Roger Housden

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 Roger Holsten. Roger founded and ran the Open Gate, a conference and workshop center in England that introduced the work of ram Dos, teknot On and many others into Europe. His work has been featured many times in the Oprah magazine, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. His newest book is Dropping the Struggle seven Ways to Love the Life you have. Hey, everybody,

a couple of quick announcements. The first is that the one you feed coaching program is opening its enrollment window back up. It will be open for one week or until we sell out of spots. The holidays are coming up and it's been a time that we found a lot of people need a little bit of extra help. So if you are interested, go to one you feed dot net slash coaching program. You can sign up there and you will get information sent to you where you

can register for the program if you're interested. And then the second thing is that our Facebook group is still going and it's going strong. Lots of great discussion, lots of great support amongst friends there. If you want to check that out, you can go to one you feed dot net slash Facebook. Thanks, and here's the interview with Roger Hausden. Hi, Roger, welcome to the show. Pleasure to be here. I'm happy to have you on. Your book

is called Dropping the Struggle. Seven Ways to Love the Life you Have, and we will get into more detail about it here in just a minute, but let's start like we usually do with the parable, and in the parable, there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson, 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 grandsaid stops and he thinks about it for a second, and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, 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 means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah, that's a great parable. Um. First of all, it's it's really a perfect illustration of the

world that we live in, both internally and externally. Because we live in a world of polarity, there is always going to be two forces really struggling with each other in one way or another, and that's the way it is. So that's necessary. There's never gonna be one good wolf for nothing else. So I think part of the secret to that, or what the opportunity in that is, is that it gives us human beings the conscious opportunity a choice you know, we actually have a choice to feed

either one wolf or the other. Now, a lot of the time we actually don't make a choice. We're rather driven by our reactive mind or by our emotional reactions. And when we're driven by emotional reaction or reactive mind, we are not able to make a choice. Usually when that happens, we feed the wolf that eventually comes back

to snap at our own heels. So I think the fundamental opportunity there, you know, is to stop to feel oneself, by which I mean feel the one's presence in one's own body, that is, come into the present moment for a moment, and give yourself the opportunity to make a choice that really is conscious. So which wolf am I going to choose right now? That really is the opportunity that we are presented with every moment of our lives. Yeah.

The other thing that I was thinking about as you were talking, and I was thinking about the title of your book, Dropping the Struggle, is that one of the things I think I like about the parable is I think it normalizes the human condition that we do have these opposing forces within us, or or you know, we have different types of desires or however you want to phrase it, and I love the idea. One of the things I like about the parable is I think it

says it's okay, that's the way we are. And so even though we don't give up the um trying to make the right choice between the wolves, we can in a sense drop at least the struggle to think that we should always always be good and and feel bad about ourselves when we have these other parts of our personality that the show up. Well, that's a really important point. And you know, this is been spoken of for hundreds and hundreds of years, not only in spiritual traditions, but

also in literature. I'm thinking of William Blake, the great English poet of the eighteenth century. He was saying exactly this, you know, two hundred and fifty years ago. That is that our notions of good and bad are distorted. It's true that there are constantly and always and always will

be opposing forces. But as soon as we imagine that we can actually eradicate one and only have what the one that we consider to be so called the good one, and we're simply living an illusion, because living in this world we are subject to those two forces, however, and I think this is the secret, and this is what the those polarities appointing us to It is possible to go a third way, and the conscious choice, the conscious awareness of the choice available to you, is already the

beginning of a third way that is actually not dominated by either of the polarities, but it's coming from a deeper layer of intelligence than the ordinary dualistic, preactive mind. So your book, dropping the Struggle Seven Ways to Love

the Life you have. We're going to go into more detail in a minute, but before we do that, before you wrote this book, what you were mostly known for was a series of books with titles like ten Poems to Change Your Life, And so you explored the human condition by bringing together a lot of different poems that you really liked, and you sort of talked about how

they show light onto the human condition. And so I was curious if you could just talk for a minute about the power of poetry to do that, and maybe if you could think of a poem or two for listeners that might be good for the theme of this show. Well, I continued dozens of poems that are good for this show. But first of all, actually the very beginning of this

book dropping the struggle. At the very beginning of this book, there's a page with the title A note on the use of Poetry as a Wisdom language, and I do include a poem at the beginning of each chapter. There are seven chapters exploring different struggles that I've experienced in one way or another, and each chapter begins with a poem.

The point about poetry, I think, is that it speaks truth in a universal language, and it's a universal language that crosses cultural boundaries, and it speaks directly to the human heart in a way actually the prose can really aspire to. It's also more free. Poetry is more free of religious dogma than spiritual traditions, so in that sense, also it's a universal language. It also gets to the very heart of an insight or an understanding. Really, essentially,

poetry has inspired utterance. Is not a teaching it's not trying to tell us what to do. It's it's not the kind of truth that we were recognized necessarily with our rational mind. So poetry reaches deeper than the rational mind and responds to something in us that I would say is more of the heart, that is more really knowing that we can sense the truth of even if we don't fully understand it in a rational way. That's

why I use poetry. So, for example, here's a poem by great twenty century Spanish poet called Juan Ramon Jimenez called I Am not I, and it goes like this, I am not I. I am not I. I am this one walking beside me, whom I do not see, who at times I manage to visit and at other times I forget. I am not I. I am this one who forgives gently when I hate, who walks where I am not, who will remain standing when I die. When I die. I am not I. I am this

one walking beside me, whom I do not see. So that palmed for me wonderfully captures our dual nature, if you like, the personality and the witness, the one in us who is able to quietly be there in the background, seeing our life as we move through it. And so I think that's what humanity means by I am not I. I'm not I, meaning not the familiar identity I think I am. That has a place. Of course, we all need a narrative, a story to walk our walk, hard

walk through this world. But he's also pointing to another dimension of the human being that is deeper than our familiar identity. I am not I, and this one walking beside me whom I do not see. So he's speaking there to the presence of being that I think we all know at one moment or another in our life. The stillness, you know, in the middle of activity, that is not disturbed by all the drama of our ordinary, familiar life. And it's not separate from that familiar life,

it's concurrent with it. So that's what that parmer is pointing to, and my book Dropping the Struggle really points to the same premise, that there is a quality of being in us that does knows not to struggle, and that that quality of being in us that knows not to struggle, you could call the witness. As I mentioned at the top of the show, the enrollment window for the One You Feed coaching program is open now again for one week or until we sell out of spots.

The holidays are coming up, and it's a time that a lot of people struggle. Might be that you're spending more time with family, which stresses you out. You might be feeling alone or lonely and and not sure what to do with yourself When everybody else is feeling happy, it could be a difficult time to stick to your diet.

Over spending is a problem for people. So if you are wanting to make this a great holiday season and really give yourself a gift, a great gift to give yourself is the coaching program, and you can go to one you feed dot net Slash Coaching program and get more information. Again, the enrollment window will be open for one week, which means that by midnight November two, you'll need to sign up for at least the fifteen minute

intro call. If you're signed up for the fifteen minute intro call by that date, you'll still be considered for one of the spots. So again, holidays coming up. If you feel like you could use a little extra support one you feed dot net slash Coaching program. Thanks. Let's jump into the book a little bit. You have seven different types of struggles to drop, and before we do that, I want to talk about something that you say in

the book because I think it's a useful distinction. Before we get started, you say struggle is not the same as effort. So you also at another point say that struggle is not the same thing as work. So help me understand the difference. You know, when we're saying let's give up the struggle, you're not saying to give up making effort. You're not saying to give up working on something. What's the essence of what you are saying. Well, yes, I'm definitely not saying that struggle has no part in life.

After all, there's not a single person on this earth who has not struggled in one way or another in their life. So clearly struggle is part of the human experience. In fact, we're or most of us, come into this world struggling for air. So there's a place for struggle is usually when our survival depends upon it, as in

the moment of being born. But struggle is very often misplaced in the sense that we often struggle for things, especially you know that the deeper, more meaningful things of being human, like, for example, a life purpose or love that matter, you know, these existential givens of life that we all wish for. You know, struggle is counterproductive in those areas of life. Effort is a different thing altogether, really, because we all know that effort is needed actually in

in any area of life. In every area of life. But struggle, I would say, is an extra push, which really a rich needs. I think in fear. Effort does not require fear for its for its energizing movement. But struggle, you know, adds a note of desperation if you like that. Rarely, if ever works, you know, in the areas of our life the matter most to us. That's the difference between really struggle and effort. As far as work is concerned,

you mentioned work too. I speak to that in the in the actually in the chapter on love and relationships, and anyone who is or has been in a relationship well acknowledge that almost always any way, work is required in some form or another. The primary work, of course, is the willingness to be aware of the workings of one's own mind. One can never really become intimate with

another if one doesn't even really know oneself. And that is a discipline, that's a willingness to bring that intention, that conscious intention, into one's daily life and into one's relationship. So work is a natural part of any any relationship, and also a natural part of any healthy conscious life. But against struggle, I think we know that when we're

struggling in a in a relationship. You know that very often where tending to beat our head against the wars, something is not working when we're struggling, And usually what is not working is not the other person, but a lack of capacity in the moment to actually really feel and inquire into our own mind. One of the areas that you talk about dropping the struggle, as you say, dropping the struggle for a perfect life. Can you talk

a little bit more about that. I think that's really important, Eric, and glad you brought that up, you know, especially in in our culture and this culture, where you know, we'd also love to get our ducks in a row, um, you know, to have the perfect job or a great job and a great relationship and a great house or you know. And the truth is, which I'm sure that we all realize at one point or another in our lives,

that you know, that life just isn't perfect. It's just not going to work out the way we plan at the beginning. It doesn't mean to say it's going to be worse or better, but it's certainly very likely to be different and not quite perfect or not quite as the way we would like it to be. And actually that chapter begins with a great poem by Ellen Bass called Relax. And these are the first few lives. Bad

things are going to happen. No matter how many vitamins you take, how much pilate is your loose, is your keys, your hair and your memory? Your wallet will be stolen, You'll get fat, flip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel and crack your hip. You'll be lonely. Oh taste, how sweet and tart the red juice is, How the tiny seeds crunch, crunch between your teeth? You know? So we are imperfect. I'm certainly imperfect, and I don't think

there's anybody who isn't. And I think that the more we come to embrace and acknowledge our own imperfections, we can come to an acknowledge and embrace the way in which life itself doesn't seem to be perfect, although of course, really it is the way that it happens. The way that life unfals is the way it's happening. Who's to say it's wrong. The only thing that seems to think it's wrong is the plan we had in our head.

But life doesn't really concern itself too much for our plans and the more that we align ourselves with life as it's presenting itself, the happier will be. In the book, you talk about Nietzsche's idea of loving your fate, and you say acknowledging and accepting the conditions of your life exactly as they are, whatever they are, because that is what you have. Yeah, that's really it's a beautiful phrase by Nietzsche. Frederick Nietzsche. You know, he said, I'm more

fatty to love your fate. But he didn't mean your fate in the sense of your life being destined or fated from beginning to end, so that really there's no choice involved at all, because it's all predestined and laid out from the beginning. That's not what he meant by love your fate. Fate, for nietsure was the very moment

that we're existing and living right now. So for me, right now, it's sitting here talking to you and to everyone else who's listening to this podcast, and at the same time, I'm gazing upon a great mountain called Mount Tamin, Marine County, California, and that is what I'm presented with right now. To love what I'm presented with means to fully embrace it because it's what is happening. That doesn't mean that in one minute, five minutes, ten minutes time

it's not going to change. Of course it will. Life does change, But right now we only have this moment. This is the moment we have. This is our fate. I almost said, and I might as well say, can we die into the moment that we're living now as if there were no other? That is what he meant

Niatsure when he speaks spook of living one's fate. And it's certainly what I would mean by dropping the struggle, because the more we actually allow ourselves to fall into the life we've already got, I mean right now at this moment, unless struggle will be. Mostly what we struggle with and for is to try and make what we have different. In other words, we're usually struggling for what we don't have but would like, or we're struggling to get rid of in some way or change what we

already have. And I think the third way the key is to totally dive into and accept and accept. By accept, I mean embrace and welcome the moment we have. Certainly many people find that being on this show is one of their finest moments around try and three. M h m hmm. I think that's an idea that many of us are coming to, right and many people strive for, which is being present in the moment, you know, relaxing

into the life we have. You make the point, though, and I think it's a good one, that that's not necessarily something you can do. Um. You mentioned Edward Slingerland in the book, his book Trying Not to Try, and we had him on as a guest, and it's this idea of some of these states, we can't will ourselves into it. So what's the right perspective for making conditions as conducive as they can be to us being able

to die into the current moment. To use your phrase, rather than accept, I prefer the word allow, and even more than allow, the word welcome. Really it's being willing in the moment to acknowledge one's reality rather than some other reality that one would like but is not currently present. Whatever it is to acknowledge and welcome one's reality, one actually has to really see that this really is what I've got. For example, I mentioned about the Antarctic explorer

Ben Saunders. Now he was in a very extreme situation he was in his going in the footsteps of Captain Scott in the Arctic Antarctic, sorry, completely unaided on his own, walking hundreds of miles across the snowy wastes of the Antarctic, and at one point in the middle of the journey there he was pushing his head into the wind, struggling to move forward step by step, freezing obviously in sub

zero temperatures. And there was just this moment that he suddenly realized the complete reality and truth of his situation without struggling against it. He didn't want it to get warmer or the wind to stop, because that's not what was happening. In that moment, he suddenly got that this is where I am and what I'm in And as he saw that, he somehow let go, deeply surrendered, but not as a kind of act of volition, but it was a kind of spontaneous letting go of the struggle

against the wind and against the temperature. Now, the temperature and the wind didn't change, but he changed, and he felt as a result, even though the conditions were exactly the same, everything in him was different, and he felt. It sounds ridiculous to say, but this was what he said. He felt a kind of joy rising throughout his body as he realized that, you know, he had completely given in to the reality of the moment. Now that's a rather extreme situation example, but it really is the same

through all of us. It's really a question of seeing, not intellectually, not just as an idea or concept, but that this moment that we have really is it this, This is it for our life. This is a I think when we get that a door opens. Another area that you talk about dropping the struggle is dropping the struggle with time. And I want to talk about a particular idea that you bring up in that section around

the idea of leisure. You say, leisure foster is not only pleasure, but enjoyment, and enjoyment happens when we are fully immersed in our experience at the intersection of doing and being. And you talk about how the concept of what leisure is has changed over time. Can you share a little bit more about that? Well, I think really I should point to the wonderful Benedictine Monk David stendel Brast,

you know, who wrote in his Essential Writings. He pointed out that actually leisure need not be separate from work. That for him to work in a leisurely way, I love this. To work in a leisurely way actually is the highest expression of work. And by that he means that leisure it's not the privilege of people who can afford to take time and not do anything. Leisure is the virtue of those who give to everything they do

the time it has to take. Whereas all too often in our culture we are rushing through an activity to get it over with. And when we do that, actually it's it actually is killing time. Leisurely activity, that is, activity that we're really fully engaged in, makes time come alive because it connects us to the timeless. Now, what I mean by that is when we're fully in whatever it is we're doing, we're in a flow. A tennis player knows this, as chef knows this, Artists of all

kinds know this. That flow that you know, when we're in it and fully engaged, it's almost as if we're not doing what we're doing. It's almost doing itself through us. That's what I mean by the timeless. And yet something is getting done, a meal is getting cooked, you know, a tennis game is getting played. So the rushing through an activity to get it over with actually prevents that

sense of flow to to emerge. And when we're in the flow, we are both in time and in the timeless at the same time, we're near the end of time. But the last struggle that I want to talk about that you talk about dropping is dropping the struggle to know. Can you tell me what that means to you? Yes, we live in a knowledge culture. Knowledge is the most highly priced thing in our culture that there is, really and for very good reason. Knowledge is immensely valuable and useful.

Of course it is, and we all now have the great God Google who can find us pretty much and that thing and everything that we do want to know, and it's immensely valuable. But knowledge there's a static thing. And by that I mean, first of all, the word knowledge is a noun. It's a thing. It's a fact, it's an item of information, and knowing is a verb. It's active. In other words, it's a process. It's not a thing. It's not something you can store in your memory.

You can store knowledge, but not knowing, So knowing comes from a different dimension in us. So dropping the struggle to know. By that, I mean we can all too easily think, especially in our culture, that the more knowledge we have, the more control we will have and understanding

will have about our lives. Now, of course, at the material level that can be true, but again in terms of the deeper aspects of our life, like meaning and love to quote those again, no matter how much knowledge we have, even though knowledge is useful in those areas and can be valuable, no matter how much knowledge we are, we're never really going to know in terms of information, the secret of what our life is really about, and that comes from, I would say, instead of the frontal

cortex or prefrontal cortex, the rational mind, and instead of that, knowing really comes from what I would call what the Buddhists call the heart mind, the quality of knowing, which is actually wordless um. And I think we've all experienced that one way or another in our lives, where you know, we wake up one morning we just for whatever reason, just somehow no what we need to do or where

we need to go. That happened for me when I was in my hometown of Bath in England, and I woke up one morning and I just new, without any prior uh consideration or internal discussion, I just knew without any question that I needed to move to America, and in six months I was living in San Francisco and I still live there now. Uh. And that kind of knowing, I think, you know, is available and accessible to all of us, but it's not really something that is helped

necessarily by information or by knowledge. Um, it's something which is deeper than that and is accessible to all of us. Well, I think that is a great place to wrap up the show. Roger, thanks so much for taking the time to come on. I really enjoyed the book, and I'm looking forward to looking into some of the other books that go more into poetry than the current one does, because I think it's an opening to something different than I get in my normal day to day life. Yeah. Oh,

it's it's been a pleasure speaking with you. Thanks so much. Thank you, Okay, take care bye. You can learn more about Roger Housden and this podcast at one you Feed dot net slash Roger