How Intention And Habit Shape The Future We Build

We start in fog and end with fire, moving from playful chaos to a clear practice for turning fear into creative power. We explore how intention, imagination, and short meditations help us rewrite old programming and design a life and world we actually want.

• Fire Horse year as a frame for change and energy
• institutions shifting and the invitation to participate, not just watch
• the core question “what do I want?” as guidance
• imagining better leaders, communities, and friendships
• moving from fear to creation through collective intention
• a personal story of choosing trust over logistics panic
• recognizing self-talk as the past, not the future
• childhood programming, boundaries, and adopting new language
• meditation as attention training to pause and choose response
• replacing old habits with affirming inner dialogue
• preview of “I’ll be happy when” trap and next steps
• resource note: breath meditation available in the school

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

We are on the line.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Foggy day in Skugog Town. Does anybody know that jazz song? Foggy Day in London Town? This is a foggy day in Skugog Town.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

London sounds better.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

I think I'd choose London over some foggy schoolgog right now, but yeah. Yeah, the river's wide open. It's been warm. Cold air descending upon warm air. Can't see the other shore. That kind of day. My dog really wants my attention.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Yeah, she's got all her toys out suddenly. It's just like she knows they're they're doing the podcast. I need to interview. Interview.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

That's all right. Pay attention to me.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

It's kind of like the subconscious mind, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Yeah. Pay attention to me. Yeah, exactly. Those little voices in your head saying, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Let me tell you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Today is Chinese New Year, February 17th. The snake releasing away and letting go of its skin, and the fire horse starts today. Fire horse is new. Yeah, everything new, but on like power, powerful energy behind it. The fire horse is, I think, a little different than the regular horse horse. So if I'm right, I'll look this up afterwards, but I'm just gonna take a look at it. The fire horse only happens every 60 years, I think. So it's kind of like a once-in-a-lifetime kind of deal.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Well, this is probably my second one then.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

It's your fifth one.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

What are you talking about? I don't remember the last one.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Um yeah.

The Power Of Intention And “What Do I Want?”

Imagining Better Leaders And Communities

From Fear To Creation In The Collective Field

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Big opportunity. Uh you know, you you you gotta be living under a rock to not see what's going on in the world, to not see the upheaval and the change. And sort of some changes have been building, and some changes have been thrust upon us, and ways of life are coming into question. And the things we assume in our life, you know, like money and banks and uh government and government services and globalization, all these things we've been building up to for 50 years, they're all shifting and they're all changing. Some are gonna go. We live in a world of change right now. We're getting so used to watching it, and I think we need to learn to participate in it. And I'm not talking about doing anything, I'm talking about the mind. You know, I think that more and more we are learning uh about you know the fundamentals of the field being the fundamental particles from which this physical world rises, and that includes our physical bodies, right? And we're learning more and more that human intention is powerful. And and we spent time last week talking about intention, and I think we need to keep those thoughts present that we can have intentions, and that those intentions are going to have a power and a strength. But I think probably the most important thing we've been talking about is what do I want? And I think that we're not we're so busy watching the world, we're so busy watching what's going on, we're so busy reacting in fear in some cases, some cases anger, some cases every emotion under the sun. Some of us are in the thick of it, you know. If you're living in Venezuela right now, you're probably pretty confused. If you're living in Eastern Europe right now, you're probably really confused. You know, things are just not the way they've been, nor the way you thought they would be. I just really think there's a lot of power in asking the question, what do I want? and spending some thought cycles there, using some imagination, using some curiosity. You know, if you come up with an idea, I wonder if that's possible. Well, go learn. Is it possible? Using the creativity. I want to live in a world that looks like this. The good news about things collapsing is that is that there's an opportunity to rebuild. The bad news about things collapsing is that it creates so much uncertainty, it triggers all that fear, and it causes us to not create, causes us to protect, causes us to resist change, it causes us to try to hang on to the past, which doesn't serve us, I don't think. And so, you know, just as a as a suggestion, and we'll talk about this in the near future, I know. You feel free to imagine what a good world would look like. What would it be like to have leaders that cared about your best interests? What would it be like to have leaders who weren't absorbed in their own sick, twisted needs? What would it be like to have leaders that wanted everyone to have a fruitful life? Everyone, not some, not the ones who comply with their rules, but everyone. What would it be like to live in a world where people approach each other in peaceful curiosity rather than intense fear and resistance? You know, what would what would friendships look like? What would travel look like? Uh, what would your lifestyle be? That would be one in which you were really satisfied. And I know that right now sounds like an incredible endeavor of imagination, right? It seems like it's out of reach. But I believe in our collective imagination. I believe that our minds are connected at the highest level. I believe that our minds create at the highest level. I believe that most of what we experience when it comes down to the collapsing of the field is what we hold in common. And for better or worse, we've been really programmed in fear. So, how can you set the fear aside right now, see how this is the possibility to create that as things stop functioning the way they used to, it is truly our opportunity to create something that we want to function better.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Yeah.

Personal Story: Trading Details For Trust

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Move past the fear of things changing to the excitement of what they might change to. And then use your imagination to picture it, and that will impact the collective imagination. That will have an impact on the field. And this is not, you know, silly childish endeavor. This is, in fact, a very mature way of being aware of how the world works, the quantum, the physics of it all, and deliberately creating in spite of the fear. So I'm just gonna shut up there. But I I believe that this is an opportunity. So, in the spirit of the fire course, if that's the spirit you want to embrace, in the spirit of change, knowing that change is happening, change is a constant, change is always, what can you do with that change? Understanding that there is a lot of science today supporting, you know, the fundamentals of the collapsing of the fundamental particles of the field. And we're learning rapidly that this is the way we create our reality. And soon we will start to be much more aware. I mean, there are whole cultures that have always been aware, but we will become more and more aware of our collective creative nature. We'll become more and more aware of what people jokingly refer to as the multiverse. And there comes a time to embrace that, that that's your opportunity. As much as you know, eating better and getting up earlier and changing your job and finding the perfect spouse and all those other things that are very personal, in the same spirit of I want my life to be better. You can spend some time in imagination about what a good world would look like, what good leaders would look like. Um, and that wouldn't be a waste of time.

Synchronicity, Support, And Shared Manifesting

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Yeah. And I think it would lead you to where your energy vibrates with the earth, with your surroundings. You know, I I do believe that imagining a beautiful world affects the consciousness, the greater consciousness. But I also deeply believe that it affects your vibration. And just like when, I mean, we see it all the time with clients, just like when they start to change their vibration, sometimes relationships in their life don't match that vibration any longer. And it's not to say that the old vibration was bad or judgment of it, but they've just changed their their thinking and their the way they, you know, you call it the dance of the relationship. They're changing up what how they respond. And sometimes that change is hard for the other person or friends around them. And so those relationships can often fall away. And just like a relationship and a friendship can fall away if you're changing up your vibration, so can your environment, I think. So this really speaks to me, you know, over the last few days, we've been really trying to shed. I've been trying, I should say speak for me, I've been trying to shed this fear of the future and where we're gonna go and what we're gonna do. And they're you know, we're trying to do this exercise where I'm trying, I'm trying my best to not get caught up in the details of life. You know, I let we we think about okay, well, let's let's travel here for a few months and then let's go out to BC and find our not solid home, but let's travel around and and learn where we want to go. And my mind immediately, instead of going, oh wow, that sounds so exciting! Like, let's just do it, hop in the car, let's go. My mind gets bogged down with the details, and the details rip away the joy of it all. The details put me straight into fear mode because you know, is Tyke, our little dog, gonna be okay? What's gonna happen? Like, how am I gonna have clients? And uh so all the things that absolutely can be worked out. You know, when I put my mind into the idea of everything will work out for me, for us, everything's gonna work out. It's not like we're gonna hop in the car and then suddenly life is just, you know, we can't move forward. It's not like the car's not gonna move forward, you know, but that's what it feels like. That's what it feels like internally. So letting go of the fear, and I think I think this is to Less's point, right? At least that's what comes up in my mind when he's talking about what he spoke about, is just imagining allowing yourself, allowing myself the time and exercise to imagine how easy it could be, or the life of just traveling around, like you know, and I I think parts of it are are just ticking together naturally. I think our house will sell and just suddenly everything's gonna fall into place, or at least little bits of it. You know, like yesterday we were speaking to one of our friends and and they, you know, said that they might have a place for us to stay for a month. Well, isn't that wonderful, right? Right on the beach. You know, clam digging. So I think that's those, those are just things that are available to the mind. I I give my own experience, but uh when you say to yourself, everything's gonna work out, then doors are gonna open. You're gonna suddenly have someone in your life that's saying to you, Yeah, I can help you with that, or yeah, this can happen for you. And and it's like everyone is part, whether we're aware of it or not, everyone is part of everyone else's manifestations. Yeah, I think that's exciting to think about. You know, we're not alone in our manifestation process. With there's people that this, you know, the universe is is putting along the path to to help us manifest, just like we're along their path in some way to help them manifest. Anyway, that's that's sort of what I've been going through, we've been going through, in terms of shedding that old snakeskin, that fear, and stepping into this this year.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

As a as a final point to this celebration of the Chinese New Year, I want to point out something that we dismiss. It's a technique we use in hypnosis all the time, because it's very powerful to the subconscious mind, to the younger subconscious mind. You can evaluate whether things have gone well or things have gone badly, or you can make a list of all the bad things that happened in my life, or you can make a list of all the good things that happened in my life. But you know that there is a list of the good things that happened in your life. You're predisposed to worry, to fear, and so you don't spend a lot of time on that list of good things that happened in your life, but you know it existed. But here's the thing to realize you're still here. Whatever has been thrown at me in all these years, I'm still here. I must be pretty good at survival, or I wouldn't be here. I must be pretty good at figuring things out, or I wouldn't be here. I must be taken care of because if there is some greater force of life that didn't want me here, it'll wiped me out by now. So the greater forces of life, whatever you imagine them to be, want you here, are helping you take care of yourself. You're meant to be here, or you wouldn't be, and I can pay a little more attention to that list of really good things. But no matter what, I can trust that I am here, that I am meant to be here, and that I have what it takes, whatever comes my way.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Can you? I love you say it very well, the the Bashar example. Can you give that example of someone asking Bashar, am I meant to be here right now? And he gets them to lay down on the floor, or you know what I mean? Can you do can you say that? I think it's just a great metaphor.

The Voice In Your Head Is The Past

SPEAKER_02 16:44

There's just a a neat story of a guy who does channeling and he and he was channeling a being, and they said, you know, uh am I meant to be here? Am I meant to be alive? And then Bajar had to lie down on the floor and say, Okay, I'm done. I'm ready to die. They lie down on the floor, okay, take me, I'm ready to die. And then he says, Are you here? He goes, Yeah. He says, Well, I guess you're meant to live. Get on the bed. It's a silly little thing, but I I do really believe that you're a survivor, or you wouldn't be sitting here listening to this, and you are a seeking thriver, or you wouldn't be sitting here listening to this. And that's an accomplishment. So here we are in a crazy world on the verge of a new fire horse year with endless possibilities because things are falling apart, but the possibilities now become big. The possibilities are whatever we can imagine. So I'm a survivor, I'm here, I'm ready to go. Let's see what happens next, bring it on. I think might be a good little approach to the new year. I think now it's it's about that voice that we talked about yesterday. You know, we talked about observing it, that voice that talks to us sometimes in unhelpful ways. We tried to isolate what that voice is. Where does that voice come from? What part of me is observing all of this? And we talked about how do I get that part of me? Well, we sort of finished with the idea. How do we get that part of me to start being encouraging rather than discouraging?

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Yeah. And I think it's about practice. It really is. When I yesterday I talked briefly about how I wake up in the morning sometimes and there's just madness going on in my mind. And I just think to myself, I gotta get up because I gotta take control of this craziness. It's actually worse to lay down or lay there, for me at least. And I think, you know, sometimes I should do it more, but sometimes I I will really place it in my head, like the words, I am love, I am enough. Just simple, simple phrases like that. And so when I wake up in the morning, those are really quickly gone to. Like I go to those sentences really fast. And sometimes they just come up at a at a I don't have to think too hard about it. Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I have to go to the bathroom and I'm half asleep, and those words will come to me, but it is a habit. Like you have to you have to really place your attention there and and create that habit. Otherwise, your mind will just come up with stuff for you. Yeah.

Childhood Programming And Boundaries

Meditation To Train Attention And Pause

SPEAKER_02 19:42

I think for me, the the first thing to realize is if I'm being aware of my self-talk, I'm realizing that my self-talk is not helpful. I'm noticing that there's patterns in my self-talk, and I'm probably recognizing the voice of others. I'm probably in my examination even discovering events of my past, moments, repeated moments. I'm discovering patterns with my parents or my teachers or my coaches or my friends. I'm seeing the past. And I think that's what's the magic word here. The voice in your head, that part of you that's going to speak up at times in an unhelpful way, is the fearful past. It's past. It's the past. It's not the future. The future is not saying look out. The future doesn't say look out. The future doesn't say, oh, watch out, this could go wrong. That's the past talking to you about the future. In an abstract way. Remember that there's nothing in your head that somebody else didn't put there. There's no thoughts you have that you didn't receive from somebody. It's the structure. You received your language from somebody else. The language is the format of thinking. The language and the visualization are the format of your thinking. These are the platforms, the guts, the material of thoughts. All of that was given to a little tiny baby who had, depending on how you want to phrase it, came into the world with a tabula rasa or forgot its true sense of self. There's lots of ways to describe it. The truth of the matter is the little one arrives wanting to be loved and cared for, expecting to be loved and cared for. Emerge from another human being. And the instant, even before the instant we emerge, our survival is completely at their will. They will either pick us up and hold us and feed us, or they won't. And in that moment of being picked up and held and fed, we begin to program ourselves as to who we are. Who am I? Who are they? What's the difference between them and me? Where is the boundary between them and me? There is then a constant inflow of information. Right. You know, um, I was having this conversation with my son last night. We were talking about how, you know, what's a good dad? And and the conclusion I came to was a good dad is one who's aware that their children are watching. Kids are going to learn much more from watching you than from anything you say. And and it's very, very interesting what we learn from others as we go from birth to the first five years. And as we go through those first five years, our parents are constantly creating boundaries. You can do that, but not that. You can go that far, but not that far. Don't put that peanut butter and jam sandwich in the VCR. I remember that event very well. That's not that that's not where the peanut butter and jam sandwich goes. We're constantly learning boundaries. We're constantly learning no this far, no farther. And this is very much the creation of that voice. That voice that's trying to keep you in bounds. It is the voice of the past trying to raise a child. When you examine it, when you listen to it, when you pay attention to it, when you look to where it comes from, you start to recognize that the voice isn't necessarily yours, although we do often become that voice. We somehow adopt those lessons as true and that it's in our best interest to reinforce them to ourselves. But it is the voice of the past and it is the voice of others. I think that's really, really important.

unknown 24:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

Right. All of these comments going on in my mind, telling me you're out of line, or you're going too far, or don't be so bold. That one still sits in my head. I would never say don't be so bold, but my mother said it to me a lot. Right. My aunt said it to me a lot. These were people who were formative to me. I love them very, very much. And they were constantly trying to keep me from crossing bounds, which was something I was very good at doing, crossing bounds, doing things I shouldn't do. And they were constantly, and there's there's the thing. I've even asked others, am I being too bold here? And I think, wow, that's not even my word, right? That's not even my concept, but it's my concern. And that's the voice out of the past, right? It's a voice of the past, and it's not my voice. So as you become an observer of the self-talk and you start to recognize it as a voice of the past, and you start to hear it as the voice of others, you can start to detach yourself from it because there is that aspect of you that observes. Like, who am I really? I'm the one that can recognize that that's out of the past. Who am I really? I'm the one that can allocate that voice to where it originated.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yep.

Rewriting Habits And Choosing Response

SPEAKER_02 25:55

I am this awareness that's greater than the expression of me. I am an awareness that could choose the expression of me and has up to this point chosen the expression of me based on somebody else's words out of my past.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

And I think because, you know, as a child, there's there's not too many children that look at their parents and say, that's not how I want to be. That there's, you know, I think mostly we look at our parents and we think that must be the right way of doing things because they're my parent. And so it can emotionally play a role as a child, uh, but but as a child, we don't know what that emotion means. It just is. And we can't like we might feel it as sad, angry, you know, words held back, happiness, whatever, but we can't really compartmentalize it or break it down or understand like why, right? So that's I mean, people ask me, like, why am I like this? Why am I like this when I don't even like this? Right. And and all it is is that growing up as a child, you thought that how your parents acted was the right way of acting. It felt normal. Now, as an adult, some adults that are making changes, it doesn't feel normal, it feels bad. You you're you know, you end up mad at yourself because you treat others badly or whatever, right? It's so many different kinds of things. But when you start to look at yourself to understand that it is just the child part of you that is going, well, I I thought that was right. I thought mom and dad were right. I thought Aunt Betty was right. I thought, you know, my teachers, I thought they were right. But all they did was program you without you asking to be programmed.

SPEAKER_02 28:25

I don't know that there's anything we can do to stop programming.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

No, I don't I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Not in the beginning, anyway.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

No.

Next Steps: “I’ll Be Happy When” Trap And Resources

SPEAKER_02 28:32

I think the critical factor arises when we're older and we can start drawing boundaries. Yesterday I did a little thing on meditation. I want to spend Mondays just doing short meditations. And the purpose of the short meditations is really to practice controlling our awareness and our attention. I'm gonna preface that this way. The purpose of the subconscious mind is to create habits that are fast and precise. The purpose of the subconscious mind is to get us to get really good at something and be really fast at it, so that it doesn't take up a lot of our time, it doesn't take up a lot of brain cycles, it doesn't slow us down, it allows us to do other things. The beauty of the subconscious mind is that it can create these incredible habits. So the subconscious mind's premise, the reason we do things and later say, why did I do that? Why did I eat that? Why did I say that? Right? The reason that happens is because the subconscious mind is instantaneous. Bang! Here's the thing to do, and you just seem to do it, and it comes out of habit, and you do it over and over, and then you go, man, I wish that I didn't do that. I wish I didn't have that reaction. I wish I wasn't that way. That's the beauty of the subconscious mind and the dilemma of the subconscious mind, that it's not a deliberate thing, it's a programmed thing. And there's so much in our life we would just, it were better to relegate to program and just function from program because it just keeps things better, keeps things in order, keeps us safer, right? And that's what the goal of the subconscious mind is. But there is an awareness above all of that, right? There is an awareness that can say, why did I do that? Right? That's that's the awareness. That's who you really are, right? The rest is programs. Who you really are is able to look at the programs and say, well, that wasn't helpful. That didn't do me any good. That created a problem I don't know how I'm gonna fix. Right? It is about this speed thing. So I want to do a weekly meditation, and it's just gonna be a short one. This is not gonna be sit in the chair and dwell on something. It's really yesterday, we just used a bowl. And it's just about practicing holding your attention on something.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

Tibetan bowl, not cereal bowl.

SPEAKER_02 31:12

They they each have their own sound. But the point is that we used sound yesterday to simply hold our focus. And and that's just practice, right? There's a certain amount of us that just there's a certain dimension of us that does that naturally. When we hit our curiosity, when we hit our interests, we can hold our attention for extended periods of time. But can we do it at will? And can we do it with the things that we're not interested in? And can we do it with the things that are so habitually fast that they have a life of their own? And we want to address that, like our self-talk. Can I allow myself to hear that self-talk and pause with it and say, that's a voice out of the past? I can even tell you whose voice it was. Now it isn't true about me, and I don't have to honor that. What would I want to honor instead? And to go even further. How do I turn that into my new habit? How do I turn a new idea into the habitual voice that is encouraging, supporting, and loving me and reminding me that I'm pretty damn good at surviving? Look at me, I'm still here. I'm pretty good at managing chaos because look at me, I'm still here. So that's the value in my mind. And there's lots of reasons to meditate. There's lots of great methodologies, there's lots of really meaningful things we can do with meditation. Again, it's uh moving into a theta state. It allows us to access our mind. It allows us to make changes in our mind. It allows it reveals ourselves to ourselves. But what's most important is that there is a practice of holding one's attention, one's focus at a spot, at a moment, at something that might not otherwise appear to matter, like a sound or a feeling or an emotion. That's why I think there's value in practicing meditation. I think you can become as good at it as anything. You can become really, really good at grabbing that moment between stimulus and response. You can become really, really good at not falling into the sort of click whirr of your subconscious programming. You can become really good at, wait, this is what they said. This is where my subconscious mind went. That's not going to be helpful. I can examine what they're saying and realize that's not about me. That has nothing to do with me. That has everything to do with their self-interpretation and the day that they're having. It means nothing about me. And I don't even need to respond, let alone respond in this habitual way that has never been helpful. I can become more settled, more comfortable. I can become better practiced at staying in that part of my mind who I really am. And then I can deliberately use that part of me. You can say to yourself, I'm good, I'm kind, I'm loving, I'm a wonderful person. I do not have to react to anything. And the world begins to open up.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Yeah. Well said. Before we wrap up, Pierre, does anyone have any questions? No questions. Okay. So I think where do we imagine this going tomorrow?

SPEAKER_02 35:02

Well, first of all, I hope to see everybody next Monday practicing simple meditation techniques. But apart from that, um, what I think you're referring to is that Barb gave us a neat idea to pursue.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Oh, yeah, from earlier. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Is that what you're referring to?

SPEAKER_00 35:19

I wasn't, but I think it's a good direction. So maybe tomorrow we'll we'll start down that path of again just coming back to this idea of what do I want? And Barb had spoken about just the idea of us getting caught up in this idea of we'll be I'll be happy when I'll I'll feel connected to the universe when I'll know I'm taken care of by the universe when, you know, and I think that's an important topic because you know what? It sort of puts the element of control out of our hands, uh, but not in a it just says that I'm not gonna create my own happiness, I'm waiting for something else to create my happiness. And we'll get into all of it later, but I think it's a good topic.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

Yeah. So on the note of Les's uh breath meditation from yesterday, if you go into the school, it's under the meditation hub classroom. It just is called breath meditation. And I couldn't get the video to upload, so it's just the audio right now, but we're gonna try to make that different. But anyway, thanks for hanging out and go check that out if you want. And we will see you.