The Inside-Out Understanding

“The essence of the inside-out understanding is that we live in the feeling of our thinking.

It really looks like when we feel fear, it’s warning us about something outside, as opposed to just the feeling of the thinking that we’re having at the moment.

It really seems to us that when we feel guilty, it’s because we did something wrong, not because that’s what the thinking that we’re having at that moment feels like.

We think we’re living in the feeling of circumstances. We think our feelings are related to specific things in the outside world. When we feel hopeless and despairing, we think it’s based on data, so we need to manipulate the outside world in order to feel the way we want to feel.

But have you noticed what a difficult game that is? Have you noticed how tiring it is to try and manipulate the world in order to feel okay?

The game of life doesn’t work that way. The game of life where you meet the right person, have the right babies, put them in the right schools and make the right amount of money doing the right job is not the game of happiness and well-being and fulfillment.

Yes, it’s the game we play in our society and our culture, with our values. But if it doesn’t look like a game to you – if it looks like getting the right things in life is the secret to happiness.

If it looks like the only way you’ll ever truly be okay is when you have this amount of money, this amount of love, these people in your life – then you’re screwed, but you’re not screwed because you’re doing anything wrong. You’re screwed because it doesn’t work that way.”

Michael Neill, A Daily Dose of Caffeine for the Soul, michaelneill.org

“When you function in love, your inside creates your outside.  When you function in fear, your outside creates your inside.” Drunvalo Melchizedek