In this reflective video recorded on the island of Lanai, author and coach Mary Schiller shares her personal journey from chronic anxiety, PTSD, and a sense of brokenness to a dramatically improved life after discovering the "Three Principles" (Mind, Consciousness, Thought) in 2014. She explains how, for years, she was told her intense feelings were pathological, leading her to seek countless therapies and treatments without relief. The breakthrough came when she realized that feelings are not problems, do not define her identity, and need not be feared or managed. By simply allowing any level of anxiety, stress, or sadness to be present without judgment, she experienced a profound shift: her emotional landscape no longer dictated her actions, and her external circumstances—relationships, career, financial confidence, and overall well‑being—changed dramatically. Mary emphasizes that learning not to be afraid of one's experience, as taught by Sydney Banks, is the key to this transformation. She invites viewers to visit her website, subscribe for free audio resources, and contact her for coaching, positioning herself as a guide who now helps others achieve similar freedom from stress and fear.
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Hello, hello, it's Mary Schiller, author and coach of MarySchiller.com, coming to you once again today from the gorgeous island of Lanai. I guess I'm a little bit in shadows, but I wanted to make sure and give you this lovely view behind me so you could enjoy that along with me. So I'll just be in the shadows a little bit. I would love to have you And join me on my website at maryschiller.com. I give you 2 free audios if you subscribe to my email list, and I send occasional messages of help and hope. And hopefully we can connect that way. I'd love to see you there. I see some hearts floating by. That's really cool. Thank you. Um, I wanted to check in with you today because As I have been here and as I've had some time to just kind of reflect on things, I have really come to see how crucial it was for me to realize that my feelings didn't matter at all. And I'm bringing this up again because it seems like a crucial piece that helped me to change the way that I experienced my life. As I have mentioned before, my life pre-coming across these 3 principles was pretty dark, I have to say. I had moments of, you know, joy, and I had moments of happiness, but overall my life experience was pretty poor. Hi there, Antonio, thank you. Aloha to you too. I saw things from this perspective of anxiety and stress, and I felt like some terrible things had happened to me, and because of that, my life was kind of ruined and over, and there was nothing I could do about that. Living through the lens of what's called post-traumatic stress disorder is quite terrifying. It looks like the world is a very dangerous place and there's all kinds of things out there that are out to get you, and it's a very dark place to be. I'm going to switch this down so you can see a little more of the view. And I didn't think there was anything I could do about that, you know. I sought a lot of help and I talked to a lot of professionals and I sought alternative treatments and all kinds of things and nothing helped me at all. And what I really started to see that was the main shifter in all of this was that none of those feelings that I had had that had been labeled problems were actually problems. And I can get kind of emotional about this because You know, when you're told for literally decades of your life that a certain set of feelings you have is a problem, and that it's such a problem that it is a mental illness that you'll never recover from, you know, things look pretty bleak. You know, I, I really felt like my whole system, my whole self was completely broken. And, you know, it's not hard to imagine having that impression when everyone is telling you that, when everyone in a position of authority is telling you that you are essentially broken. And I had one therapist, the final therapist I saw, say things to me like, gosh, I'm amazed you've been able to do anything in your life, like, you know, get remarried and raise your daughter considering everything you've been through and all that. And, you know, I would look at her and go, you know, is that a compliment? I'm not really sure how to take that. And so when I came across these 3 principles in 2014 and I started to see through this illusion that there was some kind of problem with my feelings, it was just so obvious to me that there wasn't. That human beings are actually designed to have feelings. We're designed to have a full range of feelings. And as I said in another video, the sort of time limit that we arbitrarily put on these feelings before they start to become problems is completely mad to me. It makes no sense at all because It seems to me that that's how human beings are designed, that we're supposed to have feelings and we're supposed to have all different kinds, and we are allowed to have them as long as they stick around, as long as the thoughts are there and, and, and all of that. It's, it's all fine. And now people will say, well, I don't really like feeling anxious, for example. I don't really like feeling stressed. And I can relate to that too, because I was constantly looking for a way out of those feelings. I wanted someone to tell me what the hell to do to get rid of these feelings of anxiety and stress. And what happened instead of that was I realized a couple things. One was that those feelings had nothing to do with me. They weren't sort of a definition of who Mary Schiller was. That was completely ridiculous. And secondly, that they weren't hurting me, that I could sit with any of those feelings. I could sit with any level of anxiety. I could sit with any level of stress. I could just be with it, and it was fine. Whereas before, I felt like I was kind of fighting with it. Trying to wrestle it to the ground, which obviously is not possible since thought doesn't have any form to it. The fact that we believe we can do something about it is really kind of silly to me now. And so really seeing that my feelings weren't problems, that they didn't matter, that they were really a gift from whom or whatever that was given to me when I came into this human form that I'm in, seeing that I didn't have to do anything about them and that the less I cared about them, the better I felt. I mean, that was life-transforming in a way that is difficult to describe to you. And I also wanted to say today that The circumstances of my life, while they are not the determiner anymore, they don't look like they have anything to do with my sense of self or my happiness or anything. The circumstances of my life have changed dramatically since I came across these principles, and I think it's because I was no longer— I am no longer occupied with trying to change my feelings, with trying to manage them. I don't care about them anymore. For example, you know, yesterday I was in this beautiful spot and I was feeling a little bit down, and I thought, well, that's interesting. Here I'm in this beautiful place, I'm feeling a little bit down. Oh well, so what? You know, I went about what I wanted to do. I went swimming and had a really nice dinner last night with our friends, and, and I— pretty soon the feeling of being down wasn't there anymore. It's like, oh, that's interesting, that's gone now. You know, it wasn't like I worried about it. I didn't say to myself, oh my gosh, I'm falling into some sort of depression, or what's wrong with you, Mary? You're in this beautiful place, why aren't you feeling happy? You know, I didn't do any of that. I don't care anymore what I feel from moment to moment or day to day. It has no real impact on how I live, what I do, nothing. And so it's hard for me to overstate how important I see this, that if we can do what Sydney Banks said, which was if we can learn not to be afraid of our experience If we can learn not to be afraid of our experience, that changes everything. And that is what I learned. I learned not to be afraid of my experience because that's how we're made. We're made to have emotions. We're made to have fear. We're made to have everything. Hi, Mita, thank you for joining. And so if we can learn that simple thing that we don't need to be afraid of our experience, that these feelings we have don't matter, and that they aren't telling us something significant about our life or our mental state or anything like that, it changes everything. And like I said, I think that, that having some understanding of this has helped me to make dramatic changes in my life circumstances as well. I mean, I, I am pinching myself every day that I'm here, that we have such lovely friends who've invited us to spend time in this amazing place, and, and that I now get to do things like talk to wonderful people like you every day, and I get to help people feel less stressed, and I get to help people change their career paths and do something that they really enjoy, and have fun with money, and I get to write books, and, and all these things that, you know, just, oh, you know, 4 years ago would have seemed impossible to me. And now nothing seems impossible. And a lot of it is because I no longer fear my experience. I no longer care what my feelings are. And I hope that that message is coming through to you and I would love to hear your thoughts and comments, so please feel free to share them wherever you're watching this video. And of course, you can always get in touch with me. My email address is mary@maryschiller.com. I hope you have a lovely day or evening wherever you are in the world. And for now, I'm going to say aloha. Bye now.
