I am going thru the THEM course of Clare Dimond & have the following question: I understand that whenever we are being confronted with a disliked behavior in someone else, the first place to heal that disliked behavior is FIRST within ourselves. Is my understanding correct? If it is, how do we go about healing that disliked behavior within ourselves?

Triggers and re-traumatisiation

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Conversations in non-duality: twenty six awakenings: Sunday book 

'Honestly I cannot understand what people mean when they talk about the freedom of the human will. I have a feeling for instance, that I will something or other; but what relation this has with freedom I cannot understand at all'. Einstein

Following Clare’s podcast on Tuesday about therapy and my subsequent post, some questions have come up about access to help for people in distress; I’d be grateful for any thoughts.Obviously, a person who is ignorant about nonduality (as I was) cannot discern whether or not the therapist they approach has this understanding.However, for a prospective or current client who knows about nonduality, such as the podcast questioner, is it better for them to forego the help of someone who doesn’t come from this understanding? They might be likely to, but are we suggesting that any therapist without this understanding is to be avoided?Are there currently enough therapists working from this understanding to meet the need out there? It seems not, so then what?Does Life itself know what we’re ready for (including coming across this conversation) and, if so, might what shows up be exactly right, nondual or not?Thanks to anyone who responds.

A brief summary of this episode

A brief summary of this episode

You often use the metaphor mountain - no mountain - mountain. And you also encourage us to stay with the discomfort, to notice it, observe it, and see what's believed and what's actually true in those moments. A peer in your community shared with me that staying with the discomfort is "no mountain" - can you speak to that? I'm not seeing what she's seeing yet.

Is crying just part of selfing or an indication of or reaction to selfing. If we speak about something or hear something or see something and tears arise .. is this a sign of somehting healing and being let go of or a sign that we are selfing and to 'stop it'. I have often wondered what the bodies mechanism of producing tears serves .. tears can come in times of sadness or joy and  maybe its all just a way of the system regulating itself and to 'get us back into body connection and presence'

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.What do you think, does our language express or create the “I?”The rules of our language identify a subject and a verb. For example, an I and something that is happening. “I am doing this.” Yet in this conversation it is seen that awareness is aware of the doing happening — I am not doing this. I am not the doer and there is no I.)Does the world look this way in language because this is how we think or do we think this way because of our language?It may ultimately be a chicken and an egg thing, or just a case of co-arising. But I wonder are there cultures/languages with sentences that developed without a subject?It feels like there is an intuitive sense of an I, but babies don’t seem to be born with it. Helen Keller, I’ve read, had no sense of an I or a self until she learned language. Or until language was learned by that localized body/mind system. I don’t know the attribution, but I’ve recently heard “The I in I am happy is the same as the it in it is raining.” How much does language shape our thinking? Or does our thinking shape our language? 

Something became clearer this morning when I awoke.  It was that there are no "them" that condition us. I used to think that my parents did most of my early conditioning but of course they didn't.  This body/mind does/creates the conditions - yes, based on its environment, but the actual "data" it absorbs is its own. This was a Wow.  I thought that if they had conditioned me then the same would be true for my children and I had felt guilty.  But just as I had no control over my parenting, I/they had no control over what was accepted as true.Your thoughts would be great

You are truly my inspiration! Thank you! I already purchased your new book as soon as it came up on Amazon. Thank you!Yesterday, after attending my 14 year old son's tournament, where they won the whole thing, I was devastatingly down. This is where I wish I had a friend I could call at any time to just listen, and accept that I am low, and I would like that person to understand the way I believe about "thought", and "truth". I listen to your podcasts over and over, and I want to be able to have a person to call when I go low like this and not try to "fix" me. I have never been able to acknowledge my true feelings for what they are and if I talk to a male friend, he tries to fix me,.and I have no one in the female area I am close enough to divulge my inner most feelings, without being classified as "depressed ", etc.Also, here is what I believe is needed with some guidelines. We need to be able to call a friend or significant other,  when we are feeling low, or down, just to chat. I tried calling a buddy; all he says is. "I understand"! His understanding has zero to do with yours truly, and what difference does it make? This wasn't me talking and telling him why I was down.

I am asking you cause i dont know who to turn to with this ... I am bedridden .. i feel so weak, depressed, and just have zero motivation and energy to do anything.. everything seems so boring and exhausting... But i am suffering in bed cause i want to be full of energy, have zest for life and have joy .. i feel depressed, i cant focus on anything other then movies or funny youtube videos..  how can one have more energy or feel energized, happy, motivated? I feel so pessimistic that i will never be able to get out of my sufferings. Is there a way? Can you help with getting out of weakness, depression, lethargy, helplessness, pessimism, hopelessness?  I feel like i totally left myself, and i am totally submitted to negativity, pessimism and weakness.Hope you help

I have a pattern, which plays out with increasing regularity, where I discover a course/workshop/training that I am interested in, where the outcome would be that I could teach/lead/facilitate others.  I sign up, and then either immediately, or soon after, think I have made the wrong decision and I usually cancel it or just don’t do it.  I have a veritable graveyard of such unopened/unfinished projects.  They are all, without exception, things that I thought were heart-led, that I really resonate with, and which I feel would be dreams coming true if I were lucky enough to do them in reality. I am beginning to see that they are perhaps yet another addiction, an escape from reality, a way of thinking that ‘when I’m doing that, then I will be OK’. I discovered non-duality teachings at least twenty years ago, and after many years previous to that of personal/spiritual development. If, after all that time -  through reading, allowing, absorbing, becoming more aware, practicing witnessing and being present -  I still haven’t ‘got’ it, if my knowing is only intellectual and my system continues to play out the old patterns, despite my awareness of them, how on earth will I ever be free to love what I’m doing, whether that is a ‘boring office job’ or some ‘amazing world-changing work’. I’m as tired of trying to ‘get it’ through exploring non-duality teachings as I am of the suffering resulting from repeating (conscious or unconscious) patterns.   If you could address how I step out of this paralysis I would be so grateful, thank you.

Can you say more about the self-parenting idea with this understanding?I've been in and out of various forms of therapy since I was a teenager and self parenting has involved saying things like "I love you" to the system or to the idea of various ages of a younger "me". I had stopped doing this out of the impression that this practice is a form of separate self-concept reinforcement. Yet observing the system speaking aloud, to this memory of a small child created in this moment, and feeling the sadness or anxiety fluctuate to warmth and comfort - I'm wondering if that's presence?

Is the self, I, me,  just a habit I've (we've) fallen into?  I find, when I'm conscious/aware/brave enough, that I can momentarily switch off the dialogue and drop into (best way I can describe it) silence and nothingness.  It's blissful, but always very short-lived.  It's like flicking the pause button, but very soon worry and guilt bring the noise back.

Hi Clare. Hope you're well?  Just finished reading Well, and loved it. Thanks!  I've had a year out from reading 3P you're books but now seem to have got a taste for it again.  I'm now reading HOME and finding it pretty all-engrossing. Loving the humoured too😀. I have a question for you about universal mind/ consciousness. How do we know it's something universal rather than just a phenomenon of the brain that all brain owners have? I think about the space which is the gap between thoughts. It's a space of peace and ease. Is it universal though? Or just what my brain does when it's not doing its usual busy work? It's this spiritual 'universality' which I struggle with.

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.” ― C.G. Jung

So powerful and clear explanations are coming from your videos of the THEM course.Thank you very much for all your wisdom you're sharing with us.Listening to Day 28 the words struck me where you're explaining how relationships can be held when we don't need anything from the other person, especially words: ''They don't even have to stay alive''.A question came up: '' What would grieving look and feel from this sane place?''Remembering my grieving over loss of a close friends and later after loss of my father due to cancer. It was a lot about me and not so much about them really. It was more about how their death will affect me, what will I be lacking after they're gone etc.Would love to hear your thoughts on that :)

I’ve just listened to todays message and have a quick question perhaps you might be able to clarify. If we are feeling all feelings without resistance aren’t we feeling our conditioning rather than reality? When, for example, I feel anxious, it’s coming from thinking, not actual reality..??

You recently said that everything that’s happened to us had to happen.Why?

what’s real about the patriarchy- about the systemic oppression of women, particularly women of color? Or flipped- the systemic prioritization of money and power controlled by white guys?  It doesn’t appear to be a particularly nourishing system on a global scale for anyone. In this conversation, it feels like we are focusing on our individual mind/body systems, that getting into them helps access what’s real, AND it does feel to me like there is some level of “real” collective trauma looking to be revealed and healed- versus “personal” trauma… 

Hi lovely Clare,Can you say more about what is happening when the ego's needs for validation, approval, being liked, etc. *do* seem to be met? What is that? Sometimes it seems like a temporary respite, like giving a piece of candy to a child who is tantruming. Other times it seems like presence/connection emerges and there's simply life unfolding and then the mind labels it as "belonging" or "being seen/heard/validated". Can you share more about that please?

Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship Terrence Real

The real you is a field of intelligence in which the person you have identified yourself with, all other persons, as well as the environment in which they exist, all co-arise and co-evolve as a result of your own self-interactions. Deepak Chopra

Psychedelics Listener question 

When you’ve been friends with someone for many years and then they start to delete you and ignore you but find many reasons to avoid you but they are saying they aren’t….is it time to leave the relationship? 

I think what’s happening is I’m looking for myself/home in the otherI need them to feel okOr the insecurity does The need for attention/belongingAnd I look to thought for the answerBut I am also the space that sees that 

Hope you are well. A lot has changed for me in a positive way since we last connected. Far too long for an email but again my gratitude for the membership. Finding THEM very helpful. Wondered if this could be covered in a podcast or maybe I should ask on the webinar? 6 weeks ago I found myself effortlessly signing up for online dating 9 years post divorce. I’ve had no other relationship since the divorce as bringing up kids, working full time and caring for elderly relatives and just didn’t think I had the capacity to look or take on someone else. My husband had been unfaithful so I was also very scared of getting hurt again. In the 6 weeks of online, I’ve have two conversations by message leading to nothing as both ghosted me but then unexpectedly connected with someone last week and had a couple of dates. Felt very comfortable and there was a strong physical connection. Plenty of chat back and forth before we met and in between but now little. I’m feeling like a love sick teenager, with every What’s App notification, wondering if it’s him, wondering why he’s reading messages but taking a day to reply, why wasn’t in touch sooner given we had a lovely time, he was keen and he was a gentleman. Did I read the signals wrongly?  I’m feeling rejected and a bit confused. I wanted to be open and clean in my communications but online dating seems to be a game that has to be played and I’m not sure of the rules so may have been too much too soon. It was lovely to have male company and attention again and I unexpectedly thoroughly enjoyed myself. Having withdrawn myself for so long I don’t want to retreat again but also don’t want to be feeling this needy. Wondered your perspective. I know you talk of your experiences. 

Deep into THEM course I came up with the question about giving and receiving feedback.To give some illustration to this question I can recall my own example that happed to me while giving feedback to leaders of my team at work. As I presented my point of view what's working and what could be done differently  I got the answer from two of the leaders as they both said, that this is just mine projection and point of view and that they don't see it that way. So my feedback just bounced back.I felt cut off with this single sentence answer feeling like my opinion doesn't matter.And as I looked at it later and also today my conclusion is that it's difficult for me to be a part of that team which doesn't accept or at least openly discussed feedback of employees. Being in THEM course keeps me wondering: ''Is my conclusion about this event childhood need to be heard or adult response to it''? What' real here? Is the difference that makes the difference between the two in the feeling?

'HOME The return to what you already are' by Clare Dimond  Sunday Book 

To travel a circle is to journey over the same ground time and time again. To travel a circle wisely is to journey over the same ground for the first time. In this way, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and the circle, a path to where you wish to be. And when you notice at last that the path has circled back into itself, you realise that where you wish to be is where you have already been ... and always were.Neale Donald Walsch

 Hi Clare,  I still stumble and ruminate about this whole notion of change. I know you answered already a lot of questions and the anwers are logical, but this system here just keeps asking and not knowing.   So the thing is: change just happens if for the system it makes no more sense to sustain a behaviour. Ok so far. And when and why this happens, who knows? Something has been seen, heard whatever. Suddenly the systems sees things differently and what made sense yesterday doesn't make sense anymore.   So this sounds like there is nothing to do, no attitude to take, no whatever to initiate this change. But still there is seeking and wanting to change. Where does this come from? And still and this is my main question there are tons of people who claim to decide to change or decide to do things differently and it worked for them. What is this then? Delusion? It was just the system ramdomly changing things and they just think they had a say in it? Or what? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Can fulfillment and satisfaction co-exist with longing/desire or does the arising of longing and desire have to arise in a system of unfulfilled needs?   

I'm wondering what your take on this is.  I have heard that what we are is life living through us.  Do you think this life or consciousness can have the desire to live through us in a different way, or is it completely neutral?

I have a question that I have been chewing on for a bit.It goes like this.Where does the "understanding" often spoken of, happen?It seems to me that it would have to happen in the "system" also spoken of.And the skill or ability to observe or witness the thoughts and feelings that come out of the system, would also have to be trained into the system would it not?Maybe even the realization that there is no self, would be something that would also have to be trained into the system, regardless of where that realization originated.Then with that realization and those skills or abilities, the system would take that in and use it if it makes sense, therefore changing the system and allowing for more possibilities.

Continued from 8 July I've just been listening to your podcast which was responding to a listener's question about the above. If I've got it right, I think your response was along the lines of our actions being beyond conscious control, with our perception of free will etc being an illusion. So how do we avoid slipping into determinism with this outlook? It's an old conundrum I know, but why have a penal system which punishes people for actions over which they had no conscious control? If nobody's responsible for anything, anything goes and that surely can't be right. We can go along with Hamlet and decide that "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so", but I can't accept that someone like Ian Huntley (the Soham murderer) thought that what he was doing was 'good'. If what he did was 'good' then I don't want to live in a 'good' world. To conclude that, in separating the action from the actor and to condemn the former but not the latter, removes any sense of agency from what we think human beings are. And that means we're all automatons. Well, do you think we are?

Do you see any value in things like somatic exercises that calm the nervous system or is that just nother way of avoiding and not feeling ?

The body-mind, the system, the robot, the unit... Wonderful Words 

I've just been listening to your podcast which was responding to a listener's question about the above. If I've got it right, I think your response was along the lines of our actions being beyond conscious control, with our perception of free will etc being an illusion. So how do we avoid slipping into determinism with this outlook? It's an old conundrum I know, but why have a penal system which punishes people for actions over which they had no conscious control? If nobody's responsible for anything, anything goes and that surely can't be right. We can go along with Hamlet and decide that "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so", but I can't accept that someone like Ian Huntley (the Soham murderer) thought that what he was doing was 'good'. If what he did was 'good' then I don't want to live in a 'good' world. To conclude that, in separating the action from the actor and to condemn the former but not the latter, removes any sense of agency from what we think human beings are. And that means we're all automatons. Well, do you think we are?

I’ve been pondering the experience you often described of sitting with a feeling and inquiring into what arises as a healing space of awareness, where a shift happens. And while I’m sometimes aware that there is no me to do it or anything, I wonder what actually happens when a shift occurs and how whatever happens takes place? When I think there is a me doer, I wonder how best to inquire into it, to see through it, make it transparent?This may be the result of way overthinking it, and if so it wouldn’t be the first time.An example might show my pondering:I talk on the phone with my darling, beloved sister. She shares with me what’s been happening in her life and I note an edge in her voice when she tells me of something particularly good that has happened to her. I hear this “edge” as bragging, a subtle putdown, and feel annoyed and jealous. I’m aware that I’m feeling this and then add on top of this a level of self-recrimination and guilt, as annoyance and jealousy aren’t “good” emotions. I love my sister and feel I should be happy for her, period.So I feel all of this and sit with it. I feel diminished and I feel icky. And then I inquire about what’s going on. I see old childhood rivalries and competition for parental love and attention. I see where, sometimes when I talk with her, I am annoying and bragging. I own it.  I allow as we’re both human we’re entitled to express human emotions. I see that our reactions come from our body/mind systems of how to be in the world. I allow as what I heard in her voice was my own projection. I’ve taken an endless deep dive into my psychology. This may be well and good, but it feels like drowning in concepts and beliefs. Every “rational” explanation feels like another card in a house of cards that is built on vapor, going nowhere. How is this healing?I wonder who is doing this diving and feeling and inquiring? Is this the body/mind busy defending its existence? Is this a process, a practice, for healing that, like Bryon Katie’s The Work, becomes steps to be followed when a constriction is felt? Or is this inquiry description only of what happens when feelings are felt with inquiry, not a prescription? What makes the shift, the flip from personal to impersonal? Sitting with the feelings and inquiring into them can feel like endless, pointless suffering. What is it in feeling the feelings, asking in curiosity about them, that shifts to the allowing of it, the accepting it, the witnessing it? 

I’d love to hear your reflection on these teachings. They assume free will, duality, and mastery are our best intentions. When Seneca was an advisor to Nero, he served alongside an aide named Epaphroditus, the owner of a slave named…Epictetus.Yet between Seneca, who was the richest man in Rome, Epaphroditus, who was one of the most powerful men in Rome, and Epictetus, who as a slave had no power at allit would be the slave who was the most free.How could that possibly be?Seneca himself would say that to be free is to belong to yourself. It is to be in charge of your mind, your will, your self. It is to insulate yourself from pointless obligations, from other people’s expectations, from materialism and the slavery of cravings or aspirations.“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power,” Seneca said.Seneca would know, for he was acutely aware that he lacked such power. So did Epictetus. Not only as a slave, but also as a witness to Nero slowly buying and trapping Seneca in a gilded cage. In the end, Seneca couldn’t even quit his job without permission. It was the ultimate prison—one with no walls.Seneca was not a singular figure in this regard. Epictetus saw countless other people who were unable to walk away from a job they hated because they were walled in by big houses and fancy titles. He saw people contorting themselves to get on Nero’s good side. He saw all the limitations and constraints that come with money and power. He saw how jobs that needed to be held for years in order to get ahead narrowed the choices of the ambitious who held them, like chains attached to their own yoke.Epictetus was horrified by what he saw. “It is better to starve to death in a calm and confident state of mind,” he would say, “than to live anxiously amidst abundance.”“Freedom is the prize we are working for,” Seneca wrote, “not being a slave to anything—not to compulsion, not to chance events.” Then he said, “show me a man who isn’t a slave.” To money. To work. To fear. To whatever everyone else is doing. To alcohol, to cigarettes, soda, material possessions, bad habits, followers on social media, anchors on cable news. Indeed, we have many masters.

'If there is no doer does that mean there is no doing?' Listener question 

If thoughts create our reality what do we do because we do not choose our thoughts and we cannot change our thinking.  What do we do to have a better experience.  When we are in depression our thoughts are constantly awful negative and dark. They are on a loop and you don’t get a break from them. How do we change them. 

I have a lot of respect for you, have read all your books, and resonate with how you "teach" about life and how you help people. Honestly, I am at a point where I don't know whether to reach out to someone who I respect, or just try to stop saying and feeling the same things over and over. It has taken me several months feeling this way to decide to finally write to you. As you have said many times, we can't stop the thoughts that go on repeat in our brains/computers. This is a difficult email to compose, as I really have no business taking up your precious time, so I'm apologizing up front. My hope is, you will read it, and make some sense of it.I am 64, two time cancer survivor, divorcee,  and full of unrest. When I was sick, I lost everything, and to make a long story short, I was one week from becoming homeless, and all I have been able to do is put bandaids on my entire existence and financial situation. It is the only way I can describe it and as truthfully as I can. "Reality!" LOL! I was able to keep my home, although like many, I am living month-to-month, and so close to the losing it all. At my age, job prospects are very slim to none when the income level I need is higher than most. My biggest regret is not paying cash for my home when I could have. I listened to everyone BUT my own wisdom. Here in America, we get brainwashed into going into debt, so we have a credit rating, AND, supposed tax benefits that have all gone away. Who knew I would get sick, lose everything,  and not have anyone or any thing to fall back on at all. Like many have said and thought............why me? I have made many, many mistakes. Am I being punished? Why would GOD, (The way I choose to define the Universe.), hurt itself, after giving us the greatest gift of all, "FREE WILL." It makes no sense. To get right to the point, I wake up every day, thinking the same "thoughts", with a feeling of complete unrest, unhappiness, and all the other words to explain the emptiness I feel. I don't have any more to say about it other than I want to hand it off to GOD, the Universe, Universal Mind. My question is this. How do I let go? Truly let go? I want to be free. Why do I keep on shouldering everything I do? We are all one?There are no more words, analogies, sentences, or ways to explain. I know in my heart I want to continue looking within, turn to the inside, my heart and soul. I want to so badly. I don't know how. If someone could answer the question of how to turn inside, to be ourselves, to just be, and could actually make it happen, it would help a lot of people. Is it possible to feel like I have never truly been me other than when I was younger. I have a medal I had made when I was a child. It says, "Keep That Winning Feeling!". I felt that "special feeling", and knew enough back then to recognize it and want to keep it. I have been chasing it ever since. I know it's LOVE. Feel free to respond if you want to. As I said above, you are very well respected, and in my heart, you are someone who "gets it". Life, Love, whatever this is. While writing this, a thought came to me that said the word, TRUTH. I have always looked to the outside, whether it was my mom, counselors, teachers, friends, stuff, etc. looking for direction. Not to get all wu wu, I would love answers from my GOD. How do I know it's TRUTH/WISDOM coming to me within?Thank you for your time and I hope this makes some kind of sense. 

'No-brainer'. Wonderful words of the week 

I think ever since I discovered your teaching I discovered this knowing that everything is ok, even or especially when I was experiencing very difficult situations and feelings. Even in the middle of a breakdown or panicattack something inside of me remained calm and knew that I was ok. (this might sound like spiritual bypassing but it really didn't feel that way at all).Last week I discovered a whole new level of panic attacks. I felt like I was going to choke (I'm not sure if that's the correct word in english. I am looking for the word of not being able to breath and dying from it). I was so scared that this would never stop, and that I would have to spend the rest of my life in this hell. Also it felt like I had to control those feelings, because if I wouldn't I probably would actually choke because of the panic-attack.This feels very much like something I shouldn't write. I guess I feel very exposed..And I am not sure what my question is. I just feel like I have lost my inner compass and have no idea how to go on from here. I would love to hear your perspective on this..