Staying Centered in Tumultuous Times - Grand Master Julie Scott: transcript

greetings everyone so nice to connect with you today some members have shared that they're feeling especially anxious with the turmoil in the world and to begin if you're someone who suffers from clinical depression or something like that please be sure to work with your healthc care professional to get the help that you need or anybody really who is feeling especially stressed or anxious and there is a lot going on right now there are the attacks in Israel and Gaza in Gaza Russia in Ukraine there's the degradation of the environment and threats to

democracy um threats of nuclear challenges so there is a lot going on and there is danger in the world we know that that's the case and it's challenging to live with that our brains respond to threats even if they're a far and even if those threats are not going to directly affect our safety our well-being but our brain responds as those as though these are direct threats that can affect us and of course all of us um are Hearts ache at the pain that we see others experiencing and it's also compounded by

our brain sensing a threat even if it's not in our immediate area these threats create tension and our anxiety is that we want relief from this tension we want closure this is part of our Evolution and I've probably over mentioned to-do lists but I'm going to use this example again when we write down everything we have to do we create tension because it's there's no closure on those things and then when we complete those task and we put a little line through whatever is on the to-do list our brain releases dopamine and that feels really good and what many people may be experiencing right now is the first part of that the

tension that's created the stress but with no relief and we can only handle that for so long so we're going to discuss discuss some techniques that can help us feel some relief from anxiety that we may be feeling I'm sure we all realize that there are certain industries that make money by creating stress in us and then we go back to them hoping for some relief and I'm thinking of media for example that you'll see headlines that give the impression of a threat and then we have to click through or they build that threat until there's just no closure they want us to keep

coming back so we can get relief from the tension and of course they make money as we come back so one way that we can not have as much of that type of tension is to control the media that we watch or read and that's not to say stay uninformed find a reliable source and just go to that Source maybe it's a friend who's very well read and can update you on what you need to know or maybe a Blog that you trust they will escalate to your attention what you need to know so this is one way that we can manage the tension that we feel the stress by managing what we allow into our awareness tension is the space between right now and what we want and you could

also Define that as unhappiness Happiness is when we are satisfied with the way things are or when we accept how things are and we've shared the serenity prayer before which goes like this God or the Divine grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change I know some of you are very familiar with this and probably repeating along the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference again God or the Divine grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference we're probably not going to resolve the decades long war between

Israel and the Palestinians or we probably aren't going to end Hunger in our country by ourselves the ancient philosopher epicus wrote some things are in our control and others not things in our control are opinion Pursuit desire aversion and in a word whatever are our own actions things not in our control are the body property reputation Authority and in one word whatever are not our own actions so where you are right now you are probably safe wherever you woke up this morning you were probably safe but we want guarantees we want control that we're always going to be

safe A friend of mine is a psychologist and he said sometimes his clients will say when they're feeling this angst of so much going on in the world they'll say like I feel like we're all gonna die and he said well sometimes the answer is yes we are all going to die someday so our tension may come from feeling no control over when that might happen there are no guarantees and quite frankly we don't have a lot of control about events we have control over how we respond to them but we don't have control over very many events and we want relief from not having control it's important to recognize that tension it helps to relieve it a little bit so that doesn't give us

control it's just we acknowledge that the tension we feel is we want control the rosar crucian order is about to release a new parents app and there is a chapter that's called taming temper tantrums and it says that a child wants their energy to go in a certain way and it's blocked so it explodes in a temper tantrum for example if they want to go to a park or to a friend's house but they're not allowed to go they get that energy going and then it's blocked and it blows up and what the parents app suggest is to redirect it so we have this opportunity for ourselves um we don't have to call them temper tantrums but I think all of us have felt like when we have again we're

here and we want something else and it's not happening or we want something to stop and it's not not stopping so we do have control over how we respond to situations and we can redirect our energy let's use a slightly different example let's say we really want someone to love us well we don't have control over that but we can love someone else we can be as caring and kind as possible to someone else we might not be able to save democracy ourselves but we can research and volunteer for a candidate who is to committed to democracy or the environment or whatever so we can redirect our energy of wanting to have

control over events that we don't have control over whether we want to admit that or not and we can direct it toward things that we actually can do we can also read inspiring works and recently I was looking through the list of rosac crucian digests that have been published over the past few years and I'm I want to reread every single one of them and you know we also have podcast recordings of each of the digest articles now online between uh youtube.com SL rosac crusan TV so our our Channel on YouTube and our podcast on rosac cru.org we have thousands of recordings video and audio recordings some of the recent rosac crucian digest are uh expanding our awareness living in harmony with the

natural world being of service in challenging times radiant health and you can just go to rosac cru.org and then at the top there's a tab and you can choose um it's texts and under text it says rosac crucian digest and you can see all of the I think it's where1 years of rosac crucian digest now or you can just go to rosac cru.org rosac crucian das digest when we are threatened it of involves two steps first there is our initial response which is involuntary and there is a story written by an ancient Roman author Nam Gus and he was on a ship that ran into a

terrible storm this was almost 2,000 years ago and with him on that ship was a famous stoic philosopher whom he did not know and when the Seas initially got really rough he looked over and that stoic philosopher had gone pale he had lost all the color in his face and the storm raged all night long and they survived the ship did not go down and the next day Gus spoke to this philosopher and said I saw that you look scared like the rest of us and you lost the color in your face and he said that's totally normal it's natural this is an animal Instinct that initially your system is bombarded and your physiology responds so the philosopher said yeah I

did probably go pale I did react immediately and then he directed his thoughts to logic he said he thought to himself well uh we could sink but maybe we won't sink or if we do sink maybe I can swim to Shore and be saved or another ship could help us and then he went about doing what needed to be done which at that point was bailing the ship and grabbing the ores so that's the first step just this this animal reaction the next response involves our voluntary judgments and this philosopher said study what is happening with indifference and then let it go so that's what he did yes we could go down

in the Shipwreck yes I could die yes we could go down but I don't die or it's possible the ship won't go down the challenge we create for ourselves is when we add value judgment so when water is coming into the ship we're all going what can we do we're all going to die if I lose my job my life will be ruined my children will starve no one will love me instead we could say if I lose my job I might find a better one or I can work through a temporary agency until this passes or I might not lose my job for any of the threats that you feel there are we react to the initial threat and then we can pause so that we don't start creating these value judgments which either take us into the

past or project us into the future but don't have us in the present moment you may have heard of some research regarding gazel the the animals like an antelope where researchers have watched them they're chased by a cheetah out in the wild it's a herd of gazel they're chased by a cheetah and the ones that survive when the threat is over they show videos of them where they do this shake throughout every part of their body you can watch it it's like a ripple it goes through their whole body and then you know what they do next they start grazing and act like nothing had happened so the threat is over they do this with their muscles they reset and then they go back to what they were doing they don't stand around moaning

that when the cheetah was chasing everybody this one cut me off or that one was slow and I was caught behind her there's no replaying this in the past there's no you know she does this every time so we have an opportunity to learn from this to literally shake it off when something shakes us up we can pause for a moment to observe what's happening it's especially helpful if we can catch this before our adrenaline lets loose then it's in our system for at least 20 minutes so you know then our heart's racing and our breath and everything else so we can practice techniques to stay in the moment we're going to be doing that first we're going to explore how we hold emotions in our body when we feel

stress we memorize that or capture it often in our bodies so right now put your hand on a place in your body that's calling for you for your attention you you know you're feeling stiff or sore place your hand somewhere on your body that wants your attention give it your attention just gently place your hand on that area and now take a deep breath and take another breath even deeper till your lungs are as full as they can be and then exhale slowly through your mouth for as long as you can we're going to do this two more

times so again place your your hand on the part of your body that wants your attention take a deep breath in through your mouth breathe again you're as full as you can get and then exhale through your mouth drawing it out as long as you can now we're going to do this a third time but you're not going to pay attention just to that part of your body you're just going to release all of the tension that you can in your body so take a deep breath a little bit more completely filling your lungs and then exhale slowly through your mouth feeling any tension just drifting away we've talked before about this

technique this breathing technique and when we do that extra breath in it pops the air sacks in our lungs that hold carbon dioxide that needs to get out when we're stressed sometimes we breathe we hyperventilate and breathe deeply but often we don't breathe deeply enough so the carbon dioxide builds up in our lungs and this extra deep breath pops those little alveoli the little air sacks in our lungs releasing that carbon dioxide and then that long exhalation through the mouth gets the carbon dioxide out when we have carbon dioxide in our system it often makes us feel jittery or anxious now we're going to practice another exercise so sit in whatever way is most

comfortable for you and I'm going to in tone a vowel sound just so you're hearing a sound and I'm going to Let It Fade and concentrate on the sound that I will be in toning as much as you can stay stay relaxed but Focus as much as you can on the sound that I will inone and then when I'm done intoning it place that same focused attention on the awareness of this moment so you're G to concentrate on the sound on hearing the sound that I make when it's done when it's when the the vibrations have completely

ended still keep your focus and be aware of what exists So Close Your Eyes [Music] oh place your same Awareness on the silence

when you're ready open your eyes we've also spoken in the past about our ability to tone the vagus nerves by pulling on our earlobes these vagus nerves help to create Tranquility throughout our entire being and the Vegas nerves are two of them they go from our brain down to our gut where we experience a lot of emotions they go through our they're by our ears they go through our throat and our chest again down to the gut and there are two little peripheral nerves and we can tone the vagal nerves helping us to feel more relaxed just by pulling down on our earlobes just gently tugging down on our ear

loes excuse me we can also prepare ourselves to be ready to respond to events that come up by preparing for the day ahead by preparing who are you g to be today so again we know that if something is shocking or threatening we have the initial response and then prepare ahead of time what are we going to do next let's say we hear about horrible acts of violence we can put a stop Gap in so that we acknowledge what happened and

then pause so that we can determine the best way for us to respond and it helps to prepare to do that ahead of time we can also send thoughts from our sanctums we're encouraged every day to go to our sanctums the rosac crucian code of life has at least two points that provide instruction on this point number six says isolate yourself for a moment every day preferably in your sanctum and send thoughts of Love Harmony and health towards Humanity as a whole particularly toward all those towards all those who suffer physically or mentally also ask the Divine to assist them on all plans and to preserve them as much as possible from the ordeals of life in point number 22 includes before

going to sleep send positive thoughts to the whole of humanity and entrust your soul to the Divine and of course we have the opportunity to attune with the Council of soless healing meditation that's done here at rosac crucian Park in the grand Temple every Monday through Friday at 12 noon so you can attune from wherever you are so now please close your eyes and send thoughts of Love Harmony and health towards Humanity as a whole particularly toward those who suffer physically or mentally

also ask the Divine to assist them on all PLS and to preserve them as much as possible from the ordeals of life so M it be when you are ready please open your eyes so these are some things that we can do to help us when we become aware

of threats and dangers and all the things that happen in the world and again God or the Divine grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference so M it be