Jeremy Duke (00:01):
Hello and welcome to Networks Healing Circle for March 3rd, 2025. My name is Jeremy Duke and I'm with you from Central Pennsylvania and whoever you are and wherever you're from. I'm glad you're here. Taking time out of your busy day or busy night to relax, to settle down, to perhaps go a bit inward, to do something nice for yourself. I don't think we can discount just the effect that having the intent and taking the time to do something good for ourselves is something that can radiate throughout the rest of our life, by renewing ourselves, by widening our perspective, by learning something new.

(01:10):
And that in turn can affect everybody else's life around us. So congratulations to all of you just for being here, and I've been looking forward to our time together tonight. So I wanted to talk about overwhelm, and I don't know if any of you out there have ever felt overwhelmed. I know I certainly have. I think it's part of everybody's life experience to one degree or another. And maybe for some of you, that's only happened a few times that you can remember in life. And for some of you it might've been much more frequent. For some people it happens almost or even every day.

(02:05):
So regardless, it's something we can all relate to. It's certainly related to stress. I think we've all probably heard about managing stress in our life. We may have heard about stress and the workplace, for example, and how much money businesses have to spend to make up for stress related work, absences and things like that. It's in well into the billions of dollars by the way. I, so I guess we could say overwhelm is stress. That is extreme stress that has become just too much for us to handle. Of course, that's a very individual thing. What's stressful for one person may not be stressful for another.

(03:12):
Some people are great at public speaking, for example. They enjoy it. They enjoy the opportunity to express themselves and present ideas to a large crowd of people. But for most people, that's actually their greatest fear. Some studies have shown that public speaking is a greater fear than the fear of death for the average person. So whatever stresses you out in life, it's important to not beat yourself up about it, to not feel bad about it, but yet to allow the feelings that it creates to motivate you to learn more about yourself, to learn better skills, to take care of yourself, to do what it takes to manage that stress. Whether it's getting a good night's rest, whether it's eating the right foods, whether it's letting go of having to watch the news every day.

(04:31):
We could say that the extreme stress that leads to overwhelm, that leads to those feelings that, oh, we just can't take it. We could call that trauma. And you may have heard more and more talk about trauma in recent years. People talk about triggers, how overwhelmed creates trauma that sticks with us. It tends to come up to the surface when things are triggered. Dr. Gabor Mate uses the fact that the word trigger comes from military terminology, from a weapon trigger is used to activate a gun or another weapon, but the trigger itself is only a small part of that device. So understanding the rest of that device, understanding where the ammunition is, is important. Whether it comes to a weapon or it comes to ourselves. Why do we get triggered? What triggers us? What causes this deep well of emotion or thoughts and feelings that are tied to these past experiences and traumas and stressors? Where does it come from? How and why does it come to the surface?

(06:25):
So part of the journey of dealing with stress is about knowing yourself, learning to know yourself inside and out, upside and down, coming to understand your own stories, maybe the beliefs that you have about yourself or others or the world that comes from these stories. And how can we learn to work with these beliefs, these stories, these emotions to come to a place of greater inner peace, to come to greater resilience so that we can become more of the person. Maybe we want to be the kind of person who can handle more stress, who doesn't get stressed as easily, who doesn't get overwhelmed as easily, who doesn't have such sensitive triggers.

(07:40):
And it is a journey and it's a worthwhile one. One of my teachers has made the comment that the modern pandemic isn't a lack of people giving other people love. The real pandemic is an inability to receive love. It's an interesting idea it. So just take a moment and ask yourself, how good am I at receiving love? If somebody does something kind for you or somebody offers you a compliment or somebody goes out of their way unexpectedly to offer a kind word or take care of something for you or offer you something to eat, something as simple as that, do you immediately feel obligated to say no? Do you feel like saying no for any reason?

(09:05):
And maybe there's a good reason for that in that overwhelmed stress, traumatic history. Maybe there's a reason you feel you need to protect yourself, and yet you still want to be able to feel and experience that love. Let's do a practice together. A, this is going to be a variation of a meta meditation or a loving kindness meditation, but we're going to orient it towards our theme of knowing ourselves and being able to receive love of. So first, feel your feet flat on the floor or the floorboards, feeling the evenness between the heel and the toes, the inside and the outer edges of the foot.

(10:22):
Also, feel the support of the chair. Whatever you're on beneath your sit bones, feel an evenness between the left and the right hip. Feel the balance of your body on top of those sit bones. And then bring your attention to the breath, just noticing it how it moves in and out of the body on its own. How the wisdom and energy of the body moves the breath without you having to pay attention to it. And yet, when you do, you can find qualities to it that are always there. But just outside our awareness, the way it feels cool around the rim of the nostrils as it enters, and it leaves how it forms a cool breeze flowing through the sinuses, through the throat.

(11:55):
See if you can guide the breath gently to be just a little bit deeper and a little bit slower. Look for a sense of smoothness and evenness in the breath, smooth and even on the end breath, nice, deep and slow and smooth. And even on the outbreath as we go through the meditation, if you get distracted or if any emotions come up or any pain, remember that the breath is always there for you. Your feet are always there for you. You can always bring your attention back to the breath and back to the feet and understand that distraction during meditation is completely normal and everyone goes through it.

(13:12):
Now, imagine a candle sitting in front of you, maybe two feet away. A candle can look however you want, close your eyes and in your mind's eye, see the candle with the flame lit and see how the flame dances on the wick flickering, shedding light in all directions. I want you to take this candle light and imagine as if the flame of the candle could come into your heart. If you can see, feel the heat and the light of that candle flame in your heart, that's great. And if not, just imagine that gentle flame dancing in your heart. And that's also great as the flame dances in your heart.

(14:45):
Think of someone you know that you love and you care about somebody that's really important to you, somebody that it's easy to love. Imagine shining the light of your heart to that person that you love and care about. Imagine surrounding them with your love, allowing the light of the candle flame in your heart to penetrate them, to fill them, to create such a light in and around them that they can't help but smile. Imagine a great smile on their face. Great. Now, remembering the feet and checking in with the breath deep and slow. Now return to the candle flame in your heart and imagine that candle flame going out to somebody but you don't love. Maybe somebody that you're neutral towards, you don't have any strong feelings for, but imagine that they could use a nice dose of your loving kindness.

(16:33):
And once you've found that person, again, shine the light in your heart. Allow it to shine out towards them, bathing their skin and the space around them with the candlelight of your heart, allowing it to surround them, to enliven them, to brighten their face, to bring a smile to their lips as they receive your loving kindness, still breathing slowly and deeply smooth like silk, not like sandpaper. And seeing that bright candlelight in your heart. One more time. I want you to think about yourself. I want you to think about how much you could use some love, how much you deserve some loving kindness. I want you to picture yourself as if you were your own twin sitting in front of you.

(18:22):
Find the candlelight in your heart and radiate that light. Shower that loving kindness onto yourself. Allow it to surround yourself, to flow through you, to brighten the space around you. Imagine that light filling you so thoroughly that you can't help but smile. See that twin version of yourself. Smiling. Smiling with a bright face, with bright eyes, knowing full well that you are loved because you can send yourself this love. You can make this divine offering of loving kindness to yourself anytime you want, as long as you have the will to do so. And as long as you develop, as long as you practice, as long as you do what it takes to be able to receive that love.

(19:50):
Because if you can receive love from yourself, you can learn to receive love from others. And if it's something that's been a struggle for you, remember that it may be a journey, but it is a worthwhile journey and you are deserving of love and you can learn to love and receive love. Now, let go of all the imagery. Return your awareness to your body. Feel into your feet and the connection with the floor. Wiggle your toes, wiggle your fingers, wiggle your nose. Smile. Feel free to run your fingers through your hair. Move that energy in the scalp if open your eyes and let a long breath out.

(21:21):
I want to thank you all again for being here with me. And thank you again for taking this time and this space and this energy to bring something good into your life for yourself and for everyone around you. Time is our friend and our time has gone already. You can listen to this replay of tonight's call as well as many other one wonderful talks from a variety of folks at the Networks website, appreciate networks, and all the wonderful things they do. And I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day or evening. And until next time, folks, take good care, be at peace, and know that that love is with you anytime you're able to settle down enough to find it. Alright, take care everyone. Any blessings.