Richard Lang was a recent guest speaker in The Little School of Big Change community. This episode is a portion of our time with him. This conversation with Richard is an investigation into your true nature. From a few feet away, you appear to others as a person. You appear to them, so you’re told, as a human with a face and head.  But how do you appear to yourself? Do you see your own face and head? What is your nature when you look?And what about when we look closer? What about a few inches away? At your center? What’s your true nature at zero distance?   This is what The Hea ..read more

It can be heartbreaking to feel as if you “have it” – clear seeing, a buzzing energy, emotional freedom, a loss of identity –and then to feel as if you “lose it”. And, this is what you signed up for. It must be this way. This is awakening, not the always happy picture your mind created.  In this episode I’ll explore why and when this feels so heartbreaking, but how it’s actually the best news there is.  The post EP297: When you have it and you lose it appeared first on Dr. Amy Johnson ..read more

We’re always getting what we most need because what we “get” is our own projection.  It’s a projection from and as an insecure identity. That’s what our triggers are – the areas where the self we take ourselves to be feels threatened and insecure. This is why it seems that we are victimized by the same recurring patterns over and over. We are, but we aren’t victimized by other people or a cruel universe that keeps punishing us. We’re seeing our own insecure identity over and over so that we can move through it.  So that we can finally see it for what it is.  In this episode, I ..read more

In this episode I have an amazing conversation with Dr. Kathleen Perry about the most important exploration: Who am I? Kathleen shares how being curious about identity is fundamental to everything we’re up to and everything we’re up against. Nothing shifts the way life looks and feels the way an exploration of identity can. Kathleen discusses her own identity shifts, particularly when her husband died a few years ago. Her experience sheds so much light on how identity operates in mysterious, sometimes subtle ways. We also talk about how identities seem to crack and break open (like it or not ..read more

Stephanie has struggled with bulimia for over 20 years.  In this short conversation, we look at what an urge really is. Do we know? Can we even determine that? Does Stephanie know what it is she’s been running from, what’s been running her around? As we explore this together, Stephanie begins to open to the possibility of meeting this unknown experience she calls an urge in a very different way. She becomes excited for the next urge–for the chance to explore it and see what it really is. *** Join me for a brand new 6-week course called Exploring the Me-And-My-Life Perspective. We’ll exam ..read more

A listener wrote in with some amazing questions. She shared her yearning to be at peace and the way she’s taking in so much content in the hopes of having some sort of enlightenment experience that takes the suffering away. I discuss the innocent folly in this way of thinking. She shares that desperately needs a job but how she can’t seem to take action. It seems to look like an either/or to her–find a job or practice compassion toward herself and see that she is okay in any circumstance. Of course, there is no either/or here, really. She shares some super common, relatable magical thinking a ..read more

Have you ever thought something like: “I need these feelings/thoughts to settle down so I can be present”? What if thoughts and feelings are presence? Believing they are in the way of presence leaves us feeling as if life has it wrong. It leaves us searching for the “right” way. I suspect that what we’ve been taught about presence and meditation contribute to this innocent misunderstanding. It also seems clear that the “not this, there’s something better” feeling is a distinct and nearly always present flavor of thought in general. *** Join me for a brand new 6-week course called Exploring th ..read more

Exploring the Me-And-My-Life Perspective begins the week of April 8th! We’ll examine how Me-And-My-Life is a point of view we’re conditioned into; a point of view that posits there is a “me”, separate from life, “having a life”.   There are many fascinating aspects of this perspective that we’ll explore–such as evidence for a separate me, choice and doership, other people, and fully immersing in the senses as a way to explore the Me-And-My-Life point of view.  We’ll explore in a small group, with video lessons, group calls, and a private forum.  Go to dramyjohnson.com/meand ..read more

One function of thought appears to be creating continuity– the sense of a solid me, traveling through time. You, your life, the thoughts, feelings, and experiences that arise, often feel familiar. We feel stuck in repeating patterns, saying things like “I’m back here again” and “This always happens to me”.  At the same time, when we really look, is anything ever truly repeated?  In a very real way, despite the sense of continuity created by the mind, have you ever really felt this exact feeling before? Has this experience ever actually happened?  The implications of this realiz ..read more

This episode of Changeable was inspired by a goal one of my private coaching clients shared with me. Her goal for our coaching was to feel a particular way when faced with a particular work situation.  While I don’t know that our time together can deliver what her mind says it wants–that specific  feeling–I’m pretty certain it can help her be less reactive. I’m certain it can help her care less about which thoughts and feelings are showing up at all. And I think that’s what she really wants anyway. I’ll share my reflections on how and why we feel pulled around by thoughts and feelin ..read more