Is Life Meant to Be Difficult?

In this Soul Session we will explore why most people are unhappy with their lives and experience dissatisfaction that cannot be resolved. Do you feel like you have been dealt a bad hand, born into a “dysfunctional” family and keep hitting roadblocks to living a joyful life?
 
 You wonder if anything is ever going to change and feel powerless in face of adversity both in your personal life and on the collective level. 

 Is happiness really possible when you think of all of the suffering in the world? Join us to find the answer.

• Why is Life Difficult?
• How do we transcend suffering?
• Where do I start?

Transcript

Debra Maldonado 00:03

Welcome to Creative Mind Living, a podcast for personal growth based on the works of Carl Jung neuroscience and Eastern philosophies. We’re your hosts Debra Berndt Maldonado, and Dr. Rob Maldonado, founders of creative mind coaching Hello, everyone. Welcome to Creative Mind Coaching. And our lovely soul Saturday session. So glad to be here. How are you?

Robert Maldonado 00:32

Good. I’m doing pretty good. Yes.

Debra Maldonado 00:36

It’s a good June Gloom here in LA so it’s kind of hazy out. It feels like it’s gonna rain but it never rains here. So it’s kind of an odd

Robert Maldonado 00:45

phenomenon like those colors on you. Thank you beautiful. Thank you. brings out your the color of your eyes.

Debra Maldonado 00:51

Oh, it does. Okay, multi color. And I love the black on you and it brings out the darkness of your soul.

Robert Maldonado 01:00

They’re black.

Debra Maldonado 01:01

I know you look great in black. So today we’re talking about the question and trying to answer the question is life meant to be difficult?

Robert Maldonado 01:12

Yeah. Which is really the, the old question and philosophy is, why do we have? Why do we have suffering in the world? Mm hmm. Do we have to suffer?

Debra Maldonado 01:25

And I remember, when I was first starting out, Buddha used to say life is suffering and I’d be like, why? But if you think about it, most of our life, if we think about our mind is constantly feeling dissatisfied. Most people are always in that one. The next thing you know, when you know this happens, then I’ll be happy when this happens, and I’ll be happy. It’s that kind of constant craving, of dissatisfaction and it never is as good as we expect it to be. And then the past is always better than when it was. We look back and have nostalgia over the past and we don’t appreciate it while it’s here. So there’s so much about life and difficulty. And I know a lot of people seek personal development because they feel that, you know, they’re having difficulty with dealing with life. And that’s really what this work is about is about not just trying to get the goodies, but how do we deal with life in general? How do we deal with the things in life that we can’t avoid?

Robert Maldonado 02:31

Yeah, well, you know, when when you and I met, I was studying Buddhism at that time. And what struck me was that in the beginning, when you hear the Four Noble Truths, the first one is that life is suffering. And a lot of people stop there because they say that’s very pessimistic, you know, I I want some something uplifting you know, I want to try As of eternal life or something, but they they missed the point. He’s the it’s simply the starting point. Essentially Buddhism and all of the Eastern philosophies are very positive, in that they say there is a way out of suffering. They’re simply starting at that point to make the the point that we suffer in this world, right that it’s, but it’s not like the the heavy dramatic suffering that we think about carrying the cross to bear and

03:34

yeah, I mean, it’s after 

Robert Maldonado 03:35

I guess it is a spectrum from, you know, from mild discomfort, satisfaction, like you were saying, dissatisfaction with life, all the way to physical pain and intense loss and grieving 

Debra Maldonado 03:51

because we have that we have to deal with the body which is has physical challenges and health issues and some of us have to deal with severe stuff and then other times, we have to deal with death. And then we also have to deal with the heart our heart aches and you know other people and love and so,

04:11

yes so so 

Debra Maldonado 04:12

Why is life difficult?

Robert Maldonado 04:14

Yeah, I think if we boil it down to what is psychology say what is philosophy say what do the poet’s say? Why we suffer? It has to do with misperception. We miss read the world, in that we think something external to us is going to make us happy. It’s the old idea. If I line line it up all on the the right side. If I get the job and I get the relationship and I get the the health and everything down the line, or the money and there’s enough

Debra Maldonado 04:51

money in the bank?

Robert Maldonado 04:52

Yes, I’ll be happy. Right. That’s the basic underlying unspoken assumption. We all make and that we’re all taught that if you line these things up, you should be happy or successful and all that stuff well adjusted. But we see that the very, from very early on, we see that those things don’t really make us happy. Not that we shouldn’t go after them. Of course, we need to be prosperous and successful and have relationships, but they’re not the anchor for us to be happy. 

Debra Maldonado 05:29

or at least feel like they’re, if we really look at it, it’s a temporary thing. These things give us a temporary relief from our suffering. You know that it’s like this suffering mind and it’s like these like joyful things that happen give us this temporary relief from it. But then we go back to the default of I’m not enough I’m not good enough. And all those things that we our ego tells ourselves

Robert Maldonado 05:55

Yeah, well, you know, and most spiritual teachers ditions The idea is that the happiness, salvation, Nirvana, enlightenment has to come from within your mind. If you can’t find it in your mind, and you’re searching for it externally, that is the major cause of suffering. You searching for something in the wrong place, right? It’s the old joke of the guy’s looking for his keys outside, in under the light in the lab, and they asked him what you know, what are you looking for my keys, but did you lose them here or where did you last see them? No, I they were inside the house. Why are you looking out here? It’s because there’s more light out here. So it’s kind of that principle. There appears to be more light out there. Right there’s

Debra Maldonado 06:57

more happiness out there somewhere to be attained than anything inside of us. That’s right. Important. Yeah,

Robert Maldonado 07:03

yeah, we’re looking in the wrong place.

Debra Maldonado 07:04

Well even you know, they always say like ice cream. You know what you think the happiness isn’t the ice cream. But if you’re lactose intolerant or vegan lacked the happiness is not in that ice cream because it’s milk or you know, can upset your stomach and buffer. So the ice cream inherently doesn’t have that quality of happiness. It set the mind says, when I eat this, it tastes good. And that brings me happiness. So for some people, it’s they eat it and it can cause misery because now you have to go on the treadmill for 20 minutes to burn off it or you feel guilty or every so we always think that this one thing out there is going to have happiness contained in it, but it also if it has happiness contained in it, it also has the ability to make us suffer.

Robert Maldonado 07:52

That’s a good point. Because the world operates on on that dualistic principle. Yes, it contains it. Opposite, you know, anything that makes us happy and makes us sad as well. Or like

Debra Maldonado 08:06

someone who can bring love into your life. Right? Yeah. And they can break our heart.

Robert Maldonado 08:12

Yes, that’s right. That’s that seems to be part of the deal. That if you want the love that comes with a relationship, you have to accept the possibility of getting your heart broken.

Debra Maldonado 08:25

And so why do we have this suffering? Why are we Why are we designed biologically to crave happiness externally? Like what’s the purpose of that?

Robert Maldonado 08:35

Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, in recent years, there’s been a big kind of explosion in what’s called evolutionary psychology. So evolutionary psychology simply means that we look at the principles of evolution adaptation, natural selection. To understand why we we are designed the way we design hmm if you think about the, the way our senses are designed, it works really well to have a system of moving towards pleasure and moving away from discomfort or pain because essentially an organism can operate based on those game principles and survive survive yeah if it simply moves towards what’s pleasurable what gives it comfort food, shelter, and stays away from the painful stuff predators and and dangerous situations. It will survive and reproduce.

Debra Maldonado 09:44

So it’s kind of like the foundation or the lowest level of operating system for human beings. And any animal like any one cell organism will operate under that. So the reason so we know why we suffer is because we are crave the pleasant externally. And then we believe the what is external also is causing us pain as well as the lack of what we see, or something in our mind says this is wrong or improper improper or that person looked at me the wrong way or that person left me. So I must be, I must be, you know, that’s the cause of my suffering. And that if we’re always in that place of looking for just the pleasure, we end up being a slave to the external world.

Robert Maldonado 10:34

Very much. So it’s the conditioning factor is the reason the environment is able to condition us operant conditioning is based on this principle that every action you take, gives you a certain result. And based on that, that mechanism of is this pleasurable or is painful. It leaves a conditioning imprint on you, therefore to mold and your behavior shaping your behavior continuously. Luckily for us, there are ways to transcend this and a lot of say the, the eastern philosophies, specially the Upanishads. They specifically target this idea that if we’re designed this way, there must be a way to transcend that.

Debra Maldonado 11:26

Ross, this would be a very cruel universe to be in, to be trapped in this kind of impossible, impossible puzzle, because we’re born and we’re going to eventually die, which we’re afraid of anyway. So why would we have this? What’s the purpose of it anyway? If that’s all we’re doing is chasing pleasure our whole life? Yes. and avoiding pain. That’s right. And then feeling that when we’re in pain, we can’t enjoy life. Like I remember. When I was single, I remember thinking, you know, all the years I wasted being unhappy in my life, right? My younger years because I was alone. And I kept thinking, I can’t be happy until I meet my partner. And then I looked back at all the incredible experiences, I had all the places I’ve been the people I’ve met, I worked in the entertainment industry, I met famous people I, you know, is backstage on, you know, huge concerts, and what an incredible experience and I couldn’t enjoy it, because in my mind was telling me, you’re still alone. You’re not a part of the normal world, you’re lonely girl. And it was really, you know, I look back, I’m like, Can I do this over? And so that’s really what suffering can do it. I mean, this idea of difficulty can it can cause us to miss out on life. Because we feel like one day everything’s gonna play out for us. And then that first magical man is going to make everything better.

Robert Maldonado 12:50

Yeah, I mean, that’s such a that’s a good example of kind of the the idea of this room. Perfect romantic relationship. That’s coming. To save us for the perfect job or Yeah, we have it for all these things, right, the the perfect life, lifestyle, situation, etc.

Debra Maldonado 13:12

And the image we use for this class was the image of Sisyphus, which was the the idea that this guy had to roll the ball those this big boulder up the mountain, and then it would just roll back down again. And that’s kind of how life is it’s never there’s never a place where it’s said it’s constantly emotion.

Robert Maldonado 13:36

Yes. And, you know, for entrepreneurs, for people that really step out of their comfort zone and try to do something different or even in it, let’s say in love, where you have to step out of your ego, you have to go beyond that principle of comfort and safety, you know, seeking for yourself, you have to think of another person. All of those situations kind of forces us to face that challenge of what is beyond this, this kind of pleasure principle that keeps me in the hamster wheel. And it’s scary because you’re entering something beyond the duality.

Debra Maldonado 14:23

Beyond that foundational human existence of survival, you’re going for something with more meaning and purpose.

Robert Maldonado 14:30

Yes. And it can crush us. Absolutely. But if you notice, the odds have to be real, in order for you to really seek out something deeper in you. Then just the external pleasure principle.

Debra Maldonado 14:51

So in a way difficult situations or difficult experiences, what we perceive as difficult are really an invitation for us to take on something else like, for me, like I always talk about my homeless man, listen, jobless, I lost my job broke my engagement had to move out of my home all in the same month. And it really made me all the external was taken away, and I had to go inward. And the difficulty of that situation forced me to ask myself, what do I want to do with my life. And if it was, if that never happened, I probably would have just gotten married to someone who wasn’t my ideal state in a job that was in my ideal. And so we kind of judge things as difficult. But we don’t realize that the difficulty is really the doorway and it’s more of a step up. Like I always think of like the steps, they hit a wall and then they have to, you have to kind of climb up to get to the next level. And so when we hit that, instead of thinking it’s a dead end, we think No, this is where I climb to the next level, and so approaching difficulty in that way. So how do we do that though? How do we transcend it and you talk about you are going to tell a story.

Robert Maldonado 16:07

Yeah, I wanted to tell the story of this woman named Tilly Grosser. So she lived in Vienna in the I guess she was born early 19 hundred’s so she became a young woman into in the, in the 20s and 30s in Vienna. And of course at that time Freud was there. Adler, all the great psychologist were working at that time. And she worked in one of the psychiatric clinics or the Rothschild Institute, I think. Anyway, she met this guy named Viktor, and they fell in love. And right the year they got married, the country was annexed by Germany. Huh, World War Two is about to explode or was already taking place. And they got pregnant. But they forced her to abort because of the the anti semitism and then time the state did not allow Jews to have children. And she and her husband and their parents got ended up getting transferred into the ghetto and then shipped off into concentration camps where she died at the ripe age of 24. That that kind of, you know, given our our current circumstances, we can see that there those kind of circumstances are not out of our reach. And in other words,

Debra Maldonado 17:56

what’s happening now in our worlds is Yeah, there’s actual concentration camps in different parts of the world still,

Robert Maldonado 18:03

that’s true and that societies can descend into that kind of mentality, right? Oh,

18:11

yeah.

Robert Maldonado 18:14

But the reason I want to tell her stories because she ended up inspiring her husband, who is Viktor Frankl Hmm. They got separated when they went out to the concentration camps. And he didn’t know if she was alive or not. And in in his despair in his going through this very dark night of the soul and

Debra Maldonado 18:47

the horrible condition. Yeah,

Robert Maldonado 18:49

terrible conditions. A lot of people dying around him a lot of kind of the darkest aspects of humanity playing out right in front of him and he used in the middle of But he had this vision of Tilly of her face and her smile. Mm hmm. And the love that they have had together. And it inspired him to survive.

Debra Maldonado 19:17

Mm hmm.

Robert Maldonado 19:19

You know, it just gave him that strength to pull through the the hardest times of his life in a moment. And of course, he went on to survive the concentration camps. And he wrote Man’s Search for Meaning which became a worldwide phenomena. And he lived Viktor Frankl the way into his, into the 90s. And he died in 1997. He taught at the University of Ghana and and lectured all over the world. And he always mentioned this incredible experience that he had about the love that he had for this woman and how it really saved him in the darkest hour.

Debra Maldonado 20:06

And so that’s how we we can transcend difficulty. I mean, our difficulties probably don’t match, maybe some people, you know, out there have had a difficult real tough life growing up and you know, maybe they’re dealing with it right now with racism and all this stuff that’s going on. But what can we do you know, instead of fighting we, you know, in the external fields, that it’s coming at you, you’re saying that the love that we can cultivate in our own heart and our own mind can get us through anything.

Robert Maldonado 20:44

That’s definitely one of them. You know, and Viktor Frankl talks about this. He says, there’s a couple of things that we can do to create meaning or to cultivate that meaning in our lives. In essence, the meaning is already there. It’s within us, but we have to actively bring it for cultivated grow it. So he says definitely, that connection that we have with another human being and the love that we have for each other is a deep source of inspiration of meaning for us. The other one, he says is, is having that sense that your life has a purpose. Mm hmm. That you’re making a difference in the world

Debra Maldonado 21:29

and a purpose that you’re contributing to the world.

Robert Maldonado 21:33

Absolutely.

Debra Maldonado 21:34

Your best like I felt like helping others or serving others in a way. It’s like not a selfish deed but actually contributing to something bigger than yourself.

Robert Maldonado 21:44

Yes, yes. And we all have the beginnings of that in in our work. Anytime you work, you’re essentially cultivating something for the world.

Debra Maldonado 21:56

If you think about it, even you know when I when we went to the Buddhist center, we Think about all the people that are here to support us. And they had us kind of look at all the people that take care of us, if you think about now, all the workers that are stocking the shelves, working in factories, you know, preparing food for people, driving buses, making sure the electricity stays on working, you know, behind the scenes to make sure the internet’s running, you know, the connections and the satellites and, and the people that take care of the children, the teachers, like every all of us. It’s not just a job. It’s like we’re contributing to the whole, like, we all have a way that we’re supporting other people even and I don’t think many people think they’re working for money, but they don’t realize how sacred it is, you know, someone who cleans your house or someone who, you know, dry, cleans your clothes or makes the clothes that you wear. I mean, there’s all these things that we do for each other. I mean, we could, we couldn’t do this alone, and we need each other. Yeah. So finding our unique purpose to, to express our unique talents that we’re contributing to the world would be a way out of suffering is that there’s a meaning to what we do.

Robert Maldonado 23:12

Yeah, it’s let’s say it’s all on the path to transcending it. Mm hmm. I don’t think we want to or are able to escape suffering or get rid of it completely. It’s essentially what gives life meaning. If you think let’s say in terms of our life, what really causes a let’s say everyone suffering is illness, aging and death, like the Buddhists say those those things are universal. Nobody escapes those

Debra Maldonado 23:47

and we all think that we watch our Facebook feed and think that everyone else has a perfect life but not me. You know my life is really screwed up. But look at Mary she’s like in you know, traveling or she bought this beautiful home or, you know, my cousin has, you know, just had a new baby and I don’t have a child and, you know, we kind of comparisonitis we have with everyone else and then everyone’s putting up kind of their persona of what they think their life is. We don’t. I mean, everyone’s Well, there’s people that post their suffering online, but we tend to compare our insides to people’s outsides all the time that we’re there, somehow we’re left out. And that’s how I felt even when I was single. I felt like I got left behind, because I didn’t have that love. And so everyone else gets to have it. Everyone gets the marriage and the babies and the picket fence and I for somehow I’m cursed, that I could I couldn’t have it and said it cause I think it was probably I know some people that I work with, have that same feeling. And it’s like whatever you want in life that you feel like is not what you need. It can cause incredible suffering. You know, incredible suffering and you think this love and this desire For love should be an adventure. But it turned out to be this like, torturous thing. The same thing with business, I see a lot of people that want to like create money and wealth and be entrepreneurs, especially now people are getting laid off. And we’re seeing a lot of people say, I want to start my own business now I’m ready. And in the process of them starting their business, it’s like, it’s the bringing suffering with them, instead of thinking of it as this incredible opportunity. It’s like, I’ll be happy when I finally make it. So I’m just gonna suffer now and work really hard. And then one day, it’s like everything that we do the work we do, we have to put love and passion and meaning into it. And along the way, if we don’t, the suffering will still be like a carrot, five feet in front of us that we that we never get.

Robert Maldonado 25:48

Yeah, definitely goes back to that idea of if we start with a misperception, and the misperception is essentially the root of our suffering, then the let’s say, correcting that misperception is at the root of our transcendence. And we’re not going to get rid of those limitations of aging sickness and death. But we’re able to come to terms with it and use them for meaning making, right for inspiration, for creativity, for cultivating that love for each other. And that’s really the way we as humans transcend that and are able then to connect to, to the divine part of us, those higher elements instead of just the basic, like you were saying that, that animal nature of moving towards pleasure and trying to escape pain, it’s more short term

Debra Maldonado 26:45

that that kind of pleasure, right? That’s right. It’s just temporary. Yeah, very quick in front of me. I’m going to get that hit. Yeah, that’s where addictions start, you know, from that kind of short term versus long term and we’re all We have an ego, I always tell everyone that the only problem we have in life, the only suffering we have is that we think we’re the ego, we think we’re this little, tiny, tiny, little insignificant person in this big world, and they don’t realize that we’re so connected to it all. And that we’re, we’re grand beings, you know, and we, if you look at life, a lot of you are all into personal development. So you’re woke, as they say, and you look at parts of your family or friends, and you’re just like, or people you work with, and you’re just kind of clueless to if they’re kind of in that short term, you know, getting to the weekend, every week making paycheck to paycheck, and they’re not really inspired with life. And so you doing this work or being open to this kind of conversation, you’re already ahead of most of most of the population. And actually, we are the forefront of a transcendent experience on earth for all of humanity. And when we could be We are the force of change in the world. And so those of us who are aware of these things, and want to are dedicated to going beyond the survival mechanism, we are going to make the world a better place.

Robert Maldonado 28:16

Yes. And that leads us to kind of that conclusion. And if we do our work, our personal transformation work, we are doing a work that in me meaningful in the world that is meaningful in the world. And that connects us to each other in a deeper way. Instead of let’s say, just externalizing and thinking, well, the problems are out there and they’re too big, I can’t do anything among them. We bring it back to No, I can always work with your own mind with my own emotions. And and work at transcending this. So I didn’t mention the last principle that Frankl talks about which is Experiencing truth, beauty and love and truth and beauty. Check me if that’s right. It’s given to all of us. But we have to seek it out. We have to cultivate it and bring it out into this higher awareness. It’s in the world. I mean, if you know,

Debra Maldonado 29:19

well, the nature is just full of beauty. That’s right. Yeah. Not.

Robert Maldonado 29:24

A few years ago, there was this idea of biophilia, which means the love of the biology of nature, right? The beauty of nature. It’s an instinct in us, we’re happiest when we’re connected to nature. We’re connected to each other. And our psyche, really the way Jung understood it was that it’s part of nature is our nature. When we connect with it, we’re happiest. We find that natural happiness, and beauty and love and all that stuff. So

Debra Maldonado 29:59

So, so how do we start to begin to these three? So first is to understand that we decide what what happiness is, we’re always we’re that it’s happening inside of our mind. And it’s prejudice by our past experience. By culturally, what we’re taught is happiness by our family, by our past experience, what happiness is what pleasant is, and we’re kind of bound by that in the beginning. And so we have to realize, okay, this is how I was conditioned, but there’s a way out, we can find happiness, we can define happiness. And for me, I think what really helped it’s kind of like a Jedi mind trick, where when something difficult does arise, you can actually re interpret it as this is an opportunity, versus this is a terrible thing that I want to get away from. And by doing that, you’re actually breaking free of that promise. packaged precondition judgment of things are only good when I’m in the flow, and things are flowing and, and I always say when you’re struggling, that’s where you can find the truth. That’s where you really are searching within, like back to the mindless, mindless, mindless, manless jobless and homeless, all everything external was taken away, I had to go inward. And me going inward made me discover what I really wanted to do with my life, what kind of relationship I wanted to be in, and where happiness is. And I really found it in the moment. It was like in this kind of place where there’s no future, there’s no past. All I have is now and I want to make the best of now and it really was an incredible experience for me. Where other my friends were saying, Wow, I can’t believe you went through such a difficult time and it’s like, it was what I needed to go through. It’s sometimes when we’re going on the wrong path, a blocker can, obstacles shows up because it’s redirecting us. It’s saying, Wait, you’re, you’re getting caught up here. This is not leading you to happiness. And we have to trust in our deeper self, that these obstacles were placed there by our higher intelligence to help us really find the happiness the lasting happiness is that no matter what happens, where we can have joy, when a long time ago, someone mentioned this, and it was really a great metaphor, is that the hurricane of life, and you can always be in that I that the peaceful the eye of the hurricane is always the most peaceful, calm place. And instead of trying to control the storm, just be in the eye. And that’s really where happiness can come from. And that’s where we really you can create, like people that want to put vision words up and create their life. You can’t create in panic while you’re running away from something you fear you can only create when you’re in that find the love within and find that source within

Robert Maldonado 33:00

Yes, that’s what I was gonna say.

Debra Maldonado 33:03

Yeah. What else are you gonna say?

Robert Maldonado 33:06

Yeah, I think that sums it up is that we have to look inside Hmm. instead of always searching for the external to, to satisfy us or to find happiness in there.

Debra Maldonado 33:18

So what would be a good next step for people as far as where do they start to do this?

Robert Maldonado 33:27

I’m a firm believer and starting where you’re at, there’s no need to make drastic changes. No, you don’t have to run off to bed or anything like that. Look around you. Look at the challenges that are facing you today. And ask yourself, what is this showing me about my mind? Why have I created this? Why has this come up? And facing those challenges? We find our path.

Debra Maldonado 33:58

A good question. Wouldn’t be, why am I? Why is this external event making me unhappy? Just examining it going into the feeling that it’s pulling? And, you know, I always think like, why is this making me unhappy? And why am I resisting this? Why am I giving this so much meaning? So, for example, my archetype is the mother. And so she’s always trying to please, and we can all relate to that some of you. And when someone’s unhappy with me, I get triggered, because that’s just my default. And so I’m much better at it now than a more woke from it. But I would examine it and going, why, why does this bother me first, and you’re just kind of opening it up. Instead of being like, I got to fix it. The default would be I got to fix it. I got to make that person like me again. That’s kind of what we want to do. But just stop and say, Well, why is this making me unhappy? And I would ask myself, why does that person’s opinion of me decide for me, and why am I so resistant to people not liking me. And it’s just like this, you really see how it’s been controlling your life. And I call it like an emotional detox. You’re kind of like, opening up this emotion that’s so fixed, and responsive and reactive, and you’re starting to say, wait a minute, this suffering isn’t necessary. It’s optional. I get to I’m the one who’s creating it. That person, whatever they did, or is mad at me, that’s their suffering. that’s their problem. I have to work with what is pulling in me. And I think we end up in relationships, trying to fix other people’s opinions of ourselves, trying to get someone to think good of us. And if we don’t think good of us, it’s always just going to be a reflection. So that’s what we’re really working with is our own mind our own mirror of what’s happening and I find that first step is asking yourself, why is this making man happy instead of just assuming it is? is really a great question.

Robert Maldonado 36:00

Yeah. And so much of it is, is really cultivating a trust in our own true nature. We, because we externalize so much, and we think happiness is outside of us. We’re giving away our power. And it really the process is about bringing it back to understanding that. No, I have the power of creating this life and of trusting in your own ideas, in your own emotions, in your intuitions, in your dreams, everything. The key is always that trust that confidence in your own true nature,

Debra Maldonado 36:43

not your ego, but their deeper nature.

Robert Maldonado 36:46

Well, the ego’s turned outward. Yeah, you said it perfectly. The ego is essentially designed to help us read the external world. And so when you’re operating from ego, you’re operating under the external principle. When you’re operating from the internal on, it’s the higher self, you’re trusting that you are the source. Not the external. 

Debra Maldonado 37:10

And if you trust that things do turn around, if you buy into the, to the fears that we all do, that we all been conditioned to do that. You buy into those fears, and then all of a sudden, we’re lost and caught up in it. It’s like, getting caught up in a rushing river, you know, those whitewater rafting and you go under, and the water just takes you away. That’s kind of our emotional life, our template is there conditionally, to just drag us along, and we feel like life is dragging us along, and we can’t grab on to anything solid. That’s most of us. That’s the experience of the ego. But there is a way like out of suffering as the Buddhists say, there’s life is suffering, but there’s a way out, and we still have to deal like I think this whole like when the secret came out. 20 years ago now. I remember thinking, Oh, it’s like this. magical thing that we could just think positive and that our life will be perfect. And it was very misleading because only, it doesn’t really tell you the whole truth. It’s like, yeah, your thoughts create your life, but you’re still gonna have to deal with an ego, you’re gonna have to deal with unconscious, you’re still gonna have to deal with conditioning and all those things that we these great forces that keep us in our stuck place and human nature. And it takes effort. It’s not just about, you know, visualizing some outcome. 

Robert Maldonado 38:31

If you notice a lot of the the philosophy they expound there is that the things that you get that you manifest are going to make you happy. It’s the same idea. It was just clothes, then different vocabulary. But it was the same idea. The external will make you happy. 

Debra Maldonado 38:49

And most people believe it and we all we all do, we all fall into that. We have to check ourselves when we get too excited of things going well, and I think for us, we’ve reached a level of success that I never thought I would reach as a, you know, little girl from New Jersey. And what keeps us in check is that we’re not doing it for the success, we’re doing it because it’s our purpose. And whether we’re really successful or not, or at least successful, it doesn’t matter. As long as we keep doing our purpose. As long as we find joy in sharing what we find inspiring. And that’s for us that we’re already successful, you know, we can make more material success if we want to, we can love each other more if we want to, but it’s already coming from that place of, we’re already perfect. We’re just not complete and that’s the life Vivekananda said that Vivekananda he said, life will be happy when you realize that it’s perfect, but not complete. There’s a perfection, but it’s not complete. It’s like, I always use it the idea of a tree. The tree is a tree when it’s a seed, the tree is a tree when it’s a little seedling, the tree is a tree when it’s six feet tall, and then eight feet tall. It’s just not complete. But I mean, it’s not. It’s incomplete. It’s it’s still growing. And if we can know, our life right now, right here is absolutely perfect. And it doesn’t mean that we were complacent, but it’s it perfect. And it’s incomplete, that our life is still an unfolding story. It’s like Game of Thrones, you don’t want it to be over to keep going. So, so it’s that kind of feeling of it’s perfect, but it’s incomplete. And that will that I feel that will take you out of suffering immediately, even if it’s the biggest challenge of breakup. people email me like this came up in my life and how do I deal with this? And to see it’s an opportunity we always say that to our clients. And we can’t help it. That’s how we were born. So we have to deal with it in the beginning, and then the end of the life after 30 we start to become ourselves. So great questions. Thank you all for joining us. Deep conversation as always, on a Sunday or Saturday, the church of Debbie and Rob a soul session. If you are listening to the replay, feel free to post your questions. We have the mentors in the group to help you and I will be here too. And we hope to see you those of you who are single. We’re going to be doing our live series in our other sister group that’s up temporarily for love, only focused on love. If you’re interested. Let us know just post I need info on that. And one of the mentors will send you the info and get you in the other group and get the meditation and the three video series we’re doing next week called love for the awakening. So great segue for that wonderful, new program that we’re doing. So thank you all. And remember that you are all perfect. And you don’t want your life to be complete yet there’s so much more to live and you already have everything you need inside of you to create what you want and create happiness and joy. And what we want to do is just keep building on it, building on that happiness. There’s more joy and more love that isn’t completely experienced to have. That’s right. So take care and we will talk to you next week.

Robert Maldonado 42:29

See you soon. Bye bye. Much love