A guided meditation/talk encouraging dual awareness: noticing personal shortcomings while simultaneously witnessing them. The speaker frames this paradox—acknowledging imperfections creates the possibility for inner peace, greater intimacy, compassion, and wiser relationships—and leads listeners through a reflective survey of common emotional habits (withdrawal, aggression, anxiety, selfishness) to cultivate observer consciousness.
Interested in developing this dual awareness.
Where, on the one hand we can.
See that we're falling short. On the other hand, we can become.
A witness, an observer of where we are falling short.
And in that ability to coexist in both of those states, we're actually on the verge of creating more peace inside ourselves, more intimacy with those close to us.
And having the best chance to live a life of greater wisdom with ourselves and those closest to us is actually the greatest source for. For creating intimacy, wisdom and compassion. Now, in my experience, it's extremely paradoxical. If we present a Persona of being just together and relaxed or happy all the time, real intimacy is actually not possible. And so it becomes really important to spend a significant portion of our moments becoming aware of where is my shortcoming at any given moment in time? And if you want to look at a baseline to contrast yourself with, look at your finest moments, where your heart's been open, where you've been alive, where you've been really happy.
And then you'll see that none of.
Us can maintain that peak kind of experience. So we fall into various levels of being short of that ideal. So let's take a look together and as I mentioned, some of these shortcomings.
See if you can start to gather.
The courage and sensibility to identify the three areas that are most common for you. Where you will have some area of incompleteness. Or maybe where you can see that you are really falling short of what your potential is. Now, it might be an area where you're withdrawn or you're aggressive, or you're anxious, or you're uptight, or you're unlovable, or you feel unsuccessful, unattractive, selfish. Maybe you don't feel like you're smart enough or you're too controlling. Now, just take a slow look at any of those particular qualities or attitudes.
And see if you can have the.
Courage to enter into a deep observing relationship with yourself. And get the paradox that if you.
Can have the courage to see where.
You'Re undeveloped, then you have a possibility of developing. I mean, take a look at that and see if.
Does that make sense to you? If you actually are being selfish in.
A given moment, or if you're being aggressive in a given moment, doesn't that.
Give you a chance to be more.
Generous or to be more peaceful? On the other hand, if you're not.
Aware that you're being selfish and you just continue going on being that way, or if you're being aggressive and you're not noticing, isn't it pretty evident that.
You'Re going to get a lot of.
Flack from your environment. So what we're talking about right now.
In this first effort to stay aware of the few areas on any given.
Day where we're not in our hearts, where we're in some kind of an attitude or some kind of a defense. We can see that by having this.
Awareness, we have the possibility cultivating the.
Opposite attitude, which is something that will move us closer to being intimate, something.
Closer to being more compassionate, something closer to being able to be a bit wiser or smarter or more emotionally sensible.
So just do a little bit of survey as we're talking about this. Let yourself kind of notice in the last few days just times or moments where you might just have been too emotionally reactive, or you might have just withdrawn yourself, or you might have been.
Frustrated or impatient with somebody close to you.
And by having the awareness of that, you can start to develop the capacity to be an observing witness while that's going on. And that ability to observe yourself and then ultimately even have the potential of sharing that with the person that you're with can create a situation where you can develop the ability to open your.
Heart and to be able to be more intimate.
Now, again, ask yourself, does this radical notion of having a deeper relationship with the few areas inside you that are most undeveloped in any given moment in time is something that will support your inner life? Does it really make sense to you? And can you see how rare it is for any of us to actually be profoundly.
