancestors were brought in. um he I'm just going to end with his words.
Speaker: We must remain humble, loving, caring, and sincere in order for us to hear the teachings within our own hearts. Set aside the ego and look beyond to see the beauty of creation all around.
Speaker: All was created for us while here on our medicine walk. Let us be open to receive the love that surrounds us.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for your family ship.
Speaker: Yeah. Thank you for yours. I feel very protected and safe and seen and forever with you. And that is such a good feeling. Thank you so much.
Speaker: welcome. Thank you. There's many places of opportunity in my life that have allowed me to help so many people I wouldn't have known had you not spoken up on my behalf when I was not in the room and encouraged somebody to give me a shot.
Speaker: Wow. Of course, I remember. my God.
Speaker: That was an easy puzzle. and wasn't even like, i remember just going, of course, yeah. yeah yeah But you keep doing it, you know? and i will keep doing it too.
Speaker: Thank you. It speaks volumes about what we were just talking about, about really showing up for relationships. You know, it speaks volumes about that. And I love you.
Speaker: I love you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. So everybody, we're going to do what we do each time. We're going to end in silence together. And it started off as a editing convention for my editor, but really it's an opportunity to experience what's here when we're not filling the space with words, thoughts, and just coming back to settling the mind into the body and the body into the earth.
Speaker: And notice what you notice from being with our dialogue that you're an intimate part of. And we'll end with about 10 seconds of silence together.
Speaker: Loving the episode? Click to follow, like, and share it as widely as possible. Want to go deeper with the choice to grow? Explore the show notes. You'll find links there for going deeper with our guests, as well as how to work with me in the work of waking up, growing up, cleaning up, and showing up.
Speaker: Thanks for listening. Can't wait to join you in the next episode.
