Tim Ferris Podcast Interview with Jim Dethmer Follow Up Webinar

Welcome, welcome. I'm Erica Schreiber and I'm Jim and Diana's partner here at Conscious Leadership Group and I act as chief impact officer and I'm just thrilled to welcome you all here today. I want to start with just some logistics so we get all in the same place, same time, present and focused. So I can just remind you to turn off cell phones, any alerts, any notifications. Children running in and out of the room are fine. We appreciate those. And we are running this as a meeting versus a webinar. So that means we can see you on video if you're willing. We would love to see you. Brings us great delight to kind of feel like we're all in the room together. So please feel free to turn your video on and feel free not to as well.

We.

I'm gonna. I'm just welcoming you here today and I'm also going to be monitoring for questions because we really want to spend some time answering your most burning questions today or Jim and Diana to answer those. So if we can reserve the chat primarily for questions, of course, a couple little comments are great, but mostly if you can leave the chat open so I can look for questions and pick out questions that the group wants to ask so I can make sure they get addressed. Finally, that this is being recorded to share with folks who couldn't come today and to share publicly. So just be aware of that if you're asking questions or if we ask you to be on video, just to choose based on knowing that this is in the public domain. And I believe that that is. Those are all logistics. So without further ado, I'm going to pass the conch shell over to Jim Dethmer.

Thank you, Erica. And hello everybody. I notice, I feel happy, delightful, looking at your faces. And Louise, I saw your dog stick her or his nose in, which was totally adorable. So great to see all of you. A couple of other introductions. Lainey Yankee is here. Lainey kind of holds everything together in our world in so many ways as part of our team. And Bethany Davis is here. Bethany is one of the CLG coaches. So we have got about 14 or 15 people on our team who do coaching and she is one of those coaches. So that is everybody that we are connected to on this end of things things. Except for the primary person I want to introduce, which is my business partner, co founder of the Conscious Leadership Group and co author and basically big time playmate in life, Diana Chapman. So, hi, Diana.

Hello. Hi, Jim. I was just thinking we've been doing this for quite a while now, almost a decade. Very exciting.

Yeah.

Hi everyone. Welcome. We're so glad to have you here. And we've read many of the questions that you've posted to us that we're putting together, some themes that we heard that we'll want to respond to and we also will want to make this a conversation along the way. So if you do have a question, please type it in. And as Erica mentioned, we'll pull them back, you know, pull them out from time to time and have a, have a back and forth. We like these things to be interactive.

So some of your faces I recognize, I imagine Diane and Erica do as well. And we want to start kind of at the broadest possible conversation, which is you have no exposure to us whatsoever other than you listen to the Tim Ferriss podcast and so you heard Tim and me having a conversation and there was enough interest there that brought you toward this experience. So I want to assume that that's kind of the least amount of exposure that anybody would have. And if that's your situation, we want to give you kind of an easy on ramp to this conversation and to the Conscious Leadership Group. So let me start up at the highest level the Conscious Leadership Group again, Diana and I founded it, I really don't know, maybe 10 years ago, I don't know how long ago. And our purpose, very simply stated, is to support the expansion of conscious leadership in the world. All of those words are very important to us. We really believe that we're a support entity. And the particular way that we like to support the expansion of conscious leadership in the world is several fold. One, we love to create materials. Whether it's the book the 15 commitments of conscious Leadership or if you haven't yet, we really invite you to go to our webpage. Conscious is because we open source all of our material. So we've got loads of videos and just stuff we want you to take and use and play with and let it be of support and service to you. So we love to co create stuff in the world and then we also provide coaching, individual coaching, to leaders all around the world. And we work with those leaders and their organizations, their teams and their organizations to bring this model that we have kind of played with, the 15 commitments of conscious leadership, how to bring that into an organization or a team. So we do individual coaching, we work with teams and organizations to support them to kind of play the game a different way. That'd be the way I'd say kind of play the game a different way. And then we provide our own kind of events. We're hosting a conscious parenting thing. With all that's going on, with the way we're at least socially separated from each other, we're wanting to bring more stuff to the world. So for many, many years, people have said they wanted this stuff applied to parenting, which we love to do. So we're going to host a conscious parenting workshop, and we do all kinds of things like that. So that's the way we want to support the expansion of conscious leadership. And this word expansion is important because, you know, I've been doing this work in the world for 40 years, a very long time, and when I first started this conversation, there weren't that many people having it. And those people that were having it were kind of on the fringe. And now, as you know, because you're here, this conversation is becoming more and more a central conversation to leadership in the world, Whether it's leadership in corporations or not, for profits or the educational space or activism. There's so much now that is being talked about and being experienced, which we're so excited about that, you know, the title of our book is the 15 Commandments of Conscious Leadership. And then the next, the subtitle is really good, you know, A Sustainable A Paradigm for Sustainable Success. Our belief is that a lot of the old models are not very sustainable, and we're starting to experience that at so many levels. They're not sustainable at the individual level. You just burn out and get fried. They're not sustainable at the teen level or at the organizational level or at the collective level. And so I love it in the collective. There's more and more of a conversation around these subjects of conscious leadership. Just broadly skip how we define it, just broadly what's out there in the world. And Tim Ferriss would be an example of this. If you track his podcasts over the years, so much of what he's bringing into the world now are conversations that fit in this genre. So that's what we're up to. We want to support the expansion of conscious leadership in the world. Yeah, good. Okay, so here's the way we'd like to spend our 90 minutes. If you plan to be with us for the whole 90 minutes, for the first part, maybe the first 45 minutes or so, we want to give you a little bit more of a feel of our approach to the subject of conscious leadership. Again, if you listen to the podcast, at one point, I talked to Tim about the four questions that. That we invite people to ask, and we want to expand those a Little bit, so you can get a feel for how we use those. And then the last 45 minutes, we would just like to do Q and A and conversation with you depending on what got stirred up for you on the podcast or gets stirred up for you today. So a little bit of us giving you a sense of how we come at this conversation, and then just whatever you want to talk about, we'd love to talk to you about that. So that gives you a little bit of a frame for how we'll spend the next 90 minutes or so. Okay. All right. So first, let's talk about this word leadership. We define leadership as simply taking radical responsibility for the influence you're having in the world. So whatever else a leader is, they're having influence. Skip formality. Organizational structure, roles, titles, all that can be totally irrelevant. Leaders are people who are having influence wherever you're having influence in your home, in your community, in your organization, wherever it is. If you're taking radical responsibility, that's the key. We see that leaders pay attention to the influence they're having, and not only are they self aware about it, but they choose to take responsibility for the influence they're having. That's a big conversation in and of itself. So we want to support people who are taking responsibility for the influence they're having, like I imagine all of you are doing. And then consciousness for us is just simply being here now, being here now in a non triggered, non reactive way. And most of us aren't here now. We say that most people are kind of sleepwalking through life. They're not conscious, they're not here now. We don't make that a problem, make that a bad thing. It's just kind of like an observation of the suchness of life. So part of what we're up to is giving people tools that help them wake up a little bit, be a little more self aware around when they're here now and when they're not here now, just start there. Our favorite author says most people and they're not here now enough to know they're not here now. That's good. So the first step is, can you start to interrupt that pattern and start to notice when you're here now and when you're not here now, and then you discover is once you start to see, oh, I'm here now, a lot of times when you notice that you're here now, self aware, self observant, you'll notice that you're triggered or reactive, what we call below the lie. And again, that's normal and natural. That's not a bad thing. So first you're kind of turning on the light to see what's here, and then you're observing that what's here is some sort of reactive pattern, some sort of personality reactivity is showing up. And so then we play with that self awareness, self acceptance. And then we play with how you can start to, if you want to play a little bit more with being here now in a non triggered, non reactive way, so fully present and therefore able to think really clearly and creatively. Iq, relate powerfully EQ and then bq body intelligence. So iq, eq, bq, able to have body intelligence to understand your intuition, your instinct. The body carries so much information and so much wisdom. And when we're in a triggered fight, flight, freeze, faint reactivity, we cut ourselves off from so much of the wisdom of the body. So we see the emerging leadership pattern being people who are available to their minds, available to their hearts, and deeply connected to their bodies. So there you go, leadership taking radical responsibility for, for the influence you're having and consciousness being here now in a non triggered, non reactive way, more self awareness, more self acceptance. So those are the key terms. And then we just want to introduce you to the little model that we use to help people grow in that.

All right, so as Jim mentioned with Tim, these four questions, the four questions of conscious leadership, we want to go over those. And if you were to know me, you would know, I think these questions in my head all day long. I'm running them through, coaching myself. And so the first question I ask myself is, hey, Diana, where are you? Where are you? And we use this very simple model called a line. Either you're above the line or you're below the line. If I'm above the line, I'm open.

Whoa.

What's going on? What do I get to learn from this particular scene? Wow. It's not exactly what I thought it was going to be, but there's something here for me to learn and grow from. I'm curious. I am open in my mind, I'm open in my emotions, I'm open in my body. And I simply want to learn. So that's one option. I'm in a state of trust and I recognize up here, above the line, I'm the creator of my experience. When I'm below the line, I get scared. My identity or my ego perceives a threat and it feels like there's some kind of a threat to either my security or my control or my approval. And I get Reactive. And I close. I close in my mind a little bit. I want to be right, that this shouldn't be happening the way it is. I might close in my heart. I get disconnected, or I close my emotional states down, might close my body, hold my breath, tighten up, crimp my muscles, something that starts to get more defensive, more reactive, and I get scared. So in any given moment, I'm checking, where are you, Diana? Where are you? Are you above the line or are you below the line? And a good amount of the time, I'm going to find myself below the line at least a little bit, sometimes a lot, depending on whatever the situation is. And that's just fine because I'm just scared, that's all. I just got scared. I perceived a threat. And so the second question I ask myself is, hey, can you accept yourself for being scared? You just got scared, that's all. Can you take a breath here and just be with your scared self? Now, my experience is most of us didn't get a lot of training from our families of origin that said, oh, wow, you're scared. Fantastic. Yeah, we all get scared. Scared's wonderful and fine. And we just want to be with scared. Hardly any of us got that training. Most of us got told, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine. Or in my own head, I would say something like, just buck up, you're okay now. Don't be scared. So the practice here is, can you notice where am I? And can you accept, oh, I'm reactive. Below the line, I'm scared. Notice, allow, notice, allow. Many of you are probably familiar with that in your meditation practices. What do I notice? And can I allow it? What do I notice? That's the first two questions of conscious leadership. Notice and allow. I sometimes even imagine there's, like a little scared one inside of me. I look to see how old she is. Sometimes she's two, sometimes she's six. Six, sometimes she's 10. And I imagine putting her on my lap and just holding her. We just got scared, that's all. Sometimes it is like I'm 2 or 4 or 8. Something got triggered, and a reactive pattern showed up, something I developed way long ago. So can you just notice and allow, where am I? Can I accept myself for being just where I am? Scared and triggered and reactive. Those are the first two questions. And if you just spent the next year just focusing on those two questions, that alone would be a game changer. And especially if you started to pay attention to everybody else as well. Where are they? Oh, they're below the line. Oh, they're scared. They're just scared. That's why human beings are reactive. They're scared. Can you imagine how much more open you might be to others if you could just notice and allow and accept them just where they are?

Beautiful. So let's practice. Everybody tune into yourself right now. And in this now moment, wherever you are in the world, check in and ask yourself, where am I in this now moment? Am I above the line or below the line? And all we're going to ask you to do is take a nice breath. And if you're above the line, just put your thumb pointing up. And if you're below the line, put your thumb pointing down. Beautiful. Great, great. Good. So everybody's checking, where am I? I check above the line. Okay, good. Now, if we were sitting with you, the next little question we would ask you under the first question, where are you? Is we would ask you, how do you know? How do you know where you are? What's the evidence that you're looking at? That's a really good self awareness question. Some of you actually might be tuned enough into your body that you're, you know, when your body does these certain things like Diana said, breath pattern or particular posture, tension in your jaw or your shoulders, up in your ears, or even if you're leaning back or you have, you know, a certain body, you know from your body that it's experiencing threat. So you'd look there, but the other place to look is like, what are you saying? And by the way, you could be saying these in your mind. There are certain phrases that you'll notice you say when you're below the line. There are certain phrases you say when you're above the line in your thinking structure. And another one would be, how are you behaving? Diane Illustrated for example, if I find myself explaining, justifying, or rationalizing, I like those three. If I find myself explaining, justifying or rationalizing, I'm often below the line. But as I've watched myself over the years, I'm often below the line when I find myself wanting to figure things out. That's a mental thing that I do when I actually have a little bit of anxiety and I'm trying to get control of the world. That's just one that's particular to me. So you look at what are you saying, how are you behaving and what are you believing? That would indicate. So the first question is, where are you and how do you know? So this is the growing in self awareness piece we see that people who have a lot of self awareness can accurately locate themselves as either in a state of fear below the line or trust above the line at any moment. And again, we just have to say this over and over. It's one of the ways our work is most misunderstood is people make being below the line bad or wrong, and being above the line good or right. And we want to say that these are just states of consciousness, they're just states that we move into and out of all day long. And the job of the ego identity is to constantly survey the world and find all possible threat. Now again, it's designed to help us feel threat to our physical well being, but it's looking for threat to our identity. And so you can wake up at two in the morning and you can have a thought go through your head like, oh golly, it was my sister's birthday and I forgot to buy her a card. Two in the morning, the thought goes through your head, it was my sister's birthday and I forgot to buy her a card. Now at that point the ego identity is scanning the world and it's experiencing threat. Stay with me here. The core threats, I covered this with Tim a little bit, are to our wanting of approval, to be liked, loved, valued, our wanting of control, to control people, circumstances and things, and our wanting of security or safety. So stay with me. You wake up at 2 in the morning, you have the thought, oh God, I forgot to give my sister a birthday card. You go below the line because you're experiencing threat. For example, it might be threat to wanting approval because you know that three years ago you forgot to get your sister a birthday card and she let you know in uncertain, no uncertain terms that that wasn't acceptable. So there you are in the safety of your own bed, you know, in the quiet of the dark night, and you're below the line because you're imagining you're going to be disapproved of. So you just contract, you go below the line. Or maybe you're experiencing a threat to your wanting control. Like let's say you feel like, oh God, I need a better system for writing down stuff I need to do like buy a birthday card. So you're wanting control and you feel out of control. Or maybe you're wanting to control your sister and what she thinks and how she feels. Follow me. So there you are all by yourself, you're cozy bed, middle of the night, and you're below the line because a thought through your head, I forgot to buy a birthday card. Now Just everybody stay with me here. I doubt that any of you in that moment are experiencing a threat to your physical survival, right? This whole mechanism, the amygdala and the chemistry, the fight, flight, freeze, faint response, are all designed for our physical well being. Now, most of you aren't going to have a physical threat if you forget to buy your sister a birthday card. But the threat is to your identity or to your ego. Can you see that? The system works exactly the same way. So you get scared, threatened that you're going to lose approval or control, and you contract. We're saying that's natural and normal. You do it all the time. I could demonstrate another way of doing it right now. All I have to do is do this. I just look at my screen here and I go, rachel, Zer, undo your microphone. And I want to ask you what are the deepest wounds in your soul? I have to know Rachel. And she might actually play along, but that would be the response. She would go, she wouldn't think about that. She wouldn't go, oh, God, oh God, oh God. It would be instantaneous. This would be the amygdala. You don't want to get rid of this amygdala system. The amygdala would be going, danger, danger, danger. I've been called out in public, I'm being identified, I'm being asked to speak publicly. It would all just happen, which would be natural and normal. She would just. Rachel actually might not, because she. But most of us would go below the line just. If I say unmute your microphone and tell me what you did last night, again, that is just natural. It is part of our survival mechanism. We are not trying to get rid of that. We are actually trying to bring a little bit of presence. Rachel, did you unmute? Do you want to say something?

I didn't mean to unmute. I think Erica might have. Yeah. Just being called on, I got. Did I do something wrong?

Exactly right. And I want you to feel this, that for you and for all of us, it was just instinctual. It would be like you're walking through your town in the middle of the night or in the evening and you walk around the corner and there's somebody there whose face your system perceives as a threat. You don't have to think about it, you just go into reactivity. That's gorgeous, that's wonderful. The deal is that if I experience, let's say, my significant other's frown as a threat to me, wanting approval, and I'm not aware of that, and I stay below the line, when I relate to Debbie because I see her frown as a threat to me wanting to be liked and loved, then I'm going to relate to Debbie from that place, and that's going to start to create drama. So the initial reactivity is natural and normal. Then we want to bring awareness and acceptance to that so we can start to play a different game.

Okay, so next question. Once you've noticed and allowed, then you're going to say, just like Jim said, oh, of course I got scared. My body just did this thing. Am I willing to shift back to a state of trust? Am I willing to? If you are hanging out with us for any amount of time, you are going to know that we talk a lot about the difference between wanting and willing. So, for example, I want to lose 10 pounds. I am not willing to lose 10 pounds. How do I know I am not losing 10 pounds, but my mind can really want to, So I might want to shift. So if, you know, if I were Rachel, I might go, I want to come back to ease and presence here in the group. But am I willing to? And we then have you ask a series of questions to see, are you willing? And each question is related to one of the 15 commitments that we wrote about in our book. So the very first two, the biggies, right at the very beginning, first one is, would I be willing to end all blame? Would I stop blaming you, stop blaming me, stop blaming them, stop blaming any other stakeholders. Would I stop blaming? Just that alone can help shift a lot of us from reactivity to trust. And then the next question. Would I be willing to let go of being right when we're below the line? The mind wants to be right. I'm right. Things should be this way, they shouldn't be that way. You shouldn't have done what you did. I'm wanting to defend my position and I want to be really clear. Say, this is your thought. If you can see me here in this video, this is your thought. Coming by from above the line, I have thoughts and I think, you know, might be good to go. Direction A versus direction B, that's something I prefer. But below the line, I'm right. Direction A is the way. Direction B is the wrong way. This is the way. And I'm not available to learn as long as I really want to be right. So from above the line, I'm open and curious while still holding preferences. It's a big. A lot of people think that if you can't be right about anything, then you can't have preferences. And that's not what we're suggesting here. So the first question is, would I be willing to end blame? Second question is, would I be willing to let go of being right? And then there are a series more of questions. And Erica posted that handout here in the chat for you all, if you want to go directly to that. These are all the willingness questions that we work with our clients on to help see if they're willing to shift. It's a game. We made up the game. We're not saying the game is right, but this is the way we play the game. And in our game, you have to say yes to all of those willingness questions to be able to shift into a state of trust. Because our experiences, if you can say yes to some of them, like, yeah, I'm willing to let go of blame and I'm willing to let go of being right, but I'm not willing to feel my feelings. I don't want to be with my fear. I don't want to be with my anger. And so therefore, I can't be open in that way. So I'm still a little below the line. I'm at least a little closed. So that's question three. Anything more you want to say about that question, Jim?

No, that's great. Why don't you do question four and then we can play with it a little bit with some.

Okay.

And the next question is question four. If I am willing to shift, how will I shift? What am I going to do? What's the next measurable action step now that I'm in this state of trust, now that I'm open and curious and wanting to learn, what's the next measurable step I'll take to move me in the direction of a permanent solution to my issue? Not one that's going to temporarily relieve me. Then the issue is going to circulate around again next month, one that will help me permanently solve this. And there are all kinds of ways to do that. And we want to give you a heads up that my experience is about 20% of the time I'm willing to shift and 80% of the time, not yet willing to shift. Not willing. Something is too reactive over here. There's a threat I'm not willing to shift out of. And that is, again, natural, normal, and intelligent. Maybe. It's like I actually don't have a lot of skills yet to feel my feelings. I don't even really know how to do that. I think I'd get really overwhelmed. So for now, I'm not Willing to shift until I get some better sense of emotional intelligence here to make that a friendly experience for myself. So those are the four questions of conscious leadership. And we could walk somebody through an issue I think would be great and give you a coaching session so you can see how this applies. So I want to see if there's anybody out there who'd be willing to get coached. And I'll walk you through these questions. Anybody have an issue that you'd like to.

You can raise your hand or type in the chat.

And it'd be great to know what the issue is you'd like to explore.

We have Tessa here, so I believe I need to unmute you and you can share what your issue is with Diana and see if that'll work for.

Now for the group. Looks like she's still muted. Oh, yeah.

It's not letting me.

Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait.

I am trigger happy with my mouse finger.

There we go.

There you go. Hi, how are you?

Well, what is the issue that you'd like to explore?

I think the issue is that I sometimes get into arguments with my partner. And I notice there's two elements to it. There is the element where, like, these are his words, not mine. Like, he can get very frustrated and find it difficult to then talk without anger. So what happens is that then afterwards, like, there is that element of him being wrong. But what I notice is that when I stay calm during the argument, then that kind of works. But, like, I do notice that afterwards, I also shoot into, can we just come back to this? And can you actually, please actually acknowledge this? And it makes it difficult because if you purely look factual, like, then if there's shouting happening or something from that element, like, there is a little bit of righteousness in it, if you know what I mean. And I'm just noticing for myself that that makes it harder to. Then, like, when you said that thing around, are you willing to not be right? I think there was the wrongness because, like, in waiters, then always still that little voice saying, but I am right because he shouted at me. And that's wrong.

So what I hear the issue is that you and your partner can have conversations that you might call arguments and that he can get what you call angry. And afterwards there's still some. You're not finished yet. Because it feels like there's still something you want him to address around his anger in the argument.

Yeah. Or I think it's also about that. It starts with, I think I'm totally open to this, like, idea of, like, Both feeling hurt. Not hurt, but heard. But that as soon as it becomes shouting, then it becomes about that rather than the actual issue. Because then it's like, yeah, yo, whoa. But not in this way. So then I become the one who's right, and he becomes. Whereas instead of like that, we can actually talk about what might have been the actual. Whatever issue is there that we could both solve together rather than going into the button. You can't talk to me like this way.

Okay, so it sounds like the issue is when he starts shouting in a conversation, you get reactive.

Yes.

Is that right? And you'd like to address that? And how can you be with that when he's shouting either during or after the conversation?

Yeah, I think mainly after, because I do feel it's for both of us. It's better that, like, when that happens, either it needs to stop or I need to distance myself because it's just not like it's for both of us. It's just not working. It either escalates or it just doesn't work. But after, to not then stop, stay into like, then when things are calm again, when you could talk about it, to then not come up again. But by the way, you were very wrong in the way you talked to me.

Okay, good. Can you think of a recent time when that just happened?

Yes, today.

Great. Okay, so around the issue around your conversation yesterday, as an example of this bigger issue and where you experienced him shouting, are you above the line or below the line? Where are you.

Sorry. Around the late. When that happened or around the actual issue?

Around. Well, both when he's shouting yesterday and in general, are you above the line or below the line? His shouting in conversations.

It shifts a little bit. There's moments where I am above the line and I can really stay in that space where I can have a moment where I don't try to be right, where I really try to say deep breath or whatever way I say it, but it really is around creating space both for me and him.

How about right now?

Hmm.

How about right now? Are you above the line or below the line around the issue of him shouting during conversations?

Right now I'm above, okay, But I can feel as soon as I go deeper into. As soon as it becomes more than one time a shout, then I shoot below the line because then it becomes like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You need to stop right now.

Okay, great. So what I hear is, even right now, I am a little below the line because I still have a story. You shouldn't do that.

Yes.

Okay, good. Good. I want to be right. He shouldn't talk, he shouldn't do that, and he shouldn't do that multiple times.

Yeah, yeah.

So can you acknowledge right now when you think about him and his shouting, you're scared, triggered reactive. Yeah. And can you breathe a breath of acceptance to this scared one who gets scared when it's happening and scared thinking about it not stopping? Yeah, I'm scared. He's shouting. I don't want him to be shouting. Yeah. And I like to experience when I really let myself accept I feel something somatically in the body, there's often, like, happened. You feel that? Yeah, I just got scared.

Yeah. And I think there's actually. There's still a lot of contraction. And I think it's partly that when it starts happening, I see his hurt from whatever it might be, and then straight after that I shoot into what you just said, I shoot in the scaredness. And right now when you're talking like this, I feel a sort of contraction. It's like, yeah, but I should. I should be able to hold space for both of us. Yeah. Great.

So the next question. Are you willing to shift? Are you willing to shift from this threat to a state of trust? So the first thing we'd ask is, are you willing to let go of blaming him for any of his shouting? You're willing to let go of all blame about how he's doing, his arguing with you? When I ask this question, imagine I'm like pouring this question into the top of your head and it's drizzling all the way through the body and your whole self is answering the question. It's not just something your head answers with.

No.

Well, it's like, that's actually the interesting thing from within. Like, I meditate a lot and when I'm in that space, I really do feel that willingness. But then when it comes in as the actual shouting, then it becomes like, yeah, but this is not right. This is not how you talking. So there is. So I don't think I can say I'm ready like that. I'm ready because I don't think it's right. But I can feel it at the same time. I can feel that seed of willingness. But no.

Yes. And one of the things I'm really appreciating that you're role modeling here is the mind is going to have like some curiosity there and going, yeah, I can get it. I can get. He's got his stuff. But there's this other part that's still wanting to be Right. And we don't want to override that. We want to let it be okay, that. Yeah, part of me can get it. But you know what I want to honor? There's still part of me that's contracted. And in our work, we think no. Saying no to these willingness questions can be just as transformational as saying yes. And what matters the most is just being accurate in what's true in this moment. So you can feel there's some yes to letting go of blame, but there's still some no. So the answer is no.

Yeah.

And then we'd say, would you be willing to let go of being right? He shouldn't yell. I'm right about that. You can feel it. You're, like, squeezing. You shouldn't do that. You shouldn't yell. Would you be willing to let go of that and no longer be right about. You shouldn't yell.

It's funny when you talk about that, it actually feels very open. And right now I can genuinely say yes, because that feels different than the other stuff.

How about he shouldn't yell next time we talk?

Yeah, except that's harder.

I'm going to call him up and say, I need you to yell at Tessa next time. Is that okay? Meaning, can that be as right to yell as not to yell?

Yeah, it's the anger. Yeah. It's the anger that comes with the yelling that I can't say yes to.

He shouldn't be angry. I'm right.

He should.

Shouldn't be angry.

Yeah.

So your mind's still wanting to be right here, and we go. That makes so much sense. Likely when you developed your identity, part of your identity said, hey, we're not going to be angry. That's not so great. Let's be open and supportive and nurturing, not angry. So that's been X'd out over here. So when somebody is doing that over there, you know. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. No, I'm not willing yet to shift that. Here's another one. Would you be willing to be angry? Would you be willing to feel all of your feelings about whatever he's doing over there, including your anger, your sadness, your fear?

I think. Yeah, I think.

And remember, anger above the line doesn't have any blame with it.

No, and that's what I mean.

Like.

I mean, like, that's, for me, the interesting thing that, like, a few years ago, I still got really angry stuff. And for me, like, yeah, it's. It's. I find it very, like, it's not suppressing. It's just really? Like, it doesn't come out in that way anymore, but it did.

Okay. Okay. So you think you're willing to feel all your feelings, and would you be willing? Part of commitment three is I'll feel my feelings, and I'll let you feel yours. Are you willing to let him feel all of his feelings?

Yeah, I think. Second part that is still harder. Like, I am willing to feel my feelings, and not all the time. I won't lie. I mean, I'm not, like, there all the time, but there's moments where I can feel that I don't want to feel them, and then I can choose whether I do. But, yeah, I am willing to feel, but it's harder to let someone else do it, especially in their own space and time.

Great. So these are just the first three questions. If you're looking down the list. And so you'd say, for now, the answer is no, I'm unwilling to shift. Right now we don't know what will happen next. But right now I'm unwilling to shift from this state of threat that's natural and normal and often what happens. And so then we say, okay, for now, you're not willing. And so we would then have you own your unconscious commitment. Because it's not like you wake up every day and go, oh, yay, another day for him to yell and be angry in our conversations. You don't wake up and say, I want to create that, but yet that's what's getting created. So you're going to then own, oh, I'm committed to him yelling, being angry in some of our conversations. And it sounds like there's some kind of a pattern there. So I'm committed to it. So you just try that on. I'm committed to being yelled at. Yeah, I'm committed to being yelled at by my partner in some of our body.

Now goes like, no, no, just stop. No, I'm not.

Yeah. So then we just have you try to just say that out loud, see what it feels like to say, I'm committed to being yelled at in conversations with my partner.

I really have to force myself. I'm willing to commit to being yelled at in conversations with my partner. And I so don't believe that.

So we would just say, look at your results. Your results. You what you're committed to. So some of the results that are showing up in your life, you say, oh, I wanted it that way. Those are your conscious commitments. But some results that are showing up in your life, you go, well, I didn't want that. And in our work, being a conscious leader is owning those results. Survey says I'm committed to being yelled at by my partner. How do I know? Because he yells at me.

Great.

And then you could teach us a course. You know, if we spent more time here, we'd go, tessa, everybody here has come because they all want to learn to be yelled at by their partners. Could you tell us what we should do to make sure there's a pattern of yelling in conversations? What should we do if we follow the way you create those scenes over and over again? You know, a couple things I heard, like, be compassionate about his suffering when he was a child and focus on that as a. You know, and put more attention on holding space for him than tuning into your own needs and wants. That'd be one thing I heard. Don't have clear agreements about how we're going to talk with one another. Don't have clear agreements about how we express anger, not toward each other, but in ways that are friendly and free of blame. Yeah, right. So there's certain things. Can you think of another couple of things that you do that create that result of being yelled at? How do you make sure that pattern, like, tomorrow it's going to happen again? How do you make sure tomorrow it'll happen again just like the last time?

I think, like, and I don't like these phrases about, oh, I don't value myself enough for self. Because it sounds so, you know, it's just. It's used so much. But at the same time, it is a little bit that it's what you said about not having clear agreements, and it's about not, you know, and I think for myself, what I really struggle with, because it's that bit of right. Is it that I don't put enough consequences of, like, that if certain things, like, again, and I don't want to go into the story of whether it's right or wrong, but like, to really say, okay, if this happens, and I really don't know what else I can do to put a consequence to it for myself, not from the other, not as a punishment, but for me, my own boundaries, or to feel strong enough to not want to make it right in the moment.

Okay, good. Don't put. Don't put consequences in place and don't feel strong enough in the moment to.

Address it or to leave it not. Well, no, actually, in the moment it happens because then it hurts so it should stop then instead of being strong enough to just let it in a way like, you know, I do think, like, I Do believe, like, certain things. Of course, if things, you know, there are certain things that like it, but it's like, then if it becomes a physical threat or something, you shouldn't like, there's a whole different discussion around that. But like, for me, it's more just like it's also in an argument, if you feel hurt, if you can let it just, you know, that if I felt strong enough within myself, I could also partly let it slide over. And then after not having that need for you, but now you need to make it right. What happened earlier in the sense that making him responsible for me feeling better again, like that, I either have the choice to say, look, if I think that the way he talks to me is really not on, and I don't see any changes whether it's my or me or whoever, it doesn't matter who is not changing what. But if I feel that it's a pattern that keeps going and it shouldn't, then I have a choice to leave. Or if I stay, I have a choice to, like, as I said, if I felt stronger and not afterwards, make him responsible for making me feel not hurt anymore. So it's that strength of feeling, like, if I could just go, like, look, that happens. And I don't need a week later to still go. Yeah, but last week you talked that in that way, it's me. And that still hurts. Even if it does, it doesn't matter.

But from below the line, life is happening to me. You hurt me. From above the line, life is happening by me. I hurt me. I hurt me. I listened to your words, I took them in, I interpreted them, and I hurt myself with them. Your words and how you said them are not the cause of any suffering. As the creator of my experience, I'm the cause of the suffering. That's a radical concept. That's when Jim was talking about taking radical responsibility. Radical responsibility is I am the creator of my experience. I hurt myself.

Hmm.

So you're just gonna get with, oh, I'm committed to being yelled at. And some of the things I do is in the moment. I hurt myself with the words, but I blame him. And then get into reactivity and then don't address what's going on in the moment. That's one of the ways I do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you just go for now. That's just the way it is. And what's today? Wednesday. At least here in the U.S. today's Wednesday. And I'm committed to getting yelled at by my partner just for now. So that's the conscious leadership group is having people really start to take ownership of the results. And it's not good or bad or right or wrong, what you're doing. It doesn't mean anything unless you want to make that mean something about you. We're just going to say woman committed to man yelling and man committed to man yelling. How do we know those are the results? So that's the practice. The four questions of conscious leadership, how we use them, it doesn't matter what the issue is, whether it's at work or at home. This is how we're using the questions all the time. So I want to answer questions. Who's got questions that they want to explore with us about these four questions about this coaching session.

That's a thank you.

Yes.

Yes.

What I'm appreciating about you especially is I really felt you being with the process authentically. You were really checking out. Do I have a yes to that? Do I have a no to that? What am I doing here? And I appreciate you for being with it in such an authentic way. Thank you.

Thank you.

I love that you're role modeling to the part of me that says, wait, I don't want to say that out loud, because something about that doesn't feel so good. And we'd say that's why no is just as transformational. Because whatever that feeling is, that doesn't feel good is actually one of the most valuable catalysts I know to move me in a new direction. Because this has been going on for a while and you obviously don't like it, but it's not so bad that you've stopped it. But that feeling, that feeling when you start to say it out loud, that starts to feel kind of. Especially if you don't feel guilty or judgy about it, just to start to just be with it. That usually kind of hits me in the gut. Then I go, oh, I'm starting to really feel the cost of this in a new way. And now I want to change it.

Yeah. And can I say, because one of the things that really I appreciated when I first, like. Well, I first heard a talk, I can't even remember. I think it was what I'm being or something from Jim Detmer. But one of the things that really helped me in my personal development, but also with the coaching and the healing I do with people, was this difference between taking responsibility and blame. Because in the past, like, I've had relationships where this became physical. So then there is an element of not. Not. It wasn't a threat to my life. But still, you know, it becomes a different issue. And I think for me, this thing of like, being responsible for your results ended up for years in me feeling, sorry, I'm getting a bit emotional. But for years it made me feel like, so I, that means that I'm to blame for this happening to me, or like, you know, I just said like the way you feel about it became like this idea of like, if I take responsibility and it's like I'm like, you know, as you said, the buff and below line, all these things that it was then, well, as I said then, it meant I have created this, so I'm to blame. And that difference, that's. Even though there's an element of that, of course, but there's also that, yeah, there is a difference between. And that really helped because for years when people said, well, you choose to be happy, you choose whether you stay or leave. And if you're in a situation like that, in the end you always have a choice. And for me, that actually completely made me even feel so much worse because I was like, yes, I can see, even with the questions like, you know, that I'm like, yes, I can see how this works. But then if you make it into blame, then you kind of think, so I am choosing to be treated like this or that.

Yeah. And I heard you say there might still be an element of blame. I just want to say from above a line, there is no blame. Because from above a line, there is no problem. From above the line we go, oh, wow, there's been yelling going on in our relationship. In these arguments, there's often yelling, wow, what do we get to learn about how we're co creating yelling? This is interesting. There's something here for both of us and there's no problem. There's just some opportunity here. So there's, why would we blame anybody? We go, hooray. Yelling's happening. From above the line, we're just going to learn and grow. And this is the next scene to help us learn and grow. Erica, any questions?

I've got lots of questions. I'll ask them later. Right now, I've unmuted Aaron Wolf to ask his question.

Hi.

Thank you for being patient, Aaron.

Sure.

I've watched a few of these and this came up after I was reflecting on the last webinar, the parenting one, actually. But it applies to all of these. I noticed that when I asked myself how I'm doing, where am I from, where am I asking a question or checking in with myself, I sometimes Feel like I really think I am above the line, and I'm doing all the sort of, well, okay, let's double check it. Probably I agree with that, like, 80% of the time. Probably not if I'm bothering even to ask, and I should ask more often. But I noticed this process of, if you test like, well, let's do this test. What if I bring to mind this thought in the example just now would be like, well, let's think about tomorrow getting yelled at again. And then what's the difference between saying, oh, I guess I really am below the line because I'm not ready to be open and curious about this, versus I really am above the line. And if you get me to bring the right threatening thoughts to mind, then I'll go back below the line because now I brought a new thought to mind. And so that's similar to just the process of living. I can't expect to stay above the line. So how does that inform where I was when I was first asking the question?

So good. What I'm appreciating right now about you is I can tell you're starting to play with this material because you're picking up on some of the nuances, as was Tessa, by the way, because one of the ways this gets misunderstood is kind of a really toxic victim shaming, which is what she was pointing at before. Okay, so let me start at the graduate school level, Aaron, with your question, and then I want to come back to the practical level. So at the graduate school level, you would play, let's say we stay with Tessa, but not her. If you have a similar thing, here's what you would play with. You would say, get quiet. You've done your work, and you say, I look forward to having my partner yell tomorrow. Now, I just want you to. For most people, that is a big, batshit crazy idea. So that's why I said, we're in graduate school now. So when I find stuff that repeatedly triggers me and I'm doing my work on it, to become free, to become equanimous, to become fully present, one of the tests that I do is I say I look forward to them doing it again tomorrow. Because at the consciousness level, life is just offering Tessa a pop quiz. Can you stay present when loud speaking is occurring? Well, I can already feel Tessa. She's devoted to being a present human being. You can feel that in her. So then she goes, okay, this seems to be the pop quiz. So she can actually say to her partner, hey, sweetie, just in case you forget, tomorrow would you raise your voice one more time so that I can see if I can stay present in the presence of loud decibels. Because she's devoted to letting life be an invitation to wake up. You following me here?

Yeah.

That's how you test. At some point you're going to say, I look forward to that happening. So I can see what my relationship to presence is. By the way, I just want to say this because I can hear a lot of the minds in our group now going, well, wait a minute. Because here's what could very likely happen with Tessa or people like her. I was. I've been in environments like that myself much of my life. The voice might get raised. And from this incredibly clear, deep, like infinitely deep space, she finds words coming out of her mouth, embodied in an energy that says to her partner, stop it. And he stops. Now what she's discovered is I don't need to be right and righteous. I don't need to be better than. I don't need to make him bad. And for God's sake, I don't need to make myself bad. From pure clarity in the presence of the moment, she has a stop that she has never had before. That's a possibility. Another possibility is voice gets turned up loud. She walks over to her music system, turns the volume up loud on her music, and just starts dancing in the presence of her person while they're yelling. Next thing, they're rolling on the floor laughing and giggling because she just heard it as puffs of air. She didn't make it mean anything. It just went through her body. And from presence, she's totally embodied and just starts moving. Next thing you know, they've moved beyond the conflict. I don't know. You don't know what possibility arises from presence? All right, so that's the graduate school answer, Aaron, to you and everybody else who's playing with this. And by the way, it just might mean that she says to him, listen, I have an open hearted love for you, and I just don't choose to be in a relationship where people raise their voices with me, so I love you, and that's not welcome here. And she says it with such clarity that it's just over. Or she just says, you'll be leaving tomorrow, I'll leave. I don't know what's going to happen. She'll feel that in her clarity. Now, to your point, you can always do a thought experiment and find out what triggers you. So you're asking yourself, am I above or below the line? And you go, well, actually Right now I am. But if I do the thought experiment tomorrow, do I go back below the line? Two things here. One, just keep using that as a test for your ability to stay present and conscious. Literally. I sometimes just get quiet and imagine an issue, problem or concern that troubles me so that my body can become reactive so that I can do my practice. That's great. You know, most of us have enough shit in our life that you don't have to do that. Life is just constantly giving you stuff to practice with. But this is all built around the idea that our view is that life is interested in each of us waking up. And the content of our life is an invitation to wake up, to become more present, more free, more alive, more peaceful, more loving, more liberated. So all of life is just an invitation to play that game. That makes sense.

Yeah, that's, that's really helpful. And the, the one follow up, I guess, is just. It's still in the sense prior to doing all of that, sort of putting myself in the place of doing. Lifting more weights again or whatever you want to think of it before that. I still might have been right when I first checked in, said I was above the line. I mean, is that valid?

Absolutely. This above and below. First of all, let's just be clear. This is just a made up line. Everybody get this. This is just a game. We're not arguing there is a real line and you are actually always above or below it. We were just trying to come up with a game to play to help us all be a little more aware and accepting and awake. So the way we play the game is you're oscillating. Most of us above and below that line all the time. All you have to do is let your blood sugar drop because you didn't eat any food or get really exhausted and don't get a good night's sleep. And you'll notice, whoa, I'm just more below the line today because my blood chemistry is off. Or, or, or, or, or. So you'll discover that at one moment around that issue, you're above the line. You could feel that in Tessa, even when Diana was asking her, because she said, well, actually right now I feel myself open and spacious. But if I put myself in last night, I was contracted if I imagined tomorrow, so that's okay. We don't care. Just notice the oscillation. And then over time, in our experience, if you keep doing the work, the stuff that triggered you meaningfully a year ago, five years ago won't trigger you. You've done Your work. And there's a freedom there, an equanimity, a peacefulness. That's what all the great wisdom traditions are pointing at, is the possibility of some sort of liberation. That makes sense.

Thank you.

Thank you for the question. Erica, another question.

I'm unmuting, Martina. For now, I'm attempting to. Okay, we're good.

Hi. So I would like to ask, how can we train ourselves to be reminded of these questions and ask them, especially in those difficult situations?

Ah, this is a good one. We highly recommend that people use their apps on phones to remind themselves to pay attention to where am I? So we use mindjogger for iOS and randomly remind Me for Android. And you can have it pop up on your phone several times a day. And if you saw mine, it would say, diana, where are you? Above or below the line? And I make a deal with myself that whenever this pops up, I actually check. So I build a skill set for checking. You could also use post it notes, post it on the mirror when you get up, post it on your dashboard of your car, post it on your computer. Where are you? Just to start to get you asking the question and the following ones after that. So we recommend some kind of a way because like most of us, we get caught in the content of our lives and we forget context, which is where am I being above or below? So any way you can remind yourself to check context as a practice.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, that's. That's helpful. Great, thanks.

Okay, great. Next question is from Louise Hardy.

Thank you. Thank you, Tessa. Thank you for sharing that. Because you're braver than I am, I wouldn't be able to be so vulnerable in front of everyone at the moment. So thank you for that. My question was going back to blame, and you have covered it some ways, but I wondered if there were any practical tools, because for me, as a kind of typical A type personality, if I'm trying to take responsibility, I can see that's really easily going to lead to a path of blame. And I accept what you said, that it's not about blame, but are there any practical tools that you can offer to work on that element as well?

Two things for me that come up that are practical. Again, I said this on the Ferris podcast, and again Diana mentioned it with Tessie, we would come back to it. As long as I'm believing that something is wrong, then the mind's job is to figure out who to blame. Make sense? So if I believe that raising a voice to a certain decibel level is wrong, then My mind's job, this is just the job of the mind, is to figure out who's to blame. He's to blame because it's his voice. I'm to blame because I'm not saying stop. The collective is to blame because of patriarchy. I would just. If, if it's wrong, I've got to figure out who to blame. Does that make sense? So the real deconstruction is this question. This is the question I would ask you. Would you be willing to see that life is for you? That's a big question. Life is for you, not happening to you. It's for you and it's for your growth and expansion and waking up. So whatever is occurring in your life is an invitation to grow. Well, just think about the difference and I'll just stay with Tessa. If she saw that the decibel and I'm moving away from screaming because actually screaming is an interpretation. There's just a certain decibel level. If she saw that that decibel level was for her, it was a gift. It's like the universe said, oh, sweetheart, we love you. We want you to become a more awake, aware, present, alive, being. So here comes the decibels. If she related to it that way, you can feel this. There wouldn't be anybody to blame. In other words, why would you blame him for simply being a mouthpiece for a decibel level that is here for me to wake up? And God knows she wouldn't blame herself. In fact, what she would discover and you would discover, if you shift how you view life, you move from blame and criticism to appreciation. So in my world, I, if I were walking alongside Tessa, I would see her as appreciating herself for inviting a pop quiz that's there so she can go even deeper into being an awake human. It would be so crazy to blame yourself for that. You've given yourself the gift. That's why when we say she's committed to being yelled at, that can sound bad. In our world, she's committed to being yelled at. Because right now part of her growth edge involves being yelled at. It's not that she's bad or wrong, she just hasn't in her growth, she just hasn't learned whatever that was meant to teach her yet. Once she's learned that, my hunch would be she's not going to get yelled at very often. And it's not a bad thing, it's a wake up thing. So change the context. Does that make sense to you?

First of all, yes, yes, absolutely.

And Then let me give you an incredibly practical thing. Once you decide that you're willing to see life as for you, not happening to you. Get a rubber band, put it around your. Are you left or right handed?

Right handed.

Okay, good. Right handed. So start with it on your right hand and start with this. I commit to end blame and criticism. You just try that by yourself. That's in that list of commitments. I commit to end blame and criticism. Now for you especially, I commit to not blame myself. And you start like this. You go, I'm going to set a timer on my phone for one hour. And for one hour I'm going to see if I can make it without blaming myself. Which, by the way, if you've ever tried this, that is not easy to do, right? Like, you know, you walk by the mirror and you see yourself and a critical thought shows up. You know, maybe the seventh pizza. Pizza wasn't that good of an idea last night. Now, when you blame yourself or criticize yourself within the first hour, you take the rubber band and you very gently but with intention, snap your wrist, then move it to your left hand and start the timer over again and see if you can make it an hour without blaming yourself. And then extend it to 2 hours, 4 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, hours, 24 hours. But first you've got to change how you're relating to life. Because again, if it's bad, you got to find somebody to blame because the mind believes. This is what the mind believes. If we can figure out who to blame, then we can bring pressure so that they stop doing it so it doesn't happen. That makes perfect sense. But if you check in your life, it doesn't work that way. How many of us, by blaming the hell out of ourself all these years, have produced real change in our life? It actually doesn't work that way. So there's a very practical tool and it's related to a context change. Would you be willing to see that life is for you. You just get to pick that. That makes sense.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Oh, you're so welcome. And thank you for asking a vulnerable question and revealing that you blame yourself some. You said you wouldn't be vulnerable and you were.

She's just like Tessa to me. Another question, Erica.

Yeah, Daniel Smith, you can go ahead and unmute yourself. I bet you're better at it than I am. The unmuting process.

Hello, everyone. Thank you all so much for being here. So, something that came up when Tessa was speaking because I was fairly addicted to being right for Many, many years. And it caused a tremendous amount of suffering in my experience. And I'm also, I don't know, intj in processing. So that has led to me experiencing things difficultly and differently than 99% of the world. But a technique that I sort of came up with, as opposed to having to be right externally, was telling myself that I was right internally. And it took a lot of the sting out of having to force the other person to acknowledge that I was right or this, that and the other. Because again, I recognize that there's a fair amount of ego, there's a fair amount of arrogance, there's a fair amount of superiority in this thinking. I also recognize that I have a very good track record of precision, accuracy, intelligence, all the good stuff. And not being skilled in these techniques yet, I'm just wondering how healthy of a transition step is that or when I do my healing and coaching or just living, if I should throw that away or is that like a valid tool in my toolkit of like, hey, why not just sort of tell yourself this and sort of get someone closer to the line? And then sort of, I'm just sort of wondering if that's a healthy technique or if like, I mean, it served me and took a long time to get beyond some of that and transition to going from being right to being happy and from being right to being kind, you know, thank God a little bit. So that's sort of the crux of my question, I guess, if that's a healthy technique or if that's something that's like, well, you know, it may have served you, but like, we've got graduate level now.

Well, like all techniques, we say any technique could be done above the line or below the line. So the question is, from where am I doing the technique? Am I doing the technique to give myself some temporary relief? Am I doing the technique to be right still? Am I doing the technique? Because I feel at the effect of this conversation I'm having with this other person, like from where am I doing the technique? So my job is just to get really self aware of is there a place where I'm trying to still control something here? And if yes, then I go, oh, then let me see if I could drop that technique right now and just come back to the basics. Where am I? Can I accept I'm scared? But if I find that the technique feels like I'm really above a line and I'm using it from a place of, there is no problem here, there is no threat, I'm in a State of trust, and it's working for you, and you like the results, and you're creating ending patterns to what used to be recycling issues, then great.

Yeah.

I guess the question is more for helping others to get up the spectrum if. If they're not, you know, like, I sent them the podcast. They haven't listened to it yet, like, things like this. And so it's like, does that seem like a fair technique or an efficacious technique to use?

I wouldn't use the technique because I. Because identities want to be right, period. And I lose out on so much learning, and if I could just go, like, what if I weren't right? And what if the opposite were at least as true? Wow, what could I learn then? So I find that I would guess that people might actually learn more if they just dropped out the whole concept of being right. Because, like, Tessa might say, well, I still think it's right not to yell. And my experience is there may be moments where Tessa yelling would really serve the moment. And if she's not fully open and available to all the possibilities of how to respond because she wants to be right about something, she misses out on being able to be fully present.

I don't disagree. But so, like, in Tessa's situation, her challenge comes when, days later, she needs to go back to him. So if she was internally like, oh, yeah, I'm right, and she doesn't have to externally get that, like, in the spectrum, she's evolving over time because it's.

Like, I love how you're approaching this. Excuse me for interrupting. And I'm going to interrupt. I love how you're exploring this and moving it all around, and I'm just excited to see how that evolves for you. And I want to get a couple more people on who've got questions, so thank you.

Jim, do you just have a comment? Look like, Yes, I do.

My comment is this, Daniel, I think it's a great hack for you. Now, here's what I mean by that. If I were just talking to you about how to have more harmonious relationships, how to lessen drama and conflict, and how to invite people to be more engaged with you, your hack is a good one. In other words, what I hear you saying is I've decided to shift from needing to prove that I'm right. I'm backing off that I'm still holding that I'm right, which allows my ego to be a little soothed, but I'm letting go of proving that I'm right. I would imagine that's a good hack for you to decrease drama in your relationship. Great. Now we're actually having a graduate school conversation because this will decrease and maybe give you a landing place in your relationships. I'm touching here because you pointed your head when you said, I get to be right in my head. As long as this is still going on, you've moved the conflict from out here to in here, by the way. That might be a good move for you. And then you can do the work in here in our world. Eventually you're going to start to want to play with unwinding the egoic attachment to needing to be right. And I agree. You said INTJs. For those people who don't know that's a Myers Briggs category. It's a very small percentage of the population and they do have a track record of being right a hell of a lot of the time. So I get all that. It's just we're not addressing that. We're addressing, are you free? Are you liberated? Are you conscious? This has got to get unwound for that to occur. Does that make sense?

Totally.

So a good hack in the short term, for sure. By the way, the other thing is, people will tend to get less reactive to you the less you're needing to prove that you're right and they're wrong. Because that's embedded in the notion that I'm right. If I'm right and you disagree, you have to be wrong. And most people don't take very kindly to being proven that they're wrong repeatedly by somebody like you who's right a high percentage of the time. You'll discover that people eventually want to say, go fuck yourself with your rightness. Exactly. And I love what you said. You're starting to value my words, not yours. You're starting to come to the conclusion that it's possible to be right and unhappy. What if I could be happy? It's possible to be right and never be close to another human being. And it sounds like you're shifting to, maybe I'll get more interested in being happy than being right or being close than being right, which we think is. Is a growth posture. Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, Erica.

Back to you, Rachel.

I would love. Rachel Zur, I would love you to ask your question, and it's one that I think is a lot of people ask on the form, the form for signing up and is a great reminder to us all about the danger zone of this work.

Yeah, thanks. Learning that the more I start noticing where I am, I'm also noticing where I think the people around me are, and I'm finding myself really wanting them to notice that too. And then I don't even want to talk about the content we're talking about. I want to just pause and do all this stuff instead. And how do I skillfully deal with that and not just turn it into another thing to fight about?

Yeah, there were so many questions that you all asked around. You know, how do I get people at work to want to practice this? How do I talk, have this conversation with people at home? And so Jim and I were talking about maybe we could role model that. What do you think, Jim?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You want to be the.

I'll be the person who just came to this workshop and now wants to change the role relationship and you be the other person. Okay, so I'll go back to. I love what he said. Hey, I listen to this podcast on Tim Ferriss, and I think there's some really cool stuff here. So what I want to do is I want to start to identify whether we're above or below the line, because if we don't start to identify whether we're present or reactive, we're just going to stay in drama. So would you be willing to do that with me?

I don't even know what you're talking about, and I have no idea what you're talking about.

Okay, great. So I just sent you the podcast. Would you listen to the podcast and maybe even read this book and then. Or let me just net it out for you. You're below the line most of the time. As I watch you, once I learned this thing, you're normally defensive and reactive, and I think that could be at the heart of some of our issues.

Well, I just feel like you're trying to control me right now, and I don't like that at all.

Yes, this is what I mean. So, like, right now, you're below the line. This is what this guy said on the podcast.

That's so good.

You can see where this conversation is going to go, can't you? Maybe you've all tried it. Rachel, you've probably tried some version of this. Here's what we say. And Rachel, thank you for asking, because you know this. Here's what we say. First, tend to yourself. Do your own work. Eat your own cooking before you try to inflict this on anybody else. That's step one. Step two. Find one or two people who want to play this game with you and create a little practice group often. This isn't going to be your mother, your Sister, your significant other other or your boss. This might be somebody who was willing to be on this call and say, hey, would you be willing to like read the book with me or listen to some of these videos they have and practice with each other. So it's a low risk practice group, a low risk playgroup. So number one, do your own work. Number two, find a playgroup with people who are co committed to practice. Number three, go to people who matter in your life. Like this, hey, I've been playing with some of these concepts and I'm finding them meaningful to me. And by the way, if you've been eating your own cooking for a while, doing your own work, it's not uncommon that your other person will say, I actually have noticed.

Yeah, I would say, hey, Jim, I don't know what's going on, but you seem different and I'm really liking it. And you know, can you tell me more about what you're doing?

Yeah, actually I've been playing with these ideas but rather than me try to teach them to you because that's not my job, here's a little two minute video you could watch and then we could talk about it. Or here's, you know, a learning group that I've been playing with. If you'd like to come, we could play together. What I'm doing here is I'm moving out of the teacher role. I'm moving out of the one up role who's going to tell somebody how to be. And I'm moving into the invitation role and inviting people in. And then last thing I want to say, Rachel, I know we're about out of time is at least for a while. Make an agreement with people in your life that you are not going to point out when the other person is below the line. You only get to point out when you are below the line. And it has to be like this. Hey Diana, I notice that I've gotten triggered and reactive and I've gone below the line and I've stopped listening to you. Not like this, hey Diana, I've gone below the line. And the reason I've gone below the line is because you are being a bitch. That doesn't count either. It's. You just get to own that I've gone out of presence and I want to take a break and just go do my work so I can come back and be present and really listen to you. So no pointing out to the other when they're below the line. Those would be some tips. You got anything else for the group Diana around?

No, you covered it. You covered it. And we're at time. So one thing, if you liked this conversation, you think, hey, how can I get more? We've got a couple of courses that are starting very soon. One is an introduction to conscious leadership, where we're going to make all this four questions a little bigger. And the other one is around conscious parenting. So if either of those topics are interesting to you, want to make sure you know about those. And you can check out our events page. And we have other offerings as well. If you want to talk to a coach, get more support, let us know. And we are so glad that you.

Are part of our community.

For those of you who find this interesting and want to keep hanging out with us, we would love to hear from you. What are you up to? Follow us on all of our social media channels. Yeah, we're really excited to just start on a journey with you all. For those of you who are new, and for those of you who I see are familiar faces, thanks for showing up again. I see Casper there. It's like, oh, Casper's back. So, yeah, it's fun to keep playing. And we wish you all much joy and peace above the line when you have it and when you don't, we hope you'll have much acceptance for being scared.

Bye, everybody.

Bye.

All right.