Welcome to Destiny. Now here's your host, Cliff Dunning. Perfect perfect day. I'm looking out the window. The sun is out, the sky is clear, and it's warming up, Yes, warming up, meaning spring is coming. Spring is here soon. And I can tell you I can't I can't get here soon enough for me. I don't know about you, but this has been an incredibly cold winter and it seems to be longer than normal for us here in northern California.
It's been very, very icy, uncomfortable to go out hiking, and this is something that I do routinely, even in bad weather. So it's a to wenture to remember if you could go there with that. Hey, this is Cliff, your host of Destiny. I hope you're doing well today. You know, we're struggling with our politics here in the United States right now. We have some big changes in the wind and we're so divided. Half of us are
happy with the current administration. Another part of the population equal number of people are unhappy with But how do we get along? How do we get along? We're going to talk about this today with my guests. And you know, when you have love in your heart, when you are not trying to spark anger or belittle people, and I follow I follow into this category myself. When you can just be neutral and try to just you know, sustain as much good feeling as you can, then it's easier
for people to hang around you. I mean, I have friends and and family that have disowned their relatives, disowned their friends because of the changes that have gone on in the political scene here. It's radical. I mentioned ahead of time when Donald Trump became our new president that I would be wait and see. I'm still feeling that way right now. There are so many changes that are happening. I would think that in the next year, or by the end of the next year, the first year of
Trump's presidency, We're going to see radical changes. And I'm not going to say either going to be good or back as nobody knows. Nobody really knows, because there is a somewhat of a deconstruction going on. But my point in mentioning politics, and I've promised again, I've promised not
to talk about politics for a number of years. But the point I'm trying to make is when you can stay open, stay mindful of those around you, then I think there's more room for an awareness for contemplation for discussion, and it has not been that way since November of
last year. We're deeply, deeply divided, and we can't continue this because we are a unified body of souls that make up the United States of America, and so that what we need to do is try to come together as much as we can without taking in anyone's paradigm, taking another person's belief, but staying open and hopeful is the best term I can come up with when we discuss the current political climate in the United States. Today's program is with an author who's written a number of books.
He's actually a screenwriter as well and had his movie option. The book we're talking about today is called Big Love, The Power of Living with a Wide Open Heart. And my guess is Scott Stable, and he's written before. He's got a monstrous following on Facebook. He's got over three hundred and fifty thousand people who are listening to what
he has to say. And today we're going to talk about his crises, his transformation from a devastating childhood where he dealt with the murder of his parents and then the death of his brother from an overdose of heroin and just chronic problems. He just was terribly consumed with grief and upset, fear, and how to move beyond that, how to move beyond those times where things are just overwhelming. And I've been there. I've been there too. I've had
deaths in the family that were so devastating. I was no good for years, or for at least many months. And then how it kind of ricochets and continues on with other little problems that seem insurmountable at times. I mean, have you ever had a period in your life where every little thing just didn't seem to go right, that you felt like you were a failure, that you were depressed all the time. It's snowballs, you know, it grows and grows, and it's like, how do I get the
hell out of this? So this is something we're going to talk about today with my guest. No. One of the things I do want to mention is that I believe that everybody should try to do some form of meditation every day, and if you can't use intention as much as possible. I intend for this job to happen.
This I intend, I intend for this, this activity to blossom, this job lead to turn out to be a good new work situation, this new relationship to grow and to be loving if you use intention, and we don't, and we haven't really focused enough on using the intention. It's more of a recent conveyance. It's reprogramming. It's it's setting in some new software in the master computer, which is the brain, and asking it to give us more of
what we want. When we intend to have something happen, when we intend to have a good outcome from a situation, we are more actively thinking about that than in any other time. And so when you are able to intend on a positive outcome, you can actually make that happen. And the more you do it, the more consistently the reality that you want to create actually occurs. But today we're talking about dealing with fear, dealing with trauma, and
dealing with political situations that are a challenge. And the program again is big love, the power of living and with a wide open heart. And my guest is author screenwriter Scott Stable. Hey, spring is just around the corner where there's going to be getting better and better as we continue on into the year, and this means it's time to think about getting away on a vacation. Earth Ancients has the best tours you could ever imagine, and we are talking about Turkey in summer June twenty second
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you'll see the full eighte tenerary and all the details. Remember, if you want a fantastic tour at half the normal fee. Think about earth Agent's tours. We've been doing them for many, many years and they are a blast. Earth agents dot Com Forward Slash Tours. Come out and join us. We're featuring a new author this week, Scott Stable. He is
a recurring author. He's written a number of books, and I have to tell you also he has written a movie which I thought about doing years ago, wasn't very a well at it, but he actually had the movie produced. The book we're talking about today is called Big Love, The Power of Living with a Wide Open Heart. And Scott's written other books as well, but we're going to focus on this book because it goes into it's really
autobiographical in many ways. It goes into his life trauma of the pain and how he broke through it all. And his feeling is that love is the guidance. Love is the is the tool to use for us during this physical incarnation. That's about all I can say about it. So, Hey, Scott, welcome to Destiny. Great to have you on the program.
Hey, thank you so much, Cliff. I'm happy to be here. And if I may say, you know, Big Love the paperback is coming out just today and we change the subtitle, so now it's the Undeniable joy of following your heart and the cover is green instead of the.
R Oh my god, I have the red version.
I know you have the hardcover. And it took seven years from when the hardcover was released to sell through the first printing of the book and to get to this paperback, so when ordinarily it's like people put out a paperback a year after the hardcover. So I'm feeling just grateful that the book is still in print and coming out and we have a fresh cover and a new subtitle.
So I should have asked your publicist for at least a digital version, because did you update it? And that's well, the book is the same. Yeah, oh it's the same book.
Yeah, you read what the book is. The only difference is a little bit of an author's note in the beginning, which is maybe like four pages. But no, the book isn't updated. It's the same.
So I got to mention to you, I'm so jealous. You have a Facebook page which was over three hundred and fifty thousand likes and act active participants. How did you grow it? So? He I mean, were you out there like hitting the streets or were you sitting.
It was back at a time time when it was easier to grow Facebook pages. You know the movie that you referenced that I have written, which is still to this day the lowest grossing wide release film and history. It's the biggest flop of all time. Oh yeah, so ten years later, So that helped. Ten years later, Yeah.
Helped grow the Facebook page, is what you're saying.
That didn't help grow the Facebook page, but that's how I started the page. The PR people at the time said, hey, why don't you start a Facebook page as the writer of the film and you can engage with fans and talk about the experience of working on the project. Well, the movie bombed and there weren't really any fans, but I suddenly had this Facebook page, and I thought, well,
what do I want to write about? And so I started writing about the themes that are most important to me, like you know, compassion and love and facing our fears and transcending shame and all of these things, and the page just started to take off really organically, because that was actually at a time when the algorithms weren't preventing you from reaching people who signed up for your page.
So my page was growing fast because people who were who were following it were seeing my posts and sharing them like crazy, and it just, you know, kept growing and growing and growing, and then literally cliff virtually overnight
when they changed that algorithm. However, many years ago, my page was growing between like twelve hundred and fifteen hundred new people a day were following my page, and it went to like basically zero or losing people by the day because the algorithm just cut off all the organic reach and they just want you to pay for it to reach people.
They wanted you to be more of an advertiser.
They wanted to They wanted to treat you like, this is your business and if you want to reach people, you have to pay for them to reach people, okay, which I wasn't willing to do. And the amounts were outrageous. I mean, I did the math one day and for my one post to reach the three hundred and fifty thousand people following my page, it was thousands of dollars. It will Oh my god, it's ridiculous, So my good.
But I felt I really liked it because I was looking at some of the sections and you would do it like you quote part of the book. Yeah, you'd do passages and they were really inspirational. I've read a few of them, and I can see why people were coming back, going, when's Scott going to post something new on I mean, because you probably kept people.
I was posting several times a day too. I was so active on that page.
So yeah, so that's all over with now. Now it's kind of a.
I mean, I haven't posted in about a year, and I'm not Yeah, I'm not really vibing with it right now, but you know, we'll see what the future holds. You never know.
Let's talk about this wonderful book. So much of it is your trauma and and pain, and we'll talk a little little bit later about how you kind of kept it all together. But what I mean that's that seems to be the fundamentals of the book, the theme of the book. But how do you look beyond the pain? How do you how do you begin getting a sense of you know, this is not who I am. I can't keep doing this, can't be bringing it up constantly.
Well, I think, I mean, in my experience, it's about understanding that part of being human in this reality is experiencing pain right is experiencing trauma. And you know, anyone who's made it to adulthood has likely had some hard things to contend with in their lives. And I don't I don't see a need in the way that I used to to kind of bury everything and pretend it isn't there, and that's my way to deal with it.
Sometimes I do that. Sometimes I numb out and escape, sure, like the best of them, you know, But I for me, it's it's about understanding that along with feeling any of the hardships that I'm feeling, there's also so much more to experience in this world. So I try to I try to keep myself open to more than just what
has been difficult. So that means like keeping myself open to what is beautiful in the world, keeping myself open to the very real connections that are meaningful in my life, keeping myself open to my creativity and the creativity of others. It's like, I think, sometimes our minds can be incredibly myopic in the way they view things, and so often the mind steers through the lens of like negativity and darkness and everything that's wrong on this planet. And there's
so much wrong on this planet. I mean, there's so much in this country is just there's so much violence and injustice and division. It can be incredibly easy to stay attuned to just that. But I don't feel like we're ultimately being of service to our selves or our world if that's the only lens through which we're viewing things. So how do we remember that we are wildly expansive beings? And I'm able to hold not just my trauma and pain, but able to hold so much beauty and create so
much beauty. And by doing so that isn't denying the hardship here. It's just remembering that there's so much more than just hardship here, and that I think sometimes Cliff we I know because I see it online. There's this idea that to foster joy or make space for joy at a time where there's so much suffering and so much injustice for many feels incongruent. And for me, it's like, never stop making yourself available to moments of joy and connection and love. It is not our misery that helps
people out of their misery. It's like joy is a very vital life force and an energy that is of service to all. So don't stop yourself from feeling it simply because others out there are suffering. Trust that if you're being called into your joy, that that that is just a beautiful thing for you to experience in the moment. And look, you'll be suffering again. We all go through these cycles, right, And I think that I don't. I don't want to just give myself over to the pain here.
I want to give myself over to the fullness of this experience.
I can tell that you're a deeply spiritual person, Scott, and you said something in the very beginning. You said that we come into this life kind of you know, experiencing trauma, pain and suffering. Would you say that this is kind of a school for this that we're learning. Can you take it beyond the physical and go Our soul is asking us to experience this life in whatever
script that we've set out for it to be. And it's it's getting through and understanding that love is the ultimate healing tool.
For me, one hundred percent, life is the ultimate healing tool and without love, healing is not possible. So for me, I'm continuously asking myself what is love inviting me to do in this moment? Even like, I see things going on in this country that are so enraging and infuriating and heartbreaking, and I want to honor that and allow for myself to feel that, because it's what's really happening inside of me. But if all we're doing is raging,
you can't raise yourself into healing. Like anger is a powerful change agent, a beautiful change agent, but anger alone does not create healing. It has to be supported by love. And when I'm speaking about love, I see love as just energy so for me, and it's an energy that informs compassion and kindness and forgiveness and all of the things that we hold to be most true in this experience. So I know that when I'm playing with the energy of love and speaking from that place and acting from
that place, I am myself and our world. And and to what you you said about our soul and learning, what I want to say is, I don't want to pretend that I know anything for sure about these things, because it does when when people talk so confidently about the afterlife, I'm like, Okay, I know this is how you what your intuition tells you, but at least honor that it's just what your intuition tells you, because there's no proof, I happen to fall in line with the
idea that we do incarnate and our our soul, you know, our soul moves from lifetime to lifetime. So I'm aligned with the idea that are my soul is an absolutely peaceful still aspect of who I am. That is simply bearing witness without judgment to everything I'm experiencing here and
learning from it, but with no suffering. I don't. I really believe in all of us there is a soul centered place that exists beyond suffering, that just observes, just bears witness right, just is in total acceptance of all that is. And when I'm connecting to that place within myself, I feel so much more peaceful, which is why I think I'm incentivized to connect to that place within myself because that place is quiet, and up here in my mind and my ego, there's so much noise, there's so
much insanity. So for me, what I've learned, Cliff is just it's not about changing my mind, because my mind is the same as it's ever been. It's about shifting my relationship to my mind and my thoughts and understanding that that's where my power lives. When I am lost in the belief that the things my mind is telling me are all true, I create suffering myself for myself.
But when I'm able to observe the thoughts of my mind and the more self abusive ones that are somehow suggesting I'm less than or unloved and unworthy, and I can just recognize those thoughts as lies without giving much energy to them, I create for myself a lot more peace. And we can all do this. Our minds are always are lying to us all the time, and it's like, whenever your mind is suggesting that you're unworthy or unlovable, that is a lie. And if you choose to believe
that lie, you're going to suffer. But if you choose to just reflect, oh, that's just my mind doing what all human minds do. You suffer less.
Yeah, you know, I don't capture from your book that you're a therapist, but I think from the writing you are helping the reader see through your experience that you don't have to be traumatize your whole life. You don't have to live with it. I'd like you to describe what you call a love spreader your book and tell us. I think you give it to us in the book itself, but tell us how that works and how each of us can become a love spreader.
Sounds dirty when you say it, I don't know. Sex dirty when I wrote it. I don't know, but you know. For me, it's just about I believe deeply in the power of love is our greatest healing agent. So I'm someone who makes a lot of noise for the power of love. That is the core of the work I do. I talk a lot about love. I talk a lot about self love. I write a lot about these things because I feel that when we apply love to anything else that we're doing or experiencing in this life, we
have the potential to grow and to create healing. So for me, spreading love is as simple as being intentional about showing up with kindness when you're out in the community, when you're at the store shopping, How are you engaging with clerks, how are you with people out in the world. Anytime you are showing up with kindness in your heart, you're spreading love, right Like, how are you showing up for yourself when you're looking at yourself in the mirror.
When you're talking to yourself as you're going to sleep, are you locked into the self abusive ego thoughts or are you remembering to offer yourself some kindness? This is spreading love right there are so any time we're connecting to compassion for our fellow human beings, anytime we have chosen to forgive, anytime we are doing any anytime we are being empathetic in any sort of way, we are spreading love. So it's within our capacity, each one of us,
to be a love spreader. And in my experience, this is one of the ways we heal our world. This is one of the ways we change our world. Like you and I were talking beforehand about how frustrating it can be to look at the political reality in our country.
And it's always frustrating to look at the political reality in our country because it's usually half of the people are agreeing, half of the people are opposing, and those two halves are warring with each other, and it's insane, right, And yet if I am someone who is not willing to look at the humanity in the person who is saying, even for me, the most horrific things, but to remember, they too are a human being who has lived an entire life that I am not aware of and can't
relate to. I am actually serving the conversation in some way that is potentially positive, because I might stay completely committed to my convictions and completely repulsed by what they're saying and doing. But if in that I'm also choosing to dehumanize and shame them, I'm not creating any possibility
of moving things forward in a good way. So if I can stand true in my beliefs without losing the humanity and other people, I feel like I'm staying in my heart and I am then spreading love even if what I have to say doesn't land dwell with them. Right, at least I can take responsibility for how I'm saying it. I can take responsibility if I'm on social media and someone posts something that I find ridiculous or cruel or insane.
Am I going to get on my keyboard and say, you know you're I don't know if you can swear here, so I won't, but I'll be like, are you whatever? Whatever my mind wants me to say in action? Or can I compose myself and share very clearly what I feel called to share? But without shaming them in the process, because I don't. In my experience, I've never shamed myself into a healing place. I have often loved myself into
a better place. And so I think that that transcends just my relationship with myself to my relationship with other people. We don't shame.
Yeah, you're asking that we go beyond the anger and the frustration of the political setting and kind of through love and through neutral reality, express an emotion. That's a tough one.
It's the hardest thing. And I have not mastered this, by the way, Like I fall off the love train often, but I get myself back on as quickly as I can, and I make amends if there's amends to be made, as gracefully as I can, and you know, we move on. But I just don't see I don't see the point of screaming at each other and shaming each other. It's getting us nowhere. We're just we're just continuously showing up
with a changed, you know, quote unquote changed reality. But it ultimately just looks like the same thing we were running from, but with just a different cast of characters in control. It's it's insanity. It is insanity.
Honestly, Yeah, I think our country's being torn apart right now through this huge divide, and you know it. I love the love spreader analogy, But how do you do it when there's so much anger and hate and resistance?
You know, I think you? I mean, how I do it when I'm doing it well is remembering that all I have control over is how I'm choosing to show up within this reality. I have no control over how others are choosing to show up, so I can't take responsibility for what they're saying and doing. I won't take responsibility, but I'll absolutely take responsibility for what I'm saying and doing. And if what I'm saying and doing is out of alignment with love and all that love invites into our lives,
I know that I'm not serving anything right. And that doesn't mean not being angry. You can be wildly angry. There's lots to be angry about, and can you support your anger with love?
Right?
Which for me looks like what I just said, being angry, but not forgetting that the humanity in my fellow human beings understan standing that the person out there I would be most inclined to judge had I walked in their footsteps throughout their life, I could not confidently say that I would not have landed in the exact same place they have landed. And knowing that it allows me to open my heart in a more compassionate way to where they are, even if what I'm fighting for is wholly
in opposition to what they're fighting for. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it's just such a trigger point for me.
For me too, brother, it's the hardest thing. It's very easy to hate people that is like that is it doesn't take any work to judge another human beings. The work is in getting back into your heart and remembering to love, which I feel like any all the great teachers in every religion and every any spiritual philosophy are
all preaching love. It's all the same, right, And yet we justify not being loving so easily, even when the people we admire and revere and want to be like are all preaching love.
Yeah. So we're going to take a short commercial break to allow our sponsors to identify themselves, and we will return shortly with my guest today, Scott Stable discussing his newest book, Big Love. Will be right back. My guest today is author Scott Strabel, who has written a number of books, including his latest Big Love, The Power of Living with a Wide Open Heart. I want to talk
about your childhood. You experienced the murder of your parents at I think you were fourteen, and you didn't receive any therapy for it. You got it the years later, But talk about containing that horrible trauma and how it would come out as you got older in these I call him sobbing episodes where you're just overwhelmed with emotion.
Yeah, I mean mostly you know, I was fourteen years old. My parents were shot to death and in their a store that they owned in Detroit, and I didn't do anything consciously that time, Like I am so grateful when I reflect back on my life at that time that something in me just new to bury it, you know, like and for me, what that looked like was really bearing it, like never talking about my parents and once
a year having a cry. And it was almost like clockwork, and it would only happen around once a year where something would precipitate an hours long sobbing session and then I would lock it back up and just move on with my life. And was like a straight a student and like had lots of friends, and you know, lived like ostensibly what looked like a very great American high school experience in college experience, and it was, I mean that was genuine. I had a great time in high
school and college. But it was in my early twenties when I had one of those episodes. But it lasted for several days, and I thought, I am really losing my mind, Like I I something in me broke, is
what it felt like. And and and that was I had I could afford at the time, like six sessions of therapy, and I and what I was able to see in those sessions because I was just talking about my parents really unlike I had for the first time, and crying and being angry, and I was able to see that I actually can be with these emotions and I can express them and they're not going to kill me. Like I can actually be honest about how I'm feeling about having lost my parents in that way and survive it.
And I think that really helped me open up to the understanding that I think so often we run from the harder feelings because some part of us doesn't know that we're going to make it through them. We're terrified to be with how angry we really are and how sad we really are. And I was able to see then it's like, yeah, it's not comfortable. It's awfully painful to sit with my sadness and sit with my anger.
And yet this is part of the experience here. And when I allow myself to be present with what feels most real within me, that's actually when I have an opportunity to move through it. When I spend all of my energy trying to numb and escape from what I'm feeling, I'm actually just giving that energy to what it is I'm feeling. Everything you're running from is energy you're giving to the thing from which you're trying to escape. And feelings want to move through us. It's how they're designed.
It's when we hold on to them so they can't and we bury them so they can't. But if we just allow ourselves to feel, there's a lot more movement that happens in that place. And I also want to be really clear, like I still numb, I still escape,
I still do everything we all do. I think for me, what I've gotten really good at is being really kind to myself no matter what choices I'm making offering myself a lot of grace even when what I'm choosing to do isn't the healthiest choice, right, just remembering that no matter what, I am worthy of love, and to everyone listening or watching, no matter what, you are worthy of love.
And if you can really believe that about yourself and be the person who is offering yourself that love and that grace, the way you move through your life changes profoundly because I know now, Cliff, that no matter what, I've got my back, and knowing that allows me to be much more courageous and how I'm showing up in my life to take risks I might not have taken otherwise because on the other side of those things in the past, I would have been the one beating myself
up the most, and now I'm the one loving myself the most.
Yeah. I love that you mentioned in the book that you need to be selfish and give yourself the love that you need. Talk a little bit about that, and it does look to me you only talk about a brief stay with the therapist. Tell It looks to me that whoever that person was, gave you some tools to kind of help identify your emotions, but I'm interested in learning what you got out of that time with that person.
Honestly, I don't really remember. I don't know that I came away with any tools beyond seeing, hey, you can cry and rage and talk about this and still be okay, like, which was a huge gift at the time, because I definitely thought like something broke within me. But as far as selfishness, it's like, you know, people get hung up on this idea of self love because they get caught up on the idea that it's selfish to focus on
yourself in this way. And for me, the beauty of self love is that it's the most pure, pure and beautiful selfishness there is, because any energy you give to strengthening your relationship with yourself is always of service to others, right, Like, the more you love yourself, the more naturally you're going to be extending that love to the people in your life and to strangers on the street and to our
world in general. So please don't get hung up on this idea of self love is some sort of negative selfishness. It's a beautiful selfishness. You know, Love never stops itself. It is always transcending self, and the way you relate to yourself informs how you relate to every other person and thing on this planet. We know this. We know that when we feel rested, when we feel nourished, we're nicer to the people in our lives. We treat them better, they want to be around us more. That is the
natural extension of taking care of yourself. So why would we ever not you know, give prioritize our relationship to self, knowing that it serves all right.
If we have a lifetime of trauma, agony, and pain, you're showing us that it's not necessarily important to push it away and bury it. You recognize it. And it seems to me that you're saying by recognizing it, you diffuse it a little more each time you think about it or recognize it, or in your case, it would come up in these cry and spells, and then you would feel it, and then without the therapist you are like, oh, I'm losing my mind. But with the therapist, therapist is
saying you're not losing your mind. You just need to live through this and diffuse it in some way.
I mean, what I would say is that I spent a lot of energy trying not to feel, and that is exhausting, and I don't think we really are aware of how exhausting it is to live in a state where you're consistently trying to numb, consistently trying to escape just to avoid feeling the harder feelings. And so now I'm more available to feeling and it takes less energy than trying not to feel, even when what I'm feeling is uncomfortable. And also just recognizing part of the experience
of being human in this reality is pain. It's just what you can't live without having your heart broken, or losing someone you love like this, or losing your job or whatever it is that we all experience that creates heartbreak. That's part of life, and it's in the It's an uncomfortable part of life. But I think the hopefully the more you age and the more you mature, you're going to realize, like, this is just part of the reality here.
And so we could say, we could come back to what you brought up earlier, the idea that this is your soul in school, And I like that because for me, when I'm going through something hard and if I can bring awareness to it, I do believe that whatever it is I am experiencing in the moment is actually serving my growth here and I like to look at things that way. For me, it feels helpful.
Can we be avoiding pain? Scott? Should we? If we? I mean, I can look at relationships I've had, and some of them have been extremely painful. You know, you think you love somebody and all of a sudden they're like crapping on you, or they're cheating or whatever. Is that? Are we supposed to avoid those situations or do we walk into it knowing that it could be good it could be bad. I mean, it kind of answers itself. But curious about what you think.
I don't think you can avoid pain. I mean unless you completely shut yourself in, and even then you're going to be dealing with the pain of loneliness, the pain of.
You're not human connection.
And you know what I mean, Like pain is pain is there. You can't avoid it. You can try to, you can pretend to, you can close yourself off to try to, but it's there. So for me, the question I would ask someone who is trying to avoid pain is you know, are you willing to move through your life without making yourself available to all the gifts and benefits and beauty that come with opening yourself up to
possibilities that could end painfully. Right, It's what's that expression, better to have loved and lost than never to have loved it all or whatever? That That's essentially what I'm saying. It's like, like I have seen time and again the gifts that come with opening my heart to people and to experiences, and and also I've been burned, I've been hurt, I've hurt others, like all of these things have been
a part of it too. But I mean, come on, how do you want to live I don't want to live my life in a sheltered, isolated way just to avoid getting hurt when you can't avoid getting hurt anyway.
It's like, oh, go ahead, I was just gonna say, but how do we process the pain of a broken relationship where you deeply love somebody and they screwedge you and somehow they embarrassed you or.
They humiliated you, and you are left with such horrible pain. I can see a lot of people thinking I'm not doing that again and shutting it off.
I can absolutely see that. I feel like I've done that before. In my life. Yeah, I think that that's a natural extension of a broken heart, right But another way to look at that is just to understand if that's what you're living in the moment, is just to acknowledge. Right now, I'm not ready to put myself out there again,
and then you can ask yourself questions. But when I am, how might I want to go about this in a way that could create something different, or where you know, were there are things in the relationship I was ignoring because I was so in love or I felt so good just having someone in my life that I didn't want to acknowledge I wasn't being respected or treated well, right Like, I think that there's value in doing this kind of investigation in our lives so we don't set
ourselves up for the same dynamics. But I don't think there's a lot of value in closing ourselves off completely just to avoid reliving something that we've lived before, when we can't know for sure that we would be setting ourselves up for the same dynamic.
I want you to talk real briefly, and this is not in the book, but it does kind of carry through in a theme why it's important to be in relationship and not just with lovers. I'm talking about family friends and why this is critical for the love spreading theme.
I mean a couple things. One, I just we human beings are wired for connection. I mean, more and more studies are showing that one of the leading causes of death in older people is loneliness. Right, Like, loneliness is a path to earlier death, and so we need connection. We need to connection to feel alive, we need connection to find meaning, we need to connection to thrive in our lives. So that alone. But then another angle for
me is like this is how we grow. Like I'm someone who does a lot of my own spiritual work, and I'm a major processor, Like I'm always looking at how is this affecting me? And what was this trigger? And why did that trigger go off? And I, you know, I have fun with it. That's how I live my life. But also if I'm doing that all by myself all
the time, I have no idea how much I've really grown. Right, it's only when we're in relationship with people that we actually see our triggers and we can actually take ownership of them and actually see how we are relating to other human beings as we're growing, and you only need to think about like anyone listening who's gone home for the holidays and has been around family, and you think, oh, I'm doing great, I'm so evolved and I'm becoming enlightened.
And then you're around your family for a week and you see how holy unevolved you are, and like, how much more room there is to grow? Right, It's like relationships show us these things.
Yeah, I love that U talk a little bit about your writing process because you describe it as a form of therapy, and I was wondering if that writing is a suggestion to the reader that they should journal a little bit, journaling what they've been processing.
I'm a big proponent of journaling. I think it's extraordinarily helpful. I think that the things that come through when we write, we often glean new perspectives that we don't get when we're just in our minds like a hamster on the wheel, just spinning through the same thoughts and same ideas and same frustrations. And suddenly, when you put a pen to paper, you open yourself up to revelations and realizations that weren't there. So yeah, I'm all for journaling and even just as
a way of vomiting out entergy like moving energy. Like if you're living with all this anger, insider frustration, and you're just doing with it in your mind and body, it's just sitting there. But if you allow yourself to just put that anger on the page, it feels like purging.
You know.
One of the exercises I do in one of my workshops with people as I invite them to look at a situation that really upset them with somebody and to forget everything that I say about love and empathy and compassion and just take some time and on the page, just allow for your rage, just rage at the person for all ways they wronged you, and allow yourself to just be with what is alive inside of you instead of feeling like you have to squelch it because it's not okay to be angry or it's not okay to
judge people Like we have to allow for our feelings to express themselves in a real way and then we can get back to being empathetic and being loving and being compassionate. But don't leap to that place if what's stirring inside of you is just anger and rage, don't pretend that's not there or dismiss it, like make room for it and then get to the act of loving when you're able to.
Yeah. I love that because you're talking about a journaling process where you're journaling anger, hate, even good stuff as as a way to reflect on your life. Absolutely.
Yea, He's really powerful in that way.
Yeah. So would you say journaling should happen as frequently as you want or should you have like a regular time when you sit down to kind of do contemplative work. I guess you could call it.
You know, I don't really should around these things because I feel like what I really believe is that we intuitively know what we need to do for ourselves to take care of ourselves. So if you're someone listening and you've tried journaling and that was really works for you, then I absolutely encourage you to journal. If you're somebody who's tried it and it doesn't work for you, then there's no should about it. Like find the things that
work for you. Maybe that's meditation For me. I would say one of the most helpful things for me in my life, hands down is walking in nature. If I can go on a hike, amongst the trees or in mountains, it is the best thing I can do for myself. So knowing that it's incumbent upon me to make time to do that for myself because I know that that helps me. You know, if you try journaling and you find that it helps you, make time for it, make
time for the things that serve you. And you know, I've said this, and I say it all the time, Cliff, but it's like if you did no other thing in your life but brought more awareness to the choices you're making and how they make you feel, and give more energy to the choices that elicit a good feeling inside of yourself and start eliminating the ones that deplete you or feel unhealthy, you will change your life overnight. That's
like one plus one equals to spirituality. Do more of what feels good and less of what doesn't, and suddenly you will find that your life is changing.
Are you talking about feel good everywhere? And I feel good going to see a movie because you want to go see it, eat something good?
I mean I'm talking about anything, yeah, yeah.
All the whole but Menagerie.
Anything anything like. For me, it's just about bringing more awareness to myself throughout the day and it's like, Oh, I'm feeling really uncomfortable in this moment. Okay, well what am I thinking about? Oh? I'm thinking about the news that I was just watching. Okay, well, maybe is there
a way for you to create a different relationship with news? Right? Like, if you want to be an informed an informed citizen, but you recognize that every time you cheot tune into the news, you feel like crap and totally anxious and stressed out, well, then maybe you maybe there's a better choice that you can make around your relationship to media, right, And like, this is what I encourage people to do. Ask ourselves these questions, like, when you're feeling anxious, well,
what am I thinking about? Because what you're feeling is always going to relate to what you're thinking about. So if you're feeling anxious in your body, it's likely because you're thinking about something that is making you feel anxious in your body. So, okay, how can I be with what I'm thinking about? Is there a way for me to be with what I'm thinking about more peacefully? And if not? Can I think about anything else right now that isn't stressing me out?
Right?
It's like, can I think about the cute dog next door that brings me joy? Or or my nephews and nieces who are sweet and loving? Right, It's like, I think sometimes we lock ourselves in to this, these thought processes that create nothing but anxiety for us, or sadness or frustration, and we forget that we're not bound to thinking about these things like why don't why don't we open ourselves up to the possibility of either reframing the
thoughts we are thinking about or simply think about something different. Yeah, and I say this, So it's this the simplest thing on the It is a very simple concept what I'm sharing, but doing it is not always easiest.
We're gonna take a short commercial break to allow our sponsors to identify themselves, and we will return shortly with my guest, Scott's Stable discussing his latest book, Big Love. Will rejoin you shortly. I guess today is Scott Steeble. You can get his newest book, Big Love on Amazon or wherever you get your literature. Well, I'm glad you were mentioning that right now, because I wanted to get serious about this for people who are chronically depressed who
cannot find a light, who cannot find an avenue. And what you're saying is is kind of a nurturing of the feel good. Find the thought, find the idea, find the movie or whatever or article that you like, and follow that author talk about moving beyond chronic depression. Now, obviously, if it's clinical, we can't do anything about that. You gotta work with your therapist. But what you're saying can actually help people move on their own.
I think our minds are masters at lying to us, and I think it's when we believe the lies of our minds that we tend to get more and more depressed, because so often what our minds will tell us is that we are somehow flawed. That's what our shame tells us, We're inherently flawed. Our minds will tell us that there's no hope in the world, that everything is bleak, that we are worthless. These are all messages that when I'm believing them in my life, it leads me to a
state of feeling depressed. Now I'm not a therapist. I agree with you out one hundred percent. Like, if you are dealing with severe depression, I hope that you have access to therapy and resources in that way that will be helpful to you. And I think that we can all take the time to create for ourselves as much as possible, a tool chest of resources that serve us
when we're having a really hard time. So for me, what that can look like back to journaling, That can look like getting a journal that is simply a self love journal. This is a journal that I'm not putting anything into that is about my depression or my heartbreak. I'm only putting things in that are emotionally supportive. I'm putting things in it that I appreciate about myself. I'm inviting people in my life to send me love letters
that I can paste into the journal. I'm writing my self love letters so that when I'm in that really depressed state of mind and I believe that there's no hope, I can open this book that is an expression of myself that is fueled with hope and love and self love and compassion, so I can see there actually is much more to my reality than my mind is telling me there is right now, right, and yeah, it's really helpful, like anything we can do to help ourselves, because when
you're in it, when you're feeling dire and miserable, that's not the time necessarily to want to create these tools. We want to create these tools, and we actually can see some light in that way. When we're feeling dire invisible, we can pull out that journal, We can pull out those letters from people who love us and see us.
Yeah, that's great, Thank you for that. I want to bring up a chapter that you call the Cult, where this is a devotional situation where you got together and you don't describe the church obviously because you don't want to get in trouble, but talk a little bit about your experience in that group with a guru and what transpired when you decided you didn't want to stay any longer.
Yeah, I mean I had a guru for thirteen years in the Bay Area. Was a part of this spiritual community, which I see as a cult because of the dynamics within it and the lack of free thought that was, you know, being in that setting. But it was also a very beautiful experience in many ways because foundationally which what was being preached was in lightened living and you know, living with love and compassion in your heart. And I responded very deeply to those messages, and they were foundational
in the work that I do today. But what I came to see is often happens in these types of communities, is the Guru professed himself to be an enlightened master, and the more time I spent in this community, the harder it was for me to to believe that he was who he said he was right. It was like I was seeing I was seeing things that felt really cruel and really manipulative and really unenlightened. And so eventually I decided to walk away, and I lost my whole
community of friends. He told them all to delete me from their lives, which just supported my decision to walk away. I mean, it really affirmed what I felt like I was seeing there. And I've never regretted walking away from that community, as much as I miss the love that was there when I was in it. What I came to learn it was a couple things. Cliff One, that I was so obsessed with the idea of becoming enlightened.
It was like everything I was doing was because I wanted to be enlightened, and that desire to be enlightened created a lot of suffering in my life because I was constantly judging myself against a more enlightened version of myself that didn't exist, instead of just bringing acceptance to who I was in the moment. And ultimately, isn't that
what we're seeking? We want to be in loving relationship with who we are as we are, without needing to be more evolved and more peaceful or more of whatever, whatever, whatever, And so walking away from that community, I also walked away from my obsession around enlightenment, which created for me so much more peace in my life. And it also everything I was doing to become enlightened, be more loving,
be more forgiving, be more compassionate. I'm still deeply connected to all of those desires, but without the pressure of enlightenment, if that makes sense.
Yeah, but aren't you becoming term enlightened by processing your stuff, by going through the layers like we're I always use the analogy like we're a big onion, and as we see an experience and acknowledge, we move through that layer.
Yeah, I feel like we're evolving. I feel like I'm evolving all the time. I give a lot of energy to my growth and a lot of energy to my evolution. The difference for me is I don't care if I become enlightened anymore. It doesn't matter to me. There's no pressure around. I'm not chasing anything the way I used
to be chasing, you know, that's for me. The difference, Yeah, I don't need I think there are very few enlightened people on this planet, and and I don't expect that I'm going to become one of them by the time I die, And that's okay with me. I'll still continue to pursue deeper peace within, deeper love within, you know, those things will I'll always be seeking more of and opening myself to more of.
That's just I think we set ourselves up when we go seek gurus too. You know, we hear about what they call these divine beans in India. They're known as avatars. You know, they're physical, but they're so enlightened that they you know, don't have to eat or they by locate. They can be in one place and another place simultaneously. So who knows what that is, If it's superman or something to do it think about in the future, We just don't know.
Well.
One of the things I wrote about in that chapter two that I think is really important for people to remember is that because there are amazing teachers out there. You know, you have an amazing podcast that touches lots of people, and people learn a lot from you, and some people might look at you as a guru or one of their teachers. And it's like, I feel like it's really important to understand that any growth and healing that is created in your life is created from within you.
It is the only possibility. And that is not to say that I have not been served and am continuing to be served by any number of amazing teachers and writers and thinkers and lovers out there. Absolutely, and ultimately it's what I do with it that is going to impact my life the most, which is to say that, And if you're not vibing with a teacher that you vibed with for twenty years and it's time to move on,
then it's time to move on. Like you get to choose the teachers, you get to call into your life, and you get to unchoose those teachers if you feel called to unchoose them as well. So, no matter what others are, millions of people all are saying John Smith is the one, But you're not vibing with John Smith. You don't have to vibe with Johnsmith. He's not the one for you. And that's totally okay.
There's so much freedom in how you're expressing yourself. Scott. It's like, I don't feel like being with this personity more. I'm out of here. I'm with this relationship. I don't like you you're doing. I'm hurting being hurt by you. I'm out of here. And I hear people. I can feel people listening to this going God, he's got Cohoni's He's just able to do whatever. Is that what it's all about? Though? Is it able to move so to experience something and go this is not serving me anymore.
I need to move beyond. I need to evolve and move beyond that.
You know, I think that I'm I think the more connected we are to our self worth and the more we love ourselves, the less likely we are to stay in relationships and situations that do not feel good. So for me, because I feel like I'm becoming more self loving all the time, I don't tell things that I used to tolerate in the same way. And also I stay in stuff longer than feels right, you know what I mean. It's like I'm not perfect at any of this.
I'm I'm still just playing, but I'm much I'm much less inclined to participate in things and with people that do not feel good than I ever have been. I just can't. It's like it feels like I physically can't do it in the same way anymore. That's what it feels like inside.
Yeah, And it feels like an evolved being of being able to sense when a situation isn't serving you, either for the very beginning or after a few get togethers.
I don't know if it's Honestly, I don't know if it's evolved to be able to sense it, because I think most of us know when we're in a situation that is not serving us, or if we're in a relationship with a person that doesn't feel good. I think we know that. I think that we often don't have the courage to move beyond it. We Maybe it's because it's like I'm more afraid to be alone than I am to be in a relationship with someone I don't
really like. Right, Like that comfort zone thing for many of us, Even if our comfort zone is one that is wildly uncomfortable, even that is better than the unknown for many of us until it isn't right and you start to see when you start walking away from things that don't feel good and you start to get the benefits of doing that, you're less inclined to stay in things that don't feel good. That's been my experience. I only speak from my experience.
No, I mean, that's amazing. In the book, you have a theme which is almost I mean, it's prevalent. It's fear. How do we move beyond fear? That's a big one for a lot of people, including myself.
You know, honestly befriended that is the first thing I really encourage people to do. Like I used to see my fear as my greatest enemy and the thing that was preventing me from living in alignment with my heart. And I went to this workshop years ago with Elizabeth Gilbert, who's this great writer, and oh yeah, and she had us write this letter. I do this in my workshops a lot now too, because it was so powerful for me. She had us write this letter to ourselves from our fear.
And all we're supposed to do is allow our fear to tell us what its purpose in our life is. So I wrote this letter dear Scott, this is your fear, and here's why I'm in your life. And all the things it was saying were I just want to keep you safe. I don't want you to be rejected. I don't want you to be misunderstood. I don't want you to be hurt by others. And what I came to see was that all my fear is ever trying to do is keep me safe and protect me. It's actually
my friend, it is actually serving me. It's just the way it does it is totally insane because it's like it looks it. It looks at any modicum of discomfort that could be created in my life, my fear is gonna say no to. So if I'm gonna, like, ask someone out on a date, my fear is gonna be like, don't do it, don't do it, and it's gonna do it with the vehemence it does of me running into traffic, Like, your fear does not want you to be uncomfortable, so it will always say no. But the reason it's doing
it is to protect you. And if we can get into a friendly relationship with our fear, that's a great first step because anytime we're going to war with any aspect of who we are, we're just creating more war inside. So when my fear was this like evil warlock, I was always biting it. But now my fear is like this little brother. That's how I experience it. It's tugging on my pant leg, like, don't do that, You're gonna
get hurt. Don't do that, They're gonna judge you. And the way I can relate to that fear is totally different than the way I can relate to this scary monster. And so now I'm so for me, it's like, befriend your fear and recognize it. It's not about becoming fearless. It's not about needing your fear to disappear in order to move forward. It's about understanding that you can bring
your fear along with you. And Elizabeth Gilbert, the same writer, wrote this beautiful book called Big Magic about her experience relating to creativity, and she says that the conversation she has with her fear before she starts a new writing project, it goes something like this. She says to her fear, Look, I know you're only doing your job, and I know you need to come along for the ride, but you're in the back seat and under no circumstance do you get to drive the car. But I welcome you along
the journey. And that's such a beautiful way I think to be with our fear as we're taking chances and making changes is to know that the fear is going to be there, that's the fear's job, but that we can still have our hands on the wheel and be the director of what we do even with our fear. And I again I say, all this is though it's the simplest thing in the world. It's not. It's hard,
but all of this is just about understanding. It's all a skill and as with any skill, the more you practice at it, the better you become.
Yeah. Amazing. The book's called Big Love. My guess today has been Scott's stable. Scott, who is this book for?
Who?
Did you write this for everybody? Or did you have somebody in mind who you're targeting?
I truly you know?
What?
Can I? Can I? Since you set me up for it? Can I just read the intention of the book that I wrote introduction? Yeah, so's it really is for everyone? But what I wrote as in the introduction, I wrote, I'd like this book to remind you that you are not alone, not by a long shot. We are all imperfect, we all have busy, fearful minds, and we all struggle,
every single one of us, every single day. I'd like the book to emphasize that you are as worthy of love as anyone who has ever lived, and that nothing you do could ever make you any less worthy or more worthy. For that matter, I'd like it to encourage you to take responsibility for every aspect of your life, knowing that by empowering yourself this way, you set yourself
up for deeper peace and greater joy. I'd like it to open you up to perspectives you may not have considered or reinforced ones you may have forgotten, all of which will lead to a more open and honest relationship with yourself and others. Most important, I'd like this book to inspire you to consider love as the guiding force in your life, regardless of circumstance. Nothing stands to transform us, our relationships, and our world more than a commitment to
live our lives from love. The bigger, the better. So that's who it's for.
Thank you for that. Yeah, that sounds like everybody to me. Unless you're plan everybody.
Who wants to live a more peaceful, loving life.
Scott, give us your web address and how people can get a hold of you. And I understand you do seminars, So where do people sign up for those?
Yeah, I mean scottsdabuil dot com. I don't do much with my website, but that's one way to find me. But get on my newsletter. I have a substack newsletter, so it's scottsdabuil dot substack dot com and I you know, list everything that I have going on through that site as well.
Fantastic, Wow, real fun having you on the program.
Hey, it's been great, Cliff, thank you so much bout it. I appreciate it really.
I think one of the things that got across to me regarding Scott's material is that we don't need to suffer. We really don't need to suffer. I'm one of these ones who've have martyred myself in past relationships with family and with friends and things, and you know, if it doesn't work out, you stick along with it, even though you can't stand being around people. I'm kind of moving
beyond that now. And you know, Scott mentioned being selfish, you know, and that's not a negative thing when it comes to your mental health and your wellness and your happiness. Being selfish about that is and it may sound bad, but it's really not and I can recommend it. And that's not meaning that you're not being friendly, you're not being conscious and caring about your friends or your or
your loved ones. It's just that really you come first, you know, bending over backwards for people who are not being conscious of who you are. This happens with a lot of families, and you know, one of the things that I think about is these some long term relationships, like my parents, they were they divorced right before I left for college, but they had been miserable for years,
you know. And it's just a real tough place to be in when you are in a relationship with the person you know you're with you you just can't stand I can't imagine that. I just can't imagine it. So anyhow, Scott's book Big Love has just come out, and it's one I can recommend. It's a really easy read. He's a really good writer, so it's an easy read. Hey, if you're enjoying Destiny Earth Ancients or any of the other podcasts that we produce. Please consider becoming a subscriber
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new book, Big Love. As always, the team of Gail Tour and Mark Foster and everyone who makes this thing happen. You guys a rock, all right, Take care every well, and we will talk to you next time. I belie