Okayness series - From anxiety to wellbeing and happiness

Hey, Dicken!

Trevor, my man!

Hey, how's it going? Good to see you.

Good to see you. Great to see you. Great to see you.

Yeah, I can see all of you now as well.

Yeah, yeah. I was just closing down some windows.

Oh, was that you? Okay, dinging in the background, thought I heard something.

So yeah, I didn't hear anything.

Yeah, we, um, so thanks for, thanks for having this chat, and I know you're under a little bit of time pressure today, so how long have you got? You've got an hour, is it?

Uh, I, I haven't— up to an hour. Yeah.

Okay, fantastic. So, um, just to give you a little bit of background, um, I'm, uh, in Jamie Smart's Clarity Coaching program. Uh, I don't know if you know about that. Um, it is 3 principles based, you know, there's a lot of 3 principles in it, and there's some coaching, uh, training and what have you in it. What I came to see through looking at other coaches and also having coaching sessions myself was that there was like this sort of thing about okayness, which is what I mentioned to you, like a feeling that there is something beyond just what we experience as our little selves. And so I've been having conversations with people about how they see that okayness, and it's amazing because I've been chatting to different people and they have different ways of expressing it, different words, and I've learned a lot about how people relate to it, but probably confused myself as well quite a lot. So I was listening to Sid this morning, and he was just saying, like, it's really simple, it's really simple, but we can make it really, really complicated. And I think we might have got to that stage, I thought I'll pick up the phone, have a word with Dickon and see if we can simplify this. So I'll just do a little intro because this is probably going to go out to an audience of people who are suffering from anxiety, and I know you've had quite a lot of dealings with people with anxiety. So yeah, Dickon Bethegey is a good friend of mine, and we met through Rudy and Jenny in an amazing place, beautiful part of the world, on a retreat, and things have never been the same since. And Dickin is just— Dickin is an original old-school Sydney Banks taught. He was in the room with Sydney Banks. Sydney Banks was a guy who had the experience and the realization about how life works. And the thing I love about Dickon is that he can— he's just so grounded and happy in what he's seen and lives what he feels. So I think he's— I'm really looking forward to chatting to him. So, um, and, uh, yeah, so Dickon, welcome.

It's great to be here, Trevor.

Amazing. I've got some Some questions, but I think the most— I think what would be really useful is whenever we go on a retreat or a workshop, we always— you always talk about listening, how to listen. And in my journey, I've noticed that that is very key to, um, to this understanding. So could you give a little bit of advice about how to listen to this first?

Well, I think listening is a really good metaphor for being fully present, because when we're thinking about things, we're not listening. And I used to listen to people and I was always thinking about what they were saying and what I was going to say. I thought I was listening, but I really wasn't. So the benefit of really being present and listening, it means you have very little thinking on your mind that you're paying attention to. And when that happens, you can hear what people who are talking to you are trying to say way more easily. You can even hear beyond their words to what they're trying to say or to where they're pointing. And the other benefit of really listening that way, wide open, is that you're wide open to getting new thinking yourself. And so when, when I listen that way to the tree in front of me, to my wife, to my friends, to music. When I listen with nothing on my mind, it's enjoyable because it's very relaxing. It's not very relaxing when we're preoccupied and not in the present moment. So it's, it's just a nice metaphor for me for being fully present in life.

And if someone's got a lot on their mind, so if they're, you know, suffering from anxiety, and that presupposes that they're preoccupied and they might be maybe not in the present or whatever, and it's not so easy for them, you know, how do you— do you still think that things can be heard anyway? Like, you still take it in? Or do you have to make a conscious effort to—

Well, listening that way is the only thing that doesn't require effort. It's natural. We just by habit don't tend to listen that way. So when I notice that I'm preoccupied, I just come back to the present moment. Doesn't matter if I get preoccupied, I don't care. I start thinking about something, either I'm aware of it or I'm not. When I'm not aware of it, I do a lot of thinking. When I am aware of it, I do less.

Yeah, okay. So it's like you're not an anxious person, you're just having the experience of maybe the last moment you had an anxious thought, and now, okay, it's a fresh— it's a fresh new day, so you can— okay, let's—

yeah. Yeah, listen, I've had plenty of anxiety in my life, and there are times when I really am present. It'd be hard to cross the street if you weren't present. It'd be hard to drive a car if you were chronically, constantly thinking. You'd be in accidents every few minutes. So, uh, obviously when we're anxious, we go in and out of our personal thinking. And listening is just when you're not so wedded to it or caught up in it.

Yeah, so, so, um, this understanding helped you, um, get over that anxiety? Yeah. How did it help you?

Oh yeah, oh, right away. I mean, I was— I learned two things right away. One was that every bit of my experience, every bit of what I was feeling was being created by my own thinking and not by the situation I was in or the problems I had or the issues I was dealing with or the person who was sitting in front of me. That was the first thing I learned was that Every bit of my feeling was created from my thinking. And the second thing I learned was that I already have perfect well-being, perfect mental health inside of me at all times. I just have to discover the thoughts that I think are true. When my head is clear, that well-being shines forth in the same way the sun is always there. Right now it's cloudy here, but the sun is there, and when the clouds part, it'll shine through. That's the same with our well-being. When our heads are calm and clear, in those moments, the sun comes through. Even if we've been caught up in cloudy thinking, stormy thoughts all day long, at some point we get present and that well-being comes through. I've never seen that not true for a single human being, no matter how anxious they are.

Really? Could you, could you say a bit more about that? Because there might be a couple of people watching thinking, yeah, I don't feel okay. I don't feel—

What's your favorite ice cream, Trevor?

Oh, vanilla, hands down. Vanilla, just straight vanilla. Love it.

Vanilla. Okay, let's say you and I are walking down the street and you're worrying and thinking lots of thoughts that make you anxious. And I say, "Hey Trev, I'll buy you an ice cream cone. You want a vanilla ice cream?" Now look at you! Look at you! Right now! There's the sun shining through. It's that close. We're a thought away from our well-being.

It's that easy. So what you're saying is it's all about the vanilla ice cream, right?

Yeah, that's right. That's the whole secret. We can go now. If you're anxious, go get an ice cream cone. Now listen, if when you had that ice cream cone you were worrying about something, you wouldn't even taste it. You wouldn't even enjoy it. But all of us, in a sense, give ourselves permission to get present so we can enjoy the things that we like. It's also true that when we're present, we enjoy whatever is going on. It's only our thinking that creates anxiety or upset or confusion or uncertainty.

So how do you create that on a consistent basis then? Because I can see that happening, you know, every now and then, but in order, like, to live life from a different space, there needs to be, like, some sort of, um, real knowing about, uh, yes, you know, you're okay.

It's like learning anything, Trevor. It's like learning anything. Most of us have been taught that our feelings come from our biochemistry, from our situations, from other people. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] We've been taught something that's not true, innocently. So as people— it's like learning anything else. As people learn where their feelings come from and that they have well-being at core, more and more they catch themselves thinking in a way that just makes them more anxious, and they do less of it. Just happens naturally. It's not working on it. I don't work on trying not to think. But when I realize that what I'm thinking is making me anxious, I'm less inclined to keep thinking about something. I used to think about things for long, long, long periods of time. That was my very first insight. I was sitting in a hotel room by myself worrying about something that was going to happen a week later. And I, all of a sudden, I saw myself for the first time. Here I am thinking about something and it's making me anxious. And I stopped thinking about that thing a week later. What happened to the anxiety? Went away, or at least it diminished, right? And I go, wow, I'm the thinker. That was an insight. I had an insight. And it's like learning anything else, we learn by insight. If you learn how to ride a bicycle, you have an insight and suddenly it gets a little easier. It's the same with understanding that there's only one source ever to what we're feeling, and that's thought. Ever. No exception. Happiness, sadness, hurt, joy— it's all created from within rather than from without. I don't have the power to create feelings in people. It's not like I can make people feel something because I don't have the power to create. If I did, I'd be God. So you could say, oh, only divine thought, the power of thought, the creative power in the universe has the power to create what goes on in my experience. Something's creating it. Something's creating all of our experience right now. Something's beating our heart. Something's breathing us. Something's thinking us, right? That's the— I call that the power of thought, right? Cars can't make me upset. Traffic can't make me upset. Weather can't make me upset. People can't make me upset. Thought creates my feelings. Now listen, I have all kinds of feelings. I have all kinds of feelings. Part of being okay is learning that it's normal to have all kinds of feelings because you're always going to experience whatever you're thinking. So I still have anxiety and stress and upset. But it comes and goes because I know it's thought, so I don't hang on to it. I don't sit down— like a client of mine said, "Dickens, just because an anxious thought comes into my head doesn't mean I have to sit down and have coffee with it." Give it lots of attention and keep thinking about it. I don't have to do that. If I don't want to. Now listen, even if I continue to feel anxious, if I know it's coming from deep within me, created from this power, at least I'm not feeling like I'm a victim of certain things. At least I'm not saying, well, I feel this way because it's my personality, because it's my biochemistry, because it's the situation I'm in. I'm in a stressful situation, no wonder I'm anxious. I have 100 people in a stressful situation, everybody has a different feeling. Everybody. This is scientific. Everybody has a different feeling. The only way we can explain is everybody has different thinking. And if you ask people, you know that's true. Hmm.

So, When did you first get a sense of like there was something greater that had your back? You know, like this— it's gone. Hello?

Yeah, we're back.

We're back. Yeah, you lost some bandwidth for a bit there. So there seems to be like a shifting point in this understanding where you just sort of go, Oh, right, okay. Like, I'm not on my own in this. Like, there's something bigger behind me that's generating life.

Yeah, yeah, like, which is true. That's why, that's why we're all capable of recognizing it, because it's true.

Yeah, but we forget, right? Occasionally.

Yes, we do. Everybody does. I do. There's times when I have a feeling, let's say I feel sad, and I think it's coming from what another person said. I forget, or I lose sight of what's true. Is sadness only comes from one source, that's the power of thought. Whatever I think, I have a sad thought, I feel sad. If I'm sitting next to my wife, I could have a sad thought and she could have a compassionate thought. Right? Have you ever gone to a movie with a friend of yours and you're sitting there going, "I love this movie, this is—" so good, and your friend is going, I hate this movie, I can't stand it, I can't believe you like this. Yeah, it's not the movie, it's not the movie, it's the movie in your head, it's the way you're thinking about— oh God, like one time I went to my wife with a James— to a James Bond movie, and I'm so excited and all this action and adventure, and I look over and she's sound asleep. I said, "How can you—" Later, later I said, "How can you sleep in such an exciting movie?" She said, "It's not exciting to me. It was boring. All this chasing around in cars and shooting at each other. It's so boring." Different thinking. Not right or wrong. It's not right or wrong. We're just experiencing— I'm experiencing my thinking and she's experiencing hers.

Yeah, yeah, like Sid talks about different realities, right?

Yes, yes, that's right. We're all living in our own separate thought-created reality, and that reality is not a given, it's a temporary construct. It's like a movie. We have thought movies, and when our movie changes in our head, we have a different experience. I think that's so cool. I think that's so cool that we get to have different movies. How— you know, talk about boring. What if we all had the exact same thoughts and we'd all have the exact same feelings? There wouldn't be different people.

When you're working with somebody with anxiety, do they not have like a conditioned response to life? To a certain extent, like they're already ingrained in patterns that, um, you know, they might be— it might be preventing them creating what they want to create in their life. Um, then how, how would they— how would they create a different reality if they, if they thought they were stuck in that one?

Well, everybody has conditioned thinking is just memory. Right? And if I get caught up in my old thinking, it's just memory. Everybody has memory. That's not a problem. Some of our memories are really helpful and fun, and some aren't so helpful. Now here's the deal: when people get present, whatever memories they have fall away, and then it gets replaced by unconditioned thinking. New thinking, fresh thinking. Yeah. That's the good news is that we're not condemned to live the rest of our life in old thinking. We're built to be able to have new thinking.

I think that's something in the, in the, in the short term. So, um, so like something's happened today and I'm like, you know, I'm angry. And then I'm like, yeah, but I know that's going to pass. Like, I've just got to— I just know that that isn't going to hang around forever. And I think in the past, oh no, I'm going to be angry for a week or 2 weeks or maybe a year, you know, like, this is going to be a massive problem.

Because we can do that. We're free thinkers. So if I want to, I can keep thinking about something that happened days ago. but now it has nothing to do with what happened. It has to do with how I'm dredging up memory over and over and over again. And we can do that if we want. We're free thinkers.

But anxiety looks to me like you're trying to predict the future in some way, in a, in a bad way, in a, like a, uh-oh, you know, that's going to go wrong. Um, yeah. So it's not drawing on the past in a way you're drawing on the past memory and then mapping it onto the future. I think that's his name.

Yes, that's right.

Do you think it takes courage to just go into the present moment, to just like let go of that?

I don't know, if I said, do you want a vanilla ice cream cone, does it take courage to go into the present moment?

But I might be in a room full of zombies, you know, scared out of my mind. When you offer me the ice cream, I might not even hear what you said.

You know, it's paradoxical. Sometimes when people are in dangerous situations, we naturally respond by getting present. It does. It doesn't always happen, but a lot of times when people are in very life-and-death situations, they get super present. Because when we're present, we get unconditioned thinking, we get new responses so that we can respond wisely to, as best we can, to the moment, to what's happening. I guarantee if a tiger walked in the door behind you, you'd get really present. You wouldn't say to the tiger, "Oh, wait a minute, I gotta figure, I'm worrying about something, I gotta keep thinking about this." So, no, you're absolutely right.

I mean, it happens when the cat walks in. Like, I just— I'm like, whoa, what was that? It's like, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. It's like you can go there really quickly. I suppose it's like— it's the opposite to hypervigilance, where you're sort of looking out for something happening all the time. You suddenly just fall back into a You know, you wake up. It's like you wake up. It's like you suddenly just wake up and go, oh, where am I? Yes, here I am.

And then you wake up out of your old thinking. Your memory, your worry.

Yeah, so everybody has access—

like being in a nightmare. It's like being in a nightmare at night. At some point you wake up and you go, oh, thank God, it was just a nightmare. Well, a nightmare is just thoughts you're having at night. People have daymares during the day where they're caught up in their thinking and it seems frightening, and then they wake up. They wake up from their daymare.

Yeah, totally, totally. I totally get that. Like, um, I've had that experience myself where, um, I've been brought back into the present. Um, I think since learning this understanding, I'm more and more aware of that. What I've noticed with other practitioners is that there seems to be like almost like a takeoff point as well, which I haven't seen fully yet.

What's a takeoff point?

Well, takeoff point is like If you've had a lot of problems in your life, then there could be some debris around. I think that's the way to put it. Or it's just you haven't created what you wanted to create. And so to create from a clear space, from a fresh start, and just go, okay, there's a process of this is who I really am and this is what I'm really interested in and because it's been clouded over by thinking, been clouded over by the past, been really just reliving the same day over and over and over again. And then suddenly you wake up and you're like, okay, I'm on the planet. What do I want to do? What do I want to experience? What do I want to create?

Um, I don't think about any of that. I don't think about creating anything. When my head is clear, I just do things. It's just like in sports. I don't— when I played sports, I didn't go, now what am I going to create in this play that's coming up? I just got present, and then I knew where to go. I knew what to do. When I left the field, I'd get in my head and start thinking about what I was doing in my life and what I should do and how I should do it. And all of that thinking created a feeling, which was pretty much, hmm. It created a feeling. Now, when I feel that I'm thinking about my life in a way that creates that feeling, I'm not interested. I'm going, why would I be thinking about that now? It's just creating tension. Yeah, when I don't, when I don't think about things, I'm back on the field of life, in the game of life, and I know where to go and what to do. There's always wisdom in the now. There's always knowing what to do when you're in the now. When you're caught up in your thinking, it gets complicated very quickly. See, I didn't know that part of my well-being was wisdom, that everybody has wisdom inside of them. And when they're in the now, that wisdom lives them beautifully. I used to think I had to figure out what to do and how to do it. Yeah, so I didn't trust wisdom. Now I don't have to figure out anything when I'm in the now. Wisdom lives me perfectly. And my life is unbelievable.

Does that involve like a level of trust?

Yes, you begin to trust. Well, once you learn that wisdom is there, it's in you naturally. It's the same intelligence that knows how to— like, I have birds here, they know when to fly, when to stay, when they eat food, when they get out of there. They don't have to think about it. My dog, cats, they're living in the now. They know when to stand up, they know when to go eat, they know when to lie down, they know when to run, they know when to play. People are like that too. They have a great time when they're living in the now. You know why? Because they're not thinking about their life. You can't be thinking about your life and be happy. You can't. And when we're not thinking about our life, there's a natural happiness and a natural knowing or wisdom that's there for all of us. I think that's really cool. And now I trust that if I'm going to have to do something in the future— because when I get there, when I get there, my wisdom will take care of it. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say. Like for this, for our talk, for this talk, I didn't have to figure out ahead of time what I was going to say because I trusted that when you and I started talking, either you'd say something or I would.

I felt like that, the question. I thought, okay, I'm going to write a list of questions that I'm going to ask Dickon. And then I was like, yeah, but in the moment, like, your wisdom is just going to pop up with something anyway.

There you go.

Like, I needed a beginning and an end, and the meat was— I said to my friend, I just need to show up to get the meat in the middle.

Of the sandwich. You know, my teacher Sid Banks, we were talking about him. He realized that there is an intelligence behind all of life that knows how to create things and then operate them, knows how to create birds and operate them, knows how to create trees and operate trees. That knows how to create people and operate us physically and psychologically. We can override that by thinking we have to do that, and then we get into trouble. But when I let go of trying to figure out why, this deeper knowing, this deeper wisdom just guides us by common sense. So I just know when to talk and when to stop talking. I know how to drive my car without having to be thinking about what I'm going to do in the future. Right? I just trust. So people already have that trust at certain moments, and then at other moments they think, well, I have to figure this out. That's ego. Their ego kicks back in again. I, I, when you get—

I remember, um, when I've seen you speaking live and, and also on webinars, um, you do this thing with, you know, like, if you're feeling this, yeah, and then you're feeling that, and it— and so if you are feeling that and you want to let go and fall back into that What do you— do you tell yourself something? You just say, 'I'm doing it again,' or, or, you know, what, what's the process?

People are gonna be like, 'Oh yeah, how do I do it?' Could you imagine me playing football and I start thinking too much, which means my head's not in the game, and at a certain point I'm not going to be able to have a very easy time of it, so I just fall present. When I realize that I'm caught up in my thinking and not in the present, there's a feeling to that. It's not as nice as the feeling that's there when we're in the present and relaxed and open and just common sense is living us beautifully. There's a feeling to that. So pretty soon you trust your feelings.

I've heard you say that anxiety is your friend now. Could you say a little bit about that?

Yeah, well, it was an insight that my physical body has two emotions: it contracts or expands. This doesn't feel very good, after a while, and this always feels good. Did you say you're— so when I feel this, I know I'm caught up in my thinking in a way that's not helpful, and it's an invitation to come back to the now. So it's like a biofeedback system. So thank God I feel stressed and angry and hurt I don't care. I feel those things, but now it's just some thoughts I'm having. I'm having a little thought storm. No big deal. That's normal. That's part of nature. That's part of life. And then I come back to the present moment and the clouds part and there's blue sky. And then the sun of good feeling and wisdom can shine through. And it's always there waiting to shine through.

So, so when you're—

I was working with a woman, I was working with a woman who was really depressed, really depressed, and in 10 minutes we were laughing. And I said to her, right now you're not depressed, are you? She said yes. Right? She didn't know that that was her well-being shining through. She hadn't been taught that.

My, um, 6-year-old niece came to see me, uh, probably about a month ago at my house, and I was upset about something, and I was so upset I was crying. And, um, I was talking to my mother at the time, and it was quite a deep conversation. I became aware of my niece watching us, and I thought, I'm not sure I really want her in the room. And then she sort of stepped forward and she goes, uh, where's your happy face? And it broke back into the moment, and I laughed, and I— and some love appeared, whatever. And She goes, there it is, and she pointed at my face. And that's all she did. She's like 6 years old. It was so, so obvious to her people have happy faces and sad faces. And when they're— and that they can get back to the happy face really quickly if somebody just reminds them that they have that happy face.

See, kids, when they don't feel good, don't try to analyze That's why it's easy to get back to their happy phase, because when you're not feeling good, if you're trying to figure out anything, it keeps it going. Analysis is like if you have a little fire, if you leave it alone, it goes out. If you keep throwing wood on it, it'll burn forever. Well, analyzing is throwing wood on the fire, it keeps it going. Little kids don't analyze when they're upset, so they get over their upset very quickly. Adults that don't have learned analysis when you're upset keeps creating that feeling. They stop analyzing when they're upset, and then when they're feeling better, they can analyze if they, if they want to.

Could you Could you, um, something that just cropped out to me, could you explain a little bit about how Sid talked about it's an inside-out experience? Um, because it's almost like when there's a problem in life, the default thing that I've been taught up until, you know, 3, 4 years ago is, well, you've got to sit down and work it out and get a plan and get this sorted. And, you know, it's like, um, action stations. And then you're trying to control everything outside around you. But could you just like— what did you hear from Sid about the inside-out experience? Yes, yes.

Well, he said when we have a problem, if analyzing is helpful, go for it. But most often when I see people upset and analyzing, it's not helpful. They're just grinding away, trying hard to figure it out, getting more and more upset or more anxious. And it's only because people don't know that we're connected to the wisdom of the universe. And if we get out of the way, that intelligence that's helpful So I have a choice. I have a problem and I can use my little pea brain to try and figure it out, or I can open up to the wisdom of the ages and see what that has to say. Because when our minds are clear, we get new thoughts that go, "Oh, I could do this. Oh, this makes sense. Oh, this feels right. Oh, I hadn't thought of that." Right? When our minds are open, wisdom will bring us new thinking that's helpful. When our minds are closed, when we're caught up in our thinking, you don't— nobody gets new thinking.

You know, if you spend, if you spend a lot of time in that and in that sort of contraction thing, that can transfer into the body into some sort of sickness or injury, or do you believe that? Like, when you've seen people and you've helped people, like, is it they trap things physically that so they get distracted? They think, well, this physical thing is all about— and, you know, they forget that, okay, it's been 10 years of this thinking that's sort of created, maybe created this condition. I mean, I know there's normal wear and tear, as I call it.

Well, there's tons of research that shows that chronic stress lowers our immune system and makes us more susceptible to tons of illnesses. Right. That's all I know. Yeah. It's not always direct, right? Like, I don't believe that stress itself causes cancer. It's one of the Factors, because with a compromised immune system, we're more susceptible. It's harder to fight off any kind of illness.

So when I use— so if you're connected to your well-being, then you may well actually be well. Like, if you get a real sense that This is where we're coming around to this okayness thing again. I think it's just so key in this understanding just to realize in whatever circumstance, whatever's going on, you're okay. That life has your back. And that— I'm trying to put it into my own words because I've heard that a lot of times, but it's just like, it's all right. I don't have to do it all. It's not all up to me. In fact, I'm not even really in control. That's an illusion. Like, and I've had a— what I've noticed is that there's like this thing where when a sequence of events happens in life, I look back on it and I think, oh, that didn't turn out how I thought it was going to turn out. Like, this went this way and that went that way, and you know, something took over, somebody came in, I don't know, like I didn't plan any of that, but I just sort of get a feeling of hindsight that there's always another option, there's always a fresh thought, and there's always, um, unexpected, and it's like we're doing that and then it's, this is what it's about, and it's about even more than that, and even more than that. And it blows my mind sometimes to think that we're all doing that at the same time. Like, I'm so glad we're not psychic. It'd just be a mess, wouldn't it? It'd be like, it'd be like, um, okay, great.

So Trevor, I had a thought. Can I share something? Yeah. Because we were talking about "okés," so I want to say something about that. Beautiful. I have a grandson who is a year old. I spent a lot of time with him. And I watch, he has all kinds of emotions, but he doesn't think about them. So he doesn't have any not-okayness, because not-okayness is an idea that we have. If I don't have that thought in my head, it doesn't exist in my experience. So in those moments that I'm really in the now, it's like I'm back in my natural state I was born in. And then even if I feel anxious or sad or hurt, by not thinking about it, I'm like a little baby. I get over it really quickly, and then I'm okay with whatever I'm experiencing. So I can still have anxiety, but I don't think about it the way I used to, or I don't analyze the way I used to. If we were all like babies, we'd have experiences, we'd be very resilient, we'd get over our thought storms very, very quickly. We're built to do that. It's just natural to go up and down, right? And we come down and we wouldn't stay there because we wouldn't keep thinking and believing, right? When we're in the present moment, we're not believing anything, we're just wide open. So if you have the thought, "I'm stupid, I can't do this," those are ideas. When we're in the now, those ideas fall away and don't exist, right? So the only place insecurity exists is in our personal thinking. So, so we have that, we'd be like, we'd all be walking like—

so that's really interesting because you mentioned security, and Sid talked about he was— he realized he was— he used to tell everybody he was really insecure, right? And, and part of, part of that was I realized when I was coaching people and being coaching myself on this journey that all of it sort of boiled down to that, really. Like, it was just this illusion of insecurity. And, um, and then there's— so then that— well, I'm just going to stick with that, actually. I think there's something in that. I love what you said about the not-okayness as well being a thought. Never occurred to me that at some point along the journey we create a thought that says we're not okay. That's right. Before that, we were okay, but we created—

that's right, it's an idea or a belief. It's an idea or belief. Siddhartha said, if you let go of everything you believe, if you go beyond all belief, you'll find perfect well-being.

Yeah.

Here's an example, Trevor. I had an insight a couple years ago. Here was my insight: thoughts were coming into my head and I would listen to them and think they were true. That's the only time human beings get into trouble. They think their thinking is true. That's how Sid defined mental illness. You're in a low mood and you think what you're thinking is true about yourself or life or other people. You don't know. It's just a thought. It's made up. It's just an idea. It has no truth in itself. It's arbitrary. So I had this thought: what would happen if every thought I had was in a foreign language I did not understand? What would happen if every thought I had— for me it was Chinese— what would happen if every thought was in Chinese? So it could be going, "Zing dao dai dai yah, you're very stupid," and I'd go, What would my life be like if suddenly I didn't believe a single thought because I didn't understand any of it? I'd be exactly like a baby again, fully present, awake, having experiences. They'd come and go. I'd be completely free. No judgments. No judgments. Those are beliefs. No shoulds. I should be different. I should be better. I shouldn't feel this way. That's gone, right? No comparisons to myself, to other people. That's gone. That's just thinking. That's called the now. That's called what Sid called pure consciousness, which is a moment of awareness free of the contamination of our conceptual mind. That's well-being. Well-being doesn't mean you don't have feelings of anxiety or stress or upset. It just means you're not making meaning out of that thinking, and so it can come and go freely. So you you have weather. It's like it's raining and now it's sunny and now it's cloudy and now it's sunny, and it's all good. It's all okay. All the weather is okay. All the weather is okay. Yeah, yeah. I noticed that in my grandson. I'm holding him and he's crying and then laughing and then smiling and then worried and then— but he's not making meaning. It's all Chinese. He hasn't developed his conceptual mind. I didn't know you could disengage from your conceptual mind and just basically ignore what you're thinking.

Do you think— I know you used to be a teacher— do you think we'll ever get taught this in primary school or You know?

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. It's happening all over, all over, all over England, all over the world.

It just feels to me like, why would you want to go through all that conditioning, uh, suffering when someone could just explain it to you when you're completely innocent and just making it all up anyway? You know? Yeah, it's like We could be, we could be the last generation that don't know this, you know. Like, somebody made the analogy the other day, I think it was a stand-up comedian, and they were saying, I got taught algebra and in maths, and nobody in my job ever asked me to do an algebraic equation. —What a waste of time, they could have taught me something useful. Yes, they could, they could have taught you the 3 principles. Yeah, that would have been—

Well, that's my, that's my vision, Trevor, is someday everybody will know that it's normal to have all kinds of experiences, they're just, we're just feeling our own thinking. So our experiences won't be so frightening and we won't be blaming them on something in the world. And we'll all know that at our core, we already have everything we need. We already have all the love and wisdom we need to live a beautiful life. And that when we're in the now, that love and wisdom comes out of us as kindness, warmth, friendliness, creativity, new thinking, new ideas, common sense. It's already in us. When we're believing negative thought, it puts a damper on it. When we're not believing negative thought, the damper comes off and the wisdom and love come out. It's like a friend of mine used to say, it's like a beach ball. You can push it underwater, it takes a lot of energy to keep things thinking about things and push it underwater. But when you stop thinking about things, it's like taking your hands off of it and the beach ball of well-being comes to the surface.

Is it okay to just admit that you don't know? In the moment, like, is that part of the humility of it sometimes?

Well, Sid taught me Go beyond all concepts, go beyond all beliefs, let it all go. When you do that, you're stepping from the known memory into the unknown, where you don't know anything, but where wisdom knows everything. So it's the unknown to ego, it's the known to wisdom.

So you are pretty much admitting, okay, I don't know.

Yes, I tell you, parenting got easy for me. When my kids are fighting and I'm trying to figure out what to do, and all of a sudden I go, okay, I don't know what to do, and I would fall into the now, and then suddenly I would know exactly what to do. I just, I'd feel different and I'd think different, and it would be helpful. And I couldn't believe it was that easy, but for me it was.

It reminds me of yesterday. My sister was asking me, "What are you going to do about this? What are you going to do about that? What are you going to do about this?" And there were about 8 things, and I just said, "I don't know yet. I haven't had a fresh thought about it. I'm not even gonna give it any more." I know. I drive myself crazy. And then I just put it on the back burner, and I don't know, I got away with it. I was surprised I got away with it, you know. But she heard the wisdom in it. It was the way I delivered it.

Yes, I don't know.

It was like, I don't have the answers, but they will come. Like, I feel like they will come. I'm open to seeing more. And I think that humility with this understanding is like, people pick up on that. Like, and I've picked up on it myself. I'm just open to seeing more. Like, I don't know it all. I think I know it all. I behave like I know it all a lot of the time, but I don't know it all. And That's part of the opening process of this, um, this, uh, this, this, this journey, this, this evolution. Um, it's just, okay, I don't know it all and I'm willing to see more. I didn't even know that existed 3 years ago. Yeah, didn't even know there was such a thing as a fresh thought.

Could you imagine if you're playing football and somebody says to you, "What are you going to do if, when they score?" Who says they're going to score? And how do you know what you're going to do? What are you going to do 5 minutes from now while you're playing? I don't even know where I'm going to be on the field.

I didn't even know what I'm going to have for dinner. No idea.

See, that's right. Worry is imagining a future, but it leaves out the most important thing, which is wisdom. And wisdom is always in the now. Oh, I could do this. Oh, I could do that. Oh, I feel like eating this. Oh, I don't feel like eating that.

But this needs to settle down. All the time this is going on, right? It's really hard to have that wisdom, access to the wisdom. It's like the wisdom's— I'm making an analogy— wisdom's down here somewhere, and then this is all going up here, and your focus is up here. Um, so you know how long it takes for things to settle down?

No, I don't. One sec. No time. The instant we're in the now, there's enough space in our mind for common sense to come through. Yeah, even if we have a lot of thoughts on our mind, we're not holding them, so there's enough space in our mind for this. It's a little bit of break in the clouds, and there's enough light coming through to guide us.

Yeah, and it just needs to be a little bit, right? I've just got this sense that Just a little bit.

A little bit of wisdom is 10,000 times wiser than none. Tiny glimpse.

And then something I heard from one of your talks— I was listening to one of your keynotes at one of the Jewish centers, and I heard you saying that it's just a little bit more, and you see a little bit more, and a little bit more. A little bit more. And I was like, well, that's great. That's just going to carry on. I'm just going to see more and more and more and more and more in life. Nice thing to look forward to.

Yes, it is. Well, it's been great talking to you. Oh, it's been amazing.

I've loved it. I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure I'd survive an hour, but I just, you know, Yeah, it's been incredible. Dickon, you're doing an event in England, and I highly recommend that people go and actually experience Dickon in the flesh, as it were. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Well, there's, there's a big conference that I'll be at, the Three Principles Conference in London. Let me just get the right dates here. The conference is May 13th, 14th, 15th. I'm doing a seminar in Kendo in the Lake District that's open to anybody who would like to come, and that's on the 19th and 20th. It's a weekend, 19th and 20th of May. The next weekend I'm doing another seminar in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, and that's open to the public. That's the 26th and 27th. I'm doing a day in London for the Innate Health Center on the May 29th, and then I'm doing a retreat with Rudy Canard Starting on May 31st and going until, uh, the 4:30 on the 3rd, Sunday the 3rd. So there's lots of opportunities for people in different parts of, uh, couple in London, uh, one in the Northwest and one in the Northeast.

Fantastic. Excellent. Okay, well, thanks, Dickon. Thank you again.

And you're welcome, Trevor.

Yeah, very, very, very, very insightful. And I would just say to anybody, if they have a— if they have a feeling after listening to this, then that's what we're really talking about. It's just you've fallen back into the now, and you're now feeling your real self, who you really are. And, and just that's the That's the beginning of it, isn't it? That's the—

That really is. When we're in the now, there's often just a nice feeling, and wisdom is always found in that feeling. If you're in a nice feeling, you'll have all the wisdom you need to know what to do. That's it.

Brilliant. Excellent.