Hello and welcome to a happy place, I'm fine, Cotton, and this is the show that delves deep into the minds of brilliantly thoughtful people. So the rest of us can learn to lead lovely happy lives today, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I'm meeting author and queen of positive thinking, Rhonda Byrne. You know, for many people, they may be feeling fear at a level they've never felt it before. And, yeah, that's an incredible opportunity to just allow it and to welcome it as you allow it and welcome it.

It feels like it gets a little stronger for like a second, just like a second, and then it just starts to dissipate. I'd be incredibly surprised if you've managed to go through life without someone asking you if you've read the secret. So many people, millions say that the book has completely transformed their life. And if you're one of the very few people who hasn't read it, I think you'll definitely understand the hype by the end of this chat with Rhonda.

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Right here is the show.

Well, Rhonda, this is such an honor to have you on the podcast, I'm so chuffed to have you on. Oh, thank you. It's a thrill for me to be on.

I wanted to start by thanking you because, I mean, I read the secret back in the day when it was released in the early noughties. And it had a profound effect on me, like it does with everybody. You know, you've had I don't know what the exact number is now, but over thirty five million readers or something like that. And I actually reread it more recently ahead of talking to you today. And I've also read your brilliant but the greatest secret.

And and it is profound once you you really get stuck into it and you really start applying this stuff. And it's funny how, you know, I'd read it, I'd read it years ago and then rereading it reminded me how you do like this is a daily practice. You can't just read the book and then carry on as normal. This is a daily a daily commitment and a daily practice. Do you even give that thought these days or are you just in that mindset?

I'm in that mindset and with the sacred I just became very, very aware of my mind and and our mind is the most powerful tool that we have. And so it just creates you know, it creates whatever we give our attention to. And so it means that we have complete control over our world, over our life. The difficulty, of course, is that if somebody isn't aware of it at all, understanding the power of their mind and the power of their thoughts, then what happens is they will they could have a tendency to focus on negative things that they don't want.

And so if you focus on negative things you don't want, you're just going to make them bigger and bring more of them to you. And I can't understand why somebody seems to get all the lucky breaks and why life is really tough for them. And then they feel like they're wading through mud. And and it's all it's it's so, so simple because it's all about the thoughts that we think it's all about the thoughts that we focused on. So with the secret, I became really, really aware of my thoughts.

I mean, it was instant for me because I knew without a doubt that this was the truth. And so I just watched every thought. I became super, super aware and watched every thought and and would say a negative thought. And I used to play this game of cancel, cancel. And then I would think the positive thought. But this what we're talking about is it's a law like gravity. So it never stops, you know, and when you're talking about you read it back then and I'm sure many people that are listening now would think, oh, yeah, I read it back then to what can happen is the mind is the most powerful creator we have.

It's also our biggest kind of torture. Yeah. And right. What's happened with some people? Not with everybody, thank goodness. But what happened with some people, they read the Sacred and they were just filled with joy because it is our first step to freedom is to understand the power that we have, the control that we have over the world and over our life. And you know something? It's why we have the mind. We don't have the mind to be a psychotherapist and psychiatrist or psychologist, which is what we've delegated it to be.

We listen to what it says and we as though it's true, our mind is there to create. What we want is what it's there for. And so all we have to think, I think in in the greatest sacred list of Levinsohn, just this most wonderful teacher who is no longer in physical form, he said, if we would just think about have thoughts of what we want, that's all we would ever get. Martin is more, you know, like when this doesn't happen, because, you know, I've had a day where I'll be honest with you, Rhonda.

It's not been like my finest moment of manifest things like home schooling, chaos going on. And we went to the park and it was paying with rain and everything just did feel a bit gloomy. But I also because I'm hyperaware right now, because I knew I was chatting to you today, I could I could really see how I was stuck in a negative cycle. And I almost felt I couldn't get myself out of it. And it was nothing major happening.

It was sort of tiny, incremental annoyances that just kept sort of arriving in my day. And I thought, well, I've got the power to switch this up, but I almost felt like it was impossible. How do you really get yourself into that mindset to go? No, like you just said, you play a game of I'm canceling that four out, I'm putting a good one in. Is it that easy?

Well, it is, really. And the thing is, the more that you become aware of your mind while everything's going along well. The better he will be, rather than not really paying much attention to your mind and then a bad day, you really kind of notice that, you know, one thing goes wrong after another, which for me is just proof of how we are creating from moment to moment, you know, because we can change our life with one thought.

That's how simple it is. It's the very next thought. And so I just think there are two different ways in there's I talk in a secret. I gave ways to be free of that negativity in the sacred and then the greatest sacred is basically completely dedicated to removing all negativity from your life. So so with the sacred there are there are things that work really quickly, like gratitude. I can remember when we were making the sacred documentary and I just knew how important it was to be feeling good and thinking positively.

And something would have happened and I could just feel my stomach drop.

And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I can't, you know, I can't be like this. I mean, I'm going to create all kinds of chaos in this awful feeling that I have in my stomach. So, I mean, for a start, I can tell you this. I would never answer my phone and I never opened a single email while I was not feeling good. Yeah, my gosh. Because you let you let problems come in, right.

So you don't work this one. You struggle because honestly, that's like my problem so often that I feel awful and I'm still trying to keep up with all this stuff and you're letting it in. That's such a brilliant bit of practical advice, Rhonda.

Yeah, yeah. No, don't let it in. Don't let it in. And if somebody, you know, somebody says, oh, can I have a chat with you? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Tomorrow or whatever. So so that's the first things. Stop, don't let things come in. And then the things that I did was I used I used multiple things actually.

I use gratitude because gratitude is the thing that can really turn turn us around, get us off that frequency, that annoying frequency or the impatient frequency or whatever it is, can can shift us really quickly. And just like you could do gratitude of, for example, the people that you love and why you love them, that will melt your heart really, really fast. That will stop the mind and will will shift you really, really quickly. And then when you were shifted, if your whole day is different from the day that it was going to be, it will be nothing like it.

And so gratitude is one thing that I used all of the time. And the other thing that I used was love. I would do these like rampages of everything that I loved and appreciated. So I would just look around me and, you know, and it's really great because with thoughts, after a focus of 17 seconds, you just get heaps and heaps and small thoughts of what are you thinking about. So, you know, I would be like, I love the ocean and I love the blue sky and I love my dogs and I love this and that.

And then you sort of hate the 17 second mark and you've just got heaps of appreciating thoughts and things that you love going nonstop. And you can feel it when you feel in your body, when you can feel all that resistance that you had just melt away, then you're good to go. You can ask them. Yeah. And you can look at it now. So so that's what I say in the secret. That's what I explain in the secret.

17 seconds is very doable as well. Like seven. I hadn't I had not heard of that before. I like that 17 seconds is doable to go right. If I can cultivate 17 seconds of gratitude or love, that's going to really propel me in the right direction, which I think so. So important, because I think at the moment now in the UK, we're in another lockdown at the moment.

And I think many people feel like they don't have the agency over their lives that they might normally and they might not feel truly as hopeful or feel really in control, because we do we do feel quite restricted by the regulations and rules and things that are going on. So I think people feel really stifled and like they perhaps don't have the autonomy to go. This is how I want my day to go. But I guess you're talking about it in in really kind of everyday inner gratitude, not about like all the stuff that's happening, but this is sort of an inside job.

It is. It is. Because your feelings are inside you. You know, our feelings. We get our feelings. We react to the outside world, but our feelings are inside of us. And so we've just got to find ways to change those feelings. I mean, you could listen to there could be a piece of music. And I think everybody has several tracks that no matter where they are in their life, if they turn that piece of music on their eyes filled with tears and they just feel like they're an angel and can fly.

And so you can do that, that can shift you to, you know, scramble for you find them. And to listen to that track and to shift yourself, so there are kind of several ways and several ways to to get yourself off the most important thing. And I do talk about it in the secret, but I talk more about it in the greater secret. The most important thing is not to resist those feelings. And so because the feelings are nothing, they're just energy.

They're absolutely nothing. But when we resist them, we hold them to it. So what I mean by resist them is we have a feeling it might be anger or impatience or frustration. Several things have gone wrong in a row and we start to build this resistance. We have this natural resistance in us that I don't want to feel this way. And the moment we feel I don't want to feel this way, I don't want this, I don't want this.

We make it much, much worse right now, Young said. Whatever we resist persists. Yeah, yeah.

And so to give you an idea and emotion full blown from beginning to end and it reaching a peak and finishing and going is 45 seconds.

What's a full blown anger? Full blown anger will arise. This is the pattern of the energy will come into us, will reach a peak and go away.

So why how can it be that we are angry for minutes, for hours, for days?

Yeah, of course. Because we keep resisting resisting it.

Yeah. And so we perpetuate it. So in the greatest secret, what I talk about in there, which to me is the it's just the greatest practice of all time. It's the practice to complete freedom of negativity so that when you feel a negative emotion arising, you instead of resisting it, which is what we tend to do, go away or don't want to feel this way. You welcome it. And I explain this practice thoroughly in the greatest sacred.

So welcoming is the opposite to resisting the absolute opposite. Resisting is pushing away. What if you welcoming something, you're pulling it toward you. And so it's really just the opposite of resistance. And so when a feeling arises, here is what you do. You don't try and change it. You don't want to fix it. You don't want to make it go away. You welcome it. You allow it to be here. It's only energy. Just allow it.

You allow it. It will go boom, boom and out. And when you fully allow it, it you may be twenty seconds into that emotion. It will dissolve like it just goes up in smoke. And it's the most divine feeling in the whole world.

It's the biggest high you can ever, ever have used to.

I can't. So I don't know I don't actually know if I've ever done that, you know, because I think our natural inclination is to resist everything, probably because we've been socially conditioned to do so. You know, I'll even do it to my kids, which I know is not great. But if they're freaking out having a huge tantrum, you're trying to, you know, get them to simmer down like guys. It's just calm it down. Whereas, you know, I need to practice and also my parenting perhaps go.

Right, let's get that let's move through that emotion, whatever it is. And like you're saying, feel that energy peak and then just go, because I don't know if I've ever really consciously practiced it. I'm sure I've done it accidentally, just moving through the motions. But you've really kind of answered a question that I was so desperate to ask, because, you know, you say in chapter one in the greatest secre, it's such an amazing first chapter where you can take so much away and you say happiness is our true nature.

So I understand that now. Whereas before I think I felt slightly confused, like so am I meant to feel happy all the time. But I think what you've just said explains powerfully that that's perhaps our base that we always go back to. Am I right in saying that?

It is. You're totally right. So we would feel whatever comes in, we embrace it. We let it naturally go. Then we're back to base, which is happy, happy, happy. Yeah.

And I'm talking of the happiness that is like for many of us, like when we were little children and, you know, little children, they just wake up happy. They just they wake up and they're just happy, happy, happy and playing, playing, playing. And and it's just this incredible sort of divine, blissful happiness that overflows. And the more that we can welcome our feelings and stop resisting negative feelings, the stronger and greater that natural happiness of ours arises within us.

It is all within us. It is within. Every single person that is listening right now, every person is filled with never ending lasting blissful happiness, and the only reason we are not feeling it is because of believing the mind and allowing negative feelings and negative thoughts to cover it over. And that's why we feel so good when we let go of a negative feeling, because the happiness is that starts to grow.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I totally understand it.

I think I was feeling confused or perhaps I was looking at my life thinking, well, I know that well, I've been in a bit of a dark place or I've experienced something that I would, you know, label a negative emotion.

I've actually learned quite a lot of cool stuff from that. But what you're saying is it's not that we don't feel these negative feelings, we embrace them, but we let them very much move on naturally, much like a young kid. Would that have a huge tantrum? And then it would dissipate and and they would carry on. And I'm not saying you're right.

I think you say with little you say with the little children that they will be in tears and those tears will just stop in a second and they'll start laughing. And that's because they're not holding onto anything and holding onto things is like the mind the mind sort of training thoughts and saying you didn't deserve that. He shouldn't have done that. She shouldn't have done that. You know, they did that last time. They were like last time. Now they lied again, you know, all of those kinds of things.

And that is the mind. And so the biggest, biggest message I have. But everybody listening is don't believe one single negative thought because none of them are true. Wow. I believe one of them. Not one. That that is powerful because I can think of a ton of things right now that I'm either worried about or that I've labeled a negative, and you're quite literally saying you can let that go.

That is, there's no truth in that, because, you know, I'm very well aware that, you know, I love talking about this subject is one of my favorite things. And I've kind of base my whole career now sort of unpicking all of these things and looking at mental health, spirituality, et cetera. And so, obviously, I'm I'm very aware about the the element of storytelling that we all have and that we implement in our lives and we think carries so much meaning that we have this story of who we are and what we think we're about.

And to get to the absolute crux of the greatest secret, you're stripping away all of that and saying not only are those stories not true, but also the true US. I'll actually read what you've written because it will make more sense.

You write, you write in the book, we are having the experience of being a person, but that's not who we are. So essentially, we're not mind. We're not body.

We are awareness. Yes. So what would how would we describe what we are? You could say awareness or consciousness, like you could say, are the one I kind of tend to use awareness in the book because I think that consciousness people can be a bit confused by that. They're like someone bumps. They had their unconscious. And, you know, if you have an anesthetic, you're unconscious. But but you're not. That's just the mind that's stopping.

You know, when you have an anesthetic, the mind is what stops and all the senses that stop. That's why many people, when they have an anesthetic, they're still awake. They're still aware of what's happening there. They're actually a friend of mine had an operation and he was and he was aware he could hear the music that was being played by the doctors, the conversation they had. And he couldn't feel anything because the mind is responsible for everything that we feel with the senses.

And so the mind is asleep. But he he was he was fully aware. And so he told them afterwards exactly everything they did and and all the things that were in the room. And so some people do have that experience and that explains that experience. But I tend to use awareness. And because I feel I feel it's it's easier to understand. And it's what I also spoke about in the sacred very strongly to remember, to remember, to be aware and to stay, to stay aware.

And because the awareness of your thoughts is what set you free for a start. And that was that was in the sacred. So awareness is what we are. And and I take you through steps in the book, and I feel those steps are really important because I think it's really important to take the steps of your not the body and and to hear the words that are said that you are not the body. And then to so that you get to the end of it and you're like, well, that kind of makes sense that I'm not the body, you know?

And I think in that I talk about, you know, your toe doesn't know it's a toe, your hand doesn't know it's a hand, your head doesn't know it's a head. Your eyes don't know their eyes. You know your mouth doesn't nazem mouth. But you know all those things you're aware of all of those things. But none of those things are aware of you. Yeah.

And you want to say it's not we're not humans having awareness. We are the awareness. We are we are aware that.

Correct.

So so is is that how you might describe our soul, all that bit of us that isn't tangible or spoken or. What I was saying is that the soul.

Yeah, that's our true identity. Soul. So you could say it's a soul. Except except that it's it's like sometimes the soul is kind of used as in a hierarchical way like this, the soul. And then there's, you know, this and levels going up higher and higher and higher.

What we are is absolutely everything. Like we are just so incredible. You know, we we so we never ending. We we are immortal. We are all joy, all happiness, all intelligence, all knowing. We are all peace. And that's our true nature. And there's no end for any of us. For any of us. There is no end. You know what happens when when the body finishes, when the body ends is you are still aware, just like you're aware right now.

You are still aware. And so it's sometimes a shock for people if they're not prepared because they thought they died, but they never died. There's not a single second where you lost or, you know, in a murky mist or any any silly things like that. You are completely, completely aware all of the time. You're aware you're alive. You are just not in the form of a body. And so any happiness we feel in our life or any joy that is our true nature awareness, all the beauty of the world is who we are.

And the beauty we see in the world is who we are reflecting back to us all the intelligence we are all knowing. So we're not like the mind that accrues knowledge and it's all stored in memory. It's not like that. We're all knowing. We know everything in the moment. There's not there's not a bank of of of knowledge. We know absolutely everything in the moment. We know it all there is we are fearless. We we are joyful.

We find everything funny. We are allowing of absolutely everything. We are all pure love. And so we allow everything. But one of the other things, and I think people will understand this, why they feel the way that they do in the lockdown is we are complete and total freedom.

Yeah, we are completely, totally free. That's who we are. And that is why when we get locked down and we're told you can't do this and you can't do that, that has a really tough response for us in the body, because underneath it, we know.

We know inherently. We know we are free, you know.

Yeah, that resonates because I have felt, you know, like everybody out there just really is a real, tangible experience. It's and it is a real discomfort, even knowing that you're being told that you can't do certain things. I think, you know, that's exactly it. We all we all freedom and it's all mind blowing. All of this is all complete, like totally.

Right. Right.

It's great to blow the mind is because it seems like all of our suffering comes from the human condition, the fact that we believe this sort of model, that we are a human, that we are a body, and that could be right or wrong. And and again, all of these I want to so many tangents like go off on. I want to quickly go back to the negative thought thing because, yes, my mind was just thinking that.

Right, OK, all these things that I'm labelling negative right now, how do we stop becoming, I guess, irresponsible? Because I could go right. I'm not going to worry about what I said to my son earlier that might have upset him. I'm just going to let that go.

Is that being irresponsible? Can I let go of these negative things? How does that work? No, no, that's wonderful. Because if you if you welcome, you know, what you said to your son, if you welcome the feeling that you have with what you said to your son, you're welcome. And you're not going to perpetuate it in your life. You're not going to have one hundred more scenes like that. Right. You know, but if you don't welcome it, then you have suppressed that feeling and that feeling must play out in your life.

That is why it's so important for us to welcome our negative feelings. I promise every person listening. When you have welcomed your negative feelings one by one, you will never, ever, ever feel them again. So once you're fully welcomed anger, there is nothing in the world that will be able to make you angry. Absolutely nothing. And I'm talking to you from my own experience of welcoming, like welcoming fear, like the pandemic really was a wonderful opportunity for people to welcome fear, because any situation that that has an emotion arise in us is an incredible opportunity to welcome that emotion.

And the more we welcome it, the weaker it gets, the weaker it's the weaker it gets until it is completely gone. And when you have welcomed all those negative feelings, you are free because the happiness that you are will absolutely take over your life. And that is when the magic happens. Everything just happens for you.

It's just because, you know. Well, I, I've done some I never I can never buy a DMARC or EMTALA therapy, but anyway, a therapy where it's like a bi lateral sensory therapy. But you going back into to tough times because you haven't processed them in the moment. And I know I am living proof that having gone through that delayed process of really feeling out those situations, they're not as impactful. They're not they're not as potent. I don't look to replay those.

So that's just when you clicked with me what you've said. I'm jumping about all the place here because I'm so excited to be talking to you. And I want to go now back to talking about the notion that we are awareness and that we cannot die. And I want it like is there one particular methodology that that you align with when it comes to what then happens to that awareness, that energy also, however you would describe it, what happens once the human the physical body dies?

Right, well, according to the teachings and many spiritual traditions, it's not it's not just one spiritual tradition and I've studied many of them. And so what happens is you the moment, the moment that the body stops, you remain completely aware. And all of the negativity that you have held in your life and the grudges and the all the negativity drops away because your awareness, you don't have a trace of negativity in you. And so all the negativity is coming from the mind.

And so the mind stops when the body finishes, the mind stops. And that's why people are afraid of death, because the ego is afraid of death. And it's kind of right, because the ego doesn't keep going, keep going.

So it's sort of got reason to be afraid, but it doesn't affect who we are. And so so there's a lot of the tradition. Say there's a life review where your entire life flashes before your eyes, which is just the mind releasing everything that you've experienced. But there is this incredible feeling of bliss, because when all the negativity drops away, who you really are is all that's left. And it is a level of joy and bliss that the majority of us cannot conceive of.

That is just so incredible.

And depending on how awake and aware we have become in our life will depend what happens next. And so if we if we completely believe that we're a body and a form and that the world is exactly what we say outside of us and all of those kinds of things, then we'll sort of fall asleep. And then we'll come back so into another human form, into another human form, and especially if we're really attached to Earth and can come back really quite quickly, got really, really, really fast.

And so we're going to keep coming back up until we wake up. And that is why then Greg is say, OK, so so when we wake up and we're fully awake and we now are living and we can only do it in our human body while we're in a human body. So we have to do it while we're here, you know? And so when we have done that, then what happens is we have a choice. We have a choice whether to come back and help others or we have a choice whether to go on and hang out with Jesus, the Buddha, Krishna.

You know, it's a sort of blissful levels. We have every possible life available to us, every sort of adventure, every kind of erev, anything that we could ever, ever, ever want. But until we wake up and I think that in Hinduism they referred to it as this, they refer to it as the wheel of birth and death and that it's a karmic real. And so we we we will keep coming back and we will keep coming back.

And I think, like the Buddha said, and I refer to them rather than for myself. The Buddha said he had lived 500 lifetimes prior lifetimes and he remembered them all.

And and that's the Buddha. And so when I've asked my mentors or self realized how many lifetimes would we have lived, they say thousands.

Wow. Now that we've been everything we've been you name it, we've been. And so then why don't we remember any of that? We don't remember any of that because it would complicate the current life that we have, sometimes people do remember some elements and we and and and those things only come through to us if it's going to help us on this journey. But otherwise, we would spend our entire life in despondency over what we did, you know, five hundred and sixty nine repenting our sins for centuries.

So, yes, that's one way that that's described actually in many spiritual traditions. So there's no you know, the important thing to know is that we're immortal and to be immortal, therefore, you have to be formless, you know, because if you're a form, that's that's really the mind and physical. And so we are formless, which means if you formless you everywhere. And that's kind of a spin off to a little bit for people. Well, how can you be everywhere?

Well, if you have no form, you are everywhere because there's no borders. Where would you end? And, you know, even as in a physical form, once you begin to let go of all those emotions or limiting beliefs that we have that are not true, then you begin to experience no borders while you're in a physical body.

And again, it's going back to the ego. That is what is causing those limiting beliefs.

And I wonder, are all thoughts from the ego? Is awareness not a thought? Is awareness? No, it's ceiling and expansion. Yeah.

OK, so all thoughts are from ego, all thoughts generated from the mind and ego. That's right. Mind an ego I would put together in the wine container. Yeah. And I kind of explain that at the beginning of the book and then I continue on with mine. And the reason I chose mine is sometimes people think, oh, he's got a really big ego and and they maybe don't say ego is. It really is. Ego is what makes everything personal.

Yes.

And makes everything personal. Yeah. Yeah, yeah it does.

Because again, it is the storytelling isn't it. It's an accumulation of everything that we think we've done, failed, etc. that then seems to drive us. And you know, when you're saying all of this, of course it sounds so obvious and it sounds like, of course, we shouldn't believe all of these things. And of course, we should let these, you know, negative emotions come and go naturally. But we get so stuck. And, you know, with those books, with the secret and the greatest secret, these are these all stem from esoteric traditional methodologies and religions and frameworks that have been in existence for thousands of years.

Why have we moved so far away from all of this good stuff to end up in it? Well, at the moment, the big trouble that we're in. Because we give all of our attention to our mind and our thoughts. That's the reason that we do it, we give all of we believe we believe the voice in our head, which is not us at all. We believe those thoughts. And and that's why we are in the place that we're in.

We believe all of those things. And that's what brings us asunder. And there are those few people who have suffered so much in their life and they want to be free. And they're the ones that end up by being free is is through suffering. So, you know, suffering has suffering is a gift in so many ways. It's a gift like the two biggest moments in my life with the sacred and the greatest sacred I was in suffering. So and then, you know, you just want to be free of suffering.

I remember very early on, I was just like, I want to be free. So I'd live my life for the sake of my life was incredible dream life, what anybody would think. But and I created my life exactly the way I want it. However, there are things that can happen. A family member can create something bad or die or, you know, all kinds of other things happen. And so really, I was like, I don't want to suffer for that.

My daughter was really sick for a long time and I was just suffering terribly. And I knew I was suffering because I was believing the thoughts. But she was in such a bad way and it was through that suffering and getting myself down so low that I woke up this one day. I'm like, oh my God, that's like this black cloud of depression over me. And I have never, ever felt that in my life. Now, the great thing is I knew how I got there.

I believed one terrifying, fearful thought after another about my daughter. And so what I did, which was just awareness, gave it to me really and truly, because I'm like, how do I get out of this? I can tell my thoughts have no power over and power down here and depression. And so I would try and do gratitude and eventually it would work, but it would take weeks and weeks. I knew what. And so what I did was I remember whatever you resist persists.

I just put my arms around that depression. And I said and I basically said, you can stay here for as long as you want, you know? And I put my arms around it. And just like that, it went, whoa, it's like, oh, my God.

And so a few hours later, it came back, but it was really weak. And so I did the same thing again. And so over two days I did that and it was completely gone. And I know I will never, ever suffer from that. And again, there is zero depression in my in my subconscious mind, zero zero.

Because embracing it is so counterintuitive, isn't it? Because we talk and also this the sort of the notion of resisting emotions, especially, you know, feeling down, sad, depressed, anxious. They've also been commodified. And people now make a lot of money out of saying, right, buy this thing, try this new fitness thing, whatever, and we'll get you out. We will help you push away and resist that negativity. Whereas you know what you're saying is so brilliant, yet intuitive to us because we're never told by anybody, just let it in, just embrace it.

Just I wish I'd known that back when I was having a a really crappy time, you know, ten odd years ago, which really then allowed me to do this what I'm doing today. So I come from that place and I'm really interested in this sort of stuff. But it never occurred to me to go. Let me embrace that. It was right. Medication and then what can I do to get myself out of this? And I'm not saying that medication is a bad thing.

Of course, for some people that that's their that's their way of dealing with it.

But I didn't it wasn't even an option for me to go embrace the Depression. It hadn't it hadn't even occurred to me that that I it still doesn't, you know, on a daily basis today, if I'm experiencing negative things and this is a huge thing that I'm going to take away from this talk with you, that we but that's what we should all be doing.

Yes, absolutely. And, you know, I wanted to say you've mentioned storytelling a couple of times and and we're so wedded to the stories of our life, which are very limiting.

You know, all of our thoughts are very the thoughts that we have, the very limiting, you know, you just a little individual and you can't do this and you can't do that. That's all the mind and thoughts. But with storytelling, the way to know that it's not true, those stories is. Try and find one of those stories without a single thought. Uh. You come and you go, and that means those stories are made of thoughts and thoughts are not the truth.

Thoughts are not that. They're just a thought. You know, a thought comes like one of what doesn't even know another thought. A thought doesn't know anything. You know, one thought arises. This thought arises here. Well, do you know this? No. No, it doesn't. It doesn't know anything. And yet we are giving it the authority over our life. Yeah.

Thoughts. Yeah, and we believe those stories, and the problem is if we believe a story that is negative, that is limiting, that's what we must experience in our life. We will always experience what we believe and we can't experience anything outside of it. So we don't want any of those. Any single thing that your mind tells you that is not you will all the beauty that there is you are all the intelligence that there is. You are all the love that there is.

You are all the intaglio intelligence. I already said you are all the knowing. You are absolutely everything. You all the happiness and all the joy. You are the most incredible, miraculous, stunning being you truly are. Anything that says that is not that is not true. Oh I love this. Because also I think when when we are looking at thoughts, sometimes thoughts can masquerade as something that's really positive, like, say, you know, I've got this great goal, this great dream and aspiration.

And when I get there, I'm going to feel happy. But that's equally as dangerous, I think sometimes, isn't it, setting those sorts of big goals? Because we're not accepting that we can just be happy. Now, we think it has to be over the hill when we've got the perfect partner, the perfect job, the perfect house.

It's have we got to just we've got to feel it now rather than just assume it's always over the hill.

Yeah. It's not something in the future because it's not something outside of us. It's within us. And and we we have tended to do that all of our life. And that's just because we've been conditioned, you know, I'll be happy when. And so we delay being happy.

We delay it instead of we are that right now you are all the happiness that exists right now. It is inside you right now. And all you have to do is peel away some things that are not true to allow it to come up and take over your life. And when I mean in the sacred for the creation process is us believe, receive and and receive step three is feel good to receive. So can you imagine what happens in your life when you are living even just a tiny bit of the happiness that you truly are?

Everything that you've ever wanted just falls into your hands just like that. It's it's extraordinary and and life becomes effortless. You know, there's no effort. So the moment you're approaching, the moment there's effort. That's the ego. That's the mind. That's the that's that's not who you are.

Who you are is completely effortless and fearless. And so much of that is habitual, isn't it? It's so much of the negative side is habitual. It's often nothing more than that. I know in my own life for that to be true, that when things aren't going well and believing the stories, it's literally a bad habit that I'm stopping myself from feeling good in particular situations.

Yeah, that's right. It is a habit. And I'm you know, it's easily it's easily their habits, their tendency, the the tendency that we can have to wait. You know, that's a really big change. Yeah. The tendency that we have is is to wait and and yeah. Their habits and and all that habit is, is just a thought. We thought over and over again and believe that, you know, and then we keep practising it because a habit can't stay unless we keep practicing it.

So therefore we keep practicing being small, we keep practicing being an individual that has no control in the world. You know, we keep practicing these things. But that's not who we are. It's not who we are, you know, and no matter what, whether you're somebody that that is dedicated to a particular religion or this is universal, you know, you can you can use whatever word because they just words anyway. Whatever word you want for awareness or for consciousness, you can use the presence of God if that is what resonates with you.

But what we are talking about is this simple. It is just existing above the mind.

And using the mind for what it was intended for, for what you want, but your happiness is above the mind, that's it's just that that's all it is.

Wow.

And so, yeah, it just is the coolest thing to talk about because it just it all makes total sense when we get so bogged down and foggy with all this stuff and and the just the platform we put the mind on, you know, we put it on such a pedestal and think that it is literally everything, whereas it's usually causing all the problems like.

Yeah. Because it's the one that, you know, beats up on us all the time and it's the one that's sabotaging us all of the time. You know, it's just oh, from one thing to another. And yet it is such an incredible creator. It will make anything appear that we want to appear and and, you know, nothing is impossible, absolutely nothing. And and the way to that is really to release some really is to release negative feelings and to see our beliefs, these beliefs that are not true, you know, and to just see them for what they are and just allow them to drop.

The thing is, we don't have to add anything. We've been conditioned that we need to like learn more and, you know, get really smart and get this degree and study for this. And but in in truth, the way to freedom and happiness and everything you've ever dreamed of is to peel away all of the things that we've been told. It's just like peeling an onion because underneath it you are everything you are absolute happy with. And so it's the opposite of what we've been doing.

I mean, life is just the opposite. We're like, everything's out there.

No, no, it's not. The in the world is in here.

And and the thing about awareness and consciousness, do you know what all it wants is for you to wake up once so much?

And I think Lester Levinson says in the book, we take one step toward awareness and being aware and it will take ten steps toward us to free us.

And so it's going home. That's what it is going home.

It's going it's going home. And it's having that base of happiness and knowing that we're allowed to feel it. And that is there. And we don't have to believe all of this stuff.

Oh, I want I mean, I've sort of been almost dreading asking this, but do you think, like on a global level, what does this mean?

Like, you know, have we collectively manifested the kind of global suffering that we're all experiencing at the moment?

We have, yeah. We have and the reason that we haven't done it deliberately, that's for sure, yeah, but the the way that we've done it is suppressed fear that we have inside of us now. We're kind of born with that fear, you know, in so many ways. And and it just builds and builds and builds. I mean, children are fairly fearless and fearless is our true nature. And so we've just kind of accrued this fear because we've believed thoughts of the mind and, you know, better watch out, you might die.

Bad things happen to good people, you know, all those kinds of things. And and so then then we become then we're full of fear. And the ego's honestly sick and name is fear. It's doing everything out of fear. Their mind is doing everything out of fear. So, yeah. So we so are we. All we need to do is let go of that fear and that will completely free.

Asked in the future we will look back and we will see the amazing changes that happened because of this. And we are not seeing it now, but we will see it. We are always heading in the right direction. We are always, always things are getting better even when they feel like they are far, far worse. And so it will it's it's OK. There's no getting rid of you. There's no getting rid of you. You you were totally fine.

And I'm sure many people listening very attached to their body in this life and and on.

But you were free, you you have. All of eternity to get this and to work it out and to remember who you are and to be completely free, so so something there are always things like this come along. I mean, I know in my life I have lived through times where I thought the world was going to end tomorrow. You know, someone was going to press the button on an atomic bomb. I mean, there have been lots of times in my life where I was like, OK, we're done for, you know, this will pass.

You know, there's a lot of things going on at the moment and, you know, with politicians and all of that kind of thing and, you know, using this situation, the important thing for us now, I would say, is follow. Do what feels good to you. And that's that you feel is responsible to keep yourself safe and do not give it any more attention because it's the world's attention that's perpetuating. Yeah.

And to me, again, going back to not suppressing emotions, do we again embrace that fear? Is that perhaps collectively release it? Absolutely.

Absolutely. This is the greatest opportunity, you know, for many people. They may be feeling fear at a level they've never felt it before. Yeah. Yeah. And so that is incredible.

That's an incredible opportunity to just allow it and to welcome it. And, you know, it's and you do it as you allow it and welcome it. It it it feels like it gets a little stronger for like a second, just like a second. And then it just starts to dissipate. It's almost like.

You know, contractions in having a baby, how you don't resist, if you resist contractions, you make them worse. But if you kind of just flow with them, then now just sort of dissipate. And so it's almost like that. But this is the greatest opportunity you can ever have, because when you have eliminated all the fear, because ultimately there's only one emotion, it's fear, all of the rest of derivatives of fear. And so when you have let go of fear, you're there, your home.

Yeah, that's right. Because I know that when I suppress fair, my next go to the derivative of fear is I'm angry. I get very angry when I'm not just saying, hey, hands up, I feel scared right now. I'll go into protecting myself so I can see how that is absolutely true. Like all the other emotions just come from that place of it. And it's the ego again as they go again.

There it is, our dear friend. And I mean, the ego has a place because it is allowing us to have the experience of being an individual and allowing us to have the experience of of a material world and a world full of objects, and that we are separate from all of those objects. You know, the ego and the mind are giving us that experience. But it is just an experience and and so and so it has its place. But to believe that with that.

No, we're not that. How could we be the mind? How could we possibly be? Because, you know, a thought appears to and it disappears. So then how could that be us? Because when the thought disappears, a bit of us would disappear with the thought. And we were here before the thought and we're up to the thought. Yeah. And so hang on a minute. We have to be the mind otherwise that with every thought a bit of us would disappear, disappear to disappear.

Right. So we're not mind. It's a fabulous tool for what we want.

Use it for what you want, use it for the positive. And it doesn't matter what's what's going on in your life. You can find a way to think about that in a reframe it, you know, in a more positive way. And and and just feel the emotions, any emotions that you have. Or then you can kind of hear the mind because the mind will go, oh, that's not true.

You don't really feel that way. Yeah, that's not true. That's not true. And but you just welcome that. Here's what I do. I welcome every negative, all negative thoughts and stories and all negative ideas that suggest that I'm anything that I am and that I'm not. I welcome any physical sensation like stub your toe, like get a cramp in bed. So I practiced with a cramp in bed, actually, that I would move my leg and suddenly my leg would cramp.

And you know how intense it is, just like, oh, it's horrible.

Yeah, right. And so I'm like, oh, this is cool. I can practice welcoming. And so I just welcome dissolve and that's gone. Totally gone. Yeah. Yeah. And so, so I welcome all of those sensation. Negative sensations are painful sensations, negative thoughts and negative feelings. I welcome them all because welcoming is our true nature.

Oh it's just like how many things can we all take away from this chat. My goodness. It's like, it's just a perspective shifting situation. Listening to you talk and and reading your books. And I just want to end this again by saying thank you, because honestly, I even just today I was feeling really quite flat this morning and just, you know, all over the shop and just talking to you, I feel lighter, like that is the only way I can just go through a lighter.

And the your books have done the same for me. I love I love what you say. I feel I've been very, very fun and exciting conversation. And sometimes I feel like what I'm doing, these chats, I'm more focused on getting the right answers and I'm a bit nervous about that. This has just been fun.

I've loved every second of a second. And, you know, it makes me really happy because to hear that you feel lighter. Yeah, because that's what we are. You know, we we are super light. We are really light and light is happiness and light is joy. And then the heaviness is in all of the negative emotions, you know, and so and so no matter where anybody is in this moment, just no, you are totally on track.

You're exactly where you're meant to be. You're just the most. Fabulous thing that ever, ever lived. You're the one and only thing that has ever, ever lived, and no matter what is appearing in this world, no matter what is sort of coming into your life, you are more powerful than all of it, you know. So just start to be who you are and start to notice that you're aware. Oh, ask yourself, ask yourself, ask yourself, am I aware?

And just notice that you're aware, because it is your way out of everything, it is your way to Nirvana.

Oh, I mean, people are just going to love listening to you talk about this stuff. This is exactly what we all need right now. Rhonda, I. I cannot thank you enough. I am so chuffed to have you on the podcast. I cannot wait for people to listen to this episode. As I said, I feel boosted. I know everyone listening to it will as well. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you so much and so much. Love to everyone.

Thank you, Rhonda. Oh, my God. I love Rhonda. Her latest book, The Greatest Secret is out right now. Read it, reread it, commit to doing those daily practices. And also let me know how you get home. I always love to hear that. Oh, happy place. Instagram is at Happy Place official.

Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. I've got a great fun treat for you next week. Get ready. We'll have a giggle as well as learning stuff. So you'll want to know when that episode is available. Thanks again to Rhonda Byrne to We Do Natural Haircare, the sponsors of this series. To the producers of this episode, Matt Hill and Annushka Taylor, rethink audio and as ever, the biggest.

Thank you to you lot. I love you so much. Here's to Capurso.