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I'll begin with a cartoon I just saw where there's a praying mantis who's lying on a psychiatrist's couch.

And he's saying, honestly, Dr, I tried to keep the lines of communication open,

but it was easier just to eat him.

Praying mantis, praying mantis, you know.

So it captures the predicament that really in a way we all regularly face,

which is instant gratification in some way the relief that comes and we shoot off that defensive

email or go to get that other second helping of ice cream, you know, continuing to obsess and plan

versus if we actually can pause and deepen attention.

And I think of this as really being at the cross-currence of two or two evolutionary forces.

And one is really the evolutionary force, if you think of the perspective of time that's from

the past, which is that the path of least resistance, it gives us the most immediate gratification,

satisfaction, relief is what we go for.

And this is the conditioning from the early parts of our brain, the primitive brain, the survival brain.

The second current of our poll, really, of evolution is what in, if you think of it in terms of time,

it's towards our future being, our future self, it's towards the fullness of our potential

or being pulled towards that. And that's the pathway of increasing integration and wholeness and

of inhabiting loving awareness. So in this talk, what I'd like to do is investigate how our future

self, which is really our evolutionary potential is calling us, how it's drawing us towards it,

and how we can be more available and responsive to that call.

...