Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Do you ever feel like something is a bit off and you're not quite sure what it is? Maybe you wake up feeling stressed, you're thinking too much, little things are kind of getting the better of you. Stuff that shouldn't be a big deal seems like a big deal, and everything feels like it's out of control.
Well, this is very common in our modern world. This is known as death by a thousand cuts. It's not one main thing that happens. It's just lots of little things from all over the place. People, situations, comparison, social media, too many notifications, not enough space, right? All the information that we have, all the stuff we have to do, it just gets more and more out of control and it can lead to a serious crisis or a health problem or some major problem in our life if we don't get the better, better of it.
So today we're diving into how do we deal with this situation that nearly everyone is in? And I personally have experienced this myself many times.
How can we clear this out, try and heal from this endless onslaught of little annoying things?
So here we are. Welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm Michael McIntosh. I'm here with our lovely sister, Shirin. We're both meditation teachers with 60 years experience between us.
So, Shireen, tell us, what do you think about this? How do we manage this situation?
[00:01:25] Speaker B: I was just remembering something, you know, because before we started, I was like, what are we talking in this one? And then I realized that there is something I do, you know, and I call it the triage it.
I triage something, you know, like not medical triage, the triage It. The triage is release one thing.
Surrender one thing.
Take one small step.
If I feel overwhelmed, if I feel comparison, if I feel friction, and if all of them are coming at the same time, then this is what.
Release one thing of others, right? If you're trying to control something others, release it.
Surrender something right in your own life, right? Something is happening with your life. Just surrender it.
Surrender it to divine timing. Surrender it to God, whatever you want to surrender it to.
Two, surrender it. And three, take one small step right now. One small step.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: There it is. Now, everyone, what do you say? We can go home now and just take that job?
[00:02:37] Speaker B: Done.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: That's great. Thank you very much. See you next week.
No, but that's. Then that's a very good, very good practice. Give us a story. How have you used that? Yeah. In your.
In your life?
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Practical relationship frictions are a big thing, right?
You know, recently something happened with someone, right? They were telling Me how bad something was going on.
And before I would think, oh, that's the result of your actions. Live with it, right?
But more recently, I feel now let me give them good wishes. My good wishes will help them get out of whatever they're in, right? I'm not sitting here thinking karma, right?
And so, and the reason why I was able to come to this point of let me give good wishes to everyone, right? Everyone. To the point where anyone like good wishes to anyone, anyone who comes in front of me, anyone who comes into my mind, just good wishes, goodwill, goodwill, goodwill, goodwill, goodwill. And I feel it is because of this triaging it all the time, right? Like, what can I release right in this moment? What can I surrender in this moment? What can I take one small step in this moment?
That I keep asking myself that question.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: You know, it's worth unpacking. Like, why do we end up in a situation of death by a thousand cuts? Like, how does this end up happening to us? You know, because one is, of course, life is a bit unpredictable and weird things happen. That's a fact, right? And there's also, if we look at our lives and if I look at my own life is oftentimes when I'm feeling disturbed, it's because I have not given proper time to take care of myself, basically. And then the question is, well, why not?
And the reason is most of the time is because I am giving priority to trying to solve situations and change the world externally to feel better afterwards. That's like the prime, the motivation behind it. So let's say I'm waking up and I'm stressed out and I want to like, okay, stressed out because I have to do this, this, this and this and this. And only after I do these 25 million things, then I'll finally be able to relax, right? And if I have that attitude, which I think a lot of people have, I need to fix all these things and then I can chill out afterwards.
What happens is there's like this justification that the means justify the end and I'll do anything necessary in order to get to that outcome.
So I won't eat properly, I won't have enough meditation, I'll like drink too much caffeine or won't take a break, won't go for a walk. So it's like all the self care, well being stuff is all just like thrown to the side in pursuit of this thing.
And if that's my attitude and my, my general vibe, then if that goes on for any length of time, it will Lead to some sort of crisis or some sort of breakdown. And it might be, if not made like a major. But I'm not like lying on the floor groveling away and having howling at the moon or anything like that, you know, thank goodness.
But hasn't happened yet.
But, but it could become like that down the road, right? And what's motivating it is I am only going to feel okay about things after all this stuff has changed. And some of these, some of these things that I'm trying to change may take possibly weeks or months, right. Or they might not happen absolutely at all. So what's motivating this is that if I don't fix all these problems, the belief is going, then I can't relax. And so it's worth putting in the effort. It's worth push, push, push, push, push.
Because then things will be better and I can finally calm down.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: But if that is we're postponing also our happiness.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Putting off happiness for some later date.
And if these things that we're trying to fix are big things, things that take a long time to fix, it might actually never happen for a start because certain things just never happen. Or it might be months or days or weeks of being disturbed, right? And then if we end up having a terrible time doing it and then we end up having a crisis, is it like, is it worth it? And the irony of course is that most the time, if the energy behind what we're doing is off and disturbed and stressed out and like forcing the chances are the actual outcome we produce from that energy is not going to be very good anyway. So even if we do get what we want, they will come with some sort of negative consequences which then need fixing on top of everything else from a burnt out state.
And I think this sort of sums up a lot of modern life actually.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: You know, one of the things I was thinking when you were sharing is how important it is not to postpone. Like you're saying, right, self care. Not to postpone self care.
But also many times when we think of self care, we are thinking of very physical things, right.
And you alluded to it like there is no inside life.
You know, I feel because we don't have an inside life, our life is completely based on external things.
If my relationships are okay, I am okay. If my work is okay, I'm okay. If, you know, if a certain party is in power, I'm okay.
All of these things are going on, right?
But all of them, every single one of them are external things.
And we have forgotten how to lead an inside out life.
What we are doing is we are leading an outside in life. If everything, all of these outside things are good, then my inside is good.
But we have forgotten who we are. We have forgotten that there is an inner life and we have to nurture and tend to that inner life.
And we keep placing all of our eggs in the outer life. And that's a disaster because a lot of our life actually is an inner life.
Right. If I'm feeling sorrow, it's actually an inner life. I just, you could say camouflaged it into thinking because of that relationship I'm feeling sorrow.
But actually it's a lot of inner things that are going on that I'm actually feeling sorrow. I'm just using that relationship to think that way.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Exactly, yes. It's all external. Once everything lines up perfectly, then I'll be all right.
And what helps get out of this is, you know, this, this Raja meditation that we practice. The, the fundamental perspective, which is what's different compared to most things, is that the, the overall model of reality is that we are spiritual beings who already are peaceful naturally, and we come from a world of infinite peace anyway.
So we're starting out from a point of view where we're safe, secure, and we come from somewhere else. We've just come here into this great game of life for basically for entertainment purposes. Right.
And this a radically different perspective on, on life. Because it starts off from the point of view that we're okay to begin with, that everything's fine in our spiritual home when we're just temporarily witnessing and observing this whole thing happen. And it doesn't really matter that much whether or not something happens or doesn't happen. You know, like if you take this seriously, that this is just a big game, a big drama, a big movie, then why does it matter whether or not I finish my project this week or next week? Realistically, like, it doesn't actually make that much difference because it's just all film happening.
So this, I mean, whenever I think about these things very deeply, I'm like, this is, it is a sense of madness actually to think only when I fix everything perfectly, then I can be all right, when in fact I'm fine anyway.
Because that's not what we think when we go to see a movie, is it? No one goes into a movie theater thinking, I'll finally be okay when the movie changes. You know, that just seems ridiculous, doesn't it? If this YouTube video turns out to be. Have a, have a good ending, then I'LL be all right. But if it doesn't, I'm. My life is totally destroyed.
And, you know, thank goodness. People don't normally think that way, but that's sort of what we're doing. So this is like a major paradigm shift that ultimately pulls us out of this.
This whole madness, because otherwise we're kind of just doing tactical little changes. A little bath here, you know, a little bit of massage here, go for a walk here. But it's still based on the idea that this is way more just outside, right?
[00:12:46] Speaker B: The.
This morning we had a session. I had a session with mostly Indian mothers.
And I was asking them that question, right? Because I don't know if you know Indian mothers very well, but they're very heavily invested in their families, heavily invested in their children, heavily invested in their husbands and, you know, all of that.
So I was thinking a lot of our life, right? Every one of us in the group, There were about 17, 18 of us. I said, every one of us in the group know what it means to have expectations, desires out of life, right? This one should behave this way. That should happen. This should happen.
My children should be this way. This should be the outcome. We all know, right?
We all know how that's how that feels, right?
I want us to see if we can, for one week, just one week, be okay with anything that happens.
Just be totally okay. Tell yourself it's okay. Watch as a detached observer, whatever is happening. No desire. Watch as a detached observer.
And that's an experiment even I'm getting into now along with them. But this is an experiment we are doing. How am I going to feel for one week? I have no desire, absolutely no desire of any outcome.
And I feel that will take care of this death by a thousand cuts you're talking about, right? Because then there is no feeling of, oh, this is not happening, no friction going on because you're okay with whatever they're doing.
You know, there is no comparison. There's nothing. None of that stuff is happening because you're just like, okay with whatever happens.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Exactly. And a nice. A nice analogy that I think helps with this kind of perspective is imagine you're going on a road trip, right? I don't know if anyone's been on road trip, but I've been on quite a few of them. And when you're just driving past places, because on a road trip, you're just driving through towns and driving past places and going through the mountains, you have a certain feeling about everything, right? You just kind of just pass it by. Like, you're not thinking, why is this thing happened? What's that doing there? And, like, getting out the car and looking at it, and we need to have a sign, a petition. And if this doesn't get fixed, then I'm going to be having, like, I'm nervous. We don't. We just like driving past, right? And then there's another thing. You're driving past and there's another thing driving past.
And it's like, all right, it's just tune into the feeling. Or like, imagine you have to just quickly nip into the shops, grab some stuff and leave, right? And you haven't got much time and you have an appointment, right? You can't get that caught up in anything. You can't spend. So what happens is that we get so caught up in all of our stuff because it's going on and on and on and on and on, that we. We completely lose perspective in the bigger picture.
And it's just helpful to just get this sense of, like, how would I feel if I was just passing by this whole thing?
And it didn't matter to me, really.
It just. It's like turning down the intensity of the whole situation from like, 10 down to, like, 1.
[00:16:44] Speaker B: Right?
Like, your reactivity to the situation down to just like, right. But your enjoyment, it's interesting, goes up. You enjoy it more. Your enjoyment really goes up.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
So the. The intensity gets turned.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: Exercise goes up.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: It's like a dial, isn't it?
[00:17:02] Speaker B: One exercise I do which really is very helpful is I go outside and I look at the clouds, right?
I just look at the clouds and watch them pass. And watch them pass. Because I don't really have opinions on the clouds.
I just look at it, watch it pass. Watch it pass for one or two minutes till I get used to the watching the clouds pass.
Then I come back inside and any situation that's bothering me, I start watching it. Like, I watch the clouds.
Just let it go, let it go, let it go. Just watch it. Just watch it. I don't need to have an opinion. Just watch it. It's so interesting. In that detached observer stage, you actually get so much perspective.
And even if you don't find a solution, right, then the perspective change itself is such a big benefit.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: It really is. And if we look back on our life when we were stressed out about something in the past, and then you think back on it now, in retrospect, it's like, oh, I was so wrapped up in that thing and it didn't make any difference.
It wasn't a big deal, really. Like, I was so worried about it, and now it, like it's irrelevant. So this is how we're going to feel about pretty much everything in our life when we look back on it.
So this attitude of being a witness or just watching the clouds, everything's just clouds passing. Because after all, what is the actual nature of the world we live in, right? Like what? Like if you just tune into the actual planet, right? Here we are, the planet spinning around, it's flying through space.
And what is it we're dealing with? We're dealing with something that constantly changes.
Literally constantly changes.
The body's getting older, like it or not. Everything is moving about. People can't be controlled. There's all sorts of crazy stuff happening. Animals are flying around in insects. Everything is changing. So we're living in this universe whether we like it or not. The fact is it's a changing, permanently changing, constantly changing place.
So getting wrapped up in it and trying to control it is guaranteed neurosis and stress.
It's guaranteed.
And. And we're letting ourselves get cut thousands of times by our expectations of these things. I went to the store, they didn't have my special, you know, whatever it was cut, you know, oh, this person's doing this thing. Oh, no. Oh, I need to do. It just goes on and on and on. So some, some cuts come from outside, but a lot of them, they're going on in our head and we're cutting ourselves and it adds up again and again.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: Even if they're coming from outside, right? We can minimize it.
And recently someone was telling me about this professor. Just a couple of days ago, they were telling me about this professor of happiness, I think, or something. Anyway, some professor of one of those positive psychology professors. Happiness. I think that this professor said that you need to keep a journal of your sorrows, right? Of things that really didn't go your way. You need to keep a journal.
And what you do is you write a.
Let's say something didn't go your way, right? You write that how horrible you felt, what a bad idea it was, all of those things, right? Just write that down and then leave a little gap before you write the next thing, right? You leave a little gap, couple of lines, right? A month later you go back and you see how differently you feel about it, right?
Month later, same thing.
And then I think you go back. I might not be doing it justice, but I really thought this was a very interesting thing. A month later you come back and see, how was it? How Beneficial. It was that that thing happened that way.
[00:21:29] Speaker A: Genius.
Yeah, genius.
Yeah. I think in retrospect, we can see that. But if you wrote it down, you can actually go back to it. That's great idea. Get. Get a page, write down. I didn't like this, this and this. And then how did you feel? And then space.
Turns out this was the best thing that happened to me. Many, many people have had bad things happen to them, including myself. That totally devastating at the time. And then years down the road, we think that's a damn good job that happened because I learned this thing or something changed in my life or whatever it was.
So, yeah, this is. This is how we kind of get out of this. So one is, practically speaking, we do need to get some space from it. Like, if I'm going through too many crazy things normally, what I'll do practically is I'll just take a day off and go for a walk in the mountains.
Because it. Physically getting away from it kind of brings a perspective that happens through the environment, which I think still very helpful.
And everything makes more sense after a good night's rest and some space, actually.
So just practically. Right.
But the wholesale, the biggest upgrade is to change your attitude towards life entirely. That you're a spiritual being, that you come from a spiritual world and you're here as a guest.
And this whole thing is basically a big performance happening. And it's supposed to be unpredictable and strange because that's what it is.
It's like a giant film and not having expectations and trying to control it, because that's really the only practical way of perceiving reality that doesn't lead us to. To some kind of nervous breakdown, you know, down the road.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: It's. Yes, it's interesting you brought up the word reality because that is reality, right.
I'm not saying whatever is happening in your external life is not reality, but we are ignoring a huge chunk of reality, which is our internal life. Like we are souls. Where we have come from, what's going on here?
And when we ignore that, then everything is out of balance. Everything is out of balance, right? We think, oh, we can control. We can control. Right? Triage it, triage it. Can you control it, really? No.
So release, surrender, Take one small step.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: Peace and grace.
And. And the. The more we experience this bigger perspective. One thing that's helped me over the years is to have the attitude that I'm on permanent vacation.
And I remember when I said this to Shreen, she's like, no, you can't say that. That's blood and you had such a negative attitude towards it. But here's the thing, and I'm just calling you out about that. But, but actually, if I, like today, right, I. I've got loads of stuff to do if I feel like I'm on vacation, right? I'm on vacation. I'm on permanent vacation.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: And I think there is a, like a perception difference here.
[00:24:50] Speaker A: So this is something that help that I, that I. If I forget it, my life gets a lot worse, right?
Well, my experience of life gets worse. So if, if I think everything's important and I have to fix all these problems, then I am setting myself up for death by a thousand cuts because everything tries to stop me achieving my goals and whatever else is going to be disturbing to me if I have an attitude. I'm a spiritual being and I'm on permanent vacation in the world. This is, this is all here for vacation purposes, the whole thing.
And during my vacation, I'm also doing some noble leisure, which in other words means doing work that I like, you know, taking care of the house, the vacation rental, right? And you know, doing a podcast.
Then. Then it all feels to be much more enjoyable and light, right?
The attitude of it is like, I'm free and I'm choosing to do things because I would like to do them rather than I'm trapped in this whole thing and I have to do all this stuff, right?
So I find it.
I was thinking I was driving back from some of the other day and I was like, no, I'm now on permanent vacation again, right? Because it, this, this kind of goes out of my awareness sometimes, but that's when I get stressed out and my life becomes less fun and I'm not productive either. So it's like, it's not as if it's helping me out, not thinking that way.
So this is just another way of saying being a guest. You know, a guest comes here, everything's fine, it's all good, and then leaves, right? There's not any like, neurosis and attachment and stress about everything, you know, and that's, that's really the difference between spiritual mindset and not spiritual mindset. Spiritual people understand where they come from, who they are and what's going on.
And lack of spirituality means everything's all about this thing, trying to control it.
So permanent vacation might be just the ticket.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: I'm not going to talk about what my perception of what you were doing at that time was, so let's leave it. But I do want to address something.
So let's say there is a mother with two young kids who has to maintain two jobs, you know, to feed the kids, all of that, right? Let's say someone like that. How, what do you suggest?
[00:27:32] Speaker A: Yeah, well, she's a spiritual being from another world who's come here on a very, very busy vacation.
I mean, because I mean, what choice, what options do you have? You know, I mean what I would suggest to someone in that situation practically is of course it's difficult situation and I imagine it's very disturbing actually to be under that amount of pressure. I would suggest to think pathways thinking, right? What are all my options to, to try and make more money and simplify my life and get help. And there's, there's all kinds of pathways in life to get out of situations like that and make them somewhat better, right? So that's, it's not, it's not that we just say I'm on permanent vacation and I'm just going to carry on doing the same thing I always did, working myself to the bone, you know, so pathways thinking helps figure out what are all my options and how can I change it.
But even the attitude, like I remember when I was working in a kitchen washing dishes when I was a teenager, I remember having this was before spiritual, my spiritual awakening. But I remember sometimes I would go in with the attitude of let me see this like a game, like washing the dishes and how fast can I do it? And I was, I, I tried to turn it into like a game. Even though it was very grueling, unpleasant, low paid work, I was getting paid through £3.14 per hour, right. Which is absurdly low amount of money. But when I had the attitude let me make it a game, it took something that was very mundane and annoying into something that actually was quite amusing. And this was before I had spiritual awareness. So I think we can have that sort of perspective to, to see it and feel different about it. And then practically speaking, pathways thinking, what are all my options? To sort this out, to make more money and change things around.
[00:29:44] Speaker B: What if someone says, oh, but Michael, you were a teenager, you didn't have kids, you didn't have responsibility.
What would you say to that person?
[00:29:57] Speaker A: It's still very disturbing. Can you imagine teenager working in the kitchen for pound three an hour?
It's I, I don't think this is about comparing who's got the worst life. We don't want to have like the victim Olympics situation going on here, but realistically we have to ask the question what choice do we have, right?
Choice A is we make our lives worse by having negative thoughts, stressing out, running around, making a big deal about it.
Option B is to say, I'm a spiritual being.
This is temporary.
Can I see this as a game?
Can I be more detached about it? Can I think about solutions to this situation?
So it's all about solutions and paradigm shifts that can make it better. You know, there's like two choices. So even if someone's in the worst possible situation, like Viktor Frankl, I think is like the classic, most extreme version. He's in a concentration camp. Right. So we. If you compare Viktor Frankl to some woman with kids, I think we can both say Viktor Frankl's got the harder end of the deal here. Right. In a Nazi concentration camp, about to be executed at any minute. Starved to death, worked to death. Almost. Right.
And he said he could still manage to find some level of personal freedom in that situation. And he's written about it in his book, Man's Search for Meaning.
So there's.
There's always situations like, I could still be working in a. In a kitchens now if I hadn't made some upgrades to my thinking, you know?
[00:31:44] Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely.
I'm not saying we should get into Victim Olympics. It's good that you shared your perspective.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: I'm. I'm no longer working in Cafe Uno, the Italian restaurant, for three pounds an hour. So I'm doing all right. Thank goodness.
[00:32:09] Speaker B: Right, right. You know, I also. Finally. Right. If you're done and if you want to share more, but to triage, it really helps. Like release. Right. The first one is release. So what are we releasing? So something of others that you're holding, that's not yours to hold. That's what you release.
Two is something about yours. You're surrendering, you know, some outcome, you want something that's happening in your life, you don't know what's going on. You surrender that.
And three, take one small step right now, not two days from now, not three days from now. Take one small step right now.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And it all adds up, doesn't it?
So there's. So there's practical things like taking a step, pathways, thinking, thinking about all your options, getting away as best you can, you know, getting enough sleep, eating well, you know, getting support, turning the phone off, stop watching crazy stuff, turn the social media, like all these practical things to feel better physically.
And then there's the major shift, which is that this is all a ridiculous game, that that's a harder thing to do and it's more advanced, but end of the day that's the big, big upgrade that ultimately everyone comes to realize anyway and we might as well start moving in that direction now.
So hopefully this has been helpful and Shireen, thank you for your presence. Anything else you want to share?
[00:33:56] Speaker B: No. A blessing.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: Blessings. I can tell when Shireen's done because she gets out her glasses.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: Now I get out blessings now that you use.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: Your glasses of the sign that a blessing is forthcoming.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: This is God's blessing for you.
Tirelessness.
Your fire never fades no matter how rough the road.
Perseverance is in you. The soul. It keeps you going and will get you there.
Your journey has been challenging but every step brings you closer to victory.
[00:34:40] Speaker A: There it is. Yeah. One step at a time.
Yay.
[00:34:47] Speaker B: Thank you so much Michael, Shereen.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: Thank you everyone for listening and hope you feel better and better and better.
Talk to you in the next episode.
