How Dual Awareness Can Silence Your Inner Critic! With George Thompson

George Thompson 0:00

Thoughts are real but not true. The brain cannot distinguish between that which is imagined and that which happens outside of us. In the meditative spiritual journey, we learn that we totally make the whole thing up. The whole thing is made up from thoughts that arise in our heads. Those thoughts coalesce into beliefs. Those beliefs coalesce into stories, and our stories create our destiny. So much of our pain comes from imaginations that have never happened, but the chemistry of anxiety still happens. Right? Every other animal doesn't have thinking with thoughts, so they navigate their lives from the present moment, and yet a squirrel buries nuts planning for the future. That intuitive wisdom is ours as well, but we don't trust it. So the surrender experiment is to see what happens when I let go of always having to navigate my life through planning, thinking and to come into the present moment, to come into my body. So how do we do that?

Jannecke Øinæs 1:06

George Thompson, a warm welcome to the Wisdom From North show.

George Thompson 1:10

Great to be with you.

Jannecke Øinæs 1:13

I'm excited to dive deep with you today about consciousness, about our thoughts, our mind, how to know ourselves, because this is something you have explored. You are a filmmaker, a YouTuber. You just released the beautiful film, the subtle art of losing yourself. We'll understand more about that title. Later on, you went to China and you found wisdom that transformed your life, and today, you are translating these ancient teachings into fun, practical tools for our modern challenges. Now, before we dive deep, how do you feel, George, that our conversation will expand people's consciousness?

George Thompson 1:59

Well, firstly, beautiful to be with you, grateful for your presence and presence for all our dear viewers and listeners and really the wisdom teachers of history, they all taught, know thyself if we truly understand who we are, how we work, our mind, our heart, our consciousness, with that clarity, we gain Wisdom, which is the ability to navigate life with skill. The natural and effortless consequence of wisdom is peace, balance joy and ease. So to expand our consciousness together in this conversation, I hope that we are going to dive deeper into our nature, how we work, our way of nature, or the word Dao that the Daoists use, that we will get into in this conversation, and I hope a bit more clarity can help our dear view and viewers and listeners live with more ease and joy.

Jannecke Øinæs 2:51

How wonderful. I would love for you to share your story, because I think it's a story that many people can identify with, it struggling with this, this troll in their minds. You call it the underminer, that is just telling us everything we're not good at and what we can't achieve, and how you actually transform this by going far away to China. So take us all the way back after you, you had just finished your education and you were trying to make it as a YouTuber, which is not easy, by the way, I know.

George Thompson 3:26

Yeah. So I finished education, and I followed my dreams, and I started a YouTube channel, and I was making videos I thought were good, but nobody was watching them. I equated my value as a human being when the number of views I was getting, and because I wasn't getting any views, meant I felt I wasn't valuable, and in that time is that I am not valuable. And then I became anxious, because I was living with my parents, not many friends, single, making things that I went I wasn't feeling they were being recognized. And I descended into anxiety, and really not understanding these thoughts in my head, of, you're not good enough, you need to do better, work harder. Oh, and now you're anxious, you're pathetic, you're weak. Come on like you're so privileged. Look at everything you've been given. And so I really resisted me being there, and I kind of wallowed in my pain for at least a few weeks, and I was snoozing on my alarm, feeling sick, not wanting to enter into the world. And before I get to the journey of what happened, the idea that I was uniquely messed up, hopefully that's changing. Even 2017 was when my journey started, and today there's a lot more talk about mental health and anxiety and depression and the challenges that we have. One of the big wow moments for me was when I read the ancient texts that we'll talk about from far away China, two and a half 1000 years ago, these texts were written, and. The Chinese, they struggled with many of the things that I struggled with, and that really gave me a sense of belonging, that I wasn't alone with my pain, that to hurt is to be human. And so I summarize the journey of waking up in three sentences. To hurt is to be human. Balance is possible. Practice is the path. And so this was really only later that I realized the acknowledgement of that stage one to her, is to be human compassion to the life that's here, including all of the challenge

Jannecke Øinæs 5:36

and the voice that you call the underminer, that didn't just become silent. They didn't.

George Thompson 5:44

Yeah, so before, I had an inner critic, and I was battling these thoughts, and I didn't know how to relate to them. And then, as my journey into meditation and spiritual practice continued, I experienced what many, many of you will experience if you continue on this path. And I'm sure you have experienced the wow moment when you realize that this is just a thought arising in my awareness. It's not necessarily true. And parts work, I also love So meditation and parts work, I began to name this constellation of painful thinking, the underminer, there was a troubled wizard, George, still single, and all of these things that are not good enough in your life, I'm going to constantly berate you and bring you down and give you pain. And it's only later on in the in my journey, I became friends with this voice, so the loving awareness, the consciousness that encompasses every single thought I've ever had can then become the leader of my internal world, and I form a new relationship with my inner critic, because that inner critic, the underminer, is actually trying to help me, even if it's unskillful. It's trying to keep me safe. It's trying to keep me connected in community, so it might bring up shame if I maybe go wrong, or anxiety if I'm doing something scary. And if I can honor that and hold it in a bigger space and have my consciousness being the seat of my identity and my internal leadership, then this becomes an advisor instead of a critic, maybe an unskillful one, but one that I can form a relationship with, even a friendship

Jannecke Øinæs 7:28

that's really interesting. Just want to jump in that you're saying that you're having a positive relationship with this critic that could be really nasty sometimes, and that it means well on a misunderstood way. It's almost like this little child that is just not mature enough to know how to communicate with you. But I mean, sometimes it's also quite, I would say gruesome, like it could say really, really nasty things. And you also said that it's not necessarily true, and I got curious about that. Do you mean that the voice sometimes is true?

George Thompson 8:13

Yeah, good question. A quote I love from a Tibetan teacher is thoughts are real, but not true. So thoughts are real in the sense they're an experience arising in awareness. They happen and they pass away. But they cannot be true in the sense of divine, absolute truth, because they are created in the limited form of a human being with a noggin only 30 centimeters wide in an infinite mystery. So it's inherently limited our thinking. But when I mean true, sometimes true, maybe a better word is useful, but sometimes this thinking can be useful. So say, for example, yeah, like, I've been single for most my life. I've dedicated a lot of my life to my mission this year, is now stepping into dating and connection and really meeting those needs. Because a voice in my head was saying, Come on, like you know, love is important. You've got a lot of love to give. You need to prioritize this. So if I was to say, ah, thinking is just the monkey mind just chatting away, there's no wisdom here, then I would actually be bypassing one of the great sources of wisdom for us, which is the thinking mind. The difference is now though, that instead of I am my thoughts and I am this voice in my head. It's an advisor, it's a servant to the greater intuitive wisdom of my whole being.

Jannecke Øinæs 9:37

And you probably reflected on this a million times. What are thoughts? They're not just electrical impulses. And also, to be honest, we hear about schizophrenic people who hear really, really bad voices. So would you say that is something else? Or? Or is it just like we're they're just tapping into a certain track in their brain that has become really negative, and then they repeat that? You know, I wouldn't know, but I have a feeling that it also might be influences from the outside, maybe another realm, maybe the spirit world. What are your what is your take on this?

George Thompson 10:23

Hmm, yeah, big, beautiful questions. Yeah, I like to look at animals. We are an aspect of life, and I like to see what are the other experiences that happen on our planet. So if you think about your fluffy tail wagging dog. It dreams and it has images arising in its mind. And you know be running in its sleep, because it's dreaming and seeing these images arising in its mind. So your dog also feels and you know joy when it sees you after a long time, or sadness when you punish it. And it's dog sadness and dog joy. It's different from ours, but it's familiar, because we come from this great unfolding of life in the universe. Thinking, then, is an experience arising in awareness, like sensations and thoughts and images. But thinking has emerged with the development of advanced language, where monkeys they can they can Hoot, and how, and they still say ooh. When they see, like, beautiful things, you know, like that, they have a whole language. Our languages are so advanced that we have 10s of 1000s of words pointing to all the various objects in our lives. So that voice in our head saying, I'm not good enough is the is the product of millions of years of evolution. And there may be other dimensions that that come into that that's certainly you know, that a lot of the kind of the biological aspects of our being then, in terms of schizophrenia and and the voices in our heads, I really love internal family systems. I think it's a very powerful approach to healing. And maybe if we take bipolar, somebody who has warring voices in their heads, like one, one moment I'm over, over later with joy. Another moment, I'm depressed and listless, and if you go to the doctor with modern medicine, you may be labeled as bipolar in a parts work view, this is just a highly polarized system. It's just these parts aren't able to talk to each other, and there isn't the presence to hold both of these parts easily. So the metaphor I love is, if you think about a boat, and there's two people walking the plank, and they're walking out shouting each other, walking out shouting each other, and they say, No, you go back into the middle. If one of them goes back into the middle, the whole boat will tip. So they actually need to work together and slowly come back in from the edge. And so this is a metaphor for how all these disparate voices that come into our consciousness, that if we can have the presence to lovingly hold them and have another energy to support them, then they can begin to soften and to harmonize. Interesting.

Jannecke Øinæs 13:26

What are your thoughts? Then on positive thinking and training our minds to think positively.

George Thompson 13:35

So I'm British and honoring all of our dear American viewers and listeners, but I used to be quite triggered by American kind of self help. The Brits, we play small as a culture, whereas the Americans, like you want a million dollars. You just imagine every single day I'm a millionaire, and I'm going to manifest anything you want. And I would be kind of triggered at that language. I now am absolutely team affirmations. And I think manifestation is powerful and positive thinking is powerful, because the fundamental reality is that the brain cannot distinguish between that which is imagined and that which happens outside of us. So if I imagine a story I love is there's a young boy, and he says to his mum, mum, imagine that there's seven Tigers surrounding you. How would you get away from the Tigers? Mom's like, my god, seven tigers. I don't know. Like, I guess I'd just be killed. And the young boy says, Stop imagining. So imagine you're surrounded by seven tigers. How do you get away? Stop imagining so so much of our pain comes from imaginations that have never happened, but the chemistry of anxiety still happens, right? The fear of what of the job meeting or the date going wrong create. An embodied experience of fear and contraction, versus me imagining going through tomorrow's meeting with ease and joy and going effortlessly charmingly on the dates. If I imagine that and affirm that positive, then I'm grooving the neural pathways that that potentiality is possible. And then through that conscious practice of daily affirmations, stepping into our positive potential, we create those as stronger and stronger possibilities. And then really that does become our reality.

Jannecke Øinæs 15:34

And is that your reality, now that you feel like you're much more positive, and also, when your negative thoughts come in, how do you handle that? So if you could sort of take us into your mind, how does it feel now?

George Thompson 15:50

Yeah, yeah. So there's, there's two elements. One is the meta. What you get from meditation is the ability to observe the contents of your experience and to let them flow through. So where previously I would fight my thinking or say, No, I am good enough, or like, I'm really not good enough. You know, either accepting it or fighting it or distracting running away, another option with meditation becomes possible. I just observe it, let it go. It's just energy. Let it pass. But then if you're just observing the same negative thinking time and time again, you can get quite exhausted observing all of this. So this is where diving deep into why is this negative thinking coming up, and what are the parts of me that are trying to send me signals and messengers through these challenging thoughts. And when we meet those parts and say, Hey, tell me your your painful secret history, why are you doing what you're doing? Why are you causing me? Why are you so critical? Why are you so harsh? You know, this is for me. Then I found they're like a part of me called the taskmaster, who is a dressed as a samurai in my therapy I found, and he's an interdisciplinarium, and he's got some of the energy from my dad, who I love, but used to hold his boundaries with anger. And so then this part in me is like the harshness. Do more be more. And as I learned that that okay. I got this energy from my past. I don't need to hold boundaries in that way anymore. I can lovingly hold boundaries. Then that part said, Oh yeah, I don't want to be this harsh anyway. So we have two options for healing there. One is to observe and not to multiply our pain. Just let it go and then come back to presence, and particularly in the morning. Say, for example, grumpy George can be alive, not really anymore, and that's why I celebrate. But say, even two years ago, being on the journey eight years I would notice that I'm less resourced, a bit more insecure in the morning. Come to my come to my breath. Just watch my nose for the first hour. I'm not going to engage in any thinking, because I know that. I don't. I'm not liking my energy in the morning or go and investigate, so observe or investigate. And what I can say from my experience is that this works. My journey continues, but there's less of that thinking that doesn't serve me, and I'm much better at noticing it, letting it go.

Jannecke Øinæs 18:21

Yeah, I've heard you say that there's a technique you're using, or method notice, let go and trust. Could you explain that?

George Thompson 18:31

So one of the main concepts in Taoist philosophy, Taoism, coming from ancient China, is Wu, Wei. Wu means non Wei means action, so non action, and it refers to an effortless mode of being where we can glide through life, and we can still be effective, we can still manage our relationships and job, but there's a in built sense of centering and ease. Now there will be parts that get in the way of that embodied centering ease, that say you've got to plan the meeting tomorrow. My partner just never understands me. That's so frustrating. And all of this resistance, or like my body, I should be stronger than I am for the age that I am, whatever the story is, there'll be some resistance to the present moment. So how do we get from the resistance that is the lived reality for almost every single human being to an embodied, centered relaxation? A simple method that I use is notice, let go, trust. This journey is not about loving more, becoming a more loving being. Instead, it's about closing less. It's about resisting less, because we are already whole. We are already divine. If we notice our closure, let it go. Take a breath. Trust the present moment. Trust ourselves. Trust. Nature, trust the mystery, whatever word works for you. Then we've overcome that mini closure. We're back into the flow of the river. And then there'll be another closure notice, let go, trust. Another closure notice, let go trust. And then eventually the body, heart and mind and nervous system remember this mode of beings available. And then more and more we are effortlessly in that flow. I'm sure there'll be another obstacle down the way, but more ease and grace becomes possible.

Jannecke Øinæs 20:30

I love that and your amazing film, the subtle art of losing yourself. I love that title. So what happens when we lose ourselves? Why is that something to go after? What happens on the other side when we lose ourselves? I think that's what we're most afraid of, actually, to lose ourselves,

George Thompson 20:52

yeah, and in normal language, I don't want to lose myself. That sounds scary. And the the ego, so I lovingly talk about the ego. Yeah. Ego Death. For me, there's a kind of a punishment to the ego in that. I think there's a deeper way we can think about the ego, which we'll talk about. But the ego is the collection of this sense of self that I am George, and I'm different and separate from you, and I have various flaws and various things that I think I'm good at. Hi, this is me. I'm George. So that's the ego story, the self, the separate self. In the meditative spiritual journey, we learn that we totally make the whole thing up. The whole thing is made up from thoughts that arise in our heads. Those thoughts coalesce into beliefs. Those beliefs coalesce into stories. And our stories create our destiny. And so if we can begin to simply notice the process of how we create our story, and notice that we choose, and we do that by observing thoughts, noticing their inherently impermanent nature. And as we soften, noticing thoughts, letting go, we begin to lose that sense of self. I'm still here. I'm still present. There's, you know, in this moment, I'm talking with you, I'm present. There's not an idea of George until I name those words. In those moments of presence, there is still a self that's here, but it's not the normal sense of self that the vast majority of people identify with. So it's the consciousness, the presence, that underlies and contains all experience. So this subtle art of losing yourself is the gentle, loving art of noticing that I create that story of separation and to come into presence and then find a deeper, eternal sense of self, which is being an aspect of the whole of life in constant flux and constant flow. And then what is beyond he then we can still navigate our lives. We can still do all of the things in the modern world, but from now a space of choice and presence and spaciousness. So instead of the ego death, thinking, still there, I'm still George, you know, still useful, but really the bigger me is the space that contains that story, and that's really who I identify with. And then when we have that perspective, life is so much more joyful and playful,

Jannecke Øinæs 23:35

hmm, and I find it's easier to feel this as an experience when I'm in these interviews, when I'm home meditating by myself being present, and then I can go into a social setting, and it's thrown out of the window, and I can feel maybe social anxiety, or thoughts coming in like, oh, I Don't know what to answer to that, or just constantly chattering about my social skills or something. I was just thinking about that as an example. And I think that's, you know, what we heard before, like you go to the mountains, you feel in Zen, then you come back to the city, it's all thrown out the window. So how do we apply this in our everyday lives? Can you give some examples?

George Thompson 24:26

Yeah, beautiful. Such an important question to just to be with you in that of the vulnerability and thank you for sharing that it's like for me with dating, there's little boy parts of me that get really scared of expressing my emotions with women that I fancy. And it's almost like in my internal world, if a woman asked me, How are you feeling? You know, if we're just having a conversation about dating and what's next, and it's like the internal world my inner generals like gentlemen, a woman is asking us how we feel. Shut everything down, shut it all down, and somebody's like, so you sure that's a good idea? It's like we've been doing this for decades. Do what I say. And so then I noticed that closure in my energy of fast heartbeat, tension in the stomach and struggling swallowing my words as I'm trying to communicate what's alive for me, you know, come from like people pleasing is some of my history, and I want to say the right thing. I don't want them to be to be hurt and but that can can lead to closure. So then, how do we embody this spaciousness, and really this the embodiment is, is the key. So it's not just about going in nature, far away, China, yes, retreat is an important part of the spiritual journey, but really bringing it into the world. That's the real medicine, that's the real sustainable healing. So a couple of ideas. One is already that, notice, let go, trust. So it's like getting into that practice of just noticing every time it's okay for me to be closed. Right now, can I observe that in the greater spaciousness of my awareness, it's okay, there's parts of you that I don't know what to say, and it's okay, that part's okay to be there, and as the loving awareness, saying, Well, you don't need to work this out by yourself. I'm here now, and we can take a breath and together we can see what arises. Because when we trust, the words do come, it's when we close that then we freeze. So notice, let go. Trust is one practice. The second is the idea that idea of dual awareness, so throughout life, to cultivate the ability to be in the world of objects and things, but also to be in our bodies. So simple practice is to have your awareness, and I could even invite it, for both of us and our dear viewers and listeners, is just to have our awareness on the belly as we speak to each other, as maybe listeners are cooking or driving, and just to have the awareness on the belly as well, so that dual awareness of the world outside And the world inside, and as we learn to stay there, then we notice the subtle signals earlier. So for me closure, or for you, questions around what to say next, or, you know, whatever our viewers are working with, we notice the somatic closure earlier because we've trained ourselves to stay in the body. One final point is that we will forget. We will forget, and it's about coming back. Just keep coming back. That's the whole journey. Journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step. We fall over, pick yourselves back up. Take another step.

Jannecke Øinæs 27:58

The stories we tell ourselves, I've become very curious about the stories I tell myself and how sort of stuck they are, like it is the truth, and that can't be changed. And I think some stories are not conscious, even they're subconscious, and they're creating these patterns and thoughts, thought patterns, and they're really controlling our lives, because I have a story, perhaps, and this is just an example, if I have a story that I'm not lovable, or I'll never find true love, or that love is not for me, or success is not for me, how can we sort of identify these deep stories that we've created for ourselves and that we actually might believe are true when we identify with them? Hey, guys, I want to jump in here to give my thanks for being part of the Wisdom From North community, your support and engagement means the world to us. We put so much passion, so much love into these episodes, and my intention is really to be part of this great shift of consciousness, to do what I can do with this channel, to help people expand their consciousness, love themselves more, follow their purpose and shine their light. So if you haven't yet subscribed, I would love for you to do so. Thank you so much. You'll find the link somewhere here below. And now let's go back to the episode,

George Thompson 29:36

yeah, yeah. And it's excavating. It's going in to the shadow with a loving light of awareness and to see what's here. Because there'll be surface level, almost always tension, if it's a limiting belief, tension in the body, forehead, stomach, or tension in the in our contraction as we go and try and do the things that we want to do. So. It. Then again, it's just this process of noticing, know thyself. This is the theme of the whole spiritual journey. Is like awareness, what's happening for me, pausing, journaling, writing it down. Then there can be a powerful exercise we've talked about, ifs parts work, go talk to the parts. Chat to them. Why are they speaking it the way they are? Why do they believe this to be true? What are they scared would happen if we stop believing that can be a very powerful inquiry. Another method that we can explore is writing down a powerful affirmation of the things that we want. So like I am loving, I'm worthy of love, or for me, with finances, with the team. I in 20 This is my affirmation last year. Still haven't quite fully made the profitable bit, but in 2024, I'm phenomenally profitable, and I easily pay myself and my team with joy and grace. Because, yeah, we've got this team. We're on this mission, deeply passionate, but finances continue to be tight, two credit cards, two bank loans, but deep devotion and trust. So as I write that affirmation, I'm phenomenally profitable, there'll be loads of limiting beliefs that come up. That's not true this year. That's way too quick. I don't I shouldn't be earning money because it's immoral, because of the inequality in the world, whatever comes up, just simply having them written down can be really powerful, and then for each so we talked about how thoughts create beliefs. Beliefs great stories. Stories create our destiny. When we do the affirmation, we see the limiting belief. We break down every single thought that then makes up that compound belief. And so on the level of thought, we then write the affirmation. So not 2024 why not now? Or it's immoral to earn this money. I earn this money to support myself, my family, my team and to be of service, then we can reprogram the greater belief through breaking it down.

Jannecke Øinæs 32:07

Thank you for sharing that. I just have to ask so the belief comes after a thought. I actually thought it would be the other way that there was a belief, and then the thoughts are sort of arising from that big belief.

George Thompson 32:23

Yeah, it's both and so, you know, from our whole history, intergenerational history, you know, the trauma of every single ancestor, there will be beliefs and ways of being that our parents embody, and then that will create beliefs in ourselves. Thoughts come from those beliefs, but they were generated from a series of thoughts. You know, as like a baby isn't born with the idea of, I'm worthless from from birth, right? There's a story that that baby has taken on as they become a child, to give the story, I'm not good enough. And that may come from, you know, those individual words from a parent, you wicked child, like, like you're always ruining things, and those series of thoughts projected from the parent will then coalesce into a belief of, I'm not worthy of love, and I always cause problems for people. And then from that belief, then the reinforcing thoughts will arise.

Jannecke Øinæs 33:25

And do you think the feelings comes before all of this, before thoughts and beliefs?

George Thompson 33:32

Well, for the you know, the young child, you know, interestingly, the word mum, Mama in Chinese is similar in English as it is around the world, Mama, Baba, dada. These are an easy vow. The baby's crying, and then a consonant, Mama, Baba, and then mum associates herself with Mama, and then Baba with dad. And then the parents will teach that child to label the 10,000 things or the mirrored things in the world, predating all of that language is the felt, lived experience of emotion. So certainly, there can be so much intuitive, either empowerment or disempowerment, that happens in the womb for that one year old, for that two year old, and then that creates once, then they have the vocabulary, they can have the language to then create a story around the feeling that's here. But it's reciprocal. Thoughts create feelings. Feelings, great thoughts, they're both arising in awareness to try and help us navigate what's happening for us

Jannecke Øinæs 34:44

and the feelings. Do you think they always have a message for us?

George Thompson 34:49

He Well, Chuang Tzu is one of the second foundational philosophers of Taoism. And Chuang Tzu, he's very funny. Vea, his philosophy is irreverent and hilarious, and he says, thoughts and feelings, they're like mushrooms arising from the dark earth. Where do they come from? I don't know. In a whole 500 lifetimes, I couldn't work it out. They arise and they pass it arise in the past. I don't need to work them all out. Let them be.

Jannecke Øinæs 35:24

Let them be. Hmm, yeah,

George Thompson 35:28

so maybe, like Eckhart Tolle, he says 95% of thinking is unnecessary. It can be that feelings they are. For me, they are, they are ultimately messengers, but they may not be accurate messengers. So the anxiety of what are people going to think about me? Isn't actually, they're not thinking about you. They're thinking about themselves. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, we're creating all this anxiety within us, and they're not even thinking about us. The anxiety is real. It's a message. It's a messenger of belongings. Like, Hey, are you going to belong? You need to be doing this, right? This is important, but it's the message is off. And the loving, wise self leadership to develop this inner wisdom is to know when the thinking and the feeling is just, it's just let it go. I don't need to even question it. I don't need to investigate it. Let it go or go in. Let's go into the shadow. Find out why it's here, love why it's there. And then in that loving reconnection of the presence being leadership to this thought and feeling, then it can soften, surrendering.

Jannecke Øinæs 36:43

I heard you speak about that, and in this episode, it's easy for me to sit here and I'm surrendering and see what comes to me, and then again, I go out in the world. Could you give, in a way? I'm not sure if it's practical, no possible, but practical advice on how to surrender and trust more in our everyday lives.

George Thompson 37:06

Beautiful question, it's the remembering of we are not just our thoughts, and we have this whole embodied wisdom that can support us to lead our lives from the present moment, the thinking mind, the ego, because it's very powerful and intelligent, will often try and think through all the possibilities of what could happen, right or wrong, in order to try and control the future, in order to try and keep us safe. It forgets that we are very good at navigating life from the present moment. Every other animal doesn't have thinking with thoughts, so they navigate their lives from the present moment. And yet, a squirrel buries nuts planning for the future. Although they lose about a third of their nuts, they forget where they buried the nuts, which is quite, quite hilarious, but you know, they're still intuitively knowing that, okay, I should bury nuts because the Winter's coming. So that intuitive wisdom is ours as well, in very powerful ways, but we don't trust it. So the surrender experiment is to see what happens when I let go of always having to navigate my life through planning and thinking and to come into the present moment, to come into my body and to see what happens. So how do we do that? Notice, let go, trust. We've talked about that. That is the fundamental process for me. It's not about surrendering more. It's just yeah, like closing less, closing less. It's just noticing the closure. Love it, notice, let go, trust, come back to the present moment. Then Tai Chi and Qigong, which we haven't explored yet, is the embodiment practices of Taoist philosophy, and I do really believe in the power of embodied practice. It has to be embodied practice to really lead this life of centered, compassionate, calm, gliding, living Qigong and Tai Chi are moving meditations, and in that practice, we really connect with incredible, powerful, intuitive intelligence of the body, heart and mind and so in Tai Chi, if you're thinking, I'm not doing this right, my body's really stiff today, you're just practicing not surrendering, or even if you are stiff and tired, but you do Your Practice anyway. You notice your thinking, let go, trust. Notice, let go, trust, and you do your movement in full presence, even if it's really stiff, really short, then you are practicing the art of surrender. And when we practice that in our conscious practice, then it becomes more easy than our every. Life, yeah,

Jannecke Øinæs 40:01

that's what's interesting. That is actually influencing your everyday life, what you're doing on the yoga mat or in your practice, yeah,

George Thompson 40:13

yeah, because the body can't distinguish between that which is outside of us and that which happens inside of us, that we are creating new experiences of trust and surrender, strengthening those neural pathways so that when new stimuli come, we're more likely to enter into that right?

Jannecke Øinæs 40:33

It made me think about when I was practicing lucid dreaming to wake up in a dream. I had to practice it in my everyday life, in this 3d reality, and say certain things to myself, do reality checks, and I did them again and again. I think I did them like 100 times a day, and then I started doing them in my dreams, and that's when I was able to wake up in the dream. So I learned something from that, that what you start practicing becomes this habit. So started, you know, doing it in my unconscious dreams, which made me conscious. So that was a lovely practice for me to realize. Okay, so if I do something again and again, it will just become this natural thing. Just have to get over that, that place where it becomes this new habit.

George Thompson 41:24

Yeah, a metaphor I love on that. So Tai Chi movements, they can start big, and then eventually the movements become more and more subtle, but the energy is just as powerful. And then eventually a master can be barely moving, and yet the energy and the Qi is just the same. So that's a metaphor for learning. It's that okay, we start with the broad brushstrokes, or it may be unskillful, and yeah, say this is for me, in this chapter of dating. For me, I'm like, I'm going and saying hi to women on the street, just to, like, overcome my deep fear of saying hello to people, and it's changed my life, or trying a dating app again, even though there's resistance for me in that and in so doing, okay, I'm taking quite a lot of action, but I'm stepping into these parts of me that had a lot of fear, and then it becomes easier, and then the movements become slower, maybe my words become less and I only really say hi to people. I really feel that energy and trusting that I'm a magnet to people that will match me at my vibration. And so then it can be so subtle, so easy, but we have to go through that journey of starting big to get into the more subtle.

Jannecke Øinæs 42:39

Oh, I resonate with that. I feel like I had to travel around the world to just come home to myself. You know, do all these kinds of practices and ascension thoughts, you know that I I wanted to go out there. I wanted to connect with angels and guides and all these things are wonderful. At the same time, I was just forgetting that, you know, everything is inside of me, but I needed that, that full or going around the world, before I found myself, not that I've found myself really yet, but it's a discovery. Now, I do get very curious. You said that you struggled with YouTube, and I just looked at your YouTube channel, being a YouTuber myself, and you have a huge following. Was it your change of relationship to yourself that also changed the views on YouTube so people perhaps started to be attracted more to your videos?

George Thompson 43:42

Yeah, I do believe in any creative endeavor for you know, whatever our listeners might want to do in their own creativity, people can feel if you're doing it for some gain versus a true, inside out, heartfelt expression of love and service. So it can be, there can be that love and service, but then also the challenge of, I want to make a living out of this, or now, I do want people to see my art and my creativity, and I had to go on this whole breakdown and then spiritual awakening to find who I was, independent of what I did, and to really rest there. And so, yeah, I do believe that still today, my biggest video is how six months in China changed my life, which has got 2.5 3 million views, and that was really my coming of age story. And I think it's so popular because it is just like genuinely falling on my feet, not planning anything. I'm trying to work myself out. I'm hurting and wow, I found all of these things that really helped me. And so I do believe that's that's the energy. It's like, if I'm in contraction of, how are people going to receive this? I really need to make this work. Then. There's a closure in the energy, whereas, if it's just that full, full trust and abundance, and you know that honoring the parts that may struggle with that, I want to make money from this, or I want to find freedom, financial freedom. If the energy can be I'm already free, I'm already abundant. I do this for love. I do this for service, then I really do believe people can feel that. And from just because I didn't know what Taoism was, I'd never really meditated before, and it was a real, organic finding of, Wow, this fundamentally changed my life, and then that deep resonance and wanting to be of service. I do believe people feel that in my energy and I trust my love is one of my affirmations for when I feel, yeah, who am I to be on this path, teaching and sharing and no, I trust my love. I genuinely care, doing my best. I do love. I do care and to rest in that

Jannecke Øinæs 45:59

that's beautiful, and I translate it with your soul having a bigger purpose for you, not just creating videos, but creating videos on something that really transformed people's lives. And sometimes the ego is like, you know, I was a musical theater artist, and I, yes, I want to share joy and excitement for people and entertainment and sing with my beautiful voice. I mean, I think that was in my background, and of course, be a star. I'm still on camera, but I'm doing something else. I'm making these conversations possible. I lost my voice to find a deeper voice, I believe so. I also had that, you know, breakdown, which was a breakthrough, and I think being authentic, which you are so very much in your videos, that's so so transformative, instead of the ego wanting control, maybe create a nice video of everybody, but what touches the soul is to identify with each other and be like, Oh, I recognize that in myself. How wonderful that he put words on that, that he dares to express that. And I just started out, you know, before we started recording, to say to you that I love, that you are so authentic about these, these undermining thoughts, like these negative thoughts, because I think there's so many people who are experiencing that, but they not. We're not talking about it. And when we start talking about it's like this troll in the Norwegian fairy tales. They crack like when the light shines on them, they turn into stone. So yeah, I want to commend you on that, and also just say that I think, you know, our soul has often a deeper purpose. As humans, we can think, oh, no, it was a failure, but what arises from that is the Phoenix and something beautiful, also for the whole world.

George Thompson 48:03

Really beautifully said, Yeah, and like all all of these gifts that you did develop, you know, the your joy and your voice, and the light that you bring from this place of service shines through. So it's like, it's, it's not that, then we have to not share these parts of ourselves. It's if the energy is service, then all of our gifts will be used in service for that greater aim. And so that's when we can really engage these deeper parts of ourselves. And I do believe there are that you have gifts that are different from me as every one of our listeners and viewers. And if we can tap into that which resonates, that which comes easier to us, that which lights us up and gives us energy and really to be of service, our biology is deeply wired for we as we give, we receive as we serve the needs of others, our own needs are met. And if we can do that in line with who we truly are and what resonates with us, then such a beautiful world is possible. And I wish and send blessings for every single human being to find that for themselves. And it doesn't necessarily just have to be for work, but hobbies and service to family and to for us to vibrate more. You know, there's so much potential locked within our bones. And when we know ourselves and give ourselves deeply what we need through that clarity, then so much is possible and balance is possible. Balance is possible.

Jannecke Øinæs 49:40

Tell us about your work, George, how can people find you and connect with you or learn from you? Yeah.

George Thompson 49:46

So George Thompson on YouTube, check out the film, subtle art of losing yourself. We have an online academy, taoistwellness.online, biggest Tai Chi school in the world. You can learn with me and master goo retreats in the UK, two a year, two. Transformational community events. And I do leadership coaching as well for people who want to develop the presence and integrity of a master. So yeah, lots of different elements, beautiful.

Jannecke Øinæs 50:12

And my final questions that I ask everyone, what is self love to you?

George Thompson 50:22

Self? Love is gentleness. Self love is grace. The capacity for us to say just here is just okay. Yes, this too belongs. I allow myself to be where I am from that place of allowing grace and gentleness, we get our own way, and then our natural energy, Qi and vitality, can shine, beautiful.

Jannecke Øinæs 50:51

And what is the deeper meaning of life from your perspective,

George Thompson 50:57

to enjoy life and serve life, to enjoy this gift of this embodiment, this preciousness of this human lifetime, and from that place of enjoyment, to then see that I'm an aspect of life, and to then know that if I serve life, then it comes back to me in so many beautiful ways, to have An energy of abundance as I give I shall receive to enjoy life and to serve life.

Jannecke Øinæs 51:27

Thank you so much for coming on the show, George and all the best with your beautiful work.

George Thompson 51:32

Thank you for your energy and presence. It's really beautiful. A lot of love emanating from you and sending all my love and blessings to your viewers and listeners.