I'm in training. I am learning.

A mantra to live by.

This week’s podcast is a very special one to me. I’d been emailing with a few former colleagues about Sally, reminiscing about her and trading stories about her powerful impact on our lives, and I decided it would be lovely to have this conversation on the pod.

One of my colleagues on the thread (well, my boss, really) Kaitlin Quistgaard, answered quickly with a resounding, ‘Yes!’ and we hopped on Zoom.

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You’ll hear our conversation at the beginning of this week’s episode. Kaitlin shared two life-changing experiences of being with Sally — once when she stayed the weekend at Sally’s house and felt overwhelming shakti coursing through her while meditating. And another time, when Sally held space for Kaitlin who was emotionally shattered from her divorce. Kaitlin and I were both struck by how Sally had mothered us separately through the dissolution of very important love relationships. Although she herself was not a mother, she embodied the most steady, patient, loving mother energy.

She was able to do this because of her years of practice and because she was embodying and channeling the goddesses whom she was devoted to. (The name Sally was given when she lived in the ashram was “Durgananda.” The goddess Durga was a warrior and the mother of all of the other goddesses in the pantheon. Go figure.)

The second part of the this week’s episode is a replay of an episode Sally and I did a few years ago about the ego. There are so many quote-worthy moments in that episode, so I’ve pulled some out for you.

A mantra to keep in your back pocket

There's this one sentence that I started saying to myself in my late 20s, and it was this, 'I'm in training.'

‘I'm learning. I'm in training. I'm learning.’ And so when I mess up, I find that if I remember, 'OK, I'm on this earth plane to learn how to live and I just made a mistake. And the only mistake I could make right now would be to beat myself up about it.

A self-inquiry practice when your ego is threatened

You know, for instance if somebody says, “You're a terrible baseball player.” I'm gonna say, “Whatever 🤷🏻‍♀️” because I'm not identified with being a baseball player. But if someone says, “You're a terrible writer,” that hurts me.

Because my ego is identified with being a writer. And one of the ways that I know that my practice of letting go of the ego has borne fruit, is that, although people still do accuse me of being a terrible writer, I've learned how to take it with a grain of salt.

Which is something that one develops within a work…sometimes using Byron Katie's questions are really helpful. So you can say to yourself, ‘Is that really true? Is that really, really true?’ And then, ‘Who would I be if I didn't believe this idea?’

Just doing a little inquiry with your emotional reactions will help show you some of the ways in which our ego messes with us.

On finding your identity in awareness itself (rather than your job, your paycheck, your fill-in-the-blank)

 Awareness is an aspect of yourself. Once you have a felt sense of it, it's always present, so when you're having a bad time, when your ego is smarting, then you have an automatic perspective of: Okay, this part of my life that isn't working right now, but It doesn't impact who I really am, which is awareness.

Taking that perspective not only helps you stay a little bit immune to the slings and arrows of other people's meanness, but it also gives you access to the resource of awareness. Because your awareness is so much smarter than your ego, so much smarter than your mind, so much smarter than anybody else's mind, right?

When you really know this, you can tune into your own awareness and ask the question, ‘What's the right thing for me to say or do now?’ And you'll get an answer that comes from someplace so much more intelligent than your ordinary self, that it's stunning.