Before people can talk about God, they need to define what they mean by the word "God."
According to the Tao Te Ching, as soon as you define God, you're no longer defining all of what God is.
So, all we can do is question and riff. That's what we do in this episode.
Key topics:

• Can we know what God is?
• Can we separate God from religion?
• What is God without religion?
• What is religion without God?
• Experiencing God vs. Believing in God

More topics:

• The tolerance paradox (re: preaching tolerance while not tolerating intolerance)
• How our belief in God helps or hinders our ability to be our best selves
  • Some people are their best selves when they believe in God
  • Some people are their worst selves because of their belief in God
• The other beliefs we attach to God (afterlife, sin/ethics, our purpose)
  • If you believe God is a male, you believe gender is a matter of identity and not biology
  • If you believe in hell and love people, you'll evangelize to literally everyone
• The need for systemic reform

Ryan's favorite quote about God:
“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.”
-Max Planck
Quote about scripture vs. experience:
"When the bird and the book disagree, trust the bird."
-James Audubon

Abby & Ryan land on the idea that we are all different fingers on the same hand, and what we call "God" is the palm. Or, we are all different branches on the tree, and what we call "God" is the trunk.

GRATITUDES:

• Ryan is grateful that he's developed the tools to process the hard lessons he's learning right now.
• Abby is grateful for her Methodist upbringing.

MODEETS:

• Join our tribe at patreon.com/truenorth11
• Get life coaching from Abby at IndigoCoaching.net
• Catch Ryan on TikTok at @the_holistic_mystic
• Watch us at TinyURL.com/TrueNorth11YouTube
• Email us at [email protected]
• Stalk us at truenorth11.com

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If you're using your voice, but not grounded in the essence of your true self, then you're not speaking your truth; you're merely speaking your mind. #RTA
You are not responsible for what people do with your words. But YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR WORDS.
FISH TANK ANALOGY:
You are the water, and your words are the fish.

• If the water is mucky, the fish will get sick. If you want to maintain their health, you have to tend to each fish, individually, and persistently.
• If you focus on giving them good clean water, you don't have to micromanage the health of each individual fish.
• If you are being intentional (because it doesn't happen on accident) about operating in Love and Light, then you don't need to mind every single thing you say, because your words are already wrapped in compassion, empathy, and love.
• If you're not at your best, and you're not consciously seeking the highest good of all involved, that might be a good time to monitor the words you use and make sure they don't create (or recreate past) trauma to others.

"We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are." -Anaïs Nin
When NOT to factor in the possibility that your words will trigger your audience:

• When you are in love and light, seeking the highest good of everyone involved
• When you have a wealth of relational equity with them
• When you tend to value the words of others over your own

When TO factor in the possibility that your words will trigger your audience:

• When you are in ego, seeking to defend yourself or judge others
• When you lack relational equity with them
• When you tend to value your words over those of others

The only time it's okay to forego the task of crafting your words around how they might affect the other person is when the whole of your person is already enveloped in love and empathy for them. And that's only because you've already eliminated the possibility that anything you say could be hurtful. In that case, the only problems they have with your words are the problems they themselves create.
YOU CAN'T SPEAK YOUR TRUTH IF YOU DON'T KNOW YOUR TRUTH. #RTA
And your truth is your self. So you have to start by knowing yourself.
Figuring out who you are starts with figuring out who you're not:
"Maybe the journey isn't so much about BECOMING anything. Maybe it's about UNBECOMING everything that isn't really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place." -Gregg Braden
Your True North is not WHAT you're supposed to DO in this life. It's WHO you're supposed to BE.
GRATITUDES:

• Abby is grateful for dairy-free milk! Also for the fact that life has been challenging lately.
• Ryan is grateful for the people he's surrounded himself by, through whom the essence of his dad can be kept alive in his life.

TIME CODES:
2:08 - Ryan owns his muckiness
9:43 - Taking responsibility for our words
21:32 - "We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are."
32:57 - When to give a shit about the effects of your words
42:39 - Know thyself
MORE DEETS:

• Join our tribe at patreon.com/truenorth11
• Get life coaching from Abby at IndigoCoaching.net
• Follow us on IG at @TrueNorthWithAbbyAndRyan
• Watch us at TinyURL.com/TrueNorth11YouTube
• Email us at [email protected]
• Stalk us at truenorth11.com

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Growth.

• Sometimes, growth is less about discarding old versions of yourself, and more about integrating them.
• Sometimes, growth is like outgrowing your sweater. If you keep it on after you've outgrown it, it'll suffocate you.
• Sometimes, growth means forgiving your old selves instead of judging them.
• Sometimes, growth means learning to validate and value yourself according to your own Inner Pilot Light (thank you, Lissa Rankin), rather than the commentary, reactions, and feedback of others.

"Forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past."
- Corinne Edwards (paraphrasing Gerald Jampolsky), Love Waits On Welcome
The way you treat your past selves is likely the way you treat your present self. #RTA
Surrender.

• Surrender is NOT accepting the inevitability of an imagined future state.
• Surrender is NOT adopting a posture of powerlessness and doing nothing.
• Surrender IS releasing the illusion of control over things you can't control.
• Surrender IS holding space for everything (including yourself), to be what it is.
• Surrender IS choosing not to attempt to control circumstances or other people, but rather, yourself - and only yourself.

When we say "stay in your own business," that includes staying out of the business of your past and future selves. #RTA too.
If you're moving away from something in your past, or toward (or away from) something you think is in your future, STAHP. Come back to now. Surrender both.
If you're averse to a potential outcome and try to steer the ship away from it, your controlling mindset will more often steer you directly into the thing you're afraid of.
Rocky relationships aren't "broken" and need "fixing." They just are what they are. Detach from your desires/fears for specific outcomes, and focus on being the most authentic you you can be.

GRATITUDES:

• Ryan is grateful that he's becoming more internally confident in his work.
• Abby is grateful for the online delivery thingies!

TIME CODES:
3:08 - Why Ryan destroys his art (and why he's doing that less these days)
14:50 - On forgiving your past selves
21:34 - Why are we so mean to ourselves, Abby???
27:57 - Surrender
40:45 - Confidence
48:01 - Rigid vs. Ragdoll
52:52 - Some stuff about relationships

MORE DEETS:

• Join our tribe at patreon.com/truenorth11
• Get life coaching from Abby at IndigoCoaching.net
• Follow us on IG at @TrueNorthWithAbbyAndRyan
• Watch us at TinyURL.com/TrueNorth11YouTube
• Email us at [email protected]
• Stalk us at truenorth11.com

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Reference points! We all have a core set of experiences that we use to contextualize all of our new and incoming experiences. In this episode we unpack why this happens and what we can do about it.
“The best predictor of a child's security of attachment is not what happened to his parents as children, but rather how his parents made sense of those childhood experiences.”
― Daniel J. Siegel, Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation

1. Awareness. Learn what your reference points are, and recognize they're not set in stone.
2. Understanding. Learn why those are you reference points.
3. Acceptance. Release your "shoulds" around your reference points, and hold space for old ones to fade and new ones to emerge as you continue to return to your True North.

Why don't we do this work??

1. It's a lot of things to learn, which can make it seem daunting.
2. It's not modeled for us, which can make it seem awkward and lonely.
3. It requires veering from the script we were given, which can make it seem scary.

The Catch-22: If you turn every moment into a self awareness/self understanding/self acceptance life lesson, you'll never get to actually USE the lessons you learn, which simply amounts to cultivating presence:
"We're doing all this work in order to remove obstacles to being present, but if we obsess over it, the work itself becomes the obstacle."
Tools for getting back into your body and cultivating presence:

• Go outside.
• Identify 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can smell, 2 things you can feel, 1 thing you can taste.

With any kind of repetitive training, the act itself will yield small, measurable, direct results. But the consistency will yield large, immeasurable, indirect results.
The point is to catch things you've been missing (reprogramming your reticular activating system). Then you start to catch epiphanies you've been missing as well:
"We don't hear what people say; we imagine what they mean."
― Byron Katie, The Work

GRATITUDES:

• Abby is grateful for her son, and how he teaches her at least as much as she teaches him.
• Ryan is grateful that his dad played his part in breaking a generational cycle of abuse.

MODEETS:

• Join our tribe at patreon.com/truenorth11
• Get life coaching from Abby at IndigoCoaching.net
• Catch Ryan on TikTok at @the_holistic_mystic
• Watch us at TinyURL.com/TrueNorth11YouTube
• Email us at [email protected]
• Stalk us at truenorth11.com

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**ANNOUNCEMENT: We are doing a virtual event!!**
"The Art of Dropping Your Defenses: Reframing Your Relationship With Your Armor"
Saturday, October 2, from 1:11 to 4pm CST
$35. Register at truenorth11.com/the-art-of-dropping-your-defenses
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Also, Ryan's audio is bad cause computers and software are rude.
QUESTION:
a) What's a part of yourself you have difficulty accepting?
b) What part of yourself do you have no problem accepting?
RYAN:
a) The parts of me that demonstrate I still have growing to do (TikTok example: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMRCw1cxB/)
ABBY:
a) The part of me that has influence on others and makes a positive difference
b) The part of me that's a pillar of strength for those going through difficulty
How do we balance between meeting people where they are and letting them be where they are on their own personal journey, and speaking up to create a world you believe is in everyone's highest good? One seems to demand staying out of other people's way and releasing what's out of our control, and the other seems to demand exerting control over others if we perceive they're headed toward harming themselves or others. Where do we draw the line in terms of imposing our "shoulds" on others to prevent them from causing harm?
"The shortest distance between two people is a story" -Patti Digh
GRATITUDES:

• Ryan is grateful for Cathy Cassani-Adams' new book, Zen Parenting: Caring for Ourselves and Our Children in an Unpredictable World. Pre-order here: https://found.ee/ZenParenting
• Abby is grateful that we live in a world where all these social justice conversations are even happening

TIME CODES:
1:43 - Question of the Episode
5:54 - Men making the world unsafe for women
23:55 - Abby pokes at why Ryan spoke up
43:03 - Start with your story and go from there
MODEETS:

• Register for our live event at truenorth11.com
• Join our tribe at patreon.com/truenorth11
• Get life coaching from Abby at IndigoCoaching.net
• Catch Ryan on TikTok at @the_holistic_mystic
• Watch us at TinyURL.com/TrueNorth11YouTube
• Email us at [email protected]

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