Today’s episode is extra special. Eva’s teacher and personal mentor, Amma Thanasanti comes on and immediately cracks open deep crying for Kyley. We discuss what it takes to *actually* feel safe and relaxed and divinely loved.
Today’s episode is extra special. Eva’s teacher and personal mentor, Today’s episode is extra special. Eva’s teacher and personal mentor, Amma Thanasanti comes on and immediately cracks open deep crying for Kyley. We discuss what it takes to *actually* feel safe and relaxed and divinely loved.
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Eva: [00:00:00] Hello, dear listeners. Welcome back to hell universe. It's Eva here. And today we have an episode that is so near and dear to my heart because we are talking to my own personal mentor of two years. I'm Athanasanti. And I've honestly been waiting to have this conversation since basically the first week I met her.
Um, As part of my two year training, um, with the Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield course that I was in, that I think maybe some of you may know about. Um, Ama was my personal meditation [00:01:00] mentor throughout that time. I was so blessed that she came into my life. As you will gather for yourself, I'm sure on this episode, she is just a powerhouse of love and wisdom and groundedness and serenity and joy.
And I, I feel just the deepest amount of respect for her. But again, also it's a lot of it is just gratitude. Like how lucky am I that this wonderful being, um, was available to guide me through my own personal journey. Um, So before I introduce Ama, let me give you, uh, some quick business. I, I actually drop at the end of this episode.
I mentioned in passing that I'm moving to Taiwan, which I haven't mentioned publicly at all yet. Um, but my [00:02:00] life is going on another adventure. Things have been changing quickly behind the scenes and are, I think we'll continue to do so. But the plan is to travel for, I will probably be traveling for Maybe the next six months, possibly the next year.
So more on that, but that is to say that, um, my business structure may be changing and I don't know how many one on one clients I will be taking as I'm on the move. So I have one or two spaces left for somebody to jump in and work with me. If that is something that you've been interested in or curious about, um, you know, spiritual liberation is my deepest desire for all of us.
To our collective liberation and to have a more. Peaceful and enjoyable relationship with your mind. If that speaks to you, you can learn more about how to work with me one on one at my website, evil. com or [00:03:00] Instagram, where I hang out the most. And Kylie is sharing alchemy, which is coming back again, folks.
So if you don't already know alchemy is Kylie's, um, transformative, mystical, magical money program. That is here to help you turn money into the crucible of your greatest freedom. Um, she runs this course with her other life wife, Liz Simpson, who's been a guest on our show many times. And if money is something that is.
That you know is meant to be medicine for you, meaning, where you learn your deepest lessons about the self. Or, maybe money has just been your biggest pain in the ass. In which case it's the same thing, it's also the place in which you're meant to learn the deepest lessons about the self. I would highly recommend that you check out Alchemy.
You can get on the wait list. Um, And, you know, usually we'll figure on the [00:04:00] waitlist. There's some awesome deals that and, you know, uh, early bird specials available to you. So you can check that out in the link in our show notes. Okay. So on to introduce a formally introducing Amma Thanasantis. Amma was a former, a former, um, Buddhist nun for 26 years, and she's been teaching intensive meditation retreats.
Throughout the world in America, Europe, Australia, Asia since 1995. So, you know, she's the real deal. She's been living and doing this work she is now currently the spiritual director of her organization awakening truth org and This podcast this episode. I want to tell you it was kind of it's about safety and we get into attachment and how actually Feel safety like and safe, which is something that I've I know is one of the things that, [00:05:00] you know, something that I'm constantly at the end of the day when I look at all my stuff like safety is the thing that I long for, um, most and it's because of, you know, My own personal experience with trauma, and I think that's probably true for most of us , but what does it mean to actually feel safe, deep in our bones or as we talk about in this episode in our pelvic floor
And so that's the content. But really I think I wanna focus on how this episode feels because that's where the juice is. And this conversation truly is just, um, I think radiates. Deep connection and love and awe and beauty and wonder. Um, and that is just the magic of Amma being her wise and authentic self.
And we get tea [00:06:00] deep or pretty Hmm, pretty real, I would say pretty quickly. . Um. So, I hope you enjoy this episode as much as Kylie and I did, we were both moved to tears, um, many times, which hopefully by now you know is a sign that like, a conversation's really damn good. Alright y'all, and as per usual, if you like the show, please subscribe, rate, review, the reviews are so helpful on Spotify or Apple, um, sharing these episodes with friends really helps us grow the show, we love being able to do this.
And your support means the world to us. All right, now let's get into it.
Alma, thank you for joining us on Hello Universe, it is such an honor, I'm so happy to have you here.
Amma: Yes, and I'm delighted to be here with you today, just smiling to see you both.
Eva: Aw, thank you. So, as you know, the first question is, what is something life is teaching you [00:07:00] in this moment?
Amma: And I can say it is to stay connected to my core and relax my pelvic floor.
Eva: Um, oh, that is interesting, I think Tylee might have something to
Kyley: Yeah, I wasn't, I, I didn't have been, uh, I took a break for the summer and haven't resumed, but I was in pelvic floor therapy for quite a while. And it is, I have, I have lots I could say about that and the gift of it and all of the many layers, but, um, I just want to hear more
Eva: Yeah. Could you say, could you say more about that?
Amma: Hmm. Well, yes, my tendency in the past has been to merge with the field that I'm in. And when I have been doing my own personal work, and particularly what happened when I drove from Colorado out here to California and stopped in national parks to do ceremony, [00:08:00] the ceremony was to reimagine my own origin story. And part of what I did was what I nicknamed belly bonding. Well, I put my belly on the earth or on rocks and during that time had ceremony. And part of that ceremony was to energetically connect myself with to earth. And part of that was to deliberately re imagine my own origins so that I could Encourage the positive images and release the negative ones.
And what that did to my amazement was shifted my tendency to merge with the field. And so before I had never been effective in living in the city. And then after this, I can live in the city because I connect with my core, but I [00:09:00] relax my pelvic floor and I let the energy connect and ground through the earth.
Eva: Um, Kylie has her eyes closed. I think she's really
Kyley: I almost started crying as you were saying that,
Eva: I have so many questions because I, you know, we've been on this doing this podcast for four years and I know that's something that people can relate to the struggle also of merging with your field. When you say merging with your field, do you mean you pick up the energy of the atmosphere and the in your environment?
Is that what you
Amma: Yeah, so because of personal circumstances with my family of origin, when I was very, very little, I learned to merge with my mother in order to regulate her in order to get my needs met. And so I didn't even know that I was doing that. I didn't even know that's what was happening until much, much, much recently.
But what would happen is, is that anytime I was under any kind of stress. [00:10:00] Then my natural instinct was to become very porous in order to merge with the field around me in order to regulate it. Well, when you're living in a city, that is absolutely a very ineffective strategy because the chaos and the pain and the distress and the dysregulation that is present is not something that anyone is going to be able to regulate. So the more that I became porous. The more I became anxious, and the only way that I can resolve that was to leave the city. But as I understand more about connecting with my core, then what that does is it makes it possible for me to stay connected to my heart, and connected to my intentions, and connected to my capacity to stay grounded. [00:11:00] And then from that, I have more ability to regulate myself as well as meet what is arising in the environment.
Eva: Yeah. Okay. Can you tell us a little bit more and Kylie, I'm just jumping in with the questions because I have so many, but, um,
Kyley: can I, before you ask a question actually, can I interject because I just want to say, um, thank you. I've come in here tonight a little raw. It's one of those days where I'm rolling in a little raw. And, um, you are. You're speaking directly to my core, you're speaking direct, I keep, I could keep wanting to cry.
Um,
Amma: I would invite you to let your tears, just let them. Because, you know, for me, I have had many tears as well. And this is the time where many of us are [00:12:00] raw. And it's just a matter of time, whether we, it's our turn. And so if this speaks to you and touches you and it feels like there's tears, just let them. We'll find a way through. Yeah.
Kyley: cause I am cry on the show all the time, but I'm watching how I don't have a reason. I don't have a story. Right. It's just your story immediately is inviting the tears. And I, it's just interesting to watch that tears feel like they need us like I have to give them permission.
Amma: And so that's something to watch, you know, that there needs to be a story that they can't just come.
Kyley: I didn't want to pause. I didn't want to not comment on the, the somatic listeners can't see my somatic response. So I just, before you asked your question, Eva, I wanted to like acknowledge
Eva: yeah, but I mean, this is the magic of [00:13:00] Alma, like, I don't know. There's something about, um, something I always just really appreciated about sharing space with you, Alma, is your presence, your, you have such a, you're just, your presence and authenticity, I think is felt, um, by the people who you're in conversation with.
Amma: I'm touched to hear you say that, Eva. Thank you.
Eva: So, my question is about. What you call ceremony, which to me sounds like a beautiful practice of really regulating yourself with the earth. Um, and is that something that you just intuitively decided to practice as you knew as you were, you know, going through these national parks and then also maybe saying more about how this connects with the pelvic floor.
Amma: So, um, this has been an evolution. Well, [00:14:00] first of all, for decades, I've always felt the Earth as a support, as an ally, as a protector, and My journey with the earth and its evolution is itself a big, long story in terms of the different kinds of things that I've done. And when I lived in a tiny little hut that was like five feet by eight feet in a national park in Australia for two years, then this journey took on a new level of meaning for me because I was a Buddhist nun at that time.
And yet, living in that hut and the experiences that I had, my relationship with nature became like my primary teacher. And I learned how to work with nature so that it became more of a [00:15:00] mirror of my own mind. And that has been an evolution that's been going on for decades. What that looks like and what kind of form it takes.
And so, the attachment repair work that I've been doing in the last few years. There's working with idealized or ideal parents, imagining ideal parents, but I've always had the Earth as my number one ideal mama, who's been my holder, my protector, my feeder, my support, my, the one that is attuned to me and encourages me. And so I have naturally combined the This method that I learned with my own decades long practice of using the earth to regulate myself and as a support. So the ceremony that [00:16:00] I did was just that I would go into these national parks and I would find a rock that was like the right shape. And in the right place for me to put my belly on it.
And then I would just allow my awareness to drop so that I wasn't thinking and I wasn't, there was no story, but I just let my belly to connect with the earth and then allow my whole system to regulate feeling that direct bonding with the earth through my belly center. And then that process evolved and then there was one session on the rock where I went through a very elaborate and deliberate reimagining of my own birth story, including my parents conceiving me and [00:17:00] knowing that they had conceived me in a Taurus of love.
And then when I was born, telling me about that. And using that as a way to just know that, that my origin comes from this experience of radical love, radical intentionality, and radical energy kind of skillfulness. And that shifted me so much that when I came to the city, to my utter surprise, I was able to live here.
In a way that I had never experienced in my life before, which was, I felt like I could connect with the earth, and I could feel that solid support behind me, and [00:18:00] I could connect with my own core, and connect with my own goodness, and that from that, I had a different basis that I was living from.
Kyley: For listeners, we did just have to have a break because I was heavy crying. Um, and I want to first of all say thank you, Amma, from the bottom of my heart. Um, you just spoke to something I didn't know I needed to hear,
um, long time listeners know because I've shared this before. Um, but, uh, I was born, my mom was a teenager and, um, I don't know who my biological dad is. Um, and as you were speaking, I will probably crack on as I say this, as you were speaking, I could [00:19:00] feel, um, how much I have always
wanted to know that I was. I can't even really put it into words, but the feeling of like, so intentionally chosen, which is funny because, um, a gift to me is always that, um, my mother did choose me, right? Like, thankfully she had the choice, which is its own thing, but she did chose, choose me and my dad who raised me did choose me.
And so I've always had this really deep sense of gratitude that. I know my parents both really intentionally chose to parent and love me, and
there's something I didn't know that I needed to feel, which is being chosen from the very, very beginning.[00:20:00]
Eva: Yeah. I mean, from conception really is what you were saying, Amma.
Amma: Yeah. Well, actually, in my imagination, it was before conception.
Kyley: Yeah,
Amma: They set it up totally intentionally. They knew, they, deliberately, they set it up deliberately to conceive me intentionally.
Eva: Yeah.
Kyley: As you're saying that, I'm feeling like, Oh yeah, the idea that you've just always been wanted, I
Eva: Yeah. And I think the other thing that you're speaking to so powerfully, Amma, is about the fact that we can rewrite our stories.
Amma: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And so even though we cannot erase what happened, we can rewrite what happened. And as we do, [00:21:00] we change our Our physiology, we change our brain chemistry, we change, we change the way we think about ourselves and the way we feel about ourselves and the way we think and feel about others and the world.
Eva: Yeah.
Kyley: mean, I can feel it right, right now. I do love, like, my body knew it was going to happen before I did. Cause I kept saying like, I keep wanting to cry. My body was like, this is just the warmup. But I mean, this is the beautiful, this is the fucking beautiful thing is it's like, I can feel it. I can feel the rewrite happening inside my body right now.
Amma: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And that's why I feel so passionate about what I'm doing. Because I have been a meditator for 43 years. I've been a meditation teacher for 25 [00:22:00] years. and as powerful as it is to know and practice and have deep and liberating insights. The meditation practice was not what allowed me to do this.
It was another set of tools with a particular leverage and fulcrum that was Designed right where the stuff is lodged and it can shift.
Kyley: I want to underscore that, this idea that it can shift.
Amma: It can shift. And that's why I feel so excited because it can shift. I've seen it shift in myself. I've seen it shift in my colleagues. I see it shift in my students and my mentees. It can and it does shift. And the amazing thing is, is that it [00:23:00] doesn't take a hundred years. You know, it actually is fairly quick, you know, for me, it was like a year and a half of doing this work to see life changing results.
Eva: I feel like this is a good segue for you to speak more on this work that you're doing. If you'd like to share with us what exactly is the practice or, and what it is that you think is helpful. And, um, because, okay, so I, I, I, I want to. I can anticipate what like a thing where I come in with like the cynicism, like meaning I want to ask the questions that I perceive a cynic might ask. It's really just my own cynicism probably being projected, but I think it's helpful, right? Because [00:24:00] it's like, okay, and we talked about this earlier, how can we take this work and make it practical?
And I think there's a lot of fluff out there that can say, hey, we can rewrite the story without actually having it be embodied. You know, like, I feel like what you were talking about is something so much more beautiful. And then also when you were talking about, like, Mother Nature as your original mama, like, that brought me to tears just because it speaks so deeply to something that I intuitively feel to be true in my body as well, just the connection with this earth.
But there is the fluff out there. That I see is like, Oh yeah, just, just shift your story. Just like shift the narrative. And then I think people get frustrated with that, right? Because they're like, well, if it was so easy, I would have done it already. And then they get jaded with this work. So I want to hear what you're talking about.
Amma: So this is not about positive affirmation. It's different than that. And it comes from the work of Dr. Dan Brown and David Elliott, who [00:25:00] both are PhD clinical psychologists from Harvard University. And what they came up with is a three pillar protocol, which they designed as a psychotherapeutic tool. And the first part is co regulation, which they envisioned as working with the psychotherapist, and the relationship of collaboration and support with the psychotherapist.
The second pillar is what they called mentalization. What we use is meditation. And so there isn't really, uh, uh, There's the nuances between what cognitive mentalization means and meditation is nuanced. It's, there's an overlap of the same thing. And then the third pillar is the ideal parent figures, [00:26:00] which is to imagine parents.
That have the qualities of, um, they're able to protect and keep you safe. They're attuned to what you're feeling and recognize it easily. They delight in you being you. encourage you to express your own authentic nature and to explore. And they are a safe haven to return to, steady and reliable, without in any way being intrusive.
or controlling. And so what happens when we are little, when we don't get enough of those five qualities, is that we end up with, uh, strategies to compensate. And those strategies then can be identified as attachment formations, attachment [00:27:00] strategies. And in adults they're called anxious dismissive attachment.
And if you've got both anxious and dismissive patterns, then it's called disorganized attachment. So when we have enough of those five qualities, When we have enough safety, enough support, when we have attunement, when we have encouragement to express ourselves and to explore, when we have a safe haven, a reliable safe haven to return to, we have a secure attachment to our Primary caretakers, caregivers. And so the reason why this is different than positive affirmation is that we're not using an idea that things are better. What we're doing is we're creating the direct experience of [00:28:00] the qualities and feeling them in our Minds and our hearts and our bodies in our nervous system so that we can know what safety and protection feel like we can know what attunement feels like we can know the direct experience of having somebody delight in us, encourage us, allow us to explore and be completely available when things go wrong, and we need support to figure it out. And so as our nervous system gets acquainted with these direct experiences, it can't differentiate between something is imagined and something that is really happening. And the result of doing this is that our body starts to reorganize around the presence of those five [00:29:00] qualities.
Eva: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I have lots. I could say to Kylie. What's coming up for you?
Kyley: Um, I'm just soaking this all up. Um, I think I, I think I have a question. So, one of the things that I observe in my own practices, um, and with clients is to say you're hungry to feel like someone delights in your presence, right? Um, And you invite that feeling of like really being delighted into your body.
One of the things that I find is my body is like, really not sure about being delighted, right? Meaning there's this experience that I often have, or I can feel all the ways that I am like scurrying away from the experience itself. [00:30:00] Right. It's the thing that I want. And I'm also like, you know, trying to back away.
Um, I, you know,
or I just buffer, right. Or it's just an intellectual thing. Right. And I just didn't like, I'm telling a story, but my body's like, we're just checked out. And so I'm wondering if you could speak to that tension and, and more.
Amma: so first of all, it's completely natural when we haven't had those experiences that there's some ambivalence about having them. There's a lack of confidence or trust that they're authentic. Sometimes there's resistance to feeling them. Sometimes there can be a lot of grief. that we actually didn't have them. So there's all kinds of stuff and all of that is natural. So part of the reason why this was created as a psychotherapeutic tool is so that in working with a psychotherapist, all that stuff comes [00:31:00] up and it becomes part of the practice. But the way that they work with it in the practice is that they have the ideal parents.
Respond exactly in the right way to understand those things are coming up, to help you make sense out of why they are coming up, and to help support, soothe, and comfort you until they slowly shift. So the ideal parents are the number one, like, lubricator. They're both the ones that bring it, and they're the ones that help you receive it.
Eva: I should. So, um, oh, so, uh, the wonderful confluence of connections here is that, um, Federico has also been on the podcast. So let's see. Federico and I are both, [00:32:00] um, students of AMA's, or you are our mentor. Federico and I met in the program, have become really good friends, and have now run a program together, and so IPF is actually something that we do in the program that Federico brought in, and so, and it's also something that I've been practicing personally that has Just like blown so many things out of the water that I didn't know that I needed, but truly this practice of, um, yeah, I mean, like, yeah, from personal experience, just healing the old wounds of like giving, getting what I didn't receive.
And also seeing more clearly what I didn't need because I didn't really know what I needed until I started this practice. And. To be able to experience that type of love, and unconditional love, I think is what it is, is the thing that has created safety for me, um, to move through the world [00:33:00] more powerfully, I think.
So I can speak from personal experience, you know, that I think this is really important work, this piece of it that I know of anyway.
Amma: Thank you, Eva.
Eva: Yeah. Can we speak a little bit about Um, what did I wrote it down here emerging or feeling like you were merging with your atmosphere, like taking in a lot of the things from living in a in a in a city, right? I think that's something that a lot of people struggle with. And okay. So I'll, I'll get and speak for my own personal experience. I'm always trying to figure out the balance of I'm someone who I feel like I need a lot of personal space. I love my solitude. I love time alone in nature. And I feel like it regulates me because being yes. And very like high estimate, like with a lot of people and like, it feels very like lots of stimulation.
And then I get, I feel like I get overstimulated and then I [00:34:00] have to go back and retreat, you know, and feel like I need to like tend to myself and, but it's. It's kind of a painful way to live because I think the thing that I want more than anything else is actually connection with people. Right. But then I feel overwhelmed.
Right. So, and I think this is like my, uh, housemate and I, Eliza, we're, you know, we're both around the same age, 40s. Like we talk about this being like a millennial problem. It's a worldwide problem. I think this idea of people are hungry for community and also people feel alone. And, and I think it has a lot to do with this fact of what you were saying.
I don't know, Kylie. I don't know if you think. This is all hypothesis, but you know, this, this hypothesis of like, we want this connection, but it's hard because we feel overwhelmed. And so,
Kyley: I mean, I have just an additional layer because I. Agree. I mean, um, even though it's, I've been through quite an evolution lately [00:35:00] around, um, around really letting love in more deeply. Um, and I have watched my, I've been really closely observing my own patterns of like, Retreat, right? I mean, the imagery I've been using lately is about how like, I like roly poly bug, right?
Um, um, but in particular, I was thinking about this today with my kids. Um, my six year old was home sick today and my, my four year old was at school. And it was actually the first time that like, he was sick without her. And also he's old enough to like, he read books for two hours. It was this actually very sweet thing where like he was home.
By himself, which is always already common with just one kid, but then also, um, like he could tend to himself. He wasn't that sick that he couldn't tend to himself and the whole, it was just like a chill vibe. Anyway, the two of us had this lunch where we made cheese, a cheese and cracker and fruit, like little, you know, array and [00:36:00] played UNO for an hour.
And it was so, it was so, it was such a delight. It was so sweet. And one of the things I know is that. I have to, I have to actually opt out of being around my kids sometimes because of, and I'm now looking at it through the lens of what you were speaking to, but because I get kind of system overwhelmed and I have to kind of, it feels like I have to manage my cup and it's like, I have this much, I have this, I have a cup full.
Of, um, you know, bandwidth and I have to make it last all day long. And so, um, and they're both really intense. They're four and six. And so I will watch myself retreat. Um, and I don't at this stage, make that wrong, except to your point, Eva, I don't think it's actually what I want. Right. So like in the morning for breakfast, I'll make them breakfast and then like, drink my tea in the living room.
And I think that's a totally acceptable thing to do, except I also think that there's, there are at least [00:37:00] moments where if I were in a more, if I, if I had, if I weren't at like threatening system overwhelm as, as often as I am, uh, on like a, I think a nervous system level, probably then I would really want to just sit and have breakfast with them, you know, so I guess I'm trying to give a specific story to this thing that you're speaking to, right.
Which is this, how much of the retreat is. It's like a really genuine desire for solitude and peace and quiet, which is beautiful and how much of it is like roly poly bug in, gotta close
Eva: self protection, like, almost like building a wall rather than, yeah.
Amma: in some ways it doesn't matter, because people are doing the best that they can with what they've got, and it really doesn't matter. What matters is, is that are there tools that can help you make different choices? That's what matters. Because one of the things that happens [00:38:00] when our attachment formation is anything other than secure, Is that oftentimes we're living in a faux window of tolerance, which what that means in an ordinary language is that we're stressed out all the time, and we don't even know it, which means that we're not ever completely relaxing.
And it also means that we perceive danger everywhere we look, and that we're not noticing neutral things. Okay, that's a physiological response to not being securely attached. Okay. Okay, now you can't just with a good idea, or you can't just with the idea that you want to have spend more time with your family.
Where you want to be close, change that physiological set of patterning. And so, when I say it doesn't matter, what I mean is that people do the best that they can with what they've got. Sometimes you need to go have [00:39:00] tea in the living room when your kids are having breakfast in the kitchen because your system is overloaded. And sometimes you do want to connect, but you actually need to withdraw because that's the best that you can do with what you've got.
But the reason why I feel so excited by this program is that it changes or has the potential to change your baseline. And what that means is that you have different choices. You have, you're no longer living in a constant state of stress. And when you're no longer living in a constant state of stress, you can see neutral and you're not constantly seeing danger.
You have different choices. So this is not a philosophical question about how you should be. This is a question of how are you able to manage where you're at. and what are [00:40:00] tools that will help you widen the choices that you have. And so when I'm talking about the Integrated Meditation Program, the reason why I feel passionate about it is because it has the potential for giving people different choices in a way that will affect many different parts of their life.
Kyley: One of the things that I'm receiving as you're saying this is You know, it's so funny, the part of ourselves that's hard on ourselves is so sneaky, you know, like, you tend to her in 1 way and then she's like, okay, I'll just, I'll just climb in the window. That's fine. And, um, and I'm watching how, um, I really love your point.
That's like, okay. 1 of the things I think that I do sometimes is. I'm aware of exactly what you're saying, right? Like that, I have my choice in this moment is somewhat constrained because of what my capacity is. And there's a part of me that asks [00:41:00] this question of like, well, what do I really want? Right. If I, if I did have different choices, what would the true desire be?
And what I hear is that that's actually just another way of me being unkind to myself. Because what is, is that in this moment, the living room tea is the choice that. Actually best supports my whole family and therefore it's the choice and it's actually irrelevant. There is no true. Yes, of course.
Amma: The only way that other question can be helpful is if it opens you up into doors of what can you do to change your baseline. And then it becomes a different question. It's no longer whether you have tea in the living room, but what are other choices that you can act upon that then start changing your baseline.
Eva: Yeah, I want to share. So what I took away from that was, um, I don't think I would have like called it this before. But as you're as you were [00:42:00] laying out the framework, I was like, Oh, I can see how this is true is that you were talking about how, um, I was talking about how I feel like I need a lot of alone time.
And yet at the same time, I'm hungry for connection and not just the community is actually really what I long for. And then I have this fear that but will I feel overstimulated with community? And, um, What I saw was I could very much see basically how my insecure attachment makes it so that when I'm in a like, uh, social situations for a very long time, I am actually perceiving danger.
I would have never called it that, but it's like, there's a threat there for me. Like, that's why I'm exhausted. It's because, and that's why I need to like retreat back into my own space. It's because I can just see all of this connecting like, Oh, yep. I just organized like attachment stuff. Then when I'm like with people all the time. like, I feel like I can't just be fully just if I was, if I was safe, I could be fully myself and then I wouldn't [00:43:00] actually feel the overwhelm. And another sort of call back to a conversation from my meditation course was. Um, I don't know if you remember Yuko, but she, we were talking about this phenomenon of like being tired.
And she said that she, she, she asked her one of her other teachers and she was like, you know, I'm having a great time at parties, but when I get home, I'm just like exhausted. And her teacher was like, his hypothesis to her at the time was like, I think it's because you're not being honest. And that blew her away.
And it also blew me away. Because what I mean is it's like, I don't actually think I'm out there, you know, Being inauthentic with people who I love, but I know that how honest and authentic we can be can get subtler and subtler. Like you can really be more and more and more free. And so there are still ways in which I still don't yet feel safe and therefore I don't feel [00:44:00] free.
And then I have to retreat and then like rejuvenate. Did all that make sense?
Amma: Yeah, so that's one whole way of looking at it. And I think that there's a valid way of looking at it. But another way of looking at it is how extroverted and how introverted you are. Because an extroverted introverted has nothing to do with whether you're securely attached or not. And so extroverted people tend to get energized by being in groups of people where lots of people are talking and going from one person to the next person to the next person.
My mom was like that. You know, we would be in a party and she would speak to every single person in the entire party and come home and just be so happy. If I did that, I would be flattened,
Eva: Right,
Amma: you know?
Eva: I mean, I've spent many, I've thought about this a lot, so I've spent a lot of time sort of considering my introverted extrovertedness. I'm definitely an introvert by, in every sense of the word, but I think I've, there was, [00:45:00] I had a moment this summer where I saw clearly that I think I had over identified with being an introvert and I was almost using that label as a way to. I don't know how to explain it. Not like an excuse, but block myself from, from like more connection. It was like an excuse for why I wouldn't be on socializing. I don't know. I think I'm still figuring out, figuring it out. But I think there's something here for me about like, I don't, I've been calling myself an introvert, like a deeply big introvert all these years, many times on the podcast, I talk about it. And I think I might be more in the middle and I feel safe. I think.
Kyley: I think two things I'd say in response to that. One is I, I do think when I was younger, I was like, couldn't have been more on the extroverted end of the spectrum. And as I've gotten older, I have been able, and I have less of a need to like perform and prove, but I have less of less of a need.[00:46:00]
For other people to tell me I am of value and I have found I am very much still an extrovert, but, um, the, the swing is much cold. Like, there's a more of an equilibrium, you know? So I do think it just shifts over time. Um, the other thing that I'm thinking about is just identity, right? This is something about, I think a lot about my relationship to ADHD.
It's like, there's a way in which. Okay. Uh, Alma for context, I finally actually have integrated into my life or begun integrating like that. I have this late, late, you know, adult diagnosis of ADHD. And like, maybe I could like, let that be a thing that I use to help me rather than just this data point that I ignore.
Um, but, but I think about how there's a way in which this information, it can be profoundly helpful, but then there's also a way that I couldn't, can wrap myself around it. And like, it can be a constraint of like, well, I can't do those things because, or I am always only this way because, and I kind of hear you saying that [00:47:00] about introvert.
It's like, there's this way that I think sometimes labels can be like so fucking liberating, right? Because it's this, Oh. I feel seen and validated and other people have smart things to say about my experience that I, like, I don't have to reinvent the wheel. And then I think there's also a place where we also have to, like, hold it really gently or even maybe let go of it because
Eva: Right.
Kyley: it then becomes like a constraint.
Eva: Yeah. I mean, I think we could say that's about a lot of things. I mean, that was something that I was really processing, you know, during, at the height of, like, Black Lives Matter, really over identifying, over identifying with my race and getting, like, so defensive and worked up every time because I was like, I am, I don't know, I just got really hyper identified, forgetting that I'm not just Asian, I'm all of these other things too.
And I think, yeah, that's the thing about labels [00:48:00] is that they're helpful. Until they're not,
Kyley: Yeah,
Eva: if that makes sense.
Amma: Yes, and the whole topic of race is loaded for all kinds of reasons. And, you know, sometimes what happens is that when you shine a light in a church, doesn't have to be a church, it can be anywhere, you see all the particles. And it isn't that all of a sudden that there's more particles, but all of a sudden there's more light.
And so sometimes the enormous activation when you open up something like race is that that stuff has always been there. It's just that there never was the clarity to see it for what it was. And that just needs some time to, to metabolize in order to have it move through of its own accord, in order to, to get to a different level, another level of integration of understanding of awareness of what it is to be of a particular location and to live [00:49:00] in the world in the way that we are.
We are living. And so, you know, one of the things that I've been talking about is trauma. So it's not clinically correct to speak of attachment wounding as attachment or developmental trauma. It is only when you're dealing with disorganized attachment, but the others are not clinically considered a trauma.
But when we have different kinds of trauma. Developmental trauma or situational trauma or epigenetic trauma or, um, systemic trauma or vicarious trauma or compound trauma, they light our systems up in a particular way. And so something like race is both. situational things that you've lived through, microaggressions and macroaggressions and experiences of profound violence that you've lived through, or it's also systemic in the way that it's codified into [00:50:00] laws and the way that people are experiencing situational things through a cultural view or value that's acted out. It's also epigenetic in the way that it's carried through the DNA by your ancestors. And it's also vicarious because we open up the news and we see other people who have targeted racial violence at them, or that were with a friend who's just had been lit up because somebody has experienced or offered her either a micro or macro aggression, and you're helping them to, to metabolize it. So when we have. All of these things happening on all of these different levels, it becomes nuanced as to what is the right way or what is the skillful way, what is the way to metabolize all this stuff that's going on. [00:51:00] So it's been my own personal experience, having quite a few of all of these different kinds of traumas, that as I attend to the developmental trauma, as I become more securely aware of it, attached in my repair, then it makes it possible for me to deal with these other kinds of traumas in a different way.
So it's like the difference between swimming upstream and swimming downstream. When you're swimming upstream, the current is against you. Your whole system is wired to find danger in everything that you look. But when you have done enough of the attachment repair, you feel a basic sense of trust. You feel basically safe in your own skin, and then when you are dealing with these other layered traumas, then you can see them a little bit more clearly for what they are without [00:52:00] lighting up the whole entire field. And then as you can see them more clearly, and you have a place of internal safety to return to, then you can do the work that you need in order to clear those traumas out of your system. And the more we clear all these different layers of trauma out of our system, the more that we really genuinely can experience safety and basic trust.
Eva: So we mentioned at the top of the show that. You know, part of, I think, what makes our podcast, um, lovely, I think, is the personal and the, um, intimate parts of the show. And so I'm wondering, to as much comfort as you feel, as comfortable as you feel sharing, how this work has personally affected you, or maybe examples of how it's shown up in your own life.
Kyley: add a, can I add, [00:53:00] sometimes we do this, we just tag team questions. So I've got another one and then you can pick from them, but I also am really eager to know what safety feels like for you.
Eva: Ooh, now that's a good, that's a good interviewer question, Kylie, you're being a good interviewer coming in with the specific questions.
Kyley: And I asked to, just to share, I asked because I am, even knows this, I'm constantly in awe of the way we Well, especially when we're really devoted to the kind of healing that you're speaking of, that we are living into a devotion to a thing that in some ways we don't know.
Amma: So when you first asked me, what is something that I'm working with, I said, I connect with my core and I relax my pelvic floor. So this answers both of your questions. Safety feels like I can actually [00:54:00] relax my pelvic floor. And the backstory is I have never in my whole life been able to relax my pelvic floor up until very, very recently. Okay. So, my personal story, I come from 100 percent Jewish ancestry, and my grandmother, both, both of my grandmothers emigrated to this country, and my grandmother on my father's side, led pogroms and came to this country, never spoke about any single thing that she experienced in her homeland or on the journey over here, never.
She never went back to her homeland. She never saw her mother again. My mother was born three months premature. [00:55:00] And 92 years ago, what that meant is, is that people were put, babies, infants were put in a little box and they were not touched, except to keep them alive. So my mother, in many ways, is a completely amazing human being, but there were some very, very fundamental things that she never was able to resolve. And I inherited them, though, both epigenetically as well as It, she didn't have, she had no idea what it was like to be taken care of. And so she didn't have the capacity to bring that level of care and presence to me. And so the fact that I never knew that my pelvic floor was even tight gives you some [00:56:00] indication of the level of fear that I was living with. I didn't even know I was frightened. It was so baseline. It was so part of the wallpaper. I never even noticed it was there until I started to feel contrast.
Kyley: Can you speak to that, that moment of feeling contrast and how it starts to illuminate?
Amma: So I also have had my own experiences of sexual trauma, and my mother as well, and many of my female ancestors as well. And so part of the contrast was in trauma release. releasing the holding in my pelvic floor and all of the images and associations connected with that. And instead of it being [00:57:00] constantly tight, there's this experience of like Butter melting in the sun of something that's open and soft and, and responsive and healthy and flexible and holding.
Eva: I mean,
Kyley: Go ahead, love. You go ahead.
Eva: even the words are medicine, like, but to be able, there's actually, there's so much here, because I think the truth is. A lot of people can't even describe what safety feels like, you know, we don't have access to that. So that's complicated in itself. And then, and then just, there's just so many layers here.
And then the pelvic floor piece is interesting is because I think generally speaking already, there's very little education about the pelvic floor. I know nothing about my pelvic floor, except that it's very [00:58:00] important and that it's, I've been told that like, you know, I should learn about it because this should be taught in school.
It's one of those many things that should be taught in school and nobody knows what it is. And so. That's already a thing. And then the third piece is. What you're talking about, which is that it's also complicated because it was just the wallpaper, like, meaning that it was you were tense and didn't even know you were tense because that was just the norm.
And so that's the tricky part about unconsciousness. Like, it's like, that's why awareness is such a gift, because that's the moment that everything changes. But prior to that, then we're just in the we're in it and we don't know that we're in it. And so it's tricky.
Amma: I want to put a little bit more background, because I don't know how much the everybody here knows me and my background story. But,
Eva: more as, as I think I would love for the audience to know.
Amma: so, the background [00:59:00] story is that I have been meditating for 44 years, and I have been a meditation teacher for over 25 years, and I have been in, I was a Buddhist monastic for 28 years, including the two years I was a postulate. And living as a monastic, we were in an immersive Dharma environment, and what that meant was We had three hours of meditation a day, every two weeks we would have a 10 hour meditation vigil.
We would have a three month retreat in the wintertime, a one month of solitary retreat in the summertime. On top of that, we had 10 day retreats multiple times a year. And it wasn't just the richness of how much Dharma teaching and the opportunities, but it allowed very, very, very deep insight, okay? And so, You [01:00:00] have to realize, I did not know that I didn't feel safe on top of all of that, okay? That amount of meditation, that amount of insight, that amount of retreat, that amount of practice, and I didn't know I was unsafe, okay? So the reason why, or one of the reasons why I feel so passionate About this integrated meditation program is because the meditation by itself does not change these structures that get put in place because of not having our basic needs met when we are in our formative years, or at least it didn't for me, and it didn't [01:01:00] for all of my colleagues, and it hasn't for any of my students.
Eva: And this is why I love that you're my mentor. Like just so perfect because I think you bring in the juice, you bring in like the, you know, you have this. of experience and study, but also with a critical eye and from experience of being able to just be like, and also like, let's talk about all these other systemic things and like the, and how to make this real and concrete and not just, you know, something that I feel strongly about is like just going through the motions of the practice because that's like what we, what we do.
So anyway, just one of the many things I love about you.
Kyley: Well, and I'm, I'm, I'm so I love your story because I think it's so it feels so relatable to me. Right. Like this idea of like, I. I was already in [01:02:00] devotion to myself in such deep ways. And yet there were these huge things that I didn't even understand. And so there's a part of that's just like, there's this beautiful, uh, what a delight, the things that we still have yet to discover about ourselves, you know, or like the possibilities of how we might continue to feel increasingly safe and loved and free.
I also just like personally relate so much to, Oh, Oh, I don't like, Oh, that's what I mean. I had my own experience with pelvic floor. Uh, and which I transparency had to pause. I was like, this is intense. And I have to, I just had to pause. Right. And it was intense in a really beautiful way. Not because the, not because of the session is right.
But just because of what is what you're moving. Right. And this, this, the reason, if you are someone who has a. Overly tight pelvic floor is because you're chronically scared. [01:03:00] Well, you're scared to let, to soften it. Right. So, um, you know, that's, uh, I'm also a big fan of like. Um, yeah, I don't know. Pause, tend in another way, come back, right?
Anyway, um, but I also love, that's why I asked the question about contrast, because I think that there's this interesting moment that I experience often, where it's like, I start to stick the, the moment at the top of the show where I cried. Like my story has been rewritten and I know that I'm going to start, I will start to feel that even tomorrow, that's usually, it shows up pretty fast when it's that month, that big.
And, and I think that there's sometimes in the lead up to those big moments and also on the other side, as we integrate, there's this moment where it's like you're half in half out, right? There's this moment where like you. It can feel like [01:04:00] frustration, but I also think sometimes it's the part of you that can finally see a little bit clearly that maybe the suffering isn't necessary.
Does this make sense? What I'm saying?
Eva: half in half out. Can you say more about that? Or I'm a, does it?
Kyley: I think I think I'm
Amma: What, what I, what I, what I can relate to is, is that, you know, we are on a healing journey and there's times when we have like an intimation of something that's about to shift and it hasn't completely shifted yet. And so what I can also relate is, is that there's lots of, lots of times when I've had the feeling like I've closed the door behind me, but the door in front of me hasn't opened up yet. And so I'm in this place of like, okay, I know this is the right place to be. But I don't have a clue in the world what the next step is.
Eva: Yeah, that place of no longer and not yet, be [01:05:00] a doozy.
Kyley: yeah. Uh, my, my business partner and other if I'm not talking about spiritual things with Eva, it's with my friend Liz and we had a really intense. Like both of us cry and kind of breakthrough call with each other the other day. And then that's what we said. We're like, okay, so we've burned the bridge down behind us.
Right? Like the old way of doing things is no longer, we burned it down or as you said, closed the door and, uh, yeah, that like delicious moment where. You're just in the in between. And I think to the point of safety, I think one of the reasons. You're in the unknown, and that is inherently, like, can bring up all the things of unsafety.
And I think that that's 1 of the reasons why we, like, pull away from that moment, right? Is that we, we are afraid of, um, we're afraid of sitting in that space where the bridge has [01:06:00] burned behind us or the door shut behind us and we don't know. Um, and so I'm curious to know what wisdom you might have to offer us around.
Touching into safety or, or compassion in that
Amma: So, I have a story to tell you,
Eva: Okay, wait, wait, wait, can I, my like logical brain has written down this question touching into safety. Ama, you, you, you have a story, but I need to like close the loop on our previous conversation or it's going to drive me nuts because the question was, what does safety feel like? And so you had talked about, you didn't know, sorry, I'm going back Ama, if we can, but you said you, you know, after even all these years of living the monastic life and all this.
insight, you still didn't know that you were not safe, that you didn't feel safe. So how did you, what was like the moment? And I'm sure there were many, maybe a series of moments, but what was the thing that was a light bulb moment that helped you see?
Amma: when I actually [01:07:00] was able to realize that my pelvic floor was chronically tight.
Eva: And how did you realize that?
Amma: It seems like a simple enough question and I don't actually know how to answer it, because I can't remember what the sequence of events was about what it was that all of a sudden, oh, I was living in Hawaii. I was living in Hawaii and I was living in a garden and I was the caretaker of a small organic farm and I was living in a hut with a shamanic kitty and there was a bathtub, outdoor bathtub, and so in addition to being in this incredibly beautiful place that felt like I was living in the lap of the goddess. And Pele was my personal trainer. I would spend almost every single day for a year and a half in the bathtub for somewhere between an hour and two a day, just floating in a bath that is soaking with medicinal herbs and fragrant flowers. And the, the [01:08:00] relaxation would allow me to recognize that my pelvic floor was tight.
Eva: Okay. Yeah.
Kyley: Yeah. Again. Yeah. The contrast.
Amma: The contra.
Kyley: Yeah. I think I keep coming to this point because I think that we see it as like we see our suffering and we judge it or make it wrong. And yet over and over again, the contrast is like, that's the moment where liberation is possible. That's the moment where space gets to possibly
Amma: Right. So it, there was nothing wrong. It just that it took that amount of contrast that, I mean, that's amazing to be soaking in a bath for a year and a half to take, to find the contrast, but that's what it took.
Eva: Yeah.
Kyley: Yeah.
Eva: you for sharing that. Okay. So making sure that we're on track,
Kyley: You
Eva: Kylie, you said you want to touch it. How do we touch into safety? And [01:09:00] Ama, you had a story.
Amma: Okay. So this is quite a story. So fasten your seatbelts, folks.
Eva: We love stories here and you tell good stories. So let's go.
Amma: So 1987 I had gone to Asia. Because I was interested in exploring whether or not I was going to be a Buddhist nun. And I had a three month visa to go to a meditation retreat center in Burma that was known to be extraordinarily rigorous. And it was the first time I had been away from family and friends and boyfriends and lovers and, and the longer I was away, the more disorganized and disoriented I felt.
And so I decided, before I go to this monastery for a three month intensive retreat, I need to go into nature, which was my favorite thing to [01:10:00] do, to be regulated. So I decided I was going to go to India. I was in Kathmandu. And I went to India and I went to McLeod Ganj, and it was 125 degrees in Delhi on the way through.
And when I got to McLeod Ganj, which was in the foothills of the Himalayas, so it was reasonable temperature, I thought, well, what I'd love to do is to go head into the mountains. So I was a single woman in my 20s, and I had made myself a few promises when I left, and one of them was is that I wouldn't go into the mountains or in the wilderness in Asia by myself because I didn't think it would be safe, even though that was something that I love to do when I was in the States.
I went backpacking alone, a lot. So my first. that I needed to find was a companion. So I was in a Tibetan [01:11:00] guest house and I found this person in the guest house. His name was Brian and I took one look at him and he looked trustworthy and I asked him if he wanted to go on an overnight trip with me.
And he said sure. So we started thinking about logics and logistics and what we needed and what we wanted to go and all the rest of that. So we packed our bags and we got our stuff ready and we had a day pack and we had a backpack and we were ready to go. We went up to this triand, which is this saddle at 10, 000 feet. And the next morning he got up and was photographing goats and I was doing loving kindness meditation. We left our big packs where we had slept and we headed down the mountain. And my happy place was walking off trail, especially when I was disorganized. If I could walk off trail, somehow not being able to know where I was.
[01:12:00] returned me back into my coherence. So we had, you know, we were still getting to know each other. We had only met each other a day or two before and, you know, we were having a nice conversation about strawberries on the way up and we, we packed our packs, we slept out and he was photographing goats and I was doing loving kindness meditation.
We took our small packs and then we head down off trail. And enjoying ourselves, nothing exciting or spectacular, and we, we get to a stream and we had a picnic and I washed my face because it was hot. And we headed on up, and we were heading up a very, very steep bowl of a mountain, and we got to a place and Brian climbed on top of this rock, and I was in front of it.
I had a hat on and I had sunglasses on and I was wearing a dress and I had my small day pack. [01:13:00] And I was in front of this rock and I, I said to Brian, I said, did you notice that there was a, a cave here? And he asked me, can you climb up the rock? You know, and it was like, you know, super simple, but he didn't know me from, he'd only known me a day and a half.
He didn't know I could climb up a rock. yeah, it was not going to be a problem to climb up the rock. And so I'm sitting in front of this rock or standing in front of this rock, looking in with my sunglasses on. And from the rock comes this rather unimaginable noise. And then from the rock comes running at me a very, very large bear at full speed. And when his face was an arm's distance from my face, several things happened very quickly. I went for refuge, I screamed, I jumped, I screamed [01:14:00] again, and I blanked out from fear. And when I first came to, the first moment of consciousness was unfathomable fear, fear that had no edges to it, no boundaries to it, no parameters around it, it was infinite in all directions. But I had been a meditator for nine years at that point. So the first moment was fear, and then there was the knowing of fear. And then the second moment was the thought, there's no point in being afraid because you're going to die, and the knowing of that thought. And then my whole mind body. Relaxed. And I went into a kind of luminous awareness [01:15:00] where Everything was utterly pristine. I was aware of my body. I was aware of the sensations I was experiencing because what had happened was somehow I had jumped and gotten pressed up against a horizontal branch of a tree and the bear was straddling me and his belly was pressed against my back and he was chewing on my head. So I could feel the pressure on my back and I could feel the pressure on my head. So the experience of there's no point in being afraid because you're going to die was like there was no way I was going to be able to negotiate my way out of this one, you know, this is what was happening. It's time to get with the program and just shift gears. And so I did. And when I shifted gears, [01:16:00] what I was aware of was curiosity.
There was the body sensations, there was the experience of clarity, of curiosity, of interest, and quite a lot of joy. I was quite comfortable. Joy, because I was in the present moment. And I was aware of what was going on, and I wasn't reacting. I was just present, watching what it was going to be like to die. So from that experience, the sound of um welled up, and the very second that I focused on the sound of um, the bear left. And Brian reported to me afterwards, he catapulted off of me, ran 15 to 20 feet, and then ran away.
Eva: I[01:17:00]
Amma: Brian was there in an instant, and he said I wasn't that badly hurt. But the reality was, is that I had about eight wounds to my neck and to my head and to my face.
Eva: mean, he was saying that to try and mitigate the panic, like to keep you calm or
Amma: because none of the wounds had penetrated my skull, they were all superficial. He wasn't saying that, just to say that, they were all superficial wounds. So I, I said, I'm going to be a little weird for a while, you're going to have to look after me, go find where we left our packs. And I went and lied down in the shade and rested and he came back and showed us where we had to go. And I had to. It was too steep for him to carry me. We both needed our hands and feet.
So we both scrambled out. [01:18:00] And when we got back up to our big packs, he had the most amazing first aid kit of any human I have ever traveled with or even known in my whole life. And he cut back my hair and he had gloves and he had scissors and he had bandages and he had gauze and he got me sorted out.
And we walked three hours down the hill to the first place we could walk into and then they called the jeep and they took me to the hospital and they stitched me up and there was a whole big thing of follow up afterwards. But the reason why this story is a powerful story, there's a couple reasons why. Because when we talk about the question of what is safe, in that moment of surrender, The good news, people think that the good news of the story is that I lived, [01:19:00] but the good news of the story is that I was fine whether or not I lived. And so, what is safety? When you use this story as a prompt to ask the question, what is safety? It makes for a very, very different inquiry.
Eva: Yeah. That is a journey. And as you soak that in Kylie, I have an immediate question. Thank you for sharing that. Um, I, I had heard that story before and had, we had talked [01:20:00] about if, you know, if it made sense to share it here, um, you know, if it, if it organically came in and, um, and, and I, yeah, I just had some questions about it the first time that I heard it, but I never got to ask.
That are related to, I guess, some of what I'm feeling now is, I have a sense, and I've said this before, this, I don't know where it comes from, just this idea of, the truth is, is like, We're always safe. And I feel very cautious and self conscious saying that because I don't want that to invalidate actually when we are experiencing something really traumatizing and horrific and we don't actually feel safe.
I mean, you know, having your, your head, you're being attacked by a bear, I think is a great example of like, you know, you could argue that you're not safe in that moment. And yet it's almost like this intuitive sense of like, If all time [01:21:00] is now, or if there's only, if there's no past and there's no future, and it's just now, and the now, and the now, and now, and now, I do actually always feel safe. Of course, that's not how I'm living all the time. And this also, I can say, feels intellectual, but it is also something that I kind of feel to be true.
Amma: So, what's really important is to not use the transcendent. to bypass the personal and the present, okay? And so while what you're speaking to, Eva, is a philosophical truth, which I think is ultimately true, if I was in a traumas response, which would be very obvious thing to be in with a situation like that, My personal experience would not be of safety. And then to give me a philosophical discourse that in fact I was safe, is not meeting me where I'm [01:22:00] at. So when you use truth to not meet somebody where they're at, it's not kind.
Eva: Yes. Yes.
Amma: Even if it is true,
Eva: Right. I
Amma: on an, on an ultimate level. But when you use truth in order to open up a window for somebody, That is kind. The trick, when you're dealing with somebody who's in a trauma response, is that if you say that you're safe to somebody in a trauma response... That can be very, very triggering. It can sound hugely dismissive because they have no capacity to access safety when they're in a trauma response. So unless you're telling them they're safe is a transmission of safety rather than a concept of safety. [01:23:00] chances are much better than not that that statement is going to be totally unhelpful and cause more harm than help.
Kyley: As you're saying this, I'm thinking about how often we do just that to ourselves,
Eva: agree.
Kyley: right? Like,
Amma: Exactly. Exactly. Because we have an idea about where we should be. And we miss where we are
Eva: And to go back to your story, though, like the reason I bring up this safety piece is actually what I felt like was transmitted to me as you were speaking this idea of it wasn't that, you know, the good news of the story wasn't that you lived. It was that in that moment, for whatever reason, I don't know if it was because you were a meditator or maybe it was just something clicks when we are [01:24:00] having a near death experience. You described what you were describing in that moment. Was sounded like an experience of safety meaning like you were just
Amma: right. That's exactly right. So if you can experience safety while you're being killed,
Eva: mm hmm
Amma: eaten by a bear,
Eva: Mm hmm,
Amma: that's a radical experience of safety.
Eva: right and I think that's where my question comes from because what you did transmit to me I I don't know how I would react if I was ever in a near death experience But I actually do feel and I would ever you know, I couldn't I couldn't control my reaction, right? My reaction would be my reaction, but I do feel like I don't know There's a kindness in what you shared of that. It doesn't have to be I mean, I don't know, pure [01:25:00] fear. Or I mean, there was like, your fear, what you were saying, you know, what you described so beautifully of like, a fear with no limits. I don't know, I just think there's something kind about knowing that there's Also another possibility. Mm-Hmm.
Amma: right. And so even in situations which are traumatic, you can, in the moment, under certain unusual circumstances, shift it, and so that the thing shifts and your own experiences of one of. Okayness. I was okay. I was going to be okay, whether or not I lived.
Kyley: I think I'm just, I think
First of all, I think everything you have said feels like a transmission, like my whole body is having such a, um, as a vocal participant in our conversation. I will sleep well tonight. I can feel that. I am very grateful for that. [01:26:00] Um, and I, I hear so loud the invitation to not be in charge. Right. That, like that, that, that is that's constant medicine for me, but I, in that story, I heard this moment.
Of like, there's a bear. What else am I going to do?
Amma: That's certainly a really important thing, not to be in charge. But for me, what just came forward was the meditation. And so, yeah, I had been a meditator, a meditation practitioner for nine years. And that was nine years of regular practice and regular retreats and deep insight. And so with meditation, there's the training to notice what's happening, but to notice what's noticing. And so I was aware of fear, but the next moment was the knowing of fear, and the knowing of [01:27:00] fear wasn't frightened.
Eva: Hmm.
Amma: And because that wasn't frightened, the knowing wasn't frightened, then it gave the possibility for the rest of it to unfold in the way that it did. If I didn't have that, I wouldn't have had a toehold. into being able to shift the situation, which it doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out that it's natural that somebody would feel frightened.
Kyley: Right. I
Eva: Yeah. And I think that was the other thing that really touched me about that story that I don't have language for, but just the idea of the one who watches isn't afraid, the one who notices isn't afraid. I mean, that's so much of what my, you know, the medi, my, the meditation practices about is, you know, it's, it's, and it, it's where I find respite from all of my [01:28:00] shit basically when I am, like, I can be the one who just notices.
Amma: That's right. And so, you know, the power of meditation practice is utterly profound in terms of giving us the possibility to be peaceful, to be free, to be okay in the midst of things that are not peaceful, that are not free, and that are not okay.
Kyley: have a question to post to my YouTube meditators because I do not have a, I'm a deeply spiritual person. I have a lot of practices of connection, but regular meditation, uh, like is, is, and is not one. And I think one of my personal practices has a lot to do with like falling all the way into a feeling. Um.
And [01:29:00] it is always difficult for me to explain, but it, I watch it transform into something else, right? So I find again and again that if I think in res with a, with the, the less resistance I have when I have no resistance and I fall all the way into shame, it alchemizes in front of my eyes into love, right?
And I find that over and over again. And so my practices is very somatic. And it's very, um, always feels like a falling in. I mean, it's not always, lots of times it's, lots of times it's watching the not falling in. Right. But, but, but I think, and you know, my uncle who was incredibly, I was incredibly close to growing up, my aunt and uncle, they're both, um, were Zen Buddhist.
And so I had like this Buddhist influence my whole life. It's a big part of my spiritual upbringing. And so I've always been.[01:30:00]
I've read about a lot about and have had practice. And obviously I, what am I trying to say? I find myself resistant to, or not identifying with this idea of being watcher, because in some ways it always feels like a disassociation or a disconnection when I think, ah, this is really hard for me to put into words.
And I think ultimately we're probably talking about the same thing, but there's something about the language about the watcher isn't afraid that feels.
Eva: Like you wonder, you're
Kyley: Sandpapery. It feels sandpapery for me because yeah, it feels sandpapery
Eva: you like suspicious that it's because you might be because you think you have a, um, habit of disassociating and so therefore you are either suspicious that it's disassociating and you can't tell if it's,
Kyley: No, it's that the, it's not that I'm, it's not that I'm [01:31:00] suspicious when I'm doing it, that I'm disassociating. Cause I know in my body what it feels like when I'm like connected. It's more like
I find the, I think I'm sandpapery to the framing, just the, the, the idea of being watcher feels like a thing that I push against. Does that make sense? What I'm saying?
Eva: don't like
Amma: It does. No, I think what you're talking about is really important, and it's, uh, it's a subtle thing. In that experience, that's the way I described it. I just came across, uh, something that, uh, Thich Nhat Hanh said, which talks about non dual observation, and he speaks about this, but he speaks about it from more of the perspective that you're talking about. He says the key to observation of meditation is that the subject of observation and the object of observation may not be regarded as separate. When we observe something, we [01:32:00] are that thing. The non duality is the key word. Observing the body in the body means that the process of observing, you don't stand outside your body as if you are an independent observer, but you identify yourself 100 percent with the object being observed. This is the only path that can lead to the penetration and direct experience of reality. In observation meditation, the body and mind are one entity, and the subject and the object of meditation are also one entity. There's no sword of discrimination that slices reality into many parts. The meditator is a fully engaged participant, not a separate observer.
Kyley: Yes. Yes.
Amma: So what I cannot tell you is how what I did. [01:33:00] was so effective. But this is what you're speaking to.
Kyley: Yeah.
Amma: What Thich Nhat Hanh speaks about is what you're speaking about. There's something in your system that is resisting being separated out, and he's affirming that that is correct, that there should be resistance to that, because that actually is not the path to ultimate the experience of ultimate reality, the direct experience of reality.
Kyley: Thank you for that.
Because I, I think, I think sometimes that's a part of why I resist meditation itself. Even though again, I have, I have stillness. I mean, meditation is actually a million different things, right? But I, I think sometimes, um, I resist the kind of practice that I used to have when I was younger or that I [01:34:00] used to like dabble in when I was younger for this very reason.
And so I appreciate, uh, You and Tiknot Han coming in to say like, no, no, it's not, you're good. Keep going. You can stick with this. And,
Amma: But also what I would ask you in your contemplation, because it's a profound question or profound inquiry to stay with something and watch it transform, is what did it transform into? And when there's nothing that you're watching, what are you watching?
Kyley: Oh, I'm just going to cry again. I think I have spent so much, I know I've spent so much of my life separate from myself. [01:35:00] And I think, um, yeah, I'm so, I mean, I actually don't think I realized this until this moment. And so I'm grateful for that. I think what I'm seeking above all is perhaps not like. It's peace, but is like to just really actually be me, which is of course, ultimately the same. Right. But that actually feels really liberating to see.
Eva: I'm
Amma: right. And so that's one of the things that I feel really excited by, because when you put these things together, When you bring repair to your attachment wounding, you both become more of who you are, and you release the obstacles to understanding your essential nature, which is not in any [01:36:00] way limited or defined by your characteristics of identity. And so your wholeness becomes inseparable from your awakening, and equally as important.
Eva: hmm, mic drop moment, that was very, very beautiful, I'm awesome. Release. Yeah, this is one of those episodes, one of our own episodes that I feel like I would want to go back and listen to. I don't usually go back and listen, but, um, I think there's a lot of medicine in here for me personally. I'm sure Kylie can relate. And I think this might be a good time for us to unless and Kylie can follow up with any other last minute questions, but I want to know. Um, how can we, how can people find you? How can they work with you? What would you like to [01:37:00] share with our,
Amma: So, um, what I don't know is when this is going to be aired.
Eva: probably in like two weeks or so, or at least sometime within this month, within like the next four weeks
Amma: Okay, so I am currently teaching a trauma informed Satipatthana course, so we're halfway through, got two more sessions to that. And if people wanted to enroll, they'd be able to hear the recordings of the first part of it. But the more important thing really is the Integrated Meditation program, which is starting in January.
And this is,
Eva: the IPF and the, okay.
Amma: yeah, and Dan Brown and David Elliott co founded it, and, uh, a year and a half ago, Dan Brown unfortunately passed away, and I have been working with David Elliott, and he [01:38:00] has endorsed me to, uh, take his Three Pillar program and to use it for meditators, take it out of a psychotherapeutic context and put it into a sangha context for meditators. So that program is starting in January and there's, um, information about it and on the awakening truth.org website. And I will be doing some introductory classes between now and then. And so if you're interested in it, contact me. What is ideal? If there's a small group of people who wanna know is to contact me, to have me give an introductory talk for a small group of people, I'd be delighted to. and then I can talk about it and answer your questions and see if it might be a good match for you. And so what that program is, is going to be [01:39:00] six months, and we're looking at a dedicated group of meditators who are willing to embark. It's a prototype, because this has never happened before, that this program is being taken out of a, the IPF model is being taken out of a psychotherapeutic context and turned into a Sangha activity for meditators.
And I'm doing it because I feel that for a number of reasons. One, because I have had a lot of experience of co regulation with peers and as a Sangha activity, and I have confidence that that can be done. But second of all, if this is effective in the ways that I suspect it may be, Then what it does is it makes it a whole lot more available to a much larger group of people than if they have to be working one on one with a clinically trained psychotherapist. [01:40:00] And what I have experienced is that the ramifications are profound in terms of changing physical health, core beliefs, schemas, and structures. and my own basic sense of safety. So if this interests you at all, I encourage you to check out the Awakening Truth website. And then if there's enough interest with a couple of people to contact me directly and invite me to give a talk, and I'd be happy to.
Eva: we'll have all the links for that in the show notes, but I will say what, I mean, as someone who loves working with a therapist. And also loves having a song gun community. I'm excited about the community aspect of this work. You know, like, to me, I, I'll just speak from personal experience. Like, it's, it's just as powerful or yeah, it doesn't.
[01:41:00] Yeah, it's not like one is better than the other, like the one on one versus the community. They both serve in really beautiful ways, but I love the community aspect of this work.
Kyley: There's something, I think, so many of us, I think, carry, you know, a sense of isolation and abandonment and shame. So much of our childhood traumas have to do with feeling alone. And so I think there is something so profound just seeing that other people are in it with you.
Amma: Yes, so they're in it with you, and they're in it with you in a particular way, because they are also helping you to do it yourself.
Kyley: Right.
Amma: And so one of my aspirations, and that will be something we'll see if we can allow it to emerge during the program, is to create, uh, like a, um, a methodology. That supports people to support each other,
Eva: Mmm.
Amma: and so that [01:42:00] people can reach out to peers who have gone through this to support each other.
Eva: Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. And then that brings us to our closing question. One
Kyley: Well, it's bringing you joy, Amma. I
Amma: Well, I can say that what's bringing me joy is to have my basic needs. I have my health, my brain functions, I have food, I have water, I have clean air. I have enough to wear, I've got a roof over my head, I've got medicine, and all of that means that I live with joy a lot of the time.
Eva: of my favorite answers today. How beautiful. Kylie, would you like to go next?
Kyley: actually want to comment on your joy and then I will go, but [01:43:00] what I am grateful for in that share is how. How clearly true that is, meaning, I think that's a thing that we feel a lot of should around, right? Like, Oh, I should be grateful because I have X, Y, and Z, and then we're really unkind to ourselves.
And what I, what I love about your answer is I could feel, I could feel the weight of compassion that, that got you to that place, right? Of all the times where you didn't should. And instead really loved yourself. And as a result, you stand in the place where, Oh, how delightful to have my basic needs met. Yeah. But it's bringing me joy. Oh, I mean, I'm going to let this conversation, this is like really, um, [01:44:00] it's just really beautiful medicine for me and I am really grateful for that. My other joy, um, so listeners know that I have my business that I run with Liz Simpson and this week. We, I'm giggling because there's a way that this is very silly, but it's been so great.
We like implemented all these systems. Like we've been running this business for a year and a half with like a, basically our messenger app. And we like got Slack, which is like for professional organ, it's, we have a free version of it, but like we have, we got our project management system. We like actually.
Took the time and the care and the permission to build the, to build the infrastructure and to take, there's a, there's a way in which we have given ourselves permission to like, honor what we love and honor our creation in a whole new way. And it's hilarious because it's the same conversation, [01:45:00] but now it's on slack telegram and both of us feel like these, like, kind of giddy school kids about it and, and, and.
Actually, similar to what I said about your joy, part of the joy is like, Oh, it just feels so good to have all this like order and structure and organization. And there were so many moments before this where we would like bump up against the system and be like, Nope, I hate that can't do that. And we would like love ourselves through that.
And so it's the celebration of. And really taking ourselves seriously in a whole new way. And it's the celebration of all of these moments where we were really loving to ourselves. And so this feels, there's like a liberation in this that, that, that doesn't, that doesn't normally, I think, show up with the project management software.
So that's my joy.
Eva: Well, as a Capricorn who loves organization, I can see the, the, where there's love in that, you
Kyley: Yeah.
Eva: joy. I get that. It's [01:46:00] like a supporting something that you love.
Kyley: Yeah. And it just feels, you know, I've shared before how, you know, I'm like a mad scientist scatterbrained person. And so systems also sometimes come with a lot of shame of like, you know, like tsk tsk. And so it also feels really good to see how much together we have built something that doesn't carry that weight.
And so this just gets to be the thing that takes care of both of us. So I guess, yeah, like loving my creative partnership and specifically in this moment via systems and software.
Eva: Love it. Okay. And I will share my joy. There are a couple of things coming up because, um, I don't know, I haven't talked to you recently, but I'm moving to, I'm moving to Taiwan, moving out of the country. Uh, I guess that's maybe the first time I've said that on the podcast. Um, and. They don't have kale there, and they don't have arugula, and so I've just been making my favorite salads and just [01:47:00] eating them on repeat and just soaking it in because I won't be able to get those things.
But also, like, with soup, which my favorite chicken soup because it's fall, and the weather here in Austin, Texas has been pristine, which feels well deserved because we've been in purgatory because, you know, it's been 100 degrees for so long, and finally, all of a sudden, it's just the most beautiful weather ever.
So, it's a combination of all those things.
Kyley: I love it. I love your leafy green
Eva: Oh my god, I'm obsessed. I have the best kale salad recipe. It's only four ingredients if anybody wants it.
Kyley: I want it. I want it immediately.
Eva: It's so easy. All right, everybody. Well, um, uh,
Kyley: Thank you.
Eva: this was amazing.
Kyley: Thank you. Thank you.