Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Many blessings today. We're talking about how to not get upset by other people, because other people can definitely upset us potentially.
You know, relationships is often the area of our life where we get the most disturbed, isn't it? The most emotionally bent, out of shape and rattled.
And so whether we like it or not, we're going to have people in our life, and they're probably going to trigger us to some degree, at least at some point. So how are we going to manage not being triggered? How can we maintain our happiness? How can we stay in a cheerful, positive space and learn from the relationships rather than letting them beat us up and get us all over the place? So that's what we're going to discuss in this wonderful session today. Thank you for your presence. Hello, Shereen.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Hello, Michael.
Thank you for your presence.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Thank you. And you're around more people than I am, aren't you? We are running a center. Lots of people all the time, people building things and people coming to the center and people this and that and all these things, isn't it? How do you manage all these people and not get upset?
[00:01:20] Speaker B: My first secret, I think there is a squeezer and a squeezy, right? The squeezer is the people in my life, and I'm the squeezy. And I just remember, if you squeeze orange juice, orange juice comes out.
If you squeeze mango, I'm sorry. If you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out. If you squeeze a mango, mango juice comes out. If you squeeze Shireen. Only love should come out. Not upset, not disappointment, not that, not this.
Only love should come out. And if I'm being squeezed, which I'm being squeezed all the time, and upset comes about, or hurt comes out, or anger comes out, or whatever comes out, right? Being insulted comes out. Anything comes out, then I realize that I have a lot more work to do to go toward my angelic stage.
So every squeezer is a messenger. They're coming to give me a message that this is what is inside me. It has nothing to do with them.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: That's extremely empowering.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I take. Take the onus out of them. I put the responsibility on myself and I say, you know what? I liberate you. I liberate you from any kind of expectation from me. You are just here to squeeze. And you can go ahead and squeeze if you want. I would rather you didn't squeeze, but it's fine. You can squeeze, because that's giving me a message.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: That's beautiful.
So we're all being squeezed, and whatever comes out is obviously, what we're made of at this moment. And it can change. And it can change.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: Right? And also, we need to understand is that, let's say someone is squeezing me and I'm upset, right? Upset is coming out.
Then it's my problem.
The squeezer is just a squeezer.
Whatever is inside is coming out. So I should never make it someone else's problem. Right. If I'm upset with someone, I'm making it someone else's problem. It's actually my problem.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: That's right. Now, I completely agree with you. And let's just have, like a. Like a disclaimer here about this, this topic. Because when I was on my way to the airport in Phoenix, I noticed a billboard that said something along the lines of, are you being controlled by someone with, like, these human trafficking and all this sort of thing? So there are situations where people are being manipulated. And in that case, you don't want to take our advice in this session. You want to get the hell out there and go to the police or something. I'm not saying people watching this are like that, but if there are situations where instead of taking responsibility for ourselves, we actually need to go to the police or get some help or get the hell out of there if someone's like. But that norm, most people are not being trafficked. And so, thank goodness. And so that applies to nearly every other situation.
[00:04:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. This is for. You have freedom to go get a job. You have freedom to walk out if you want. This is for those kinds of people.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: Above age, right.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: And all that. So I imagine that's okay, but I sometimes think it. Does this apply in all contexts? And the answer is, not really, but even then, it's, you could still benefit from this situation in terms of taking responsibility and real life and getting out of there.
So what you're saying is very, very deep, that when someone squeezes us wherever we're like, is what comes out. And so we're taking the responsibility back to ourselves rather than pointing our finger and saying everyone else is to blame. Because oftentimes we can get very upset about random stuff. You know, like my name wasn't mentioned on the list, or something was in the wrong order, or why didn't someone looked at me funny? Or.
I remember when I was younger and I used to go out drinking when I was like a teenager.
I remember being in pubs. And my friend Greg, it's so funny, he always used to go into fights with people when he got. He was kind of relaxed kind of guy. Once he'd had a few beers, he started getting a bit violent. So people would. He would look at someone and they'd.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: Look at him like, my first question is, how is it okay in England for people, teenagers, to drink? Isn't there a legal age limit?
[00:06:05] Speaker A: No, no, it's 18. But people. I stopped drinking when I was 18.
He would meet people. And so I remember this expression, why are you looking. Are you looking at me? Why are you looking at me like that? Right, so people can think you're looking at him funny. And then they get in a fight, and then. So anything can set someone off potentially, right, to lose it, so that we have to take the control back and say, I'm responding to things, and that's my responsibility. I don't have to go off the rails as soon as someone looks at me funny or says something.
So one thing that helps. Helps us to not get upset by other people is to realize that the only reason people act in strange ways is because they're under an external influence. Only reason. There's one, and one reason alone, they're under an external influence. That might mean an influence of somebody else, right? There's people control other people and they do strange things. But the deeper thing is that we're under the influence of these five evil spirits. Five ghosts, five vices, five energies. Lust, anger, ego, greed, and attachment.
These five energy frequencies have entered the soul, entered the body, the person, and they are acting out through us, and they are the things that are causing all of the weird stuff in the world. This is extremely deep thing to realize. So lust is a classic example how much strange things happen because of lust, right? It's just off the charts. The amount of stuff happens. And then how much stuff happens because of anger, the vice of anger, negative feeling. And then what about greed? How many people have got, you know, done stupid things for greed and then ego? Of course, wars have been started over ego. And then attachment. Attachment is sort of more lighter than the other ones in many ways, but that causes all kinds of chaos as well. So it's not that they're bad, it's that these negative energies are in there getting them to do things right.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: You know what I've noticed with any of the vices, right, is they create a false narrative in your head.
Let's say I have laziness, right? And it creates a false narrative in my head. Oh, it's okay. I don't have to do this, and I don't have to do it now, even if. If it is good for me, then I won't do it because it's creating a false narrative.
And these false narratives make us do a lot of things that we are not supposed to be doing. Right. That's what you're calling an external influence. Like, if you understand that there is the vice and then there's a conversation in their head because of the vice and because of the conversation, their head, they're behaving a certain way. And to separate out all of that from who they are as a pure soul and just see them as a pure soul.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: Yeah. That makes a huge difference to have that attitude that this is a good soul originally and eternally a good soul.
Their negative influences come on them, and that's why they're acting the way they are. But underneath that, they're good. That that doesn't justify bad behavior, by the way. Like, if someone's doing something terrible to you, you have to, you know, get out of the situation or call them out about it.
But it does lighten our feeling towards them. Just like, if someone is drunk, they can say stuff or do things that they wouldn't do normally, right, because they're under an external influence. Or if someone is sick, they often act differently. Or if someone. Their brain isn't working properly because they're getting senile or there's some injury to their head or something, these are all external influences, right. And even situations, like, if someone's under loads of pressure and normally they don't have to do thousands of things and they have more time and they haven't got any time, so they can't talk to you for as long because they're, like, in the middle of 50 things, they can't have a long conversation. That's an external influence as well.
So this is just useful to lighten our feeling towards.
Towards people and then less that helps us not get as upset about it because it's not. You can kind of say it's not really their fault they're under an influence, so we feel different about it.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: I was thinking, Michael, related to this, right. I always feel is not to have too. Not to put too much pressure on human beings, right? Because they are going through their own stuff. Why am I putting my pressure on them, right. Everyone. Everyone who comes in, I mean, of course, let's say I'm paying someone to do some work. Hopefully they're going to do the work. And I can't say, oh, I can't put pressure. They shouldn't do the work. But, you know, like, we're getting a lot of work done. I can't say that. But when it's not that situation, when it's not in a work situation where it's not in that kind of a transactional situation, but let's say in relationships or anywhere, right.
You go and you think, it's not a work situation.
You think, but why am I putting so much pressure on this person, even for them to be nice to me? Right. I feel I'm putting too much pressure. They can be whatever they want to be. I don't have to take it. If they're not nice, I can walk away. But to have that expectation out of them and then me feel upset if they don't do it. It's just too much work.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, absolutely. So it's not having unreasonable, reasonable expectations because the higher our expectations of people, the more likely it is they can't live up to them and the more likely it is we get upset.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And poor people, too, right? Everyone is going through so much these days.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Poor people. Yeah. I mean, like, I'll give an example. I've, I run a business and we connect with lots of people and, like, conversations with people and, like what? And sometimes, like, we send emails and someone says they're going to do something and then they don't do it and we don't hear from them. And I think, well, what? And then they email back and says, oh, my, someone died or I got really sick or something. Something. And it wasn't that they weren't doing, they just couldn't do it because they were, like, really sick for a month or they had to travel somewhere unexpectedly. And so there's all these things that people are going through, whether it's money problems, health problems, mental problems, emotional problems, relationship issues.
So we're living in this crazy world with all this stuff. And plus we've got these five negative energies in us as well, and then everything else happening. And so it's like, how can we hold people to such high standards, really?
[00:13:24] Speaker B: You know, another thing I feel, which is important is not to fight with what is, you know, especially about people and upset. Right. Because we are talking about people and upset.
They have a certain personality and, you know, maybe when you first started to get to know them, they showed a different side of their personality, but now they showing you a very different side of their personality.
Just to remember that that is who they are and not to fight with it. Not to fight with what is that is who they are. Why am I internally, the reason I'm getting upset is I'm fighting with what is, let's say someone in here is very rude all the time, and they just started being very rude. When I first got to know them, they weren't rude. But now every time I talk to them, they don't want to talk. They're just like, whatever. Right? They're being very rude.
Why? I feel, first, my expectation of them to be nice to me shouldn't be there. The second thing is, I'm upset because I'm fighting with the fact that they are rude and they're not nice. I'm fighting with what is to just accept what is. Let them do what they need to do, and you do what you need to do, and don't fight it. You will see. You will see how different you feel when you don't fight with what is any situation, any person. Don't fight with what's happening. Don't compare it to, oh, two days ago, it was not like this. When I first met them, it wasn't like this. Whatever. Whatever, right? Don't compare. This is what it is right now, and just accept it.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: What a relief. What a huge relief. Just, I'm not gonna try and make someone different than they are. I'm gonna completely accept it, because otherwise, what happens is we get very upset, don't we? I have an idea of what people should be like in my head. And then there's the actual person and their real behavior, and there's a mismatch. And then according to how far away these two things are, that's how much upset I'm gonna get.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: You know why it happens, right? The mismatch. When you first get to know them, they act in a different way. And then again, then they act in a different way after you get to know them. So your mismatch is not that they are behaving badly now. The mismatch is when you're matching to their original behavior, that's the mismatch.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: Or even we might project onto people things that aren't there at all. And then we find out that our projection is not real as well. That's the other one, isn't it? Oh, this person's so wonderful. Wonderful. And then you start thinking, hang on a minute. What they really like? What are they doing?
What are they not doing? It's. It's a huge.
I remember wanting someone to change in my life for quite a long time, you know, trying to, like, what about this? And. And then finally I realized it's just not happening. And, um.
And this person's just like, they're just. They are the way they are, and it's. That's totally fine. And as soon as I just gave up on trying to change anyone else in any way and said, I'm adjusting my behavior and my life accordingly, but they don't have to be any different than they are, my irritation just disappeared straight away. Because people like you said, you squeeze someone, that's what comes out wherever they are, is whatever they are. What a relief. What a relief.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: I know, right? And not to fight with what a relief. Allow people to do what they need to do. Don't fight with it. That's who they are. That's who they are. The other thing that I was thinking that is very important is any person throwing anything, right? Any situation, any person throwing anything at me to remember that you are a little spiritual plant.
And anything that gets thrown at that spiritual plant, if you have the right awareness, it becomes fertilizer for the plant to grow because the awareness has to shift. If you fight with it, if you think no, this, that no, then it's nothing. Fertilizer, then it becomes toxic. But if you have the awareness that it's come here to make me grow, it's the best thing ever. Just remember everything that gets thrown at you, every challenge, everything. First, there's benefit in it. Second, it is fertilizer and you're going to grow. And third, you will be much better off in the long run if you don't get upset.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: Absolutely. And, and if none of these things work, then you can move to the middle of nowhere and live in a shed.
Move to Hawaii. Come to Hawaii. You just come to Hawaii. You'll be fine. Don't worry about it. You know, everyone's nice here.
You know, the, the funny thing is, there's a great story, isn't there, about the guy who comes to a new city and he meets someone at the gate of the city, and he says, what are the people like in this city? And the man says, what are the people like where you come from? And he says, well, where I come from, everyone's nasty and bitter, and they steal from you and they treat you terribly. And the man says, well, you'll find the same here. And he goes on his way. A few minutes later, another guy comes and he says, what are the people like here? And he says, what are they like there? Oh, everyone's cheerful and happy and blessed and wonderful, and everyone's here looking after each other.
And the man says, well, you'll find the same here.
And I feel there's a lot of truth to that actually, because we do tend to attract people, don't we, who are like ourselves and we're. And so we. We can work on ourselves and we can think about what kind of person do I want to be and what kind of standards do I want to have for myself?
And that will actually end up changing the sort of people we spend time with.
And certain things will be released.
So we also have to think about the fact we don't have to have the same relationships. I have different relationships now than I did a few years ago. And lots of things have changed. And over time, they keep changing.
So who are we becoming and what. How are we coming across? And what kind of people would. Would resonate with that? Because there's billions of souls, isn't there? So we can change our. Our situation. Some situations, of course, we can't with, you know, like they just show up out of the blue, but even then there's a reason for it. And I think one of the other things related to this is that when we have anything coming up with us, we can ask, what can I learn from this? What. How does this represent something in myself in some way? What I have found is that I. I get the sense that people, in many ways, are mirrors of some. Some hidden stuff. Not always, but sometimes, like, if I'm seeing something showing up externally, it can be a sign of some in repressed or suppressed or, like, unconscious stuff within myself that's playing out externally. Not always, but it can be helpful to think that way, because then I can ask myself, well, what can I change in myself? What is this telling me about myself? And how can I clean that out of myself? And I found that when I've done that inner work, those sort of people sort of don't show up very much or not at all.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: You know, I was thinking about the time when I wanted to move from wherever I am living. I. Wherever I was living, I remember I really badly wanted to move. I didn't like it. This happened. That happened. This relationship is not going well. That thing is not going well. I really need to move. Right? All of those things were happening.
And I sat in meditation one morning, in our morning meditation, and I had this very distinct feeling that the supreme soul God was the spiritual gardener, and I was a plant in his garden.
And he was putting me at exactly the right spot where the sun hits properly, where enough water is coming, where enough fertilizer is coming. I was exactly in the right spot for my growth. Right. And when that happened, when I had that feeling and that happened. I surrendered.
I surrendered to whatever was going on. I surrendered to being here. I surrendered to, you know, everything. I just surrendered. And I remember how everything changed after that, how relationships changed after that, how, you know, what I was working on changed after that, what I was feeling engaged about in my spiritual life. Everything changed after that. And so to see not the upset, but see the potential that this is bringing. Right? But again, we have to really give a disclaimer here. Like, let's say if you're in an abusive relationship, don't say, oh, I shouldn't get upset here. You know, that's not what we are saying. You know, if you're an abusive relationship, then you definitely need to get out.
But I'm talking about if you're not in an abusive relationship, you have, you know, you know, healthy relationships and, you know, you're still getting upset, then you don't need to get upset. Upset is an optional thing.
And so one thing, right, when I surrendered, it changed. And the other thing that happened, that changed for me was when I realized that I have a choice not to get upset.
I always have a choice. In any situation, I can choose not to get upset. And when I choose not to get upset, that is when I see that I have so many possibilities. Right? It's like, so many possibilities. If I get upset, there's only one possibility. Upset. If I choose not to get upset, there's so many possibilities.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: That's very interesting. I've noticed that as well, that, let's say someone says something nasty to us, which happens occasionally, it happens online more because people are anonymous, right? All this toxic online trolling going on. And if someone says something online or impersonal, however it is, and we react and want to attack back, obviously that's not coming from the right place. And it doesn't. I mean, how many times has that ever worked? If someone attacks and they attack, then it goes on and on. It gets worse and worse, exasperates, and then that's not a good method. If I say this is someone's under an external influence, I can't expect things from them. They're probably having a bad day, having a hard time, having an awful life.
What can I learn from this? Is there any truth to what they're saying? How can I benefit from this?
And all these other things? It really diffuses the energy. It completely diffuses it. And we step back and go, that's interesting, right? Because we're sort of over here looking at it, going, hmm, there's not that energy. Oh, I'm so terrible. Oh, what about this? Because it's much more contemplative and detached sort of feeling, and then we can actually genuinely learn from it because, I mean, people have criticized me about things online and in person, and I, if I have the attitude, maybe there's something I can learn here. I don't get upset about it at all. I think this is interesting. How can I improve? Then it becomes a very positive thing if it turns out that they're just completely tripping. And I've really thought, is there anything I can learn in there? It's like nothing to do with me. Then I can just say what? It's all about them. It's got nothing to do with me at all. I mean, if you look at YouTube comments, right, I do this sometimes just out of, like, my own personal amusement. You watch a video and you scroll down and you're like, this has nothing to do with the content at all and everything to do with the person. I mean, it's really obvious. Like, they probably didn't even watch the video half the time, right? And they just immediately say, anything to do with politics, just instant attack, you know, and you think, hmm, this is, this is like telltale sign about the consciousness, but not about the actual thing.
So this is something that we're dealing with either online or offline in a daily experience.
And I personally find that if I think most people are suffering, and if I could only walk a mile in their shoes, I would probably just give them a round of applause for how well they're coping, all things considered, because many, many people have gone through so much terrible stuff in their life, and they're under so many influences that the fact that they're not worse than they are deserves our immense respect, actually.
And so I find that kind of touches my heart and makes me feel more loving and less angry.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: So, you know, one other thing I love, I like what you're saying about to walk a mile in their shoes, but the other thing I feel about getting upset is it's kind of like it takes you, takes over you, right? You don't want it, and it comes in, takes over you. I feel it should, we should be in our dignity, it should be our honor.
How can it come and just take over my life, right? We shouldn't allow it to take over my life. Like, go away, you know, like, it can't get the better of me.
It shouldn't get the better of me.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: No, it shouldn't.
Just having the intention. That's why we do these podcasts because like, if we have the intention, I'm going to stay in my soul conscious awareness. I'm a spiritual being. I've already attained everything in the sense that I'm eternal and safe and I receive from a higher power. And this is all a game, right? And people are going to play their parts in the big movie. If we have that consciousness and we aim not to get upset because we're in a higher state, then chances of us getting upset drop down quite a lot because there's actually a practice and a decision about it. If we don't have that, then we're just kind of getting on with our life and things happen and we get upset.
A lot of what we're talking about is like stepping back and having. Having the intention, just generally speaking, every day, how can I stay in my higher state?
And I know in advance that people are probably going to say strange things and think we might get weird text messages and weird messages and weird emails and who knows what we're going to get.
I'll give an example.
I'm not going to get into any details, but someone I know was very unhappy about something to do with one of my businesses and all these nasty messages and blah, blah, blah. And then.
And then later on the message came back, you know, you're great. I'm so sorry. And this has happened quite a few times, right? So people. People get upset themselves. They say things that they don't mean and then if we just send them blessings later on, often they come around and they actually say, you know, I'm really sorry about that. So.
Which is always quite a fun thing to witness.
So if we can have that intention to go about our life and stay in that space, have that compassion, then we will feel a lot more relaxed, even if people are whatever they are.
So there it is. Yay. Shereen, you have a blessing for us. What's our blessing?
[00:30:56] Speaker B: Pick a number.
[00:30:58] Speaker A: 79.
This is Serene's book on God's blessings for you. How many blessings? 116, isn't it?
There's 108. Plus eight extra ones that had to be sneaked in at the back.
All right, what is 79?
[00:31:19] Speaker B: Purity.
[00:31:20] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: Your thoughts have blossomed into a garden of simplicity.
Fewer in number, but rich with love. By opening your heart to God, you've allowed every trace of negativity to be swept away. Just like leaves carried off by a cleansing rim.
I like that.
Blossomed into a garden of simplicity. Fewer in number and rich with love. That's what we need for not getting upset. Fewer thoughts.
[00:32:01] Speaker A: Everyone is doing the best they can, all things considered.
And our job, I think just a final thing I mentioned is, like, if we think about this like a game, you know, people play video games, right? Where there's people trying to attack the character. And that's what the game is about, right? You're going around as someone trying to attack you, and I'm trying to avoid them. If we think about our life is. Our life is like a game, and people are gonna say stuff to us and are in the game, our job is not to get upset. Then it seems quite fun, doesn't it? Let's see how I can do today. You know, it has a little lightness about it.
So thanks so much, Sherene, for your lovely presence.
[00:32:48] Speaker B: Thank you, Michael.
[00:32:51] Speaker A: Thank you for listening, everybody. And like always, we appreciate you. And if you know anyone else who's getting upset could do with watching this, feel free to share it with them. Make their life a bit easier. And as always, we have free meditations, free courses and all these things just because we want to help you out.
Always free, no upsells. And you can get it below, in below the video with the links.
Have a beautiful day and lots of love.
