Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships, we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Ann O'Hare, and this is The Spiritual American. Hello and welcome to the Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare and I'm your host. And today we'll be talking about feeling safe to try. This is kind of an extension of the very first episode of this podcast, which was about trust. And so we're going to get a little bit deeper into that today. But before we get started, please consider. Like sharing and subscribing, as you know, this helps YouTube to get this content out to more and more people. And also please consider sharing with your family and friends so they can benefit as well. So feeling safe to try, I'm thinking about my own life. And I know that some people are naturally interested in spiritual effort. And I know that a lot of times spiritual effort has been connected with religion or something that is, considered to be dogmatic or religious, or maybe you feel like you have to join something in order to be spiritual. And so maybe we've cut ourselves off from trying spirituality in the pure sense. And this podcast is about. sharing different aspects of spirituality that aren't necessarily related to any religion. Although you may hear certain words that sound similar, but the practice itself is not related to any religion and you don't need to join anything to practice it. But I want to talk about some of the reasons why maybe we don't have time to practice anything or maybe it doesn't seem like it's very important to us. And I wrote down here that we're very busy in our lives and that we have I put lots of irons in the fire. So what that means is that it's not just one thing going on in our life that we're managing, but there's a lot of things that were going on in our life, relationships, job, money, health. Maybe we have elderly parents, maybe we're having money problems, maybe we have relationship problems. Maybe my work situation is not so good. Maybe I have mental health issues or maybe I have, illnesses, physical health issues or something. So we have a lot going on and I think that when someone comes up to us at that point and says, Oh, try meditation. It doesn't always land as something positive. So I hope in this episode by the end of it, there'll be a little more of a positive, slant on it and maybe you will think about it again. I have a couple of ideas about this. When do we agree to try something new in terms of spirituality or self care? When do we usually do that. And I'm going to say we do it when what we're doing hurts. So if everything's going great, I'm not necessarily looking for a change or looking to do something new because everything's going great. So it has to be that something is not working. So I'm going to tell a story. I told this story in the trust episode, but I'm going to tell it again because it's, I'm sure many of you can relate to this. I had been struggling with my weight. I'm actually in a good place with it right now. I'm very happy about that. Coming out of menopause. So I'm on the other side of menopause and I should do a, I should do an episode just on that. Just sharing my own experiences. I think, women should share our experiences as much as possible because I think that would help prepare women as they're growing up, reaching that stage. So, yes, I'm on the other side of menopause and after, gaining some weight and not really sure how to handle my diet and exercise, because whatever I was doing before menopause is now suddenly not working and I'm gaining weight and not able to take it off and I'm sure I'm, Many of you who are aware of this have heard some of this before. So I was particularly feeling bad about it one morning and particularly out of control. And so I grabbed my phone and I'm looking for some, maybe there'll be some app or something I can try to do to try to help me lose weight or get some information. And I didn't want to spend any money, I just wanted some information. So I started looking, at these different apps. And one of the apps said, take this, take this questionnaire to see what your goals are and so forth. So I did the questionnaire and then at the end of the questionnaire, it said, okay, to get your results, you have to join and you have to pay. 65 or something. I'm like, no next. So I'm onto the next one because in my heart I really wanted to get some information. I was feeling defeated in this area and I was looking for help. And so I did find an app that looked like it was free and it had a questionnaire and I said, okay, I did the questionnaire and then it gave me some information. So it actually gave me some information and it said that based on what you've put in the questionnaire, you can get your goals within 60 days. And I was like, okay, or with six weeks or something like that, six weeks. So I said, all right, that sounds good. And then It said, in order to access the full app, you have to pay 19. 99 a month. Now I'm thinking, okay, do I want to spend the 19. 99? I've told this story before, so those of you who've seen the other episode, bear with me, I'm telling it again. But I said to myself, should I pay the 19. 99? And then I said, well, I only need it for six weeks. Maybe it'll be worth it. Okay. So I said, okay. So I paid the 1999 and then lo and behold, the app opened up and it looked like there was some different lists and different trackers. And I was like, great, this is great. Maybe this will work. And there was a water tracker and a sleep tracker and everything. I was like, wow. Okay. Okay. Okay. Maybe I did get something here. Then at the bottom it said meal plans. I said, great. This is definitely what I need. Let me click on the meal plans. And as soon as I clicked on the meal plans, it said to get your meal plans, upgrade your membership for 69. 99. I was so disappointed. I canceled everything. I just canceled everything and I lost the 20 because this is how I feel about it. I feel like when someone needs help, if you ask them for money at that time, it's very difficult for the person to feel the full potential of that help. Many people have this feeling. That's not to say that people shouldn't make a living or ask for money. I'm just saying how it feels. If someone really needs help, it would be better maybe or nicer if the person who was saying they were going to help wasn't asking for money. Just a thought. So I shut it all down. I'm like, forget it. And I felt very disappointed. So with time after time after time of a situations like that, you, one might get a little gun shy about. Reaching out for help. So I want to framework this conversation that meditation and spiritual effort is actually there to help us. get better. And what do I mean by get better? Get better emotionally, get better physically, my personality will get better. My relationships will get better. My ability to decide and make decisions and my self respect will get better. This is what meditation and spiritual effort offers. But like I said in the beginning, if I'm busy with all these things and somebody says, well, let's meditate. It doesn't compute. How is meditation going to help me pay my bills? How is meditation going to help me put food on the table? How is meditation going to help me lose weight or help me with my, relationship that's not working. How's meditation going to help me? I just got laid off. It's not so easy for us to think in this way, but I want to say that what meditation and spiritual effort does is it empowers you. So when I'm empowered, then I can help myself. That's basically it in a nutshell. But the topic here is feeling safe to try. If I am busy and I'm thinking, and I don't automatically see the result. I have to trust and try it even though I don't have immediate results. I'm thinking of the karate kid. It's another example from my generation. But the idea that, Mr. Miyagi kept getting Daniel to do these things and he didn't understand that he was actually being trained. So I'm going to say that meditation, daily meditation as self care and spiritual study, spiritual effort is a way to get better. But the thing is feeling safe to try. One of the reasons why maybe we don't feel safe to try is because in the past, like I said, when we went to go get help, we're always, getting help in a response to pain. Something's not working and I need help, right? I want to say that's a weaker position to come from than I want to take a chance. on myself. I want to take a chance on making myself feel better, healing myself, and taking control of my life. And maybe, maybe, maybe I'll be able to start making changes that make me feel better about all aspects of my life. So in order to start that process, you have to feel like you're willing to try. It doesn't take any courage to try to get help if you're drowning. You're drowning, so you need help. But I'm going to say it does take courage. To try to make yourself better with hope. We have a student who I worked with her for a year and she took the karma class and it really hit her very deeply, the idea of being responsible for her life. And I worked with her for a year and this particular person was not interested in God, not interested in religion. She had a lot of feelings about it and we were able to work together without really talking about God too much because. If you follow the laws, if you try and try to be responsible for yourself and try to make changes, you can make your life better. I'm going to say that this person really did change every single aspect of her life. It's very powerful. And she did meditate every day and she did study every day and she did get in contact with us. The other people who are practicing this, the Brahma Kumaris practicing this Raja Yoga meditation. So she did do that and she had a lot of success. So, what is the thing when you feel safe to try? You have to be able to take a chance when you don't know what's going to happen. I mentioned that before, but what does that mean? That means that you're trying not in reaction to something else. You're actually taking a step forward for yourself. This is why this podcast exists, that maybe there's something I can try. We're not asking for any money. You don't have to pay. So it's really, you can take a risk for your own self. You want to believe that it's, you're moving in the right direction, even if you don't see what's going to happen exactly. So again, it's like that coaching thing that, that karate kid thing. He didn't know why he had to sand the floor. He didn't know why he had to wax the car, but he was learning something. And I'm going to say meditation and spiritual study helps us to learn things. What am I learning? I'm learning about who I am eternally. I'm learning about the laws of karma. I'm learning about how the world works. I'm learning that a soul is actually having a time based experience, but also exists outside of time. These things make a difference. Believe it or not. In our life. So I'll leave it at one final thought. If you are thinking about starting a spiritual journey and you are thinking about taking a chance on yourself because it's not like the, the busyness is going to stop or the relationships are going to stop and the doors of heaven are going to open and say, okay, step forward and everything else is going to stop so that you can do this. As a matter of fact, in my situation, I did not feel. Good about it in my environment at all. And the people around me were very negative about me doing this, the practice at first. And I don't blame them. I mean, they were negative about it because of the way I was interacting with them. So all of a sudden I stopped. So it's like, there were two hands clapping and all of a sudden I stopped and then they're like, wait a minute, where's the other hand? So I changed a lot and they weren't very happy, but it all worked out fine. Everything's fine now, but it took a while. So you're taking a chance when you're going to. Find your own way and take care of yourself, you are risking something. So to try means that I'm taking a step forward for myself, alone, for myself, by myself, with the idea that I will get better and I will find something of value. I wanna say that this does work. I may, I kind of have a feeling like I left it on a weird thought, but it is a little bit of a weird moment when you make that choice. Because you, you have to make it for yourself. You have to make it for yourself. There's no guarantee that people will support you. There's no guarantee that they won't. There's no guarantee what will happen after that. It's a different energy than being reactive to everything else that's going on and trying to manage all the external things all the time. It's a different energy. And when you take that step forward into that energy, I'm going to say you do get a lot of help, but you can't anticipate where it's going to come from. But things do get better and you can make decisions and create the life that you want. So I'll leave it there. Remember, our slogan is Heal, Empower, and Serve. When we step forward and we try in terms of spirituality to make myself better, I take that step of courage and I become stronger. It has an impact on everybody around me. It may not look good at first. It depends. It may be fine or it may not be, but that's okay. Eventually, if you stick to your own path, the rest of it will work out and that's service too. So until next time, take care. Um, uh,
