Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and this is the Spiritual American. Hello everyone and welcome to the Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and I'm your host. Today we are gonna be talking about pure enjoyment. Have you ever thought about that before? I know we talk about enjoying things, but I don't know if I'm the only one, but. There are a couple of things that I believe get in the way of our enjoying ourselves, and we're gonna discuss some of them today. If you've noticed that a lot of times in this podcast, if we're talking about something, let's say freedom or happiness or something, I end up talking about the thing that keeps us from feeling that. Why is that? Because freedom is our natural state. Happiness is our natural state. Pure enjoyment is our natural state, so it's important to be able to discern, notice, and discern out these things in our consciousness that may be keeping us from experiencing those natural qualities of the soul. So today we're gonna talk about enjoyment, pure enjoyment, and the first thought that I had was children. When you look at children, and it's funny 'cause earlier in my life I didn't really like being around children and it wasn't because I disliked them. This is, I'm really telling on myself now. But because they were so truthful, so honest. And I wasn't honest with myself, like I wasn't a liar or anything like that, but I wasn't comfortable in my own skin, let's say. So when I was around honest people, little children, I felt uncomfortable, like I didn't know how to be around them. So part of the reason that children maybe are able to have pure enjoyment is because they are honest. They're like unaffected. They don't have any reason for not saying what is there. Sometimes we say, children say it like it is. Our children are really innocent or honest. And because they're not overloaded with all these other rules and regulations or things to be concerned about or trying to live within certain parameters, which as we get older, there's more and more parameters that are being put in our mind to live by. So one thing is that they're innocent and they're honest. The other thing I said here is that there's less language. Have you noticed that? Children, and we think it's cute, right? When children say something, they use their own language. I can't even think of an example right now, but maybe they say words wrong or they say things that are cute and I have an example. When I was little, my mom was in college and I remember I was maybe, I dunno, seven years old. Six years old, young. And my mother was able to bring me to class because that's what they did in that day. You don't really have. Daycare, that wasn't really a thing. So my mother even brought me to class and I think it was anatomy and physiology class or something. Anyway, the the teacher was talking and then I raised my hand to ask a question and everybody laughed. Like the whole class laughed. And I remember, even now, I remember thinking, why are they laughing? I just had a question. So there's something about the not having a lot of language or, I don't remember what the question was, but in my mind I felt like I had a right to ask a question or I had a right to. So children come forward with a right to be there and maybe they don't have the expertise or the experience or the language to say what it is that they're trying to say, but you know, but they say it. They're fine with it. So there's less language. There's not so much command on the language. They're also not always clear about the manners that are expected as we get older. So they're not, they're living free in terms of, they're not, censoring themselves. So they're uncensored, honest, not too much language. And then I wrote here, they're not thinking a lot either. So less language, less thinking. How do I know that they're thinking less? I remember being a child, I remember there wasn't that much thinking going on. It was, you know, I'm looking what time? You know, I wasn't even thinking what time it is. I just knew intuitively what to do or what time of day it was. Or I listened to the adults and they were the ones that were telling me what's going on and. So I was able to just be there, happy playing with this or happy playing with that or, and I was okay. So I wasn't really thinking too much. I was still there, but I wasn't really thinking. I also put here no responsibility, just belonging. So when we get older. We have this sense of being responsible and owning, right? I own a house and now I'm responsible for it. I have a family and now I'm responsible for it. I own this and I own that and I'm responsible for it. That's more of like a, if you wanna say an adult phenomenon, but it's more of, it's not as pure, let's say, as a child, the child is like, I am participating. I'm here and I belong. That's it. Why am I using, why do I keep saying child? Okay, I keep saying child because it's an easy way to relate to this. Maybe we can all think of a child. Maybe we have young children right now, but we can relate to these qualities. Does that mean that we're completely and forever disconnected from those qualities? Absolutely not. If I can notice and differentiate the different aspects like we're talking about right now, maybe I can try to be a little more enjoying of my situation. You know, all these other things that are bogging me down too much, thinking too much, manners or too much rules, and maybe self-consciousness, which is another one I put down here. Self-consciousness versus just being expressive. How many of us censor ourselves, right? And I, I'm learning now to not censor myself, meaning that I have faith learning to have faith that I won't go off the rails. I'm not gonna say anything completely inappropriate. I'm not gonna break all the rules of manners. I'm not gonna, you know, disturb anyone. But with, that's all taken care of. But within that environment, I'm able to be expressive. And I've been trying to do that more and more. Just say it as long as, you know, it's not, you know, coming from negative things. So self-consciousness would be the opposite, would be like, I'm worried about what I'm gonna say. I'm worried about how they're gonna look at me. I am worried about how they're gonna react. I don't wanna seem this, or I don't wanna seem that, or I don't wanna act like this. I don't want them to think that I'm hurting their feelings. I don't want them to think that I'm like this. Anybody like that? I'm gonna call that self-consciousness. Chil little children don't have that. So I'm saying children, but it's also purity. It's the personality of purity. So what happens if I am honest, less language, less so, less language would mean less talking, right? So I am honest, less talking, less thinking. I shift from a feeling of responsibility and ownership to a feeling of participation and belonging. I am a human being on earth. I belong here and I'm participating. Okay, and then finally, self-consciousness versus just being expressive. Do I know the rules enough to be able to give myself a chance to be free? A little bit of freedom. And then I wrote here, what's the result? Freedom and fun. And isn't that what kids have? Some of us look back at our childhood and say, I wish I could be a child again. Well, what is it about being a child that is attractive? Some of us don't wanna be a child again because of other reasons, right? Like it didn't, maybe we didn't feel freedom. Some of us felt it more than others, let's say. So some of it looks, some of us look back and say, wow, that was a lot of freedom and a lot of fun. Others of us look back and say, I definitely wasn't free. I'm trying to be free now. Right? So freedom and fun is kind of the result, and that's pure enjoyment. I'm free and I'm enjoying being alive. So let's do a little reflection here about these aspects, and maybe you could write them down as we're reflecting. So first reflection is, how honest am I? No judgment. No judgment. Just ask yourself, how honest am I? Do I tell the truth? I'm not talking about, by the way, this is another thing we do. We tell the truth and we say, I'm being brutally honest. I tell the truth. To me, that means that I am not being responsible for maybe hurting somebody's feelings. There's a way of being honest without being reckless, let's say. So honesty, not recklessness. So am I honest? Am I truthful or do I kind of deceive? Am I hiding in some way, the way I relate to others? Second thing, how much do I talk? Do I talk too much? I don't know anything about that. I'm laughing. Believe me, I'm the talking queen, right? How many of us out there talking queens and kings? We just keep talking and talking. Anybody used to have this situation or know people that just keep saying the same thing over and over again? I, if I would leave myself to this, I would keep repeating. I have to be aware of that. There's a, a tendency to keep repeating, repeating, repeating myself. I don't know why we do that. I think it's because we are trying to emphasize the whatever point we're trying to make. And then we don't, we don't wanna let go of it, so we just keep saying it over and over again. We don't wanna let go. So less talking, less language, learning to speak less. One fun thing that helped me with this actually was watching westerns, the old Western movies, that whole era of. I'm sure other cultures have similar examples, but in the American culture, that whole western beginning of the frontier and that whole 1800s time period of this country's history, if you watch movies that are based in that time period or you know, the history, there isn't a lot of talking, there's a lot of understanding. People are just understood or just by, by what's happening. So. Even when people died, they didn't get that upset. It's like, okay, they're here. They're gone. They're, I mean, of course they're gonna be sad. It's not like people don't care. But there was some kind of like ease with the world. Watching westerns, even though they had struggles, they had physical struggles. But watching westerns, you can see how much can be communicated without speaking. It's amazing. Now we talk so much, even the young people today. In relation to myself, they talk so much more than what I even did. I was like, wow, I, I don't need to explain every single thing I'm seeing here, but they, they're articulating everything. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm just saying that the more we talk, the less we are experiencing, let's say. So less language, then less thinking. So what is this one all about? And we've talked about this on the program. So now reflect for a moment, how much thinking do I do, and is it all necessary? Do I have worrisome thoughts? Am I, you know, looping, like looping the thoughts over and over again? Do I have fearful thoughts? Are those thoughts necessary? And then check yourself and see. Responsibility and ownership versus participation and belonging. Just check for yourself. Just reflect, do I feel a strong sense of responsibility for a lot of areas in my life and feel strong feeling of ownership doesn't mean you don't own things. Don't get me wrong. It is not like I don't wanna own anything. It's like, do I have that consciousness where I'm kind of locked in? Or do I still feel some freedom, participation, and belonging. So take a look at that and then self-conscious versus expressive. Am I censoring myself? Take a look and see. Am I censoring myself? Can I begin to trust myself that I will follow the rules, that it will be okay, and I can say what I actually feel and think in the moment. And then also fun and freedom. Check how much fun am I having? Do I have fun? Do I feel free in my life? So those are nice reflections on this. So pure enjoyment means that I like a child, let's say am able to be alive here and feel free and self-expressed and enjoy myself. Could it be that simple? Maybe we picked up some things along the way that might be helpful if we could distinguish out, right? So I will leave it there. And remember, our slogan is Heal, Empower, and Serve. And until next time, take care.
