What do we do now? A Three Principles discussion of political/societal change

Hello there, this is Mary Schiller, and I'm happy to welcome you to this webinar today. If you are joining me live, I would love it if you would just post in the chat if you can hear and see me. Hey Lori, hey Joel, great to see you both here. Hello Katie, nice to have you. I'm going to start in about, great, thanks, Katie. Hello, hello, wonderful to see so many people. I'm going to start in about 30 seconds here. There is some unfortunate background noise, of course, because there just is, right? The area in California where I am staying right now has a lot of oak trees. And a lot of the oak trees have been damaged by some intense storms we've had here. So of course, the neighbor is using a chainsaw today to deal with some of the unruly, uh, of the trees. So I apologize in advance if you hear that in the background. Yeah, Lori, there isn't any right at the moment, but I assure you there will be at some point during this webinar. So why don't we go ahead and get started? Thanks so much for being here. Again, my name is Mary Shiller. I am an author and 3 principles-based coach. You can find me online at www.maryshiller.com. And I also have another project that I'm working on with another coach, Sarah Murat, called themagicspace.com. Us. And this webinar is really just a conversation between you and me. I'm not going to be selling anything, nothing like that. It's really just an open conversation that seemed like the time was right for it. I've titled it, What Do We Do Now? A Three Principles Discussion About Political and Societal Change. And the reason why I decided to host this conversation today with all of you is because I see so many people who are really in a state of turmoil, emotional turmoil right now. And I have to tell you the truth, which is that I have been there myself on and off ever since the US election. And I want to also state upfront that this conversation is not about the United States president. It's not about the person who lost the election. It's not about anything like that. So we're not going to go down that path. The point of this conversation, as I see it, is to look at this idea of change through the lens of the Three Principles. And it seems to me that a lot of the discussion that I've been seeing, even within the Three Principles community, is kind of missing a big piece of the puzzle. And I'm not proclaiming that I have the answer to solving what we're dealing with right now, but I do think that there is a direction that we haven't really been looking in, and that's what I would like to talk about here. So I would like to start by asking all of you who are attending live a question. And if you could type an answer in the chat box, that would be great. So who here on this call today has had a major change as a result of getting an understanding of the 3 principles? And by major, I mean something like, you know, something has really shifted in your life. You know, you've maybe had some kind of long-standing problem that suddenly wasn't there anymore, that maybe a relationship improved without much effort being put into it, or you've personally had some kind of habit or addiction even that has been broken as a result of this understanding. So Kimberly, Katie, Jill, Damien, all of you have. Lori's had some moments of clarity, not sure about a huge transformation. Well, we'll take moments of clarity for sure. As some of you may know, my own personal story, which I won't go into detail about, was that I had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder when I was 29 years old and had struggled for decades with that. And it wasn't until I came across the 3 principles in 2014, simply by reading Michael Neill's brilliant book, "The Inside Out Revolution," that my symptoms of PTSD faded away in about 6 weeks. So I've personally gone through a major transformation. Yenny, Maggie, Nikki, Joel. So, you know, it's really interesting to me that we can see these kinds of changes in ourselves, or if you're a coach working in this, you can see change in the people that you work with. And yet, for some reason, we haven't been able to yet see how this same thing can work on a larger scale. And that's kind of where I would like to focus this discussion. And really, my aim is not that we end this hour with some kind of big breakthrough answer. It's more about opening our vision up more to what could be possible if we started looking at change on a political and societal level simply from the vantage point of the Three Principles and how that has done that for us and for our clients on an individual level. So, one of the things that I have seen in recent weeks that's been very interesting for me to observe, and I'd love to hear your thoughts too, feel free to pipe in at any point here, I'm not gonna be shutting anything down, so just type comments whenever they occur to you, is I was quite heartened by the outpouring of people for the Women's March. And the reason why I was heartened by that was not so much that there was this outpouring of people against something. That wasn't what it looked like to me. To me, it looked like people who had seen something and had decided to make a concerted effort to come together wherever they were in the world, and have a very peaceful gathering of individuals that collectively made a statement. And the reason why that was so heartening to me, and see if you can follow my thinking here. KT says a rise in consciousness. That's exactly how I saw that. And I thought to myself, Now, I'm taking a big leap here, so, so see if you can follow this. I thought to myself, what if everybody in the world who had had some kind of clarity as Lori's had, some kind of transformation around the principles, what if we all decided to do the same thing? How many of us would there be? Making an individual and then collective statement about what is possible simply by seeing what's going on behind the curtain of our minds, what's going on behind the curtain of our experience. And so I thought to myself, I wonder how many millions of people that would be. You know, what would the collective presence of that mean towards change? Now, I don't know that this will actually happen, but I just thought to myself, you know, maybe there is some other way to create change other than sort of the typical, you know, fighting for our rights sort of thing. Now, I'm old enough at 55 to remember the '60s and the civil rights movement. I'm certainly old enough to remember the rise of women's lib. You remember that phrase? I've seen a lot of periods of our history here in the United States where people have fought back both physically and through civil disobedience and quiet dissent. But for me personally, and I would love to hear what you think, it seems like change is awfully slow when we rely on those more conventional ways of trying to effect political and societal change. I haven't really seen as much change as I thought I would, for instance, with women's equality. That's one that's particularly important to me. And I was having a conversation a couple of years ago with some women who were younger than I am. And I was saying, you know, I just never thought I would hit my 50s and we would still be having any of these conversations that we're having in the political sphere. I thought they would be long gone by now. And I felt the same about race issues. I remember very distinctly in my early teens, realizing that maybe we were on the cusp of really doing away with racism. And yet here I am, 40 years later, and it's still as problematic as ever. And I guess putting it bluntly, I think we're smarter than this. I think that there are more tools available to us than we've taken advantage of. And everybody who just mentioned that they have had a major change in their, in their lives and themselves as a result of this understanding in a short span of time, I'm guessing, can attest to the fact that an understanding of these three principles can affect change very rapidly. I'm thinking about people like myself or people who have been told they have an addiction to something. You know, I was told that I would never be free of the mental illness of PTSD, that that was simply part of who I was and there was nothing that could be done about it. I was gonna have to learn to cope as best I could. Well, as you probably experienced for yourself, there's no truth in that. There is absolutely no truth in someone being stuck with a mental illness or stuck with being an addict or stuck with being anything. And so I keep coming back to the fact that it seems to me that the conversation, the larger conversation about political and social change, is missing this key piece that the Three Principles explains. So on the registration page for this webinar, I asked a few questions and I'd like to pose them to you right now. The first question I asked, which KT sort of alluded to, is are we seeing a raising of the collective consciousness worldwide? Does that Women's March, for example, indicate anything to us? About the readiness of people to hear what we in the Three Principles Community are experiencing and seeing for ourselves. You know, this is being taught in all sorts of settings around the world, as we all know, if we're on this call together, in prisons and in addiction treatment facilities, in schools, in all kinds of settings. And I keep wondering, are we seeing any signals that the world might be ready for this? Kimberly says, yes, more and more people are hungry for this. Lori, I think so. It seems to me, and maybe I'm just seeing this through rose-colored glasses, if I am, please tell me, but it seems to me that the world is really, really ripe foreseeing something new. Just judging by the level of, I don't even have a word for it, engagement, I suppose. Laura says she agrees, Katie, yes, great. So I'm not crazy. Please tell me if I'm sounding cuckoo here. But it seems to me that the level of political engagement that I have seen in the last few weeks and people coming together who normally aren't out in the street holding signs. There was one sign that I saw in a picture where this guy said something like, I'm not typically a protester, but geez, it was like getting people out of their homes and actually doing something. Lori says that that march was significant, but there's a lot of stuck thinking. Lori, you're right where I am, because there's a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of engagement, a lot of willingness to get out and do something. But what is it that they are doing? Jeff says, I think so too, but there are so many who wanna see physical action. Stuck thinking is a good way to say it. So the action that people are taking, I'm not knocking it at all, but I am saying that it is what I would call sort of standard. It's standard issue response. It's definitely more in terms of numbers than I have ever seen at any point in my life. I have never ever seen anything like the Women's March, and I don't think the world has seen anything like that. I think that might've been a first, but it is still a standard response to people feeling threatened and people feeling like they want some way to change things. So this is what they do. They go out and they protest and they go out and they speak about the evil that they're seeing and how to combat that. And where I am is more like, okay, is there some way that the people who are in this three principles conversation can somehow reach those beautiful human beings who want to affect positive change in the world and say, hey, there is something else that you can be doing other than, and I'm not saying we should stop, but other than gathering and protesting, alongside calling your congresspeople, alongside writing newspaper articles and whatever else you wanna do, there is something else that can have a much more profound effect and a much, in my view, faster effect. And that is clearing up this misunderstanding of how our experience is created and how the mind works. Manas says, "I'll be your first guinea pig." So let me just pause there for a second. So my question was, are we seeing a raising of the collective consciousness worldwide? And my impression is yes, we are, because to me, that Women's March and the way that it was carried out very much showed that to me. Joel says, "On a mini level, attending these protests, but coming from the 3P perspective and sharing it in relation to those around us would be helpful." That's a wonderful, wonderful idea, Joel. You know, there's nothing stopping us from being part of events like that and trying to create some sort of forum in which we can express what we see. Because I think everybody who is on this call with me today, and if you're watching the replay, thank you for that too, has the same sense, or at least a similar sense, that if we could somehow get this into this current mainstream movement that is starting, I mean, it's hard for me not to get like, choked up about that because I can just imagine, maybe I can't even imagine, what could happen as a result of that. I think that the entire conversation could shift. And I'm just not sure at this point the how of that. I just have this really strong sense that we are right at the cusp of something. What would that look like to you? Lori, that is a great question, and I wish I had an answer. The one thing that I thought about fireflies, KT says, which is a phrase that Michael Neal has used about us kind of being lights around the world. One thing that I thought of this morning, Laurie, and Damian, let me see what you said first. Media needs to change reporting from an outside-in perspective, which is why I'm going there next. Okay. So I'll get to my point in a second, but I want to address that, Damien. That's really fascinating because about maybe 2 months ago, I was at a small talk that Mara Gleason and Edith Olsen were giving at the New School in New York City. And it was a very small group of people. There were maybe 10 of us or so in the room. And they, everyone but us, although my husband was there and he and I used to work as journalists, Everybody in there was related to media in some way. And the whole conversation was, how do we make that change that you just mentioned, Damien? How do we get this message somehow into the mainstream media? And everybody in the room was really wondering the same thing. Once they kind of heard what was behind the 3 principles and the the initiative that Mara and Adik started called One Solution, they were kind of like, well, you know, this is going to be a hard sell because it's not a soundbite. This is not something that can be summed up in a tweet. You know, it takes some explanation, not a lot, but more than most people these days are used to reading. And Jeff says, I've seen situations where just living the 3P without sharing them even had a positive influence on others and diffused outside-in dynamics. So that I have definitely seen too. So that may be an answer to Lori's question and what Joel was saying, was we kind of insert ourselves into groups that are already mobilizing themselves. And even if we don't mention the 3 Ps by name, we are simply there from that state of consciousness, that state of awareness that might have some influence. I don't know, it'd be interesting to see. So one of the things that occurred to me this morning was that, and I don't know if this is a controversial thing to bring up, but I'm just gonna bring it up anyway. It seems to me that one thing that has potentially hurt the 3 principles in terms of getting the message more widely shared is that there is no cohesive sort of 3P umbrella organization. Someone recently was talking to me about the success of Alcoholics Anonymous and saying, you know, it wouldn't hurt for people in the 3P community to look at Alcoholics Anonymous in terms of its organizational structure, in terms of how it has been able to get into communities all over the place. And how, you know, when you say AA, everyone knows what that is. You know, in my sort of dream scenario, I guess this might answer your question, Laurie, about what this would look like. There would be some sort of recognizable overarching group that everyone who has this understanding and is sharing this understanding would stand under. Because it seems like this, even though I love the idea of us infiltrating, if you will, other groups and communities, I think that's a beautiful thing to do as well. It still seems to me that without some kind of recognizable presence, and maybe, Damian, this plays into your point, it's a little bit hard to gather momentum as a group. Damien says, but then the masses will think it's a thing or a concept, which it isn't. Hmm. I see what you're saying. I also know that to me, the 3 principles sort of are a concept. They are pointing towards something that is not tangible, I guess, that is formless, to use some of the 3P lingo. But to me, they sort of are. That is how I was able to grasp them, was sort of seeing them in language and interpreting that language for myself. So I'm not sure how we get away from that, but maybe there is a way, I don't know. Joel says, "Not sure we can know what the masses will or won't think." And Jeff, "We need a primary organization like AA or ACLU. People misconstrue no matter what." I think that's kind of where I'm coming from, is that, you know, I just feel like because the principles are, like I was saying a few moments ago, not such a soundbite kind of thing, that they take some time, even a small amount of time, for people to grasp and understand and sort of experience for themselves. That without something tangible for people to look to and say, oh yeah, I've heard of X, whatever, wonder what that is. I wonder, you know, what those people are talking about. It just seems like we're kind of too diffused in a way. Damien says, history is a great teacher. Let's look for direction. Martin Luther King, Gandhi, well, Definitely, Damien, those thoughts have occurred to me many times. Is there someone who could be like the voice, if you will? I hate to even put it that way, but it's the only way I can think of. The voice of the principles. That sounds really grandiose and sort of deity-like, but you know what I'm trying to say. Is there a figurehead of some sort who could emerge, who could, be a central figure in what we're trying to do. I don't have the answer to that, but believe me, that has come to mind many times. Joel says, you know, history, yes, also checking in with what mine tells us now. Nikki, hi Nikki. AA is a self-run nonprofit, and I'm not sure that 3 Ps are past that structure. Yeah, Nikki, I think I wasn't really looking personally towards the structure. I was more looking at the recognizableness, the recognizability of AA that, you know, however they have structured it, it has been able to create a persona for itself that is very recognizable and easily identifiable. People know what it is. They know essentially what goes on there. You know, even if people aren't familiar with each of the 12 steps, they still know about that. So, right. And I would never suggest that we are anything like AA because I, I have my issues with that related to what I've seen through the principles. But I think you're seeing what my main point is, which is that I feel like one way that this could be put forth more is if we had some sort of identity. What that identity is, I am not sure, but it seems to me that that is missing, and frankly, I can tell you just from my own personal experience, when I first came across these principles in 2014, you know, I had, I had gone through lots and lots of different things to try to help myself with PTSD, and I came across the principles completely randomly by accident. You know, you might say it was a fortuitous accident, maybe a little magic sprinkled in there that I found it. But I kept asking myself the question that I hear from people over and over again is, why haven't I heard of this before? Why isn't this mainstream? And I keep coming back to that question myself. Why hasn't everyone heard of this yet? Why isn't it mainstream? And I know that in the three principles realm, A lot of the people who were there at the beginning tried to get it through the traditional psychological and psychiatric community, and that obviously didn't work. So there has to be some other way for that to happen. KT says, I think as 3 Peers, we tend to not get stuck on the form. We need to have a bridge, but maybe we need a bridge. Damien, yoga has managed to obtain an identity without a central governing body. Lori, so what do you think would have been better, more helpful thing to happen other than the Women's March? So let me look at, a couple of things there. So Damian, yoga has managed to obtain an identity without a central governing body. That's a really good point. It might be useful for us to kind of do a little bit of a study on that and see how that happened. You know, is it just because it's been around for a really long time? And then, you know, there was a figurehead who brought it into the mainstream. I'm not familiar enough with the history of yoga to know that. So that might be something interesting to look at and see if there is some kind of, you know, information that we can gather from that. And, you know, I hadn't really thought about that as an example. That's a good one. You know, I'd love to hear from you guys. Is what I'm saying sounding really too much in the world of form? You know, because I kind of am leaning towards what KT was saying. I feel like we haven't, as a community, created enough of a bridge, enough of a tangible bridge for people to walk over in order to see what it is that we're talking about. Laurie was talking about the expense involved, and that I can, I can also see as being potentially a barrier. Jill, it is for me. I'm not sure what question you're answering, Jill. Maybe you're in agreement with me. Hi, Lynn. Good to see you here. Isn't the 3 Ps more or less the same understanding as Buddhist teachings? I know it's not a religion, but it has very similar principles. I can answer that question maybe in another forum. It's kind of not what I'm talking about here. So that's kind of a little bit to the side. I understand where you're going with that. So Jill thinks it's too much form that I'm putting on this. And maybe that's true. Maybe there isn't a way to put a form around this in a way that can bring people in. I'm not really sure. That's why we're kind of having this open forum here. Let me go back up here. Jeff says, "3P is not yet mainstream. If it were taught in gyms in every community, then it probably would be." Joel, while we're in the process of figuring out how to get out the word, there are already avenues in every community for each of us to get started getting the word out. Libraries, schools, Rotary-like clubs. Right. Mm-hmm. I'll look at that article, Damian, after the, after the webinar finishes. Thank you for posting that. Nikki, it does seem as if we're looking to a forum to solve a problem. Not sure what the answer is. Kimberly says, look what's happened over the last 5 years. From where I'm sitting, it's exploding. Are you talking, Kimberly, are you talking about 3 Ps, or are you talking about yoga? Because from my vantage point with the principles, I don't see much of that. Okay, so that's interesting from your vantage point. I'm, you know, I was living in New York for many years, and the 3P community there is so small it can fit in a room that holds about 25 people. So, you know, to me, there was no 3P anything really going on in New York other than Mara and a few of us and my husband Jeff. Now I'm in California for a few weeks, and there is some activity here, certainly, but not nearly as much as I would expect. My husband and I are making plans to move to France in about, 6 or 8 weeks, and I don't see anything happening in that country related to this. So I do think that there are communities and pockets, but it still seems to me that it's not nearly as big as I expected it would be when I first came across it, is where I'm coming from. The UK, Europe, Scandinavia. Damien says, it took 15,000 years for yoga to hit mainstream, but they didn't have social media. Okay, so there you go. Now, you know, we have this beautiful thing that we are trying to communicate to people that can, in my view, have an incredible effect in the current political and social climate and can do it quickly. As we noted at the very top of this call, we've each been affected in a short span of time by what we have seen, you know, and what affects an individual affects another individual and another individual and another individual, and then it's collective. So for me, if it can help 1 person or 2 people, it can help 10 million people, 20 million people. It's all the same. So I guess where I'm going with this is, you know, I want to start to open my own mind up to avenues that have not been looked at, and looking at what is in front of me right now with new eyes. You know, looking at, like I was saying earlier, this, what seemed to me to be a representation of this rise in consciousness on the Women's March, and seeing, you know, what is actually happening that maybe we can tap into and bring the 3 principles into. So, I am going to look at another question that I posed. So, one of the other questions I said was, is the time right for something radically new and different to be brought into the conversation about world change? Is the time right? Lori says you could start organizing Coaches to go out and talk more about this and train people into schools. Monica says, "Crisis is opportunity." So that's a very concise way of saying what I'm saying, which is that I feel like there has never been perhaps a better time for this to be brought out in a larger way. You know, my perception of what, going back to the Women's March, what was happening there was people not necessarily saying, "We have the answer," but more like, "We are looking for something. We're here together, we're standing together to make a statement, but we also are looking for something." I feel like people are hungry for a new solution to what they are seeing going on around them. You know, we're actually, you know, Manas, I'm really glad you mentioned this thing about anger. I'm going through bouts of anger and it's so hard to come out. I hope I get this at a deeper level. Because I certainly, I wanna be upfront with you guys. I've certainly had my moments of anger and frustration, believe me. But the thing is, every time I go into that kind of headspace, I, like you, I know what's really going on there. I know that it's not an individual that is doing that to me in some way. I know that I am not helpless against it. I know that no matter what happens, no matter what laws get changed, you know, even if they have a direct impact on my circumstances, that has no effect on me as a human being. And that's what I saw when I first came into this understanding was that whatever my ex-husband had done to me physically and had tried to do emotionally had no effect on me at all. It was only my listening to the old thoughts that was causing any turmoil in my life. So I stopped seeing myself as either a victim or a survivor of anything. I saw myself as a whole and unbroken being. And I know that that's true, whether it looks that way to me in the moment or not, whether I'm listening to somebody jabber on about changes they're going to make in this country, and I start to feel worked up, I know that that has nothing to do with who I am as a human being. And so that has made all the difference in the world. And I keep thinking, you know, if everybody understood that, if they understood the simple truth that their self was secure, no matter what was occurring, What, like Joel was saying earlier, what could they hear? What new ideas could they hear? That's why I was so impressed by the calmness of the Women's March. I looked at that and I was like, those people are really in a great space to hear something new. What if what they heard was something like what we are saying? So, KT, Manaz, both on the personal level in terms of bullying plus seeing others rise in consciousness. It's validating and reassuring. Lori, have you thought of approaching some of the leaders of the march? Well, I always say when I'm working with people, if you have an idea, a new idea, then you might want to follow that. So Lori, I'm going to put that on you. You came up with that idea. Maybe it's saying you should approach some of the leaders of the march. You know, when you hear something like that, that's telling you something, you know, don't be so quick to dismiss that. That's why in my own case, when I hear, when I hear myself have an idea, like, you know, could there be more of a larger spokesperson for the principles, or could there be a larger umbrella organization? I'm not so quick to dismiss that. Because I've seen in, especially in the past year, that the less I quickly say, no, I can't do that, or no, that's wrong, you know, the more opportunity seems to present itself. So I would love for anyone who is listening both live and on the replay to not be so quick to dismiss ideas like that and start looking at them as possibilities. Lori, I really can't talk about the 3 Ps in a way that you do, but it doesn't matter. You have your own way. Each of us has our own way of sharing this with people. So, you know, I think that that's actually an interesting point because I think that a lot of people are sort of afraid or held back. You know, they don't feel like they know it well enough or they can speak about it well enough. But as Jeff said a few chats back, You know, you don't even necessarily have to talk about this. Simply having your presence can have an effect on people. Your presence in the room can have a tremendous effect. Let me go back here to my questions. Oops. Another question I said was, could a Bigger Three Principles movement really make a difference? You know, I guess, you know, I'm going to be really candid with you guys. I think another thing that occurred to me when I was seeing the Women's March was a feeling of jealousy. I have to admit that. Didn't really realize that until just this moment, but I thought, you know, why isn't that millions of 3P people? You know, why aren't we out there organized and saying, hey, we've got another potential solution. You know, would you like to hear what it is? Because it's something completely different. It's not about, it's not about, you know, standing in protest. It's not about, you know, fighting, fighting, fighting all the time for our rights and seeing change happen too slowly. It's something completely different. Lynn, why don't you start that, Mary? Maybe I will. Maybe I will. Jeff says it might have a better chance of getting media attention. And Katie says, because we know that we're okay. So Katie, do you mean that, you know, we know we're okay, so we know we don't have to get out there and demonstrate? We don't have to prove that to anything? Lynn says she'll come. All right, I've got one person in my camp here. Let's see, I don't think anything in particular should have happened at the march, Laurie. I was simply looking at it from this perspective of the principles and looking at it like, you know, that was an incredibly large group of people who were, for the most part, I didn't hear about any disruptions. At any of those events, you know, no violence and nothing like that going on. And I was just really impressed by the way that came together quickly, by the level of participation, and by the general feeling of calm that permeated those events. That was really the most heartening part for it to me, was it seemed to represent a really big shift. Like if you compare that to, for instance, what happened at Berkeley, a couple of days ago, a couple evenings ago. You know, that was not at all what I would hope for. But the Women's March seemed to have a real sense of hope about it. And for me, that is what the principles are all about, is they give people— they certainly gave me more hope than anything ever has or ever will. I'll just be so bold to say that. And I think people are looking for that. Like I've been saying, they're hungry for something else, to give them hope that there is a way to change. I don't personally have anything better to offer than an explanation of these principles. KT says, "No, we are confident in our wellbeing. It makes sense to share that with others." Jess is right. The personal approach is what other people can relate to. Shirley. Hi, Shirley. The march had something to stand for. Yeah, and so do we, don't we? I mean, you know, I'm gonna jump into the personal for just a couple of minutes here. And I know that many of you can relate to this from your responses earlier. You know, this understanding of, the way my mind works, and the way that I am having this experience as a human being. That relatively simple thing has changed everything. And I mean that really sincerely about the way I experienced my life. Up until I came across the principles, I was someone who had moments of happiness because since that's our natural state, of course I had some, but my general state was one of unrest. I never felt at peace really. I never felt free. I never felt like I could do what I wanted to do in life. I felt, locked into what looked like a permanent state of mental illness. And I felt like my life had been ruined by the actions of another person. I walked around feeling angry and guilty and filled with regret that I'd made the decision to marry that person. I felt like I had completely effed up my life and I had to live with it. And in a matter of just literally a few weeks, my whole experience, not just of my present life, but of the life that I had lived, all of that changed. I didn't see any of what happened to me in the same way. I didn't see the first, you know, 52 years of my life in the same way up until that point. And it has changed everything about the way that I see myself and other people, everything. And I keep thinking to myself, you know, that is not unique to me. That's not unique to me. That is something that can be experienced by everyone who comes in contact with what we are talking about in whatever form it takes. And if I can look at my ex-husband, if I were to see him in person now, and have no animosity towards him, no feelings of anger like I used to, then why is that any different from one country, group of people seeing another group of people, another country the same way? It's all individual in the end. So to me, the potential of the principles to have an impact on the world is infinite. Let's see, let me go back here. Shirley, the three-piece stand has to be defined for the general public. Kimberly, here's an interesting question. If you marched, what would you or we write on our banner? Interesting, Kimberly. That might be a good question to put out to a larger group. I love that, actually. I think I'm going to do something with that. You know, we can certainly answer that here amongst ourselves, and I can have people comment on the video when I share it and post it around. But yeah, what would we put? You know, would we say something like, there's another way? You know, free your mind, Jeff says. Free your mind and the rest will follow, or, you know. I love that question. Yeah. I think I'm going to ask the wider 3P community that, and I would love for you to do that, Kimberly. Put it out there, and anyone listening, let's put it out there. Kimberly says, that's why I've chosen not to march, because we all live in separate realities, and what speaks to one doesn't speak to another. Hmm. You know what, the way that I see this is that people hear things through their own filter, if you will. So when I say something, like when I'm talking on this webinar, you know, everybody on here live with me and everybody watching the replay is really hearing themselves. They're hearing some version of what I'm saying, but through their own thought filter. So I don't really have an issue with that. You know, if it really looked to me like people couldn't coalesce, then I wouldn't even be having this conversation. But to me, it looks just the opposite. To me, it looks like, you know, we are talking about something that's universally true. And it's not an idea. It is a principle. I'm gonna boil it down to a principle. We are talking about a principle that applies to every single human being, just like gravity does. So to me, that gives us a huge advantage. We're not trying to sell anyone anything. We're not trying to convince someone of something. You know, people with political, certain political views are trying to convince the other side of something, and that is not what we're doing. We are trying to show people what is actually going on behind the scenes of their own mind that they are missing. And that isn't a political or social stance. To me, the principles or principle is like physics. It's basically saying, you know, you see how this thing, if I were to drop it, it would fall down. Well, here's how the mind works. So to me, that's a whole different conversation than the one that is being had in the political and social sphere right now. Hi, Pete Banner. What if life is a movie? That's cool. Shirley, for me, it's change our thoughts, change our world, even though I know you don't consider the need for changing anything. Monica, getting people to be curious may help them be open instead of set in their ways. Excuse me, Lori, you need people up there speaking about this to a larger community. Don't tell me to do it because that's not what I want to do. Okay, Lori, I won't. Hi, Wim. I'm getting the image of popcorn, 7.5 billion of them. If the ground is hot enough, it will pop. We have to make sure it will pop before the war instead of after the war. Well, you know, part of the reason I'm having this conversation with you right now is because, you know, the collective emotion right now seems to be one of fear. It seems like people are, you know, really experiencing a lot of fear and anxiety. And, you know, part of what I feel my role is as a human being is to not engage with that, because that's not where the answer is. You know, it's not found in being agitated. It's to me not found in wanting to put my fists up and start a fight. That's not where the answer is. You know, I can be angry and still be clear. You know, I can have a lot of fear and still be clear. But I don't personally want to have any part of amping up people's anxiety. And I'm not suggesting that's what you're doing. But I can see how that could possibly happen. You know, because it's very easy for people to play on one another's fears. And I think we're all in agreement that there is another way to move other than that. And Katie, I think people are expressing the fact that they're, they're not fearful is powerful. So maybe that's, that's a nice way of putting that. So maybe that's someplace where we in the Three Principles Community can start, you know, we can start by publicly acknowledging that fear is not where we're at. Because, you know, while I do have moments of it, at my core, that's not where I'm living at all. You know, I'm really living in this sphere of hope and good feeling about humanity. And that's why I keep referring to that Women's March, because that seemed to, in some ways, confirm what I had been experiencing myself. You know, that, that was a very large expression of people who were— they didn't— I don't know about you, I wasn't able to attend the march locally where I am here in California that day. But the photographs and the video that I watched, the people there did not look afraid to me. They looked concerned, but I saw a lot of smiles. I saw a lot of joy in their faces, and I think that, that was part of the reason why that had such an impact on me and why I am talking with you now. A lot of love. Exactly, Katie, because that is what we are made of. You know, that is how we naturally are when we stop listening to all the static up here in our in our personal thinking. People were happy to come together. And so that's why I feel like the time is right. You know, that outpouring of love around the world showed me that people, even in the midst of a lot of really wacky change, can access that innate capacity for creativity and love and can be open to something new. And that's why I'm filled with so much hope. Hi, Laura. Yes, I attended in Seneca Falls, New York. It was amazing to come together with 10,000 others, very uplifting. Now imagine how that would be if somehow in the midst of those gatherings, this three principles understanding became more explicit and emerged in conversation in some way. If somehow as a community, we can see a way to do that, that would just be the most amazing thing to me. And like Damien said earlier, it may be through the media or social media that we somehow emerge as a stronger voice, collective voice, And I am actually going to go back and look at how things like yoga became more mainstream because I think there are lessons to be learned there. You know, yes, as Joel said, we can always get new information, you know, but maybe some of that new information is like, hey, what have other people done? Is there something that we can learn from in that way? So Let me go back one last time here. We've got about 5 minutes left, and I want to see my fourth question was, oh yeah, this was actually kind of a big, how do we know what actions to take based on our understanding of the 3 principles? And I think that that's what we've been doing here just in these last few minutes. We've been talking about different things that we could do from this place of understanding. Hi, Quinn. The education team at 3BGC is creating a day that engages the world kids. We're calling it, calling the day WOW, Web of Wellbeing. That's cool. Hoping to launch the details this month. We want to pilot this in April and have a launch in October, the first Friday in October between International Anti-Bullying Day and WHO's International Mental Health Day. Hoping people will join us. Certainly, that's awesome. And, you know, let's not forget that kids seem to have a much closer relationship to what we're talking about. Many of us adults do. So they are, to me, a brilliant place to go with this. You know, I think that there are as many avenues to this as there are individuals who have this understanding. And, you know, we all need to respond to whatever we are hearing for ourselves. I just want to suggest, just suggest that there might be some way that we haven't seen yet to bring ourselves together to form something, using the word form deliberately, that has more of a tangible presence. And I'm forgetting who used the word bridge earlier. I think it might've been Katie, but I can't scroll back fast enough. Some sort of bridge. That will help people to see this in a way that is extraordinarily powerful and meaningful to them. And I don't know what that looks like yet, but I do have the sense that there is something emerging. And I'm actually quite grateful for everything that is occurring in the world right now, because I think that it has at least for me personally, and judging by the people on here, you know, I think it's catalyzed something in us to maybe take some bolder— make some bolder moves than we've done in the past. At least that's how it's felt for me. What does— let me go back up here. Lynn, I'm involved in the Women's March in Washington, Canada team. I've signed up to volunteer. I don't know what capacity yet. I'll see if I can get an opportunity. Whoops. To have a conversation. Oh, that's great, Lynn. Kimberly here, can we also just keep perspective as we come to the end of this? If you look at the graphs for violence, hate, et cetera, around the world, they're all going down. Absolutely, doesn't mean don't do anything, it just means humanity is already, yes, and that's exactly my point, Kimberly. Thank you for saying that, that's exactly my point. And that's why I feel like there's already something happening in the world culture. Overall, that people are starting to have a rise in consciousness. And that to me is sort of a signal like, okay, maybe the time is now. Maybe before now, people weren't ready to hear this, but it seems to me like they are. So thank you so much for that. Yeah, awesome. So we have about 3 minutes left. And I think I would just like to wrap this up by asking you to type in any comment that you'd like to make. Anything that you feel you've gotten from this discussion. Would you like me to hold more of these? I'm happy to do that. I'm happy to host them and kind of guide them. I can do it here or on a Zoom call, whatever we wanna do. I just really have, I know this seems crazy to say, and probably people outside of this conversation, especially since they know my liberal leanings would probably laugh at me, but I have never felt so much hope before. I have had moments of feeling really depressed, but underneath that, I have such a surge of belief and hope and just sort of a knowing that things can move and that maybe we can have some, some part in that to make things move a little bit faster with this understanding in our corner, if you will. Great, Quinn. Oh, lovely. I'm so glad this has been good. Jill, another similar discussion on Zoom so we could maybe see each other. Yeah, I'm really glad you've, you've all been here. This has been so wonderful to me. Thank you so, so much for being here. If you want to get in touch with me, please feel free to email me anytime. My email address is mary@maryschiller.com. You can get in touch with me and, you know, we can have an email chat or phone chat or whatever you'd like. I will make sure to have another webinar or some Zoom calls or something to kind of keep this conversation going. And I so appreciate your time today. And if you've been watching the replay, please feel free to get in touch with me as well. I really appreciate your presence and everything that you are doing. So thank you so much for being here, everybody. Have a wonderful day or evening wherever you are on this planet, and I love you all very much. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. I'll talk to you again very soon. Bye, Joel. Hey, Maggie. I'll talk to you soon. Bye now.