Overcoming Perfectionism in Autoimmune Disease

Introduction to the Autoimmune Detox Series 0:00

Welcome back to the reverse Autoimmune Disease Summit series. This is the fourth iteration. In the reverse Autoimmune Disease. Summit series. You're joining me for the autoimmune detox. Now we've been talking. This is the sixth webinar that I've done for this. Series for you. And we've been talking a lot. About the four PS. Of autoimmune disease, which are perfectionism, people pleasing, holding onto the poison of past pain, and the pitta notion. Innovated medicine causes a lot of inflammation if it's out of control.

We've been talking about emotional detoxification, the freedom framework that I use to help people reverse their autoimmunity about leaky gut, gut health and genetics and toxic burden and your body's ability to detox those toxins, whether they're physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. So we've covered a. Lot of ground. In this series. This next one is something. That's near and dear to my heart. I am in a, master's of divinity program at a school called military for College, which is, Tibetan Buddhist Masters of Divinity.

I went. There. Realizing that Tibetan Buddhism has some of the most advanced technology and mind training available on this planet. And I thought, wow, these guys. Just really know how. To do this, and I want to learn it. And it's been amazing. And one of the concepts within Tibetan Buddhism is this idea of what. Are called the. Six perfections. Or. In Sanskrit, the parameters. And so, you know, I talk about perfectionism being one of the problems that causes autoimmune disease, along with people pleasing and past pain.

Or trauma. And so this, I thought, would. Be a really. Fun, kind of fascinating look at perfections that from a Tibetan Buddhist standpoint, that could help you befriend perfectionism in. Reversing your. Autoimmunity. So again, if you're just joining me and you haven't you haven't join me in the rest of the series. This is the sixth webinar that I've done in a. Row for this series of reversing. Autoimmune disease. I was able to reverse my rheumatoid arthritis in my early 30s. Within six months without using methotrexate and other medications, because.

I started. Realizing that this probably the way I drove myself and the way that as a perfectionist and the people pleasing that I was doing and the past trauma that I had. I realized. Must have something to do with the disease process that. I was experiencing after the birth of my fourth child. And so, sure enough, when I dove into it, it turns out I was able to reverse that autoimmunity. Fairly quickly by. By approaching it from that direction. And I talk. A lot about. This and much more in depth in my book, Solving the Autoimmune Puzzle and its companion book, The Quick and Easy Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook. So this this piece that I'm going into today.

For those of you that don't know, me too. I'm, a family practice nurse practitioner with, specialty in integrative medicine and Board. Of. Certified and Functional Medicine. Board certified in. Vedic medicine.

Autoimmunity, Trauma, and the Hurt Model 3:34

My PhD is in sexology. I'm certified in five different psychotherapy trauma release modalities. A certified energy worker. Yoga teacher, meditation. Teacher, and conscious. Dying doula. And then, like I said, a masters of Divinity student and the founder of the Academy for Integrative Medicine Health Coach Certification program. So in this. Webinar. What I thought I. Would do. Is, you know, we talked about these four PS in past webinars and how they impact your immune system. You're already from you've been tracking that with me.

Now I really want. To go in how to. Befriend your. Perfectionism. What these six perfections. Are. How you can use them as a path in a daily practice. To really liberate you from your suffering. Autoimmune disease is one. Form of suffering. And so. The way that we're doing. This, and I've shown you these punch coaches. In the other webinars, you know, of course, in. Sanskrit, pancha means five, kosha means. Sheath or this is layer. That we have more. Than just our physical. Body. The Annamaria ko shows the is the physical structure that contains your DNA and your.

Cells and your organs and your tissues, and then your energy body or the. Prana Maya coaches, the one that has those 72,000 Naughties or Schroeter is these these place, we call them chakras. Right there where these nerves cross. 72,000 places in your body where you have these channels and those connect. To your emotional. And mental body, your mana Maya kosha. Where you store your. Beliefs and the patterns that. You've. Created from childhood that have activated your nervous system in. Very particular ways, based on your beliefs you created.

As you made up meanings to go with the. Experiences of your early life as you were developing and as you're going. Through your different developmental states and these different places, depending on the trauma, you know, caused attachment. Disorders or other. Traumatic ways of, you know, we could call it arrested development. In each of these developmental states, with coping mechanisms. You create as behaviors. To adapt to that. Which are. Why is the why is mind of the child's. Incredible. Remember, a child brain.

Doesn't have a prefrontal cortex yet that's fully developed. Not until you're. 24 to 26 years old. So this limbic system is very active. Like I have to survive in this world is a little being that's being governed by big beings, right, that are telling me how to do what I'm supposed to do and am I doing it right? And I'm like, okay, and am I good? Am I a bad? And so those those meanings. That we create, then. Govern us in adulthood until we take the time and, and this is. That spiritual. Body, you. Know, where we.

Take the time for the mind to start looking at itself. The mind can start looking at the mind in these. Early. Patterns, and actually they can shift. That's what's so beautiful. So remember the four. PS of autoimmune. Disease are people. Pleasing perfectionism poison from past pain. And that pitta dosha type in are Vedic medicine. Now in my doctoral research from 2013, I conducted the Healing Unresolved Trauma study. And what it did was it explained why. The adverse. Childhood Experiences study.

The Aces study came up with the results that it did, which said that the higher the number of traumas, that the more traumas you have in childhood, the higher. Your risk. For all. The chronic things that we see in our in our health care system today, including autoimmune disease. And cancer, as well as. Addiction and a lack of willingness to engage in. Self-care. And that also it will reduce the number. Of years you. Have in this human body. If you don't do something with it. So in other words, the higher risk for chronic.

Illnesses and the. Lower number of years that you get to. Live in this human body that's not set in stone. And so the healing unresolved trauma study, what I. Discovered was. You have this initial. Hurt. In childhood, and it can be not getting picked for a ball team containing the last one called. For Red Rover, red Rover, or you've got four little girl friends on the playground. One day in elementary school, and the next day they've all turned against you. You know, like, it doesn't necessarily need to be sexual abuse, domestic violence, emotional, psychological abuse, neglect, abandonment.

Those are the capital T traumas, right? Having a caregiver that's mentally. Ill or incarcerated or addicted. To a substance. Or divorced or dead, these are all. Big traumas, the capital T kind. It can be the. Lowercase t client. Because remember that we are biologically wired. To know that if we're put on the outside of. The fire light circle. In our tribal days, the sabertooth tiger can eat us. So any experience of rejection or betrayal feels like a big trauma to us. And then as a child, because it's a naive trauma, a new one, right?

Then we're going to make up a meaning about it, which will be self-centered because children are self-centered and narcissistic. They're supposed to be. Everything's about us, and. We're trying to figure out how to survive, right? It's all about us. Parents get divorced, children. Make it about them. Right? Because we're trying to. Create meaning about. Our world. And we're constantly making that meaning. So we have an initial. Hurt. And we can track mine. Okay, I use mine just to go through this model because it's easy to track.

Ten years old. I'm sexually abused by the vice principal of my elementary school. That first initial hurt. Okay, I feel an emotion from it, which is panic, terror. And then I'm going to engage my sympathetic nervous system. And in this case, it's going to be not fight, not fleeing, not fainting, but freezing. Most children freeze. Because we're not pow. We don't have any power. We're not autonomous beings in childhood, so most of us. Freeze. So that then panic gets frozen in my body and I have an activation pattern around it now and then I'm going to create a meaning.

Now my vice principal said that this was my fault, that it was happening. So the meaning is I must not be good enough. And people in an. Authority who say they're here to keep. You safe can't be trusted. That was another meaning belief that I put in place was, oh, I have to. Actually be perfect. And please, all my. Teachers. People pleasing so that I'm kept safe because the teachers are the one that can send you to the principal's office. So perfectionism and people pleasing. Are the behaviors that are.

Adaptive. For that. Kid. In that moment. Now, those are not great adult adaptive behavior. So what happens is we have this opportunity. Throughout the. Lifespan, okay, to to do something about this, but this is how it gets cemented in. And it creates a button that can be pushed over. And over and over. Again. And we have these different coping strategies. That are patterns that we develop, that are. Left in our body and in our emotionality, in the way. That we perceive everything. And the way that we.

We we project our energy into the world. All of it is affected by. These early meanings. And beliefs and these behaviors until we do something with it, and it's going to affect. How our. Genetics express themselves, our immune system, our hormone regulation. Because our adrenals are directly attached to our perceptions. If you perceive yourself as. Being a zebra being chased by a lion all the. Time, you're overwhelmed. You're you're unsafe all the time. Then those adrenals are going to keep reacting.

And that zebra that's. Being chased by the lion knows it's not safe to stop and have sex and reproduce. And it's also not safe to stop and go to the bathroom. So your digestive system will shut down, slow down, and all. The hormones used for. Reproduction. Or for your brain to work really well. And your skin to look good and your insulin to be used. Properly, you know, all of those. Things will actually all get co-opted. For your adrenals. To have cortisol. Because cortisol. Is going to be that.

Stress hormone that's necessary every time. You perceive yourself as unsafe, because your body knows that survival wins over reproduction, okay, reproduction is secondary to survival. So on the left hand side of this model is the maladaptive processing loop is the one that you created in childhood. So you're not going to be self confronting. You're not setting boundaries with yourself. You're just doing what you've always done, which is automatic negative thoughts. Whenever someone pushes that button, you're ruminate about. It.

It creates a re. Looping and judgment. And that creates disease. Because cortisol being released. In perpetuity. Is breaking down your gut wall, which is creating. Problems. As you know, you have foods that. Go through those little. Breaks in your gut wall. Then your immune system can't, you know, counters an attack against that which is not okay against blueberries. Sometimes, you know. Sugar, alcohol, all those things. And then in between those guts wall cells that are opened up now bad bugs can come and live.

You have. 100. Trillion microbes that live in your digestive system. They outnumber. Your cells. 10 to 1. And if you've got little apartment complexes opened up from cortisol being always released from your perception, saying you're unsafe all the. Time, or overwhelmed or not. Good enough, not beautiful enough, not smart. Enough, whatever. It is, can't keep up. Then those little apartment complexes get filled up with dis biotic bugs, right? Yeast parasites, bacteria that don't belong there. And then that impacts your mood, your memory, your immune system.

Okay, so you can do something about this. You can go over to the right side of the model, which is the willingness to change all that. And when I say what I say in the middle. Is you're able. To self confront and set boundaries with yourself and then. Others. But first with yourself, with your own thoughts. So you're creating adaptive memory processing now, which could mean you need to do some trauma work. And then I have a bunch of things that I do with people. Called mirror work. And and it leads to forgiveness in the.

Five hours that we've gone through in the. Other webinars. But that that's the the integration of all of this. And so one of the pathways to be able to do this. Is through these six perfections. Really, really great. Way of doing this. Or hooking up your brain to your heart, right where we're bringing. Compassion into the process. We really want to not just have this, this judgment re looping of automatic negative thoughts that are coming through is perceptions in a pattern that. Was created when you.

Were a small child in a situation you can understand. So we're going to drop. In and we're going to connect. That. To your heart. And bring some compassionate. Curiosity. Into it. And it can change the way you're perceiving, which then changes the way. Your entire body reacts. And responds. A non-reactive mind, non-reactive emergency system. So the way that Tibetan Buddhist, Buddhism talks about this is that it's in something called the operator. RB Abby Dharma Kosha. And it's this amazing Buddhist psychology.

Material that's. Volumes and volumes and volumes. And when I first started studying it, it was before I went into this college that I'm, learning. And now I was amazed at how much more complex and detailed. Information there was. From these amazing people that have spent so many. Years. Just studying the mind, and then passed on this information. It's incredible. And so one of the things that they say that was new for. Me is that there are actually. Six minds, not just one. And the six minds, five of them.

Are your sense minds like your eye. Mind, your ear. Mind, your nose mind. Right. And that the six minds bring information from. Your world to the other, the. Six mind that then does that perceiving and that there are 17 steps to doing the perceiving.

Tibetan Buddhism and the Six Perfections 17:18

There's not just an instant perception, there's actually 17 different steps in a one perception. So in them that 17 steps of perceiving step number eight is called. The gateway or the doorway to. Karma. And the reason that that's. There is because. What they say is how. You have perceived. In the past. In other words, remember the hurt model, how everything started when you were a. Kid and then the way that they conceptualize it is also in other lifetimes. Before. How you've done it in the past.

Is how you're. Going to do it in the future. You're just going to keep doing it the same way. Unless you get into. That doorway to. Karma, that gateway to karma, which is this tiny little gap, and you make a shift in the way to do that is through the six perfections. But it takes you have to like. Really have a practice. Of meditation to be able to sit still and allow the mind to see the mind to witness the mind. Okay, so. The four. Piece of autoimmune disease, then the poison from past pain which create perfectionism in people pleasing that can be witnessed in that.

Doorway. To karma if there's time spent to do it. Remember the IRA Vedic. Medicine says autoimmune disease is undigested. Anger. So when I first learned that when I was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. At the age of 30. I didn't even think I was an angry person. I didn't even think I. Had anger, I didn't. Even recognize my. Anger. Turns out I was really angry and I had a lot of reason to be. But if you're a people pleaser and you're trying to be perfect. Then you're not going to be. Allow yourself to have the feeling which in Tibetan Buddhism they call it an affliction of emotion, angers and afflicted of emotion.

And so it gets what happens to it. It's undigested and it just circulates so harmful. Stir the wind of the mind, these affective emotions, right. We in our Vedic medicine, we talk about five elements space. Air. Fire, water and earth. And then there are domains attached to each of them. Well, harmful. Finds. Are. In Tibetan, Buddhist medicine. We call it lunar energy. Right. It's going to stir the wind of the mind. So it's important to take a look at this. And so we want to change our view on perfection then.

Right. So the. Sanskrit word is. Parameters as I said gone beyond. We're going beyond. And one of the things that you've heard me teach a lot about is that all unhappiness comes from unmet expectations. Well, one of the things that Tibetan Buddhism says is that all suffering comes from self cherishing. And so some of those expectations that we. Have are of others of life, of perhaps your view of. Like the divine, maybe God. Creator, the earth. Politics, what you can look at the. Literally. Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of expectations that we hold constantly, always actively engaged.

And expectations, expectations of our bodies. Oftentimes people, when they're diagnosed with an autoimmune disease are. Angry at their body. Because they have an expectation that the body's supposed to behave in a very specific way. But nobody ever promised us that the body is supposed to behave in a very specific way. Or that. Our children are supposed to outlive us. Or that. We're not supposed to get hit by a truck. You know, there's all this. There, these weird expectations. We have, and I'm not sure where they come from, but the way that that, you know, Tibetan Buddhist thought is, is that, well, Buddhist thought in.

General, there are these four noble truths. And that the truth of suffering is. Real. And, you know, all suffering is coming from this idea of self cherishing. So there's a difference between the the self cherishing of the ego and of our consciousness. Okay. Also called higher mind or. Your higher consciousness or your higher self. So what we want to do. Is remember that it's said that if. You change one little, one little tick on your compass, then you're going to go into a completely different direction.

That's what we're up to. And by. Doing this work of. Not having so much. Energy around. Having to have. Everything out here be okay for us. To be okay. Right? For for everyone to be responsible for our self cherishing and for our. Expectations to be such that. That we're going to suffer if they're not met. Remember that Gerald Pollack, doctor. Doctor Pollack's talk that I, I interviewed him for this summit and and he talked about. Structured water. And the fact that it's 302 instead of H2O. Right?

That that's the. Structured water is the water that our cells can actually use. It's the one that brings us health. And I your Vedic medicine, we would say probably structured water is the same as us. And and our brain is 73% water. Our eyes are 95% water. Our blood. Is. 94% water. We're made of water. And so if we think about the kind of. Water. That our bodies can use that brings us health, it's the structured water. And the only way that we get structured. Water that's usable. By us is, if you remember.

Doctor Pollack. Talking, it's. Through. Light. There where he said that they discovered that in the lab where they put. Infrared light and all of a sudden the water went into structured water. It was amazing. And that there all these. Different things that we can do to change the molecular. Structure of our water. Molecules in our bodies. And that that actually creates health will. One of the ways of doing that. Is to relax. The. Energy. And bring light, right? Shining light the mind, witnessing the mind.

To. Relax that tension about. Are people. Behaving the way I want them to. When you have that tension like I'm they're not meeting my expectations, right. Everybody else. Is. They're not doing what I need them to do and trying to control that. We're not going to get those structured water molecules the way that we would if. We're relaxed and we're in the forest where we're we're earthing, right? We have our feet on the ground. We're happy. No, not suffering. And so this. Is the why. Of doing. This work.

These six perfections. Are really going to actually harm the. Molecular structure of your. Cells. And help you to reverse. Autoimmune disease. This is how it happens. All right. So the six perfections or the six parameters are generosity. Ethics also called morality in the literature. Patience, perseverance. Concentration and wisdom. We're going to go through each one of those. So the first one is generosity. Just looking at this picture, you know the beauty of it and gazing at it. For however long.

And dropping yourself into the beauty of this and using it as a one pointed focus. You can feel everything calm inside of your system, right? This is. This is what I'm talking about when I'm talking about changing the molecular structure. Of your of your. Water molecules. If I take my eyes away from this. Picture. And instead I direct them to, I don't know this my calendar, I can feel a different. Energy. Immediately, like this is all the things that are expected of me. This is peace. So what can you. Do as your.

Mind witnesses itself? Okay. And and watch how everything changes inside of your body as a result. Okay. So generosity. There are three different. Kinds of generosity. And the way. That I first discovered the. Six parameters was. Before I. Was in, in this master Divinity. Program, there was a. Book I. Came across through. Some synchronicity, from a, teacher named Lamar Zopa, and it's called The Six Perfections. And the book is really good. I would highly recommend it. In fact, I'm going to pause this for a second.

Pause the. Recording. Okay, so this is the book that I ran across. And, I was meditating and I. Heard this word. In my mind, and it was just perfections, and it had an s on the end of it in my meditation. And I remember thinking perfections, what? And I'd never heard of such a thing. And I went to Google because I'm used to like just looking things up. And I looked at perfections and this book came up to the Six perfections by llamas over in bush. And I thought, well, okay. And I ordered it. And it is so good, this is so good.

And I thought, wow, this is a way of. Really. Doing the. Things that we're talking about here, where I. Teach, you know, people. How to reverse their autoimmune. Disease, heal their trauma, do all these different things. And this is an amazing pathway for that. And so I bought a. Copy for every one of my. Children. My parents. And I was that obnoxious person and just said, I'm curious what you all think about this. And everyone that read it loved it. And when I read it, I thought, oh, this. This man is an amazing. Teacher.

And is so articulate in some of these incredible teachings that would, like. Liberate. You from suffering. And I wonder if he's still alive. I would really. Like to have him be my teacher. And so I looked him up again on the internet, and sure enough, he was still alive. And then I, I saw my a, a college and applied and got accepted. That very week. It was just like boom, boom, boom, boom. I think I read this.

Generosity and Ethics as Healing Practices 28:38

Book in late March and then in April was the deadline for application. Within one week I had applied and I was attending school by August, you know, so was all this very synchronous, process that happened. But it. Was from this word. Perfections that came up in my meditation. And with the things that he says in this book is perfection, is one of the one of the most. Important of the six perfections. Is generosity. And if you don't do anything. Else in your life. If you just spend the rest. Of your life cultivating a generous heart, that that right there will.

Be so amazing for helping. Create a really beautiful death. And then if if you believe in reincarnation. A really beautiful rebirth and so generous heart. Was something that I started thinking about, like cultivating a. Generous heart, how do I cultivate a generous heart? Well, there are three. Kinds of generosity. You can be. Generous in your material. Giving. You can be generous in helping people, Relieve their fear, right? Their suffering of fear of change. And then you can also help them by giving them a reminder of connection.

To something greater. Than. The moment that they're in. When they're suffering. So these are the three kinds of generosity that you can practice. So that makes sense. Like we live in this time right now of a pandemic, and a lot. Of people are feeling overwhelmed. And disconnected. And so a. Generous heart if you think about those three. Different kinds of generosity, it's, I think, you know, one of the most generous things that you can do is to give of yourself in that way of helping to. Reduce fear.

And the suffering of change, because I think a lot of people are suffering from that right now. Things have changed so quickly and so dramatically. And then we are part of. Of course, a larger field. Yeah, right. It's not just us. We're in Rupert. Sheldrake called it the morphogenetic. Field that we're. Giving and receiving information to each other all the time. And so the the. More that. Our resonance is that of love and compassion, the more we are impacting those around us on the field that we're interdependent with and interrelated with.

And so that in and of itself is generous. The more that we cultivate compassion for the human condition. For the truth of suffering, for what's. Causing the suffering, and then. Embark. On the path to. Relieving. That suffering for ourselves and each other with compassion. That's the. Generous heart. And we have no idea the. Ripple. That it you know, that pebble that we throw in. The water creates in our own. Dimensions of of mind, and then our connections to others that are in the same field with us.

So the second perfection or parameters, ethics or morality. I used ethics because oftentimes morality has, it's kind. Of a charged word. So ethics means not harming others through actions of body speech in mind. And each of these perfections are connected. They're not just standalones right. So if we're giving. Someone. Food, we're generous, but we're also. Abstaining from harming them. Then if we just walk past a starving. Person, that's a form of harming them. So we're. Doing two. We're engaged in two of those.

Perfections when we feed them patience of ethics, which is another of the perfections, is being patient with others, harm us, and by not retaliating, which is also generosity. Perseverance is continuously feeling joy in our positive actions or what they call creating positive merit. Concentration of ethics. We say which concentrations one of the perfections we stay one pointed in being of service to all that is. And then wisdom of ethics is remembering that. The other. Is. Us, that we are all part of this field, that if we were to.

Remove time and place and concepts of phenomenon that we can only see through our five senses being what's absolute and real, and move into a. Larger way. A more cosmic way of viewing that we would call it emptiness, then that's the wisdom of ethics. So that's called wisdom. So just knowing that every single thought we have forms us and our reality, every one of them. So we're we're constantly forming our reality. And we are joined. Some of you have heard. About the last near-death. Experience. I've had three of them.

Near-Death experience that I had. I was struck by lightning. And and as I left my body, I went into this, grid of light that looks like this. You know, it was a grid. And each one of the. Bars of light. Was one of us. And our interconnectedness lit up that grid. And the ones that were engaged actively in cultivating a generous heart and being patient in their own self. You know, growth of self awareness. And being able to witness self and be able to. Really. Shift. Right, like I was. Talking about in that. Doorway of karma.

Out of afflict, of emotions. Like fear and anger and. Jealousy. Then the light was brighter and the. Grid was powering the. Planet, like this was. Part of our life force energy. And then it was it was not just optional for us to do. This kind of work. It was essential that we had to be engaged in. This is what that near-death experience showed me, that this is how. Important it is, that it's actually our our life force. As a, as a species and as a world and all the sentient beings that we. Share it with.

All right. So patience is the third one. And there's a saying that says petty tyrants are our best friends and teachers because they teach us patience. So constantly being in touch with your thoughts. Is required for. Patience. And if you can engage in this complete conviction that those. That hurt you. Have also been. Hurt. That doesn't mean that you have to keep showing up for a beating. It means to have a boundary, but at the same time is having the boundary. You can also have compassion. You don't have to keep showing up to the person.

To hurt you. But you also can remember. On the hurt model where it has. The maladaptive way of being. Then there's judgment and re looping and automatic negative thoughts. Those reflective emotions and thoughts are not patient ones. So if you can live in a compassionate space that says, oh, if someone is being hurtful, it means they've been hurt, then I can. Be curiously. Compassionate toward them and go from there. And like I said, you may not even have need to be in front of them. Remember, forgiveness and reconciliation are two different things.

Reconciliation only happens if the person is safe and contrite, but everyone becomes in need of our compassion and sometimes good boundaries. So there are three kinds of patients the patients of disregarding the harm done by others so you don't hold on to it and ruminate about it and cause resentment in your body. Remember, I say. Resentment is the most infective and destructive chemical on this planet, and it's not made by. Corporations. And dumped. Into our air, water, and soil. It's made here.

And dumped into our cells so that our mitochondria are bathing. In our. Own resentment. So disregarding. The harm done. By others is letting go of our harm and our. Past. Being able to not have resentment. The patients of accepting suffering like life bring suffering. And if we feel we're undeserving of it, then we're going to have resentment and anger. We all deserve suffering because nobody says that we don't. I mean, there's no promise that we don't have suffering. The reality of life is there is suffering and why not? You people always say, why me? Why me?

I don't deserve this. And I'm like, well, who says that? Because if you have. A larger view of all. Of it, then you start seeing, oh, it's the suffering moments. Those parts. Of my timeline. Where I learn. The most wisdom. If I was willing to self confront and suffering will happen. Okay, so patience when it's happening.

Patience and Perseverance Through Suffering 38:08

Patients of gaining certainty about the fact that that suffering is part. Of a larger spiritual. Path, then you can actually bring meaning to it, right? Rumi I think, is the one that said. If you're upset. Every time. You're rubbed. Then how will. Your mirror ever get polished? Very, very true, isn't it? I think there's a Japanese proverb that says, fall down seven times, get up eight or something like that. Right? All of these are. Meant to teach us that. Yes. People will hurt you. Life will hurt you.

You will suffer. You will have challenges you don't think you can overcome. And in those moments, Joseph Campbell calls it. The hero's journey, right? Those moments are the time where you go find mentorship. Maybe it's a. Spiritual teacher or a teaching. And then you start practicing it. And as you. Integrate. It, you come out and a new level of development and your ego might have a little less hold on you, and you might. Be a little bit more. Polished, and then it will happen again and again and again until you die.

That's how. Life works. And so if you can be patient with that, then you don't get upset and you can get to the learning of it quicker. Right. All right. So this. Picture I love. Because anthropologists call what I just. Described. Liminal space is the space of transitions, the threshold of moving from one developmental state to the next is often a. Space of darkness where we're we're in. A space where we can't see anything as we're moving from one developmental state to the next. And that darkness can be scary.

But if will sit still, be patient. Practice generous heart. Compassionate curiosity, and hold. To our. Ethics. We will get through that space into the next doorway. That light at the end of the tunnel. And then for a while will be there and it will feel really good, and we'll. Be happy and content. And then. We're going to get to our. Next liminal space again. That's how. It works. Those are called transitions, and all of us have them. And so we can think of them on a microcosmic level of each of us as individual beings in the timeline.

That's linear, which doesn't really exist. If you think instead of yourself as a cosmic being of. Your your your. Preconception self and the one who will. Draw your last breath. Is all available to you in one cell of time, you have access to all of those. You can actually. Have your wiser yourself way in for you. If you'd. Like, you can have the one that often. Called your Oversoul or your luminous nature. You're in Buddhism, it's called your Buddha nature. You can actually access that one and ask. For the.

Wisdom that it brings, which is usually. All. Of this is impermanent and empty. So if you can rest in that space of silence. It's a repository of. Peace and stillness. Then whatever's got you activated can relax right? So perfecting patience is remembering that without an enemy, there's no chance to practice patience. With no. More anger. There are no more enemies. So really, like learning to digest anger becomes really important. And that is cultivating a generous heart. Being patient. The real.

Enemy is the self cherishing mind that feels like it needs to get defended right about how someone's seeing you. Or how they're treating. You. And if you can relax into that more cosmic consciousness. The clear light of who you are, your luminous. Nature, and you can see there's nobody can say anything that. Really harms you. In trying to manage your image. And how others. See you. Is really a waste of time and energy. Right. So the one. Who is truly brave. Is the one who fights the inner enemy, the one who wants to control everything.

Out. Here and how it's happening in order to feel okay. This is the the puppet, right? Who controls the mind that has all those afflicted emotions of jealousy and anger and hate. But the thing of it is, it's based on this ignorance that. You are behind all of that. Your luminous nature is behind all of this. And the ignorance that anything that we take a look at, that we can. Lay our any of our. $0.05 minds on is actually impermanent. We are impermanent. Everything that we can put our sense organs on is impermanent.

So if I. Need for it to. Be permanent is what's causing our suffering, we can let that go. Then the. Puppeteer relaxes. So why be unhappy if there's a solution? What good is discontent if there's no solution, what good is it anyway? Shanti Devi is. The author. And an amazing, amazing. Historical teacher. Of the way of the bodhisattvas. The bodhisattvas way of life. Sorry. So then it sets. It sets the mind. Free. From the cage that we put it in. Right? What? We put our own mind. Remember in the last.

Webinar that I showed you the mind and its the brain in its cage, the mind in the cage. We're the ones that create the mind traps. And then our heart can open. The door and let it free. So perseverance is the fourth parameter. Three kinds of perseverance. Armor like perseverance, the perseverance of gathering. Virtue, and the. Perseverance of working for the welfare of others. Petty tyrants are our best friends and teachers. So hard to remember that persevering. With that thought right? Having compassion, constantly being in touch with your thoughts.

That's perseverance. Complete conviction that those who. Hurt us have been hurt. Persevere with that. Thought. They become in need of our compassion and boundaries. Perseverance with all of that. And then the rigid mind can begin to dissolve. Remember, like I said in the last. Webinar, a rigid. Mind. Creates a. Rigid immune system, a hyper vigilant mind. I myself, am I okay? Can I trust. Create a hyper vigilant. Immune system? All of these things create autoimmunity. So once we can start seeing that it's oh, it's not rigid, soft, it can dissolve.

Kind of like moonlight touching water. Oh, the mind can touch just like that. The awareness touches like moonlight, touching. Water or you seeing your reflection. In water. And to soften all of that. With perseverance, barriers to perseverance are. The laziness of procrastination, the laziness of being attached. To worldly affairs. The laziness. Of discouragement and low self-worth, the tyranny of self relevance. This is a big one. There's some information research. That's been done on death anxiety.

Where when we start really viewing our own. Mortality and autoimmunity makes us. View our own. Mortality, there are two things that help us. Really relax that. Death anxiety. One of them is the need for immortality. And so we go into. Afterlife. Thoughts like, oh, I'll go to heaven, our God. You know. Like afterlife. Thoughts in Tibetan Buddhism it would be something different, like, Another wonderful reincarnation or going. To, a Buddha land. This helps to dissolve death anxiety or symbolic. Immortality where.

We actually want to become self relevant. We want to leave a legacy. We want to be known for something. We want to pass on our genetics. We want to have a big building with our name on it. You know, all these. Things are called. Self relevance. And that that. Need for self relevance. Well, keep us. So there's there's laziness of mine and then there's overactivity of mind. And both of. Those are barriers to perseverance. And then. Ignorance ignorance. Attachment and anger. So remember hypervigilant.

Mind makes a hypervigilant immune system. Except when hypervigilance is the attention. To our. Positive actions right. That hypervigilance doesn't have that same rigidity. It was like in the picture I showed. You, where there's. Softness like moonlight touching water, that we just kind of keep that vigilance there. Making sure that we're engaged in the service to others. Making. Sure that we're. Keeping in that positive thoughts. Stream. Don't go to sleep. Letting our vigilance waver. Lapsing back into non virtuous actions and wasting this precious chance that we now have in this lifetime.

That's a lack of of perseverance. And those coping strategies that I showed you, like in the hurt model, the ways that. Those behaviors we created according to our meanings. And our beliefs in childhood. Those are like ruts in a record, right? The grooves. So we want to take the needle. Out of the groove. We want to. Put our hand. In the perceptual field of the 17 steps and open the. Doorway to calm a. Little bit and take a look at how we've always done things and shifted. With perseverance. Remembering that success isn't.

Linear in this. We're going to, fall down eight times. Get up nine. Right? That the road to. Liberation of all of this is not quite so. Straight as we would like to. Think. It's very, very messy sometimes. Especially in this mind. So reflecting on impermanence can generate. Perseverance if we realize. That the thing that's distracting us is impermanent. Then we can come back again, again, again. Generating a generous heart. Cultivating right, generating positive merit, cultivating a generous heart, being patient, persevering, keeping to our ethics.

Concentration. So, in order to concentrate, we want to keep your mind in training at all times. Always have your your. Mind witnessing itself. This is called. Awake awareness that you're. Always training on that. That's why I went to my retreat. There was. To learn these. Tools because. I realized, oh my gosh, they really. Have this down. I really want to learn this. It keeps your emotions. From. Spiraling. And keeps. You from being reactive. Right? A non-reactive mind makes a non-reactive immune system, concentrating.

On cherishing a virtuous. Life that accepts what is as it is, doesn't need to control it and make it something different. This can all be done with healthy boundaries. You don't have to collapse into victimhood. One of the things Tibetan Buddhism I love, Tibetan Buddhist, think about mothers as being the epitome of unconditional love and compassion. And I read a book once and I never, ever get to the book itself because the. Four words stopped. Me in my tracks, and it was written by I. Forgive me if you've heard this story before, but it was.

Written by the. Translator, who was a. Student of the lama that was giving the teachings, and he had liver cancer. The llama did, and he had two tumors in his liver.

Concentration, Wisdom, and Liberation 51:18

And in the foreword of this book. The translator student who was writing the book, all the teachings for that this lama was giving. Before he died so that Westerners would have to practice. He wrote in the beginning of the book about the. Story of receiving. The teachings from this lama, who the attendant would wake him up at like 1:00 in the morning and say. He's ready for you. Now. And he. Would stagger out of. Bed and go into the Lamas room and he would see him just finishing vomiting into a bucket and wiping his mouth.

And as he could see, his feet were swollen and he was in so much pain. And the lama would talk about the the cancer. His tumors in his liver as being mothers, his mothers that were. Teaching him compassion and the truth of impermanence, which meant life is impermanent, right? And that he was. So grateful to the mothers who were. Teaching him. And the student in. This forward was. Saying, my own weak mind could not conceptualize it. Being able to do this, to be so generous and so patient and so diligent in passing these teachings on in spite of all this pain, and at the same time maintaining this level of love.

For. His body as it was. Deteriorating. And the pain that he was having as he was giving his teachings. And I started weeping. When I was reading the foreword. Because he said my own weak mind couldn't conceptualize, and I just sat back as I was reading the book and I thought, I have never let myself think of my mind is weak. It's not. Allowed. This mind is not allowed to be weak, and I can trace that back to being ten and being sexually abused at school. Like, not okay to let anything be seen as not good enough, right?

Because that leads to something that threatens your survival. And I can trace and I can see that coping strategy of the mind being strong in a way that's not really mind. Right. It's not true. It's ego that wants to survive and it's self cherishing. And I just. Started crying. And I thought, oh my gosh, I spend so much energy trying to keep this, this. Wall up. That keeps me from having to see a weak mind and keeps. The world. From seeing a weak mind. And when I let that down and collapsed it, I felt so much extra energy and I thought, wow, right? Everything in life, every one of.

These challenges, sexual abuse. Liver cancer. Is a. Mother. If you can concentrate on it being a. Form. Of unconditional love that is teaching you impermanence, you will not be. Reactive. In your mind. And I went, wow. So this is where I'm learning right now. Don't have this mastered obviously. So everything's always balancing in that mind eye. And you could actually do a practice at the end. Of your day. I've seen people do this where they have dark rocks and white rocks. And you can do it. The other way around.

I don't know why we always attribute black to bad. That's anyway, that's a whole nother discussion. I'm just realizing it. And so. If we were to put. A rock that signifies an afflicted emotion that we've had during the day in the middle of. A circle. And then a time when we've had. A generous heart. And then a time when we've had. Anger, in. A time when we had patience, in a time when we've had sadness, in the time when we've had concentration. And at the end of the day, you can look at the balance and.

See where you are. And then say, okay, tomorrow. It's really a neat kind of you can you can see it right. Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can have. Fewer of these rocks. That signify afflicted emotions, and more of the ones that signify the practice of the perfections. All right. So the sixth. Parameter is wisdom and everything in reality. Okay. So the way that Tibetan Buddhist break this down, as they. Say, there's a relative reality. And ultimate reality and. Relative. Truth and ultimate truth.

So conventional. Reality or relativity. Is the thing that we see, and we. Consider it real. Because all of our five senses can label it as being real. It's all the things are five sense minds can can actually grasp. But there's also a place outside of that, beyond the five minds. That's wisdom. That's emptiness. That's that picture I. Showed you where. Let me just go. Back to it to remind. You. This one. That's wisdom. That's impermanence. That's emptiness. Or a. Facsimile. Thereof. That my imagination can conjure. For you.

And our placement in that. Allows us to have a different perspective. So sometimes when I meditate. My consciousness will expand, expand, expand, expand, expand. In fact, I have a meditation called the Sky Heart Meditation in the healing trauma through the. Chakra. System. If you do that program, you'll get this meditation and it's it's moving. It starts with clouds. In your heart center. And then they expand. They expand until your consciousness is vast and infinite. And as as that. Part. Is meditating, it holds the earth as a tiny spot in all of the 6 billion people and.

Or however many we're up to. And all of. The things that are happening. On that earth, they have a different perspective from that place. They're seen and they're felt. And they're witnessed. As impermanent. And part of this emptiness, this cosmic, luminous. Clear mind. And so when you drop into that space that is your luminous nature, which is not it's it's fast, it's infinite, then there's nothing that's upsetting, changes the perspective. Entirely. So there's no meaning until we apply it to anything.

And so as. Our meanings are created. In childhood with an undeveloped mind and brain, we can set about retraining that mind. Through these six. Perfections. This is wisdom. We start recognizing impermanence. The emptiness of those meanings, and start creating something larger. So there are some truths. Everything that lives is going to die, everything that we love, we are going to lose. This is impermanence. Everything is impermanent. Including our. Relationships and the people we love. If you practice this, if you really drop into the truth of that, it makes it less painful, but not pain, less.

So practice. Really. Living like in this moment. All those that I love. Are here and they surround. Me and oh my gosh, I love that. And so happy about that. Right? Practice loving without the attachment to an outcome. Practice loving in this moment without a need for someone to be. Something for you or to do something for you. Practice losing your attachments but loving at the same time. Sometimes people will say, oh, not having attachment means you don't love well. That's not really true. It means.

You're you're. Loving, but you don't have an attachment to what happens from that. That's unconditional love. Practice dying to what is no longer allowing you. To progress. And to be non-reactive. Practice makes progress and ultimately freedom and liberation. So if you can start really realizing like, oh. Right, it's the mind that creates all my suffering, but it's also the mind that. Liberates. Me. It's in that. Other webinar where I had. The dog chasing its tail and the mind chasing its. Tail or spinal cord, the.

Brain chasing its spinal. Cord. Right. We're chasing our story. And so when we can let that go, that's liberation. And if we can do that, we die. Well, we die without suffering. And we can move into our next level, whatever that is. The relief. Of suffering and ultimate freedom of mind. Body, heart and spirit is what. This is. It's a pathway, these six perfections. And every time we're in a liminal. Space, in a threshold, in a. Doorway. We have an opportunity of using them as a pathway through. If you change nothing, nothing will change.

All progress takes. Place outside the comfort zone. So what this is doing is it's actually taking you into a new space right? All right. Well that concludes. The reverse. Autoimmune Disease. Summit series for this time, our 4.0. Autoimmune detox and these six. Parameters or the six. Perfections. Our. Pathway of detoxification, detoxification of old patterns of mind releasing those that caused suffering. All right, everybody, I. Hope you've enjoyed this. And I really look forward to hearing. Feedback in the reverse autoimmune Disease Institute.

Private Facebook group. Let me know how you enjoyed the Summit Series, what you think about the. Six. Perfections. Where you are in your own. Practices and just, get in that community and find the. Support and offer support that. It is so. Amazing for. All right, until next time, be well.