#477: Expansion vs. Contraction

0:00So I just had a client session and wanted to share some of the insights with you because maybe it'll be useful for you in some way. In this session, the client realized or understood that he was having judgments of other people come up and he'd see someone at the gym and he'd judge them and he'd he'd feel the sense of judgment and he's working towards getting and feeling more love for the people around him in his life and he was noticing this feeling, this judgment was getting in the way of that. So if he'd see someone at the gym and he'd think that to himself, oh that person's fat, what I helped this client see was that the judgments of the other person being fat was were judgments of himself that hadn't been reconciled and so if you're judging someone else based on being fat,

1:04it just means that you yourself don't like how your body looks or hasn't. You haven't liked how your body has looked at some point and now you're projecting that outward to someone else and it's happening so quickly, so unconsciously, that you're stating yourself, how does this even happen? And so what we did in this session was we went back to moments in his life where he has felt that he's been judging himself or other people have been judging him for his body and for other aspects as well and we did a couple of things, one is we we did a visualization exercise where you go back to the scenario and when you go back to the scenario you notice your response in that scenario and it's often some form of contraction so you're going inward, you protecting yourself and you see if

2:09you can with your eyes closed go back to that scenario and open and bring more bring expansion to your system as that situation is happening and if you can do this enough times with enough scenarios you will start to get a similar situation occur in your present day life and you will get an opportunity to expand and that expansion will allow that situation to stop happening or at least for you to be impacted by it in a way so imagine looking at the person at the gym and you don't want to call them fat well you realize like oh this is just an aspect of me that I'm judging myself for how my body looks okay when have I felt like I judge myself for how my body looks you bring to my that scenario feel the contraction of where began and then see if you can actually expand and realize your stave your stave in that scenario you're loved in that

3:13scenario you still made it past it because you can visualize this moment so and know your health thought it was a very useful practice and a useful frame to look at the world through because when we see that all of our judgments are just projections all of our judgments of others are just fears we have about ourselves it allows us to take ownership of it and it allows us to actually live in a more kind world and create a more kind world you don't have to be perfect with this you're allowed to make mistakes you're allowed to judge people don't lose your humanity in us in doing this you make it a judgment every moment by how you're

4:14placing your time and energy and attention I'm judging them I'm gonna record this podcast right now because I feel it's a good use of my time but can we do it without the fear and when we do come from fear can we love the fact that we came from fear I love the fact that it's okay we're allowed to we're human I did a mushroom trip recently and I saw that there were so many places in my life with mother nature where I was contracting I saw that if mother nature if I was invited to go to mother nature if I was invited on a surf trip or camping trip I would say no that's not for me I don't do that and then I saw on the other end how I had this desire to be with a woman in my life who is very comfortable with

5:15nature and loves nature I can see the difference between what I what I wanted and how I was acting and so that's a micro example of okay I contracted when people ask me hey do you want to go surfing I said no I don't I don't want to I contract no contraction would imagine your fist being up no I'm not doing that and expansion is is your palms open okay I can consider that I can do that or I cannot do that and so the life that I want to live is a life that's more expanded that's more open that's more free that's more loving that's more connected that's the life that I want to live that's a life that that's a life that I'm trying to be in the energy of and that I am being in the energy of in a on a daily basis and it's useful for me to see what are the places which

6:16I'm blocking that unconsciously and so there are many ways to do that mushrooms was one way but could also talk to a friend you can sit in meditation you can simply ask the question before you go to sleep at night hey where am I contracting you get a dream I'm almost positive or you'll wake up in the morning and feel oh that's where I'm contracting and and living a life of expansion is an incredibly courageous act and living a life that's open and connected is something that I truly desire and maybe if you're listening to this you you truly desire as well I'm really grateful for the work that I've done to get to this point because I

7:22know there's a version of me that is way more contracted and I know the version who I am today is probably likely hopefully so so much more contracted than the version of myself seven years from now or 10 years from now or 20 30 40 50 because on the path to the more expanded life is recognizing how many moments that you've been contracted and how many places and and in full transparency the best way for me to get into that more expanded state is meditation I had this scenario happen just today where I went into this little coffee shop area and it's like a juice coffee it's a small little shop and I went to go get a cookie and I get the cookie and you know I make small talk with the cashier but

8:31not fully there I'm I'm I'm there but I'm not in her world I'm not I don't have the space or capacity to be in her world I really wanted to just be in my book but then from you know maybe 30 minutes later I sit down with my book and sit down with my cookie and my friend comes over and it just hit me I said to my friend hey you want to meditate until we meditated for 30 minutes it was beautiful I felt such an increase in the space that I had and I go back to the the coffee shop or the juice area to get another cookie and end of juice and I start talking to the cashier in a way different way I'm more open I'm more engaged I'm more present I'm more connected to her we started talking about her gifts and what she's here to do and I could see the aliveness coming her spirit what changed does the same person in front of me

9:38yeah we had one interaction before but really what changed was I had more space I had more capacity I was there for her I had been there for myself I with that time and meditation and as a result I was at a more expanded state and that expanded state allowed me to connect with her in a deeper and more true way that allowed her to see her light and that is the power of meditation that's the power of sitting with yourself and allowing energy to move through your body I don't know how exactly it works I can't tell you the science I'm not really that interested in the science I'm more interested in if it works and I know for sure meditation works in helping connect us to ourselves which then has no choice but to connect us to other people in a

10:39more deep and expanded way perfect example of this was when I host my meditations I host meditations maybe I'm going to start hosting meditations at in Austin at Casa de Luz and a more on a more consistent basis that was an idea that came through to me as I was sitting there meditating when I host the meditation silent meditation we just sit there for 45 minutes right or an hour or whatever it is and before we start people are talking and connected with each other but I would say 100% of the time that I've done this by the end of the meditation 45 minutes later the conversations that people are having are so deep and people have known each other forever there's so much more open there's so much more connected and what do you attribute that to what do I attribute that to

11:45I attribute that to people connecting with themselves when you connect with yourself you then have the capacity to connect with someone else in a deeper way and make people someone else feel seen heard understood appreciated and see the light going their eyes what more can you ask for as a human being to witness the light going to someone else's eyes and see them feel a little more joy and I noticed that the more times that I do that the more I I personally feel and it's not for many drug it's just from the joy of connection and one thing that my friend Claire mentioned to me that has been ringing in my head is the importance of

12:48micro interactions if you have a micro interaction what's a micro interaction it's just a little hello acknowledgement of someone seeing someone connecting with them and you don't have to get super deep you just have to just be with them and comment and make some connection point between you and that person when you do that you get more life you get more joy and you got Nick Sweeney just run and buy you in a beautiful way as you're recording a micro podcast and and that is the beauty of life so I share that to say that when you speak to someone even for a second even for a moment even if you see someone's had and you say to yourself nice hat when you're doing that you're giving yourself

13:54more light you're bringing more of that into you into your being and and the more micro at micro interactions you can have in your day the more expanded you are and it doesn't cost you anything it's so free and if you say hello to someone and say good morning someone doesn't respond back to doesn't care about you that's all good no it doesn't mean anything about your worth it doesn't mean anything about you it just means the other person doesn't want to interact with you and that's okay you're allowed I'm allowed to not respond it doesn't mean anything about you but those micro interactions really do help me and they help me feel more alive and feel more connected and yeah this this podcast is an example of a micro interaction with you and hope that was useful

14:54if it was let me know hey Danny Miranda might be recording more of these might just be ripping them send them out because when I feel this joy this energy this excitement for life I just want to share I just want to spread that light that love and that light into your being into your heart I feel alive I hope you do too sending you so much love be in touch soon peace