Then Again, What Do We Know?

Is growth up to us?What if we’re made to grow?What if growth doesn’t need to be pushed or forced?Expanding by looking, wondering and sharingCool byproducts of exploring and expressingWhat if growth is a wider and wider lens of awareness?What if playing in the wonder is more than enough?Can we stop ourselves from growing?Tuning into inklings as a catalyst for growthA lesson from the flowers

What if decision making is naturally effortless?What if we notice rather than decide?What if not knowing yet can be totally satisfying?The unhelpful pressure of finding the “right” answerWhat if we just overcomplicate decisions that seem more important?Noticing where all our “doing” actually comes fromThe millions of things happening beyond our conscious choicesPlaying in the mystery of free willThe innocence of always doing what makes sense to us in the momentOur cool capacity to see more in any moment“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.” - Rumi

How much we think about our body and how little we need to Do bodies need managing and solutions? Is our body in our way?What if bodies are REALLY not separate from the intelligence of life?Pinning our body up against the wallPresence and listening with our body, without agendaRiding the possibility of Alzheimers or cancer down the road…The rabbit hole of thinking about our appearanceRethinking the positive body movementWhat if exercise is play?What if our body isn’t us and isn’t ours?“You are a ghost driving a meat-covered skeleton made of stardust. What do you have to be afraid of?” -Anonymous“Out beyond all ideas of wrongdoing and righting there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.”  -Rumi

Why Brianne wrote the book now, in the middle of her Mom’s journeyA look at the book’s titleThe first moment Brianne’s mom didn’t know who she wasWhat about the worst part of it, the painful parts?How has Brianne’s relationship with suffering changed?Why love doesn’t care how you feelWhat about Brianne’s forgetting and remembering?Deeper intimacy and connection in the face of so much lossBrianne turns her mom into a metaphor of what life isFinding a newer, deeper center of balancePalm trees and wind stormsWhat’s left when it all gets stripped away?Brianne’s hope for the book

What if feeling uncomfortable isn’t a bad thing?What if discomfort isn’t personal?Being comfortable with being uncomfortableListening without our shield of ideasWhat if discomfort is a side effect of life rearranging itself?Moving from coping to openingWhat if discomfort is an invitation, a doorway?Looking through discomfort rather than at itBeing in conversation with life instead of ourselvesWhat if discomfort is life’s way of asking, “Wanna talk about it?”

We are always in progressThe “It’s not fast enough” thoughtWhat if self sabotage isn’t a real thing?Grace with the unpredictable pace of lifeMarking progress as a tool in the gameRespect and appreciation for the unknownDoes life make it’s own progress?The dance of giving something our time and attentionSuffering from an overinflated sense of “I” Beating ourselves up with what we make upWhy does nothing require our worry?

A look at the words, “giving” and “up”Giving up as a strategy versus getting to the end of your ropeDoes life work on stuff when we don’t?Genuine giving up, without strings or agendasWhat about the saying, “Never give up!”?Dancing between making stuff happen and giving upWhat if the only thing we can really give up is a thought?How recognition of truth soothes our soulThe gift of awareness and noticingThe Perfume of Silence by Francis Lucille

Faith as an awareness of knowing Faith versus desperate hopingExploring faith through existential crisis and religionFaith in what’s behind and before “everything”What if faith is just a side effect?Why we can’t “do” faithFaith as sustenanceThe game of growing faithThe gift of having less and less faith in ourselvesLife moving us versus us moving lifeA fresh take on moving mountains

What isn’t spiritual? Why we go spiritually seekingStepping back into action after spiritual epiphanies The interplay of spiritual seeking and physical action Noticing we’re ready for a new adventureBeing pushed or being moved to step into new circlesGetting too caught up with ourselves and our own journeyPlaying full out in the world, knowing where we can restLooking from the mountaintop, playing in the valleyPutting our hands in the clay of life

Are funks really a problem?Being aware we’re lost in a funkCan life still make stuff happen, even in a funk?Grace to let ourselves be humanWhat if we’re not really checked out, we just think we are?Taking our hands off the wheelLife doesn’t need to be understood to be be fully livedThought is not reality, but our reality is made of thoughtGlimpsing reality beyond the world we walk around in in our headsA fresh look at our role in the art of lifeExisting is so weird and coolNetflix show that mentioned rainbows: Abstract - The Art of Design; Season 2, Episode 1 - Olafur Eliasson

The appearance of rest versus really being in itRest versus reliefWhat if peace is always already here?What is our role in discovering peace?Why can’t we “do” rest?The oops of being in hot pursuit of peaceThe richness of stillnessPlaying with sponges and waterLetting our tools be “of the moment”The gold mine beneath all our ideas and beliefsWhat if seeing truth naturally dissolves what we’ve built on top of it?Be still and know that I am God - Psalms 46:10

Why it’s such a juicy, delightful and sometimes scary explorationLoosening our grip on who we think we areThe gift of exploring who we’re notWho is the self we’re trying to work on?Blurring the edges of who we think we areGetting a taste of our true identityWhat if who we are doesn’t need to be soothed, fixed or empowered?What about fault and responsibility?What if we are the awareness of all of it?What if all the juice is in the silence between the notes?Freedom to be human

Is seriousness ever required?What do we mean by “serious”?What does seriousness have to do with care and importance?Caring about stuff without holding it tightlyPopping the bubble of our made up assumptionsWhy are we “okay no matter what”?What if life isn’t inherently serious?Seriousness & complicated versus simple & obviousGetting a feel for living with lightness

Does love take work?How our personal worlds collideHow our thinking distorts how other people lookWhat if love and peace are always already here?Not putting weight on all the moments that feel offWhat if we don’t have to solve messes to get out of them?What if the basis of connection is beyond the chaos?Seeing our thinking about people for what it isThe part we play when our feelings get hurtFinding the space where our thoughts about people are irrelevantWhat if it doesn’t take effort to enjoy other human beings?Realizing a deeper truth about who and what we are

We can’t fake hopeWhat if hope has nothing to do with the future?Hope says this moment isn’t everythingWhat if hope is just the space of knowing that there’s more?Hope is the breathing room around our experienceWhat if hope (and everything else we’re looking for) is always in the background?The cosmic jokeReal hope vs a positive mental attitude The hopefulness of understanding we’re never stuck with the experience we’re havingLooking at what actually fuels our experience rather than trying to change itWhat if hope is just a natural side effect of glimpsing truth?Do the past and the future really exist?Hope is in the now“The divine passes from the formless to form, and as human beings we are both spectators and participants in this spiritual theater called life.” - Sydney Banks

If you want something to change, how much of that change is up to you? What fuels change? How does it happen and where? These are just some of the questions we swirl around in with this episode.

That voice in our headWhat does our mind have to do with our life?How much is our “self manager” really in charge?Life - being in for the rideThe big story and our story, holding bothWhat if the absurdity of life doesn’t need to be solved?How does glimpsing the big picture color our human experience?Life - holding more and handling more with less effortFun with rocking horses and shopping carts

Insecurity, a flavor in the package of being aliveConfidence in what? Confidence and insecurity, two temporary flavors of thoughtWhat if we could be confident, even with insecurity?What if insecurity doesn’t have to go away to stop getting in our way?A fresh look at shyness What if everything we think about ourselves is up for grabs?Change comes from seeing truth, not by trying harderBeing alive versus thinking about being aliveWhat if how we think we’re doing in life is irrelevant?The infinite richness of life itselfJeb Corliss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWfph3iNC-k

Love - a big word we make up a whole lot of things aboutBelieving in love versus sensing it’s always hereLove is the ground, Love is the container What if everything is love in disguise?What if we can’t mess love up?The Prodigal Son - looking for love where it isn’tHow love innocently becomes a doingWhat changes as we wake up to love?The ordinariness, beauty and inevitability of falling back into loveHow understanding changes our experience of the darkLove is what’s left when everything else is gone

We're often told that it's important to have goals - but is it? Do we need goals? Do we have to make ourselves do things? Mer and I explore this and more in our fun conversation.