Episode 7: Great Loss, Great Gain

One Heart One Mind

Thomas McConkie

Meditation, Spirituality, Mindfulness, Contemplation, Psychology, Buddhism, Development, Thomasmcconkie, Religion & Spirituality

5 • 632 Ratings

🗓️ 30 August 2023

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Often when we’re faced with a challenging decision, we have the experience of feeling stuck, or frozen, because we just can’t decide which direction is right for us. Thomas suggests in this episode that a powerful remedy for the feeling of stuckness in life is to more fully open up to the experience of loss. When we are willing to experience the inevitable loss that any given decision entails, we simultaneously open ourselves to the inevitable gain that comes from living the life we’ve chosen to live.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to another episode of Mindfulness Plus. I'm your host Thomas
0:08.8	McConkey. Thanks so much for listening today. An interesting topic I have. I think it's
0:15.1	interesting today. There are a lot of different ways to talk about it. I want to just share a little story about it,
0:23.5	maybe talk a little conceptually about it, and then take you into a practice that helps you
0:28.7	explore more directly the experience of loss in life. So why do I want to talk about this?
0:37.0	Perhaps you have noticed in your life a tendency, a habit occasionally, maybe often, to feel stuck, to feel paralyzed, to feel frozen.
0:50.9	Some people respond to this experience with confusion, where there's kind of a choice point
0:56.3	do I become a parent or not do I stay in this relationship or not do I major in
1:05.2	mathematics because it's safe or in English because I love reading novels, etc., etc.
1:11.5	Life, in a sense, is full of these choice points,
1:14.5	and a common symptom of our humanity is that we find ourselves stuck in a mushy middle of,
1:22.8	I don't want to go, I don't want to stay, I don't want to do that,
1:26.4	I don't want to do that. But I want to do
1:27.6	them both. And I just don't know what to do. I feel paralyzed. I feel stuck. It was a
1:33.5	beautifully wise Buddhist teacher who pointed out to me that oftentimes in life, when we feel
1:40.3	stuck, when we feel trapped, when we feel paralyzed, we're often unconsciously choosing not to
1:48.8	choose because we don't want to have a direct relationship with the loss that the choice would
1:55.5	entail. I'm going to give that to you again and again. We're going to get used to this idea, this experience in this episode, and practice with
2:05.1	it all in the spirit of developing more freedom in life, more vitality, more choicefulness.
2:11.6	Let me give you a little story related.
2:14.3	So actually a guest I've had on this show, Dr. Terry O'Fallon, who's a lovely being an inspiring
2:20.3	friend and teacher to me. We were at a retreat many years ago, and there was one of her students
	...

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