Ep 114 - The Journey Within: Rediscovering Yourself After Losing Your Way

Hello everyone, welcome to the psychology and spirituality a bridge to better life discussion. During our weekly talks we explore this intersection between spirituality and psychology and as a result we often capture timeless wisdom contained in both fields. I'm your host Marcia Treano and I am so so excited to have Ann Sinclair with me. Ann, how you doing? It's been a while since we last talked, right? Yes. Hi. I'm doing fine and um thank you so much for inviting me and feel really honored to be able to have these moments of conversation despite my very limited knowledge. Ann is the most humble person I've ever met and it's just a just such a pleasure to be here with you. But today uh Ann, I would like for us to talk about the idea of losing oneself, losing yourself and then finding yourself later. So that's the movement of uh uh almost uh uh two directions, right? It's there's a road that you go and then upon your return there's some gains in doing that and yay you may say no it's waste of time no not really and I just wanted to maybe for the sake of our conversation and let us perhaps just you and I imagine being on a journey okay so it's no longer on a road but just a journey a trip and we're there to search a treasure. This seems like more of a Hollywood movie. But let's let's let's take this uh uh uh world of imagination that we have at our feet, right? And we are there in this journey. We're searching for treasure and we are so committed to this journey. Um because we believe that uh that physical object the treasure is something that we have to possess in order to feel complete right but I'm actually referencing here the the book by Paulo Quelio the alchemist it's a Paulo is a Brazilian um writer and uh He wrote this book uh that became that became a bestseller and it's um written many many different languages including English the alchemist and Santiago he he does the protagonist in this tale it's fiction uh everyone right but it's a protagonist in this tale

nd it's um written many many different languages including English the alchemist and Santiago he he does the protagonist in this tale it's fiction uh everyone right but it's a protagonist in this tale of search for this treasure and Santiago I don't know if you remember reading the book or or the nar narrative. But Santiago, he sets out in in this, you know, in this journey and he very very soon finds that the treasure that he's looking for is actually not buried in the sands of Egypt. Right? It's very in my imagination, very mythical journey. But he finds that the treasure is buried with himself. But let's think about along the way looking for the treasure in the sins of Egypt, he loses everything that he thought at at some point he needed. He lost his sheep. He lost his fortune. And every time he lost something that brought him closer to understand his real need. Remember uh he thought that he needed that, right? He needed that to feel complete. But the more he loses, the more he gets closer to understand his authentic self, his true purpose in life. So let's think about it. Today's episode, let's explore how sometimes all of us in order to find that sense of be whole again, to be fulfilled to to to uh referencing a favorite word of uh Joanna Angels, right? Reaching planitude. We must first and foremost lose ourselves. And by doing that we start in in this real path which is shedding the layers of illusion shedding all of that that is actually we hold on to it right but they prevent us from realizing our most authentic selves. So Ed are you ready? I'm going to ask you a question for us to to engage in the conversation. What does it mean in to lose oneself? Before we even go any deeper, what is what for you? What comes to your mind when I say let's lose ourself so that we in the process of self-discovery, right? You must lose that part of yourself. And why so two questions, right? Why is this loss often necessary for us to grow? Okay. So, I will probably want to start to to

e process of self-discovery, right? You must lose that part of yourself. And why so two questions, right? Why is this loss often necessary for us to grow? Okay. So, I will probably want to start to to give some ideas of my understanding and this is a topic that you can interpreted on so many different ways on so many different levels. Yeah. And so, if I start off thinking of a child, little child, little toddler, I have one, my granddaughter. She's coming up to two. An age in which you learn to say no. Yeah. And you start to detach from your mother. And you start to assert your independence and your personality. But still, of course, you're completely dependent on your parents for everything. But you start to think that actually you know how to do everything by yourself. I can do it. And as a parent uh or grandparent, we want to encourage that little child to do things by themselves. Yeah. Because they need to learn so that they can function by themselves. And it's a balancing act of protecting them and giving them space to to experiment to try to do it to do it and get it wrong so they can learn how not to do it and so on. So, and and real quickly, sorry to interrupt you, but I'm just thinking out loud here as you're talking the the your grandchild, right? The the here I don't know if you see you say that in in Britain, but here in the US, we often call that stage of life the terrible twos, right? And when you start studying um the psychosocial development of a young child to adolescence etc. The terrible tools is super super critical because it's exactly the time that you start to uh assert your identity versus the role confusion between who is who am I up until then I am mom right we are mom and baby are one and then after that the terus the the asserting themselves the saying no It's because it's no longer. So it's that uh um creation of identity so critical right at the juncture. But go right ahead. Yeah. So that that just brings me like the um when I observe things in the

o It's because it's no longer. So it's that uh um creation of identity so critical right at the juncture. But go right ahead. Yeah. So that that just brings me like the um when I observe things in the material world, it makes it easier for me to understand things of a psychological nature because I am still quite materialistic. So I that's why I like to reference things that I can see and I can experience because then I go ahuh I I kind of get it and go slowly doing my own construct. So how did I come to be how I am? I started off on a journey like all of us and we went through our I think the terrible tools we also say terrible tools here as well. bad. It's a bit of a bad word. It's not terrible actually. It's it's really exciting that it's it's such a strong development point. But of course, as a child starts developing and asserting their own independence, that creates conflict, you know, because they don't want to follow the rules, they want to do their own thing and so on. And then of course, we have a repetition of that kind of very strong phase in adolescence. Absolutely. where again there's a strong impetus that is almost guided by the hormones and by biology to assert an independence to say I'm becoming um you know a fully grown human and I have my will and I have my choices and I want this and I don't want that and I might start to reject what my parents gave me what what education they provided and say you know I refute the culture that was provided for me all kinds of conflicts like that can happen and and even that right if I may add to it from that adolescent perspective or or viewpoint it's uh it's super important super critical because that's when we when we reach our adolescent ears we assert identity as you said but also we need to break away from that um thinking germs right it's your your egoic construct that has become stronger, right? But also uh you start to create personas that may not be the persona that was given to you by your family, your culture etc. Right? So for

's your your egoic construct that has become stronger, right? But also uh you start to create personas that may not be the persona that was given to you by your family, your culture etc. Right? So for me uh that breaking away if you will if I may call that is when you really start to create or or have a sense of what is your true north right so it's it's it's about uh values it's about uh um your belief system that is you know uh becoming one that is maybe sedimented at that point it is of maybe desires, right? And it those uh um all of that I I call it the soup, right? The soup of things that start to you start to pay attention as a teenager, they may be found or most of them are found outside of the families or even the context, the societal context and their expectations. Right? But it is important and it's essential it's even critical for the attainment perhaps of that strong um and autonomous even identity right and also if you consider like you know in the spiritist teachings what some of the fundamentals is that we are eternal beings and that we have many incarnations and so we bring history. We bring past habits. We bring all kinds of stuff with us. And at the face of adolescent that becomes more pronounced. It's almost like woken up in us because we've already had the opportunity of that initial sort of uh input from the local culture of our family situation at the moment to try and change things and then that's that explosion comes in just just to add to your soup if you like those elements. So it's a lot of things going on and so we're thinking about that's adolescence and then this happens again in early adulthood. So for different people I mean it might be a different story but just just if we're just imagining we're looking at a traditional human being going through all these processes and then the person grows into a young adult and then perhaps leaves home like in the hero's quest like in the alchemist journey and the person goes out I'm talking first let's say on

these processes and then the person grows into a young adult and then perhaps leaves home like in the hero's quest like in the alchemist journey and the person goes out I'm talking first let's say on the material level of what we can see and observe and the person goes out into the world to conquer their place to conquer a career career, a job, a family, establish their way of thinking and now I can do things my way and I'm going to obtain this and but and all this goes along till you come to your middle ages when again you have a strong impulse also uh guided by biology to stop and look back and say review your life and that's why you call midlife crisis I love it I love that midlife crisis places. So people are changing careers, they're buying a sports car, they're getting a new family, all kinds of things because they got it all wrong. I want to do it again and so on. So we are observing these are things on a material level if you like of observation and we are all doing in some way or another this kind of journey each time that we incarnate. So what is it to lose ourselves if we think that at each one of those stages we might be losing something because in order to an IA came to mind just now it's like you know um some insects when they grow they need to lose their covering it cracks and breaks so that they can get a bigger covering you know what I mean those I'm trying to remember the name like like in some insects and things like that or even like let's say uh in snakes and things they lose the skin to grow a new skin. The most amazing one by the way is the crab, right? Why? because it's a hard shell, like you can touch it. And uh I don't know if you've seen any of their videos or documentaries about when it's time for them to grow, they go through this very painful painful process of moving outside of that shelf, just just letting go. And to do this, which is amazing to me, they become extremely vulnerable because the hard shell that you know has let's say size X and they're not going for a

side of that shelf, just just letting go. And to do this, which is amazing to me, they become extremely vulnerable because the hard shell that you know has let's say size X and they're not going for a size XX just a just a reference here for my mind, right? But it's it's that animal becomes extremely vulnerable to be eaten by any sorts of predator whereas it was before. So that sense of vulnerability is quite symbolic if you think about it right when we break away right the baby at age two uh when the baby says no it's the conflict right it's creating some harshness between the mommy the allloving mommy and the baby like how I'm going to handle that or the teenager that all of us were once every time we said no I want to go my way we actually becoming vulnerable to any I'm going to use the word predatorial, but that's not what I mean, but any predatorial uh external event because we're not completely formed yet, right? We we we don't know what to do. But those are the growing pains, if you will, of losing your earlier persona to become the, you know, ready for the new persona and so on so forth many times, including after midlife. I'm going to my my my I would say my third midlife crisis and my current age like oh what have I done with life? Who am I? And that's that uh deconstructing all of my truths. Uh Ed, and then how do you manage that? Right? How do you uh truly become loving and gentle toward myself like the crab, right? I'm vulnerable, but at the same time with the courage of leaving, get ready to to become bigger, larger, stronger even. And and and this is like um when we go through this, the word you use, I think courage is a really important one because you have to be willing to let go of what you know about yourself, about who you are, about where you fit in the world, what's expected of you, or what your culture, your environment, whatever is decided is the way you need to go. and you go out to experiment to chuck that all away and say no I'm going to do things

ld, what's expected of you, or what your culture, your environment, whatever is decided is the way you need to go. and you go out to experiment to chuck that all away and say no I'm going to do things differently but you have no idea how this is going to turn out it might be good it might not be good you might waste your time inverted commas you know in doing things that then afterwards you regret but the important thing uh that when you look at this of losing yourself is a sense it's not like a negative or I I don't see it as a negative I is you need to release yourself of those uh of that which defines you in a way so that you can then look and say what do I actually want you know yeah I you making me think about uh and it it's completely different uh thought process here but it just came to my mind if you don't mind and but um you know Elizabeth Kubler Ross in late60s She she wrote she published the book on death and dying. Mhm. And it just amazing book. I recently read it by the way. And uh what is so funny is that uh at work at work my professional life as a project manager nothing to do with psychology or anything but as a project manager I teach uh the theory um of change management right so just project management change management they're two practices that go hand in hand but in teaching change management we talk about uh the the the the cyclical right the the it's not a very linear process with the cycles that we have to go through to accept change and one of the things that uh Elizabeth Kubler Ross referencing the dying the the terminal patient when she was doing that but we all go through that no matter what uh you mentioned earlier and when we I don't Oh, either midlife crisis, but it could be maybe uh I'm getting married or I'm buying a new house or I'm going to college and I'm leaving my my family home for the first time and going to to live in a nor a dorm. Um I I may be getting married. I mean there's so many examples in life itself that uh we lose ourselves the

e and I'm leaving my my family home for the first time and going to to live in a nor a dorm. Um I I may be getting married. I mean there's so many examples in life itself that uh we lose ourselves the earlier identity that we were to become something else and and we go through the stressors of that change curve that is the same curve that uh Kubler Ross uh gave it to us in her book on death and dying. So I think it's important for us to to think about losing yourself from that context, right? The the pregnant woman upon the birth of the child is no longer pregnant, right? So it it loses that uh that protective the baby's here and I'm I can manage I can control somewhat the the the the health of the baby to now the baby's out, right? So on so forth. Go ahead. No, I said because I that's my background is I'm a midwife and what what what we say is that at the birth of the baby, the pregnant woman dies and the mother is born. Yes. And that's why it's a loss and a gain. So it is exactly the same kind of transformation. So the thing that is really interesting is that sometimes we might be self- motivated let's say to go ahead and explore and change and do things differently and want to do this. Other times we might not be very motivated and stay at home and stay in our safe space and perhaps avoid the dangers or the risk and and play pretty if you like and pretend that we are goody two shoes but in fact actually sometimes we are lacking the courage actually to go out there and face the loss. So the words like to lose yourself sometimes it can be like oh you've gone down a hole into negativity you know to addiction you lost yourself you know everything that was good you threw it away like a lot of sort of guilt and accusations can come from that absolutely yeah absolutely but what you see is in nature in God's creation which is all nature you have to face the changes and it's all going to it's all leading in one way. It's like the spirit say in the spirit's book in the law of progress,

is in nature in God's creation which is all nature you have to face the changes and it's all going to it's all leading in one way. It's like the spirit say in the spirit's book in the law of progress, progress is unavoidable. We will all progress whether we like it or not. We can help ourselves and align ourselves with the current of progress or we can go fighting but we still the current of progress will still take us forwards. Yeah. So when you think about losing ourselves sometimes it can be painful because we are vulnerable as you said and maybe we threw everything away of what was seemed to be established for us and we decide to do things differently and actually it didn't turn out okay. It wasn't nice. It was painful. It was a dark place for us. It was a place where we did not find happiness. could have been a place where we didn't find satisfaction and u like in the parable of the the prodical son we found you know hunger and humiliation how we found bad things and uh that that's that's okay because it's you know we're going through the journey it's about how we interpret what that means and not to be judging yeah but the parable of prodical son I if if I may because we we talked about it for several episodes now and and one of the things that I love about joining the angel's analysis of that parable right is um how it's a parable of two sons right it's two sons not just the prodigal son but the son that stayed and what I find it uh really remarkable about the it's really timeless right the parable speaks about me and you and all of us here today. But it is a question of the shadow that each son had and uh in order for the prodigal son, the youngest child to to claim symbolically speaking the death of the father, right? By getting his inheritance. Um it's it's his shadow, right? He is honoring that part of himself that most of us would uh perhaps repress. No, I don't want my father to die. I will wait. But there's a part of me that wants to explore, that wants to to to

right? He is honoring that part of himself that most of us would uh perhaps repress. No, I don't want my father to die. I will wait. But there's a part of me that wants to explore, that wants to to to lose myself. Not lose myself, but go and explore the world, right? Uh uh uh uh fight and uh and and become what you think is like, oh, I I'm not part of the father. I am myself. Let me try and explore the other son. The older son uh his shadow and is quite repressed, right? Which is uh actually jealousy. And you know what they say, jealousy in psychological terms, it just simply means that you project what you would have aspired to do, but you never had courage. Again, back to the word courage. You never had the courage to break to create the conflict and and pursue what you thought was impossible impossible not to live without right that it was really impossible to live without to to to live without it right and so from that perspective uh if you think about it losing oneself if you put uh from Joanna's and and and union uh perspective it is facing the shadow, right? And uh bringing them up. I'm going to lose my prior identity of uh what did you say? The goodie to shoes, right? The the the the child the child that was so obedient and accepted and and I'm talking about the prodical son. And I am now going to face and I'm going to to bring it up. And by bringing it up, as vulnerable as we are, we are shedding light to what was once um repressed and in the shadow. And this is really really important because it was that losing yourself, losing the the the son that was obedient to becoming the son that goes away and then comes back as the son that I understood that he needed to now a true truer to himself the real son right uh recognize the love of the father etc etc and I love if you think about What the prodigal son in this case has done is he is moving away. He's shedding uh behind anything that was a conditioned persona that he inherited culturally speaking from that family,

ou think about What the prodigal son in this case has done is he is moving away. He's shedding uh behind anything that was a conditioned persona that he inherited culturally speaking from that family, right? He they were both very wealthy, right? And and he in order to shed and he went out of course he had an inheritance. So he didn't go as bad as we would think, but he faced the shadow and he lost everything and then he was able to decide to honor who he was. Does it make sense what I'm saying? I'm not sure if I'm being clear here, but I think it it also because to lose yourself and then to find yourself, it goes like that hand in hand. Yeah. in order to to lose yourself to find yourself is to be able to in a way be free. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think this is this is the biggest uh uh information we can talk today for ourselves and it's you lose yourself and you have room to grow like the crab or the the snake or whatever else but that's when you truly become free right and and that is is also is because let's say the fear of the shadow or the fear of all those things that you repress because they don't fit in the context where you how you were educated and brought up and everything. You don't know what to do with it. So, you just repress it because it's no, it's no good. No good, but it haunts you because you carry it with you. It's like, you know, like people joke, you know, you can change countries as we all know, move countries, but you know, you can take your suitcase and they say there's two things going in your suitcase because your karma and your shadow. You're not escaping from them. You're taking them in your luggage. I love it. I love it. And I did that, right? I I moved away at uh uh an early young age of 20 from my home country and all that was my identity, my family, all of it and uh and uh came to the US and I've lived here for the majority of my life. But it's interesting if you talk about going back to freedom um Jean Paul in Yeah, I don't know if

y, my family, all of it and uh and uh came to the US and I've lived here for the majority of my life. But it's interesting if you talk about going back to freedom um Jean Paul in Yeah, I don't know if you know him. He um he's a philosopher that really brought to us existentialism. But he has an interesting book. I believe it was bad faith, right? That he talks about this inherited tendency of all of us to conform to societal and familiar expectations. Right? Why do we do this? Why? because uh we are bioosocial animals but we have this innate sense of I want to belong. Go ahead. Yeah. No, not only we want to belong but we also have a biological impulse to use the least energy because that is a survival mechanism. So if we're not fighting others then we are conforming and fitting in the group. We are preserving our energy and we are more likely to survive. So it is like we don't even realize that but it's a biological impulse of survival that herd mentality, right? Let me let me be with my peeps and they'll help me not to be eaten by the the tiger or the the lion here, the lioness. I guess one of the things when you lose yourself and to find yourself, one of the things that Shauna Jones talks about is about having selfawareness. Yes. And yes, this is like one of the big questions, you know, like who am I? You know, what am I doing here on this planet? You know, yeah, I can plan my job, my family, all these kind of things, but essentially who am I? And to have that realization that we are eternal spirits having an experience in matter. Yeah. That we are uh divine by by by provenence. We are God's children. Yeah. And uh that God the that word I know can be triggering for some people but can the universe the greater force the first intelligence the father. Yes. Source. The father of everything is is a loving source and we are part of it. So sometimes when we get caught up in our material lives, we are so worried about our material lives that we kind of forget about our spiritual

everything is is a loving source and we are part of it. So sometimes when we get caught up in our material lives, we are so worried about our material lives that we kind of forget about our spiritual side but we ignore it just like we ignore our shadow or conscious you know what I mean? So we we don't have that uh fullness understanding of ourselves that complete understanding of ourselves. Yeah. And you can't impose this on other people. This is a an indiv individual journey that each one of us does and I think that as we go through our many incarnations each time you know we come back if we've uh advanced at a certain level of our understanding we've moved along a little bit. So we don't start right at the beginning although our bodies start right at the beginning and do the whole journey. Our spiritual being our essence whom we really are can start a little bit further along a little bit you know and we just go building on what we've built before. So for some people this might be like what are you talking about you know this is like nothing to do and other people might be say well of course because you know it's all about energy and spirit and things. So we're all in different places on on our journey and the place where we are is the right place for us. There is no there's no wrong address. Yeah. So so we talked a lot maybe and on you know uh disruptions and conflicts and and leaving to find yourself right. Can we maybe talk a little bit about the return? Right. We spoke about the return. Yes. Yeah. What I was really thinking about is what is the the the place the role of uh inner discovery that self-discovery and uh what are maybe the steps that we can take to to start to reconnect with ourselves our true selves right and we we mentioned the the the the the phase of the terrible twos adolescence and young adulthood and went all the way to um midlife crisis. But I mean I don't know where I am my age you may know and but uh it doesn't matter if I am 15 or 35 or

of the terrible twos adolescence and young adulthood and went all the way to um midlife crisis. But I mean I don't know where I am my age you may know and but uh it doesn't matter if I am 15 or 35 or 70 how can I understand the the the the steps to reconnect with if not my true self the the the the true self that I should be. Does this make sense to you? Yeah, absolutely. Because if you think like as we are living an incarnation, we living in matter that does occupy a lot of our time either by a biological impulse, by a cultural impositions, by whatever. But we are not just this wonderful machine of flesh. We are more than that. And how do we get to know that? Sometimes we go on the outside in a journey so that we get to know the outside. So I get to know the material world in some way but then the journey back is a journey inward. Yeah. Yeah. What and even things like what do I actually feel and uh how even things like I I do this exercise now which I' I find quite amazing you know what makes me happy what makes me suffer. Yeah. And when I let's say something happens and I get annoyed and I think oh like I'm not happy and I get frustrated but I pretend it's all you know I'm very polite. No congratulations that's wrong and and then I I take that I go ha stop. I say, okay, I can see that I'm having this negative feeling that I'm trying to hide, that I'm quickly pushing aside because it's not acceptable, but this is telling me something about me. Not to judge myself, but to say there's something here that I'm not inner in my inner being is not okay with this. Why am I not okay with this? What is it triggering? So it's just coming to get to know yourself little by little by observing yourself, observing what makes you happy, what makes you sad, what makes you annoyed, what makes you irritated. And so like say even if you're in the queue for I don't know the queue in the bank and you've only got half an hour and you know people aren't moving and you come on come on come on

kes you irritated. And so like say even if you're in the queue for I don't know the queue in the bank and you've only got half an hour and you know people aren't moving and you come on come on come on bunch are not moving that's my I need my turn I need my turn and then you go like why am I behaving like this? Yes. Yes. Yeah. What is it in me that you know uh makes me so anxious that I'm worried that I'm not going to have my chance? And you know, it's just like bring it back to like I'm an eternal being, a being of light and God's child, so I'm here now. And and it's just like you can make any little situation into a really interesting learning opportunity for yourself about yourself. Yes. And you can then start realizing, you know, what can what do you want to adjust that might make you be happier more often or for longer or how can you understand the suffering of others? It's just like so much. It's it's a completely new world that you can delve into. I know lots of people say, "Oh, you can do meditation and things like that." If you don't have the habit of meditation, it will take a while to develop that because our chatty brain chats a lot. It's very difficult to we we're chatter box, right? We we just we can't stop. So, it's just like calm down and just like bringing it back to I even like um the the spirits would say like oh like every day you know like think about what you've done haven't done in this day what you might want to have done differently. Mhm. But I go to something further on that. I can't remember who said it, but say when you put your head on the pillow at night and you go to sleep, Yeah. you don't know if you will wake up in the morning. That's right. None of us do. Yeah. Most of us do, but none of us know for sure. And if I were not to come back to my body in the morning, would I be okay? Would I be okay? Yeah. And that this brings me very nicely on to something that you're talking about Elizabeth Kubler Ross. Yes. And uh issues about dying and what causes people to have

uld I be okay? Would I be okay? Yeah. And that this brings me very nicely on to something that you're talking about Elizabeth Kubler Ross. Yes. And uh issues about dying and what causes people to have difficulty in dying and I say and the research that they've done and there's like nurses in Brazil but they've also done here in many places talk about unresolved personal issues. Yes. Relationships. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Unresolved, you know, fights, arguments, you know. Yeah. Uh saying forgiveness, these kind of things about relationships. Isn't very rarely is it about the material things. Yeah. It's usually about personal things. Yeah. I want to be maybe bring to us here because you talk about forgiveness, right? Um I don't know if uh if you know about Victor Franco but he is just an amazing uh uh figure and he he psychiatrist right his background but most important what makes him unique is that he was a Holocaust survivor but while in the concentration camp he he had some experiences very painful and then he wrote about them in the book men's search for meaning and uh and uh um Victor Frankle he brought to us the the idea the argument that suffering right can lead to a deeper sense of purpose and most people go like what is are you you know is this an apology for suffering but what he talks about is that uh uh if one can find meaning in suffering you get that deeper sense of purpose which is the return home right and uh and he uses his own experience and to you know like he lost his family he endured horrifying unthinkable levels of pain but he kept thinking you know even the most difficult painful horrific content effects or circumstances. We can choose how you going to respond. And that's his major uh I can even uh I'm putting my hands like this. Uh because I can see like a seessaw, right? We have a pivot point at the bottom and uh a plank. And uh you can say I'm going to choose to go down or go up in the seessaw of uh external events that come to our mind and to our

e a seessaw, right? We have a pivot point at the bottom and uh a plank. And uh you can say I'm going to choose to go down or go up in the seessaw of uh external events that come to our mind and to our lives. And uh then it is really a personal choice on how to respond to suffering. But he he brought that um key example um of how suffering and how loss can be that catalyst for our growth. Right? And uh I I think uh if you think about it in in his work he also brings the idea of healing and the power of forgiveness, right? So if you go into his stories and he wrote a lot uh and he he created the field of logootherapy, right? Which is all about therapy through symbols. But many of his personal stories include that element of forgiveness after going through the pain, right? And and so I think uh if we were to say what is Victor Frankle teaching us he's teaching us that forgiveness is not just letting go of your resentment but it's really this extremely and powerful way to transform your pain that you're going through into compassion and into growth. Right. And and I I love that idea to for all of us maybe to think about how those stories of anybody going through trauma or personal tragedy, how they as survivors, they become the most powerful stories is is when they become those advocates for forgiveness and and healing, right? And we can talk about many many examples uh that come to my mind now. But it's really um what you're saying this the forgiveness is one of the most powerful instrument for our own transformation and I I like just to add there is self forgiveness. Yes. Yes. Because we are the hardest judges on ourselves. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. You know, so we need to erh embrace ourselves as well to love ourselves, accept accept that we make mistakes, that we make wrong choices or make choices that have consequences that are not the ones that we wanted. Uh and it's okay because we are we are on a journey of of learning of of discovery and coming back. They say we've gone out, we've lost ourselves,

ve consequences that are not the ones that we wanted. Uh and it's okay because we are we are on a journey of of learning of of discovery and coming back. They say we've gone out, we've lost ourselves, we've let go of everything we've had and we've come back free and recognizing our position. So I think that uh sometimes we suffer because we imagine ourselves to be let's say in a situation which is not real. We have a fantasy and when our fantasy breaks we suffer. Yes. H because we thought oh I thought I could I could do that. I thought I could endure that but I was mistaken about where I actually was. That's really tough that self-nowledge and to realize and uh you know that um in in in the spiritist teachings the the spirits say that we're in a world of tests and atonements that means it's a it's a world where we are all sort of toddlers inverted commas except for those who are teachers and they're more advanced. So it is a world where where difficult things happen. But if we are here, it's because this is our level. If not, we'd be somewhere else. It's tough. It's tough. It's tough. And it's not It's not unattainable, right? We are where we need to be. Yeah. The toddler will grow up. The adolescent will grow up. We will also grow up. And if we are toddlers, we can't expect ourselves to be do doing what we can't do yet. Our parents, our father knows exactly where we are. It's that sometimes like we are like a to say I can do it. I can do it, you know, thinking I can jump in the car and drive it and my little legs don't reach that, you know, I can't see. But sometimes spiritually speaking, we we can be a little bit like that sometimes that we think we can do it because we got some level of freedom and things and we get all excited and and actually we we don't see ourselves for the level that we actually are. And it's not like it's we're bad. It's just that we are young. We are in, you know, growing still on our pathway. Yeah. which I love that. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. I just wanted like

hat we actually are. And it's not like it's we're bad. It's just that we are young. We are in, you know, growing still on our pathway. Yeah. which I love that. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. I just wanted like I'm just worrying about the time but when you're talking about it I had picked out funnily enough here from Jean Jelis when I was I was reading about suffering and because when you talk about suffering I can't talk about the suffering of anybody else because suffering is a completely individual process experience. So something that might make me suffer immensely might not make you suffer. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it doesn't mean that you're good and I'm bad. It means that what that suffering for me is touching something in me that is making it really painful and difficult. Maybe you've already come to the uh a way of dealing with that that it doesn't make you suffer so much. And that's great. But then there'll be something else the other way around. So that's why we can't compare ourselves with others in that sense but we just need to look and say okay this makes me suffer and what am I going to do about it but she she makes this beautiful metaphor and she says that love is the great river where suffering will drown because the current of love is so strong that no suffering can fight that current. So just this image of this river of love that takes suffering away, it carries it away in its force, in its current in its strength. I know that we we have difficulties with the word love because it means so many different things. But we slowly go learning about love and if we can transform those things that hurt us into love in some way. Yeah. We chuck that suffering into that river and it will take it away. I love this image because I I uh I like metaphors. They they speak to my they speak to me. So I just I just wanted to share that because I I thought when I read it, it really touched me. And you know when you're thinking you're suffering or your difficulties, oh my gosh, you know what?

me. So I just I just wanted to share that because I I thought when I read it, it really touched me. And you know when you're thinking you're suffering or your difficulties, oh my gosh, you know what? What am I going to do is like don't focus on the suffering. Focus on the river of love that will wash the suffering away. And that's a gift that Joanna the angel is giving to all of us here today with this metaphor, this image. And uh you are right. We are at time. And I just want to say to all of us as we're talking about this idea of losing ourselves right in self-discovery, think about it. The journey is one that you lose yourself, but it's a journey of self-discovery. And it is really not about a permanent loss, but rather this essential stage of our transformation. Think the baby, think the crab, think whatever, right? It's just this stage that requires us for us to grow. And and if you think about it from a psychological perspective, it is all about breaking free from our constraints. And those constraints may be I don't know those uh imposed by my family, those imposed by my society or even those imposed by my own ego. Right? So we need to lose ourselves when we break free and the breaking free is often full of uh elements of pain, right, and vulnerability. But as we go through then we can explore and start to embrace who we truly are our authentic self. So just as a con in conclusion here an I I I think that this idea this loss though often oh I can't speak today this loss uh which is often um uncomfortable right it can even be disorienting for some those losses are necessary for our own growth because it would create the space for us to emerge more whole more integrated and align with our true essence. So when we explore this theme today from um I I I can see philosophical, psychological and even spiritual perspective. We can see that the idea of uh losing and finding yourself again reveals that uh it loss is not inherently negative, right? It is a catalyst for our deeper

sychological and even spiritual perspective. We can see that the idea of uh losing and finding yourself again reveals that uh it loss is not inherently negative, right? It is a catalyst for our deeper understanding and our true sense of personal fulfillment. But with that, I want to say and I I really appreciate you being here. And to all of you who are here with us today, if this is the first time you listen to our program, please take a note that the psychology and spirituality weekly talks are based on the works by Joanna D'Angelus and we're here to kind of juxtapose those concepts from a spirituality and a psychological lens so we can unpack them easier, better, uh more accessible. Thank you so much, Ann. And thank all of our sponsors, Monsano Camino, the United States Spirits Federation, the International Spiritist Council, and Brazil, the Brazilian arm of the Medical Spiritist Association. We'll be back next episode. So, please stay tuned and goodbye everyone. Bye.