How to Hang in the Goo of Adversity

Hello everyone, welcome. My name is Travis Thomas. I am so excited to be back here in the Optimal Living Academy for Entheos once again. It's just, it's such a pleasure to be such a part of this site and a part of so many amazing people, and thank you for actually having the courage to click on a link that talks about goo, embracing the goo of adversity in your life. That's what we're going to talk about today. I have to start off, so a quick introduction again. My name is Travis Thomas. I'm the creator of 30 Days of Yes. It's a website, it's a program all about living with purpose and authenticity. All of my talks, all of my teachings, everything that I do is about reconnecting us deeper to our purpose, to our authenticity, what is already there but just living it in a bigger way, living it in a yes kind of way. It's interesting me talking about this topic today because I'm a really positive guy and I'm a really happy guy, yet we're going to be talking about something today which really isn't happy or it's not something that we tend to look forward to or embrace. This concept of goo, before I really explain what the genesis of goo is. I just want to let you guys know that as you're watching this talk today, to just really give yourself permission to just kind of sit with whatever you're sitting with right now. Maybe the title sparked your interest because maybe you're going through a tough moment right now, or maybe there's some issues in your life that you're really thinking about and you're really maybe just challenged with yourself, some adversity. Hopefully this talk is going to hit you in a good spot and just feel sort of feel mentally hugged and mentally embraced for whatever you're going with right now. And hopefully there's an idea or two in today's chat that will resonate with you and just hopefully allow you to feel a little bit better about what you're going through. And so kind of how this, this whole chat came about, a few years ago I was— I had done a number of talks at a school and they invited me to do another talk and I was like, okay, what feels right for this talk? Usually I do something on improvisation or positivity, high energy. I just felt really moved to address what it feels like when we feel stuck or when we're dealing with something or when we're struggling with something and how often, if you're like me, I spent most of my life, especially my childhood, if something was scary or something was deep or just kind of a difficult situation, I would run away from it. I would turn from it. I would kind of whether just distract myself with entertainment or just distract myself, I just didn't want to deal with it. with it. I just felt like, oh, just spin it, think a good thought, think a positive thought, and move on. As I've gotten older, I've had a few different experiences where running from the adversity or running from the difficulty really wasn't an option. If that's not an option anymore, what happens when you actually turn and you face it and you embrace it? What is actually going on in that adversity that we can learn from? That's what we're going to talk about today. We are going to hang in the goo. of adversity. And so we're going to embrace that today. So real quick, I am not an entomologist at all. I'm not, I, I'm not a scientist of any type, but I'm going to give you a little bit of a breakdown about my little friend and how my little friend has inspired me with this whole talk. And I'm talking about the caterpillar. And so there's a few links within, uh, within the talk. Um, one, uh, one link will let you watch how the caterpillar built its cocoon, and the other one is when He comes out of his cocoon. Let's talk about the caterpillar for a second. Growing up as a kid, everyone knows about caterpillars and they go into their cocoon and they bust out and it's a butterfly, which in itself, come on, is pretty amazing. For some reason, I decided I wanted to learn more about what is this process like. As I started to learn more about this process of the caterpillar and that transformation, it was just this hugely inspiring thing for me. Just to give you a quick little breakdown of what the caterpillar— The caterpillar A caterpillar goes through a series of molts where it's shedding skin, it's going through different body changes, but they're pretty minor. The final molt is when the caterpillar builds this cocoon for itself. Its body produces this cocoon, which got me thinking, what in the heck is the caterpillar thinking when its body starts to shut down and its body starts to transform? Imagine I have to only imagine for that caterpillar that it feels like, is this death? Is this the end? What is this? To see your whole physical form starting to break down. The caterpillar goes through this molt. It builds this cocoon for itself. What happens next is amazing. The entire physical form of the caterpillar turns to goo. We're going to be talking about that goo today, but what happens is the entire body of the caterpillar Turns to black sludgy goo. It gooifies with inside the cocoon. And then after a period of time in the cocoon, the goo completely transforms into an entirely new body, which is the butterfly. And then that is what the butterfly breaks out of the cocoon and is a totally new creation, a totally new idea. So growing up, I always knew about the butterfly, the cocoon, and the caterpillar would go into the cocoon and come out a butterfly, but I had no idea That the caterpillar had to completely, 100%, totally break down into this goo before it went through the other transformation into a butterfly. And so the more I looked into it, the more I was just fascinated with what's going on in the goo. What is going on for the caterpillar in the goo? And so if, if, if you are dealing with any goo experiences in your life right now, little or big, and we'll talk about them, Let's think about what might be going on in the goo. Let's get to big idea number 1. The goo is good. Goo equals good. Why is the goo good? Because if we're going through some goo in our life, it's just adversity. It's something that we are being confronted with that we probably didn't choose. It may have chose us. Instead of doing what I've done most of my life, and a lot of us do, we kind of have that fight or flight reaction, which is— To turn away from it or to say, no, it's not happening, or to deny it, is to embrace, embrace the adversity. Because what does adversity do to us? It makes us stronger. It gives us an experience, an event, a situation that is difficult to go through at the time, but if we are open to what we are learning as a result of this adversity, we come out stronger on the other side. You think of the caterpillar becoming the butterfly. Look what it comes out on the other side. If we can make this huge mental shift in our life to go from adversity being bad Instead of going— well, adversity only ever makes us stronger. Whether it's going to the gym to lift iron, those plates of iron, that's resistance. It's adversity that is making us stronger. If we go to school or we take a class, we train on the athletic field, why? Because it's providing adversity that makes us stronger. We've got all these different goo opportunities going on all the time. Are we embracing them or are we saying, no, no, no, no, no, or plugging our ears or not wanting it to happen? So if we can start to embrace the goo is good, we're just gonna start to see all of these goo opportunities as learning opportunities. And so it's just adversity masked as something bad. So don't see it as bad, see it as good, and we're gonna learn from it. Cool. Big idea number 2, what does the goo look like? Right? So if you're— the goo can be lots of things. The goo can be The goo can be a family tragedy. It can be a financial tragedy. It can be a sickness. Obviously, those are some of the bigger things that the goo can be that none of us would wish upon anyone, yet when we find ourselves in those situations, it's really easy to shut down or to want to stay in denial. Can we be open to what that situation actually might be serving us, how it might be serving us? The goo can also show up in very, very little ways. It can show up with traffic. It can show up with a child that's misbehaving, a friend that we're struggling with, a boss at work that we're struggling with, anything essentially that is going up against what we want to happen is essentially goo. It's something that we wish was different. If we're wishing that it was different, then we're clearly not embracing it, so that is a goo opportunity. It can be big, like a sickness or a family tragedy, but it can be small. At the end of the day, it's all an opportunity. It's all part of that hero's journey that we're on. on our path that's given us an opportunity to learn and grow and get bigger. That's big idea number 2, is that's kind of what the goo looks like. The question to you who are watching this right now, what's some of the goo in your life? If there's some big and obvious things, first of all, my heart goes out to you, and I just have the courage for having the courage to be here, but giving yourself permission, because I'm going to be talking about hanging in the goo. Like to really hang with yourself in the goo, as difficult and as awkward as that might feel and uncomfortable as that might feel, but give yourself permission to be in it and know that you're being taken care of and that you're being made stronger and better as a result. I'll get to more of that later. Big idea number 3 is, again, is just to embrace the goo. It's happening. It's going on. You've been confronted with it. You can turn away from it, and— or as most of you guys know, if you saw my Improv Your Life talk, we can embrace it. We can say yes to it. It doesn't mean we have to be excited about it. Sometimes we will be, but we can say, yes, this is what's happening right now. This is what's happening. My boss is being a jerk, or that this tragedy just happened, or I'm sick. Whatever it is, this is what's happening. So instead of just wanting it to be different, We spend so much of our time just wanting what is happening to be different that we miss out on learning from what is actually in the present moment and the opportunities that are in every moment. What are we learning in this present moment? Every moment is a gift. So if we embrace it and just go, okay, this is happening, what do I need to learn? What can I learn from this? So when we embrace the goo, It just allows us to just stay in the present moment and acknowledge, awesome, this is a learning opportunity for me. We're just going to embrace it. For me, a time where I really got to demonstrate this was— this is not too long ago, only about 4 or 5 years ago. I've had lots of goo experiences, but this is the one that comes to mind right now. My wife and I really experienced a huge financial setback. from the economy in 2008. I was out of work. I was working my tail off on projects and life coaching and improvisation, things like that, but the bills weren't being paid. The mortgage, all of our expenses got sucked out. All of our savings that we had saved up was gone. It was gone. We were in debt and I had 3 kids. That was some goo. That was some goo. I remember being in In that experience and just at so many different times, I just so badly wanted it to be over with. I just wanted— where is this? Where is help coming from? Where's the safety line? When will this be over? I just remember having to catch myself and just stay in the present moment. I remember Eckhart Tolle talks about it in A New Earth. I paraphrase, he says, there's only one thing that I know to be true. Yeah. That what is happening right now is what is supposed to be happening. And he says, why do I know this? Because this is what's happening. So I remember that quote and just going, yes. Okay, Father. Okay, love. Okay, universe. What do I have to learn right now? What am I learning from this moment? And it's not about just getting out of it and being saved. It's about, can I find peace Can I find inspiration? Can I find joy in the midst of tough times? That's what really embracing the goo is to me, is finding joy even in those tough moments and realizing that it's not about what's going on, it's about how we respond to what's going on. I think that's always the opportunity. I'll talk more about that experience here in a little bit, but that was a big one for me. Iyanla Vanzant. I got a chance to see Iyanla Vanzant at Oprah's, at one of her live filmings a few years ago. My wife and I were lucky enough to get tickets and we're sitting there and Iyanla comes out and she's just amazing. She's bringing people up on stage and she's coaching them and she uses the acronym for pain, pain, P-A-I-N, and her acronym for pain is pay attention inward now. So whatever is causing you pain right now, emotional pain, physical pain, whatever it is, that is your opportunity to pay attention inward, not outward. Pay attention inward now because it's inside. It's inside of us that is just screaming for that opportunity for growth. What is it inside, that belief that we've— that is causing this pain? That's the opportunity to identify a deeper learning. opportunity and just, and just go at it. So I love that, you know, pain is a good thing. Pay attention inward now. All right, so big idea number 4, which I found out about the goo, is the goo is actually super goo. Super goo. Yeah, it's like the superhero of goo, because inside the goo, the black icky goo is actually rich with nutrients. It's just— I guess you could make yourself a goo shake. I don't know. Maybe a smoothie place is working on it. But the goo, it's not just dirt. It's just not nothingness. It's actually rich with nutrients. You think about that. That total decomposition takes place, and that black goo, which looks like it's nasty, it looks useless, it's actually rich with nutrients, which to me is rich with potential. It's, it's just waiting to transform. And so, you know, we've all heard the phrase, it's darkest before the dawn. So whatever goo— when we find ourselves sitting in that goo and it feels so unbearable, or we feel so helpless, if we can find that glimmer of hope and just go, this opportunity is rich with nutrients, it is rich with potential, and to know— To know that it's going to get better, even if we don't know how, but staying with it, it is going to get better. And it is just so rich. It is so rich with opportunity. Mary Baker Eddy says, man's extremity is God's opportunity. And I just love that, that goo. It's whatever extremity we feel like we're sitting in, that is just love's opportunity to just transform us. Sitting in the goo, hanging in the goo is all about just allowing ourselves to be transformed instead of feeling like we need to force the transformation, which brings us to big idea number 5. Transformation happens in stages. Just like the caterpillar has a series of little molts that goes on before it goes into its cocoon, you and I are no different. You think about— I don't know how old you are. I'm rocking about 40 now, if you can't tell. I think back to myself when I was 20. I think back to myself when I was 10. Think back to yourself 5 years ago, 2 years ago, 6 months ago, and think about the growth that you've experienced in that amount of time. It's evidence that we are always going through growth. We're always going through transformation. We're always doing the best we can, and we're always learning from every opportunity. These goo experiences, these big goo experiences, it's just a bigger transformation. Yeah. The reality is that we're always changing. Things are always moving. We don't necessarily like change, but the reality is that change and transformation is always happening. You are always— your body is always transforming. Your cells are always transforming. Your thoughts and beliefs are always transforming. These goo opportunities, it's just another bigger opportunity to go, wow, I can't imagine what transformation is going to take place. Yeah. after this. When you look at all of the great discoveries, all the great breakthroughs in life have happened from these really big goo experiences where people have had to just surrender and allow themselves to be transformed. Malcolm Gladwell's new book, David vs. Goliath, is all about people who were faced with insurmountable adversity, and it was the adversity That propelled them into a new arena or a new innovation or a new breakthrough. And so if you get the opportunity, I highly recommend Malcolm Gladwell's David vs. Goliath. So it's just a bigger transformation opportunity that's taking place for you. Number 6, I've got to give credit to my, my college soccer coach. I didn't like it at the time, but it's been powerful for me ever since. My college soccer coach was a really tough coach. We would be running sprints and he would take us after a tough practice to a hill. We'd be running sprints over and over again, 2 of us at a time. Up, jog down, sprint up, jog down, sprint up, jog down. You'd be dying. You'd be dying and people would go, Coach, how many more? How many more? Which was dumb. I don't know why people ask coaches. You never ask a coach how many more. You just don't do that. We would go, How many more? He would just look at us and he would say, If you want it to be over with, it never will be. If you want it to be over— and at the time I was like, what in the heck is he talking about? But years later it just clicked. It makes sense. If you want it to be over with, it never will be. The wanting it to be over with, the wanting it to be over with a difficult situation means you're just not embracing the present situation. We get thinking about when is this pain, when is this struggle going to be over with? Instead of just saying, what am I learning from this opportunity right now? Maybe I'm learning that my physical endurance is one sprint further than I thought it was. Maybe I'm realizing that I don't need a certain amount of numbers in my bank account in order to be happy. Maybe I'm learning that I can stand on my own two feet in a relationship even if a love isn't reciprocated. Who knows what you are learning? from this goo experience. But if you just focus on wanting it to be over with, it never will be. And the never will be is the learning opportunity will never be— will never be over until you turn, face it, and embrace it. So that's big idea number 6: if you want it to be over with, it never will be. And I think back to my financial situation with my wife and I. There were so many times where I'd be like, where's that, you know, where's my career going? And what's— what— where's the job gonna come from? Where's the next paycheck gonna come from? I remember talking with a friend and I just had such a tremendous amount of peace where I felt like it's not about what the next job is or where the next paycheck comes from. It's not about that saving me. It's about realizing right now in this moment with so much uncertainty around me, with so much goo around me, I am still me and I'm still happy. And I'm still positive, and I'm still funny, and I'm still marginally handsome, and I'm still— okay, maybe not. But even in the funkest of funk, everything's okay. For any of us out there who are just dealing with the toughest of tough situations, you are still alive, and you're still you, and you've got so much So much to learn and so much to give, and, and it is going to be okay. It is going to be better. Number 7, big idea number 7: it's useless to fight it. It's useless to resist, right? It is what is happening, so just embrace it. You know, I think about the caterpillar. The caterpillar had to be thinking to itself, what is going on here? What's going on with my body? What's going on with my world? I just want to sit on this leaf and eat it. You know, what is happening? But the resistance is— it's pointless. The change, the transformation is inevitable. So go with it. You know, you think of being in a river and just a twig in the river that's just being pulled down the river. He's just going. To try to turn around and go the other direction is just pointless. And so there's no reason— there's no reason to resist it. Accept it and understand that whatever is going on, even if we don't understand it, but can we sit with it and can we embrace it? The way that I've learned to sit and embrace the goo, because as a kid I really did a good job of distracting myself with whether I couldn't go to sleep at night because I was thinking about too many dark thoughts, I would have to watch TV or I'd have to listen to music or I'd have to look forward to the next thing that was going to make me feel good or distract me from whatever deep issues I was thinking about. If you're looking for some tools that will help you sit in the goo instead of resisting it, I have found that yoga, that meditation, taking a few minutes each day, even if it's 5 minutes, to sit in reflective silence or to sit in meditation and just pay attention to the goo. What is the goo? That's where you really start to notice— Wow, this, this is a fear I have that's attached to this. And you start to really get a sense of what— where's the real fear and where's the real resistance coming from. Journaling, taking some dictation, doing some journaling, yoga, anything that's going to bring you presence with your thoughts and to be able to notice them and capture them and then just either release them and let them go or just Find a way to challenge some of your beliefs are huge for sitting with the goo. I had another example that happened recently. I was doing my morning listening. This is just a couple mornings ago. I was doing my morning listening and something that happened a year ago, something that I had done a year ago in a friendship, it popped in my head and I had this tremendous sense of guilt and regret and I was just feeling awful. My impulse was to think about something else. Okay, let's think about something else. I don't want to relive that decision that I made. I was like, no, no, sit. Sit in this goo. I just remember sitting there going, oh, this just does not feel good. I was just urging myself, sit with it. Sit with it. Just sit with it. What is it pointing you toward? What direction is this guilt and regret pointing you toward? Just by allowing myself to sit with it, For a few moments, it connected me deeper to— it wasn't actually what I had done, it was that I hadn't truly forgiven myself for it in the first place. And what I realized was that I— why I had sort of made the decision in the first place. And I hadn't really had that insight up until that point. And so just loving yourself enough, giving yourself compassion enough to just stay in it. Stay in the goo, stay in the ick, and just allow yourself to feel and learn whatever. Remember, it's rich with nutrients to really see everything that's there for us to learn. All right, so number 8, big idea number 8 is respect the goo. Respect it. Why do you have to respect it? Because everybody is going through it. Everybody is going through tough situations. It's easy whether you're a parent or a friend or a worker, it's easy to see someone else's goo and want to fix their goo. Just as we have to realize for ourselves that we need to kind of go through the process, it's going through the process where all the learning takes place, we need to be able to love and respect people, especially friends and family, enough to allow them to go through their own experience. Yes, we're there for them. We support them. We love them. We physically take care of them emotionally. We do everything that we can. The one thing that we can't do is solve the problem for them. So that we can respect— it's so difficult, you know, being a parent. It's so difficult to see a loved one struggle. You just want to jump in and fix it. But what we also realize is that our, our growth and our learning and our insights come from having to go through it. Just like we want to embrace the goo in ourselves, we can respect the goo experiences for others, love them through it, and just know that they're being taken care of at the same time. There's an analogy that I love that children run as fast as they can. You would never go behind a child who is running as fast as they can and push them and say, you need to run faster, right? Because they're just going to topple over and tumble. That's what each of us is doing. Each of us is doing the best we can. Even if we don't agree with what someone's doing, they're still doing their highest sense of right. They're still doing the best they can. If we can respect that in them and just love them and support them, we know that the transformation for them will be special as well. We can respect the goo in others. Big idea number 9 is there are no shortcuts. There are no shortcuts to the transformation. At no point during the caterpillar process in the cocoon does his body just sprout wings and he takes off. He's like, all right, I don't need this full experience. I'm just going to go straight from caterpillar to butterfly. There's no shortcuts. Again, our biggest growth, our biggest insights, our biggest transformation comes from just allowing the experience to happen in its entirety. Whether it's mastery or anything that we dedicate our time to, there are no shortcuts to the breakthroughs and the new insights that we learn as a result. Love yourself enough to not want to just rush through it, speed through it. Just respect the process and know that it's stripping away. It's just stripping away everything that's not needed. Just like that caterpillar. The whole— its whole being had to transform into that goo before it could rise into the butterfly. So that's big idea number 9. And number 10, finally, number 10, the transformation is complete. Let's fly. Let's fly this popsicle stand, right? Because with every goo experience, there is the transformation. And, you know, I just think about, you know, whenever— if you watch the YouTube clip of the butterfly. He breaks out of the cocoon and then he flies. I'm thinking to myself, does the butterfly remember his life as a caterpillar? That's my big question right now. Or is it a totally just new idea? I don't know. If you have any insights, let me know. But imagine being that butterfly as you rise above the plant or rise above the tree and you're looking back at the old shell. You're looking back at the the old reality, and you're just totally free from it. You know, you're just free. You are in a different space. And when we allow ourselves to go through these goo experiences, we allow ourselves freedom. We allow ourselves to, to transform, to overcome old beliefs, old models, old ideas that just don't serve us anymore. The caterpillar's body was not serving him anymore. And so in order to become a butterfly, he had to totally surrender And let go of his concept of life, his concept of reality, and as a result, this total, total physical transformation, which I just love. And watching the video, I watched the video when I posted it recently. What I was really struck by this time is that the caterpillar, or the butterfly, as he breaks out of the cocoon, he slowly unfurls his wings and hangs out there for a while as they dry. Just watching that process of our transformation is a gentle unfolding. Those wings, it's just a gentle unfolding. He just doesn't break out and fly out right away. He breaks out of the cocoon, the wings totally open up, they unfurl themselves, he dries out there for a little bit, and then takes off. Our transformation is just that gentle, compassionate— it's an unfoldment. That to me is why the transformation of the caterpillar to the butterfly is such a powerful analogy for each of us and how whatever goo experiences we're going through right now, that it's okay. It's okay that we can embrace it. We can recognize that what's going— and we don't know What it's going to look like, but we can guarantee that whatever we look like on the other side, it's going to be beautiful. We're going to be more powerful. We're going to be more free. Does it get much better than that? That is my embracing the goo and hanging with adversity. Again, a few just tips before I go here, a few tips again just to help you. Embrace that goo is really carve out some time for yourself. Carve out some time on a daily basis, whether it's going for a walk in nature, sitting in silence, sitting in reflection, doing some meditation, doing some yoga, anything where you're giving yourself time each day to sit and be present with your thoughts so that you can sit in your goo when you feel the goo and just be able to unlock all the potential. Yeah. That is rich with nutrients in that goo. Because if we're not alert to it and if we're not conscious to it, it's just going to hang out there. It'll just keep perpetually hanging out there and we won't be growing and we won't be progressing until we finally, finally face it and embrace it. Good luck, everyone. Please give me some feedback. Let me know how you are embracing the goo and have a wonderful, wonderful day. Thank you, Travis.