Mark Nepo on Connecting to What Matters

one you feed, dot net slash help. And i'd also encourage you, if you're not to get on our email list and follow us on social media because that's where we're announcing other things that we're doing, and it's the way that you can find out about it. Be safe and take care of yourself. Thanks. We are challenged to honor what we're going through and at the same time realize that what we're going through does not define the world or life. Welcome to the one you feed throughout time.

Great tinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,

and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Mark Nepo, a poet, philosopher, and cancer survivor who has taught in the fields of poetry, health, and spirituality for forty years. Marcus, a New York Times number one selling author, has published numerous books and audio projects. He has also appeared with

Oprah Winfrey on her Super Soul Sunday program on Own TV. Today, Mark and Eric discussed his book The Book of Soul fifty two Paths to Living What Matters. Hi, Mark, welcome to the show. Great to be with you. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, we're really excited to have you on for a second time. We're going to discuss your book, The Book of Soul, fifty two Paths to Live in What Matters in a moment. But let's start

like we always do, with the parable. There is a grandfather who's talking with his granddaughter and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops and thinks about it for a second. She looks up at her grandfather. She said, grandfather,

which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable mean to you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah, well, thank you. You know, I think it speaks to the proper use of will. We think in the modern world it will is meant to bend and manipulate things that are in the way,

when when actually that that's feeding the darker wolf. And you know, throughout all the traditions speak have different language for it, but basically, when we cooperate, listen and work with which leads us into areas of acceptance and surrender and co creation, then we're feeding. And I would even let's let's open up synonyms for the good and bad wolf. I would think that the quote good wolf is the whole wolf, w H O L E. The integral you know,

the word integrity really means to make whole. So the whole wolf and the and the dark wolf is the partial wolf, the limited wolf, the isolated and alienated force in us. So, I mean, it's interesting in Stephen Mitchell's translation of the Tao. You know, he talks back in the I'm one of those people who reads all the notes, you know, because it's like the whole deeper conversation. You know, it's just like going down a side street. It's amazing

what you find. And one of the things he talks about is that the word sin, when you go to translate that in the East, it actually doesn't translate as evil or bad. It translates as opaque. So when we don't see, when we don't open up, when we're not listening, when we're not present, things get blocked and that leads us to miss paths or paths that lead us where we start misfeeding the wrong the wrong forces. Yeah, it doesn't counter the definition. It opens up synonyms and different

ways of holding what those two things we feed where present. Yeah, we had Stephen on the show recently because I I he's His translations of things are are stunning, and so some of his his actual writing, and um, I've often heard of sin, you know, translated as missing the mark, but I had not caught that opaque piece, you know, about not seeing and and so much of this book, so much of what resonated with me, was talking about this idea that so much of our suffering comes because

we only see part of reality. And you talk about this over and over in the book, and you referenced it just now when you talked about wholeness. You say, I'll just read a line from it, because I think this speaks to it. You say, we're always part of something larger than our condition, and the circumstance we're in, real and consuming as it can be, is not the condition of the whole. We all struggle between the narrow condition of our understanding and the vastness continuing around us.

As soon as we succumbed to our narrow condition, whatever it might be, as soon as we stop receiving life, we begin to paint everything with the color of our trouble. And hey, that's beautiful, and I think it speaks to what you were just saying, that this problem is one of seeing the whole, and we very often we don't we see just this little tency slice of it, and we suffer when we do. Well, yeah, thank you about

that passage. And you're reading that, and let's say under that for our viewers too, that there is legitimate the friction of being alive does cause us, uh, difficulty, pain, suffering, but we double that suffering by not connecting and staying connected to the larger vastness. There's two things here I would share about. One is a metaphor of the the ocean,

of the surface and the depth. So we all know, like the waves that are constantly being churned, and you know, through the weather of circumstance, the top six inches or so eight inches of the of the ocean the sea are constantly being disturbed. That's the psychology of our circumstance, our condition, whatever that might be, whether it's calm, whether it's churned, whether it's choppy, you know, whatever it might be. And that's natural. It's like we can't say, ol G,

I don't want that. If I'm peaceful enough, it will never be. No. That's that's where the inner world meets the outer world. Is like where the sea meets the air. But you know, you'll take anyone wave and you we see them as waves from the top, but they're all one connected body of water. You you can't go down and say the wave stops here and the depth begins here. So as we go down further away from that surface, we go into the depth of being, and there we

don't avoid the turbulence of the surface. But it it's right size because it has a context. So we all know when we go into that depth, then then the surface, Uh, it's not as disturbing if we stay on those six top six or eight inches. Were like a pinball and a pinball machine. We live in both, and we have to live in both, but very much the passenger you read, which has been great learning for me. You know, over over the years, pain, fear, worry, all these things pull

us to the surface. And that's why we need to have some kind of inner practice and friends to help us balance that by wait wait, wait no, I also need to touch in below this trouble, not to deny it or ignore it, but to right size it. That's right. Yeah, I love that metaphor. I think it's the right sizing. And it's not denying that it's there. It's not denying that it's real. It's it's just putting it into a bigger,

vaster perspective, yeah, which is always there. And all the traditions, all the meditative traditions, I mean, all everything is trying to offer us all kinds of ways to touch into that vastness that holds us. So meditation is a way for you in your own life, Like, what are some other ways that you when you find yourself churned up on the surface, right, what are ways that you connect with the deeper vastness? So starting from the inside out,

you know, just with me, there are infinite ways. And this is where for people who are listening, what I share are examples, not instructions. And if this is what we're talking about speaks to anyone, then how would you populate your toolbox of practices? What is that equivalent for you? So for me, the first thing I try to do is difficult things push us back, so I try to

lean back in. I try very hard to practice leaning in, holding nothing back, being present to whatever is before me, whatever is before me, and giving it my whole heart's attention. And usually while it's a struggle, that will bring me back in touch with that underlying vastness. If that doesn't work. If you know, if this fear or this pain or this worries got a grip on me, well, then I'll

read something that has always touched me. It's funny, how, you know, back when we're just buying albums, you know, you know, and I'm sure everybody does this, but I would hear one chord in one song on an album that would just take me there, and I'd buy the whole album for that one chord. And actually, you know, now later in life, I mean, I'll just play that because we have the technology to do it. Forget the

rest of it. I'll just play the one were and over and over because that happens for me at that moment, to be the thread I can pull that will bring me back. Then if that, you know, another thing is calling up my nearest friend or talking to my wife, or you know, calling up a friend and saying, tell me a story. I don't care what it is, just anything that's not me. Yeah, what you said I think is really true. And meditation I think is a really

profound tool. But for me, I found if I'm pretty churned up, meditation is not not not always the best place to go sometimes, but but very often not, and I love that idea. I often think of it as like I need some other voice in my head besides my own. Whether it's like you said, reading, talking to a friend, listening to a piece of music. I've got to get some other voice in my head besides my own sometimes because I just I feel trapped in it. Well,

and and meditation, let's open it up. It takes many forms. It's not just sitting on a cushion, you know. For me, I I swim, uh you know, which is my exercise. But I learned pretty quickly. I've been swimming for about fifteen years. But I learned pretty quickly that while I did it, you know, I went to it physically right for aerobics and all that. But it turned out, oh, it's really a moving meditation. It really does more to center me. And it sure it does stuff for me physically,

but I realized that's why I really do it. And so whatever it might be, you know, it could be you know, raking leaves or yeah, whatever, picking up branches at this time of year that have fallen in the winter. Whatever it is, when we can be present then our being and doing a line. And I like to talk about that is. So one thing that I try to do when I'm agitated is return to moving at the pace of what is real. What do I mean by that? Well, for me, what I mean is nobody can stay there.

But when my mind and heart and body or moving at the same pace, that seems to be like a mystical tumblers in a mystical lock. That opened me to those peak moments when everything starts to glow or that that conduit back to that vastness and and then yeah, then you know, I trip, and now adrenaline runs in

my heart races and I'm not there anymore. Right, But but that that effort to try to move at the pace of what is real, to slow down enough so that those my mind, heart and body aligne and I have a different kind of openness, that that starts to happen. I love that idea I have experimented with. I've been

doing it lately this week. The weather has been nice here in Columbus, nice enough, and I've been out running and I'm I'm setting a variety of these Buddhist zen chants that I that I have to my footsteps, and it's boom boom, you know, got done? Done, and it just after are to five twenty minutes of that, Boy, do I sink into a connected, deep place that's very different than like what a sitting meditation would be or whatever.

Because it's, like you said, my mind is moving at exactly the pace that my body is moving, and there there's a real connection there and I found that to be. Uh, And I'm outside, so it's kind of beautiful, and it's it's it's a wonderful precative. It's it's been nice. Another thing in this regard is which we often don't do. I mean I do it as a poet all the time, but it's it's just helpful as a being is to read out loud. It's very different than reading. We can't.

We're blessed that we can read silently, but there's a different thing that happens to us when we read out loud, even when we're alone, even to ourselves. And uh, because you know, it's like sheet music. I mean, I can't read sheet music. And you know, but somebody who maybe is a very talented musician can read sheet music and hear some sense of the music. But most of us can't. And even if they could, that's different than playing the music,

and it's the same thing. Reading to yourself is one thing for comprehension, but for embodiment, that's just sheet music. We need to play it. I committed more seriously over the last year to a to a deeper zen practice. I kind of was I've shared this on the show before. I I'm interviewing somebody different every week, and it's easy for me just to kind of be all over the map.

And about a year ago I went, you know, I just at least for this little part, you know, this, this one aspect I want to I want to go deep in one area. And and so there's been that part of the zen practice too, which is the chanting, which is something I haven't done a whole lot of in the past, but or or even reciting some of these things out loud after my meditation. There is a different feel to it to actually say it and hear it out loud than to just read it even in

my head, repeat it in my head. And the beautiful thing about what we're talking about is that these things align on us and they're not about chant beautifully, and no danger of that. It's not about reading. Well, you know, we meditate, not to be great breathers, but to be clear vessels. And the same thing we sing, we write, we express, we dance not to be great performers, but

to be clear vessels. You say early in the book that the purpose of the human journey is to live openly and honestly until we become a source of uncovered light. And I thought that was a beautiful line. It made me resonated with what you just said, you know, until we become a source of uncovered light, or as you said,

a vessel. Yeah, thank you, thank you. Recently I heard you say somewhere and I think this is valid right now for a variety of different reasons, and not the least of which is the fact that we have a potentially terrifying virus on the planet. Right But he said, we've become addicted to the noise of things falling apart, and I think that's a really wise statement, and I thought we could explore that for a minute. Well, yeah,

and it pertains right now. I very much appreciate and love the Buddhist notion of seeing things as they are, which is maybe the at once the simplest and hardest practice we can do individually and collectively. And here's a good application of it, or case study of it, is that things, by nature, when they fall apart, they make a lot of noise, and when things come together, they're quieter.

Now things, by the very nature of existence, kind of like spiritual physics, things are always coming together and falling apart. At the same time. When we're falling apart, we see the world as dark and terrible and chaotic, and it's tragic. And when we're coming together, isn't it wonderful? Everything is America? Well, of course, it's all things. At the same time, we are challenged to honor what we're going through and at the same time realize that what we're going through does

not define the world or life. And so I do believe in the modern world we are addicted to the noise of things falling apart, which makes it hard to see things as they are. There's no question that this coronavirus is the thing that we all need to look at carefully, participate, be serious about. It's unknown. We have no idea what's going to happen, but it's hard to address what's actually really happening. Once we inflate and sustain a distortion of all that which leads to excessive fear.

And you know we've already heard, for example, multiple uh you know, medical sources and experts say that if you're sick, it helps to wear a mask, but if you're not, the mask doesn't do anything to protect you. It keeps

you from contaminating others. But it's our distortion out of fear where you know, everyone so many people are wearing masks, and also it's creating a shortage where people in the health professions we're working in hospitals, doctors, nurses, and caregivers and first responders, we're having already a shortage of masks. So we're complicating the problem by not withstanding the discomfort and fear and going down into into the depth, not

the waves, to say, okay, this is real. We're not going to deny and or minimize it, but what is actually happening, so we know what right action is. You know, there's a great metaphor from a master teacher of a kaido. You know, I don't know anything. I can't practice any of those martial arts, but of course you know I read about everything, and there are wonderful teachings in all of this, and so this one comes a master. A kaido teacher will often teach beginning students how to right

size things and see what's actually there. So they'll say, for instance, like you know someone's coming at you with a knife. Now, adrenaline will make everything in front of you a cloud of fear. And the instruction, in addition to physical movement or whatever, is to outweight the cloud of fear, so you can see that of all the places in front of you, only one spot is dangerous, and that's the tip of the knife. Everything else is safe. Once you can see that, you have real choices now

in real time. I have no idea how you practice that, but as a meta for for how we meet the outer world of circumstance, this is a powerful It's a powerful metaphor. How can we outweigh this the noise of things falling apart and the cloud of fear? You know I faced this all the time. You know from my work. I'm a long term cancer survivor over thirty two years. You know, I almost died in my thirties. I'm just

recently turned sixty nine and thankfully I'm well. But part of the PTSD of being a cancer survivor is every time something happened. You know, I get a cold, or I get a gland that because um that you know, run down, that shows up all of a sudden, that cloud of fear like that knife appearing. It's all, oh, it's coming back. It's everywhere. And you know I've had that's been practiced ground for me to say, I I can't react and go running into the labyrinth of tests

and everything. I need to outweight the cloud of fear so I can see what's actually there, so that I have real choices and I'm not just flailing blindly and all this with passion. Of course, this is scary, and this raises another thing. I mean again with the coronavirus. This is serious, it's real. But we're not responding well because also in the modern world, we have catastrophized our relationship to the unknown. When I was a kid and there were only three TV channels and uh, you know,

weather report was called the weather report. Now it's called storm watch, right, So well, you know, storm is only one form of the unknown. It's only one form of weather. And so yes, the unknown can produce catastrophe and pain and difficulty, but it also produces wonder and beauty, you know. But for me, not one person who has been important in my life, who have loved significant other and anyone. That's not something I've planned. It's always been a surprise.

It's always been a function of the unknown. So the things that make us resilient are out there in the unknown about to appear as well. And if we simply cut off the unknown, we cut ourselves off from the resources and only hunkered down with the catastrophes. Yeah, there's a lot you said there that that line, addicted to the noise of things flying apart. What I like about it is, as someone who's suffered from heroin addiction, different things,

addiction shrinks everything down. That's it. That's all there is. And to your point, you know, that's a great way to think of it, because it's not that things aren't falling apart, because some things are falling apart, as is the nature of things, and they're real. And I also love that idea of and this gets back to us talking before about seeing only the problem or only the

very small slice of reality versus all of it. And that's that point you're making about seeing you know, the knife point is dangerous, but there's stuff all around it, and you know it just it points to this idea that the smaller our view gets, the more we suffer, regardless, and the more broad that we can make our view, the more whole and vast we can make it the better.

And I'm always sort of struck by this sense, like, well, yeah, there's lots of things that are going wrong in the world, but there, every moment of every day is populated with beauty everywhere and people treating each other well and kind and love, and it's everywhere also, even probably in far greater numbers, it's just not nearly as stimulating. Nothing that everybody doesn't sort of know. And yet it's hard sometimes to look away. There's a real paradox that there, you know,

and we're all susceptible. It's so humbling. This goes back to the good wolf and the bad wolf, or the whole and the partial. If I'm not present and open hearted, then the smallest thing governs me and it leads me into addiction of all kinds of perception, of feeling, of thought of Okay, but when I'm present in everything, every smallest moment in detail is a threshold to the holy universe. It's a huge difference. And it's a humbling thing because

pain can reduce us. Sometimes we break and we fall into being completely overrun by the smallest thing, and sometimes we break open and fall into the lens of the miraculous, and and anything can be an addiction. You know, I have my dearest oldest friend who've written about Robert. He's in He's a recovering alcoholic who's been in recovery for almost forty years. And we help save each other's lives because he had bottom while I was in the hospital.

And years later, you know, he had neuropathy from advanced alcoholism and I had neuropathy from being damaged by chemo. We're about, I don't know, eight years on the other side of him hitting bottom and me still being here. And we were out in the summer. We're having a sandwich, sitting on a bench, quiet with our numb hands, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he looked at me and he said, well, I'm an alcoholic, but you're a make aholic. And I immediately, while I had never

thought of it, I knew exactly what he meant. Yeah, I knew exactly what he meant. You know, I mean this creative force in me, which is a window to the holy, has been the life source of all my life force. And if I don't stay grounded in my heart, if I don't stay balanced, I can become addicted. I can become I mean, it will use me up. You know, I can work for days. It's not a question of

sticking to it. It's a question of stopping. And so you know, when I'm there, or when I was younger, I would just ride it and it would be like it would be holy, but it would be like a high. And then at some point, that force, that light force would say, come on, keep going, you don't need to eat, keep going, We're almost there. Come on. And again, obviously

this is not just about me. This is that this is that fine fine line between what's holy and but what's what we feed the light, the light, whole good wolf or the dark partial black hole wolf. Right. Yeah, it really is back to the having the big picture, not the small picture. So let's change directions just a little bit. There's something that I wanted to explore in your book because I thought this was boy, this really

spoke to me. And um, you said, we all struggle with the tension between our obsession with making things new and the wisdom that comes from re entering life as many times as necessary in order for it to reveal its secrets. How many times do we run from those we love because we insist on finding something new when we're often being asked to live more deeply where we are. The same can be said for our work in the world.

How often do we abandon what has meaning because we think we're bored when we're actually being asked to penetrate the habit of work in order to unearth the very center of our calling. And I thought that was so great, because I think it's a question that I actively wrestle with from time to time that I think as when I was younger, I just thought it needed to be something else, and I just would lose interest and change

directions over and over. As I gotten older, I think I've gotten wiser to realize now life is asking me to go deeper here. But boy, it's still that that siren call of something different, and sometimes that's what's needed. And I think it's discerning those two. But I was really struck by that. I haven't heard anybody articulate something that's been a fairly fundamental challenge in my life, or at least a fundamental thing to work with. I haven't

heard anybody articulated that clearly. Well, it's a very profound thing. It's been profound teaching for me. And you know, I think as a poet, as an artist, you know, I mean, we were all trained. We all are trained, you know, and you look as a pound at the beginning of the nineteenth century, uh made the famous statement make it new, and he, in my view, he set an entire generation back because you know, it feeds a deeper spiritual illusion.

And then we'll get back to this part of the conversation, and that is the menacing assumption that life is happening other than where we are. It's just not true. And you know, and and the truth is, there is no there. There's only here. There's only here. And we spend so much time chasing, whether it's in time or place or relationship or work. If I could only get over there, if I could only have a relationship like those people, if I could only you know, be like this, If

I could only get like then I'd be happy. Then I'd behold then and you know, I mean one of the profound blessings in my life and paradoxes. Is that at this time of my life and I love, you know, teaching and being with folks, and I travel a lot, and I literally I travel all over the world, and whenever I get wherever I go, I go there to affirm that there's nowhere to go, and it's and I'm happy to do it. And it's and of course we're on this again in the surface world of certain of

course we're all traveling from different places. But it's like we were talking about with those moments that every time we're present and open our heart, what whether it's through love or suffering, it's always the same eternal moment that opens.

There is no there, there's only here. So, you know, one of the things and this applies not just to art but to life and the things we're talking about, is you know, again I was taught when I was a young poet and graduate school, you know, be on the look for good material, the good things to write about. And of course almost dying and still being here. Not only was it a miracle that I was here, but the real miracle was that it scoured my perception so

that the ordinary reveal the lens of the miraculous. Everything is miraculous, everything is good material. It's only whether I'm present enough to enter it. And so if I'm not present enough, that I get bored and then I run over here, and and this happens, you know, with serial relationships, you know, and that certainly, let's be clear, I'm not saying we should stay in relationships at all costs, and

we outgrow relationships. We we certainly shouldn't stay in abusive relationships, but a lot of times we get bored or we don't want to face things about ourselves, and then so it's always easier to fall in love than to stay in love. The intoxication of the quote new and often, as you know, in that quote, we we are being asked to enter and not go from here to there, but to go from out to end, to drop down, to open up, so that the miracle appears wherever we are.

And I also learned this through not through any wisdom on my part, but because when I was ill, I couldn't much as I wanted to leave what I was facing, I couldn't. I mean I physically couldn't move a lot of the time, and I had to be where I was until through exhaustion it opened up. I mean maybe you and your journey to addiction of experience something similar where this, you know, the miracle of what is it opens up underneath us. And of course I was always like,

I had no idea. Oh my god, it's right here, it's right here. Yeah, I've always studied Zen. But it's what drew me to make a deeper commitment. There was because that's the thing of Zen that has always been so clear to me. It's always pointing to like right now, this, this, this, this, over and over, and I realized that's for me, that's where the learning was. I I'm doing Cohen study and I'm working on a coon right now, and it's the

best coon to illustrate this. And it's a monk asks the Master, what is the meaning of Bodhi Dharma coming from the West, and Bodhi Dharma is the found or Zen? Why did the why did the founder of Zen come?

What was the medium of the whole thing? And they and the and the Master answers the oak tree in the garden, and you suddenly have just taken this whole massive thing, and you said, oh, the whole point of it was just that you could see and appreciate that beautiful tree there, like it's right here, it's nowhere else. And and uh, what was that you said? The menacing illusion? That life is menacing assumption that life is other than

where we are, and that that has an addictive quality. Totally, Yeah, totally. And another there's a chapter you might remember in the in the new book about the fire of aliveness. You know, we all have to survive and thrive, often out of fear. We make a god out of survival. And but if we survive without thriving, what's the point. But you know, so when I talk about in that chapter is that there is the fire of circumstance, which are the faculty as we encounter, and that fire needs to be doused.

You know, that's the fire of worry, of pain. That's literal fire. You know, I'm working, I'm cooking at the stove and something catches fire. I gotta put it out, you know. But the fire of a liveness that comes from within us, this is where the heart connects, the portion of soul we carry with the rest of universal spirit. That fire needs to be fed, that fire needs to be kept alive. And so we have this twin calling

in order to survive. Yes, we you know, to bring it back to the coronavirus right now, Yes, it makes we should wash our hands. Okay, can't be foolish and say, you know, we'll forget about that. It's not really no. But at the same time, we can't stop loving and living. We need to feed that fire of a lie iveness and kinship in connection, and that becomes an art, a personal art. What does that mean? Well, every you, me,

everyone listening has to personalize. What does that look like for you to douse the fire of circumstance and to feed the fire of aliveness. Yeah. I loved that section of the book. And there's there's something you wrote here which is I'm going to read because it's kind of practical towards this. And you say you mentioned when I find myself drifting into the future, dwelling in the past, right, which is what we're talking about, moving out of being here.

I close my eyes and start over, trying to bring all of me to whatever is there when I open them again. I vowed to look at one thing at a time like a child. I vowed to listen more closely, like a person gone blind. I vowed to rediscover the world in whatever gritty, precious thing is before me, and to quiet my mind so I might feel the vastness of life flowing between us. And that's a very practical way to approach this. It's a very practical way of doing that. How do I feed the fire of aliveness?

Another kind of practices And this happened. You know, when we get caught up by any kind of detail, or you know, pull to other than where we are, or worry or fear, you know, we tend to go over it like if I go I tell you to myself, well, if I go over one more time, I'll figure it out, or it'll land better, or I'll feel and it never works. The only thing to do is drop it. And the hardest thing is to drop it just when you don't

want to drop it. And you know, I have a little poem of mind that I that's a real And these poems, you know, the things that I write, I retrieve and they become my teachers, you know, And this one has been a great teacher for me. It's a very it's a short poem. It goes like this called practicing as a man in his last breath drops. All he is carrying. Each breath is a little death that can set us free. And so the harder, you know, when fear, worry and pain push us away, we gotta

lean back in. You know, when I'm trying to figure things out, you know, too hard and I'm stuck in my mind, I just have to drop it. Just drop it. And this is another thing I think that's been a profound listen for me over the years, and that is as soon as we count or compare, we're no longer present. Oh boy, yep. And so you know I've learned that, and we listen to that, we talked about it. Someone maybe listening to say, well, good, I won't counter compare, Well,

we will. That's not the point. The point is to recognize it when we do so we can drop it because you know, for instance, example emotional example, we're friends, I respect you and one day you say something pretty harsh to me, and oh man, because I love you and respect you, it just goes right to me, right. And so later on i'm you know, I'm working in I'm going, well, how could he say that? And I thought I was Now that you know, it cuts my worth, my self worth and I'm going over it to try

to make it better or land better with it. Did not the matter whether I am counting up or down or comparing up or down. The more I do it, which is an addictive quality in itself, it only unravels my worth further. The only thing that will restore my worth is to stop counting and comparing and be present so I can restore my direct connection to my life and to the vastness that holds us. That's right. Yeah, I've often talked about that. It's been on my mind

a lot in coaching work that I've done. It's been part of the Spiritual Habits program that we've put together and we're offering. Is this idea of we can compare ourselves up or we can compare ourselves down. You can always do that, but like you said, when we do that, we sever connection. And this ties back into what we were just saying about seeing things as they are one of the things we do as human beings which we just have to accept and have self compassion. And I

love your notion of spiritual habits. I love that. You know we need that. Um you know is that we tend to inflate or deflate our sense of ourselves and our circumstances, and we need to right size them and see things as they are again, so we can have, you know, clear choices, so that we can restore our presents, we can restore our direct presence. Yeah, I've told this

story recently because it just struck me so much. We were watching with my My partner's mother has Alzheimer's and so I'm always looking for shows that she'll want to watch that relax her. And so we've been watching The Crown on Netflix, which is about the royal family, which is incredibly well done. Not really my normal thing i'd watch, but there's an episode about Princess Margaret, and Princess Margaret is the Queen's sister and she wants attention, She craves attention,

and she always feels like she doesn't have enough. But what's amazing is that Princess Margaret gets more attention than nine nine nine percent of us in the world get. She just doesn't get more than one person. And but when she looks at that one person and compares herself to her, she suffers mightily. And it's just it's such a stunning example to me that our comparison is this point of reference that doesn't make any sense, and how much we can suffer from it. It's just such a

blatant example of it that I saw recently. Well, that's a great example. It's a great example. And what it raises too, is that when we insist on comparing, not only do we increase our suffering, but this is what leads and this is feeding the darker wolf, because then if we don't face what is ours to face, then this leads to jealousy. And what's worse than jealousy is and you know, jealousy is she wants the attention that

her sister gets and doesn't see her own worth. Envy is she doesn't want her sister to have that right, and that's destructive. So so, you know, one of the first things we can do to reduce violence in the world is to stop counting and comparing when we find ourselves doing it, and to have the courage to face what is ours to face. Well, I think that is a beautiful place for us to wrap this up. This

has been a wonderful conversation. You and I are going to talk a few more minutes in the post show conversation about you say the spiritual qualities of immersion and devotion, how they've guided and saved your life more than once. So we're going to talk about those in the post show conversation listeners. If you'd like to get access to that, as well as an episode I do each week called the Teaching a Song and a Poem, you can go to One you Feed dot net slash join and become

part of the community. Mark, thank you so much for coming on. It's always such a pleasure to talk with you, and I get so much out of your work. Oh well, thank you. It's enjoyed to be in this continuing conversation together. Thank you. Okay bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community. With this monthly pledge, you get lots of

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