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When we explore the inside-out nature of life, especially as it relates to resolving an overeating habit, it can take some courage to be looking in this direction for answers. In this episode, we explore three instances where that courage may be required.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. 

Show Notes

• What I mean by looking for ‘different’ answers
• Three instances where courage may be required in this exploration
• Personal examples of courage

Transcript of episode

Hello explorers, and welcome to Q&A episode 37 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. 

Today I wanted to talk about something that’s not so much a question, but it is an observation about the courage it takes to look in a different direction for answers. And in our case, of course, it’s specifically about an unwanted habit. 

I’ve been mulling this over for a few days, and thought it would be a good thing to explore, It might help us to be a little bit more gentle with ourselves as we’re going on this exploration. So that’s definitely the intention. 

So, why do I say courage? 

I’m going to be the nerd that talks about the root or the origin of the word courage, and it has to do with heart actually. So the word cor I think, is the Latin spelling of heart. And cour I think is the French word for heart. 

Courage really has to do with, it seems to me, pursuing a heartfelt desire or following our hearts. 

And, for me, that’s definitely what this exploration of the Inside-Out understanding has been, especially as it relates to overcoming an over eating habit. So that’s why I chose that word courage. 

And then when I talk about looking in a different direction, what do I mean by different?

This is why it takes some courage. And that’s because I feel like our culture is not oriented in a way that supports this kind of exploration. Through no one’s fault, that’s the way that we live our lives, and the way our lives appear, is as though they work from the outside in, as though our experiences have an effect on, like chip away at our well-being or our resilience and that kind of thing. And that we have to be in order to be resilient, or well, we have to do that in spite of what’s going on. 

When, instead, we look at things from an inside out perspective, we’re always coming from the foundational understanding that we are whole and well and resilient. 

Not in spite of life, but innately that those qualities are always there. With no exceptions, every single person has this foundation, this core, the center of themselves, the essence of themselves, which is always well and whole. That spark of light, we could say in each person never goes away, no matter what has gone on in their lives. 

But because in a mainstream way, we don’t look at life that way, when we are exploring this understanding and beginning to see how life works from the inside out it can be. So I guess there were three ways that I saw that it can require courage. 

The first way is that that approach really flies in the face of how most people believe that life works. 

I’ll give you a quick example. I’ve talked before on this show about the condo that I live in being for sale. And I had a neighbor who when this first came up and I told her the news and she kind of almost had a little panic and started to ask me, “Well, what are you going to do and what’s going to happen? And are you going to look for somewhere else to live?”

This conversation happened more than once, it happened two or three times and I kept saying no, I’m just going to let things unfold. I trust that if there’s some action for me to take that that will occur to me, I really trust my inner compass to let me know if there’s something I need to do. 

Until I feel a nudge, a guidance, a little idea popped into my head about that, I’m not going to do anything. In the present moment, there’s nothing to be done. Because nothing has happened yet. Yes, the condo is on the open market. But there’s nothing else that’s going on. 

I could see that this answer perplexed her a little bit.

And, I tried not to go all woowoo on her and bang her over the head with what I felt was the right direction for me, or the right choice at that moment. But I could see that what I said confused her a little bit. And each time we spoke about it, that confusion was still there. 

At the time I realized that made me a little bit uncomfortable, I felt a little bit exposed for sharing the approach that I was taking. I guess that’s what I mean when I say things fly in the face and that’s a very simple example. 

I felt a tiny bit of pushback from her not in anything she said, but just in the confusion that I saw in her face. And, of course, when we take on more serious examples, if we had something that had higher stakes, for, let’s say, we were in partnership with somebody, and that person wanted to take action in that specific situation. And I wasn’t feeling like we needed to do that, the stakes would be a little higher. And, we might have to, I don’t know, stand by what felt right at the time, a little more than I did in the example of talking to my neighbor. 

But yeah, I thought that that’s one way that we need to show a little bit of courage in exploring life this way. 

And then if it came to explaining to somebody else about the approach that we were taking about an unwanted habit, the things we were doing, like not adding more thinking to the mix, allowing our moods and feelings to flow through us without attaching to them, trying to look upstream at the nature of thought rather than downstream, and controlling our behavior or trying to change our behavior that way. That too, could feel a little bit like we’re flying in the face of the general knowledge and consensus about how one would go about changing and overeating habit or losing weight. 

Other than with you guys, and with my work and with the podcast, I haven’t had to do too much of that. People just out in the general public haven’t really asked me, it just doesn’t come up. And it’s something that I’m interested to see how I would approach having that conversation with somebody who is completely unaware of the three principles. And again, I wouldn’t bash them over the head with it. But beginning at a very kind of gentle and beginning at a place that’s very simple, I think, and not filled with a lot of three principles lingo, but just maybe describing my experience in a very simple way. That seems like that would be the best approach in that moment. 

The second way that it feels like we might need to display some courage when it comes to exploring this inside-out understanding has to do with patience. 

This has to do with the way that insight works, and how insight doesn’t happen on demand. 

There can be times and I’m going through one right now where we can be looking for insight about something. And insight shows up on its own time. It shows up when it’s ready, it seems to me. And, I’ve maybe talked before about how there might be conditions that we can create that might encourage insight. And I’m not even sure that that’s true. 

I’ve had lots of insights when I’ve when my mind has been relatively quiet. But I’ve had lots of insights when it’s been relatively stirred up as well. 

So perhaps, looking in this direction is the thing that enables insight that’s not 100% true, either. Because people have insights when they know nothing about the principles and in facts, I think that’s how change always occurs. People may not label it that way. But I genuinely believe that it is always insight that enables us to change. 

When we’re wanting to change and looking to make a change in our lives, to how we’re eating, they can require some patience to wait for insight to allow insight to come through, because it doesn’t come through on demand. So that’s the second reason why I think we sometimes have to show courage in this exploration. 

And then the third thing that I’ll talk about today is that we show courage when we really accept what’s going on in the moment. 

And I mean that in really big ways, and really tiny, small ways as well. So it takes courage to accept our feelings in the moment to accept our thinking when it’s super stirred up and we’re having a real thought storm, accepting that and seeing it for what it is and not fighting it, or trying to change it by adding a whole bunch more thinking on top of what’s already there, allowing whatever’s there to happen to just be the way it is whether that’s something we’re feeling something we’re thinking, something that’s going on with somebody else. 

There’s a lot of patience that goes on there too. But it’s courageous to just accept who we are, what’s happening in the moment and to accept and embrace other people for the same reasons for who they are. And see the light in them, the resilience in them, the resourcefulness, the brilliance in their design as well, even when there’s stuff going on, that we don’t necessarily like in within ourselves or within somebody else. 

So those are the three reasons why I think it can take courage to look in this slightly different direction when it comes to resolving an unwanted habit or resolving anything in our lives just exploring the Inside Out nature of life. I’m sure there are others, but those were the ones that occurred to me this morning as I was preparing to record the podcast. 

So that’s it for me today. I hope all is well with you and I will see you again next week.

Featured image photo by Claudel Rheault on Unsplash