In this solo Facebook Live (also posted on YouTube), Mary Schiller answers a viewer’s question: “If feelings don’t matter, then what does matter?” She begins by noting the question’s relevance and explains that, from the Three Principles perspective, we are not our thoughts, feelings, or life story. Recognizing what we are not opens the inquiry into what we actually are. Mary describes her lifelong focus on exploring the true nature of self beyond the “little me” experience, emphasizing that while physical activities (work, travel, conversation) are enjoyable, they are merely perks of being in a human form. The deeper matter, she argues, is the vast, infinite inner landscape that lies beyond the limited identification with thoughts and emotions. By shifting inner attention away from the “little me” narrative, we can discover this larger sense of being, which she views as the point of life. She also references her one‑to‑one coaching program “Get Paid to Be You,” invites viewers to comment, and provides contact information (email and website). The talk ends with gratitude to specific viewers and a friendly sign‑off.
Chapters
Hello, hello, it's Mary Schiller, author and coach of MarySchiller.com, coming to you today from Paris, France, where it is still quite cold. Clearly winter is not ready to leave yet. It's in the 30s Fahrenheit here, so once again I'm doing this Facebook Live from inside my apartment where it's nice and warm. I do have to go out shortly, so I'm gonna bundle up. I got a very interesting question posted as a comment on one of my videos that I posted on YouTube. It was one of the ones that I've done here— hi, Helen— about your feelings don't matter. I'm not sure how many of those I've done now, maybe 3 or 4. In any case, I had reposted one of them onto YouTube and somebody asked a question that was really interesting because it's not a question that I would have thought of because the answer seemed obvious to me. But as is often the case, a lot of times when an answer is obvious to us, it isn't obvious to someone else. So this really gave me some pause, and I decided to address this question in a Facebook Live. So in the videos where I've been talking about the fact that your feelings don't matter, I didn't answer the question, well, Mary, if feelings don't matter, then what actually does matter, if feelings don't matter, what does matter? That is a really legitimate question. And here is my answer. And here's what I posted on the YouTube video when somebody asked it was, everything else, everything else matters. And what do I mean by everything else? Well, If we kind of get, even in a small way, that we are not these thoughts and feelings that we're having, okay? So we can see that thoughts come in, they have some kind of quality to them that generates some sort of feeling and experience in us. That if we can see that we are not that, then we can see that, hey, Maybe we're actually something else. If we aren't those thoughts, well then what are we? You know, it isn't really enough for me at least to understand what I am not. In other words, when I first came across this understanding of the three principles, it started to become really obvious to me that I was definitely not my thinking. I was definitely not my feelings. Those things are kind of two sides of the same coin. And I was not the sum total of my life story as a result. I wasn't any circumstance that I thought I was in. I wasn't all of these things. Well, that wasn't quite enough because for me, it's really interesting to explore the answer to the question, well, then what am I? If I'm not all of these things, then what am I? And to me, that's the answer to this question. If feelings don't matter, then what does matter? It's, well, what am I then? If I know what I'm not, is there a way for me to at least explore who and what I am? Is there a way to do that? And that is really the focus of my life. I was on a call yesterday with a wonderful client of mine who's part of my Get Paid to Be You one-to-one coaching. And I realized that it's really, really true, for lack of a better word, that the only thing I'm really interested in is exploring what you and I actually are. Yeah, it's really fun to create things. It's really fun to have conversations. It's really fun to make money. It's really fun to go places, to meet people, all those things that are part of this physical world. Those are all really interesting and fun. And they're kind of wonderful perks for being in this human form to begin with. But there's something else going on that is so much larger than that. And so infinite in its capacity to fascinate me, and perhaps you too, that to only see our experience in terms of this physical world seems incredibly limiting to me. And so, When I'm no longer concerned, for example, about what I happen to be thinking or feeling in any given moment because it has nothing to do with who or what we actually are, I feel this sense of freedom to really look in that direction and to wonder about that and to see if I can see evidence of whatever it is or whoever it is that we actually are. And so if you begin to turn your gaze, if you will, away from the, um, how can I say this, the kind of the little me thinking, the little me experience, if you can kind of shift your inner gaze just a tiny bit in a new direction, you'll start to see that there's a vast infinite landscape that we can all be exploring. And to me, that's what matters. You know, I don't want to have lived my life with only the experience of this, this physical visceral world. To me, there is so much more going on here. And that to me seems like the point. Of life. You've already, as I've said in another video, you've already fulfilled your purpose simply by being born into this form. You, just like everything else, are for— have already formed an integral part of how this system keeps going simply by being present. So what else can you see? What else can you discover? What else can you uncover about yourself in terms of what is beyond your little Mary human experience. So I hope you found this video perhaps thought-provoking and interesting. I'd love to hear your comments. So please feel free to post them wherever you're watching. If you'd like to get in touch with me, please email me mary@maryschiller.com and you can find me on my website at maryschiller.com as well. Oh, thank you, Crystal and Helen, and thanks for joining Ingrid as well. And thanks to everybody for watching. I really appreciate you and I love hearing from you, so please feel free to get in touch. I'll talk to you again soon. Bye now.
