Roundtable - CONNECTED- The Concept of Self-Principles and How to Use Them as Tools

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Fawn: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. Hello. Welcome to a friendly world. Welcome to our round table. Connected round table. Connected. We talk about all the different ways we are interconnected. We have friends from around the world at the table, and every week we have a different topic. Today's topic is self principle, and I am so excited to introduce you to Paul Martin also known as Lotus, who will be leading us through our session today?  At our table today, we have my love, Matt Anderson. We have our beautiful, beautiful Katy LoSasso. Hello. We have our beautiful Beth Hewitt. We have our beautiful KJ.  You're beautiful too, Matt. Thank you. All right. We have KJ Nasrul here. We have me. [00:01:00] Hello? I'm Fawn. Thanks babe. All right. So today when we have beautiful Paul, I did say Paul and I was just about to say we have a new cut me off, and today we have our fantastic, amazing friend, Paul, who is leading this session today.

We're talking about self principle, Paul Pauly. Welcome everyone. Thank you. Take it away sweet friend.

Paul: [00:01:29] Okay.  Groovy. Right here we go. Hello, gorgeous people. So my name is Paul Paul Martin. I am a, meditation, facilitator, teacher, coach. I have been teaching meditation for almost three years now.

I started teaching it in Thailand from one of my old teachers, he was called Paul Garrigan he's Irish guy, who I actually met in sobriety when I was [00:02:00] coming off of drugs and booze and stuff like that. He's a fascinating inspiration. He's a master of meditation mainly through Buddhism, and he was my first teacher.

  I've had a few others along my journey. I got into meditation when I was about 16 when my best friend's MedU from a Hindu family MedU that's the short version. And so he first got me into it, asking the big questions. And it opened my eyes, but open my heart and you know, I got distracted, with drugs and booze and stuff like that until I was about 24, I think when I got clean.

Fawn: [00:02:41] Do you remember your first meditation? What that was like, what the feeling was like,

like the first time you ever experienced it.

Paul: [00:02:50] So the first time is it's, it's unbelievable, you know, to have a bit more [00:03:00] of a prolonged stillness or peace in the mind. I mean, cause you know, our minds can go mental all day long. They just keep chopping and churning and they never stop. And there's only always described this only.

Yeah. That one time when you find that piece without meditating and that's when you see something beautiful in life and it captivates you and time goes still because you let go of all the attachments to the earth. And you find that beautiful piece. Like if you're looking at a sunset or something, but it only lasts like split second and then it goes but to experience that for the first time to pro long that that piece to stretch out through meditation, I mean, there's nothing like it.

Fawn: [00:03:45] Can I ask you a question, Paul? Yeah, this is something I've always wondered, because I've been meditating for a long time too. I was meditating before I knew what I was doing. Like I was meditating as a child.  I would ride my bike miles and miles to go [00:04:00] to this area at the beach.

And I would sit there for hours, a little kid sitting there for hours, and I would scare the adults that were jogging back and forth. This was in LA and they didn't know what I was doing. They asked me if I was okay, because they would come back an hour later and I hadn't moved at all. And I didn't know what I was doing.

It was just what I was called to do. Like I was drawn to it, but it's really interesting how you can stop time and you can access all these other realms and you can, you can do things you can maneuver. Right. But, uh, what do you guys think when you're meditating and you achieve that, or like, you look at a beautiful sunset and you experience that stillness, but have you all, like had a trip, like you tripped and like you're falling and then it feels like everything is going in slow motion while you figure out how to, how to maneuver so you don't hurt yourself, or if you've ever been in any kind of an accident, like time stops and everything [00:05:00] slows down and it feels like it's going on forever. You know what I mean? Is that the same? Do you guys think that's the same as the reaching that point of meditation where , it stops time? I

Paul: [00:05:12] mean, I think so.

You know, it's like, that fear makes you let go of all the attachments, you know, it's like when you see that beautiful thing, you let go of all the attachments to the world and that's what you do through meditation. And you know, it's the same when I had a car crash, when I was about 17, I crashed into this tractor trailer and it crumpled like right up to my face and I walked away with scratches you know, blessed, but yeah, at times stood, stood still and that crash seemed like it was lasting  a good five minutes.

But yeah, all you're thinking about is  Oh, bloody hell. You know, I'm, I'm crashing. I'm about to maybe die and then you just forget about everything you even cared about, everything you love and everything you hate, you just let go and your just there in the moment aren't you?

So, yeah, it was the same, I think, [00:06:00] definitely

Fawn: [00:06:00] I  think the whole world has been in, this trauma  and I'm wondering if  in the midst of that, if we're all manipulating time in a way, because I don't know if you've all noticed, but like the past year, time has sped up.

Paul: [00:06:16] I mean, yeah, the way life has slowed down, it's given people a chance to either work on themselves or become lazy. I think people have either gone one way or the other in 2020. So yeah, I mean, it's a massive opportunity to, to step into self love, self growth meditation.

All this kind of stuff and do stuff that people we've never tried before. Or, you know, it's also an opportunity for people to sit on the sofa and watch Netflix all day and eat loads of  junk food. So it's up to that person really.

Fawn: [00:06:50] I mean, either way, I think it probably is leading everyone. Even if you are sitting on the sofa, watching Netflix and eating junk food, [00:07:00] it still is transformative.

Paul: [00:07:01] Happens for a reason. Yeah, definitely because it will teach them a lesson in a, in a way or another.

Fawn: [00:07:06] So I apologize if I've veered us away from the lesson plan, but that's how I do guys. I'm sorry, which is probably why I have a podcast. I talked too much. Take it away, Paul. Sorry.

Paul: [00:07:17] Okay. Okay. So principle, right.

Okay. So self PR principle in a whole is it's an action. It's the actions we do  on our thoughts that come up really. So, I mean,  thoughts principals come up in our thoughts, but we can challenge those thoughts or we can not. And then the action that we act upon those thoughts coming up is our self principles.

So that's  it as a whole. I've got a little list here,

I've got a few, right. Some good ones. Okay. Acceptance, forgiveness, pride. And then there's false pride. So it's two different types of pride- important that, [00:08:00] empathy, love, understanding, patience and tolerance. They normally come hand in hand and then,  there's The bad self principles of that, which is impatience and intolerance. And then there's like encouragement. And an opposite to that could be self-righteous, or like you wanting to win rather than the other person encouraging them to when, if you were going against them, you know, stuff like this.

Fawn: [00:08:24] Can I ask you a quick question? Can you, can you explain to me pride and false pride? What's the difference?

Paul: [00:08:32] Say if you worked really hard to achieve a qualification and it took you a couple of years and it took a lot of time and effort, and you're very proud of getting that qualification, that's pride, that's a good pride, you know, you deserve that pride is good to be prideful about that.

Cause Because it is to stand in that and be like, Oh, I did this you know, not in an egotistical way, but  in a self loving way; [00:09:00] being happy for yourself, you know, standing in that. And

then

Paul: [00:09:03] there's the false pride, for example, me being English every now and then, you know, it comes up in my head sometimes I'll be like, Oh, someone will be chatting about their country.

And they'll be like the best country and I'll be like: mate I won't say it but my thought will come up. Be like, England is the best country. Come on. Let's be honest. That is a false pride. That's a negative pride, you know? So I mean, for me, if, when it comes up in my mind, I don't act upon that. I just go, Oh, okay. My mind is thinking this, or I'm not going to act on that and push it away.

But yeah, they're two examples.

Fawn: [00:09:39] Got it.  Thanks Paul.

Paul: [00:09:41] Nice. Right. Okay. Well, so, so let's get chatting, let's get chatting. Who was start talking about maybe the experiences with self principles, any of the examples, maybe where you've had to challenge your mind.

Fawn: [00:09:58] Can you start with your own [00:10:00] personal ones?

Paul: [00:10:02] Right.

So let's chat about my family. That's a good one. The one that's easy. Cause I mean, I get triggered quite a lot by my family. I think most people do

Fawn: [00:10:15] wait. You do? You totally seem like you totally get along with your folks and wait, are you an only child? Paul?

Paul: [00:10:22] No,  I got an older sister.

Fawn: [00:10:24] Where is she?

Paul: [00:10:26] She is she's not far away.

It's like half an hour away. In English, you got this cute little chapel school, which lives in. But yeah, I think she naturally gets on and understands my family better than I do.  I get on with my family really well, but I work really hard at it. You know, I use that pause button a lot.

Fawn: [00:10:48] Oh, every time I went to talk to you every week, every time you just seem like you have the sweetest relationship with your folks, like it is the sweetest I'm surprised by what you're saying.

Paul: [00:10:59] Yeah. [00:11:00] Well, I mean, I used to be a little bugger as well, back in the day and we didn't have the sweet relationship. When I was in like my active addiction and stuff, I was little. Yeah. Yeah. Just stay with bugger. Right. But I mean, for example let's go with. Let's go with,  self-pity for example.

So I got into self pity. No, let's go for forgiveness, forgiveness. My false pride can come up quite a lot with my father. You know, it's like two, two stags holding horns against each other in the forest and they're like bucking each other. And I think my false pride can stand up more so with my dad than  anyone else.

I don't know why. I think it's because, because, because of the years, actually the years of, arguments and stuff before I got clean and sober, before I started challenging  my self-principles I   wouldn't challenge my mind at all. It would be [00:12:00] automatic.

So we'd get into arguments a lot. And was those, those memories and those resentments  made an engraving on my mind and  it made that false pride, even bigger and even stronger against my dad. Cause we used to disagree quite a lot. So, with forgiveness I can find it very hard sometimes, cause I can be quite stubborn and  so can he.

And luckily I'm blessed enough to know that I can challenge myself principles sort of thing. But my dad, I don't think has learned this so much. Yeah. So you know, his, his stubbornness might sustain a bit more so than mine does when we get into a bit of a debate nowadays. So, if he doesn't accept that he's wrong or something rather than me forgiving him quickly and acknowledging that he's a different person, he's on a different path where we're learning things at different speeds, [00:13:00] know we're two separate entities and I need to just love him and forgive him and you know, help him on his beautiful journey of life.

Like he has to me, you know, the amount of times. I've been a little monkey in the, in the beginning of my life. And he's forgiven me for  of stuff, all the, all the Savage stuff I caused him and mom, you know, the pain I caused him in my addiction and stuff like that. I was really a selfish person in my addiction, minipulative and stuff like that.

And rather than being easily forgiving, which I think I need to practice a lot more with my father because of my false pride, he's quite there it's quite naturally there for me. Not just with him, but it is especially, uh, with him, which is sad. I know I just need to work on it more and the more I do work on it, the less it will be there.

So, you know, it's it's a slow [00:14:00] progression. But yeah, it doesn't cause that false pride, it doesn't help me be for giving as easily. But I mean, all of these kinds of self principle things is just practice in the end of the day. It's just yeah, it's just practicing it and the more we practice it, the more it becomes us, if that makes sense.

Fawn: [00:14:18] That makes sense. Yeah. Do you mind, can I share mine? Are you done? I don't want to interrupt. Well, since you brought up your family, I'm going to bring up mine. Matt is raising his eyebrows.  I'm looking at all these words that you said, acceptance, forgiveness, pride, empathy understanding, patience, tolerance, encouragement, all of that.

For me, like, I feel like I can use all of that in my experience with my family that I was born into .The situation is that I've often told you guys that ever since I was born, I've been taking notes. I've been quiet and I've been [00:15:00] watching people. Like I recall things from the age when I was in diapers.

 I didn't know how to walk yet, but I can recall what I was thinking. And I can recall and tell you what was happening in the room, what kind of conversations  were being had, and  the general feel of things like I've been taking notes forever. And so I watched my family that I was born into and I say it that way because I don't consider them family.

I was born into that group. And it took me many, many years and so many different therapists to, to distance myself from that. So I could have a healing happen within me after having been through living with these people and the shock of that in a way that I had to create a pure circle for myself, especially when I decided I'm going to create [00:16:00] a life with Matt.

I didn't want any infection coming in because by that we, we met at a pretty late age, I guess, you know, we weren't totally young when we met. So. I had done the work. I had been through had been through so many therapists. So I, it's not like I made a hasty decision to cut off my family. But from an early, early age, I realized I can not take anything personally, that these people are in pain.

So I  had to  except them for who they were, but in return  I never got that acceptance from them. So it was always like, I just got hate coming at me from these people, even at a very early age, you know, at an age of innocence, like I did not deserve any of that. And I knew I didn't, as things were happening, as things were said to me, [00:17:00] as things were done to me, I was like, wow, these people are in pain and really has nothing to do with me.

If anything, they want me to help them along to carry on this kind of behavior. And I was never about that. So I had empathy for them and I had pride for the way I was on the inside. Like I knew who I was, regardless of what they called me. Regardless of if they said you're an ungrateful child or you're, you're just, I don't know.

I got called all kinds of names and the whole idea of forgiveness. I mean, I knew before it was hip that in order for me to have a good life, I needed to forgive and not take things so personally that I needed to forgive them. And in doing that empathy was involved because I had to feel what they must be going through to live that way, [00:18:00] to speak that way, to treat someone that is supposed to be your family, your love; to treat them so poorly, you must be in a lot of pain. So, you know, for me, it was beyond forgiveness and I just had to keep listening and keep watching. And at a certain point, I had to completely distance myself and step away to the point where they didn't know where I was anymore, that I had to completely cut them off.

I couldn't even talk to them on the phone. And it took years of therapy to get over that guilt of doing that.

Paul: [00:18:38] No, it's not an easy decision, is it?

Fawn: [00:18:41] It really isn't. And when I tell, when I used to tell people what I had done and what I had done was cut them off. I would, people would just stop talking to me.

Some people like their own issues came up with their families. You know, like if, if I was talking to someone who was a [00:19:00] parent and they were having trouble with their children, regardless of the age of the child, Because I had done what I did it. I think it totally threatened them and scared them. But like I had so many people stop talking to me, but I had to do it.

I had to do it guys like to, after a point, you know, they say you, you should leave, uh, an unhealthy relationship. Well, sometimes that unhealthy relationship could be with your family. And there, there are certain rare cases where it cannot be worked out because one, one party will not work it out because they will never assume responsibility.

And you can't, you can't keep going with that madness. And so, I don't know. So I'm just thinking of tolerance, you know, like I feel I had tolerance, but if the other side does not have tolerance, I know my own self [00:20:00] principles, but. If the other side doesn't know theirs how can you have a cohesive, harmonious relationship?

You can't. And so, anyway, that's my story. And I don't know, it's a, it's, it's really a long and complicated and it's, it used to be quite painful. But now I'm just like, especially now that I'm a mom, I realized this is what I totally had to do.  I made decisions that were heart wrenching that took years for me to actually walk with that decision.

I, I felt so much guilt because it, especially because of who I am, because I'm very friendly and I love bringing people together. And I'm all about family. I'm about family, universal family. I've always been about that. With my photography work, it's always been about that, but yet, if you get to know me and you find out, [00:21:00] wow Fawn, cut her family off completely.

And not just immediate family, I had to cut off all the relatives and I have thousands of them around the world. But, you know, from the culture that I come from, you can't just be friends with one and not the other. It just, you know, they're so tight knit and they, no matter the bad behavior,  they let things keep happening.

So I had to cut everybody off anyway. That's it. Does that, does that compute with what we're talking about today or did I totally go off?

Paul: [00:21:34] Yeah, I mean, I think you definitely made the right decision because obviously, you know, using that, that self principle tolerance, you know, there's only so much,  there's a limit and there's a boundary.

And, you can blow up eventually and that limit just gets pushed and pushed. So sometimes you have to take unfortunate, extreme steps, which aren't easy,  like you have, [00:22:00] but you know, the self principles that you had at such a young age, naturally your heart given those naturally like the empathy and forgiveness and understanding, you know, trying to understand that they're in, in pain and stuff like that, even though they're causing you  sadness to naturally have, that is amazing.

It's an amazing quality. Most people don't have that. And the people that do have it, normally they figure it out later on in life by doing things like I do, you know, challenging the mind and stuff like that. So to, uh, to naturally have I, is, is it's amazing. It's incredible, like gem

Fawn: [00:22:40] Thanks for understanding, because even to this day, I,  worry, like, am I going to lose this friend now that I've said what I said, now that they know, I mean, and nothing changed. You know, if you're going to be bad, I don't care if you're dying, it's not going to [00:23:00] change everything, anything for me. So like I reached a point where I guess someone was on their death bed. It was my mother, I guess. And I, and I say, I guess, because there were so many lies throughout the years that I couldn't believe anything that came out of their mouth.

It was constantly like just some threat of death or some threat. The lies were so often and so rapid fire that I just, I had to tell myself, well, I don't know what their truth is, so I'm not going to react. I'm not going to get  into that state of  constant panic every time they say something, but, you know, I kind of prepped myself for it.

Like if they say so-and-so is dying, are you going to show up and say, I love you. Well, I did say I love you throughout my whole time with them. And it doesn't, it doesn't matter. It's showing up to someone's, uh, crossing [00:24:00] over period. It's not going to change anything for me. And that makes me so hardcore.

And I hope people don't think I'm a bad person, but when they said,  your mother is passing away. We need you to come. And they hadn't, you know, been a part of my life at all. And even when they were, it was so bad. I'm like, okay, no, I didn't, I wasn't going to show up for that and suddenly make things okay.

Just because someone is crossing over. Does that make sense? You guys, I know it sounds really bad, but yeah. Yeah, but I have no ill will and I have no no hate and I have love, I just, I'm not going to be in their presence and that's it.

Paul: [00:24:42] If anything, it doesn't sound bad. It sounds the opposite. Cause I mean  if you, you know, how much you cherish family now,  and how much you, you adore that and you love that for you then to let go of your old family [00:25:00] obviously that must have been even harder. You expressing how much you love the idea of family. So it shows that it was an even harder decision than for, for other people who don't cherish and love family, as much as you

do.

Fawn: [00:25:14] It was Paul. It was so hard. It was so bad. And then when I have to stick to my own self principles and say to myself, I am a loving person.

I am a loving mother. I'm a loving wife, I'm a loving friend. But in this case, if you're gonna say, how, how dare you call yourself a good person. If you're turning your back on your mother you know, like threatening me and saying, I'm a bad person. You have to really get to your own core, know yourself principles and know who you truly are, because you could get hit with that.

You could have people that know how [00:26:00] to hurt you, say things to you to make you doubt yourself and make you doubt your own principles.

Paul: [00:26:07] Yeah. Staying with your truth, and know your truth yeah. Beautiful, lovely example. Anyone else got any, any good ones?

Fawn: [00:26:17] Matt, do you want to go

Matt: [00:26:20] great.

Call me out.

Fawn: [00:26:21] No, it's okay.

Matt: [00:26:22] I'm still working on the subject matter, but I will throw something out and we'll see. We'll see if it is, or isn't

Fawn: [00:26:28] Let's see what sticks.

Matt: [00:26:28] Let's see what sticks. That's what I like to say. Yeah. When I was, uh, when I was a teenager, when I was in high school, call it what you will very angry all the time.

And it's because people looked at me and they made a split second decision.

Can I just say gorgeous and angry? Like your pictures when from high school rockstar, total heavy, heavy metal rock star. Yeah. So

Paul: [00:26:54] sex sexy, angry.

Matt: [00:26:56] Yes. I lived in,

uh, where I grew up. It was, it was [00:27:00] fairly conservative and I had long hair and, you know, I can count, I didn't do drugs, but my God, everybody thought I did to the point where people would go by me and asked me if I was, if I had anything.

I mean, it was just, and so I was, I was, I was, I was this cauldron of just anger all the time, except of course with my buddies, but. Just angry just all the time. And it was, it was my, it was a self-defense mechanism. It was very much like you can't touch me because I'm going to give you so much rage. If you try,

Fawn: [00:27:33] can I ask you where that came from?

Why did you feel like you had to defend all the time?

Matt: [00:27:40] Freshman year. So first year  in high school, I'm,  13, right? I'm not, I don't have long hair at this point. I'm just normal guy. Right? I'm just, bebopping along. I mean, you know, you're the smallest littlest kids at the school. You're trying to figure stuff out.

And we had a school kind of police [00:28:00] and over the course of like the first two weeks of school, they harassed me like three times.,

Fawn: [00:28:05] wait, other countries don't know what that is. So in America we have, even, even when we were kids, we had, like, I can tell you in my schools, we had gun violence. Kids. We didn't kids came to school with guns guys, like in their lockers, we had guns and this was before the mass shootings, but we had police in our, in our schools.

I don't want to explain that to the countries that are listening, that don't know we had policing in school.

Matt: [00:28:33] So, and I got frisked like twice in my first two weeks of school. What, because I had my wallet in my front pocket and I had a key chain that looked maybe like a lighter.

Fawn: [00:28:44] And this, this was before your long hair.

This was before the whole heavy metal look, right?

Matt: [00:28:49] I'm just an innocent young, young lad,

Fawn: [00:28:52] like very conservative looking actually. Right.

Matt: [00:28:54] I wouldn't say I was that conservative looking, but I mean, come on. I was 13. How [00:29:00] conservative or non conservative can you look? But I certainly didn't. I didn't look like the hell you and I later looked like.

And it just built from there. It was, it was very much a self-defense defense mechanism, honestly. Right. And , I heard stories later where I was always in the honors classes cause I'm a little smarty, whatever. But there would be stories every year, at least for two years,  my third and fourth year in high school where I would start school, I would start my classes, and in the teacher's lounge, sorry, I'm sorry. I scared you there babe. In the teacher's lounge, people would say, who is this  Matt Anderson? What's he doing in my class? No, no, no, seriously. He's smart. And other teachers would basically like let this person know who I was, what I was, because I was that much of a, just an unusual character because I was out there. I was going to do whatever I was going to do and you know, don't mess with me, but I, I, I did my schoolwork, so it was a weird thing. So anyways, fast forward,  I go away to college and [00:30:00] I had a writing teacher because we didn't write anything in, in high school. So I didn't know how to write basically besides the five paragraph essay .Anyways, and I had to write something for my core class, for my college at university, whatever. And I wrote it and there was one sentence in there that said, uh, I was talking about, I was day camp counselor, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Having fun with the kids. And I wrote, once I got past my hair, am I writing instructor like, like an old school, like meditation, uh, artist with a, with a Boken, like bapping me on the head, said, what  is that doing there? Get rid of that, that doesn't belong in this essay.  And she was right. And at that moment it was like  this bowstring, that was so taut, loosened. And I said, you're right. I am not defined by how other people choose to see me. I'm defined by who I am. Not the perception, not the looking [00:31:00] through the lens of someone else's experience.

And it was a very enlightening moment for me and reinforced later and, later and later, because of course I didn't actually let go of all the hatred at that point. It took a minute, but that was the beginning of that process. That was the beginning of the process  of letting go of all of that.

Because you know, back in the day, if you looked at me cross-eyed I was, I was going to go for ya, but I don't, you know, am I on track? Am I not on track? Is this, is this self principle? Or just an interesting story? I don't know.

Paul: [00:31:31] No, no, no. Gorgeous, gorgeous. Exactly. So you've got anger and you've replaced that self principle for love.

And you spoke about the moment, the beautiful moment when that clicked, when that happened. It's funny, like one of my old mentors, he used to speak to me and say, Paul, if everyone likes you, you're doing something wrong. I

Matt: [00:31:49] definitely agree with that statement.

Paul: [00:31:51] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I used to be a massive people, pleaser.

You know, when I walked into a party, I wanted everyone to know who I was and you know, I was [00:32:00] friends with my true friends who were lovely, beautiful people. And I was also friends with like gangsters and dodgy gypsies and stuff like this. And, you know, they all knew me just as well as each other. And it didn't make sense, you know?

Cause I always wanted everyone to like me and to know who I was.

Matt: [00:32:19] Right.

Paul: [00:32:20] But yeah, that was beautiful. What you said at the end, it doesn't matter what people think you matters what you think of you; self-respect self, truth. Gorgeous. Right? Who else? Who else wants to go? Yeah, we got

Matt: [00:32:31] somebody better speak up or else, you know, professor Fawn will call on you.

Right?

Beth: [00:32:40] I'm I'm struggling with  the concept of it. Not, not because it's. It's a subject that really is interesting, I likw. But I think when I'm thinking about it, all of my emotions, all of my memories are like rolling into one and I don't know when it starts and when it finishes, if you know what I mean. And then I start thinking about, [00:33:00] so when I was, when I was little, I was sad and angry and upset with the world.

I hated being at school. I couldn't wait to leave school. I didn't want to be there. And I can't remember at what point I became positive. And I can't remember at what point I became more accepting of who I am. And so I'm, I'm struggling. I'm really struggling with that.

Paul: [00:33:25] Do you think that w maybe there wasn't just, you know, maybe it wasn't one big point, maybe it slowly happened.

Beth: [00:33:32] Yeah, I think it did it. Must've done. Uh, I remember. So I couldn't wait to leave school. So when everybody was going to play six form, I want it to leave the school. That was an and go somewhere else because I want us to be so far away from everybody because I didn't feel I ever fitted with the groups I was with.

Uh, and so I left went to another college, but then didn't, I only lasted there about a month before we decided, no, I don't want to be here either. So I [00:34:00] had a gap. I went to on and started work and I worked for two or three years. And then I decided I wanted to go back into education and I wanted to be teacher at one point.

And so when I went back into education at about 19. I could only go to a college that had like 16 to 17 year olds coming through when I was 19. And I felt so much older than these 16 and 17 year olds. I just felt like a different felt worlds apart, but it was my chance now to get my education.

I was going to put everything into it and I was going to get as many qualifications I could. And then I realized that I realized at that point that I was more intelligent than I had given myself. You

Paul: [00:34:40] know, you got that. That is as does the, the point.

Beth: [00:34:46] Okay. When it was at school, I went to a school that was, you had to do an exam to get into it.

So you have to, you have to pass this exam. But when I got there, I always felt like I was at the bottom. Like there were like the cream of the crop. The [00:35:00] people were so intelligent and I always felt I was trying to keep up with them and I just couldn't so that I just want to leave. And then it wasn't until I was like 19, 20 that I realized actually I'm quite an intelligent person.

I'd never given myself that I'd never been up until.

Paul: [00:35:15] Yeah. So, so those two principles that is self pity and self love. Yeah, the moment you spoke  about when you came to realization of self love. Gorgeous. Yeah. It's yeah, it's funny. Like as well, like people use self-pity, don't need to escape a blaze of different things; you know, escape, the world, escape shyness. Yeah. Anyway yeah. Beautiful. So nice that you came into it ; into the self-love. I mean, I would personally I would use self pity as an excuse to do so many bad things, so many negative things, not just to myself, but to other people and you know, and that false pride again will come [00:36:00] up even more so let me stay in that safety of self-pity. And in self-love was hard as well because  you stand tall  in that big pigeon chest, you know, and never doing that before is really scary, standing in that self love and that vulnerability it's, it's scary.

Most people find it easier to stand in self-pity than self-love. Hmm. Yeah. Interesting.

Fawn: [00:36:26] I can tell you that. That's how they got me to stay in that unhealthy family because they used self-pity I'm like, how dare you go off to college? How dare you think of having this dream? You need to stick with us, poor us.

How dare you leave the family? How dare you? You know what I mean? As opposed to, like, I think if they had such self love for themselves, they would have this knowing this is my family, by the [00:37:00] way, not anybody else, but that life is good and we can make life bigger. We can make our lives bigger and grander.

So  nothing can threaten you. And because they, these people in my world were such self pity people. It's kind of like crabs, how you talk, how they talk about like crabs will keep each other from getting out of that bucket. You know, that story about if one crab decides to. Do you know that story, Matt?

Or is it just an American thing?

Paul: [00:37:36] Is that real? If you have let it go, she, you tried that.

Fawn: [00:37:40] No, I I'm a vegan, so I would never do anything like that to  any creature, but they always, they always describe if you have a bucket of crabs and one tries to escape and one tries to leave that they'll pull it down.

They'll pull it. Why are you looking at me like that? Matt? Do you know what I'm talking about? You've [00:38:00] never heard the crab story. Anybody heard the crab story? Anybody?

Paul: [00:38:05] No. I mean, we never used buckets. We just get him out with some

Fawn: [00:38:09] vacant.

Wow guys. Nobody. All right. All right. Nevermind. Well, what I'm saying is like, they just, they want company nevermind. Next.

Paul: [00:38:23] I mean, it makes complete sense. Yeah. And it, it, it brings people together, you know, it's the same, like as gossip, isn't it, people gossip to feel a part of something, even though it's negative, it's quite, it's natural gossip is natural and

Fawn: [00:38:39] it's addictive. It's like, there must be some chemical reaction that you just constantly crave the bad behavior, you know, and you're attracted to,

Paul: [00:38:51] it was familiar.

Isn't it?

Fawn: [00:38:53] Exactly.

Paul: [00:38:54] Yeah. Just that's it's like it's, if that's all we know how [00:39:00] to feel the part, then we're just going to keep using that method until you come to like a realization like you three have already spoken about where finally some incident happens and that you see a different pathway, you know, like self-pity to self-love

Fawn: [00:39:16] you guys, there was this poem.

One of the last therapist that I had, by the way, every therapist I had from the age of 17 on till like, I won't tell you how old I am, but like I had many of them, they all said the same thing. Leave these people. You need to get out. And that shocked me, but I couldn't do that because of my culture. You don't do that in my culture.

You don't just leave the family. Anyway, but the very last memory of like the most amazing therapist that I was talking to a psychologist. She gave me this poem and I wish I could find this poem. I don't remember who wrote it. And I don't remember the words. [00:40:00] I just remember the images in my head when I read the poem.

And if anyone out there, if this helps you, I'm just gonna, I'm sorry, I'm taking this opportunity to talk again. And I said, I'd be quiet, but you guys, the poem was that. So this person is trying to leave, but the voices keep the person staying there. The voices keep holding that person there and the voices are terrifying.

And the voices keep telling you, you can't leave. Don't leave. Stay here. And, you know, you need to leave and for you to take one step at another step and another step and keep walking and the voices keep calling you and pulling you back and saying, don't leave. This is your place. Don't leave. Don't leave us.

It is, the voices are horrifying, but because, because you're used to it, it's, it's where you want to be, because you're used to that like, right. It's [00:41:00] comforting because you're, you're comfortable in that misery, in that bad relationship. And the poem eventually says, you know, you keep walking and all of a sudden you realize the voices are now far away until you don't hear them again.

And it sounds scary, but like the poem totally liberated me, but that's what it was like. You keep walking and eventually those haunting voices will stop. They will stop calling you.

Paul: [00:41:33] Yeah. That's it just keep going in it. Yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna listen to this podcast before I go to sleep.

 I was literally there

that I was at my head. I was like, Oh no, these voices. Oh dear. That you've planted the seed in

my head.

Fawn: [00:41:49] Oh no. What upset you guys? I'm

saying,

Paul: [00:41:54] Oh, I can hear stuff.

[00:42:00] Fawn: [00:42:00] Yeah. Let's

Paul: [00:42:02] keep walking. Let's go. No,

Fawn: [00:42:04] seriously. Yeah. Like what Winston Churchill said, right? If, if you find yourself w what was

Matt: [00:42:10] it? If you find yourself traveling through hell for God's sake, keep going. Yeah.

Paul: [00:42:15] Keep walking. Wow.

Fawn: [00:42:17] Sweet

dreams.

Paul: [00:42:23] Uh, right. Anyway, let's move on to butterflies and fairies KJ or Katy, 

KJ: [00:42:29] for me similarly, like Beth, it isn't that I don't have anything to say. I have everything to say. So

I'm trying to, you know,

pinpoint and maybe reveal a little bit in a succinct way.

But I can say this, that when I learned what today's round table was about, I was tossing around in my head, what I believed or understood my [00:43:00] self principals or principals to be. And so principals for me seem to be they've morphed more into I see them more as sort of, informing and shaping, shaping movements and shaping experiences, values.

And like folks have mentioned before. It's natural that I moved to my childhood, to my earliest memories to see where, where they sprung from, where they were born from. And, uh, something that fun had said earlier too. And we'd spoken about  offline about, about almost

I mean, in utero, I kind of, emerged into this world,  this lifetime seeing, observing. So my values and my informing and shaping principles were from what I observed and what I saw. And I think Paul you mean, and to, uh, and it might've been before we hit [00:44:00] record, but this power in pausing.

Paul: [00:44:04] Yeah. The pause button,

KJ: [00:44:05] the pause button. And I learned from a very, very early, early age to be quiet and observe and trust what I'm seeing, but not speak on it right away, if at all. But just observe and know that that is one language or one interpretation of a situation, but not 100%. It's not, it's not an all knowing end all truth. It was just one interpretation of what happened or what an experience was. So if I would see somebody, if I would see other kids my age treated unkindly, I wouldn't necessarily know that that was, uh, bullying or being unkind.

I just sensed it. In my, in my physical being something, something would feel physically, pre mortally off [00:45:00] and And so I know, I don't know that I think language was one of the last, last intelligences  that I developed over time, but I certainly, I certainly knew to be quiet, observe, hold and pause and know that something significant was happening and that it was shaping me.

And it certainly impacted the way that I would then treat somebody else. And again, , I don't have specific words and language around what I just said other than I know that my values and my informing, shaping shaping experiences really have me in tuned with compassion.

Fawn: [00:45:43] Empathy. Yeah.

KJ: [00:45:45] Inclusion. I would always, I could always tell when they're needed to be a shift so that there was an inclusion and not an exclusion. I was very, very sensitive to anybody or anything that was overlooked or excluded. [00:46:00] So I knew I was always drawn to wanting to include in circle protect.

Paul: [00:46:05] Yeah. Yeah. Well, like you said, I mean, before you said it, I was thinking exactly those two words, compassion and empathy.

Cause you were speaking about that when you, when you saw other people being left out or being sad and stuff like that.  You know, empathy it's quite a natural one, isn't it? Out of all the loving kind of principles. It's probably the most natural one that we want to come together and sort of thing.

And it's a beautiful one to have. And especially with children, children have it more so than adults, we like kind of, you know, it gets knocked out for us. I remember this guy in rehab. Yeah. He's quite a hard man. He had gone to like eight prisons or something and he used to boast about it until another hard man came in and he had been like 20 prisons and then he stopped boasting about it.

And  we were talking about empathy and he was like, don't know what empathy is. He just didn't [00:47:00] know how to feel it truthfully. And it was lovely that he was being truthful about that. And towards the end, he started to just opening up and all this love started coming out and he, towards the end, he said, I feel I'm free.

And he could, he could speak about moments when it was coming up and  talk about situations. So, I mean, that was gorgeous to see that, see this big, hard, tough guy come into like beautiful. I didn't want to say a beautiful little flower that I don't think that's the right word but yeah. Wait,

Fawn: [00:47:32] so how did he come to experience empathy?

How did he, how do you explain, how do you teach that? How did empathy come to him?

Paul: [00:47:40] I can't remember the exact moments or the examples.

Fawn: [00:47:44] Why do you put a sad movie on, or like a romantic movie on and like, watch the person

Paul: [00:47:52] say like, if another addict came into the rehab and they were, they were crying about that life being so [00:48:00] down and terrible, you know, Beforehand, he would have just been like, Oh, it's just another addict. That my, my life's bad. I'm not going to care about your life, but now he's like, I understand you. I feel you, when you go, when you go into their shoes and feel them, and then you, you feel sad for them and then you love them when they can't love themselves.

That's empathy.

Katie, you got

Katy: [00:48:29] okay. I loved the subject. At first I thought, Oh my gosh, what is this about? Because it entails so much. And I think these are all qualities that we need to work on our, our whole life much like Beth and Matt in school. I had similar situations where in the United States we have to take a placement test called SATs and ACTs to get into college.

And I'm not very adapt at taking those tests so to speak in that I got a very poor [00:49:00] score and my teacher in the counselor said to me, wow, with a score like that, you're never going to get into college. Well, that crushed me because I was expected to go to college and I wanted to go to college. So, as it turns out, I did get into college on a special academic watch group where they helped you with classes.

And, and as it turns out, I actually didn't need to be in there. And I graduated college in four years with a B plus. And I'm like, what happened with that? And, you know,  ever since that, sometimes that voice still comes into my head and I'm like, that is just the worst thing that person could have ever said to me, because that really did follow me throughout my whole life on certain things, Oh, you're not smart enough to do this.

You can't do this, you can't do that. And then finally, I've got to the point where, you know, that is really something that does not serve me and I [00:50:00] have to get over that. And and I've proven many times that, that I did overcome that. And so it's just something like all these self principles, especially in my family too, I've had a lot of addiction in my family and I've had to work on acceptance, understanding forgiveness.

And it's just something that I have to realize that my family members are going through and it's very hard for them to overcome it and I just have to be there for them and accept it. And I do understand what's going on for them. So, you know, in conclusion, I think  these are something that comes up for us every day and challenges that we have meeting people in our everyday life.

We have to we have to forgive, we have to give people encouragement for the good job like our children, like, Oh, you're doing such a good [00:51:00] job. You have to have empathy for people with they're going through every day in certain stressful situations. Love is like everybody love is everything, you know, it's just, it has to be everywhere.

And patients too. I mean, patients, as they say is a virtue and boy, that's a hard virtue and it's something that, that actually has to be worked on every day. So I just love all of these principles and also acceptance too. One of my favorite part of acceptance is the serenity prayer that I'm sure Paul, you know, I know very well say that all the time.

And so, that is one of my favorites prayers, because it just doesn't have to be for people in AA it's for everybody except things I cannot change the courage. Things can change, courage, change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. So, that, that is very powerful.

Paul: [00:51:57] Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

Okay. That was [00:52:00] lovely to say, I loved as well that you said everything is love. And I mean, all of those good self principles, all kind of come under the bubble  of love or under the column, say like exactly what you said love is like on top of everything. And if you,  go in to any of those positive self principles, you kind of need love for them to be truthful and honest and really, really work.

And like you said, as well, like you've got to go at every day and it's all about the little steps, isn't it?  You do it every day and that's when it becomes you. Truthfully, if you just do it once every blue moon, it's never going to become you.  Gorgeous. Loved it. Nice lovely, loving Mo I only got left.

Am I meant to ask

that?  All right.

Groovy. 

The last question was going to be what's your biggest moment of acceptance in your life where [00:53:00] acceptance has had the biggest impact on your life and the biggest change. And we kind of did go into that with most people. Definitely.

So, I mean, our next for me, yeah, mine is when I figured out I'm an addict and I'm an alcoholic sort of thing. So my brain works different compared to most other people's brains. And it goes into the, the false, the bad self principles, a lot easier than most of the people do. And I  figured out in rehab actually, when I went to rehab, that, normally when something happens before you're seven years old, it can make you feel incorrect.

And I remember my incident stronger than any, any other memory from when I was little. And, uh, when that happens, making you feel incorrect, not sad, but incorrect. It makes your brain stop producing the dopamine and endorphins area as much as a normal person would. [00:54:00] So I'm not getting these happy feelings in my head and obviously drugs and alcohol give you that straight away.

So this is why my brain wants drugs and alcohol. And this is why my brain started bringing in these manipulation self principles and stuff like this to get my fix and to get love from elsewhere, rather than myself, and to manipulate, to get drugs and money and stuff like this. And it became me because I would, you know, I did it so long such yeah, such a long period of time.

But yeah. To come to the realization and acceptance that I was an addict, who's just beautiful because then I could step back, look at myself in a different light and actually start doing changes rather than taking it personally and bringing in emotions when Iwanted to challenge my thoughts stepping back and going, ah, [00:55:00] okay, so there's two sides of me. There's my addict side. And then there's my other side. So seeing that, and then being able to challenge that addict side of my brain, if any of this makes sense. 

Fawn: [00:55:17] totally makes sense.

Paul: [00:55:19] Yeah. So, I mean, when I, you know, I was going down this destructive path for most of my life, self destructive path, even from a little child.

And then when I got to 24 and had this beautiful realization of acceptance through the gift of desperation and because my life had gotten, so self-destructive through finally accepting that I was an addict and an alcoholic, I managed to start going into this beautiful, different direction, which wasn't self destructive, self loving, self examination, self growth self challenging, you know, so that was [00:56:00] my biggest part of acceptance in my life.

That's had had the biggest impact and I'm so, so blessed and grateful for that today.

Fawn: [00:56:10] That's beautiful. I mean, I think that's that just staying on what you just said for me, that's a wrap right there. I mean, it's making me feel and think.  I'm getting a healing, listening to what you just said.

And it's a lot for me to think about. And as a mom, it's making me think about things too, with our kids and just everything. Anybody else want to say anything else?

 KJ: [00:56:37] I wanted to share that while everyone was speaking, you touched on something that really highlighted, uh, an arc that I've known throughout my life, which was acceptance and the definition of, and it, it was around again, language and defining, defining what [00:57:00] acceptance was, what belonging meant, what beauty meant, what intelligence meant.

And it wasn't until I was in college. Yeah, maybe college. Yeah. And it was certainly around the time when I was deciding between my 17 different majors that I had said that I was going to do. I ultimately was enrolled in university to be a piano and voice voice performance major. And then two weeks before I started, I bailed out and went to the local community college to study psychology and broadcast journalism.

And because I didn't want to pinpoint, I didn't want to box myself in with music theory and structure and regime. I thought I would lose my, my passion for, doing it. And so I was in college  studying everything under the sun. And I happened upon a developmental psychologist named Gardner who came up with and created the multiple [00:58:00] intelligences theory, which speaks a lot to what Beth and Katie spoke about and Matt, where we weren't comfortable being put into boxes of like, this is what intelligence looks like. This is what scholarly looks like. This is what smart looks like. But Gardner introduced the idea that every single thing that we can do is a arena of intelligence.

And so there are, it just opened up my world because I was just like, Oh my God, I fit somewhere then. He came up with a different arenas of like there's verbal intelligence, there's logical intelligence. And then there's spatial intelligence. How we use the space around us designers often use that dancers, people that work in physical therapy. And then there's musical intelligence. And,  there are eight arenas altogether, but what it did was relieved my heart. It relieved the weight on my shoulders. My brother's [00:59:00] incredibly cerebral and logical, and he was just hailed for his intelligence where I was over here composing music, writing poems, not wanting to go to school. I didn't test well either Katie. And, and any entrance exams I didn't test. Well, even though I knew I had intelligence that did it, didn't show up in my tests scores. So it was a great relief to realize that I had a level of, of somewhere, somewhere, it was defined as intelligence and acceptance.

And so I didn't mean to go off on a tangent like that, but that was. That was a moment when I realized that that there was acceptance and there are definitely different definitions behind behind these values and principles. What might be a principle for my mother or for my logically minded family members, I didn't hold the same. I didn't hold it in the same light.

Paul: [00:59:54] Yeah. Similar to what Matt was on about. Yeah. Yeah. Loving yourself.

[01:00:00] Fawn: [01:00:00] I didn't test. Well either, guys! Surprise. Surprise.

KJ: [01:00:05] Sweet! Welcome!!

Paul: [01:00:07] So I remember my mum, she sent me to boarding school. When I got my results. She was like, we might as well just send you to a normal school  Paul. Charming.

What a charmer.

Fawn: [01:00:24] That's another structure that needs to change our whole education system that needs to change the way we test for everything. I don't know what the tests are like in different countries, but here it's like, you have to be of a social group that's accepted and it's usually Caucasian and wealthy for you to pass these tests because of the way the words are phrased, the way the questions are phrased.

You have to think a certain way. So you take, you spend all this money to learn how to take the SATs and the ACTs so you can acquire the knowledge [01:01:00] of whatever mindset it is that created these questions. So you can understand them and then answer them the way they want you to answer them, rather than it really should be the other way around.

Yeah.

Paul: [01:01:12] It's not about like what, you know, it's about how you say it don't make

Fawn: [01:01:16] sense. Right?

Beth: [01:01:18] So I think that the curriculum should be built around what KJ is talking about. You know, if you built it around the different intelligences than you would allow everybody to be who they are in one of those themes and the world would be a better place because you'd be starting much younger, believing in yourself, believing in what you have as gifts for the world are true and rightful and should be, should be used in the world.

Instead of trying to fit into this almost just academic route that we, we tend to place on people. So the whole curriculums need to change. Maybe it will. That's my hope.  

[01:02:00] Fawn: [01:01:59] Can you guys imagine what would happen with the economy? If everything was that way from the beginning? We would thrive.

Paul: [01:02:12] Yeah, very man.

Fawn: [01:02:13] Yeah. Is there so many people with so many talents and it's crushed before you have a chance to develop.

Paul: [01:02:21] There's a, there's a couple of schools in England, Beth  that do that I can't  remember the name for the schools. But they're private schools.

KJ: [01:02:32] I'm wondering,

is it Montessori the way that we see things here in the States?

And I don't know if it's across Europe as well. Montessori, am I even pronouncing it correctly?

Fawn: [01:02:42] You're pronouncing it correctly.

KJ: [01:02:43] Yeah. So it's a little closer to that in that that you get to sort of rotate between different stations, that address different intelligence, intelligences and skills. And it's not like between two and three, you're going to [01:03:00] do math, you know, it's, wander in that direction and see where, see where you're.

Thriving see where you're connecting and engaging.

Fawn: [01:03:08] Yeah. And again, if you're lucky enough to go to some Montessori school yeah. It takes money. Yes.

KJ: [01:03:16] Then there's that good luck getting in there?

Fawn: [01:03:18] Oh my God. Yeah. I was so mad. I had friends that didn't go to Montessori. It was a different kind of a thing.

It was in LA and it was structured kind of like what you were describing KJ. And I had no idea things like that existed. So when I was in my early, early, no, I was in my twenties when I found out like, you know, you meet friends and you're like, where'd you go to school? If you're, we were all from LA, but I'm like, where'd you go to school?

They're like, where'd you go to school? And when I found out what school they went to and what their school was, I was so mad. Yeah, because I'm like, wait a minute. Now, what you, what you did, you did [01:04:00] what? I didn't know that existed and sure enough, they came from a very wealthy family and yeah, it was one of those schools, all the, all the children of movie stars went to, you know, in West LA and it's just an elite kind of experience.

Paul: [01:04:17] it's getting more, robotic as well now with all like, uh, well, I think it was in 1990. I can't remember 1990 something, especially when, uh, the English schools education board changed. So we used to have a separate board who controlled the education of, of the British children. And then it became changed into the government's control that that it became the government board kind of thing. So now the government chooses what education systems are in place instead of its own entity. And it's become ever since that, I speak to my mum about it. Cause she's a teacher and she agrees that it has become more [01:05:00] robotic and more everyone has to be the same kind of thing,

Fawn: [01:05:03] like a factory.

Paul: [01:05:06] Yeah.

Fawn: [01:05:07] That's why we homeschool because everything's set up like it was at the turn of. No, actually, we can't, I can't say turn of the century anymore. You know, like the beginning of the early 19 hundreds, right. We're developing factories and you stand in line. Everything is like a processing line. And schools are set up the same exact way.

And they're to this day, still training you to be a factory worker. That's that mentality. And it doesn't work. And the types of jobs that will be in existence in a few years don't even exist right now. So what they're teaching kids and what they're teaching, even college level people, you're what do you study for like you're, you're studying the same old, same old from a time that's now gone [01:06:00] and doesn't it doesn't compute.

You know, like you can't keep being so rigid and doing things the same old way.

Matt: [01:06:08] It's funny you say it doesn't compute because yes, indeed. Yeah. The lower schools, but in, in university, you know, I was taught how things ended up where they are today and taught how to think

Fawn: [01:06:22] you went to a very liberal university.

You said, I mean that that's not the norm. You went to a really good school.

Matt: [01:06:32] I just know my, what I experienced. So we gotta wrap this one kids.

Fawn: [01:06:36] All right, guys. Well, I hope I don't give people nightmares. I'm sorry. I feel like you guys hate me for what I just say. Stop it.

Matt: [01:06:48] Come back

Fawn: [01:06:55] guys. We'll see you in a few days. Thank you everyone.

Matt: [01:06:59] Thanks.

[01:07:00] Paul: [01:06:59] Absolutely.

Fawn: [01:07:04] Bye everybody. Talk to you later. Oh, go to, well, our friendly world podcast.com  https://www.ourfriendlyworldpodcast.com/. And you will find links to everyone here. If you want to talk to anyone. All right, we'll see you later. Thanks for joining us, everyone. Bye-bye bye.