Episode 482 - To Not Abandon Ourself

Living Myth

Michael Meade

Philosophy, Society & Culture, Education

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2026

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Clearly, we are living in radical times when almost everything can be taken to the extreme. We find ourselves in uncharted waters when it comes to the future of the planet and in unmapped territories in terms of human culture. In the midst of great uncertainty any moment can lead us to feel anxious, isolated and abandoned.

Life must be lived forward, but often can only be understood in looking back. Looking back far enough reveals that everyone has abandonment issues from early life fears of being left isolated and alone. As if insisting upon being faced, our core fears and anxieties intensify whenever we face the need to change or grow.

Early in life we were vulnerable and easily overwhelmed. Eventually, the issue becomes not just who abandoned us and why, but how we avoid abandoning ourselves when faced with fears and the uncertainty of life again.

In times of overwhelm, the deep self and soul within us also seeks to become more conscious to us. In the essential work of changing from within, each occasion of not abandoning ourselves liberates more of the divine spark that was sewn in our souls to begin with. The light we liberate within our souls also adds some life to a world in the process of transforming itself.

Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his free online event "The Soul of Change" on Thursday, April 30.

You can further support this podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 750 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles.

Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth

Along with these free weekly podcasts, you can now read free weekly essays and long form posts by Michael Meade on Substack. Learn more and subscribe at michaeljmeade.substack.com

If you enjoy this podcast, we appreciate you leaving a review wherever you listen and sharing it with your friends. On behalf of Michael Meade and the whole Mosaic staff, we wish you well and thank you for your support of our work.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Living Myth podcast with Michael Mead, where this shifting, changing world is looked at from a mythic perspective.
0:19.2	In this episode, Mead considers how in the midst of great uncertainty
0:23.8	any moment can lead us to feel anxious, isolated, and abandoned.
0:29.7	Life must be lived forward, but often can only be understood in looking back.
0:34.9	Looking back far enough reveals that everyone has abandonment issues from early
0:39.8	life fears of being isolated and alone. As if insisting upon being faced, our core fears and
0:47.0	anxieties intensify whenever we face the need to change or grow. In the essential work of changing
0:54.0	from within, each occasion of not
0:56.3	abandoning ourselves liberates more of the divine spark that was sewn in our souls to begin
1:03.2	with. Regarding the soul, there are two basic beliefs.
1:22.0	One is tabula rasa, which means blank slate or empty soul.
1:26.9	The idea that the soul comes to life empty, and then
1:31.5	people, the community, begin to write upon it. And a person is made of those writings. And the other
1:39.0	idea, which was the old idea found in all traditional cultures around the world, is that the soul comes into life
1:47.4	with a core of imagination, with an inner pattern, with a life seed that shapes the life from the
1:55.8	beginning. In this old idea of the soul imbued with imagination, that the unfolding of the story of the individual
2:04.9	is the revealing of the imagination that they brought to life.
2:10.7	And it's that second one that I'm interested in.
2:13.1	It's that second one that gives the ideas of how to live in a world of turmoil without abandoning oneself.
2:20.3	The seeded soul, the aimed from within soul.
2:26.3	There's an ancient tale that brings actually these two ideas, the blank slate and the
2:32.3	soul with a pattern with an image and an imagination embedded in it,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Michael Meade, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Michael Meade and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.