Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye. A friend recently told me she was feeling emotionally unstable, and many who battle depression or anxiety, for example, feel mentally unstable from time to time.
I have personally experienced spiritual instability, which I wouldn't say was as severe as completely losing faith, it was more like walking on rocky terrain barefooted. And I suspect we've all experienced the difference between being in a stable relationship and being in one that is fragile, like thin ice, prone to cracking under pressure. When we know something can easily tip over, we take precautionary measures to support it with a stronger foundation so it doesn't fall.
The key is not to wait until it's too late. In order to stay ahead of it, we need to perform regular system checkups, so to speak, and look for what is wobbly instead of waiting for it to be completely off the rails.
When it comes to our health, for example, it is significantly more reasonable to maintain it than it is to try to regain it, similar to keeping the house in order by cleaning as you go instead of making a huge mess and then having to devote an entire afternoon or day to deep-clean, which can be overwhelming or worse yet, never get done. Stability is not something you find one day and keep forever.
Stable health, emotions, practice, and faith must be maintained, like car maintenance, on a regular basis. The farther you go, the more frequently you need to refuel, change the oil, and check the tire pressure. So, if it's a stable life you want, it's imperative to do a multi-point checkup, and to do it multiple times a day. We check our cell phones more frequently than we check our attitudes, or our preconditioned responses to the world around us, and our emotional baggage.
Heck, even airlines charge you extra for carrying too much. If our life was indeed a car, we need to do more than wash the exterior to appear like we have it all together while we fall apart on the inside, we need to pause and reflect for a few seconds as soon as we wake up, for example, so we don't start taking that for granted.
Pause when you brush your teeth, and pause before every meal, not to say Grace necessarily, but to look at what you're about to consume to determine whether it will contribute to your stability or instability. If you've ever driven a car where the wheels haven't been properly rotated and balanced, you know how firmly you have to grip that steering wheel to stay in your lane.
Life doesn't have to be such a struggle, cleaning doesn't have to take all day, and emotional stability isn't magically regained over a 2-week vacation after a year of stress. What I'm saying is, we either actively create the balance we seek or we are creating the imbalance we try to escape. At one of the temples where I used to live, we all said ITADAKIMASU before eating.
It's a Japanese word meaning "I humbly receive," which is just enough of a pause to reflect on all the people who made the meal in front of you possible, and all the conditions that perfectly aligned to create that moment. It's one way to avoid the trap of entitlement, which we discussed in the last episode, and to stay appreciative. After all, it's not happy people who are grateful, it's grateful people who are happy.
So, introduce a stability-inducing practice into your day, and for your own sake, don't ignore the warning signs that go off when something is out of balance, restore and maintain the peace immediately, because an all-out war takes more resources than we often have,
creating a vicious loop of conflict with no resolution. Find a mantra, a practice, or a commitment to something greater than yourself, and watch life become significantly easier to manage when you're stable with both feet on the ground.
We are in the beginning stages of scheduling a third book tour, and I can only go where I'm invited, so if you have a venue that can host a book talk, discussion and Q&A in your community, contact my publicist@buddhistbootcamp.com with information about the space, and we will try to honor all requests, initially across the US, UK, Australia, and beyond. Like everything else with Buddhist Boot Camp, you make it possible by staying involved. Otherwise, I would just be speaking to myself.
The monthly email a couple of weeks ago was shared by so many of you that thousands of new subscribers signed up for it overnight. I didn't do that; you did. So, thank you for sharing the online posts with your tribe, commenting on the YouTube videos, which makes them more likely to show up for others in search results, and telling people about the books and the podcast. If the message enriches your life as much as it has mine, don't keep it to yourself.
And if you find value in what I do, please show your support with as little as $1 a month through Patreon.com/BuddhistBootCamp Most of my speaking engagements are at Unity Churches, Unitarian Universalist Fellowships, yoga studios, schools, universities, libraries, and so on. If you have a space or know someone who does, reach out and I will see you in person very soon. Thank you. 🙏🏼 Timber Hawkeye is the bestselling author of Faithfully Religionless and Buddhist Boot Camp.
For additional information, please visit BuddhistBootCamp.com, where you can order autographed books to support the Prison Library Project, watch Timber's inspiring TED Talk, and join our monthly mailing list. We hope you have enjoyed this episode and invite you to subscribe for more thought-provoking discussions. Thank you for being a Soldier of Peace in the Army of Love. 🙏🏼