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We quit on ourselves because we tied our confidence to the finish line. When the goal gets delayed, the confidence goes with it.

If achievement is the only thing that makes us feel good, then 99% of our lives will feel like failure. The answer isn't smaller goals. It's moving where the good feeling comes from.

Getting back up is the achievement. Real confidence comes from being willing to look like a fool in front of people who are better than us — the person who loves the practice passes the person with the talent, every time.

Manifestation focuses the mind. It doesn't do the work.

Success and failure are two sides of one coin. The only real failure is quitting.

CHAPTERS
0:00 Why a delayed goal feels devastating
2:22 Why 99% of life feels like failing
5:04 Why natural talent loses
8:32 Smart risk and dumb risk
12:23 Success is how fast you get back up
15:07 The only way to fail is to quit
16:00 Does prayer or manifestation work?
18:57 There are no mistakes
20:10 Why growth feels invisible

Please enjoy other episodes where I share meditation techniques, tips and spiritual lessons from around the world for peaceful and stress-free living. Remember to subscribe to stay up-to-date.

Video podcasts are available at https://www.youtube.com/@ToddPerelmuter

#confidence #failure #motivation #presence #personalgrowth

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Most of us spend our lives replaying the painful parts and calling it realism. That habit is a large part of why so many of us feel numb — and this is how the feeling comes back.

Four of my books, free — link below.

A photographer can walk into a junkyard and come out with something people pay real money to hang on a wall. A photograph of a broken-down car. The beauty was already there. The eye was the thing that had to be trained. We can all train that eye.

Most of us live in our worries, our fears, our stress, our traumatic past. It is equally natural and equally true to spend that time on the good memories, the pleasures, the people we are grateful for. The word ignorance is the right one, because we are ignoring more than half of what is happening.

There is no wisdom in overthinking what already happened or what might. There is only wisdom in what we do with this moment.

Numbness isn't the absence of sensation. It's the loss of the ability to notice subtlety. When we stop feeling the small things, we start needing the extreme ones — and that is where craving, adrenaline and addiction begin.

We are present for the first bite of a meal, maybe the second, and then we stop tasting. The same is true of a sunset, a cup of tea, a conversation. When we stay with the whole experience instead of a slice of it, we stop needing more of it. That is what equanimity means — a steady peace that doesn't depend on which sensation shows up next.

And when we hold a magnifying glass over our worries and never over our blessings, our view of our own life becomes distorted. We end up making negative propaganda about ourselves.

We are the camera. What we point it at is a choice, and it can be changed at any moment.

CHAPTERS

0:00 The photographer in the junkyard
0:22 Why we live in the painful part
0:58 The other half we never visit
2:05 Ignorance means ignoring
2:55 We lose presence to pleasure too
4:05 What numbness actually is
4:33 Why we start needing the extreme
5:00 Savoring every bite
6:36 The magnifying glass
8:56 We are the camera operator
9:40 Negative propaganda about ourselves
10:37 In pain there is pleasure
11:19 Nothing outside us holds the meaning
13:18 Equanimity, the steady kind of happiness
15:13 Why unhappiness spikes with inequality
18:28 What kind of movie do you want to live in

Please enjoy other episodes where I share meditation techniques, tips and spiritual lessons from around the world for peaceful and stress-free living. Remember to subscribe to stay up-to-date.

Video podcasts are available at https://www.youtube.com/@ToddPerelmuter

#mindfulness #presence #gratitude #equanimity #spiritualawakening

For the days when life feels like too much, these 4 free books are for you. Get the free 4-books bundle

If my words have ever touched your heart or helped you through a hard moment, I’d be deeply grateful for your support in keeping this podcast alive. Support the Podcast

And if you’d like to explore these ideas in greater depth, you can find all of my books here.

Send me a message

It's easy to get stuck in a loop of negative thinking. Overthinking, complaining, replaying old pain. Some of us live there for years. This is the simplest gratitude practice I know for getting out.

Think of one thing you love. A person, an object, anything at all. Then ask what made it. And then what made that. Keep going, and gratitude stops being something we have to search for. It becomes impossible to avoid.

That one question opens into everything else here — presence, impermanence, the oneness of all things, and what the traditions call enlightenment, which is nothing more mysterious than an awareness wide enough to see how it all connects.

Nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, everything is recycled, rising and falling. And nothing we truly love is ever lost.

If you've been looking for a way to stop overthinking, quiet a critical mind, or just find one thing to be grateful for on a hard day, start at the beginning and go slowly.

CHAPTERS
0:00 The loop we get stuck in
0:57 Start with one favorite thing
1:38 Now ask what made them
2:41 Infinite things made everything
3:38 Gratitude with nothing left out
5:36 Where did all of it come from
7:01 There is no past and no future
8:19 There is no future happiness
9:13 Life is like waiting for test results
9:51 The breath is the doorway
11:00 Choosing where we rest our attention
12:03 Expanded awareness
15:42 The fight on the sidewalk and the view from space
16:18 We are not one small life
17:07 How consciousness rises
19:20 The practice
20:02 This is enlightenment

Please enjoy other episodes where I share meditation techniques, tips and spiritual lessons from around the world for peaceful and stress-free living. Remember to subscribe to stay up-to-date.

Video podcasts are available at https://www.youtube.com/@ToddPerelmuter

#gratitude #meditation #spiritualawakening #mindfulness #oneness

For the days when life feels like too much, these 4 free books are for you. Get the free 4-books bundle

If my words have ever touched your heart or helped you through a hard moment, I’d be deeply grateful for your support in keeping this podcast alive. Support the Podcast

And if you’d like to explore these ideas in greater depth, you can find all of my books here.